Quiet Man

by Kristen Ashley

  He was not going to argue against his mother’s crab cakes.

  “Perfect,” he muttered. Then louder, “Gotta go, Ma. Lottie’s here and Mag’s home from the ballgame so we’re gonna get some food and hang with Mag.”

  Her voice went up in pitch when she asked, “She’s there?”

  He gave Lottie a squeeze. “Right here.”

  “Wow,” she whispered. Then she got louder. “Mag’s met her?”

  “Yup.”

  “What does he think?”

  “I got the last good one left.”

  Lottie pushed up and shoved her face in the other side of his neck.

  There was a beat of hesitation before, sounding like she was smiling, his mom said, “Well then, Mo, I can’t wait to meet her. Tell her it won’t be formal. Just a family dinner.”

  His mother knew Mag would be a tough nut to crack.

  And he was when it came to one of his buds.

  Lottie had done it in about five minutes.

  But Mo would not tell his girl anything like what his mother told him to say.

  She was probably already walking to the hutch to pull out the china.

  “I will,” he lied.

  “Glad you called, honey.”

  “Yeah, Ma. Love you and talk to you later.”

  “Love you too, baby boy.”

  He grinned, disconnected and tossed his phone to the nightstand so he could wrap both arms around his girl.

  “Well, you didn’t fuck around with that,” she said into his neck.

  “Nope.”

  “How nervous should I be?”

  “She’s gonna love you.”

  “How nervous should I be, Mo?”

  He gave her a squeeze which got him what he wanted. She lifted her head and looked down at him.

  “She’s gonna love you, baby,” he said gently.

  She studied his face. She did it hard.

  When she saw what she needed, she dipped in and kissed him.

  Mo rolled her and kissed her back.

  They necked for a while.

  When they were done, they got up, got dressed and left the room they’d been in for five hours.

  There was good soundproofing in his place. They’d heard Mag come in, but that was it. What they didn’t hear was that Mag came back with Boone.

  So over Chinese delivery, Lottie got Boone’s version of Test the New Woman.

  Mo figured, with Boone, she passed after she successfully shotgunned a beer.

  It wasn’t that Boone had lower standards than Mag when it came to Mo.

  It was that Lottie was Lottie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  No Shit

  Lottie

  The massive spasm of his big body woke me and nearly sent me flying off his bed.

  And then I wasn’t teetering off the edge.

  I was in Mo’s arms, those arms so tight around me, I worried he’d snap my ribs.

  And I couldn’t breathe.

  Just awake after coming out of a deep sleep, which came after a great fuck, unable to breathe, feeling the strength of him for the first time in a way that frightened me, it took me a second to figure out what the fuck was going on.

  But I heard Mo’s breathing, felt his skin was hot and clammy, and I figured it out.

  “Okay,” I pushed out. “It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. I’m right here. Right here. You’re home. In bed. With me.”

  His arms got tighter.

  Was he even awake?

  I couldn’t tell in the dark in his bedroom.

  I forced my hands under his arms, shoved them up his chest and grasped either side of his neck.

  “Mo, honey,” I called.

  He rolled into me, giving me all his weight.

  All of it.

  And his arms hadn’t loosened.

  God, he was going to suffocate me.

  “Mo, baby.” I squeezed out the words as I squeezed his neck. “Wake up.”

  “Awake,” he grunted, putting his weight into his arms at my back, taking some of it from me, at the same time relaxing his hold.

  I sucked in a big breath.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “Fuck,” he said.

  Then he let me go and rolled to his back.

  Instantly, I rolled into him, climbing him, my chest to his, the rest of my body falling off his side.

  “Dream?” I asked quietly.

  “Christ,” he replied.

  I gave it time, carefully moving my hand to hold his neck and stroking his throat with my thumb.

  When his breath came easier and some of the tension went out of his body, I tried again.

  “Was it a dream, honey?”

  “Yeah,” he said to the ceiling.

