by Sarina Bowen
I shove the mean-spirited jab out of my head before my mouth can give it voice.
“He’s waiting for me downstairs in the car, actually. I would’ve left the girls at home with him if I didn’t think I’d bleed all over the steering wheel driving myself.”
Although I’m inwardly bristling, I choose not to comment on the fact that Kara’s boyfriend was at my old house, preparing lunches for my kids. At least he’s not fucking living there. Yet—but I push that notion aside.
I apply more gentle pressure and wrap it for her again. “Stitches are a good idea.”
Kara winces at the thought. I feel a rush of sympathy for her, but it evaporates when she pushes past me into the room. “Girls, your bedtime is in thirty-seven minutes and— Oh. Hello.”
I know the moment Kara spots Hailey, because her tone turns to ice. So does her gaze. Gulping, I watch as my ex-wife takes in the scene before her. Hailey’s tousled hair and rumpled clothing. The two wine glasses on the coffee table
After a long, tense moment, Kara’s head swings back to me. “I see,” she says coolly. “So this is why you can’t be bothered to answer your phone? Because you’re too busy entertaining college girls?”
I frown, while Hailey’s cheeks turn beet red.
“Hailey, this is Kara. Kara, Hailey.” My tone is as frosty as Kara’s. “And I can assure you, she graduated from college a long time ago.” At least I think she did. We haven’t even discussed shit like post-secondary-school education yet. We’re still just getting to know each other. But I’m not admitting that to Kara.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Hailey says faintly, and I see her edging toward her purse as if she’s planning her escape.
“A pleasure,” Kara replies, though we all know pleasure is the last thing she’s feeling right now. Then she dismisses Hailey with her eyes and turns to me. “I can’t take the girls to a germy emergency room. And there’s no way to know how long this will take, so I figured the girls would just spend the night here and I’ll collect them in the morning. I assume that’s all right?”
“Of course,” I say tersely. I’m not about to let my children hear me say they aren’t welcome. But Kara clearly has no qualms about restricting my access to the girls until the moment she needs something.
Kara sets her jaw, then winces as if the action causes her pain. She squeezes her thumb inside its wrapping. “Christ.”
Her obvious discomfort thaws some of my anger. She might have been rude to Hailey just now, but she’s obviously panicked. “Go,” I tell my ex-wife. “Take care of it. The girls will be fine.”
Kara stays rooted in place. She stares at the wine glasses again, then at Hailey, and it’s easy to guess what she’s thinking.
“Don’t worry, I was just leaving,” Hailey blurts out.
Startled, I glance over at her. “Stay,” I find myself saying, even while Kara scowls at me. “We can watch a movie with the girls.”
The suggestion goes unacknowledged. Hailey simply slings her purse over her shoulder and sprints to the door. “Thanks for dinner, Matt!” she calls without looking back at me. “I’ll just let myself out.”
A second later, she’s gone.
Twelve
Latherblather
Hailey
The next morning, I work for a few hours in peace. With my office door closed, nobody bothers me. And I absolutely force myself not to think about the prior night’s disasters. But my solitude goes to hell at noon when Jenny arrives for a twelve-to-nine shift.
At 12:01, Jenny pounces.
“Where did you disappear to last night?” she demands from my doorway.
“I…” That’s as far as the sentence gets. The truth is that I’m still trying to figure out what happened to me last night. Encounters with Matt always leave me a little befuddled.
For example, did I really grind on his lap while our mouths were fused together? And then, did my lifelong crush slip his hand inside my panties and nearly make me come, while I moaned like a porn star? One thing I know for sure—mid-groan, we were interrupted.
With a different kind of groan, I put my head in my hands.
“Oh honey!” Jenny yelps. She shuts the door and flings herself into the visitor’s chair. “Tell Auntie Jenny what happened!”
“It was wonderful and terrible,” I whine. “Like all my encounters with Matt.”
She makes a sympathetic noise.
