After The Break

by Andrea Joan

  “If you’re finished checking me out, I would love to look at that hand of yours.” He gives me a crooked grin before moving his body in-between my thighs and placing his hands on them to halt my legs from banging anxiously against the cabinets.

  “I’m not finished, but feel free to look away. Something tells me I’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future.”

  Laughing, he picks up my left wrist and turns my hand so that my palm is facing upward, then he starts to cut the soiled bandage off. “You’re something else, Sky.”

  I guess maybe he expects me to argue with him or deny my blatant admiration, but why bother? He’s insanely attractive, he knows it, I know it, hell, a blind nun would probably figure out within seconds of being around him.

  “Shit, Sky. This doesn’t look good,” he says once he gets the bandage all the way off. And he’s right. It looks awful. The cut seems deeper and even longer than it was originally, but the dried blood and dirt from when I hit the pavement garage earlier obstructs any view of the real damage.

  “I’m going to clean this up and it’s probably going to hurt, okay?” A hint of worry laces his warning.

  “I can handle it. Do your worst.”

  He grabs a brown bottle off the counter and pours some of the liquid onto a cotton swab. When he begins to move the cotton toward my cut, I flinch.

  “Ouch!” I jerk my hand away.

  “Knock it off! I didn’t even touch you yet.” He rolls his eyes and now I have a full-blown smile on my face as he starts to wipe my hand with the cleanser. It stings a little, but I’m too focused on his close proximity to even care.

  “So how did your meeting go? Everything good?” Liam asks as he continues to work his healing magic on me.

  “It went. I don’t really want to talk about it, though. No more business drama for me today.” He glances up from my hand curiously, as if he knows I’m hiding something. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia. Either way, I want to change the subject before he presses me for more details, and anyway, there’s something I’ve been curious about since the plane ride.

  “Can I ask you something, Liam?”

  “Anything, Sky.”

  “You said on the plane that your dad was a boxer in Ireland. I was just curious how he went from boxing in Ireland to bar owner in Washington. Seems like a big leap.”

  “That’s what you wanted to ask me? You’re curious about my dad?”

  “Yeah—no, well, sort of. Not about your dad specifically, I’m just curious about you, I guess. You’re going to be living in my pool house for the next three months, and it occurred to me that I should probably know more about you. Your origins and all that.”

  Your origins? Where do I come up with this weirdness?

  “Fair enough,” he says as he grabs another cotton swab and runs it under the faucet, then starts to clean up more of the blood. I watch his movements curiously because his attentiveness is so foreign to me and I want to revel in the rare moment. “My dad moved to Washington when he was twenty-one. For a girl, actually. My mom. She went to Ireland when she was nineteen, for some study abroad nursing program with her school. She walked into my grandpa Niall’s bar one night with her school friends when my dad was hanging out with a few of his friends. He was ‘enchanted by her.’ His words, by the way, not mine. I would never say something that fucking lame.”

  “I would never dream you would,” I say, shaking my head dramatically.

  “Anyway, some douchebag that had come with her—”

  “Wait, how do you know he was a douchebag?”

  “Because my dad said so, and because the guy wasn’t my dad. So he was a fucking douchebag.”

  “Gotcha. Continue.” I try and contain my laughter at his ridiculously adorable matter-of-fact statement.

  “So this douchebag ordered a round of some fruity bitch drink for all the girls and Guinness for all the guys at the table.” I can’t hold it in anymore and I start to laugh as he begins to swipe some kind of ointment over my cut, but the second he starts to blow on it I forget why I was laughing in the first place.

  Oh yeah, I remember now. “The horror! Ordering drinks for everyone like that. You’re so right, what a douche!”

  Liam shakes his head and I know he wants to laugh but he’s refusing to give me the satisfaction. “He is because he didn’t even ask what anyone wanted. So, everyone at the table happily drinks except for my mom who ignored hers and watched as the guys drank their beers. Because my dad was staring at her like a creep all night, he noticed this. He walked a Guinness right up to the table, handed it to her, and said ‘Mavourneen,’ which means my darling” Liam winks at me and I grin like an idiot. “Mavourneen, you’ll never get everything ya’ want out of life if you don’t open that pretty little mouth of yours and ask for it.’”

