I turn away from Damien to accept the glass of punch with a smile. After all, drinking on the job’s not frowned upon when everyone’s doing it.
“You come bearing gifts,” I tease, breathing in the warm, fruity scent of the drink in my hands.
“Indeed, I do.” Locke’s eyes dart to the assortment of gifts for a fraction of a second before he smiles and takes a slow sip of his punch. Then he pulls the glass from his lips and holds out a hand for Damien to shake. “Thanks for sponsoring this party, Damien.”
The two men stare at each other for an awkward second, and then Damien returns the handshake.
“Happy to celebrate such a great team.” Damien flashes a tight smile. “Things in tech are always changing, so it’s good to enjoy these moments while we can.”
Why does it feel like his words are cloaked in a threat?
Locke drops his hand to the small of my back, just barely brushing it, and Damien’s mouth jerks into a frown.
Over their shoulders, Eden makes a slicing motion across her throat.
Oh, Jesus. This is going downhill fast.
“Okay, well, I’m going grab some, um, cake. Yeah, cake.” I step backward, away from the thick cloud of testosterone crackling between them.
Whatever’s going on, I need to get myself the hell out of there.
I clutch the glass of punch to my chest and jingle my way across the room toward the snacks. Tom, one of our designers, guards the table, wielding a cake knife like a samurai sword.
“Chocolate crepe cake or New York cheesecake?” he asks me.
“That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child.”
With a grin and a deft flick of his wrist, Tom cuts a slice of each and hands me a plate. We chat for a minute about his pregnant wife’s latest food cravings—Kraft American Cheese slices and lemonade—before Eden extricates herself from the conversation with Damien and steps to the center of the room.
“Alright, everyone, let’s all take a seat so the gift exchange can begin!” She looks across the room in my direction. “Greer and I will bring over your gifts so you can open them before we move on to more food and games.”
My colleagues start to make their way to the open seats around the center table while Eden and I distribute the gifts. Then I slide into the empty seat Locke’s saved me and grin at the package Eden must have put there. Tiny, printed dachshunds wearing bow ties trot across the package, which is held together like a drunk T-rex with a tape dispenser tried to decorate it.
Definitely wrapped by a dude.
What is it about guys and wrapping paper? We’ve put people on the moon, and yet men still haven’t mastered the art of wrapping a box with square edges.
I poke at the package, and something inside sloshes suspiciously. My smile widens, but then I make the mistake of looking at Damien as he tears the paper off the bottle of wine I got him. It’s the same wine we shared on our first date, and I only picked it because I knew he’d like it, but a shadow of regret passes over his face and then he searches the room for me.
Busted.
I offer Damien a small smile when he catches me staring, and his mouth parts like he wants to say something. No matter how awkward he made the conversation earlier, he still deserves his own happiness, and I want to think maybe I helped. But then Locke leans close to my ear, and my body reacts to his heat like a flower turning toward the sun.
“You going to open your gift, jingle girl?” The smooth, rich notes of Locke’s voice caress the shell of my ear, and I’m so damn glad things between us are natural today. We crossed every line last night, but Locke hasn’t run away, and it gives me hope that maybe I can have everything I want.
“Jingle girl?”
He reaches for the hem of my sweatshirt and tugs, making the soft sound of bells fill the air. He lets his fingers brush against my stomach and linger there like a promise.
And fuck me, my breath catches in my throat and I have to clamp my thighs together to tamp down the wave of arousal heating every inch of my skin.
“Right.” I nod, so distracted I can’t think straight. “Okay, yeah.”
I can feel alcohol and lust redden my cheeks, but I don’t care. I’m the swoopy, swoony kind of happy that comes from kissing Lachlan Mills and holiday parties and things finally turning out okay.
I slide the edge of my thumb under a flap of wrapping paper and peel it back. Inside the Amazon shipping box sits a six-pack of pineapple cider with one can missing from the plastic rings, a cassette tape, and two copies of The Feeling of Falling by Orion Crux.
