by Kat Bastion
She hadn’t been caught over the last so many years.
What’s the harm in chancing a few days?
“You are extraordinary.”
Her expression went blank, stunned. Which made me briefly angry, then determined. If no one had ever made her feel special, wanted...loved...I vowed to be the one to change that.
I’m going to show you just how special you are.
And I wanted to do so much more than that. Gone were the rotating borrowed houses—once she agreed to the change, of course. She needed a solid place to call home, somewhere to feel safe, someone to protect her.
She’d already trusted me enough to take care of her last night. And she’d committed to a week. I had more than enough time to convince her to take another risk, commit to something more.
Oh, shit. My heart sank. “Protection!”
She ladled a spoonful of blueberries over her pecan-covered pancake before glancing back up at me. “I can take care of myself.”
“No.” I shook my head, stood from the barstool. “I forgot to use a condom.” Fuck. Shit. Damn. I knew my sex-fogged brain had missed something. A major something.
She came around the kitchen island, wrapped me in her arms, then kissed me softly. “No. You forgot to use a condom. I wanted to feel all of you.”
I searched her eyes, found only sincere emotion there. “Oh.”
And you continue to blow me away.
Her lips twitched into a slight smile. “Was it worth it?”
“Fuck yeah, it was. Best sex of my life.” And more. The best everything kept happening with her. The week ahead? I couldn’t wait.
And yet, something still rattled at the back of my mind. Like I’d forgotten something else.
But then she gave me a sensual kiss again. And every worry fell right out of my head.
Shay…
“Well, shit. That’s what I forgot.” Ben stared at the buzzing phone as he polished off a final bite of his pancakes. It vibrated at the corner of his kitchen island, where he’d tossed it from his back pocket as he’d walked by with me in his arms last night.
Before we’d done amazing things in his bedroom.
Forgot? His phone? Since that didn’t make any sense, because his phone definitely hadn’t been needed, I humored up the convo. “To take your clothes off? To take a shower?”
I couldn’t stop fantasizing about the fiercely sexy man doing both. One...and then, eventually, after we’d gotten him all sweaty and dirty...the other.
“That the rest of my life sucks.”
Okay. Play later. Serious now. His phone buzzed again. “Not Loading Zone, then.”
“No. That’s the best thing about my life...besides you.”
“Ahhh...” The family he’d grumbled about at dinner. “And I helped you forget the rest of it.” Wanting to soothe him, I moved into his space, gave him a hug, then kissed him softly, the way I’d done before—when I’d gotten him to stop thinking and just feel.
He touched his forehead to mine on a sigh. “Yeah, you did.”
“But now life’s calling?”
“Yep.” He stared at the thing when it buzzed a third time.
“Need to answer it?”
“Nope.”
“But you could. What if it’s an emergency?”
He glanced at me, then snatched the phone up and answered it. “What?” His tone was curt.
I busied myself with cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and loading his dishwasher.
After listening with a blank expression, he huffed out a sigh and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Just drinking?”
He gripped the phone harder as he listened. Then he growled low. “Are you hurt?”
A short pause followed.
“Him?” he gritted out.
I closed the dishwasher and began wiping down the counter.
He turned around, facing away from me, and raked a hand through his hair. “Do you need me to come over?”
“Then, he’ll be fine.”
“No.” He stalked into his living room. “I won’t. Go back to your room. Lock yourself in.”
He paced back toward the kitchen. “If he tries to break into the room, or you smell smoke, do what everyone else does. Call 9-1-1.”
His thumb punched the phone to end the call before he tossed it back onto the counter.
I stared at him. “That sounded brutal.”
“Me or her?”
“The situation. Your mom?”
“None other. Same shit, different day.” His expression darkened as he crossed his arms.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to get into it. Not on our day.”
“Your day.” And I wanted to give the strong man I’d come to care about what he needed to enjoy it. “Two minutes. Vent it and forget it.” I stepped up to him, pressed myself against his closed arms.
