That, at least, I could be trusted to do. Pretty much the only fashion rule I knew—make sure your pants match your belt. So I headed down the sidewalk, past an ice cream shop where a little girl was drawing on the windows with sticky fingers, and past a nail salon where an exhausted-looking pregnant woman was getting her toenails painted. It made the future spread out in front of me like a slide show. Our little girl, with ice cream. Making sure Rosie pampered herself when she was pregnant.
Christ. It was scary. It was a lot. And it was exactly what I never knew I’d been hoping for.
Just as I rounded the corner of the strip mall, I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. Orange-crush orange, convertible.
Rosie’s Bug. Parked right in front of Marshalls.
That little devil. I knew it. She’d lied to me. She didn’t have anything to wear, and now here she was buying something she couldn’t afford for a date she’d had no plans to go on.
I burst through the rolling doors, nearly colliding with a woman putting price tags on a huge stack of towels. I scanned the shoes for Rosie, but nothing. Scanned the women’s wear. Nothing there either. I was just heading back to pet supplies when I heard her laugh as she came out of the dressing room. We faced off across a rack of off-brand Crocs.
“Rosie.”
“Max!” She staggered back, knocking a very uncomfortable-looking display heel off of a stack of shoe boxes. “What are you doing here? Since when do you come to Marshalls?”
Draped over her arm was something red—and fancy. As soon as she saw me looking, she gathered it close to her body to try to hide it. I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to outmaneuver her around the shoes. “That for tonight?”
She blinked hard. “Nope.”
“Liar.” I circled a display of little boy’s tennis shoes. Fuck. I held out my finger, pointing at her, threatening almost. “My treat. Don’t argue.”
She burst into a big smile. “Don’t you dare,” she whispered. She circled clockwise, same as me, and hid whatever she was holding behind the shoe boxes. She was smiling so hard that I couldn’t help but smile, too. “I can buy my own clothes, Max. Especially for our first date.”
The words hit me like a bucket of warm water, but I would not let her saying things like our and date derail me. I refocused on her and went left and then juked right to try to fake her out. But she was too damned quick, and anyway, she knew all my moves, probably way before I’d even decided to make them.
Yeah, of course she could buy her own clothes. On a credit card, which was surely close to being maxed out. “That’s not how this is going to go,” I told her and tried to intercept her by the purses. She flip-flopped her way through them, and I picked up the pace to catch up to her. Her footsteps stopped suddenly, and I listened for her breathing. A lady holding a shiny silver purse grinned at me through the racks. I hadn’t noticed her before, but it seemed that she’d definitely noticed us.
“Please,” I mouthed to her.
She winked and mouthed back, “Behind the suitcases.” She drew a U in the air to show me which way to take.
“Thank you!” I mouthed and made an end run around them.
There I found her, crouched down behind a huge pink suitcase on wheels. She was on her tiptoes in the crouch, facing away from me, clueless that I’d gotten the jump on her. Thank God for strangers who still believe in romance. Because I had the advantage, I took it and gave myself a few seconds just to take her in. Her shorts had come down slightly so I could see the small of her back. Her bra strap had come down past her T-shirt, and her hair was swept off to one side so the curly sweet tendrils around her ear made delicate ringlets. I loved her in that moment, peeking over a half-priced Samsonite, more than ever before.
I took one silent step toward her and whispered, “Gotcha.” As she shot up to try to get away, I used both arms to pull her to me, her back to my stomach, my chin nestled against her ear. She giggled, a deep, sultry, tongue-biting giggle that made me pull her even closer. I felt her go slack against me, not so much fight in the little vixen anymore. She tipped her head slightly, and I kissed the spot just below her ear.
“No peeking,” she said as she turned around in my arms, hiding whatever she was holding behind my back. I could feel the edge of the hanger digging into me, and I wanted so fucking badly to turn my head to see what she had up her sleeve. But I also wanted her to listen to me, so I decided to give her what she wanted. For now.
