by Pamela Morsi
“I know,” she answered. “You know how I am. I know how I am. I’m not saying that I didn’t know what I was doing. And I’m not suggesting that you pushed things. You wouldn’t. You’re way too decent. Far more decent that I deserve.”
“You’ve got to quit talking about yourself like that,” he told her. “You are not anyone’s opinion of you. You are whoever you choose to be.”
She chuckled humorlessly. “And we both know what spectacularly bad choices I’ve made.”
“They weren’t that bad,” he said. “And whatever they were, they’re in the past now.”
She hopped a couple of times to get on her left shoe. Fully dressed, she walked over to him. But when he would have embraced her, she clasped his hands.
“Eli. Sweetie.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I...I need to think about whether we really should get involved. You’re just such a nice guy.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“I’m not that nice,” he insisted.
Mazy shook her head. “Yes, you are,” she answered. “I’ve known you all my life. Trust me, you are as sweet and kind and good as any man I’ve known.”
“And that’s a reason not to be involved with me?”
“I already hurt you once, Termy. I’m not sure that your heart can be trusted with me.”
12
Eli’s coffee sat on the counter getting cold as he paced the living-room floor. He was agitated. He was confused. He was furious. But he wasn’t sure who he was mad at―Mazy, for being the kind of woman who was only attracted to assholes, or himself, for not being the kind of asshole she was attracted to.
Eli went over the past twelve hours in his head until he was nearly crazy.
He’d imagined being with her again a million times over the years. She’d walk straight into his workshop. Or maybe it would be a surprise encounter in another city. Their eyes would meet across a crowded dance floor. Or he’d walk up to her mom’s porch and knock on the door. In all of those scenes, he was cool and clever. And she was always his gorgeous Mazy. But not even in the very best of those fantasies had she walked into his apartment and practically ripped her clothes off, begging to screw his brains out.
For that moment, the bottom had fallen out of the universe and he was walking on air. She was more beautiful now than she had been as a young girl. She had one of those faces that didn’t get stuck in girlish prettiness, but aged into a woman’s beauty. Her body, too, was curvier and more voluptuous. But it was that smile, that unchanged smile, that almost tugged his heart right out of his chest. And those sounds, those wonderful sounds from the back of her throat. They were mostly incoherent cries of pleasure, but among them he was sure he’d heard her say she loved him. And for a blissful few hours of sex and sleep, he’d believed it.
What an idiot!
Mazy didn’t love him. She thought he looked cute.
You’re so sweet.
So kind.
So good.
I don’t want to hurt you, she’d said, as if she held all the power and he had none.
Why did a statement like “You’re the nicest guy I know” feel like utter disrespect?
He felt like slamming his fist into the wall. Remembering that he would have to work with his hands, he angrily kicked the mopboard instead. He regretted that as he hobbled to a seat at the bar stool.
“Maybe I am her trained puppy,” he declared aloud. “I’ve been faithfully following at her heels all my life, grateful for the slightest pat on the head.”
Clark had been right. He hated to admit it, but his brother was one hundred percent correct. Mazy would never fall for him. She’d never see him as her type. He was too “Boy Scout” to capture her interest. Oh, she was fine with having sex with him. But their relationship would be for recreational use only. If and when it was convenient for her. She’d made that crystal.
“Damn!” he said aloud.
Eli took a swig of coffee, but the taste in his mouth was already bitter enough.
He was cursed. Unlucky enough to spend most of his life in love with a woman like her. He would never be the kind of man she would want. Well, at least not until it was too late. Good guys finish last. Everybody said so. He needed to accept that or change.
Could he change?
Taking a few deep breaths, he got a handle on his anger. He needed to think this through rationally. Could he be the bad boy that she wanted?
In the back of his mind he’d been kicking around the idea for days.
How tough was it to be a hard-ass? Some of the stupidest guys he knew managed it nearly every day of their life.
And it wouldn’t have to be forever for him. He’d only need to play the role until she was hooked. Completely hooked. No chance of backing out. He’d have to keep it up until...until she married him.
Married. If he was going to trick her into a happily-ever-after, he would need to lock it down tight.
And wasn’t marriage what he’d always wanted? It’s what he’d been working toward all those long years ago. He’d been eager to shoulder the responsibility of husband and father even way back then. Now he was older and wiser. More financially stable. The future he could offer her today was even brighter than what she’d been so willing to reject before.
Not that he could just offer it up. Marriage would have to be the brass ring pulled out of her grasp time and time again. That’s the only way he would ever get it on her finger.
Mazy had never managed to tie the knot with anyone. All the fish she’d gone after seemed to wiggle off the hook. But to make his plan work, Eli couldn’t settle for anything else.
The way he understood it, and truth to tell it didn’t make a lot of sense, women wanted to marry the bad boy. But once they said, “I do,” they became committed to changing him from the jerk they fell for into the good guy they would never have given the time of day.
Eli chugged the rest of the contents of his cup and set it decisively on the counter.
