It’s all clear when I get to the seventeenth floor and I jog to my apartment, going inside quickly. I text Laney letting her know I’ll be there at seven-thirty, and when she sends me back the eye-roll emoji with about fifty kissy faces and hearts after it, it makes me feel better.
I shower and dress making sure my hair’s dry because she’d ask why I had to shower and I don’t want to lie to her more than I already am. Grabbing my bag, I leave my apartment stopping to knock on her door. And swear to God, when she opens the door, it all just goes away—all my anger, frustrations, everything.
She’s got the biggest smile on her face and she immediately jumps on me before I can even say hi.
“I’m so excited!” she says before landing a big one on me.
And I’m just completely swept away. The whole world could be on fire but as long as I had Laney by my side, it wouldn’t matter. She makes it all better. Makes it to where I can fucking breathe again.
When she pulls back, she giggles. “I missed you today!”
I set her down and put a hand to her face, running the backs of my fingers down her cheek. “I missed you too, baby.”
“Let me get my pillow and I’m good to go!” She runs to her bedroom which is when I start looking around. “Two suitcases and a duffle bag? Seriously?” I holler.
“We’re gonna be gone three days!” she shouts back.
“We won’t get there until ten tonight and we’ll have to leave Monday around two. That’s a day and a half, tops.”
She comes back into the living room giving me the evil eye as she walks over then swinging her pillow smacks me in the shoulder taking me off guard.
“What was that for?” I ask.
She wraps her arms around my waist burying her face against my chest and shares, “I haven’t had a vacation in two years. And I don’t want to look at it as a day and a half, so give me my three days, please.”
I know she feels my body shaking as I laugh but I mumble against the top of her head, “Okay. Three days it is.”
She pulls away grinning up at me. “Thank you, honey.” She then tiptoes up to kiss me before yelling, “Let’s go!” Running to the kitchen she grabs a couple grocery bags before coming back and opening the door for me.
Smiling and shaking my head, because she’s acting like a five year old which is cute, I put her bag on one shoulder, my bag on the other, pick up her suitcases and head out to the elevator.
Just outside of Crestline, Laney starts screaming and scares the shit out of me making me swerve thinking there’s something in the road.
“It’s snowing!” she yells bouncing in her seat.
Yes, it’s definitely snowing. I look over at her and have to smile at how excited she is.
“Sorry. I love snow, though!”
I squeeze her hand and chuckle wanting to always make her happy like this.
“When I was four, we went to Colorado one year to ski. Mom said the whole drive from the airport to the ski lodge, all I did was say, ‘Look at the snow, Mommy! Look at the snow, Daddy!’ She said they got so tired of it that she finally told me to say look at the snow just one time. So after that we were driving along and she said I started saying, ‘Look at the snow just one time, Mommy! Look at the snow just one time, Daddy!’ over and over.”
She cracks up and I chuckle with her, glancing over and thinking how lucky I am to have her here with me. Damn, she’s beautiful.
When we make it to my cabin, it’s still snowing and there’s also snow on the ground. How do I know this for sure? Because she’s screaming it at the tops of her lungs and about to break my eardrums. I leave the engine running telling her to wait in the car while I go inside and turn up the heat. But once I walk back out the front door to get our things, I see she didn’t listen because I get nailed against the side of my head with a snowball.
She starts laughing then lets out a scream as she takes off running because I jump off the porch chasing after her. She gets about ten feet before I get to her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her down to land on top of me in the snow.
She’s giggling as she looks down at me and says, “Gotcha!”
I grab her face in my hands pulling her head down to give her a searing kiss, turning us so she’s on her back and I’m to her side. We make out for a few minutes before I move away.
“Who’s got who now?” I ask smugly.
She suddenly brings her hand up and smashes the other side of my head with snow getting up and running away yelling, “Me! Gotcha!”
