Impulse (New Adult Romance)

by C. J. Lake

  “I’m always nice,” he said, which he figured was more or less true.

  “Good, because remember: Brandall might end up being your stepdad.”

  Mick looked out the window again. “Give me a break. Look, if and when you introduce me, I’ll be nice to the guy. Period. But don’t push it. I’m twenty-one; I’m not auditioning to be someone’s stepson.”

  When the taxi slid up to the curb, Mick and Linda stepped out and crossed the cobblestone walkway that led to Travelli’s.

  As they entered the restaurant, Mick’s phone buzzed in his pocket. When he pulled it out, he found a couple new text messages from his friends. He was reading through them while his mother was talking to the hostess. “Hello. Our party should be here. The reservation is under the name Killoren, I believe.”

  “Huh?” Mick said, floored, looking up from his phone. “What party? I thought…”

  “Surprise!” Linda chirped. “You’re actually meeting Brandall tonight.” Quickly she held up a hand. “Now before you get all annoyed and claim that I tricked and lied to you—”

  “You did.”

  “I only did it because you’re not the best at keeping plans with me, Mick. So, I couldn’t afford to give you too much advanced notice. This is too important to me.”

  “Killoren, you said?” the host double-checked.

  And that’s when the other shoe dropped. Killoren?

  As he followed the host to their table, Mick rolled over the name in his mind, feeling a knot of tension form in his chest. Nah, it couldn’t be the same…

  His jaw fell open when he saw her.

  Shit.

  “Cady…” Mick whispered, as their eyes locked across the restaurant. Helplessly, he drew closer to the table, transfixed by her expression. She looked beautiful and bewildered—no, more like shocked.

  Chapter Nine

  Cady’s voice was barely audible, as her eyes searched Mick’s face. “What…?” Mick.

  Here—right in front of her table!

  “Cady,” he said softly. He was standing next to a middle-aged blonde woman who was visibly surprised.

  “Do you two know each other?” she said.

  “I…um…” Cady fumbled.

  “Yeah, you look familiar,” Mick improvised. Though his tone was casual—for their parents’ benefit, obviously—his dark gaze wasn’t. It conveyed something, but Cady wasn’t sure how to read it. It was a deeper emotion of some kind, or maybe it was just confusion. Surprise? Attraction? Was the memory of their intense night flooding back to him? Had he forgotten it up until now—or had he mentally replayed it countless times over the last three days, as Cady had?

  Either way, she was too struck to process this moment fully. In fact, she was only vaguely aware of her dad rising from his chair to greet Linda Croft, who was saying something like, “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Because Mick is a student at BU, too.”

  Almost in a daze, Cady nodded—then heard the words.

  “Wait…” Her eyes focused in on Mick and only Mick. “You what?”

  In that moment, Mick also seemed to forget about their parents, and said, “Cady, I can explain.”

  “Explain what?” Linda interjected with a confused laugh and looked at Brandall, who jumped in with an ingratiating chortle.

  “Kids today and their lingo.”

  “God…” Cady muttered under her breath, her shock still fresh, her mind suddenly feeling scrambled. Then she pushed away from the table. “I…I have to go the bathroom for a second, excuse me.”

  “Me, too,” Mick said right away. “Excuse me…”

  As Cady ushered past him, he turned and followed her across the restaurant. He caught up to her as she turned the corner, stepping into the short hallway that led to the restrooms.

  “Cady, wait,” Mick said, and caught her arm.

  Whipping her head around to face him, she jerked her arm out of his grasp. “You fucking liar!” she hissed, quietly enough so no one around the corner would hear. Then she shook her head, as her heart pounded furiously and bile began to rise in her throat. “Private security firm, what an idiot I am.”

  When Mick had the nerve to let out an aggravated sigh, she wanted to punch him.

  “Look,” he said, dropping his voice lower, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know Quinn was going to run a game that night until it was too late; he’d dragged me into his lame story. I didn’t know how to get out of it—I mean, I didn’t want to just expose him right then and make him look like an asshole. But, I never wanted to go along with it.”

