by Elise Faber
Nope.
It’d probably be her seventy-two dogs, because she was much more of a dog person.
Speaking of that, maybe she’d get a dog. A cute little corgi with stumpy legs and a stretched-out body. Then again, dogs were a lot of work and she could hardly complete her own. Then again, again, Heather O’Keith had been bugging her to hire a few more lab assistants and punt off some of her grunt work.
Then again, again, again, she was purposely distracting herself from the real thing bothering her.
Tanner and the fact that she still had it bad for him.
His gorgeous face, the hint of a dimple on his left cheek, the bump on the top of his nose from a basketball injury in high school—and yes, she’d been at the game because she’d gone to all his games—the way his hair always looked a little disheveled, as though he’d just run his hands through it. How he smiled gently when people spoke to him, no matter if it was a stranger on the street asking for the time or Bas telling him a funny work story.
How he’d hugged.
How he’d kissed her.
How he’d taken her virginity—
“You aren’t going to puke, are you?”
Four
Tanner
Fuck, she was going to throw up.
Her face was pale, no hint of the lovely peaches and cream coloration he’d spent way too many nights dreaming about after they’d—he’d—broken things off. Her lids peeled back, and her brown eyes were slightly hazy.
Brown wasn’t the right description of those eyes, the one word could not nearly begin to encompass the breadth of color and depth. More whiskey than mocha, but with hints of espresso running through, and the right one had a perfect gray ring around its pupil. Hell, he figured he knew Kelsey’s eyes better than his own. He’d sketched them, photographed them, stared into them while naked and felt way too many emotions for a boy who’d had nothing and suddenly felt everything.
Her eyes closed again. “I’m fine,” she said, and the tone was almost perfect. If he hadn’t known her so well in a past life, it might have fooled him. Especially when she added, “Just trying to puzzle out a work problem.” A beat, lips curving but lids staying shut. “As one does.”
He leaned against the wall next to her, seeing her stiffen, but Tanner had to give it to her, she didn’t move away, didn’t do anything but stay where she was and keep breathing.
“What’s the problem?” he asked after a few minutes.
“What?”
“The work problem you’re puzzling.”
Her lips tipped up into a faint smile. “Oh, I puzzled that already. We were missing a critical line of code.” She shrugged, as if her solving a work problem was as easy as breathing. And knowing her and how brilliantly smart she was, it probably was just that easy.
“So, now, what’s your excuse for being out here?”
Silence, pretty eyes on his. “Because I can never seem to tear myself away from you.” Her mouth curved into a rueful smile. “Though you don’t seem to have that problem.”
He jerked, opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. The words stoppered up in his throat, and he could only stare at her like an imbecile.
“Though,” she said. “I think you actually did me a favor. Made me grow up. Helped me learn when to suck it up and cut my losses.” She pushed off the wall. “Everyone has a first heartbreak, the one that teaches you how things can go bad. I think I was lucky that I had you doing the breaking. Someone else, and I might have ended up doing something really stupid.” Her fingers found his forearm and squeezed. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
And then she was gone, the spots she’d touched burning, but the hole in his heart an absolute crater.
By the time he made it back inside, Tanner was a little more centered. Kelsey was, too. Or at the very least, she was beautiful and laughing and putting on a great show for all parties involved.
“Then,” she said, the story not breaking its pace as he took his seat, “Bas came out of the bathroom, teeny tiny washcloth over his manly bits, the only white part left on his body.”
Rachel and her posse cackled.
“And he was all green?” the pretty brunette he thought was named Abby asked.
“Yes!” Kels laughed. “Devon and I replaced his body wash and shampoo with animal-safe dye. He looked like a stalk of broccoli, skinny but with his mop of hair flopping all over the place.”
Bas grinned good-naturedly. “I don’t know what I was thinking, bleaching my hair that summer.”
“Me neither.” Kels smiled back at her brother. “But those blond locks really made the green dye pop.”
“Brat.” But he tossed his arm over her shoulders and reached up a fist to noogie her hair. “Only took me about thirty showers to get it so I could leave the house and not look like an alien.”
Kels squirmed away. “Green is not your color.”
Bas shook his head. “You and Devon put me through the wringer, you know that, right?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “No playing the martyr, love. I seem to remember a certain brother who took all of his sister’s stuffed animals and held them for ransom. Not to mention replacing the tip of your lovely sister’s eyeliner with that of a permanent marker.”
“That was in response to the broccoli incident!”
Tanner snorted.
First, because he’d bleached his hair that summer, too, and second, because he’d seen the outcome of both pranks.
The Scotts were vicious.
Case in point, when Bas pointed across the table and declared, “And Tanner, I thought he was my friend, but it turned out he was in on all of them.”
“What?” Kelsey’s eyes flicked to his.
“He gave Devon the dye and he thought of the eyeliner prank.”
Ice from her end of the table. “And what about Mr. Snuggles? He never recovered from his incarceration.”
