by Kira Blakely
“I’m going to tell you something, and you tell me if it’s true,” she shrilled. “Are you at the hospital right now?”
“Mom,” I chastised. “Are you tracking my phone again? You know I hate that.”
“So you are at the hospital!”
I dropped my forehead into my hand and gave it a gentle massage. “Mom, look, I just didn’t have the time to—”
“Are you all right?” she shrieked, and my heart warmed. Did she actually care about me? Did she just suck at showing her emotions?
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine, actually. There was really scary break-in at my house again, but my boyfriend swooped in and saved the day. And then I saved the day again.”
“Your boyfriend?”
Shit.
“We’ve been on a few dates,” I lied. Andrew and I had only been on one date together in our entire lives, but we’d fucked enough to fill a memoir. “You would like him.” What’s one more lie? “I think he might be the one,” I added.
“I guess I can’t convince you to come back to Ohio, then,” she grumbled. “Where Allison and I can keep a close eye on you.”
Normally, the mention of Allison’s name—the favorite daughter, I always thought—would bring a twinge to my chest. But tonight, I felt warm and soft at the sound of her name. It felt good to be surrounded by family in a time of need. Mom wanted to protect me.
“I have someone here who is keeping a very close eye on me,” I promised her. “Everything will be fine, Mom. I promise.”
And for the first time, maybe ever, I actually believed it.
Epilogue:
I’m Not This Kind of Guy
It still ached when I moved my arm in certain ways, even though my body had been mending for months. The summer heat was finally draining away and leaving us with the moderate temperatures of early September, and I hoped that my injury wouldn’t come back to bite me every time it got chilly outside.
Michelle moved in with me.
All it took was being attacked by her next-door-neighbor to get her to agree to live with me.
Not bad.
I gazed across the field of white candles I had lit throughout the entryway and living room of my house. Michelle was due home at any moment.
It may have been moving a little swiftly, but I’d never been married before, and these past two months were the best of my whole life. I’d never been with someone like Michelle. I’d never been so satisfied. I wanted it to last forever. Or, at least, until these little meat machines we were driving finally popped their tires and rusted out.
The front door opened and the tell-tale tinkle of little high heels moved over the floorboards. She didn’t know yet. She didn’t know what was about to happen. She was about to become mine.
I haven’t been able to shake the image of her in a wedding veil since that fever dream I had after getting hit with Chet’s Taser.
The high heels slowed to a stop and I looked up from where I was waiting, in the center of the living room, on one knee.
Michelle stood in front of me in knee-length suede boots, dressed in a conservative, knee-length khaki skirt and a black turtleneck. There was something different about her since she’d moved in here. It started slowly, and then she had coalesced into a new—or perhaps only inner—version of herself. She warmed. She matured. She wasn’t the only one who was happier, I guess.
Her eyes beamed wetly from behind square-framed glasses and she slowly picked her way across the den, lit by the warm orange light of about fifty fucking tea candles. That was a fun trip to Dollar General.
“Michelle,” I greeted her somberly.
Tears of joy were already slipping down her cheeks as she approached, and I knew she was going to say yes.
“Andrew,” her voice warbled sweetly. My heart ached for her. She was too sweet for this world. Too sweet for me.
“You’re—uh—you’re the only woman who finally let me believe in the goodness of the heart,” I told her, trying to remember all the corny, poetic things I’d brewed in my noodle over the past few hours. Maybe I hadn’t thought this all the way through, but damn it, it felt right. I had to say it. “You make me believe in magic. In fairy tales. In the triumph of good over evil.”
I reached out and collected her hand in mine.
“Me, too,” she whispered back.
“You’ve only been in my life for three short months—unless you count that quickie we had in January—” Michelle swatted my shoulder and I winced. She knew exactly where that goddamn Taser gun hit me, and she wasn’t always sweet. “—but either way, it hasn’t been long. But it doesn’t need to be. You know my heart, and I know yours. We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve made huge, dramatic scenes and walked all the way home from the Baptist church on Route 11.”
