Blame It on Texas

by Christie Craig

  Realizing she had to pee, she tiptoed down the dark hall. Her pulse raced as she took steps into the darkness. Not a closet, she told herself. Just a hall.

  She spotted a little sliver of light coming from under the bathroom door, and she could breathe again. Three minutes later, bladder happy, she stared at the toilet, debating to flush or not to flush. If she didn’t flush, would he think she was gross? If she did flush, and woke him up, would he think of her as inconsiderate?

  Inconsiderate won out over gross. She flushed, cringed when it seemed extra loud, gave her hands a quick rinse, and hurried out of the bathroom. Sitting on the sofa, she knew she needed to go back to sleep. The feel of her bra pulled across her shoulder, and she reached in, unfastened it, slipped it off, and put it on the sofa. Maybe if she had something to read…

  She turned on the lamp. No books. She spotted a magazine on the second shelf of one of the end tables.

  She pulled it out and frowned. A car magazine. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. She flipped it open and started reading. The article on carburetor engines versus fuel-injected engines seemed just the thing to put her to sleep. Instead, her brain chewed on the info and stored it away. Like she really needed to know this.

  But that was the thing with her brain. It loved information. Unlike both her parents, she had a ferocious hunger for knowledge. She read anything she got her hands on. Oh, her parents were happy for her, like when she got her SAT scores back, but her IQ was just another little difference between them. Maybe deep down, she’d always known they weren’t her parents.

  When her stomach growled, she remembered she hadn’t eaten supper last night. She dropped the magazine and went into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, she found it empty with the exception of a pizza box and one beer.

  Remembering her beggars-couldn’t-be-choosers policy, she pulled out a slice of thin-crust pepperoni and eyed the beer. She didn’t like beer. Then she remembered kissing Tyler and how he’d tasted. Malty, a little yeasty. Maybe she did like beer.

  Setting the slice of pizza on the pizza box, she snagged the beer, opened it, and took a sip. Licking her lips, she let the taste tickle over her taste buds. “Not quite as good.” But not bad. She snagged her pizza, took a bite, shut the fridge door with her knee, turned, and walked right into a warm wall of flesh named Tyler.

  Make that a sleepy, completely shirtless warm wall of flesh named Tyler.

  Eyeing the cold pizza she held out to the side, she sighed. Somehow she’d managed not to plaster the cold pizza to his chest. Considering he always ended up wearing food around her, he was lucky. “Isw ere ugree.” She spoke around the pizza. If his puzzled look was any indication, the words were too mangled to make sense.

  She swallowed and tried again. “I was hungry.” And added, “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “That’s cold,” he said.

  “Me eating your pizza?” she asked. “I just…”

  “No.” He smiled.

  She got entranced by his chocolate brown irises. This close, she could see tiny flecks of green. And he smelled like a sleepy man should smell—clean and freshly showered.

  Showered. Something she hadn’t done and wished she had. Another thought rained down on her. Had she even glanced at herself in the mirror? Checked to see the curl index of her hair? No. Odds were it was a mess.

  “Then what am I being cold about?” she asked.

  His grin widened. His hair wasn’t perfect, either. But he looked totally adorable with his hair a little askew and his sleepy expression. He glanced down in that small little space between them. “You aren’t acting cold. The beer’s cold.”

  She looked down to where she had pressed the chilled beer to his bare, sculpted abdomen.

  “Sorry.” Her face grew hot. With a limp piece of pizza in one hand, a cold beer in the other, she slipped between him and the fridge, and moved to stand beside the sink, a spot that offered a bit more breathing room. But the air still smelled like him.

  “Beer and cold pizza. Nothing tastes better in the middle of the night,” he said.

  He opened the fridge and looked inside. She used his diverted attention to look at him. The fridge’s glow showcased him in the limelight. He wore his jeans, but the top button hadn’t been fastened. The V of flesh showed no signs of underwear, either. As if he’d been sleeping in the nude and snagged on his jeans and got them only halfway on before he left the room. Or did he not wear underwear ever?

