Cocktails & Dreams

by Autumn Markus

  “Too risky at the time. I wanted to keep the fantasy.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “And here you are,” she said quietly. Groaning, she flopped her head against the headboard. “If I say anything else that sounds like a Hallmark card, just kill me.”

  Nicholas scooted up and curled Jena into his arms. “Not a chance. My enormous, starving ego loves this shit.” He smirked as she slapped him on the shoulder, and then his voice became serious. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Jena.”

  She snuggled into him, feeling him smile against her hair, completely relaxed. “You’ve got me.” They lay quietly, content to be silent. “Hey,” she said finally, “you told me last night that your day was crap. What happened?”

  Nicholas sighed. “The ambulance brought in this girl. Twenty-two years old. She’s out running with a friend and drops. Just…bam.” He held Jena closer. “Aneurysm. I observed the surgery and went out when the doc talked to the family. She made it through the surgery, but they don’t know if she’ll wake up. Her fiancé was there, and he was…” Nick shook his head. “It made me realize how lucky I am. I don’t want to be without you again.”

  Jena intertwined her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. “I’m yours as long as I have any say in things.” She smiled and traced his chin with the fingers of one hand. “Whatever relationship term you care to use.”

  Nicholas caught her fingers and drew them up to his lips, kissing them. “Jena, I wasn’t joking about that. I don’t mean right away—I know we both have school to finish. But someday…if you want to…I’d like you to be with me always.” He winced. “There’s your Hallmark moment. Sorry.”

  “I’m not. Perfect answer.” Shifting to a half sitting position, Jena leaned in to twine her fingers in his hair and drop her mouth onto his, immediately feeling a charge pass between them as he pulled her on top of him. She whisper-kissed along the line of his jaw. “Besides, you might change your mind after Thanksgiving, so I have to enjoy every sappy moment right now.”

  She felt the rumble of laughter in his chest before he rolled them to the side. “You’re kind of starting to scare me, here. Are your parents going to hate me?”

  Jena snorted. “Hell, no! My mom already loves you, and my dad is just glad you’re not ‘some artsy-fartsy cry baby.’ His words.” She laughed. “He and Trav bonded over a mutual disgust with Peter.”

  Nicholas grinned. “I can’t pretend that I’m sorry about that. So what’s the problem?”

  “You’ll see. Rob and Sharon love can be a little…overwhelming.” Jena glanced at the clock. “Now, if we start right away we’ll just have time to get you into the shower and feed you before you have to leave.”

  Nicholas glanced at the clock, startled. “Shit. I made you miss your class. I’m sorry.” He looked again. “Wait a minute. It’s only eight thirty.” He smiled and slowly lowered his head to kiss her chest. “You wouldn’t have pre-work plans for me, would you, Jena?” He lightly nipped the curve of her breast and she gasped.

  “Maybe…” she said. Nick chuckled and ghosted his hand up her arm and neck to tilt her chin so he could kiss the soft underside. “Okay, definitely. And I’m not sorry at all.” Jena cupped his face and brought it up until she could kiss him. “You’re more important than classes this morning. How often do we just get to laze around in bed and talk? I can make up the work, but I would have missed this.” She kissed him again. “I love you.”

  He smiled slyly. “I know,” he said, grabbing Jena’s hands with a laugh as she slapped at his shoulder with a gasp of mock outrage. He leaned his head down to rumble in her ear, “Now, about that dream…”

  Jena screeched and stopped short when she walked into the kitchen and found Leisa perched on a stool. Nicholas was looking down, straightening his tie, and walked into her. Leisa grinned and held out two cups, nodding toward an array of pastries on a plate.

  “How the hell—” Nicholas began, catching Jena’s shoulders before she could hit the floor.

  “Key,” Leisa and Jena said together.

  “I took a personal day to do girlie stuff and want Jena to play hooky with me. I came over earlier—” Leisa grinned “—but it didn’t seem like the best time for a conversation with either one of you, so I bought breakfast.”

