Sledgehammer (Hard To Love Book 2)

by P. Dangelico

  “It’s cold in here,” he grumbles.

  “You think?” Meanwhile, I’m sweating golfballs.

  “Hmm.”

  “You’re aware that this is inappropriate, right?” Sadly, not for the reason he thinks. The way he’s back to unbuttoning his shirt, slowly and deliberately with heavy-lidded eyes on me, is starting to rev my engine and that’s the last thing I need right now. I need my engine to shut down, to go night night, otherwise I’m going to have to rub one out the minute he leaves. It’s either that or I can sign myself up for another sleepless night.

  “You’ve seen me naked, Jones. I’ve seen you naked.” He imparts this wisdom with a raised eyebrow. The understatement of the year. I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of him naked out my mind––ever. “I recall you being unimpressed,” he adds, his lips quirking.

  He’s left his undershirt on. Thank God for small favors.

  Lust. That’s all this is. A normal bodily reaction to being deprived of what a body needs. No mystery here. Would I be surprised if my mouth watered at the sight of a burger had I not eaten a meal in years? No. Thus, I absolve myself of any guilt over this reaction.

  Standing next to the bed, his expression sleepy, he waits for me to…what? Give him permission? Damn this is awkward.

  “Scootch over.”

  “Scootch? Say that again and I’ll be forced to revoke your mancard.”

  If the look on his face is any indication, he finds something funny. I’m just not sure if he’s silently laughing at me, or with me. “You’ve seen my mancard. Does it look like it can be revoked?”

  “Indirectly. I looked at it indirectly. And only because it was in my face, making threatening gestures.” My rebuttal is met by another raised eyebrow. “Fine,” I mutter sourly and move over for him. The minute he crawls into my bed I get a hit of his scent. One hit and I’m high as kite.

  “How’s your hand?” I mumble, my lips numb because I’m quasi tripping. He shoves his left hand inches from my face.

  “Jeez, I’m not interested in smelling it, Vaughn.” Grabbing his wrist, I hold it farther away, and turning it left and right, perform a thorough examination. Where the stitches were removed, the skin is still bright pink.

  “Does it hurt?” I gently brush my index finger over part of it and he flinches. My attention cuts back to his face. “Does it?”

  “No.” His gaze falls to my lips. “So, what are we watching?” he murmurs. I can’t tear my attention away from his heavy lidded eyes, those impossibly thick, dark lashes. The end of me, I want to say but don’t.

  “The Leftovers. Only the strangest show ever.” And just to illustrate that God has a sense of humor and routinely likes to get his kicks by messing with my life, we both turn to look at the television screen and find the lead male character, the very sexy Kevin Garvey balls deep in some random chick, the scene complete with the requisite vigorous pumping and grunting.

  It’s official, I’m not getting any sleep tonight.

  “What do you like about this show?” The question sounds tentative, as if he doesn’t quite know how to approach the subject. Heat races up my neck for the umpteenth time in the last twenty minutes.

  “Don’t let the graphic sex fool you. The writing is excellent and the acting superb.”

  Grunting, grunting, and more grunting. In the meantime, my sweat glands are getting a serious workout.

  “Is that your type?” he asks, his tone cautious, his gaze still fixed on the sex scene I could be enjoying if he wasn’t sitting next to me.

  “What do you mean by type?”

  For fuck’s sake, is this scene ever going to end?

  “Muscles, ink.” He doesn’t look at me and I don’t dare look at him. This line of questioning is rife with danger.

  “I don’t have a type.”

  “No type?” he turns to look at me and I do the same. No matter how hard he tries to look indifferent, his expression teeters on the brink of curiosity.

  “Not physical. I think attraction is in the mind of the beholder. Everything else is lust and that wears off faster than an orgasm.”

  He gets quiet, thoughtful, which compels me to explain. “I’m attracted to people with passion, that have figured out what theirs is and go after it. I’m attracted to kindness and intelligence…I guess I’m attracted to some kind of awesome.”

