by Addison Fox
Fender shifted his attention to Daphne, and at his megawatt smile she understood why more than a few women moped around Park Heights with broken hearts. “I’m glad we had a chance at dinner. My brother’s a good guy and all, but you keep me in mind if things don’t work out.”
She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Count on it.”
Within moments, she and Landon were out on the street and wending their way through the neighborhood. Where their evening had been full of a fun, convivial air, their departure from the End Zone had been an almost frantic rush. “You sure you didn’t want to say good-bye to Nick before we left?” Daphne asked.
“Dating isn’t a spectator sport. He knows that. Hell, he lived it a freaking month ago.”
“It’s no big deal. I’m used to the fishbowl of family.” She reached for his hand. “Speaking of which, I owe you a formal invitation to my parents’ Fourth of July blowout.”
“Sure. Yeah. Of course.” Landon slowed, his long-legged strides from the restaurant finally easing up. “I saw your mom today. She formally invited me.”
“You saw my mother?” Whatever puzzlement she’d carried at their hasty exit coalesced in her stomach, throwing her completely off guard and off her game. She’d seen his mother today but wasn’t quite prepared to talk about it. “Like, today?”
“She was at Stewey’s Diner at lunch, same as me. Came over and introduced herself and invited me.”
“And you believed her?”
“About the invite?” Landon’s confusion seemed genuine, so Daphne forced herself to take a quiet breath.
“No, about lunch. You think she just happened upon you?” When her questions brought no answers, Daphne pressed on.
“The woman has spies everywhere, planted all around the borough. Between her large family and all the extended family and friends she regularly seduces with her meatballs and special sauce and homemade lasagna, there’s pretty much nothing this entire town wouldn’t do for her.”
“And you think that’s how she knew where I was.”
“Of course it was.”
“So your mother is stalking me?”
Daphne almost accepted his confusion—almost—when she caught the deceptively innocent smile on his face. “Yes, she is. You’re her latest object of interest, and she’s got better game than a horde of paparazzi.”
“Should I be scared?”
“Wary is more like it.”
“Then that means you don’t know I’m headed over to your parents’ the day before the party to set up their outdoor audio system.”
“Rory did that a few weeks ago.”
“Apparently it needs fixing. Something about the volume inside not matching the outside, or the outside not getting any sound at all. Anyway,” he shrugged, “I’ll take a look at it.”
“What else did my mother tell you?”
“I sort of lost track.”
“Why?”
“She promised me meatballs if I came over and helped.”
“Geez, you’re cheap.” Daphne was torn between elation Landon had passed some sort of unwritten test with her mother and panicked at that fact that Giavanna Rossi had hunted him down in the first place.
“Nah, I’m easy.”
“What’s the difference?”
Landon stopped them and pulled her close, his lips finding an unerring path to her ear. “Invite me in and I’ll show you.”
Fifteen
The lights from Daphne’s porch gave off a soft glow, spilling toward the small patch of grass that made up her front lawn. A few fireflies randomly lit the air, adding to the glow, and Landon marveled at the simplicity of the moment. The initial irritation that had clung to his heels as they made a hasty retreat from the End Zone faded, Daphne’s presence easing his frustration.
Nick’s text that had buzzed on their walk—apologizing for the nosy old lady routine—had finished the job.
He had a family. And while he was deeply grateful for that fact most days, every now and again they crawled up his ass and planted themselves there. From the sound of Nick’s text, his brother was well aware of the mistake.
“You were quiet at dinner.”
“I was taking in the Landon-and-Fender show.”
“You mean the Fender show.”
Daphne shook her head, tugging on his hand and pulling him toward her front steps. “No, I meant what I said. The Fender-and-Landon show. You make a great straight man to his shtick.”
“We’re not that bad.”
She pulled him down so they sat side by side on the steps. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d say the two of you have gotten that one down pat after more than two decades. I saw the same with Nick the other night. You’re their foil.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s sort of like good cop, bad cop. When I go out with my partner we don’t change up the routine all that much.”
“Let me guess. You’re good cop.”
“I’m bad cop!”
“You’re a badass cop. But I’m not sure I’d have pegged you as bad cop.” Unreasonably amused at her affront, Landon pressed on. “So you take the bitch role and let your partner come off like Mr. Nice Guy?”
“Pretty much. It catches people off guard, you know, with me so angelic looking and all.” She gave an exaggerated flutter of her eyelashes. “More than that, it works because we work. Our style. Our rhythm and patter. Whether you realize it or not, you have that with your brothers.”
The observation was amusing, but it also made an odd sort of sense. From the first, he and his brothers had a special type of communication. They understood each other. More than that, the three of them had recognized something in one another.
And in that recognition, they’d forged an unbreakable bond.
“I was a scrawny kid.” He reached for her hand, laying palm to palm. “Surprising, I know.”
“I bet you were cute.”
