I ghosted my mouth along her neck, along her jaw.
“In what way?”
“Every time you say you need convincing, what you mean is that you, Fiona Quinn, require orgasms.”
She wrapped her arms loosely around my neck. “I do require orgasms though. And you’ve proven yourself adept in that area.”
“Just you wait until after dinner,” I whispered against her ear. She shivered and arched into me. My fingers skated up to her waist, slipping beneath her sweatshirt to press against warm, bare skin.
“I think your water is boiling,” she purred.
I stepped back slowly, hands up. “I’m adept in all the areas.”
She snorted, sipped her wine, watched me as I sliced up hot dogs. I couldn’t help but sing along with the music as I did so.
She did too, harmonizing with me like her mom did with her dad.
“You’re cute as hell, you know that?”
“Trust me, I do.” Head cocked, ponytail swinging, she looked sweet and happy. She looked like the kind of woman I’d want to come home to after a day at the shop.
She looked like my girlfriend.
My elbow sent a big cup of utensils flying to the floor. Before she could say the word, I scooped them up and laughed nervously. I’d never had a girlfriend, really. Never even had the urge before.
“What kept you at the office late tonight?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t tell I was nervous.
“A new client.” She looked pleased, content. “A very lovely couple, both in their eighties, both extraordinarily rich and still head-over-heels in love.”
“For that long, huh?” I righted all the utensils before tipping the pasta into the water.
“A true happily-ever-after.” We shared a blush. “They have a large plot of land outside the city they’d like to turn into a community space—a dog park, a playground, a little pond for ducks and geese. It would be part of their estate, after they both die. A real legacy and testament to their love.”
She looked thoughtful, swaying her feet and swirling her wine. “You liked them, didn’t you?”
Her eyes sparkled when she looked up at me. “A lot. Every year I end up with a few clients who are my favorites. These two, so far, win on cuteness points alone.” Fiona cocked her head. “Although no one beats the great Max Devlin for total cuteness points.”
I tossed her a wink. “Be honest. I’m crushing that spreadsheet of yours, aren’t I?”
She lifted a shoulder, coy and playful. “Let’s change subjects before that ego of yours gets even bigger. What are some of your favorite memories from the places you’ve lived?”
I stirred the pasta, thought about her question. Thought a little bit about that couple in love. “Moab, in Utah.” I tossed a towel over my shoulder, picked up my wine. “I lived there a few years ago and stayed longer than usual because it was that damn beautiful. The desert out there is something else. Harsh but pretty, and most nights you can see the Milky Way. I spent a lot of fucking time on my bike, going on long, long drives through all the parks, staring at those giant canyons. Made me feel small but in a good way.” I watched Fiona over my wine glass. “I think I listened to Neil Young non-stop on those rides.”
“I can see it,” she said. “His voice, plus those melodies, surrounded by red dust and deep canyons. That’s the poetry of perfect background music.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The way a certain song can come on and yank you back to a moment in time. Or make the moment more dramatic.”
She was nodding her head. “Certain songs remind me so strongly of nights with my sister, out in the city. Not just at The Red Room but being young and wild and never needing to sleep. It’ll take me back to some moment in a cab or some bar or some concert that had thrilled me.”
We smiled at each other—because we both got it. And I hadn’t really known that I wanted someone in my life to get it.
“Where else have you loved?” Fiona asked.
“Parts of Vermont,” I said. “And I spent some real time in Austin and Miami. Denver. Nashville. I was in Maine when Pop called me home, staring at the Atlantic Ocean.”
I turned to heat up the tiny pieces of hot dog while keeping an eye on the pasta cooking. “Sometimes, I think you might dig it, Fiona.”
“What, moving around so much?”
“Yeah.” I turned the heat down, stirred the water. “It is a type of controlled chaos. You have no home base and no ties and no place you really need to be. Which could be scary and kind of, well, freewheeling but in a bad way. But because it’s on my terms and I control when and how I do things, it’s more fun and liberating and adventurous. It’s enjoying the journey.”
“I don’t know, not really,” she said softly. “The closest I came to what you’re talking about were touring road trips with my parents. But I was young, in school, with zero control over my surroundings. I’ve never gone somewhere. Just to go somewhere. I was in college, then law school, then started at Cooper Peterson Stackhouse, and it’s been non-stop work ever since.”
She was stroking the stem of her wine glass, looking thoughtful. I cleared my throat, tried to be casual. “You and me. Some time. We could do a thing.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Do a thing?”
“Like go somewhere. Together. I’d put you on the back of my bike with a bag full of the essentials and take off. Head towards the first beautiful place we wanted to.”
She laughed like she was surprised. “What would we do?”
I shrugged. “Go see music. Watch a few sunsets. Explore. Fuck each other for days on end. I’ve got some ideas.”
“And no plans?”
I shook my head. “None at all.”
“I might need to be convinced.”
I laughed as I pulled down two giant bowls from her cabinet. “Well that’s what I’m saying. Leave the to-do lists behind and let me fuck you while we have a wild adventure.”
