by Emilia Finn
Walk away, Allyson! Turn around and go the hell away!
But I can’t. I won’t. Because as I walk the lush green grass of the lake not so far from the middle of town, I catch a glimpse of a man. Strong and broad, muscular and tanned. He works on his hands and knees, a hammer clutched in one hand, and a black ballcap turned backwards on his head so the brim taps his shoulders as he works.
He has no shirt on, but he wears blue jeans that fit his ass and thighs way better than any pair of jeans have ever fit me. And that’s annoying, considering I’ve dedicated my life to finding the perfect pair to wrap around my hips.
Well. Not my whole life. But still.
I walk the green grass now, with a towel slung over one arm, and my bikini beneath a sundress, teasing my skin and taunting me.
I came here with intentions to swim and cool off after a long day at the office.
I did not intend to see this man who occupies my thoughts even when I don’t want him to. But since he’s here…
Decision made, I alter my course away from the patch of shade under a large tree with drooping branches and leaves, and instead, make my way toward the dock. My flip-flops smack the bottoms of my feet as I move, and when I climb over the yellow warning tape trying to keep me out, I flash probably a little too much crotch to anyone watching.
I take care as I walk the rotting pier, step around protruding nails and over the flimsier-looking wooden planks. I drop my towel and keys on a section of wood that looks like it won’t fall through from a small gust of wind, so by the time I reach Luke and his movements finally stop, it’s just me in a sundress and flip-flops.
He was working, focused, relaxed, if not in somewhat of a meditative state. But now his shoulders tense, his breathing stops, and then his eyes begin their slow track from my feet, up along my legs. It’s like a physical touch; he only looks, but makes it seem tangible.
I see only the top of his head, then the top of his nose. His thick lips come next, and when his eyes slow around my crotch, and his tongue lashes out to moisten his lips, my heart gallops for just a moment.
Get it under control, Allyson. Cool your shit.
Luke pauses with his gaze on my crotch for a long time, but when he’s had his fill, he continues on, past my stomach, my chest, then throat. Then he stops on my lips, and flashes a wicked grin.
“Well, hello, Doogie.”
One part of me is woman. Hormonal, emotional, and not blind to this man’s beauty.
But another part, and perhaps that part is more dominant, is the therapist I’m aiming to be. The years I spent studying, the papers I wrote, the people I interviewed, the files I’ve spent my time poring over in Sonia’s office. It all coalesces and swirls in my mind, so when Luke says ‘Doogie,’ my hormones go forgotten, and rather, my educated brain kicks in.
“Why do you call me Doogie?”
He pushes up to his haunches, and drops his hammer to the pier until the plank I stand on vibrates. “Do you have photographic memory?”
“You mean eidetic?” I shake my head. “Nope. Do you?”
He wipes his hands on the thighs of his jeans and replaces his wicked smirk with something a little more real. “No. But Doogie Howser does.”
“Doogie Howser is a fictional sitcom, no? Make-believe. That’s almost like me asking if you sparkle in the sun and fight the urge to drink my blood because I smell so good.”
“You do smell good.” He draws in a long, chest-filling breath until tingles swirl in my stomach, then he lets it out again and shows off a goofy grin. “And I kinda sparkle in the sun.” He extends a muscular arm and makes it so the reflection of the water touches his skin. “See?”
“So I guess I’ll call you Edward?”
“Nah.” Grunting, he pushes to his feet and extends his legs, until I go from looking down, to looking way up and creating wrinkles when I’m forced to squint. “I’m also much too tanned to be mistaken as a vamp. I’m the wolf boy in that scenario.”
“Wolf boy didn’t get the girl.”
He scoffs. “He got what he wanted in the end. You looking to go swimming?”
“I was. But now I’m more interested in your ability to brush away my inquiries about Doogie Howser. Why do you call me Doogie?”
“Because I was theorizing with my brother about the beautiful redhead at the bakery.”
Frowning, I reach up and grab a lock of my hair. “Me?”
