by Julia Kent
A man’s laugh floats on the air like a smoke signal, followed by the lilt of a woman’s giggle. I open my eyes and trace the source of the sound.
A man in a suit is at the stairs leading to the dock, where a smattering of boats are tethered. He’s turned away from me, one arm outstretched toward a woman a step or two below him. The cut of his suit in the moonlight screams expensive. He has a cobra back, wide at the top, with the broad shoulders of a swimmer. His jacket is open and I see a hint of his waist, his torso bisected by a thick alligator-skin belt looped into trousers tailored so well across a strong, well-defined ass that I could turn his butt into a work of art if I were a sculptor.
He pulls the woman up and turns. I see him in profile.
It’s Andrew McCormick.
Oh, sweet holy hell.
I haven’t seen him in months. Haven’t kissed him since we were in the emergency room after my best friend, Shannon, swallowed the engagement ring his brother, Declan, gave to her as he proposed.
(A tip: don’t bury a three-carat diamond ring in a piece of tiramisu at a fancy restaurant as a way of proposing to a woman. Any woman. Why ruin the dessert like that?)
I’m the maid of honor for the wedding. Andrew is the best man. We’ve managed to avoid each other so far, but the wedding is three months away. I knew this day was coming.
But I didn’t expect it to be today.
My heart starts skipping beats as I take him in from afar, shielded by the angle of my bench. He has no idea I’m watching him. Thick hair, cut short and with the kind of layered sophistication that only comes from a stylist who charges three figures. Shaded eyes that I know are sharp and smoldering, a blend of brown and honey that makes you melt inside. He’s in a full suit, tie still snug against his neck, the moonlight reflecting off a white shirt. His grin is contagious, making my own smile widen as I tilt my head and let myself get lost in wondering.
The woman with him climbs up the final step and moves away from him. Basic body language is easy to read. They’re not on a date. If they were, she’d move closer.
He’s grinning. So is she. Then I see the sheaf of papers in her hands.
A business meeting.
The relief that floods my body makes me looser than the three beers I just had. My heart continues an off-beat pattern more erratic than Red Sox pitching. I have no right to feel relief. I have no need to feel any of these outrageously inappropriate emotions I’m sporting right here, sitting alone, rejected by Mr. Anal Gland Hands and watching the man who secretly kisses me in closets seal some kind of business deal.
That’s right. Closets.
And yes—kisses. Plural. My relationship—or, more accurately, lack of a relationship—with Andrew McCormick, an executive at Anterdec Industries, the biggest client that my company services, is one filled with mystery, discomfort, complexity, and—
Closets.
Too many closets.
More than a year ago I stormed into his office and made him, his brothers, and his father see reason. I set up a hotel shop for Shannon that brought everyone together to make Declan and Shannon face each other and clear the air.
Andrew and I ended up making out in his office closet.
Three beers in me and all I can do is reminisce. Get a fourth in me and I’ll spill the entire story.
And then there was that tiny on-call room in the emergency room where we kissed while Shannon’s tiramisu nearly killed her last year.
I eye one of the boats. Boats don’t have closets, do they?
He turns toward me, as if that thought were spoken aloud. The clouds look like cotton candy, streaked across the sky. In the intermittent moonlight he looks like a painting, with shadow and light playing on his skin and cloth as if he were a canvas of delight. A playground.
“I’m sure you’ll love the houseboat, Andrew. It seems like a perfect fit for your new life,” the woman with him says in dulcet tones. Too bad I have hyperacusis and can hear dog whistles.
And secrets from men who kiss me in closets.
“Thank you, Marcy. I’m looking forward to this,” he replies. He sounds so smug. So confident. So panty-throwingly sultry with that damn voice that feels like silk being stroked across my neckline whenever he speaks.
“Having your father step down and make you the official CEO of Anterdec would make anyone look forward to—”
“Shhhhhhh,” he says, holding one finger up to his grinning mouth. “That’s still embargoed information. You only know because the boat is a business purchase.” He rests one palm on her shoulder. Her head tilts to the left and she tosses her hair back over her back.
