by Amber Rides
“Okay then. If it’s not creepy, what is it?”
“Romantic.”
Brenna’s face fell before she even finished saying the word. Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Ah, shit,” I muttered and slung an arm over her shoulder.
She sunk straight into my chest like she belonged there. Her body shook silently against mine and I stroked her back soothingly for a few achingly long minutes before she stopped crying. The intoxicating smell of her seeped into me and I let it. Happily.
When she finally stilled, she didn’t sit up and her face stayed pressed against me as she murmured an apology.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered.
I bit back an urge to tell her just how fucking perfect she seemed right at that moment and said instead, “Hey. You’ll be okay, Brenna.”
“I don’t think I will be,” she replied. “This is just too hard.”
“I’m going to kick myself later for asking this,” I said. “But are you having a problem with a guy?”
Her fingers took up a strand of her long hair and twirled it self-consciously. As she twisted it up and released it and twisted it up again, her knuckles made a small circle just above my knee.
I swallowed.
Twist.
Release.
Stroke.
Twist.
Release.
Stroke.
If her hand moved up any further up, she was going to find a different kind of hardness.
“Do you know Ian very well?” she asked abruptly. “I mean, I know you guys live together, but are you friends, too?”
I pulled away. “Why?”
“Do you think he could like me?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t he like you? You seem easy enough to like. I like you.”
She blushed a little. “I don’t mean in a friendly way.”
Not in a friendly way? Jesus.
Desire left me like air leaving a balloon and I drew my arm away from her shoulders.
“Well?” she pressed, a sad little smile touching her lips.
“Before I answer, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Most of the girls who come after Ian can barely string a whole sentence together.” I paused, unsure how to say what I meant without sounding like both an asshole and a cheeseball.
I must’ve been silent a few seconds too long, because Brenna nudged my knee. “Ridley?”
“Mm hmm?”
“That wasn’t a question.”
I bumped her shoulder with mine in an attempt to cover the true emotions that rolled through me.
“Give me a chance to get there,” I teased. “I’m just wondering what an apparently smart girl like you want with a meathead like Ian?”
She looked up at me, eyes wide and serious. “Do I have to tell you?”
“Of course not. I just…” I ran my fingers through my hair. “How bad can it be?”
“Pretty bad.”
I forced another smile. “It hardly seems fair to drag a guy out in the woods, cry on his shoulder – literally – then not tell him why.”
“I didn’t drag you out here!” she protested.
“No?”
“I was already here when you came.”
“Are you saying I’m following you?”
“Are you purposely avoiding my question about Ian?”
“He’s my cousin.” I relented. “And I know him better than I want to.”
“And from what you know…Could he like me?”
I sighed. “What do you want me to say, Brenna?”
“Honestly? I want you to say that I’m as hot as every other little creampuff that’s rolled through his bed and that I stand a chance.”
I’d never heard such an apt description of the women in my cousin’s life before. It might’ve been funny if she didn’t sound so serious.
A war waged itself inside of me. I could tell her what I thought of her in relation to Ian and his creampuffs. I could tell her that Ian didn’t deserve her and that even if he had her, he wouldn’t know what to do with her half as well as I would.
Of course, I’d sound like a crazy person.
She was looking at me so hopefully with that little bit of a tremor in her lower lip and the leftover tears in her eyes and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make her any more sad than she already was.
“The thing is…I don’t think you’re much of a creampuff,” I said slowly.
“No?”
I shook my head. “Nope. You’re more of a quindim.”
“A what?”
“Exactly.”
“Explain,” she commanded.
“Do I have to?” I teased with a grin.
“Well. You can’t just drag a girl out into the woods and call her names and not tell her why.”
My smile widened even further. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”
“Yes.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh and prepared to hand her a flip explanation. What came out instead was the truth.
“When I was ten, my mom took me with her on a trip. She was following some asshole around South America – bad habit of hers, by the way – and we wound up in Brazil, in some poorer neighbourhood and somehow we got separated. One second I was holding her hand, the next I wasn’t. I remember thinking I should stay in one place, like they tell you to do. Only it was midday and the streets were crowded with people and all of them looked dangerous to me. So I panicked and I ran. Who knows where I thought I was going? I sure as hell didn’t.”
The words tumbled out, and in two minutes, I’d told her more about my life before my time in foster care than I had ever told anyone else.
“That must’ve been scary.” Brenna placed a gentle hand on my arm.
I met her eyes, then cleared my throat awkwardly. “Eventually, one of the vendors took me in. While he had someone search for my mother, he fed me these little custards. They were the best damned thing I’d ever tasted. So a quindim…It’s a Brazilian dessert.”
A cute little frown creased her forehead. “And you think Ian would like quindim?”
