Game Changer

by Stewart, Sylvie

  The queen-size bed I’m having delivered on Friday will allow just enough room for my old walnut dresser and bedside table in the cozy bedroom. And, while I don’t have a bathtub, the owners installed an amazing rainfall showerhead in the newly tiled shower and a bench seat perfect for propping a leg on while shaving. What more does a girl need?

  I’ll figure out some way to fit all my cookware and food in the available cabinet space, and my hands are already itching to cook my first meal on the gas stove. The newly refinished oak floors gleam and the whole place is almost spotless, I’m pleased to see. My dance marathon continues in the living room/dining area while I mentally plan how to arrange my kitchen table and couch to create two distinct spaces. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I know it’ll be fab.

  Now all I need is my stuff. Iris left this morning and is stopping in Virginia to stay with a college friend tonight before making the final leg tomorrow to Manhattan. I scheduled the afternoon off so we can unpack the trailer and get everything moved in. As far as furniture goes, there really isn’t much besides my small couch, kitchen table and chairs, and a couple more pieces, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a cold snap to magically hit anyway so we don’t expire from the combination of exertion and heat. I thought about trying to recruit some help, but I don’t really know anyone well enough to beg a moving-sized favor. Those are usually reserved for people you’re either related to, sleeping with, or have some serious blackmail material on. Kate said she could help and she’d ask Zach, but the James girls are badasses and we can handle it ourselves.

  Badass though I may be, I’m still a complete coward as well. When I left McKinley Forge and Design last night, it was with the knowledge that Mac fully expects me to contact Jonathan and hand over my new address—something I have yet to do. Part of the reason is that I don’t feel comfortable accepting his gift, no matter how stunning it is. The other part is that I’m a big fat baby and can’t handle the notion of that man coming over to “take me out.” I haven’t let myself even begin to fathom what a date with Angus McKinley might entail. So I’m stalling.

  But if even a tenth of my impression of Mac is accurate, he’s not a man to let a little thing like a missing address get in his way. Which scares the ever-loving crap out of me. Do I really want to further an association with a man as overwhelming as I know him to be? It not only sounds like a hell of a lot of work, it also promises to make me feel on shakier ground than I am already. One life upheaval at a time is enough—I don’t need to be concerned with nailing anything other than this job.

  I walk over to my living room windows and look out at my new view. I can see over part of a small courtyard from a building behind mine and straight into the window of an apartment across the way. I’ll be adding curtains to my list of things to buy so I can walk around in my underwear if the mood strikes. And it often does. The only thing better than dancing to a favorite playlist in your apartment is doing it half-naked. Everybody knows that.

  “Hotel Key” switches over to “All on Me” by Devin Dawson and I’m swaying at the window with my arms wrapped around myself. The song reminds me so much of home it almost hurts. I used to listen to it so often even Cookie knew all the words by the time I left Savannah. I can almost smell her orange-blossom perfume and the lobelia that would be blooming just about now around some of the city’s famous squares and the Violette Inn’s back garden. We’d buy lavender shortbread cookies from Back in the Day and Mama would make sweet tea and we’d all sit out in the back garden planning menus and re-telling the same stories about Granddaddy Rutledge—God rest his soul—while the summer air stuck to our skin and the honeybees sang.

  Hearing the buzz of a bee over the cacophony of the city streets and crowds would be an impossibility here, as would relaxing out back in a tranquil garden with Cookie or Mama. But I can find my own moments here. And somebody in this city is bound to have a good lavender shortbread and a real sweet tea, right?

  My phone rings, breaking through the music. Since I had to leave early to get my apartment keys, I asked reception to forward my calls for the afternoon. Nevertheless, my heart takes off in a sprint at the possibility it could be Mac. But, really, it’s probably a robocall offering me enough credit to buy half of Manhattan and throwing in an all-expense paid cruise to a war-torn nation while they’re at it.

  “Hello?” My voice is tentative at best.

  “Ms. James?”

