by LJ Evans
“Okay.”
“Now, explain to me why you have half your closet here,” Liv said, turning to the pile of clothes on the bench.
PJ sighed and twisted the t-shirt she held until it was almost a braid. “I don’t know what to wear.”
“For?”
PJ squinted her eyes at her sister-in-law. “I swear, if you tell the guys, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Oooooooh. You’re going to see the sexy artist?”
“How do you know he’s sexy?”
“Looked him up last night after all the talk. He’s sexy as sin. How was the kiss?”
PJ sat down and said mournfully, “Incredible.”
Liv laughed at her. “And this is a bad thing because?”
PJ didn’t know how to explain it. The mix of emotions that felt like a battering ram on the promise she’d kept for so long. So, she just shrugged a half-response.
Liv sorted through the clothes on the bench and came up with an aqua and tan summer dress in small geometric patterns. The dress was soft and flirty and clung in all the right places without looking like she was trying too hard.
“You know, PJ, it doesn’t have to be for keeps. How long has it been?”
PJ took the dress from Liv’s hands if only to distract Liv from the question as she slid into it. She couldn’t meet Liv’s eyes. She didn’t know how much Justice had told Liv about PJ’s past. PJ hadn’t told her. She didn’t think Liv would judge her for it, but it was a past she had no desire to repeat.
“Probably too long,” PJ told her.
Liv came to stand in front of her and straightened the straps on the dress before tipping her chin up. “It’s okay to want him.”
“I know,” PJ said, stepping away and turning around so Liv could zip her up.
“No. You say that with your head, but you don’t believe it with your heart.” Liv zipped her and then awkwardly hugged her with the baby bump in between them.
PJ just nodded because Liv was right. And wrong. PJ herself wasn’t sure what the right thing was. They both turned toward the mirror. The dress made PJ’s eyes pop and her skin look bronze. It was a good dress. She’d known that when she’d bought it off the sale rack at the outlets. She just hadn’t ever imagined wearing it to meet a man like Seth.
“You look beautiful.” Liv smiled, pulling at the clip holding PJ’s hair. It tumbled down in a wave of tangled curves well past her shoulders.
“No. It’ll just be in the way all day,” PJ grumbled.
“Then bring a hair band for later, but at least arrive like this.”
PJ sighed, shoving all the rest of her clothes back into the gym bag, knowing she’d regret it later. The wrinkled clothes being the least of all the things she’d regret.
“Thanks, Liv,” PJ said as she made her way to the door.
“PJ,” Liv called out, and when PJ looked back at her, she winked and said, “Have fun!”
PJ gave her an exasperated wave.
In the car, PJ held her breath as the Caterpillar tried to kick over. The engine rumbled to life; the typical rumbling purr of a Volkswagen needing to be put out to pasture. She didn’t have the money for a new car. Every last dime was being saved for her master’s program and the expensive cost of living in New York. Not that she was going now, she reminded herself. But it was still hard to let go of the dream.
She plugged her iPhone into the magnet on the vent, turned on Google Maps, and linked it to the address that Seth had put in the day before.
She was full of nerves as she backed out and followed the calm voice of Google in the direction of the ocean. Thirty minutes later, she pulled up in front of Seth’s beautiful, Cape Cod style house on the beach. PJ’s breath hitched at it. It was a stunning breath of Nantucket in the middle of L.A. Gray, with white exterior shutters and a slightly wild flower and herb garden growing out front.
It was so not what she had expected from a moody, Latino, junk artist. She’d expected a modern wonder made of steel and glass that showed off the insides to the world. Somehow, the warm and comfortable structure before her whispered something about Seth that she didn’t quite want to acknowledge.
She put her head on the steering wheel as she let the engine putter to a stop. She breathed in deeply, while her emotions bounced every which way. She was incredibly attracted to Seth, and yet she sensed there was plenty of danger in taking another step toward him.
Her body was already reacting to him. And she had promised herself no more. No more using guys to make herself feel better. She was so full of uncertainty and failure these days that it felt almost like it had before. When she’d used guys to fill her sense of loss. It felt like she was on rewind instead of fast forward. Four years, and she was right back to where she’d started.
A knock on her driver’s window startled her. She looked up into a pair of staggering blue eyes frowning down at her. She sighed. There was no way she could stay unaffected by this beautiful creature. Even if it ended in just a short-lived affair, which she was positive was the only thing he was looking for, it would be an incredible ride. It didn’t have to be about loss and emptiness. Couldn’t it just be about this moment with a man who made her blood pump a little faster?
Her therapist from high school would say yes. Her brain was saying yes, but her heart was shouting to run.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern dripping from his voice. Real concern. Not the passerby kind of concern a stranger uses when they see you trip. This was the kind of concern that you’d feel for your best friend if she showed up with a bruise on her face.
PJ nodded a response and grabbed her purse. She pushed open the door, and he held out a hand to help her out. She looked down at the calloused hand. It was a worker’s hand. She was reluctant to take it, knowing how her body responded to his, but he grabbed hold before she could decline. As soon as his skin touched hers, it sent a wave of particle collision down through her arm and into her chest. She swallowed hard. When she looked up, she thought she saw something akin to her own feelings of shock and caution reflected in his brilliant blues.
