Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” he asked. “To let some old family feud define what we can and can’t do.”

  “It is,” I agreed, and though it sounded like we’d both just admitted that we didn’t give a fuck about what our parents thought, we both knew it wasn’t true. Logan loved his mother and his brothers more than anyone in the world, and I knew it killed him to disappoint them in any way, to let them down. As for me, I had an art studio on the line — one my father would rip away in the blink of an eye if he ever found out what happened between me and Logan.

  “So… I guess we should just be…” Logan swallowed. “Friends?”

  The way he asked it, the way his eyebrows bent together, his lips flattening — I knew it was a hollow offer.

  I nodded. “Sure. Of course.” A smile that felt like a wave of nausea found my lips. “Friends.”

  Logan watched me, and I watched him, both of us waiting for something more. It seemed like there were a million unborn words between us, floating in the air, waiting for us to reach out and grab them and bring them to life. When a long moment of silence had passed, Logan bit the inside of his cheek, picking up his highlighter he’d abandoned on the desk when I’d walked in like he was ready to get back to work.

  “But,” I said, and his eyes snapped to mine, the highlighter frozen over the page. “I mean… there’s another option, isn’t there?”

  Logan dropped the highlighter, leaning back again. “There is?”

  “I’m just saying,” I said, voice shakier than I wanted it to be in that moment. I took a sip of my coffee, shrugging. “What if we kept things low key… casual… just between us?” My eyes found his again. “It is what it is, and it’s not what it’s not. Right? No need for anyone to know.”

  “Low key,” Logan repeated, like he was tasting the words, checking them for poison with his tongue. “So, friends… with benefits.”

  I snorted. “If you want to be twenty-one about it, sure.”

  Logan nodded, over and over, just a slight movement of his chin up and down as he considered it. I watched him as he stood, and I expected him to start pacing the office, but instead, he crossed it, closing his door and turning to face me.

  His eyes swept over me, sparking a fire low in my stomach.

  He wet his lips.

  He took a step.

  And then I was out of my chair, meeting him in the middle, the two of us crashing together like magnets.

  His hands weaved into my hair when he captured my mouth with his own, both of us sighing on an inhale, moaning on the exhale, leaning into each other like we could somehow melt together completely. All the electricity I’d felt that night came back like a tidal wave, and I surrendered to the waves, letting them drown me. I wanted him to fill my lungs, to conquer every breath, to imprison me.

  It was a kiss that told me we were both lying. We both wanted more.

  But if it was a choice between this, or nothing at all?

  There wasn’t a decision to make — not where I was concerned. It had already been made for us, without either of us having a say, without either of us having an ounce of control to throw this story in another direction.

  We were inevitable, me and him.

  And maybe we knew it from the start.

  Logan backed me up to the desk, and when my ass hit it, I hiked both legs up, wrapping them around his waist and squeezing. He hissed, sucking my bottom lip between his teeth and releasing it with a pop, his hips rolling against mine. I broke the kiss to let out a gasp, and his mouth was on my neck in an instant, sucking and biting, my eyes rolling back at the contact.

  He paused with his lips by my ear, breathing heavy. “I think this could work for me,” he whispered, running his tongue over my ear lobe. “This… friends agreement.” His hands squeezed where they held my hips, and the familiar pressure sent flashes of Saturday night barreling through my memory. I gasped, mouth still hanging open when he kissed my neck over to the opposite ear to whisper again. “What do you think?”

  Against the voice inside me warning me not to, I ran my fingers through his hair, gripping those dark strands and pulling his lips back to mine.

  That kiss was an answer.

  That kiss was a lie.

  And distantly, I realized that kiss might be the biggest mistake of my life.

  Logan

  For the first time in my life, I had a new routine, and it went like this:

  Wake up early, so I could get in the workout I usually did in the evenings before I walked out the door for work. Then, I’d practically skip through those distillery doors, and wait as patiently as I could for Mallory to slip into my office and into my arms. It was easy to sneak time together under the guise of our “training” — especially when we finished up the storage closet and got back to tours. We ate lunch together, took break together, walked out together after work… and kept all the touching for behind closed doors.

  After work, I went straight to the shop with Mallory. She sprung it on me that she wanted to have the grand opening on Friday — less than a week after we’d unpacked that first set of boxes. And though I thought she was crazy and that she needed at least another two months to be fully ready, I didn’t argue — mostly because it gave me an excuse to spend every waking hour after work with her.

  We’d paint, and build, and catalog and arrange. We’d test out equipment, and do calculations on the prices each class would have to cost to make a profit, and make plans for how to allocate supplies to each class so that we didn’t overspend what we were making. We got the necessary permits and insurance — expedited, of course, thanks to her last name — and with every evening we spent together, working until after midnight, that dream of hers slowly came together.

  And somehow, it felt like mine, too.

  Mallory asked my opinion on everything, and I had a hand in every single corner of that space. It almost felt like building a home together, and I blamed that for the insane way I was feeling. It had to be that we were spending every day at work together, every night together, only separating long enough for me to shower and crash at my place just to wake up and do it all again. I brought food and toys for her cat and she cooked us dinner. I rubbed her shoulders after a long day and she straddled me at the end of a very long night.

