For Seven Nights Only (Chase Brothers)

by Sarah Ballance

  His brow quirked. “Well, then, do tell.”

  She grinned. “We’re going to the opera.”

  Chapter Eight

  Taking Monday off had gotten Sawyer’s ass handed to him Tuesday morning. Subsequently, he’d worked late two nights in a row, until his brothers stopped glaring at him. Thursday left him staring at his water-stained ceiling, wondering if he should call Kelsie. Or text. Then he wondered when he’d ever done that and sat back instead, dreading the damned opera. The only thing that made the idea of it remotely tolerable was knowing he’d be there with her. The problem was they would be there to find her a man, and he was increasingly pissed off over the whole idea of finding someone else for her when he wanted her in the worst way.

  Not to mention that he felt like a fraud. He knew nothing about men who actually wanted to go to the opera, and it stood to reason that the rest had been dragged there unwillingly, which meant they weren’t available to begin with.

  His phone vibrated. He looked down to see a text from a stewardess he’d met months ago, who had apparently just made her way back to JFK. He deleted it without responding and went back to staring at his ceiling.

  He wanted to see Kelsie. Or at least let her know he was thinking of her. Which went against everything he stood for and had nothing to do with that hand job she’d given him. Or maybe it did. Yeah, that was a much better theory than him missing her.

  He had to get her out of his system. He had to sleep with her. But he couldn’t sleep with her, because she wanted weddings and white picket fences, and he only did one-night stands with women who were most definitely on the same page.

  Dammit.

  He kicked the recliner closed and powered off the television he hadn’t even glanced at since turning it on. He pocketed his keys and cell phone, and, checking for his wallet, he left the apartment. There was only one way he was going to get through the night, and that was with a damned good excuse for a distraction.

  When the elevator arrived, he headed downstairs.

  Alone.

  …

  Kelsie poked at the remains of her pork fried rice, despite not having taken a bite in at least thirty minutes. Nearly three days of trying to reroute her thoughts away from all things Sawyer had culminated in utter failure. While there hadn’t been a single reason he needed to contact her—they had a date the following day, and as far as she knew, it stood—she couldn’t help feeling a little…lost.

  No more so than when her sister called, gushing over wedding plans. Kelsie just leaned her head back against the sofa and listened while Marmaduke took up his favorite pastime, which was trying to pull the elastic band out of her hair.

  If her sister heard the pseudo-fierce growls through the connection, she didn’t mention them. “Have you seen the weather forecast?” Jana squealed. “The harbor could have been dicey this time of the year, but it’s utterly perfect.”

  “I’m really happy for you guys,” Kelsie said. “Truly.”

  Jana hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay, you know, with…your ex—”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, clear evidence that she was not fine. Not at all.

  “Okay, good. Because you know how I said I didn’t want a bachelorette party?”

  Oh. God. No. “Yes, you did say that. Emphatically.”

  “Well, I’ve changed my mind!” Jana squealed. She honest-to-God, grown-ass-woman squealed.

  Kelsie closed her eyes and prayed for some kind of apocalypse. “Your wedding is a little over a week away. I’m not sure you get to just change your mind.”

  “I know. I know this is last minute,” Jana said, again with the squeal, “but there’s this club and I’ve been dying to go. We can just all meet there, so you’ll hardly have to do a thing.”

  “Wait…me?” But even as she asked, she knew. It was her job. But the fact that between her mother and her sister, she’d had nothing to do with the wedding had left her off her game. Briefly she wondered if Marmaduke could be convinced to leave her hair alone and instead chew off her head. Unlike with the hair tie, there was meat involved.

  “You are the maid of honor, not to mention my sister,” Jana said, borderline offended. “Of course you’re going to throw the party. How’s a week from tonight?”

  “Um, yeah.” A knock sounded at the door. Kelsie glanced at the clock. It was after nine. She stood and went to the peephole. Sawyer? She swung open the door, realizing as she did that her sister was still talking. “Sounds good,” Kelsie interrupted. “Look, I need to go. Text me the details you want, and I’ll see if I can reserve a spot or whatever you do for that kind of place.”

  “Oooh, you’re the best. Thank you!”

  Kelsie ended the call without saying good-bye. “What are you doing here?”

  He held out a small package. “I thought your rat might like some real food, so I went out and asked around until someone told me what kind of meat Chihuahuas were allowed, and I bought an assortment. And it’s precooked. Because you’re a shit cook.”

  Her heart bloomed. “That was…almost really sweet.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She glanced down at her sleep shorts and tank top. “Yeah,” she said. “You can come in.”

  He handed her the package. “You feed him. I don’t want to interfere with your routine.”

  She blinked. “You show up here after nine carrying a bag of meat, and you think feeding the dog is what’s going to put me over the edge?”

  “Experience suggests it doesn’t take much,” he said dryly.

  She cleared her throat. “I figured you’d have a…date.”

