by Erin Bevan
But what if it did?
“I’m having a hard time here, Alex.”
Hard time with what? She couldn’t remember. The closer Max scooted toward her, his smell enveloping her and his eyes staring at her like he was ready to get all hot, naked, and bothered, had her completely hot and bothered. And ready to get naked. So naked.
He gripped her hips and sat her on the counter, positioning himself between her legs. Taking his cue, she wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair.
“Alex, the ball’s in your court. It’s always in your court.”
Ball? Court? Games? She’d never been good at playing games. Her mind screamed, stop him. This can’t happen, but her down under area was ready to thunder, knowing exactly how good her world could be in a few seconds. The pounding below her equator out-screamed the thumping in her brain.
Vagina wins.
“I’m not going to stop you,” she did that stupid, heavy breathing word thing again and didn’t care how stupid she sounded. She just needed release. Now.
“What about your number one rule?”
Rule? What rule?
“Huh?” She asked lowering her hand to the button of his jeans.
“The no sex rule?”
Oh hell, that. “We can start after.”
“Like a do-over?” He smiled.
“Yes, exactly.” But all she wanted was for him to do her over. Now. She reached for his zipper when a pounding came from her door.
“Alex, honey. Open up.”
Her heart stopped.
Mother.
“What the hell?” Max whispered and froze.
“Yoo hoo, Alex!” Her mother knocked again.
“I’m…I’m coming, Mom.” She jumped off the counter.
“No,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re not, but you could be.”
“Shh.” She slapped his chest and stared into the eyes of her best friend. What the hell had they been about to do? Marriage of convenience, remember? Not pleasure. She’d almost broken her own number one rule.
Alex straightened her pajamas and stared down at Max’s unit. “Fix yourself.”
He glanced down and began to adjust his clothes.
She scurried to the front door and took one last look around her apartment. Max’s shirt was all crumpled.
“Your shirt,” she mouthed and pointed to his chest. He looked down and straightened his collar before he smoothed the front of his shirt out with his palms.
When they looked like they hadn’t been about to engage in a round of sexcapades on her kitchen counter, she opened the door.
“Alex, baby, what took so long?” Her mother shot a glance to Max and smiled. “Oh, I see. Am I interrupting something?”
“No, Mom. Of course not. We were just talking about wedding details.” Sort of. That wasn’t technically a complete lie.
“That’s what I came to talk about. I thought after we went and fed the puppies at the shelter this morning, we could go dress shopping today.” Her mother’s eyes shimmered with excitement, and Alex died a little inside. How upset would her mother be when they divorced? And the puppies! She completely forgot. Hard not to with the morning she’d had.
“Oh, right. The puppies. And dress shopping?” Already?
“I think that’s a great idea,” Max chimed in.
“You do?” Alex glared at him. She didn’t need his commentary. He’d done enough persuading for one day.
“Of course. However, I don’t care what you wear. You can wear a paper sack if it’ll make you happy.”
“No paper sacks.” Her mother wagged a finger. “I also called a couple of caterers and a cake place. They said we could swing by to talk to them. Max, would you like to join us after dress shopping?”
No. She needed a minute without him. To cool off. Breathe. Not make another mistake.
Max smiled, never missing a beat as he walked toward her mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Momma.”
Suck up.
“Hey, baby.” Her mother patted Max on his cheeks after her kiss. A greeting they’d shared together since Max had started coming around in the third grade.
Alex’s family had become one of the only constants in Max’s life. When they divorced, how would that change for him? Would he lose all the family he’d ever known, or could they continue on like nothing ever happened?
“Tom says come to the house to receive the ass kicking you deserve for not asking him for Alex’s hand in marriage, then you guys can go fishing.”
“Is he that upset?” Max asked.
“Oh you know him, all bark and no bite.” Her mother shrugged.
“I’ll bring beer just in case.”
“Good idea.” Her mom winked at Max and elbowed him in the stomach.
The two shared a moment so dear to Alex’s heart she wanted to weep from happiness or sadness she wasn’t sure which. How would their divorce affect everyone?
“Now, what do you say?” Mom broke into her thoughts. “Going to the cake place with us?”
“I’ll let Alex make that decision. Would you like me to join today?” Max stared at her waiting for an answer.
Alex’s mind reeled with the repercussions their marriage could cause, for their relationship, the relationship between Max and her family, and the relationship between Max and this baby. And how were they going to keep everything platonic? Especially after what happened a few minutes ago?
“Alex?” Max asked.
“Yeah...what?”
He cocked his head to the side and gave her a silly grin. He knew exactly why she had trouble concentrating—her down under never got to meet his thunder.
Not that it needed to.
Ever.
“Your mother asked if I wanted to join you ladies after dress shopping. Do you want me to join you?
“Oh, right. Do you have other plans? Anything for the campaign?”
“I have a phone call to take this morning, but other than that, nothing I can’t reschedule.”
The word campaign jogged her memory. At least part of her brain still worked.
“Oh, Max, about the campaign. The community center. I heard Reynolds wants to vote to tear it down.”