  Nicholas took his coffee from her hand and picked up a bear claw with a sigh. “You know, once that would have bothered me. I can’t believe I’m getting used to everyone I know being familiar with my love life.” He checked his watch and took a bite of pastry. Chewing quickly and swallowing, he smiled. “And I owe you one. This way I get breakfast before leaving.”

  “Hey!” Jena protested. “I woke you up in plenty of time for breakfast.”

  Nicholas leaned in for a kiss. “I preferred to have you for breakfast. Food could wait.”

  Leisa rolled her eyes. “You think you can whisper around me. Jeez, just thank me and get out of here already, Hot Bod.” She held her cheek out primly.

  Nicholas pecked her cheek with a laugh and walked to the door. “Call you later, Jen.” He pointed at Leisa. “Tell Jen how much being nomadic sucks, will you?”

  Leisa was off her stool, carafe in hand, before the door snicked shut. “No rush, girl. Sit down and enjoy your coffee.”

  Jena nodded and slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar. She blew on her cup and smiled, asking after Travis’s bruised ego. They snickered for a while about how Leisa got caught ogling the waiter, and then Leisa got quiet, sipping her coffee and looking down at the countertop. Jena knew something was brewing, but she sat quietly, waiting.

  “So…Trav and I talked about the future a little…” Leisa began, rolling her cup between her palms restlessly.

  “Mmm-hmm?” Jena took a sip of her drink and stayed carefully noncommittal. “What brought on the heart-to-heart, Leis?”

  “Well, it might have something to do with what Travis heard when he thought you were going to be late for class and went to make sure you were awake…” Leisa smiled slyly and gulped down her coffee as Jena’s head dropped into her hands.

  “What did he hear?”

  “It might have been something about ‘always’…” Leisa chortled as Jena reddened. “He did hear right! I can’t believe that I was wondering just yesterday if you even had a future together. Damn, Jena, you move quick!”

  “It’s no big deal, Leisa. It was a maybe, sometime, far-in-the-future, we might want to have…more.” Jena felt a sappy smile begin to spread across her face and saw Leisa’s matching grin.

  “It is a big deal. Even talking about that is huge.” Leisa’s smile softened. “When Trav came back he looked stunned, and then he started to talk about the things he’s thinking about for us. It was just…thanks. That’s all I can say. I could never bring that shit up in a million years, even though I’ve been wondering where he sees us going. I’m done playing around, you know? I’ve done that bit for long enough.”

  “Yeah.” They smiled at each other. Then something Leisa said finally sunk in. “Wait a minute…came back? You were actually in the apartment earlier this morning?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” Leisa said absentmindedly, pulling her phone from her purse and flipping to her calendar. “I came over for an early riser. I thought Travis was something else in the morning, but you guys—”

  “Stop!” Jena held out her hand. “Key. Now.”

  Leisa looked up and shook her head thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. It will just end up in Nick’s pocket and him living here, and don’t you even deny it.” She looked at Jena, eyebrow arched. “No argument? Good. I’d hate to see us start on lies now. Before we take the big step of moving houses, let’s see how well your nomad holds it together, okay? Just for a while?”

  Jena saw the seriousness behind the laughter in Leisa’s eyes and nodded slowly, dropping her hand to her lap. “Okay. We wait. For a little while.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  NICK SPENT THE NEXT FEW DAYS doing whatever he could to please Kapos, h
oping against hope that the resident might have mercy and let him go on time the night of the concert. Hearing Conor joke about how much fun he was going to have with Jena drove Nick crazy, especially when he didn’t see her for those days. She was trying to get a weekend’s worth of research and studying done so she could go out with a clean conscience.

  Kapos kept Nick on edge until the very last minute, waiting until exactly four thirty to walk into the break room where he was muttering over charts. The resident feigned a look of surprise and asked why Nick was still there when his shift was over.

  Nick’s head jerked up, expressions vacillating fleetingly between irritation and hope before he was able to marshal the neutral look that Kapos favored. The resident watched him closely for a moment before smiling in satisfaction.

  “He’s capable of learning! No one should ever see your disappointment or how pissed off you get when things go wrong.” He looked pointedly toward the door. “What are you waiting for, Cooper? Your rotation is over. Get the hell out of here.” He walked out the door, whistling, not waiting to see Nick jump to his feet to shove his white coat into his locker before grabbing a jacket and rushing out himself.

