Anticipation

by Sarah Mayberry

  “You know what I think? I think you and Eddie have been heading toward this for years, that it was inevitable.”

  “God, you’re such a freaking romantic,” Blue said, trying desperately not to be swayed by Maggie’s words. The moment she started softening — hoping — she was doomed. “The real world doesn’t work like that, Maggie.”

  “It does sometimes.”

  “No, it doesn’t, Maggie,” Blue said, very firmly. “Trust me.”

  Maggie looked as though she wanted to say more, but after a second’s hesitation she simply pulled her car keys from her bag and beeped the doors open.

  They both got into the car, but before she started the engine, Maggie twisted to face Blue.

  “Will you promise me something? Give Eddie a chance to be something other than what you think he is. Give him a chance to surprise you.”

  “I don’t want him to surprise me,” Blue said. “I want things to be exactly as they’ve always been.”

  Her voice sounded loud in the small space, highlighting the fervency beneath her words.

  Maggie gave her a small, sympathetic smile.

  “People don’t stand still, Blue, and neither does life.”

  Blue stared at her friend. She’d said almost the same thing to Lena when they were at the beach house, and yet for months now she’d been ignoring her own advice, trying to recapture her pre-accident equilibrium where Eddie was concerned — and failing spectacularly.

  But if she and Eddie couldn’t go back to the way they’d always been, where did that leave them?

  A shiver raced down Blue’s spine as she stared into the unknown, uncertain future.

  Maggie’s hand landed on her knee.

  “Things will look better after cake,” Maggie said.

  It was a fine idea, but Blue had the distinct feeling that no amount of cunningly prepared sugars and fats were going to cure what ailed her.

  She’d activated a time bomb when she forgot herself on the dance floor last night. Now the only thing she could do was stand back and wait to see when and how it exploded — and how much havoc it caused when it did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eddie spent several hours tearing up the highway on the Ducati, the bike roaring and snarling beneath him, the combination of speed and gravity threatening to rip him from the seat. By the time he was done he was weary but calmer.

  Raf was right. Eddie was going to talk to Blue, and this time he wouldn’t stand there like a petrified log while she listed all the reasons it wouldn’t work. This time he would make his own arguments.

  Because they could be good together. He knew it in his gut.

  He was tempted to simply ambush Blue by turning up at her apartment but he figured giving her a bit of breathing room might work in his favor. If she was anything like him, she was thinking about how good it had been between them. He could use that to his advantage if he got the timing right.

  He had a sleepless night on Saturday and a restless day on Sunday. Monday morning saw him awake at five, staring at the ceiling. He tried to imagine how the day might play out, how Blue might respond to what he had to say to her — because he was talking to her today. He had to. She’d been in his head all weekend, and he needed to make his case, if only to get the words and arguments out of his head once and for all.

  She might shoot him down in flames, of course. There was always that possibility with Blue. As Raf had said, she was incredibly stubborn. But there was no hiding from the intensity of their sexual chemistry. He knew he had that on his side, anyway.

  He rolled out of bed and put his running gear on before going for a punishing run, pushing himself hard. He felt very focused by the time he let himself into the house.

  He was still ahead of schedule thanks to his early start, so he stopped for doughnuts on the way in, ordering enough to keep the gang on a sugar high for half the day. Blue’s black sports wagon was in its usual spot in the lot behind the building when he arrived. He glanced inside it on the way past, noting that, like her apartment, it was pristine.

  He heard people talking and laughing the moment he walked through the back door, the sound filtering out from the staff room. He recognized Steffi’s voice, and Hans, as well as Renarto’s. Then he heard Blue’s familiar tone. Without thinking about it, he increased his pace, chewing up the final few feet. Heads turned his way as he entered, and someone sent up a cheer when they noticed the doughnut box.

  He only had eyes for one person. Blue stood at the sink, a mug in her hand, wearing a pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Her eyes met his, and even though his heart was doing overtime in his chest, she looked supremely unaffected by the fact that this was the first time they’d seen each other since becoming lovers.

  “Please tell me you got chocolate and raspberry,” Steffi said, snatching the box from his hands.

  He forced himself to look away from Blue.

  “I don’t know. I let the guy decide,” he said.

  “I bet he gave us a bunch of duds,” Hans said, peering over Steffi’s shoulder to inspect the offerings.

  Blue remained where she was at the sink, drinking her coffee, not saying a word. He shot a look at her, but once again her blue gaze didn’t give anything away.

  “You want one of these before this plague of locusts eats them all?” Renarto asked.

  Eddie focused on the box Renarto held in front of him.

  “I’m good, thanks,” Eddie said, waving it away.

  He pretended to listen to something Hans was saying while he watched Blue rinse her coffee mug and leave it to drain on the rack beside the sink. Her T-shirt was so thin he could see the shadows of the tattoos on upper her arm and chest, as well as the dark fabric of her bra. Even at this distance, he could tell it was black lace. An image filled his head — Blue’s full, pale breasts spilling out of midnight-black lace.