“If you’re into elbows, knobby knees, and big feet.” He lifted one of his feet for emphasis. “But back to my tale. I had pretty good fight in me, what is commonly considered scrappy, but I was still small and skinny. I took my fair share of lumps before I met Nick and Fender. Neither of whom were small or scrawny.”
“You ever take any from them?”
“From time to time, but we’ve always been tight. Fighting just hasn’t ever been big in our wheelhouse. Insults and jokes, yes. Fights, not so much.”
“I can see that. Especially since the Rossi boys did not subscribe to the same theory. If they couldn’t beat on each other, they were screaming or throwing objects at one another. It’s a weird sort of love I’ve never been able to describe.”
“Back to your point. It’s their style and it works for them.”
“Yeah, I guess it sort of does.”
Ambient street sounds filled the air, but underneath it all he heard the simple sound of their breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
So simple, sitting there together.
It was that simplicity that kept leaping up and grabbing him by the throat. He wanted her. The need was fierce, clawing at his belly, determined to have its way. Yet despite that—or perhaps because of it—he was also happy just to be in her presence. To breathe in and out, their bodies matched up side by side on the front porch steps.
Had he ever experienced anything like it?
The craziest, wildest needs of his body juxtaposed against the calm, smooth seas of companionship.
“How’d we get here?”
The husky tones floated to him on the night air. “Here?”
“Here. This moment. Together. Our lives have been overlapping for years, even if we hadn’t realized it. Yet now. Suddenly—” She hesitated. “It feels like the time is finally right.”
“I guess it is.”
“But what if it isn’t?” She shook her head, the long, waves of her hair shimmering in the dim light. Was that it? The real reason she’d been so quiet at dinner?
Yes,
his brother had put on the show she’d described and Landon had quickly fallen in line, but she’d been quiet. Pensive, even. Before he could ask her, she amended her point.
“That didn’t come out the way I meant it. I just mean we’re on opposite sides.”
“Of what?”
“Life. The situation with your company. Even the argument we had yesterday about the servers.”
“Isn’t that the push-pull? The good cop, bad cop you were talking about?”
“Or maybe it’s just a sign we need to tread carefully.”
Landon was about to argue when his afternoon visit over the bridge with Fender stopped him. Although neither of them had discussed not mentioning the visit, they’d both avoided the subject by unspoken agreement.
Was it omission? Personal business he simply didn’t want to share? Fender’s business he had no right to share? No matter how he twisted and turned it, all the possible reasons for remaining silent felt like cop-outs when he mentally played them out as an excuse not to tell Daphne.
“I met your mother today. Amber.”
“You met—What?” The change in topic was so jarring Landon was off the porch and on his feet in an instant. “What are you talking about?”
“Today. I followed up on that lead. I had to question your mother on her whereabouts during the break-ins.”
“You mean you had to question Amber on her whereabouts.”
“Yes.”
“Because she’s running around Brooklyn dropping calling cards for other women on stolen servers?”
“I did it because it was an open lead that needed to be closed. Especially after she refused to return my phone calls.”
“What the hell are you trying to do to me?”
Just like that, the easy moments vanished, the two of them were back on opposite sides. “Do to you? Landon. I’m trying to help you.”
“Bullshit. I already told you yesterday I’d seen her. I told you what I knew, yet you still sought her out?”
“It’s my job.”
“Fuck your job! What about me?”
“What about you? This is all about you. About finding out who broke into your business.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s all about you. Your curiosity and whatever peek you want into my past. It’s not good enough that I want to keep that one hands off. Oh no. Instead, we have a good, sweaty round of sex, and you’re already trying to get inside my head and probe around for details.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
The evening quiet that had seemed so charming—so gentle and calming—suddenly felt oppressive, the air sticking in his lungs with each and every breath.
But it the beats of her silence in the face of his question that delivered the real chokehold.
“It’s not. Not exactly. But I’m not going to lie to you. I want to know who you are. What made you. What you’ve experienced. I want in, Landon. My whole life has been about being shut out. Diminished, somehow, because I’m not my brothers. Because I haven’t followed the right path. Because I have ambition or interests, or because I simply don’t want to follow some dumb set of expectations laid out for me at birth.
“I don’t want to be left out on this. I want to know you. All of you.”
Like he could give that to her, even if he’d wanted to.
He stared down at his feet, their length and the long, lean body that went with it a mystery. He didn’t know his father. Was literally missing half his life. And the other half had abandoned him.
And she somehow wanted in on that? Wanted him to talk about it and hash it out and explain it, like some fucking waltz down memory lane?
Unwilling to go there, he cocooned himself inside the same argument he’d already started. “Amber has nothing to do with this. I’ve told you that from the start, yet you’ve pushed and prodded and stabbed at that fucking wound every chance you had.”
“You say that like I’ve enjoyed it. You can’t mean that. More, you can’t actually believe that.”
“You tell me. You’re the one who just asked what we’re doing here. Was that a genuine question or residual guilt from today’s little interview session?”
“It’s neither.”