This goes on for a bit, with me chasing and nailing her a few times in the back with snowballs which only makes her giggle as she tries getting me back, and she’s landed a couple, usually at my head.
We finally call a truce and I take in our things while she goes inside to make us hot chocolate. After getting situated, I build a fire in the fireplace and we sit on the fake bearskin rug, holding our stockinged feet to the fire, drinking from our mugs.
“I love this, Heath.” She looks around the cabin. “It’s beautiful.”
It’s only one bedroom, but all the rooms—the kitchen, living room and bathroom—are spacy giving it the feel of being bigger. The previous owners updated it and it’s pretty damned nice. There’s a rough-hewn pine beam down the middle of the living room ceiling and a stone fireplace with another beam as the mantel. The bathroom is awesome with a clawfoot tub along with an all-glass shower that’s huge. And the kitchen has all stainless steel appliances.
She sets her mug on the coffee table and lies back putting her head on one of the pillows I’ve thrown down from the couch. I do the same and we stare at the ceiling.
“What’s your super-sucky?” she asks contentedly.
I look over at her. “Not sure what that means but it vaguely sounds like that scene from Full Metal Jacket.”
She laughs, turning on her side to face me and smacking me on the arm. “No. It’s something I made up when I was eight or nine and I forced my family do it each night at dinner.” I give her another look. “I had a big imagination. I was practically an only child so I guess I got bored.”
“Huh. So this isn’t anything like your wanting to sucky sucky me then, right?” She smacks me again. “Tell you what, I’ll give you ten bucks if you’ll say, ‘Me so hawny. Me love you long time.’”
She bursts out laughing saying, “You’re so rotten! No, a super-sucky is when you tell what was good about your day, the super, and what was bad, the sucky. So what’s yours?”
I turn to face her, reaching a hand out and moving the hair off the side of her face. “My super is being here with you.” She blushes prettily. “My sucky?” I could tell her about my fight but decide against it. “Probably not being with you earlier.” I lean over and kiss her letting her know I mean it. “So what’s yours?” I ask laying my head back on the pillow watching her.
“My super is being here with you too.” She smiles, reaching over and lacing her fingers through mine. “Oh! And the snow!” I chuckle. “My sucky is probably… not being with you earlier too.”
I nod making her laugh when I comment, “Very original.”
We make love on the rug in front of the fireplace. Later, we shower together and I make her come so hard she starts crying and I have to hold her until she stops shaking. After drying off and brushing our teeth, we get in bed and I hold her close as we lie facing each other.
“Baby, what happened earlier?” I say quietly.
“It was just so… intense… the emotions… I didn’t… expect it,” she whispers.
I nod because I understand what she’s saying. The emotions are fucking with my head too.
I kiss her forehead and we drift off to the complete stillness of being away from the city.
Seventeen
I’m terrified.
I’m falling hard for Heath and it scares the crap out of me because I really don’t want to get hurt. Can he really be as good as he seems? God, I hope so.
Sunday at Big Bear
is perfect. We sleep late then make love. Next we get up and have brunch at a local dive in town before coming back to the cabin where I talk him into building a snowman. It didn’t turn out quite as cute as I wanted it to. It kind of leans to the side and the pieces of gravel I used to make its face makes it look sort of crazed. But it’s my first snowman, so I tell Heath to cut me some slack. Back inside we’re both freezing, so we shower together making sure to warm each other up, and afterward he broils steaks while I prepare a salad and steam some veggies.
Now we’re in front of the fireplace lying on the rug staring up at the ceiling again.
“Super-sucky?” I ask.
After a moment he answers. “Super was sleeping late and waking up to you. Sucky was you talking me into making that ugly-ass snowman.”
I laugh. “Poor guy is kinda ugly, isn’t he?”
“Not gonna get a denial outta me.” He snorts. “Yours?”
