Across From You

by Amabel Daniels

  “I’d say we got more than a peek.”

  Yes, a full frontal eyeful I’d fondly revisit even to my nursing home days. Nodding slowly, I grinned. Then I bi-polared into a frown. His almost smirks. The audacity he had to pretend to check me out while he was naked. Another damn player probably planting his seed in every female like a hydraulic water pump watering a field.

  “Yep. A peek. And that was enough,” I agreed. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of experiencing another jerk in my deplorable dating history. Clearly, that tanned god of a nude model fell into the category of assholes I’d want to avoid. Only an overly confident guy with a fetish for exhibition would stand as a nude model. Until I upgraded my instincts to have some kind of loser detection software, I was taking the bench.

  “Well, keep your chin up and your guard on. Because weddings are such prime places for hooking up.”

  “Not this woman,” I vowed and saluted nothing.

  Forty-four minutes. Not bad. As long as I was within the hour, I couldn’t let myself cringe in the guilt of tardiness. As soon as my Jetta lurched to a very immediate stop, I collected my random crap from the passenger seat and crammed it all in my purse. There were a couple seconds that I could have used to check my already unrepairable hair that I used instead to reach over to the floor for the bag of gummy worms I hadn’t opened yet. I had no idea when I’d actually get dinner, and since I might have been holding up the whole stinking rehearsal and delaying the following meal, I decided I better snack first.

  I ran up the stone steps to the main entrance of Barton Hall as I munched on sour sugary excellence. Maybe the cardio of stairclimbing would automatically counter the candy.

  Good Lord. Weren’t people shorter back then? My thighs burned from dashing up steps designed for giants. Which made less sense because the grandiose setting for Bev’s wedding was once an elite all-boys’ private school. When I landed on the granite floor of the lobby, I ignored the stitch in my side and yanked open the doors.

  It took me a minute of wandering in the wide, cavernous hallways of the former school-turned-private lodge to realize getting lost couldn’t be on my agenda. Faint notes of the bridal march came from somewhere. Ignoring imagined creepy vibes of the ghosts of long-past pedophiles in the 1950s campus, I played an audio game of hot and cold to get my ass to the rehearsal.

  After I exited another wide, open and very empty banquet space, I ran back down another hallway. My heels clacking across the marble tiles must have caught someone’s attention because a petite woman in a pantsuit stepped out from a double door.

  “Are you Lexi Regan? Claudia has been expecting you.”

  Aye. I raised my hand and rushed to her. “Sorry I’m so late—”

  The woman grabbed my elbow and directed me to follow her into a chapel. “No time. Claudia does not waste time on excuses.”

  Some sleuth I was. The chapel. Because Bev wouldn’t be practicing to get hitched in the kitchen. Of course, they would be in the chapel. “Who’s Claudia?” Another woman I’d piss off with my unpunctuality more so than the bride herself? I could walk and follow perfectly fine. I wasn’t that geographically challenged. I ripped my arm from her grasp.

  “I’ve located her!” After my pantsuit handler shouted loud enough to be heard by the twenty-some people in the chapel, a pink-haired woman turned her glare to me.

  “Over there. Now,” she directed after her eerie Exorcist-type head swivel.

  I snuck one more gummy worm into my mouth before I stashed the bag in my purse, hoping the opening was upright and all my belongings weren’t to be coated in sticky powder. If the bespectacled witch with salmon hair—Claudia, I assumed—wouldn’t be bothered with excuses or apologies of late arrival, then she sure as shit wasn’t going to give a damn about me wanting to fuss with my purse.

  As the assistant grasped for my arm again, I reared out of her reach. “I think—” I smoothed down my jersey dress. “I can manage.”

  After I moseyed my way to the correct pew that angled toward the spot I was designated for, the void behind the four other bridesmaids, I tossed one more narrow-eyed glower at the assistant who’d felt the need to drag me wherever Claudia demanded.

  If I hadn’t been petty enough to reassert to Claudia’s helper that I didn’t appreciate being lugged around like a stubborn toddler, I might have been looking where I was going. Namely, I might have been able to correct my step before stubbing my toe into a pew kneeler pad.

