Falling Under

by Lauren Dane

  “I’ll allow your forward ways just this once,” she said as she poured herself a fresh cup. “So good. Thank you. You’re always there when I need you. I have stuff to do and so do you.” She flapped a hand to signal she was done letting him push about her mother.

  He’d been so caught up in finishing this job that he hadn’t been around much. After spending so much time with her before, he’d gotten used to her, spoiled by that.

  “I haven’t seen enough of you for days and days. How about we go on a real date? Din Tai Fung for dinner?”

  Her eyes lit with pleasure. “Yes, please. That sounds awesome. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just go home and sleep for fifteen hours and go out to dinner tomorrow night?”

  “I’ll be done by five, so we’ll go home and change and drive over. We can pick up cupcakes at Trophy while we’re in Bellevue if you like. And then we’ll come home. We have some major reuniting to do. There’s plenty of time to sleep after that.”

  Mick came through, rolling up the bay doors on the north side of the building, interrupting his train of thought and reminding him he had a meeting in a few minutes.

  “Asa, Mick, and I will be in a meeting for a bit,” he told her. “I’ll see you later on. Maybe we can do lunch if this finishes up in time.”

  Mick saw Duke and tipped his chin. “Be right with you. I just need to check something with Duane.”

  He detoured through Carmella’s office again, refilled his coffee mug, stole a kiss, got an adorable glare, and headed to Asa’s office, where Mick joined them both.

  “What’s up?” Mick asked.

  “Last year when you left the army for good and came home, you said you wanted in at Twisted Steel as a partner,” Duke said. “We brought you on as the shop manager not only because you’re good at it, but because we wanted to see if you really meant all the stuff you’d said about wanting to buy in.”

  “You wanted me to prove myself after I left the way I left the last time.” Mick nodded. “I get it.”

  “We had to get the business appraised when we decided on all the renovation.” Asa handed Mick a piece of paper. “The real question is how much you want in. The top number is what a full third is worth. We have information available about what our profit share is like as partners, what our overhead is. You know a lot of it having run the ship all this time. But we’ve got more detail if you want to look it over.”

  “This is great news. I’ve been saving money for this.” Mick’s smile made Duke even more glad he and Asa had decided to finally bring their friend in.

  “Have an attorney look over all the paperwork. Don’t make a decision until you do that. There’s all this tax stuff I didn’t have any idea about and it was a total pain. Make sure you understand everything. If you have questions, we can hook you up with our attorney.”

  “We can announce this at the grand opening party, right? I’ll take it to an attorney, so stop frowning, Asa.” Mick flipped through the papers.

  “Yeah. If you decide to do this for sure, we’ll announce then. Another reason to celebrate,” Duke said.

  “Excellent.” Mick looked from the papers back up to them. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

  “Dude.” Duke shook his head. “You made a quick, rash choice back then. That’s your business. Naturally we’d like you to tell us what’s up, but we get it if you aren’t ready. But we’re your brothers, right? Whatever happened, it’s not about letting anyone down. Stop going back to that stupid choice and look forward. That’s all Asa and I want for you.”

  “Now let’s go back to work. I have a metric faction of work to do before we do the delivery later today,” Asa said.

  “Indeed. I have a date I can’t be late for tonight so I need to get to it as well.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-six

  Carmella had taken one look at Duke up to his elbows in engine and knew he wasn’t going to be going to lunch with her.

  She paused at the Chevy he was working on. “Hey, you. I’m going to lunch now, but I can see you’re too busy. Would you like me to bring you back something?”

  “That would be great. Thanks, gorgeous.”

  She headed out, needing some fresh air and to satisfy her craving for teriyaki. Once she was at her favorite little strip mall place a mile or so up the road, she saw one of the mechanics at Salazar inside at a table.

  When he saw her, he boomed out her name and bounded over, giving her a big hug.

  She joined him and they caught up. He’d worked for her uncle’s shop for seven years and they’d sort of grown up together. Things were going well for him at his new job, and he and his girlfriend were expecting a baby early the following year.

  They talked about Twisted Steel and she told him about Duke, and it was his turn to be happy for her.

  She headed back to work with a smile on her face.

  Duke wasn’t working on the Chevy so she headed to the break room but he wasn’t in there either.

  She didn’t want his food to get cold so she swung by his office. She heard his voice as she approached.

  Inside he was having lunch with a woman Carmella had never seen. She had her hand on Duke’s leg as they spoke and they were eating teriyaki. What the fuck?

  Duke looked up at her and then down at the bag she had in her hand.

  “Some lunch, as promised.” Wow, she was mad. Carmella was surprised at how mad she was.

  It wasn’t even the leg. It was the traitor teriyaki when she’d told him she was bringing lunch back. The absurdity of it nearly set one of those crazy woman giggles free. But she thought it extra hard.

  She put the bag down on the table in front of him.

  “Thanks. Don’t worry, I’m hungry enough to eat that too,” he said and she thought extra hard that he was a dick.

  She smiled, totally fake, and headed out.

  “Wait, Carmella. Let me introduce you to Lori,” Duke called out.

