by Katy Evans
A sad smirk appears. “Hell, Regina, I’m the last one qualified to judge anyone’s relationships.”
I duck my head, unable to look him in the eye.
I think he mistakes that for sadness, for when he speaks again, he sounds frustrated as he rises to his feet, walks up to me, and takes my shoulder in one hand, lifting my chin with the other. “Come on. That motherfucker isn’t worth it. You deserve so much better, Regina.” The admiration in his eyes nearly undoes me.
I want his lips. I want his hands all over me. I want his heart. His wounded beautiful heart he’s put on a shelf where nobody can reach it.
Being with him lately only hurts, only makes me realize nothing of what I’ve ever felt before was real, nothing was like this, nothing compares. It was a little flicker compared to a wildfire. A tiny prick of pain compared to a whole throbbing, all-consuming ache.
“You look even more beautiful when you’re upset,” he says softly, seizing my chin again, eyes perceptive and deep. The warmth of his gaze echoes in his voice. I’m enthralled by what I see there, swirling in his eyes. There’s a primal ferocity in his look, a hunger like I’ve never seen in a man’s eyes before. “Though I’m not too happy for you to be upset over a guy like Davis. A guy who…hell, any guy doesn’t deserve you being upset over him. Do you hear me?” he says in warning, his left eyebrow rising a fraction.
I groan. “You act as if I’m this perfect little thing. I’m not. Okay, now I’m leaving, grumpy,” I say.
“No, you’re not.” He grabs my shoulders, guides me back into the bathroom, and forces me to face the mirror and look at my own reflection. After a confused moment, I look up at his.
Sternly, he says, his voice brushing warm just above my earlobe, “Now her.”
“I’m not going to your silly masquerade party…”
“Come on, Regina. I’m imagining a beautiful silver mask here for this beautiful lady.” He touches my cheekbone, once again looking at me through the mirror.
He’s so tall. The most striking black mask with silver and gold swirls covers the top of his face. The rest is scruff, and blue eyes, and chiseled and male.
“What am I supposed to mask myself as?”
He grins a mischievous smirk. “Exactly what you are now. An angel.” He leans to whisper in my ear as he tugs playfully on my halo. “Soon to be fallen.” The corners of his lips curve into a demon’s grin. “Come on, let’s go.”
I groan in complaint but feel a reluctant smile on my lips. “I’ll go, but I’m not painting my face.”
He’s surprised by that, I can tell.
I guess I’m just as surprised.
“I’m tired of painting my face, Tahoe.” Suddenly I just want him to see me, the real me, all of me, bare.
And I want him to like what he sees…
I don’t know where the thought comes from. It surprises me so much that I keep it to myself.
I text my coworkers to let them know I can’t make it. I leave my stuff at his apartment. We take the elevator downstairs—me dressed in white, him in black. Me with curly black hair, him with beautiful blond hair. Opposites, really. Him tall and muscled, me shorter and curvy.
So why does it always feel so right?
The party is in an apartment in Tahoe’s building, five floors below. The moment the apartment door opens and we step into the shimmering crowd and the pulsing music, a girl rushes him. She pries Tahoe’s cape off his neck and twirls it around herself, but he just laughs and retrieves it and swings it around his shoulder.
I try to ignore the sensation of having swallowed a brick. He’s a ladies’ man, and ladies’ men attract ladies, effortlessly, that’s what he does.
He makes such a wicked demon, and a beautiful phantom, but as we walk side by side through the costumed crowd, all I see is Tahoe Roth. The man I think of constantly. The man who lights me up.
Jack-o’-lanterns stuck on fake pikes flare with electric candles all across the room. People dance, drink, and make out.
We head to the dance floor and as girls start recognizing him by the eyes, the beard, the height, they start yelling happily, shouting, “Trick or treat?” and trying to get a kiss.
I walk away—sick of seeing the guy I want kissing everyone but me—when I hear him say, “Not tonight,” and when I turn around, I realize he’s pried free of them and is heading my way. The look in his eyes makes me breathless.
