by Alex Lucian
“You need to be the one to initiate now. Since he’s been doing it all this time and the one thing you initiated, you fucked up.”
“Thanks,” I replied morosely.
“Ease into it. Don’t jump into something sexy right away, but initiate another bucket list item.”
“Like what?”
“Where’s the list?”
“Downstairs, in the kitchen. Probably somewhere on the island still.”
“’Kay,” she said, standing up and holding our wine glasses. “I’ll get us a refill and grab the list. Eat some chips.”
I opened the bag and scooped out a generous amount of dip before shoving it into my face. It was so freaking good. I forgot how good it felt just to relax with wine and junk food. For such a long time, I’d been so completely focused on studying that I hardly ate—a banana here, a spoonful from the peanut butter jar there. I had all this time to myself, that I didn’t know how to fill. And yet, right across the street was a guy who wanted to make my summer fun, give me something to remember.
Liza was right—and it was something I grudgingly admitted—I needed to loosen up and not screw it up this time.
“Here,” Liza said, her voice muffled as she came into the room, wine glasses in each hand and the list hanging out of her mouth. I pulled it out and made a face at the clear bite impression on the sheet. “You should take a picture of the list, because it’s hanging on its last legs.”
She had a point. It had been folded over and over so many times that all the creases were soft, worn, the words that crossed over the creases getting harder and harder to read. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the list. “Which one should I do next?”
“Hmm.” Liza ran a finger before stopping. “This. It’s not sexy, but kind of sexy.” Liza logic never failed to perplex me.
I looked at her choice and picked up my phone before I could talk myself out of it.
Scarlet: Can we talk, tomorrow?
“Ooh, the suspense!” Liza exclaimed.
I stared at my phone as if I could will his reply to come faster. When a couple minutes went by, my confidence started to deflate.
“Look out the window, see if he’s home?”
I found myself standing up and stretching before casually walking to the window and looking out.
All of the lights in Leo’s house were on, so it took me a second to focus on the light I wanted, and as soon as I found it, I froze. His light was still on, his blinds were still up, and he was sitting on his bed, looking at his hands. I couldn’t see what he was holding, but I didn’t have a lot of time to look because his head lifted and, stunned, I dropped to the floor.
“Oh my God.”
“Did he see you?” Liza screeched.
“I don’t know!” Shit. “He’s going to think I’m a total creeper, staring into his window.”
“You are a total creeper. You’re like that guy in that Jennifer Lopez movie, The Boy Next Door.”
“Stop it, I am not.”
“You are. All sexually worked up over him. You’re so creepy, Scarlet.”
“Stop it.” I started laughing because she was being very convincing even though we both knew she was lying.
“Oh wait, even better—Swimfan. You even have her crazy eyes down pat.”
“Stop!” I held my stomach as I laughed.
“You should poke your head up and see if he can still see you.”
“Right, because my giant head creeping up a window to look at him is not creepy.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t creepy, I just said you should do it. For laughs.”
“You’re such a great friend.”
“I know.” She scooted down the sofa so she was closer to the window and had a better angle, being further away than I was. “Okay, he’s not there.”
“Thank God.” I lifted my head and—to my chagrin—met his eyes right away, since he was now standing at his window, looking directly at us. I rolled away from the window and couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out. “You liar!” I laughed-yelled pointing at Liza. “You’re going to make me paranoid to ever look out my window again.
Liza flopped onto her back onto the sofa. “You should have seen how you reacted. Perfect tuck and roll, Scarlet. Ten points.”
“I hate you sometimes.”
“No you don’t,” she grinned at me, as I sat on the floor, my back to the wall. A chime alerted me to my phone on the coffee table and I crawled to it, too afraid to stand up and have Leo see me yet again.
“He replied,” I said, swiping my phone open and began reading it aloud.
Leo: Come over in the afternoon sometime.
“Maybe he didn’t see me spying on him.”