  “Yes?” I almost phrase it as a question because this is no robocall and I’m pretty sure I recognize that voice.

  “Jonathan Abernathy. Mr. McKinley needs your address for delivery of an item you…” He trails off and I bite my lip hoping he just decides to hang up. I hear typing and an annoyed huff before he continues. “Hold please.”

  The phone goes silent before I even have a chance to speak. Without my music, the street sounds seep through the windows and fill the empty space around me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the constant din. Maybe if I got one of those nature sound machines, like the ones with whales singing? Oh, or maybe the rainforest would be better. But, no, that would just make me need to pee.

  “Ms. James,” Jonathan all but spits out, like I’m inconveniencing him by my mere existence.

  “I’m here.”

  “Your address, please.”

  “I…” I begin, but I don’t know what to say. If I give him the address, Mac will undoubtedly show up on my doorstep, chair in hand and God knows what else planned.

  Jonathan sighs in exasperation, not that I blame him entirely. I mean, how hard is it to say your address? But he’s still kind of a jerk.

  “Look, do you want your free chair or not? If not, I know plenty of people who—”

  I cut him off with, “Fine,” because even though I know I shouldn’t accept the chair, something in me doesn’t want anybody else to have it either. I rattle off my address before he wishes me a good day in a tone that reads more like he’s wishing me an afternoon in line at the DMV with the unwashed hordes.

  Why would Mac have someone so rude working for him?

  I laugh at my own question. Proper manners are clearly not a priority in Angus McKinley’s world, so Jonathan’s winning attributes must lie elsewhere. His rudeness probably keeps the riffraff out, so maybe that’s it. Mac is free to carry on alone as the beast of his domain while Jonathan and his bad attitude guard the gates and Elle smooths the way for normal humans.

  The thought of Elle has my stomach plummeting. Does she know Mac takes women “out”? At the feeling in my belly, my resolve strengthens. I’ll just have to explain to him that I don’t date, that I’m working on my career and don’t have time for…

  Good grief. Men like Mac probably don’t date anyway. They just drop in women’s apartments and destroy their beds before vanishing into thin air to go forge manly things in blazing fire.

  All the more reason to tell him I’m not interested. I’ll simply explain myself and say thanks but no thanks to both the chair and the taking-me-out thing and move on with my life.

  Easy peasy.

  Yeah, not even I believe that crock of shit.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, I’ve missed you so much!” Iris shrieks.

  We practically collide as we bound toward one another, smiling like a couple of crazies. I wrap my arms around her and squeeze way too hard, but I can’t help myself. We haven’t seen each other in almost three weeks, the longest stretch I reckon we’ve ever gone. We both went to college in Savannah and, apart from trips here and there, it’s where we’ve lived since we were born. Even when we were both busy with our own lives and our own jobs, we always made time for family—always.

  I pull back and take her face in my hands to look her over. Her blond tresses have gotten longer and she’s wearing them straight. She also got an eyebrow piercing, something that makes me laugh.

  “Good lord, look at you! What inspired this?”

  She doesn’t need to ask what I’m talking about. “Yo
u ran off to New York. I had to rebel in some way too.”

  I shake my head and let go of her. “Like you’ve ever toed the line, Rissy.”

  She sticks her tongue out to the side and smiles at me before gesturing back to her SUV with the U-Haul trailer attached. “We better find a place for this sucker before I get towed.”

  A car horn blares from behind us, making me wince. Iris is double parked outside my new building and I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me until this very moment to figure out what the heck to do with the vehicle and trailer. There’s zero parking in Manhattan as far as I’ve been able to see. I bite my lip and think on it, but nothing comes to mind.

  Reading my thoughts, Iris jumps back in the driver’s seat. “Come on. We’ll drive around the block while we figure it out.” I follow as I pull my phone out and call Kate. She’s lived here long enough to know what to do.