“Then what are we doing here? Is this some random fuck before we both go on our merry way? We want each other. Yesterday morning proved it. The fucking hard-on I’ve had for a solid week has proved it. Am I an itch you’re suddenly feeling guilty about?”
The words flowed, a river of anger and anguish, all diverting around the boulder of his own actions earlier. Hell, he’d nearly felt guilty about going to see Harlow Reynolds, but that personal omission felt like a hollow victory in the face of Daphne’s confession.
He didn’t owe her an explanation. And he sure as hell didn’t owe one for having his brother’s back.
“Don’t be crude.”
“Then what should I be? We’re sitting here having a quiet moment and you drag out my fucking mother? The one who wanted nothing to do with me? Great mood killer, Daphne.”
The words were as petty as he felt, and a bleak departure from the quiet, satisfied air that had hummed between them only minutes before.
What had happened? Was it further proof of what she’d suggested? Did they need to tread carefully?
“I don’t want to fight with you,” Daphne said.
“And I’m not trying to deliberately insult you.” With the heated moments past, his comments already felt hollow and crass. “What I said was disrespectful, and I’m sorry. But what do you want? What do you want from me?”
“You. No matter how badly I fumble it or stumble over myself, that part doesn’t change. I want you.” She extended her hand across the postage stamp of a front yard. “I want you, Landon.”
He stared at her outstretched hand for the briefest moment before he captured it in his own.
“Let’s just take this, okay? Just for us.”
He could only nod and follow her into the house.
Fender closed the door to his studio apartment, the heavy wood making a decided thud at his back before he leaned against it and pulled the card out of his pocket. He turned the rich paper over in his hands, his eyes tracing the details laid out in black calligraphy script.
Harlow Reynolds.
The cream colored paper had heft, yet was as delicate as a heartbeat in his fingers. As powerful as one, too.
Just like the woman who’d given it to him.
Harlow Reynolds had been a surprise. Where he’d expected a tight-assed blue blood he’d gotten instead an interesting woman with a clearly defined sense of right and wrong.
And a gorgeously tight ass to boot.
Damn, the woman was a package. Cool elegance overlaid with a compelling fire. He hadn’t been able to shake the image of her—that very first moment when she’d stepped out from the back of the gallery—in a green dress that made his hands itch.
And the heels. Well-crafted, top-of-the-line, elegant, fuck-me pumps. Hot damn, the woman had absolutely slayed him.
Fender flipped the card over to where she’d jotted her cell number on the back. The firm scrawl of script from a fountain pen—the woman had used an honest-to-God fountain pen—was soaked into the richness of the paper. He’d pulled the card out intermittently throughout the evening, deciding if he’d call or not, and it was getting late enough he was close to missing his window.
And there was no way he was texting.
Texting was a fucking cop-out anyway. You wanted to see someone, they had a right to hear you ask. You didn’t want to see someone, they had a right to hear it from you, too. He knew what it was to be ignored and discarded, and he’d be damned if he was going to treat another human being that way.
Sick of thinking about it, he dragged out his phone, tapped in the numbers she’d provided, and hit the dial icon before he could stop himself. He nearly hung up on the fourth ring, but midway through the fifth she answered, breathless.
“Hello.”
“Harlow? Fender Blackstone. We met earlier.”
“Of course.” She cleared her throat and he heard another heavy breath.
“Are you alright?”
“You caught me near the end of a run. Sorry.”
Although it wasn’t 3 AM it wasn’t middle of the afternoon, either. “You’re out running now?”
“Treadmill. All the benefits of home and none of the trials of nature.” She took one more breath before jumping in. “Look, I really am sorry about my mother. I swear to you I had no idea what she was doing. I will put a stop to this.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Oh. Okay then.”
Silence stretched between them, the tenuous thread of zeroes and ones that held them together seeming to stretch out with nowhere to go.
Sort of like him.
He knew he couldn’t ask her out, even as that was the real reason he’d called her. So he went with plan B and asked what he’d nearly said in her office.
“You sure you didn’t know what your mother was doing? Weren’t supporting her in some way?”
“I said I wasn’t.”
“Sure. Right. But it was your father my mother had the affair with. You don’t have some vendetta, like your mother?”
The silence stretched once more, but the tenor of her breathing had changed. Out of breath had shifted to the hard rush of frustration.
“My father was a lot of things, but faithful wasn’t one of them. He cheated on my mother and, by extension, my brother and me. I came to accept that a long time ago.”
A neat, well-prepared speech that had nothing to do with the feelings everyone buried way down deep.
“Why accept it?”
“Because my parents won’t define me or my perception of the world. They made their own choices, I make mine.”
“Nice thought. Putting it into practice isn’t quite so easy.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I practice it every day.”
Since he wasn’t one to cop out, Fender asked the question that had been simmering in the back of his mind since taking in that green dress and the woman who wore it like a second skin. “Maybe you can tell me about it sometime over a glass of wine.”