“It’s—”
“We’ll go into more detail about it once we’re there,” Flynn said, cutting Cody off. “We’re running late already.”
There was a taxi waiting for us at the curb and I looked from one man to the other before moving up to put the bag Flynn had given me into the back of the car.
Huffing and out a breath, I climbed into the taxi and wondered if it would do any good to ask why they weren’t taking one of the drivers I knew they all had access to. Flynn might've been a McCreary instead of a Bouvier and Cody wasn't the golden child Edward was, but I seriously doubted Claire would've wanted her sons using common transportation. I decided it wouldn’t do any good to ask though. Flynn was strangely subdued and when he'd looked at me earlier, it had been with a polite nod, but that had been it. I didn’t want to get the tension back up to where it had been, so I just let the car thing go and asked Cody about the assignment he’d been on.
He had me giggling to the point of tears as he described the prima donna fit one of the models had thrown over the lack of peeled grapes available as a snack for her. Who would've known of the extra calories that came in grape skins?
“I’ll have to demand peeled grapes sometime soon.” I grinned at him and glanced over at Flynn. My heart slammed heart against my ribs when I caught him staring at me.
Just staring, watching me with an odd look in his eyes. The second he saw that I’d noticed, he averted his head and focused his attention outside.
“Peeled grapes, champagne…you should demand the floor be covered in rose petals while you’re at it.” Cody nudged me with his elbow. “I hear you want something terribly garish and tawdry for your wedding, Gabs. What was it, plum, orange and gold? It sounds so…fall-like. And with you getting married in October...”
I made a face at him. “I’m so common, aren’t I?”
“Extremely.” He closed his eyes and gave a very Claire-like sniff, stiffening his shoulders. “We will do our best to tolerate your low-class ways.”
In that moment, I saw some of his mother in his masculine features. For the first time, I wondered what Pierre Bouvier had looked like.
“Would you two—” Flynn started to snap, and then he stopped. “Sorry.” Without an explanation, he went back to staring outside. A few minutes passed and then he spoke again. “We’re here. Hope you ate a decent breakfast, Tennessee. It’s going to be awhile before we have a chance to eat. Pizza’s being delivered, but it gets crazy.”
Pizza…?
I looked outside, trying to figure out just what I was supposed to be doing and I found myself staring at a dusty old building. My gaze had skipped past the sign out front the first time and now I zoomed back in on the part of it I could see. Something home?
“What are we doing?” I asked.
Flynn was already grabbing his stuff from the trunk. “Cody, pay the driver, okay?”
Flynn totally ignored me so I looked over at Cody. “What’s going on?”
“Gimme a minute.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned back and watched Flynn making his way up the sidewalk. A couple of kids had come rushing out to meet him and it was bizarre to see him crouching down to accept their enthusiastic hugs. One tall, skinny kid with beautiful mahogany skin held up his fist and Flynn bumped knuckles with him. It was pretty clear that Flynn had been here before. But where was here?
Cody finally joined me, passing over the bag I’d been given. “Spill,” I told him as I took it, appreciating that he didn't automatically assume I couldn't carry anything.
He shrugged. “Not that big of a deal. The past few years, Flynn’s been offering his services as a photographer for some foster kids. He does professional shots and social services uses the images to try to help kids get adopted.”
“Come on, guys,” Flynn shouted at us from the door.
I tried not to look completely shocked as we started up the walk.
Once we were inside, I found myself the target of a lot of stares, most of them borderline hostile. There was one little girl, her hair in plaits and she stood leaning against the leg of an older girl, blinking big blue eyes at me. My heart wrenched when she ducked her head as I looked at her.
“Who’s this, rich boy?”
The question came from the tall boy who’d fist-bumped Flynn earlier, the tone belligerent, lacking none of the laid back friendliness I’d heard him using just moments ago.
“A friend,” Flynn said with an easy smile. “She’s here to help me keep you hooligans under control.”
“I ain’t no hoogan.” That came from a small boy with freckled cheeks and a chipped front tooth. He shoved his chin up in the air and when I looked at him, I saw eyes that were far too old for him. There was an ugly scar that ran down the left side of his face and when my gaze felt on it, he just glared at me that much harder.
“Hooligan, Bry,” Cody said with his own grin. “And yeah, you are a hooligan. But chill…one of these days, you’ll be a master hooligan, like me.”
Bry—short for Bryan, I assumed—glanced away from me and I thought I saw a smile on his face for a split second. And hero worship in his eyes when he looked at Cody.
Something touched my leg.
I looked down to see the pretty little girl with plaits patting my skirt.
Slowly, I knelt down, hunkering in front of her and staring into her solemn eyes. “Hi,” I said quietly.
She just gave me another owlish blink, reminding me of my oldest niece when she'd been younger.
I reached up and touched one of the barrettes on her hair. “I like your hair.”
She reached up and touched mine.
“My name’s Gabriella.”
She just nodded.
“You showing off for your rich girlfriend?” That came from the girl who’d been standing next to the small child in front of me now.
I looked up at her, a laugh bubbling out of me before I realized how it might come off. “Me? Rich? Not even close.”