“Oh my god.” I reach for one of the books and open it to the first page.
To Greer, reads the inscription. Love is the only language. Orion Crux
I hold it up to Locke in awe, knowing with absolute certainty it’s from him. “You got it signed?”
He nods. “One of them. The other one’s unsigned because I had a feeling you’d think the signed one was too precious to read.”
He knows me so well. So freaking well it hurts.
I return the book to the box and lift the cassette tape. “And this?”
He grins. “Me reading the poems for a surround-sound experience. There’s also my unofficial commentary.”
My heart grows so big it feels like my chest can’t quite hold it. “I’m assuming the cider is for me to drink while listening and reading?”
His grin catches in my chest like a spark. “Nailed it.”
“So why are there only five cans?”
“Ah.” Locke taps the side of the box. “Because I got thirsty when I was recording the tape.” He shrugs. “And also to keep it under the twenty-five-dollar limit.”
This man.
Locke’s gotten me the perfect gift, the one I didn’t even know I wanted. Because how could I have predicted this? He gave me an experience. A slice of his heart.
There is so much I want to say but can’t. Not here. So I gather everything back in the box and stand up from the table. Screw the party—every bit of Christmas cheer I need is right here, bundled into the man who’s quickly stealing my heart.
“Meet me at the front door in ten minutes,” I whisper in Locke’s ear, knowing he’ll follow.
Then I turn and make my escape.
18
Locke
I usually rely on the free office coffee to power me through my day, but when I roll out of bed an hour before my alarm on Friday, I have the sinking feeling that the caffeination needs to start early and needs to start strong. To say I’ve woken up early would be an exaggeration because I haven’t really slept at all. Instead, I spent the night in a half-dream state, my mind too busy reliving every moment of yesterday afternoon to let me cash in on the full potential of a REM cycle.
Yesterday, after we cut out of work early, Greer and I ran toward her house, collapsing into her bed like we were supposed to be there all along.
“That present was… god, Locke. How do you look at me and just know?” Greer’s mouth hovered over mine, lush and wanting.
“Sometimes the people who know you best aren’t the ones who know you longest.” I couldn’t hide how thick my voice became. “Do you think I just started caring about you now?”
Her eyes lit like candles in the dark. “There was more?”
I pushed a strand of hair out of her face to reveal the hickey on the beautiful curve of her neck. “There’s always been more, Greer.”
It was brave and vulnerable and too damn soon by any relationship playbook, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt exactly right.
I kissed Greer until we were both breathless, and then her lips curved into a smile and she lifted the hem of that stupid, ugly sweatshirt and filled the whole room with the sound of bells.
“Leave on the tacky sweatshirt,” I said as I slid her damp underwear down her thighs, releasing the scent of her lust.
“That’s what does it for you?” She threw back her head to accept the trail of kisses I swept down her neck.
I p
aused only long enough to bite her earlobe and whisper, “You’re what does it for me.” And then I needed to be inside her, to sink into her heat and live in the moment with the girl who had captured my heart.
The rest of the night sounded like music, and we came together in a shuddering burst of song. I’ll never forget that noise until I die.
I left Greer’s house last night after those kisses, needing to give us both a chance to breathe and recover for another day at work. I’ve dated enough women to know this thing with me and Greer is different than anything I’ve experienced before. My restless spirit has always fueled my love of travel and new adventures, but with her, I don’t need to see anything else, be anywhere else, or be with anyone else. Maybe I’ve always known things with her would feel like this, but I never let myself admit it before. Now, there’s so much more I need to say to her, and I can’t wait to see her again today. Still, there’s no way Greer and her perpetual ten-minutes-late internal clock will be in the office today before nine, and even if I were to get in early, I still need to make it till at least five o’clock without crashing.
Strong coffee it is.
