by Lynne Silver
Cat practically floated out of Ian’s car Saturday morning. She was still in a haze of a sexual high after an amazing night with the man she’d crushed on since forever.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Ian told her seconds before she shut the door sealing him back in the air-conditioned car.
“See you mañana,” she echoed, giving him a final smile, then doing the walk of shame up Amy’s driveway. She was barefoot and still in her skimpy, skin tight blue dress. Her purse hung limply off her shoulder and she hardly noticed the extreme Miami morning muggy heat burning the soles of her feet as she walked across the asphalt to the front door.
She barely got the front door open a crack when Amy was in her face, throwing open the door.
“Your brother’s here,” she said without any warning.
Cat’s purse hit the floor. “Danny?” As if she had another brother.
“He’s out on the patio.” Amy indicated with a jerk of her head. “He was waiting there last night. I nearly had a heart attack when I got home until I recognized him. He looks a lot different than he did in school.”
Cat hurried through the house. “I’m sorry he freaked you out.”
“Is he okay?”
Amy’s question stopped her in her tracks. She froze and looked back to her roommate. “What do you mean? Doesn’t he look okay?” But the memory of how he’d looked getting carried out of the club by the bouncers told her Danny was anything but fine.
“Honestly, he looks like he’s going through chemo. Except for the beard and hair that seriously needs a cut.”
Shit. So much for thinking her life was finally getting on track thanks to her new job and boyfriend. She should’ve known her brother would show up to turn everything to a mess. “You’re gonna think this sounds horrible but I almost wish he were going through chemo. He’s addicted to molly, dabbles in coke, and has a professional degree in marijuana,” Cat said, and left Amy inside as she stepped onto the Chattahoochee patio.
“Ow. Ow.” She hopped from one foot to the other. Her right sole burned and her left had a tiny loose pebble embedded under her big toe. “Be right back,” she said to the back of her brother’s head. She needn’t have bothered, she saw as soon as she returned with a dollar pair of purple Walmart flip-flops on her feet.
Danny was either passed out or sleeping on the lounger. The skin on his face that wasn’t covered by a thick, dark beard was turning pink from the heat.
“Danny,” Cat whispered. He didn’t stir and didn’t hear her over the swish of palm fronds rustling in the hot Floridian breeze.
“Danny.” She tried again louder.
His lips parted and she heard him expel a breath, but he didn’t wake.
She nudged his shoulder. “Wake up.”
He blinked and looked up at her blearily. “Mom?”
Ouch. People had always said she looked like a clone of her mother. It should be comforting, but instead Cat was confronted with missing her mother every time she looked in the mirror. “No. It’s me. Cat.” Her voice was sharp.
He struggled to sit up.
“Have you been out here all night?” She pushed his feet aside and perched on the edge of the lounge.
Danny rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Nah. Slept in your bed last night. Think I scared your roommate.” Now he sat up straighter and gave her a stern look. “Where were you last night?”
Oh, now he was going to play responsible concerned big brother? “None of your business,” she said easily. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t I come visit my sister? I wanted to see your new place.”
“In the middle of the night? I’m not an idiot, Danny. Do you even remember the other night?”
He tugged at his beard. “Which night?”
It was obvious he was stalling and had no recollection of making a fool of himself and getting thrown out of Ian’s party by his bouncers. “Skye Bar? Bouncers? Punching me in the face?”
He stiffened. “I punched you?”
At her nod, he groaned. “Fuuuck. I’m sorry. I might’ve been drinking a little.”
“It wasn’t a little and it wasn’t alcohol.” All her happy, floaty feelings from her night with Ian had dissipated. “What do you need, Danny?” Great, now she even sounded like her mother when angry.
“Cat, don’t be a bitch. Stop shouting.”
She rose and glared down at her brother. “Me? Be a bitch? What am I supposed to do, Danny? You’re starting fights with bouncers, sneaking around my house, scaring my roommate. You look like shit. When’s the last time you ate something? Had a shower? Done anything other than look for your next fix?”
