Love Unexpected

by Louise Bay

  I shrugged. “I know. Now I might.” I wanted to fix what was broken in my life and I wanted to stop thinking of my place as something temporary, as my home only until I got married. Maybe I never would. My future was foggy; I couldn’t see yet how it was going to turn out. But that was okay. “I bought some herbs and planted them in these cute pots I got.”

  Kennedy looked at me suspiciously from over her glass. “So this is you trying to apply the things that we learned in Oklahoma?”

  “Yeah. I think it is.” Brianna had warned me it wouldn’t be easy, that I’d fail and I’d have to pick myself up and try again, but so far so good.

  Our food arrived and we tried to arrange the table so it didn’t look like the three of us had ordered four brunches.

  “Well, I’ve not slept with my boss,” Rose said with a smile that said Can you believe it? “And a guy from IT asked me out. I said no.”

  I was impressed. I’d never known Rose to turn down a date before. She always said that every guy deserved a first date.

  “Sounds like progress,” Kennedy said.

  “Oh yes, and I asked for a leave of absence from work,” I said putting pancakes on everyone’s plates. My confession was met with silence. I looked up, wondering if they’d heard me. They were both staring at me. “Can we get another side of bacon, please?” I asked the waitress.

  “A leave of absence?” Kennedy asked. “And do we really need more bacon? It looks like you have it covered.”

  The table was full of food. “You’re right. Can you hold that bacon but instead get some French toast?”

  “No.” Rose put her palm in my face. “I will not let you carb overload. You have to keep your nice ass if you’re going back on the market.”

  I looked Rose in the eye and tried to stuff an entire pancake in my mouth at once. Then I wished I hadn’t because I couldn’t chew properly.

  “Jesus. Have the French toast if it means I don’t have to see you chew,” Kennedy said.

  “This is such a celebration,” Rose said. “I think. What’s with the leave of absence? To help you get over Phil? I’m lost.”

  “No. I want to take three months to try and get my E-Summer school off the ground. I found someone to partner with on the techie stuff.” My laptop had had a meltdown that week and I’d spent the day in the basement with the IT guys trying to get it to work. The computer was unsalvageable, but I’d gotten to talking with the guy who was trying to fix it, sharing my ideas for the summer school program.

  “You did? Who?” Kennedy asked.

  “Andy. He’s just out of college and working in our IT department, but he has a gaming background.”

  “And you’ve done a business plan together? You’ve drawn up a partnership agreement? This has all happened so fast; I’ve not heard about anything.” Kennedy’s words tumbled out.

  I swallowed another mouthful of pancake. “Nope. None of the above. He might not even be the right guy, but I really want to do it. I’ve been thinking about this thing for years and I’ve made zero progress. If I devote all my time to it for three months, then I figure that I’ll know if it’s going to work.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I had to try. “You’re right, Rose. This is a celebration of the future Mackenzie Locke. I’m looking forward to getting to know her.”

  I took another forkful of pancake and grinned.

  “And what about your love life? You going to start dating?” Rose asked.

  “Nope. I think I’m going to be single for a while.” I didn’t trust myself when it came to men. Not yet. I wasn’t sure I ever would. I’d become so good at making the wrong choices in relation to guys that I wasn’t sure I knew what the right ones even looked like. And I wasn’t ready to forget about Blake quite yet. I still had this tremendous pull toward him, and it didn’t seem to be lessening with the passing weeks.

  Since coming home I’d replayed him asking me to dinner a thousand times. If I’d said yes, would it have changed everything between us? Being with him had been so good, so imperfectly perfect, that I hadn’t wanted to ruin it by trying to make it something it wasn’t. I knew it could never be the beginning of my happily ever after.

  So I tried not to think about him.

  In the shower, I tried not to feel him soaping my body with his strong hands.

  When cooking, I tried not to think of him behind me, creating a buzz against my skin with his breath.

