Take Your Time (A Boston Love Story Book 4)

by Julie Johnson

  "I had to leave my phone behind,” Phoebe insists. “Seriously, you try living with a man like Nate. Given half a chance, he'd have already triangulated my cell signal and sent a SWAT team in to retrieve us. Especially if he knew we ended up at a strip club."

  "Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I'm guessing Nate has ways of tracking you down with or without your cellphone." I tilt my head in contemplation. "He's the best private investigator in the city."

  "Didn't he once put a tracking device in your necklace?" Chrissy eyes the massive rock on Phoebe's left finger. "You don't think..."

  Phoebe's face blanches. Uncoordinated from the alcohol in her system, she jerks her hand up to her face so fast it bonks her straight in the nose. "Ow!" She blinks her watering eyes at the engagement ring. "No… that's pure diamond. Trust me, if there's one thing I know, it's Tiffany & Co."

  Shelby laughs. "Great. Maybe you can take a look at my old ring, let me know how much it's worth."

  "So..." My voice trails off. "The divorce is final, then?"

  Shelby shrugs. "Not quite. Paul has been putting up a surprising amount of resistance. But hopefully within the next few weeks my lawyers will be able to work their magic…”

  "Have you seen him?" Chrissy asks, studying her friend.

  Shelby shakes her head, eyes darkening with unreadable thoughts. "You know what? Let's not talk about my failed marriage while we're out celebrating Phoebe's impending one. No need to tempt the universe."

  We all stare at her for a beat, wanting to ask for more details but afraid to push. When it comes to Paul, Shelby has always been notoriously close-mouthed. In the year I've known her, I've only met her (soon-to-be-ex) husband once, in passing, and we traded no more than the most basic of greetings before he got called away for work.

  "Right, so..." Deciding a change of subject is in order, I seize my shot glass and hoist it into the air. I’m never one for big shows of emotion, but I figure my best friend’s bachelorette party warrants an exception. "A toast!"

  Chrissy, Shelby, and Phoebe raise their tequila. Gemma raises her water in solidarity.

  "To Phoebe," I say solemnly. "The most loveable, psycho, wonderful, batshit crazy bridezilla who ever walked the streets of Boston. I'm so happy someone is finally making an honest woman of her because, honestly, her dog Boo really needs a solid male figure in his life—”

  Phoebe tosses another ice cube at me; this time, it hits me square in the forehead before I can dodge, which makes the entire table — myself included — dissolve into drunken laughter.

  "Okay, okay, in all seriousness..." I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts. “Phoebe, you've been my best friend for as long as I can remember. I don't have a childhood memory without you in it. You've been there for all the bad hair days and awful fashion phases and terribly embarrassing life decisions I'd rather not recall at this precise moment in time—”

  "Like when you dated Kevin Halliwell because you had it on good authority that his older brother was the drummer in that band and you thought you could score us free tickets but it turned out he was just a roadie who hauled their stuff around—”

  I grit my teeth. "Like I said, embarrassing life decisions I'd rather not recall—”

  "Oh!" Phoebe claps. "Or that time you got pulled over by that cop while we were driving home from that gallery opening and you tried to flirt your way out of a ticket, not realizing you had that giant gob of spinach stuck between your front teeth the whole time—”

  "Well, that wasn't really what I meant when I said—”

  "And what about that time you forgot to reschedule your Brazilian wax before that OBGYN appointment with the cute doctor and—”

  "PHOEBE!" I yell, cutting her off and resolutely ignoring the twitching lips of Chrissy, Shelby, and Gemma. "Do you want to make your own toast? Or would you rather continue listing every embarrassing moment of mine you've ever witnessed?"

  "Nope." My best friend grins. "You can finish, now."