  Now there was a thought.

  He withdrew his own slice of pizza, looked at her, and frowned. “You’ll have to share the beer.”

  He closed the fridge and took the beer from her hands. She watched the beer press against his lips as he drank. And again, she thought about his kiss earlier that had tasted so good.

  “You having problems sleeping?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t. I mean, I slept. But I woke up. And couldn’t fall back to sleep.” Why was she having a hard time talking? The answer came hurling at her.

  Because he was half-naked.

  Again.

  Last time she’d seen him with his undershirt. She hadn’t thought that little piece of cotton had left anything to the imagination. She’d been wrong. Or at least, she hadn’t imagined him looking this good. Sculpted abs, ripples of muscles, wrapped in naturally light olive-colored skin that begged to be touched. Did he work out twenty-four/seven to look like that?

  She followed a line of dark hair meandering down his chest, swirling around his inny navel, and disappearing behind his slightly opened zipper. Realizing she was staring at the bulge behind his zipper, her breath caught and she yanked her eyes upward.

  He had the beer pressed to his lips again and wore a caught-ya grin. He set the beer on the counter and reached up and ran his finger over her bottom lip. “Tomato sauce.” He slipped his finger into his mouth.

  She reached up, wiped her lip that tingled from his touch. Then she ran a hand through her unruly hair.

  Her thoughts must have been readable. “It looks great.”

  “Right,” she said in sarcasm, and stepped back.

  He took a bite of his pizza, watching her. After he swallowed, he said, “It’s… sexy.” His eyes lowered to her chest, where her unsupported girls swayed slightly with her movement.

  She sucked in a breath, and the air felt cold and light in her chest, yet she felt warm all over. Tingly. Sensitive. Her nipples tightened. Did he know she was turned on?

  Warm, tense silence filled the room with a heavy awkwardness. “We should go to bed,” she said.

  He arched an eyebrow in a playful manner.

  “Separately,” she added.

  He chuckled and handed her the beer. “You know, studies have concluded that sex is… a sleep aid.”

  “I’ll just read,” she said.

  His smile widened. “The study proved—”

  “That’s okay.” She cut her eyes up at him, a look she shot her five-year-old students when she caught them picking their noses or doing something equally unappealing. “I’m finding an article on carbureted engines boring enough that it should do the trick.”

  His grin widened. “Well, you’re right, the sex wouldn’t be boring. But it releases endorphins that help—”

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  “Seriously,” he said. “It releases endorphins and—”

  “No, I mean… You’re seriously using that as a pick-up line?”

  His grin widened. “Not working, huh?” His smile made the sexiness in his eyes intensify. “It was a shot in the dark. I’ve never been very good at it.”

  She suddenly found his humor contagious. “Never good at sex?”

  He let loose of a laugh. It fell on her like a soft and welcome rain. She found herself wishing she’d met Tyler Lopez at a different time. A different place—like in Alabama when her life wasn’t one big question mark hanging on by a thin thread.

  When he sobered, he said, “Not good at pick-up lines.” He moved in a few steps. �
��I’m actually really good at sex. I studied—”

  “Enough,” she said.

  Still grinning, he brushed her hair from her shoulder. She felt his breath against her cheek, and his lips started moving lower.

  “Really good at it,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ZOE HAD NO DOUBT he was good at sex. And if he kissed her…

  She could not let him kiss her.

  “I think we should go to bed,” she blurted out, and darted out of the kitchen.

  “I’m supposing you still mean separately.” Humor still played in his voice.

  She went and dropped onto the sofa and grabbed her magazine. He stopped beside the sofa and put the last bite of pizza into his mouth.

  She put her magazine down and rested her slice of cold pizza on top of it. While now might not be the best time to address this, she didn’t have much of a choice. “I’m going back to Alabama in two weeks. It would be ridiculous to allow this to go anywhere.”

