Daniel came home even earlier than he mentioned this morning, allowing me to get this call over with sooner rather than later.
I’ve never been nervous to call Dad. He’s the one I run to when I need to talk, but this pit in my stomach is only growing larger by the minute thanks to my stupidity. I grab the phone from my nightstand and sit stiffly on the edge of the bed as I dial his number.
He picks up after only two rings, sounding a bit more distressed than he did earlier.
“Jelly-bean,” he says, breathlessly. “Are you okay?” The simple fact that he’s more concerned about me, who happens to be living in a million-dollar house for the summer, rather than himself, who is about to go couch hopping at our neighbors’ houses until we figure this out, makes me a total asshole.
“Dad, I lied to you.”
He clears his throat following a long pause like he has always done when I’ve fallen beneath the standard of a good daughter. I haven’t heard the clearing of the throat since I brought Andy home. He knew well before I did that he was no good, probably just by looking at him. Stupid, good-looking men. “What—what is there to lie about?”
He breaks at the word, and my heart feels about the same. “I didn’t get an internship in Maine.”
“Huh? Where the hell are you then?” Okay, so we skipped the disappointed phase of this and went right to pissed.
“I’m in Maine, but I’m nannying for the summer. I just . . . I wanted a few months of—”
“Of what?” he snaps.
I think back to the only nice thing Liam has said to me this week, remembering my reason for doing what I did. “I wanted a little life experience before I settled down into a forever career.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I pick at a thread pulling from the frayed hem of my shorts. Another simple question with no simple answer.
“I thought you’d be upset and disappointed that I wasn’t ready to go out and get the career I’m planning. You’ve spent the last however many years working your butt off to ensure I’d have what I needed for a successful future. You’ve said it yourself a million times. I was the reason you had to work twelve-hour days, two jobs, and side work.”
“I’m upset you lied to me. We don’t do that, Julia. We promised each other a long time ago we would never lie.” I hear a loud sigh from his end of the phone.
“I’m going to come home and help you.” I need to ignore what Liam said and put aside Dylan for the moment, knowing Dad has to come first.
“No, you’re not. I’m putting everything into storage, and I think Gerald has some space for me.”
“Gerald? No way. You’re allergic to cats, and he has like ten. Not to mention there’s no space there for you other than their cat-hair-covered couch. What about your lady friend there?”
Dad clears his throat; I’m going to guess it’s to avoid the discussion about his lady friend. Typical. “Cat hair makes the couch a little softer, right? Besides, I have allergy meds. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re always fine, but I see through it, Dad.”
“Jelly-Bean, someday, God willing, you are going to have a son or daughter, and you will understand what it means to give unconditionally and without regret. I will give you whatever I have, whenever I have it, but I will never take from you, even if you have everything. You are my daughter, and putting the lying thing aside, I think taking a few months to find yourself is a fine idea.”
This is why I call him when I need someone to talk to and listen to me. “Thanks for understanding, but I can’t just get off the phone, knowing what I’m hanging up on.”
“Pay your loans, that’s all I need you to do. That will help me. Be happy and enjoy this time before you have someone you live, breath, work, and survive for. Do this for me.”
“You’re going to make me cry, Dad.”
“Well, you’ll probably look like a raccoon if you do, so it’s your call, sweetie.”
“Ugh, I miss you.”
“Miss you more, baby-girl. I’ll give you a call soon when I have more information on what’s going on. In the meantime, don’t worry, and have a good time.”
I toss the phone behind me, feeling relief from my lie, but sadness for everything else.
“Are you going to cry or what?” Liam is standing in my doorway, shirtless.
“What do you want?” I ask him, with tears filling my eyes and threatening to spill over. He pulls his arm out from behind him, handing me a bowl filled with condoms. “Really, Liam?”
“Extra-large, just like you requested.” He isn’t smiling. He looks pissed, but why would he be standing here, holding out a bowl of condoms if he were still pissed over something I said.
