Redhead On The Run (RedHeads Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  Zeke was a quiet sleeper. I couldn’t hear his intakes and exhales of breath, even as I watched his chest move and could feel it under my hand. I should let go of him, immediately. He’d let me stay because I’d fallen asleep, and here I was, grasping on to him like a lifeline in sleep. I’d totally invaded his space.

  I let go of him and rolled over to where I should have been on my side of the bed. He made a sound and turned on his side, his arm swinging over me before he tugged me against him, this time his nose in my hair.

  I lay there not moving. Well…that had just happened.

  I’d tried to give him back his space, and he hadn’t wanted to let go. I supposed I could force the issue, wrench myself away and leave the bed. He’d probably prefer it when he woke up and saw how we were. Sure, we’d had two instances of him kissing—and once biting me—together. But it was always like it hadn’t happened afterwards, and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk about it.

  It was just that I didn’t know what to say. How did you address the subject? Hey, remember when you bit my ear? I was suddenly more turned on than I’d ever been, and then you acted like it didn’t happen…

  Plus, now there was this moment. I’d never been held, that I could remember. Certainly not by…

  He sucked in a long breath and let go of me, rolling onto his back. I quickly shut my eyes. Yes, I would pretend to be asleep. Then I could spare us having to talk about this when we were already so good at acting like nothing happened when clearly things did.

  “Sorry.” His voice sounded sort of rougher than it usually did. It was an intimate moment. The kind where I would now know he woke up sounding like that in the morning. “You don’t have to pretend to sleep. I know you’re up. That little snore you do when you’re sleeping? It’s a sure-fire tell.”

  I rolled over, opening my eyes. “I don’t snore.”

  “You do. But it’s not bad, I kind of like it, actually. Not a bad sound, just a constant reminder you’re in the room.” He sat up all the way, and the blanket fell off his waist. Didn’t he get cold in here? My room hadn’t been like this, but it was as though he kept this room like it was a refrigerator.

  “I’m sorry if I kept you up.” Both Hope and Bridget snored. It wouldn’t surprise me if I did, too.

  “You didn’t.” He looked me over for a long second, long enough that my cheeks heated up from the way he appraised me. I might look like hell. It was morning, and I hadn’t looked in a mirror yet. My entire appearance could be a disaster.

  I sat up, deciding to act like I didn’t care. He reached over, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “Layla, you know that I don’t do serious. I’ve made that clear enough I think, but let me be explicit just in case. I don’t do relationships or dating. What we’re doing out there is pretend. What may or may not be going on here between us, it won’t ever be anything serious.”

  “We’re lying here in your bed, having done nothing to earn this morning after speech, and you want to talk about how you’ll never have feelings for me? Fine. I ran out on my wedding. I don’t think I’m a pillar of relationship strength either.”

  Zeke squeezed my cheek in his palm. “Well, I wouldn’t say that we did nothing. You have a mark on your ear from me, and I’m not usually a biter, but you inspired me.” He winked at me. “Just as long as you understand this up front. I don’t worry about it usually. The women I see…”

  I held up my hand, my stomach turning slightly. “Don’t tell me about your other women, or I’m going to worry that I have to get treated for a disease for having lain here.”

  He laughed. “I don’t bring people here. I told you that. I don’t even have guests. You’re perfectly safe on all fronts. The point is you’re very young, and I don’t want stars in your eyes.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “Do I find you sexy? Yes. I have eyes, but they don’t have stars in them. We could have meaningless sex right now. Is that what you want to do?”

  He shook his head, slowly. “No. I absolutely do not.” Zeke got out of bed. “Come on. Let’s go run.”

  I’d just offered him sex, and he’d turned me down. I opened and closed my mouth. Embarrassment flooded me, and I wondered if I could go and hide under his covers, never coming out again. Why had I done that? I put my head in my hands, and I counted to ten. Maybe I could stop dying of embarrassment after I reached that number. One. Two.

