by Mia Madison
“Maybe I will,” I downed half my soda, kicking myself for not insisting we go to someplace that served beer. “But Lanie will be better off.”
“God, you’re an idiot.”
“Looking out for her doesn’t make me an idiot.”
“Yes, it does.” Claire’s raised voice surprised me. I was used to people showing indifference about things that concerned my future. “You’re looking out for Lanie. You always have—and for me, too. And that’s good when it means you call to make sure we got home safe after driving through the snow. Or if you threaten to castrate my asshole ex-boyfriend. Or if you fight off a purse-snatcher. Yeah, Lanie told me about that. Those are all good things. But when you protect Lanie from yourself, you’re not helping either one of you.”
I sighed. “You just don’t get it, Claire. Dad, your mom, my mom and basically everyone else who knows me disagrees. And it’s fucking majority rules. One person—you—thinks I’m a good guy. The rest of the world would probably like to counter that claim.”
“Lanie thinks you’re a good guy. You have to know how she feels about you. How she’s always felt about you.”
“Then she’s like you. She doesn’t see clearly.”
“Ah, I get it. We’re female. We’re young. We don’t know how the world works, so you menfolk have to mansplain our feelings to us.”
“Don’t start that shit.”
“But isn’t it at least partially true? You’re deciding for Lanie how she should feel.”
“No, I’m not. I’m deciding for Lanie that I’m no good for her. She only sees one side of me. I see the whole picture.”
“Then you’re as blind as a bat. Do you know what happened on Grandma’s deathbed?”
Blinking, I stared at her. That was one hell of a subject change. “Your grandmother didn’t die.”
“But she thought she was. We thought she was. So that makes it her deathbed.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What happened? Did a priest come to hear her confess that she eats small children for breakfast and punches puppies in her free time?”
Claire ignored me. “She mentioned you, actually.”
I raised an eyebrow. “To curse my name?”
“Basically, yes. She mentioned her inheritance and told Mom and Dad how she didn’t want a single penny of it going to you.”
What an old shrew to be thinking so punitively on her deathbed. “It’s not like I was expecting anything from her.”
“I know. But the point is, Dad immediately told her off.”
“He did?” On her deathbed?
“He said that you were his son, and that you were a U.S. soldier who’d fought for this country and she should show you some respect.”
Wow. I couldn’t quite believe it. “I bet your grandmother didn’t like that.”
“She didn’t. But then Mom said that your service to the country was just like grandma’s father who had served in World War Two. And she went on to say that since grandma was about to be reunited with her father, she’d better think about what he’d say if he knew how she’d treated you.”
“Susan said that about me? But she hates me.”
“She doesn’t. She’s my mom. How could she hate anyone I love so much?”
Claire’s statement was said with such heartfelt honestly that I suddenly found myself blinking back moisture in my eyes. “We’ve never gotten along.”
“No, you really haven’t, but she’s not the same person she used to be, and neither are you.” Claire stared me down, driving her point home. “And neither is Lanie. Is it really so hard to believe that people change?”
Lanie had changed. Susan—maybe—had changed. But not me.
Claire seemed to read the expression on my face. “You keep thinking you’re still the black sheep of the family. And first of all, you weren’t that in the first place. You were a fucked up teen who’d been through a lot. You’ve changed, and for the better.”
“But not enough. Not enough to be the man Lanie needs.”
“She thinks you’re perfect. You think you’re scum. The reality is somewhere in the middle. You’re a good man, Parker. You’ve always been an amazing brother, but you’re also a good man. Not perfect, but good. But you don’t have to be perfect to find love. Good people deserve it too. And if you want to keep working on yourself, making yourself better, then that’s good. I think you should. But don’t put Lanie off. She needs you, and you need her.”
“She needs—“
Claire put her hand on my arm, silencing me. “She needs you. She’s not perfect either, you know. I was her roommate for four years, so I ought to know.”
I rolled my eyes. I disagreed with my sister, but I let that pass.
Later, as I paid the bill and Claire happily finished her shake, she turned to me. “One more thing before I stop meddling in your life…”
“You’ll never stop.”
“True. But one more thing today, I meant.”
“Okay, what?” I asked warily.
“As for that whole keep working on improving yourself thing, for God’s sake, lose the cigarettes. You’re being dumb about Lanie’s feelings for you, but you’re not that dumb.”
I opened the door for her and we stepped out onto the busy NYC street. Taking her arm, I walked her over to a nearby bus stop where there was a round waste bin. Plucking a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, I held them up until I made sure I had her attention and then dropped them into the trash can.
She was right—I was better than that.
Now if only I could convince myself I was good enough for Lanie.
Lanie
“It’s the last night of our trip. You have to go.” Claire’s voice was pleading, but I couldn’t seem to face a fancy meal with her parents. Even though Claire said Parker wouldn’t be there, it would almost be like he was. Like an elephant in the room.
We’d barely spoken in the last few days. For one thing, there was no privacy with Claire around, but it was more than that. I couldn’t escape the fact that though we’d gotten so close in Zermatt and Germany, in the end, Parker had rejected me. Rejected us. Though without him on board, then there wasn’t any us.