“Yep.” Max nodded.
“But you’re…you’re going to fight that right? I mean the seniors. Where else would they go? There’s no outright senior center, and the community center has been the home to so many activities in town.”
Max stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got a few phone calls to make with the city. If I have my way, it won’t get torn down.”
“I know you’ll do what you can, Max,” Momma chimed in. “That place is so special to Alex and me. We visit there often.”
The center was where Alex had learned to knit. Where she sat with her grandmother every Saturday afternoon. She had a lot of memories within those dilapidated walls.
“I know, Momma. Let me see what I can do.” Max leaned in and kissed Alex on the cheek. “Call me when you’re done dress shopping, and I’ll meet you anywhere you want.”
And she had defended Reynolds to Max while he had been planning to protect something that was dear to her.
“Did you know about this before you decided to run?” Alex whispered.
Max nodded.
He’d been looking out for her the entire time.
Maybe she did matter to him more than any other woman.
“Sounds perfect,” Momma said, not aware of the whispers they shared. “Alex, dear, go get dressed so we can go.”
“Yeah, sure, Mom. Let me just walk Max out.”
Max grabbed his coffee cup, and she grabbed him by the arm as she guided him toward the door. Once they stood in the hallway of her apartment complex, she said, “I’m so sorry. I never should have defended Reynolds to you.”
“It’s okay.” Max shrugged. “The news is just becoming public because it looks like the tear down is almost a done deal. I’m trying to work some angles to sto
p it. That phone call I have is with the mayor to discuss some ideas.”
“Thank you.” She reached out to hug him. “I’m so glad to have you as my best friend.”
“No.” He corrected as he hugged her back. “Your fiancé.”
“That, too.” She released from his embrace. “And oh my God…” Her stomach dropped, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I can’t believe my mom almost caught us…” Alex waved her hand between them not able to say what they’d almost done.
“What? Doing what two consenting adults do?” he teased.
“Not these adults. Remember.” She held her hands up in a halting motion.
“All adults.” Max kissed her forehead. “I’ll meet you after shopping. But, Alex, do me a favor and pick something tight up top. You’ve always had great breasts.” He roved his gaze down to the top of her tank top.
She caught her breath and covered herself. “Max!” Before she could finish her scolding, he leaned in and stole her lips, kissing her like he had when he first shown up, making her weak and needy.
When she could get her wits about her, she whispered, “What happened to our no kissing rule?”
“Do over?” He winked. “Think of me.”
He ignored her rule as he kissed her again then turned to leave down the steps of her complex. His kiss left her wanting to melt into the floor of her apartment foyer.
And now she had to go face her mother. Great!
She took a deep breath and went back inside her apartment. Her mother stood by the counter eating her donut.
“That was mine.”
“I’ll buy you another one. I didn’t want to say this in front of Max, but make sure you brush your teeth. I could smell your breath as soon as you spoke to me.”
“Agh!” Alex held a hand to her mouth. The first time she’d nearly had sex with Max and she had morning breath.
Figures.
Thank God they hadn’t. She couldn’t let a slip like that happen. Ever again. Everything between them could be ruined, and Max could lose the only family he’d ever known, forever. She couldn’t be so selfish as to allow that to happen to him.
11
Max slid his BMW into his personal parking space in front of his office. Ryker Reynold’s smiling face stared down at him from a billboard…Right. Across. The. Street.
Bastard. How did he land that location?
Max stepped out of his car, shaking off his irritation, careful not to hit Dane’s BMW with his own car door. Dane, his best friend and town contractor, had to go get the sporty version of Max’s car the week after Max had purchased his family sedan. Ass. At least now, he would have a family to put in it. Which meant, when he made his phone call to Mr. Thurgood, he’d have to make sure to point that out.
Once inside his office building, the muffled noise of some hard rock song blared in the background from Dane’s office. How the man listened to that and concentrated on work was beyond Max, but on the weekends, he couldn’t raise much of a fuss. Dane rented an office in the building from Max, and at least the man had the courtesy to keep it quiet during the workweek.
Max made his way down the bland, sterile corridor and into his office. A faint musty smell that dated back to the 1970s lingered in the air. But despite his office building not looking much better than a prison with pictures on the walls, renovations had been bumped off the top of his priority list. His marriage to Alex had taken precedent. He’d let Dane handle reno.
A pile of political signs lay on the floor beside his desk. It had taken him and Alex a whole month and ten different designs before he finally decided on one. And he wasn’t even sure he’d picked the right one. The more he looked at the plain red and white sign, the more he thought he should have picked the design she’d liked. The sign with the blue background with white letters outlined in red. She’d said it made him look like a true American. He made a mental note to order some of the other signs.
He propped the posters upright again and sat in his plush, leather chair, placing his cell phone on top of his desk. A long list of messages lined his workspace. Missed calls from salesmen, food reps, Tawana—imagine that—and Shelby.
