Late nights at Bailey’s with giant easel-pads and arguments that usually ended with, ‘That’s stupid, forget it, this isn’t going to work.’ At first, just the five of them, then the group grew to eight, thirteen, sixteen, and thirty by the time they officially opened their virtual doors. The heady nervous excitement that came from the battling titans of ‘we’re crazy’ and ‘we’re really doing this, and it might actually work.’
Holidays could be depressing enough without reminders of things that no longer were. “I remember we were all young and crazy and stupid enough not to know what couldn’t be done.”
“We believed, Jack.” She motioned to the tree. “Your birthday’s the Solstice, the time when the day’s so short you barely see the sun before it’s dark again. And yet we still believe the light comes back.” As she talked, she stabbed branches of artificial, flame-retardant polymer pine into the plastic trunk pole, building the tree up to the last foot.
It probably wasn’t the time to point out that they didn’t need to believe anything about the days getting longer when science and hard evidence proved it. Starla wasn’t the type to stick the knife in and twist without good reason. He wanted to see where she was going, even if it hurt.
She put her hands on her hips. “The tree is belief. We tie our wishes to it, our memories. My tree has memories from my kids, our life, our marriage—”
“I don’t need a tree to remember my marriage, Starla.” He rubbed the sudden tension at the back of his neck and avoided meeting Lin’s eyes as she handed him a box of delicate-looking ornaments. The Chillsprites were going to love those. He’d get the dubious honor of going to the kitchen for morning coffee over a field of broken glass.
The nominally-ditzy expression Starla usually wore, accompanied by the bobbing, tinkerbell curls, made the sharpening of her features all the more shocking to the unwary. “You need one to remember your friends.”
There it is. “Starla—”
“People put up trees because the Solstice means the light’s coming back. I thought I saw the light coming back when you came back to us.” She punctuated her words with a shove of the last foot of the tree—a sort of miniature tree of itself that capped the pyramid shape—into the socket that held it in place.
“I wasn’t—I never left.” The protest couldn’t be weaker. The excuse couldn’t be more lame. There were a hundred good, solid, unique reasons he had to keep himself at arm’s length—or actually, a suburb’s length, judging from the ruckus he’d caused in the Oddworld by visiting the other night—but damned if they didn’t all sound stupid right now. He thought of the Chillsprites in the bathroom. Okay, crazy and stupid.
She shoved a tin star into his hands. “You never came around, either.”
He set the star on the top branch and fiddled with it until it stood straight, unable to find an excuse for his absence that didn’t sound like the noises a douchebag might make if someone stepped on it.
To his surprise, Lin came to his defense as she handed him the end of a string of lights. “Sometimes people need space to deal with the chaos in their lives.”
“And sometimes, people only think they need space when what they really need is friends to help shoulder the burden.” Starla terminated the light string with a snap of the plug into the outlet of one of his power strips. She sent a look his way.
Lin stepped between him and Starla, stuffing ribbon bows into Starla’s hands. “Some burdens are best dealt with by not-talking about them.” She sent a meaningful glance his way.
He caught the reference to the text. Did that mean she was okay with not-talking about what they weren’t talking about?
“And others just need the right time to be talked about.” She began to hang glass balls on the tree, bigger balls than the ones she’d taken charge of before. Those balls hung on the wall above his doorway now. Some of them hung from a greenery garland draped over the TV stand. “Aaand, sometimes those burdens will let you know when they want to be shouldered and by whom.”
This secret code thing wasn’t going to last. Already, he reached the limits of comprehension. He ventured a tentative assist with one or two candy canes and a plastic glitter snowflake. In the time it took for him to hang those three ornaments, Starla and Lin had hung two dozen glittered pine cones, glass balls, and a curly ribbon that cascaded around the tree like a haphazard wrapping from a particularly festive mummy.
He retreated to the power strip to test the lights.
