Game Changer

by Melissa Cutler

  They wouldn’t even be having this conversation if he still pined for her, which would’ve been a shame. Their friendship hadn’t been possible until he’d signed on to appear on Meet the Groom and she’d gotten her surgery and they’d had mind-bogglingly bad sex. It was as though they’d had to completely remove any possible sexual feelings from the equation in order to see each other clearly.

  “You don’t have to get engaged, do you?” she said. “There’s nothing in the contract saying you have to, right?”

  He tipped his head from side to side. “No one can force me to, but they’ve made it amply clear that it’s what they expect from me.”

  It frustrated her that he wasn’t free to live the carefree life he’d professed to want, now that he was bound so thoroughly to a contract. Too late now to change that or advise him against it. Like he had asked for your advice in the first place. They’d fallen into such a comfortable place as friends that she kept forgetting that, in the not-so-distant past, they barely knew each other.

  “Which rings did you decide on?” she asked.

  “Five gold ones with the most diamonds. Really splashy, yet still on the traditional side. I think the viewers will love them.”

  “What about your fiancé? Will she love it?”

  “That doesn’t much matter, does it?”

  The jadedness inherent in the sentiment left a sour taste in her mouth. Where had her life-loving friend gone? “What’s gotten into you? Are you okay? Is this still about the rings?”

  All she got in reply to those questions was a shrug. If anything, his eyes turned darker, harsher. “You should go on that blind date Presley’s trying to set you up on. And don’t tell me again that he’ll run screaming when he sees your chest. If he’s so shallow as to have a problem with you being flat, then you don’t need him anyway. One way to look at your situation is that you’ve got the perfect prospective date screen test built right into your body.”

  Hello, conversational whiplash. He was right about her having a built-in test to weed out shallow men from her dating pool, but that didn’t mean the process of watching them run off screaming in the other direction would be easy to watch. Mostly, though, she didn’t understand why they needed to revisit any more of their earlier conversation, not when it had ended so badly.

  She’d hoped they’d be able to keep the conversation light tonight, if for no other reason than so she could stop feeling anchorless and out-of-sorts. She didn’t like clashing with him. He was her rock, her safe place, and she wasn’t coping well with having the primary relationship in her life out of balance.

  So, as an attempt at levity, she rolled her eyes. “You sound just like my friends.”

  He ducked his head and gave her a death stare into the camera. “That’s because I am your friend.”

  Ouch. “Okay. Sorry. I meant girlfriends and what I’d tell them if they gave me that advice was that it’s not about finding the right guy. It’s about me feeling comfortable being naked in front of someone else again. Especially in front of a man. I’m not brave enough for that. I will be someday, but I’m not yet.”

  “I’m a man.”

  Goosebumps skittered over her skin. “I’m well aware.”

  “You could get naked in front of me so you can see it’s no big deal. Then you wouldn’t be able to spew that toxic bullshit fear at yourself anymore. You could see that you really are that brave already.”

  What had gotten into him? Where was her sweet, supportive friend? She didn’t know how to interpret the gleam in his eye or why he was pushing her today. Why he was back to that old, relentless intensity.

  “I’ll show you my amputation if you show me yours,” he said in a disingenuous singsong tone.

  Determined to lighten the mood, though her heart pounded at the mere thought of bearing her body to him, she grinned and waggled a finger at the camera. “That’s not fair. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen already.”

  The smile he gave her in response seemed genuine and softened his features. “That’s true, but on the other hand, you don’t have anything at all to show me, so what’s the big deal, surfboard?”

  The nickname made her heart squeeze with affection. Maybe her friend Brandon was still inside the intense, agitated man she saw before her. “It’s not like my chest is nothing but smooth, creamy skin. There are big scars and discoloration. And no nipples. It doesn’t look right. Like a person without a belly button.”

  “Big flippin’ deal hashtag yawn. Hashtag get over yourself.”

  “Are we going to talk in hashtags from now on or are you just mentally tweeting this conversation?”

  Her joke evaporated into the ensuing silence as Brandon stood and dropped his pants, revealing tight black boxer briefs that filled her laptop screen. His right leg was covered with the black- and-gray sleeve of his prosthesis. “Get brave, Johnson. Remember the contract you made with yourself on that napkin. You and I both signed it. No more fears, no holding back.”

  Then his shirt was off and her tablet screen was overtaken by rippling muscles and tanned flesh, though she didn’t see what being shirtless had to do with him showing her his amputation scars. He was the best looking man she’d ever seen and certainly ever slept with, the fittest and finest. There was absolutely nothing sexual about their relationship, which she needed to keep repeating to herself because the sight of his body only served to remind her, once again, that she was a woman where it mattered—in her mind, in her heart, between her thighs, and in every cell of her body—because, goddamn, he looked like sex on a stick.

  He rubbed a hand over his abdominals, showing his body off to her, and her whole nervous system flared to life in a way not so dissimilar to her finger on her clit. Absolutely electric.

  Without a word, ignoring that she was gaping at him, he sat down again and worked the fabric sleeve off his leg. “Let me see some skin, Harper,” he said without looking at the camera as he worked. “You want to get over this baseless fear then you have to pop that cherry.”