I narrow my eyes.
She gives him a conspirator’s smile. “Of course.”
I dart to the left, my head hidden by a bush. I can still turn and see him, though. Andrew shakes hands with Marcy the Secret Broker and she walks off. He jolts a little, reaching into his jacket breast pocket.
Phone call.
As he talks, he pulls at the knot in his tie, loosening it. With two practiced fingers, he undoes the top button of his dress shirt. The wind picks up and sweeps his hair into a mess from behind, sending locks across his forehead. He shivers.
I can’t stop staring.
CEO? Andrew’s officially the CEO of Anterdec Industries now? Has his father really stepped down? I know from Shannon that Declan’s been resentful that James McCormick has been grooming Andrew for the position. The two of them posture and jockey for head alpha wolf of the McCormick clan like drunk eighteenth century Highlanders with something to prove and nothing to lose.
Shannon is going to freak out when she hears this.
And I, unlike Marcy, am not sworn to secrecy. Hah.
Andrew walks, pacing on the dock, taking three long strides, turning, then repeating the motion. Deep in conversation, he’s talking with someone in confident tones. This isn’t a business negotiation. Whatever the topic, it’s not a source of stress. Yet his voice is commanding. Controlled.
Assured.
Thick, muscled thighs carry him to and fro. I’ve seen those thighs in person, sweaty and tight, covered in Lycra. Bike shorts. Back in his office.
The day he kissed me.
The first day he kissed me.
I go loose as I watch him, then force myself to twist and sit with my back to him, molding to the bench. I look up at the sky. My eyes close slowly, lashes creating a venetian-blind effect as the stars poke in between layers of the night.
I breathe in the salty air, the waves lapping against the dock’s joists.
I breathe out frustration and regret and a kind of ennui that comes from being stuck in a life without...
Closets.
I shouldn’t watch. I know I shouldn’t. But my lashes pry themselves open as if called by an unseen force and I give in to impulse.
His call ends and he stuffs the phone into the inner chest pocket of his suit jacket. His back is to me now, his face tipped up. Is he taking in the stars? Ocean waves miles away lead to tiny ripples that lap against the wooden posts of the docks. A fake Boston Tea Party ship sways in the distance, looking about as drunk as I am, except I’m on firm ground.
My phone rings. I lurch up, frantically digging through my purse for it. The sound makes Andrew startle. He turns around and catches my eye.
I freeze. My phone burbles, buried under all my receipts and notes and lip balms and tampons, jumbled into the disorganized mess of my life that I carry around in a three-pound weight on my shoulder.
He gives me a questioning look but doesn’t take a step. Then his eyes narrow and he asks, “How long have you been sitting there?”
Long enough to appreciate the hours you spend with your spin instructor, Mr. Sculpted Ass.
His eyebrows rise. Oh, God. Did I say any of that aloud?
I do what any self-respecting woman who has made out with the man twice in private, and who hasn’t said a word to her best friend about the second time, and who is coming off the utter humiliation of b
eing ditched on a first date with a guy named Mr. Anal Gland Hands.
I run.
By the time I whip around the corner of the building, there’s a yellow Prius cab at the curb. Without even bothering to flag it down, I crash into the door, fling it open, and throw myself in the back seat.
I give the cabbie Shannon’s address, then dial frantically as he pulls away. That missed call was from Shannon, anyway. Might as well visit her now.
I look out the window.
No sign of Andrew.
Two thoughts live simultaneously in my floating brain:
Thank God
and
He didn’t follow.
Chapter Three
Shannon isn’t answering her phone, or her texts, but I have the cabbie drop me off at her building anyhow. Worst case, she’s not home.
Best case, she’s home and has a pallet of tiramisu on hand. The non-ring kind.
I buzz her door. A small video screen shows Marie’s face, sudden and invasive, like a cat that has discovered a hidden video camera. One covered in tuna sauce.
“Who’s there?” she asks pleasantly.