She was biting her lip and staring down into her glass. “I’m more tempted than I thought.”
I placed two bowls of macaroni and cheese with hot-dog slices on her tiny table. She had two barstools and a vase of pink daisies in the middle. The picture above her table showed Fiona on her graduation day, being squeezed by her parents and a younger-looking Roxy.
Fiona hopped up on the stool, bent down to inhale. “Okay, it smells delicious.”
I handed her a fork. “Filling on a cold night and easy to make when your dad is running a punk rock club all by himself.”
Fiona ate carefully as I joined her, placing the bottle of wine between the two of us. It was a lot—sitting at this tiny table with music on, a bottle of wine, and a beautiful, barefoot woman staring at me like I was her personal hero. I’d never really understood intimacy, but I was starting to think this was it. This closeness I’d never had before with a person I was also sharing a bed with.
“I’d like that, by the way,” she said. I glanced up at her, waiting. “Doing a thing with you.” She said each word slowly, mouth twisted in a smirk.
“You and me, on the road some time?”
“Yep.”
“You can take that much time off of work?”
“Nope.”
I grinned, squeezing her knee beneath the table.
“But I’d hate to have worked so hard to achieve these goals in my life and not…” Fiona paused like she was deep in thought. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. My family tends to harp on my workaholic tendencies. All work and no play. It’s annoying. Because I love what I do, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But maybe, sometimes, what they see in me is all work without enjoying all of this.” She indicated her apartment, the music, me. “It’s not only these window dressings of life. Music, family…” She held my gaze. “Relationships. They can be enjoyed just as thoroughly and should be.” She fiddled with her fork before setting it down. “I wasn’t always so strict with my priorities and my time.”
I poke
d my fork into her bowl and stole a hot dog, which I popped into my mouth. She retaliated by drinking from my wine glass.
“Yeah, well,” I said, leaning back and taking her in. “I probably could have used a slightly stricter idea of my time. Would have helped me be a better friend. A better son, maybe.”
“I see you trying, though,” she said. “It’ll be worth it in the end. Some people, when they find out that they’ve hurt others, they refuse to take responsibility, let alone actually work towards being better.”
I idly stirred my pasta, foot tapping to the beat. “Mateo and Rafael and I spent parts of yesterday papering the block, and you know, we’re older now, but that connection between us is so strong. I took it for fucking granted.”
She was studying me like she wanted to say more. I did too—the unspoken question that hung between us was my job and L.A. and what would happen next. I didn’t have an answer, but I didn’t want to take Fiona for granted.
I dodged it. Even though that would have been the perfect time to bring it up. And it wasn’t lying, but it certainly wasn’t honest. And I always swore I wouldn’t do stuff like that.
“I don’t think you’ll take them for granted again,” she said. “I have faith in you.” Then she leaned over the table and gave me a kiss.
The words almost came out then—she had that kind of power over me. Something sloppy and complicated, like I don’t think I want to leave, but this thing between us is so intense I’m scared of it.
“I wonder if being friends with a powerful lawyer who’d do anything to protect her friends and family is rubbing off on me?”
Her lips pursed, eyes teasing. “You and I are not friends.”
I laughed, rubbing a hand across my jaw. “I’m sure some friends have sex in supply closets, but I think that number is low.”
She grinned around her fork. I caught her leg between mine, pressing my thigh against hers.
Then I took my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the table. Nodded at it. “My mom called me this afternoon. When we were at the park. I haven’t called her back yet, though.”
“Oh, shit.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. Oh, shit.”
“When was the last time she called you?”
I pressed my lips together. “About a year? Maybe less? Sometimes we talk more—five, six times a year. We even meet up while traveling if we’re in spitting distance of each other.”
Although I hadn’t told Pop this yet, she’d seemed tired and a little more ragged the last time we’d met up. I’d smothered that memory, but it resurfaced happily now, especially since I was currently surrounded by a tiny community of people who wanted me to spend more time with them. Not only during sporadic visits that barely last a day.
“You ever go that long without talking to Lou and Sandy?” I asked.
Fiona grabbed her phone and flipped the screen around. “These are the text messages I’ve received this evening.”
Her parents, Roxy, and Edward were all on a group chat with messages filled with explicit language, middle-finger emojis, and funny pictures her parents tried to take. “I thought you didn’t see them all of last year?”
“Didn’t see them that much in person. No Tuesday nights at The Red Room. And spoke with them way less. But they still talk to me constantly, even if I don’t answer for days because I’m buried with work. We’ve always been like that.”
I smirked. “I see you reminding everyone in your family to file their tax returns.”
She slapped her forehead. “Every fucking year with these people. They were due a month ago.”
I laughed. “Yeah and I see you have a new ally in Edward.”
“It is nice to have a future brother-in-law with a business degree and a strong sense of decorum. Drives my sister up the wall.”
I set her phone down. Drained my glass of wine. “Maybe it’s not as normal, the way my mom communicates with me after all.”