“Mm.” He smiles and takes a step closer. “So I was telling Rob about this chick, about how witty you are, how beautiful.”
“Rob is your brother, right?”
“Yes, Miss Deflective. He’s my brother. He’s the better one out of the two of us.”
I add that tidbit of information to my mental Luke Hart file. Not that his brother is the better one, but that Luke seems to think he doesn’t stack up in comparison.
“So he and I were chatting, and I said how I bet you’re smart, like a doctor or something. He said you were likely too young to be a doctor yet, though of course, you could be a student.”
“Which isn’t entirely wrong,” I add. “I’m still a student, but for a different degree.”
“Right. But I told him, nah, you’re way too smart for that shit. And that you’re likely a child genius. Doogie Howser came to mind, and that’s basically the whole story.”
“Except Doogie is fictional. We’ve already covered that, right?”
“Right.” He shrugs and drops his hands onto his hips. “It was just chatter between brothers, though I bet you’d be hot in a white coat.” He stops for a moment, and grins. “Ever considered doing a photoshoot, but with lingerie under that white coat?”
“No, though I suspect you’ve already put thought into it. In depth.”
“I hadn’t before right this minute, but just ‘cause my words aren’t as fast as yours doesn’t mean my brain didn’t tick that fantasy over real quick. You willing?”
“To do a photoshoot in a doctor’s coat and underwear?”
He nods.
“No. I’m not willing. But I appreciate that you asked and obtained a clear, unpressured answer. Women like that in a man.”
He smiles and brings a hand up to wipe above his lip. “Consent is sexy. It’s what all the women say.”
“All the women our age?” Another tidbit for my overprocessing brain. “Really? I can’t say that I heard that a lot while on campus. I mean, it was implied and all that, but I’m not sure I heard the words.”
“Nah, not those girls. I meant the women in my life.”
I lift a single brow. “You have a lot of those?”
He scoffs. “Dozens. My mom, my aunts, my cousins, my grandmother; they will belt a motherfucker if he interrupts during one of those talks. Consent is sexy, drunk girls can’t consent, sleeping with a woman who can’t say yes or no is rape. There’s no gray area. And in my family, if you try to step into that gray area, you’re a dead man. Being family does not give you a free pass to fuck around with that shit.”
I had no clue my stomach was cramping until it uncoils and my lungs expand. “I approve. That is sexy.”
“So, you wanna hook up now and get it over with, or…?”
I bark out a laugh that surprises us both. I should be embarrassed, or annoyed. I should be anything, but not laughing. “So, I’m glad you’re asking for consent. We’ve already established how I feel about that. But the ‘getting it over with’ is just…” I shake my head. “A tempting offer, but I’m going to have to pass.”
“Well, that’s no fun. You’re beautiful, your skin is like porcelain, but with, like…” He tilts his head. “A hint of a tan.”
“Tinted moisturizer.”
He nods, like my answer makes perfect sense. “You got dainty little hands, and I like how you painted your toenails.”
I look down at the sunflower yellow on my nails, then back up to him. “Strange thing for you to notice. But okay.”
“You’re new to town, and I doubt any of the idiots he
re have tainted you… yet. But it’s only a matter of time. I want first dibs.”
I take a single step back and scowl. “That might honestly be the most offensive, crass thing I’ve ever heard. You want first dibs before another man takes a swing? It’s not that you want first dibs for keeps, or to protect me. You just want to be first, rather than risk getting sloppy seconds?” I lift both brows and shake my head. “Wow.”
“That’s not what I…” He looks down at the foot of timber between us. “Yeah, okay. What I said was shitty.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you, Luke. Now, or later. First dibs, or sloppy seconds. Apart from the fact I feel like your offer lacks finesse, I’m also your therapist.” I hesitate. “Well, sort of. There are already ethics issues at play here, and in the real world, when I have my own office, sleeping with a client could be the reason I lose everything. So… no thanks.”
“Well, that’s lame. I didn’t ask you to be my therapist. In fact, I didn’t ask for a therapist, full stop.”
