by Lily Maxton
“I heard David is thinking about retiring,” I commented to Lucy, who sat on my left side nursing some kind of fruity cocktail that had a lime wedge neatly arranged on the rim.
“I heard that too.” She smiled at me. “Maybe I’m jumping the gun, but I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed.”
“You’d be great,” I said. “Do you know who else might be up for the promotion?”
“Tom has the most seniority. He would probably be my main competition.”
“Can we pass around a petition?” I asked lightly. “I’d sign for you.”
“If only,” she said.
Someone slid into the seat next to me. I glanced over, ready to turn back to Lucy, but then I did a double take. I recognized the profile, the broad shoulders, and the dark hair. My heart did a nauseating flop. “Hi, Drew.”
“Hey. Can we talk?”
I stared down at a groove in the bar top … it looked like someone had taken a knife and etched the wood for the hell of it.
I heard rustling beside me—Lucy gathering up her purse. “I was going to take off. Are you staying?” she asked quietly, leaning down as she stood. Her gaze strayed to Drew.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Have you thought about what I said?” Drew asked, once Lucy was out of earshot.
“I’ve thought about it.” Although, I had to admit, it had taken a backseat to what had happened between Evan and me … in a backseat.
“You’re not dating that guy are you?”
I started. Could he read my mind too? “No …” My mouth went dry. “But we … we might have … had sex,” I said in a small voice.
Drew didn’t move. When he spoke his voice strained. “We’ve only been apart for a month.”
I gawked at him. “Are you telling me you haven’t been with anyone else?”
His jaw clenched, and he didn’t answer.
“What kind of double standard is that? I’m supposed to mope around for an appropriate amount of time while you can do whatever you want?”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just … since I saw you with him—”
“Wait.” I held my hand up, battling a flash of annoyance. “Are you telling me the only reason you want to get back together is because you’re jealous?”
“It’s not the only reason,” he hedged.
I turned in my bar stool, so I could face him straight on. “Why did you break up with me?”
“I told you, things weren’t the same. We’d drifted apart, and I don’t think either of us were having fun anymore.”
“And how would getting back together change any of that?”
He propped his elbows on the bar, pressing his hands to make one large knot. His knuckles turned white from the strain. “I don’t know. I went on a date with this woman I met. She had this little handheld mirror—I think she checked it about ten times. And all she wanted to talk about was herself.”
“So it wasn’t a good date, then?”
“Not really.”
My forehead wrinkled as I studied him, as I surveyed the face that had been so familiar, so close to me. The dark hair and wide nose and broad shoulders. Had my pulse ever quickened when I thought of seeing him? Had I ever missed him with a nearly tangible ache when we’d been apart for a few days? Or had we always been friends trying to pretend we were more?
“I miss you too,” I said after a moment. “But not in the way that I should.” I rested my elbow against the countertop and leaned toward him. “You’re trying to convince yourself of something that won’t happen.”
“What does that mean?”
I waved my arm helplessly to encompass the two of us. “You and I being right for each other.”
“You don’t think we are?”
I shook my head. “You didn’t think so either. Or you didn’t feel it, at least, or you wouldn’t have broken up with me.”
He stared at me. “What if I made a mistake?” he said softly.
And I heard something that I recognized too well—fear. I could sense what Drew was going through. He’d made a decision to end things, but now he had a knee-jerk reaction to go back to what was familiar. He was trying to jam puzzle pieces together that didn’t fit because it was easier than searching for the right ones.
I knew the compulsion. And I could see him more clearly, now that we’d been separated. We had more similarities than just the superficial, but they weren’t good ones.
And still, even realizing all this, I might have been tempted to fall back into the same old pattern. I might have been tempted to go back to what was familiar.
But I was selfish. I’d tasted honey when all I’d had beforehand was plain bread, sexually speaking.
I knew if I got back together with Drew, I would lie underneath him and move underneath him and pretend he was someone else. To his face, I would pretend I didn’t want someone else. But I would look back at ten minutes in the backseat of a car with a little too much longing.
“I don’t think you would be here right now,” I said slowly, “if your date had gone better and you hadn’t seen me with Evan.”
“That’s not true,” he said, shaking his head.
But I noticed, and maybe he noticed too, he didn’t sound quite as emphatic as before.
I reached for his hand, untangled it from his other hand and clasped it gently on top of the counter. How many times had I felt his fingers around mine? It was a comforting sensation, if only because I was used to it. “We should just be friends,” I said. I wondered if I should have given him that answer a year ago, but it was too late now.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “You’ll find someone who’s perfect for you.” Someone who can love you, I added silently. Someone who isn’t me.
He sighed. And then his hand tightened around mine before sliding away. “Okay, friends it is. Well, as long as we’re sitting at a bar and being friendly, can I buy you a drink?”
I shrugged. “Sure; if it’s a Coke.”
He eyed my glass and then gave me a half smile. “Some things don’t change.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmph.” I tapped my fingers on the counter. “Okay, tell me more about your horrible date so I can make fun of you.”