  While her back was turned, she allowed herself the snarl she wouldn’t give herself permission for in front of tall, blond, and stunning with her hand on Duke’s leg.

  She pulled it together and smiled again as she turned to find him standing very close. He put a hand on her arm. “Lori, this is Carmella. Carm, this is my friend Lori.”

  Carmella shook the blonde’s hand and tried to ignore the way the other woman looked her over.

  “He’s been talking about you nonstop,” Lori said.

  Huh. He’d never mentioned Lori to her. Instead she said, “I hope it was all good.” Subtly, she tried to move from his grasp. “I need to get back to work. I just wanted to drop off your lunch. It was nice to meet you, Lori.” She stepped backward with a wave, breaking free and heading to her office.

  * * *

  Duke knew she was mad. Like really mad. It wasn’t that she’d been rude, quite the opposite. The face she showed Lori had been friendly enough.

  But she’d seen that hand on his knee and how the hell could he have forgotten that she was bringing him back lunch? He’d been hungry and wanted to deal with Lori and get her out of there.

  “I should get back to work too. Just tell your brother to come by and fill out an application by Friday.” Her brother needed a job, he wasn’t a bad kid, and they needed a general hand around the shop and were currently looking for someone for that very thing.

  “So, that’s her, huh? I’ve heard you’ve gone all domestic.”

  “It was going to happen sooner or later.” He kept standing near the door.

  “Huh. I just saw her with Porkchop over at the place I got the food at. They looked pretty cozy.”

  “What does that mean?” Duke demanded.

  “Nothing. I’m just saying I saw her having a cozy lunch with a hot guy. Not here with you. I guess she had lunch first and then brought it back. No big. I’m sure you were busy.” Lori stood. “I’ll tell Gabe to come by tomorrow to bring this back.” She held the application aloft. “Thanks.”

  She made sure to
brush her entire body against his as she walked through, and of course, once she’d gone past Carmella’s office to leave, Duke saw that from where Carmella stood with PJ, she’d seen the way Lori had walked past him too.

  With a sigh, he headed over to deal with this situation.

  PJ gave him a raised brow when he joined them. Carmella ignored him totally as she tallied something up on her calculator, writing down numbers on an invoice and totaling it all out before handing it to PJ.

  “That’s the current total for everything I’ve got so far this month. Look at it and make sure I haven’t missed anything and I’ll turn it around for you to have by this Friday,” Carmella told her.

  “Appreciate it. You busy tonight?” PJ asked her.

  “She has a dumpling date with her boyfriend,” Duke said.

  PJ just gave him a look.

  “I’ll call you later,” Carmella told her.

  PJ left and Duke shut the door after her.

  “Let’s just deal with this now,” Duke told Carmella. “Don’t say this is work. I don’t want this hanging over us all day.”

  “Go on.”

  “Did you see a friend today?”

  She looked confused and then, then she looked really pissed off. “Really? This is what you think we need to deal with? I had lunch with my friend of seven years, Tracy.”

  “Was Tracy there with Porkchop? Because I hear that’s who you were sitting with there.”

  “Tracy wasn’t there with Porkchop. He is Porkchop. Do you think his mother named him that? His given name is Tracy. I’ve known him my entire adult life because he worked at Salazar when I did. He told me today that he and his girlfriend of four years are expecting a baby. They’re getting married after that. I told him about you. We had a lovely visit and I came back here with the lunch I said I’d bring you.”

  Duke blew out a breath.

  “Everywhere we go, I have to deal with women you know. Women, like Lori there, you banged awhile. Your flirting is like background noise. Even when I hate it, I accept it because that’s part of who you are. But I come back here to find a woman in your office with her hands on you, eating food when I’d just brought it back. Because I told you I would. And then you come in here and actually have the nerve to Sherlock Holmes me into confessing my secret affair in broad daylight in a teriyaki restaurant? That’s your take on what’s going on here? I’m the problem?”

  He remembered what Asa had said while they were at Bumbershoot about keeping some space around himself when it came to other women. She’d been pissed that day and he’d known there was something up but then it had been the fight with her ex and all that mess and he’d allowed himself to blow that off.

  And now he was paying the price because holy shit was he wrong and about to have to grovel like he never groveled before.

  He hated being wrong. Hated being that guy who needed advice instead of seeing the issues himself.

  “I pride myself on being good about people. Knowing how to read them. And I totally fail with you.”

  She blinked, surprised.

  “Isn’t it like part of the superhero lore? A blind spot?” she said at last.

  A laugh bubbled up from his gut. “You keep surprising me. Over and over.”

  “It’s why you keep coming back.”

  “I’m an asshole.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “I’m sorry I came at you that way with the Porkchop thing.”

  “She’s the one who saw me with him, huh? You aren’t new at women, Duke. But wow, that was a newbie move, letting yourself get played by blondie.”

  “Why did I think you’d be mad at me?” He chuckled.

  “Oh, I am mad at you, Duke. And you are an asshole. I’m not cool with that touchy-feely stuff. And if I say I’m bringing you back food, eating some other woman’s food is going to piss me off.”