  I sigh deeply and hoist my shot glass higher in the air. "Like I was saying... You, Phoebe Evangeline West, have been there through it all. You know all my secrets. You're my best friend. You're my partner in crime. You're practically my sister—” My voice breaks on the word, but I ignore the pang of pain that shoots through my heart and push on. "And, while I hate to lose you to anyone, I know there's no man on earth who will love you better or keep you safer than Nathanial Knox. Knowing that you're marrying a man like him... it's the only consolation to losing my best friend." My voice cracks. "I wish you both a life full of laughter, love, and more joy than you can measure. And I hope you know, no matter what, I'll always be here if you need me, whether it’s to drive your getaway car, shape your eyebrows, help hide a dead body, or straighten that hard-to-reach section of hair at the back of your head.”

  Phoebe laughs through her sniffles.

  My throat feels uncomfortably tight; I clear it roughly and carry on. “Like we swore when we were eight years old, when we pricked our fingers with a pin from my mom's sewing kit and squished them together on the beach behind your house... Team Phee-Lilah for life!”

  Misty-eyed, Phoebe reaches across the table and grabs my hand. She doesn't say anything, but she squeezes so hard my bones grind together.

  "Don't cry, you great sap." I scoff, looking around at our other friends, who are similarly weepy. "You'll set them all off."

  "I'm not crying!" Phoebe lies, wiping a rogue tear. "There's an eyelash... on my cornea..."

  I glance at Gemma and find her bottom lip is quivering dangerously as her eyes move back and forth between Phoebe and me.

  "My contacts are dry,” she grumbles in a thick voice, brushing at her cheeks.

  "You don't wear contacts," I point out.

  Another glance around the table reveals Chrissy dabbing her face with a cocktail napkin and Shelby staring up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.

  Christ.

  "You're all saps," I mutter, throwing back my shot, then downing Phoebe's for good measure.

  In retrospect, I really should've stopped after one. I should’ve listened to Gemma, and quit while I was ahead. I should've remembered that I had to be at work in a handful of hours — my first day at a new job, no less — and that drinking any more would lead to nothing good.

  I really should've.

  But I didn't.

  After my toast, let’s just say… things started to get a little blurry.

  I have vague memories of the dance floor — me and the girls, flashing pink and red lights, a cover band belting out songs that haven’t been on the radio for at least a decade until the bar closed and the bouncers kicked us to the curb.

  I possess an indistinct recollection of our 3AM limo ride — standing in the sunroof with Phoebe at my side, our arms thrown up to the night sky, screaming at the top of our lungs as Evan steered the hummer toward Phoebe’s brownstone in Back Bay. Dropping off Chrissy, Gemma, and Shelby along the way. Stumbling through Phoebe’s front door, a tangle of flailing limbs and muffled laugher. Her tiny white Pomeranian, Boo, running circles around our high-heeled feet. Phoebe pulling me into the kitchen, toward the distinct sound of male voices…

  And then… nothing.

  Nada.

  Zip.

  Zero.

  Zilch.

  There is one big, embarrassing blank space where my memories should be.

  In case you’ve been keeping score…

  Tequila: 1

  Lila: 0

  From the fuzzy puzzle pieces I’ve spent the day attempting to piece together in my mind, at some point I must’ve passed out on Phoebe’s couch, because the next thing I can recall is her dark living room spinning around me like a hallway full of fun house mirrors as my body was lifted effortlessly into a set of arms that felt like they were made of iron.

  Other than that, all I have are imprints, echoes of memories just out of my reach. It’s like catching a glimpse of someone from the corner of your eye who disappears as so
on as you turn your head to look; like a camera that refuses to focus, leaving the whole world a blur of indistinct shapes.

  The faint scent of aftershave.

  The jangling of car keys.

  The steady thumping of a heartbeat just beneath my ear, where it rested against the fabric of a black t-shirt.

  The deep, familiar voice cutting through the haze of tequila.

  I’ll take her home. Put her to bed. Make sure she’s safe.

  I tell myself that, if I’d been only slightly more sober, I would’ve put up a fight. Would’ve insisted on hopping in a cab, or crashing at Phoebe’s place. After all, Delilah James Sinclair doesn’t depend on anybody. She doesn’t need a knight in shining armor — hell, she doesn’t even believe they exist anyplace outside of fairy tales.