“Don’t start crying again, please. That’s all you’ve been doing for three days.”
“I can’t help it.”
The expression on Claire’s face softened, and she came over to sit beside me on the bed. “I know. I know it hurts. But you still need to eat. And this is a big night for us. Do you realize this is the last night for us to be roommates? Tomorrow you’ll be back at your parents’ place and looking for a job and who knows when—“ She plucked a tissue from the box sitting next to me. “Dammit, now I’m starting to cry.”
I put my arm around her. She was right, this was a very big milestone in the most important friendship I’d ever had. “You know we’re going to be roommates again sometime, right? When we’re in our nineties in the old folks’ home, there’s no one I’d rather fight for the TV remote.”
She gave a watery laugh. “I’ll let you have it—as long as you’ll come out to dinner with us tonight.”
I sighed.
“Come on. You look so nice. We look so nice. This much hotness shouldn’t be wasted on room service.”
I gave a small smile at that. Claire evidently thought that the cure for a broken heart was a makeover, so she’d spent the afternoon playing fairy godmother. We’d had our hair and nails done at a snooty salon and gotten new dresses from an upscale boutique. Claire had even insisted that we get fancy lingerie to go under it. Each time I’d protested, she flashed a platinum credit card Mr. Grant had given her temporary custody of. She said it was to make up for missing so much of the trip.
Claire grabbed my hand and dragged me to the full-length mirror by the bathroom. “Look,” she said. “Just look at that.”
I looked at her first. Her shimmery silver dress was draped in all the right places. With her sky-high heels, much taller than the ones I’d bought, she looked
like a million bucks.
She evidently had followed my gaze. “Look at the hotness that is you, doofus.” Rolling my eyes, I examined my own outfit. The dress was a dark green. As a redhead, I usually shied away from green since it was such a stereotypical color for us, but this dress had really caught my eye. The bodice was sleeveless and snug and featured a plunging neckline that revealed the edges of my new black lace bra underneath. It actually kind of worked—it looked like the black lace was part of the neckline.
The dress hugged my waist and hips and then flared out though it was quite short. When I’d tried twirling in the dressing room, the skirt formed an almost perfect circle but had ridden alarmingly high on my thighs. I didn’t normally wear things this short, but I’d fallen in love with the sexy little dress. And it made my legs look endlessly long.
Claire took another tissue and dabbed at her eye make-up and then made me fix my own. “Let’s go. Time to show these New Yorkers what real class looks like.”
Who was I to argue with that? And if it would keep me from crying over Parker for a few hours that was probably a good thing. I was almost out of tissues.
An hour later, our taxi pulled up to a fancy steakhouse on the first floor of a skyscraper. Claire paid the driver and then gave our name to the maître d. I followed them through the restaurant, walking carefully in my new shoes.
The maître d stopped ahead of us at a table in the middle of the room. A table with one lone man at it. A heart-stoppingly handsome man in a black suit with a narrow red tie. He rose to his feet as we neared.
It was Parker.
Claire smiled at me as I stopped in my tracks, several feet from the table. My ankles wobbled as I tried to take in the shock of seeing him here. Claire put her hand on my arm, steadying me.
“I’m sorry, but I just got a call from the pet sitter,” she said. “Little Fluffy isn’t feeling well.”
It took a moment for her words to register as I stared at Parker. Then I turned and raised my eyebrows at Claire. That was the excuse she used to get out of bad dates.
“Good luck,” she whispered to me, and then she left.
For a moment, I could only stare after her, my mind struggling to catch up. But then a tall figure in my peripheral vision made me turn. Parker was holding my chair out for me.
“Will you please join me for dinner, Lanie?”
I stared up into his deep green eyes, trying to make sense of it all. We’d gotten so close in Switzerland, and then he’d just cut all that off in an instant. He’d walked away from me in the hotel lobby in Zurich, and we hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words since.
After a long moment, I nodded and sat down in the seat he’d pulled out. As he pushed my chair in, I couldn’t help inhaling his intoxicating scent—part outdoors, part spice, and all male.
“I ordered wine,” Parker said as he sat down next to me.
I nodded, and placed my napkin in my lap, feeling unsure what to do with my hands. A few days ago, it would’ve felt natural to reach out and take his hand, but things were different now.
Picking up a water goblet, I started to take a sip, but then noticed that my hand was trembling, so I put it down. All the while, I could feel Parker’s unwavering gaze on me.
I scanned the menu for a few moments and then put it down. I looked at some of the nearby diners in their finery.
But I knew at some point I needed to look at the gorgeous man sitting by my side. When I finally did, he said, “I’m sorry.”
I immediately glanced away. He was so handsome that sometimes looking at him was like staring into a bright flame. But it didn’t matter how handsome he was if he didn’t want to—or couldn’t handle—being with me.
He sighed, and his hand twitched, as if he were refraining from reaching out and holding mine. “I asked you to trust me,” he began.