  It was the Sunday, the morning of the night I was going to meet his family.

  In the ensuing two weeks, I’d met all his buds (and all of them were as awesome as Mag was). I’d hung with all of his buds (and hanging with all of them was as awesome as hanging with Mag was). He’d had dinner with my family. I’d gone back to the club. He’d been put on some surveillance job where, fortunately, he worked nights so he was working when I was working which meant we had most of our time together.

  Though the first night I was onstage, Axl, Auggie and Mag were sitting front row to the side.

  Not to watch me strip.

  To make sure I was good my first night without Mo at my back.

  Boone was working some other job.

  Vance, Hector and Ren with their women, Jules, Sadie and Ally, as well as my sister, by the way, were sitting at the table next to them.

  Eddie was at home with the boys (doing this avoiding having to watch me dance).

  Jet, Jules, Sadie and Ally watched me dance.

  Vance, Hector and Ren engaged in an apparently deep conversation while I danced.

  I was loved.

  And it was good to be loved.

  But now, I wasn’t feeling that goodness.

  For nearly a month, being officially together for a two and a half weeks of that, Mo and I spent all our time together when we weren’t working. We slept at his house, or mine, depending on a variety of factors.

  He had a razor, shave cream and bodywash in my bathroom and a drawer and a rail full of clothes in my closet.

  I doubled up on all my stuff, including a ton of makeup, a hairdryer and curling irons (that was fun, more fun, Mo was a man who didn’t mind shopping—I had his sisters to thank for a lot, something I was going to get a chance to do that night). And since his big master closet was far from full, I’d filled my own rail and two drawers.

  Neither of us was fucking around.

  This was it.

  He was the one.

  I was his one.

  And both of us knew it.

  It hadn’t been years, but we now had some time in and in that time, not once since Mo started sleeping at my side did he get up before seven in the morning.

  No nightmares.

  All good.

  Until now.

  And I had no clue what to do.

  “You wanna talk about it?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Do you need to go work out or something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Wanna fuck?” I offered.

  “Lottie, you don’t have to fuck me every time I have a bad dream.”

  He sounded short and impatient, something I’d never heard from Mo.

  “You’ve never had a bad dream,” I pointed out. “And besides, in case you missed it, I wouldn’t mind.”

  He lifted a long arm so he could rub his face with his hand.

  I bent my neck and put my mouth to his skin.

  “Really, babe, love you, but I don’t want to associate your mouth on me after dreams like that,” he announced.

  But I arrested.

  Really, babe, love you.

  Love you.

  He loved me.

  Loved me.

  His other hand came to the small
of my back and drifted up until his fingers were in my hair.

  “Go back to sleep. I’m gonna go to the gym,” he muttered.

  “Okay,” I whispered, though no way in hell I was going to be able to go back to sleep.

  He pulled me further up his chest, gave me a closed-mouth kiss and rolled me to the bed.

  He threw back the covers and got out but tossed them over me and pulled them high up my shoulder before he walked to the bathroom.

  He didn’t turn on the light until the door was mostly closed.

  Mo was a man who didn’t turn the light on until the door was mostly closed when the room he left was dark and his woman was in bed in that room.

  He was a man who pulled the covers up high to my shoulder.

  Mo was a man who loved me.

  Loved me.

  I didn’t feign sleep and Mo knew I didn’t after he left the bathroom, went to the closet, put on workout clothes and came right to the bed to smooth my hair back before touching his lips to my temple.

  “We’ll go out and get breakfast when I come back,” he murmured and gave my hair a soft tug. “Try to get some more sleep.”

  And then he was gone.

  I lay in bed, unable to do what he asked (get more sleep), making plans of reading websites and finding books and bucking up so next time this happened, I’d have some tools to deal with it that could help Mo.

  I was feeling this was a decent plan, but not feeling much better (except about the part that he loved me, loved me, and said it), when I heard noises coming from the kitchen.

