Well Suited

by Hart, Staci

  He woke with a drag of air through his nose and tightening of his muscles, somehow bringing me even closer to him. I hadn’t even realized there’d been space. My lips brushed his skin with nowhere else to go.

  “Morning.” The word was rough, the sound sending a shivering desire through me.

  It was as if the exact pitch and timbre of his voice had initiated the firing of a string of nerves in me. As if I were tuned specifically to him and no one else.

  “I didn’t hit you last night or anything, did I?” I asked, worried to hear the answer.

  A laugh reverberated through him and into me by way of my rib cage. “No. I couldn’t keep you off of me.”

  When I leaned back, he loosened his grip.

  I looked up at him in disbelief. “I don’t remember that.”

  “I wasn’t actually sure if I could keep my hands to myself, so I stayed on my half of the bed with my back to you. You spooned me.”

  My brows drew together. “You’re too tall to be the little spoon.”

  “Trust me, I know,” he said, laughing. “I don’t take threats of physical violence lightly, but no way am I anything but the big spoon. I half-expected to catch a bloody nose when I set the spoons in order.” He watched me for a moment, amused. “You look confused.”

  “I’m surprised, is all. I slept so soundly, I don’t remember a thing.”

  “At one point, I tried to put you back on your side of the bed, but the second I rolled over, you wiggled your way back.”

  Embarrassment set a hot blaze in my cheeks. “I’m sorry. You must not have slept at all.”

  But he slid his leg between my thighs, squeezing me tighter with that sideways smile on his lips. “Not until I ignored the warning and spooned you good and proper. Then I slept like a baby.”

  Ignoring the disconnect between my mind and body he’d so casually mentioned, I admitted, “Me too. You defy all the things I assumed to be true. It’s…it’s both a comfort and a point of contention. I both crave and am disarmed by you.” I paused tracking his dark eyes as they searched mine, his thoughts shifting behind the irises. “Why do you want a girl like me?”

  He frowned. “A beautiful, intelligent, driven woman?”

  I shook my head. “I’m difficult. I’m inflexible. Calculating, cold.”

  “Oh, I dunno. I think you’re hot.” He was wearing The Look, his eyes smoldering and his lips lush and smirking.

  With a roll of my eyes, I laughed. “You are so strange for wanting someone as strange as me.”

  He appraised my face, smoothing my hair. “You’re different, and every difference you have, I admire. Everything you consider difficult and inflexible, I understand. We’re very much alike, you and me.”

  “I know. But…Theo, you could have a girl who’s beautiful and charming like you. You could have someone who would complement you, make you shine brighter.”

  “Well, that’s the trick, Kate,” he said, angling for a kiss. “I don’t want anyone but you.”

  His lips connected with mine at the same moment something in my chest twisted, the feeling foreign, only instigated by him and him alone.

  Never had I been so affected.

  He was comprised of things I didn’t understand, his presence alone enough to keep me both off-kilter and upright. But I couldn’t imagine any other way. I couldn’t imagine parting ways with him, going back to my old life. The woman I had been a few months ago was gone, an echo of who I had become. Everything had changed. And Theo had shepherded me through every step with patience and understanding, the incremental progress bringing us to this moment, this space.

  He knew me. In an unreasonably short period of time, he understood me in ways I wasn’t sure I even understood myself. It afforded him the ability to anticipate my needs, to guide me into a relationship in such minute degrees that I hadn’t realized until that exact moment how deep we’d gone.

  And the more shocking realization was that I wasn’t scared. I couldn’t be, not with Theo at the helm.

  I wasn’t scared because I trusted him.

  If magic were real, Theo was Houdini.

  He broke the kiss, though the press of his cock into my hips belied his lips when they said, “Come on, I’ll feed you breakfast.”

  “Sausage and eggs?” I said with a smile and an arch of my back that ground my body against his.

  A laugh. “Did you just make a dick joke, Kate?”

  “What?” I said coyly. “Hot sausage sounds delicious.”

  “And I know how you like your eggs.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Fertilized.”

  Before I could laugh, he kissed me and gave me all the hot sausage I could handle.

  17

  Makings of a Man

  Katherine

  19 weeks, 1 day

  Two weeks had passed in a blur.

  Phase Two of our relationship was in full swing. We were officially together and spent every spare second we had taking advantage of the newfound freedom.

  That was how it felt—like freedom, not the shackles I’d thought it’d be. Beyond logic, it was a relief. There was nothing left between us, the rules checked off and retired, one by one. It was so strange to enjoy someone’s company so much. I usually had a hard two-hour limit with other people before needing to retreat, requiring solitude to recharge.

  It almost felt wrong to feel so right. It was a betrayal of everything I’d thought I knew.

  And yet, here I was, enjoying every second of it.

  I’d been busy at work after joining a committee against my will, but if I was going to land the promotion as a researcher, the committee would help since it was being run by a shark.

  Library staff could be sorted into one of three categories: the young idealists, the old grumps, and the sharks.

