by Mia Caldwell
"Oh my gosh, that's right, I'm sorry."
"You've been wrapped up in your own thing."
I felt like a terrible friend. "Well how's your course load?"
"Manageable." She nodded at the waiter as he set the teapot in the center of our table. "Nothing really earth-shaking."
I nodded. That was all I could get out of her. Bitching and gossiping about her job was something Jasmine never did. Jasmine kept her work life and social life so completely separate; I sometimes forgot she even had a job. She managed to make balance and harmony actually look achievable. Living with her these past few months had taught me more about being an adult than my parents ever had.
Mom and Dad were just eager to hand me off to the first guy that came along, so they could go back to life being what it was before my birth interrupted their good time. I always suspected as much, and it was confirmed pretty clearly the night I announced my engagement at the tender age of twenty-two. "She's someone else's problem now," I heard my dad tell my mom behind their bedroom door. "We're finally done."
I shifted in my chair. No need to relive the bad memories. "And how are the kids?" I asked Keysha.
Kiki sighed rapturously. She was a teacher at one of the special ed preschools for the county. "There's this little guy? Trevor? He's absolutely truck-obsessed. For weeks I couldn't get him out of the corner. He just stayed there with his tucks, rolling them across the windowsill, completely oblivious to everything else." Her eyes shone. "Today? He sat on my lap."
"Oh that's incredible, congratulations!" I clapped. Kiki beamed.
"Is he autistic?" Jasmine wanted to know.
"Spectrum for sure. But he's such a special little guy, I hated that he was so locked-up." She looked down at her fork and sighed. "I hope the parents are doing the recommended OT."
"He has you, and that's so important," Jasmine smiled and patted Kiki's thigh.
The pensive look slid right off of Kiki's face and she went right back to beaming.
I smiled at them both and as I did, I caught my reflection in the darkened plate glass window behind Jazzy. In the low light, I felt beautiful and safe for the first time in a long time. Snug in the warm restaurant with my two best friends while the world froze out in the dark gave me a safe, warm feeling in my belly.
It was fleeting, gone before I could grasp it and hold on, but it was enough to make me duck back down to my curry with a smile on my face.
I was going to be just fine.
Chapter Five
The huge, lumpy figure loomed in the corner of my sight.
I shrieked and nearly fell off of my stool "How long have you been standing there?!" I yelped at Kit.
He crossed his arms over his down-jacketed chest and chuckled in the direction of the arrangement I was working on. "You're here...early." His voice dripped with meaning.
I smoothed my eyebrows. "Yeah. I wanted to get started on the receipts for 2010."
"Mmmhmmm." Kit looked pointedly around. "And whereabouts are those receipts?"
"Shut up," I growled, and carefully placed the sprig of lily of the valley above the amaryllis.
Kit waited a beat. "What time is he coming?"
Bastard knew I sucked at lying. "I don't know," I sighed.
"So you came in early...in case he comes in early?"
"Christopher Francis Young, I thought I requested that you shut up, already."
Mirth was dancing in his eyes. They were actually, honest-to-god twinkling. Never had he looked more like Santa Claus's redheaded, gay cousin than right now. "I must have hit my head pretty hard last night, because I swear, the last thing I remember about this guy is you trying to claw his face off."
I threw the sprig down, huffing. "Kit, I don't even know what I'm doing," I moaned, burying my head in my hands. "He got to me, okay? Haven't you ever had a guy get to you?"
"No. Never," Kit deadpanned. I shot him a look. "Lover, it's completely clear. Your last guy was shit. You want to believe this new guy, the first one who's paid attention to you since you left the shit guy, isn't shit. So instead of listening to your gut, you're here early working on the flowers he ordered and thinking about his pretty, pretty eyes. Do I have it right?
"Ugh," I stabbed the lily haphazardly to the foam. "Yes. Have I mentioned I hate you?"
But Kit didn't answer. He was staring at the front door with an unreadable expression on his face. I turned to where he was looking and my own jaw nearly fell to the floor.
"Good morning," Liam called, cradling a tray of coffees close to his chest.
Kit was the first to recover. "Good morning sir!" he trilled, stepping gracefully in front of me and I quickly cleared the arrangement off of the counter. "Your order isn't quite ready yet."
"I know," Liam smiled, setting the tray down on the counter. "I was just dropping by to say hello."
"You were?" I asked stupidly. God, his eyes were even better than how I remembered them. They looked like chips of sea ice on foggy waters. They pulled me into their depths and suddenly there wasn't anything else in the room besides him and me.
"When I was in here yesterday, you seemed cold," he grinned, showing that dimple that was going to be the death of me. Was there a double meaning there? Oh, he's good. "I stopped by on my way in to drop these off." He gestured to the coffee. "Hoped that might warm you up a little."
Offerings of coffee? Jasmine was right. He really had read my manual.