“I did!” The syllables exploded from my mouth louder than I’d meant them to. But I had, with all my heart, and he’d just walked away.
“You did,” he said, his voice calm but sincere. “But the problem was, I didn’t trust myself. Not with someone as important to me as you are.”
It still didn’t make sense to me. “But if I trusted you to… well, to do right by me, then why couldn’t you?”
He sighed. “A lifetime of hearing you’re a fuck up takes its toll. I thought I had to become a better man to be with you, and then when I found out you were planning to share your first time with me, I panicked, because I didn’t feel worthy of that. Of you.”
“Isn’t that for me to decide?”
“Yes. But to be honest, I wouldn’t think that any man was worthy of you, Little Lanie… myself included.”
“I wish you wouldn’t put me on a pedestal.”
Parker nodded. “I’m trying not to. A mutual friend of ours pointed out that it doesn’t do much good to think in terms of I’m bad and you’re good.”
Ah. I’d wondered where Claire disappeared to for a few hours yesterday while I’d stayed in the hotel room and cried.
A waiter approached, but Parker waved him off. “I’m trying to think about it differently now.”
“What do you mean?” My words were soft, but not squeaky. This was likely going to be one of the most important conversations in my life and I wasn’t going to shy away from it.
“I mean that from now on, I’m going to think in terms of are we good for each other.”
I sucked in a breath and waited.
“And I think we are.”
The butterflies in my stomach calmed a little at his answer. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”
He smiled. “Hey, there’s only one genius at this table, and it’s not me.” Then his expression grew more somber. “It was only by chance that we ended up traveling alone together, but we made it work. I helped you with the spiders. You helped me with the heights. We worked together as equals.”
Equals. Thank god he’d said it. “It really felt that way to me, too. Like two adults. For the first time, I didn’t feel like a kid around you.”
“And for the first time, I saw the real you, not just the adorable friend of my little sister.”
“We were a team.”
Parker smiled at my words and placed his hand on mine. “That was the exact phrase I was thinking of. A team.”
Suddenly, a random thought hit me. ‘Team’ was a rather platonic term. “Does this mean we’re not… not going to…”
He squeezed my hand. “That’s up to you. I want you to be my girlfriend. I want to do everything in my power to be a good boyfriend for you. But that’s up to you.”
“I want that too.” With all my heart.
“But I want more than that, too. I want us to keep helping each other and being a team.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think we should work together to figure out our next steps. We both just graduated. We’re both at a crossroads. We could both try to figure it out separately, but why should we? Two heads are better than one, and we’re good together. Unless… unless it’s too late.” His last words were so hesitant that he sounded how I used to.
Could I risk being rejected by him again? It had hurt so much when he’d left me before. But this was Parker, the man I wanted more than anyone else in the world. He was worth the risk. And I truly believed he was trying to do better. “It’s not. And you’re right, we are good together. But this is the last time you get to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Push me away. You did that a couple of times on the trip, just taking off when the going got rough. If we’re going to be together, if we’re going to be a team, you don’t get to do that. You have to stay and we have to talk it out.”
“Agreed.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Suddenly, it all hit me. He wanted me. We were back together. It was really happening.
Parker grinned. “Your smile just lit up the whole room.”
“Half an hour ago, all I
had was this new dress. Now I have a boyfriend and a teammate. A partner.”
“A partner in crime,” he said, with a sexy wink. “And that’s a really amazing dress. Do I get to take it off you later?”
“We’ll see.” I smirked at the surprise on his face. “As you just said, we have work to do. So let’s dive in. Brainstorm. Plan for our future. And then we’ll see if we’ve worked hard enough to earn a reward.”
There was a gleam in his eye as he waved the waiter back over. “Challenge accepted,” he said with a grin.
“Are you sure about this?” Parker said as we stood outside the door to his room. “I want your first time to be special.”
“It will be,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Because it’s with you.”
He unlocked the door and picked me up, making me squeal in surprise. Once inside, he kicked the door shut with his heel and carried me over to the bed. I gasped as we neared. There were red roses on both of the nightstands on either side of the bed, plus scattered petals on the bed itself.
Parker laid me down and then lit a few candles he’d placed around the room. Then he stood over the bed, looking up and down my body. “You’re so damn beautiful in the dress. I almost don’t want to take it off.”
“I do,” I said, my breathing quickening with anticipation.
He grinned at my eager expression. Looking deep into my eyes, he took off his jacket and then loosened his tie.
My pulse spiked as he got undressed. He was so damn gorgeous—the most handsome man I’d ever seen. And he wanted me.
Once he was naked and bared to me, I wanted to be the same for him. I sat up, and he unzipped my dress, helping me wiggled out of it. “Nice,” he said, desire in his voice as he saw my new lingerie underneath. “I think I’ll leave that on you for a while longer.”
“Until when?” I breathed as he lowered himself down onto the bed next to me.
“Until neither of us can stand it anymore.” Then he preceded to show me what he meant by using his fingers, lips, and tongue to tease and torment every inch of my body, returning frequently to ravish my mouth.