  It took some effort for her to keep her voice steely-calm. “Mick, you lied to me—period,” Cady said, pushing past his bullshit story. “You had many opportunities to tell me the truth and you didn’t, which makes you a liar.”

  “I’m not,” he insisted. Sure, next he would tell her up was down, left was right. Her blood started to boil. “Listen, calm down,” Mick said, bringing his hand up on the wall behind her, blocking her in on one side. Their faces were barely six inches apart. His voice was as thick and deep as she remembered when he murmured, “Why are you acting like my job was so important to you? As if that was the reason we hooked up or something? You didn’t give a damn about what I did.” Cady swallowed uncomfortably. Did he have to stand so close? She was starting to get warm all over. “I swear, I was about to come clean with you when we were standing outside.”

  With a cynical laugh, Cady muttered, “Right, but I guess you didn’t, because you were too busy trying to go home with me.”

  “Well, I didn't really have to try. You invited me,” Mick reminded her—which set off Cady’s temper.

  “Oh, my God!” she whispered angrily, as her cheeks burned. “I can’t believe you just said that to me!” She tried to push past him, but Mick caught her arm again.

  “No, wait, don’t walk way.”

  Ugh, why was she even listening to him? Yet…

  She stayed put, planting her back against the wall, as Mick hovered over her. “I didn’t mean it,” he apologized. “Okay, I sort of did mean it. But it just came out wrong. Cady, that night was incredible,” he said softly.

  With her heart banging hard against her ribs, Cady struggled to find her voice. “No, but you were right,” she stammered. “I was the one to initiate the hook-up in the first place. That part was my fault.”

  “Well , not exactly,” Mick countered. “I was definitely going to try to hook up with you, but you just moved faster than me, that’s all.”

  She blushed even harder. God, how embarrassing; as if she’d practically thrown herself at him. Oh, wait—she had. Cady virtually cringed, thinking back to how eagerly she’d come on to Mick that night, how hungry she’d been for him—and how out of character she had acted. Really, to go home with a guy in a bar! So not her. (Which, she supposed, was why she had done it.)

  And just to think that, on top of that, Mick and his friend were probably laughing at how they’d conned Cady and Torie, feeding them some James Bond story—while Cady, who considered herself a smart person, had just bought the whole thing without question.

  Basically, she was mad at Mick for making a fool out of her, and also blaming him because she’d made a fool out of herself. But of course she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Look, the point is still the same, Mick. You came home with me, you got naked, and you didn’t tell me the truth.”

  “You told me you never wanted to see me again afterward! I didn’t think it made a difference. Obviously, if we were going to continue hanging out, I would have told you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Cady snapped, crossing her arms. “But that’s not obvious to me.” She had a sudden distressing thought, which should have occurred to her sooner. “Oh, my God! Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Mick’s surprised reaction was enough to convince her that he didn’t. “No, why the hell would you think that?”

  Cady sighed with relief, shaking her head and looking at the floor tiles. “Not
hing, just…look, I was cheated on and I never want to do that to someone else, because I know how bad it feels, that’s all.”

  When Mick inched a little closer, Cady started to sweat. Get it together, she told herself, definitely not wanting to have this nervous, super-physical reaction to him. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he reiterated. “And I’m not a liar.”

  “Fine, let’s not argue,” Cady said with a weary sigh. After a momentary pause and still looking at the floor, she mumbled, “I really can’t believe our parents are dating.”

  “I know. This is nuts.”

  Recalling something Mick’s mom had said, Cady looked up at him again. “Wait, if you go to BU but you’re twenty-four, then…are you a grad student?”

  “Um…” Mick uttered a curse, before answering, “No. I’m a junior.”

  “A junior?” Cady repeated, horrified, as two restaurant patrons were turning the corner toward the ladies’ room. Self-consciously, she lowered her voice. “So that was a lie, too. You’re not twenty-four. Oh, God, I can’t believe this—you’re younger than me!” she exclaimed.