  When I was in bed, I tried not to imagine him on top of me, pushing his hands into mine as he watched me come.

  It just wasn’t working.

  I mourned the loss of the ache in my limbs that he’d created with his hands, his dick, his tongue. I missed him and it was only getting worse.

  Was he thinking of me? Was he doing all the things he did to me with someone else?

  “Well, you know what the single thing means,” Rose said, snapping me back to the here and now. “It means we can go boy shopping.”

  Kennedy and Rose high-fived each other.

  “Yes. Let’s go on Saturday. There’s a new place opening and I’ve snagged us tickets.”

  “Do we have to?” I groaned. “Brianna would approve of me being single.”

  “You can’t just transfer your people-pleasing tendencies from your mother to Brianna. What do you want to do?” Rose asked.

  Images of Blake grinning at me flashed into my head. I had to stop this fixation. “Okay. We’ll go—but I’m only window shopping.” I wasn’t ready for anyone to touch me after Blake.

  Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “What about that guy?” Kennedy said as soon as we entered the bar. The floor and walls of the place were all white marble and the contrasting black glass bar ran along the entire length of room, right down the center. “I’m a sucker for tall blonds.”

  Was I sucker for tall blonds?

  “I don’t like super tall. Five ten works fine for me,” Rose said. “What about you, Mackenzie?” she asked over her shoulder as we followed her in the direction of the bar. The lights bathed the whole place in different neon colors every few seconds, and I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to be throwing up by the end of the night as a result. I missed the silence of the Oklahoma mornings. Everything back in Boston seemed so loud and bright and tense.

  “Well, I like jocks—I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s bad for me, but hey, it’s how I’m programmed,” Kennedy said as the three of us lined up next to each other at the long bar to order drinks.

  “I don’t care whether or not they’re a jock. For me, it’s the way they hold you,” Rose said. “There’s something about a guy that can just make you feel safe in his arms.”

  My heart thundered. That’s how Blake had made me feel. Protected. Safe.

  “No, you know it’s the real deal if they can handle your ugly cry,” Kennedy said.

  “Or if they hold your hair back when you’re sick,” Rose added.

  Blake had handled my ugly crying on more than one occasion. It hadn’t seemed to faze him. And something told me he’d hold my hair back while I puked and it would be no big deal.

  “He looks like the kind of guy who would do that.” Rose pointed at a tall, black-haired guy standing over by the door.

  The bartender poured out three shots of whiskey. I should have suggested tequila. Whiskey reminded me of Blake. Hell, everything reminded me of Blake.

  “I want a guy to keep me up all night because we just have so much to say to each other that we don’t want to sleep. Do you know what I mean?” Rose turned to me, her eyes pleading.

  I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.

  “Him,” Kennedy said as she indicated over her shoulder with her thumb. “The one with the blue sweater, he’s the kinda guy that would go down on you until you couldn’t see straight. The unassuming types see giving out great orgasms as their job.”

  My face heated. That was how it felt with Blake. He’d wanted me to come as much as he
’d wanted to come himself.

  “Or, remember that Andrew guy I dated?” Rose said. “He used to make me shiver with just a look. Wouldn’t it be great if we could cut and paste all the bits of different guys together to create the perfect one?”

  Blake had all those pieces though.

  My heart hurt with how much I wanted his fingers around my waist.

  With how much I wanted to lie naked in his arms, our legs tangled up together.

  With how badly I wanted to talk to him about his day.

  I wanted him to call me Red.

  I wanted him to make me come.

  He was the guy. My guy.

  I loved him.

  I downed my shot of whiskey as his hold over me grew stronger.

  I’d never longed for someone like I longed for Blake. I’d never purposefully tricked myself into feeling someone’s fingertips pressing into my skin, never wondered if I meant as much to someone as they meant to me. I was in love for the first time in my life.