I pad to my kitchen in my boxers and set a pot of coffee brewing, then drop into my dining room chair to sort through yesterday’s mail. I throw a couple of bills into a stack to pay when I get home and then pull out an envelope with HealthIQ on the return address.
When I slide a thumb under the flap of the envelope, a letter falls into my hand.
Dear Mr. Mills, we’re pleased to offer the results of your food sensitivity test.
The rest of the page tells me which foods might make me feel like shit, based on the handy specimen of blood I’d mailed in. The expected legalese blankets the bottom of the paper—HealthIQ is not liable for any misinterpreted results. This test is intended to serve as a guide and should not be counted as medical advice, nor should it replace a formal allergy diagnosis. For further questions and testing, consult your medical professional.
Blah, blah, blah.
But it’s not the tiny words swimming across the page that make my heart stop in my chest or make the paper tremble in my hands.
It’s not even the suggestion that I might want to avoid dairy products—noted—that makes my mouth taste bitter and dry.
Instead it’s my blood type, written out definitively in black ink on the white sheet. My blood type that I’d always assumed was A positive—it has to be A positive—which is unequivocally not A positive.
O positive.
Sonofabitch.
I stare at the paper a minute, numb, while a mixture of cold fury and confusion crowds my chest, and then I reach for the phone.
My mother picks up on the first ring. “Lachlan? Are you okay?”
It’s seven-fifteen in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I called her this early, and she must think it’s an emergency. Why the hell else would I be calling?
I imagine my mom’s growing sense of dread, and the me from ten minutes ago would have set her mind at ease. But right now, I don’t want to let her off the hook so easily. “I don’t know, Mom. You tell me.”
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
My shoulders tense under my thin T-shirt, and I ignore the quaver in her voice. “I just got back a mail-in food sensitivity test.”
She’s quiet on her end of the line.
“A blood test.”
“I see.” Her voice is tired and resigned, with no trace of surprise. “It sounds like we need to talk. Why don’t you come over?”
I shouldn’t be here right now. I should be in the office with my colleagues, writing bits of UI text and cracking jokes. I should be plowing through emails or butting heads with Damien or sharing secret looks with Greer. Instead, I’m slouched at my mother’s dining room table, where I haven’t sat since Thanksgiving. A cup of coffee cools at my elbow, untended.
“Tell me.” I try to keep my voice from shaking as I unfold the test results and set them on the table between me and my mom.
She flinches but doesn’t break eye contact with me. “You know how much your dad and I love you, right?”
I rub a hand over my eyes. I’m too tired for this. “Yes, Mom. But when’s the part when you tell me why my blood type doesn’t match Dad’s?” I slide the coffee mug to the side so I don’t knock it over as I lean forward. “You’re O positive, which means I should have the same blood type as Dad. He was A positive. I remember from the hospital.”
My mom closes her eyes briefly, and when she opens them, they’re filled with pain and a thin, glossy coat of tears. “Your dad was sick, honey.”
“I know,” I bite out. I remember the way he went frail at the end, Hodgkin’s Disease taking him one debilitating step at a time. There’s never a good age to lose a parent, and twenty-five felt so very young. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember.
“No,” she corrects. “I mean he was sick because he’d been exposed to Agent Orange. And we wanted to get pregnant, but the risk of birth defects was too high because of what your dad had been through.”
Everything I’ve ever known unravels, thread by thread. I gape at my mom, not quite believing, the edges of the puzzle not fully lining up. “So, I’m…adopted?”
“No. You’ve seen the pictures of me pregnant, Locke. Those are real.” She wipes away tears. “Your dad and I wanted you and Maggie very, very much. You are ours.”
“Tell me,” I demand again. I want to be able to talk about this calmly like everything isn’t disintegrating, but I’ve moved past rational into the primal, animal part of my reflexes that wants to snarl and fight and run away from this threat all at once.
“We used sperm donors.”
