Bigger Rock

by Lauren Blakely

  I’d like to say we spend the night riding the rollercoaster or the Ferris wheel. But nope. We go horizontal again. All night long. It’s as perfect as a wedding night can be. And I’m not just saying that because we order an Oreo sundae from room service sometime in the middle of the night.

  But that is good, too. And I do like Oreos.

  Epilogue

  The ladder rests against the bright white wall in our home. Natalie balances carefully on the top rung, hanging a sign. I suppose I could do this for her, but she insisted, and the woman really does love getting her hands on the tools.

  She’s good with all of them, but she’s particularly good with one of mine, if you get my drift.

  Anyway, here’s the ladder. See what I did there? I didn’t leave you hanging. I promised a dirty ladder story, and I’m going to deliver.

  She’s on the ladder because she knows I like this view. Who am I kidding? I love this view. Perched on the edge of the couch in our living room, I savor the sight in front of me—my Natalie, in a little pink skirt that swishes around her thighs.

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  “It’s hard to tear myself away.”

  She laughs then raises the hammer and taps, taps, taps until the new sign is up on the wall. We have a matching one in our office. It says Hammer & Hammer Carpentry & Construction. We changed the name. Yes, we. Because it’s ours. Everything is ours.

  I’ve learned you need to give a little in a relationship. Or, I should say, give a lot. Natalie was willing to give up her livelihood for me. I couldn’t let her do that. Instead, I found another solution. She stayed, and we run the business together as husband and wife. I still do the building; I’m the carpenter, after all. But she’s the magic. She’s the glue. She’s made this business thrive. And it’s hers as much as it’s mine. We own it together. Sometimes, she slings on a tool belt and helps finish a job, but we’ve expanded finally, and we have employees who are reliable and show up for work.

  Natalie manages it all. She makes it happen every day. “I’ve always loved this job. I never thought of myself as just an assistant,” she’d said when I pitched her on my proposal after our official Vegas wedding.

  “You’ve always been so much more. You’ve made everything at our company better.”

  “And I’ll keep doing that. But I’m still teaching my classes at night,” she’d said.

  “I would expect nothing less from the woman who can kick my ass.”

  Now, she turns around, facing me, one hand holding onto the top rung as she shows me the sign—our business, our marriage, us. “How does it look?”

  “Like it was meant to be. I love everything about it, especially the way those two names go together.”

  She has my heart, my body, my business, my home. Sharing the business with her barely scratches the surface of all she has given me—this unconditional love. Oh, and obviously Natalie lives with me now, which means Josie’s looking for a roommate, but that’s a story for another time.

  For now, I’ve got my woman to tend to. I walk over to the ladder, climb a step, push up her skirt, and pull her panties to the side.

  I kiss her and lick her and taste her until she’s moaning and groaning, and sighing sexily.

  That’s my cue to keep her safe. “C’mon. Take my hand,” I say softly, and I guide her down the ladder, scoop her up, and set her on the couch, where she spreads her legs, and I devour her sweetness.

  Look, ladders are fun for foreplay, but when you’re into risky sex, you’ve got to know which risks to take. Can’t have my wife falling off a ladder because I make her come so hard.

  And that’s precisely what I do as she goes wild on the couch against my mouth. Then I make love to her.

  Afterward, she smiles woozily at me and says, “Should we go get ready for our wedding?”

  Yeah, we’re those people. We’re the ones who got married in Vegas, came home, and threw another wedding party for our friends and family. We like marrying each other.

  A lot.

  So we’re going to do it all again. Truth be told, we’ll probably renew our vows next year, and the next and the next.

  Another Epilogue

  A few months later

  * * *

  Once upon a time there was a man, there was a woman, and there were some wild speed bumps on the road to their happily-ever-after.

  But we navigated them all.

  Along the way, I discovered that trust isn’t about proof. It isn’t about getting fooled, or not getting fooled. It’s a choice. One you make with your heart. Natalie has mine, and I had to learn that it was safe and sound in her care. Always.

  Her heart is safe with me, too, even though she does like to beat me up in her videos.

  Her self-defense series has become quite popular online. New students have found her through them and have started taking the classes she teaches a few nights a week. That makes her happy, and when she’s happy, I’m happy, too.

  She might have to cut back soon, though. Things are changing around here. Her belly is a little rounder.

  No, it wasn’t an oops baby. It didn’t happen one drunken night. Please. My wife is a planner. And we planned this. In fact, the bun might very well have gone into her oven on our third wedding night. The one right here in New York.

  The two of us are the first of our friends to get knocked up, but that fits us. We seem to have two speeds—either stalled or moving at sixty miles an hour. We’re not stalled anymore, so in this case we broke all the limits, and in several months, we’ll be a family.

  Right now, though, I’m heading out with Natalie to the farmers’ market. We’re not shopping for asparagus or arugula. We’ve always liked it risky, and today we’re going to take our chances.

  We’ve got a date behind the banana stand.

  * * *

  THE END

  * * *

  Wondering if Chase will get that lease after all? Or what Josie will do about her roommate situation? Find out in FULL PACKAGE, the #1 NYT Bestseller!