  I’d learned a lot about myself at Love Rehab, but if Blake hadn’t been there, the lessons wouldn’t have been so clear. He helped me make sense of the exercises we completed, but also showed me how it was supposed to be. He created a safe space where I was allowed to ask for what I wanted.

  “So what’s your type?” Rose asked. “The men you’ve been with have all been so . . . different.”

  Kennedy elbowed Rose in the ribs. “She has to find out, dumbass.”

  But I didn’t have to find out, did I? I knew my type. “No, I maybe . . .” I hesitated.

  “Or . . .” Kennedy lifted her eyebrows. “Maybe she’s already found him.” She tilted her head. “Anything you care to share?”

  “Go on,” Rose said.

  “In fact . . .” Blake wasn’t the type of guy. He was the guy. “I think maybe you’re right. Maybe I have found him and I didn’t realize.” I couldn’t stop the grin from overtaking my face as I said it.

  “Stop,” Rose said. “Not again, Mackenzie. You’re not jumping into something else so soon.”

  Repeating my mistakes was what I was most afraid of, and one of the reasons I’d not taken Blake up on his invitation to dinner. But now, having been apart from him for these weeks, my feelings growing stronger with every second that passed, the mistake seemed to be my saying no in the first place.

  Had he already been to Boston? Would he have made his decision between Boston and Oklahoma yet? Was it too late to say yes to dinner?

  “Blake . . . He was my one-night stand on that first night at Jimmy’s.”

  Rose’s eyes opened wide.

  “I didn’t realize he was going to be helping Brianna. But he was and before I knew it, our one-night stand became something more.”

  “I wondered when you were going to admit it,” Kennedy said. She’d known?

  I reached out for Kennedy’s hand. “And I know you’ve heard all this from me before, but honestly, Blake is the first man I’ve never tried to be anyone but myself with. He’s seen me full of snot and tears and he’s held me as if I belonged to him. He’s the cut-and-paste guy that you talked about before. All the good bits smushed into one person. The man who makes me shiver with a single look; the guy who helps me see my strengths and my flaws. I’m in love with him.”

  “But you love him? Like, really love him? This isn’t Mackenzie love; this is the real deal?” Kennedy asked.

  “The real deal,” I confirmed. I wasn’t sure I liked that she had a name for the way I’d fallen in love previously, but now was probably not the time to bring it up.

  “Have you been in contact all this time without telling us?” Rose asked and my heart sank. If only.

  “No, he asked me to dinner when he came to Boston, but I—we were interrupted when Phil arrived. And then I left . . .”

  Kennedy winced.

  It had been weeks, since we’d left Oklahoma. Anything could have happened. He might not want me. His invitation to dinner may have just been a polite way of saying “See you around.” Or he might have found someone else. The idea that Blake may be out of my life forever made me hurt all over.

  Blake had my heart.

  Oh Jesus.

  “So what’s your plan?” Rose asked as she tipped back her whiskey shot.

  “I don’t have a plan, remember? I burned it,” I replied.

  “Not having a plan just means you’re open to things and not deciding what you want because it fits into your plan. Not that you shouldn’t decide who you want and then go get him.”

  I was just supposed to go get Blake? I’d never done anything like that before.

  Blake would always be precious to me. I knew there was a space in my heart that would only ever belong to him, even if I never saw him again. And I missed him, every moment. But could I just go get him? “He’s probably moved on.” The words bit into my chest like poison. Could I convince him to answer my call, have dinner if he came to Boston, talk?

  “What do you have to lose by being honest with him?” Rose asked, stabbing the air with her finger.

  “If he’s that special, you need to fight for him, explain that you’re an idiot,” Kennedy said.

  I’d expected Kennedy to be all about moving on, encouraging me to have some meaningless sex with a stranger. Maybe she saw something different in me.

  I was in love with him. In love. For the first time ever in my life. Was I really about to not at least try to go get him?

  My body started to buzz as my mind circled the edge of a decision. Brianna had told me to listen to my heart and my heart was shouting loud and clear. He was worth the risk of a mistake. Worth failing for.

