Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1)

by Ainslie Paton

  “Oh, hello.”

  “I’ll get to the point. Do you know where Zarley is now?”

  “Hmm. Said any guy trying to find a woman who clearly doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Right. I see why you’d think that.”

  “Glad we have that straight.”

  “I’m not stalking her.”

  “But you don’t know where she is.” Kathryn stopped talking and Reid didn’t feel the need to help her out, then she said, “What’s your definition of stalking?”

  He sighed. This wasn’t getting anywhere. “About a million years ago, I was probably rude to you when you rang to thank me for breakfast, so I deserve this.”

  Kathryn laughed. “Goddamn. You were so cold. But that was a great test.”

  “Test of what?”

  “You don’t know. Oh. Zarley asked me to make that call. She wanted to be sure you weren’t going to hit on anyone else who knew their way around a pole.”

  Was there a pun there or was Kathryn being straight with him? “Zarley wanted you to hit on me?” He remembered the thank you part but not Kathryn hitting on him. It was like Zarley said, he was oblivious.

  “You passed with flying colors. It must be a thrill to know what she’s planning with Vi for Lucky’s. I’ve got my fingers crossed they get through the fire inspection today.”

  The thrill was in the clue. He hadn’t considered Lucky’s, thought it was long closed.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess.”

  Kathryn sounded confused. There was a lot of that going around.

  He was at Lucky’s in fifteen minutes. There was a light on inside though there was a closed sign posted on the door. He knocked and Vi answered.

  “Hello Back Booth, you know we’re not open.”

  “I’m sorry about Lou.”

  Vi pressed her lips together. “I still don’t believe it. You’d think he could’ve told me he’d made me his beneficiary. You’d think the man could’ve dressed better, got a decent haircut, given he was a real estate mogul. Zarley has been wonderful helping me deal with the paperwork, the lawyers and the accountants and the real estate people. Had the fire inspector eating out of her hands today. She thinks I’m crazy agreeing to open an upmarket Lucky’s but I’m a rich woman now, I don’t have anything to lose and she’s insisting on putting her own money in, so we’re partners.”

  Vi tilted her head, put a finger to her lip. “I’m watching your face, honey, and I don’t think you know any of this, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Now I know why she’s not herself. What did you do?”

  “I fucked up, Vi.”

  “And maybe she did too. You’d better come in. I’m on my way home, so if she asks you to leave I want your promise you will.”

  He stuck his hand out to shake on it and Vi took it. “Don’t fuck up again,” she said.

  Lucky’s looked the same, tired and cheap. It smelled of too much spilled alcohol and the carpet was sticky underfoot. There were minimal lights on. The ones above the bar. The ones above the booths. The stage was shuttered in darkness.

  Zarley sat at a booth, paperwork piled around her. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head with a pencil through it. She wore a skirt and a shirt he’d never seen her in before, all business. She hadn’t heard him come in. There were ten booths. She’d chosen to work at the one at the very back of the room.

  She made his giraffe heart full to exploding, but he imagined it shrinking to a walnut then a dot, leaving him forever cold. There were more things she didn’t need from him than she did. She didn’t need his money or his apartment or his dependence on her for everything he was doing better at Plus.

  Dev got to the guts of it. Zarley had made the world a bigger place for him. Made him want to be in it more fully, experience it with more people, and to do that, he had to see things from other points of view, different to his own.

  He saw hers now, and had no idea how best to be what she needed most.

  But he’d always liked a challenge. And so had she.

  He approached the booth, stopping when she started, her eyes going big. “How did you find me?” She waved a hand and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Have you been home?” She spoke sharply but she’d gone pale.

  He pulled the folded letter from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “I know you don’t want to see me. I understand. I’m not here to try to change your mind or talk you around or beg you to take me back, though I want to do all of that.” He wanted to lay at her feet and will her to walk over him in her stripper heels. He wanted to give her everything but feared he had nothing she’d take.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came to say three things and then I’ll get out of your way.”

  She sighed. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. He wouldn’t make this harder for her than it had already been. “You’re not in my way.”

  “Yeah, Flygirl, I am. I didn’t mean that to happen, but it did. Can I sit down?”

  She shrugged. “It’s your booth.”

  “I noticed.” He dumped his helmet and took off his jacket, slipped into the seat opposite her. “You want to know why I chose it?”

  Her brows came together. “You were sulking and it’s the least well-positioned for the stage.” She pointed to another booth that had a more direct sightline. “You’d have been better off there.”

  “It has the best view of the wings.”

  She shook her head, full-blown frown on her face now.

  “Five times a night you’d stand there waiting to come on stage. No one else could see you. That was my favorite part of your performance. You’d stand in the shadow and wait for your music. You had this look on your face, as if the next few minutes were going to be the highlight of your day. I was obsessed with you from the first time I looked up and saw you there.”

  She busied her hands in the paper on the desk. He saw colored sketches and pages full of numbers. “I can’t do this with you now.”

  “I was obsessed because you knew exactly what you were doing and you had this confidence I was jealous of.”

  She folded her arms. “No way.”

