He stumbled right into Nigel upon completing that thought. “Nav, hey,” he said, his lips twisting into a smile as his eyes raked over Garrett’s body. “How’s my favorite smokin’ hot ginger?”
Yeah, human contact isn’t so bad, Garrett smirked. He leaned down to press a kiss on Nigel’s cheek. “Hey, sorry I didn’t make any practices last week. I was dealing with that damn men’s restroom on the main floor.”
Nigel nodded in sympathy. “Sure, no prob, Nav. But, hey, can you come by tonight around nine when we finish up? I want you to meet the cast and the music director, yeah?”
“Sure thing,” Garrett answered, nodding. He grasped Nigel’s shoulder affectionately in his broad hand, then made his way to his office/maintenance closet. It wasn’t any more than an eight by ten box with a battered metal desk and some wooden racks with tools and cleaners stacked haphazardly. He was pretty sure the tools were from the 1960s, which was when the building was probably built, judging from the looks of it.
He went for the clipboard on the desk to see what kinds of notes his boss Tom and the daytime maintenance guy Chuck had left for him: 1) Change light bulbs in the dressing rooms 2) Fix clog in the sink in the green room. The plumbing in here could use a complete fucking overhaul, Garrett thought as he grabbed his toolbox and headed for the backstage area.
He pushed open the door to the green room and was surprised to find the light was already on. He heard a clanging sound in the mini-kitchen, which was behind a partition in the room, then footsteps. He headed toward the kitchen—logical place to put a sink, he thought—and ran right into...
“Oh my god!” her smooth voice came out.
He couldn’t place it at first, though it sounded familiar, especially the shriek that flew out of her mouth. Then he stepped back and got his bearings. “What the hell?”
Those eyes, those enthralling deep brown eyes stared back at him. This time, her hair hung loose around her shoulders like an obsidian waterfall, but those eyes...he could know them anywhere.
“Garrett?” she asked, as the hands that had flown to her mouth in shock slowly receded to their original position at her sides. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” he answered, then immediately regretted giving out that information. She never once asked him what he did for a living. Now she’s really going to think I’m a loser. Not that there’s anything wrong with my job. At least I have one.
“You work here?” Her brows crinkled as if she was still trying to understand what he meant.
“Yeah, doing maintenance...” He wanted to face-palm himself all over again. Couldn’t he come up with some sort of euphemistic title? Building engineer or some shit? “What about you?”
“I’m in the show they’re doing,” she answered. “I’m Roxie.”
Then it suddenly clicked. He had watched her sing a couple of weeks ago. His brain was so fuzzy from the alcohol that night, or maybe when he ran into her at the liquor store, that he hadn’t been able to put two and two together. “Wow, that’s crazy!”
“Is it?” She gave him a curious look, eyebrows arched, almost challenging him to say she didn’t look like any Roxie Hart he’d ever seen.
“No, I mean, I heard you sing the other night. You’re amazing,” he backpedaled. “I just didn’t realize it was you at the liquor store. I’d only seen you from far away—on stage.”
“I guess I never saw you around here, either. How odd!” A playful smile emerged on her lips as something else seemed to brew in her dark eyes. Anticipation? Lust?
“Agreed.” Well, there goes my plan of never seeing her again, he thought with a laugh.
She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She was wearing the choker with the fully bloomed rose again, too, which sat in that scrumptious little hollow between her collarbones. The lighting in the green room was not ideal, but the way it bounced off her cheekbones, her cleavage...all the dips and planes of her face and her curvy body were on display like she was sculpted from priceless marble. And this museum-worthy piece sent a powerful jolt to his groin. Suddenly his cock was straining against his zipper as he remembered how good it felt sliding into her hot, wet pussy.
In an instant the cauldron bubbled over, and what he saw in her eyes became an accusation. “You left the other night... I had no way of contacting you.”
“Right, I—” he stammered, not able to find the right words. There weren’t any right words, anyway.