The response had her jerking her head to look at me instead of sneering at Flynn.
I shrugged. “Grew up in a big family down in Tennessee. Mom stayed home to raise us. Dad did landscaping. We never went hungry, but…” I trailed off, looking at the faces around me. I had the feeling a lot of them had gone hungry, and worse. A lot of them couldn’t claim to come from a family with two parents who loved them, much less some of the other advantages I had. Money wasn’t everything. “I was happy, yeah. But not rich.”
The awkward silence that fell was broken when a woman came bustling in, a flurry of bright colors and long braids. She all but sailed up to Flynn and grabbed his face, hauled him down for a loud, smacking kiss that resulted in a series of catcalls and eeeewwww’s from the children. Then she moved on to Cody and did the same thing, making me wonder just what her relationship was with Flynn.
“Beautiful boys…look at you.”
When her gaze zeroed in on me, I felt like I’d been shoved under a microscope. Her eyes were the color of amber, a few shades lighter than her smooth, warm brown skin. There were no lines anywhere on her face, but I had the feeling she was more than a few years older than me. It had something to do with the way she watched me, with that quiet serenity to her gaze.
“Well, what have we here?” She shot a sideways glance at Flynn. “Flynn, did you finally bring me some special girl?”
“No!”
We both rushed to answer and I shoved my hand out, the rock on it seeming to weigh a ton. “I’m engaged,” I said, my voice high, almost too happy. I sounded false, even to my own ears. What’s wrong with me…?
“I’m engaged to his oldest brother. I just…we’re friends, Cody, Flynn and I.”
As always, Cody knew just what to do because he chose that moment to sling an arm around my neck, hugging me in close. “She’s a doll. I couldn’t have picked a better sister-in-law if I’d tried. Danique, this is Gabriella. Gabs, this is Danique—or Dani. She doesn’t care. Take your pick.” He gave me a smack
ing kiss on the lips and then moved off into the throng of kids. “So…who’s first? Do I get to play makeover king on any of you or are you all just stunningly perfect as always?”
A group of kids rushed him and he laughed, a genuine, heartfelt laugh that I'd never heard him make around his family, at least not his mother and step-father.
“You look kind of lost,” Danique said as she stepped up next to me.
“I…um…well, I feel lost.”
Flynn moved between us, pausing just long enough to grab the bag I was still holding. “Just keep the kids occupied and moving. When I call for somebody, make sure they get to me. If the girls need help with hair or picking out clothes, knock yourself out.”
He was gone in the next moment and I flung up my hands in frustration. “Occupied and moving? Get them to him? I don’t even know what I’m doing!”
Danique laughed and moved over, hooking her arm through mine. “Come on. The older kids always go first and they help with the younger kids, so we’ve got a bit before the uphill portion of the event begins. Let me show you around and I’ll give you the short version of what we're doing here.”
***
We ended up on the second floor, outside what was probably the biggest room in the two-story remodeled house. We were somewhere in Brooklyn, that much I could tell, but exactly where, I wasn’t sure. I'd never spent much time in Brooklyn before.
The house was older and had received a lot of TLC, but it needed a lot more. It was clean, though, and well-loved. The kids in it were also clean, and if they’d let her, I could tell Danique would give them all the love they could handle.
But too many of them didn’t trust anybody. I could see it in their eyes.
“So, Flynn comes in, does shots of these kids once a year and you all get them to their social workers.” Cody had summed it all up for me outside, but I still wasn’t sure I understood. “And he does this for three or four other places?”
“He’s at a different facility, either a group home or down at social services, once a month.”
“I guess Bouvier set this up.”
“No.”
I jerked my head up as Cody came around the corner and joined us, hands in his pockets as he stared into the room. A small kid, probably around five, hurtled between us and Cody sidestepped him easily, grinning as the kid started screeching.
Cody shrugged, his expression serious. “This is Flynn’s thing. He…well, he was dating a girl. They split up, but stayed friends. She did some modeling on the side to get through school, ended up going into social work, and one day asked Flynn if he could maybe help out one time because the photographer they’d been using was sick. He did. Then the photographer had to retire, cancer of some kind. Flynn heard and stepped up, offered his services. He doesn’t want Mom to know. She’d turn it into a media thing and that’s not why he does it.”
“Mither Cody,” a small voice said from down near my leg.
I looked down and saw a rather bedraggled fairy standing next to us. She had wispy blond hair and big brown eyes that looked too big for her thin face.
Cody scooped her up and she curled her arms around his neck. “How’s my angel doing today?” he asked, his voice soft. She looked so small wrapped in his arms.
“I can’t make my hair pretty,” she said, her voice low.
Cody gave me a look, brows arched.
I eased closer, smiling. Brushing the fine curls of her hair back, I rested a hand on her shoulder. “You already have pretty hair, but I bet I can help you get it to behave.”
***
“Here.”
I cracked one eye open, then the other, looking at Flynn as he dropped down onto the seat next to me. Cody had stretched out on the opposite seat, covering a wide yawn with his open hand. The cabbie pulled away from the group home as soon as Flynn closed the door.
I was exhausted. I’d forgotten how kids could do that. I'd baby-sat both my younger brother and sister growing up, as well as my older nieces and nephews until I'd moved out here. Today had brought back a lot of memories.