  FULL PACKAGE

  ABOUT

  I’ve been told I have quite a gift.

  * * *

  Hey, I don’t just mean in my pants. I’ve got a big brain too, and a huge heart of gold. And I like to use all my gifts to the fullest, the package included. Life is smooth sailing....

  * * *

  Until I find myself stuck between a rock and a sexy roommate, which makes for one very hard…place.

  * * *

  Because scoring an apartment in this city is harder than finding true love. So even if I have to shack up with my buddy’s smoking hot and incredibly amazing little sister, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

  * * *

  I can resist Josie. I’m disciplined, I’m focused, and I keep my hands to myself, even in the mere six hundred square feet we share. Until the one night she insists on sliding under the covers with me. It’ll help her sleep after what happened that day, she says.

  * * *

  Spoiler—neither one of us sleeps.

  * * *

  Did I mention she’s also one of my best friends? That she’s brilliant, beautiful and a total firecracker? Guess that makes her the full package too.

  * * *

  What’s a man stuck in a hard place to do?

  Prologue

  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re considering living with a woman you want to screw.

  After all, finding an apartment is harder than landing true love, so even if you have to shack up with the fox you’ve maybe, possibly, always thought was ridiculously hot, you’d do it, right?

  Look, I know what you’re thinking.

  This can only lead to trouble. Don’t sign that lease. Walk the other way.

  But she’s just a friend, I swear. And, hey, this is New York City. Rent is crazy expensive. Always better to share it, right? C’mon. You’d split the utilities even if it meant you were signing up to become the designated dude sounding board fo
r all her online dating escapades.

  Please. I can do that with my eyes shut. Advising her on the plenty o’ fish where she’s fishing is simple. I just point to the profile pic and say: he’s a douche, he’s a tool, he’s a dick . . .

  Because none of those fuckers are worthy of her.

  You’d sign that lease even if you had to endure the sweet torture of seeing that beauty walk down the hallway every morning, fresh out of the shower, a tiny towel cinched around her tits.

  Easy as pie.

  Even if she called out, “Hey, Chase, can you bring me my body lotion?”

  Ha. That’s child’s play.

  Okay, maybe I whimpered a bit when she made the request. And I’ll concede the situation was a bit hard—like, steel levels—when the towel slipped and I caught a glimpse of her perfect flesh before she yanked it up.

  But still, I can handle all that, no problemo.

  Want to know why?

  I’ve done it for years, and it’s my secret talent.

  You see, everyone has a unique ability. Perhaps you can lick your elbow, stick your whole fist in your mouth (don’t try that at home, kids), or make your eyes move in opposite directions. Impressive party tricks, to be sure.

  Want to know mine? My one-of-a-kind skill will save me from a living situation guaranteed to induce an early riser in the pants that lasts round-the-clock.

  Here’s my special gift: I’m the king of compartmentalization, and I come equipped with separate drawers for everything. Desires and actions. Lust and feelings. Love and sex. One goes here. The other goes there. And never the two shall meet.

  That’s why when one of my best friends came to me with a solution that would solve a big problem for both of us, I just didn’t see how anything could go off the rails.

  All I’ve got to do is keep my hands off her, my dirty thoughts locked up, and my eyes looking the other way the next time she gets undressed.

  Mere fucking feet away from me.

  I can do this. I can absolutely do this.

  When you’re the virtuoso of resistance, nothing can knock you off your game.

  Not even cohabitating inside six hundred square feet with a woman you’ve wanted for years.

  Until the night I woke up to find her curled up next to me under the covers . . .

  1

  I have a theory that it takes the human brain at least three tries to fully process something when it’s the opposite of what you want to hear.

  Take now.

  I’m on the third attempt.

  Even though I can clearly hear the words the woman on the phone says, I’m sure if I repeat them in the form of a question, she’ll eventually say what I want her to say. “I lost the apartment?” I try again, because soon the bad news she’s serving up will magically morph into something good. Like if a rice cake turned into pizza. Preferably a cheese pie with mushrooms.

  Because there is no fucking way the leasing agent is telling me this.

  “The landlord had a change of heart,” she says once more, and the sweet one-bedroom in Chelsea slips through my fingers.

  I grit my teeth and suck in a breath as I pace outside the emergency room entrance at the hospital. The sidewalk is clogged with other doctors, too, as well as nurses and paramedics, not to mention visitors. I move away from them, walking along the brick exterior during this short break in my day. “But this is the fifth time a place has fallen through,” I say, doing my best to keep my tone even. I don’t have a temper. I don’t get angry. But if I were to, this might be the reason. Because Dante was wrong. Finding an apartment in New York City is the tenth circle of hell. It’s the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, too.

  Consider my luck so far in this impossible quest: the first apartment went bust when the landlord changed her mind. The second time, the place was rented to someone in the family. The third pad had termites. You get my drift.

  “It’s a tough market right now,” Erica, the leasing agent, says. I gotta give her credit. She’s been trying to find me four walls and a floor for more than a month. “I’ll look again to see if there are any new available options.”