  He must have mistaken her dialogue as an invitation to join her, because he sat down.

  Close enough that the dip in the sofa had her shoulder bumping into his. The brush of bare skin to bare skin sent a wave of pleasure running up her arm and filtering out all over her body. And the filtering felt nice. Sweet, erotic chills went places she hadn’t felt tingling in a long time.

  “So we have two weeks.” Handing the beer back to her, he continued, “We could have a lot of fun in two weeks.”

  “And what about after that?” she asked.

  He brushed the lip of the beer bottle over his chin. “We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow. Fulton Oursler.”

  He reached over and picked up her pizza. “Then there’s, ‘Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.’ By—”

  “James Thurber,” she said, and watched him take a bite of her pizza. “But then there’s, ‘You can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube.’ I think you said your sister gets credit for that well-said quote, and it’s a good piece of wisdom to consider in this situation.”

  He pointed at her with what was left of the pizza slice. “Not fair using my own sister’s quote on me.”

  “Why not? You used it on me.” She frowned. “And it’s a good analogy. With everything else I’m dealing with, I don’t think I could handle a long-distance relationship. And the statistical data on them say they almost never work out.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting…” He took another bite of pizza as if needing a diversion.

  “You weren’t suggesting a long-distance relationship?” She let that info bounce around her head. It continued to bounce until she felt it hit her heart, a heart still on the mend from her last relationship. A relationship with the last guy who made her feel all these wonderful feelings—tingly, safe, loved—only to leave her to crash and burn.

  All her wound-up tension, sexual and otherwise, got twisted around in her gut and morphed into anger. “So what exactly are you suggesting?” she asked.

  “Why can’t we just enjoy the time we have?” He talked around the pizza in his mouth.

  “Oh, so you just want to use me for a slip-and-slide bang toy while I’m here, huh?”

  He must have been in midswallow, because he choked. For a second there, it sounded serious—some gasping and trying to swallow.

  She prayed he would manage on his own, because she was too angry to save his life. Damn him! Damn all men!

  When he caught his breath, he looked at her. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He went back to coughing.

  She gave him about ten seconds. “Then explain to me how you meant it.” The feeling swelling inside her reminded her of how she felt when Chris had told her he’d fallen in love with a stripper. It even reminded her how she felt toward her parents when she saw Nancy Bradford’s picture.

  Just because someone says they have your best intentions at heart, doesn’t mean they won’t break your heart in the end.

  Her mom’s words ran through her head. Zoe summed up her jumbled feelings in one word: betrayed. By him. By her parents. By whoever was shooting at her.

  “Is this why you’re helping me?” she asked.

  He stood up. “No. I… Shit. Look, I did not mean to offend you,” he said. “I’m not a womanizer. I thought we were two consenting adults who shared a mutual attraction. You overreacted to my suggestion.”

  His words, spoken so honestly and backed with what he clearly considered logic, had her second-guessing herself. Then second-guessing went for thirds.

  Had she overreacted? Was she wrong? Was she being a prude?

  No. She’d slept with guys without knowing where the relationship was going. She just hadn’t slept with guys when the option of a relationship had been taken off the table. And that somehow made it feel different. Like the difference between a sexy book and porn. The latter felt… cheap.

  “You’re right. I overreacted,” she said. “I apologize. I’m aware that many adult women would jump at this opportunity. However, I’m afraid I’m not into sex for sex’s sake.”

  “I didn’t mean that, either,” he said, sounding beyond frustrated. “I’m just… we’re adults, and neither of us have someone else.”

  “How do you know I don’t have someone else?” she asked.

  He tightened his eyes. “Do you?”

  “No, but that’s not the point.”

  “Then why did you bring it up?”

  She was trying to figure that one out herself.

  “Look,” he continued, “I was just saying that I really like you, but I’m not looking for—”

  “Anything more than sex.” He seemed to have a hard time saying it.