  “I do,” he said, and her stomach dropped. “Fucking opera tomorrow. I still can’t believe I agreed to it.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say, so she peeled back the wrapping of Sawyer’s gift. Marmaduke immediately perked, then jumped off the sofa and trotted over. He paused to growl at Sawyer but was quickly distracted when she put a couple of small pieces of meat in his dish. While the dog chowed down, she rewrapped the rest, then placed it in the fridge. He’d already had his rations for the day, but a small treat wouldn’t hurt.

  She washed her hands and was suddenly without anything to do to distract her from the unfairly sexy man wearing well-worn jeans and a faded T-shirt and taking up space in her apartment. “We’re not having sex,” she said.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” he announced at nearly the same time.

  “Doing what wrong?” There was no telling where his mind had gone since she’d been stupid enough to mention sex.

  “The takeout carton. It’s supposed to open into a plate.”

  Relief washed over her. Chinese food was the safest of all topics. She could do this. “I don’t care what the Internet says. I prefer to eat out of the box.”

  He walked over and plopped down on the sofa. Then he picked up her pork fried rice.

  “Don’t you dare,” she warned.

  “This from today?” he asked, peering inside.

  “Yes. Sawyer Chase, don’t you dare deconstruct my box.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before.”

  She rolled her eyes, then sat at the other end of the sofa. “Still a pig.”

  “I’m really not.”

  His voice was quiet. It caught her off guard but didn’t steal her fight. “You have meaningless sex with every woman who will have you. That’s quite swine-like.” She punctuated that with a jab at his leg with her foot.

  “Nope.” He captured her foot mid-assault, propped it on one of his thighs, and started rubbing. “I don’t lie to them. They know what they’re getting, and I never promise anyone more than one date, one night.”

  “Except me,” she said softly. She didn’t look at him. She looked at her foot.

  “Except you.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “The truth? I was bored.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about his admission.

  “D
on’t look at me like that,” he said, boyish grin back in full force. “You initiated the whole thing. First you watered down my apartment, then you threatened me with your cooking. What’s the deal with that, by the way? Did your mom ever try to teach you to cook?”

  “Nope. She was a career woman. My dad, too. Takeout all the way.”

  “Your sister the same way?”

  Kelsie bit back a grin. “She’s worse. But don’t change the subject. Why were you bored?”

  “You got any beer?”

  She cocked her head toward the fridge. “Go for it.”

  He eased from under her leg, leaving it on his cushion. “Want one?”

  “I have a glass of water,” she said. “Unless you tried to unfold it.”

  His laughter trailed behind him as he crossed the small apartment. When he returned, he carefully placed her foot back on his thigh. “To answer your question,” he said, “I just wasn’t interested in the bar scene that night. And if you can’t entertain yourself in a bar, you’re pretty well screwed sitting alone at home.”

  “Is that why you’re here tonight?”

  “To get pretty well screwed?”

  “No.” She laughed. “Because you’re bored.”

  “If I answer that question, you’re going to use it against me.”

  Her mouth twitched. “I thought you came to feed my dog?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, a tad sheepish.

  “The water thing,” she said, hoping she was treading cautiously. “Have you even tried to get near it?”

  He turned his head and fixed those gorgeous green eyes on her. “Are you asking if I have legitimate psychological issues?”

  “I already know you have legitimate psychological issues,” she said. “I’m just asking about the water.”

  He leaned back against the cushions and laughed, and she was again struck by how gorgeous he was. And how…on her sofa, with her foot in his lap. After nine o’clock on a Thursday night, presumably because he worried her dog would starve.

  He ran a finger across the tips of her toes and smiled when she wriggled. It tickled. “I’ve never let anyone drown because I refused to get in the water. How’s that?”

  “Have you ever actually jumped in to save someone from drowning?”

  “Nope.” His grin devastated her in the best possible way.

  She couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped. “That’s cheating.”

  “Yet my assertion remains true.”

  “Has anyone ever really pushed you out of your comfort zone, Sawyer? Successfully, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He gave her foot a squeeze and stood. “You did. Fucking opera.”

  While she stared, a grin teasing her mouth, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Wait,” she said as he headed for the door. “Why did you come over?”

  “Felt bad for the dog.” He hesitated by the door, then dug in his pocket. He came up with a piece of paper, which he tossed on her table. “And someone asked me to give you this.”

  The irony, of course, being that he hadn’t given it to her but had thrown it on the table. When the door shut behind him, she immediately went to grab the slip of paper. On it, someone had scrawled a man’s name and phone number. Under that was a small note. The guy from the gym.

  Kelsie read it a dozen times, her throat growing tighter by the moment.

  Then she crumbled the damned thing and tossed it in a drawer.

  Chapter Nine

  The opera was an utter waste of a Friday night. For that matter, it was an utter waste of any night, yet there Sawyer stood at her door, fidgeting and tugging at his collar. His second thoughts had second thoughts. In theory, her idea to go to the opera had been marginally acceptable. She wanted a cultured kind of guy…long-term, he’d guess. Someone who could button the top button of a dress shirt without feeling like he was choking. Someone who could show up to that wedding of hers and not make a fool of himself over which fork to use, and who could discuss museum exhibits and literature and the stock market. Not a guy who had zero interest in playing the dutiful, domesticated type that paid good money to listen to people screech from a stage. Definitely not an HVAC guy with zero interest in the fine arts.