  “I’m the weird, loner guy. I’ve spent my whole life doing what I was good at and what I’m good at is pretty damn narrow. I’d never had a girl on the back of my bike before you, or a proper vacation. I wasn’t even very good at being drunk and you know the rest. You were this incredibly strong, polished, graceful thing. I didn’t know anything about you, but the confidence you had about walking on air and I was addicted to those moments I got to see you. The fact I got to be with you, have you in my life, Zarley, that’s my single greatest achievement.”

  She turned her face away. “That part where you said you wouldn’t make this harder for me was a lie.”

  “I’m an asshole.”

  She took a deep breath and sighed it out.

  “I have three things to tell you. One. I quit as CEO.”

  She turned her face to his, eyes up. “Oh Reid, no. I didn’t want you to do that.”

  “I didn’t do it for you. Owen is a better CEO. I get that now. We got Ziggy over the line. I can step back without Plus being affected. Sarina will be a better CEO until Owen is fit to come back.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “I’ll be their chief ideas guy like I was in the beginning. Come up with the next version of Ziggurat and keep re-engineering Plus so it’s a great company. It would never have occurred to me that was a smart move until you. I’ll still work like crazy, but I won’t find it as difficult and Plus will be better for it. It will be fun again, like it was when it started.”

  “I’m pleased for you.”

  She smiled. It wasn’t bright. It was the vague chance of sunshine on a cloudy day, but it was all he could do not to pull her across the sticky table into his arms. He didn’t know what to do with his hands so he gripped the bottom of the booth seating. “You thought I’d give it
up for you.”

  She nodded. “Last thing I wanted.”

  “I know.” He was sure of that now.

  “You’re so smug.”

  Amusement in her eyes. But the odds were against him. He was going home alone, trying to sleep alone, waking alone, remembering how to function alone and doing it because it was what she needed. “But you love me anyway.”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Two. You got some stuff in your checklist wrong.” He’d put her letter on the table when he sat. He unfolded it and pushed it across to her.

  She looked at the ceiling, gave a tiny grunt. “You’re correcting me? You are unbelievable.”

  He shrugged. “You wanted it to be an accurate record. I’m amending the list.”

  She looked at the page. Her eyes came back to his. She closed them. She had to want to look for herself, because if he manipulated her, he’d never know where he stood.

  She looked down at the page and he let go his grip on the bottom of the torn booth seat. He’d crossed out her first check box, Had this great thing with a sexy pole dancer and written, Met a woman I’ll love and respect for the rest of my days.

  She read it and closed her eyes again. Her throat worked, a fluttering pulse.

  In the next line he’d crossed out the word sex so it read. She taught me everything I know about living. When Zarley read it and lifted her eyes to him they were glistening.

  He almost got up and walked out then. He didn’t want to make her cry. He’d already taken enough from her. She looked down at the page again and he had to stay.

  Tried some kinky stuff became, I learned about myself by learning about her, and Shame our timing was off became, Our timing was perfect in every way.

  “Reid.” His name as a protest against all he was forcing her to feel.

  “You’re nearly there.”

  We will always have Paris became a summary of their whole time together. He’d written. We will always have: defying gravity, obsession from the back booth, kisses that tell stories, concussion in the shower, cheating at Dark Souls, seductive dances, short silky bathrobes, at least two stools, soaks in the bath, improper clothes for bikes, sex with the trees, torn underwear, laughing in the dark and breaking lamps, Indian food for two, heart-stopping dresses, courage, awesome tenderness, lingerie and cat’s ears, strangers to watch and strangers to share, late-night love and sexy role-play, arguing about everything and agreeing to be in love, my first for everything, and breakup sex I never saw coming.

  She got midway through the list and her tears fell on the page. But she still read the new equation.

  Brave, talented, ambitious girl who can fly + (compassion x challenge) + besotted loner guy (desperate virgin edition) = Marry me.

  “Oh Reid. No.” She swiped at her face and wouldn’t look directly at him.

  He’d always been a man to whom the word no was an opening salvo. That hadn’t changed. “I’m afraid of living a half-life without you. What are you afraid of?”

  She speared him with an agonized look, got up from the booth and disappeared behind the bar, seconds later the stage lit up and she walked out on it. He followed, took a stool at the snub-nose bar where men who tipped her to dance had sat.

  She put a hand to the pole and looked up at it. She’d wiped her face, she wasn’t crying anymore. “Silver, not gold, but the only metal I get to keep hold of. I wanted that gold, Reid. Wanted my chance at it and I screwed up because I fell in love.” She put her other hand on the pole and climbed it, crossed her legs around it and sat. “You can’t know what it’s like to burn with ambition but not know what you want to do with all that energy.” She opened her arms wide. “And to be in love and have that love threaten to be the thing that makes you fail again.”

  She altered her position, curled up into a ball with her face tucked into her knees. He’d never seen her do that before. She looked tiny and constricted by the skirt, and the pose was so childlike and sorrowful it welded him to the stool. She went back to her seated pose and he let out a stalled breath.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, loving you at the expense of me when there are things I want to do.” She let herself down the pole. “I’m afraid of living a half-life with you, because you make it too easy for me to be happy. I’m afraid I’ll wake up one day and realize I’ve achieved nothing for myself, nothing I can love me for.” She leaned on the pole and lowered her eyes.