"You have no idea how I like my coffee," I told him bluntly. Two could play this double meaning game.
"I know how I like mine...," he trailed off.
"If you say 'like how you like your women,' I'm going to smack you," I seethed. No one had ever used that line on me before. I was honestly a little impressed.
"So that's all I'd have to do to get you to smack me?" He extended a cup in my direction. "I'll remember that."
That raised eyebrow. "No." I reached and took the proffered cup. Black as sin and sweet as death. It was perfect, and as the warmth and caffeine spread through my veins, I couldn't help but sigh in relief. "No, there are plenty of other reasons I can think of to smack you." Though I can't think of a single one at the moment.
"Ahem," Kit stepped into the middle of us. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Graves."
"Call me Liam," he replied, standing straighter and extending his hand.
"Kit. Christopher. Kit." Aww, Kit was tongue-tied. It was adorable. Wait, did I look that moony when I talked to Liam?
"Is this your shop, Kit?"
"My mother's." Kit was practically drooling. And with Liam's attention away from me, I was free to undress him with my eyes again.
He was wearing a woolen pea jacket several shades darker than his eyes, trimmed in leather at the collar and the hem. It looked soft, but with an edge, like there was more to this guy than skillful flirting. "Your mother's? That's incredible. You two work together?"
Kit puffed up. "We do." His evident pride put to rest any questions about apron strings or mama's boys. "She's getting on in years, but this has been her life's work and I plan on keeping it on as long as she can. And I can."
Liam chewed his lip in thought. Strange shadows were passing over his face. "That's wonderful," he finally said, but his tone was guarded.
He looked back at me. "It was good to see you again, Shay. I'll be back tomorrow."
"You will?" I squeaked.
"For my bouquet?"
ooh. that. "Thank you for the coffee, Liam." My hand fluttered at the edge of the counter Was I going to shake his hand? Touch his arm? What exactly was I doing here?
He answered that question by snatching my hand up and bringing it to his mouth. The lightest touch, the barest brush of his lips against my knuckles, and then he set it down again. Only the searing heat in my core remained.
"I hope you'll let me do it again," he said, and his voice was strangely tight.
"Bring me coffee?"
"That too."
"Oh."
"Have a good
day," he turned and nodded at Kit, who was openly staring. "Both of you."
When at last he left, I found I could finally move my legs again and promptly sagged into the stool.
Kit turned to me. "Girrrrrrl."
"Yeah," I exhaled.
"He wants you. Bad." He shook his head. "Lucky bitch."
"Yeah." I seemed to have lost the powers of speech. My knuckles tingled.
"Shay? Earth to Shay. What are you doing here, lover?"
I shook my head. "I have literally no idea."
Kit nodded. "Then I'll tell you. You need to do him."
Chapter Six
The afghans slid off in one big pile, leaving me to shiver myself awake. My dreams were a jumbled mess of second guessing and my knuckles still let off a ghostly tingle every so often.
He brought me coffee. But he's a cheater. He's sex on legs. But he's a dog.
Frustration finally launched me to my bare feet, which promptly froze on contact with the floor. I yipped a little and unsteadily hopped over to the area rug to thaw.
Jasmine's classes didn't start until eleven, so I had the apartment to myself in the morning. I crept quietly passed her bedroom, my feet freezing with each step on the hardwood floors. My slippers were somewhere in the storage unit, I hoped.
The huge windows of Jasmine's lofted living room let in a draft that was strong enough to move the hairs on my exposed forearms. I shivered and grabbed the throw blanket off the back of her book-strewn couch and wrapped it around my shoulders as I padded to the kitchen.
I am not a grab and go sort of girl. I need a proper, sit-down breakfast to start my day. This morning, it was bacon, toast and two fried eggs, accompanied by French press coffee so strong you could stand a spoon up in it. I heaped several spoonfuls of sugar into it, tasted it, and then spooned in two more. Tre used to joke that it wasn't the caffeine that started my mornings, it was the sugar rush.
Once it was done, it tasted exactly like the coffee Liam had brought me yesterday.
Thinking about him being sweet put me in a bad mood that wasn't made any better by the prospect of walking nine blocks on the slushy sidewalks of Philadelphia. It was always a gamble whether or not the sidewalks would even be cleared this early in the morning. Hell, I would probably have to shovel the area in front of the store first thing upon arriving.
I closed the door to Jazzy's apartment and threw the deadbolt with the key she had given me, locking her safely inside. Then I took a deep breath and wound my scarf up around my neck and over my mouth. The hallway was overheated, and the sweat prickled at my hairline, but I knew the feeling of warmth wouldn't last.
When I stepped outside, the icy wind was enough to make me gasp. Breathing hurt. I hunched deeper into my puffy jacket and began the slow, painful trek to Young's.
