by Holley Trent
“Of course, I didn’t intend to upset you.” He stood and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m just shocked no one rallied around you.”
“Except Meg and Sharon. They did a lot to distract me, but ultimately time was what I needed.”
“Funny thing about time is it may distance you from someone, but you never really get over them. You never stop hoping there’s a chance you’ll see them again somehow.” He sat on the cushion next to her and carefully unfolded her arms from around her legs so he could hold her hands.
She exhaled and turned her face toward the open blinds. A bright red cardinal was flitting from bough to bough in a tree planted near the building’s foundation. As it danced among the leaves, one particular branch he disturbed tapped against the window, drawing her attention. “That’s why you’ve been thinking about me for all these years?”
He nodded. “I told you it would probably sound silly, but you set the bar really high for me. You changed all my expectations of what a woman could be like. You don’t even have to say a word and you still command all the attention in a room.”
Carla closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. “Grant, it’s flattering. You have no idea how amazing it feels to hear that from you. But, I don’t think you know what you’re buying.” She put her hands down to show her flushed face. “I’m like a used car that looks awesome on the lot. You take it home and two weeks later and it starts making weird noises under the hood and you find out the rearview mirror was stuck on with masking tape.”
He chuckled and pulled her into an embrace to stroke her hair.
“Well, I’d rather you have quirks than to pretend you didn’t. Since we’re being up-front here, you should know I have the stereotypical Irish temper.”
She gave him a playful swat and he deftly caught her hand and held it in his. “Whatever. Can’t be worse than mine. I’ve been arrested a time or two.”
He laughed. “You’re kidding me.”
She shook her head and blushed.
“Well, then. You can tell me all about it on the plane on the way over, and I’ll tell you how I got my nose broken the first time.”
She held her torso back a couple of feet from his to get a good look at his face. He tried to keep it perfectly blank, but it was hard with the half-naked woman he’d been fantasizing about for years practically on his lap. “You’re serious.”
“Yes. Occupational hazard, I hear. Come on, love. Just a week, and if you hate me you can come home and I’ll just cry into my oats every day. Either way, I’ll help you with your family tree all I can.”
Carla stared at him for what seemed like an eternity and finally gave a miniscule nod.
He slumped with relief and laid his forehead in the valley between her clamped thighs. “I’ll get you a plane ticket.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” She grazed her fingernails up his naked back, ending at the top of his neck.
He looked up at her just as she brought her head down toward his and pressed her lips between his earlobe and jaw. “You going to swim the Atlantic, love?” he asked, smiling as he laid his neck to the side to receive her kisses.
“No,” she said through giggles. “I have a ticket voucher left over from when I was supposed to go to Australia with my friends last year. Meg’s husband was on tour and Sharon and I decided to meet up with her in Sydney. Well, lucky for me flu symptoms surfaced the day we were supposed to fly and an airline staffer caught me tossing my cookies in the bathroom before I boarded. Wouldn’t let me on the plane. Got a few nights of complimentary hotel accommodations, too.”
“How’d you manage that?” He shuddered as Carla licked the large pulsing vein at the side of his neck.
“I told you: I have a temper. Takes a lot to get me to lose my cool, but when I do it’s pretty spectacular. At least, that’s what my friends tell me. They say I’m like a female Bruce Banner.”
“Fun.” He picked his head up and had started manipulating the button of her pants when a heavy knock on his front door boomed through the apartment.
He froze there, staring. “Let’s just ignore it,” he whispered, and eased down her zipper. “Probably the property manager responding to the call I put in yesterday about ending my lease.”
“Oh.” She used her arms to hold her bottom a bit off the seat as he shimmied her pants down her thighs.
“God, you’re so beautiful.” He had his thumbs looped in the elastic at the sides of her panties and worked the undergarment down her hips just far enough to expose the top of her tidy Brazilian wax job. He paused there with her semiexposed and licked a scorching path from her belly button down to that bit of remaining hair.
His pulse pounded as his tongue approached the point of no return. When she’d been a student, him acting on his attraction would have been a major taboo, and maybe his tongue on her skin still felt a little bit forbidden. What if he had said something sweet to her back then? What if she hadn’t had her head in the clouds all that time? Would they have broken the rules?
Another knock, this time harder so he could feel the vibration beneath his feet.
“Grant, you motherfucker, I know you’re in there. Open the door. I have your duffel bag and balls. Come on, I’ve got shit to do.”
“Fuck,” Grant spat as he fell back onto his rear. “That’s Curt. He’s not going to go away.” He gathered up Carla’s bra and shirt and pressed them onto her lap with an apologetic look. “You can dress in the bathroom. I need to open that before my neighbors complain. He’ll just knock louder knowing I’ll eventually relent.”
“Oh, well! Sure. I’ll just…” She scrambled to her feet with the aid of his hand and disappeared into the bathroom beyond the kitchen.
He groaned, adjusted his boxer briefs and pulled his t-shirt back on. When he opened the door, Curt had his fist up ready to pound once more. He looked an awful mess, but was dressed. His flat blond hair was combed, and he had managed to repair the horn-rimmed glasses that got damaged the night before at the hands of the bouncer.