“Right. It’s court-ordered.” I lower to the pier and sit on the edge. Removing my flip-flops, I dangle my feet in the water and pretend that his answer isn’t of huge importance. I turn to him when he remains standing and silent. “Right?”
He lowers to his knees and picks up his hammer. “Correct. Court-ordered, and since I like Sonia, it’s not really a hardship to visit with her once a week.”
“There was mention of anger management, back in her office. True or false?”
“True, it was mentioned. But false. I don’t have anger issues. I might actually be the least angry guy I know. Have you met Ben Conner yet? That fucker is always angry.”
“Uh… no. I can’t say I’ve met him. He’s the fighter? I’ve seen his name on the television.”
“Yeah. He’s the fighter.” Luke begins pulling more nails and dropping them into a white bucket. “He was on the pro circuit a few years back, won himself a title or two.”
“Impressive.”
“Mm. He gave it all up when Evie, my cousin, decided she was starting her own tournament. She and Ben were already in love with each other, so there was no way he wasn’t gonna follow. Now they’re the face of Stacked Deck, and he’s earning way less than he used to.” Luke laughs. “That sucker took a massive pay cut, all in the name of love.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s always angry,” I surmise with a smile. “Money makes some people happy.”
Luke only snorts and tosses another nail into the bucket. “Nah. He’s happy. He got the girl, he got the baby, the family, the dream. He just gets angry when Evie pisses him off, or when his stepdad fucks his mom.” Luke lifts his head and looks into my eyes. “He gets big mad every time he hears about his mom’s sex life.”
“Funny,” I turn back to the water and smile. “My mother used to tell me about hers all the damn time. There are no boundaries with that woman.”
“Same.” He chuckles. “I mean, Mom doesn’t give me details or anything. But she sure as hell shows me the door when Dad crooks his finger. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. They’re banging now,” he adds, like it’s totally normal to discuss. “Like, right now. I was over at the house a little bit ago. They were bickering, then they were kissing, and I had to get my ass outta there before I saw too much.”
“It’s nice, though, right?” I swirl the still lake water with my toes. “Having parents who still love passionately, who are still in love with each other.”
“Mm. Your parents too?”
“Sort of. My mom married my stepfather back when I was a kid. He passed away a couple years ago, but I got to watch them together most of my life. They were very much in love. My mom is a hopeless flirt, and she teased him relentlessly, but she was head over heels in love with the guy with a receding hairline and a paunchy stomach, and I’m certain she made his toes curl at least once a day. I acted like it grossed me out, but inside, I smiled. She deserved a man like him. Every woman with baggage deserves a Stan in her life.”
“What baggage does she have?” The sound of a rusted steel nail hitting the inside of a plastic bucket becomes an almost white noise, a soothing ting-ting-ting. “Is it bad?”
I snicker and shake my head. “There’s much worse out there. My mom was a teenager when she found out about me. My biological dad ditched, I guess. Mom was kicked out of home, lived on the streets for a minute, then she had to claw her way up to living in a car, then living in a studio apartment. She busted her ass and kept ahold of me even when she worried the state would deem her unfit and take me away.” I look down at the water and smile. “She wasn’t gonna let me go.”
“Sounds like the perfect mom.”
“Yeah. She is. She’s crazy and silly and immature. She’s still pretty young, so she has the energy and sex drive to match. And then there was poor old Stan. He was ten years older than she, and he claimed he was just so, so tired.” I smile. “He wasn’t. And he loved her antics. But he couldn’t tell her that, so he played his role, and she played hers, and at the end of the day, they went to bed together and reminded each other why they said yes.”
“How did he feel about you?”
“About me?” I turn and study his eyes. Sunlight sparkles off the water and makes me wish I’d brought sunglasses. “How do you mean?”
“Did it bother him that his young wife had a grown daughter already?”
“Oh.” I turn back and shake my head. “No. Mom and Stan met when I was ten. For a bit, he wondered if she was my older sister. It took him a moment to understand, to wrap his head around it, but then he jumped in and became like a big brother, and then a dad.”
