by Abigail Boyd
“I will,” she says. She checks her face in the mirror for smudges and shuts off the light. “What did you end up doing last night? Anything interesting?”
I want to tell her all about James making me dinner, but I fear that she might grill me for details and I don’t know if I’m ready to share them yet. I don’t want her to feel threatened by my having a new friend, or have her analyze what my relationship status is.
“You know my fascinating life,” I say vaguely, throwing away the cracker sleeve. “My biggest worry was getting rid of my damn headache.”
She nods. “Good that you finally cured it, I was worried about you.”
I tell her about the goth couple trying to intimidate me, and she gave me the same advice that James did. I know they are a potential threat I need to take seriously, but I can’t really think I’m in danger. They don’t even know me. I’m just an easy target.
“How are things with Charlie?” I ask, changing the subject so it moves away from me. It works, and as we go back to work, she proceeds to update me on his lack of sexual prowess. It’s a welcome distraction from my own drama.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHEN I STEP into James’ apartment, I take a moment to actually look around. It strikes me how comfortable and casual it seems, while still giving the impression that his possessions are worth a great deal. A black leather sectional takes up the living room, a large HD TV is attached to the wall, and racks full of movies put mine to shame. I wonder what looking through them would tell me about his soul.
“What smells so good?” I ask, following him into the kitchen. The layout is a mirror image of my apartment. A tall, stainless steel pot sits on the stove. “Did you get started without me?”
He pretends to look guilty. “I did, sorry. But it’s best if the base simmers. I thought we’d make lasagna soup, one of my mom’s recipes. Not exactly gourmet, but it tastes amazing. Don’t worry, there are still a lot of steps.”
He puts some of the tomato base on a ladle and tastes it, then hands the ladle to me.
“You’re making me get it myself now?” I scoff and he laughs. The soup is rich and smooth and I make an appreciative noise.
“Not your average plain soup, right?” he asks, and I nod in agreement as I go back for a second taste. “I bought a loaf of french bread so we can make garlic bread, too.”
“You didn’t have to go to the trouble,” I tell him.
“It’s not any trouble, Remy. I invited you.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any of your ladies coming in and out of your apartment,” I realize out loud.
“I usually don’t bring anyone home with me,” he says vaguely. “And until recently I didn’t even have my own apartment here. So it wasn’t an issue. When I met girls at the club, we went back to their places. You’re the first girl I’ve invited here.”
“I feel so honored.” I’m joking and being sarcastic, but I kind of do.
“You should,” he teased, wiping his hand on a towel. I back up, covering my ass with both of my hands.
“I don’t trust you with those things,” I tell him. “I’m not bending over in front of you anymore.”
He smirks and cocks his head to the side. “We’ll see about that.”
He sets about teaching me how to make the recipe, and soon I’m chopping tomatoes and setting a pot of water on the stove to boil for the noodles.
“The biggest issue I’ve always had with cooking is that I don’t have any patience,” I tell him as I stand in front of the pot, waiting for the few bubbles to turn into a full boil. “I never wait for it to boil before I put the macaroni in, and thus my mac and cheese tastes like glue.”
“You can’t rush it. You just have to wait for it to happen,” he says, putting his hands on my hips and leading me away from the stove. I want to tell him that when he touches me like that, it gives me knots in my stomach, but then I think he might stop doing it. He seems very committed to following through on my request of being friends.
After the delicious dinner, we sit on the floor on opposite sides of his coffee table while he gives me a brief course in the rules of rummy. He leans his back up against the sectional, and I take a moment while he’s shuffling the cards to peer around me. Black and white photos in dark frames hang in two horizontal lines next to the TV, some of skylines, one of a cored apple, and one from the base of a tree, looking up into the leaves. There are no people in any of them. A few cacti in clay pots sit on the snack bar between the kitchen and here, and paintings with southwest patterns hang on the hallway wall.
“Okay, so the object of the game is to get rid of all your cards by melding in runs or sets, laying off, and discarding,” he explains.
“Isn’t this something old ladies play?” I tease him as he’s doling out my cards.
“Well, we have that in common then, me and the old ladies.”
Now that the air conditioning is back on, it seems to be running a little too well, and the building feels like a freezer. I rub my arms as I shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asks, his tone concerned. He stands up and opens a trunk next to the couch. “If you want to cover up, I’ve got this.” He pulls out a knitted blanket with blue and green stripes and hands it to me.
“Pretty,” I say, running my fingers over the weaves. “Did somebody you know make this?”
“My sister. When she got pregnant, she started knitting like crazy. Something about making a nest. She made a blanket for every member of our family.”
“So you’re an uncle?”
“Yeah.” The crinkles around his eyes return as he smiles wide. “My niece is two now, cutest little thing you’ve ever seen. Hold on.” He digs his wallet out of his back pocket and flips to a picture of a brown haired little girl with dimples and a gigantic grin. “Likes to give her mom a hard time, but Dani loves family life. She’s always been that way.” He puts the wallet back in his pocket.
I pick up my cards and fan them out in my hand. “How many sisters do you have?”
