Falling for the Good Guy (NICE GIRL TO LOVE)

by Violet Duke

  She stayed low and spidey-walked over to Sammy, whose paw was somehow stuck in the drain pipe along the front rim of the house. He mewled pitifully when he saw her.

  “It’s okay, Sammy, I’ll get you loose. Just hang tight.” She jiggled his paw a bit and nearly lost an eye when he screeched and took a swipe at her with his good paw. It was his nail, and it was wedged into the corner seam of the piping. Plastering herself flat on the roof as the dust storm started to pass over her driveway, she used her keys to try and open the seam wider.

  Success!

  Sammy’s paw came loose and he scrambled onto her shoulder, then her head.

  By now, the wind was hurling dirt and debris all around so Abby zipped up her hoodie and tucked Sammy inside of it before flipping the hood over her head. It wasn’t much; the cotton shield offered her little protection from the elements, but the refuge helped calm Sammy down considerably. With the dust storm now passing over them directly, she had to grip her fingers into the shingles to keep from slipping and sliding as she slowly crawled back over to the back end of the house. About a third of the way there, however, her foot slipped on the silt that was now coating the entire roof. Not wanting to squash Sammy, she quickly turned as she stumbled and landed hard on her side, twisting her ankle and skinning her knee something fierce. While Sammy proceeded to dig every single one of his nails into her midsection, she grabbed hold of the ridge cap of the roof to prevent herself from sliding down the shingles.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing up here?!”

  Abby tried to open her eyes but there was way too much sand and debris in the air flying into her eyes, even with her reading glasses on. “Brian?” she called out. And paid for it with a mouthful of dirt. She dragged herself up so she could cross both arms over her face and peek out from a tiny sniper slit at the crook of her elbow. The dust was so thick now she could barely make out Brian shuffling his way over to her on his forearms and shins. “Be careful!” she cried out from under her sleeves.

  Suddenly, a giant blanket of fabric cloaked her from the storm and Brian’s huge, warm body settled next to her. Encased in utter darkness with the wind howling all around, her ankle throbbing, and her knee stinging, she’d never felt more safe as she snuggled up against Brian’s side.

  Brian threw back the hood of his jacket, removed his sunglasses, and pulled down the old shirt he’d tied over his face like a robber’s mask. Smart thinking. She should’ve thought of that. “Woman, are you out of your mind?”

  Abby unzipped her hoodie a bit so the now perfectly comfy cat burrowed inside could pop his head out. “Sammy was stuck up here. I had to save him.”

  Brian sighed. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, we have to get off this roof before the rain really starts coming down.” He peeled off his shirt and tied it around her face, tucking the loose fabric into the edges of her glasses as best he could. “Just stay low and follow me. Keep your head down,” he warned as he yanked the large picnic blanket off of them.

  Instantly, Abby got pelted with little gravel bits and what felt like splats of flying mud and twigs.

  Getting up on all fours, she did a hybrid military-crawl over the roof, staying close to Brian and doing her best not to drag Sammy.

  It felt like a millennia later, but they were finally back at the tree branch she’d used to get onto the roof.

  Great. Now what?

  Brian cupped his mouth to her ear and shouted over the wind, “I’ll hold one side of the branch to keep it taut like a tight rope. Turn around and crawl backward over the branch back to the trunk.”

  “What about Sammy?” she shouted, muffled behind the shirt. “I’m not leaving him up here in this storm.”

  She couldn’t tell for sure, but she was pretty sure he just rolled his eyes at her from behind his sunglasses.

  “Fine. Then you’re going to have to do a hanging crawl across the branch like a rope traverse. When you get to the ledge of the roof, carefully dangle yourself upside down and crawl back that way. Go slow and keep your eyes closed tight. You don’t want all this crap flying around to get in them.”

  Abby nodded and followed his instructions exactly. When she got to the tree trunk, she quickly got out of the way as Brian half leapt, half branch-swung himself over.

  Within minutes, they were back inside the house, a completely muddy mess. She let Sammy loose in the kitchen and then turned and ran right into Brian’s massive chest, still minus the shirt.