Liza snorted. “Fat chance.”
My phone chirped again and I read his next text aloud, sending Liza into a fit of laughter so infectious that I couldn’t help but join her.
Leo: Do you need to borrow some binoculars?
Chapter Eighteen
“So what you’re saying is you haven’t finished proving your point.”
My dad sighed, pouring water over ice into the large mug he always drank out of when he worked from home.
“It’s not about proving a point, Leo.” When I snorted, he gave me a sharp look. “Hasn’t it been good for you?”
“Given that I have no clue what your barometer is for what’s good for me or not, I wouldn’t dare make a guess.”
He laughed, which surprised me. Everyone told me that I looked exactly like him, other than having my mom’s light colored eyes. When he smiled like that, it shifted his entire demeanor, like he suddenly wasn’t some stern business guy that still managed to intimidate me, even though I was well into adulthood.
“When you have kids, you’ll get it. It’s different for you than it is for your brother. Grant never totaled his car because he was checking Facebook.”
“Because Facebook wasn’t around when Grant was my age.”
“Cute.” He took a long drink of his water and started walking toward his office, which was at the front of the house. “When I think you’ve learned a lesson—”
The chime of the doorbell interrupted him, and I refrained from cursing. I’d barely seen him in the last couple weeks, and as much as I hated begging for scraps of his time like a little kid, I wanted to have a fucking car again.
But playing college football didn’t pay the bills, so I was at his mercy until I was drafted. If I was drafted. I was turning to head up the stairs to my room when my dad boomed happily.
“Scarlet, good to see you, my dear!”
“Thank you, Mr. Madsen. Is, uhh, is Leo around?”
I clapped my dad on the shoulder and nodded in greeting to her. “Thanks, Dad. I got it.”
The pleased-as-fucking-punch look on his face made me want to roll my eyes. Then he winked at me and I all but shoved him away. When he was behind the door, he held up his hand in an ‘okay’ gesture, then pointed to where Scarlet was still standing.
I really should have stayed on campus over the summer.
Facing Scarlet, where she stood under the shade of our front porch was smiling nervously at me, and I couldn’t stop the twinge of pissiness aimed at her too.
“What’s up?”
“Can we talk for a minute?”
Settling my shoulder against the door frame, I held my hand up like, go right ahead.
“Maybe somewhere private?” she whispered.
“Why, Scarlet?” Somewhere deep, deep inside, I knew I shouldn’t be a dick to her. But damn it, I wanted to not be the one doing all the work between us. For once. But I was too annoyed to attempt to play games, so she’d have to fucking deal with it if my honesty bothered her. “I did something nice for you, and you went out of your way to make me feel irresponsible because of it.”
She was wringing her hands in front of her, staring up at me with giant, pleading brown eyes. “That wasn’t fair, I know.”
I lifted an eyebrow and kept waiting, but she didn’t
continue. “Is that your way of apologizing?”
“No,” she said, completely flustered. “Please, Leo, can we just talk somewhere a little less … public?”
You know when you have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other? They were fucking each other up while I watched her fidget in front of me.
Take pity on her, the angel whispered, she’s nervous.
Don’t let that uptight bitch take advantage of you again, the devil raged on the other side. Naturally, the angel won out. You like her, Leo. And if you like someone, you give them the benefit of the doubt.
“Fine. Come in, we can talk downstairs,” I said, sounding weary to my own ears. The answering smile that she gave me was so swamped with relief that I laughed a little. “Geez, Scarlet. Didn’t know you needed me so badly.”
She didn’t respond to my teasing, too busy gaping at the house while we walked toward the basement. I opened the door and gestured for her to go first.
“You’re acting like you’ve never seen it before.”
“Well,” she said, looking back over her shoulder while she walked down the carpeted steps, “I haven’t been here in like six or seven years. It looks really different.”