  When she headed for the door, he forced himself to keep his focus on Yuri and not follow her with his eyes. The moment she was gone he started fighting a battle with himself. He’d planned to wait until after work before he talked to her. He was going to take her for a drink, then lay his cards on the table. But the urge to go after her now, to resolve this now, was like a fire in his blood. He’d been thinking about her all weekend, remembering what it felt like to be inside her, to have her in his bed. He wanted to know he stood a chance. He needed to do something, other than go over and over the same territory in his head.

  He went in search of Blue. She wasn’t in any of the workrooms, so he doubled back to check the supply room. Sure enough, she was busy selecting inks for her morning job, consulting an elaborate sketch she’d obviously been working to for some time, judging from its dog-eared corners.

  She glanced over her shoulder as he entered, a frown creasing her forehead when he pushed the door closed.

  “What’s up?” she asked, turning to face him, her expression wary.

  “I want to talk,” he said. Suddenly his stomach was churning with nervousness.

  This moment felt important.

  “About work?” Blue asked.

  “About Friday night.”

  Her expression became distant. “There’s nothing to talk about. It happened. It was a mistake, but we can’t undo it. End of story.” She shrugged.

  “I don’t think it was a mistake,” he said.

  Jesus, he felt exposed. Her body language was so closed off, and the way she was looking at him… As though he was attacking her instead of initiating a conversation they had to have.

  “That’s because you had a good time and you’re thinking with your dick right now,” Blue said.

  “And you didn’t have a good time?”

  “You know I did. I just don’t think it’s worth screwing everything up for. You’re my best friend, Eddie. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Why can’t we have both?” he said, taking a step toward her.

  “God, Eddie. Why are you making this so hard?” she said, frustration rich i
n her voice. “You want us to wind up hating each other?”

  “I don’t think that could ever happen.”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, you are clearly on some really great drugs right now, because that’s not the way I see it.”

  “I think there’s something here, something special. I think we’d be crazy to let it go. Give me one weekend. We’ll go away somewhere, just the two of us. I’ll prove to you how good it could be between us.”

  “I don’t want you to prove anything to me. I’m happy with the way things are right now. I’m not fucking up one of the best things in my life for something I can get almost anywhere. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a client.”

  She grabbed the tray she’d been filling with inks and other supplies and waited for him to get out of the way, her chin at a belligerent angle.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “What happened between us on Friday night isn’t something you can get anywhere else.”

  “It was just sex, Eddie. That’s all. Just sex.”

  She forced the issue then, walking forward so he had to step aside or risk her trying to bulldoze her way through. Knowing Blue, that was exactly what she’d do, too. He got out of her way, and she marched past him without so much as the flicker of an eyelid.

  He ground his teeth as she left the room, angry with himself for not finding the one good, clear thing to say that would convince her, and angry with Blue for being so damned closed off.

  Sure, his track record sucked, but there was no way he’d even consider trying to make something happen between them if he didn’t think he had it in him to make her happy.

  He kicked the nearest box, but the small act of violence didn’t make him feel any better, and it certainly didn’t change the situation.

  Nothing he could think of right now was going to do that. He wanted something to happen, and Blue didn’t. She couldn’t have been any clearer — which meant he needed to let this go.

  Shit.

  He hung his head for a moment, absorbing the truth of his own realization. Then he went to find something to distract him from the sick feeling in his gut.

  Blue clutched her supplies in a white-knuckle grip to stop her hands from shaking on the way to her workroom. Only when the door was shut did she let her shoulders drop.

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  This was so much worse than anything she’d imagined. So much worse.

  Give me one weekend. We’ll go away somewhere, just the two of us. I’ll prove to you how good it could be between us.

  Blue felt a lurch of fear as she remembered Eddie’s words and the way he’d looked when he’d said them. So gorgeous, so sincere.The urge to give in, to believe, had been so powerful she’d actually felt her throat tense to say the words. Only the knowledge that that way lay the end of their friendship had stopped her from speaking.

  And this was just Day One. She’d spent the weekend hoping that, after a bit of thought, Eddie would come around to her way of thinking vis-à-vis their relationship, although deep inside she’d guessed he’d try again. But she hadn’t imagined he’d come at her with all guns blazing.

  The thing was, Friday night had been special. She couldn’t blame him for wanting a repeat performance. She couldn’t even blame him for thinking that great sex combined with their friendship might make for a beautiful thing — but she refused to become one of the women who bought a ticket on the Eddie Express and lived to rue the day. Unlike those other women, she knew Eddie. She’d seen it all. Only an idiot would voluntarily set herself up for that kind of catastrophic hurt. And Blue was not an idiot. She refused, utterly, to lose a friendship that meant so much to her because of a few hours of madness.

  Aware that Steffi or Hans would be buzzing her any second now to let her know her client was here — a regular she’d been working with for a while now, completing a full chest tattoo — she concentrated on setting up her workstation. The familiarity of the routine helped ease the trembling in her hands and steady her racing heart.

  She simply had to stick to her guns. Eddie would let it go. He’d have to. She simply had to hold the line long enough for him to be distracted by a pair of long legs. Or something like that.