  Duke was as surprised by her anger as she appeared to be. “You know how you said the other day that you didn’t know how to do this? Neither do I. I was trying to get her out of here before you got back. I was hungry. It seemed best to just combine the two and let her tell me why she’d come over. Which was to see if we had a job for her kid brother. Then you came in.”

  “And you were eating traitor teriyaki.”

  He fought back a smile with all his might. He knew without a doubt that she would not find it charming.

  “To get her gone.”

  “Yeah, you said that. Which means you were hiding it from me? Or you didn’t want me to see or know. Why?”

  He paused. He hadn’t hidden it because he had any plans at all to do anything with Lori. Or anyone other than Carmella. But he had a girlfriend now so he’d known having a woman’s hand on your leg wasn’t okay.

  “I would have taken her hand off. But you came in before I could. Nothing other than talking happened.”

  “Not the point. I don’t think it did, by the way. If I did, we’d be done. Remember that trust thing? Cheating would be the end for me. I think I can deal with normal relationship fights. That’s what this is unless you want to fuck it up and say something stupid.”

  “Can I smile yet? I mean, you’re really fucking cute right now and I just want to snuggle up all over you while begging your forgiveness.”

  “No snuggling at work!”

  “Maybe I thought I could handle it. Like let her talk to me and flirt a little and then she’d go and everything would be cool. Maybe I was pissy that I had to think about it at all.”

  “Or maybe you like it when people need you. Which I can accept. And you can be proud of.”

  “I don’t need people to need me.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Just a thought. Anyway, you were apologizing so please continue.”

  “Is it weird that it makes me hot when you get like this?”

  “Get on with it, Duke Bradshaw!”

  “Okay! I’m sorry. I understand why you’re angry. I’ll work a lot harder to tone down the flirting and there’ll be no more traitor teriyaki going forward.”

  “I think your being flip is not even cute. So, I’m going to send you on your way because you have work to do and a delivery to make later and I’m not in any kind of mood for this.” She made a shooing motion.

  “I’m not being flip.”

  She went past him to the door and pointed. “Go. I have work to do too.”

  “We still on for tonight?” he asked on the way out.

  “Probably.”

  He skulked off, dejected, but relieved she seemed not to be in a kick Duke to the curb state of mind.

  “What did you do?” Mick asked when Duke stomped over to his tools.

  “Nothing. Just dumb guy stuff. I should have listened to Asa.”

  “He gives better advice these days. I think you’re both getting old and starting to make sense.” Mick snickered. “Lots of apologies are in your future.”

  “I made a dent in that already. I hate when she’s mad at me. Or sad. It’s those big blue eyes.” But she had clarified that it was normal dumb stuff and not burn shit down stuff. There was that.

  “I’m guessing next time you won’t be taking hot blondes into your office.”

  Duke snarled, but he couldn’t argue. It had been a stupid move and he should have thought about it more.

  “I need to get back to it. I’m taking her to dinner after work and I want to get a lot more done before quitting time.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-seven

  He showed up at her door five minutes early carrying a brown paper bag. “I brought you bulbs to plant for spring. I was going to buy you flowers, and then I realized you’d just think they were a waste. Bulbs last and are still flowers so I went that way. How’d I do?”

  He passed them her way.

  She gave him a smile because how could she not?

  “Nicely done. Come in a moment. I’m just finishing up getting ready.”

  She left him in her living room as she normally wou
ld have done so she could run back to put on some lipstick and grab her shoes.

  The bulbs were truly lovely. Not only because he came with a present she’d like, but that he thought about the why. He’d remembered things about her far more important than her favorite color.

  She ditched the robe she’d been wearing over her clothes while she did her hair and makeup. And thought about what he liked too. She’d worn one of the vintage dresses her grandmother had kept at the back of her closet and given to Carmella when she passed.

  The one she’d chosen was blue. The linen had gone softer with time, as had the color. But she loved it still. A Peter Pan collar, three-quarter sleeves, with a skirt that had a little bounce but not too much as her grandmother would have worn this one to work while her grandfather had been in Europe during World War II.

  Duke liked her in blue, and he seemed to prefer her vintage stuff and that sort of overall look.

  She pulled out a tube of lipstick. Red. Also a tip from her gran, a fellow redhead. The right shade of red lipstick made Carmella feel like a fierce, beautiful woman. It was like armor.

  And Duke favored it.

  She headed out, shoes in hand, to find him having a chat with Ginger, who sat in front of him, resting her chin on his knee. The adoration in Ginger’s eyes was enough to let the last bit of annoyance she’d had drain away. The way he treated Carmella’s dog always made her soft for him.

  Another woman he flirted with. Good gracious.

  “If she had opposable thumbs, I might have to worry about her killing me in my sleep to get to have you all to herself,” Carmella said.

  They both looked to her.

  “You both have the same dumb grin.” Probably the one she wore too.

  “So many beautiful women live here I can’t help myself.” He gave Ginger one last scratch before he stood. “If the plan was to look the absolute most beautiful I’ve ever seen you look to punish me because I was a dick, you win.”

  “I did consider that. But I wasn’t really that mad at you anymore by the time you arrived and the bulbs did the rest.”