“I’m not letting you leave this store without my paying for your stuff.” I kept her so close that I could feel the movement of her breasts with each breath.
“I can afford it. I mean that,” she said, stubborn as ever, proud as always.
“I know. But I’m no more going to let you pay than I’d let you take me out on our date. You get it? This is me, taking care of you. I told you, get used to it.”
Her expression softened in a way that fucking melted me. She arched her back and pressed herself against my body, and I let one hand move down to the very top of her ass. Still okay for public, but only just barely. “Okay, but no peeking,” she whispered.
So I nodded and closed my eyes. Reluctantly, I opened my arms to let her go. I could still feel the heat of her body against mine, so I was confident she was going to listen to me and she wasn’t going to make a break for it. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet, feeling for the bill fold and opened it wide. “Take all the cash in there.”
“Max,” she growled.
“Don’t argue with me, Rose Marie Madden.” I took the cash out myself. I knew there was three hundred in there easy. “Everything I have is yours. So just take it. If that’s not enough, I’ll leave my card at the register. No peeking, but let me do this. Okay?”
It was a long time before she answered. I could feel her hesitating and thinking. Over the loudspeakers came The Cure’s “Love Song.” Like I was in a fucking catapult, I was flung back in time to the one time I’d ever danced with her. Senior prom. Her date was too drunk to stand. Mine was making out with some other guy. One of the best nights of my whole fucking life, and all because of that dance.
I wanted to tell her that and so much more. But standing in the middle of Marshalls, it wasn’t the right time. “Do you remember when we danced to this?” I asked.
“Yes.” She sounded almost choked up, same as I felt. “I loved that dance. So much.”
My heart busted right open. She remembered. Maybe she’d even known what I hadn’t had the balls to say. But now she knew, and she was right here on the roller coaster with me. She was everything I’d ever wanted and more. She was The Cure, and she was summer nights. She was all the good things rolled up into one.
I folded the bills in half and guessed at where her hand might be in the darkness. After a few seconds, her hand clasped around mine.
“Everything I have is yours, too,” she whispered and put a kiss on my cheek. Her sandals slapped softly on the linoleum as she walked away. I opened one eye, just a slit, and she was looking back over her shoulder as she went. Like she knew I’d peek and didn’t want to miss it.
“See you at seven thirty,” I said.
“Can’t wait.”
30
Rosie
I pampered myself like I hadn’t in ages. Manicure, pedicure, and even a sugar scrub in the shower. I dried my hair with a flat brush, taking special care with my big drum curling iron to get each curl perfect. By 6:30, I was totally ready and as nervous as I had ever been for any date in my whole entire life. I practiced walking up and down the steps in my heels and tottered around the still slightly damp kitchen. I checked my makeup six bazillion times and hemmed and hawed over my three bottles of perfume, contemplating if he was more a citrus or floral fan. But then I remembered there was something Max liked even better than any of my current perfumes and lotion. I kicked off my heels and knelt in front of my closet. In the mirror on the back of the door, I watched Julia Caesar watching me. When I turned my head to face her, she prete
nded she’d been watching the pillows.
Through the bottles, I dug. I wasn’t even sure that I still had what I was looking for, but maybe, I thought. Just maybe. I tossed aside half-empty, slightly sticky bottles of curl cream. I rummaged through slippery containers of anti-frizz serum. I sorted through old bottles of lotion that I hadn’t liked enough to finish but hadn’t disliked enough to throw away either. Then there, at the bottom, I found it.
Bath & Body Works. Freesia body spray.
It was so old that the label had faded, so vintage that the bottle shape itself seemed somehow out of date. Simple and un-chic. I unscrewed the top and prepared myself for a smell that was all wrong, changed over time. But lo and behold, it hadn’t changed at all. With one whiff, I was bowled over by nostalgia. Max driving me to high school, us driving around on summer nights. Me cheering him on at football games. Studying for chemistry tests together at the library. Max, always Max. The only one who had ever mattered. I spritzed my wrists and my neck with it and inhaled long and slowly, same way as Max used to when I’d wear it.
