“I’m coming back for you, Lake.”
Our eyes met again. “But when? I won’t feel like I have you until all that is finished.”
I wanted to lie to her and say it would be quick, that I’d be on a return flight in no time. I worried Lake wasn’t facing the truth of our situation, and though I’d bent over backward in the past to protect her from this kind of pain, I was beginning to see how that could ultimately hurt her. “It might be months,” I said. “Tiffany and I own a home together. I’m leaving a job with a salary I probably won’t be able to command again. I’ll do everything in my power to get back to you as soon as possible, but I’m untangling two lives—”
“I get it.” She tried to push out of my grasp, avoiding my gaze. “I have to keep waiting. It wasn’t enough that I saved myself for you and thought of you every single day we were apart.”
“Lake.” I held her in place.
“I have to get to work.”
“I’ll cover your rent while I’m gone. Instead of working the diner, you can focus on auditioning.”
This time she pushed hard enough that I let her go. She carried the dishes to a folding table so rickety, I’d flatten it out if I sat on it. “You know I can’t accept that,” she said, her back to me.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not some mistress you can stash away.”
“Come on—mistress?” I asked. “You know that’s not what this is. I’m doing my best to fix my mistakes. If I go back and rip the carpet out from under my life without worrying about the details, it’s going to hurt all of us even more. Especially Tiffany.”
Lake paused. “What makes you think I don’t want to hurt her as much as possible?”
“I know you don’t. No matter how she’s treated you, you’ve never been vengeful or nasty.” I walked up next to her, moving the curtain her hair made away from her face. “It’s one of the first things I noticed about you that day on the lot, then at the fair, and it’s one of the things I love about you.” I kissed her temple. “You’re generous and kind and patient.”
“No I’m not.” She pinched the bridge of her nose as if holding in tears. “I’m ruining her life. If you’d married someone else, I’d feel awful enough about breaking up a marriage, but this is my own sister. I don’t know how I can do it.”
“You aren’t. I am. I’m leaving her for you. I’m coming for you, whether you tell me to or not.” I didn’t let Lake see that I’d be going home to the person I’d spent the last six years trying to fall in love with. Maybe my heart didn’t beat for Tiffany, but I had slept next to her for years in a bed we’d picked out together. I’d gotten to know her tastes inside and out. Tiffany wasn’t always easy, but she was my friend, my partner, someone I’d one day assumed I’d have a child with. I knew Lake felt guilty about this—she and Tiffany were blood, after all—but this would undoubtedly be the worst thing I’d ever done. My father had hurt people intentionally and had later had the nerve to ask for forgiveness. While my marriage was no accident, it was a mistake, and gutting Tiffany was something I’d always regret. The only comfort I had was understanding for the first time that staying with Tiffany for the wrong reasons would be worse in the long run than leaving her now. Lake was my star in the sky, but Tiffany needed to be the star of the show, and I couldn’t give her that.
“I’ve felt disconnected from her for so long,” Lake said. “It felt personal when she took you from me. All of this makes me sick . . . just not enough for me to let you go.”
“You can’t let me go, Lake.” I kept my nose in her hair, inhaling her. “I won’t be let go.”
14
Manning
Lake got fired from the restaurant. She’d missed too many days and then when she finally had shown up, she was hours late. While she wasn’t happy about it, it did mean we got more time together before I left—or so I’d thought.
The day after she’d been let go, she had to work the shelter’s front desk, and no amount of sweet talk on my part could convince her to call in. To top it off, the place was in Brooklyn, an area I’d never taken the time to research. Since I couldn’t spend the morning with her, I jammed as many appointments into our time apart as I could. I turned on the charm and sold the shit out of Ainsley-Bushner pharmaceuticals. I wanted to leave Lake with money, and return to her with it, so she wouldn’t ever have to worry about our situation.
While she was finishing up at the animal shelter, I worked on repairs throughout her apartment—and there were plenty to choose from. Between loose floorboards, a faulty flush valve, mold, and a backed-up shower drain, I’d already been to the hardware store twice.
With half my torso under her kitchen sink, I tried to come to terms with the fact that this time tomorrow, I’d be leaving for the airport. Five days hadn’t been enough time. A thousand days wouldn’t be. Every minute I spent without her, my body ached. My mind wandered too far away. Was Brooklyn as dangerous as I’d heard? What if leaving her tomorrow would be too hard? What if she was held up at the shelter, and they needed her another hour of the twenty-four I had left with her?
I heard the door and glanced up as Lake came into the kitchen, a spring in her step. “I told my boss all about you, and she let me off a little early,” she said, grinning. “What’re you doing?”
“Replacing corroded nuts and traps,” I said, trying not to sound as relieved to see her as I felt.
She laughed. “Have you been at it all day?”
“I tried to get as much done as I could before I go.” I used my sleeve to wipe sweat from my upper lip since my hands were greasy. “And I needed somewhere to take out my sexual frustration. You went for a run this morning and left me all alone in bed.”
“I’m sorry.” She set her purse on the kitchen table. “It calms me down.”
“You’re not calm?”
