by Lauren Layne
“Well, that’s true,” Jackie muttered. “I never see you anymore.”
Because we’re broken up.
But he didn’t bother wasting his breath. He’d told Jackie weeks ago that things weren’t working out, and based on the weeklong cryfest that had followed, he’d thought she’d understood.
But if there was anyone who could manage to play the parts of jilted ex and clingy girlfriend simultaneously, it was this woman. She alternated between being in complete denial that they weren’t dating and noisily heartbroken.
“There’s no rush for you to get out of here,” he said, grabbing an empty box and dropping it in front of the dresser, then proceeding to unload a drawerful of undershirts into it. “Lease is good through the end of next month.”
“So why are you moving out now?” she whined.
“Aw, come on, Jackie. You’ll be better off without your ex lurking around,” he said, keeping his voice as kind as he could.
It wasn’t her fault he was such an idiot. Nor was it her fault that his real men treat women with respect upbringing meant that he didn’t have the heart to forcibly move her out of his place.
This would be a better clean break for both of them, and maybe the fresh start he needed to get back to being his old self.
Once upon a time, Nick had been the type of guy who knew how to read women. The guy who’d taken one look at a broad and known whether she was a good-time girl, a hot mess, or a take-home-to-Mom type of girl.
But ever since the thing with Kelsey, he’d been…off.
Case in point: When Jackie had sidled up to his bar a couple of months ago, he’d pegged her right off as sweet, fun, and the perfect no-strings-attached rebound.
After a couple of weeks of casual dating, she’d offhandedly mentioned a problem with her landlord, but laughed it off like it was no big deal, said she’d get a hotel.
Nick hadn’t thought twice about offering to let her crash at his place for a few nights while she figured it out.
It wasn’t the biggest miscall he’d ever made when it came to a woman, but it was definitely in the top five.
Almost overnight, Jackie had gone from being a fun girl who loved to laugh and never busted his balls about calling to an emotional basket case who assumed every text message he received was from another woman and thought every work shift was an excuse to “whore around.”
Was it annoying? Hell yes.
But he blamed himself a lot more than he blamed her. Well, maybe his ex a bit too. She hadn’t just ripped his heart out—once he’d realized how badly he’d misread her, he’d lost confidence in his ability to read women at all.
Jackie was hardly his first mistake in the past few months. She was just the most dramatic.
His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and he pulled it out, unsurprised to see that it was yet another Facebook message from his mother. At least he was pretty sure it was his mom. His parents did that thing where they combined their Facebook presence into one profile, so every communication came from BelindaandBob Ballantine. But Nick wasn’t certain if his father even realized that he was on Facebook.
However, the real reason he knew it was his mother was that the message was unabashedly prying.
Nick, honey, I don’t know if you saw my text and email, but your brother said you were moving? Send me your address, I’ll send a housewarming gift. Should I be shopping for a bachelor pad, or…?
Nick rolled his eyes and typed a reply. No gifts, Mom. I’m not twenty-two, have everything I need.
She was apparently online, because her response was almost instantaneous. Really? You have my homemade oatmeal cookies? Because they could be overnighted….
Nick hesitated…then texted his new address.
Thanks, honey! Belinda wrote back. Now, should I send a batch big enough for two people, or just the one…?
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he muttered, shoving his phone back into his pocket without replying. He’d call his mother later and explain the situation.
Not that she’d believe him. He couldn’t mention a female’s name without his mom using the word wedding in the same conversation.
“Where are you moving to?” Jackie asked, clearly sulking over being ignored.
“Uptown,” he said, dumping his socks in the box. “Closer to work.”
“Which work? Oxford or the bar?”
“Both,” he said, reaching for the tape.
It was technically true. Taylor’s Upper East Side apartment was just a couple of blocks from the hotel bar where he worked a few days a week, but it was also closer to the Oxford offices than his current Lower East Side place.
“How’d you find it, again?”
The again was a trap. He hadn’t told her the first time. He didn’t owe Jackie any explanations, and he’d learned the hard way that telling someone like Jackie that he was moving in with another woman, no matter how platonic—and antagonistic—the situation, was begging for trouble.
“A co-worker needed a roommate,” he said tersely.
“Which co-worker?”
“Taylor.”
He’d never given much thought to Taylor Carr’s unisex name, but damn if he wasn’t grateful for it now.
“Have I met him?”
Nick finished taping the box and opened the rest of the dresser drawers to make sure he’d gotten everything.
“I’ve got a couple of guys coming by tomorrow at nine to help me load the truck,” he said, turning to face Jackie and ignoring her question. “I’ll get all this stuff out of your hair, and you can have the closet all to yourself.”
She pouted. “I don’t want it all to myself. I want you.”
He inhaled, striving for patience. Just a few more hours. A few more hours and he was done with this nightmare.
Nick had never thought the day would come when he’d be looking forward to moving in with bitchy Taylor Carr, but it had to beat this.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck and surveyed the boxes, realizing he wasn’t dreading moving day tomorrow as much as he thought he would.
