Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1)

by Ainslie Paton

  She starfished her arms and legs. It might be a while till she had so much room to move again. She needed to get up and get organized.

  But it would’ve been nice to start with a hug, with Reid’s enthusiastic arms, his big wide chest, to burrow into.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  As though she’d summoned him by longing, Reid lounged in the doorway in a pair of faded blue jeans with the knees blown out and a well-washed and faded t-shirt with the Plus logo and the words Better Together printed on it.

  She felt like she’d been caught out daydreaming when she had bigger issues. “I need to get moving.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “I have things to do. I have a term paper to finish. I need to call Cara. I need.” A hot shower, coffee, food, knowledge of what happened to people who got turfed out of their apartment without it being their fault.

  “Anything you need that I can do, you got.”

  Better Together. They weren’t that, they were a thing. He had other words on his chest about being alone and apart. She sat up, bringing the sheet with her. “You’re not responsible for me.”

  The sleepy-eyed look he gave her was anything but. “Not responsibility I’m feeling.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, this is not—”

  “Nothing to be sorry about.”

  “I’d like to go past the apartment. Call the fire brigade. I do have to finish a term paper. Maybe I should get myself together and go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because despite the shirt, you didn’t sign up to be a white knight.”

  He glanced down, then pushed off the doorway. “Coffee is ready.”

  “And you don’t need a damsel in distress. You want a damsel who knows her way around sex.”

  “I didn’t sign up for a warm body. I signed up for you, Zarley. And if you have stuff to do then I’ll either help you do it or I’ll wait.” He turned his back on her. He would’ve missed the way her mouth dropped open. Better together indeed. He said, “Coffee is up,” from the hall in a distinctly pissed-off tone.

  She got herself upright, chose the least smoky smelling t-shirt and her jeans and went to the kitchen. He had rugs. He had a new sofa.

  A very funky chunky glass dining table that looked like an elongated letter C had landed in the room. She’d been aware of the apartment being different last night but now she could focus on the details. It looked great. It looked like someone lived here. Someone with money to set on fire. She stopped beside the dining table, ran her hand over the cool surface. It had to be some name designer’s piece. You only sat on the long sides, not at either end, because the thick curve of the C met the floor in a waterfall of smooth, blue tinted glass. This was the table he wanted to fuck her on. She heartily approved.

  He wasn’t in the kitchen, so she found a mug and poured her own coffee. All his tableware looked like hers and Cara’s. Nothing matched, the plates were from different settings, the mugs were old, clean but stained with cracked and faded glazing. They made her feel better about being here. He had money now, but he’d once been homeless too. She went in search of him and found him in the office. This room had been full of boxes. Now he had file cabinets and a bookcase and bright red-leather easy chair. His cables were still held by Lego men though.

  He sat at his desk, focused on his screen. She leaned in the doorway. A parallel to what he’d done in the bedroom.

  “Hi.”

  He didn’t look around. “There’s fruit and yogurt, cereal. There’s bread. Dev brought more Indian.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can help yourself. Whatever you need.”

  “Are you going to stay in here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Just, yeah. No explanation. She didn’t even get a head turn out of him. “Could you look at me, please?”

  A slight swivel of his chair, a quarter turn of his head, then he focused on his screen again. “I’ll take you back to the apartment whenever you’re ready, or wherever you want to go.”

  “Are you sulking?” He closed his eyes.

  “I’m giving you space to do what you need to do.”

  “You sulked at Lucky’s for a month. You’re sulking now because,” she flapped her arm. “I don’t know why, but that’s what you’re doing. I shouldn’t want to kiss you when you’re sulking but I do.” And what was that about? Possibly something to do with how miserable he looked. “I’m not going to because it will reward the behavior and you’re better than that.”

  Now she got his eyes. She got a despairing sigh. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. You’re upset and I’m not good with that. I’ll say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Make whatever just happened worse.”

  “Last night you knew what to do. What’s changed?”

  “Last night you told me what to do.”

  And in bed he’d surprised and delighted her when she’d expected him to simply use her body to please himself.

  “That was all you, last night, and it was pretty damn wonderful.”

  A grudging smile played at the corner of his mouth.

  “And you know it.”

  “I know it.”

  No smile to soften that. Arrogant. She still wanted to kiss him, because he wore this uncertainty like it might smother him. “So what’s this about?”

  “I thought you might cry or, I don’t know. But you made it clear you don’t need me.”

  “I was disappointed to wake up alone.”

  His head shot around. His frown deepened.

  “I don’t need you to save me, Reid, but you can be my friend as well as my lover.”

  “Ah. So.” He stood abruptly, his chair skating across the floor a little way. “You and me, we’re all right.”

  “I could eat a horse, and I’m pissed off about the fire and not knowing what happens next, but unless you keep sulking, you and me are totally fine.”

  “I want to kiss you.” He still looked like this whole thing was a problem he needed to manage and didn’t have the skill for it.