  “Was Gregory awesome?” he says in a flat voice, not giving anything away.

  And the groovy mood we were sharing a second ago takes a nosedive. The last thing I need is to be reminded of just how bad my judgment is, how astray I let it lead me. There’s nothing worse than not being able to trust yourself. It has a paralyzing effect on your entire life.

  I turn to watch the television again, the scene mercifully over. “No, he most definitely wasn’t.” Time for a change of topic. “Andi said you’re selling your business.”

  When he doesn’t answer right away, I steal a brief glance. It’s his turn to be under the microscope and I can tell he doesn’t like it.

  “Only if I get the job as lead counsel for the Titans.”

  “Why would you give up the business you’ve built to work for someone else? You’re obviously one of the best in your field.”

  “Because I’ve always dreamed of being a General Manager. Getting the job as lead counsel gets me one step closer.”

  There’s animation in his face when he speaks, a spark in his eyes. He’s suddenly full of energy where minutes ago he looked sleepy. Passion––he’s full of it.

  “What about you? Have you always known you wanted to be an actress?”

  “Since I was six. Whenever my mother was dating somebody new, she would drop me off at the theater and give the kid working twenty bucks to make sure I didn’t leave.”

  “Jesus.”

  I force a smile. Not because I harbor any pain about it, because I don’t want him to feel bad. His eyes fill with sympathy, his features softened by it.

  “Put the Kleenex away, Fancy Pants. I’m fine with it.” He continues watching me with rapt attention. “I saw Little Orphan Annie one day and fell in love. I wanted to do what the kids in that movie were doing. My grandmother used to call me The Purple Rose of Cairo because I looked like I wanted to step into the screen.”

  “Have you ever wanted to do anything else?”

  “No. I love everything about it.” My thoughts drift to Marty and the weekly harassment I’ve been receiving from him to move. “My agent wants me to move to L.A. He says I have a much better chance of finding work there. He says I’m wasting time here.”

  “Is he right?”

  I give it a minute of honest thought before I answer. “Yeah,” I say, exhaling my frustration.

  “How come you haven’t moved already, then?”

  “My grandmother.”

  He nods in understanding. “How bad is she?”

  “Bad. It’s Alzheimer’s. She rarely recognizes me anymore.” Although he’s still nodding, something tells me he’s holding back. “What does that look mean?”

  “I know you want to do right by your grandmother, but it sounds like you’re driving with your foot on the brake.”

  “It’s too late for metaphors. Spit it out.”

  “I think your grandmother would want you to move to L.A… to give it a real shot.”

  It seems so simple from the outside. Logic tells me he’s right. That’s the reason my grandmother made Eileen trustee after all. But my conscience tells me she needs me, that Eileen can’t be trusted. And I would die a thousand deaths if something happened to her while I’m in Lala land living my dream. Either way, I lose.

  “I can’t leave her. She was always there for me.”

  The quiet is heavy, the moment transforming into something I could never have anticipated, something meaningful.

  “Success requires sacrifice.” His voice is steel wrapped in velvet and packs a punch I can feel in my solar plexus. His eyes, filled to the brim with understanding, hold mine. Somethi
ng tells me he knows something about sacrifice.

  It’s still dark out when I awaken to a foghorn in my ear. Cracking my eyes open, I turn in the direction of the offending noise and freeze. The owner of the foghorn is inches from my face, sleeping soundly.

  The television is still on, the cable box reading 5:30. We must’ve fallen asleep watching it last night. He murmurs something before belting out another horrid sound. And I mean horrid, like braying mule, something’s dying horrid. If I wasn’t still half asleep, I’d be laughing my ass off right about now.

  I give myself only a minute to admire him. I’m already on the verge of serious like and it would be downright stupid to encourage that feeling. We’re a million miles apart in every way that counts, not to mention neither of us is looking for anything that even remotely resembles a relationship.