  She didn’t think she’d ever heard him say anything so crass, hadn’t even known he was capable of it, he was such a smooth operator. Except today he wasn’t. Not at all. He’d been pushing her all week, aggressively. His words were all coming out as growls and his eyes glinted with some emotion she couldn’t name. He was goading her tonight to show him her naked body, flaunting his physique, using rough language and an even rougher tone. It was like a drug, a high—disorienting, yet arousing. How could they be platonic friends when this newly revealed side of his personality filled her with an all-consuming need?

  Regardless of all that, he was right. Revealing her new body was a lot like losing a kind of virginity. And she had the chance to lose it to her best friend.

  Seeing her naked would freak him out and make her self-conscious all over again because, whatever his reaction, it wasn’t going to be right. She didn’t even know what the right reaction was, so how could he? Was it indifference? Awe at her inner strength, a term that made her gag because it was so condescending? Whatever it was, one thing was sure: this was going to kill the sexual undercurrent of their conversation better than a bucket of ice water would have because there was nothing remotely attractive about her slightly concaved, scarred, surfboard of a chest. That, right there, was reason enough for her to pop that cherry. If stripping for him would protect what had become the most important relationship in her life, then that’s what she needed to do.

  While he was preoccupied with removing his prosthesis, Harper stood. With trembling hands and a queasy stomach, she took hold of her shirt hem and tugged it over her head. And then she stood still and waited for him to notice her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brandon was too busy removing his prosthetic foot to register Harper’s nudity right away. Instead, she watched him rub the end of his leg as though trying to erase the silvery scars and red crease
marks left from the sleeve, then thrust it toward the camera, rotating the stump end. “There you have it, one gnarly transtibial—”

  He did a double take at the camera and then his face turned to stone. He looked a long time. Not a word, his expression hard.

  The vulnerability made her feel like a pillar of ash bracing for the threat of wind. Her throat constricted. She tensed her muscles against a shiver as a fresh flood of despair ripped through her.

  She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to look at the expressionless mask he wore. Instead, she visualized possible tattoos she could get to cover her scars, ones she’d seen online from women brave enough to share photographs of themselves. Lushly drawn peacocks in the colors of brilliant jewels, bright daisies and roses, red and gold dragons. Someday, she’d make her body beautiful like that, too, but she had to wait for her scars to shrink and her swelling to disappear.

  There was no sound from the tablet speakers and she started to wonder if he’d left or ended the chat without her hearing the line go dead. He wouldn’t reject her that utterly, would he? She peeled an eye open. He was still on his sofa, his elbows propped on his knees, his chin resting on his clasped fists, and he just sat there looking at her, his mouth a thin, straight line.

  Her eyes crowded with tears, but she willed them not to fall. She was sick and tired of crying. Still, she waited for some reaction. Anything. Into the vacuum of silence, she swallowed, then said, “I had really hot tits.”

  He flinched at that and seemed to snap from his trance. His gaze slid up her neck and face, landing on her eyes. “Yes, you did.” He jutted his right leg forward. “And I had a really sexy leg.”

  “I bet you did.”

  A tear jarred loose from her cheek. With a sniff, she wrenched her face away and slid out of view, refusing to let him see her any more exposed than she already was.

  “Hey! Come back here,” he demanded, his growling shout piercing the air with its harsh insistence. “And knock it off with that toxic bullshit.”

  She held her place away from the camera and swiped her hands across her eyes, ridding them of tears. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and that’s an order. Get back over here.”

  She considered shutting the laptop. She could end the painful confrontation right that moment, without another word. Because fuck Brandon Theroux and his gorgeous body and his face of stone. What did she care if he didn’t like her hanging up on him? She had a right to protect her fragile confidence.

  “Harper, please.” His voice was softer this time, pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made you do that and I’m sorry about my reaction. I just . . .”

  She was sorry he’d pressured her to do that, too, and even sorrier that he regretted seeing her undressed. How humiliating.

  She grabbed her shirt and pulled it on before she stepped back into the range of the camera lens. Her tears had stopped, but there was no masking her sorrow. “You remember what you said to me after Duke’s party? About how I deserve to wait for a man who begs me to put the ball and chain on him. No one’s ever going to do that, Brandon. I’m working on accepting that, but sometimes it’s scary to be this alone and think it might be forever.”

  He clutched his computer monitor, this thumbs fuzzing in the forefront of the screen. “That’s not true. Not one bit of it is.”

  She sunk onto the corner of the bed, ignoring his protest. “I’m okay with that most of the time, because I have to be. And the alternative is to be depressed and lonely day in and day out, which I don’t want, because what was the point of having the surgery if I’m only going to be miserable? I’m happy with my choice, I really am. It’s a weight off me that I didn’t even know I was carrying around. But some nights are easier than others. And some nights, like this one, are positively black.”

  He stuck his face up close to the camera. “Look at me.”

  She indulged his request, meeting his hard gaze.

