by Carol Rose
Nicole liked Pete more for the pride she heard in his voice. No matter how dismal the parenting Max and he suffered as children, Pete seemed to be a devoted father.
Just then, an older man behind them on the bleachers stood up and pointed in the direction of first base, “No, Sam! Run toward first! First!”.
Hunkered down beside Nicole, Max, wearing an old baseball hat and sunglasses, responded to his brother’s attempt a conversation. “We’re glad to come. We needed a break anyway. Nicole gets cranky if she spends too much uninterrupted time doing my typing.”
She slanted him a tolerant glance, thinking how much more approachable he looked in his ball cap.
“Well, I’m glad you decided to spend your break here, Nicole.” Pete leaned forward and spoke across his brother with a kind of ponderous gallantry. The look he cast her was both admiring and speculative, as if he were wondering the extent of her relationship with his brother.
In truth, she wasn’t sure of that herself. What were the possibilities if Max did change? She’d pulled back from him after discovering his disconnectedness from others. He’d have to have been fairly out-of-touch with himself to even consider contributing to the problems in his brother’s marriage.
However, it definitely took two to tango. Max couldn’t be held solely responsible for Pete’s divorce. Just his being here and trying to reestablish a relationship with his brother spoke to his earnest desire to make up for his mistakes. Just how long did a man have to pay?
Hearing the direction of her thoughts, Nicole wondered, was she seriously considering possibilities with Max?
“Jared! Stay on the base!” Jared’s mother yelled out desperately. She turned to say to the other spectators, “We’ve practiced and practiced, but he keeps forgetting to stay put!”
Several other parents spoke up comfortingly that Jared was doing fine.
“Ryan’s only been playing ball one season?” Max asked Pete with what appeared to be genuine interest in his nephew.
“Yes,” Ryan’s father replied, “and, in practice this year, he’s doing really well at catcher even though they play all positions. The coach wants them to learn the game before they settle into one spot.”
“That’s a good philosophy,” Max agreed, an appealing hint of vulnerability in his face. “Do you think…Ry remembers me?”
Nicole, hearing the ever-so-faint wistfulness in his voice, reached out, lacing her fingers through Max’s. To hell with what Pete or anyone else thought. To her relief, Max didn’t look at her as if she were insane, his hand merely tightening on hers.
“Sure he does,” Pete responded clumsily after a moment. “He asks about you sometimes.”
“Does he?” Max seemed not to know whether to feel gratified or suspicious.
“Yes, he does,” Pete confirmed. “Really.”
Just then the umpire behind home plate called a time out while a red-shirt coach went to see why one of his outfielders was on the ground crying.
“Why don’t you go talk to Ryan now?” Pete suggested. “Just say hello.”
“Now?” Max balked, a rare uncertainty on his face.
“Sure,” Nicole encouraged him, letting his hand go to pat him on the shoulder. “The kiddo’s just standing there.”
“Okay.”
Feeling stupidly anxious, Max climbed down the bleachers and went across to the chain-link backstop. He’d never been particularly good with kids, although he really enjoyed Ruth and David’s boys.
Hell, he struggled with people in general, beyond his small, chosen circle. But the infant Ryan had startled him. From their earliest acquaintance, the boy gravitated to his uncle, seeming happy in his company, climbing over Max like a jungle gym.
Hoping to recapture some of that connection, Max leaned into the fence and said, “Ryan! Hey, buddy. How are you doing?”
The words were inane and disgustingly inadequate, but the small, sturdy-looking kid weighed down with his catcher’s paraphernalia, turned toward his uncle, flinging off his face mask.
“Uncle Max!” He trotted over to the backstop.
“Hey, buddy,” Max said, his voice sounding feeble in his own ears. He couldn’t deny the pitiful eagerness he felt looking down at Ryan’s responsive face.
“Uncle Max, did you see that throw? I throwed the ball just like dad and I practiced.” Unshadowed excitement lit the boy’s eyes.