  “Goddammit!”

  Gasps chorused a breath before silence reigned.

  I bent over to rub my toe, horribly unprotected in the peekaboo heels I’d donned. I waited for a strike of fire to lightning down from the sky. No? All good then. As I straightened, I swiped a quick sign of the cross over my chest. Couldn’t hurt.

  Limping slightly, I resumed my trek across the churchy space. At least my inappropriate curse was thankfully bypassed as the others, especially Claudia, went back to their discussions. Perhaps Claudia didn’t allow time for unholy swearing either.

  Once I took my spot in the standing procession, I resisted the urge to pull off a little impromptu jazz tap of ta-da! I made it! It was the small accomplishments that counted, no? I chewed the last of my gummy worm before pivoting to face my counterpart in the wedding parade. Not one of my cousins, probably some friend of the groom. I swallowed and raised my hand to flip over the pendant on my necklace to show the front of the turquoise.

  And I spun to see…him.

  In clothes, but no less potent.

  My mouth hung open and my fingers froze around the teardrop stone on my collarbone. Across the aisle, feet away, was him.

  The man.

  The subject Carly and I had to sketch.

  The nude model.

  Not naked here, but… It. Was. Him.

  As he met my gaze, no nudity between us as he wore gray slacks and a black button-up very well, he did the unthinkable. One little twitch of those lips and he was smirking at me. Even without his nakedness, it threw me. Such a blatant tease of making me wonder what he was thinking.

  Heat soared up my flesh like mercury rising, but I couldn’t even compute what might happen at combustion status. Could a human blow from embarrassment? Humility? And why I was the one blushing made zero sense.

  “Lex!”

  I barely registered Bev’s high-pitched yell, nor the rush of her steps toward me. What did shock me from staring at the not-so-nude model across from me were her arms rigidly wrapped around my torso, squeezing as she yanked me to her chest. Her combined fists painfully dug into me below my ribs—

  “Bev!” I raised my arms to push her from me, aborting her Heimlich maneuver. Holy shit she was strong. “What the hell!”

  “Are you okay?” She twisted to face me.

  “I’m fine!” Maybe even more humiliated, thanks. My quota for embarrassment knew no bounds, apparently.

  “You were choking!”

  “I wasn’t.” I tugged at my dress where she’d jacked it up trying to save me. No one needed to see my panties with the faded screen print of The Prancing Pony Inn with a bucking horse on it. What? It was my last pair. Friday nights were for laundry, not getting saved for ogling sexiness.

  When Bev glared at me suspiciously, I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to prove it was empty.

  “You were so red. And it didn’t look like you could breathe.” She pointed at my neck. “You had your hand up there. That’s the universal sign for choking.”

  Only on my humiliation. As I opened my mouth to demand why a man of nude hotness was standing opposite me, she shoved at my shoulder.

  “Jesus Everlasting Fucking Christ!” At least this time the inappropriate curse didn’t come from me. “I thought you were choking! You can’t die before tomorrow. Then I’d only have four bridesmaids.”

  I watched her through slitted eyes, knowing ninety percent of her comments were insincere in the same sense of inappropriate humor she shared with me. But the ten percent that
might have been honest, yeah, that was annoying.

  “Dear.” Claudia approached, her call to Bev more like an order than a summons. A foot taller, I peered down at her, mystified at the human oxymoron. With pink permed curls, she could have been a sweet grandmotherly figure, but that cutting tone of her voice had me pegging her as an evil Effie Fidel Castro might have respected.

  “Lex, this is the wedding planner, Clau—” Bev gestured at the petite monster.

  “We don’t have time for introductions again, dear.”

  Again. Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. I was late. I was here now, wasn’t I? Take it or leave it.

  “We want our bride right back here, and…” With that, Bev was directed to the back of the line.

  The wedding dictator’s voice faded as she lectured Bev on the return trip to the depths of the nave. If Claudia couldn’t schedule for introductions, then it was up to me.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked of the man next to me.