He opened them up and wrapped them around me. “You do have a way of making me forget...”
“So...” I turned slightly and grabbed his wrist, tracked the second hand on his watch, then pointed at him. “go.”
He gave me an amused look, then he took a sobering breath. “She said he was shouting, throwing things. Then he yanked down one of his bookcases that had doors. Glass shattered everywhere.”
His hands rubbed up my back, as if he tried to comfort who he could in the awful situation. “Shouting meant at her. She bears emotional scars from him from years of abuse. Abuse she chose to stay around for. Again and again.”
“Are they both okay?”
He tightened his hold on me, rested his chin on my head. “Her voice sounded small, broken. But I’ve run out of rope with him. He can hang himself with it for all I care. Unfortunately, she cares, whether or not I do.”
A long pause followed. I waited, patient.
“He accidently cut himself.” His arms tightened for a split second, betraying the pure animosity he felt. “Has a fucking bloody white dress shirt wrapped around his hand. But he won’t die of his injuries; asshole doesn’t have the common decency to put the rest of the world out of their misery,” he muttered.
The force of his tone had begun to fade, so I sensed he didn’t really mean that. His loathing toward his father didn’t reach the same depth as mine. Close, but not quite.
“She asked you to come over?”
“Yeah.” He eased back a little and stared down at me. “But she never listens to me when I do. She doesn’t have the courage to leave that son of a bitch, but she has no problem dragging my ass across town to play rescuer. Didn’t listen to me for two weeks while I stayed there playing mediator.”
I understood the whole family-not-listening thing. You’re standing there screaming, but nothing you say is heard, because you don’t really matter—not to them. “What if it gets worse?”
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance it will, and she knows it. But she needs to stand up for herself and live the life she’s chosen, so that I can live mine.”
“You have to be the one to cut it off.” My voice broke along with my heart, aching for all he’d suffered through, everything he’d lost. And it brought back all the messed-up shit I’d endured, had run away from, with my parents.
“Yep.” He let out a relieved sigh and glanced at his watch. “Time’s up.”
Then he dropped his face into the crook of my shoulder and began to kiss a trail up my neck.
I held him tight and shivered at the instant effect his sensual touch had on me. But with a smile, I broke our embrace and pointed down the hallway. “Shower. Ten minutes.”
He tugged at a belt loop of my jeans. “You sure no shower today?”
“Solo.” I shot him a stern look, turned his shoulders, and gave him a shove. “Nine minutes, fifty seconds.”
He glanced over his shoulder with an arched brow. “You gonna snoop while I’m gone?”
“It’s not snooping if you know about it.”
I passed the time by first using his formal guest bathroom. T
hen I wandered through his bedroom and living room, riffled through things he’d stowed away in drawers and noticed the stark absence of everything he hadn’t. No personal pictures hung on the walls. No mementos sat on any shelves. The expansive floors were bare tinted concrete. Not one of the giant windows had any kind of covering.
He returned as I fastened the second shoelace on my Converse. He tapped his watch. “Seventy-three seconds to spare.”
I reclined back onto his stiff black sectional. “Impressive. But I’ve taken faster. Nothing to it. Soap. Rinse. Dry.”
He fought a smile at my sarcasm.
Yep. You might have rocked my world last night, but you still needed to earn the rest of me.
“Well, what do you think?” He swept his gaze around the room, then scraped his keys up from a metal bowl on a skinny table by the door. The bowl wobbled with tinny clank that reverberated off all the hard surfaces around us.
I stood and held my arms out wide, palms up. “It’s...echo-y?”
“Yeah.” He crossed his arms and shrugged. “Doesn’t really fit me.”
Good you recognize that.