Michelle scoffed but didn’t hit me again, even though I braced for it.
I swallowed. “Michelle Clara Harper, will you marry me?”
As she gazed down at me, sparkling tears slipping down her cheeks, I was certain she would say yes. Who cries like that at a marriage proposal and then doesn’t say yes? She was definitely saying—
“No,” Michelle answered, her sinuses becoming clotted from her tears.
“Uh,” I said. “What?”
Michelle sniffled and pursed her lips together. “We’ve only known each other for three short months,” she reminded me. In spite of her tears, she wasn’t as overcome with emotion as I thought. What the hell was going on? “You’re right, I don’t count that quickie in January, jerk.”
“So?” I said. “We’re living together! And every night, I’m excited to come home from work, just so I can come crush you on the couch.”
“I know,” Michelle said. “But we can’t get married, Ace.”
My brow dented with frustration and I staggered up from my knees. “Because why?” I demanded. “You know I love you. You know it! If I don’t marry you, I’m not marrying any-fucking-one. I can promise you that.”
“There’s no reason to rush,” Michelle asserted. “We’ve been living together for eight weeks, Andrew. We can wait another year or two.”
“Or two?” I shrilled. “I’m thirty-two!”
Michelle cocked her head to one side. “Do men have biological clocks?” she wondered.
“You do!” I snapped without thinking.
A half-smile kinked at Michelle’s lip. When we first moved in together, this might have actually spiraled into a fight, but it’s harder to get her to go than it used to be. Now she knows that I just snap sometimes, and it doesn’t mean anything, except that I’m basically a Neanderthal.
“You know that’s not the issue,” she reminded me meaningfully, and a blush actually darkened my cheeks.
I did still come inside her every night. If we were fertile at all, it was only a matter of time. And it wasn’t that we thought it was the best idea in the world, an uptight attorney and her ragged mechanic trying to raise kids together...
But we couldn’t stop.
I knew I couldn’t, and I thanked God that she couldn’t, either.
“Just give me some more time,” Michelle whispered, reaching a palm to lightly kiss against my cheek.
My eyelashes kissed closed and I breathed more easily. If anyone knew how to calm this beast, it was Michelle.
“I do love you,” she reminded me.
I nodded and kept my eyes closed. “I love you, too,” I said. My arms traced over hers and slithered around the back, pulling her to settle into my arms. I lowered my head and nuzzled her neck, relishing the clean aroma of coconut and vanilla and sugar. My baby. I could pick her out of a crowd of ten thousand, blindfolded.
One of my hands fanned into an open palm and skated down to her ass, giving her buttock a tender squeeze. She murmured her appreciation and tilted her face up to mine. Our lips bumped and cracked apart, tongues tangling, and I forgot the candles. I forgot the marriage proposal. None of it mattered, as long as we had this.
“I j
ust want this,” I rumbled over her skin, making all the little hairs stand on edge. I felt her fingernails creep under my shirt and rake my bare abdomen, relishing the muscles there. Her palm flattened and snaked down into my pants, and my member sprang immediately to attention, like he was her puppy dog. I broke our tongues apart and whispered into her mouth, “I just want this forever.”
Michelle exhaled shakily and her fingers wrapped around me, squeezing affectionately. I swallowed thickly. Didn’t she feel this? Did she really think her or I would find it again?
Michelle nudged at my ear with her lips and blessed a lobe with one delicate kiss. “Ask again later,” she whispered. “Don’t forget.”
One Hot Daddy
I want to shove her against the wall and f*ck the innocence right out of her.
There’s just one problem.
She interns for my company and we have a no fraternizing policy.
As a single dad, I don’t have time to get wrapped up in scandal.
This is going to be... hard!
Imagine my shock, ok, desire, when I stumble upon her in the elevator where I live and find out she’s just moved in.
I’m screwed!
I can’t take it anymore. Her firm breasts, peeking out beneath her business suit. Her bright smile, greeting me, making me hard the minute she looks at me.