  His smirk grew into a full-fledged grin. The boyish charm in his smile might have been even more addicting than all of his bare flesh. Just to check, I glanced down in a slow rove, traveling in a lazy once-over of his body. Recalling precisely how tempting he’d been without garments.

  Only the sound of his throat clearing reminded me of my gawking. My ears flared in warmth once more and he raised a hand.

  “Easy, now.” He quirked a brow. “You gotta tame that blush unless you want Bev running to save you from not breathing again.”

  Perfect. Just perfect. He was overly confident, just like I’d suspected. And shoving it in my face. He knew I was flustered and only a cocky jerk would torment.

  “I’m Jack.” His hand lowered to an offered handshake. “Jack O’Connell.”

  “A nudist model,” I answered. “Who just happens to be a groomsman at my cousin’s wedding?”

  “Wait, cousin?” He tilted his head, his eyes squinting as though he was concentrating. “Lex? You’re Lexi? You’re that cousin?”

  I finally took his hand and gave it a brief shake, relieved something outlandish like a spark of something didn’t electrocute me. That was fiction. In real life, touching a god of a man only made a woman overheat and need to clench her thighs together. Cause and effect. Nothing more. But if I took a gander at fiction and played some make believe? Then, oh yeah. His warm flesh could touch me everywhere and tease me with those rough callouses as he—

  Wait. What? That cousin? What the hell did he mean, that? “Yes?”

  He rubbed his free hand over his mouth as he withdrew from my grasp.

  Okay. No hand holding for nearly a minute, lady. Only Bev and Paul would be doing that here. On the altar. Not me and this stranger-nudist Jack.

  “I’m Bev’s coworker. Partner. We share the cruiser and she’s mentioned you.”

  I did not desire to know what my sometimes sweet and sometimes sinister cousin may have shared about me. “Ah.” Words still struggled to swim into my conscious abilities as I shooed away the fantasies of Jack’s unclothed flesh getting acquainted with mine.

  Just then, as though I’d needed the reminder, he did it. The teeny hint of amusement in almost smirking at me. That lofty confidence. He was a player. I could not, would not be deterred from that clear fact. No matter how perfect his body and how strong and warm his hands, that attitude chilled my sexier appreciation of him.

  “Why were you checking me out?” I crossed my arms and waited despite everyone around us turning to pay attention to the quickly approaching taps of Claudia’s spiked heels.

  Jack’s laugh was quiet but damned deafening. A low chuckle. A bedroom show of humor. “I was checking you out? You mean when I was bare-assed naked?”

  My tight-lipped grimace lost to gravity. Instead of my resting bitch face smirk, I felt myself slipping into an oh-fuck-me-I-made-a-mistake frown. Did he check me out? Had I assumed too much? He’d kept his attention on me in that class. Every time I dutifully looked at his sinfully sexy body—to sketch!—I’d immediately felt the burn of his stare.

  Carly had thought so, too. She’d confirmed Jack was checking me out. Bitter that she may be, she didn’t miss anything.

  “Oh.” I faced him fully then. “I’m sorry. I thought you…” Hole in the floor, come here, hole. Where are you? I need to be swallowed up now.

  In a swift lean, he came close to me, bringing all his body heat into my personal bubble and nearly popping it. His shoulder brushed against mine in a playful push. “You were just too—” He shrugged and then stood on his side again. “Too cute. You should have seen your face. So red.”

  Well, at least Bev hadn’t been at the art class too, seeing me blush and needing to rescue me from “choking.”

  “Ah.” I studied him, sinking in the annoyance that not only could he make me blush like a skittish female, but he could also take a poke and tease me about it with those almost smirks.

  Definitely another player.

  “And one, two. I said, one, two.” Claudia’s furious face loomed to our side and she gestured for me to get closer to Jack. “One, two!” Her tiny hands clapped an ugly loud crack. “One! Two!”

  “Shit.” Jack barely whispered the word before reaching for me and looping my arm around his. Side by side, we faced the front of the chapel, already more than a few paces behind the last couple stepping down the aisle to the music. In his arm, I could have swooned and fidgeted in a ploy to discreetly feel him up. Fear of Claudia kept my hormones in check, though.