He stumbled to his feet and she saw dirty no-brand sneakers covered his feet. Shoes that looked as if he’d found them on the side of the road or in a dumpster. He pitched to the side but somehow managed to right himself before he ended up on his ass. It was slightly heartening to see that even as crappy as he looked, he still was handsome, thanks to the height he’d inherited from their father along with a square jaw and the same penetrating green eyes Cat had.
“Nice, Danny,” Cat said in disgust. “Are you high right now?”
Her brother blinked in the bright sun, then squinted at her. “A little weed to take the edge off.”
She supposed finding her brother on only “a little weed” was practically sober for him. “Why are you here?”
“Needed a place to crash,” he muttered. “One night. Two, tops.”
“I have to ask my roommate. This is her house.” He followed her a step toward the house, but she stopped and held up a hand. “Wait outside.” He stumbled back to the lounge and collapsed onto it while she went in search of Amy.
Her roommate was making breakfast in the kitchen while pretending not to be peeking out the window that overlooked the patio.
“Amy.” Cat spoke at her back.
She visibly jumped and spun around. “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” Cat said. “I’m sorry I never brought up my brother before now. He’s the monkey on my back.”
“And he obviously has a gorilla on his back,” Amy commented.
Cat nodded. “He needs a place to sleep for a night or two. Is it okay if he stays here?” At Amy’s hesitation, she said, “I’ll sleep here every night. I won’t leave you alone with him again overnight.”
Amy was making a show of biting her toast and chewing before answering. “Fine. But two nights max.”
“Absolutely.”
“And I’d feel more comfortable if he slept in your room. Not on the couch, which is shared space.”
“Agreed. Done.” Before Amy could change her mind, Cat hurried out the door to her brother, who’d fallen back asleep. Since she desperately wanted to shower, change, and catch a nap herself, she didn’t bother waking him this time. Instead, she ran back inside, grabbed a towel and bottle of spray sunscreen, and protected him from the elements as best she could. Considering the poisons he willingly ingested on a daily basis, an extra dose of vitamin D wouldn’t do irreparable harm.
Leaving him, she headed inside to get cleaned up. As the hot water ran over her petite body, she relived every moment from last night, from the moment Ian had prowled into Okto to this morning when she’d woken with his lips on her breasts. The memory gave her a pleasurable little frisson as she rubbed soap all over her naked, wet body.
She could hardly wait to see Ian again. Tomorrow night he was taking her to the Heat game, and oh shit, how was she going to the Heat game with Ian when she’d promised Amy she wouldn’t leave her alone with Danny?
Rapidly, she finished showering, threw on shorts and a tank top—no bra—and went to find her phone. It was cowardly of her, but she took the texting way out.
Can’t make game tomorrow. Something came up. Sorry.
She added some kissy emojis to soften the message.
Five seconds later, her phone rang.
“What the fuck?” Ian sounded pissed.
“Excuse
me?”
“I left you barely an hour ago? What the fuck came up or are you blowing me off?”
She cradled the phone to her ear and tried to think on the fly. Ian was her boss, so it wasn’t as if she could lie and say she had to work. “I’m not blowing you off, Ian. I promise. I had an amazing time last night.”
“I’m trying not to be a possessive asshole boyfriend here, Cat, but I really want to know what happened in the last hour that’s making you cancel going to the game with me. I know you’re a huge Heat fan.”
He was correct, and she hadn’t been able to afford tickets in forever. “Can we reschedule?”
“My tickets are for tomorrow. Half court. They were a gift from a client, so I have to put in an appearance. I’d like you to be at my side.”
“And I’d really like to be there, but I can’t tomorrow night.” Tears pricked at her eyelids, and she swallowed them back, trying to stay calm.
“Does this have something to do with Danny?” he asked.