  I tell myself this in the hopes that, if I say it enough, maybe it’ll become true. Maybe I’ll be able to stop wishing I could remember how his phone number wound up on my hand… or wondering why I can’t forget the feeling of those strong arms around me, holding me close. Maybe I won’t care whether that strange sensation of lips brushing lightly against my forehead as I was tucked into my bed like a child was real or a figment of my drunken imagination.

  Maybe.

  I can’t say for sure.

  All I can say with certainty is, the first time I laid eyes on Luca Buchanan, I knew he was trouble — and my opinion hasn’t changed in all the months since. This is at least in part because the man is seriously scary — cut like a Spartan warrior, with insane blue eyes I swear can see straight through you, a short crop of auburn hair, and a fuck-off attitude from years spent kicking ass in fighting circuits all across New England. At six foot four, he usually towers over everyone in the room and glowers at anyone who glances in his direction looking for trouble. He’s not someone you mess with, if you want to walk away with four functioning limbs.

  Still, all that wouldn’t be so bad…

  If not for the other thing.

  The truly troubling, absolutely awful thing.

  The thing I have a hard time admitting, even to myself.

  Which is the unfortunate fact that… in my twenty-five years of life on planet earth, I’ve never seen anyone as attractive… as unforgettable… as magnetically, electrifyingly, earth-shatteringly hot as “Blaze” Buchanan.

  Ever.

  And yes, that includes the time I saw Jake Gyllenhaal on a plane at LAX when I was seventeen, and the all-too-brief encounter I had with Danny Amendola at Gillette Stadium last fall, and even the time I bumped into Ian Somerhalder in line for the bathrooms at Bonaroo. One look at Luca was all it took to forget about Jake’s green eyes and Danny’s sexy scruff and Ian’s unparalleled jawline.

  It happened just before Christmas.

  My fling-of-the-week had told me about an underground fight at a local gym — totally off-the-books, the kind of match they don’t broadcast on pay-per-view, the kind you’d never even know where to find without a tip-off from one of the organizers, since the locations vary for every fight.

  Craving a change of pace from our usual cocktail chatter, I dragged Phoebe and the rest of the girls along with me.

  Just for fun.

  Nothing special.

  Certainly nothing life-altering.

  I remember the moment so clearly. We were all laughing, placing bets, joking around, making fun of each other, much like any other night of the week… and then he strode into the ring. That’s really the only word I can use, because Luca doesn’t walk, but he doesn’t swagger, either. He strides — not with excessive drama or flair; with determination and an undeniable air of self-assuredness.

  He cut through that crowd like fire through paper, and when he jumped up into the ring, his fans roared so loud they drowned out the familiar strains of Shipping Up To Boston by the Dropkick Murphys blaring from the speakers overhead. I didn’t pay any attention to the fangirls pressed up at the front in their too-tight t-shirts, dying for his attention. I barely glanced at my friends as they cooed appreciatively at the sight of him.

  The laughter died in my throat.

  The thoughts in my head went silent.

  The sounds of the crowd fell away completely.

  For the next hour, I stood transfixed. All my attention was used up by the man with ruthlessly short red-gold hair, throwing punches and ducking his opponent’s blows like he’d been born to do it. Every ounce of my energy was inexplicably coiled like a live wire beneath the surface of my skin as I watched this stranger, this man with whom I’d never exchanged a single word, dole out a beating with a level of skill I didn’t even know was possible.

  I’m sure some people looking at him saw a savage. A monster.

  But me? I saw sheer beauty in that ring. In every bead of sweat, every lethal scowl, every drop of blood that oozed from his cracked knuckles by the final round, when his foe lay in a defeated heap of bruised limbs at his bare feet…

  He was beautiful.

  I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but when he looked up at the crowd, scanning the crush of cheering fans pressing in from all sides… somehow his eyes found mine in the melee. Ice blue, but full of fire, fury, and bloodlust, they scored into me like a sword. A kill strike.

  He could’ve looked away… but he didn’t.

  I should’ve looked away… but I couldn’t.

  For a long, insane moment, through the din, through the sea of a hundred strangers… our gazes locked. And held. And burned.