“Big brother first? Why?”
“You gotta remember, he was only thirty-five or so when they met. To you and me, thirty-five seems so far away. But in the grand scheme, it’s actually pretty young. So for him to have met me, this ten-year-old who enjoys debate, and writing essays, and riding scooters, and cooking dinner for her flakey mom, he had to become my friend first. I wasn’t a baby who would just coo and go to him because he opened his arms. I was a person with my own opinions and feelings. He had to prove himself worthy, and once he fell in love with my mom, he realized his happiness depended on my approval.”
I stop and grin. “He never once gave me reason to doubt him. He treated Mom like a queen – well, a crazy, probably-gonna-get-kicked-off-her-throne-for-being-so-weird queen – and in my first year of college, before he died, he phoned me most days and called me ‘Slugger’. We were friends, genuinely, and if, by some crazy circumstances, he’d lived but they’d split, I would have still been his friend.”
“Unless he was a prick and the reason they split.”
“Well, yeah.” I laugh. “In which case I would have ended his life by burying him in a corn silo.”
“Freakishly specific.” He snorts. “Did you choose that because of how the corn fills the silo and compresses in on him? It’s like drowning, but without water.”
“Yup. I had it all planned out. A daddy-daughter field trip to the local corn farm, an ‘oops, I dropped my sunglasses in the silo’. The rest would have taken care of itself.”
“Well, you sound completely sane and not at all homicidal. Should I be afraid?”
“Only if you snitch.”
He stops working, and his eyes snap up to bore into mine for so long that I crack and ask, “What?”
“First word that comes to mind when I say snitch?” he asks.
“Ditch.” I look back to the water. “Snitches end up in ditches, duh. What’s your word?”
“Well…” It’s cute how this guy who is seemingly high-energy can manage to look so chilled out and lazy on this pier. Slow movements, easy smiles, productivity, but without the exertion. “I tend to start with stitches,” he explains. “Let a fool redeem himself. But if he doesn’t, then I head to ditches.”
“Fair call. You give people a second chance. That’s a romantic notion.”
“You’re still analyzing my brain.”
“Sounds awesome.” The tone he uses implies it’s not awesome at all. “Don’t analyze my brain. It annoys me.”
“It only annoys you because to everyone else, you play a role. Young, wild, a little bit dangerous.”
“Pfft.” He scoffs. “Little bit dangerous? Woman, I’ll have you know I’m the baddest motherfucker in this town.”
“A bad motherfucker, I think, doesn’t need to announce he’s bad. He’s just… his behavior and interactions speak for themselves. I think you’re a teddy bear, Luke. A romantic, but you’re a little too young to settle down, so you keep the romance away for fear someone will get attached. I think you’re a family man through and through, a sweetheart, and just so you know, I’ve read the notes from your earlier sessions with Sonia. I saw the court manuscripts; you were defending a woman when you got into that fight.”
“I was fucking a taken woman, and when her boyfriend found out about it, he got mad.”
“Yes.” I flatten my lips and brush away his need to be crass. “You were searching for, and had found, another way to be with someone, but it was safe, because the fact she was someone else’s meant neither of you were at risk of catching feelings. It was fun and fast and wild, and I doubt you’d planned to ever see her again.”
“Stop analyzing me.”
“You had no feelings for this woman, you intended to walk away and never see her again. But then her boyfriend walks in, and suddenly, you’re forced to decide to ditch this poor girl to deal with the anger herself, or you…” I let my sentence trail off.
Very few people can handle the pressure, the heat of such a dangling premise.
“I couldn’t just walk away!” he explodes. “Dammit, Allyson. Shut the fuck up with your fancy education.” He pops to his feet and storms along the pier in search of… well, I suspect he wants me to think tools. But what he actually wants is a second to breathe and find his control.
I climb to my feet with a smile, leave my things exactly where they are, and I follow him along the pier. He’s like a wild animal, trapped in a cage. And unfortunately for me, this analogy demands I’m the cruel person on the outside, poking him with a stick.