  “Layla?” I lifted my head out of my hands to stare at him, forcing myself to meet his gaze because I wouldn’t add coward to idiot on the list of things I’d managed to be before breakfast that morning.

  “Yes?” I put my hands in my lap, since I had to do something with them.

  “Coming?” He tilted his head. Zeke had already managed to get his shorts on and was going into the closet to get his sneakers, or that was what I would assume.

  I nodded. “Yes. On my way.”

  I threw the blanket off myself and tried to ignore the fact that he smirked at me on my way out of the room. He was ridiculously handsome with that smirk on his face, and I hated that I thought that. Why did he have to be so confusing? Hadn’t that whole conversation he’d had with me upon waking been about his wanting to have sex with me? How could I possibly have misinterpreted that?

  He wanted meaningless sex, and I’d offered it to him.

  Men in general were confusing as hell, and Zeke was the worst of them. Seriously.

  I was a terrible runner. When he’d suggested we run together, I somehow had assumed the man used a treadmill. Why had I thought that? I wasn’t sure, but I was definitely wrong. Joints aching from running on pavement wrong. I also had almost no stamina or ability to keep up with him, and yet I kept pushing.

  Maybe if I had more practice running, my rush down the aisle away from Kit would have been more graceful, or I would have been able to do it whilst keeping my shoes on at the same time. Women did it in movies all the time. They ran in heels. I couldn’t seem to do it very well in my sneakers.

  I’d always been able to maintain my weight by not eating very much, and the ability to do that had meant that I didn’t focus very much on getting into shape. Maybe that was why Zeke didn’t want to sleep with me. Maybe he didn’t like how my body looked.

  I gritted my teeth. That wasn’t helpful. The trouble with running outside was that however far I went I had to get back. And Zeke wasn’t showing any signs of stopping. I could see the back of his head as he ran a distance ahead of me. I hadn’t exactly expected him to slow down to wait, but I would have liked the ability to throw my hands in the air and say no more, with him actually being able to hear me do so.

  Ants crawled on my neck, and I quit walking. They weren’t really ants. I pretty much had to remind myself of that every time it happened. It just meant someone was staring at me intently. I turned around, half-expecting to see people with phones but there was no one there. Just the occasional car driving down the street, and no one seemed all that interested in me.

  I had to catch my breath, which meant I was turning around and slowly making my way back to Zeke’s house. I was pretty sure I knew the way, and I had my phone in my pocket if I did get lost.

  I loved it when fashion designers put pockets in things. As human beings, we really did need them most of the time.

  Across the street was a painting on the wall of a gray building that seemed like it didn’t belong there. It caught my attention, and despite the fact that I was currently showering the ground with my sweat and sounded like I was about to drop dead from how fast I breathed, I crossed the street the first chance it was safe and went to look at it. A clown. That’s what it was. Someone had decorated the wall with the face of a sad clown. It was really cool. The eyes seemed to follow me.

  A woman rounded the corner and stopped to look at it as I did. She had long black hair and she wore a purple jumpsuit. I’d never seen one before. The whole look made me smile. I loved when things were unique. There were so few times in life when I could really say I saw something new.


  And I was only twenty-two. That seemed too young to be so sour.

  She said something to me, and I steeled myself to respond. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak French.”

  “Ah, yes, you don’t speak French. Are you American? Didn’t learn it?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. I could say unequivocally that for the first time in a while, this woman I’d run into on the street had no idea who I was. I was just a strange American to her who didn’t speak her language.

  That was sort of…fun. “Right. They didn’t teach it in school. I’d like to know it.”

  She pointed at the clown. “You like it?”

  “I do. He caught my attention. I…I guess he seems very different than anything else I’ve seen in a while.”

  She shrugged. “I find him repulsive.”

  “Repulsive?” Now that was a strong word. “Why do you find him repulsive?”