Meaning, he and Bas had accidentally shoved Mr. Snuggles in an access panel for some plumbing, not realizing that the pipes got really hot and that the synthetic fur of Kelsey’s favorite unicorn toy would melt.
She’d cried when they’d returned the misshapen toy, and he’d never felt more like an ass.
Except perhaps when he’d broken things off with her.
“I was in on that, too.”
Definite frost, but she continued putting on her show, and so her lips curved. “You monster.”
“No brothers and sisters to torment meant I had to find my own way.”
Some of that ice melted, her knowing what it had been like growing up in his house. Not an uncommon story, his upbringing. Parents who worked too much, who spent all their time either uninvolved in his life, or feeling guilty for not being there and suffocating him.
At first, he’d eaten up the attention, been so starved for it.
But then work would inevitably become more important, and he’d been shuttled to after-school care or, once he’d become friends with Bas, the Scotts had let him hang out at their house every afternoon.
Sebastian’s mom was the best, framing it like he was doing them a favor so Bas wouldn’t be alone while she shuttled Dev to hockey practice and Kelsey to her extra academic courses. He hadn’t cared why they’d let him stay. Besides Bas being his best friend, meaning extra hang out time was great, he’d also just loved being part of the hustle and bustle of a big family. Cars coming and going, voices talking over each other at the dinner table, laughter and teasing echoing through the halls.
His house was quiet.
Bigger and undoubtedly fancier than the Scotts’, but so much colder.
No soul.
The only good thing his parents had ever done for him, besides the whole feeding and clothing and giving him a safe place to live—because those couldn’t be discounted, even if he had been neglected in almost every other way—was buy him a camera. But after spending fourteen years shooting professionally, nine of those moving from place to place, never settling down, never
having a home base for more than a couple of weeks, now he wondered how much he’d missed out on while using his job, his cameras as a shield.
Intimacy for sure.
At first, there had been lots of women, but that had gotten old quick.
At first, he’d loved flitting from place to place without being tied down.
But eventually he’d begun to miss home, to miss the noisy Scotts, to miss Kelsey and her brain that never stopped.
That had been a year before.
That had been because Kelsey had called.
He’d been looking through the lens of his camera, searching for the perfect shot, the perfect composition that would fill the hole inside him, and her phone call had made him see.
It would never be filled.
Not with photography, anyway.
He wanted to come home. He wanted to see his friends, his family—that would be the Scotts, not his biological parents.
And . . . he needed to see her.
To find out if it was the same.
The gnawing need, the draw that seemed to never waver, even though he’d done his best to stretch it to snapping by moving all around the world. Because he’d known at twenty-one, and he knew now.
Kelsey was it for him.
And just like then, that knowledge was absolutely terrifying.
Laughter drew him out of his head, the conversation having carried on while he’d been deep in thought. He reached for his beer and slugged back a fair portion of it.
“Got it bad,” came a voice from his right. It was New York through and through and belonged to a gray-eyed beauty whose blond hair and gorgeous looks no doubt made most men underestimate her.
Tan didn’t, however.
He saw the sharpness in her gaze, the shrewdness in her expression. That, paired with the fact that she was one of the most famous lawyers in the country at the moment—having won a big case against a corporation who was taking advantage of their hourly employees, a case that was currently all over television—meant that he knew Bec Darden to be a very smart human.
“Heard about your case,” he said. “That was huge.”
A flash of white teeth. “Thanks,” she said. “But your pathetic attempts at distraction don’t work with me.”
“Becky baby,” her husband, Luke, said. “This isn’t the courtroom. Let the man enjoy his beer.”
The fierce lawyer wrinkled her nose. “But he’s got it bad.”
“Anyone within a three-mile radius can see that, but still, the man should get to enjoy his beer.”
Tanner sighed.
“But—”
“And I think I’ve had enough of tonight,” Tanner muttered and stood, crossing to his friend and Rachel. “Sorry to say, but jet lag is hitting hard.”
Bas started to stand. “I can drop you at your hotel.”
Tanner shook his head. “Stay. I’ll just grab my bag from your car and call a Lyft.”
Sebastian’s eyes flicked toward Kelsey, who was laughing with Abby. “Actually, maybe you can drive Kels home? She mentioned her car is here, and she doesn’t want to drink and drive. If you take her, she wouldn’t have to come and grab it in the morning. Her apartment is just a couple of blocks from your hotel.”
Sensible.
But hellish.
And yet, what could he say aside from, “Sure. Sounds like a plan.”
“If you even still have a valid license.”
Tan rolled his eyes. “I do.”
“And you’ve driven something more than a horse and wagon over the last year.”
“Does a Range Rover count?”
It was Sebastian’s turn to roll his eyes. “Always so fancy.”
“All I got.”
A snort before Bas turned to his sis and said, “Tanner will drive you home so you don’t have to come back for your car tomorrow.”
“I’m just going to get a—”
“You just told me you were leaving. Tanner is jet-lagged and needs to get to his hotel.” Bas smiled. “Two birds, one stone.”