Chapter Twelve
Hot water cascaded down my back. Steam rose from the shower, bringing with it the scent of citrus body wash. I let my head fall forward, against the damp wall, and closed my eyes.
The moment I did, images and sensations bombarded me.
Just like they’d bombarded me throughout the past two days.
I would be doing something innocuous—drinking a cup of tea, or talking to someone at work, or rummaging through the kitchen cupboards—and then I was in the car again, and Evan was kissing me like it was the last time he’d ever get the chance while he stroked inside me, and my thighs would press together, my teeth denting the inside of my mouth to the point of pain.
I let my hand trail down my saturated skin from the indent of my naval to the apex of my thighs. My fingers tried to mimic what Evan’s had done; I tried to imagine they were his. That he’d drawn back the shower curtain and stepped in behind me, my soaking back to his front.
It wasn’t even close.
It sort of reminded me of eating school lunches—looking down at my hamburger, wondering what the heck it was. My own touch, while it worked in a basic sort of sense, was depressing imitation meat.
My hand found the faucet through the steam, shutting down the flow of water. And as I rubbed myself down with a towel, I decided a text was in order.
*
The taxi drove through a residential area with a park square. I’d decided to splurge a little on taxi fare instead of taking a train or bus so I could get to Evan’s before I chickened out. I watched children swing from monkey bars and run to the top of slides, bundled in coats, as their parents looked on. The houses were mostly two-story, surround
ed by quaint small yards with efficient landscaping—symmetric windows looked out from expensive brick facades.
The car pulled to the curb in front of a colonial-style house with blue shutters and a mahogany-colored door with an arched fanlight. Behind the house the sky was bright blue with wisps of white. It faced east, the sun reflecting off large upper-floor windows.
I paid the driver. “Can you wait here until I’m let in?” I asked, wondering if Evan had sent me the wrong address. It looked like the kind of place a middle-class family of four would live in.
“Sure thing.”
I trudged up a smoothly paved driveway and hesitated before I gritted my teeth and punched the bell. I heard the ding inside the house.
A few seconds later, the door swung open.
My mouth went dry.
Evan stood there, with nothing on but a pair of jeans that rode low on his hips. His hair was damp. His chest narrowed to a slim waist, and a trail of fine dark hair started below his bellybutton, disappearing beneath his jeans. He had a nice lean form with lightly contoured arms and a flat stomach. My question to whether Evan worked out or not had been answered—I was pretty sure he had to work out at least semi-regularly.
By this time, I might have been standing there for thirty seconds without saying a word.
“You can come in,” he said.
I glared at him and swept past. I came to a halt at the edge of a spacious living room with hardwood floors and a picture window facing the backyard. A matching furniture set filled the middle of the room, a beige sofa and two recliners, turned toward a flat-screen TV that was at least forty inches across. “Do you live with your parents?”
“No.”
I glanced back at him. “You own this?”
“I was engaged a couple of years back,” he said, walking past me. “I bought the house thinking we’d have a family here, and when we broke things off it seemed easier to stay than sell it and move all my stuff again.”
I followed him into the kitchen, dumbfounded. He talked about it like being engaged was an everyday occurrence. My mind was a sieve, questions appearing and then getting lost as others shoved them aside—who was she, why did it end, had he loved her, did they still keep in touch, did the house remind him of her? My stomach felt tight, knotted.
“Why exactly did you want to come over?” he asked curtly, opening the stainless steel fridge and pulling out a carton of eggs. “Aren’t you back together with your boyfriend?”
“No,” I said, startled.
He turned with the eggs in hand and looked at me. “You’re not?” He sounded surprised.
“No! Why would you think that?”
“Natalie told me she saw you holding hands with some guy at Sadie’s.”
My eyes narrowed on him. “You sent the robot to spy on me?”
“The robot?”
“Never mind. Answer the question.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“Of course I didn’t send her to spy on you. She was there and she texted me, asking if I knew you had a boyfriend.”
“I’ll bet she did,” I said angrily. “That’s really cozy, you and Natalie texting each other about every little thing.”
“We don’t text each other,” he corrected. “She texts me.”
“And you respond?”
He held up his hands as though surrendering. “Sometimes. I feel kind of bad for her. What am I supposed to do, pretend she doesn’t exist?”
Yes, I wanted to say. But I had no right to make those kinds of demands. “Why does she have your phone number in the first place?”
“When she first started working at SLQ she asked me for it in case she needed help getting everything set up. I didn’t think she’d keep using it after that.”
“Sure, because having an attractive woman chasing you around is such a hardship,” I said.
“You’re exaggerating. And I’d rather know who the guy at the bar was.”
I straightened. “It was my ex,” I admitted. “But we’ve decided to be friends.”
“Really? Is it normal to hold hands with your friends?”
I stared at him for a few seconds. This wasn’t how I’d pictured this meeting. It was supposed to be easy; we weren’t supposed to fight about what might or might not have happened on Friday night. We weren’t even a couple—what in the hell were we fighting about?