Once we cleared the stairs, Scarlet made some respectably effusive statements about the room. I couldn’t blame her. My mom had gone full-out man cave when she’d renovated. The wet bar lining the back wall had mahogany cabinets with glass inserts, black granite countertops and four high back leather-topped stools that sat in front of the island.
In the past, I’d thrown parties for the Super Bowl and the final games of the World Series and the Stanley Cup that had capped somewhere around twenty-five people. And they’d fit comfortably on the two L-Shaped leather couches that were aimed at the sixty-inch LED screen that we’d had mounted on the wall. Everything was richly toned and masculine, all leather and dark wood and plush carpet. And for a few long minutes, she just turned and stared at everything.
I swear, I tried to not stare at her ass. But there was no way I was winning that battle. She had on these little white cotton shorts that would probably look boring on anyone else. But as with her and her wily, seductress ways that she wasn’t even aware she possessed, the shorts with the black tank top looked downright pornographic to me. Which was evidenced by the fact that she was speaking to me, and I was staring at her tits, and how they pressed up against the black fabric that made me want to—
“Leo?”
“Right. Yes. What?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
Shit. “You said that uhh—”
“I can’t believe you didn’t hear me. It was hard enough for me to say it once, Leo.”
“Well, then this time should be a piece of cake.” I walked past her and took my normal spot on the couch. Scarlet followed and sat carefully on the cushion next to me, angling herself so that our knees almost touched.
She pulled in a deep breath, her eyes closed. I wanted to smile, because I’d never met anyone who spent so much time in her own head as Scarlet. My brain was too entrenched in that thought process that I almost missed it when she repeated herself.
“I need to shoplift something and I don’t know how to do it,” she said in a rush, pinching her eyes shut even tighter than before.
Interesting. Settling in, I weaved my fingers together and braced my hands behind my head. After a few moments, her eyes popped open and settled on me. Then she looked around the room like there might be someone else to respond to what she’d just said.
“And?” I said after another couple seconds.
Scarlet scoffed. “What do you mean and? I just told you.”
“You didn’t tell me jack shit,” I pointed out. “What am I supposed to take from that statement, Scarlet? Do you want to rip off my parents in some way?”
“Obviously not.”
“How am I supposed to know that? You said you didn’t know how to do it, so for all I know, you want to tuck one of our DVDs in your bra and walk out the door so you can cross something else off your list.” I glanced down at her chest again, lingering around some of my favorite parts while she crossed her arms in a belated attempt to cover herself. “On second thought, you’d never fit one in there.”
“You are the most misogynistic prick I’ve ever met in my life, Leo.” She pushed up and started storming off, but I laughed and snatched her wrist so I could yank her back down on the couch.
“I’m kidding, Scarlet. I’m kidding.”
“Well it’s not funny.” To my absolute horror, her dark eyes became shiny and wet. “Do you know how hard it was for me to come over here and ask for your help?”
“Hey, hey, please don’t cry,” I said as soothingly as I could manage. With no sisters, and a best friend who cried as infrequently as Stalin, I always felt completely inept when confronted with female tears. And seeing Scarlet cry? It was like someone was shanking me with a rusty ax. And it made me want to do things like wipe at her face and stroke her hair and hold her hand, all of which would probably end in my bodily dismemberment.
“I’m not crying,” she insisted, shifting away from me on the couch. She took a deep, steadying breath and then met my eyes again. “So is that a yes? You’ll help me with this?”
Of course I was going to do it. Miss the opportunity to watch her steal something? No fucking way. But because the feeling of her sitting in front of me and asking for my help, albeit for this one thing, was about as good as most women flashing me, I needed to relish the moment a bit. I dragged my thumb along my lower lip, completely fucking satisfied when her eyes flicked down to watch the movement.
“I’ll help you,” I said, and then smiled at the triumphant gleam in her eyes. “But we’re doing it now.”
“Now?” she squeaked.
I leaned forward and planted a hard, fast kiss on her mouth, pulling back before she could protest. “Now, Jennings. Let’s get a move on.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Ouch, would you yank your claws out of my skin?”