  You couldn’t hear much in Mo’s place, even if Mo and Mag’s rooms were both right off the open-plan living space, just on opposite ends of the condo.

  Though if it was early, silent, you were jazzed and not entirely in a good way and had already made your plan about how you were going to help your boyfriend with his PTSD so your mind wasn’t jammed up, you could hear.

  I got up, dashed to the walk-in, tore off my nightie, threw on some sleep shorts, a bralette and a cami, darted to the bathroom to take care of business, wash my hands, slap water on my face and brush my teeth.

  Then I walked out.

  Two Sundays ago, in the morning, Mo and I had been confronted with something Mo warned me later I’d see a lot of at his place: one of Mag’s girls. A pretty brunette who spent the time Mag allowed her before getting her ass out of the condo to take her home looking at him like she was wondering if she should tranquilize him so she could successfully put a ball and chain on his ankle.

  She hadn’t been seen again.

  That said, last Sunday morning, we’d met a redhead. She also had the ball-and-chain look.

  And she, too, had been hustled out the door by Mag so he could take her home.

  The good news was, he was not a man who made them Uber it.

  The bad news was, he was a Slam Bam Thank You Ma’am Man.

  Mo explained, unnecessarily, this was about Nikki. He’d been rabidly faithful to Nikki, and with any woman he was seeing, staunchly monogamous.

  But now, his bud was attempting to fuck Nikki’s memory away.

  This was doomed to fail. I knew it. Mo knew it. Mag probably knew it. Though it was clear he needed this pointed out so he not only knew it subconsciously, but also consciously, and then he could stop breaking hearts all over Denver doing it.

  I wasn’t prepared to get into that just then.

  I wanted to take care of the Denver sisterhood at the same time help Mag over his heartbreak, but…

  Priorities.

  Luckily, right then, I didn’t have Mag’s latest random piece of ass.

  I had Mag, Auggie and Boone filling camelbacks with water (Mag) and downing a protein-load breakfast (Auggie and Boone) which, along with them all wearing various forms of running gear, shared with me they were going to take to the streets.

  “Is there a marathon I don’t know about?” I asked in greeting, and got three big, white smiles.

  Just to share, Mag was nearly as tall as Mo, built tough, but lean, and he had a mess of black hair that was longish, prone to wave, curl, flip and often fell in his eyes in a way that he knew worked so good, or he’d tame that mane. This was paired with rugged, rough-hewn features and electric-blue eyes.

  Boone, on the other hand, was pure, classic male beauty. The angles of his face could have been drawn by Michelangelo. The cut of his cheekbones probably had numerous poems written about them. They definitely had countless orgasms attributed to them (amongst other things about him). He had dark blond hair that was a thick swath on top, short on the sides and brilliant green eyes.

  Oh yeah, and he was tall and built, but instead of being Mo’s six five, or Mag’s six four, he was probably around six two.

  Auggie had not turned out to be a disappointment. It was no wonder women treated him like a god. Thick black hair that curled quite a bit around his neck, black eyes, olive skin, dense brows with a perfect arch, long stubble, sublime nose with slightly flared nostrils and a generous mouth, even I would be down with worshiping at the altar of him. And I had all that was Mo.

  He was slim, not slight. Sinewy. Not an ounce of body fat on him (not that the others had any). And he was the shortest of the bunch, including Axl. Auggie probably measured in at six one, whereas Axl slotted in at number three, behind Mo and Mag, who, at my guess, was six three.

  In normal circumstances, this was a lot to take in of a morning.

  At that time, I didn’t even think about it.

  “Mornin’, Mac,” Boone said.

  “Yo, Lots,” Auggie said.

  “Hey, girl,” Mag said. “Want some breakfast?”

  “Mo and I are going out later,” I told Mag. “But thanks.”

  Mag looked to Mo’s door.

  “Trail run,” Auggie declared, and my gaze went to him.

  “Sorry?”