Beginning today, he was going to be the crappiest SOB that Brandt Mountain had ever seen—and the competition for that honor was tremendous. He’d treat Mazy like she was worse than nothing. He would be insolent and dismissive. He’d use her for sex and take her for granted. He would be rude, crude and always in the mood. And she’d fall passionately, desperately in love with him. She’d work, plot, scheme, to win him.
He wouldn’t make it easy for her. There would have to be hurdles. There would have to be heartache. There would be tears. But somehow, some way, she would finally win him.
And, oh, how great Mazy was going to feel about her ability to turn her bad-boy husband into Mr. Nice Guy!
There was some weird flaw in her personality that made her seek out guys that were all wrong for her. Eli could pretend to be one of those guys and thereby help her to accidentally find the loving, attentive husband that she’d always deserved.
It was the perfection of that plan that got him out of the morning’s rejection and back to the satisfaction of the night before. Sex with Mazy. The plan required an abundance of it. And from his perspective, there was no way to get too much.
He didn’t share that part of his strategy with the one person he felt safe to talk it over with, his dad.
“It’s not like I’ve completely invented a whole new thing,” he explained. “When people start dating, nobody is being completely honest. Both women and guys try to show their best side to the other person. I’ll just be going the other way. Instead of pretending to be better than I am, I’m pretending to be worse.”
His father could not respond.
“Just so we’re clear,” Eli added. “This has nothing to do with revenge. It’s not in any way trying to get back at her because of the way she treated me. No, that’s not it. I’m going to be a jerk because sh
e likes jerks.”
Eli considered that and hoped that his father understood, as well.
“Seriously, I’m doing her a favor,” he insisted. “Mazy is going to hook up with someone, some lousy no-good someone. Better to be lousy no-good me, than lousy no-good someone else. People have money bet all over town on Tad Driscoll. I cannot and will not let that happen again. You can trust me on that.”
As he buttoned his father’s shirt, his brow furrowed.
“Mazy came back to town for some reason. And showing up at the bank to get a job is a fairly broad hint about what that might be,” Eli said. “If being the bad guy can save her from him this time...well, it’s the least that I can do. As long as she’s with me, she won’t be with him. That’s for certain. Mazy has a lot of faults, but she is never dishonest,” he said. “I guess that leaves all the lying to me.”
Eli broke the news to his brother over lunch. Clark’s jaw dropped open and he looked at Eli disapprovingly. “Oh, come on. You’re kidding, right?”
“I am not kidding,” Eli told him. “Mazy and I are an item.”
“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.
“I do,” Eli answered. He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt.
Clark made a sound that was pure exasperation. “Sheila’s tried to fix you up with some of the sweetest, nicest girls in the county. Women who could really care about you. It makes me nearly crazy to think that you prefer someone like Mazy Gulliver.”
Eli had a sudden flash of insight that perhaps he and Mazy weren’t so different in their choices. But the idea ran so counter to his image of the man he was that he disregarded it.
13
Mazy had had a lot of experience sneaking into her mother’s house at dawn. This morning, however, she had the advantage of a key to the back door. She was not quite as pleased to see Beth Ann standing at the counter next to the coffeepot. In contrast to the bright pink bathrobe with turquoise flowers, her mother’s mood seemed grim.
“Don’t start,” Mazy said firmly.
Beth Ann responded with raised eyebrows. “Why would I start?” she asked. “He’s the one I’ve been rooting for since you were children.”
Mazy shook her head before reaching for a coffee cup. “You just wanted me to live next door.”
“That would have been a nice bonus,” she admitted. “But what I wanted was for you to find a good man who would love you.”
Mazy shrugged and gave her mother a little smile before taking a sip of the hot, brown brew. “That’s what I want, too,” she admitted. “But I’m not sure I can jump from scrumbag to saint in one leap. I might be better off to work up to it with somebody who’s good for right now.”
“Humph,” Beth Ann responded. “Seems to me you’ve had enough practice that it’s time to go for the gold. That would be Eli.”
“Mother,” Mazy said firmly. “Don’t push.”
As the day went along, however, she was thinking that her mother might be right. Eli might be just exactly the man she needed. The freak-out that morning had simply been a weird reaction to his tenderness. Even the crappiest guys were nice on the first morning after. Naturally a sweetheart like Eli would seem...loving.
That would be a fabulous improvement, she decided. To be with somebody who could be loving, even if it was just sex. That could work for her. And the “just sex” had been pretty spectacular. Maybe it was the results of her drought, but it had been so good. He’d obviously acquired some moves since his younger days. He also smelled really great and was muscular but not beefy. And he seemed to take genuine enjoyment in making her come. Not in a look-what-a-lover-I-am kind of way, but as if experiencing her pleasure was as sweet as getting his own.
At work, she sat at her desk having to remind herself to wipe the goofy grin off her face. It was important to keep her mind on her work. Her debtor clients were still defensive and distrustful. The interactions weren’t going that well. Every bank employee got the occasional angry phone call, but all of Mazy’s were hopping mad.