“Is this supposed to be some kind of peace offering for your asshole behavior?”
He walks into the room, coming closer to where I’m sitting. There’s heat spreading throughout my body as I struggle to take my eyes off of his chest. He’s glistening. How is that even possible? People don’t glisten unless they’ve been sprayed before a photo shoot.
“I know you have a date in an hour, but I needed to get something off my chest first.” He closes the bedroom door, and I’m silently freaking out, wondering what he’s doing—why he just closed us in my room, and . . . he’s half naked.
“You had condoms on your chest?”
As per his usual behavior, he ignores my attempt at humor and continues toward me. How big is this room? Because if feels like he’s been walking forward in slow motion for twenty minutes.
I stand up so I don’t feel so inferior to his tall height compared to mine, and I cross my arms over my chest in defense against whatever he’s planning. “First, I’m sorry. I was wrong.” He’s sorry? He has real emotions and feelings? I didn’t see this coming. “Second, I do like you . . . I like picking on you, I should say. As soon as I got a little insight into your life today, the like factor might have gone up a smidgen.” He wasn’t hiding this fact. I might not have a great track record with relationships, but I do know how a hot guy flirts. I have notes jotted down on it in my writing scrapbook. “Third—” He’s in my space, breaking through my bubble, and intruding on the air that’s mine to breathe. He’s stolen my air. I can’t breathe at all. He smells like sexy man soap mixed with some form of Old Spice variant that doesn’t turn me off, surprisingly.
“Third?” I ask with trepidation.
He’s staring down at me with those emerald eyes that could put Ireland’s greenery to shame. He’s studying me like he’s trying to read my thoughts, but I don’t have any thoughts because my mind is blank and confused. I’m fighting against rules I’ve made for myself to keep—rules that should not be broken because I’ll never be able to write my book if I don’t eventually learn my lesson.
I try to swallow, but it’s impossible as his fingertips feather over my cheek, slowly skating back into my hair. I could stop him. I should stop him.
I have to tell Liam to get out of my room, and I would if I could figure out how to breathe while he’s touching me, but screw it, what’s the point? I’ve felt like shit all day and right now, I feel nothing but my heart racing inside of my chest.
“Three, I’m not gentle like I’m leading you to believe right now.” Yup, I think my heart has burst upward and might be sitting in my throat. My voice won’t even work. I’m trying to say show me, but I think I’ll just stand here like a moron and see what he means by this because I have no restraint against hot men, and I’m obviously a failure at being a strong woman.
He lifts me up—literally sweeps me off my feet, and he was right, it isn’t gently. One arm is under my ass, and the other is around my back, and he throws me onto my bed. “If you’re going to be a writer, and you need some life experience, I can help you with that. Plus, the house is empty. They went out for dinner.” I have no idea what he just said because I don’t think I can put words together in a sentence to make any sort of sense.
I’m lying beneath him with my arms pinned above my
head by one of his large hands, ready for . . . yeah, I’ll pretty much do whatever he suggests at this point because he’s hovering over me with a look I’ve never seen in any man’s eyes. Hot or not, holy shit, I don’t think I can say no to this. This is like a dirty-dream fantasy with a man I would just never get with. That’s the fantasy part. He’s an asshole, though, and here I am again. I might as well just take my heart out and—oh, okay, yeah, those are his lips, they’re a half inch from mine. He smells like mint, and I’m swallowing minty air while looking at up him with a wide gaze questioning what is happening. “Liam . . .” I have nothing to follow that. His name just sort of rolled off my tongue.
“I’m a big believer in showing instead of telling,” he mutters before devouring my lips within his. I’ve always enjoyed the art of kissing, especially in the form of showing and not telling. It’s the first rule I learned in journalism. Always show what you feel.
I had a log of notes about guys I’ve kissed—who sucked, who was okay, and who was good for a second kiss. None of the descriptions I wrote would ever make me go back for a second kiss, but I can already feel the description of this one blooming into words that are floating through my mind.