I spun around and started for the front door. “This was a mistake.”
He moved around me with surprising quickness and blocked my path. “What’s a mistake?” he asked. And then, more softly, “Why are you here?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. And then shook my head.
He lifted the eggs that were still clutched in his hand. “How about breakfast? Have you eaten yet?”
I shook my head again.
“I make awesome scrambled eggs … and not much else,” he admitted with a grin. “You don’t want to miss my culinary skills at their height, do you?”
I pinched my lips together, but I knew I would give in. I reluctantly headed back to the kitchen, wandering over to an island in the middle that had a rack for hanging pots and pans over it. I pulled out one of the stools and sat down.
He grabbed one of the frying pans over my head, giving me a broad view of his torso. Was he planning to put a shirt on in the next century? And did he have to look so sexy without it?
I rested my chin in my hand and pretended not to notice. But then an image flashed through my mind of Evan joking with his fiancée as they made breakfast together in the kitchen. “Living here isn’t difficult?” I asked around a suddenly thick tongue.
“Difficult?”
“You’re not reminded of your fiancée?”
“Not really,” he said, stepping to the stove. “We broke up a few weeks after I bought it. I don’t have very many memories of her being here.”
“Oh.” There were a lot of other questions I wanted to ask, but if he was still in love with her, or if he was still friends with her, or if she was someone I knew from SLQ … well, it seemed better not to know. “Where’s my favorite German shepherd?” I asked instead.
He laughed. “Vader’s out back. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to become reacquainted.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“So, are you going to tell me what you wanted to talk about?”
I watched him crack eggs over the skillet and listened to them sizzle. Observing Evan, shirtless and confident and making breakfast, was a lot more intriguing than I would’ve imagined. I wanted to reach out and trace every line of muscle, feel the texture of his stomach underneath my fingertips.
Heat swept me. And in that instant, I knew I wouldn’t leave without saying what I’d come here to say.
“Can I have something to drink?” I needed something to do with my hands.
“I don’t have any tea,” he said, apologetically. “I can make coffee,” he said. “Or you can help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.”
I ended up grabbing the first thing I saw from the stainless steel refrigerator—a bottle of water. The cool bottle felt good against my palms, which were suddenly overheated. I moved closer to Evan.
“I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple of days,” I said, watching him stir the eggs as their translucency gradually turned opaque. “You’re right about me.” I felt his eyes on me—I kept my gaze on his hands. “I don’t like taking risks. I like being safe—I need to be safe. I would prefer being bored to being out of my comfort zone. I can’t give you a real relationship because I’m not ready to risk myself in that way. With anyone. I might not ever be ready.” I paused, swallowed. “But after what happened … I want you.”
The silence hurt my ears. He turned the stove off and removed the eggs. And didn’t say a word. “Unless …” My heart was suddenly thrashing, a new fear sweeping me. “Unless you don’t feel the same.”
Oh God. Just because I’d spent the last few days in a lust-filled haze didn’t mean he had. Maybe I hadn�
�t been up to par. Maybe he was still pining after his ex-fiancée and I’d been a temporary diversion.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You don’t want a relationship with me—the give and take, the investment, revealing our deepest selves, commitment, plans, etcetera. You want sex?”
“Basically.”
“So this is a booty call?”
My eyes arrowed to his face; one of his cheeks was hollowed, like he was biting down on the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing. “Yes,” I snapped. “Although you’re quickly changing my mind.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s the situation.”
“What? Women can’t want meaningless sex, too?”
“I guess they can. I guess I should be flattered.”
“You don’t sound flattered.”
He turned from me, opening one of the overhead cupboards and bringing out two plates. “It’s not that I’m not flattered. I’m beyond tempted to say yes.”
“You sound like you’re going to say no,” I whispered, regretting my decision to come here.
“Oh, I’m going to say yes,” he corrected. “When the woman I have a crazy hard-on for shows up at my doorstep, I’m not going to turn her away. But it’s probably a mistake.”
“No, it’s not,” I jumped in. “We’ll keep things casual. We can see other people; we don’t have to answer to one another. We’ll just have really good sex until it’s not so good anymore, and then we can end our association amicably. It will be fun—a mutually beneficial relationship.”
“Fun,” he repeated. He carried the plates to the island. I followed, sitting down again. I was hungrier than I’d realized—I ate a few bites before he spoke; the eggs were delicious—fluffy and lightly salted. “Some things sound better in theory than they are in reality,” he pointed out.
I lowered my fork. “If you don’t want me any more just say it.”
He sighed. “I want you. Enough to go ahead with this. But your first booty call will have to wait.”
My heart and stomach reversed places. “Why?”
“I have plans. I’ll probably be back in the evening.”
“Oh … ” I was silent for a moment. “What are your plans?”
He arched his eyebrow, a little too smoothly. “Didn’t you just say we wouldn’t have to answer to each other?”