Tan watched as Kelsey considered her options.
It didn’t take her as long as him to realize they didn’t have any. Either she went with this and pretended it was no big deal for a family friend to drive her home, or she admitted she didn’t want to be trapped in a car with Tanner and why that was.
She chose option one.
Plastering on her fake smile, she pushed back her chair and stood. On went the jacket, waves and goodbyes were extended all around, a hug to Abby, to her brother, to Rachel, then she scooped up her purse and turned for the front of the restaurant.
Tanner followed her, but not before he saw the knowing expression on Bec and Luke’s faces.
Yup.
He had it bad.
And he had the feeling that pretty soon everyone was going to know that.
Five
Kelsey
Hell.
A full seven circles.
Or maybe eight.
Ten?
Maybe that was a little far, after all. She may be trapped in a car with Tan, but it wasn’t like he was driving them over a cliff. In fact, he seemed to be maneuvering very carefully through the streets of the city.
They hadn’t talked except for her to give him the address.
Which was perhaps that eighth circle.
Sexual tension—on her part. Memories. Heartbreak.
Maybe ten wasn’t so out there after all.
But traffic wasn’t terrible, and they were nearing her place. Soon she could change into the cozy pajamas that Rachel had gotten her hooked on, down some water and preventative ibuprofen so she didn’t die tomorrow when she had to get up for work, and then turn on Outlander.
She was way behind and needed to get caught up before she got together with her friends on Friday.
Spoilers were the worst.
Right behind the silence in this car.
They slid to a stop at a red light, her staring out the window, him with his eyes on the road.
“Did I ever apologize to you?” he said.
Shit. Why hadn’t she turned on the radio? At least if she had, she could have pretended not to hear him. Instead, all she had was silence and a rapidly rising pulse.
Turn green. Turn green. Turn—
Fingers on her cheek.
“Kels.”
She kept her eyes pointed out the window, the prickly pear goodness was totally gone now, but she answered him. “No.”
A curse. “I’m an asshole.”
No denying that.
He chuckled darkly. “I’m guessing you agree.”
“Light’s green.”
The car moved. “Definitely agree.”
Kels sighed and leaned back against the seat. “Fuck, Tan, what do you expect? We spent the summer fooling around and hiding things from my parents and my brothers while you promised me we were building something more, something permanent.” She shook her head, hair catching on the fabric of her seat. “I know we were young and both made mistakes and that I reacted to you leaving like a spoiled brat. But I’ve apologized for that, and it also doesn’t change the fact that”—another sigh, her voice dropping—“you said we were more—”
He’d said she was everything.
“—and then you just threw it away.” Threw her away.
“You’re right.”
She froze, having expected him to latch onto the young and made mistakes part rather than agreeing with her.
“Yes, I was young and too fucking stupid to recognize exactly how good I had it. And”—he glanced in the mirror, changed lanes—“I was also a scared asshole who panicked because I had it so good. My head was messed up, Kels. My teenage and college fantasies were about you, and yet I spent every day pretending to just be your brother.”
Yeah, that had been a little strange.
She’d never thought of Tanner as her brother, but they had pretended their relationship was like that when her family was there. Partly because i
t was fun to sneak around, but mostly because they were too young and cowardly to declare themselves a couple.
Her brothers wouldn’t have liked it, and she didn't think her parents would have either, considering exactly how much time Tan and she had spent alone.
“We made a mess,” she said softly.
He snorted. “Yeah. A big one.”
“I liked the time we spent together.”
And just when she thought the prickly pear was out of her, she had to go and admit that. Kels bit her tongue until it stung, reading Tanner’s silence for exactly what it was. He’d liked it, too, but there was no going back.
“Like I said,” she added as he pulled into her underground garage, “it sucks that it went down that way, but it also was probably for the best.”
More silence. This time she didn’t break it with her blathering.
“My spot’s on the left. Six down.”
He parked, and she stifled a sigh. “Thanks for driving me back. If you’re going to walk, I’ll let you into the lobby so you can cut through to your hotel.” Her gaze drifted up and over to his.
He nodded.
Great.
She popped the door and hopped out, reaching back in and between the seats in order to grab her coat and work bag. The first went over her arm, the second . . . got snagged from her hand.
“I’ve got it,” Tanner said, gripping the rather large tote like it was a clutch. She shivered. It might have been nine years, but she distinctly remembered the feel of his touch, the sensation of those big, calloused fingers trailing down her skin, slipping between her thighs—
La. La. La.
Kels needed to focus and not on how good Tanner had been in bed, or how off the charts their chemistry had been.
She’d had good sex over the years. Not great. But it had been pretty damned good. Plus, she had Outlander to look forward to and a set of really good vibrators that would make her Jamie experience even better.
Tan reached across her and closed the door. Then he clicked the locks, handed her the keys, tossed his own bag over his shoulder, and picked up his duffle.
Her signal to move so they could get this over with.