  Definitely not him.

  He didn’t like how much he really didn’t appreciate that. He thought of the number he’d left at her apartment the night before, and his stomach turned. His buddy had asked about her, and as much as Sawyer wanted to claim her, he couldn’t. That wasn’t what she wanted, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going on that boat. He hadn’t asked if she called. He didn’t want to know.

  He didn’t want to knock.

  But he did, and he was richly rewarded. When Kelsie opened her door, she wasn’t wearing yards of drapery. Or her glasses. Instead, she stood before him wearing a smile and a clingy, sexy dress without a scarf in sight. Hot damn. “Where’s your muumuu?” he asked.

  The smile disappeared. “What?”

  “The scarf. The thing you always wear. Even to work out.” He had a flashback to the thing she’d tried to wear dancing and immediately wished he’d just told her she looked nice and left it at that.

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t go with my dress.”

  He didn’t tell her it didn’t go with anything or that the fact clearly hadn’t bothered her before. Because right now she was incredible. “You look amazing,” he said. “Edible.”

  She scowled. Fiercely. “Oh, you could just eat me for lunch. That’s original. Were you a construction worker in a past life?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Catcalls. The language of womanizing pigs. I thought you might be fluent. Comments like that are exactly why I prefer to cover up.”

  Well, now he did feel like shit. “Kelsie, that was a real compliment. And a bit of an insult on your part, because there’s no way in hell you’ve ever heard anything like that come out of my mouth. At least not in that way.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. I’m self-conscious. Not your fault.”

  “I see that.” But she was hurt. Inexplicably so. His voice soft, he asked, “What happened to you that made you want to hide?”

  She looked down, her expression touching true unhappiness. “It was a long time ago.”

  “And it clearly still matters.”

  She sighed again, and it was one of quiet misery. Defeat. “My sister and I attended a private high school. It was a short walk from home, but we had to pass the entrance to this construction site. Right by the office, so there were always guys there first thing in the morning. It was a huge apartment complex, and I swear it took them two years to build that place. Anyway, naturally we had uniforms, and of course they were skirts. And I listened to that crap twice a day, every day. It was humiliating.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for that shit. Grown-ass men messing with schoolgirls.”

  “It gets worse. One day one of them grabbed me, right in front of everyone. Nothing else happened, but after that I started covering up. Even on the hottest days, I wore everything I could to try to disappear.” She hesitated. “It became a habit I wasn’t comfortable undoing. Until you. You made me feel a little more…appreciated. In a good way.”

  “And then I said you were edible and screwed it all up.”

  “No, you’re right. It came from a different place, and I appreciate that. I’m just a little uptight, but I guess that’s why you’re here.”

  God, she sounded small. In hopes of breaking the tension, or at least bringing her out of that place, he gave a long-suffering sigh, intentionally over the top. “Actually I’m here to go to the opera. Had to be a hell of a woman who talked me into that. One with gorgeous eyes, I might add. The glasses have grown on me, but I love being able to see past them to what’s underneath.”

  She smiled. A little wavering, but he’d take it. “Contacts,” she said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to tolerate them, bu
t thank you. You might not be a total pig.”

  “Pig or not, I’m a lucky man,” he said.

  “To go to the opera?”

  “To go with you. But we’re going to be late, so let’s get this over with.”

  Over with indeed. An hour later, he was stuck in an overstuffed seat at an overly extravagant theater with people who were beyond overdone. And no one smiled.

  No one.

  “He’s nice,” Kelsie murmured.

  Sawyer didn’t ask who. He didn’t care, to be honest, but the look in Kelsie’s eyes had him following her gaze to some guy in a tuxedo. “He’s a douche.”

  “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “He’s at the fucking opera, and he looks happy about it, that’s how.”

  Kelsie laughed and patted Sawyer’s leg. The platonic gesture irked him until the good boy momentum ended with her fingertips resting lightly on his thigh. That, too, ended when she spotted another man.

  “What about him?”

  Sawyer took in the plain black suit, the mutton-like haircut, and the frozen expression on the man’s face. “He looks like a funeral director.”

  She narrowed her eyes, but they rested on Sawyer for only a second before someone else caught her attention. “And that guy?”

  He twisted in his seat for a look. “Do you see how much jewelry he’s wearing?”

  She frowned. “You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  “You’re not at a livestock auction. Or a police station. You can’t just pick them out of a lineup. They’re people, you know.” Sarcasm—one of the few art forms he actually appreciated.

  Her, not so much.

  The lights dimmed, saving him the brunt of whatever reply she’d been formulating behind that mask of irritation. But even that reply would have been better than what happened on the stage. From a hushed silence, some woman started caterwauling, arms outstretched and face to the ceiling. All those acoustics the opera house brochures bragged about sent the noise funneling straight to his eardrums and caused pain. Actual pain.

  People paid for this shit?

  He leaned close to Kelsie. “Bachelor number one,” he whispered, shooting a subtle gesture in the direction of the first man she’d pointed out.