  Holy swizzle sticks. So it’s true, adrenaline really is a potent aphrodisiac.

  “So do you want me to chew you out now or after we shower?”

  The way he said ‘we’ was inspiring all sorts of inappropriate ideas in her head.

  And by the naked lust she saw darkening his gaze, it was clear the inspiration was mutual.

  “After,” she squeaked before taking off for her bathroom like a chicken. Thank goodness she now had a spare shower in the extension her landlords had built. She locked the door to the master bath quickly. Not because she was worried Brian was going to try and join her.

  But to stop herself from asking him to.

  A VERY THOROUGH, VERY COLD shower later, Brian went out to the kitchen and swiftly executed phase one of Operation Romance Abby, finishing with time to spare. Luckily, she was taking a pretty long time in the shower. Thinking about what she could possibly be doing in there, however, was rapidly undoing the effects of his cold shower.

  Down boy. He shifted his towel a bit.

  “Hey.”

  Brian looked up from the cup of coffee he’d made himself and saw Abby shuffling into the room looking as sweet as ever in a pair of his old, baggy sweats. “Hey yourself, cutie.” He walked over to give her a quick kiss before she could object, and was pleased to note her look of disappointment when he pulled back.

  Progress.

  Smiling, he leaned against the back of the sofa and sipped his coffee silently. The harder Abby avoided looking at him below the neck, the bigger his smile got.

  “So…where’s Skylar?” Abby glanced at the wall clock behind him. “It’s almost five.”

  “I wasn’t sure how long my parent-teacher conference was going to go today so I asked my mom to pick up Skylar after school and drive her over to Connor’s to wait out the storm. Even though it was still early, I didn’t want her walking in this weather.”

  He saw Abby’s surprised, almost hurt expression and clarified gently, “I didn’t know what you had planned this afternoon, and I didn’t think you’d want to drop Skylar off at Connor’s.”

  “Oh.” She nodded.

  When she winced as she shifted the weight on her feet, alarmed, he shot over to her. “You’re injured.”

  “Just a tweaked ankle and a minor scrape, no biggie.”

  “Babe, there are a lot of fungi and other nasty things floating around during these dust storms. Valley Fever isn’t the only thing you can catch from the spores in the flying debris. Get over to the couch. Let me check out your cuts.”

  Raiding her medicine cabinet for supplies, and then her freezer for some frozen veggies for her ankle, he returned and rolled her sweat pants up her leg, hissing with every new bit of bloody skin he revealed. The angry red gouges in her kneecap had his protective alpha instincts going crazy. “You should’ve called me, Abby. I would have dropped everything and been right over.” For chrissakes, he’d almost had a stroke when he’d happened by to check on her, only to see her splayed across the roof with nothing more than a cotton hoodie protecting her from the elements. “I still can’t believe you were up on the roof at all, let alone in the middle of a storm.”

  When she pouted stubbornly, he locked his jaw. Loving someone as fiercely independent as Abby was likely going to take years off his life. “And your injuries aren’t that minor,” he continued scolding, because he just couldn’t stop. Gingerly, he applied peroxide over the large strawberry that covered her entire left knee. “You can’t be so cavalier about wounds like thi
s after a dust storm.”

  “I wasn’t; I scrubbed it out really well in the shower,” she defended.

  So that’s what she’d been doing in there.

  He put bacitracin on the scrape and put a pillow under her knee. “Let it breathe tonight. Tomorrow, you can put more medicine and a bandage over it.” Now on to her ankle. He lifted her leg up and turned her foot back and forth, checking the range of motion. “It’s not too swollen, seems like a small sprain.” He put a paper towel on her ankle and the frozen veggies over it before wrapping her ankle, ice and all, with an ace bandage. “Keep this one elevated,” he instructed, perching her leg on the back cushions of the couch.

  “I’d almost forgotten how good you are at all this.”

  “What do you mean this?” he asked as he slowly massaged her calf and foot on her sprained leg.

  “This.” She waved her hands over herself. “You took such good care of Beth.”