I have avoided looking at Liam’s mouth, knowing how perfectly kissable his lips are, but it isn’t just his lips that have me convinced I don’t need air to breath. It’s the way he’s moving his lips, the perfect pressure, the way he pauses to look at me briefly as if he needs to gauge his progress by the look on my face, the flushness in my cheeks and the loss of breath. Every time he dips back in, his lips fall on mine, perfectly centered without lingering anywhere else. The movements evolve from slow and gentle to wild, erratic, and rough to the peak where pleasure could be confused with pain as if he were hungry and I was the last piece of food left on earth.
I gasp for air as his cock presses into my hip, and . . . that is a boner. Holy shit. He clutches my chin within his palm as I’m mentally picturing the beast in his pants. His hand releases into a gentle grasp as his lips feather against mine once more before dragging the tip of his tongue along the rim of my bottom lip, causing a tremor between my legs, and I strongly suspect he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. “You needed to know the difference before you go out tonight.”
“Difference?” I say through a wheezy breath.
A cocky smile that enhances his chiseled jaw takes over his face. “I don’t think I need to clarify.” He doesn’t need to clarify, not even a little. That was a kiss worth writing about, reading about, re-reading, dreaming, and feeling instead of just seeing a bunch of words describing lips on lips.
“I’m going to need my . . . um . . . that thing you stole from me because . . .”
He reaches into his back pocket and tosses it onto the pillow beside me. “Music to my ears,” Liam says, hopping up as he shakes around the waistband of his pants, probably to conceal his massiveness that might or might not still be standing at attention. “Enjoy your pizza.”
He turns his back to me and slowly makes his way to the bedroom door, grabbing the bowl of condoms on the way out.
Did that just happen? I turn my head to the right, finding my Shermanator. I grab it and tug at my shorts quickly. There’s no way I can go out tonight feeling the way I do without relief.
Once in place, I hit the little switch to turn it on.
Again, I hit the little switch to turn it on.
I shake it around a little.
It’s dead.
I remove my little red friend and unscrew the back to find the goddamn batteries missing.
This is why I’m writing a book about the hot assholes in the world.
“He totally sabotaged my date, Jade.” I switch the phone to my other ear as I pull out onto the highway.
“I can’t believe this. Holy cannoli, Liam Hollow kissed you?” she asks with shock, using his last name as if he were the big bad quarterback for our high school football team. “When I said he’d come around, I didn’t mean that much.” I want to tell her there was no one coming anywhere.
“He’s been teasing me for days, more like torturing me. I got the hints he was sending, but I was almost positive he was just messing with me more than anything else.”
“Liam doesn’t tease anyone,” Jade counters quickly. “He’s usually just quiet and anti-social.”
“Then, why did you say he’d come around?” I ask her.
Jade giggles against a muffled sound on the phone, and I think I hear kissing. Oh, come on, really? “Jade . . .”
“I’m sorry, sorry. Cleary, wait,” she giggles again. “I said that to ease the aggravation you’d have to deal with while working with him. He’s got a stick up his butt.”
“Oh my God, Jade. Cleary is going to go back to Sterling with this.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t. Look, go enjoy your date with Sterling because one silly kiss does not equal commitment.” That was not one silly kiss.
I glance into the mirror on my visor, briefly catching the reflection of my lips and somehow still feeling the sensation of Liam’s. “It wasn’t just any kiss.”
“But your kiss with Sterling last night was?” Jade asks, trying to compare the two.
Knowing Cleary is sitting right there is making this awkward and uncomfortable. “I don’t know, Jade. I don’t know what I think right now.”
“Well, it’s not the worst decision to have to make.” I can hear her smiling on the other end of the call. “Just have fun. That’s why you’re here, remember? Your dad is going to be okay, especially if he’s staying with my dad. Everything is going to be fine.” Everyone keeps saying that, but I’m not feeling it.