As soon as she was standing, she removed her hand from his and lifted her purse to her shoulder. They stood staring at each other. Well, she stared up and he stared down. With her flat sparkly sandals, she was at least a foot shorter than him. Almost like a foot and a half. He was so tall. And muscular. A wall of sizzling hot body is what Claire would call him.
She swallowed.
“So…I’m here.”
“Yes. You are,” he said with a breathy air that seemed almost…relieved. It seemed so incongruous that this playboy of an artist would have even given two thoughts to whether she showed up or not. And yet, he’d called Locke a gazillion times yesterday looking for her.
She looked down and noticed his feet were bare with little cuts all along the top. His perfectly worn jeans clung to him in all the right places, and his gray t-shirt stretched across his torso in a way that left very little to the imagination. A tattoo peeked briefly out from under his sleeve, but she couldn’t determine what it was. He turned away and led her toward the beachfront house.
“You’re probably hungry, so we can eat first. Then I’ll show you the shop,” he said, opening the door for her.
She eased past him into an open-spaced living area that continued the warm, Nantucket feel from the outside. Here were the enormous glass windows that she’d expected, but they looked out onto the ocean in a way that didn’t seem pretentious at all. She couldn’t help but be drawn to them. Even as a little girl in Seattle, she’d been drawn to the beach. She’d begged her parents to go every week. Once there, she’d play in the sand, look for shells, and watch the water as it moved in and out. The soothing rhythm of the waves had been a predictable comfort. Always there. Never ceasing. She’d almost forgotten how they made her feel. It made her miss her parents more than she had in a long time.
Her body tingled in response to Seth’s approach. He d
idn’t say anything as they both stared out at the ocean sparkling in the afternoon sun.
“Your place is stunning,” PJ finally told him, fighting for a calm in her voice that her nerves were far from feeling.
“Thanks. It’s home.”
She was surprised by the break of emotion in his voice that spoke to how attached he was to this place. He kept surprising her with these unexpected glimpses of depth. She realized she had judged him before knowing him, which really wasn’t like her. She hated it when people did it to her because of her size.
He hadn’t always lived here. She’d read the bio. He’d grown up on the wrong side of the Bronx with a drug addict mother and an abusive father who’d been in a New York gang. His only sanity had been his grandparents that lived in Tennessee. They’d paid for his time at Otis College here in L.A. But that was pretty much all she knew.
“What would you like to drink? I don’t have any wine, but I do make a mean sweet tea. Or lemonade?”
He moved into the kitchen and she followed. There she found more surprises in a kitchen that had the odor and appearance of being well used. Not something you’d expect of a bachelor like Seth. Yet, there was a rack of dishes drying near the sink and a pot simmering on the stove.
“Just water would be great,” she responded, a little breathless from the oxymoron that was Seth. He waved her toward a barstool at the counter. She placed her bag on the marble top and jumped to get onto the stool. It was normal for her being as short as she was, but she saw his lips twitch as if he was resisting a grin.
“I’m short,” she said matter-of-factly with a self-deprecating shrug.
He turned to take her in. All of her. It was as if he was swallowing her whole as he did so. Like she was just a grain of sand being swallowed by the waves outside.
“You’re perfect.” His deep voice seemed to catch with emotion again.
She blushed. She couldn’t help it.
“You’re quite the kiss-ass,” she told him.
He didn’t respond, but his gaze never left hers as he slid the water to her. When their hands touched briefly, she had to force herself not to jerk back. His eyes acknowledged her slight movement, and he withdrew slowly. As if afraid that she might run. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t.
He turned back to the stove and stirred.
“That smells really good,” she told him.
“It’s ajiaco,” he said.
“Where did you pick it up?”
He waved a hand up to the ceiling. “Don’t send the lightning bolts yet, Abuela, she doesn’t know. Forgive her.”
“Excuse me?”
“My grandma is spitting down on you from heaven at the idea that I would pay anyone to make my ajiaco.”
“You’re telling me you made that?”
He gave a cocky grin that was both fascinating and alarming.
“From my abuela’s special recipe. The bread, however, I picked up at the bakery down the road. Yeast breads and I don’t get along.” He was laughing at himself at the same time he was bragging, and it somehow relaxed her for the first time since walking through the door.
“You are quite the dichotomy, Mr. Carmen.”
The anger he flashed was so fast she hardly had a chance to see it before his face shuttered closed into an unreadable blank slate.
“I’ve told you, it’s Seth. Or dickhead if you prefer, but please don’t call me by my shit-for-brains father’s name again.” His voice was hard as he moved toward her. She got a glimpse of the tough Bronx kid he must have been. He put his arms on either side of her, blocking her exit. His face was steely, not angry, but determined, ready for a fight.
“Which is it going to be? Seth or dickhead?”
At first, she froze while staring into his icy blue eyes. She wasn’t quite frightened, but something close. Then, she was pissed that he was blocking her escape and throwing his aggression at her. She reacted without thinking by plunging a flattened palm into his solar plexus in a self-defense move that Justice had taught her.