  She bent down and put her empty mug on the floor. Then she ran, laughing at the quick blink of disbelief she got before she heard him come after her. She wasn’t going far and she intended to get caught, but not without a good show. When he cornered her near the TV she used the back of his new sofa as a vault and got around him. She earned a laugh for that, deep and warm, wiping out his uncertainty, replacing it with the hunger she’d seen in his face when he’d been parked outside Lucky’s. She like that look on him. She loved it was directed at her. She stopped dodging him and let him nab her arm, drag her into his body and drop his head so they could kiss.

  He rested his forehead on hers. “I’ve been known to sulk. Retreat. I get the hell out of Dodge when things get tricky.”

  “And by tricky do you mean emotional?”

  He nodded. “I’m good at upsetting people. I’m not good at knowing what to do when that happens.”

  She wound her arms around his neck. “You didn’t upset me.”

  “But the fire, what you lost and you don’t want me to help.”

  “I don’t need you to help. There’s a difference.”

  He sighed. “Too subtle for me.”

  She stood on her toes, walked onto his feet and pulled on his neck. She fastened onto his lips in the most unsubtle way she knew how and made it clear she was still into him.

  She felt a current run through his body; it tightened his hands on her ass, it got her squeezed closer, it put more force in his kiss and a shudder through his frame.

  This thing they had was strong and it wasn’t near played out.

  He was the one to stop things overheating. He tore his mouth away. “You need to eat. You have things to do. Tell me how to help.”

  Words that were as lovely as his kisses. Restraint she knew he didn’t want to exercise. She called Cara while Reid got breakfast ready. And after they ate he took her back to the apartment on the bike. The building was stil
l cordoned off with police tape and closer set barricades, but without the engines and the army of fire fighters, cops and refugees, the devastation was easier to see.

  Se Jong’s was a burned-out shell emitting an acrid smell onto the street front. The wall between the restaurant and the stairwell had collapsed in parts and water dripped from the ceiling.

  “We’re not getting back in there anytime soon.”

  He reached for her hand. He had both their helmets in his other one. “You’re not going to want back whatever you left inside either. It will be smoke and water damaged.”

  There wasn’t much worth getting upset about. Her textbooks, which would hurt to replace, more clothes and shoes, old photographs and keepsakes. Cara had lost more. Her patterns, fabric and sewing machine. She’d been stoic on the call but she’d been hopeful. Zarley was going to need to give it to her straight.

  “Did you have insurance?”

  “No.” They’d had dreams and now they had starting again. He wouldn’t understand. “Can we go back to your place, please? I need to make some calls.”

  They got back on the bike. But he took a different route back to his apartment. She wasn’t feeling a joyride and the streets he’d chosen weren’t exactly picturesque. But when he pulled over in front of a nondescript apartment building, it made sense.

  He took his helmet off and waited for her to do the same. He jerked his chin toward the building. “That’s where I lived with Dev. Sixth floor. View of the back alley. We moved in after college. I lived there until two years ago. I didn’t have insurance either. Yeah, I have security now and more resources than I ever expected, but you and I are not that different.”

  They were because he’d made it and could again, and she’d crashed out, and didn’t know where the hell she was going, but she appreciated the sentiment. “You and your mom were homeless once?”

  “You read that.”

  She propped her chin on his shoulder. “You give good Google.”

  “You give pretty good Google yourself. I was a dumb kid. It was summer. I thought we were camping. I had no idea it was because we didn’t have an option. I thought it was fun. Mom got a new job and found a place to rent and we were fine.”

  But he’d lived here when he could afford better and when he got better he lived like he was camping. She held him tighter on the way back to the apartment and thought about ditching her term paper for the pleasure of being eaten out on his dining room table.

  That almost came off the agenda altogether because he tried to help. He took one look at her business statistics paper and told her she was doing it wrong.

  “Wrong?”

  He amended. “Inelegant.”

  “You think numbers are elegant.” Of course he did.

  “I think you’re elegant but your paper is a C at best.”

  “If you wrote it for me it’d be an A.”

  “Hell, yes.” He pulled her laptop around so he could access the keyboard.

  “You’re not doing my paper for me.”

  He laughed. “Okay, I get it.” He pushed the laptop back toward her. “Let me talk you through where you went wrong.”

  She’d struggled with this subject. Gotten extra tutoring. Even had her essay outline assessed because she’d been nervous about it. “I don’t think I’ve gotten it wrong.”

  “It could be better.”

  “I’m happy with how it is.”

  His foot fell off the stool rung and slapped to the floor. “No, you see—”

  He was the one who needed to see. “Reid, are you trying to tell me what to think?”

  “Yeah, because you’re—”

  “Doing it my way.”

  He stood, hands going to his hair. “But that makes no sense. You’re a perfectionist.”

  She shook her head. She was once a champion athlete, she knew she’d made it look like perfection, but she’d rarely scored a ten and she’d learned chasing perfection could get you stuck repeating the same skills and not learning new ones. “Does my way get the job done?”

