by Anthology
“I was still in college when the company formed.”
Tiffani shrugged. “Well the CEO never finished college and look where he is now.”
Jeremy stared at her like she was a lunatic—and really, when Tiffani started going on about money, she did get a bit of the crazy going on. “Well Adam Drake is pretty much one of a kind.”
“He’s in the genius uber-rich club along with Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs. None of those guys finished college either.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I was a slacker and stayed in school instead of making my millions,” Jeremy quipped.
Tiffani laid a hand on his shoulder. “There still time, dear.”
I almost breathed a sigh of relief that the topic had strayed to one of Tiffani’s favorite subjects—until she turned her laser focus back on me. “So, Michaela, how about it? You should go for Lucas. He drives a Beemer.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” I sighed.
“I’ll make sure and introduce you when we get there. I think he’d be perfect for you.”
“How do you know? You barely know him,” Jeremy said.
She shrugged. “I know enough. He’s cute. He’s established. He’s single and Michaela is adorable. They’d be cute together. They’re both blond.”
“Ah, love match by hair coloring. Perfect,” Jeremy said.
“Shush, you. What the heck do guys know about it, anyway?” Tiffani was saying, but I could only meet Jeremy’s intense gaze in the rearview mirror. I swallowed, trying to ignore that tingly feeling I got whenever I stared into his beautiful eyes. He seemed to want to communicate something to me without speaking. I shrugged and shook my head to indicate I had no idea what he wanted. He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. Hey, it wasn’t my fault his girlfriend was getting on his nerves! She was getting on my nerves, too.
Chapter Two ~ Jeremy
As usual, Tiff grabbed her personal bag and hightailed it up the stairs to the cabin we had rented for the weekend, indicating that she would “supervise” the food supply. She left Mic and me to unpack the cases of beer, groceries, and gifts from the back of the car.
And Mic, as usual, had rolled up her sleeves and dug in, hopping up the stairs two at a time, her bright blonde ponytail swinging behind her. I followed, trying to ignore how amazing her ass looked in those faded jeans and the curve of her body under her sweater. I swallowed, forced myself to look away and ignore it. I’d been good at doing this for the past year. Why stop now?
She was on her third trip and the car was almost empty, so I turned before shutting the back hatch on my SUV. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s a bad idea.”
Mic turned to me, one six-pack gripped in each hand, her pale blue eyes focused on mine. I looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.
“What’s a bad idea? Beer?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. Lucas.”
She cocked her head at me. “Lucas is a bad idea?”
I shifted my stance, adjusting the keg resting easily on my shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
She narrowed her gaze and cocked her chin at me. “No, I’m quite sure I have no idea what you mean. Is he a criminal or something?”
I shook my head. “I just mean that he’s not the guy for you. You—”
But her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so you are making calls on my love life now, too? You’ve been hanging around your girlfriend too long.”
“Mic—don’t be like that. It’s just… I don’t think that you two would be a good fit.”
She threw me a toothy grin and pivoted to walk away before turning and throwing over her shoulder, “And you would know all about that, wouldn’t you… considering what a great fit you and Tiffani are.”
I winced. She hung around us a lot. She knew exactly how much the two of us argued. I fell into step next to her on the path back to the house. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.”
“Apology accepted,” she said between stiff lips. “As long as you drop the subject.”
“Okay. How about I buy you a beer to make it up to you?”
She shot me a sidelong glance. “Brought my own. Thanks!”
“Mic, wait,” I said on the doorstep before we went through the doorway.
She hesitated and turned to me. “What?”
“I just mean… I just meant that I don’t think he’s good enough for you.” My throat closed up. There was so much more I wanted to say. In fact, I didn’t think any guy was good enough for her. And the thought of her hooking up again with someone like Sean or just anyone… I clenched my jaw and fought the frustration of that thought.
Her mouth tightened. “Okay. That’s nice. But maybe you should leave me to find that out for myself? Maybe,”—she glanced away and coughed—“maybe that’s something we all have to figure out for ourselves, ya know?” Then she caught my gaze again and her beautiful baby blues were so intense that I gulped.
