After Tonight

by Erin Nicholas

  Of course, getting tossed in jail—even if her name had been cleared later—for her cyber security job hadn’t sat well with her mother. Or her employment prospects.

  Which meant she was jobless and homeless and on her way to penniless. For now. Temporarily. It had to be temporary. She simply couldn’t tolerate anything else. She could design websites. She could start a podcast about her favorite video game. If prepubescent boys could make good money doing that, she surely could. She could design her own video game. She knew nothing about marketing that or…really anything else that had anything to do with starting a business like that, but she could definitely design her own game. And it would be kick-ass.

  “Riley! The bacon is getting cold!”

  Riley blew out a breath. Sure. She could do all of that. But she needed to move out of her parents’ house yesterday. Because living in her parents’ basement and spending most of her time on her computer was pathetic and way too much like how she’d spent ages twelve to eighteen.

  “Riley!”

  Oh yeah, and it was annoying.

  She combed her fingers through her hair, cinched the belt on her robe tighter, and took a deep breath. Then made the climb to the kitchen.

  “I can’t believe they’re raising that much money for a prom,” Erika Ames was saying to her husband.

  Riley’s dad, Jake, nodded. “It goes up every year.”

  “But twelve thousand dollars? For a party?” Erika asked, transferring bacon from the skillet to a plate.

  Riley crossed to the cupboard that housed the coffee cups. See, there was no way the bacon was getting cold. Her mom had just taken it out of the pan. Riley sighed.

  “That’s scandalous,” Erika said. “The food bank could use that money. The senior center. The daycare.”

  Riley filled her cup with coffee that she knew would be nice and strong. Thankfully, that was one thing she and her father agreed on. But as she turned and leaned back against the counter, taking that first sip, she had to admit that it wasn’t really her dad she had a hard time agreeing with. Her dad was a pretty laid-back guy.

  Her mom on the other hand was…Kyle. Or rather, she was where Kyle got his do-gooder-save-the-world side. Not that Riley was a complete loser bitch. But she wasn’t the Boy Scout her brother was.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Jake agreed, turning the page on the newspaper he held.

  “You don’t think they should do something more important with it?” Erika asked. She stabbed a fork into a waffle and flopped it onto Jake’s plate.

  Jake folded the paper down and eyed the waffle, then looked up at his wife of thirty-two years. “I think the kids will make some great memories in a safe and fun environment with that money, and I think that’s important.”

  Erika’s shoulders relaxed a little and she gave him a smile. “You’re right, I suppose. It would be nice if they could do it for less, but that’s not the most terrible thing in the world.”

  Jake nodded and reached for the syrup.

  While Erika started in on something else. Something about the garden and some bugs that were eating her roses, and then Jake said something about picking up something at the gardening store in York when he went over later, and again Erika settled. It was mostly blah, blah, blah to Riley, but while she wasn’t listening to the words, she was watching her parents.

  Maybe for the first time.

  It was strange. All of this was how it had always been. Erika got worked up and emotional and Jake settled her down. Riley had seen that exact thing over and over in her life, but she’d never really thought about it. Now, for some reason, she found herself studying it.

  It was so…normal. Her mom and dad just fit together. Sure, some of it was habit. After that long together, how could it not be? But you had to stick around with someone to establish habits. Erika and Jake Ames fit. They balanced each other.

  Riley had always found that very boring. Very predictable. Her parents had met when Erika had been a sophomore in high school and Jake was a senior. They’d dated, gotten engaged, then married, then had two kids. Exactly the way everyone else in Sapphire Falls did.

  That was another reason Riley had gotten out of town. It seemed that this tendency to just go along with tradition was in the water, and she was afraid to drink too much of it.

  “Riley?”

  She shook herself and focused on her mother. It seemed that Erika had been trying to get her attention. “Um, yeah?”

  “How many waffles do you want?”

  A flutter of panic rippled through her chest. For some reason, those waffles felt symbolic in that moment. She couldn’t eat the same waffles made in the same waffle iron in the same kitchen that she’d been eating all her life. She needed more. Different. And if she took a bite of those waffles, and they were amazing and comforting, then she might decide that they were good enough, and that eating them for the rest of her life wasn’t the worst thing that could ever happen…

  “I have to go,” she said quickly.

  Her mother’s eyes widened. No one, in her experience, walked out on waffles.

  “Where? Now?”

  “Yes. Right now.” She probably didn’t need to emphasize that quite so firmly.

  “But…” Erika looked toward the waffle iron, then over to her husband.

  Jake was watching them, seeming curious as well. But he was still chewing.

  “The waffles,” Erika finally finished, as if she truly was speechless at the idea of someone not wanting her waffles.

  “I know. But I have to be somewhere.” Where, she wasn’t sure, but she’d figure that out after she was out of this house. This place that was comforting and cramped at the same time. Yes, she felt pathetic about moving back home and now living her own version of Groundhog Day—a fabulous and horrifying movie. What she’d done for the past week, okay month, was pretty much what she’d done all the weeks of her summer vacations at age fourteen. With the exception of hanging out at the Come Again.