  Those blue eyes raked me from head to toe, seeing more of me in a second than most men saw when I took my clothes off in front of them. There was no apology in his assessment — his was a frank, appreciative examination, so thorough I felt like he knew everything from the color of my underwear to the precise location of the tiny heart-shaped mole just below my right hipbone.

  Redhead stereotypes aside, I don’t blush easily… but just the weight of his stare had my cheeks staining red beneath the gym’s fluorescent lights. Barely daring to breathe, I watched as some of that leftover fire in his eyes faded out… as it was replaced by something else. Something that made my toes curl inside my favorite pair of heeled leather boots.

  I swear, everyone in the building was screaming at the top of their lungs, but in that moment, just before someone clapped Luca on the back in congratulations and he finally looked away, my world went totally quiet. Everything in my existence narrowed to a single, ludicrous thought. A sole, insane desire.

  I want this man.

  I made up my mind right then, to go after him. To do what I always do — reel him in, chew him up, then spit him out as soon as I’d had my fill. Just looking at him, I knew it would be the most satisfying meal of my life…

  Or, it would’ve been.

  If not for the fact that, ten minutes later, he walked straight up to my gaggle of girlfriends to say hello to Nate and Phoebe… and I felt my heart plummet like a stone as I learned he was already a part of my extended friend group. One of the Knox Investigations “boys” who worked security for Nate, not to mention best friends with Zoe, the girl Phoebe’s brother Parker just so happened to be in love with.

  Luca Buchanan was intractably intertwined with my life before I ever met him.

  Just my luck.

  My plans of seduction flickered and died faster than my middle school goth phase because, if there’s one unbreakable dating rule I live by, it’s that you never, ever, ever date someone you’re friends with. (Also, that no one can pull off that excessive-eyeliner look except Avril Lavigne.)

  Still, my point remains: dating a friend — or a friend of a friend — never ends well for either of the parties involved. In fact, it pretty much contradicts my entire philosophy — that a typical Lila Sinclair relationship should never exceed the lifespan of a common house fly. Or the shelf life of a gallon of milk.

  When you hook up with a friend, there’s no way to extract yourself gracefully after that blissful, month-long honeymoon phase starts to wane. It makes the latter part of
love him and leave him damn near impossible to pull off without serious collateral damage.

  So, though it damn near killed me… I shoved my dreams of Luca Buchanan into the farthest, darkest corner of my mind, and did what any logical girl would, in this situation: avoided him like the plague in any and all social situations where our paths might cross.

  It’s simple enough, in theory. If I know in advance that he’ll be at a party, I stay away. When we do wind up in the same room, I quickly make my excuses and disappear, before he can say so much as hello or do something crazy, like look at me directly with those damn intense eyes of his.

  Like I said… simple enough in theory. Despite my best efforts, sometimes seeing him is unavoidable. Especially these days, since he seems to be popping up more often than ever.

  Last month, for instance, when Gemma and Chase invited everyone over to their penthouse for a game night, Luca showed up unexpectedly… and I knocked over the entire Jenga tower while scrambling to find my car keys and get the hell out of there before someone could suggest a round of Twister. Everyone yelled their goodbyes as I practically bolted for the elevator…

  Except Luca.

  He stared at me in total silence, something dangerous simmering in his eyes as I skirted around him, leaving enough space between us to fit Phoebe’s bachelorette party bus. As though he just knew those Jenga pieces scattered all across the floor were somehow correlated to his presence.

  Smooth, Lila.

  Then, two weeks ago, at one of Phoebe’s dinner parties, Luca actually managed to corner me in the kitchen when I got up to refill my glass. One minute I was innocently pouring water and the next, every molecule in my body was buzzing because someone standing far too close to my back muttered just one word in a tone full of dark promise.

  “Delilah.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I whirled around to find Luca leaning against the kitchen island, arms crossed over his chest, staring at me like one of those indecipherable IKEA instruction manuals. Pulse pounding, I did the only thing I could think of — shoved the pitcher of filtered water in his direction with a snappy, “Oh, did you need a refill, too?”