  He struggled with an answer, his jaw tight, his lips mushing, so she went with, “Yes it does, just not in the way you see it happening.” And because he towered over her, she stood, not that it helped much, but it made her feel better. “This is my paper.” She went with hands on her hips. “It’s my learning. It’s the best I can do and it’s not wrong.”

  “It could be more right.”

  She threw her hands up. “And what would that prove.”

  He narrowed his eyes. This was intimidation at spitting distance. “It would get you a better grade.”

  “No,” she stepped back, not wanting to give ground but her body making the call for her. “It would get you a better grade.”

  He turned away and swore. Left her and went into the dining room. She scrambled for her phone. She didn’t need this. She’d go to Kathryn’s. She saved the document and closed the laptop, pulled the power cord from the point and hit speed dial.

  “Fuck.” He was back. “I’m sorry.”

  The call connected. “Kathryn, it’s Zarley.” She listened as Kathryn told her about the air mattress she’d borrowed from her sister, but she glared at Reid.

  He had his hands in his hair, he was breathing rapidly. “Don’t go. Please don’t go. That was inexcusable.”

  “Thank your sister for me,” she told Kathryn. It would be so easy to cut out now. Be done with this thing.

  “That’s the kind of shit that got me fired.”

  But the sight of his contrition, the twisted expression on his face, his posture and his words were working her over, while Kathryn told her about another dancer they knew who was doing a fundraiser for airfare to get to Paris and enter the Madame Amour competition.

  “I’m right but I don’t know when to back off.”

  She tuned Kathryn out. Every dancer she knew wanted to compete for the Madame Amour scholarship but it was like an urban myth, like Madame herself. No one she’d heard of made it through the video audition round.

  “I need you, Zarley. You’re the only one who ever pushed back and meant it.”

  She covered the screen with her hand. “Not true.” It couldn’t be.

  “True. Everyone else relied on me to be right. It’s different with you.”

  She uncovered the phone and said to Kathryn, “When does that competition end?” She needed thinking time, said, “Ah-huh,” to Kathryn’s response and then, “I was just checking in. Hope you have a good night. See you at work Monday.” When she ended the call, she didn’t have a decision and Reid stood watching her as if she had the power to teach him more than what good sex was.

  She didn’t have that power. She couldn’t even master her own life.

  “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

  He sat hard on a stool.

  “I’m a pole dancer, not a life coach. I don’t go around fixing people’s problems.” He watched her warily. What was she doing here? She had enough on her plate. And now he wasn’t saying anything. “Reid.”

  “You could fix mine.”

  “From what I can see, you don’t have too many problems an occasional hard smack upside the head wouldn’t fix. You’re like an overgrown puppy who doesn’t know his own size and strength or when to heel.”

  Another man might’ve looked away. Reid’s eyes locked on hers like he had NASA controlling their trajectory. “I guess our thing is done with then.”

  This had been a very un-thing-like day. Both of them on edge and irritated. But he intrigued her and she still wanted his lips, his arms, his dining table.

  “I think we have a few lessons left. And there’s that promise you made me.”

  His eyes flicked toward the dining room.

  “It needs flowers or something, that table.”

  “You are all the decoration it needs.”

  Excellent idea. She walked into his space. He shifted his knees to let her stand between them. “I fucked up with you, Zarley. I don’t wan
t that.”

  “I still like what I see.”

  “You have no idea how good that makes me feel.”

  “But you expect too much from me. The sex is one thing, but,” she finished on a frustrated exhale. The sex was a lot of things and the man was something entirely foreign to her and all the more interesting for it.

  “I need a friend. You said we could be friends and lovers. That’s what I want from you for however long this thing lasts.”

  Friends, lovers. A man who knew his own faults and wanted to change. It was still just a thing.

  She could do that.

  SEVENTEEN

  Reid needed a drink. He hadn’t wanted one since he’d promised Zarley he’d quit Lucky’s. He’d given it up cold turkey and not felt a craving since. Now he craved with a deep ache in his belly and a tightness in his throat he couldn’t relax.

  Because things had gotten emotional and there was no way he could walk this time. This was his shit, and a woman he trusted to call him on it.

  But he simply couldn’t see what was in it for her.

  It was his road to walk.

  She stood between his legs while he sat on a kitchen stool, her hands on his shoulders. He’d almost chased her off and now he was scared to touch her in case it was too soon, in case he came off as so desperate she thought he was pathetic. What man of his age was still a virgin? How did he get off telling her she was C-grade?

  She tipped her chin up to eyeball him. “I can be your friend, but you have friends who know you better. I wish someone filled my fridge with homemade food.”

  “Dev and Sarina. Owen, who you met that night at Lucky’s. Yes, they’re my friends. The people I grew up with. But they’re also my partners and they got rich from working with me, so it’s different. Yes, they call me on my shit, but they’ve also relied on me for ten years to be right, to have the answers.” They walked with him but it was still his road to walk alone. “And I always did, so they learned to let me win.”

  She put her hand to his neck. “That’s a lot to unpack.”

  “What do I need to do to make being my friend right for you?”

  She took her hands away, folded them over her chest. “That’s not how friendship works. It’s not a transaction.”