It’s too much!
This is so wrong. And WTF was I thinking making a no-fraternizing policy?
Well, we know which head will win this battle. I’ve been wearing the good guy hat too long.
F*ck being Mr. Nice Guy. Nice guys finish last.
I’m going back to the old me. I’ll show her what a real man is like.
I’m going to finish again, and again.
Chapter 1
Charlotte shuffled up the front steps of the downtown Manhattan office building wearing black, pointed shoes. She held her head high, her chin sure and firm, her eyes glazed with false confidence. After moving to New York City just a week before from her small, sleepy town in Ohio, she was beginning her first “adult” gig as an intern at Mad Music Magazine—MMM—a writing gig she’d coveted since she was a girl. Peeking at her figure in the side mirror of the building’s foyer, she inspected her taut, tight waist, her firm, rounded breasts, and her long, swirling brunette hair. If she hadn’t chosen to write about bands and music, she would have been welcomed as a groupie, unquestionably. But she felt herself to be too intelligent for that.
The rest of the interns were huddled, quivering, in the far corner of the MMM offices, wearing similar black business jackets and standing unsteadily in heels. Redheads, blondes, a few quirky gay guys wearing dark, thick glasses, all stood like deer in headlights, peering up at the woman who’d hired Charlotte. Maggie. The intern-organizer. The woman who’d half-bragged about her outrageous party days in her twenties, when she hadn’t thought for a moment about taking a job in any office like this. Not until Quentin McDonnell took over as editor, of course. That’s when Maggie had known the magazine was going to take a turn. That’s when she knew the street cred would shine. Of course, Quentin wasn’t who he was when Maggie had first known him. He was grown up. Older. Responsible. No longer the rock star he’d been before he’d become editor.
Quentin McDonnell had been editor of MMM for the previous two years and had virtually revamped the magazine, giving it back to musicians and artists, moving away from supporting top-tier labels and other “moneymakers.”
“Man, fuck those guys,” Quentin had been quoted as saying, ten years before. And he’d stuck by this statement, obviously.
Charlotte slipped in line beside a redhead named Pamela, gripping her notebook tightly against her breasts. Maggie took attendance with sharp jolts of her pen across a white sheet of paper, her eyes piercing across the top of their heads. Charlotte leaned quickly, rabbit-like, toward Pam.
“Have you seen him yet?” Charlotte asked.
Pam shook her head lightly, not allowing her eyes to sway from Maggie’s gaze. “Haven’t spotted him. Think he’s in his office. Had a meeting with a band this morning. The Morning Stars.”
“Shit. They’re huge,” Charlotte murmured, impressed. “Of course, he collaborated with them, back in the early ‘00s. Must be how he knows them.”
“Right,” Pam said, her eyes dancing, as if she were pretending to know this.
Charlotte had been studying Quentin McDonnell for several years, since she’d been a ragtag teenager and constant listener to his grunge rock band, Orpheus Arise. Back then, he’d been a drug-addled sex-addict, with long, black, scraggly hair, taut muscles, and wild, black eyes. He’d had those kissable, pink lips, hidden there against his dark black beard. He’d been anxious, destructive, dominant, going through every model, female rock star, and actress throughout the ‘00s. Charlotte had followed his every move, becoming a kind of fan girl, obsessing over his hot body and his clearly tormented mind.
“All right,” Maggie, the intern organizer said, scratching the last mark on her attendance sheet. “Ladies. Gents. I’d like to take you into the office and show you your desks. Several of you are social media, and you’ll be working together, while the rest of you are up-and-coming writers with aspirations to become actual music journalists. Quite an aspiration. I’ve been there, myself. And look where I stand today.” She gave them a little smirk, obviously confident.
Charlotte’s face twitched with a brief feeling of jealousy. Becoming a writer intern at a music magazine meant she was a badass writer, sure. But it didn’t necessarily mean she’d “make it” in the industry. You had to have balls. You had to have gumption. And, quite often, people from Ohio just weren’t born with all that. They were born with shy sensibilities and too many bright, white teeth.