“Top of the mornin’ to you, you mog,” said he said, pushing his way through the door without invitation and tossing his fedora onto the sofa.
“Are you still scuttered? Your breath is hundred proof. And why the fuck are you up so damned early? I thought for sure you’d be out for the day, especially after you got clattered so hard by both Fran and the big oaf security guy.”
Curt dropped his load near the sofa and counted off on his fingers. “Alka-Seltzer, aspirin, three sausage biscuits, two black coffees. I need to go run bubble sheets through the ScanTron from yesterday’s exam. It’s finally fixed, the ListServ tells me.”
“And Seth?”
“He was still facedown on the bathroom floor when I left. I just stepped over him when I showered.”
“You know, you really didn’t need to bring me those balls,” Grant said. He picked up one of the dirty soccer balls and bounced it off his right knee a few times. It was like getting back on a bicycle after a long break. “I don’t want to travel with those.”
“But you have to! What else will you remember your old pals by, eh?”
Grant scoffed. “How about the misspelled tattoo?” He bowed his head and parted his hair at the crown to jog his friend’s memory about that one night they’d all shaved their heads. Apparently the tattoo artist was either dyslexic or careless, as Grant managed to come away from the outing with “lukcy” in fancy Celtic-style green font on his scalp. He thanked his lucky stars for having black hair that covered it. “Or how about that scar from the bottle I got smashed over my head?”
Curt shrugged. “Good point. You should at least take one, though.” He picked one up and squeezed it between his hands. “As Seth would say, ‘It’s good American quality.’”
“I’m pretty sure that ball was made in China.”
Curt squinted at it through swollen eyelids and turned it around to read the labeling. “Huh. Well, feck it.”
Carla emerged
from the bathroom dressed and freshened up; however there was nothing she could have done to hide the love bites on her neck. She’d popped the collar of her linen blouse prepster-style, which did nothing to disguise the bite mark on her jaw. Grant grinned at seeing her. No man would come within ten feet of her without thinking she’d already been claimed. Curt obviously had, but Curt already knew who she was.
“Oh, I didn’t know you had a guest,” Curt said, finally chucking the aforementioned ball into the far corner.
“Yeah, for a genius you don’t take social cues very well, huh? Me not answering the door should have been a big one.”
Curt rolled his eyes, or at least Grant thought he did. It was hard to tell with his eyelids so swollen. He held out a hand to Carla. “Sorry, Curt Ryan. I didn’t properly make your acquaintance last night as I was busy acting the maggot and my pal here had your tongue tied up.”
Grant groaned, but she was polite and put her hand in Curt’s for a shake. “Carla Gill.”
Curt rubbed his smooth chin and uttered a “Hmm.” He walked to the coffeemaker and started fiddling with the controls. “Pretty sure a Gill processed me and Seth at Raleigh PD once. You wouldn’t happen to be related, huh?”
“Probably. My mother is a desk sergeant.”
Curt closed his eyes tight and shuddered. “Ugh, she was a battle-ax.”
When Carla gave Grant a questioning look, he mouthed, “He’s a lush” and wrapped an arm around her to guide her toward the door. Once outside in the breezeway, he closed the door behind him and pulled her into one last crushing kiss.
When she pulled back gasping for air, he refused to give her one inch of personal space. He held her tight around the waist, holding her pressed against him so she had no choice but to feel his hardening shaft. He whispered, “You’re making me become absolutely unhinged, love.”
She looked up with a smirk, then outright laughter. “I assure you the feeling’s mutual. Lacking your anatomy, I’m just able to hide it better.”
He pushed a wisp of her hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead. “I’ll email you later. The phone number I have for you is a dud.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Directory.”
She closed her eyes tight and cringed. “Shit. I wonder who else has been calling that number. Hopefully no one important.”
“Other than me, you mean.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his jaw. It wasn’t until she was halfway down that she replied, “Yes. Other than you.”
When Grant returned to his apartment with a big smile on his face, Curt sipped his filched black coffee and mumbled, “Lucky buck. Of course you of all people would pull the line in and find a fish on it right before you leave.”
“Don’t get any ideas, Curt. I’m not leaving her here.”
“She know that?”
“She will. I’m going to marry that woman. You wait and see.”
“Right on. Marry who you want. I don’t care, as long as there’s beer at the wedding and no barracudas in attendance.”
Chapter 7
“Sharon?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“What was the weather like in Belfast when you were there last summer?”
“Why?” Sharon didn’t attempt to hide the suspicion in her voice. Carla wasn’t one to make idle chitchat and everyone knew it.
“I’m…well, it appears I’m flying to Ireland on Monday.” She switched the phone to her other ear and held up a pale green cap-sleeve shirt against her torso. “Bad color for you, you need jewel tones,” a salesgirl said in passing without stopping to lend her help.
“What do you mean, ‘it appears’? Either you are or you aren’t. Don’t you know?”
“Well, I haven’t picked up my ticket yet. We’re assuming I can get on the same flight.”
“Who is assuming? And where are you? I recognize that musical arrangement in the background. Are you at the Gap?”
Carla put the shirt back on the display and quickly hustled out of the store.
