by A. L. Woods
“You need a little more grit when you drop the middle name. You want to inflict fear,” I suggested, tapping my chin with thought.
“I’ll work on it,” she agreed with a giggle, tilting her head at me, a look of mischief forming on her face. “And you’ll work on getting fucked, right?”
“Penelope,” I pleaded, becoming more laconic the longer this went on. “Just drop it.”
“You’ll feel better when you get over your bruised ego,” she assured. “C’mon, think about it.” She glided her hand across the air in front of her face as though it were a paintbrush on canvas. “Coffee dates, long walks through the Public Garden, dinner at Faneuil Hall, Christmas at the in-laws, a beach proposal—”
“You said fuck, not dating,” I interrupted, my skin flushing as the pictures she painted assaulted my mind. I resented the butterflies that swirled inside of me. “Or an engagement.”
She flitted her fingers at me with indifference. “Semantics. The order of preference is your choice.”
“None of the above.”
“Ah, ah. That wasn’t one of the options on the menu.”
“I don’t like your menu.”
“Tough shit,” she declared with a noncommittal shrug, “Your vegetables are good for you, you need a healthy balance of protein on that plate, and sex is a good enough dessert for anyone who wants to burn a few hundred calories.”
“Someone obviously has their appetite back.” I shook my head.
I wanted to pretend I was only marginally affected by Sean, by the sweeping possession he held over my body for those few stolen moments of time, or how he consumed my every thought.
“Pen?”
“Hmm?”
My salivary glands had seemingly gone on vacation, leaving my mouth parched as my admission came to me. “I do like him.” I focused my eyes on the TV, watching a commercial for a local used car dealership. “But I’m terrified of the idea of getting that close to anyone again.”
Penelope’s hand found mine, her skin soft as velvet against my palm.
“I know you are, but…” My lids dropped, the familiar burn settling in them, the tears I told myself I would never shed threatening to fall. “…not everyone you meet in life is going to hurt you or leave you, Raquel.”
It was hard for me to reconcile what she was saying when it felt like I had spent the better half of my life feeling isolated despite being surrounded by people. My father’s death had been the fulcrum of everything that had happened, setting events off like a domino effect.
Holly Jane had died shortly after.
I’d forced Cash away.
Why would Sean be any different?
“Life is a lot like a car, Kell,” Penelope continued. “Some of us choose to drive and be in control, others resolve ourselves to life in the passenger seat, where we waste our days away wondering why we never got to our destination.”
I sat up, looking at her with wistful eyes. This woman was no longer just my best friend. Some day in the not-too-distant future, she would become a mother. Some day, she would be doling out advice to her child, mending his or her broken heart.
“Get in the driver’s seat of your life, Raquel. You might be surprised to see where your journey takes you.”
Her sentiment hung between us as I settled back against the pillows, feeling a little lightheaded from the weight of what she had said to me. Had I been sitting in the passenger seat this entire time? I had been so sure I had been driving that metaphorical car by keeping people out that I never even considered that maybe the car had been on autopilot the whole time. As I sat there in silence, Penelope’s hand reached for mine again.
“Tomorrow is going to mark ten years. You’ve survived an entire decade when you thought you wouldn’t.”
Her words served as an emblematic intro that drew a shaky, uneven breath from my lips. The tears that had been stinging the back of my eye lids pooled once more, and this time, I allowed them to fall.
Penelope hesitated, her hold on my hand tightening. “I want you to promise me that you’ll try to start living instead of looking in your rear view mirror. Nothing good is waiting for you back there.”
Whether I wanted to or not, my head moved in a steady nod, the tears streaming freely as she took me into her arms and held me like she could smother the pain out of me. Her palm was flat against my back, moving in consoling circles as the sobs freely emerged from the back of my throat. I had never realized it before, but I wanted to live. Maybe I had always wanted to live, but felt I would never be able to extricate myself from who I was supposed to be. I had always felt that I owed it to Holly Jane to serve my lifelong contrition by starving myself of basic human needs. I ate out of sustenance, not from desire. I drank to suppress my pain. I lashed out at those who usually didn’t deserve it. And I was starving myself from the opportunity to experience something that could change my life as I knew it forever.