  Conor and Sam didn’t even look around from their heated Halo battle when Nick dashed in the door of Jena’s apartment and gasped out that he would just be a minute.

  “What makes you so sure we still have a ticket for you, Dickolas?” Conor asked coolly, trying to hide his smile when Leisa walked in to the room and Nicholas visibly slumped.

  “Don’t be mean, Connie,” Leisa ordered, flicking him on the back of the head as she smiled at Nick. “Travis and I have our own tickets. Jena is changing, but she’ll be right out.”

  Nick scowled at the back of Conor’s head. He dropped his satchel next to the door and slumped on the couch. Leisa joined him. She curled her feet beneath her and looked at Nick seriously. “How are you, Nicholas? Better?”

  “Yep.” He looked toward the hall. “My best medicine is in a room back there.” Where I belong, he added to himself, and not just because most of his clothes were in the bedroom with Jena. Because she lived closer to campus, Nick’s wardrobe had slowly but surely migrated across town. Any inconvenience was more than made up for by the few extra precious minutes spent holding her every morning.

  Leisa smiled at him, and had opened her mouth to speak when the trill of Jena’s phone cut her off. She rose and picked it up from the counter before schlepping it back to Jena’s room.

  Flopping back down on the couch when her errand was complete, she opened her mouth to speak again, only to grunt in frustration when Jena called Nick’s name hesitantly, saying the call was for him. Nick smiled apologetically as he headed for Jena’s room.

  His hand was on the doorknob when Jena stepped out, holding the sides of a tiny, red kimono closed. Nicholas let out a low whistle, and she rolled her eyes, her lips curled into a smirk that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She danced out of his way as he snatched playfully at her robe, and tossed him the phone. Nick watched her legs until they disappeared into her room and the door closed.

  Oh, yeah. Phone.

  “Hello?” he asked, walking back to the living room and wondering who would be calling him on Jena’s phone.

  “Nicholas? Please don’t hang up.” He nearly dropped the phone when he heard his mother’s voice. The shock must have been apparent on his face, because Leisa’s eyebrows raised and she quietly stood up from the couch, discretely leaving the room so he could talk in relative privacy.

  “How the hell did you get this number?” Anger thrummed in every word; he barely noticed the look that passed between Conor and Sam before they shut down the Xbox and headed for the kitchen. “Didn’t the fact that I don’t answer my own phone clue you in that I don’t want to talk to you, Mother?”

  The problem was, he was relieved to hear her voice. He wasn’t terribly close to either parent, but he’d been a little closer to his mother. She always seemed interested in whatever he was doing, and her soft, cultured laughter was family to him.

  “I tracked down Conor’s mother. Do you know how many Gradys there are in Boston?” She chuckled weakly, and Nick’s heart ached. “I was lucky the third day and got a cousin who gave me the right number.” Nicholas was surprised that his quiet mother had that kind of tenacity and had to grudgingly admire the grit it would have taken her to talk to complete strangers for days. “I told her what happened, and she promised to get me a number where I could get hold of you.”

  Fucking Conor. Nick knew where Mrs. Grady had to have gotten Jena’s number.

  “She also told me to tell you to remember the fourth commandment and not to be an ass.” Laura sighed. “I’m guessing that’s the one about honoring your parents?”

  Nicholas sank down on the couch and leaned back, closing his eyes. “Yep. What do you want, Mom? And are you sure you want to talk to me on the gold digger’s phone?”

  “Nicholas. Please don’t be like that. You don’t know the whole story, and it sounds like you’re still not interested in hearing it. I just wanted to know that you’re okay, son. I miss hearing from you. How are you? How is school going? How is Jena? I’ll take anything. Just…anything. Please talk to me.”

  “Well, Mother, I’m fine after a minor breakdown and a horrible month. I’m not embarrassing the bastard in front of his good buddy, Dr. Call, anymore. Jena—” Nick’s voice thickened as he thought of how close he’d come to driving her away, and he had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Jena is beautiful and I love her, despite your best attempts to ruin that for me. Enough?”

