by Anne Harper
Beautiful. Strong. Run your hands up and down worthy.
Praise the Lord indeed.
“Hey, sweet cakes, my eyes are up here.”
Sloane cleared her throat and did a weird hybrid of a laugh and a panicked spasm.
“I know that. I wasn’t—you know, I was just…wondering where your clothes are. You’re raising poor Ms. Peggy’s blood pressure with this shirtless show.”
Brady met her eye. The contact did nothing for the heat that was slowly consuming her life.
He took a small step forward and leaned over. A smirk rang through his voice. “And what about you, sweet cakes?”
“Wh-what about me?”
There his breath went again, brushing against her like it knew exactly what it was doing.
“Is the show doing anything for you?”
He was teasing her, but, good gravy, that made her go silent. All she could do next was look into those eyes before letting her gaze fall to those lips.
She’d never kissed Brady in the heat before. Not like this. Not covered in sweat or sarcasm or not prompted by a Robertson being near. Not when her heartbeat was starting to speed up and definitely not when she could see it coming. Her breathing pushed her chest up faster than she could control.
Sloane dragged her eyes back to his, wondering how something as innocent as a glass of water could turn into this so fast.
Brady’s smirk was gone.
Sloane instinctively moved closer.
She shouldn’t let her body make decisions with the man. Not when her mind was the angel on her shoulder yelling out that he’d kept the truth about Felicity from her. The man they were trying to fool was engaged to the woman Brady had been in love with, and that? That wasn’t nothing.
There’s no good that can come from this, that angel added on.
Yet, the world around them went silent as Brady’s gaze swept down to her lips.
Was this another headbutt-and-kiss situation?
In one fluid movement, Brady reached out and looped his free arm around her waist. Then he pulled her right up to his body like she was a moth and he was an all-encouraging flame. His momentarily unreadable expression turned to charm.
“I’m not used to being the one who gets drinks served to him,” he said. “Thanks, sweet cakes.” His eyes widened a little as if trying to tell her something.
Oh, right. We’re supposed to be a couple.
“I wouldn’t want you to shrivel up and die out here,” Sloane said lamely. She felt like Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights and had no idea where to put her hands. So she plopped them right against his stomach with a slap. Brady tensed. She prattled on. “You know, because it’s so hot out here.”
“Yep. You sure nailed it.”
He took another long pull of water while Sloane felt utterly and thoroughly awkward. Sure, it was less painful than the headbutt-kiss, but at least during that, she’d had the clear roles of being the kisser and being the kissed. Now she was just fused to Brady’s bare upper body by sweat and anxiety. So she forced herself to relax into his hold a bit and tried to look anywhere but at his body hair and nipples. She was watching a bird fly by overhead when Brady finished his drink in record time.
“Thanks again, sweet cakes.” He dipped low and kissed a gasp out of her. His lips were still cold from the water. “We gotta keep our audience happy.”
Sloane nodded in agreement, did a really wild laugh that was a good 70 percent nerves, and took the glass back up to the house. The lawn mower started back up, and Sloane allowed herself one last peek at the shirtless bartender.
She didn’t think Ms. Peggy counted as an audience, but she surely wasn’t about to tell him that.
Chapter Nine
The long southern goodbye was a torturous, unnecessary ritual that sucked the soul from your body before spitting it out in the heat to bake. A routine involving small talk, gossip, and politeness. A ritual of pain and suffering.
Brady was there now. Frustrated, hot, and a sighing-grunting zombie of a man, going through the motions of trying to leave.
But he couldn’t.
He was stuck in a loop. An old loop constructed from tradition and did you hear abouts. Might as well have been a steel cable coated in concrete.
Unbreakable.
Though Brady had still tried.
After putting the lawn mower back into the shed, he’d slipped into his shirt and loaded the several plastic bins Sloane had picked out into the truck. He’d been ready to go right then, but Sloane was still in the house, and he doubted she’d let him get away with fleeing the scene. So he’d gone back into the house to give Ms. Peggy-Stares-A-Lot a nod.
That nod hadn’t done jack squat.
Instead, he’d been an unwilling participant in the nearly-hour-long dance of trying to leave.
In the house, Ms. Peggy wondered if Sloane had heard about some woman named Deirdre and her recent divorce. Sloane hadn’t, so she’d, for whatever godforsaken reason, needed to learn, and Ms. Peggy had been more than happy to educate her. On the front porch, Sloane had made a comment about her brother, which had, in turn, had them devolve into talk about his ex-girlfriend, some kid named Justus, and an unfortunate haircut. On the sidewalk—no joke, two feet from the truck—Ms. Peggy had commented on the heat. That seemingly harmless complaint had thrown them all down a rabbit hole, where they fell past the seasonal topic of the festival, a mention of Sloane’s parents (who had been in the pageant), a longer mention of Carol, and then to the parade. And then, when escape was finally in sight, Ms. Peggy had actually gotten Sloane to roll down her window seconds before Brady had been ready to hit the gas.
“You know, building a parade float is a lot of work, but I have an idea on how you could be lazy about it and still look good. Either of you know Roger Norman? He should be around your age.”