  “He really said that?”

  “He really did.”

  “And what did your mom say?” My eyes widen as big as my smile in anticipation. Yes, I am a sucker for happy endings; it’s my dirty little secret.

  “That’s the best part. She smiled at him, swallowed the beer in a few gulps like the fucking champ she is, and said ‘I wanted a shot of whiskey, darling, and when you bring one back, pull up a chair so I can tell you more about what I want.’ He spent the next two months showing her around Ireland, then he left everything, his boxing career, his family, his life there to move back to Washington with her.”

  “Wow. That is incredibly romantic. The kind of thing that only happens in movies. In fact, I think I might have been in that movie.” Despite the fact his head is still bowed, I catch the smile playing at the corners of his lips.

  “Cute, Sky. So, what are your plans tonight anyway? Are you going anywhere? We haven’t really talked about your schedule or what I need to do for you.”

  “I don’t really have anything planned for the next few weeks. I decided to take some time off after this movie to try and relax, read some scripts, stay indoors where I can be stress free. I may do some shopping for a few events I am obligated to, or hit up a club with Win and Noah, and I’ll need you there. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

  Liam’s eyes shoot up, his face so close to mine that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my lips. “Let’s just plan on anytime you leave this house I am on you like a shadow. Don’t fucking go anywhere without me. You go out to get your mail or pet a stray fucking kitten in your driveway, I’m right there with you. After everything I’ve witnessed this morning, I don’t want you going anywhere alone. You got me?”

  His demanding tone sends chills through me, and I’m so turned on by his show of dominance that I almost plaster my lips to his. Until something he says actually registers in my lust addled mind.

  “Did you just say ‘pet a stray kitten in my driveway?’”

  “Fuck yeah, I did. You seem like the type that would. And those fucking paparazzi sit outside your house ready for anything, and god knows who else sits out there waiting to catch a glimpse of you, so I would like to play it safe and just make sure I’m around you whenever you exit this house.”

  “Wait, so is there actually a stray kitten wandering around my property? Where did you see it? Should we set some food out or something?” I don’t have any cat food, seeing as I have no cat, but I know I have quite a bit of tuna.

  That could work right?

  “No, Sky, there is no stray kitten. I’m just making a fucking point.”

  Never mind then.

  “And that point would be? Other than making me feel like a gullible idiot, I mean.”

  “That you don’t think before you leap and you won’t take your safety into account first. So, now you get me?”

  “Yes, I got you. But just so you know, I would never let a lonely homeless kitten roam around my property with no food or way to survive. But I would have you help me escort the kitten to safety. Do you feel better now?”

  “Infinitely. Smartass.” He rolls his eyes at me and grabs the gauze to start wr
apping it around the bandage he’s already placed on my wound. “So what are your plans for tonight, then?” He is definitely doing a better job than Noah’s whole slap a Band-Aid over a bunch of gauze and call it good method.

  “Well, I sort of have this tradition after I wrap up a movie.”

  “Oh yeah, and what is that?” Liam asks, putting a final piece of tape on the gauze. Before I have a chance to answer him, he lifts my palm up to his lips and places a chaste kiss on the dressed wound.

  This sweet act takes me by complete surprise and now I’m feeling a little shy, which is so unlike me. There is just something about Liam that takes me out of my element, and I love it: his adoration, his attention, the way he never seems to be intimidated by me because of who I am.

  “I-I grab a bottle of wine, order a pizza, and have um…a Bill Murray movie marathon night. But you feel free to take a night off. Get yourself settled in and unpacked.”

  “Bill Murray movie marathon it is, then. I assume you start with Ghostbusters,” he says, and I realize he’s still standing between my legs, leaning into me. Hell, I’m breathing in his air right now.

  “No way. Groundhog Day,” I respond incredulously.