  Which brought Derek to mind. And the other thing she had definitely not done in high school—giving someone advice about relationships.

  Yeah, for all her rebellious tats and piercings and black clothing and hair dye, she hadn’t known crap about anything other than video games and exasperating her mother.

  She was pretty much full circle here.

  Except that Derek Wright wanted her to make him a better man.

  She could do that. She had to do that. Because the alternative was waffles with her parents and—

  “Good morning!”

  Riley groaned internally. Waffles with her parents and her perfect, life-on-track brother.

  “Hi, everyone.”

  And his perfect, shit-together fiancée, Hannah.

  “Good morning!” Erika was clearly relieved that someone was going to be eating waffles and bacon since Riley was letting her down.

  Was she rebelling against waffles? Fuck yeah, she was. And normalcy and clichés and following in the perfect footsteps in front of her.

  Why?

  Well…because she always had. And she was happy. And…yeah, that’s all she had.

  She escaped the kitchen and headed downstairs to get dressed. Okay, another difference in living at home compared to high school was that her bedroom had not been in the basement when she was a teen. She’d slept upstairs. In a room that was yellow and lavender. Now she was in the basement, where she had her own bathroom and living area and…that was it. This sucked.

  She got dressed, pulled her hair up into a bun, washed her face and brushed her teeth and was back upstairs within fifteen minutes. “Bye!”

  “Will you be home for supper?” Erika called to her from the kitchen table, where she was happily seated with her husband, son, and future daughter-in-law in the most normal, most cliché, most all-across-Sapphire-Falls-at-this-very-moment way. They were, of course, drinking coffee and eating the waffles. The delicious, I-can-easily-trick-you-into-feeling-like-this-is-enough-forever waffles.


  Riley gripped the door handle tightly, so desperately wanting to say that no, she would not be home for supper. But where was she going to be? “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”

  “Cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole,” Erika said with a big smile.

  Riley groaned and pulled the door shut firmly behind her.

  Her mother’s cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole was amazing. Climbing those basement stairs to eat that once a week for the rest of her life wouldn’t be horrible.

  Fuck.

  4

  “Alright! For fuck’s sake!” Derek yanked his front door open and stood staring—with a mix of surprise, trepidation, and concern—at Riley Ames.

  “Morning!” She gave him a big, almost perky smile.

  Except that Riley was never what he’d call perky.

  “Are you okay?” He was aware that he was scowling. But fuck, it was early.

  Her smile dropped and she frowned. “Yes. Why?”

  “It’s not even eight a.m.”

  Her perkiness slipped a bit and she sighed. “I know, right?”

  “So what’s going on?”

  “I’m here to have breakfast with you.”

  Now his brows lifted. “Why?”

  “Because that’s something that happens in normal, not-just-fucking-around relationships.”

  Ah. Wonderful. His training was starting. At the crack of dawn. Okay, to be fair, the sun had been up for a couple of hours, but this was way before he normally rolled out of bed. Riley too. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not a morning person.”

  She shrugged. “But your future sweet, contributes-to-society-with-a-real-job girlfriend might be.”

  “Is Lucy a morning person?”

  She didn’t roll her eyes, but it seemed that she wanted to. “She is, actually. She does yoga and then reads the paper while she drinks her coffee.”

  Hmm, yoga. He realized Riley was dressed in a pair of yoga pants, as a matter of fact, and a tank top. Her hair was in a messy knot on top of her head and she was wearing glasses.

  She looked really hot in those glasses.

  He blinked.

  What? He’d just thought of Riley as hot? It wasn’t technically the first time. She was hot. It was just a fact. And he’d realized it and acknowledged in the same way he acknowledged a sunny, 70-degree day. It was something that was a fact and was happening around him, but that didn’t really affect anything.

  It was different this time. It seemed that Riley was affecting him. That was…weird. And probably complicated. But mostly weird.

  He’d seen her dressed like this before. Fitted clothes that hugged her body and showed off her tats and piercings and smooth, creamy skin, and curves—

  Wait. No, he hadn’t. He’d appreciated her tats and piercings and the streaks of color she put in her hair and the dramatic makeup she seemed to prefer, because it was so funny that she looked nothing like the nerdy, bookworm gamer-girl she was. But he’d never thought of her skin as creamy.

  “Are you here to do yoga?” Did his voice sound funny?

  Riley tipped her head. “I’m more of a kick-boxing girl.”

  He snorted. That didn’t surprise him at all. “I’m just saying, if I have to get up early, seeing a bendy girl in skimpy clothes seems like an okay perk.” Seeing you bending over would be a perk.

  Fuck. He couldn’t be thinking things like that. This was Riley. She was not only Kyle’s little sister, but she found Derek incredibly irritating. Oh, and she was here to teach him how to date another woman.

  “You can’t sit an ogle a woman while she does yoga,” Riley said.

  He sure as hell could. “So what should I do while she does yoga?”

  “Make her French-press coffee. And crepes. And go out back and pick her some flowers for the breakfast table. And put her towel in the dryer so it’s warm after her shower.”

