Start Me Up

by J. Kenner

  "More of you, for a start," she said in her weirdly electronic voice. "I missed you last night."

  There was a pause--and since Nolan never left dead air, she knew she'd flummoxed him and did a little mental happy dance. The pause was barely noticeable, though. And since no one ad-libbed better than Nolan, he was soon with the program.

  "I think I'm the one that missed you," he said. "And to you listeners out there, this is one hell of a rare treat. Because you are listening to a real live paradox. And now the question is--did she call to chat, to make a request, or for something wicked and naughty? Personally, I'm hoping for option three. But I'm not holding my breath. I know her, remember, and she's really not a morning person."

  Despite herself, Shelby laughed. "A request," she said, her heart pounding foolishly from nerves. "For a song ... and for later."

  "Let's have it."

  "The Veronicas. Take Me On The Floor."

  She heard the raw sound he made through the phone, and then heard it continue into a growl when she turned the volume up on the radio. She'd hung up abruptly, and even though that was lame, she could already feel her underarms sweating and her heart pounding and all she did was call in to the show.

  How on earth did Nolan do that every day? And unscripted? It was a freaking feat of genius as far as she was concerned.

  She turned up the volume on her radio, then listened as Nolan riffed about her call, then upped the ante by playing a snippet from the Starlight Vocal Band's Afternoon Delight.

  And as that song faded out and her requested song faded in, he spoke firmly and clearly during the transition. "Be home at noon, Paradox," he ordered. "And be naked."

  * * *

  Shelby broke every traffic law on the books racing to get home for lunch. She had to; she was running ridiculously late.

  Frank had pulled her aside in the elevator bank to let her know that the firm had bought a table at an upcoming benefit for some charity, and that he wanted her to go so that she could mingle with prospective clients.

  But the benefit was more than two weeks away, and she really didn't need to be talking about it now. Not when floor sex was waiting for her at home--and she desperately had to run an errand before hand.

  She'd finally taken the brochure he shoved into her hands, promised she'd read it carefully, then crammed it into her briefcase once she was alone on the elevator.

  Honestly. Did the man have no respect for the sanctity of the long lunch?

  Thankfully, she made it to her place with five minutes to spare, and she raced inside, stripped off her clothes, then flopped naked onto her couch just as she heard the key she'd given Nolan jiggle in the lock.

  "Oh, no, baby," he said, his eyes raking over her as he entered. "That's a lovely picture, but the game was on the floor, remember?"

  "So take me there," she teased, making him laugh and come to her side.

  "You think I'm going to toss you over my shoulder and then lay you out on the floor? No way, baby. Way too predictable."

  He turned around, then pushed the coffee table all the way into the center of the room, making her wonder what deliciously seductive activity he had planned. But when he crept up on her and started tickling her, she laughed and screamed and kicked until she fell onto the floor cursing his name and his family and all his descendants until the end of time.

  His end game became clear when he had her pinned down, his body straddling hers, his hands holding hers above her head. She was breathing hard, they both were, and there was a vulnerability to being naked while he was clothed that turned her on.

  She bit her lower lip, and met his eyes. "Do it," she said. "Take me right here on the floor."

  He almost laughed, but the humor died soon as he slid down her body, spreading her wide before he hustled out of his jeans, then kissed his way up her body, forcing her legs to stay wide apart despite the way she squirmed, searching for maximum friction.

  And when he'd kissed and teased ever inch of her body--when she was wet and limp and needy--that's when he positioned himself over her, his cock at her core. "Are you ready?"

  "For you? Always."

  He took her then. Wild and deep, with his eyes locked on hers the entire time, never looking away even when they both came together in an orgasm that shook the house, and fused him tightly to her heart.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shelby squared the corners of the books stacked on her coffee table, then fluffed the cushions on the couch. She liked the house tidy, and she'd gotten into the habit of spending a few hours every Saturday making sure the place was in shape.

  What she hadn't done lately was clean out her briefcase, and even though that was a job that made more sense to tackle at work, she'd already conquered the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room, and she was still in the mood to kick some organizational butt.

  Since her house was too tiny for a full-size dining table to spread out on, she moved to the bedroom and dumped the contents of her cherished Louis Vuitton briefcase onto the fluffy white spread. The case had been a present to herself after she passed her CPA exam, and she loved it because it held so much stuff, traveled everywhere with her, and still looked great.

  She was sorting all the papers into piles when she heard footsteps on her front porch and then the sound of a key in the lock. She was just about to abandon her project and go meet Nolan in the living room when she caught sight of the benefit brochure that Frank had pressed on her days ago.

  The cover said only DTRR with a stylized graphic of letters and words in odd shapes and sizes. Since that gave her no clue as to what cause the sponsoring organization supported, she started to flip the pages, wanting at least a little information to throw at Nolan before she asked if he wanted to join her.

  "Hey," he said, coming into the bedroom and leaning on the dresser about the time that she realized that DTRR was the Dyslexia Training and Resource Room, an organization devoted to helping children with dyslexia.

