It Takes Two

by Jenny Holiday

  “Be right back!” She popped up as if she could hear his dirty thoughts and disappeared down the hall. When she came back, she was holding two fresh beers and had a quilt tucked under her arm. “Hold these.” She handed him the beers and arranged the quilt over her legs. “I’m freezing.” She took one of the beers back with one hand and held up the edge of the quilt with the other. “Want some?”

  “Sure.” He scooted toward her. In their wrangling to balance the beers and arrange the quilt, his hand brushed the top of her foot. “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding. Is this a foot or an icicle?”

  She laughed. “The AC in this building is intense. There usually isn’t any intermediary state between boiling and freezing.”

  He’d only grazed her foot. It had been an accident. He should have pulled away. When a woman told you she wanted to forget her sexual past with you, the correct response to incidental contact with her was to pull away.

  He clasped his hand fully around her foot. When she didn’t react negatively, he squeezed it. She moaned a little, and it went straight to his dick.

  “I should get socks,” she said, but she didn’t move.

  So he set his beer down on the side table and grabbed her other leg. Put one hand on each foot. They were both cold to the touch. He wanted, suddenly, more than he could remember ever having wanted anything, to hear another one of those low moans. So he squeezed again, both feet this time. Her shoulders physically lowered as she closed her eyes. But no moan. Then an uptick of sound from the TV drew her attention. A Blue Jay had hit a triple with one runner on base. He squeezed again, harder this time.

  “Uhhhh.”

  There it was.

  “Jays up and a human foot-warmer.” She sighed. “Is this heaven?”

  He tucked the one foot under his thigh to keep it warming and wrapped both hands around the other and began massaging, his chest heavy with…something he couldn’t explain.

  It wasn’t a sexual thing, not exactly.

  But there was something so profoundly companionable about warming Wendy’s feet while they watched baseball.

  “Hey! Are you watching the…”

  It was Gia. They hadn’t heard her come in.

  But they’d both heard her trail off awkwardly.

  Wendy yanked her feet from Noah’s grasp and bolted to an upright seated position.

  He’d totally forgotten about Gia, as, apparently, had Wendy.

  “Baseball!” Wendy said, too loudly. “We’re watching the baseball game.” She slid as far away from him as it was possible to get. “Want to join us?”

  “Nope.” Gia grinned. “I’m going to bed with a piece of pie.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING

  It turned out that the closer they got to the wedding, the less “low-key” things became. For example: the last-minute fitting for new dresses for the bridesmaids.

  “I just think this is going to be so much better, because it’s a nod to Cam’s heritage.” Jane tilted her head as she took in the sight of Wendy, Gia, and Elise, who were crammed into Jane’s tiny kitchen trying on new dresses Jane had ordered. Jane hadn’t been able to find actual tartan dresses that would arrive soon enough—thank God—but she’d ordered plain navy sheaths and was having tartan sashes made. Nobody pointed out that Cameron’s Scottish-named father—himself a third-generation Canadian—had never been involved in his kid’s life, so functionally speaking, Jane’s husband-to-be wasn’t any more Scottish than the rest of them.

  “Totally.” Gia tugged at the hem of her dress. The dresses were meant to fall to mid-thigh, but the glamazon’s barely covered her butt. Wendy’s, of course, came to her knees. “We’re gonna need some alterations, though.”

  Though Wendy would have preferred sticking with the little black dresses Jane had originally planned on, these weren’t bad. Much better than the purple things Elise had insisted on for her wedding. And the girls with their plaid sashes had it way better than the guys, who had been moved from suits to kilts.

  Wendy had not been able to stop thinking about Noah in a kilt since Jane had proclaimed the switch.

  “Alterations will be no problem,” Jane said. “The tailor who’s making the sashes will do them rush. Can you all meet me there tomorrow at ten? Then we can try them on with the sashes, too. I know that’s kind of awkward timing, but it was the first opening she had.”

  Wendy made a mental note to call her assistant and get her to move things around. She’d kept her schedule as light as possible this week anyway. Between her aunt and the “low-key” bride, she’d assumed she’d be in demand outside the office.