Sure, his initial motivation for moving in with Taylor had been to escape Jackie. And maybe to stick it to Calloway, just for being a dick.
But there were other benefits too. Taylor might not be his favorite woman on the planet, but perhaps that was sort of the point.
At least he had a good read on Taylor. He liked that he knew what she was. Competitive, cool, sarcastic. What you saw was what you got with Taylor Carr, and it didn’t hurt that the feisty package was hot.
But as Nick lifted the box of clothes onto the top of one of the piles, his back to Jackie, he felt a ripple of unease.
A memory of a time when Taylor hadn’t been quite so cool and remote. A time when she hadn’t hated him.
Nick was damn sure that he and Taylor Carr had unfinished business.
What he wasn’t so sure about was how the hell he wanted to finish it.
Chapter 6
“What is that? What the hell is that?”
Nick didn’t bother to look out from behind the enormous piece of furniture he was crouched behind. “Taylor Carr, meet the twenty-first century. This is a flat-screen television.”
“Not in my living room it’s not,” she said, hands on hips.
“Our living room,” he said, standing and plugging a cable into some black box she couldn’t identify.
“Do you have any idea how much time I spent picking out this furniture? Figuring out how to arrange it?”
“Nah. But it sounds like a really fascinating topic of conversation. Can we save it for later, get really into the details? I definitely want to know everything there is to know about that uncomfortable white couch.” He nodded toward the contemporary white leather sofa she’d spent half a month’s salary on.
“It’s not uncomfortable,” she said defensively.
“Looks uncomfortable.” He didn’t even glance at it as he plugged a cord into another black box she couldn’t identify.
> “No. What it looks like is that someone moved it to the wrong spot,” she said. “When I left this morning, it was against the other wall.”
“Oh, was it?” he muttered sarcastically.
She wound her way around the stack of moving boxes to get to the sofa.
Even as she knew it was too heavy to move on her own, she placed both hands on the arm and pushed in a stubborn effort to put it back in its proper spot.
“Not gonna lie—I don’t mind the view, Carr.”
She straightened and turned around, giving Nick her coldest look. “So this is how we’re going to do this? You checking me out constantly?”
“Well.” He studied her, idly chewing the black twist tie from the cable. “Guess that depends. How often are you going to wear the skintight pants?”
“They’re yoga pants.”
“And I’m sure you have no idea what they do for your ass, right?”
As a matter of fact, Taylor knew exactly what wonders yoga pants did for the female posterior. All women did.
But to punish him for saying it aloud, she turned and bent over the couch once more, a little slower this time, wanting to torture him.
The sound of a sharp smack on her butt registered just a split second before the sting of it. “Ouch!” she yelped, instinctively covering the spot he’d just swatted.
Nick dropped onto the white couch, both arms draped over the back. It was a huge couch, but with Nick’s large frame, it suddenly didn’t seem quite as big as before.
“Whaddaya know—not so uncomfortable after all.”
“It shouldn’t be,” she said, still rubbing her butt. “Not for what I paid.”
Nick patted the cushion next to him in a silent invitation to sit.
“Pass.”
He shrugged, evidently not caring one way or the other. “You were right, roomie—the original crown molding’s outstanding.”
“Shut up,” she muttered. And then, because it was Saturday and she had nothing better to do, especially while her apartment was in total disarray, she plopped down next to him.
“Since I don’t like you anyway, feel free to tell me the truth,” Taylor said, nodding at the television. “Is the ridiculous size of that TV compensating for something?”
“Not liking me doesn’t preclude you finding out for yourself,” he said, giving her an unabashed grin.
She rolled her eyes and dropped her aqua Nikes on the coffee table, leaning back on the couch. Her ponytail bumped against his forearm, and she turned to glare at him for taking up all the space, but he just grinned wider.
She stayed exactly where she was. This was her home. She refused to feel uncomfortable.
Although…it wasn’t feeling like only her home so much at the moment.
Nick’s moving truck had left less than an hour ago, and already she could swear the place felt different. And not just because of the atrocious TV ruining her feng shui.
In the span of one morning, he’d somehow made the place feel more masculine, and not in the sexy, couple-y way she’d been hoping for when she’d planned to live here with Bradley.
The masculinity was more…obvious, somehow. Obnoxious.
“So you never really told me why you decided to make my life a living hell by moving in,” she said, crossing her feet at the ankles.
“Combination of things.”
“Give me the top three.”
“Pissing off Calloway, getting in your pants, and putting some distance between me and a crazy ex.”
Taylor ignored the first one—she’d already figured that much from the weird testosterone war in the break room. The second she wasn’t even going to dignify with a response. But the third…the third was interesting.
“You had a stalker?”
“More like a temporary roommate who wouldn’t leave.”
“Oh, so sort of like what I have at the moment.”
“Nope. Different. I’m paying rent. Jackie was more like a…”
“Yes?” she prodded, more intrigued than she wanted to let on about what Nick’s life was like outside of being a pain in her ass at Oxford. Particularly as it related to his female companionship.
He looked down at her and gave a cocky smile. “You care about my problems, Carr?”