Before she could deny vehemently—they hadn’t had an in-depth conversation about her brother, but instinctively she knew it was a sore spot for Ian—he said, “There are a few people looking for him.”
“Who?”
“Dealers.”
“And you know this, how?”
She heard Ian sigh, and she envisioned him sitting on his couch with the view of the water. “I tried to keep your connection to Danny quiet, but these things have a way of getting out. Your brother owes a lot of people a lot of money, and now that you’re hooked up with me, they’re hoping I can make the rain fall.”
For a split second, pure joy bled into her at the idea that Ian could pay off her brother’s problems and get him cleaned up, but then reality reentered. “No. You and I are separate from Danny.”
“That’s the story I’m trying to spread,” Ian said. “I’ve been sharing that you have no contact with your brother and you’re estranged. I need you to make that true.”
At that moment, Danny stumbled into her doorway. She held up a finger to keep him silent.
“Can you do that for me, Cat? I want to protect you, and this is the best way.”
She looked into her brother’s eyes. “Yes,” she lied to Ian.
Sunday night, Ian glanced at Cat who was jumping next to him and cheering her head off. He didn’t know what had changed from yesterday morning to today, but she’d called this morning and told him she could go with him to the game after all. He was slightly suspicious of the about-face, but he was happy to be with her so he wasn’t digging deeper.
The Miami Heat were down by three baskets and they’d just scored a three-pointer to narrow the margin. He hoped they’d score again if only to get Cat to bounce next to him and let him watch her breasts in the tight, white tank she wore. He liked the red and black bra. It was a nice fandom touch.
He hadn’t been to a Heat game in a while for the simple reason of watching them play. It had always been a meeting or a contrived reason to seek out Miami’s hottest residents and invite them personally to his next party.
Tonight was purely about personal enjoyment with his date. After he’d dropped her home on Saturday morning, he’d gone home, pretended to work, hung out with some buddies Saturday night, and purposely didn’t call or text Cat after she’d canceled. She hadn’t contacted him either.
After the smoking sex on Friday night, they’d cuddled and talked late into the night. He both wanted to smile and gag thinking about it. Him, cuddle? You would’ve had to pay him before Cat, but now he was happy simply standing near her.
“Hey, Ian.” An obvious model sauntered by and smiled at him in that knowing way, telling him they’d slept together. He vaguely recalled her. All angles and too self-conscious to let go and have fun in bed.
Cat inched closer to him and gave the model a glare. He smiled that she was jealous. She had nothing to worry about. The other woman got the message and kept walking up the aisle. “How many women in Miami have you slept with?” she asked.
He turned to look at her, his expression a blank. Did she think he was actually going to give her a number?
She held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Ever.”
“No? Why not? Are you making assumptions that it’s in the hundreds?”
“Hah. I was thinking more like in the thousands.”
“Jesus, who has the time? I’m no angel, but I haven’t tapped every ass in Miami.”
They found their seats again as the teams went into a quick TV timeout. “Ew. Tap that ass? Who talks like that?” she asked.
“Me. And all men think like that, even if they don’t say it out loud.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
“Believe it, baby.”
He didn’t get to hear her retort, because the guy next to him nudged his shoulder and pointed to the Jumbo Tron screen at center court.
“Kiss cam,” Cat whispered, and turned to him with wide, yet hopeful eyes.
Shit. If he didn’t kiss her on screen, the stadium would boo, and it would get noticed. And if he did kiss her, he wasn’t sure he could stop. Cat solved the problem by leaning up to brush his lips with hers.
She might’ve started it, but he took control of the kiss within a second. Without concern for whether they were still on the Kiss Cam or not, he leaned in to the kiss, wrapping a palm around the nape of her neck and tugging her closer to his mouth. He hadn’t kissed her when he’d picked her up, because her bed was in the house and he knew if he got her in twenty feet of a bed, they would miss the basketball game.