  By the time I reach Katelyn and get an answer, Iris has driven around the block three times, doling out princess waves to people as we pass and making a general fool of herself. Despite my worry about the trailer, I can’t help laughing at her. Kate tells me to park in front of a fire hydrant while we unload, so I pass the info on to Iris so we can both keep an eye out for a hydrant.

  “But make sure someone stays with the car at all times or your belongings will go conveniently missing,” Kate advises. When her words are met with complete silence, she figures out real quick we don’t have a third.

  “Oh no. I would come and be your lookout, but I got called into a meeting that starts in ten minutes. I’m so sorry, Poppy. Do you want me to call Zach?”

  I chew on my thumbnail as Iris turns the corner onto my street again.

  “I see a hydrant!” She points to a spot down a ways from my building.

  I don’t see the hydrant but it’s only because my eyes have caught on something else—a tall denim and t-shirt clad man climbing out of a black pick-up truck right in front of my building. Without thinking, I duck down in the passenger seat and squeak, “It’s okay, Kate. We’ll figure it out,” then hang up the phone.

  “What the hell are you doin’?” Iris gives me the side-eye before effortlessly gliding into what I assume is the parking spot in front of the fire hydrant and putting the SUV in park. She turns toward me with her eyebrows at her hairline.

  “Um…” I begin. “I forgot to tell you somebody might be stopping by.”

  Her eyes shoot directly to Mac as if he were a living, breathing homing beacon. “Holy balls!” She squints. “Is that… him?”

  “If by him you mean the hot blacksmith who moonlights as the witness to my every humiliating misstep as a New Yorker, then yes, that’s him,” I croak.

  “Ooooh my.” She blinks and then brings her eyes back to me. “He’s even bigger in person.”

  I give her an uh-doi look from my crouched position.

  “He’s going to the building.” Her eyes flash back to me. “Wait, why does he get to double park and we don’t?”

  Does she need a repeat of the uh-doi?

  Iris pulls on my arm and ignores my recoil. “What are you doing? Let’s go meet the hottie!” She opens her door and I go into panic mode.

  “No,” I try to protest but she’s pulling my door open and yanking on my arm. “Iris, I can’t!”

  “Of course you can! You are such a big liar.” She shakes her head at me. “You said he hated you.”

  I grip my seatbelt for dear life. “Turns out I was wrong.” Now he just wants to give me furniture and eat me for lunch.

  Her shit-eating grin is annoying as all get-out. “You have two seconds to get your sexy little butt out of that car or I’m calling him over to haul you out himself.”

  I gasp and grip the seatbelt even tighter. “You wouldn’t!” But I’ve met her before and she so would.

  She turns her head and cups a hand around her mouth, drawing in a huge breath.

  “No! Fine! I’ll go! Just hush your mouth.”

  The grin is back, and I gingerly unfasten the seatbelt before slinking out of the car and running a hand over my hair.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like a hot mess,” she responds without hesitation. “But emphasis on the hot.”

  I meant to dress to kill, but then got all up in my own head. I didn’t need to look sexy or cool to send Mac away so why bother? But now I’m regretting my decision to wear a ponytail, cut-offs, and my threadbare t-shirt that says “Kiss my grits.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Nothing I can do about it now.

  Iris practically frog marches me over to where I can now see Mac buzzing my empty apartment. I don’t know that I’d ever tire of the back view of that man—or the front for that matter.

  He’s in his uniform of thigh-hugging denim and t-shirt, this time a dark gray one, and he’s wearing work boots that have suffered countless scuffs and scratches. He’s got his keys in one hand while the other pushes my button (ha!), his eyes trained on his boots.

  “Why in heavens would you be avoiding that?” Iris whispers in my ear and I smack her hands off my shoulders.

  Mac still hasn’t seen us but I’m too close to run away now, even without my jailer behind me, so I figure the sooner I start this the sooner he’ll leave and I can breathe again.

  I take a deep inhale and force a casual tone. “Hi.” I follow this with a wave only slightly less corny than Iris’s princess wave.