I pulled back, sniffling as Penelope’s glossy eyes appraised mine, her warm hands cupping my cheeks.
“I want you to live,” she murmured, crystallizing a significant starting point in the next chapter of my life. “Live, Raquel. That’s what she would have wanted.”
Any other time, I would have told her she was wrong. This time, though, I didn’t just believe Penelope’s words.
I wanted to live by them.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Truth to be told, I knew this was edging on the cusp of brazen, even for me. After she had rightly fled the house yesterday, I staggered back to the desk in a befuddled mess, rocking the world’s largest hard-on. My dick could have penetrated steel, never mind the massive paperweights that were my balls. I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that I undid my pants just enough to pull my dick out and stroke it out to the image of her writhing against my mouth and the sound of her pleasured moans, now forever burned into my mind.
I lost my load before she was even officially out of the driveway—she was that hot.
I would spare Dougie and Penelope the FYI on that one—they didn’t need to know that I had christened their house before they did. Still, I wasn’t happy with the way things left off between Raquel and me. I had had a point to make and a lesson to teach her, but even I knew when to take my foot off the gas.
Especially today. Today’s lesson was going to take a different approach, and I ideally needed to keep my hands to myself. My mouth might be a different question, though.
I parked the Jeep in the nearly empty parking lot of The Advocate, my eyes finding the dash, where the reading of 4:55PM glowed proudly at me like a beacon against the darkened skies as the day drew to a close. Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” drifted out of the sound system of the car, the steady beat of my heart falling in time with the song’s melancholic bass line.
Lifting my gaze to the rear view mirror, I met the familiarity of my dark stare. I had indulged myself and managed a quick trim of my beard this morning, cleaning up the uneven and overgrown lines. I looked presentable in the make-a-good-impression-on-Mom-and-Dad kind of way, but somehow, I suspected my efforts would be entirely wasted on her. Given the way we had left off, this was going to go down one way only: She was going to be really fucking pissed to see me.
Silencing the ignition, I popped the car door free, my feet finding the pavement with ease. The Advocate offices were in a distinguished, two-story redbrick heritage edifice that was tucked in the heart of town. The late fall air grew bitter as I drifted toward the refurbished nineteenth century-looking black door. The door squeaked when I pushed it in, the heavy stench of printer ink and aging paper immediately hitting my nose.
The reception area was nothing more than a small sitting room with four dark blue upholstered Bergère chairs and a circular coffee table laden with past issues of the paper. Behind an oversized wraparound receptionist desk sat a mousy looking woman with corkscrew flaxen curls who gawked at me through round eyes.
“May I help you?” Her voice sounded like a bird’s chirp, her smile a little shy, b
ut warm enough as her eyes worked over the length of my frame. I caught the small albeit nervous bob of her throat, a flint of appreciation flooding her too-far-apart hazel eyes the longer she swept her roving gaze over me.
My eyes dipped to read the brass-trimmed nameplate on her desk.
Sheryl Jones
The name fit her like a leather glove.
She straightened in her seat, hands grasping a pen tightly between her plump fingers.
“Is Raquel Flannigan here?”
Sheryl’s eyes practically distended when she heard Raquel’s name come out of my mouth.
“Do you have an appointment?” Her eyes narrowed slightly, and it would be hard to miss the hint of mistrust in both the question and on her face. I considered for a moment that maybe I wasn’t the first man who had shown up here looking for Raquel—but I didn’t want any trouble, I just wanted to make it right.
It was time to turn on the charm. I leaned forward, dropping my elbows on the lip of the desk.
“Ms. Jones,” I said, my mouth slipping into a wry smile, the one that had gotten me out of detention in my youth, earned me loan extensions, and entrenched me deep inside of Raquel’s thoughts in the first place, “I know this is completely unorthodox, but my appearance is a bit of a surprise.”