Last night, we had crossed a cold marble lobby, gone up a bank of gleaming elevators, then walked down a hall paved with fossilized limestone tiles that had continued halfway up the walls where they were capped with matching round trim pieces. After the easygoing warmth of National Geographic’s house and the clunky-yet-charming vibe of Ben’s ancient truck, Ben’s condo and its building felt like a barren arctic landscape.
Not even close to resembling the dryly funny and passionate man I’d begun to know. “Like the Escalade didn’t fit?”
“Yeah. Guess I’m going through an identity crisis.”
“Hey, we all stumble around in the dark until we find what works for us, somewhere we can relax.” God knows I’d been doing it long enough. I still hadn’t settled on a place to make mine in every way. But that didn’t stop me from searching, from wanting. And even though he’d broken away from his family, maybe he still struggled to define who he was. “Do you own it?”
I walked toward him and passed his kitchen, where white marble with sparkling gray veins capped blond cabinetry. A set of knives clung to a metal bar that stretched in the middle of gleaming white subway tiles. On the other side of a stainless steel cooktop stood a Cuisinart food processor that had been so pristine that morning, my pancakes had to have been its debut task.
Ben moved beside me. “Yes, it’s mine.” The heat of his presence drew close, but didn’t crowd.
And suddenly it didn’t matter what kind of place he lived in; home was never about walls or the objects inside them. Home was the people we let into our hearts. And up until a couple of weeks ago, that hadn’t existed for me. Not all the way, not deep. I turned into his open arms and stared up at him. Not like now. Not until you.
“But I’ve got the place on the market.” A defensive tone edged his unnecessary explanation. And he searched my eyes, like it mattered to him, what I thought of his place. As if my judgment of where he stayed flowed through to the man I held in my arms.
“It doesn’t matter. Not to me.” I kissed him softly. “I know who you are.”
You’re someone just like me. Searching, wanting.
Minutes later, we stepped out into a gloomy overcast day and began strolling down the sidewalk. A heavy mineral scent tanged the air. But everything seemed bright and fresh to me.
Ben slipped a hand into mine, entwining our fingers together. “Any thoughts on what you want to do today?”
I shook my head. “Today’s your day.” He made quite clear Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday were his.
“And I’m gifting it to you. No lawbreaking.” He gave me a pointed look. “But is there something you’d want to do with a boyfriend?”
My feet planted solid so hard and fast, our arms stretched wide until he jolted to a stop. And I had to take deep breaths to catch up to my thundering heart.
Why the sudden paralysis?
It wasn’t like he was trying to trap me or make me do anything I didn’t want to. He hadn’t slapped on a constricting label of ownership or expectation. At least, it hadn’t seemed that way. It sounded like he’d extended an offer.
“Is that what you are? My boyfriend? I’ve never had one before.” Not even close.
His expression softened. “If you want me to be,” he murmured, tone elevating with hope. He gave no indication that he cared about me being new at the whole trust thing—no judgment at all.
“Yeah.” I squeezed his hand. “I’d like that.”
What could it hurt? In fact, he’d insisted I try on a coat of legitimacy. Why not give a relationship a go?
Somehow, my feet began moving again. We strolled down the middle of the sidewalk, hand in hand, a first for me. The entire day even promised to hold a record-breaking amount of firsts. And I felt reborn, embracing my first Monday, the only one that counted as far as I was concerned.
Thinking back to his activity question, I shrugged. “I dunno. What do normal people do on Monday?”
“You are not normal. Don’t think of what we have to do. We do what you want to do.”
The whole not being normal thing stung a bit. All I’d ever wanted was to be normal, part of a family. From the very moment that intimate connection had been ripped away, the loss had been devastating and ever-present.
“What do most people do?”
He snorted. “On Monday? Work.”
“Oh. Work.” With all the goofing off we’d been doing, and when we’d been debating and he’d challenged us to our week, it hadn’t dawned on me that we’d be ditching real life 24/7. “You don’t have to work? We don’t?” I knew we had the tournament Saturday—him playing, me bartending—but I hadn’t considered the rest of our days.