  And he thinks I’m cute. Embracing this reinforced discovery that Jack was another player, I had to accept the fact he thought I was cute. Cute? What was next? My blush was adorable? Sweet? God. What simpering, stupid words. Cute worked for the stuffed animals I helped eight-year-olds dress up at the store, or for a puppy yawning. Cute was not a thirty-year-old single woman who fell further and further away from ever meeting a virile and non-asshole guy.

  Four

  Jack

  Not to be a goody-goody, but I usually liked to listen and obey. Weird, perhaps, since I typically issued instructions as a member of law enforcement. Outside my career though, I was the one who enjoyed following orders and exceeding expectations in life. It was the infallible people-pleasing way of my life. When it came to paying attention to the barked-out demands and corrections issued by the pint-sized bad fairy godmother of weddings, I just couldn’t. Being near Lexi, talking even briefly with her, made me want to tune out the rehearsal bullshit and simply spend time with the woman. And that was saying something because even Claudia could teach our bulldoggish state trooper superintendent a thing or two about being stern.

  I can’t believe I’m finally meeting her.

  No. There was no finally about it. I’d already met her. Sure, I had a distant knowledge of her through Bev talking about her. But I had met Lexi. When I was bare-ass naked.

  What are the goddamn odds?

  When we were prodded, if not physically, for the first take of walking down the aisle, I thought back over my words to pinpoint what would have made Lexi clam up. It wasn’t as though we had much chance to chitchat under the watchdog dictating one, two! to all of us in the chapel. Yet the difference was there. One minute Lexi was giving off good vibes, if suspicious, but now, she seemed almost irritated at being next to me. Perhaps it was still the shock of facing me across the aisle, maybe never expecting to see me again.

  So much for not recognizing anyone after my only adventure as a nude model.

  I chanced another glance at her, appreciating the beautiful curves of her profile, sympathizing with the boredom apparent in her frown as we were paused again for an explanation to another couple of the bridal party how their one, two was not, in fact, a proper one, two.

  Was she annoyed with me? People pleasing aside, I wanted to know why she’d be so put-off at my side.

  Is it because I called her cute? There was no way to mistake her immediate flinch at that one word. Next to her now, with her toned arm wrapped with mine, this much ne
arer to the swell of her breasts within the almost too-small dress she wore, I couldn’t repeat my first choice of word. Cute? Try sexy. Gorgeous. Intimidating, even. I’d never been a man of many words. Or the right words.

  “I didn’t mean you were…” I said after gently jabbing my elbow toward her side. “Cute.”

  Her deadpanned slow blink warned me I was spiraling in a kamikaze plummet. “Not like that.”

  “Cute’s not good?” She raised her brows.

  “You don’t make me think it is.”

  She huffed.

  “I don’t mean you were cute as in a cuddly kitten way. Just that you—” I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand. “Your reaction of looking at me in the art room was…honest. And that made me feel exposed.”

  Laughter bubbled from her clamped lips. “More than you already could’ve been?”

  True, that. Standing naked in front of a crowd was awkward. Having to wonder what Lexi was thinking, even more so.

  “Yeah. I noticed your attention on me,” I tried.

  “Wasn’t it supposed to be?”

  I shrugged, fighting a smile. So she really was just an art student? “I guess. I’d never done that kind of thing before.”

  “You’ve never stripped in front of another person?”

  There were some who’d seen me without clothes, but her jaded cynicism and the doubt in her tone annoyed me. Like she figured I was easy with my body or gave it without hesitation. “I’d never volunteered to model nude before.” Before she dashed away, making more assumptions about me strictly because of her first impression of me, I explained how I’d lost a bet at Paul’s bachelor party.

  “You know, I think Bev mentioned you before.”

  Bev sure did more than mention Lexi. Sometimes she spilled stories in the lighthearted vein of a sisterhood between cousins, other times, it was more of a revelation of who she looked up to. Small stories here and there, reminisced memories.