Is it chilly in here? My nipples stiffen under my top. I’ve never seen Tahoe stalk so slowly, but reach me so fast.
He curls his hand around the back of my neck and guides me to the dance floor. “Dance with me,” he whispers in my ear.
He grasps the neck of my heavy gown and tugs me forward until our bodies are flush and warm against each other. His body heat envelops me, head to toe. I slip my hands up his shoulders and into his hair. And we move…his eyes caressing me…making love to me in ways no man I’ve ever been with ever did with his whole body…
Dancing always makes me feel sexy. Dancing with Tahoe, however, has a whole other level of sexy attached to it. His fluid moves and the animal magnetism he emanates make me not only feel sexy, but sexual.
I dance and let go but at the same time, I try to repress the feelings of longing and desire awakening in my body.
His cape billows around us. He holds my back and looks at me, only me, as we sway. I know that I’m not classically pretty. I’m considered more sultry, but Tahoe’s stare right now makes me feel as if I’m both—as if I deserve to be deliciously fucked and wonderfully protected. And as if he wants to be the man to do both.
For the first time I don’t feel guilty about being held by him in front of the world. I don’t feel guilty that my fingers want to crawl deeper into his hair, and I press my cheek into his chest and he presses his jaw into my hair, in the center of my halo, and inhales me.
“You want to know something?” he says with a sly smile, tipping my chin to his. “All the work put into dressing up, right now I just want to be me. And I just want you to be you.” He tugs on my halo and loosens it from my hair, smiling in mischief as he drops his cape along with my halo and sweeps me around the dance floor, leaving them behind.
I punch him and tell him, “You’re so silly,” but when he grabs my face and rubs my lipstick a little bit, as if he wants to get rid of the little makeup I’m wearing tonight, I ache.
He’s my best friend. The only person I love to be with, want to be with, always. He’s the only man I’ve ever wanted like this.
I stop his hands and lower them.
I step back so I can look into his eyes, and his smile wavers on his face—he’s still standing there with that black mask, but his eyes are all him, all blue, and all on me. I feel a prick of wetness in my eyes as every single feeling that I have for him flames and burns inside me.
“I love you.” I try to hold his gaze with all the honesty and strength that I can muster. “Touch me now. Hold me now. Love me. Let yourself love me. I’m scared too.”
My voice breaks, and suddenly, as his stormier-than-ever blue eyes look at me, I feel more bare and naked than I have ever felt in my life.
And the next thing I know, I gasp in a rush.
“I can’t believe I just blurted that…Tahoe, I’m sorry, I… I have to go.”
And I turn around and shoulder my way to the front door, wishing that I indeed had wings that could fly me out of there.
* * *
My beautiful apartment creaks and croaks all night. Or maybe it’s just my conscience, or my mind, replaying every detail of the evening. Tahoe, Tahoe, Tahoe, Tahoe…
I don’t sleep one wink.
I miss him already. I feel like I lost him already. His incredibly honest friendship. His addictive teasing of me. His sporadic appearances in my life, which always lit me up and made me aware of how glum the second before he appeared actually was.
My makeup kit, my cell phone, everything of mine is still at Tahoe’s place. I was lucky I had given the ex
tra key to my new apartment to one of my neighbors. I know I’ll have to get my stuff back soon, but luckily I’ve got a credit card tucked away and some cash on hand too. I feel weird without my cell phone—but I can’t find the courage to stop by and pick it up yet.
* * *
In the morning, I go see baby Kyle at the Saints’ place to try to clear my head. I’ve got so much on my mind and such a heavy sensation in the center of my chest that holding him makes me feel better. Holding a baby always does. I also simply craved seeing Rachel. She’s my best friend, and no marriage or babies will ever change that.
I tell her that I’ve broken up with Trent for good. I know both Wynn and Rachel have probably suspected that I’ve had strong feelings for Tahoe for a long time, though I’d never actually told them that I do.