“That shopping order he put in was because he wanted to make me dinner,” I start, and Jenny squeals with delight. “That part of the night was really fun. I was able to calm down and turn off the…what did you call it?”
“The latherblather,” my friend says with authority.
“Wait…” I say, just noticing the take-out cup in her hand. “You went to the coffee shop without me?”
“Sorry,” she says. “If you tell me what happened, I’ll run out and grab you one.”
“You want me to humiliate myself without coffee?” I grumble. “That’s cold.”
She removes the top of her cup and hands it to me for a sip. “Now spill. The story. Not the coffee.”
Right. I take a single gulp and hand it back. “After dinner, we sat on the couch.”
Her eyes light up with glee.
“He could tell that I was terrified. So he made a bunch of jokes to calm me down. Then he dared me to kiss him.”
She leans forward, bracing herself on the edge of my desk. “And then?”
“And then I kind of lost my mind. I attacked him like Rufus attacks a doggy bone.”
“Whoa!” Jenny’s eyes are saucers. “Did you get a bone? Right there on the couch? In front of those floor-to-ceiling windows? Was it awesome?”
Embarrassment heats my neck as I realize that there are giant windows in Matt’s apartment. And I don’t think the blinds were drawn. Not only did I give him a lap dance but I performed for all of Yorkville, too.
“Omigod, you did!” she shrieks. “You’re my hero!”
I shake my head quickly. “No! I didn’t. It’s a long story. But he makes me crazy, Jenny.”
“That’s the best!”
“No!” I argue. “It isn’t. Not at all. You said so yourself—I used to be a confident person. And I need to start dating again. But Matt is not the guy for someone who needs to go back to Dating 101. He doesn’t make me confident. He makes me nuts. When he’s in the room I’ll say anything. I’ll do anything.” I’ll unbutton any piece of clothing. Yikes. “I need to date someone who doesn’t give me the…”
“Sluttyflutters?” Jenny suggests.
“Exactly!”
“On the other hand…” she starts.
But she’s interrupted by Jackson, who’s standing in the doorway to my office. “The slutty…what?”
My face heats another ten degrees. “Is it time for our meeting?” I ask my ex, hoping to throw him off the scent of a story.
“Our meeting? There’s nothing on the schedule.”
Of course there isn’t. But I’m desperate here. “Right. Then what did you need?”
“Uh.” He gives Jenny the side-eye. “Can we talk?”
My stomach twitches nervously. Those words never begin a happy conversation. “Sure,” I say, giving Jenny a pointed look.
With a disappointed sigh, she takes her coffee cup and heads out the door.
I’ve extracted myself from one difficult conversation only to find myself in another. “About the other day,” Jackson says when she’s gone.
“I didn’t see a thing,” I stammer, thinking of the sex toys on my desk.
He frowns. “I know you haven’t seen it. That’s why I want to show it to you.”
“You…what?” I rack my brain for a reason we’d be talking about sex toys. I’m obviously missing something. “Wait. What is it I’m supposed to see?”
“A property on Bayview.” He frowns at my obvious confusion. “For the expansion.”
“But I thought you weren’t ready to expand!” I sound hurt e
ven to my own ears. But he’s not making a lot of sense right now. “You said it was too soon.”
He leans his head back against my doorframe and closes his eyes. “I don’t know, I guess. My dad thinks this lease is too good to pass up. It’s right near all those Bridle Path mansions.”
“And you want me to see this property?” I’d rather take the carefully sharpened pencils out of my pencil cup, hunt down Mr. Emery, and stab him with them.
“I guess so.” He opens his eyes. “What do you think of the idea?”
I hate it. “Any property on Bayview has got to cost a mint. It must be twice what we pay for this place.” I throw out an arm to indicate our Yorkville spread, which is only affordable because it’s on the second story of a small building, and Mr. Emery is our landlord. “How much is it?”
When he quotes a number, I groan. “And you think this is a good idea?”
“I think…” He pauses to chew his rather thin lip. I never saw it as thin until right this second. But just last night I was up close and personal with a set of bossy, bruising—
Focus, Hailey!