  “Going up into the mountains to do a trail run, babe,” he said, shoving a sausage link into his mouth, biting off a chunk, chewing a bit and saying through it, “Not a marathon.”

  “Oh. Right,” I muttered, standing at the side of the island.

  “Mo still asleep?” Mag asked, not hiding, if Mo was, Mag would be surprised.

  I looked right into his eyes. “No. He’s working out.”

  Mag stared right into mine.

  He knew why Mo was off working out when I was in his bed.

  They all knew.

  They had a trail to conquer.

  And I had a mission.

  An important one.

  So no fucking around.

  “He had a dream,” I told Mag.

  The relaxed feel of the room took a hike as I watched Mag’s handsome face grow troubled.

  Okay, so they were also in the know about Mo’s dreams.

  “I knew about them, he told me. But it’s his first with me,” I shared to Mag.

  “Right,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted.

  Mag turned his attention to the men sitting on stools at his island.

  I did too.

  “Do you guys dream?” I asked straight out.

  Auggie was studying Mag.

  Boone shook his head at me.

  “It’s just Mo who gets the dreams,” Mag told me.

  Shit.

  They might not be able to help.

  “Mac, just be there for him, yeah?” Boone suggested.

  “How do I do that?” I asked him.

  “Don’t tell him to get on some pill so he won’t wake you up when he gets outta bed would be a good start,” Auggie muttered.

  God, I seriously really hated Tammy.

  “She’s not like the others, Aug,” Mag clipped at his friend, then looked to me. “But Auggie’s right, Lottie. So is Boone. Just be there for him. Listen if he’s willing to talk. Be cool if he isn’t. Press it if you can but back off if he’s not down with it. And let him do what he needs to do to deal, like getting up and working out.”

  “And
if it gets bad,” Boone cut in. “Talk to one of us. We’ll wade in.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “You don’t get it,” Mag said.

  I looked to him.

  “And you can’t get it, Lottie,” he continued. “And that’s good, darlin’. Seriously good. That said, it doesn’t help seein’ as you don’t get it. What he’s going through but more, why he’s going through it. You have to be able to get it to help.”

  “Misery loves company,” I replied depressingly.

  “Just that, babe,” Boone put in.

  I stared at the marble countertop of the island, wanting to think happy thoughts, seeing as my mound of hunkalicious boyfriend loved me.

  But I was not thinking happy thoughts.

  Auggie caught my attention by speaking.

  “You know, it helps that you give a shit, Lots. It might not feel like it. It might get frustrating. But it does help, even if you don’t feel like it is. And it should get better. Mo’s dreams might never fully go away. But he’s been out a long time, they have gotten better since I’ve known him, and he’s developed tools to deal with them. If he tries something new, being with you, hopefully they’ll come less frequent. Just give a shit and don’t give up. If it was you, he wouldn’t.”

  No, he wouldn’t.

  I believed that totally.

  “I like to be more hands on,” I shared, and Auggie smiled.

  Yep, could see a woman worshiping at the altar of that.

  “That probably works too,” he replied, and his smile dimmed, but didn’t fade before he said, “But as awesome as you are, babe, it’s not the miracle cure. And that’s gonna suck for you because when you care about somebody, you think that emotion, if you give enough of it, will cure anything. It’d be fantastic if it did. But it doesn’t. It won’t go away because what he saw and did will never go away. He’ll learn to cope with it his way, part with your help, but this is something that isn’t about you.”

  Oh yeah.

  Love and care and support not being the cure?

  That was going to suck.

  “Where it goes wrong is when you make him feel, whether on purpose or not, that you think you should be enough,” Auggie carried on. “When you make him feel what you can give should be the only therapy he needs. That backfires because he’ll know you’ll be thinking that, he’ll feel shit that you’re thinking that, and he can’t give it to you. It will add guilt to other crap he’s got piled on him. All that gets twisted, for both of you, and if you’re not careful, it gets twisted sometimes in a way you can’t get straight.”