  “Hey, look at all the pretty ladies.”

  Well, damn. It was Noah, emerging from Jane’s office, which doubled as the guest room. He wasn’t in a kilt, but he was wearing plaid, in the form of pajama bottoms. But perhaps more notable was what he was not wearing: a shirt. He was all sleep-disheveled, running his hands through his hair, which stuck up at odd angles, and yawning. It struck Wendy that although she’d slept with him twice, she’d never actually slept with him, so she’d never seen him first thing in the morning.

  It turned out he was just straight-up delicious first thing in the morning.

  Gia performed an exaggerated wolf-whistle.

  Elise laughed and said, “Maybe you should have the groomsmen wear the kilts on bottom and nothing on the top, Jane. Like the cover of a romance novel.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Go put on a shirt, Noah.”

  He obeyed his sister, but not before spearing Wendy with an intense look. Was he waiting for her to weigh in on his appearance like the others had? Because that was not going to happen, even if she had been able to pick up her jaw enough to muster a coherent sentence.

  Slipping back into the office and reappearing a moment later pulling a T-shirt over his head, he said, “Mighty early for a dress fitting, isn’t it?”

  “The new dresses came in last night, and we needed to make sure they were going to work,” Jane said. “And Wendy and Elise have to work today.”

  “Sorry if we woke you up,” Elise said.

  “S’okay. I’m headed out for a run anyway.” He yawned again as he walked over to the coffeepot.

  Wendy couldn’t look away from his mouth. It was surreal to think about how that mouth had been all over her body, and pretty recently, too. It had whispered dirty nothings into her ears, and it had traveled down and tortured her clit.

  Damn.

  “Wendy, you gotta go.” It was Jane, grabbing her arm and shaking her out of her lust-fueled daze. “You have a meeting at nine, right? That’s why we’re all here so early.”

  “Right.” God, she had to stop mooning over Noah.

  “Who’s going to the subway?” While Wendy was busy fantasizing about Noah’s mouth, he had laced on running shoes. “I’ll walk you that far.”

  “I have my car,” Elise said. “I’m dropping Gia at the gym. We can swing by your office, too, Wendy.”

  “That’s okay,” Wendy said quickly. Too quickly, apparently, because Gia shot her a look. “It’s out of your way.” Which was true, but also not something Wendy would normally have concerned herself with if an alternative to the overcrowded rush-hour subway presented itself.

  “All right, Wendy Lou Who, let’s go,” Noah said.

  She moved toward the door but turned back when Jane cleared her throat. Oh, right. She kissed her fingertips and blew the kiss to Jane, who caught it and pressed it to her chest, but Jane laughed as she did so. “I’m not sure a too-big bridesmaid dress is really the right look for the Monday morning meeting with the partners.”

  It was true. The weekly nine a.m. meeting of the firm’s partners and senior associates was the one thing on Wendy’s calendar this week that was immovable, and it had been the reason their dress fitting session took place so early.

  Noah smiled. “Go change. I’ll wait for you.”

  She sighed. Noah Denning was turning her brain to mus
h.

  Chapter Twenty

  TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING

  Noah was feeling his mid-thirties. He’d always been a runner, from when he was a kid on the cross country team. Even in the hard years after his dad died, he’d managed to find one or two opportunities a month to go running with Wendy. But he no longer ran as long or as often as he used to. A knee injury he’d shrugged off in his youth dogged him more and more the older he got, and he always regretted it if he didn’t get enough rest between long runs. He’d taken up weight lifting to compensate, because vanity required him to look decent in his court suits.

  All of which was to say that there was no reasonable explanation why, on the Thursday before the wedding, he was setting off on his fourth run in four days, this one—God help him—a twelve-mile one. He would pay for this tomorrow. He’d probably have to limp down the aisle come Saturday.

  “Keep up, old man!”

  Actually, there was an explanation, just not a reasonable one. Her name was Wendy, and she was bouncing along ahead of him at a punishing clip along a trail that wound through one of the city’s ravines.