I think for a second. “Super has been everything about being here with you.” He moves his hand over entwining his fingers with mine. “Sucky has to be when I slipped a little on that patch of ice at the restaurant and you laughed at me.” I let his hand go coming up on my elbow quickly and look down at him grinning smugly. “But then there was another super when you slipped right after!”
“I did that to make you feel better.” He grabs my hand pulling it and yanking my elbow out from under me making me fall back on my pillow.
“Hey!” I cry, pushing myself up and crawling on top of him, straddling him. I take his wrists from my waist and pull his arms up to the sides of his head and hold his hands to the floor. Then I lean down as if I’m going to kiss him, laughing when he puckers his lips a little bit, before I cheer, “Pinned! I win!” I sit up, clasping my hands together and holding them over my head shaking them from side to side and making a crowd noise with my mouth.
The next thing I know I’m pinned underneath him so fast I’m shocked.
“Who’s the winner now?” he asks cockily, holding my wrists above my head in one hand while he pulls the t-shirt of his that I’m wearing up with his other hand, bending down and sucking my nipple into his hot mouth.
“Me,” I gasp. “Me… I’m still winning.”
We get naked and he pulls an afghan off the couch to cover us.
When he slides smoothly inside me, his eyes staying on mine even as he starts moving, I know I’m the winner for sure.
“I wanna go back to the cabin,” I pout when we get into LA late Monday afternoon.
Heath pulls my hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it as he drives. “I’ve got vacation time saved up. We can go any time you want. Just let me know.”
“Tomorrow,” I say and he laughs.
“How about the first week of May?” he suggests.
“That sounds good. I’ll check to make sure no one else in the office will be gone that week and if not, we’re so there!” I love that cabin. I wouldn’t mind living there forever.
Back at the apartment I do laundry and catch up on all the messages I’ve received, half of them from Mrs. Lanning. Go figure. When Dani gets home, I tell her all about Heath and my mini vacation, also throwing in that I might be falling for him.
“I’m so frickin’ scared,” I admit. “I don’t wanna get hurt. I watched you go through it with Dwight and I don’t want to feel the kind of pain you did.”
She sighs. “I know. But that’s the risk you take when you fall in love with someone.” She shrugs. “I wish I could tell you it’s all hearts and rainbows and unicorns but life always gets in the way. I don’t know Heath very well, but he doesn’t seem like the type who’d cheat on you.”
“Yeah, but I never thought Dwight would cheat on you either.”
We stare at each other for a moment.
“Better to have loved and lost and all that shit, right?” she offers.
I take a deep breath and blow it out. “I hope so.”
The next four weeks go just as well with Heath and me. I’ve stayed at his apartment almost every night except when he had to go to San Francisco for a meeting at which he had to schmooze some bigshots who he’d put in a bid for a job, he explained. He ended up getting the job and when he got back the next day, we celebrated that night by going to dinner and a movie.
Another time I didn’t stay with was our first big fight and boy, was it stupid. It was a Friday night and I’d been late getting home. He’d texted telling me that he had dinner ready and I texted back that I had to change first but would be right over. So I got there and he’d already dished the spaghetti he’d made onto our plates and told me to come into the living room with him to sit on the couch because he was watching a movie. When I got settled, he started the movie he’d paused on the DVR which I saw was halfway through The Usual Suspects and Verbal Kint is telling the customs agent the story of how his gang got involved with the shipment of cocaine. As I spun a big bite of noodles onto my fork, I said, “Ha! That customs guy’s so dumb, not even figuring out that Verbal’s actually Keyser Söze until it’s too late.”
Bringing the fork up and stuffing it into my mouth in a less than genteel manner, I sucked loudly on a noodle that’d slipped away, leaning over my plate as it made its way up and in. I then noticed Heath had paused the DVR and he’d gone quiet. Looking over at him, I saw that he was staring at me and looking a whole lot pissed. So with my mouth stuffed full, I less than elegantly asked, “What?”
Come to find out, he’d never seen the movie and was mad that I’d spoiled it for him.