  Somehow she got through the rest of the day, mostly because she avoided any place where Eddie might be. She went out for lunch and didn’t linger in the staff room or reception and by the time it was six o’clock, she was quietly disgusted with her own cowardice but also hugely relieved.

  She felt as though she’d run a marathon when she let herself in the door of her apartment, and she stuck a frozen meal in the microwave before helping herself to a beer.

  Leaning against the cool metal of the fridge, she allowed herself to imagine a better day tomorrow, one where she didn’t get panicky and aroused every time Eddie entered the same room. One where he decided she was right and let the issue go.

  Yeah. That would be pretty awesome. What were the odds of it actually happening, though?

  Eddie could be pretty damn determined when he got it in his head that he wanted something. She’d seen him lock on and pursue it till there was no other option but for him to win.

  A shiver ran down her spine. He couldn’t be like that about them. She wouldn’t let him, because it would kill her to keep saying no to him — and she was pretty sure it would slowly destroy their friendship, too. How ironic that in acting to save ten years of mutual respect and affection she might wind up at exactly same place anyway.

  You can’t afford to think like that.

  She couldn’t, otherwise she would be reduced to being a deer in the car headlights. She’d never been a passive bystander in her own life, and she refused to start now.

  Leaving the frozen meal whirring in the microwave, she crossed to the couch and flopped onto the cushions, automatically propping her injured right leg on the coffee table. Her bone might be healed, but it still ached sometimes at the end of the day and she’d discovered that a few minutes’ elevation often seemed to settle it down. Once she was comfortably ensconced, she reached for her laptop. Maybe there was a new movie she could download to distract herself before she could legitimately take herself to bed and call this day done and dusted.

  The first thing to flash up on the screen was a notification that Lena had tried to Skype her ten minutes ago. Blue sat up a little straighter. She hadn’t heard from her friend for a couple a weeks, but a virtual face-to-face catch-up would go a long way toward making her feel better.

  She checked to see if Lena was still online, and when Blue saw she was, hit the call button.

  “Yo, yo, what’s up?” Lena asked as the call connected, the screen filling with her image. She was sitting cross-legged in bed, a pile of pillows behind her, her deep brown eyes huge in her pale face. It took Blue a full second to understand why.

  “What the hell have you done to your hair?” she blurted, leaning forward to confirm what she was seeing — which was that Lena was now all but bald, her gorgeous dark hair shorn down to a bare quarter of an inch of peach fuzz on Lena’s skull.

  “Thanks, I’m really great. How about you?” Lena said pointedly.

  “Tell me you didn’t do that on purpose,” Blue said.

  She was the last person to call anyone out for a crazy hairstyle, but Lena’s hair had been gorgeous — long and lustrous with just the right amount of wave. Why on earth would she shear it off for the world’s most utilitarian haircut?

  “It’s part of an experiment I’m conducting.”

  “On what? Self-mutilation?”

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” Lena said defiantly.

  It was only when Blue caught the uncertainty in Lena’s eyes that she realized that her friend wasn’t as happy with her dramatic decision as she pretended to be.

  “This is about the guy, isn’t it?” Blue asked suddenly, remembering the conversation they’d had at the beach house. It had been in the back of her mind ever since, gnawing away, making her worry about her friend.r />
  Lena frowned. “No.”

  She was lying, but Blue didn’t call her on it. Lena was clearly working her way through some mixed-up stuff, something Blue could relate to far too easily.

  “When did you do it?” Blue asked instead.

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “You mean it was even shorter than this?”

  Lena’s smile was slightly wobbly. “Yep.”

  “Isn’t it almost winter over there?”

  “Yep.”

  “You must be freaking freezing.”

  “Let’s just say my timing could have been better, seasonally speaking,” Lena conceded.

  “You idiot,” Blue said gently.

  Lena blinked rapidly, then lifted a hand to her face and brushed away the few tears trembling on the ends of her eyelashes.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?” Lena said.

  Blue thought over her own recent history. “I know that feeling.”

  Lena sniffed inelegantly, then passed a hand over her head. “What’s up, anyway? How are things at your end?”

  Blue stared at her friend, trying to work out what to do. Lena had always been impulsive and big-hearted. Blue hated the idea that she was struggling through something difficult thousands of miles away from friends and family.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked. “Should I get on a plane and come rescue you?”

  Lena smiled, then took a swipe at yet more tears with the back of her hand. “I’m okay. But thanks for the offer. It’s appreciated.”

  “I really wish I could hug you right now.”

  “Me, too. But seriously, I know I look like I’ve been attacked by a leaf mulcher and I’m sitting here crying like a big baby, but I’m really doing all right. Holding my own, anyway.”

  “What did your boss say when you turned up at work like this?” Blue asked.

  Lena had told her enough about her boss, a flamboyant, high profile hair stylist and salon owner, to know that that he would definitely have had some kind of reaction.

  “He’s making me wear a wig to work until it grows out a bit,” Lena admitted.