Max squatted down bringing himself to Ryan’s eye-level, one hand on the chain link backstop separating him from his nephew. “Yea, that was great. You really threw it. You’re a good ball player.”
“You came to watch my game,” Ryan said, his pleasure clear and simple.
“Yes.”
“Dad said you were coming. I haven’t seen you in a long time.” No reproach colored the simple statement.
“No.” An awkward lump clogged Max’s throat. He knew an absurd urge to apologize to the boy, but the words of explanation and confession rising in his brain were all bizarre and futile. The boy would never understand him acknowledging he was part of the reason Ryan’s mother had gone out of his life.
“I’ve missed seeing you,” Max said, clinging to the simplicity of the statement.
“Me, too,” Ryan said, smiling widely.
Ten feet away, Nicole felt the blast of the boy’s smile and found herself grinning, too. Here at least was one person who greeting Max without all the bullshit of his status or fame. Max’s money meant nothing to the little boy.
While nephew and uncle continued to get reacquainted, Pete, cleared his throat and said to her, “So, you…work for Max?”
She smiled at him. “Yes. Just till the end of the summer.”
“James Michael! You quit that crying!” A mother standing behind the backstop a few feet away from Max, yelled out to the boy in the outfield.
“I’m not surprised you’re just doing Max’s typing temporarily,” Pete said, his manner several shades friendlier than she would have expected. “A woman as pretty as you must have lots of job offers.”
Unsure how to respond to this, Nicole said, “Thank you…uh, I teach in a high school in Chicago. I’m just here for the summer.”
“Well, if that brother of mine gets too rough on you,” Pete said, attempting a leer, “you can always come type for me for awhile.”
Nicole hesitated, only having time to say, “Thanks” before Max returned, climbing up the bleachers to sit between them.
“He’s a good kid, Pete. Smart,” Max said with sincerity, relief visible on his face. Had he expected the boy to reject him?
“Yeah,” Pete agreed, a half-guilty look toward Nicole. “He’s got good genes.”
“Jared! Don’t pick your nose now!” his mother wailed.
The rest of the game passed with general conversation between Max and Pete, punctuated by moments of enthusiastic cheering when a kid—anyone’s kid—did something well on the field.
The parting between brothers seemed hesitant and a little awkward, but Nicole felt a beginning had been established. Despite Pete’s obvious attempt to flirt with her, she couldn’t think too badly of him. After all, he didn’t know for sure she and Max were involved—she wasn’t even sure of that herself. And if Pete had succumbed to an impulse to try and give Max back some of his own, however mildly, who could blame him?
They stood in an awkward cluster on the sidewalk, she, Max, Pete and Ryan, as the other parents and kids milled around them after the game.
“And don’t forget to let me know when your next game is,” Max admonished his nephew, putting a hand out to tap affectionately on the bill of his ball hat. Ryan clung to his uncle’s free hand.
“Okay, Uncle Max.”
“Well,” Pete said awkwardly. “We’ve got a dentist’s appointment. Got to keep those teeth clean. We’ll, uh, see you sometime.”
“Yes,” Max said, “I enjoyed the game, Ryan.”
The boy smiled with heartbreaking brilliance as he walked away, his hand in his father’s.
“Nice kid,” Nicole commented as she and Max turned to leave.
“Yeah,” Max said with satisfaction. “He is.”
She slanted him a tender glance, feeling a thickening of emotion in her chest. He was healing, this man she couldn’t stop caring about.
Leaving the park, they walked back toward Max’s building.
“Does Ryan remind you of his mother?” The words were out of Nicole’s mouth before she even knew she was thinking them. Much to her relief, she didn’t have to wait long for Max’s answer.
“No.” The word was absolute. “To me, Ryan is completely separate from Alexa.”
The street seemed strangely silent as they walked along, questions crowding into Nicole’s head.