“Do you think they have security cameras? Should I wear a wig?”
“Scarlet,” I sighed, gently taking her hand and unfurling the tightly clenched fingers that were currently attempting to remove the skin from my forearm. “It’s the Corner Store. The cashier won’t even notice that you took anything.”
“Of course he’ll notice,” she whisper-yelled at me, even though we were still in her car in the empty parking lot.
“He can’t hear you.”
The look in her eyes was a little wild when she glanced over at me, the color high in her cheeks. She’d changed to jeans, at my suggestion, and surprisingly didn’t question me when I told her to do it.
My reasons were sound, I promise. The guy was less likely to watch every move that she made if she wasn’t showing all of the bare, smooth length of her legs. Considering how short Scarlet was, you’d think her legs would mirror that. But they seemed so long whenever she moved, the small sway of her hips adding to their length when she walked.
On the drive over, we’d discussed—ad nauseum—what the plan was.
I’d go in first, ask if they carried something in particular. The guy working behind the counter would probably take a couple minutes chatting with me, Scarlet would come in, wander up one aisle, then down the next. She’d pick up a small pack of gum or candy bar, then casually walk back out the door, pretending like she didn’t find what she was looking for. I’d pay for my purchase, thank the man and be on my way.
But in all the times that we discussed it, I hadn’t counted on Scarlet’s complete lack of acting skills. Or tact.
I did my part. Now, I’m sure it’s not surprising that I walked calmly into the small store, which wasn’t actually named The Corner Store, it’s just what all the people in our neighborhood had always called it. In fact, Scarlet and I had frequented the Corner Store more than once as we were growing up, when our moms would give us fifty cents to spend on candy.
The memory o
f her at that age, maybe seven or eight, hit me the moment I heard the ding of the bell above my head. She always had her hair in stick straight braids coming down on either side of her pale, serious face. Actually, seeing the black and white linoleum beneath my flip flops reminded me in a blinding, stark moment that Scarlet was probably the person who’d been in my life the longest. Adele and I hadn’t become friends until high school, and the same with Hunter, who I met through football.
“Hey man, how’s it goin’?” The clerk called out from where he sat on a stool behind the gleaming white counter.
“Not too bad. Hot as hell out there. Be glad you’re in the AC in here, bro.”
He was young, and the second I actually started talking back, called him bro like a giant douche, he sat up straighter. His skinny arms shuffled things around on the immaculate counter, like he was trying to look busy.
“Hey, you don’t happen to carry any of that Mighty Squirrel, do you?”
When he gulped, looking around, I wanted to pat myself on the back. I’d purposely thrown out something random that he probably didn’t get asked about much. His thin hand came up and scratched the side of his face while he hummed in thought.
“Mighty Squirrel?”
“Yeah, it’s a beer that’s got a decent amount of protein in it,” I gave him a look when I said it, like, because we both know how important that is, right? He nodded like he’d heard it straight from my mouth. The bell dinged behind me, signaling that Scarlet had entered. About fucking time. The guy only spared her a small glance. Good girl. “So I figured I’d check here. I really don’t want to have to drive into Boston to grab a six-pack, you know?”
The crash came first, packages of Hershey’s bars scattering across the length of the floor.
“Oh crap,” Scarlet gushed, kneeling on the floor to pick up what she’d knocked over. “I’m so sorry, I’ll pick this up.”
“I’ll get it, miss, don’t worry about it.” He’d already started around the counter, staring at Scarlet with a look of annoyance-tinged lust. Because, obviously. She was kneeling on the ground, which gave him a money shot right down Scarlet’s tank top. He and I could both see the edge of her red lace bra cupping her luscious tits. I snaked a hand out to stop him, motioning for him to go back behind the counter. He wanted to argue, I could see it, but I quickly slipped him ten bucks. His bony ass hit the stool with a thud.