  “Clowns.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I kept myself together. Some people did have a clown thing, and it was real. I wasn’t going to laugh at her. I was pretty sure that she could kick my butt if she wanted to. Even in the purple jumpsuit that looked like it was circa 1990, she was pretty badass.

  “Clowns can be very off putting. Do you know who painted this?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “They’re popping up all over town. It is a thing now. And the fact that you like it tells me that you have terrible taste.”

  I nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I have terrible taste.”

  I walked a bit to the right to look more at the clown. He had sad eyes. The more I stared at them, the more that was obvious to me. I’d be the girl who had terrible taste for a bit. That might be a fucking relief.

  I just wondered if the person who painted this clown had wanted to say something about how we see things.

  I looked over at the purple girl. “My mother was a painter.”

  “Yes?” She pushed her hair over her shoulder. “Did she have any success?”

  “Her name was Meredith Caldwell.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken her name. It was as though sometimes you put words away so deep inside a box labeled “do not say” that the next time you actually had to utter them, they were hard to form on your tongue. Or maybe it was just me.

  Her mouth fell open. “Your mother was Meredith Caldwell?”

  I knew then as she stared at me that she understood a lot about art and something more, it hadn’t been an accident that she came out here to talk about this painting. Artists were a rare breed. I’d only ever observed them from afar, and she was way too invested in talking about this clown with a stranger to truly hate this painting.

  “This painting you did of this clown is brilliant. Haunting. Not awful at all. And I’ll never forget it.”

  “Layla.” Zeke yelled my name as he ran around the corner. “There you are. When did I lose you?”

  I didn’t turn to look at him but kept my eyes on the purple artist. “Yes, my mother was Meredith Caldwell. And you are really talented. I have great taste.”

  She grinned at me, her first real smile, and only then did I turn to Zeke. He was gorgeous and sweaty. Immediately, I remembered he’d turned me down that morning when I’d offered him sex.

  “You didn’t have to come back for me; I was going home. I just met…” I motioned toward where the artist should be, but she rounded the corner and was gone. “That person. And I stopped to talk about this clown.”

  He stared at her and then me. “That was the purple dabbler, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?” Okay, I wasn’t going to notice how his muscles were things of beauty. Men shouldn’t get to be so gorgeous.

  “The purple dabbler. An artist is tagging all over Paris. People get glimpses of her in purple but that is it. Did she talk to you?”

  I shrugged, guessing we could equally be ignorant about each other. I didn’t know she was famous, and she didn’t know I was notorious. Maybe she had liked that as much as I had.

  “You didn’t have to stop for me. I’m good. I was making my way home. Go back for your run.”

  He looked around. “You made it about two miles. That’s not bad for never running.”

  “Well, maybe I’m a stronger runner in my heels and a wedding dress.”

  Zeke stroked his hand through his hair, and I wished he were doing it to mine. “Was that just a few days ago? Feels like a lot longer.”

  “Well, I have that effect on people.” I batted my eyes. “One minute with me feels like a lifetime. I can be too much.”

  “Hey.” The anger in his voice surprised me. “Don’t talk about yourself that way. You’re a lovely human being. Amazing, really. Look at you. You’re in Paris days, and you’re making friends with the purple dabbler.”

  “I wouldn’t say friends. More like we spoke on the street. Come on. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t want to think about what his complimenting me did to me, how it made me feel warm inside. It was better to hold on to the embarrassment of this morning. That way I could never make that mistake again.

  “Oh no.” He glared at me. “You ran here. Run home. Finish strong. Come on, I’ll stay with you.”

  I shook my head. “That’ll be agony for you. I’ll give running back a try, but you go your pace and I’ll go mine. I’ve already humiliated myself in front of you once for the day.”

  Zeke rocked back on his heels. “What are you talking about?”

  “When I propositioned you. I won’t do that again. I only have the means to make myself look a fool twice in one week.” I winked at him, which I hoped kept things jovial. “And now that I’ve acknowledged it, we can move on, yes?”