  There was a minute of quiet. “I’m so happy for you, though you probably don’t believe that. Neither your father nor I wish you or Jena any harm. I wish you would talk to him. You’ve totally misunderstood—”

  “What, exactly, is there to misunderstand in his siccing that bitch on me and Jena? Why was it necessary to try to make Jena feel small, or to accuse her of being after money that I don’t even have or want? Was it his idea that Sofia grope me in front of Jena, or was that a bit of ad-libbing?”

  The apartment was dead quiet except for Nick’s steadily rising voice, and he knew everyone was listening.

  And he didn’t care.

  “Your father had nothing to do with that.” His mother sounded angry. “He thinks Mark misunderstood something he said and took friendship too far. As far as Will knew, Mark’s daughter just wanted to get out of the hotel that night, so he called you for help. That is all, I swear to you, son.” She finished on a pleading note.

  “What could he have possibly have said that could have been ‘misunderstood’ that badly? He’s a controlling bastard.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, don’t bother Jena anymore. I’ll answer if you call my phone, okay? I just don’t want to talk to Dad or about Dad. If that works for you, fine. If not, this is goodbye. I won’t have Jena hurt again, and I can’t…I can’t go through what I went through last month again.”

  “Conor told me.” Her tone was gentle, and Nick squeezed his eyes closed to keep calm. “Nicholas, please…I’m so sorry for what happened. We love you, and—”

  “Enough. Okay, Mom? Just enough. We’re getting ready to go out right now. Call me in a day or two and we can talk again.” Nick’s free hand was fisted, and he forced it to relax.

  “Okay. A couple of days. I love you, son.”

  Nicholas laughed roughly. “Do you realize I can count the times I’ve heard that on the fingers of one hand, and two were right now?” She drew a sharp breath, and Nick immediately felt guilty. “I know you do. I love you, too. Talk to you soon.”

  Snapping the phone closed, he tossed it across the couch and sat with his head against the back, arm across his eyes, trying to find fun in the evening again.

  The couch settled next to him, and Jena’s hand was on his leg. “Everything okay?”

  One arm remained over Nick’s eyes, but he folded her fingers in his other hand. “Yeah. I gu
ess so. I think she wanted to try to convince me that they’re not purely evil.” He chuckled reluctantly. “Sorry she called on your phone. Apparently someone with a really big mouth gave her your number.” He half yelled the last sentence, and grinned when Conor and Sam re-entered the room and the game console started up again.

  “Consider it payback for this afternoon, Dickolas,” Conor grumped. “That was just nasty. And you’d better’d damn well fix whatever you guys broke in the bathroom.”

  “What the hell could they break in there?” Travis’s curiosity-laden voice came from his room.

  “Hell if I know. It sounded like the shower curtain went down, too.”

  Nicholas choked back a laugh, remembering the more than slightly failed shower sex he and Jena had attempted that morning. “Wet People are Slippery” should be a warning posted on all bathroom walls, he thought fondly.

  Leisa called from the kitchen, “I broke a toilet seat once. I was standing on it, and the guy I was with—”

  “Do I really want to hear this, Leis?” Travis yelled, and Leisa giggled and stopped talking.

  “Destruction is only acceptable in proportion to the magnitude of the orgasm involved,” Sam opined over the sound of machine gun fire. “Was it worth the cost of clean-up and repairs, Jena?”

  “If that’s your yardstick, I think they could have hit the bathroom with a rocket launcher and it would be worth it,” Conor muttered, and everyone laughed.

  Including Jena. Nicholas looked over and saw silent tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks as she clutched her stomach.

  “You do realize our friends are discussing our sex life? Loudly? I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t weighed in with their opinions yet.” Nick started to laugh, too.

  Jena nestled her head against his shoulder. “Nicholas, I’m the spawn of crazy people, and I seem to attract crazies wherever I go. If I got all out of joint whenever anything embarrassing came out of someone’s mouth, I’d have been dead long ago.” She reached up to kiss his cheek and said softly, “Give your mom a chance, okay? For me?”