  He opened his mouth to argue, and she held up her hand. “I get it. And I’m not saying anything is wrong with it. I’m just saying that I’m not interested.”

  She decided she needed to confirm something. “And if this was… in any way a part of the reason you offered to help me, then I will be more than willing to get my stuff and leave.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s not the reason I offered to help.” He clamped his jaw shut so tight it looked as if it would crack. She got the feeling she’d insulted him, and she was sorry for that, but she had needed to make sure.

  “Fine then.” She softened her voice. “So we can move forward as planned. You’ll keep track of everything I owe you for your services, and then… when I get back on my feet, I’ll reimburse you. Hopefully, this thing won’t take very long and it won’t be too terribly expensive.”

  He stood there staring at her as if trying to find something else to say. She decided to save him the trouble. Leaning forward, she picked up her magazine. “If you don’t mind, I’m dying to get back to my article.”

  Muttering a curse that she thought was in Spanish, he turned around and shot down the hall.

  She dropped the magazine into her lap and leaned against the sofa. Her chest ached with what felt like disappointment, but that would go away in time. Unlike with Chris, she didn’t love Tyler.

  The attraction issue was going to be uncomfortable, but now that she knew how incompatible they really were, that should fade.

  Incompatible?

  The word got hung up in her mind. Oddly enough, she had felt an almost instant kinship that in some ways was directly tied to her compatibility with Tyler. Well, not instant, not when he’d been dressed as a clown, but at the diner. She’d been drawn to his intellect, his wit, and his body.

  Lucky jumped up on the sofa and rubbed his face against her arm. “You even like him, don’t you?” For some reason, she’d been compelled to trust Tyler. But trusting someone to help her find answers wasn’t the same as trusting someone with her heart. It all went to the lesson she seemed to be learning over and over again. Decent people, people you thought you could trust, could still hurt you.

  She heard his footsteps coming down the hall. He stopped in front of her. She was hi
t again with how awesome he looked without a shirt.

  “Here.” He handed her his smartphone. “Order anything you want to read from Amazon.” Lucky jumped down and started doing his figure-eights’ dance around Tyler’s ankles.

  Zoe handed him back the phone. “I don’t—”

  “I saw the books by your bed at your apartment. I know you read when you can’t sleep.”

  “But I imagine you do the same,” she said, realizing another thing they had in common.

  “I have a book.” He took off.

  Alone again her chest commenced aching. Lucky jumped up on her lap and meowed right in her face, as if defending Tyler.

  “Sorry, buddy. I don’t care what you say, we can’t keep him.”

  Tyler gave up trying to sleep around six. He dressed, brushed his teeth, and started out of the bedroom. He told himself not to look at her. Pretend she wasn’t there. He knew if he got one glance at her, he’d start coming up with even more questions. He’d already come up with about a dozen, all logged in his mental notepad. Some of them were about the case. Some of them about her—things he was curious about.

  Did she always wake up in the middle of the night and go for a snack?

  Did she always fall asleep early while watching television?

  Did her hair always look that wild after she slept?

  Would it look even wilder after he made love to her?

  Then there were the questions about last night:

  How had things gone so bad?

  Why had her putting the brakes on a potential romance hurt so damn much?

  He’d been turned down dozens of times. Well, not dozens, but enough that it shouldn’t bother him.

  It did.

  He got halfway across the living room, a foot from the door, when he lost control. He looked over his shoulder.

  And stopped dead in his tracks.

  He’d been right. Looking at her was a catastrophic mistake. Her hair, locks of curly red strands, scattered all over the pillowcase. Resting on her side, her knees bent, she made the sofa look big. She had her hands tucked under one side of her cheek, looking… vulnerable. Asleep, she looked… younger. His mind brought up the image of her when she was four, the picture she’d shown him. She hadn’t lost that innocent, precious look.