“I didn’t care for her, you know,” Max said quietly. “I just…forgot…for several insane moments…that she was even married.”
Although she desperately wanted to know the truth about him and his brother’s wife, Nicole couldn’t think of anything to say.
“It may seem cold to you,” Max said, his voice quiet as they walked along the street, “but I’m accustomed to women…offering themselves. No strings. No complications. It seems to work best that way.”
“Not in the long run,” Nicole said firmly, hating the idea of him locked in the embrace of one random female after another. None of them loved him or gave a damn how he really felt about anything. “Besides, the situation with Alexa wasn’t uncomplicated.”
“You’re absolutely right.” He felt silent as they came to a traffic signal and waited for the road to clear before crossing. “There’s no excuse for what I let happen, but I can say in my defense that Alexa approached me in the same way a hundred other women have. She made an offer…and I wavered when I shouldn’t have.”
“What about Pete?”
“I hurt him,” Max said roughly. “That one instant with Alexa was almost a mechanical situation. The body gets hungry…and a woman offers relief. Alexa and Pete weren’t really together—I don’t think I’d seen them together in six months before the incident.”
“You thought they were separated?” Nicole asked, confused.
Max’s face was dark with barely-suppressed emotion. “I didn’t think, that’s all. You know how I am. I get caught up in the world in my head, the project I’m working on inhabits me and that’s where I live. I simply didn’t think outside of the work.”
“Ruth said you were particularly lonely then,” Nicole said, slanting him a sidelong glance.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “I don’t think about that much. It just seemed like Alexa was always hanging around, doing something to the apartment—she’d called me and begged me to let her re-do that one room—it sounds ugly, but she was just there, Nicole. I was horny and an opportunity presented itself to me. End of story. No strings. No involvement. No current interest. I don’t care about Alexa. I never have.”
“No interest except in Ryan…and Pete,” Nicole inserted, conscious of a feathering of relief along the pit of her stomach. Max hadn’t loved Alexa, hadn’t cared at all. His detachment rang true to form and, in itself, wasn’t a good thing. Max needed to learn that good comes from attachment, but she wasn’t stupid enough to deny her relief that he’d had none to his brother’s wife.
“That’s exactly right,” Max agreed. “I am very interested in Pete and his son.”
“That’s why we went to the game today.”
“Yes.”
As sad as the situation with Max and his brother was, Nicole couldn’t completely blame either one. People made mistakes. It wasn’t the flaws that kept humans apart, it was the clinging to the dysfunctions. And Max, he seemed to be changing, to be reaching out. Making reparations and taking his lumps.
How many people did that without defending themselves and excusing their misdeed away?
She had to give Max credit…as Pete apparently was doing.
Walking next to her, Max seemed so solid and…true. The idea of a perfect man didn’t appeal to Nicole much…but an imperfect man making amends for his mistakes—that kind of guy couldn’t help but win a heart or two. Certainly, Max had won hers.
The silence between them grew as they approached Max’s building. Together they rode the elevator up, the air between them seeming thick and warm. When the car stopped on their floor, they got out and traversed the halls until they stood at his door.
Nicole smiled when their gazes caught and held for a second, an answering glimmer showing on his face. It felt intimate somehow, coming home with him after an afternoon with his family.
Still saying little, he opened the door and they went inside.
“Well,” she said airily, self-conscious all at once, “I guess I’ll get on with the typing.”
His keys still in his hands, Max pushed the door shut, his dark eyes on her face, his body seeming tensed with the electricity between them. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Not sure what to say all the sudden, she pivoted away and went into the office.
Watching her go, Max muttered something inaudible and walked away toward the stairs as if he could flee his own internal disarray. The woman did things to him.
How could he be so damned distracted by her and yet her presence set his working mind afire? All he wanted to do was screw her and then write furiously for hours before screwing her again. Even food and water were negotiable beside what felt like his primeval need for her.