  “By one year,” Mick said dismissively, “big deal.” When Cady scoffed, Mick asked, “Is my age really that big of a thing for you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said sarcastically, “I didn’t mean to imply that there was only one bad thing about this whole scenario.”

  “Cady, all I can say is I’m sorry. Just tell me this: were you ever going to use my number?”

  Suddenly it was hard to breathe. She’d stared at that number a thousand times. Maybe it was pride that made her lie, maybe it was self-preservation. Maybe it was knowing that their parents were dating and possibly—albeit insanely—might get married, and that this whole thing with her and Mick needed to disappear. But, unapologetically, she said, “Of course not. We agreed, once and that was it. Now we need to honor that.”

  Apparently her prim tone didn’t scare him off. In fact, Mick surprised her by giving a gruff laugh—and leaning his face even closer. “No, we don’t.”

  “W-what do you mean?”

  “Cady, come on. That one-and-done crap was never going to work with us; I knew it as soon as we started kissing.” Did he have to say it all sexy and confident like that? She could feel stirrings she didn’t want to feel. Her mouth suddenly felt dry as her pulse pounded harder.

  Suddenly Mick’s mouth was by her hair. “Damn, you smell so good right now,” he whispered roughly.

  “Oh, God…” Cady eked out weakly, feeling like they might start kissing or something right there. “Mick, stop—we can’t do this here.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed on a short breath. “So, your apartment later?”

  “No,” she insisted, putting her palm between them and giving his chest a shove. Too bad it reminded her of how hard and strong his body was, which reminded her of how good he was with his hands. “I mean that we can’t do this now or at all,” Cady stated firmly. Someone had to stay in control here. “Our parents are dating,” she said emphatically. She didn’t reveal that her dad was on the cusp of proposing, because spilling the beans about her father’s love-struck lunacy seemed like a betrayal. Instead, she shrugged and said vaguely, “Hey, they could end up married or something. Which would obviously make anything with you and me unacceptable.”

  “Sorry—but it’s not obvious to me,” Mick said, throwing her words back at her. Just then his phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket. Cady was kind of good at reading text messages upside-down and caught a fleeting glance at the screen.

  Where are you?? Don’t ruin this for me!!!

  Mick rolled his eyes. “It’s my mom,” he said, pocketing his phone again. “We’d better get back.”

  Eyeing him carefully, Cady said, “Okay, you go first. I really do have to use the bathroom.”

  With a nod, Mick pushed off the wall. Cady let out a weak, shaky sigh, watching him go—until he stopped and looked back at her. His dark, hooded gaze was smoldering and sent hot prickles over her skin as he said, “Cady…just so you know: we’re not done here.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nearly an hour passed before Cady was able to return to the sanctuary of her car.

  The first thing she did was to pull her phone out of her purse. At nearly the exact moment, it rang.

  “Oh, my gosh, I was just about to call you,” Cady said as she locked her doors and slumped against her seat.

  “Hey!” Torie said cheerfully. “Where are you?”

  “Parking lot of Travelli's.”

  “How was dinner?”

  “More horrible than you could ever imagine.”

  “Really?” Torie said, surprised.

  “Yes, but I can't get into all the details now,” Cady explained as she strapped on her seat belt and took a steadying breath. “I'm about to start driving.” By now her roommate knew Cady disliked talking on the phone while driving, whether it involved shouting, speaker-phone-style, or pinching her ear with an archaic Bluetooth device.

  “Okay, well, Ember and I were thinking of going to Midnite Bakery. We figured if you were on your way home, we'd wait for you,” Torie explained.

  “All right, thanks,” Cady agreed. “I'll be home soon.”

  “Hey, wait! I know you've got to go, but can you at least give me a hint?” Torie asked. “What happened tonight?”

  In a way, Cady was still wondering that herself. Despite sitting across from Mick and his mother for the last fifty-two minutes—surely enough time for the unfathomable coincidence to shed its coat, have a drink and get comfortable in Cady's psyche—the last hour existed more as a surreal blur than a simple dinner. In fact, had she even eaten...? She could barely remember; she was too preoccupied with Mick being there. With Mick being the son of her dad's girlfriend. With her dad even having a girlfriend.