“Yeah… yeah maybe… ”
We held that stare for a while longer and something sizzled between us. Or at least it did on my part. I had tried to avoid looking her in the eyes lately for exactly that reason.
I was suddenly reminded of when we were kids, playing on the same block. Growing up, I was friends with her big brother. Michaela had been, at various times, the nuisance who tagged along when his mom insisted. Or sometimes, she’d been the interesting playmate—when we’d permitted ourselves to reluctantly admit it. She and I had reunited when I’d finished college and came down to OC to work at Draco. I didn’t live far from where she attended UCI. By the time we’d reconnected, however, she’d been in a relationship with her boyfriend and was roommates with Tiffani.
For the past year, we’d hung out regularly. At the beginning, I would have tried to muster the courage to ask Mic out. But she’d had a boyfriend then. Eventually, I’d asked out Tiff instead and she’d said no… a lot. Until one day she gave in and we just kind of fell into a relationship.
Tiff poked her head out of the doorway as we were standing there, staring at each other. “What’s so interesting out here on the stoop?” she said, using a word that revealed her East Coast origins. She’d lived in California for four years for college and still hadn’t got the hang of how we talk.
“Uh, nothing. We were just arguing over who should go through the doorway first,” Mic said. As usual she was quick on her feet. Thank goodness because I really hadn’t wanted to answer that question with, Staring into your roommate’s beautiful blue eyes yet again. I heaved a sigh and waved her inside.
With a nod she acknowledged my gesture, walked through the door and I followed her.
“Michaela,” Tiff grabbed her arm as soon as she set the beer down on the counter. “Come here, there’s someone I want you to meet!” Tiff talked loud enough that the entire house could hear her. It was a spacious cabin with lots of bedrooms and a wide loft overhead. Opening off the main room was a large game room complete with billiards table. Nathan, the groom-to-be, Lucas, and our other friend Tyler all stood around the table with pool sticks in their hands.
The bride and our other friends hadn’t arrived yet. Mic stiffened and trailed her roommate like a dog getting dragged to his bath, trying to wrench her arm out of Tiff’s grip.
This could be funny, actually… so I followed closely behind. Lucas wasn’t a bad guy but he couldn’t have been more wrong for Mic. I figured she’d politely set him down if he was interested. And why wouldn’t he be? Mic was gorgeous, tall, curvy, blonde, with the face of an angel. But she was also stubborn, and the mere fact that Tiff was shoving some guy in her face would be enough for her to get her back up. All I’d have to do would be to sit back and hope she didn’t humiliate Lucas too badly.
“Lucas, this is my roommate Michaela. Michaela, Lucas works with Jeremy.”
Tiff flashed Lucas her almost too-bright smile and I could see he was being reeled in. It had that effect on most guys. And I had to admit that it was somewhat edifying at work to be known as the geek with the h
ot girlfriend.
Michaela leaned forward, with a lopsided smile. I recognized immediately that it meant that she was feeling awkward. “Hey Lucas—think we met once, actually… at that picnic?”
Lucas turned to Mic, his grin widening. “I do remember, actually.” His eyes floated over her sweater and jeans and I immediately felt hot under the collar from irritation. “How could I forget?”
Mic gave a little laugh and looked at me sidelong. I clenched my jaw and tried to ignore the annoyance I felt. I wondered, too, if she would even be bothering with this charade had I not tried to warn her off Lucas in the first place. She was just being contrary.
“Did anyone bring a toboggan? I feel like sledding and Donna told me there’s a nice hill on the next lot over from this one!” I interrupted, trying to draw their attention away from each other, but they still seemed to be checking each other out—and Mic had a smile on her face that was the furthest thing from lopsided.
Nathan answered that he had brought a sled. “Wait a second,” Tiff said, coming up beside me and hooking her arm in mine. “You forgot that I volunteered to wrap the shower gifts.”