I think they both knew that I was not ready to admit it, even to myself.
“And I told Tahoe I loved him yesterday,” I say quietly as I set the sleeping little baby back into his crib.
Rachel’s eyes widen in surprise.
“I didn’t say it so that he would say it back or anything, but I felt like a hypocrite, being friends and yet not being able to just tell him how I feel. Now…I don’t know if I regret it.”
Rachel heads across the baby’s room—beautifully decorated with a jungle painted on his wall and a plush giraffe as tall as I am—and she grabs the Kleenex on top of his changing table.
“No, silly, don’t. I’m not going to cry.” I wave it off, but only because I refuse to have the option of using them. “I didn’t go to work,” I add. “I asked Martha for a few days. I want to think things through. After what I said, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t want to lose his friendship.”
“Saint went to see him this morning.”
“Oh. Saint went to see Tahoe?”
Rachel nods. “He called him at two a.m. saying he needed to talk.” When I say nothing, she shrugs. “I’m not sure that they’ll talk about anything, really. When guys are bummed, sometimes they want to sit and drink in silence and just have a buddy nearby.”
“I guess,” I say.
“You know what? I think you need to just be with yourself while you sort out things in your head, Gina. You’ve been so busy with work, and Trent was another distraction from maybe figuring out what it is you really want—and what you want to do about it. Please, if you don’t take anything else from me ever again, please just accept going to our house in the Hamptons, Gina. I’ll arrange transportation—just go clear your head.”
And so I take her advice, and that afternoon, I accept her offer to fly me up to the Hamptons for a weekend.
CHECKED
The following morning I decide to sit down on the window bench and read Gone Girl with a cup of hot coffee by my side. I had French toast for breakfast and am enjoying this time on my own to regroup and think about how to maybe, slowly, try to rebuild my friendship with Tahoe.
I’ve wondered endlessly whether or not I did the right thing in telling him I love him. I feel like the world opened up and swallowed me, but I also feel relief that I finally came clean, even if what I said was not what he wanted to hear.
I’m still thinking of the look on his handsome face when the words left me, the shock and almost concern (for me, I’m sure it was for me). I can’t concentrate on the book on my lap. I’ve been staring at it for a while when I hear the sound of tires and a rumbling car motor.
I peer out the window and watch a tall man emerge from a silver Audi rental.
He’s wearing black jeans and a black long-sleeved crewneck. It’s hard to breathe when the man walking to the front door is the one I wanted to get away from this weekend.
A familiar triple knock startles me.
I force myself to put the book down, walk to the door, inhale deeply, and open it.
He fills the space outside like he is a god and like he is at the center of everything. Our eyes lock, and I suddenly realize I’m makeup-less, in my pajamas, my heart flipping helplessly at the sight of him.
I can’t think when he looks at me, with wounded blue eyes and a thoughtful frown.
I press my lips tight with nothing to say, then turn around and let him in.
I don’t know what’s happening, what I was getting into when I told him I loved him. Two broken parts can’t make a whole and I know it.
We were friends. And now how can we be friends after what I said?
He’s silent and so am I, two broken people, a little angry at whatever hurt them, having nothing to vent and no one to punch, not really.
The wood floor creaks as he stalks so close at my heels that I can almost hear my personal bubble pop. My lungs strain for air as he stops me and slips his fingers up my cheek and cups the side of my face.
“Don’t,” I warn.
He kisses my cheek.
“Don’t.”
He kisses my other cheek.
“Tahoe, don’t.”
He goes for my mouth and I turn my face away. His kiss lands on my cheek, and against my skin, he inhales.
His arms come around me, stronger than if they were steel.
The feeling of being engulfed by something uncontrollable seizes me.
“Are you upset with me?” he asks fiercely in my ear, turning my face.