  "Hey, back." She glanced up at him, greeting his smile with one of her own before looking back down, more interested in the benefit now that she knew it was for a good cause. "I was just trying to figure out what this benefit Frank has me going to is about. I think I may need a date," she teased, and was surprised to see that the bright humor in his face had faded.

  "Something the mat--"

  She didn't finish the question, because while she was speaking, she glanced down at the brochure. And there--on the center spread--was one of Nolan's publicity shots and the large font announcement that the longtime DTRR supporter would be this year's keynote speaker at the gala dinner, talking for the first time publicly about his lifetime struggle with dyslexia.

  With a frown, she looked back up at him. "You're the keynote speaker? The guest of honor?"

  He nodded, and she pushed off the bed, then started to pace. "You didn't tell me."

  "Tell you what?"

  She whipped around to face him. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his posture defensive, and for some reason, that irritated her all the more.

  "Don't play games, Nolan. You didn't tell me you were headlining a gala benefit. You didn't invite me to be your date even though we've been sleeping together for quite a while now."

  "Is that what we're doing? Sleeping together?"

  She ignored him. "And you somehow failed to mention that you're dyslexic."

  His jaw tightened. "It didn't exactly come up in the conversation."

  Cold anger bubbled inside her. But anger she could handle. It was the hurt that was making her legs shaky and tears gather in her throat. "You kept a huge part of yourself from me. You didn't let me in at all."

  Some of the tension left his body, and his expression turned soft and earnest. "It was private. Intensely personal. And not something that's easy to talk about. I debated for months before I agreed to speak at the benefit."

  "Intensely personal," she repeated. "Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to wrap my head around the idea that
you turned our sex life into fodder for your show? Or to ask you to tie my wrists when you made love to me? That's not me--doing it or asking it. But I managed it--hell, I wanted it--because it was you. Because I thought that we were a couple."

  A tear trickled down the side of her nose, and she brusquely wiped it away.

  "Baby, we are..."

  "Are we? Because it doesn't feel that way right now. It feels like all I've seen is the celebrity. Have you ever shown me the man?"

  "Okay, wait a second," he said. "That's harsh."

  "Is it? You make your whole life public for ratings, but I always thought you held some of it back. That there was a part of you--an intimate part--that you let the people close to you see. And maybe it was my fault for thinking I fell into that group. But I don't, Nolan. As far as you're concerned, I'm just another woman in your audience getting the watered-down, sexed-up version of you."

  "That's not fair."

  She blinked, her body tired, her head hurting. "Isn't it? It feels fair. Hell, it feels like the truth. Because, dammit, Nolan, it hurts. Here," she said with her hand over her heart. "And I'm not sure how to make it feel better."

  * * *

  She curled up on the bed after he left, and she was still there hours later when her mom called around dinnertime. "I spoke with Alan," she said without preamble. "Is it true that you broke up with him?"

  Shelby rubbed her face and forced herself to sit up. She needed blood to be circulating to her brain if she was going to have this conversation with her mother. "A while back, yeah. He's a great guy," Shelby said. "But not someone I want to spend the rest of my life with."

  She thought of Nolan. Of a guy she could see in her future, and wondered if she'd over-reacted earlier. If maybe the fact that she could see a future with him was making her so terrified of losing him that she was seeing cracks in the relationship where there weren't any cracks at all.

  "Shelby. You know I'm not going to criticize your choices, but we both know that Alan adored you."

  "I guess so," she said. "But I didn't adore him."

  There was a pause, and then her mom said, "I see. And is there someone else you're seeing?"

  Shelby loved her mom, but for a woman who lived by math and numbers, she was very rarely direct and straightforward in life stuff. "If you've been taking to Alan, you know there is."

  She could practically hear her mother's frown. "Alan didn't know who'd captured your interest."

  "His name's Nolan Wood. He's a radio host."

  "What? Like a DJ?"

  "It's a lot more than that, Mom. He's practically a stand-up comic."

  "I'm really not sure that makes it better. You have professional appearances to think of. Does he--"

  "That reminds me," she said, grateful to have a way to change the subject. "I got a call from the Young Professionals. You know, that networking and educational group? They asked me if I'd do an on-camera interview for their webpage. It will be on Facebook and YouTube and I don't know what else."

  "Sweetheart, that's wonderful. That's exactly the kind of thing you should be doing."

  Unlike Nolan, which wasn't.

  Her mom didn't say the last, of course, but Shelby heard it anyway, and the censure was still ringing in her ears after she ended the call.

  But all it did was bring her thoughts of Nolan front and center.

  She reached for her phone to call him, but pulled her hand back, afraid he'd hang up on her. More than that, afraid that she would deserve it if he did.

  Instead, she grabbed the copy of Watchmen off the table, settled back on the love seat, and picked up where she left off.

  When she finally closed the book, it was late. She'd been absorbed in the story of the flawed and fascinating heroes. A lot of times, they'd made the wrong choices, but that didn't mean she stopped rooting for them.

  Then again maybe it was Nolan she was thinking of, and not the Watchmen at all.