“Ready to pick paint colors?” the message from Shelby said. Despite her wild ways, Shelby was the best designer in town, and once Alex let on he wanted to do some remodeling, Shelby had been vying for his business. Perhaps her carefree spirit was what aided her in being the best, and Max never settled for less than the best. His mother, though she’d worked, could never afford much. He’d sworn to himself as a child, the moment he was capable of making something of himself and could afford the finer things in life, he would.
He placed the message in a pile for Dane.
He tossed the unimportant notes in the trash and came across two more messages from potential new clients. These were the messages he cared about. Hot Sauce King had grown exponentially in the past ten years, going from a pipedream to a reality. If all his plans worked right, his company could skyrocket with the right investors and the right image. With Alex by his side, he’d send out the right image: loyal, trustworthy, a family-owned company.
“What are you doing here on a Saturday?” Dane stood in Max’s office doorway holding a cup of coffee and donning his usual wardrobe: a plain white undershirt, faded jeans, and equally faded steel-toe boots. His shaggy russet hair always made him look like he’d stepped off the cover of a Surfers-R-Us magazine.
“Just catching up on some stuff for a few hours, and I have a call with the mayor about the community center, but I’m glad you stopped in. I wanted to be the first to tell you.” Max opened his laptop.
“Tell me what?” Dane took a sip of his coffee.
“I’m getting married. You’re going to be my best man.”
Dane spit his coffee out, the spray hitting Max’s reports, just missing his computer.
“Surprised?” Max asked, shaking the liquid off his papers.
“Surprised is an understatement. What the hell did you do? Get someone pregnant?”
Max stopped and avoided eye contact. Stuck on not sure how to answer the question, because while he didn’t get someone pregnant, someone was indeed pregnant, Max chose to ignore Dane’s question. “Is it so hard to believe I would be getting married?”
“It would be easier to believe I was pregnant,” Dane jibbed. “Who’s the unlucky lady?”
“Alex.” Max clicked in his password to his laptop. "I asked Alex to marry me.”
“Damn dude.” Dane pulled the chair out from Max’s desk and took a seat. “I was going to ask her out. I didn’t even know you two were dating.”
Dane? Ask Alex out? That would never happen.
Max pilfered through some more reports on his desk. “She would never have dated you. Besides, we’ve been friends since we were children. It was only natural for our relationship to take this course.”
“Never date me?” The contractor sat up straighter with the audacity to look appalled. “Why?”
Max glanced at his friend through hooded eyes. “Because there’s no way I would ever let you date Alex. Regardless if she were with me or not. Besides, I thought you liked Lucy.”
Last Max had seen, Dane had been flirting with his own bookkeeper. Never a smart move, fraternizing inside office walls, but who was he to judge?
“Yeah, Lucy is good, I guess. Can’t blame a guy for wondering if there’s something more out there though.” Dane shrugged.
Max dropped his reports and ran his index finger under the collar of his shirt. Alex had been worried about him with other women, but what about her with other men. Who else had their sights set on dating her now that she was presumed single?
“I can’t believe it.” Dane shook his head. “The political playboy Hot Sauce King is finally settling down. What did she do, threaten to not be your friend anymore if you didn’t start a relationship with her?”
“Not cool dude.” Max gave Dane a nonverbal warning with his gaze. “You know damn well Alex would neve
r manipulate me to do anything.”
“Geez man, lighten up.” Dane held his hands up in a peace offering. “You’re really serious about this. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Why?” Max sighed and flipped through his cell, searching for Thurgood’s phone number.
“Because in the ten years I’ve known you, you’ve dated more women than I can even begin to count and not one of them have been Alex.”
Bastard. Did he have to continue to point out his flaws?
“I didn’t sleep with all of them.” Max grunted as he scrolled through his contacts. He already knew he wasn’t good enough for Alex. He didn’t need Dane rubbing it in.
A new text from Tawana popped up. He deleted it without even bothering to read it.
“Yeah? Name one woman between the ages of twenty and thirty-five that you haven’t slept with in this town.”
Maybe he had enjoyed his fair share of females, but not all of them. Surely to God, he hadn’t slept with all of them, had he?
“You can’t do it can you, bro?”
Max dropped his phone on his desk and it landed on yesterday’s copy of the local newspaper with a plop. A local EMT smiled back at him from a picture on the front page.
“Marina!” He pointed at her picture. “I’ve never slept with Marina.” Proud of himself, he crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, smiling smugly at Dane.
“She’s gay, dude. Doesn’t count, and if her partner weren’t so gay, you’d probably try to convince the two of them into a threesome.”
His smile faded. “You paint such a pleasant picture of me.” Dane made him sound like a real man-whore. So he’d had his fun, but that was over. None of those women ever meant anything to him. And he was ready for someone to mean something. Alex had always meant something.
“Truth hurts sometimes, dude.” Dane sat back in his chair and threw his arm out over the top of it like he planned to stay awhile. “But the good news is Alex still agreed to marry you. But my question is, if you do become mayor, are you going to be able to stay faithful? You know politicians have a rep for sleeping around.”