“More like curious about what kind of girl would possibly think to date you.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he was decent enough not to remind her of that delusional time a year earlier when she’d thought to date him. Or maybe it wasn’t kindness so much as him saving that bit of ammunition for later.
“Your bestie thought I was good enough for a date or two,” he said.
“Yeah, and how’d you stack up against Lincoln?” she shot back sweetly, reminding him that the moment Daisy’s real love had come into her life, she hadn’t given Nick so much as another look.
He flinched, and Taylor felt a little stab of guilt.
Nick and Daisy might not have had anything serious, but it couldn’t have been easy on his pride to watch her choose someone else.
“So, this Jackie character,” Taylor said, hoping to take his thoughts in a different direction. “Total psycho?”
“Let’s just say a change of address was in order,” he said curtly. “But since you’re obviously dying to discusses exes, how long do I have before Calloway bangs on that door and challenges me to a duel?”
It was her turn to wince. Unfortunately, he glanced over just in time to see it.
“He was really supposed to move in here with you?” Nick asked, his voice just a bit kinder than before.
She swallowed, not at all sure she wanted to be discussing one of the more embarrassing—and painful—moments in her adult life with Nick Ballantine.
Especially since the cut felt a little deeper every day. She’d been so sure that the meeting between her and Bradley that had been scheduled for yesterday would be her chance to figure out what was up with him—a chance for them to talk about what the heck had happened.
Instead the coward hadn’t just cancelled the meeting—he’d called in sick. Again.
Sick, my ass. He was still avoiding her.
But no way was she breathing a word of any of this to Nick. “Bradley’s just doing the whole guy cold-feet thing. He’ll come around.”
“Huh.”
She glared up at the single syllable. “What’s huh?”
“Pretty dick move, agreeing to move in with a girl, then bailing the day of.”
“Less dick than moving out on a girl after you asked her to move in?”
He got up from the couch. “Want a beer?”
“It’s eleven in the morning,” she said as he went to the fridge.
In response, he pulled out two bottles he must have brought with him, because she hadn’t bought them. He held one up to her in question.
She sighed and slumped back once more on the couch. “Yeah. Sure.”
He opened drawers until he found her bottle opener, then crossed the room to hand her one.
She nodded in thanks, then stilled with the bottle halfway to her lips, not recognizing the look on his face as he studied her.
“What?” Taylor snapped. “Trying to rummage up some sort of insult?”
“Nah. Where you’re concerned, I’ve always got a dozen insults in reserve. It’s a bottomless well.” He tilted the bottle back and took a sip, still watching her.
“Then what’s that look? An impending lecture?”
“Well…” He took another sip. “Fine. You want to hear this? The thing with me and Jackie? Never serious. Not ever. I offered to let her crash at my place for a couple of nights—and yes, I used those exact words—and she showed up that very afternoon with a moving truck.”
Taylor blinked. “Um, that’s psycho.”
He shrugged. “She has issues. But the thing is, Carr…”
“Yes, tell me the thing,” she said, tiredly pushing to her feet. She was tall for a woman, just over five-eight, but he was several inches taller
and it annoyed her to have to look up.
“I didn’t break any promises,” he said quietly. “Didn’t break any leases either.”
“What does that— Oh, wait, I get it. You’re a nice guy who was helping a crazy girl, but Bradley’s a total jerk. Is that what this pep talk’s about?”
“I’m just saying you could do better,” he answered quietly.
Then he clinked the neck of his beer bottle with hers. “Or at least you could if you weren’t such a bitch.”
Taylor laughed in spite of herself. “I really hate you.”
Nick grinned. “Want to help me unpack?”
“Oh, yes, please, could I? Maybe I could do some of your ironing while I’m at it.”
He shrugged, then set his bottle on the coffee table and went back to fiddling with his TV. “If you really think there’s a chance Calloway might come around, you should definitely keep displaying your ass in those pants. The body’s almost good enough that he might overlook the personality.”
The jab stung more than she wanted it to, but she was smart enough to retreat rather than show it. Taylor marched her pants, her ass, and her beer into her bedroom, thoroughly enjoying the satisfying slam of the door behind her.
“Careful of the original architecture!” he yelled after her.
Taylor snorted out a laugh. She really did hate him.
Chapter 7
Taylor’s upbringing did not lend itself to romantic inclinations.
Her mother had been a wannabe pop star who’d met Taylor’s daredevil father in a bar when she was twenty-two.
Taylor didn’t know many of the details—thank God—but the version she’d eventually been told was that she’d been conceived in the backseat of a Chevy after too many whiskey shots.
The car hadn’t even belonged to either of her parents. Neither had ever had more than a hundred bucks to their name at any given time. Nope, they’d classed it up real good and had sex in the back of a friend’s car.
A two-week fling followed, followed by an uneventful flameout. Probably would never have laid eyes on each other again.
Except Taylor had been born nine months later.
Her mom had stuck around for an impressive two years before deciding that motherhood wasn’t her thing. She’d run off to be the backup singer for some “star” long forgotten, only to die of an overdose at age twenty-five.