“No. I texted Gabe last night. Rafe and Cade are both cool to help out one more week.”
His expression darkened for a split second, and I wondered if he’d been reminded of his absence in the weeks prior to my starting at Loading Zone...and his earlier family phone call.
But I didn’t mention anything.
You don’t want him to know your secrets. Don’t be digging up his.
The subject got changed the moment he hopped off the curb and tugged me into the street at a break in traffic, within the safe parallel lines of a crosswalk. Once we hit the other side and leapt onto the sidewalk, he cocked his head, narrowed his eyes, and stared down toward the Arts District. We stood at the threshold of the quaint business village where colorful awnings flaunted boutique shops, antique bistros beckoned patio diners, and cobblestone paths led the way.
He glanced back at me. “How ’bout I make it multiple-choice?”
“Great by me. Because I’ve no idea.” Not that it mattered. Because all I wanted to do, the only place I wanted to be, was with him, even if all we did was people-watch. Which is what I typically did during my afternoons: observe all the normal people and imagine who they went home to at the end of their days, once school let out, after the workday ended.
Instead, on my first Monday, I’d become one of the normal ones.
He arched his brows and gave a slight shrug. “We can do tourist stuff: museums, historical sites, beer-tasting pub crawl. Or we could be chill and go native: hang at a park, see a movie, grab a bite to eat.”
“You could eat?” I rubbed my full belly with my hand, remembering the plate loaded with pancakes. “I’m stuffed.”
“Two words I never thought would come out of your mouth.”
“Never will again. I overate. I woke up starving after you exhausted me.”
Heat sparkled in his gaze. “Prepare to eat those words. With plenty more food. Because I plan to exhaust you again. And often.”
I drew in a deep breath as he stared at me. My lips twitched into a smile while I thought about what he’d suggested, what I wanted...
“Maybe dessert,” he murmured at the exact moment the same idea hit me.
Only hi
s thought came heavy with innuendo.
Mine went there for only a split second until...
“Like ice cream!” I exclaimed loud enough for couples across the street to hear. Dessert real families ate, one I hadn’t splurged on since I’d left mine. But with Ben, I felt brave enough to rewrite the experience. “Maybe in a little while, though. Have to make room.”
He stared at me, a mixture of humor and amazement in his gaze as his lips curved into a smile.
Without waiting to hear some witty comeback, I tugged him on down the cobblestone walkway, into the Arts District. “There is a movie I’ve wanted to see, but it’s no longer in theaters.”
He lifted my hand and pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles. “Why don’t we see whatever’s playing at the theater, then we’ll go back to my place and rent your movie. We’ll do a double feature.”
Perfect. I loved the idea of just hanging with him all afternoon.
“So, just go to the movies and randomly pick from what’s playing?” I’d walked past theaters many times before and stared at the movie posters. But I had no idea people blindly chose from a poster alone.
“Yep. Even normal people—law-abiding folks and all—can be wild and crazy.”
I gave him a light shove, rolling my eyes. “Go ahead, take my breath away, Mr. Tightrope Walker.”
He arched a brow at me. “It’s called being spontaneous.”
“Sounds like my whole life.” See an opportunity? Take it.
A few blocks into the Arts District, we ended up at the six-screen neighborhood cinema.
We quietly scanned the handful of movie posters. After a full minute of silence, I crossed my arms and glanced at him. “How do you know the movie will be any good?”
“We don’t. Luck of the draw, roll of the dice. We either like it or we don’t. It’ll be dark, and if we aren’t interested in the movie, there are lots of other things we can do that normal people do in movie theaters.”
“Oh?” My curiosity sparked with his nonchalant tone. “Like what?” Like he promised we could be illicit, naughty. But isn’t that illegal? Indecent...or...lewd something or other?
“Pick a horrible movie and find out.”
Well, hell. Now I don’t know what to pick. He made a horrible movie sound scandalous.