They heard whistling in the hall, and Garrett instantly knew it was Nigel. Sure enough, his head appeared in the doorway not even a second later. The whistling instantly choked in his throat when he saw the two of them standing there. Garrett felt like he’d been saved by the bell.
“Nav, Anjuli, you met! How wonderful!” Nigel gushed in his silky British accent. “Anjuli, Nav is going to be the understudy for Billy Flynn, so I’m glad you got a chance to meet.”
“I thought you were the maintenance guy?” Her brows crinkled up again.
“Nav is a man of many talents,” Nigel answered for him, practically licking his lips.
His innuendo made Anjuli’s eyes bug out. “Nav?”
“Just a nickname.” It was Garrett’s turn to step in. “Don’t worry about it. And yes, I’m going to drop by practice later to pick up the script and music and meet everyone.”
Nigel nodded. “Good, thank you, Nav. Juli, you about ready for the top of Act 1?”
“Yes, yes,” she answered. “I was just getting some tea. My voice has been a little hoarse since...since the weekend, actually.” She flashed Garrett a look...
Garrett rewarded himself after fixing the clogged sink by having Chinese delivered to his “office.” While waiting, he found a roommate app on his phone and put up a listing for his apartment. The sooner he got someone in there, the sooner he’d be assured he could make November’s rent. He wasn’t sure why he had insisted on having his own place for so long anyway.
Oh, yeah, so I could bring people there to fuck without having to worry about a roommate getting in the way, he remembered. In writing his description of what he sought in a roommate, he made sure to throw in the words “tolerant,” “open-minded” and “laidback.”
That task had distracted him from Anjuli for a good fifteen minutes. His brain felt good to have a break from thinking about what he was going to say to her when she pressed the issue about seeing him again.
Or maybe she won’t ask to see me again?
He laughed at even considering that an option. All women want to see me again after having me once, he thought. Hell, most men do too.
By the time he got the Chinese food and devoured it—he hadn’t had a proper meal in days, not that Chinese delivery was terribly proper—he headed back toward the auditorium as it was time to meet the cast. He would need to get back to work after the meeting, so if he blew Anjuli off, he wouldn’t be making shit up. He did actually need to get the job done. He couldn’t afford to get fired yet again.
His mind flickered with memories of the first time he got fired from a job. He’d been fifteen.
It was the first summer he’d been old enough to work. A local farmer and friend of his stepdad had hired him to put up bales of hay. A week or two later, Garrett, his fair skin burned to a crisp in the relentless summer sun, was caught in the hayloft fooling around with another boy.
The hell that broke loose when Clark found out was of biblical proportions. Garrett didn’t drive, so he had to be picked up after his boss called his house. He was so afraid it would be Clark who arrived in his big, loud pick-up truck and not his mom, he very nearly exploded from nerves. But it only delayed the inevitable. As soon as his mother—his sweet, meek little mother—got him home, Clark laid into him. His toxic vitriol still echoed in Garrett’s ears even to this day.
“You’re nothin’ but a fucking fag, Son, an utter abomination! If I ever catch you with another boy again, I’m going to fucking kill you, you worthless excuse for a—”
His arm was
pulled up, ready to strike Garrett across the face, when his mother, all 5’3”, 120 pounds of her, tried to intervene. She stepped between the two like the referee at a boxing match, and the blow meant for Garrett came down right upon her face.
She fell back in slow motion, but Garrett felt like he’d taken the punch directly to his own jaw. He collapsed on the floor next to his mother, wailing for Clark to leave her alone—
Nigel was making introductions around the circle, where the cast all stood on stage, by the time Garrett came back to reality. He groaned as he realized he’d had another episode. Ever since being dismissed from his job and starting to drink more heavily, those voices from the past had started coming back. He thought drinking more would keep them away, but he was starting to wonder if the opposite were true.
“And Clark Jones is playing Billy Flynn,” Nigel announced.