That sent her overplucked brows north, her thin lips shifting from side to side as though she was working at the idea, as if she was trying Brussel sprouts for the first time and couldn’t decide whether she liked them.
“Raquel doesn’t…” She pulled her lip between her teeth, eyes flitting across her desk at the quandary she’d seemingly found herself in. “She doesn’t like having visitors.”
The guilt I was becoming well versed in sank my heart like a tarnished anvil that was losing the war to an unruly, choppy sea. She deserved better, and suddenly I felt stupid for not bringing her flowers or some shit.
Although, knowing her, she would have beat me over the head with a bouquet, ensuring that the thorns drew blood and petals were scattered everywhere. It was probably better to not give her anything she could turn into a weapon.
I didn’t know her well enough to even know what she liked, other than her clit being sucked, but you couldn’t exactly fit that into a gilded gift box, could you?
Before I could even launch into reassurance, I was waylaid by a shadow in my peripheral vision.
“And who do we have here?”
My spine steeled at the sound of a female voice that had me turning on my heel, my face slipping into an inadvertent scowl.
This must have been the pain in the ass that had been Raquel’s trigger on the phone a few weeks back.
The tall, thirty-something redhead appraised me greedily, her shrewd jackal eyes trailing over me like she was going to commit me to memory, and let me tell you, that was not a place I wanted to be.
“I know you,” she said, my stomach churning at the confidence in her pitch.
Before I could question how she knew who I was, she moved to the coffee table, picking up the paper from a few weeks back.
“You’re Sean Tavares.” She held the paper up in my direction.
Sure enough, there was my grim as shit face on the front page. Right, that was how this whole thing started.
My hands slid themselves into my coat pockets, my chin dipping downwards, eyes trained on hers as I attempted my best interpretation of Raquel’s ‘I don’t give a fuck’ and hoping like hell it was just as effective.
“I am,” I confirmed.
The jackal’s eyes looked delighted, and that’s when I became acutely aware that the only reason that stare worked for Raquel so well was because she sported it like a damn accessory.
The redhead appeared entirely unfazed by my indifference. Instead, she examined me like she was about to be awarded a Pulitzer, her Mary Jane version of a shit-eating grin a languorous bloom on a face that lacked any interesting dimension.
Placing the paper back on the table, she stepped toward me. “I’m Karen Chalmers,” she said, holding out her hand. I winced at her approach, the sickening floral perfume she wore entrapping its scent in the hairs of my nose. I could barely contain my repulsion at her extended hand, wishing there was a way to avoid having to make skin-to-skin contact with this woman. I took in a shallow breath, steeling my nerves. If I wanted a chance in hell at penetrating the inner sanctum of The Advocate, I had to play nice—and somehow, I suspected that the only way I was going to breach enemy territory was at this woman’s ordinance.
Karen Chalmers’s hand was clammy and damp with recently applied moisturizer as it enveloped mine. I had hoped the calluses of my palm would unnerve her, but that broad just held on, as if I was doing her bareback and she wanted me to lose my load inside of her so she could tie me down for eighteen years. She struck me as being that type. I wrenched my hand free at first opportunity, watching as she dropped her hand as if nothing had been amiss. My fingers jerked with the desire to wipe my palm on the outside of my jeans just to get that greasy shit and her DNA off me.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Tavares?” Someone needed to let her know that her fixed crazed stare and arched brow was not screaming sexy, it was shouting mental hospital.
Before I had a chance to speak, Sheryl piped up, suddenly appearing very confident. “He’s here for Raquel.”
Karen’s jackal eyes flared like an inferno had engulfed the very building we stood in.
“Is that so?” she clipped, shoulders squaring, her nose tilting skyward. “And what is the nature of your visit?”
“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.” Raquel’s Southie drawl struck like a hot blade on a boulder of ice.