“You’re leaving,” she said. “And I’m scared. It feels . . .”
She was scared—she didn’t know the meaning of the fucking word. I had no idea how I was going to get by once I returned to California. I was already on edge being away from her.
I put down the pliers to slide out from under the sink. “How’s it feel, Lake?”
She crossed the kitchen, stepped one foot over my torso and looked down at me. Would’ve been nice if she were wearing a skirt, but she had jeans on. After seeming to think, she lowered her ass onto my chest. “This is how it feels,” she said. “Like I can’t breathe, and when I do, it hurts.”
She could’ve crossed her legs and given me all hundred and ten pounds of her, it wouldn’t matter. “This doesn’t hurt,” I said.
“If I sit here long enough it will,” she said.
“I don’t think so. I think the longer you sit here, the better it will feel.”
I didn’t want her to waste time being sad. The clock was running down, and I hadn’t felt this content since before she’d left me in California. I wasn’t ready to let go of it. “Look, if the divorce is going to take awhile,” I told her, “I’ll fly out to visit. Even if it’s for a day or two. How about next time I’m here, we paint this place? Any color you want. I’ll build you furniture that matches and install some lighting. You won’t even recognize the place when I’m done with it.”
She smiled and moved her ass into my lap, right where I wanted it. “What if I want hot-pink walls?” she asked.
“Then you’re going about it the right way. But wait until you hear what else I did today.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Caught two mice, set them free, and sealed all the holes in the walls.”
She gasped. “Are you serious? You didn’t kill them?”
“Against my better judgement, no.”
“Oh my God. You’re my hero.” She wiggled on my lap—that alone was worth all the extra effort it’d taken me to spare the lives of fucking rodents—and said, “You deserve a reward.”
I took her hips as my balls tightened up. “That so?”
“Manning?” she asked, leaning her hands on my chest.
“Yeah, Birdy.”
“The other day, when I did that . . .”
“Did what?”
“You know.” Slowly, she ran her tongue along the edges of her teeth. Not to be sexy, but to say what she couldn’t with words. My cock stirred anyway. “Was it okay? Could I do it better?”
I watched her mouth, remembering the pure ecstasy of having it on me for the first time. It’d be impossible to describe that feeling with words. “You’re asking if it felt good when you gave me head? Did you like it when I did it to you?”
She blushed, curling her hands into my t-shirt. “Yes.”
“How much did you like it?” I asked.
She thought it over. “I never imagined sex could be that good. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been, having sex with you.”
I swallowed painfully, suddenly overcome. I knew it wasn’t the sex that made her so happy, but the intimacy of it, because the same was true for me. “Lake, I’d venture a guess that however good it felt for you, it was ten times better for me.”
“But isn’t it always like that, with all the girls?”
There was something about getting your dick sucked by the one you’d fantasized about for so long—it wasn’t the same as any other girl. Technique, capability, experience . . . it all went out the window. “You remember that night in the truck?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“How anything, even one touch, would’ve felt like the world?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“That’s how everything feels now. You were perfect. And as we get to know each other, it’ll only get better. You’ll learn what I like over time.”
“I want to learn now.”
I pulled her down and kissed her. I was sweaty and greasy, but if I had to take her in the shower, that wasn’t a problem for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance. I heard a squeal, and Lake drew back in time for me to see Val whirl around in the doorway.
“Gross,” she said, covering her face.
“What are you doing here?” Lake asked.
“I live here,” she shot back.
Fucking Val. This wasn’t how or when I’d wanted to see her again. I just wanted time alone with Lake, who was getting up off my lap when I wanted her to be doing the opposite.
“I meant why aren’t you at Julian’s?” Lake asked.
Still shielding her eyes, Val put out a hand and felt her way to the kitchen counter. “We broke up. I need vodka. Now.”
“Oh no. Again?” Lake asked. “You can open your eyes. We aren’t naked or anything.”
Val dropped her hand and started fixing herself a drink. “Why were you having sex on the floor?”
“We weren’t,” Lake said, her voice pitching. “Manning was fixing the sink for us. He did a ton of stuff around the apartment.”
“Awesome. Now I don’t have to flash the super to get his attention.” Val turned on a small radio in the corner of the counter and switched the song from 2Pac. “If only Julian wasn’t so precious about his artist’s hands—”
“Wait, back up,” I said, climbing off the floor.
“What? Not a fan of Marcy Playground?” Val glared at me, chin over her shoulder, and raised the volume on “Sex and Candy.”
Shutting off 2Pac was an offense in and of itself, but that wasn’t what’d snagged my attention. “No—what was that about the super?”
It was the first time she’d looked at me since she’d walked in, and her eyes narrowed. Lake hadn’t mentioned any issue there, but by Val’s expression, I was pretty sure she knew my history with Lake—and didn’t approve. Val turned to face me and tried pushing some of her curls behind her ear, but they kept popping back out. “Why do you think everything in here is broken?” she asked. “The super won’t fix shit. I haven’t figured out if he’s lazy or if he’s staring so hard at my tits while I talk that his brain short circuits.”