Looking down at Flynn’s proffered hand, I found him holding a fistful of bills and I frowned. “What’s this for?”
“You worked. I pay. That was the deal.”
“That’s for modeling. This was…” I stopped and shook my head. I caught his hand and folded his fingers back over the bills. With a faint smile, I shrugged. “I should probably thank you. It's been a while since I've done something...useful.”
Cody’s phone rang and he answered it, his face lighting up. Flynn and I lapsed into silence and a moment later, judging by the one sided conversation, I suspected we’d be a passenger lighter very shortly.
I was right.
After Cody disconnected, he caught the cabbie’s attention and asked him to make a side-stop. “I’m hooking up with some friends.” He smiled at us. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“I’m just along for the ride,” I said, shrugging. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
Once we’d let Cody out, tension slammed into the air, so thick it was hard to breathe. Flynn was the first one to break it, his voice rough as he said, “I really am sorry for how I acted, Gabriella.”
He rarely used my actual name. The sound of it on his lips sent a shiver down my spine, though I had to admit, I was coming to like the name Tennessee. No one else called me that.
Forcing my attention toward my ring, I twisted it and focused on Edward as I replied, “I already told you, don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t stop worrying about it. I was…” he stopped.
From the corner of my eye, I could see his profile as he stared out the window. He blew out a breath and shook his head. “There aren’t any words for how shitty I feel about it,” he finally said.
“Let’s just forget it happened.” I tried not to read anything into what he was saying. Tried not to think about if he thought the kiss had been bad...
“Okay.” He looked back at me.
Through my lashes, I dared to meet his gaze.
“How about you let me buy you a drink? Just to make up for it?”
“I…” Turning my head, I stared outside, watching as the scenery gradually became more familiar. “I don’t know, Flynn. The two of us around each other, it’s almost a recipe for disaster.”
“I’ll keep my hands to myself and I’ll behave.” In the window, I saw him raise two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“My ass you were a Boy Scout.” Even the thought made me smile.
“Well, I thought about it.” A grin curled his lips and I felt an answering tug in my belly. “I always hear about how girls go nuts for guys in uniforms.”
The playful glint in his eyes had me relaxing. Or parts of me, anyway. There was still a curious twist in my heart that wasn’t even close to relaxing and it echoed in other parts of me, but I made up my mind to ignore it.
I was friends with other guys.
I could be friends with Flynn.
Chapter 4
“Oomph.”
There was a jazz section in my head and searchlights flashing in front of my eyeballs. Groaning, I went to twist over in the squeaky affair that served as my bed. It didn’t squeak.
There was a noise, though, the sound of water running. A shower.
I froze.
Edward…?
I hadn’t seen Edward last night, had I?
I cracked one eye open and found myself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Although the slightest movement was agony, I turned my head and looked around. Pale grey walls, stark black and white nude prints framed on the walls.
Shit.
Dread started to build in my throat, although it could have been bile. Either way, I was almost certain I was going to puke. My pounding head, the light that made my eyes want to explode. I was so hung over.
And I wasn’t at home, or at Edward’s.
That was bad enough, but I knew those prints. Or at least, I knew the style of them. There was a heavy sig
h from nearby and I forced myself to sit up, clutching the blanket to my chest as I realized I was naked.
The sound of the water cut off as I acknowledged my complete lack of clothing. Naked. Somebody had just finished a shower and I was almost positive it wasn't Edward. He'd never be caught dead in a room with nudes on the wall, no matter how artistically done.
What the hell, Gabs?
I’d talked to Edward last night. I remembered that much at least. He’d called to check up on me, again, and I’d told him I was out with his brother. I'd known he’d assumed I'd meant Cody and I hadn’t corrected him.
My head started to pound even harder and I lifted a hand to my temple pressing against it as though that would stop the pain. My skin started to prickle and I had the sensation I was being watched. Fighting the urge to crawl back under the covers, I tightened my fist in the blanket I held clutched to my naked breasts and forced myself to lift my head. Stop procrastinating. Deal with it.
Flynn was leaning against an open doorway just a few feet to my right. Water dripped down his chest, ran down his jawline, clung to his dark hair. Amused blue eyes rested on my face, a faint smile curling his lips.
“Morning, Tennessee.”
I gaped at him. “Good…good morning?”
“Well.” He shrugged and glanced toward the window. “I guess good afternoon is more accurate. You’re quite the wild woman when you get a few drinks in you, know that?”
I gripped the blanket so tight, my knuckles hurt.
“What in the hell did I do?” I whispered, covering my eyes with my hand. I tried to think back and remember and, as if they had been waiting, memories started to unfurl. Not a lot of them, but enough. We’d been out at a club. It was a lot classier, a lot sexier than any place I’d ever been able to afford on my own. We’d danced and had a few drinks and…fun. We’d had fun.
I’d relaxed too much.
Shit.
I’d kissed him. I’d grabbed Flynn and pressed my mouth against his, shoved him up against the wall.
He hadn’t responded the first time. Or even the second.
Pure Lust: The Complete Series Box Set Page 20