  I hadn’t thought about the hard drive, or the password that protected it, or anything remotely negative since we’d made our agreement.

  Because it was easy, playing house with Mallory — hell, playing life with Mallory.

  And I found myself in extreme danger of falling faster than an anvil in an old Looney Tunes episode.

  I was watching her read next to me on her couch Wednesday night when I realized it. It’d been another long night, and she was wearing only the t-shirt she’d ripped off me when the work was done. I was sated from her touch, smiling at the way she tucked her feet under her on the cushion, the way her wide eyes scanned each page, the way she nervously chewed her thumbnail as she read. Her platinum hair was grown out a bit, the darker, brunette shade showing at the roots, and she had all of it pulled back in the tiniest little ponytail, with loose strands falling all around her face and down the back of her neck.

  In that moment — that quiet, seemingly average moment — she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  I’d never fallen for a woman, or for a girl — not in all the years I’d “dated.” Women had mostly been a pastime for me, as ashamed as I was to admit it. I warmed a bed from time to time, let them give me a fun distraction from my routine, provide me company to combat the loneliness.

  But, falling in love? I’d never been even close to that. If anything, dating those other girls was like walking in the plains of Oklahoma. There wasn’t a cliff in sight, not an edge nearby to accidentally trip over and tumble down into an unknown territory of emotions. It’d been safe, level ground, and I’d walked it easily — and left it just the same.

  With Mallory, it was a tight wire.

  I knew I was balancing on that thinl
y stretched, wobbling wire the moment I met her. Even when she frustrated me, even when I wanted to throttle her more than I wanted to kiss her — I still somehow sensed it. I’d been walking that wire since she walked into my office that Monday after Thanksgiving, and now, I was balancing on one foot, with a stack of plates on my head and a glorious fall calling my name from below.

  But I couldn’t surrender to it — that was the kicker. Where we were now, this little hidden secret that we lived in — that was our world. That was where we could exist, and we’d drawn that line so we knew where we couldn’t exist. Her father would rip this shop out from under her faster than she could say wait if he ever found out she’d slept with a Becker. And my own mother nearly had a heart attack when I’d told her I was interested in Mallory. She’d disown me if I told her I was falling for her, and if she couldn’t even understand, there wasn’t a prayer that my brothers would.

  Everyone in my family had a sick feeling in their gut that Patrick Scooter was hiding something when it came to my father’s death.

  And here I was, pretending there was absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that I was falling for his daughter.

  Still, there was a part of me — the larger part of me — that wondered what she’d say if I told her what I was feeling. If I told her everything I was feeling. Would she run, tell me I’m crazy, cut off what we have now because it’s apparent that I can’t handle it? Would she shake her head and tell me she wished I could be casual and low key like she suggested, that now I’d ruined everything?

  Or would she fall into me, too?

  I closed my book, setting it on her coffee table before I reached over and grabbed the one from her hands, too.

  “Hey,” she pouted, reaching for it even after I’d set it down next to mine. “Come on, Becker. You get me into reading and then you take my book away just when things are getting crazy? What sick kind of cruel are you?”

  I didn’t laugh, didn’t make a joke back. I just pulled her into my lap, framing her face with my hands, and slowly, I pulled her lips to mine.

  There was no roll of my hips — or hers. There was no quick rush of air on an inhale, or slick coat of desire pooling deep in my gut. With that kiss, I whispered things I couldn’t say out loud against her lips, nipping at each one, my tongue seeking hers, hands sliding back until I cradled her neck, holding her to me.

  She melted into the touch, but pulled away with a giggle, shaking her head and kissing my nose as she settled on my lap. “Nice distraction, but I’m still mad at you for taking me away from Marie-Laure and her fight against the Nazis.”

  “Come to my place tomorrow night.”

  I was stone-cold serious, and when she saw my expression, hers leveled out, too. “It’s the night before the grand opening.”

  “I know, and we’ve done everything that needs to be done. You need a break before the madness takes over. Let me cook for you.”

  She smirked. “Macaroni and cheese, I’d imagine?”

  “Let me cook a real meal for you,” I said, still serious. My eyes searched hers, and I swallowed past the sinking in my gut that told me I was coming on too strong, that I was freaking her out.

  I’d never felt this way in my entire life, and I refused to keep silent about it.

  “I’ve never been to your place,” she said — and I wasn’t sure if it was an argument, or just a statement.

  “Let’s change that.”

  She bit her lip, considering, but then a smile bloomed over those rosy lips of hers, and she kissed my nose. “Okay, Chef Logan. But I expect a four-course dinner.”

  “And you’ll get it,” I said, kissing the corners of her lips before I pulled her mouth to mine again. My hands slipped over her arms, down her back, gripping her hips briefly before I smacked her ass. “Dessert, too.”

  She giggled, swatting at me with absolutely zero intention of actually getting me away from her before she wrapped her arms around my neck. The kiss deepened, all jokes gone, and I ignored the clock on the wall that told me it was late and I needed to go.

  Maybe if I didn’t point it out, if I didn’t say a word, I could just stay there.

  Stay the night.

  Stay forever.