  Reid slapped the stage floor like punters who’d tried to get her attention had, and her chin lifted. He’d had three things to tell her. “Three. I will wait for you to do whatever you need to do, to be ready to be with me. I will wait for you for however long that takes.”

  “That’s not fair to you.”

  “You think I care about fair? You ruined me for any other women. Does that seem fair to you?” He put his hands to the edge of the bar and vaulted on to the stage. She stepped behind the pole, putting it between them. “Besides, I won’t have to wait long.”

  “You’re on my stage.”

  All over her life if she wanted that. God, let her want it. “Yeah, and you’re on mine.” Even without her, his life would be different because of her.

  “I’m not trying to compete with you. I’m trying to succeed for me.”

  “A decent venue has more than one spotlight. When you turn this place into the new Lucky’s maybe you can factor that in.”

  She stepped back from the pole. “You’re angry I didn’t tell you.”

  He stayed at the edge of the light. “Not angry, sad. It’s amazing. But I get why you wanted to keep it to yourself.”

  Her head dropped forward. “I’m not even sure I get that.”

  It’d been the easiest part of all this to understand. “It’s not finished. Whatever you’re dreaming isn’t straight in your head.”

  She walked around the pole and into the spotlight. She was close enough now he could see surprise in her eyes. He pressed his advantage. “You’re in your corner working it out and I can’t help you until you know what you need to do.”

  She shook her head but took another step closer.

  “That’s what Costin taught you. That’s what you’re doing now, taking your time alone, working things out. So that’s what I’m doing, waiting for you to know what you need, so you can need it from me.”

  Another headshake and another step toward him. “You’re too much.” Her voice shook.

  “I know.”

  She put her hand to her head and pulled the pencil out of her hair. It fell around her shoulders and down her back. “I’m your love hack, you don’t need me.”

  “You’re my life hack, Zarley, the best, the last I’ll ever need.”

  She reached behind her for the pole. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Yet, you can’t marry me yet, and if you say ever,” he put his hand to the middle of his chest. “You remember that enlarged heart I told you about, you’ll have to scrape it off the ceiling before you reopen.”

  “What if I fail?” Her back hit the pole.

  “You’re already golden.”

  Her breath was coming in fast, swelling her ribs. “I knew you were trouble when I first saw you.”

  “Do you want me to go?” He’d be down on the carpet, face in the packet soup of fibers and alcohol all the way to the door.

  “I might.”

  I might kept him standing. I might was an open door, a sunbeam. “You call this shot, Flygirl. I’m good at waiting. I waited for you a long time. I can do it again.”

  “But I’m not good at waiting. Never was.”

  “So we’re at an impasse. I’m good at waiting and you’re not. I don’t want a half-life without you and you don’t want one with me.”

  All the ironed-in starch of Zarley’s body chose that moment to soften. She slumped against the pole and as if the stage was in sympathy with her, the spotlight flickered.

  He took two steps toward her. “If that was an algorithm, those things would cancel each other ou
t.”

  “They would?”

  “Ah-hah.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Interesting would be kissing you again, having that kiss tell me how far away I am from being right about all this.”

  “You’re always right.”

  That was a good goddamn invitation. He went to her, but she moved behind her pole. “I want this to work,” she said.

  He put his hand to the pole above their heads. She could mean anything and he could still be sucking on carpet.

  “Make the new Lucky’s into Madame Amour with my own twist. Do it properly with great staff, a classy look, training and benefits and the best food, entertainment and atmosphere in town.”

  “Then you will.” Easy words to say, hard on his heart if it was the only thing she wanted.

  “I don’t exactly know what I’m doing.” She slipped under his arm and settled between him and the pole with her back to it. His poor strained giraffe heart rolled over with a thud to have her so close.

  “Then work at it till you do.”

  “And if I don’t want your help?”

  He winced. “Then you don’t get it.”

  She put her hand to his chest and the spotlight flickered and hissed. “You’re sure about that algorithm?”

  She had to be able to feel his heart drumming his panic, trumpeting his hope. “Dead certain.”

  “I want us to work.”

  “So set a rule.”

  She shook her head. “Love me.”

  “That’s an absolute.”

  “Love me when I’m afraid what that means.”

  He moved in because he ached to touch her, read that offer on her lips. He’d worked for every success he’d had. He couldn’t work for Zarley, couldn’t make her, bend her, break her.

  She had to give herself to them.

  She lifted her head and he cupped her face. Her weight was on the pole so when he leaned in, he had the sensation of falling, until his lips met hers and he felt it, her melting fear, her startling ambition, the hot, strong burn of her love, showing him the right way up, giving him balance.

  “I’m sorry, so sorry.” Zarley’s whisper on his lips. “I was afraid of losing me to us.”

  “That’s never going to happen.” Because keeping her safe from that was his new obsession.