“…we could do well in that neighborhood,” he says slowly. “Just take a look? See it before you decide.”
“All right,” I agree, managing to keep my tone civil. “But we can’t make this decision just based upon a lease opportunity. If you’re serious about expanding, I’m going to calculate the ROI based on the density of that neighborhood and the average cost of residential real estate per square foot. Then I have to compare the results to other cash-rich neighborhoods. Like Rosedale.”
That will only take me about fifty hours.
Jackson nods. “Fine. But look at the place, okay? I need to get back to my father.”
Of course he does. And I’ll probably become first woman convicted of office supply murder.
When Jackson leaves, I pull up some data about the Bridle Path. I should really be working on our mobile-app rollout, and the interruption makes me growl at my computer.
“Wowzers,” Jenny says from behind me. “That’s the sound of sexual frustration.”
“Stop,” I bark.
“Fine. Is this a bad time to mention that there’s a new request from…”
My heart leaps.
“…Mr. Dick?”
It crashes to the ground again. “What does he want?” I spot the red notification in the corner of my screen and click it. “A swing?” I giggle, feeling the tension leaving my shoulders for the first time in hours. I wonder if the Bridle Path has a colorful clientele, too.
“The specs make me think I can find him something at Home Depot. Or a sex shop. But look at the picture. Please?”
I shift my computer browser to pull up the request on the big screen. And then I’m disappointed, because MrEightInches is not himself today. There’s no penis in the picture. Only a beamed ceiling, with hooks embedded in one of the beams. “So he’ll have a place to hang the thing,” I say. “That makes your job easier, I guess?”
“Hailey! Look at the wall.”
There is a bit of wall showing. When I squint, I see more hardware bolted in. There’s some kind of chain hanging there. And beside it I can just make out a row of… “Are those floggers?”
“Seems so.”
“Are you even surprised?”
Jenny shrugs. “Why didn’t you have sex with the hockey god yet?”
The question catches me entirely off guard, so I blurt out the truth. “I would have, but we were interrupted by an emergency.”
Her eyes widen, probably because she hadn’t expected her sneak attack to work. “What kind of emergency?”
“The intimidating kind,” I admit. “His ex-wife showed up looking like a supermodel, with her twin girls in tow. She cut her thumb and declared a national emergency.”
Jenny makes a face. “I hate her for interrupting your first night of sex in a million years.”
“Two years,” I correct.
Her eyes bug out. “Two? But your separation was only eighteen months ago!”
Well, this is embarrassing. “Next topic, please.”
“Oh dear.” She looks truly stunned. “No wonder you turn into a gibberflibber every time he turns up.”
“But most men don’t make me do that,” I point out. “Just him. He’s obviously the wrong choice to break my dry spell.”
“No.” Jenny reaches across the desk and smacks my hand. “That means he’s exactly the right guy. Did Jackson ever turn you into a bumbleberry?”
“No. Just Matt. I humiliate myself nearly every time we’re in the same room. And he has two kids, Jen. Seriously. There’s a whole bunch of people in line for his attention.”
Jenny’s wince is just proof that I’m right. “The kids are tricky,” she admits.
“The whole situation is tricky. This is like…deciding I’m interested in doing a little rock climbing, and then flying to Everest for my first excursion.”
“The scenery, though!” She fans herself. “Let’s talk about how you’re really just a big chicken.”
“I’m not!”
“You are.”
“Am not!”
“Hi ladies,” a male voice says from the doorway. Once again my heart leaps and then dives. It’s not Matt.
“Hi, Tad!” I greet him with great enthusiasm, because he’s interrupted the dumbest argument Jenny and I have ever had. When I bounce out of my desk chair, he looks a little startled. “Weren’t we going to have coffee sometime?”
His eyes widen. “I believe that was the plan.”
“Is now good? Jenny went for an espresso without me.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Now would be very good.” His smile leaves no room for doubt that Jenny was right. He had been trying to ask me out, and I missed it.