  He shrugged. “It’s no big deal—all basic stuff.”

  Abby sighed and swatted him playfully in the stomach. “Take a compliment will you, Sullivan?”

  He caught her hand against his skin and slid it slowly up to his lips.

  Her soft brown eyes dilated sharply, darkening with awareness.

  “Thank you for the compliment, Abby,” he said as he kissed his way over her palm and across the racing pulse along her inner wrist.

  ABBY WENT MUTE as she felt Brian’s tongue lash across her skin, sensitizing the nerves to levels beyond pleasure.

  If he didn’t stop, there was a good chance she’d pull the towel he was wearing right off.

  “Do you want me to take it off?” he asked, his words tickling her skin.

  Yes. “No,” she stammered, unable to take her eyes off the portion of the towel that was tucked at his hipbone. Just one good tug—

  “I was talking about the ice, sweetheart. But if you have other things in mind…”

  Ice? What ice? “Oh! Ow.” The burning of the ice at her ankle finally filtered through to her brain. “Yes, actually, can you take it off? I’m a wuss when it comes to icing my injuries.”

  Brian quickly pulled off the ice and rewrapped her ankle before resuming his massage. “So back to the other things you wanted me to take off,” he teased.

  Okay, seriously? It was a really good thing the man had never flirted with her before because she was certain she’d never have survived it, especially not when his hands were kneading her muscles into butter.

  “You’re impossible,” she complained thickly, though it came out more like a purr. His massages should be illegal for how good they felt.

  She blinked slowly at him and started wondering idly what was so wrong with him losing the towel. A fuzzy smile drifted across her face.

  “Damn, you’re going to fall asleep on me aren’t you?” Brian’s voice floated over her hair softly as he pressed a smiling kiss to her forehead. “Go ahead and rest, sweetheart. You had a pretty eventful afternoon.”

  With that, he stood and walked over to the linen closet for some clothes.

  Shame.

  He was heartbreakingly handsome. Always had been. But ever since he’d gone back to coaching afterschool to supplement his teaching income, he’d gotten even burlier from the added lifting sessions before practice. It was almost unfair. Superhuman, really. His build was now more impressive than the average underwear model’s physique—a standard issue Sullivan trait it seemed—though every other aspect of him remained far gentler and way more mellow than Connor.

  She’d never thought of mellow as being the new sexy. But it so was.

  And nice was the new hot. With two T’s.

  Hearing Brian’s soft chuckles echoing in the room, she realized she must have said the last couple of sentences out loud.

  “I think you’re ‘nice with two T’s’ too, Abby,” he whispered before kissing her on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, honey.”

  Abby sluggishly woke up from her nap and tried to figure out if it was morning or night. The clock flashing 7:30 on her DVR machine didn’t offer very much more clarification.

  After checking two more clocks around the room, she glanced over at the microwave and finally saw the PM. Oh good, so she hadn’t been zonked out all night long. Stretching herself awake, she found that nearly all her muscles were achy, as if she’d just had the mother of all workouts. Huh, maybe she should quit the gym and just climb trees and roofs to stay in shape.

  Though it was still early, she went over to the kitchen to cook up a batch of Mexican hot chocolate, her usual feel-good drink of choice. Oddly, when she got there, she saw that all her hot cocoa fixings were already on the counter…along with a post-it with a note in Brian’s handwriting:

  >> IN THE SPIRIT OF THIS WHOLE HIGH SCHOOL DATING THING WE HAVE GOING…

  Huh? She flipped over the post-it. What did hot cocoa have to do with high school dating? It didn’t make any sense at all.

  She was just about to call Brian to ask him to explain when she bumped into a little bowl on the floor with milk. Oh, shoot, Sammy! She’d forgotten all about him. Since he wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the kitchen, Brian must have let him out. She glanced outside to make sure the weather had died down before heading over to the fridge. It was still early enough to check on the two cats. May as well bring ‘em a little evening treat.

