by Lindsey Hart
Ross didn’t hate that she’d said she loved him.
He didn’t want to leave.
He didn’t want any other guy to see her naked.
Her head felt like it was going to float right off her shoulders.
By the time she came back to her room with everything, Ross’s deep snores drifted through the door she’d left open a crack. She wanted to stay and watch him sleep, even if that made her a creeper 5000. She wanted to curl herself around him and keep him safe, to inhale his breath and watch his face serene and at peace.
She’d done that once before. When he was sleeping over. He was eighteen. She was fourteen. Watching him in his unguarded moments, at complete peace, his features so soft and vulnerable in sleep- that memory would always be engrained in her.
She wanted to make everything right in his world. He’d been through hell the past two months. She wanted to give him any piece of heaven she could steal for him. She wanted to soak up every single second of having him in her bed, so big that he made the twin look like it was a toddler bed. He took up all of it and then some. He was huge. He was perfect. He was there. Not because of Chance. He was there because of her.
Instead of staying, Alix set everything in her hands on the nightstand, brushed a gentle kiss over Ross’s warm forehead, dug some clothes out of her dresser, tugged them on, and scurried back to the kitchen.
When Chance came back, and probably her parent’s too, since the odds that he’d phoned them were pretty damn high, she was going to be ready.
Until then, she’d bake the stupid cake. When everyone got there, she could use a distraction.
CHAPTER 13
Ross
“Holy shit, Alix, the stove is on fire! Why the hell is the stove on fire?”
Even through the deepest sleep of his life, a sleep so deep it felt like he’d actually died a little and gone to sleep heaven, Chance’s whiny ass voice reached him. Ross ripped himself out of the peaceful, dark, blissful state he’d been in. It wasn’t a dream. He hadn’t been dreaming about Chance, that was for fucking sure.
The first thing he noticed, when he jerked upright in bed, was that he wasn’t in his bed. The second thing that was glaringly obvious was what he’d done with Alix was real and perfect and amazing. Unfortunately, the kick to the balls was also real and it was not perfect and not fucking amazing. They still throbbed like someone was lighting a match between his legs and holding it there like a torturous son of a bitch. The third thought that intruded on his sleep fogged brain was that he smelled smoke.
“Get the fire extinguisher!” Chance’s frantic voice came again, so loud it sounded like he was standing right next to the bed.
“What fire extinguisher?” That was Alix, just as frantic.
Ross leapt out of bed. Even in his panic, he wasn’t going to run out there naked and risk his nuts all over again. His eyes scanned the room frantically and they came to rest on one object. It was pink and fluffy but fuck it. It looked like it would offer some serious protection for his already aching balls, as there was probably a foot of fluff on either side.
Alix’s robe.
The thing was about eight sizes too small and groaned violently when Ross tugged it on. He did up the belt in record time- it was a good thing Alix liked to swim in her robe apparently- and bounded out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
Where six-foot flames were currently shooting their way out of the stove in the kitchen.
“Holy fuck!”
“Do you know where the fire extinguisher is?” Chance turned to him in desperation. Alix was nowhere in sight.
“How the fuck would I know! It’s your house!”
“Alix can’t find it!”
“Do you even have one?”
“Of course, we have one!”
Alix dashed into the kitchen. She came to a dead stop, her face red with panic, when she saw Ross. He stared at her for a heartbeat. She stared back.
“Fuck it.” He shook his head. “Do you have a pair of oven mitts?”
“What? Are you crazy!” Chance shouted.
“No! Ross! Don’t!” Alix screamed.
He knew exactly where the oven mitts were. Right in the drawer by the stove. He ripped the thing open frantically and it was a damn good thing that Alix’s mom liked the industrial things that went up to her shoulders, since she was terrified of her burning herself when she cooked. She’d once given herself a wicked burn taking a pie out of the oven and ever since then, industrial oven mitts it was.
He tore off the robe even faster than he’d put it on. The thing looked like you could safely wrap a house in it. He set the oven mitts on the counter and dashed to the bathroom, since he knew they hadn’t drained the tub. He threw the robe in, soaked the bastard, and ran back to the kitchen with his fifty-pound burden.
He let the robe hit the kitchen floor with a wet smack so he could don the oven mitts. He grabbed up the robe, awkwardly in the huge mitts.
“Open it!” He shouted to Chance.
The guy, for once, actually listened to something he said. He cranked the door open and jumped out of the way. Ross picked up the soaking robe and flung it into the oven, hoping like hell that it wasn’t a grease fire in there because if it was, he might as well have just kissed his ass goodbye. Although, the robe was so dense, it might smother it. It might also go up in flames as well and then they’d be in real trouble, because that fake furry shit looked like it was highly fucking toxic.
Thank god it wasn’t a grease fire. The flames turned into a mass of smoke that poured out of the oven. He dodged back, gagging and hacking right along with Chance and Alix. The smoke was so thick and black he could hardly even see across the kitchen to make sure they were still alright.
He was about to bark at them to get outside, when two more shadowy shapes entered the kitchen.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Robert, Alix’s dad demanded.