Maggie ushered the interns into a side room, telling them she needed to take a pause and leave them for a few minutes. She gestured wildly, saying, “Talk amongst yourselves, now. Make friends. Don’t be shy.” She winked and then scurried out into the larger office, walking with abrupt movements and tossing her hands back as she walked.
“Well, well,” said a particularly flamboyant, blond-haired intern who had introduced himself as Randy, off to Charlotte’s side. “I know we’re all thinking the same thing. Where’s the man of the hour? Mr. Quentin McDonnell himself?”
The interns all tittered, eyeing the door. The flamboyant intern continued, his voice rising. “I mean, we all got into music at around the time he was a fucking rock god. I certainly had my first little boy wet dreams about him, as a teenager. Oh, boy. Good days.”
“He’s even hotter now,” one of the interns piped up. “He doesn’t do drugs anymore. Hardly drinks, I hear. And takes good care of himself. He’s a hunk if I ever saw one. But he still exudes cool.”
“You saw him?” another girl asked.
“Sure. When I came in for my interview, he was having a meeting with Maggie. Maggie said something about sleeping with him, a long time ago. But I keep staring at her, wondering. She can’t have been hot back then. She’s certainly not anything to look at now.”
“Well, she’s his age. I don’t think it’s too far outside of reality,” another girl said saucily. “Besides, I don’t think Quentin cared back then what his girls looked like. He was set on fucking them, regardless.”
“I wish he was still like that,” Randy said loudly, laughing. “I’d do anything to wake up in bed with him. The famous Quentin McDonnell.”
The group sighed collectively. Charlotte’s heart ached with jealousy, knowing, now, that the other interns felt the same as she. But who was she kidding? It wasn’t as if Quentin would take a single notice of her. Perhaps if she’d been twenty-four when he’d been an addled, crazed rock star…
“Don’t even think about it,” Pam said, her voice tart. “There’s a strict no-fraternization policy. Didn’t any of you read the handbook before you came in? He’s got a daughter now. I think it’s frankly disgusting to speak of him this way.”
“So, you�
��re just here to work?” another girl asked, snorting loudly.
Several of the other interns joined in laughter, taunting Pam. Pam lifted her chin, pointing her nose toward the door and obviously praying for Maggie to save her.
Suddenly, Maggie reappeared in the main office with Quentin McDonnell himself beside her, speaking quietly and conspiratorially on the other side of the glass. Immediately, Charlotte’s throat clenched. Hunting for oxygen, her tongue tipped against the top of her mouth, making it difficult for her to breathe. He was the most handsome man she’d seen in her life, taking the outrageous gruffness of his earlier years and marrying them with a sophisticated, editorial look, with horn-rimmed glasses and salt and pepper hair. His muscles were thick, curved beneath his immaculate, gray suit, and his pink lips were just as kissable as they’d been ten years before—when he’d haunted Charlotte’s sexual dreams.
“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered. “A no-fraternization rule? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Suddenly, Maggie beckoned toward the team of interns, mouthing the words, “Lunch! Go to lunch!”
They hadn’t been at work for more than twenty minutes, making them confused—yet eager to feel comfortable again.
“She must not have time for us right now,” someone joked as they churned from the intern office, bounding back toward the elevator. One by one, they passed both Maggie and Quentin, who were bent over the spread of a future print of the magazine.
Charlotte hung back, allowing herself to be one of the last to pass by Maggie and Quentin. Her eyes turned toward Quentin. Her hips shimmied from left to right, articulating her curves, her femininity. She knew what she was doing; it had become automatic. Quentin looked up from his spread, making intense, immediate eye contact with Charlotte.
The tension around them grew immensely, causing Charlotte to panic and drop her notebook onto the ground. The notebook smacked, bringing heads back toward the scene, as if they were watching a car crash. Her face burning, she knelt quickly, retrieving it, and feeling the stern eyes of the rock-star-turned-editor on her ass.