“No, I’m not.” She made a beeline for the coffee kiosk. The effects of insomnia were finally catching up to her.
“You’re a liar. Where are you, the mall? Do I need to meet you there? And why are you going to Ireland?”
“I…well.” She held the receiver’s mic against her chest and ordered a large hazelnut coffee and two chocolate biscotti. “Um, this sort of happened really fast, but I think I have a boyfriend.”
“Since when, and who?” Sharon demanded. “Wait, no, you wait right there. I hear them grinding beans in the background. You sit right there near the coffee kiosk and I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Get me a latte.”
Nineteen minutes later, Carla could hear Sharon’s stilleto’d footsteps storming up behind her and turned to see the elegant woman rushing over wearing a look of matronly concern. She took a thirst-quenching gulp of her coffee and tapped one hand like a gavel on the laminate tabletop. “Okay, spill it. Leave out no details.”
“Oh, come on Sharon, you act like I’m incapable of making good relationship decisions.”
Sharon narrowed her eyes.
Carla put her hands up, palm-out. “Okay, don’t respond to that. I picked a few bums, but that was a couple of years ago.”
“Are you kidding me? I talked my grandmother about Otto and she thinks you should get our rabbi to go bless your apartment to remove his taint.”
“Hey! I tried to make it work for Meg’s sake. He was only mean when he was feeling creatively bunged.”
“Well, he must be the least creative person the planet, then. Perhaps now you understand why I always refused her offers to hook me up with guys from Spike’s band, huh?”
“Touché. People are still trying to catch up with all the changed phone numbers.”
“So be a good girl and tell me what’s going on. And don’t think that jaunty little scarf you have tied around your neck is hiding anything, sister.”
Carla emptied the contents of some sugar packets into her second cup of coffee and stirred while she gathered her thoughts. “Well, you remember last night when you saw me kissing that man?”
“Yeah, Doctor Hot Stuff? What of it?” Sharon broke off a piece of Carla’s biscotto and dunked it into her latte. Her head jolted upright. “Wait, no way. Him? Did you hook up after we left? I thought it was just a drunk hello, and a hello it was!”
Carla shook her head. “Not exactly. He offered to help me with the genealogy project.”
“Was that before or after the snog?”
“Before. Anyhow, I met him at his apartment this morning for help and found out he’s flying back to Ireland on Monday to start a job with a university there.”
“Get to the boyfriend part.”
“Okay, this may sound crazy…”
“I’ve known you for nearly eight years, sweetness. Nothing you and Meg can do at this point will shock me for much longer than five minutes.”
Carla blew out a breath and concentrated on the geometric patterns in the atrium roof while she picked the words. “He’s…he’s been thinking about me ever since I was his student. I guess he took a special interest after Daddy died, but after I left his class he never stopped worrying about me.”
Sharon put her hand over her heart and shook her had. “That is so fucking romantic.”
Carla furrowed her brow. “Are you being sarcastic? For once I can’t tell.”
“No! Not in the least. I mean it! I really mean it. Even if it’s just a pickup line, it’s a damned good one.”
Carla shrugged. She couldn’t disagree with that.
“So fast-forward to the you-going-to-Ireland part.”
“Oh. Well, really it’s for the research and since he’s going to help me, it made sense for me to fly out with him so we can work together before he has to officially start his job.”
“Oh, this is so good.” Sharon grinned like the Cheshire cat, and smacked the tabletop. “So, did you have sex? Don’t you
dare blush!”
“I…no. We didn’t.” Carla fished her phone out of her purse and read the incoming text.
Miss Gill–are you available? Two reports of attempted assaults on female joggers. Both women are accessible this evening for interviewing. -Durham Police, Central Command Admin
She hovered her thumbs over the touch screen as she thought. She had planned to go to the airport after leaving the mall, but she wasn’t really in a position to turn down money. She responded.
Yes. After six. Please email me confirmation.
She stuffed her phone into her purse and turned her attention to Sharon. “We were sort of interrupted by someone at the door.”
Sharon’s jaw dropped so Carla could see her wealth of silver fillings. “Huh! Lose your chastity belt, miss? I’ve never known you to give it up before the fifth date.”
“So, why’d you ask?”
“Duh! Your neck. He must have a magic mouth for you to lose your clothes.”
Carla took a gulp of her coffee and slumped in her seat. “Oh my God, Sharon. You don’t understand what it’s like being around him. He’s so intense and attentive, and every time I looked at his face my nipples got hard. I would have just laid there and let him do whatever he wanted to me.”
Sharon scoffed and leaned sideways to chuck her empty coffee cup into the nearby trashcan. “Well, that’s no fun. He may have a few years and some experience on you, but you don’t have to play student all the time.”
“You sound suspiciously like you’re speaking from experience.” Carla gathered her paper trash into a pile.
“No comment. Hey, you got some time to shop? We need to get you some layering pieces for your trip. Oh my God, I’m so stoked for you. Just don’t screw it up by letting that hellcat temper out before he puts a ring on it.”
“Ring? Ha. Slow down, sweetheart. We can shop. I have about an hour. Also, I told him about the temper.”