  While walking her to the subway after the dress fittings at Jane’s, on his way to go running, the talk had turned to her favorite routes. Which had led to him suggesting a joint run the next day. Hey, he’d said, they couldn’t sleep together anymore, but there was no law against running together was there? They’d had fun doing just that last time he’d been in town. She had done the Wendy cackle and agreed.

  So they’d run eight miles the next day.

  And then five yesterday—what Wendy called a “light” day.

  Which had led to him suggesting another one today. Of course, he’d been thinking more like two miles for today—light days were more his wheelhouse—but no, Wendy’s regime called for twelve. So here he was.

  He’d lost his mind, basically.

  But it was a nice way to go, with a view of her ponytail bobbing ahead of him as she began the climb out of the ravine, her lean legs, exposed by a pair of hot pink shorts, pumping twice as hard as his longer ones.

  He wasn’t sure he could blame the fact that he was way more out of breath than she was solely on his advanced age.

  “Only one more mile once we get back to street level,” she announced as they turned onto a sidewalk that would take them out of the ravine onto a regular city street. She slowed down, looked over her shoulder at him, and said, “Race you to the top!”

  And she was off, blazing up the hill.

  There was no way he could catch her. He didn’t want to catch her, really. He was quite happy chugging along behind her, enjoying the view. In fact, he realized with a start, he was quite happy generally.

  Which was kind of unprecedented.

  It wasn’t that he was unhappy generally, but this expansiveness in his chest, this overwhelming feeling of contentment? This was new. It was like a runner’s high, but more.

  Surely it had to do with Jane. She was getting married to the love of her life, and that shit was contagious.

  But that didn’t feel like enough of a reason.

  Wendy was getting farther and farther away as she powered up the hill. Well, she was just going to have to wait. He was done. He slowed to a walk.

  But then someone else appeared up there with her. A guy—a young one dressed in a baggy T-shirt and jeans about seventeen sizes too big. He took a step toward Wendy. Wendy took a compensating step back. The guy said something—Noah was too far away to hear. Wendy gave him the finger and started jogging away.

  The guy followed.

  Fuck that.

  Suddenly Noah found his inner sprinter. He tore up the hill and caught up with them. Wendy was jogging on the sidewalk, and the kid was coasting alongside her on a skateboard.

  “What’s going on?” he asked gruffly, putting himself between the two of them. Wendy stopped, and Noah rested a hand on her back.

  “What’s going on is this gentleman would like me to suck his dick. I would like him to fuck right off. So we’re at a bit of an impasse.”

  I’m going to hurt him.

  The thought was equal parts surprising and violent. Noah worked in the justice system. He believed in the justice system. He didn’t do vigilante shit.

  Nevertheless, he lunged for the guy.

  “Noah!” Wendy called.

  “Okay, okay, I’m fucking right off,” the dude said, skating away before Noah could touch him.

  “What the hell was that, Noah?” Wendy asked.

  “What?”

  “That caveman shit. I thought for a minute there you were actually going to hit him.”

  “I was,” Noah said, still kind of amazed at himself. This possessive, angry stuff wasn’t him—normally.

  “Dude, that was just your garden variety street harassment. It sucks, but it happens all the time. I had it under control.”

  Holy fuck, suddenly he did know what was happening. Why he had gone so uncharacteristically alpha-dog just now. Why he’d been so inexplicably happy just before that. Why everything about Wendy lately had been so confusing. The mystery suddenly snapped into focus inside his head, and the force of his conclusion nearly knocked him off his feet.

  He was in love with Wendy.

  He laughed out loud. It was suddenly so fucking obvious. Their ever-present banter. His next-level protectiveness when it came to her. His obsession with her collarbones, for fuck’s sake.

  And this was what had been missing in all his other relationships. Why he could never pull the trigger and propose, or move in with a woman. They weren’t Wendy.

  Holy shit. He was in love with Wendy.

  What’s more, he was pretty sure he had always been in love with Wendy.