“MOM!” Shannon shouts. Her voice is tinny but a relief to hear. “We’ve told you not to answer for us at our apartment.”
“What? I’m being rude now because I want to help? When you lived with your sister you never cared if I answered the door for you.”
“No, Amy and I cared then, too,” Shannon says flatly.
“Then why didn’t you say something! I can’t read minds,” Marie retorts.
“We did say—”
“Give it up, honey,” says a man’s baritone. “Don’t engage the crazy.”
Marie’s voice sounds like a teakettle. “I am not crazy—”
Bzzzz.
The foyer for this apartment building looks like something the Greeks built in Athens millennia ago, except with air conditioning and wireless security. A concierge desk sits to the right, with a flank of similarly-dressed women, all with their hair in updos, speaking in dulcet tones on wireless headsets.
It’s a little too close to Grey Enterprises for comfort. I’ve never snooped around Declan’s apartment, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find a Red Room of Pain in there.
When Shannon and Declan returned from New York engaged and ready for wedding planning, he’d set one simple condition: Shannon had to move in with him. She readily agreed and moved most of her belongings, except for Chuckles.
Amy inherited Chuckles. Amy will never let Shannon forget this, and so in exchange, Shannon had Declan help Amy get a job at some high tech business incubator in Waltham where you not only can bring your pet to work with you, they have an on-staff pet groomer and animal shaman who will help read your pet’s past lives for you.
Chuckles turns out to have been Vlad the Impaler in an earlier life.
I know, right? I’m not surprised either.
I ride a bajillion flights up to the penthouse, then pause just before the elevator doors open. I’m loopy and loose, and an ache in me lingers.
An ache for what?
Andrew.
His name floats into my head, an unexpected cloud on a sunny day.
No. I’m being silly. Anyone would look good after Ron the Dogbutt Whisperer. Even an animal shaman would be a better date.
I walk into the living room. It’s all sleek, smoky grey and wide open glass lines.
“I now know way more about anal glands than any human being ever should,” I announce.
“Another sex toy shop?” Marie asks.
“No.”
“You’re working with anal, uh...glands...for fun?” Declan asks. He’s less perplexed than he used to be. I think we’re wearing him down. He’s dressed in the McCormick version of casual, which means his tie is loose. Does the man not own a pair of sweatpants or some cheesy, shredded concert t-shirt from 2003?
“Proctologist mystery shops?” Marie muses. “Hmmm.” She turns to Shannon. “Your father’s due for his colonoscopy, and the co-pay is ridiculous. Do you think Greg could let Jason become a certified mystery shopper and give him a proctologist shop?” she asks hopefully.
“Dog anal glands,” I say with a mouth that over-enunciates.
“You mystery shopped a proctologist who works on dogs?” Marie asks.
All three of them stare at me like I’m the one who’s coming up with this stuff.
“No. I went out on a date with a guy who squeezes his schnauzer’s ass for fun.”
“Oh,” Marie says absentmindedly as she puts a yellow sticky note on a giant calendar. “I went out with one of those between dating James and Jason back in the day.”
“You mean there’s more than one out there?” I ask.
Declan quirks one eyebrow as the door buzzes. Taking his leave with a look of relief, he goes to the monitor, leaving me and Shannon to stare at Marie with twin expressions of confusion.
“What does that even mean, Mom?” Shannon asks as I go in for a hug. I haven’t seen her since she and Declan returned from a business trip that lasted for two weeks in New Zealand, and the hug goes on longer than it should. I’ve missed her. As she presses her hands against my back I can feel the cool hardness of her engagement ring band.
The ring that has more intimate knowledge of Shannon’s body than even Declan. Shannon’s Twitter nemesis, Jessica Coffin, chronicled the, uh...transit of the three-carat diamond engagement ring after Shannon swallowed it during the proposal. The hashtag #poopwatch led to more than a little embarrassment for Shannon, but she weathered it all with grace.