“You caught the stove on fire again?” Jane shrieked. Alix’s poor, poor mother.
Even through the smoke, he watched both of them stop dead in their tracks, because that smoke might be thick, but it wasn’t thick enough to hide the fact he was standing there in his birthday suit, Jane’s oven mitts covering most of his arms.
Whoever invented the word clusterfuck clearly had come up with it just to describe a moment pretty much exactly like that one.
“Why on earth are you naked, son?” Robert demanded, a haunted look on his face.
Jane shrieked again in response. Alix’s face was scarlet. She looked like she wanted to crawl up into the smoky oven and die right next to her ill-fated cake.
Shockingly, it was Chance that tried to salvage the situation. “We were- uh- cleaning the pool. It- well, we got soaked. Ross was just about to borrow some clothes when Alix started screaming about the stove being on fire, so we came running out as we were. Ross saved the house from burning down…”
The total static silence in the kitchen engulfed all of them. Ross stared at Chance, his eyes so wide that they burned in the sockets and not from the smoke. He casually, as casually as anyone could, crossed the oven mitts in front of his junk, hiding it from Jane. She might have changed his diapers as a baby, but letting Alix’s mom see him as a grown man? That was a big hell no. He knew that his face was probably as scarlet as Alix’s was at the moment.
“Alix!” Jane seethed. “You’ve been told to keep the baking to a minimum. You get distracted and you don’t pay attention and then the house burns down. We’ve been over this before.”
Alix chewed on her lower lip so hard that she just about gnawed it off. She was vibrating, though whether with fury, humiliation, or rage, Ross wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t believe Chance was defending him right after he’d tea bagged him for being with Alix at all. The guy really was a true friend after all, despite everything. But he was not going to let him take the blame. “Actually… we weren’t cleaning the pool. I came over to see Alix. I fell asleep li
ke this. Woke up to find the stove was on fire. We put it out. That’s what happened.”
His words swirled through the kitchen like the smoke still escaping from the oven. Thick. Ominous. Dark. Choking. Loaded.
Robert cleared his throat. Jane gasped. Chance let out a sound that was like a feral animal baring its teeth, circling its prey. Alix choked on a sob and slammed her hand up over her mouth.
“You know-” Robert ran a hand through his hair. “I think, now that the danger is passed, that we should all just take some time and cool off. The stove isn’t ruined this time. It was just the cake on fire by the looks of things.” He turned to Alix. “You know we love you, honey, and we’ll support you in whatever you choose.”
“I- we- we should be talking about this,” Jane interjected. She cast Robert a dirty look. “My stove is the least of my worries right now.” Her blond hair was in a mess, which was very un-Jane-like, and her huge blue eyes teared up. Robert’s eyes were dark, like his hair. It was a mystery where Alix got her strange eyes from. Maybe a grandparent or a great grandparent.
“Later,” Robert urged. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist. They were dressed in their best, as they’d come straight home from the office or whatever show they’d just wrapped up.
Chance stared at his shoes. It was pretty obvious that he’d called them, though he hadn’t ratted. Probably said there was some kind of stupid emergency at home. Or maybe he hadn’t called and they were just there. Ross had no idea.
He just knew that he was naked and that Alix, who he’d learned, over the past two months, watching her with his mother, loved with her whole heart. She loved deep and true and beautiful. She loved with everything she had, and she hurt the same way and that’s what the past four years had been about. Just when he’d finally, finally realized that it should have been her, maybe it was always her, he didn’t want to lose her.
Not like this. Not at all. It took him twenty-six years to wake the hell up. If he had to fight for her, he was going to fight. He just didn’t know what that really looked like. He didn’t want to cause problems for her with her family. He didn’t want to hurt her.
“But- but- Robert…” Jane protested.
“Later, honey.” Robert dropped an indulgent kiss on his wife’s forehead. She looked totally and completely flustered, and honestly, who the hell could blame her? She’d just come home to a scene right out of a horror movie. The kind that is so bad it’s like a comedy instead. Robert lifted his head and nailed Ross with a loaded look. “For the love of god, someone please get Ross some clothes.”
Alix made a strangled sound and rushed off.
Chance shot Ross a murderous glare. He might be willing to stand up for him because of their bro-code and all, but he knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He knew the guy talked big game, but he never thought he was actually not serious about not caring if he ever got with his sister. His words, not Ross’s.
Alix rushed back into the kitchen, not with clothing, but with the comforter off her bed. She half threw, half draped it around Ross. Robert shook his head and led a protesting Jane out of the kitchen. Chance shot him another murderous glare before he shuffled off as well.
Alix’s lips trembled. Her huge amber eyes filled up with tears that she blinked hard to try and banish. She wasn’t entirely successful and a big one trailed down her now ashen cheek. Ross’s heart tumbled over itself. He hated seeing her cry, ever, but now… those tears were like daggers straight to any and all vital organs.
He shook the stupid oven mitts off and threw it onto the counter, caught the blanket before it fell, and wrapped his arms around Alix like a Halloween ghost. He dropped his head and kissed away the tear. It was salty and warm against his lips and to his complete relief, she didn’t pull away. She melted against him and let out a shuddering sob.