Shouldn’t he be upset at having talked about the mess with Alexa? He’d answered Nicole’s questions with an honesty that was surprisingly painless. Her fault, this change in him? Probably. Why wasn’t he appalled at her effect on him? That she even had an effect on him. In truth, he was scared, but like a child drawn to fire, he couldn’t help enjoying the heat.
It was crazy, but having her there with him at Ryan’s ball game felt good. He kept struggling with a crazy impulse to lean on her strength. Smaller and less physically powerful, she still embodied strength to him. Undoubtedly, she was better at these kinds of interactions than was he. Seeing his brother made him anxious and edgy. But it had gone well and Max knew having Nicole with him had made it easier.
How could one woman make things easier and yet more complicated? And how could he dull the gnawing ache he felt for her? The sensations never seemed to leave him now. The hunger to touch her and kiss her sweet mouth.
Max climbed the stairs to his bedroom level. He considered returning to where his writing pads lie scattered before his bedroom window. Instead, he turned and went into his workout space across the hall. Maybe lifting weights awhile would burn off some of his sexual energy. At least, enough to help him get the torrent of ideas bouncing in his head to settle down on paper.
An hour later, muscles tired and relaxed, he emerged from his shower in the big bathroom that gave onto his sleeping area. One towel knotted around his waist, he absently dried his hair with another as he walked into the bedroom to dress.
Coming through the door, he halted abruptly.
There reclining on his raised bed was Nicole, completely naked.
His mouth going dry as his throat constricted, he could say nothing, but his body betrayed him. Stiffening, his guileless member eagerly prepared for her, instantly tenting the towel around his waist.
The smile on Nicole’s face was wide, but tremulous and he could see the intensity in her eyes.
“Come here,” she said huskily.
No thought of denying her entered his consciousness. She was here, erotic and available. Eager even, for the very contact he urgently craved.
Why she was offering herself up to him now, he didn’t know. He should care, but he couldn’t. He’d been fighting his own lust for her for so long.
Crossing the wide space between them, Max gave his short hair a last tousle and dropped the towel to the floor. His gaze melding with hers, he loosened the terry cloth at his waist and let it fall as well.
Mounting the dais that held his raised bed, he stood at the foot, looking down at her glo
rious nakedness, the creamy satin of her skin, her rounded breasts and peaked nipples.
The power of speech having almost deserted him, he croaked, “Are you sure?”
“I…want you,” she said in that same husky tone.
His heart seemed to hesitate before firing into a rapid rhythm. Whatever considerations his rational mind might have had did not register at this moment.
Putting his hand out, Max stroked the arch of her naked foot, his fingers circling her slender ankle before rising up along a sleek, firm calf. Objectivity cast aside in the welter of his rioting senses, Max crawled onto the bed with her and lie down next to her.
His mouth sank onto hers as his hands caressed her cool golden flesh. Her strong, yet delicate back, the wonderfully feminine curve of her naked hip flaring from her waist. Tongues meeting and withdrawing, their breath mingled. Nicole sighed as he pulled her closer, her smooth thighs brushing his, her breasts erotically soft against his naked chest.
Attempting to quell his raging hunger, Max set about mapping her riches. He wanted to devour her lush body. The sweet spot where her neck joined her shoulder, the hollow beneath her collar bone. While his hands smoothed and traced the tautness of her thighs, his mouth suckled at her berry-tipped breasts. He supped on her, drawing her rigid nipples into his mouth, sweeping his palm over the sweetly curved width of her hips. Every inch of her a treasure, he lost himself in the wonders, growing harder and harder with each passing second.
She smelled of hunger and honesty, of a kind of open sensuality that rocked him to his soul. When he nudged her knees, she rolled onto her back and splayed herself for him. And her hands, God, her hands. All the while, she touched him. Touching his chest, his stomach and his thighs, taut with the effort of controlling himself. Her mouth open and eager beneath his, her breath urgent, she found and stroked his erection.