Starla set her hands on her hips and evaluated their work. “Not bad,” she said. “Although, next year, we’re going with a more designer, masculine look. And you’ll need a second tree for your personal memory ornaments.”
Jack shared an alarmed look with Lin. “Two trees? I’m just one guy—”
“Who will have a turn at hosting seasonal get-togethers with his friends.” She shook a finger under his nose. “Now that you’ve come back from the dead, Jack Winters, don’t think for a minute you’re getting out of Christmas Eve at our house.”
Jack stopped messing with the lights and glanced up from Starla to Lin and back to Starla again. Oddlings hiding in his bathroom, the flimsy promise of ice cream the only thing keeping them from playing soccer with the ornaments. How could he expect to keep it together for an entire evening? “I don’t want to intrude--”
Starla’s face darkened. “No, Jack. You never want to ‘intrude’ and quite frankly, it’s starting to piss me off. I left you alone after your divorce because my husband—” she poked him in the chest, “—aka your best friend—told me you needed space. We have given you space enough to create a gulf between you and the people who care about you the most. You’re out of space, mister.”
Lin swallowed, looking as stunned as Jack felt. He struggled for words “I—”
“Unless you’re about to say, ‘I would love to come to my dear friends’ house for a very special time of the year because I care about them the same way they care about me,’ I would keep your yap shut.”
Jack drew in a breath and glanced at Lin. “I...would love to come to my dear friends’ house?” He glanced at Starla again. “Because I really miss them and we need to catch up?”
Starla’s eyes narrowed. “It’ll do. I’m making a ham. I’m baking bread. There will be frou-frou gourmet mustard. I suggest you arrive on time.”
He nodded dumbly. She jangled her keys again and like Jekyll and Hyde, her clear-eyed, perky self came back. “Great! Linny, you gonna be okay here? I’ve got a babysitter to rescue from my children.”
Lin nodded slowly. “I’ll...catch the trolley.”
“‘Kay then. Bye!”
Lin turned to Jack, her eyes wide as his felt. He cleared his throat. “Umm...when did she start channeling Conan the Barbarian?”
~*~
The door closed behind Starla and created a vacuum of silence behind her. Lin licked her lips, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her spine. Inasmuch as she’d been focused on maintaining the “of course everything is completely normal” atmosphere while she and Starla invaded Jack’s loft, the steady and subtle tension that built in her alongside her rising body temperature made her feel “on” in front of her best friend, a condition she wasn’t at all used to with Starla.
She blinked away an uncomfortable memory of the conversation she’d had with the EvoWorld board—then including Bailey—about the need to restructure EvoWorld with another level of management. The additional structure needed to mirror the Big Fish model and make them more attractive to the larger company had to be “sold” in just the right way, so she turned herself “on,” careful to guide the management’s assumptions—and her friend’s expectations—until they walked away believing it had been their idea all along.
She’d made the case, Bailey and the others agreed, Roger had been proud of her…and Big Fish began moving like a shadow out in dark waters, tightening its circle around the smaller, more agile company. EvoWorld could start swimming in deeper waters because of the change,
but what she remembered now, and what had made her stomach hurt back then, was that putting a fin on a dolphin didn’t make it a shark. It was one of many changes that left them drifting further apart, like icebergs in the ocean.
As the last sounds of the elevator fell to silence, she glanced around, up into the rafters, and finally at Jack. He was staring back at her with an intensity that darkened his faded-denim eyes to evening sky at moonrise. The fire in her belly ticked up another notch.
She tracked him warily as he set down the coffee cup and closed the distance between them in two steps. She remembered to breathe in and caught a lungful of fresh arctic air radiating from his body. Half a second later, she surrendered the tight control she had over her arms and pulled his head down to hers.
His hands fastened to her waist, dragging her against his bare chest. She opened just in time to meet an iced-coffee kiss with an aftertaste of peppermint, angling her head to get closer. They took turns breathing for each other. Fog-mist rose between them as she felt the kitchen counter press against her tailbone. He shifted and she was up on the countertop. One of her shoes clattered to the floor as she cupped his face in hers.