Sloane’s nod was immediate. “I went to school with him. He’s a good guy. Quiet but nice. Married…Zelda Keller, right?”
Ms. Peggy nodded back. “His uncle gave him his boat when he moved up north, but Roger never uses it, since he’s always working. If he gave it to you, you could decorate it and pull it on this thing.” She slapped the side of the truck. “Roger owes me a favor, and I can’t see me ever personally asking for one from him, anyway.”
“You could ask him to do your yard work,” Brady said, still hot despite his truck trying its best to cool off. If the window wasn’t down, the process would go a lot faster.
Ms. Peggy wasn’t a fan of the suggestion. She ignored him.
“I can go ahead and find some more decorations we could use to snaz the little thing up. Make it look really nice without all the work.”
Sloane had already perked up, but now she was almost bouncing in her seat.
“That would be amazing, Ms. Peggy! Are you sure, though? That’s asking a lot of you and not giving much else in return.”
Ms. Peggy waved the concern away.
Then she was staring daggers into Brady, expressing a sentiment that was starting to become mutual.
“As long as this one here doesn’t make me regret it, I’m good.”
Brady didn’t dignify the jab with a reply. Instead he looked longingly out the windshield while Sloane finished up the longest conversation in history.
It wasn’t until he had them driving out of the neighborhood that Brady finally felt free. And finally was able to bitch about it.
“I have to say, I knew this deal would be work, but I didn’t realize how much of it I’d be doing.” A bead of sweat rolled down his spine. It was a drop in the ocean. There was no way he was going to go to the bar later if he didn’t swing by the apartment to shower first.
Sloane let out a long breath.
“No one forced you to do the work. So any and all complaining about that makes no sense. Especially considering the fact th
at you doing it helped you, me, and the bar out. Ms. Peggy has saved us a fortune, not to mention physical labor, if we can get Roger to let us borrow his boat. Speaking of, I guess I need to text him and see if he’s home.”
Brady shook his head. “Oh no. No way. I’m not going to another quasi-stranger’s house just to get trapped again. A man can only take so much.”
Sloane snorted. It surprised him.
“You know, for a bartender in a small town, you don’t seem to be a fan of socializing with people in a small town.”
“Says the woman who’s currently trending for writing stuff down instead of saying it out loud.”
Brady meant the comment but not the bite it came out on. He regretted it, just like he knew he wouldn’t apologize for it because it was true. She couldn’t talk to him about being antisocial when the reason for her fame was rooted in the same thing. Still, he didn’t like how her body language changed, knees moving away from him as she shifted in her seat.
“All I’m saying is a little honey does a lot more than vinegar. Grumbling about these people who are—and might be—helping us doesn’t make sense.” Out of his periphery, Brady saw her turn toward the passenger window, all but shutting him off after he’d offended her. “You wanted my help with good PR for the bar? Then we need to do well at the party, parade, and pageant, too. So you have to be willing to listen to me, or this won’t work.”
The cab of the truck became quiet.
Despite himself, Brady realized he didn’t like it.
“Fine,” he relented after a moment. “We can go talk to Roger, but only after I swing by my apartment and shower. My shift starts in five hours, and I don’t want to roll into the bar like this because you spent those five hours gossiping with Workaholic Roger. Deal?”
She didn’t agree as fast as he’d thought she would, and, when she did, her voice was a bit higher pitched. It earned an eyebrow raise from him, but he decided not to comment. For all her quiet moments, he was starting to see that Sloane was a surprisingly expressive woman.
“Deal.”
…
Brady lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the west side of town. It was a far cry from the Robertson estate for sure. A nice middle ground of cozy and, Brady’s favorite, affordable. However, there was one claim to fame it had that not even the richest of Arbor Bay did, and that was the view from the closet-size balcony. A sliver of the bay from across the street winked dark blue back at you through the branches of one of the several old oaks that surrounded the complex. More of the massive trees lined the small park placed between it and the water. There was no boat ramp in the area, but the dock there stayed mostly busy with locals.
Two older men with fishing poles were there as Sloane looked out of the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. Since they’d parked, she’d gone silent again. If Brady hadn’t felt like someone had just used him to mop a floor covered in dirt and grass clippings, he might have asked what she thought about it all. Instead he told her to make herself at home and went right into the bathroom.
It wasn’t until he was stepping out of the shower, feeling a thousand times better, that he realized he’d glazed over a few steps by being so quick to rinse off.
“Hey, Sloane?”
There was no answer on the other side of the closed door.
He grumbled to the steamed-up mirror and palmed the shelf in the closet where clean towels were supposed to be. His mother would raise Cain if she knew he’d yet to fold and put away all the clothes in the dryer.
Brady gave the bathroom another once-over. There was no way he was putting his clothes back on. Not when they were drenched with sweat.
“Sloane?” he tried again.
Silence.
Brady grabbed the hand towel—a glorified washcloth, if he was being honest—and placed it over the part he was sure would make the woman atomic cherry red if she saw.
“I tried to warn you,” he yelled out.
The bathroom opened into the living room, splitting the two bedrooms, but Sloane wasn’t on the couch where he’d left her. Brady peeked into Dixon’s empty bedroom before swinging around to his.