Perfect.
After I bundled everything back into the box, minus the body spray, I checked my phone and saw that only ten minutes had passed. So, I pulled another box from the closet and began to go through all my old jewelry. What I had wasn’t very expensive, except for a few nice things that I was always too worried about losing to wear. I dug out my oldest jewelry box and removed the top partition where I kept my rings and my bracelets. Underneath was a crazy mess of old necklaces, so tangled and so knotted that it would’ve taken me a week to undo them. I held them in my hand, a heavy mass of fine chains and searched…for my half of the broken heart.
I tried to place the last time I’d seen it. Years and years ago. I had searched for it, I remembered that, but I’d never been able to find it.
I couldn’t find it now either. It wasn’t anywhere in the tangle, and it wasn’t in any of my other little boxes of cheap things either. So I settled on a single pearl on a necklace that Gram had left me and matching earrings. Then I waited and waited, for what felt like an eternity, until I heard the rumble of Max’s truck coming down the drive. I stood and put on my heels and gave myself one more spritz of Freesia, this one between my breasts. I gave Julia Caesar a few fish-shaped treats and closed my bedroom door. I gripped the banister tight as I headed down the stairs, not because I was unsteady on my heels, but because I felt like it was the first moment of the rest of my life. With Max.
31
Max
I’d never been the type of guy who looked up at the sky and said Thank you, Jesus, but when Rosie opened the front door and I saw her all dressed up, I couldn’t fucking help it. Because Christ almighty, was she gorgeous—the dress was red and right above her knees. It fit her like it had been made for her. Sleeveless and with a low scooped neck that just showed off a hint of cleavage.
I put the truck in park. In one arm, I held Cupcake, and in the other, a bouquet of lilies, which were Rosie’s favorite. The ten steps from my truck to her felt like they took a goddamned eternity—the light was low, every millisecond a still frame I knew I’d never forget. There was wind in the trees, and it smelled like rain. She was standing in the doorway, with her hands clasped behind her back, so beautiful that I lost every single smooth line I had. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she answered.
“You look so beautiful,” I told her and gave her a kiss on her silk-soft cheek.
That’s when it hit me. The scent.
Ka-fucking-pow.
In one millisecond, I was sixteen years old again. I was standing at my locker talking to her. It was between biology and English. She was talking about a potluck her grandma was having. She was wearing a pink tank top with stars on it. I was there. It was happening all over again. Except, it was twenty years later, and it made no sense. It made me feel like I’d just taken a hit of weed and inhaled too long. “Holy shit, what is that?”
She blinked a few times like she was embarrassed. “Bath & Body Works. Freesia.”
“You used to wear that all the time.” Now I remembered getting snow cones on the beach with her and how the cherry syrup made her lips extra pretty.
“You always liked this one,” she said. I set Cupcake down inside, and she trotted over to the cereal bowl I’d filled with water.
I edged Rosie against the doorframe and inhaled again. “And I love it even more now.”
Her eyes glistened, and she smiled, almost shy. Speechless, maybe. “I’m so nervous, Max. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.” She held up her fingers, left hand, palm out, the way she might if she was looking at a ring—fuck me. Her hand trembled, every finger shaking, before she closed up her hand into a fist.
“So am I,” I told her. “But it’s a good kind of nervous, right?”
Rosie beamed and looked down at her shoes, red heels that were one part cute, nine parts bombshell. “Yeah. The best kind.” Between the smell of her perfume, the way she was looking at me, and just her, everything about her, I felt my desire welling up inside me, a solid thing, a real thing, right down in my soul.
I was the man for her. I fucking knew it; I believed it in the depths of my heart. I handed the lilies to her and closed the door behind me. “How about I put those in water, and we can get going?”