  Derek blinked at her again. That was all very specific. And…romantic. How did Riley know this stuff? Had some guy done those things for her? And who was he?

  And why in the hell did Derek feel a prick of annoyance behind his breastbone at the idea of her wrapping up in a towel some guy had warmed for her?

  “You’re going to teach me to be romantic then?” he asked. “That’s what nice girls like?”

  “All girls like that.”

  “A lot of girls would like me to bend them over on their yoga mat.” Like almost all of the girls he usually hung out with.

  Had he said that to put a sexual image in Riley’s head? Hell yes, he had. Why? Well, that was the real question. Riley didn’t like him. What good did it do to put sexual thoughts in her head? Of course, her not liking him was kind of why he did most of the things he did when she was around. Pushing her buttons was just so damned fun.

  But Riley didn’t blush or act surprised or offended at his comment. She lifted her chin and said, “And if there were flowers and crepes on the breakfast table afterward, I guarantee your chances of getting a before-work blowjob would increase exponentially.”

  Riley Ames had just said the word blowjob to him.

  Derek wasn’t sure what to do with that. He might have vaguely registered her hotness before, but he knew for a fact she’d never said the words blow and job together like that to him before.

  As he was still trying to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, she moved to push past him, and her bare shoulder brushed over his bare sternum. Derek became acutely aware that he was in only the pair of gym shorts that he’d pulled on when the pounding had erupted from his front door.

  It seemed the same realization hit her at the same moment. They both froze, both holding their breaths.

  It wasn’t like they hadn’t been in tight quarters before. Surely they’d passed close to one another in a hallway or had to move around one another in a small space at some point in the twenty-six years he’d known her.

  But if he’d ever been hit in the gut by how soft and warm her skin was or how great her hair smelled, he’d promptly forgotten it. He’d never felt an urge to lean in and take a big breath. And maybe drag his mouth up and down her throat.

  Until this moment, anyway.

  Because yeah, her hair fucking smelled amazing, and she was very warm and soft.

  Slowly—very slowly—she turned toward him. Her shoulder grazing his chest again. Her eyes lifted to his, taking time to track over his pecs, shoulders, throat and mouth before making eye contact, however. She swallowed.

  “But I’m going to make you crepes today.”

  Yeah, her voice definitely sounded funny.

  “Do I like crepes?” And did that mean she was romancing him? Well, no. She was just going through the motions of romance so he’d learn.

  “If you don’t, you will,” she told him with a little cockiness in her voice that was so familiar and yet, also sent a bolt of heat through him.

  “That’s pretty big talk.” He was more a bacon-and-eggs kind of guy. And he had no idea what French-press coffee was.

  “Well, this isn’t actually about what you like,” she told him. They were still standing really close. She’d turned enough that they were no longer touching, but the centimeters of space between them were full of heat.

  “Right. So Lucy likes crepes,” Derek said.

  Something flickered in Riley’s eyes but after a moment, she nodded. “Yes. She does. And cream in her coffee.”

  He should make a note of that. But all he could think was that Riley drank her coffee black.

  Finally, Riley stepped the rest of the way through the door and headed for his kitchen. With the bag from the grocery store that he had just now noticed.

  He blew out a breath and followed her.

  “And put a shirt on,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Why?”

  “Because you walking around half-naked would make Lucy uncomfortable.”

  “Lucy’s not here.” But he snagged a clean T-shirt from the basket of clothes he’d left on the sofa.
r />   “You need to practice what it will be like when she is,” Riley said. “You might spend the majority of your time with women half-naked, but you need to do things differently with a real girlfriend.”

  He stepped into the kitchen, still just holding his shirt. Why? Because he kind of enjoyed making Riley uncomfortable? But she didn’t seem uncomfortable exactly. She did seem a little jumpy though. Like she was trying to avoid looking at him. Which automatically made him want her even jumpier.

  He crossed the kitchen floor to get closer to her. He couldn’t explain it other than to say that there had never been a time he could remember, from the time she was a little girl to now, that he’d been around Riley Ames and hadn’t wanted to get her attention. Even if it was negative attention.

  He’d always chalked it up to their like-a-brother-and-sister relationship. But he was absolutely questioning everything about that right now. Because her nipples were pressing against the front of her tank top, and he loved that reaction more than any other he’d ever gotten out of her.

  “Seems like I might spend even more time without clothes on with a real girlfriend,” he said.

  Riley spun away as he got closer and started pulling items out of the grocery bag. “You have to do normal things with a real girlfriend,” she said. “And most normal things require clothes.”

  “Normal things like what?” He watched her set flour, sugar, eggs, and milk on the counter. She didn’t think he’d have those things? But then he thought about it. He wasn’t sure he did have flour.

  “Things like…” She trailed off and gave an exasperated sigh, then turned, seeming reluctant. “You can’t have sex with a woman every single time you’re alone together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have to get to know her. You have to talk. You have to do things together like make meals, and watch TV and movies, and talk about pop culture and politics and current events. That’s how you learn about what kind of person she is and what she likes and doesn’t like. Otherwise, you won’t really know if you like being together or not, and if you should keep seeing her or not.”