  Despite the strange sounds emanating from him, he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. But what’s even better is that he’s generous and kind. A good egg, as Camilla would say. He sucks in a breath and cuts another one loose. I quietly crawl out of bed and into the shower. I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I really shouldn’t be. But I am.

  Chapter Twelve

  My relationship with my grandmother is complicated, our history not a pretty one. I was angry and upset when my mother moved out to marry Dan. I felt like a refugee, neither belonging with Dan and Eileen nor with my grandparents. So naturally I acted out a lot. Which exasperated my grandmother who was trying to run the funeral home by herself because of my grandfather’s failing health.

  It was a recipe for an unhappy home.

  Don’t run.

  Don’t shout.

  Stop screaming.

  How in the world did you break that lamp?

  How did you get so dirty?

  Try to be quiet for ten minutes.

  Don’t do that inside, go outside and do that.

  Stop talking.

  Stop talking!

  Stop talking!!

  You’re impossible, you know that.

  and the worst by far…

  I’m calling your mother to come get you.

  It wasn’t until I met Camilla and started spending time at her house, with her parents, that I realized I wasn’t the worst kid on the planet.

  It took a long time for us to find common ground and it pretty much started after my grandfather died. I spoke less. I played less. I laughed less. Essentially, I became less. I was terrified my grandmother was going to send me away to God knows what unknown relative––in my mind there was always one out there––that I would’ve done anything to please her.

  Regardless, once we started to get along, we got along. I helped her with the business, and in returned she never discouraged me from my interest in acting. Also, my grandmother was wise to my mother’s bullshit. We had that in common. Our mutual disapproval of Eileen went a long way to bridging the gap between us. The problem was that my grandmother seemed to try to right all the wrongs she felt she committed with my mother through me. Ergo, she was unbearably strict.

  “Margaret?” I say as I walk up to her in the activities room of the assisted living facility. She looks up from her needlepoint with a soft smile.

  “Yes,” she says, her eyes lighting up at the sight of me. For a minute the happy look on her face almost brings tears to my eyes. I miss her looking at me like she knows who I am. I never thought that losing the person you love most a little at a time would be worse than all at once but I was wrong. So wrong.

  Because who are we without our memories? Without our history. An empty vessel moving through life? Where did your memories go, Grandma. I imagine them floating over her head, in the ether, always out of reach.

  Her eyes cloud when she realizes she can’t place me, like a vacancy sign went up––nobody’s home. A look I’ve come to know well. I take a seat next to her and for the next twenty minutes we make small talk. She answers with one word answers mostly, treating me like the stranger I am to her.

  “Okay. I’m headed home, but I’ll be back in a few days to see you.” She gives me another polite smile that says she doesn’t give a shit either way. “Margaret?”

  “Yes?”

  “What would you say to a friend that wanted to move to a different city to pursue her career?”

  Her eyes move away, out the window overlooking the bare maple trees. “Is it something that makes her happy?”

  I can’t speak, biting the inside of my cheek to stop my bottom lip from trembling. Instead, I nod.

  “Then she should go.”

  “But…what if it means she has to leave something important behind?” I manage to get out even though my voice cracks.

  Looking me squarely in the eyes, gaze steadfast, she says, “She should go after whatever makes her happy.”

  By the time I get home from visiting my grandmother I am drained, parboiled, finito. All I want to do is get into my crappiest sweats––the ones that are threadbare, full of holes and feather soft––and eat. Eat everything I can get my grabby hands on.

  To that end, I’m happily stuffing my face with pizza when a man walks into the living room. And when I say man, I mean part deity because holy cow patties he looks like he could walk on water. I stop chewing as my eyes do a slow, appreciative perusal of him.

  “Hot date?” I casually throw out for consumption. Not that I expect him to answer in the affirmative since I have yet to see him show any interest in any female since I’ve moved in.