  I grabbed another shot—I needed the courage. “I’m going to go.” I checked out the window to see if there were any cabs.

  “Don’t go. You’ll be miserable if you go home. Stay,” Rose said.

  “I need to get my man back.” I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.

  “Yeehaw,” Kennedy screamed. “About time, too.”

  Rose did another shot and held up her empty glass. “Go get him, cowgirl.”

  I stared at the address I’d written down on the back of a napkin and then up at the modern apartment block in front of me. Brianna hadn’t questioned me about why I wanted Blake’s number and she’d also offered his address.

  Blake was in Boston.

  And I was standing outside his building, having just pressed the buzzer to his apartment. And I was waiting. And waiting.

  What had I been thinking, just turning up like this on a Saturday night? I’d wanted Blake right that second and before I knew it, whiskey brain and wishful thinking had taken over.

  But as I stared at the glass door, the entry phone silent, I realized I might have to be a little more patient.

  He was probably out. Maybe even with another girl.

  Alcohol and disappointment seeped into my legs. I leaned against the wall to stop myself from falling. Should I call him? I checked the rumpled piece of paper again. I had his cell number.

  I should call him. Now. Tomorrow, with no alcohol to bolster me, I might chicken out. I might decide not to call, despite wanting to, despite needing him. But it was starting to get cold, and my apartment was just a few blocks over. I’d head back to the warmth and call him. Leave him a voicemail.

  I thrust my hands into my pockets and began the walk home, trying to think up voicemail messages that didn’t sound batshit insane.

  How long had he been in Boston? I hated the thought that I’d wasted a minute without him.

  As I turned down my street, I passed a couple walking toward me, laughing, their arms clamped around each other. I turned as they walked past, watching them. Would Blake and I end up like that? Would he even answer my calls?

  “Mackenzie?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. The deep timbre was unmistakably Blake’s. What was he doing here? I stood still, a couple of yards from my apartment where Blake was leaning against the wall. As if he’d been waiting for me. />
  “Mackenzie, are you okay?” he asked as he stepped toward me, registering the shock on my face. “It’s late. I can leave. I—”

  “I was just—” I pointed in the direction I’d just come from. Had Brianna told him I’d called? “I just went to your apartment.”

  Blake came closer, we were just a few feet apart, almost within touching distance. “You were at my apartment?”

  I nodded. “You weren’t there. But you’re here, apparently.”

  He stood on the sidewalk—alone. His face was just as I remembered, bronzed skin, dark stubble and a gaze that pierced through me as if nothing was off-limits or hidden.

  “I am,” he said. “I wanted to see you and ask you—”

  I put my hand up to stop him. Before he said anything else, I needed to tell him. I had to ask him for what I wanted.

  “Is everything okay?” He reached out to touch me but stopped and my heart ached.

  I shook my head. “I’m just . . . I’m impatient.”

  “You’re impatient?” he asked as he pushed his hands into his pockets. I nodded, mesmerized by the confident way he moved that made me feel safe, even though he wasn’t touching me.

  “What are you impatient for?”

  Your kisses.

  Your body.

  You.

  “To get to the next part.” To know if I’d lost him.

  He narrowed his eyes, and I had to stop myself from reaching up to smooth out his eyebrows.

  “The next part?”

  “After we’ve talked and I’ve told you what I need.” I hadn’t rehearsed any of this, and I didn’t know where to start. I hadn’t expected to find his presence so distracting, to be quite as aware of what I had to lose.

  The words in my brain all competed to get out at the same time. “I should have answered your question. Before, back in Oklahoma.”

  Blake glanced at the ground and dragged his hand through his hair.

  “I was trying not to repeat my mistakes, but I’m still learning. So it’s taking a little time to get there.” I looked up from under my lashes. “Does that make sense?” I shivered, half cold, half anxious.

  “Let me give you my jacket.” Blake began to unzip his coat.