I frowned. “I didn’t forget that.”
“Did you forget that you are helping me? We need to get them wrapped before the bride shows up!” She turned to Nathan. “No peeking, you! They’re for you, too!”
“Hopefully you’ve got something pretty from Victoria’s Secret in there. That would be my ideal gift.” Nathan laughed.
“Oh really, Nathan? You were hoping you could wear a lacey little thong number for your wedding night?” Lucas said.
“Fuck you,” Nathan replied with a cheesy grin. But what I focused on was Mic’s reaction. She was doubled over laughing at Lucas’s dumbass joke. Lucas had noticed, his grin widening, his eyes sliding over Mic’s form once again with more than a little interest.
My fist clenched.
“Well, shall we get to it?” Tiff was asking, tugging at my arm.
“Um, what?”
“The gift wrapping… ” Her eyes widened and she was pulling me toward the kitchen.
“But… but… sledding. There’s snow.”
“Pfft. You Californians and your fascination with snow! I grew up with this stuff all over the ground every winter for months. It’s not a big deal.”
I rolled me eyes when she wasn’t looking but let her pull me into the other room. Tossing another glance over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Lucas and Mic continuing to talk while he grabbed his coat and scarf, picking up her bag and lugging it upstairs to the loft.
Shit. Why was this bugging me so badly?
I tried to get my mind off of it as I watched Tiff whip out the wrapping paper, the tape, and the ribbon for the gift-wrapping. Inwardly I groaned. I’d promised to spend more time with her over the weekend, since I finally had the time off. I’d been slaving away at work doing twelve-hour days as we tried to get the new Dragon Epoch expansion ready for release. The time off was long overdue—for all of us.
Tiff unrolled a length of wrapping paper along the table and asked me to bring her a box. For the next forty-five minutes as a hostage, I managed to not die of boredom while helping her wrap the gifts. I was sure it would be much more exciting that night when they opened them, all of us tanked on the beer and teasing the hell out of Donna and Nathan.
Out the window, I watched as Mic and Lucas became better acquainted while frolicking in the snow. My heart pinched a little. I wanted to be the one out there pelting her with snowballs and pulling the inner tube up the hill…
“Well, looks like Michaela and Lucas sure have hit it off!”
I grunted, pulled my eyes away as Mic bombarded Lucas and the other guys with a barrage of snowballs, then ran screaming away to hide behind a tree trunk. She slipped halfway there and barely avoided doing a face plant. I laughed.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Tiff said.
“’I’d like to be out in the snow with the rest of them. This is a drag. Can’t we do it later?”
Tiff frowned. “No. We can’t. We’re opening them after dinner.”
“Everyone’s going to be drunk after dinner. Who cares if the gifts are wrapped?”
She did that weird jerk of her head, flipping her hair off her shoulder like she always did when she was irritated. “Why are you trying to weasel out of spending time with me? We never see each other as it is.”
“I’d be perfectly happy spending time with you—out there,” I said, pointing out the window to where Lucas and Mic were now lying side by side in the snow making snow angels and smiling at each other. It was so ridiculously sweet I wanted to puke.
Then, I wanted to punch the shit out of Lucas.
Which, you know, was weird because generally I liked Lucas.
But the thought of him with Mic just bugged me.
“It’s cold and my hair gets all screwed up when it gets wet. We’re fine in here.”
I sighed. “Well let’s get this all wrapped up so I can at least have some snow time.” I turned to her. “No pun intended.”
Her mouth twisted. “It was a very silly pun. Fine. But we still have three more to wrap and this big one over here.”
I gritted my teeth and played nice with her so she wouldn’t get upset. When Tiff got upset, she was not fun to be around. By the time we were done, everyone had wandered back inside and was making hot toddies to warm up.
So much for sledding down the hill next door.
Chapter Three ~ Michaela
“So, uh, how do you know Jeremy and Tiffani?” Lucas asked in our little corner of the living room over spiked hot chocolate.