  “So, what time does this marathon start?” he asks, his hands resting on my hips as if it is the most normal thing in the world and in no way is making my heart beat right out of my chest.

  “You really want to join me?”

  “If that’s okay? My boss gave me the night off so I have nothing but free time,” Liam says in that cocky tone that I find myself physically responding to more and more, almost like he’s training me to react to it against my will.

  “She must be pretty awesome. Well, its four now so in about an hour I’ll be ready. That work for you? I assume you want to shower and get cleaned up. You kind of stink.” I place my hand on his chest, daringly teasing him. The air between us is throbbing with desire, and I’m about two seconds and one more flirty comment away from jumping him right here and now. But then I hear a key jiggling in my front door and I know that Noah has come home. He seriously has the worst timing. Ever.

  “Hey, Morningstar, you home?” Noah’s chipper voice carries down the solarium as he makes his way into the kitchen and subsequently kills my libido. Liam snatches his shirt from around my neck and quickly pulls it over his head, probably to avoid Noah seeing his scars and the questions that are sure to come with it. Liam turns around, but doesn’t move away from me like I expected him to. He stays comfortably leaning between my thighs.

  “Whoa, what did I just walk in on?” Noah’s eyes widen as a smile slowly crosses his lips.

  “Nothing,” I say a little too quickly. I mean it so why I feel the need to suddenly blurt the word out like I’m yelling fire is beyond me. “He was just bandaging me up.”

  “Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days? How kinky,” Noah teases, waggling his eyebrows at me.

  “God, Noah, I meant my hand.” I lift it in an attempt to prove nothing torrid has just occurred. Unfortunately. “Is your mind just perpetually in the gutter, or do you come up for air occasionally?” Seriously, what is with my friends? I may need some new ones.

  “Skylar, I just walked in on a hot bartender half-naked and sweaty between your legs. It wasn’t much of a leap to make it into gutter territory. Nice ink by the way. Totally gruesome. Love it.” He nods his head toward Liam.

  “Thanks, man.” His politeness is rife with sadness. Clearly Liam’s tattoo is not one he wishes to be admired.

  “Liam, this is Noah Douglas. I’m not sure if you remember him from the other night. Noah is aware of your name and your role here, but for some reason he is insistent on calling you hot bartender. I apologize on his behalf.”

  “Nice to meet you, Noah. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He moves to shake Noah’s hand then once again places himself comfortably between my legs.

  “Of course you have. I’m pretty much the most important person in her life, aren’t I, my little Morningstar?” he announces, shaking Liam’s hand in return. “She probably can’t go five minutes without bringing me up,” Noah says, winking at me.

  “Oh, of course not.” I roll my eyes, but really he is the most important person to me; I have no idea what would become of me without him. “Noah, will you be joining us tonight for the Bill Murray movie marathon?” I ask the question just to be polite, but hopefully he caught my don’t even think about saying yes tone. He may be the most important person to me, but I would love to have some alone time with Liam, not to mention that if Noah hangs out here with us, there will be some guaranteed mortification bestowed upon me. If there is one thing I know about Noah, it’s that he never misses an opportunity to embarrass the hell out of me.

  “Us?” Noah looks up at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye while I silently warn him with my glare so he knows not to say one word. “Fortunately for you, Morningstar, I’m just here to pack a bag. Headed to the boyfriend’s house to spend some much needed one-on-one time together if you know what I mean.”

  “You want to play some basketball with him?” I ask, feigning innocence.

  “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

  “Having Erik withdrawals, are you?”

  “Skylar, I know you don’t know this, seeing as you have never been in a relationship, but spending two months apart from one’s significant other is usually not advantageous to the growth of said relationship.”

  Liam turns to look at me after Noah’s admission, and I can sense my cheeks getting flushed. I really haven’t had any kind of serious relationships, but I’m also not a blushing virgin or anything. This is a no win for a girl. I could either lie and pretend I’ve had relationships that have lasted longer than the milk in my refrigerator, try and explain my friends with benefits relationship with Cassiel, or remain silent and come off as a complete slut who sleeps around with no commitment. Which may make some guys think they have hit the mother lode, but I’m seriously doubting that Liam is the kind of guy that would appreciate that kind of revelation.