Marie raises her voice as if lecturing. “It means you never want to date a man who’s obsessed with his dog. They are worse than the ones who are attached to their mothers at the navel. Dog freaks will always put their pets ahead of their women.”
“Dad was a vet tech when you two met,” Shannon says as she pulls away from me. Her expression is a mixture of happiness and aggravation, which means Marie’s been here for a while.
“Yes, but he wasn’t obsessed with, you know...” Obviously distracted, Marie’s voice tapers off as she looks at the giant dining table, a cross between a tornado and the president’s nuclear bomb briefing room. Have you ever seen those reality television shows about the preppers who buy things like coconut flour in 55-gallon drums, or who dehydrate 9,000 pounds of cherries for the day the zombies take over?
Marie’s the prepper version of a mother of the bride. Except substitute chocolate fountains and Haggis for the cherries and you get the basic idea.
“Dog butts?” Shannon offers helpfully.
Andrew walks in just then. Of course he does. The man knows how to make an exit from my life. Over and over and over. That one he has down to a T.
And now, apparently, he’s perfecting the art of awkward entrances.
“Speaking of assholes,” I murmur.
There goes my heart, beating triple time at the sight of him. But this time, I have the upper hand. I’ve got the goods on him.
And he knows it.
“You’re safe,” he says to me in a weird voice. Tight, as though angry, but relieved, as if he cares.
“Of course I’m safe. What are you talking about?”
“You disappeared at the marina.”
Now Declan, Marie and Shannon pay full attention to us, Marie dropping everything. Her eyes light up. Oh, no.
No no no no no.
She’s already busy planning one wedding.
She doesn’t need another one, even just in her head.
“You two had a date at the marina?” Marie asks in a voice that goes up at the end like a wedding planning erection. Like all the blood in her body swells to fill Something Blue.
“No date. In fact, I just happened to walk along the water and ran into Andrew talking about his new appointment as the C—”
Andrew’s across the room before I can finish, his warm, muscular arms around me, lips on mine. He tips me back, like a stage kiss, as if the way his hands press
into my waist and back aren’t more than a surface-level gesture.
He tastes like wine and nearly two years of questions.
I wonder if I taste like beer and nearly two years of frustration.
My thoughts quiver, then fade, as the kiss melts me. If this is just for show, he’s putting his heart and soul into it. And his tongue. Definitely his tongue. His hands snake down and one cups my ass, the other pulling me tight. His tongue takes its time, like he’s at the beginning of negotiations for the deal of his life.
Maybe he is.
The man is in no rush.
“I don’t understand,” I hear Marie say as if she’s a thousand miles in the air, floating on the wind with a hundred helium balloons clutched in one hand. “Andrew is Mr. Anal Gland Hands?”
The spell is broken.
“Does he even have a schnauzer?” she asks a gape-mouthed Shannon, who is staring at me and Andrew like she’s spotted Sasquatch and he’s snacking on little tempura versions of the Tooth Fairy and Santa’s elves.
Andrew pulls away, his mouth covered in my lipstick. Plum Passion. Our eyes meet and he gives me the same damn jaunty grin he flashed the other two times we kissed.
He comes back in to nuzzle my neck. I can’t breathe, yet I’m panting. I’m panting so hard my lipstick should be called Panting Panty.
And then he murmurs, “Don’t say a word about my being named CEO.”
I freeze.
That’s it? That’s the only reason he chased me down and kissed me? To shut me up?
So I do what any self-respecting woman would do to a guy who has now kissed her twice in closets during crisis points in her best friend’s life.
I pull back and slap his face so hard my palm turns purple.
From the lipstick.
Marie gasps. Shannon lets out a little scream.
Declan smirks, the kind of smile that has zero mirth in it, and mutters something that sounds like, “Great. Asshole Boyfriend Summit coming tonight. I’m not getting any.”
Marie’s eyes narrow. Out of the corner of my field of vision, I see her walk up to the enormous stainless steel refrigerator and open the freezer section.
“Shannon,” she stage whispers. “We’re going to need more ice cream for this.”