“Donors?” My voice scrapes into a growl. “Plural?” I flatten my hands against the table and the whorls in the wood smash against my sweaty palms. “Is Maggie even my real sister?”
She drops her eyes. “Half. There were different men.”
“Who?”
“They were anonymous.” Resignation creeps back into my mom’s voice. “We wanted someone smart and confident. Good looking. Kind. You are all of those things, Locke.” As she talks, she picks up speed, sounding more and more sure of herself. “Your dad didn’t want you to feel that just because he wasn’t your dad on paper that your relationship was any less real. What I’ve just told you doesn’t change anything.”
But it does.
All my life, I’ve looked up to a man who never even told me the truth. Ever since my dad died, I’ve tried to fill his shoes, to slide into his place to keep my family together. But I don’t even know who he is anymore.
I don’t who I am either.
“You lied to me, Mom. You both did.”
I push back from the table and grab the results that just destroyed everything I thought I knew about myself. Dairy sensitivity is the least of my problems. I am not my father’s son.
I shove the paper in the pocket of my jeans while my heart quietly shreds to pieces.
I leave without saying goodbye.
“You’re not sick.” Greer’s face wavers between relief and confusion as she takes a seat across the table from me at Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria at six o’clock.
My chest tightens at her expression. “Why does it seem like that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s not.” She blows out a deep breath and fiddles with the paper menu on our wood-topped table. “I knew you weren’t sick. But you’re the responsible one, Locke. When you called out today, I thought…”
Her voice trails off, and I touch a finger to the bottom of her chin and tilt her jaw so I’m looking into her deep blue eyes. “You thought what, Greer?”
Her mouth twists, and her voice comes out as a quiet confession. “I thought you had second thoughts.”
I stroke a hand over her cheek. “About us?”
She nods and blinks hard to clear tears from the corners of her eyes.
“God, no. I plan to keep doing what we did last night for a long time.”
/>
“Oh.” Her delighted little gasp makes the knot in my stomach loosen. “So, is everything okay?”
Physically, sure. Emotionally, hell no.
I drop my hand from her face and reach for one of the paper napkins on the table, tearing off tiny strips and twisting them between my fingers. “I got the results of my food allergy test today.”
Greer squints at me and a small smile quirks the edges of her lips. “Don’t tell me you’re gluten-intolerant,” she teases. “It’s one of my three main food groups.”
“Dairy.”
She claps a hand to her chest. “Locke! Why’d you let me meet you in a pizza shop? You should have said something.”
I grin. This is exactly why I’m here. Even on the brink of questioning everything, I never, ever doubt that Greer Lively will make me feel like a million bucks. “No, the pizza’s fine. I can take a dairy digestive, or whatever.”
“So, what happened?”
I rub a hand over my face and try to keep the strain out of my voice. “The test is a blood test, right? And they tell you your blood type, too. I’m O positive. I never knew that before.”
“Okay.” It’s a question.
“My mom’s O positive.”
Her lips tremble like she doesn’t want to ask the question. “And your dad?”
“A positive.” I reach for the napkin again and squeeze it tight within my fist. “Apparently, I’m a sperm-donor baby. Only nobody bothered to tell me.”
I jerk my gaze toward the window. Outside on the sidewalk, a million people stream by, heading toward holiday parties and Friday night dates, oblivious to my frustration inside this tiny restaurant. But Greer covers my free hand with hers and squeezes, reminding me I’m not alone.
“Crap, Locke. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I squeeze back, marveling at the feeling of her hand on mine. Even a week ago, this wouldn’t have been possible. We didn’t touch like this, but now we can. “Thanks.”
“You want to talk about it?”
I thought I did when I first called Greer, but I can stew in self-pity on my own. Right now my best friend’s here with me and I haven’t seen her all day. I don’t want to waste a moment worrying about the past when I can build my future with her.
The Fake Date Agreement (Awkward Arrangements Book 1) Page 11