He hesitates for a second, like I did when I didn’t want to get personal. I almost retract the question, but then he says, “I have three—Tina, Megan, who I already mentioned, and Danielle. All of them are older than me, so I got to hear all about their experiences with dates and assholes. I think it made me a little more compassionate, though. I never try to take advantage of anyone.”
“Well, that’s good.”
He taps the cards on the table and looks at me. “Hopefully you don’t still think I’m planning on taking advantage of you.”
I screw my face into a frown and stare at him, at the way he’s pressing his tongue to his teeth. “Why would I think that? You’re not trying to get me drunk or bend me over again. We’re playing cards and eating your mom’s secret family recipe, I think I’m safe.”
He laughs, then shakes his head. “You need to stop talking about bending over, you’re gonna make it hard for me not to try it again.”
I swallow hard, feeling that familiar ache return to my lower stomach. He looks back up at me, that look that makes me wonder what’s on his mind, if he’s thinking the kind of dirty thoughts that his lustful eyes would suggest.
“So, who moves first?” I murmur.
A half hour later, I beat him at the second game. He’s a good teacher. We talk about his niece more, about how his family felt when he left Arizona. Somehow, the conversation drifts to his dating life.
“You know, I’m not as big of a jerk as people make me out to be,” he says, and his tone is suddenly serious, like he’s been thinking this. “That bartender did see me with some girls, because we left and went to different clubs together. And yes, I’ve slept with exactly two girls since I moved to Ocela, which was only a couple of months ago.”
I’m a little alarmed that he feels the need to spill all of this now. “I appreciate the honesty, but…”
“You’ve got the idea that I’m some asshole who fucks girl and dumps them for the fun of it,”
he says, his face frustrated. “But I don’t. My reputation is much more exciting than I am.”
That makes me chuckle as I take my turn.
“I’m sure you could charm the pants off of anyone,” I say.
“Then why aren’t your pants off yet?” he says, his serious face turning into a cocky smile.
“You’ve got to be giving people some reason to talk about you. If you have a reputation, then there’s a reason why.” I stare at my cards so I don’t have to look at the way he’s watching me.
“I’m not going to lie.” He says, casting off one of his cards. “I’m a guy. I like having sex. I’ve had one night stands. But I don’t just want to shove my cock into anything that moves.”
My face and chest are suddenly on fire and now I definitely can’t look at him. Hearing him say that word so casually was the most erotic thing I’ve ever heard.
He continues to speak. “But I’ve always been up front with my partners, I never led anybody on, and I tried never to break anybody’s heart. I don’t play games with people. I’ve had my heart broken in a million different ways, and I don’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
“Then I misjudged you,” I say, staring at my hands. I wonder briefly who broke his heart. “But I didn’t misjudge myself.”
“What about your last boyfriend?” he asks as he settles back down on the floor with his legs folded.
I shrug and reorganize my hand of cards. “There isn’t much to tell you. I’ve never really had a long term boyfriend. I don’t get emotional, not like a normal person. The last guy I dated—and it was only two dates—said I was as hard as a rock. He did not mean my abs, believe me. You’d think that would mean I could hook up with whomever I wanted, no consequences, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s too hollow. My friends always tried to hook me up, but it never works out.”
I realize the rant that I just went on, and my face falls. I look up at him and see him watching me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spill all of that.”
“You’re fine,” he says. “Don’t you hate matchmakers?”
“Why yes, yes I do,” I agree emphatically. “Every blind date was absolutely meant to be, yet it never worked out. The night that I met you, Quinn was trying to hook me up.”
He grins. “How did that work out for you?”
“Not good.” I reconsider it. “Or very good, depending on how you look at it.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“SO I BET you can guess what my follow up question is going to be, right?” he asks, and I see that grin in the corner of his mouth again.
“Am I a virgin?” I ask, saying it first in case he’s going to challenge me. It’s always the first question that people ask when I tell them I haven’t dated much.
He bites the inside of his cheek and now I can’t tell what he’s thinking, at the precise moment when I wish I could. “Remy, you don’t actually have to tell me. I was just kidding—”
“Yes, I am,” I say. “It’s not like some big choice I made, either. I just haven’t met the right person yet to be…comfortable enough with.”
Now I’m mortified at my own need to share all that, and I expect him to tease me, but he doesn’t.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he says softly.
“I’m not ashamed of it. I’m okay with it. I’m just ashamed that I’m talking about it.” We sit in silence for a few moments, and I lean two cards against each other, letting go as they fall.
“I didn’t bring all of this up to brag or make you uncomfortable,” he says, moving so that he can rub my shoulder. Every time he touches me, I feel like a small explosion erupts on the spot.
“I know.”
He gets up to pop some popcorn before we continue, and I pull the throw his sister made around my shoulders, watching him through the cutout in the wall to the kitchen.
The timer goes off, and he leans in front of the microwave and opens it, shaking the bag. He returns to the table with two big plastic bowls and salt and parmesan cheese shakers nestled in them.
“I made popcorn without burning it, that’s a first.”