  Which, paradoxically, was maybe the reason he hadn’t realized it? He was always telling himself that Wendy was like another sister to him, but that wasn’t really true. It hadn’t been true back then, either. Yes, he’d felt protective of her, but…in a different way than he’d felt protective of Jane.

  And that’s why he had been so strangely disappointed when he’d agreed to the extra shift that night of the prom. He had lost so many things when his father died—his carefree childhood, his extracurriculars, his running, his social life.

  But had he also lost the possibility of something with Wendy? Of that fondness he’d always felt for her blossoming into something more?

  His skin started to prickle all over.

  She was looking at him funny, her hands on her hips.

  Well, shit. He had no idea what to do about this revelation. She didn’t want to be with him, not in any way that meant anything. And even if she did, they didn’t live in the same place. She was about to flit off on her trip.

  So he did the only thing he could do in that moment, which was to start running again. She fell into place beside him. Turned to him and smiled as they settled into a leisurely pace. He smiled back. Even though he had no fucking idea what to do, even though his little come-to-Jesus moment had pretty much exploded his head, he was still happy. Stupidly, feeblemindedly happy just to be with her.

  As they did their final mile, everything looked different to him. The sky was extra blue. Graffiti on the side of a building extra interesting. A busker playing a violin extra talented.

  Jesus Christ. He almost felt like bursting into song. Was this what being in love was like—being in a musical?

  “That’s it.” Looking at her sports watch, Wendy slowed to a walk. She pressed some buttons and said, “Not my best time.”

  “Eh, I was slowing you down.”

  “True.” She smirked up at him. “I’m going to walk from here and get a giant-ass sandwich for dinner on my way home. So I’ll see you tomorrow? Or you want to take a rest day?”

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said automatically.

  Her eyes rolled skyward. “Noah. You left for college seventeen years ago. That means I’ve spent almost two decades walking places by myself.”

  He couldn’t a
rgue with her logic, but he also couldn’t argue with his, which was that as long as he was around, there was no need for her to walk anywhere alone. That was true regardless of his feelings about her. But really, he wasn’t ready to say good-bye yet. He wanted to keep testing out these startling new feelings. See if being with her might actually make him burst into song. So he said, “Maybe I want a giant-ass sandwich, too. I’m so hungry, I could gnaw my own leg off.”

  It was true, suddenly, and it got more true as she told him about the Italian sandwich shop she frequented. “I’m telling you, you have never had a better veal parm.”

  Her hair was a mess—more of it had come out of her ponytail during their aggressive run than had stayed in—and her skin was pink and sweaty.

  “Oh my God, the mozzarella is so fresh, and they tear up these monster basil leaves and layer them in.”

  She was smiling and gesturing dramatically as she described the sandwich. Inexplicably, despite the post-run dishevelment, she looked as beautiful as she had in Vegas, in those killer dresses.

  “What?” she said.

  Shit. He’d been spaced out there, thinking about her messy yet gorgeous hair. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “You’re looking at me really funny.”

  “I am? I guess I must be, uh, fantasizing about that veal parm.”

  She shook her head. “Weirdo.”

  He caught sight of a sign on a restaurant they were coming up on. It was not her Italian place. But for a second it sort of seemed like it wasn’t an accident, that they were about to pass a restaurant with that particular name.

  Did he dare?

  If she agreed, it would only complicate things unnecessarily. Make life harder in the long run. Because he had no plan. It wasn’t like he could do anything with his newfound revelation. Wendy was never going to love him back. If he’d ever had a chance with her, it had come and gone seventeen years ago. Grown-up Wendy didn’t do relationships. She’d told him that outright.

  But anyway, she would almost certainly not say yes. Aside from his own secret…yearnings (Jesus Christ, he had secret yearnings), there were a million reasons why what he was about to suggest was a terrible idea, and Wendy would no doubt spend the rest of the walk to her preferred restaurant enumerating them. She would shoot him down, and that would be that. She would be right. And he would go back to Jane’s and take the world’s longest Epsom salts bath. Right after he took the world’s coldest shower.