WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition

by Scott, D. D.

  “Do you have to worry about that sort of thing, David?” She’d lowered her voice and the intimate tone had him picturing them in bed. Again.

  “I do now, thanks to you.”

  “I could make a comment, but I think it would come back to bite me.”

  “Did you just ask me to bite you?”

  She let out another raspy chuckle and he felt the blood drain from his head.

  “Very funny,” she said. “What were you doing in Scranton?”

  “Meeting with a client. I’ll be back by noon. Have dinner with me tonight? Eight o’clock? I promise tablecloths and waiters.”

  “Tablecloths and waiters are hard to refuse.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked.

  “That is most definitely a yes.” In the pause that followed, he pictured her smile, the way her mole would squirm between the folds of her eyes. “David, I’m glad you called.”

  “I’m glad you called me back. I’ll pick you up. Seven forty-five okay?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “See you then.”

  Five

  When the buzzer rang at exactly seven forty-five, Celia smiled and looked around the studio apartment. She’d shoved the evidence of her frantic outfit search into the trunk at the base of her bed and sniffed in the scent of currant from the candle she’d lit in the kitchen. With a quickening heartbeat, she buzzed him up and waited at the door for him to round the staircase. He stopped mid-stride when he saw her, angled against the doorframe to best display her gray trousers, shearling wedge boots, and low cut sweater with a black and white scarf with bold splashes of red. She’d wanted to wear red for him.

  Her mouth went dry as he regarded her from head to toe and back again. He looked incredibly handsome wearing a cabled sweater, herringbone wool coat, and a cocky smile.

  “You look even better than I remember.”

  “Ditto.”

  He stood before her, smiling a sexy sideways grin. “Hi,” he said and raised his hand to brush the back of his knuckles over her cheek. The move was so tender, so unexpected, she willed herself not to shiver.

  “Hi yourself.”

  He tempted them both by brushing his lips against her once, and then twice, in the span of time it took her to raise her lids.

  “You’d better get your coat,” he said. “Or we may not make it to the restaurant.”

  “Feeling lucky?” she asked as she gathered her wrap, gloves, and clutch. The nervous feeling she’d had all day instantly morphed into a tingling sense of anticipation. She wouldn’t sleep with him tonight, despite her insane desire.

  “I guess that depends on you.”

  “Why don’t we start with dinner and see how it goes?”

  “Fair enough.” He opened the door of the cab and she slid over to make room for him. He directed the driver to a seafood place in Union Square.

  “Very nice,” she said.

  “Have you been here before?”

  “No, but I’ve wanted to. As dates go, Mr. Willingham, you’re already batting a thousand.”

  “A baseball analogy? Please explain.”

  “You’re prompt, you look good, and your choice of restaurants meets my approval.”

  “Let’s hope I’m not a flash in the pan.”

  “Somehow, I doubt you will be.”

  God, why did their entire conversation sound like foreplay? Maybe because the vibe was back with a vengeance.

  His manners were impeccable. He opened doors for her, helped her with her coat, pulled out her chair. If she were dreaming, she hoped never to wake. They shared an appetizer and a very nice bottle of wine as their feet mingled under the table. For a restaurant she’d been eager to try, she couldn’t have told anyone what she ordered or how it tasted, so focused was she on the way the candle light brought out hints of gold in his eyes and the feel of the callouses on his hands.

  “So you haven’t said anything about your father,” David said. “Is he a cop, too?”

  Celia let the familiar ache fall, just as it always did, right to the center of her heart. “He used to be. He was killed on duty when I was eleven.”

  He reached his hand across the table and squeezed her fingers where they lay limp by her plate. “I’m sorry, Celia. That must have been hard.”

  “It was,” she admitted. “My mother was a mess and my poor brother had to take control of us for awhile. He’s been more like a father to me ever since.”

  “Is this the cop brother?”

  “Yes. My mother was furious when he joined the force.”

  “I can understand why.”

  “I miss my dad tremendously, but Jeff is the rock that holds us all together.”

  He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. “I’m surprised you live so far away from them. It sounds like you’re a close family.”

  “We are, and it was hard to move away, but I love everything about the city.”

  “I do, too,” he said. “The energy here, the excitement. It feels alive and it makes me feel alive. Every time I go home for a visit, I can’t wait to get back. It feels like the center of the universe.”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “It does. And statements like that are why so many people hate New Yorkers.”

  The waiter sidled up to the table, hesitant to interrupt. “May I bring you a dessert menu?”

  David looked at Celia with a question in his eyes. “I’m stuffed,” she said.

  “Coffee?” the waiter asked.

  “Maybe after a walk?” Celia suggested. “At my place.”

  David nodded and asked the waiter for the bill.

  “Do you mind the walk?” Celia asked as they strolled along 16th Street, hunched together in the chilly air. “Cab rides make me dizzy after two glasses of wine.”

  “If by dizzy you mean you may throw up, then no, of course I don’t mind.” He looked across and down the street. “I like this part of town. It’s got character.”