  “Oh c’mon!” she exclaimed aloud when she saw another two post-its waiting for her in the fridge, one on the egg carton, and one on a cucumber. Was she that predictable? It’s not like she spoiled Scruffles and Sammy every day with scrambled eggs and cucumbers—just a few times a week.

  She pulled off the post-its.

  >> NO, YOU’RE NOT THAT PREDICTABLE.

  Ha! Clearly, she was.

  >> I JUST KNOW AND LOVE ALL YOUR ADORABLY WEIRD HABITS.

  Aw, being called weird had never sounded so great.

  Grabbing her phone from her bag, she chuckled when she saw one final post-it.

  >> SO AGAIN, IN THE SPIRIT OF THIS WHOLE HIGH SCHOOL DATING THING…

  Her phone beeped a text alert, so she checked her inbox.

  >> WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME? Y OR N

  Abby shook her head and tamped down all the sudden teen-esque butterflies in her stomach as she texted Brian back.

  >> Y

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “OHMIGOSH ABBY, Dad is going to flip out when he sees you.”

  Smiling, Abby gave Skylar a hug. “All thanks to you. This was a great dress you helped me find.” Normally, she would’ve just gone for a simple black dress, maybe even gray, but Skylar was insistent that this champagne-colored number was the way to go.

  It was gorgeous. A fitted bodice with rouched fabric up the torso and a flowy skirt that fell just past her knees, a perfect length to hide the large band-aid still covering her left knee. And to top it all, the simple Grecian one shoulder twist over her right shoulder gave the dress a classy look with just a touch of sexy.

  No way she would’ve picked the dress out for herself.

  “Thanks again for coming shopping with me, sweetie. Are we still on for our shopping date next week to find you the dress for your dance?”

  “Yes! OMG, I can’t wait.”

  Abby chuckled and went over to her dresser where she’d put a stack of teen pop magazines and dress catalogs earlier. “I bought some light reading material so you can look through and see what kinds of dresses you like. Doggy ear them and we’ll go see if we can find something close on our budget.”

  “Really? Oh, Abby, you’re just the best!”

  “Sure thing. And don’t worry, even if we can’t find the exact right dress, we can alter it at home ourselves. I can adjust the style a bit and we can always add any additional bling.”

  “I love that idea! Then no one will have a dress like mine.”

  “Exactly.” She laughed at Skylar’s mini-python hug—like father, like daughter.

  “I’m going to take these with me to Becky’s house tonight. Do you th
ink you can do the same thing for Becky’s dress too?”

  Abby thought about that for a second. “Why don’t you girls just focus on looking at dresses first and I’ll call Becky’s mom in the morning and ask what she has planned.”

  Skylar became quiet then and nodded. “You’re right. That’s really nice of you to think of Becky’s mom.”

  At the word, mom, a cloud of sadness hovered over Skylar’s face.

  Abby sat down next to her. “Hey, you know you can always talk to me about your mother, right? I know you must miss her.”

  “You don’t mind? I mean I’d get if you didn’t want me to bring her up anymore since you’re dating my dad now.”

  “Don’t be silly. Your mother was a great friend of mine and honestly one of the coolest women I’ve ever known. You remind me of her a ton you know.”

  “You think? I don’t remember a whole lot, but I did think she was super pretty. Dad made sure to take tons of photos and videos of her so I’d have lots of memories of her.”

  Yeah, that sounded like Brian.

  “My favorite ones of her are from their wedding day.”

  Abby nodded wistfully. “I love those too. Especially since there was a little angel dressed in the cutest peach dress right there with them.”

  Skylar beamed. “Some of my friends think it’s weird that my parents got married after I was born but I don’t. I think it’s cool that dad didn’t want to have a quickie ceremony just to make it look like they had me after the wedding.”

  “Your dad was pretty adamant about that. He didn’t want any wedding planning to get in the way of their learning to be great parents for you. So, they waited until after your first birthday to plan the ceremony. And your dad made sure it was your mom’s dream wedding.”

  “See, I think that’s so romantic. Who cares if I was born before or after? The ceremony should be about the bride and groom, not the baby.”