  I ran past him, managing to not get hit as I crossed the street and headed back toward his house. By the time we got there, I was aching. My muscles just weren’t used to the kind of activity I was asking of them. I was out of shape, and it was not okay. I was going to fix this. Some things I couldn’t control, this I could. I had to stop.

  Nearly colliding with a woman who carried groceries, including the cliché long French bread that made it really look like French groceries, I bent over to hold my knees as I gasped for air.

  “You know.” Zeke stopped, putting his hand on my head like he was offering support in my moment of need. “When I first ran up there, I thought you were talking to a guy. I couldn’t really see who you were conversing with. I thought I might have lost you. In our pretend relationship.”

  I groaned. Talking was hard, but I managed. “In our pretend relationship?”

  “Yes.” He stretched his arms over his head, giving me a view of his stomach. Fucking beautiful man.

  Okay. He wanted to play. “What if it was a man? You turned me down. Did you think I’d sit and wait for you?” I leaned forward, letting him look at my cleavage. “That’s right. Take a good solid stare. None of this will ever belong to you. I changed my mind.”

  He tugged me to him so close, I could feel his heartbeat against my hand, feel his breath on my face. It was warm and sweet.

  “Go ahead and run, Layla. The day you pulled me into your gravitation meant that you’d never get away from me. I might turn you away a million times. But you’ll always belong to me, whether I want you or not, little girl. You’re mine to take or to throw away. As I see fit.” He winked again. “In this pretend world we’re playing in. Since in real life, I don’t do relationships. Ever.”

  I pushed away from him. Infuriating man. I’d rather run through the pain than put up with any more than this. Damn my stupid hormones and the way I had always wanted Zeke. I had to get over this.

  I’d had enough trouble for one lifetime when it came to men.

  The café was less filled today. The weekend crowd wasn’t there, and Zeke was in a good mood. He must like it when there were fewer people to contend with. This time, I didn’t feel embarrassed that I couldn’t talk. I’d made it through the last few days without falling on my head. I wasn’t going to worry about a little thing
like not being able to understand what most people here were saying.

  The waitress set down the breadbasket, and this time, I grabbed a croissant without worrying about it. My hair was still damp from my shower. There was butter and jelly too. I couldn’t have been happier. Zeke ordered us eggs and coffee. I smiled into my breakfast. This was a beautiful day.

  Even if he made me want to smack him sometimes. Why did it make me only want him more? I was like a walking advertisement for what not to do.

  Renee and Danette came in together. When they saw me, they grinned and ran over, speaking fast in French before they remembered.

  “My date was wonderful. Thank you. It’s because of you.”

  “Me?” I shook my head. “Your date was wonderful because of you.”

  They liked that and took off to what had to be their regular table.

  “You make friends really easily.” Zeke ate his eggs slowly. “I said it before, and I meant it. You just did.”

  Not usually. “Do you make friends easily?”

  “I’ve had the same three friends for years. Otherwise, I don’t bother. People are acquaintances through business. Pseudo-friends.”

  Well, that was three more friends than I had. Although, I supposed I had my sisters. I’d been avoiding my phone. There would be time later to answer questions and see what people were saying online. It was kind of freeing to not care.

  “I have people who like to be seen with me.” The coffee was delicious. “What do your friends do now?”

  “One of them runs a bar in New Jersey. One of them is married with two kids. He’s an electrician. They live in Chicago. And one of them is constantly traveling. He wants to see the whole world. Always a wanderer, that one.” He smiled while he spoke. “Howard. Seamus. And Cory. We met in foster care.”

  Danette rushed over to the table again. “You come with me after you finish eating, yes?”

  I blinked. “Where do you want me to go?”

  “Shopping.” She clapped her hands together. “Come with me, please. I have two friends. We can go and meet them. We’ll go shopping today.”