Garrett couldn’t get past the name Clark. Fucking seriously? He scrubbed his hand down his face and through the beard that had started to grow in nicely on his chin. He’d never had a beard before, but he liked the way it felt. It was like the security blanket he’d had when he was a child to ward off the monsters in his room. Now the monsters were memories, and they were haunting him—extremely persistent ghosts that they were.
“Hey,” Clark said, extending his hand for a shake. Garrett looked up into his eyes, which were dull and slate gray. At least he didn’t look like his stepfather. That had to be the silver lining.
Garrett was so mired in his own head during the rest of Nigel’s speech, he had no idea what he’d said. All he knew is that at 9:20, he dismissed the cast till the following night’s rehearsal. “We’ll be starting with Scene 3 tomorrow,” he told them.
There were nods and murmurs as everyone started to file off the stage. He felt warmth beside him, not touching him, just bristling the hairs on his forearms. “You okay?” came her voice, the one attached to those eyes.
He still hadn’t decided what he’d say to her, except that he needed to get back to work. He ran that line through his head and prepared himself to deliver it to her when and if she pressed the issue.
He gave her a slight nod before starting to follow the others off the stage.
But she grabbed on to his hand and stopped his progress. “Hey, can we chat a second?” she asked, and one look into those eyes revealed her sincerity and something else...hope?
Fuck, why does she have to look at me that way?
The line he had practiced came out something like, “Sure, here?”
Fuck, that is not what I meant to say.
Her lips spread into a victorious smile, and those eyes were shining like gems. “Back to the green room?” Her brows lifted, and her eyes kept sparkling. He wondered if she put sunglasses on if it would break the spell her eyes were casting over him.
He didn’t say another word as he followed her backstage and down the hall to the green room, where he’d already spent a considerable amount of his evening taking apart the damn sink drain and putting it back together. He wondered how appalled she’d be if she’d seen how dirty his hands had gotten during that fiasco. She wouldn’t want them touching her again, that was for sure...
He hadn’t figured out why she would want anything to do with him. She was older than him by at least eight years. She was a doctor, for fuck’s sake. But when she pulled him into the room and flashed her dark eyes at him again—making his cock twitch—he realized the answer.
“I really enjoyed myself the other night,” she began, locking her eyes onto his and rendering him incapable of looking away.
How the hell does she do that? It’s like she’s using some sort of jedi mind trick.
“Yeah, it was nice. Thanks for inviting me.” He straightened his shoulders and took in a lung full of air. Maybe she wants to fuck right here in the green room? He knew at least one part of his body would be up for that. And he did have a pretty good track record in green rooms...
But no. Not a good idea. She didn’t seem like the fuck buddy type. She was classy. She had a kid in college. She’s a fucking doctor, he reminded himself. His last go-around with a PhD—Sarah Lynde—had not ended well.
She paused for a moment as if she wanted him to finish his internal monologue before she gave him the speech she’d been preparing ever since she ran into him earlier that night. “I won’t lie...I was disappointed when I woke up and you were gone...and you didn’t leave your number or anything.”
She didn’t even give him a chance to defend himself.
“So, look, I want to tell you something.” Her eyes narrowed a little, but her gaze never wavered. “I enjoyed myself quite a bit, like I said before. And I have a feeling you left because you’re not a relationship guy.”
She stared at him as if she was expecting confirmation, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He kept his eyes trained on her, unblinking, his face devoid of expression. The beard actually helps with this maneuver, he realized. I’m keeping it.
Her lips curled into a knowing smile, like she saw right through him. “It’s okay, Nav,” she said, emphasizing his nickname so that her teeth were still sunk into her top lip long after the “v” sound ended. “I just want you to know that a relationship is definitely not what I’m looking for.”
He wanted to shove her up against the wall, pin her under his weight, press his rock-hard cock against her soft belly, and wipe that smart look right off her face.
Then the challenging look returned, as if she was daring him to follow through on his thoughts.