“I’ll find a vase.” She turned toward the kitchen. With every step, the edge of her skirt rippled, like petals or waves. Her hips swayed, the long, smooth curls of her hair bounced. She got a vase from the cabinet and put it in the sink, and she turned to me to smile as she turned on the faucet.
Of course, nothing happened at all. I’d turned the water off to the kitchen earlier. She braced herself against the edge of the sink and snickered. I watched her shoulders relax with the laughter, and I somehow knew she wasn’t nervous anymore. And neither was I.
“I’ll use the hose,” I told her, taking the vase from her hands and letting my fingers brush against hers. New nail polish. Red to match the dress. She couldn’t have been more gorgeous if she tried.
“Perfect,” she said, smiling so hard that her nostrils flared, and her eyes twinkled.
We pulled onto Boston Post Road, and I headed toward Portland. Fletcher was right—I hadn’t voluntarily gone to Portland in years. All those goddamned people, I couldn’t take it. But this was different. This was special. “Can I ask where we’re going?” Rosie asked. It was pretty hard to focus on the road, though, because she’d pushed her thighs together and had the fingers of one hand tucked in between, which made a shadow under her skirt, and that was just so fucking…
I refocused on driving. “You can ask, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Mmm.” She played with the single pearl around her neck, pinching it between thumb and forefinger and running it back and forth along the delicate gold chain. “Okay. I’ll allow it.”
“Good girl.” I gave her thigh a squeeze—not quite a horse bite, but damned close, which made her gasp. I worked my fingers farther into that tight space between her legs, feeling the barest sheen of sweat. God bless summer. God fucking bless it. “I’ve got a surprise for you, though.”
“Oooh,” she said, squeezing her thighs tighter in anticipation and coming up on her tiptoes in her heels so that I got my hand even closer to where I needed so fucking badly for it to go. “I love surprises.”
Part of me wanted to pull the damned truck over right that second, skid to a stop on the gravel on the shoulder, and fucking ravage her right there. But she was too pretty to ruin…yet.
“Open the glove box,” I told her. She leaned forward, making a curtain of her hair between us. The ends tickled my forearm and passed over the top of her thigh, too. She knew the trick to the glove box without my telling her and turned the knob, jiggled it, whacked the door, and it popped open.
Inside, there they were. All the mixtapes I had.
“Oh. My. God,” she gasped as she pulled them out, one after the other, lining them up on her legs. �
�You kept them?” She picked up one that I’d made and traced her finger down over the plastic case, moving over the lines of my writing.
“We can play them on my state-of-the-art stereo.” I tapped the old tape deck in the dash.
She squealed. “I don’t even know where to… Oh, yes,” she said, picking up one that I’d made for her sixteenth birthday. “This one. I remember this one.”
Rosie took the old cassette out of its case and put it into the player, pushing it inside with her perfectly manicured cherry-red thumb. She hit the rewind button, and it made that noise, that high-pitched squeal I hadn’t heard for twenty years. She turned up the volume and grabbed my hand. Like that we blazed down the old Post Road, with its juts of granite and deep, dark parallel trees, while Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” played so loud that the doors thumped. And nothing about that moment, not one fucking thing, felt semi-charmed at all.
32
Max
She looked up from the menu, one of those fancy-as-hell things on heavy cream-colored paper, typeface like something out of an ancient book, and a leather-backed holder. “Max, this is way too expensive.”
I put my napkin in my lap. “Tough.”
She leaned forward, showing off more cleavage, just enough to make me lose every thought I’d ever had. With one pretty finger, she pointed to the page. “The catch of the day doesn’t even have a price!” she whisper-hissed. “Could be highway robbery! Could be charging nineteen-a-pound for a lobster we could’ve caught ourselves with two milk crates and a sardine!”
The fact that she was uncomfortable at being spoiled just made me want to spoil her more, to get her to push those thighs together, to get her to blush all night. It all made me feel way cockier than usual, and I fucking loved it. “Tough.”
So Good (An Alpha Dogs Novel) Page 17