  Surely Brandall didn't mean it, did he? The part about Linda becoming Cady's stepmother someday...which would make hottie Mick her stepbrother. That would be too hysterically awful, and therefore, Cady reasoned, simply couldn't happen.

  Except if it did.

  What power did she have over any of this? Or over anything, really? she mulled in the quiet darkness of her parked car. Sometimes irony and coincidence collided in such a toppling way that people had to wonder: were we all just pawns in some invisible game? Like improvisational actors, in a reality show for the Fates.

  “Hello?” Torie said. “You still there?”

  “Yes, I'm here. Let's just say, my dad's first foray into online dating is severely stressing me.”

  “Oh, no,” Torie crooned sympathetically, “is he dating some skank?”

  “Worse,” Cady assured her. “Much worse.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Forty minutes later, Cady was standing on line at Midnite Bakery, a popular late-night spot with BU students because of its proximity to the school. The bakery was open from four to four, and offered shamelessly over-sized cookies as well as free coffee refills.

  Cady had to admit that stepping inside Midnite Bakery lifted her mood. Its pink-and-white décor managed to impose a cheery brightness on even the darkest nights. Unsurprisingly, the place was packed. Wrought-iron tables were cluttered with tablets and text books, and strewn with white coffee cups and wax paper cookie wrappers. Cady stayed somewhat lost in thought while Torie was deliberating about the “October Specials” menu and their friend, Ember, was doggedly checking her phone for calorie estimates on the cookies.

  “Hmm, I can’t decide,” Torie was saying. “On the one hand, I usually get the peanut butter-chocolate-chip...but for some reason, the pumpkin-pecan is calling me.”

  “So get that,” Cady offered tritely. She was too distracted about Mick to offer any insights.

  “Though, the maple-caramel-cashew also sounds potentially amazing...”

  “Try something different,” Ember encouraged, curling some of her wavy blonde hair behind her ear, before returning her attention to her phone.

  Torie turn
ed to Cady. “Hey, I know! How about you get the peanut butter and I’ll get the maple and we’ll just share?”

  “I'm sorry, I can't eat anything right now,” Cady replied honestly. Though she wasn't quite numb yet, the shock of seeing Mick and meeting his mother had finally worn off. Now, what Cady felt more than anything was disappointed. First, to learn her one-night-crush was not who he said he was. Then to discover that his mom had her hooks in Cady's father? That was the more troubling one, really, because it left Cady nowhere to go with her infatuation.

  Even if she could overlook Mick's lies from that first night—and even if Cady could try to handle a casual fling—there was still no way for them to proceed. The romance between their parents made it too complicated and weird now; it just killed any possibility between Cady and Mick.

  God, why did it bother her so much? It was only supposed to be one night. And she couldn't trust him anyway, she reminded herself. Twenty-four, ha, she thought cynically, as the cookie line moved up. He's a junior!

  The line moved again and, absently, Cady moved with it, until Ember suddenly nudged her in the ribs.

  “Ow,” said Cady, startled.

  Ember gave one of her dimpled smiles. “It's our turn,” she explained. “Want a coffee or anything?”

  After Cady declined, Torie ordered both of the cookies that she coveted, and Ember requested the low-fat, gluten-free ginger cookie sans the raw sugar icing. Then she slid her calorie-obsessed phone back in her pocket. Eyes bright, she said, “So, Cady, finish what you were saying before. About that guy Mick?”

  Mick. Oh, right, him—the guy who seemed to be playing on a continuous loop in her mind tonight. Unwittingly, Cady sighed just thinking about him. Shrugging, she said, “That was it, really.”

  During the walk from their apartment to Midnite Bakery, she'd already recounted for her friends what had happened at Travelli's.

  “That's the whole sordid story,” she remarked now. “Basically, I try to be impulsive for once—try to have a good time with a guy I find attractive in a bar—and it blows up in my face.”