  “It feels like home.” She jogged up the steps to her apartment. “And here we are.”

  “That wasn’t so bad,” he said. “But I can use that coffee.”

  She unlocked her door and stepped inside to hold it open for him. “Coming right up.”

  She watched him walk around her small studio, saw his brows raise at the two beds with a room divider between. “You have a roommate?”

  “Yes, she’s a dancer in an off-Broadway production of something or the other. I can never keep them straight.”

  He jockeyed his finger between the beds. “This works for you?”

  She shrugged and carried two mugs to the tan fabric couch with an assortment of colorful pillows. “Mostly. She works at night. I work during the day.”

  He took a sip and nodded his approval. “So you’re never here at the same time?”

  The memory of Tara and…somebody having noisy sex flashed back through her mind. “Occasionally our schedules overlap, but it’s not a big deal.”

  “Weird.”

  “Well, I couldn’t afford this neighborhood on my own and neither could she, so we make it work.”

  “I guess you do what you have to do.”

  “Exactly.” She set her mug on a coaster as ripples of nervous excitement rushed over her skin. He set his mug down and reached his hand across the back of the couch, catching the ends of her hair between his fingers.

  “You’ve got great hair, Celia.” He leaned closer and pulled a strand under his nose for a sniff. “Smells as good as it looks.”

  Be strong, she reminded herself as she leaned in and met him in the middle of the couch. She wasn’t going to sleep with him on the second date, no matter how much she yearned. No matter how good he smelled. That same musky, male scent. He looked so big in her small apartment.

  He took her mouth this time, no hesitation, no lingering, but a full on assault that left her grasping for sanity in the soft fibers of his sweater.

  She pulled back reluctantly. “David. I can’t sleep with you. This is on
ly our second date, and even that’s a little fuzzy.”

  He sighed and leaned back against the couch, gave the back of his neck a quick rub. “Is this about the three date rule?”

  “What three-date rule?” she asked in her most innocent voice.

  “Come on, we all know about the rule that says you can’t have sex until the third date. We think it is crazy, but we know about it.”

  “It’s more a standard of good judgment than a hard and fast rule.”

  “So what makes the second date so much worse than the third?” he asked. “Why not the forth? Seems like you gals should try to bleed us out of more dinner and movies before giving it up.”

  “Oh,” she sputtered out a laugh. “Now who’s the cynical one?”

  “Spill it, Celia. You started all this.”

  “Fine.” She clasped her hands together and reminded herself that she wanted to be honest with him. “By the third date, you pretty much know if you want to have sex with a guy. Date two you might still be unsure, and then sex could ruin a good thing or make you feel like you’re a little bit slutty. If you both want it, but you don’t give it up by the third, you’re risking him not asking again.” She shrugged and spared him a glance. “It’s a bit of a tight rope we walk.”

  “Sounds more like a very blurry line. What’s wrong with two mutually attracted adults having sex after the second date?”

  “Not the first?”

  “Well,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I guess I kind of agree about that being too soon — if you’re interested in doing it again.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “And yet you asked me to your place at the hockey game.”

  “For dinner!” He graced her with a devilish smile. “I wouldn’t have tried anything then.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” he said. “There is this vibe.”

  “Yes,” she nodded as the vibe shot straight to her belly. “There is the vibe.”

  They leaned into each other again, their honest conversation forgotten, lost in the melding of bodies. He pulled her closer and let his hands roam over her breasts. Her fingers grazed the soft skin beneath his sweater. They moaned and rocked.

  “Celia, are you sure about using that flimsy excuse?” he asked on a pant while his hands undid the scarf around her neck. “Technically this could count as our third date.”

  “This is definitely not our third.” She pulled his head back and feasted on his mouth. “And rules are rules.”

  “Rules are meant to be broken.”

  She sat back with a sigh, her breath coming in short bursts of desire. “David, I can’t.”

  “Okay, okay.” He let his hands slip from her waist and faced forward on the couch. “Tomorrow night. Please tell me you’re free tomorrow night.”

  “I’m free.”

  “Dinner. My place. Eight o’clock?”

  “Your place?” she asked.

  He shot her a grin. “I don’t have roommates.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Good thinking.”

  He took another sip of coffee and set the mug down, then grabbed Celia, lifting her toward him for another mind-melting kiss. “Are you sure?” he asked. “We’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  Before she could answer, a loud boom sounded behind them. Celia jumped and turned her head just in time to see Tara’s cat bolt around the divider that had fallen onto the floor. She clutched her heart. “Oh, that darned cat!”

  When she looked up at David, his face had gone slack and his eyes appeared glassy and wide with shock. He’d dropped his hands and sat completely still, staring into the mess that was Tara’s side of their bedroom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Please tell me your roommate’s not Tara Fincher.”

  Oh, God. Please, God, no. “Yes.” She scootched back against the far end of the couch and swallowed the meal that threatened to make a return appearance. “Do you know her?”

  “Uhhhh, yeah, you could say that.”

  “The psycho ex?”