As soon as she made contact, he coughed and staggered back, which was exactly the effect she intended. She was off the stool, bag in hand, and halfway to the door before his voice stopped her.
“Please. Stop. Wait.”
He tried to straighten, placing a hand to his chest where she’d hit him.
“Shit. That was one hell of a punch,” he coughed out.
She didn’t move as he slowly approached, hands extended in a sign of remorse and peace.
“Don’t go. I am a dickhead. And more like my asshole father than I care to admit. But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” PJ said, lifting her chin in defiance even though he had frightened her a little. She wasn’t even sure why she was there with this intimidating, over-the-top bad boy who would end up making her break every last one of her promises to herself.
He gave her a weak smile. “I did. And I’m sorry.”
He sounded truly contrite.
“You seem to have to apologize a lot, Mr… Dickhead.”
He grimaced. As if he knew he deserved the name, but was still upset that it was the one she chose. “As a rule, I never apologize anymore.”
“Anymore?”
He eased back toward the stove, watching her. “It’s a long story. But I have a feeling that I’m going to be doing a lot more of it with you in the picture.”
“I’m not in the picture,” PJ said, crossing her arms.
With him back at the stove, she could slowly let out a breath again. He dished up two bowls of the stew-like substance that had smelled so tantalizing only moments before and made his way toward the French doors that led to the back deck. He expertly pushed down the lever with his elbow and stood holding it open, waiting for her.
She knew he’d made it her decision. And yet, when she looked into his eyes, she swore she saw a plea there. Her heart took several, startling leaps. She expected cockiness and conceit, but definitely not begging.
She still hadn’t moved.
“I promise. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
She almost didn’t believe it herself when she walked toward him, setting her bag down on the counter again. As she passed him, she looked up into his eyes with what she hoped was confidence. “That was strike two.”
He followed her out and placed the bowls on a stone table set upon steel legs intricately curved and shaped. The matching chairs were swathed with blue and yellow cushions. On the table was a vase of flowers, a covered bread bowl, and utensils with twisted vines for handles. With the beach and the ocean beyond, it was a tempting scene. One that had her drawing in a shaky breath because it was both romantic and unanticipated.
“What was strike one, my storming away from you at the gallery or my kissing you?” His voice was back to cocky teasing. Pleading time over. PJ guessed that any kind of plea would be short-lived with Seth.
“Surprisingly, neither. Strike one was the stalking you did yesterday,” she responded.
He laughed, hard. Like she’d surprised him, and it made her belly flop in ways she hadn’t felt it flop before.
“Thank God I’m not out already,” he replied.
“I’m sure you will be before lunch is over.”
He laughed again, and she couldn’t help the thrill it gave her to make him laugh. He didn’t seem like the type of man that laughed often, but when he did, it would surely be with all of him, including those twinkling eyes. That she’d made him laugh was its own little joy ride to her heart.
She lowered her eyes to hide the swirl of emotions that filled her. She grabbed the utensils, eyeing the curling vines. “Did you make these?”
He looked down as if he was astonished to be holding them. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
It was her turn to laugh. “You don’t know your own work?”
“I just didn’t know that Becca had set them out.”
PJ’s stomach fe
ll at the mention of a woman’s name coming from his mouth. She had definitely gotten the impression that this meeting was far more than a professional one, but if Becca was his girlfriend, then that couldn’t possibly be the case. She didn’t know what she was more disappointed about.
“Who’s Becca?” she eased out, hoping it sounded nonchalant.
Seth watched her, she could feel his gaze on her even when she wasn’t looking at him. She fought the pink in her cheeks, but knew it stained them anyway. Fighting it always made it worse.
“She’s my housekeeper. She comes in several times a week, or as I need her,” he said casually.
PJ’s stomach continued its painful twists at the thought of what those other needs might entail. She watched his hands as he deftly cut the bread and placed a piece into her stew.
He leaned in with a husky voice, “Don’t worry. She’s like sixty years old and really isn’t interested in me that way.”
Her heart flipped over as she looked into stunning eyes that were teasing her even though you wouldn’t have known it if you didn’t see the glint that resided there. His face certainly didn’t reflect it. It was still a shutter, hiding his depths.
“Are you sure? Your sex appeal might surprise even you.” She meant it to sound sarcastic, but PJ had never been good at sarcasm, and she realized it probably sounded flirty instead.
His lips twitched once more. “No darlin’, that’s something I’m rarely surprised about.”
She rolled her eyes at him, turning to hide her embarrassment by tucking into the stew. It was really delicious. She’d never been a huge foodie. But she worked out hard and enjoyed good food. And the stew was definitely good.
“This is really wonderful.”
“Thanks. My abuela forgives you for your earlier insult.”
“Is this your mom’s mom or your dad’s mom?”
“It was my mom’s mom. She was Cuban. Came to the U.S. through Florida and met my grandpa when he was there at college. They fell in love, and she moved home with him to Tennessee to manage the ranch after his dad died.”