“I know that asshole better than he knows himself, and I guarantee you he’d never want to eat anything else if he got a hold of a quindim. All he’d have to do is try it once.”
***
Chapter Four
Brenna
As Ridley finished speaking, a bubble of hope rose to the surface of my heart. I knew he was teasing me and placating me and generally being nice, but a small part of me felt that he was being sincere, too. He really thought I stood a chance of being better than a creampuff.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed thankfully.
Ridley’s palm was warm and welcoming, and fit over mine perfectly, not dwarfing it or crushing it, just sitting with it, fingers not quite intertwined, like that’s the way it was supposed to be.
I met his eyes from across the bench. They were a deep, stormy shade of grey.
The kind of eyes a girl could get lost in.
The thought caught me off guard and I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t look away either. How had I not noticed how soulful those eyes of his were until right that second? They hunted my face, searching for something I couldn’t pinpoint.
We were sitting very close to each other, I realized. His long leg pushed into my shorter one and his shoulder brushed mine, making me tingle. He adjusted on the bench, but it put barely an eighth of an inch between us, and my hand was still clasped in his.
Would it be easier, I wondered, if it had been Ridley instead of Ian?
I flushed at the idea.
Ridley, taking off his shirt and setting it carefully on the night stand atop one of his books.
Ridley, stretched out beside me on the bed.
His hand was no longer still. His wide thumb circled the back of my hand and those tingles that had graced my body just a minute earlier came back tenfold. They travelled up my wrist and through my forearm. They shivered acro
ss my shoulder and down to my chest, finally settling in my breasts and drawing my nipples into firm points.
Ridley, running his warm hands over my aching breasts and down between my legs.
I stifled a gasp at the embarrassing surge of longing that shot through me.
I needed to think of Ian.
I needed to start by pulling away from Ridley.
But I couldn’t quite do it.
And after a long moment, it was he who finally eased away from me.
“You didn’t answer me about what you were doing out here,” he said, a touch of roughness in his voice.
“I come here to think. You?”
“I run in the park to blow off steam.”
“In the middle of the night?”
Ridley shrugged. “I’ve got a bad temper. Sometimes when it’s a choice between taking the time to wait for morning and risking the blow up…I can’t take the chance.”
I gave him a surreptitious once over as I tried to imagine him losing his temper. I couldn’t do it.
“What were you mad about?” I asked.
“Same thing you were thinking about, apparently.”
I frowned. “Ian?”
“Him and his creampuffs.” He jumped to his feet and pulled me to mine before I could reply. “Can I walk you home?”
“Sure.”
Using my flashlight to guide us, we made our way back to the main path and out to the road in silence. After a few minutes, Ridley unthreaded his fingers from mine and I felt the loss acutely. I fought to keep my hand at my side.
“What would you do with Ian, if you had him?” he wanted to know.
I shrugged. “The things a girlfriend usually does with a boyfriend.”
“A g— ” Ridley cut himself off and started again. “I thought this was about sex.”
I flushed. “Of course not! Do I seem like the kind of girl who just goes after a guy for sex?”
“Apparently I have no idea what kind of girl you are.”
My mouth opened and shut again in surprise. It was the first unkind thing I’d heard him say and for some reason, it cut through me. I didn’t know if it was because the words came from him or if it was because they made me question myself. What kind of girl was I, really?
“Ian has never had a girlfriend,” Ridley told me. “He has girls he booty calls and girls he sleeps with once and girls he toys with. He has girls who buy him shit and girls who’ve pretended to be his mother when he’s called in sick to work. When he’s had a job. A girlfriend…A real one? Out of the question.”
Tears welled up in my eyes and I looked down at my hands so he wouldn’t see them.
“Pick someone else,” Ridley suggested. “Anybody but Ian.”
“I can’t.”
He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “Why the hell not?”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t even want to. But I did want him on my side.
“Haven’t you ever felt like something was supposed to be a certain way?” I asked. “Or needed it to be that way so things would work out for you in the long run?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I’m just saying that Ian isn’t a long run kinda guy.”
“Yet. Because he hasn’t tried it.” And then an idea formed in my mind. “But you could help me.”
“How?”
“Tell him to try a quindim.”
Ridley pushed his glasses up on his face. “No.”
My heart dropped. “Why not?”
“Why would I?” he countered.
“Because you’re a nice guy. And I’m a nice girl, asking for your help.”
“Fuck,” he growled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Brenna!”
I jumped back at his outburst. Ridley shot me an apologetic look and I shook my head.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled.
But the truth was, I hadn’t moved away because he’d scared me or even startled me. It was just the opposite. My pulse raced at having my name and the word fuck in the same sentence. In Ridley’s voice. It didn’t help when he put a hand on my elbow and spoke almost right in my ear. He used a low, calm tone that didn’t match the frustrated look on his face.