What he saw was an equally confusing and intriguing sight.
Sloane’s legs were sprawled out on the floor next to his bed, along with her wiggling ass. The rest of her was beneath the actual bed.
“Uh, when I said make yourself at home, I don’t know if this is what I meant.”
It was like the woman had been electrocuted. She made a yip sound and scurried backward like a crab. When she cleared the bed and sat up, her beet-red face tilted up toward him with guilt written all over it.
“I didn’t hear you get out of the shower,” she tried, voice holding a good wobble.
“Clearly.”
“I can explain.” Sloane looked at him, back beneath the bed, and then did a noticeable double take. Her eyes landed just below his waist. Where she was on the floor gave her a pretty decent sightline to his hand towel.
“What are you—? Why are—?” Her eyes skirted up his chest before falling back to the towel. “Where are your clothes?”
Atomic. Cherry. Red.
Brady pointed to his dresser behind her. “Had I known you’d be lurking under my bed, I would have been more vigilant about grabbing them before the shower.” He didn’t move but slid his eyebrow high.
“I can explain,” she repeated. Then she motioned to the wall behind her. Where there should have been a framed picture, there was nothing but a nail. “I was trying to get a better look at that picture but didn’t want to stand on your bed because it was so high on the wall, but when I tried to grab it, it, well, it fell.”
After the gush of words, her eyes flashed down his body again. Brady had a hard time not pulling up another smirk.
“Well, did you get it?”
“Get what?” Sloane gave him a dazed, questioning look.
“The picture.”
“The what?” If it was possible, her face darkened. “Oh, yeah, no!”
Like a ninja, she moved so quickly it nearly made Brady jump. She rolled back under his bed, this time disappearing from view.
He hadn’t expected that.
Just like he hadn’t expected to be dripping water all over his floor.
He went to his dresser and exchanged the hand towel for a towel and a pair of boxers. Movement let him know that Sloane was out again, but she didn’t make a peep until his boxers were in place.
“The glass didn’t crack,” she said, inspecting the frame closely when he turned back around. This time, she was standing. “Pretty sturdy frame.”
“Pretty standard picture, too. Why the interest?”
Brady knew why before he even asked. Felicity was in it. She wasn’t the only one—there was Brady between her and Dixon, and Dixon’s parents next to him—but Brady had a feeling Sloane’s interest was only running one way. Even now, she seemed to make it a point not to let her gaze linger on the woman in the frame.
“I was just curious, I guess. About Felicity.” Sloane plopped down on the bed. “I don’t really know much about her, and now she seems to be everywhere. What’s she like? You know, as a human.”
“Sadly, all I know about her is as an alien,” he joked, stepping into a pair of jeans. Sloane was so preoccupied, she didn’t seem at all interested in outdoing her previous blushes by staring at him unclothed. Weirdly, it was disappointing. Seeing her squirm was starting to become a sport he very much enjoyed.
“You know what I mean. She must be someone special to still have a place on your wall despite the breakup. Not to mention the whole you agreeing to our arrangement just to spite her thing.”
“Me agreeing wasn’t about her.” Sloane gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. “Okay, not about her per se. It’s just a bonus.” He went to the closet and grabbed for a shirt
.
“Because she didn’t think you were flexible.”
“Because she thought my passion for the bar wasn’t worth the time or effort.” Brady’s words came out harsher than he meant. He buttoned his shirt up in silence. Felicity’s opinion of the bar, and him by extension, was in the past. It didn’t bother him anymore.
Not one bit.
Sloane sidestepped calling him out and instead surprised him. “Sometimes people don’t understand when you love something they don’t, especially when it’s a job. You know, I was never one of those girls who dreamed about her wedding day, but, for some reason, I love helping other people plan theirs. But I also love working for myself. So, I’ve spent the last few years building contacts and relationships in Nashville that will help me eventually make the leap to being able to do what I love all on my terms.” She shrugged. “Basically, I work a lot of odd jobs, and my brother and best friend don’t understand why I don’t do something easier. Honestly, I don’t understand how people can spend every day doing something they don’t love.”
Brady caught himself going slightly slack-jawed. Because he absolutely agreed.
However, Sloane had moved back to the topic at hand: Felicity.
“Okay, so this picture—that you had over your bed, I might point out—doesn’t mean anything. Fine. I’d still like to know what Felicity is like. What drew you to her in the first place?”
“You mean what drew your boy Marcus to her.”
Sloane didn’t meet his gaze. He took the picture from her hands and chewed on the answer as he hung it back up. “She’s pointed” was what he decided on.
“Pointed,” Sloane deadpanned. “Is that a sex joke?”
Brady snorted. “That’s another way to say focused. She knows what she wants, and she goes at it hard until it’s hers.” He took a step back to make sure the frame was straight. In the picture, the five of them were dressed to the nines for a cocktail party at the local law firm. They’d been guests, thanks to Felicity’s work with the group on their new branding. Brady had kept the picture because most of it was family and they’d all looked nice. “Confidence like that can be confusing. Sometimes when someone wants something so badly, you end up wanting it, too, by default. You get invested in it.”