Within seconds he was lost to the rest of the packed-to-capacity stadium and could only concentrate on kissing Cat. It was as good as Friday. No, it was better, because they had already had a taste of each other, and now the newness was paving the way to the familiar.
He recognized her taste and it was an addiction and she was his fix.
A huge roar of applause and laughter penetrated his awareness and he gave a sidelong glance at the TV screen. His and Cat’s faces were plastered center screen.
With a will that came from God-knew-where, he pulled away.
The guy next to Ian was laughing and clapping. “They went back to you,” he said, practically howling with hysterics. “They showed four other couples kissing, but then went back to you, and you were still kissing.”
Ian didn’t respond, and gave the guy his shut-the-fuck-up stare. It worked with one hundred percent accuracy, and this guy was no exception to averages.
“Sorry, dude. It was funny, that’s all,” he said and mumbled something else, then got busy concentrating on his jumbo soda.
Ian gave him his back and turned to Cat whose cheeks were bright pink. It better be from the kiss and not from embarrassment. He’d hunt down the cameraman if the guy had made Cat ashamed.
“I can’t…” she said, touching a finger to her lips. “That was…”
“Hot,” Ian supplied.
“Yeah,” she said with a small smile that made him want to start the kissing all over again. Fuck the Heat; he had better things to do in his apartment. He was two seconds away from grabbing Cat’s hand and hauling her back to his place, when her words stopped him.
“This is fun,” she said. “I haven’t been to a Heat game in a long time. Not since my dad would take us.”
They’d had season tickets, Ian remembered. One section over from half-court. Danny had taken him several times back in middle school. But after their parents’ death, he guessed the season tickets went away.
“It hasn’t been in my budget,” Cat said. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
The sad look was getting erased off her face forever, Ian vowed. He’d buy her season tickets for her birthday. In her name, so if anything happened, they’d be hers. Only, knowing her new reality, she’d be better off selling the season tickets and buying food or car repairs. Or, and he hated to even think about the subject, pay off her brother’s dealers. A sour taste burned his throat.
Sooner or later they were going to have to deal with her brother. He was a problem that wasn’t going away.
“Any time you want to go to a game, baby, just ask.”
She smiled but still looked sad. “I feel a little like Cinderella.”
Inquiry into her cryptic statement was interrupted by a three-point shot and screaming from everyone, including them. When they were seated again, Ian looked at her. “Cinderella?”
“Taken out of my life of drudgery and swept into a fancy world by a prince. Look.” She pointed to the court. “There’s literally a ball.”
She laughed, but Ian didn’t find her comment funny. “You’re not Cinderella because you never should’ve been in this situation in the first place.”
“Why not?”
“Because your family had money. You never should’ve been put in this situation.”
“Cinderella’s father was well-off, too,” she pointed out. “It was the evil stepmother who forced Cinderella into a life of servitude.”
“Are you saying Danny is the stepmother in your situation? And I’m the prince?”
Her lips flattened to an unhappy line. “No. Danny isn’t evil. He’s just sick.”
“He’s an addict,” Ian countered. “And you’re going to have to cut him loose at some point.” Too late he saw he’d overstepped his bounds. Maybe because he’d known Cat forever, he felt free to issue a judgment, ignoring the fact that he’d been out of her life for a long time. They’d fallen so easily into a relationship, it was easy to forget this whole thing was actually new.
“Care to repeat that?” Cat asked in a tone so frigid he put his drink down.
“I’m not saying you should throw him to the wolves, but you need to protect yourself.”
Cat’s arms were rigid at her side. Her entire body stiff next to him. Her eyes narrowed and in a voice so icy, she said, “You think it’s so easy?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but she held up a hand, silencing him. “No. You have no idea. None. Your whole family is alive. Heck, you even have all your grandparents, so don’t even think you have a clue of what it’s like to only have one living family member. If you’d ever lost anyone close to you, you’d know that there’s no ‘cutting him loose’. You’d know that you have to fight with everything you have to keep your family together. I will never give up on Danny. Never.”