“How in the hell could you never have watched this?” I asked.
“I just never did!”
“It came out in the nineties! Like twenty years ago! And you’re telling me no one’s ever told you what happens in it? How stupid is that?” I yelled.
“Are you calling me stupid?”
“No! I said it’s stupid that you never knew what happened!” I corrected him.
“That’s pretty much saying I’m stupid!”
“No, it isn’t! God! Semantics! Learn some!”
“Oh, now you’re really saying I’m stupid by saying that!”
“What? Where’d you get that from? That’s stupid too!”
“See? You just said I’m stupid!”
I’d taken my plate to the kitchen then stomped out of there and gone back to my apartment mad as hell. Dani was gone staying the weekend with her parents, so I didn’t have anyone to gripe to. And I didn’t want to call my mom and complain so that she’d get the wrong impression of Heath before they even met, not like she would judge him or anything, but still I didn’t think it’d be a good idea.
I’d fallen asleep on the couch watching reruns of Sex and the City, crying because one of the episodes was where Carrie and Big broke up before he went to Paris… and maybe crying because Heath and I had fought.
Hours later, I was awakened when I was picked up off the couch not knowing what the heck was going on. It was Heath, of course. He’d called Dani and gotten our “lost key” password and borrowing a duplicate from the front desk, had gotten into my apartment. He’d carried me to my bed where he’d apologized then we had the best sex yet.
Oh, but talking about the best sex…
The last time I didn’t stay at Heath’s because we’d argued, was last week when we’d invited some people over for a small party-type thing, kind of a stop by and say hi deal at my place, and there were maybe twenty-five people max in my apartment at any given time.
Several of the guys on Heath’s crew showed up along with a plumber and electrician that he’d worked with many times, some with their girlfriends or wives, some without. Dani and I had invited several friends and we’d both asked Paul who came with his new boyfriend. She’d invited Craig without my knowing (big fat yuck) and he and a woman he introduced as his girlfriend made an appearance with the Pamela Anderson lookalike in tow. And even though she tried hanging all over Heath, she wasn’t what caused the problem. Nope. Not even close.
Arou
nd eleven, when the alcohol had been flowing for hours, the music was playing great songs and everyone was having a good time, Chastity, Dani’s boss showed up. Of course, Dani had invited her like she always did, not expecting her to show up because she never had before. And I swear, it was like one of those vinyl-records-playing-that-suddenly-goes-rrrrriiiiipppppp moments when she walked in.
All the men stopped and stared along with my own boyfriend because Chastity’s tall, blonde, model-thin and beautiful, and I get that it’s hard not to look at her when she walks into a room. That’s why she’s an actress. Duh. So after her grand entrance and everyone finally settled down, she’d made her rounds, chatting it up with only the men who, ignoring the dirty looks they were receiving from their wives or girlfriends, fawned all over her looking like complete idiots. When she came to Heath, she made sure to tell him how “absolutely, fucking hot” he was right to his very face grabbing onto one of his biceps and I swear to God she meowed. Ergh. Then she told him he should be an actor, that she’d be his leading lady any day, and she’d given him a wink to which he shyly ducked his head giving her a “get out of here” look. Good lord.
And even though I wanted to smack the shit out of him for it, that’s still not what caused our fight.
Thirty minutes later, Chastity left after having caused as much damage as she could between the wives and or girlfriends and their significant others, all except for Heath and me which made me proud that we were so secure in our relationship (even though I still wanted to smack him). One of the wives had even stomped out after calling her husband a “son of a fucking bitch” because he’d not only hit on Chastity but had come up behind her trying to dirty dance with her telling her to grind on him which had made Chastity giggle. Ugh.
So there I was feeling all high and mighty that I hadn’t caused a scene until Heath and several of the guys went out on the balcony so a couple of them could smoke.
The Fighter (The High Rise, Book 1) Page 14