“I grew up with Jeremy. He and my brother were best friends in high school. We ended up going to different schools but he came down after graduation to work at Draco. I go to UCI. So… we started hanging out again.”
“You two dated?”
I frowned. “Ah… no… no. I was dating someone else.” Date Jeremy? There was a time when I’d wanted to… a long time, actually. But that had been years ago. He hadn’t been interested. And I thought those feelings had gone away until he had shown up again.
“So… you were dating someone… and now you’re not?”
Wow, subtle he was not. I took another sip of my coffee and studied Lucas. He was a good-looking guy, sandy blond hair, blue eyes. I usually liked my men sultry and dark-haired but… “I was. But not anymore!”
He smiled. “Well… good.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. The conversation was hardly scintillating but I wasn’t ready to write him off yet. I wasn’t horribly interested but something about what Jeremy had said to me on the front porch had gotten my hackles up. Part of me was determined to prove him wrong just for the sake of proving him wrong. But would that mean actually dating someone I wasn’t into just to do it?
All of that made my head hurt. I rubbed my forehead between my eyebrows, frowning.
“You have a headache?”
“Nothing that another shot of Irish Cream in my coffee won’t cure.”
After dinner, Jeremy came out of the loft with a toilet plunger in his hand.
“What up, bro?” Nathan said. “You plug up the toilet? We had to pay a deposit on this place.”
“No… I’m going out to build a snowman.”
“It’s dark!” Tiff protested.
“Frosty has a broom, not a plunger,” I said.
“I’m not building Frosty. I’m building a snow Dalek. This is going to be the probe.”
I jumped up, suddenly excited. “Badass! You need something for the laser and the two luminosity dischargers on top. And the plunger would be for the manipulator arm—there is no probe.”
“What the what? “ Tiff asked.
“You wouldn’t know about it. It’s from Doctor Who,” I waved her off. Tiff absolutely refused to watch Doctor Who with me when it came on and often would leave me and Jeremy to watch it together while she went off and answered emails or surfed the Internet.
&n
bsp; She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, that. Let’s play something else instead. How about a board game?”
“I have not had nearly enough to drink yet for a board game,” said Donna, the bride-to-be, as she bent over and picked up her bottle of beer.
“We could do something fun!” Tiffani said, slapping her hands together. “Like Truth or Dare.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“OMG. No.” I said, standing up to go into the kitchen to find more parts for the snow Dalek. “Exterminate! Exterrrrrrrrminate!” I buzzed.
“Girlfriend what are you drinkin, ’cause I want some!” Donna said.
It took us an hour to figure out how the old snow was going to stick together to make the base of our snow Dalek. By the end, Jeremy and I were both soaking wet and the snow Dalek was a disaster, a pile of mush. But neither one of us was willing to be the one to call it quits.
I did manage to get in a few good-quality shots at Jeremy, though, till he wrestled me down, insisting I call “uncle” like when we were kids. Only this time it was different. His hands, where they gripped my wrists tightly, made my heartbeat race like a colt. I swallowed, looking up into his deep green eyes. With his dark hair, his tall, slim build, he was—as he had always been—a handsome guy. A handsome guy I couldn’t have.
I cut our little struggle short by calling uncle long before I normally would have, unable to stand any more of the tension and the awareness of his heavy, solid weight on mine.
I think we were both relieved when Tiffani called us inside and, shaking from the cold and wet, we didn’t protest. “We’re going to play Sardines in the house!”
“Neither of you are drunk enough to play with us!” Nathan declared. “You must each down three shots before we even start. We’ve been in here drinking all this time while you were out messing with your snowman and doing god knows what.”
Jeremy scowled. “We were making a snowman. Shut up.” He darted a quick look at Tiffani, who didn’t react.
With a grimace, I downed two shots of vodka to satisfy everyone and Jeremy did several as well. Then, because apparently I was the most sober of everyone—which was a bit scary because I was feeling mighty woozy—I was chosen as the Sardine. We all stood outside shivering while they explained to me that I needed to go back inside.