This January had been brutal, a deep freeze blanketing the east Coast. The snow-piles that lined the streets just sat there, frozen into sharp crystals that breaking off and nosediving into my boots as I stepped off the curb.
As I turned off Jasmine's sheltered block, the full force of the wind caught me full in the face. The faster I walked, the more the wind whistled in my ears. I ducked my head almost entirely into my scarf, bending into the stiff gale that turned the streets of South Philadelphia into wind whipped canyons, and cursed.
I rushed the whole route to Young's by memory; left on this block, right on that block, two blocks north. I sprinted against the lights, crossing in front of SEPTA busses in the blind hope they'd stop for me.
I was almost there.
"Oof!" I slammed into something warm and solid just as my feet hit a patch of ice. I skidded and scrabbled for purchase, visions of a broken hip dancing through my head, when all of a sudden my fall was arrested.
"Are you okay?"
It was a familiar voice, but my scarf had slipped over my eye. I jabbed blindly with my key until the two of us practically fell into the warmth of the shop. I landed on the floor with a sigh of relief. Too relieved, even, to be embarrassed.
That came right at the moment I saw Liam Graves picking himself up off of the floor.
"Are you okay?" he repeated, extending his gloved hand.
I took it wordlessly and allowed him to haul me to my feet. I was grateful that my scarf covered my face and I could blame the cold for my red, flaming cheeks.
"You're here early," I stammered. That was the least graceless thing I could have said. I should have been thanking him for catching me before I broke my skull.
But Liam was not bothered. "I have a meeting this morning. I headed out first thing."
"A meeting with her?" I asked, pointedly.
"Her?" His eyes were blank. He was completely clueless.
"You're here to pick up the flowers today, right?"
"Actually," he showed that dimple again, looking boyish. "I was hoping to see you again." His dimple deepened as he smiled wider. "Start this cold day off with some sunshine."
Bringing me coffee yesterday was one thing, because he had brought some for Kit too. But this? This was an outright admission that he was hoping to catch me alone. "It is so cold, isn't it?" I babbled inanely. My knuckles tingled in recognition.
If he noticed I was babbling, he didn't call attention to it. "Worst cold snap in the last quarter century, or at least that's what they said on Channel 6 this morning."
I sighed. "I hate winter. Every time it rolls around, I swear I'm not going to be here in Philly for it, and yet here I am once again."
"Here we are," he echoed. "Must be gluttons for punishment."
Something about the way he said that....
"Do you have plans to get away this winter, Shay?"
"Ha!" I shook my head. He was rich beyond all sense, of course it would be normal to him to just jet off somewhere warm. "No, I wish I could.” Why was I talking to him like this? Why was it so easy to just chatter at him? "But working here helps."
"Here? Around the flowers?" His eyes twinkled a little in a way I didn't understand.
"The colors, and the textures too. It's nice to see color other than the gray of dirty snow."
"You have a beautiful way with words, you know that?"
"I do?"
"You do. The whole language of flowers explanation you gave. and now with your descriptions. You have a very poetic way of speaking."
My mind flashed back to the pile of notebooks sitting in the cardboard box in storage. I hadn't written since Tre left. When I sat down and let the words come, what they said was too painful to read. "Thank you," I said instead. "That's nice to say."
"I'm a nice guy...," his dimple deepened. "Unless that's not what you're into...."
I'm into single guys! "Didn't you have a meeting to get to?" I asked him abruptly. The way he was looking at me was confusing every moral I had.
I could barely hear him over the thudding in my ears, but I could feel him. He was moving close to me. I flushed hotter, burning up in my winter coat. "Right now it doesn't seem all that important," he said, with that peculiar thickness in his voice.
"What?" My head was swimming with him so close. But I wasn't backing away.
He brushed his hand along my cheek. It was a test. I knew it, and when I didn't flinch like I should have, he gave a small grin of triumph. "I've wanted to touch these lips since I first saw you," he said. His voice had dropped down to a tight, throaty whisper that was doing something terribly exciting to my tummy.
This is wrong. Stop. This is so wrong. I tilted my head up and looked at him.
He bent down and brushed his lips against mine.
When I didn't pull back, he made a low sound, and pressed them harder.
He kissed me like he knew me. Like I was already his. Like he already knew everything there was to know about me, and what I needed in a man.
I felt a hot spark travel down to the base of my spine where a slow ache began to build. I heard the noise I made, low and pleading and suddenly jolted back to reality.
"Stop," I panted
, pushing him back off of me.
He pulled back. "Why?" Like it wasn't completely obvious.
"You can't kiss me!" I seethed.
He brushed his thumb across my lip. "I already did."
I wanted to bite him. All of my conflicted rage over the past two days finally reared its ugly head. It was time for the truth, no matter how much I wanted to ignore it. I felt the ferocity boil up and out and I nearly choked on it.