I’m trying to talk without allowing my voice to reveal any of the chaos I’m feeling. “Why would I be—”
“For being such a messed-up fuck.” He looks at me. His perfect face is only an inch from mine. He sets a peck on my lips and my breath leaves me in a hurry.
“You’re not. I’m not upset. I just want to be alone a little bit, okay? We’re okay. You and I are okay, we’re friends and we’ll always be friends.”
He holds my face in both hands as if to make sure I won’t avoid him this time. “So easy, you give up on me, huh? You tell me you love me and run away—why? Did I not have a right to say something back?”
I press my lips in stony silence.
“Well, you’re going to have to hear it, lady.”
I exhale.
“First I have to say I missed you,” he says, his voice dropping. “You’re like an insistent little trickle of water, soaking into every inch of my life. I can’t look anywhere without noticing your absence, Regina.”
Just hearing his voice makes me oddly emotional and makes my throat ache. “I missed you too, Tahoe.”
He drags a hand over his bearded jaw, drops it and fists it at his side. “You just up and disappeared. Don’t do that to me again, Regina.”
“I didn’t disappear, I’ve been right here. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”
“I’m not anyone, and I was worried about you.”
He looks restless, all of his energy crackling around him, around us as he silently wills me to understand with his gaze.
“Okay,” I say.
“So,” he spreads his arms out, “girl,” he laughs, “you’ve checked me so hard I can’t even think straight anymore. You’ve been checking me left and right this whole year and I fucking can’t even think straight anymore, Regina.
“I love you.” He looks at me. “I love every part of you. I could be a thousand miles away from you, stay away from you my whole life, put an ocean between us, take a million other women in my arms, and you’re still the one I want, the only woman on my mind.”
He scrapes his beard. He seems nervous, rubbing the back of his neck restlessly.
“See, I was in love once. I never thought I was good enough for her. We were kids, puppy love.” His voice lowers. “But even in puppy love, love shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t need you to change.” His eyes shimmer like blue lightning. “I’ve learned that with you. Love should make you feel good about yourself and about the person you are when you’re with the one you love. Love should make you feel accepted as you are.”
His stare bores into me. “You know my every side, you’ve seen me in every way, and you let me see you the way you let no man see you.
And somehow we still crave to be with each other. Not because I’m broken and I make you feel good about yourself…because I’m not broken with you. You get me and I get you. I accept you, I cherish you. I fucking revere you. Just as you are. I want no other woman in my life and I want you to have no man but me. So I love you.” He exhales rapidly. “And I fucking love the way you look right now. I love that smile of yours most of all.”
I’m both smiling and crying and getting the little makeup I’m wearing all messed up. “Did you have to say this right now?”
His arms engulf me in the most delicious way. “Yes. Now.”
He rubs my lips with his thumb. He lifts me and twirls me like he did when he said I was his lucky charm, then he stops and slowly lets my body drag down the length of his as he sets me on my feet.
Our eyes latch, so intently and with such hunger that our laughter drifts off.
His smile fades as my own smile fades.
A pool of yearning swirls in my stomach as I notice the shifting blues in his eyes until I can hardly see anything at all, only his pupils, dark as night and eating me alive.
He squeezes the arm around my waist. He captures my face in his other hand, looking at my mouth. His palm is warm.
I lift my head.
Before I know it, I’m kissing him.
We both make a sound; he makes a deep, hungry sound, and I release a startled whimper, but we won’t tear our lips away. He takes my hand in one of his and puts it on the back of his neck, drawing me closer. And he nibbles my lips, and he kisses my lips, and everything I knew about kissing is shattered as sparks shoot throughout me, fire races in my veins, my toes curl, my heart pumps, my whole body is one giant aching ball of need.
He gathers me close and I can’t stop kissing him.
He scrapes his thumb over my lips as if to make sure there’s no lipstick between us, only his lips and my lips. He looks at me, his chest stretching his shirt with each breath.
I could not possibly be more receptive as he starts to move his hand down my curves, savoring me.