  His eyes lift from his boots and to the side and my womb pulses like a heartbeat. I vaguely hear a whispered “Whoa” from behind me but all my senses are focused in one direction. Exactly why was it a bad idea for Mac to be here? I honestly can’t remember.

  Twelve

  “Speechlessness is God’s way of saving you from your own self.” – Cookie Rutledge

  “Poppy.” The word is low and gruff and in that moment I’m thanking my mama for giving me a name with so many Ps in it—because when it leaves his mouth it looks like his lush bottom lip is kissing my damn name.

  I swear if Iris weren’t pressing herself against my back I might go and mount the beast right there on my sidewalk. But she is, so I grasp her arm and pull her to my side with a jerk, almost causing her to fall on her face. “This is my sister, Iris. Iris, this is Angus McKinley.”

  “Mac,” he corrects with a chin dip.

  “Mac,” Iris repeats. Thank you! At least I’m not the only one who repeats his words back to him.

  “We’re, uh, moving my stuff in.” I gesture awkwardly between the building and the SUV.

  Mac’s eyes narrow. “Who’s we?”

  Iris is still standing there staring so I respond for both of us. “Me and Iris.”

  He makes a noise in his throat and Iris’s eyes all but bug out of her face. Then he raises an index finger and pulls a phone from his pocket. Iris is squeezing my elbow so hard I’m gonna need a sling tomorrow, but I send her a silent look telling her to calm the hell down while I try listening to Mac’s conversation.

  It pretty much consists of a couple “yeah”s and my address. Who is he inviting over? Iris hasn’t even seen the place yet for goodness sake.

  His eyes finally come back to us and Iris strikes an overly casual pose.

  “Leave the trailer. Let’s get the chair up.”

  My mouth twists to the side and I brace. “Um, about that.”

  Mac freezes and lifts that damn single brow again. I want to lick it, which I know is all sorts of weird.

  “I know you came all this way, but I’ve been thinking on it and I don’t feel right taking the chair. I mean, at least let me pay for it. How much does it cost?” I reach for my phone so I can maybe PayPal him my firstborn or something.

  His eyes have narrowed again and both hands rest naturally at his thighs while his left cheek does that tick thing. “Thirty-five hundred.”

  “Thirty-five…” I shove my phone back in my pocket faster than Cookie can spot a store-bought cake. “That may be a tad over budget for me.”

  “What chair?” Iris asks, hel
pful as ever.

  It’s just the excuse Mac is looking for because he strides to his truck without hesitation and hoists himself up and into the bed as gracefully as if he grew up scaling mountains in the Alps or whatever. He unhooks some straps and then yanks a drop cloth off the remarkable piece of furniture.

  Iris forgets all about her initial Mac-induced shock as she approaches the truck bed. “Pretty. Did you make this?”

  Mac does another one of his nods. “Been waiting for the right owner.” His eyes dart back to me and I’m stunned speechless.

  He thinks I’m that owner. Gah!

  Without another word, he slides the chair to the end of the tailgate and hops down off the truck where he hoists it up in his arms. The movements cause his biceps to bulge and test the seams of his shirt while his back muscles visibly ripple beneath the fabric.

  Iris’s eyes widen again and she mouths, “I’ll cut you if you don’t hit that,” just as Mac asks, “Can you get the door?”

  I haul ass, telling myself I’m only doing it because I’m afraid he might drop the chair and ruin it. But I know I’m lying.

  “I’ll stay with the truck,” Iris says to Mac’s back while miming dirty hand signals to me.

  I roll my eyes at her and follow him in.

  “I’m on the third floor.”

  He’s already on his way up the stairs and I’m treated to a close-up view of his thighs stretching the denim to its limit while his butt works in those jeans. Let me tell you, his gym or his studio or wherever the hell he does all his workouts should be named a holy place if they produced the other-worldly eye candy climbing up my stairs. There’s not a flat inch of… anything in sight and I would bet Cookie’s Anna Weatherley teacup collection that he’s got those two back dimples above his muscular buttcheeks.