  “You have no idea what I would give to be in Destiny Falls right this very minute. No fucking clue how badly I wish I could kick down your door and shake some sense into you.” His mouth screwed up and he threw himself back against the sofa, his eyes averted and his chest heaving from the effort of breathing.

  Whatever he felt, it couldn’t possibly match how badly she wished they’d never had this conversation—either of their conversations today. He’d been right earlier—the ring shopping was to blame. Her helping him pick out an engagement ring had messed with both of their minds.

  “I wish you were here, too, because I could use a good shaking. And then, right after you shook some sense into me, I’d wind back and slap some sense into you for letting ring shopping screw you up and for being weirded out by my scars.”

  This time, he looked directly into the camera. “I’m not weirded out.”

  “Except that you are.”

  He rolled his tongue along the inside of his lips as though he was choosing his next words carefully. “Those scars are a badge of pride you wear as a survivor, and you don’t ever forget it. I just wish I were closer so I could help you get over feeling sorry for yourself. That’s all that’s bothering me.”

  Right. Sure. But she was done battling him. Instead, she raised her hand and slapped the air in front of the camera, adding her best slapping sound effect to the gesture, as though her hand were connecting with his cheek.

  “You know the Bomb Squad guys have a running bet about you slapping me, right?” The levity in his voice was forced, but at least he was trying. Maybe he was done battling with her, too.

  Her shoulders relaxed as a little of the fight drained from her. “You’re kidding.”

  “They can’t believe it hasn’t happened yet, after all these years.”

  The urge to laugh struck her, so she indulged it. “If they only knew how many times I’d fantasized about it.”

  “If they only knew how many times I’d deserved it.”

  “That, too. Hey, listen.” She stuck her face close to the camera and braced her hands on the monitor, mimicking the pose he’d struck only minutes earlier. “Today was an anomaly. I don’t know what got into us, but I want you to know that I’m really lucky to have you as a friend. I couldn’t imagine my life without you.”

  “You don’t have to imagine anything without me. I’ll always be here for you. And since I can’t come to you so we can slap and shake some sense into each other, you need to come to me. Pronto. You need to book a flight to Miami, right after we get done with this call. Any weekend, weekdays, whatever. I’ll make it work on my end. It’s past time for you to cross skydiving off your bliss list.”

  Skydiving. A weekend with Brandon. Her insides twisted into knots. Since the moment he’d given her that skydiving gift certificate, dread and longing had been battling in her heart. She missed him every day. Video chatting, phone calls, and texts didn’t even come close to being enough—which was exactly why she dreaded their next in-person meeting.

  She’d make sure they stayed busy, so the most likely scenario was that the visit would go off without a hitch, especially if she took the prudent step of booking a hotel room instead of staying in his condo with him. The trouble was, doing so would be akin to admitting that they were failing as friends, that she couldn’t keep her thoughts from straying outside the tenuous confines of their friend zone.

  She couldn’t put him off much longer, though. He’d given her a generous birthday gift and she needed to make use of it. Plus, she’d always wanted to go skydiving. The two of them would be fine. She was just being silly. “Okay. I’ll make it happen.”

  “Good. Now say good-bye to me and go make that flight reservation before you change your mind, and then go down to the bar or out with friends so I don’t have to imagine you sitting in your apartment alone.”

  He picked up his prosthesis and sleeve
, and then started the process of donning them again, his eyes down, his expression one of deep concentration. The move felt dismissive, save for a telltale tightness in his jaw.

  “All right, but I’m fine. I really am. I just had an off night, like you. I’ll go down to Locks and hang out. Maybe I can hustle somebody in darts.”

  He continued applying his prosthesis without looking up. “Everybody at Locks knows how good you are at darts. You don’t have a prayer of hustling anyone there.”

  “Maybe someone will take pity on a poor, boobless lady and play me anyway.” She had to squelch a cringe because she hadn’t meant to bring up her flat chest again with him, but at least she’d done so with enough self-deprecation that he wouldn’t be able to accuse her of spewing toxic bullshit. But he showed no reaction at all as he stood to make some final adjustments to his leg.

  She looked away before she caught more than a glimpse of the black fabric of his underwear. Goddamn her traitorous libido. After all they’d been through, how was it possible that she still wanted him so badly that it took her breath away?

  “Or maybe I won’t wait until you teach me how to swagger and pick up strangers. Maybe I’ll try my hand at it tonight.” That couldn’t have sounded any less appealing to her after Brandon’s cringe-worthy reaction to seeing her naked, but self-protection was a curious beast. She wanted him to hate that idea. She wanted him to react, to do something.

  But he merely put his pants on, his face out of range of the camera, and said, “First, send me your flight reservation info.”

  So that was it, then. “Right.”

  He resumed his seat, ducking in close to the camera once more, and flashed her a fatalistic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Good night, surfboard. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  ***

  The second that Harper exited the video chat screen, Brandon slammed his laptop closed and released a strangled shout through his gritted teeth. He knew her well enough to know she hadn’t been serious about trying to pick up a stranger in the bar tonight. Instead, she’d been pushing him for a reaction, but he hadn’t trusted himself to give her one. Not after he failed her with his response to her nudity.