“Mmmf.” The play of his lips on hers grew rough.
She licked and tasted tiny ice crystals. “More.” She shouldn’t have stayed away. It might have been psycho-girlfriend behavior, but she should have driven over last night, told him to shove his smooth text, betting on the likelihood that he was just as hot for her as she was for him.
“Mmmf,” he said again. She realized he was trying to tell her something and peeled her hands away from his cheeks, untangled her warm tongue from his cold one.
His hands left her waist as he steadied himself with deep gulps of air. “Wow. That was a hell of a good-morning kiss.” He rubbed his bottom lip.
The frost faded away and she saw it was bright red, like it’d been bit. But she hadn’t— Her eyes went to his face and she gasped. Faint, ruddy prints mottled his skin, right where her hands had been. She stared down at her hands in horror. “Jack, what have I—”
“I’m fine.” Frost condensed on his skin like five o’clock shadow, creeping up from the corners of his mouth over his cheeks and up to his temples. He smiled down at her. “I missed you.”
She dropped her eyes to his bare chest. “I have this hungry, hollow feeling right now.” I haven’t felt this randy and out of control since teenage hormones ruled my life. And not even then, thanks to Overbearing Asian Mom.
“You probably skipped breakfast.” He leaned in close. “I’d love to make you breakfast.”
Good thing she was sitting down, otherwise her knees might not have held out. She licked her lips. “Something tells me there’s more than one way to parse that statement.” She didn’t tell them to, but her fingers took it upon themselves to travel over his biceps, up to his shoulders and back down again.
“I mean it any way you want it.” He grinned.
She left marks on his skin. “Um, have you noticed anything you might want to be worried about?”
He followed the direction of her gaze. “Um. Oh.” He shrugged. “You know guys are mostly okay with fingernail marks, right?” He leaned in again.
Why am I so weak? She sighed into his mint-coffee mouth again and let herself be unfocused for not enough minutes. “Yeah—but those aren’t—my fingernails,” she said in between the back and forth before breaking away to lean back on her elbows. The position reminded her of the other night and she glanced up into the rafters again, hunting for spies.
“I told them to get lost,” he said by way of explanation. “This is the first time it’s actually worked.”
“They don’t usually do what you tell them? Aren’t you their king or something?”
He rolled his eyes. “For all the good that does me. I bribed them.” He was still looming over her, in bare-chested glory. The marks she’d left on his skin were condensing, like some sort of highly-localized heat exchange.
She reached out a tentative hand again, this time placing her palm squarely over his stomach. “See? That’s not fingernails.”
“Not yet.” His grin turned unrepentant.
She turned her face up to his. “I know you had your heart set on making me breakfast—”
He took the opportunity to nuzzle her neck. “Mmm…so warm…better than Cap’n Crunch.”
“But—Ah!” Her voice trembled when he found The Spot right there above her collarbone. “You gave me Options.” She sighed. “About the Thing.”
A deep gust of cold air traveled over her skin, sending even more shivers through her. Her shivers were starting to develop shivers and if she didn’t keep her rapidly-diffusing focus in line, she was going to end up naked on the counter. Again.
“Options.” His breath over her skin raised gooseflesh and left tingles in its wake. “The…Thing.”
“Yes.” So hard to concentrate. “The Thing.”
He lifted his head, puzzlement fogging his gaze.
Shaky ground started to gel under her mental feet. “It’s the Thing we’re not talking about. The Thing I panicked about when Starla insisted on pulling this stunt this morning. The Thing we conveniently covered up with a naked romp under the comforter the other night. That Thing.” Although, in retrospect, she could already see several pervy misinterpretations lining up behind his eyes. “And no, I don’t mean this Thing.” She slipped a bold hand inside the waistband of his jeans and found what she was looking for right away and at attention. Oh, hello. “We don’t need to talk much about this Thing.”