  “Thanks. My sublease is up so I’m going to be homeless soon.” I turn around and pace back toward the entrance. Buying a place isn’t an option. I’ve still got medical school debt, and doctors don’t make bank the way they used to. Especially not first-year ER docs.

  She laughs. “I doubt you’ll be homeless. Besides, I’ve told you, the couch at my place has your name on it. Come to think of it, so does the bed, if you know what I mean.”

  I blink. I do know what she means. I just wasn’t expecting to be propositioned by my leasing agent at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday.

  Or a Thursday. Or a Friday. Basically, on any day.

  “Thanks for the offer.” I rein in my surprise because I thought she was married. And not just the regular kind of married, but the happily kind.

  “You let me know, Chase. I make a great ceviche, I’m incredibly neat, and I wouldn’t even charge you a dime. We could work out some other form of payment,” she says with a purr.

  And my leasing agent has now officially requested that I be her boy toy. Fuck. Time to grow a beard. I know I look young for my job, but young enough to be asked to be a sugar boy? I turn to the glass window of the hospital and consider my face. Clean-shaven, hazel eyes, light brown hair, chiseled jaw . . . Damn, I’m quite a specimen. No wonder she propositioned me. Maybe I should take her more seriously.

  Even though I have zero interest in serving as anyone’s sex slave, her offer is borderline tempting because I’m at the end of the line. I’ve scoured Craigslist and everyplace else, but I might as well give a kidney for a one-bedroom—that’d be easier than finding a pad in this city.

  You know all those TV shows where the perky twenty-something advertising assistant nabs a swell apartment with a flower planter, bright purple walls, and a reading nook on the Upper West Side? Or when the wet-behind-the-ears dude with an entry-level post at a magazine lands a swank bachelor pad in Tribeca?

  They lie.

  At this point, I’d give my spleen just for a closet under a staircase. Wait, I take that back. I like my spleen. It’d have to be a closet on the first floor for me to give up an organ, even one I can technically live without.

  “What do you think? You up for it?” Erica asks, in what no doubt is her best sexy-as-sin voice. “Bob said he’s fine with you being here, too.”

  I frown. “Bob?” Immediately, I want to take back the question because I’ve got a sinking feeling Bob could be her vibrator, and I walked right into that one.

  “Bob, my husband,” she says matter-of-factly, and now I wish we were talking about a toy.

  “That’s quite generous of him,” I deadpan. “And please let him know that while I appreciate his magnanimity, a mattress in the locker room just opened up.”

  I turn off my phone and head inside, my quick break over. Sandy, the curly-haired charge nurse, marches up to me, a serious look on her face as she tips her head toward the nearby exam room. But the tiniest twinkle in her gray eyes tells me my newest patient’s situation isn’t dire.

  “Room two. Foreign body stuck in the forehead,” she tells me. That’s my cue to forget about square footage and unconventional living arrangements.

  When I stride into the exam room, I find an angular, blond Aquaman perched on the edge of the hospital bed.

  “I’m Dr. Summers. Nice threads.” I flash a quick smile. Always helps to defuse the situation. And besides, if I reacted to the three-inch shard of glass sticking out of the forehead of the guy in the green costume, they should take my goddamn license away.

  He shoots me a rueful grin as he glances at his getup. The polyester outfit is torn down the right arm and ripped along the thigh.

  “Looks like a fun morning,” I say, eyeing the crystal fragment in his skin. “Let me guess. Your forehead got intimately acquainted with a chandelier?”

  He nods guiltily, the look
in his eyes telling me he wasn’t trying to fly.

  “And let me hazard another guess.” I stroke my chin. “You were trying to spice up your sex life by testing the whole idea of hanging from the chandeliers.”

  He swallows, gives another small nod, then an unsteady yup. “Can you get it out?”

  “That’s what she said,” I say, and he chuckles. I pat his shoulder. “Couldn’t resist, but the answer is yes, and there will only be a small scar. I’m excellent at stitches.”

  He takes a deep breath, and I get to work, numbing his forehead before I remove the glass. We chat as I go, making small talk about his fondness for superheroes, then I tell him the latest of my apartment hunt woes.

  “Manhattan is crazy,” he says. “Even in commercial real estate, it’s all gone through the roof.” Then he adds, almost sheepishly, “Though, I can’t complain since that’s my business.”

  “Smart man. Square footage in this city is like a precious jewel,” I say as I finish work on the stitches.

  Twenty minutes later, I’ve sewn up his forehead, and a nurse returns with the shard in a plastic Biohazard bag. She hands it to me, and I pass it on to the rightful owner.

  “A souvenir of today’s visit to the ER,” I tell the guy, and he takes the bag.

  “Thanks, Doc. The sad thing is we didn’t even get to the main event.”

  “That’s why it’s an urban myth. You can’t really do it while hanging from the chandelier. And hey, next time you’re feeling adventurous, take a cooking class and then go home and use the table for dessert, okay? But make sure it’s a nice, smooth wood because I don’t want to have to remove a three-inch splinter from your gluteus maximus. That’s not as good a war story.”