  The idealists were out to change the world through community outreach with projects ranging from inmates and new moms to—no lie—the wealthy. Rachel, one of our newest pages, had been trying to get a program together to reach out to the underserved wealthy in Manhattan, and on its fourth denial, she had a very public meltdown, complete with open sobbing and a brokenhearted monologue about the good we could do if we could only reach the rich with the power of books.

  The grumps were their own breed, mostly working in circulation where things were the same every day. There was a stability of daily repetition they seemed to prefer. They typically stuck to the circulation room, sorting books that had been returned, or, as pages like me, shelving all the books that had been sorted. They abhorred the committees the idealists and sharks created in abundance. And though the grumps were generally well over fifty, I was easily categorized here.

  And then there were the sharks. For some reason, the library system attracted a cache of ambitious individuals who should have been working as CEOs or lawyers but instead chose to make fifty thousand a year in the public library system. They advanced quickly, clustering around the top of the administration of each branch, and approached their jobs with the micromanaging and enterprising attitude of a politician. They were the suits of our industry, more interested in numbers and performance than anything, seeking high-profile programs and always looking for ways to get the library more government money.

  In essence, they thrived on making things as difficult as possible for the rest of us, all in the name of efficiency. All it took was one jackass going to a convention, and for two months, they’d try to instill changes that would inevitably fail at everything beyond pissing off everyone in circulation.

  I clocked in and put my things away, sighing with happy anticipation of the circulation room, where I’d find stacks of books all ready to find their way back to their home.

  I grabbed a cart from the row of empties and wheeled over to fiction.

  Mysteries were always fun first thing while I still had energy. I could clear a cart of mystery novels in fifteen minutes flat, even with the bottom shelf of the cart full. Notoriously, the lazy pages would leave
the bottom shelf empty, as it was cumbersome to access. But despite my physical difficulty bending over lately, I always loaded the bottom shelf.

  I was no louse, pregnant or not.

  My cart was half-full when Eagan appeared at my elbow with Stephanie, a shark and long-time pain in my ass who had never truly worked in circulation.

  She also happened to be the owner of the ass I’d have to kiss if I wanted that promotion.

  I frowned at them. “Can I help you?”

  Eagan’s smile was shitty and cruel. “Efficiency check today.”

  Stephanie wore a suspicious smile of her own. She held up an RFID wand, which she could scan over every shelf I’d worked to ensure everything was in its correct place and order.

  I stifled a groan.

  “I’d like you to work in picture books today,” she said, and the urge to throttle her almost overwhelmed me. “I don’t know why you all avoid them so desperately.”

  “Because they take hours. You can’t see the spines for the author names, and you could fit two hundred books on a single cart. Why wouldn’t we avoid them?”

  She laughed like I was joking. “Eagan took the liberty of loading a cart for you.”

  “I know how you like to use all four shelves, Kate.”

  My skin crawled. “Katherine,” I corrected, glaring at him.

  Ever since he’d heard Theo call me Kate, it was all he called me. After the first time, I’d hidden the extra carts so he’d have to make a hundred trips and carry them all by hand. And judging by his spaghetti arms, I was certain he hadn’t even been able to pick up his precious stamp the next day.

  “Whatever,” he said, pushing the cart at me.

  “I have three more where that came from, and I expect them all to be shelved by the end of the day. And shelved correctly.”

  “I always shelve them correctly,” I snapped, not meaning to, my serenity and plans gone in a poof.

  And then it was me who was gone in a poof.

  Out of the circulation room I went, scowling and cursing them in my mind. I’d have to watch my back. All it would take was Eagan sneaking behind me to ruin my work, and I’d be in trouble.

  If there was one thing I hated in life worse than being wrong, it was getting in trouble. I’d wring his skinny little neck if he messed things up for me.

  I grabbed a wand of my own, just in case.

  I pulled around a corner, heading for the children’s library, nodding at my colleagues as I passed. And then I saw Rita and froze.

  The library patron was hurrying toward me, her silver hair in disarray, her eyes rheumy and a little wild.

  “Katherine!” she called, waving like a lunatic. Which I really had the inclination she was. She wore her shirt inside out as always—so the government couldn’t track her T-shirt logos, she’d insisted—and her lime-green Crocs squeaked as she power-walked in my direction.

  I glanced over my shoulder where, seconds before, at least three other librarians had been. Now, there was no one. They’d scattered like cockroaches the second they saw her.

  Not that I could blame them. I’d have done the same, if given the chance.

  It was an unspoken code, a constant game of Not It kicked into motion every time an undesirable approached for help. Like the ones who smelled like a dumpster. Or the ones who made a habit of urinating in chairs rather than getting up to use the restroom. Or the ones who came in weekly to try to sell us magazine subscriptions. Or the guys who masturbated in the stacks.

  To be fair, there weren’t too many of those, but there were enough to remember them when you saw them.

  “Hi, Rita,” I said wearily. “What can I help you with?”

  I knew the answer before she said it.

  “I wanted to know the significance of the number seven in the pyramids. You know they were built by aliens, right?”

  In a feat of skill, I swallowed my argument and sighed my resignation. “Come with me,” was all I said, turning for a terminal.

  It was always an iteration of the same question. Rita came in weekly to delve deeper into the history of the number seven.