“Okay, well . . . just don’t get yourself pregnant,” I tell her.
“Ahhh, yes, I’ll be safe,” she giggles.
“Tell Cleary I said hi. I’m pulling into a parking spot now, so I gotta run.”
“Later, girly.”
I drop my phone into my purse and glance back into the mirror one last time to apply a little gloss to my lips.
If there were two men left on this earth, and I had to choose one, the burning question would be hanging over my head as it is now. I’ve always given myself the option of a good-looking guy with a shitty personality or a semi-doable guy with a decent personality. They are low standards, I know, but if I have to choose, I would think a decent personality should win. However, I’m stuck with two good-looking guys. One has asshole qualities, and I’m still unsure about the other. I guess that’s what I need to figure out, but if Sterling turns out to be anything like the guys in my past, I might make a life-long commitment to Shermanator.
Stepping out of my car, I tug my dress down over my hips and walk across the sidewalk to the outdoor pizza restaurant with decorative white lights encasing the interior. There’s a two-piece jazz band playing in the back corner and votive candles placed in the center of each table. It’s adorable and a pretty perfect night for dinner outside. The chatter is loud, drowning out the sound of nearby waves, but the salty smell is as pungent as ever, and even if I were sitting here alone, this could be my definition of perfect.
“Guppy,” Sterling’s voice sounds in the distance, and I turn in every direction, searching for him, but with so many people in the area, it’s hard to see until he’s standing in front me, which he is now. He places his hand on my hip and guides me to the entrance without saying much.
The hostess leads us to a small table, and Sterling pulls out my chair. That should earn him at least one point or something. I need to come up with a point system if I’m going to write a book about all of this. Although if I create a point system that allows me to rank every guy, my perfectionism might land me in a lifestyle like Jade’s dad with twelve cats and a furry couch.
“Earth to Guppy,” Sterling sings.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head around as I grab the menu he’s reaching over to me. “I was just lost in thought.”
“Hopefully, it was a good one about me,”
he says alongside a flirtatious wink.
I smile because I don’t know how to respond. I’m making this awkward. I made it clear last night that this was all too much too soon, and I caved this morning to piss Liam off. “How was your day?” I ask, blatantly changing the subject.
“It was okay. Had to do some bookkeeping for my freelance business, but at least I got in some good waves this morning.” He sounds monotone, not so full of life like he has been the last few times I’ve been around him.
“Well, that’s good,” I offer cheerfully.
“Julia, you seem pretty distracted.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand, holding it within his. “Are you okay? I was hoping to catch a glimpse of your smile tonight. I mean, it’s just sort of entrancing, so I guess I can blame you for my endless attempts to get your attention.” His words makes me melt a bit, but at the same time, Liam’s words about notches on bedposts and point systems are ringing loudly in my head. Is this his game? Not that I wasn’t just considering a point system too, but mine would be much different and for different reasons.
“I think it’s just been a long, well just a hard kind of day.” A long, hard day. Long. Hard.
“Well, maybe I can fix that.” I pull my hand from his because it feels too intimate. Yet, I kissed Liam just two hours ago and didn’t resist that.
“I think I still want to know more about you,” I tell him, stalling against more flirting innuendos.
A quiet sigh spills from his lips and repositions his chair so he can lift one leg over his other without kicking me. “Let’s see here; I’m twenty-five. I think I told you I have three brothers. Cleary and I are the oldest, and the other two are twenty-two and eighteen. My parents have been married for twenty-eight years and both run a small gift shop together right outside of Ottawa. I’ve been surfing since I was seven and used to be competitive, but life got in the way, and it became more of a hobby than a lifestyle. I come here every summer to get my fill.” He glances down at his menu, creating a pause in his summarized autobiography. “I’ve had four girlfriends, and my last relationship ended about a year ago.”
The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns Page 18