“I’ll just get my coat.”
We go to the coffee shop on Yorkville Ave. But instead of getting takeout, we have a seat at one of the little tables in back.
Talking to Tad is easy. I don’t feel any shimmies or flutters in inappropriate places. It’s soothing. We end up discussing television. Turns out we’re both excited for a new season of Sherlock.
“A ‘season’ is usually only a few episodes, though,” I point out.
“True,” he says, his brown eyes smiling at me. Tad is empirically attractive. He has a good haircut and a friendly smile. He’s a little lean for my recent tastes, but he carries himself well, and wears clothes that suit him. With his turtleneck sweater and his hipster glasses, he looks more like a Club Monaco model than a techie nerd.
Also in Tad’s favor? I haven’t stuttered once since we sat down to talk. I’m perfectly calm the whole time. He doesn’t make me stutter or feel sweaty. He’s just…Tad. I lean forward a little, wondering if the zap of attraction I’m hoping to feel is somehow held back by the width of the oak table between us.
But…nothing.
Interesting.
“After Sherlock is over,” he says, “there’s always hockey. I know how much you love hockey.”
I offer a wry smile. “Speaking of hockey, where’s your Toronto hat today?”
The tips of his ears go pink. “Flew off when I was running to the subway station the other week. It was either save the hat and miss the train, or lose the hat and make it home on time.”
“I would’ve chosen the hat.”
“Of course. The three pennants and the Toronto pencil cup in your office could’ve told me that.”
He smiles, and it’s a nice smile, but once again I don’t feel a single spark. “I bet if it was your, say, Boston cap, you wouldn’t have picked the train,” I tease.
His blush deepens. “Damn. Who gave me away?”
“Jenny. But don’t worry,” I add graciously, “it’s all right with me if you want to root for Boston over us. Foolish, but all right.”
Tad chuckles, then tells me about the time he had tickets for a Toronto home game against Boston but then got stuck in an elevator in midtown. It’s a pret
ty good story, and I’m a good listener. But as he’s telling me how he used his cell phone to call the building security, I suddenly feel it! A flush spreads across my chest, and everything starts to tingle. I feel myself smile a little wider. I sense something important happening…
“Hottie.”
I jump three inches in my seat, and my forearm knocks over the dregs of my coffee. I flail for the napkin but it goes sailing off the table.
Two seconds later, Matt Eriksson has retrieved my napkin and dropped it tidily onto the modest puddle of spilled coffee. Leaping to my feet, I take him in. In sweatpants and a Toronto jacket, he must have just come from the morning skate. He’s the most casually dressed man in the shop and the hottest by a factor of a thousand.
I’m just goggling at him, still stunned by his sudden arrival. And Tad is faring even worse. His mouth has flopped open, and his eyes are the size of the CDs he uses to install new software at our office. “You’re…” he stammers.
At least I’m not the only one who loses it a little when Matt shows up. Tad might not be a Toronto fan, but he’s still a hockey enthusiast, and all diehard fans go a bit nuts in the presence of a professional athlete.
“Hailey,” Matt says with a jaw that’s tighter than normal. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“This is T-Tad the techie,” I blabber. “Tad, this is Matt Eriksson.”
Tad pulls himself together. He stands and thrusts a hand into Matt’s, pumping it. “It’s a pleasure, sir.” Hesitating, he glances between us. “So, uh, you two know each other?”
“You might say that.” Matt retrieves his hand from Tad’s. Then he uses it to cup the back of my head. He places a firm, possessive kiss on my cheekbone. “We need to have a little chat, you and me. If you have a moment.”
“Oh, we’re done here!” Tad volunteers with a nervous chuckle. He grabs our cups off the table. “See you back at the office, Hailey!” He’s gone so fast I think I see a contrail all the way out the door.
“What was that?” I demand, finally shaking off my surprise. “You chased off my coffee date.”
“Date?” he asks, his strong jaw lifting in a way that’s so sexy I can practically feel the testosterone rolling off him in waves.