  “Totally psycho.” He ran his hands through his hair and shot to his feet. “Jesus, Celia. How can you live with her?”

  “Me?” She stood up on shaky legs. “How did you date her? I…I can’t even picture you together.”

  “It wasn’t long and I wouldn’t exactly call it dating.”

  “What would you call it?”

  His shoulders stiffened and a flush ran up his cheeks. “Something to pass the time until she became a squatter.”

  “A squatter? What in the world are you talking about?”

  “She moved into my apartment — uninvited — and refused to leave. She moved her shit in while I was at work. I couldn’t get her out.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I had to threaten to call the cops before she’d budge. The girl is mental.”

  Celia stumbled back onto the couch. “You and Tara.”

  He followed in her footsteps and lowered to the couch beside her. “It was short-lived and meaningless. Less than meaningless.”

  She looked up into his smooth-talking green eyes. “You mean it was just sex.”

  “Yes,” he said, and then thought of backtracking. “Well, yes. It was nothing more than sex.”

  She put her hand to her queasy stomach. Her own special Valentine had had sex with Tara. Gross. “I think you should go.”

  “Celia, wait a minute.” He gently laid his hand on her knee. “How do you know her? Are you…friends?” He said the word as if it were impossible.

  She couldn’t look at him, could barely stand the thought of him in the apartment. “She’s my friend Bob’s friend. I needed a roommate and she needed a place to stay.”

  “So you’re not friends?”

  “Not really,” she said. Now she remembered what she’d eaten. Halibut. “She’s never here. She pays her share of the rent and bills on time and she doesn’t steal my stuff. We just sort of share the space.”

  He stood up and slapped a hand to his head. “Bob Norton?”

  “You know Bob, too?” she asked.

  “We work together. His firm’s a client.” He sat back down. “How do you know Bob?”

  “He went to law school with Beth.”

  “This feels a little like When Harry Met Sally. What did Billy Crystal say? Eight million people in the city and this was bound to happen.”

  “Except this isn’t funny.”

  “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.” He looked over at her with a silly grin on his face. “You’re the hot roommate.”

  “What?”

  “Bob,” David said. “He told me Tara had found a place and that she had a really hot roommate. That’s you.”

  “You’re the Wall Street conservative with a stick up his ass.”

  He opened his mouth, tried to form words, and shut it again. “She said that?”

  Celia nodded and remembered that when she’d asked where Tara had moved from, she thought it odd that she’d lived with a conservative. Tara was anything but.

  “Celia.” He reached for her hand and rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. “This thing between us means a lot to me. What happened with Tara was such a huge mistake. It was a nothing relationship that snowballed into something when she moved in without asking. We never talked about anything, not our families, not our work, nothing.”

  “You just had sex.”

  He blew out a big breath. “Yes, but…look, I wasn’t seeing anyone. I ran into Bob one night at a bar and she was there. He introduced us and within a few minutes she was all over me. I didn’t have a reason to say no.”

  “But it wasn’t just once. You lived together.”

  “No. We didn’t.” He got up to pace in front of her television. When Harry Met Sally sat on the coffee table between them. “She’s got that weird show schedule and I work during the day. We met at my place a few times over lunch, and then one day she just moved her stuff in. The doorman had seen us together and
she turned on the charm. I couldn’t get her out.”

  Celia took a steadying breath and got to her feet. “This is a little much for me right now, David. I’m going to have to think about this.”

  He nodded, but made no attempt to leave. “Okay, okay, I get that. But, Celia? I care about you. I would hate it if the thing with Tara messed this up between us.”

  Six

  “Beth?”

  Her friend sighed on the other end of the line, and Celia knew she’d called too early. “I know you’re calling to brag about how wonderful sex was with David, and after the night I had with Gary, I just don’t want to hear it.”

  “I didn’t have sex with David.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Then why do you sound so weird?”

  “Tara had sex with David.”

  “What?” Beth asked. “Are you drunk?”

  “At seven in the morning?”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “David and Tara used to date.”

  “Shut up!” Beth screeched. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish.” Celia glanced at the bedroom part of her studio, where her roommate slept like the dead. “What am I going to do?”

  “When did they date and for how long?”

  “Well, he said he wouldn’t call it dating, just having sex, and I can’t figure out if that makes it better or worse. But Beth, she moved in with him. Without asking. And he threw her out, which is how she ended up here with me.”

  “Wow,” Beth said. “That’s one hell of a monkey wrench, and it sure makes Gary look like a saint.”

  “I don’t know how to feel,” Celia whined and rubbed the afghan throw against her cheek. “On the one hand, it was over a year ago and he makes it sound like it meant nothing. He’s a guy, so of course he’d jump at the chance to sleep with Tara. She’s so physically perfect. And that’s another problem! How can I possibly compete with a dancer? Not just her appearance, but her…flexibility. And she’s a nut case! I mean, our arrangement works because we’re never here together, but seriously, the girl has a few screws loose, and it doesn’t take long to figure that out.”