  Frowning at her own meandering thoughts, she got up and went to the bedroom, intending to go to bed. Instead, she found herself pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, grabbing her purse, and then heading out to her car.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Considering Nolan usually crashed early during the week so that he wasn't a zombie on his show, he very rarely went to bed before one or two a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Why would he? Those were the only days he could enjoy all the magic of late nights. Like really bad YouTube movies and obnoxious shopping networks. Both of which never failed to provide Nolan with plenty of material for his own show.

  Today, he'd crashed early. A cop-out, because he didn't want to think about what Shelby had said. About him keeping part of himself from her. It was bullshit, of course. Just because he didn't catalogue every tiny aspect of himself didn't mean he was holding back on their relationship. And, honestly, what did it matter to them as a couple if he struggled with reading?

  Not a goddamn thing.

  All of which was a perfectly sound argument. Except for the minor flaw of being entirely unbelievable.

  In other words, Nolan had spent his Saturday evening mostly alone and kicking himself for not telling the only woman he'd ever actually wanted a relationship with that he was sorry. That he'd been wrong. And that he not only should have told her about the benefit, but he should have told her the entire story about his childhood, his dyslexia, and the way he now coped as an adult.

  Instead, he'd turned pissy and marched out.

  Way to man up, asshole.

  He rolled over in bed, craving the oblivion of sleep, but that wasn't happening. Instead he tossed and turned until he finally got up, thinking that maybe a Scotch and one of the news channels would lull him to sleep.

  He'd just tossed back his first drink and was pouring the second when his doorbell chimed, which wasn't a usual occurrence since he lived in a security building, and no one other than residents could get to his door without the access code for the elevator.

  He pulled a ratty robe over his boxers and Mornings With Wood T-shirt, then headed barefoot toward the door. It was already after midnight, and he frowned, hoping there wasn't trouble in the building. Maybe one of his neighbors had locked themselves out and needed to borrow his phone.

  But when he looked through the door, it wasn't a neighbor. It was Shelby. And the relief that washed over him almost swept him away.

  He unlocked the door, then yanked it open. "I'm sorry," he said as she spoke the exact same words at the exact same time.

  They looked at each other, then laughed.

  "How did you get up here?" he asked, after he'd hustled her inside. They usually stayed at her place since his was a studio and was furnished with garage sale rejects and IKEA pieces. He kept meaning to hire a decorator, but somehow never got around to it.

  "I watched you punch in the access code the last time you brought me up. I have a good memory for numbers," she added with a wink.

  Silence settled in then, and they stood awkwardly for a moment. At least it felt awkward, because he wanted to tell her everything, but didn't know where to begin.

  "Listen," she said, letting him off the hook, "I appreciate your apology, really. But I'm the one who needs to do a mea culpa."

  "No," he said firmly. "You were right. It's just that I've never talked to anyone about it except my sister. Not even my parents."

  "And you don't have to talk to me."

  "Yeah, I do."

  She tilted her head, studying him, her serious expression contrasted by her casual summer clothes. "Why?"

  "Because I want you to know me. Hell, Shelby, you're probably the first woman I've ever wanted to know me, and that includes the woman I used to be married to."

  "Oh." She said nothing else, but from the sparkle in her fascinating eyes, he could tell she was pleased.

  "You wanna take a walk?"

  If the non sequitur bothered her, she didn't show it. "Sure."

  He disappeared into the bathroom long enough to throw on some khaki shorts over his
boxers. Then they headed down to street level and started meandering toward the river in silence. When they reached Cesar Chavez, the street that ran parallel to the river, they crossed at the light, then followed the hike & bike trail under the Congress Avenue bridge and toward the grounds behind the Four Seasons hotel.

  It wasn't until he drew her to a stop at a small bench by the water's edge that he started talking. But as soon as he did, the words spilled out. He told her about his struggles in school--and how even though he knew he wasn't reading "right," that he didn't ask for help because of his father. "Not Huey. He's my stepfather, and he's great. But my dad's got his own views of perfection, and a son with a dyslexia diagnosis wasn't going to hack it."

  "You lived with him?"

  "Half and half. And I could have told my mom the truth, but back then, my dad's attitude colored what I thought of myself. There was another kid in our neighborhood who had trouble reading, and every time my dad talked about it, he complained that the kid was stupid or lazy."

  "That's horrible."

  "You're not wrong. But I was young and didn't know any better. So instead of asking for help--or getting myself in a position where a teacher might realize I needed help--I started learning to cope. I became the class clown. I developed a fucking awesome memory. I learned to fight my way through a word, then a sentence, then a book if I had enough time--so multiple choice tests worked okay for me. Essays, not so much."

  "And nobody noticed."

  "In elementary and middle school? Not even. In high school, they started. But I dove into extracurriculars--especially speech and drama--and anyone who noticed the dip in my grades wrote it down to me being overextended."

  "Don't drama and speech involve a lot of reading?"

  "A lot of memorizing," he said. "I'd go slow, read into a tape recorder. After that, I just listened and memorized. I nailed my lines every time."

  "But you ended up dropping out, right?"

  "Funny thing about high school. Eventually they make you write essays and research papers. I was popular as the class clown with the okay grades who had the lead in a few plays. And I wanted to go out on a high note. Not as the obnoxious kid who failed all his classes."