Yet by midafternoon she was imagining a long evening with a glass of wine and her feet up as she poured out her troubles to...Termy.
Eli. She wanted to remember to call him Eli.
Yes, she thought. This was actually going to work out perfectly. Eli was a good friend and a good listener and a good lover. Any woman could live through crappy days when the expectation for evenings was so nice.
She’d checked her cell phone, but there were no messages. That wasn’t too big of a surprise. She felt a self-satisfied grin cross her face. Last night they’d had better things to do than exchange phone numbers.
Tonight, after the wine and the whine, there would be more of the same. That thought had her smiling as she walked home from the bank.
When she arrived, her mother was in the kitchen. A big pot emitting the enticing smell of goulash simmered on the stove.
“You don’t have to cook for us every night,” Mazy reminded her.
“Should I let you cook for me, after you’ve put in a full day at work?” Beth Ann asked. “I wasn’t raised that way. Besides, I was thinking you might need some comfort food tonight.”
“Well, you’re probably right about that,” Mazy admitted. “Any calls for me?”
“All we’ve had are calls,” Beth Ann answered. “Every friend I have and every favor I’ve ever gotten is trying to call in their chit to save them from my daughter, the big, bad banker.”
“Seriously?”
Beth Ann nodded as she pointed to a list that she’d attached to the refrigerator with a magnet.
Mazy glanced through the names and shook her head. “Some of these people aren’t even delinquent,” she said.
Beth Ann shrugged.
“You know that I’m not going to hurt anybody,” Mazy told her mother. “I’m actually trying to help.”
“I know that’s what you want to do,” Beth Ann said. “But things don’t always work out the way we plan. I mean, think about your boss in Wilmington. I’m sure you were only trying to help him out.”
“Totally different,” Mazy said. “I was sleeping with my boss. I thought he was leaving his wife for me.”
Beth Ann pursed her lips but kept her silence.
“So I should be safe, since I’m not sleeping with the whole town.”
“Well, not yet, anyway,” Beth Ann quipped.
Mazy laughed.
“So did Eli call?”
“Eli? No. He’s still working.”
Mazy didn’t bother to point out that a man who owns his own business can make phone calls whenever he likes. He was probably waiting until he knew she was home from work.
She went to her mother’s room and changed out of her work clothes. Most of her really attractive casual clothes, all her cute tops, had gone for a buck a piece at her yard sale. She pulled a ratty tee on over her jeans and then tied a knot in the hem to make it a little more fitted and show off her bustline a bit better. Fortunately, Termy wouldn’t care what she had on. He liked her for who she was, not for how she looked.
She recalled with a smile the “day after” from the beginning of their previous hook-ups.
As a teenager he’d tried to give her his class ring. She’d laughed at that one.
“Grown-up women with babies don’t go steady,” she’d teased.
When she’d fallen in bed with him again four years later he’d shown up with a dozen red roses. It was a romantic gesture and she’d liked it. But it had made her feel weird, too. It had made the other guys, the guys that she’d truly loved, sort of look bad.
Probably because they really were bad, she realized.
She wondered if there would be roses again. Maybe not red this time. Red was corny. She liked the lavender-colored ones. And those that were sort
of peachy looking. After the day she’d had, flowers would be nice.
How would she explain roses to Tru?
Eli and I are dating.
We’re great friends.
There was a sale at the florist shop.
Mazy shook away her concern. Tru wouldn’t need an explanation. He was fourteen going on forty. He knew all about Mom and her men.
By dinnertime Eli still hadn’t called. She listened idly to the casual conversation of her mother and son and wondered why.
“How was work?” she asked Tru.
“Okay,” he answered. “I’m mostly sweeping up and learning where everything is. Did you know he has twenty-seven different kinds of wood planes? And every one of them has to be put back in the same place every time.”
“Hmm,” Mazy said. “Maybe this is a system you can try to adapt to all the junk in your room.”
Tru chuckled. “As if.”
“So nothing out of the ordinary going on?”
Tru looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “How would I know, Mom?” he asked. “It’s my second day on the job.”
Mazy shook her head. “Of course it is, sorry.”
She changed the subject to school. The last thing she wanted to do was interrogate her son over goulash. Eli was probably with a customer or checking on his dad or simply running late.
All through the meal and during the cleanup, she expected the phone to ring. She even checked it once to make sure it had a dial tone.
With the kitchen spick-and-span and Tru in his room, she joined Beth Ann in front of the TV. The silly chick flick from the ’90s kept her mother laughing, but Mazy’s humor seemed to have temporarily deserted her.
There were two calls that evening. The first was a sales pitch. The second a giggly girl calling Tru with a question about homework.
How annoying.
Mazy really wanted to talk with Eli, be with Eli. She wanted to tell him about her crappy day. She wanted him to hold her in his arms and make her feel safe and warm.
Suddenly she was gobsmacked with the stupidity of waiting by the phone. Being back home was apparently throwing her into some retro time loop. She would simply call him.