“You’re putting me in a shitty, no-win spot. If I tell you the reason I’m saying no is that I really am a nice guy, you’ll think I’m not nice for not helping you. If I agree to help you, then I’m the asshole you say I’m not.”
“Please?”
I shoved down a stab of guilt at the fact that I was begging him to do something that so obviously made him uncomfortable and a stab of shame at the fact that I was begging at all.
“Because you really think this is meant to be? You think Ian is your knight in shining, grass-stained armour with the hearts and roses and…” Ridley trailed off. “And puppies and shit.”
“And kittens and shit, too,” I added.
“And horse drawn carriages and shit?”
“And love letters and shit.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. I knew I had him.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Yes. And walks on the beach and cute nicknames that no one else gets.”
“And walks on the beach and cute nicknames that no one else gets,” he repeated.
“And shit,” I teased.
“And shit,” he agreed. “You think Ian is going to be all of that?”
“Yes. Because sometimes fate needs a shove.”
He stopped walking and I saw we’d reached our houses. As he led me up my driveway to my front porch, I had to push down a prick of disappointment that our time together was about to end.
“Hey, Brenna?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you thought at all about just giving Ian a call?”
“That would make way too much sense.”
He smiled. “Well. It might be a place to start. Have you got a pen hidden somewhere in those PJs?”
I shook my head.
“Hang on.”
He loped down my steps and cut over to his driveway. A car door slammed, and seconds later, Ridley reappeared with a piece of scrap paper in his hands.
“Here,” he said. “That’s Ian cell. When you’ve called him, let me know how it went. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll consider helping you ease into the role of creampuff, okay?”
With a squeal that made me feel like a bit of a creampuff already, I bypassed Ridley’s fingers and dove in for a hug.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
After a minute, he leaned back a bit and pulled away slightly, but didn’t let me go.
“Can we make a condition? If I decide to help you, that is?”
His voice was husky in a way that made my mouth a little dry. I had to clear my throat to answer.
“What did you have in mind?”
He smiled. “No more hugging.”
“What? Why?”
He nodded toward his house. “Gonna be hard to convince Ian he’s your main man if you’re all over me.”
“Unless he’s the jealous type,” I joked.
He winked. “You could kiss me and find out.”
For a long moment, I was tempted. More than tempted. My feet rose up until I stood on my tiptoes and my face tilted toward his. My eyes rested on his lips. They were very appealing, with their sensual curve and upward tilt. They couldn’t be as soft as they looked. Could they?
“The no-hugging isn’t working out so far, is it?” I asked softly.
“Why’s that?”
“Umm…”
I looked down at his arms, resting on my hips in a too-familiar way and cleared my throat once more. Ridley jerked back.
“Shit. Sorry.”
I forced an awkward laugh. “Just make him want me first. Then you can try as hard as you like to make him jealous.”
Ridley raised an eyebrow. “Careful, or I’ll make that a condition too.”
“Very funny.”
He nodded once, some unreadable emotion playing over his features, then retrea
ted from my porch once more.
I waited until he was fully out of sight before I sagged against the front door.
You like him.
The small voice inside my head – the one that was usually so practical and often snide – was unusually sincere. And unusually sad.
I did like Ridley.
And I couldn’t like him.
Tears threatened to overtake me.
Stupid hormones.
“Brenna!” As my hand closed over the door handle, his deep voice carried across the dark lawn between our houses. “If the phone call doesn’t work out and he doesn’t write you a love letter from inside a carriage on a sandy beach while wearing armor and if he doesn’t present the aforementioned letter to you by tying it to the back of a puppy-kitty hybrid with a rose in its creepy little teeth, I’ll let you hug me again, okay?”
I hesitated, wondering if he was waiting for an answer. Against my better judgement, I took a chance that he was.
“Ridley?” I called back softly.
“Yeah?”
I smiled when his reply came immediately.
“You forgot the nickname.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m just keeping that one for myself.”
“You’re giving me a nickname?”
“No. I already gave you one.”
Heat blossomed in my cheeks. I was glad he wasn’t close enough to see.
“What is it?” I wanted to know.
His chuckle was half-amused, half-embarrassed. “Pancake.”
Chapter Five
Ridley
I stepped into my house and fought to keep from slamming my door angrily.
Did I actually just give her Ian’s number? I wondered, not quite believing it.
The memory of Brenna’s ample curves folded into my body and the sweet scent of her skin pressed against mine made me question my sanity.
I’d sensed she was hiding something and I had a lot of questions. But with her head under my chin and her arms around my chest, there was one that had stood out.
What the fuck am I doing?
Even when I’d tried to push her away, I’d just ended up pulling her closer. Literally. I hadn’t been able to let her go.
I was a complete fool.
Worse than a fool.
An idiotic asshole.
An assholic idiot.