“Well- that was hardly relaxing.”
“I had a good nap before all the chaos.”
She looked up at him, horrified, but when she saw the humor on his face, she relaxed back against him. The blanket was all that separated them, the blanket and her clothes, and he wished that neither of them were there. If there weren’t other people in the house, he was afraid to think of what he’d do to her. Propping her up on the kitchen counter and devouring her to make up for the ruined cake, since he was crazing something sweet, was pretty high up on his to-do list.
“You want to go somewhere else? Somewhere- more- private?”
“Yes. My car’s parked out front. Just let me get my clothes.”
Alix nodded, her eyes still swimming, but this time there was a shimmer there that wasn’t there before. “I’ll be ready in five.”
“Make it two.”
Her lips wobbled. “I can do that.” She hesitated and didn’t pull away. “What- god- Ross, this is such a mess. We have to- to figure out how-”
“We will. I promise.”
“So, you aren’t- you- you aren’t going to change your mind because of-” Alix pulled away and swept her hand around the kitchen. “This?”
Ross shook his head. He let the blanket fall away only enough to grab her and slam her back into him. “We do have to talk. About a lot of things. I always knew you were a terrible cook, and that won’t change my mind.”
Right there, in the middle of the mess, the smoldering oven, the smoky air, wrapped up in her quilt, in the middle of the kitchen while her parents were home and Chance was no doubt hovering around waiting to castrate him, he dropped his head and kissed her so thoroughly that he hoped he’d erased any doubt lingering between them.
He was there. He was there, after two and a half decades, he’d pulled his head out of his butt, and now, now he was finally seeing clearly.
There was no going back. He didn’t want to live with a stick up his ass again. The real world was messy and filled with burning cakes and frantic parents and best friends who nut kicked you because they were full of hot air and rage, but it was also full of a beautiful amber eyed woman who, despite everything, wanted him.
He wanted her too. He wanted them. He wanted to figure out, with Alix, what the heck that even meant.
So, he went on kissing her. Kissing away the doubt. Kissing away the pain. Kissing her breathless just so he could breathe new life into her.
And. She. Kissed. Him. Back.
CHAPTER 14
Alix
In the end they took her car, not Ross’s but he drove. She’d already nearly burnt down the house with her cake. She didn’t feel like taking their lives into her hands a second time that night, even though Ross promised her he’d behave.
She had to admit, she also had ulterior motives for not wanting to take his two-seater sports car.
Her car was a big, old, eighties station wagon that she’d named Bertha when she was sixteen. Her dad got it from a friend for fifty bucks. Literally. She didn’t complain. Chance’s first car barely ran either. Her parents had enough money to get them a decent car, but they always said they wanted to teach them the value of hard work and buying them something expensive just so they could wreck it with touch and feel driving or have their friends puke all over it after a party wasn’t their idea of teaching responsibility.
So, they bought them junk and let them learn their touch and feel driving on it instead. Let their friends puke all over the interior of it all the same.
At least Chance’s friends did, and his car had high pill carpet on the bottom. He’d nearly tossed his cookies having to clean it out the next day, though he blamed it on the hangover from hell he had.
She’d never gone to many parties. She never would have let Bertha get puked in.
Secretly, though she’d never admit it, Bertha was her baby. She was never going to give up her ugly, ratty, junky old station wagon with the cool back seat that faced backwards. She was literally the coolest kid in her class growing up because she had something vintage and unique, even if it guzzled gas by the boatload.
She hadn’t driven Bertha in all the years she�
��d been away, but she’d plated her when she’d got back and a new battery later and she was right back to running as rough as ever.
Alix pulled up at the base of the tower in total silence. Her headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the ancient flour factory in all its dilapidated glory. The white block letters painted at the very top of the brick monolith were nearly illuminated in the moon’s glow and the light pollution from the brighter parts of the city a few miles away.
She killed the ignition and pushed the light switch in on the dash, plunging them into darkness. Most people would think she was crazy for thinking that the old water tower, with its slight lilt, and the old, worn out parts of the city were beautiful. She kind of thought of it as her place, even though she’d followed Chance and Ross that night to discover it.
Her parents would have shit bricks if they ever found out that she or Chance weren’t out with friends having a good time at a movie or the mall or somewhere clichéd and stupid- that they were actually sitting on top of a tower that looked like it wouldn’t hold up an ant’s weight, forty odd feet in the air, overlooking the entire city.
“Ross-”
“Al-”
They turned towards each other and spoke at the same time. She let out a nervous giggle. He just smiled. It was dark in the car, but not so dark that she couldn’t see him. The light filtering in from the moon defined the sharp, masculine plains and edges of his face and as always, he took her breath away, like she was seeing him for the first time.
No matter how many times she looked at him, it was like seeing him for the first time and her heart swelled and skittered. The rest of her body followed suit, her pulse hammering, her palms soaking, the heat welling up right below her belly button, the tingles pooling lower, in her thighs.