“You didn’t seriously flash him, did you?” I asked her. I knew Lake would never do that, but I hated the thought of a perv in the building. For fuck’s sake, he probably had a key to their place. My face warmed. “Where does this guy live?”
“We can handle it,” Lake started. “We’ve been handling—”
“Lake, sweetheart.” I cut her off, cracking my knuckles. “I’ll take care of it.”
Val raised a freshly made cranberry vodka in my direction. “Apartment 6E. Have at it.”
I left the girls and headed upstairs. The super was a gangly old man, short on hair and abundant in beer gut. I was pretty sure Charles would forget his pride if he knew his daughter was relying on this man for anything.
“The building’s not up to code, which you know,” I told him as he answered the door in a wife-beater. “Let’s start with the lock to the building. It needs replacing.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m visiting my girlfriend in 5C, and she needs some repairs.”
“Right.” He scratched his graying chest hair. “I have her requests. I’ll get to ’em when I can.”
He started to close the door on me, but I caught it. “I’ve done a lot of it the past few days, but she needs her radiator replaced among other things. Handle it by next week, or I’ll report you to the Attorney General’s office right before I bring the fire department by for an inspection.”
“Who the hell are you? Do you sign my paychecks?” he asked. “I’ll get to it when I get to it.”
“It’s not an empty threat.” I had no problem calling for back-up however I needed to. I’d once wanted to serve the public. There were other men out there like me and I could find them. “I’ll get the landlord on the phone right now if we need to bring him into it.”
He shook his head. “Fine. Next week. That all?”
I held the door open and added, “That’s my girlfriend down there and her roommate. Lake tells me anything I don’t want to hear, and I’ll come back for a less friendly visit. No firemen. Just you and me.”
He raised a hand. “I have no idea what you’re getting at, but I got no business with those girls. Only doing my job.”
I released the door and went back to Lake’s apartment. I didn’t like the situation, but I had to trust Lake and Val were smart enough to know what they were doing. They’d lived in New York for years after all, and Val didn’t strike me as the type to take shit.
When I walked into the kitchen, the girls were talking about Val’s ex, some guy with what sounded like a chick’s name. It didn’t appear that Lake and I would be getting the alone time I’d planned on. “I’m going to hop in the shower,” I said, giving Lake a look that made her stand and follow me into the bathroom.
“She broke up with her boyfriend,” Lake said.
I stripped off my shirt and flipped on the water. “I heard. What does that mean for me?”
“She needs me.” Lake gave me a reproachful look. “She’s sad.”
“I’m sad.” I pulled her into my arms as the mirror steamed over. “I don’t want to share you. It’s our last night together.”
Lake kissed me quickly on the lips. “I just need to listen to her for a bit. Clean up and go wait for me in the bedroom.”
“Don’t be long,” I said, releasing her.
After I showered, I spent the next thirty minutes on Lake’s bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to her clock radio as I fantasized about all the things we were supposed to be doing. When she walked in the bedroom, closing the door lightly behind her, I was already hard. I sat up, reaching for her, pulling her onto the mattress. “Come here.”
“Shh.”
“Why?” I asked.
Her long hair brushed the tops of my forearms. “Val’s right out there.”
I took off her top, laying her back on the bed. “I don’t care.”
“I do. I don’t want her to hear us.”
“Then she should leave.” I opened Lake’s jeans, running my hands over the
smoothness of her stomach. She lifted up to get out of her pants but all I saw was the beg of her hips, welcoming me. When I had her stripped from the waist down, I said, “Turn over.”
“Can you be quiet?”
“If I have to be. Can you?”
She reddened, then flipped onto her stomach. With my knees on each side of her, I opened the clasp of her bra to run my hands over her back. My thumbs touched in the middle, over her spine.
“Are you going to give me a massage?” she asked.
“Later, if you want.”
She turned her face, resting her cheek on the pillow. “I’d like to give you one.”
Alice in Chains came on the radio as the DJ introduced “Nutshell.” I gathered Lake’s hair in my hands and moved it aside. “How come?”
“I used to look at you on the construction site and think you worked so hard,” she said. “I wished I could go to your house and make you feel better after.”
“Yeah?” I slid my hands down her sides to grip her waist. I could feel her ribs, and she had a smooth, slight ass. She wasn’t eating enough. “Tell me more about that.”
“When you get back, if you decide to do construction, I’ll give you massages after. I’ll light candles in here and you can tell me where you’re sore. I’ll work on your back until you’re healed. I used to think it was so unfair that you worked your body so hard.”
I lowered my hands, prying her cheeks apart a little. She shivered. Immediately, I thought about taking her this way, pressing into her from behind. This was why I couldn’t be with her that night in the truck. I couldn’t be trusted. I might’ve ruined her that night, and if I hadn’t, I would’ve soon after. One time with her wouldn’t have been enough. I’d only been in New York a few days, and my mind was already running with all the sordid ways I could have her.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“Miss what?”
“Construction.”
“You just finished telling me how unfair you thought it was.”
“But it was a better fit than sales.”
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