  For the next hour, I endured an exhaustive overload of Rita filling the air with conspiracy theories while I researched our database and the print materials we had. Our results were a motley of flotsam and jetsam—like that one cubit of ancient Egyptian measure was seven palms—but she seemed satisfied enough by the time we were finished.

  She paid me with a handful of warm gummy bears from her pocket, which I tried to refuse.

  But Rita would not be denied, and rather than get stuck there any longer, I took the indignity with a, “You’re welcome,” and sent her on her way.

  I then washed my hands for two full minutes under nearly scalding water.

  Hours passed in blissful silence, and three carts later, I was nearly done and cheerfully smiling. Just a little bit longer, and this day would be done. And at the end of it was Theo.

  “Heya, Kate.”

  My smile was gone just like that, replaced by a scowl and an irrational urge to throw a book at Eagan.

  “Katherine,” I corrected through my teeth.

  “Steph’s been behind you all day.”

  “Lucky for me, I don’t trust you and caught every offense you tried to pin on me.”

  “Aw, come on. It’s just a game. If you’d go out with me, I’d probably stop.”

  It was the third time he’d asked me out, and just like the other two, bile rose in my throat. “I’m pregnant with another man’s child.”

  He shrugged. “Far as I’m concerned, that just means you put out.”

  I gaped at him, and he laughed, rolling his eyes.

  “I’m kidding, Kate.”

  “Katherine, you plebeian.” I turned back to my shelf.

  “Seriously, what’s that guy got that I don’t?”

  “Besides respect for others?”

  “Sure.”

  I huffed. “For starters, a foot on your height and a foot that’d be in your ass if he saw you talking to me.”

  “Jeez, so touchy.”

  “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on Earth. I’d rather barbecue you and become a cannibal than save the species.”

  “You say that now, but wait until Mr. Suit leaves you high and dry.”

  “Mr. Suit? That’s the best you’ve got? Seriously, do you even read books, or do you just look at the pretty pictures? No wonder you put me in children’s. Must feel like home. Here, you can start with this one.”

  I handed him a picture book, and he looked down at the title, frowning.

  “Thomas and the Pee-Pee Problem.”

  “Happy reading,” I said, grabbing the handle of my cart and steering myself away from him. “Try not to hurt yourself.”

  I wheeled my cart away with my nose in the air and my mind full of expletives, noting the time as I passed one of the government clocks on the wall. One hour, and I’d be in Theo’s arms.

  And that was just the motivation I needed to set a smile on my face as Eagan gaped at my stiff back from the children’s section, right where he belonged.

  ❖

  Theo

  I sat in an ocean of crib pieces, Creedence Clearwater Revival bouncing out of my speaker. John Fogerty sang all about the bad moon rising, and flipping through eighteen pages of instructions, I had to agree.

  The furniture had come while Katherine was at work, so I’d put it where we’d discussed, making a few executive decisions when things didn’t fit exactly as we’d thought they would. I went with my gut.

  Hadn’t failed me yet.

  I’d hoped to have the crib finished before Katherine got home, but judging by the number of screws and washers I had to get through, that wasn’t happening.

  Two screws in, the doorbell rang.

  I hopped up and trotted down the stairs. Ma and I had a deal that she wasn’t to answer the door when I was home. Problem was, Ma didn’t listen and hated losing her independence, so if
I didn’t hurry, I’d find her hurrying, a sight that never ceased to leave me imagining her falling. Her reflexes were too slow now for her to hurry anywhere.

  But when I entered the living room, she was nowhere to be found.

  And thank fucking God. Because what I found on my stoop would have put her in an early grave.

  “Heya, Teddy.”

  John Banowski’s voice was deep, weathered by years and roughed by cigarettes, one of which hung from the smirking seam of his lips.

  Rage, deep and unbridled, tore loose under every square inch of my skin. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked with fake, flattened distance, stepping out to close the door behind me.

  Six years hadn’t aged him much, though his hair was shot with silver, the creases around his eyes deeper. He was a beast, imposing in stature, aggressive in stance, handsome in spite of it all.

  “Is your ma home?”

  “None of your fucking business. Now tell me what you want or get the fuck off my stoop.”

  “Came to ask you about this.” He shifted, reaching behind him to pull something from his back pocket. His hand reappeared with a folded, slightly dirty pack of papers. “Fuck is this, Ted? I thought we had a deal, and here I get divorce papers.” He waved them in case I hadn’t picked up on what they were.

  “We do have a deal. That doesn’t mean Ma can’t have what she wants. What the hell do you care anyway?”

  “You’re tryin’ to squeeze me out. I read the story in the paper Tommy’s little creampuff wifey wrote, tellin’ the world about his poor old ma. You think you can get ridda me by telling the papers all the goods you’ve been paying me to keep quiet? You think your ma can send me these papers, and you’ll be through with me? You think I don’t still have leverage? ’Cause there’s no need for Tommy’s secrets anymore. I’ve got one better—you.”

  “Nobody’s trying to squeeze you out,” I said with a tight jaw. “Nothing’s changed. But if you’re stupid enough to tell Ma and Tommy about our deal, it will be over.”