  And maybe, if I played my cards right, I could get her to stay, too.

  Logan

  My place was the cleanest it had ever been — and that was saying something.

  I’d rushed home from work to scrub down every corner, dusting and sweeping and mopping and tidying until it was time to run to the grocery store. And even now, with dinner cooking in the oven and my hands busy chopping veggies for the appetizer, I was looking around the space, making mental notes of things I wanted to tidy up or rearrange before Mallory got there.

  It was the first time I’d ever invited a woman into my home.

  It sounded crazy, because I’d slept with enough women that it should have been hard to believe that statement. But, regardless of what the town liked to think or gossip about, it was always me going to their place, not bringing them to mine. To me, there was something personal about the space I lived in — the photos on the walls, the books on the shelves, the magnets on the fridge. There were little pieces of me everywhere, and I had never wanted to share those pieces with anyone before.

  Until now.

  My stomach was a wreck the entire evening, and I wondered if I’d even be able to eat the dinner I was cooking. I’d gone all out, remembering from a brief conversation we’d had while cleaning out the storage closet that Mallory loved Greek food but rarely had it, since there wasn’t a Greek restaurant within fifty miles of Stratford and her family was a steak and potatoes kind of family. So, I’d made homemade tzatziki, with fresh vegetables and hot pita bread brushed with seasoning to dip. I’d also made a classic Greek salad, and a creamy, feta-smothered chicken bake with artichoke hearts and olives and tomatoes and Mediterranean seasoning. And, even though it’d been a giant pain in my ass, I had baklava made and waiting to go in the oven as soon as I pulled dinner out — complete with the honey sauce in the fridge that I’d pour over top of it when it was done.

  The meal and the way my house looked were the only things I could control that night. Maybe that’s why I had obsessed, teaching myself more than I really even needed to know about the Greek culture and their diet before choosing a perfectly balanced menu. And maybe that was why I’d cleaned every corner of my already-spotless house, as if even one photo frame being out of place would be the difference between Mallory feeling the same way I was or thinking I was a crazy person.

  I sighed, shaking my head at myself as I arranged the freshly cut cucumber slices around the bowl of tzatziki. “Pull it together, man.”

  There was a knock at my door, and my heart thundered to life, kicking so violently in my chest I had to grip the edge of the counter to keep from toppling over. I ran my hands under the faucet, drying them on the towel hanging from my oven before I made my way to the door, checking each spot in my house one last time on the way over. I touched a few things — not really moving them, but feeling like I was doing something — and then I stood in front of the door, blew out a long breath, put on my best, easy-going, nothing-is-wrong-and-everything-is-casual smile, and turned the handle.

  When the wooden door was open and only the screen door stood between us, I stood there like an idiot, not moving to open it and invite Mallory inside because I’d been stunned stupid by how incredible she looked.

  Her hair was down and riddled with beach-like waves, the edges still framing her chin in the most perfect way. Her eyes were lined, a dark wing giving them an exotic look, the golden eye shadow making her ocean-blue eyes pop against her olive skin. She wore a jean skirt with dark leggings underneath, the thighs of them shredded to show little slivers of her skin between each black piece of fabric. That skirt was paired with an oversized white sweater that hung off her shoulder, and for some reason, that sweater made her look so adorable, so small and sweet and delectable that I considered forgoi
ng dinner altogether and pulling her inside for the full, in-depth tour of my bedroom.

  Those lips I loved to taste were painted my favorite shade of dusty rose, and they curled into a soft smile as she watched me gawk at her. “You going to invite me in, or should I grab a blanket from my car and throw a picnic out here on the porch?”

  I shook my head, pushing the screen door open and clearing my throat.

  I still couldn’t speak just yet, and Mallory chuckled, slipping between me and the door and standing in my foyer as I shut the door behind us. I took her scarf and purse, hung them on my coat rack, and then stood there like an idiot again with my hands in my pockets, eyes trailing over her again.

  “You look beautiful,” I managed to murmur, and Mallory grinned wider, stepping into me.

  “You look pretty handsome, yourself,” she teased, tugging on the apron fastened around my waist. “Can I see you in only this later?”

  That earned her a laugh, and like the first breath after being submerged under water, I relaxed, every muscle easing as I pulled her into me for a hug. “Only if you’re a good girl.”

  She pulled back on a pout. “But, I thought you liked it best when I’m bad?”

  Her hands slipped down, down, into the back pockets of my jeans, where she squeezed and pulled me closer. Her teeth grazed her bottom lip, eyes dancing over my neck, my jaw, my mouth.

  A zip of electricity shot fast and hot down my spine, and I groaned, kissing her mouth hard and quick before I smacked her ass and ushered her toward the kitchen. “Stop distracting the cook.”

  She giggled again, but let me guide her deeper inside, and I ran back to check on dinner in the oven as she looked around.

  “There’s fresh tzatziki here,” I said, motioning to the plate I’d set up on the kitchen island as I pulled the oven door open. The cheese was melting nicely, the chicken sizzling, the aroma making my stomach growl. “Fresh pita, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and such.” I stood again, turning to face her, and she was watching me like I was some mystical creature she’d never seen before. “What?”