“I think whatever you two feel comfortable with is normal,” Fiona said. “Trust me. You and I had, technically, very unconventional childhoods. But it was normal for us. Where is your mom, by the way?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know.”
She finished her dinner, licked her fork clean. “Where does she work at, like when she travels?”
I scratched my head, thought way back. “I’m not… well, I don’t know. Odd jobs, mostly. She’s a pretty decent mechanic herself, so I know she works at shops sometimes.”
She looked up at that. “Oh. Maybe she’s got some good news for you, then. A new job or something?”
“Yeah.” I appreciated her optimism. “I bet you’re right.”
She pointed at the bowl with her fork. “That was fucking delicious.”
“Told ya.”
“Pop must have appreciated that you took care of him when he needed a little extra help.”
I leaned forward, took her hand between mine. “One time, I must have been twelve or so, and Pop had to cancel your parents’ show at the last minute. I don’t know where you and your sister were, but your parents ate macaroni and cheese with me and Pop in that office. Your parents sat on the ground and shared the same bowl, and your mom told me it was the best dinner she’d ever had in her entire life ever.”
Fiona laughed at that. “That’s Lou and Sandy alright.”
I held her gaze. Admired how breathtakingly gorgeous she looked right now. I kissed the center of her palm. The inside of her wrist. Her breathing hitched.
“What’s next on the menu for our second date?” she asked.
Her pulse beneath my fingers was as fast as mine. I kissed it. I’d thought about this next part on the way over here. Hoped it was romantic since I was still new in that area.
“Would you dance with me?”
33
Fiona
I perched on the arm of my couch, biting the tip of my thumb, and watched Max peek through my record collection for the perfect song to slow dance to. Every time he slipped a record out to examine it, he looked impressed.
I couldn’t believe this night was fucking happening.
I hadn’t expected to respond so strongly to seeing Max in my apartment. Max cooking me dinner. Max drinking wine with me and laughing. Stealing my food. Kissing my cheek. Sharing his thoughts and secrets.
There was no section on my many spreadsheets marked intimacy. No section marked fun or comfortable or surprising. Yet if I had created spreadsheets to track the way that feelings between two people actually developed, Max would have had a perfect score.
My contract hung right next to my faded checklist—even now, I couldn’t stop peeking at it. I’d used that contract as a reason to resist his charm and charisma. But if I’d followed my own advice, I never would have known that absolute, euphoric pleasure of Max’s touch. I would never have known his lips on mine or the connection we shared in a million different ways.
Now I just needed to drum up enough courage to ask him to… what? Stay? I still wasn’t even sure what I wanted, except that thinking of his departure date made me nervous and unsettled.
But every time he turned to catch my eye, grinning at me while he admired a beloved album, every cell in my body rushed to reassure me that things were going to be okay, that these early days were magic, and overthinking things would ruin it. And overthinking had been my downfall last year.
“So all those dates of yours,” Max said. “Were any as fun as homemade macaroni and cheese and dancing to Motown?”
“We’re going with Motown, then?”
He winked, slipped an album by The Temptations onto the record player. “Of course, princess. We’re on a date. We’d be foolish not to.”
“Just My Imagination” filled my tiny sitting room. Max held out his hand, and I took it. He tugged me against his chest not a moment later, setting a swaying motion that was perfectly in time with the sweet, wholesome melody. I lifted my head up to find Max staring at me with a fiery, emotional intensity.
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“In total, I dated five different men and went on probably close to twenty first dates with twenty different guys,” I said.
“Per your spreadsheet, I’m guessing.”
I nodded. Sighed when Max pressed his palm to my cheek. I kissed his hand. “Brendan was the guy who broke up with me right before the fire escape. He was the most serious relationship, but that’s not saying much.”
What I didn’t say, and maybe should have, was that the past week with Max had been more fun, more joyous, more interesting, and a hell of a lot sexier than every relationship last year combined.
“Bad in bed, huh?”
“Nice guys that fucked without creativity.”
“Ah.” Max spun me like he did the other night. I laughed. “Creativity is the most important part of sex, in my expert opinion.”
Max dropped his face to mine, pressing our temples together. He slowed our movements down, letting his palm drift up and down along my spine.
“The truth is,” I said softly, “I spent a whole year on dates, but not a single one stands out in my memory. This one will, though. And our first date definitely will.”
“I take it you enjoyed the supply closet?”
He turned me around, tucked my back to his chest. Swayed with me as he kissed my cheek. I was giggling now, flirtatious and loose and obsessed with the way he always touched me. And not in a way that was always sexual. For a man who never stayed the night, Max was very affectionate.
“Let’s say I was convinced.”
He bit my neck, squeezed me tight, spinning me back around so we were dancing again. “I don’t always get to touch or be touched like this.”
I waited, a little stunned. He looked shocked himself. We stopped moving, breath hushed. He clutched my hand directly over his heart. “The nights I spend with women, our time together is only about sex. We’re bodies there for pleasure, for fucking. It’s not the same as what you and I have been doing. Dancing. Hugging. Holding hands.” He pressed our foreheads together. “I didn’t realize how powerful it could be.”
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