  He stuffs his hands in the front pockets of his suit pants and…says nothing. Hmm. His gaze moves away from me and my stomach slowly starts to sink.

  “It is a date,” I blurt out. A nasty prickling sensation burns my gut and travels all the way to my throat. His face is tight, his eyes shifty. He takes his cell phone out and glances at the time.

  “I should get going.”

  Someone’s stabbing my chest. Why is someone stabbing my chest? “Really? Wearing that?” I deadpan, my mouth running away with me while my brain struggles to comprehend what the fuck is happening. A date? He’s going on a date? No, no, I won’t allow it, it keeps saying.

  He looks down. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “Nothing––if you like looking desperate.”

  A frown doctors his face. He seems conflicted about something. Although, what do I know? I couldn’t have predicted this if I had a goddamn crystal ball.

  “I don’t have time for this.” He turns to leave but pauses mid step, like he’s about to say something else. The earth stops spinning in that moment. I hold my breath and hope for…I don’t know what I hope for. In the end, he keeps his silence and continues walking. My mood plummets another thousand feet as I stare at his back. I haven’t been this demoralized since I was five and discovered Santa didn’t exist because I caught a very loud and drunk Eileen, having returned from a date, wrapping presents at one am. There was more tape than actual paper on my gifts that year.

  “Have fun,” I say weakly. He waves as he disappears around the corner.

  Have fun? No. Do NOT have fun. Have a goddamn miserable time as a matter of fact. I hope she falls and skins her knees. I hope she chips her perfectly polished nails.

  Snatching up my cell, I dial the number of the one person I know I can hoist one long, uninterrupted rant on. “Harp, you busy? Good. Meet me at that crappy sports bar on Second and Seventy-First. Yep, see you in twenty.”

  The bar is small and dark, more likely frequented by bus drivers and construction workers than Upper East Side professionals, therefore it’s easy for Harp and me to share a drink and catch up without him being harassed every two minutes for autographs or disgruntled assholes that lost money on fantasy football because Justin ‘didn’t do them a solid’.

  I get there before Harper does and waste no time filling the hole in my gut that feels a lot like jealousy and disappointment with vodka tonics. The Knicks game is playing on the small television in the corner, the low buzz of conversation is all around
me, and yet I don’t hear or see a thing.

  “You started without me?” a familiar voice calls out. “This must be bad.”

  I look over my shoulder and find Justin smiling down at me, dimples on full display, the flat brim of his Mets baseball cap pulled low and his disheveled brown hair spilling out the sides. He pulls his hands out of the front pockets of his dark designer jeans and shrugs off his down jacket, places his phone and keys on the bar, and takes the stool next to mine.

  Three hours and who the hell knows how many drinks later––I certainly wasn’t counting––I’m still listening to him drone on about his ex-girlfriend. Insert gun in mouth, pull trigger.

  “She’s the one that got away.”

  It takes a minute for it to sink in (alcohol and such). For me to give him my most disdainful glare. “Why do people say that? Why is that a thing? She’s not a lost child. It’s not like she casually wandered away when you weren’t looking. You didn’t lose her. She sprinted away.” The hurt look on his face that I’m not drunk enough to ignore makes me pause. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m drunk and angry and…don’t listen to me. What do I know? I don’t know jack.”

  “What is it with you tonight? Why so pissy?”

  I immediately get a clear picture of Ethan at a fancy shmancy dinner with some long legged model. Then the whole picture turns red, my ears glowing with the evidence of my irrational fury. I say irrational because, let’s face it, he’s not mine. I have zero business feeling possessive, or jealous, or slightly heartbroken about this. Fine, more than slightly. What did I expect? It’s not like he’s a monk. He didn’t take a vow of celibacy. Even though I wish he had.

  “Because he’s not a monk!”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “Never mind. We haven’t finished with you yet. Every girl needs a grand gesture.”

  “She’s in med school. She doesn’t want to see me.”