He faltered when he tried to speak, then tried again. “N-no, it’s never much up for talking, but if you want to shake to start negotiations…”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I very much do.” She narrowed her eyes. “But that is why I’m wondering if I really do want to do.”
“Do want to do what?”
“What do you think?” She smirked.
“Not doing much of that right now. Your hand’s kind of on the control stick.”
She squeezed lightly. A shudder went through his entire body and his eyes fell closed. “Then listen to the driver.” With her free arm, she sat all the way up. “I have needs only you can satisfy.”
“I’m liking where this is going.”
Me, too, she thought. The heat seeping through her limbs wanted her to forget the word play and just move on with the play. Curiosity be damned, the need she wanted satisfied began and ended with naked flesh and animal desire. She leaned against his chest and breathed him in, cold freshness, like walking outside in winter woods. But the woods was why she had to focus. “My first need is curiosity. Satisfy that, and we can get back to satisfying the other need.”
~*~
Red and white candy-cane stripes of hot desire at the pressure of her fingers wrapped around Jack’s brain and derailed every train of thought he tried to summon. She wanted something from him. He’d happily give it, no matter what it was, up to and including quarts of his own blood, if he could just understand what it was she asked of him. Or how to communicate words to that effect.
“Satis—” he couldn’t say it. The mere suggestion of the word did things to his insides that might find themselves on his outsides before he could get to a towel.
“Answer your questions. Right.” His hips pushed against the pressure of her hand one more time before he very firmly set his hands on the countertop and not as firmly pushed himself away. Never mind that the distance gave him a more complete view of her body, just as it had been the other night. Even though she was still fully clothed, he knew what was under them now. “Damn, woman.” He turned away, adjusted himself, and reached into the refrigerator for the open gallon of milk.
He didn’t bother with a glass, just chugged the last of it from the jug itself. The cold milk hit his system like an insulating blanket of snow over tundra. “You know, you should switch careers. You’d make a hell of an international spy if you wanted to torture people for information.”
/> She hopped down from the counter and kicked off her other shoe. “No I wouldn’t. I haven’t gotten thing one out of you yet, so I’m exercising my Options.”
“Options?” He still wasn’t sure of her meaning. Wasn’t sure of anything except how much his body wanted her touch right now and how tenuous his control over himself felt. Did she practice the way that dark, hot gaze roved over a guy? Had she always had this talent? How could he have missed it?
Because she didn’t fit into your Master Plan, did she? The one that called for the “right” career and the “right” address. And the kind of wife who only wanted the “right” things.
She tapped his shoulder. Her fingertips left heated trails over his skin. “Options One and Two of your epic mack-daddy text?”
The fluff cleared his head, leaving behind embarrassment. “Mack-daddy?” But he couldn’t help the smile when he remembered her reply. “You quoted Python. ‘Five is Right Out.’ ”
“Of course I did. How could I not? You took the most awkward situation in human interaction and managed to turn it—via text message—into something so smooth and natural, it generated its own lubricant. Hence, the mack-daddy.”
Jack reared back. Not so far that he couldn’t still feel her heat warming him, but just enough that his shock was evident—and that he could see her features clearly without going for the glasses. “You called that ‘smooth’? As soon as I sent it, I felt like the world’s biggest douche.” Never mind that her use of the word “lubricant” made the milk sitting in his stomach feel more like a latte.
She shook her head. Some of her curls had fallen over her shoulder and he wanted nothing more than to accept the invitation they presented—to nuzzle them back again for another taste of her delicate flesh. “I bolt from your house without saying so much as ‘goodbye’ and you put me at ease with multiple-choice.”
At ease? “I rambled enough to qualify for senility.” He fixed his eyes on a spot behind her shoulder, far away from her lovely neck. “I was fully prepared—” no, I wasn’t “—for a block.”
WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening Page 16