My eyes left Karen’s to look at her. I had been right; her ire manifested as a slight tick in her set jaw. The rest of her face was impassive, an implacable gleam in her cinnamon eyes that looked like dark pools under the offensive halogen lighting of the office.
I blew out a breath, sweeping my stare over her. High-waisted denim jeans clung to the curve of her hips, and a black long-sleeved shirt with a scoop neckline that exposed her clavicle was tucked into her waistline, making her appear waif-like and dangerously fuckable. Her hair was swept back into a low-set messy bun at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands framing her heart-shaped face.
I glanced at her jeans, considering for one stupid moment how difficult it would be to get her out of them. Hell, I could manage if I got them to her knees. Heat hit me, my heart rate all but spiking to dangerous levels until I lifted my eyes to hers and she obliterated what was left of my ego with a single stare.
Oh yeah, she was really fucking pissed to see me.
“You have a private audience with one of your sources?” Karen squeaked, interrupting the silence.
Raquel’s expression was still, nary so much a crinkle on her forehead at the question. Instead she released a bored sigh, indifference burning in her cinnamon gaze that made me feel as though they had done this song and dance countless times before.
“You’re conflating, Karen. Unless one of us is going to pen an expose story on the origins of screws and nuts,” her mouth went lopsided with the jut of a smile, “there’s nothing further he can assist The Advocate with as a source.”
Karen’s grating voice rose an octave, growing shrill. “So, you admit that the nature of your relationship would infringe upon our in-house ethics manual?”
“Karen.” Alarm bells rang out in the way Raquel said her name, caution lacing the two syllables. Raquel’s stare made goosebumps erupt on my arms. When the volume of her voice dropped to a whisper, my skin crawled with a threat of danger. “Do you really want to speak to me about in-house ethics?”
At that, Karen all but slammed her pointed heel into the ground like a petulant child, the threat of a tantrum hanging over her, a storm brewing on her face. She was clearly unnerved by Raquel’s veiled threat, which meant little to me, but Sheryl, who was on her feet watching the two spar, clapped a chubby hand over her mouth.
> “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raquel,” Karen said defensively, “but it’s my duty to inform Earl of this.”
That was when I knew that Raquel had backed her into a corner.
“Go for it. There’s nothing to inform him of. Sean is a friend. That doesn’t break any rules.”
Did she just friend-zone me? With Karen’s back to me, I threw Raquel a wounded look, but her stare landed like shrapnel and my grim expression cleared as easily as shaking an Etch-a-Sketch.
Maybe, I thought, I should be happy that she had referred to me as a friend. That at least meant we were getting somewhere, and maybe I’d get to keep my head—the one in my pants—for one more day after all.
Karen stalked toward the doorway where Raquel stood, and just as she moved to pass her, I watched Raquel lean towards Karen and murmur something too soft to reach my ears. The jackal’s eyes went wide, pure pandemonium burning behind them.
“You wouldn’t,” she hissed, spittle flying from her mouth.
“Try. Me,” Raquel punctuated, looking perfectly capable of doing whatever the fuck she had just threatened to do.
Karen stood in front of her for some time, the two of them filling the threshold, eyes boring into each other like fire fighting ice. There had to be twenty years between them, a clash of youth and seniority pitted against each other in competition. Karen straightened, hitching her handbag higher on her shoulder. Her neck craned with her attempt to appear regal, but she just ended up looking more like the village idiot in a floral print dress and tan trench coat.
“I believe there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, Mr. Tavares,” she deigned, her smile deep and pained. “Ladies, goodnight.” And like that, she was gone, the entrance door slamming behind her telling us how she really felt.
Sheryl’s eyes flitted from me to Raquel, as if she didn’t know what to do with herself next. “I guess, I’ll, uh…” she trailed off, that irksome squeak returning to her, eyes wide as dinner plates.
“’Night, Sheryl. I’ll grab the lights on my way out.” Raquel dismissed her with a wave of her hand. She turned on her heel, glancing at me over her shoulder, silently demanding I follow.