“And what are you looking for?” he finally spoke, his voice coming out deep and gritty.
“The way you fucked me the other night?” she asked, the F word rolling off her lips as if it were her mother tongue. “I just need to be fucked like that again.”
Now she had his attention.
“And again,” she added, extending her hand toward him until she found his stiff cock, which she wrapped her fingers around, even through the thick fabric of his uniform pants.
Needless to say, Garrett didn’t get much more work done that night.
Six
When she’d promised to start taking care of herself after her daughter left for college, Anjuli thought it meant making time for the gym and getting regular manicures. And yes, dating was probably on the agenda too, but those first few months she tried it were soul-crushing. How could there be so many ill-equipped and completely unsuitable gentlemen in a twenty-mile radius?
Gentlemen, that’s the problem, she realized after a while.
She did want a “gentleman” someday, someday if she decided to get married. But right now, when she hadn’t had sex in...oh, she was pretty sure it had been long enough to reclaim her virginity...she wanted anything BUT a gentleman. She wanted to make up for lost time.
She was the type of woman who had many more male friends than female. She was certain several of her male friends would have been more than happy to “show her a good time.” But she wasn’t particularly interested in any of them in that way.
So, a glaring roadblock stood between her and orgasmic bliss: she didn’t know how to meet men anymore, not men to date. Not when she was forty-two years old.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t very good at dating men in my twenties, either.
Anjuli found herself pregnant in grad school at the age of twenty-three. She knew her parents, who still lived in India, would be appalled, so she didn’t even tell them her “news” until after her daughter Mishti was born, and her parents visited. She assumed she was not stealthy enough to pull off hiding a baby in her apartment when her parents arrived, and she was proved correct.
Mishti’s father wasn’t a fan of the whole commitment to 18+ years of parenting thing, not to mention the proverbial ball and chain of matrimony, so her parents were even more mortified to learn there hadn’t been and wouldn’t be a wedding. Nor was there a father around for their granddaughter. Needless to say, Anjuli hadn’t been particularly close with her family aft
er her fall from grace—and by not particularly close, she meant there hadn’t been any contact at all save for a sporadic birthday card.
They didn’t even seem proud of me when I earned my doctorate, she sighed.
She quickly discovered that filling the roles of both mother and father was exhausting. She learned how to balance her time between grad school—and eventually a career as a psychologist—and motherhood, knowing it would all pay off someday.
Someday was now. Mishti was at Penn State and loving it, making friends and excelling in her pre-med courses. She even had a boyfriend, who was also pre-med. And Anjuli’s practice working with soldiers coming back from deployment at the VA hospital was fulfilling. She was in the business of saving lives, and she couldn’t imagine anything more gratifying. She felt like all the pieces of her life had fallen into place except—
Except in the last few years, that secret stash of toys she kept in the drawer of her nightstand was less and less satisfying. She saw her daughter dating and becoming curious about sex. Anjuli didn’t see any point in lying to her daughter. “Sex is great,” she told Mishti when she was finally brave enough to have “the talk” with her. “But don’t get pregnant too young like I did. Give yourself a life before you have to give one to someone else.”
Mishti had laughed. “Oh, Mom,” she’d replied, rolling her eyes. She got embarrassed easily, even though Anjuli had tried to create an environment of openness.
“I think I’m going to just wait,” Mishti claimed when Anjuli tried to talk her into going on The Pill when she was a junior in high school. “There’s so much I want to do with my life before getting serious with a boy.”
Anjuli was amazed at how grounded and mature her daughter was, even at sixteen. If only I’d had a good head on my shoulders at her age...
It had now been several years since that conversation, but Anjuli had come to accept the old adage “you’re only young once” was oh so true. And there were so many things she wished she’d had experienced instead of becoming a mother and pouring all of her energies into her daughter and career from age twenty-three on.
The Navigator (Mountains Series Book 5) Page 6