I scrunch up my nose. “Burnt popcorn is the worst smell in the world.”
“I know, believe me.” He sits cross legged across from me, and the seams in his jeans tug against the inside of his thighs. My face goes hot again as I look away.
“I brought a bowl for mine in case you don’t like this,” he says. He transfers a few handfuls of popcorn into the smaller bowl and shakes parmesan cheese on top.
“You put that on your popcorn?” I ask.
“Only way to eat it.”
“But it smells like feet.” I tilt my head and narrow my eyes at him. “Why are you so weird?”
“Some people think I’m charming. I know you don’t, but some people do.” He tosses the salt and I catch it.
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” I tease, sprinkling salt on the larger bowl.
“Maybe you should let me have a taste of you,” he says in a soft, seductive voice. The grin melts off of my mouth, but he laughs and tosses a kernel of popcorn into my hair.
“I think by charming you meant cheesy,” I say, combing the popcorn out of the brown strands.
He leans back against the couch with his bowl in his lap. “Enjoy your death by sodium. I’ll be sitting here enjoying my perfectly harmless, foot-scented snack.”
I purse my lips together and grab a loose handful of popcorn, tossing it at him. He pauses for a second, his face blank, and then slowly shakes his head, putting the bowl to his hip. “Oh, now you’ve started a war.”
He lunges for me and I let out a short laugh as I scoot out of the way. I crawl on my hands and knees around the table and jump up to my feet. I run once around the couch, jumping over the back, and dive onto the cushion, but he’s already doubled back around and is at the bottom when I land. Catching me by my wrist, he pulls me into his lap and begins tickling my ribs. I laugh and squirm as I try to push him away but he presses me down and pins both of my wrists above my head with one strong hand. His fingers continue to relentlessly tickle my ribs while his thigh wedges in between mine.
He stops tickling me, his chest heaving as he catches his breath, and gazes down at me. I’m trapped, but I don’t try to get out of his hold. Instead, I stare up at him, feeling my heart pound from adrenaline and attraction, waiting for him to kiss me. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. I’m suddenly very aware of his leg between mine, and my hips involuntarily move upward, the leg of his pants rubbing against my sensitive spot.
He leans down just a fraction, still holding my wrist in place, and uses his other hand to caress my face. I hold my breath as his thumb crosses my lips. Then he pulls his hand back and lets go of my wrists.
“Friends don’t do this, either,” he murmurs softly. He stands up and holds his hands out, helping me to my feet. I have a hard time forcing myself up, and I pat my hair down as I try to get my reaction under control. He stands a few feet away, looking as lost as I feel.
“It’s not easy just being friends with you, Shell,” he says, staring at the floor.
I frown, my brow creasing. “What did you just call me?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, frowning at himself. He picks up one of the popcorn bowls, which tipped over while he was chasing me. “I don’t know where that came from. It just popped into my head, I guess because you were talking yesterday about how much you like the beach.”
“Oh.” I help him gather the fallen popcorn, and he sets the bowls on the side of the table. He drops onto the couch and I sit beside him, not knowing what to say.
He turns and looks at me, ruffling his hand through his hair. “Just another awkward moment to add to our collection.”
“Yeah.” I press my face into my knees and stare at the playing cards. “What kind of a nickname is ‘Shell,’ anyway? I’d sound like a gas station.”
He leans back against the couch, apparently relieved at my
attempt to lighten the mood. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll just call you buttface,” he says, and I crack up.
“Oh, that’s so much better. Very mature. Can we get back to cards now so I can beat you again?”
A few rounds of rummy later, he stops and stretches. The popcorn is gone and so is the rest of the soup. It’s getting late, and I know I need to be getting home soon.
He pulls his knee up and leans one arm across it. “Can we talk about something?”
I know exactly what he wants to talk about, and that knowledge is like a rock on my chest. But I nod anyway.
“Why are you denying what’s going on between us, Remy? What are you so afraid of? Don’t you feel safe around me? Because it seems like you have no problem opening up, and I have no problem listening. I’m glad you told me about your problems connecting, because I’ve felt that way, too.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I say, picking at a loose thread on my pants.
“Not everyone knows the real me, just the person that I let them know. But you…” He squeezes his eyes shut, his expression fraught with frustration. “I wish you’d let me in.”
My heart is suddenly beating harder in my chest and I realize how close I am to him. I adjust myself so that I’m leaning backward. “I just don’t think it would work out, and I like you enough that I don’t want to ruin things between us.”
I don’t want him pulling me in anymore than I know he already has. A few more nights like this and I’ll be helpless against saying no. And saying no is the only way to keep the fragile thing we have alive.
“Do you think if we got together, you’d suddenly stop liking me?” he asks sincerely. The hope in his voice twists my heart so tightly that it aches.
“I don’t know,” I admit. I move all of my cards into a pile and look back up at him. “I think we should call it a night.”
“I almost forgot, I have something that I wanted to show you.” He hops to his feet, and I follow him back to his bedroom. To be honest, I feel comfortable here, like I belong here.