  “I’ve had relationships, Noah.” I go with a half-truth, half-lie which seems to be an ongoing theme when it comes to Liam. I’m just not sure how to be honest with him about anything yet; his intensity is so new to me and makes him unpredictable.

  I love that about him.

  I hate that about him.

  And one day I may come to worship him for it, which makes me fear it above all else.

  “You have not had relationships. You, my dear, have had sexcapades. No shame in them, but there is a big difference.” And here comes the promised mortification.

  “Noah—”

  “Is sexcapades not the right term? Sexual time warps? Oh wait, what did Cassiel say recently?”

  “Noah, shut up.”

  Liam’s body stiffens against the inside of my thighs, and I officially want to murder Noah. I want to rip out his tongue and bitch slap him with it.

  Slapping his hands against my legs, he pushes away from me firmly. “Well, Skylar, as much as I would love to fucking hear where this conversation is headed, I’m going to go. Gotta get cleaned up and call my parents. Meet you back here in an hour. Noah, be seeing you.”

  I watch helplessly as Liam essentially stomps out to the guest house.

  “I take it that was hot bartender sarcasm?”

  “Nice, Noah. Way to make me look like a slut.” I jump off the kitchen counter, making sure to take care with my freshly bandaged hand.

  “What?! Skylar, I was just playing around. Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t seen all the tabloids and blogs. They may be lies, but it doesn’t mean he hasn’t come to some assumptive conclusion about your sex life. I just want to make sure he isn’t hanging around you because of those assumptions. Based on that borderline caveman exit, I’m going to say he is not hanging around for some easy famous pussy.”

  “Nice. And you’re wrong, Noah. He barely knows anything about me. He doesn’t even look at the tabloids.”

  “
How is that possible? Everyone has seen you. On TMZ at the very least.”

  “Not everyone is into celebrity gossip. He spent most of his life training to box and then the last two years trying to run his father’s bar and take care of his family while his dad recovered from lung cancer. Catching up on celebrity gossip seems to be the last thing on his to-do list.”

  “Shit. That’s so tragic,” Noah says, putting a hand to his chest. “No time to catch up on celebrity gossip? How does one survive without it?”

  I laugh, despite my urge to remain angry at him. This is another reason why I love Noah. He never allows me to stay mad at him, and in a life where I seem to be angry at everyone, at least I have that.

  “Come on, my little Morningstar. Help me pack a bag and we can talk all about the feelings you have caught for the hot bartender,” Noah says amusingly. It is pointless to argue, so I follow Noah upstairs to his room.

  I REMEMBER THIS THREE-WAY I had with two ring girls, about a month before I was officially kicked out of the professional sport of boxing. They were hot as hell, young with tight little bodies. I was fucking one from behind while she ate out her friend like it was her last meal and she was taking her time savoring the taste; honestly, I was taking notes from this chick on how to properly eat pussy. I’ve often gone back to that memory when I’m jerking off because the thought of it gets me hard as hell. But the image I’m looking at now easily puts that one to shame. Skylar is standing in her kitchen in barely-there black shorts and a tight as hell blue tank top that is making her tits look fucking fantastic, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail that bares her neck, and fuck if it won’t be hard for me to stop myself from sucking and licking at her skin. I’m so mesmerized by her that I have yet to walk into her house, so I’m just standing at her back door staring at her like a fucking creeper.

  Of course the other reason I’m not walking in there yet is because I kind of feel like an asshole for how I left earlier. I was still revved up after watching how Carl treated her, and seeing her hand all cut up again put me in the wrong head space, so maybe my words and actions were too aggressive. But I won’t fucking apologize because I wasn’t wrong in walking out. Why the hell would I want to stay and listen to her and Noah talk about the men she’s fucked? So I need to take a deep breath, find my balls, and make sure that the second I walk into the house I do not let the sight of her bring me to my knees like a damn chump.