Jack Griggs
I’d let her walk away that night. I couldn’t believe the shit spewing from her beautiful lips. I’d dropped my barriers for her, which felt like a big deal, and I was opening up again for her. Yet she just didn’t see it. She chose to believe the worst about me. Carly had pushed my buttons and if I was half as brave as she was, I would have told her how wrong she was. I hadn’t spent that night with her trying to figure out how to get her to leave. I was trying to build up enough courage to ask her to stay. I’d stared and stared at the TV, wondering if this crazy forbidden thing I’d started could ever work for us, and while I worked through all the negatives, I found it fucking easier to kick them aside in favor of how she was making me feel. The walls of my bland apartment had felt alive for the first time, like she’d breathed the missing life back into them. Into me.
How on earth had I let it happen? Falling for her was quite possibly the stupidest idea ever, but the thought of not having her in my life was far worse than the trouble our relationship was going to cause when it finally came out.
Relationship… what the fuck was I saying? She didn’t see it that way and I knew I had to come up with a plan to show her I really wanted to give this a shot, even though I was her mom’s best friend. Even though I was way too old for her and I was her tutor. Thinking about the last point put a cloud over everything and made it sound sleazy when for me it was anything but. I had no idea how to make her see the potential for what could be between us, when for all intents and purposes, it had to remain a secret—like something dirty, something illicit, fuck, something forbidden.
One thing I did know was we’d never make this work if only one of us was invested and we weren’t honest in our communication. It wasn’t like I could be a regular guy and rock up to her house to ask her on a date. Cornering her for a private moment felt all kinds of fucking arousing, but I didn’t want to pressure her during snatched moments of conversation. I wanted to woo her and see if we could really get this together.
First things first, though, my apartment was going to be the safest place, the only place, we could be together so the least I could do was fucking clean it. If she felt it was just a shag pad then that’s what it must have looked like last night. Housework had never had a purpose before, but if it helped Carly see that I wasn’t just using her then I’d push the vacuum round and do some laundry.
Mindless tasks helped me out more than I could have imagined. They gave me some space to figure out how I was going to handle everything. At the end of the day, I still had to mentor her and she still had her final year of college to get through. There’d be no winning anyone over, especially her, if I fucked up her future by screwing over her education. I went to the food market and stocked up on stuff that I could cook for her. It wasn’t like we would be able to go out for meals like a regular couple, and then I began to worry that being this prepared looked slightly contrived.
I began to feel antsy when I hadn’t heard from her at all. I was up to date with all my lecture prep and marking, and had nearly run out of things to occupy myself. With nothing left to do, I put on some gym clothes and went for a run. If she hadn’t contacted me by the time I got back, I’d man the fuck up and do it, send her a text and get the ball rolling.
My cell rang as I was on the second lap of the park and I stopped so abruptly it was like I’d hit a wall. I was desperate for this call and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of me taking it.
“Yeah?” I breathed heavily.
“I’m hoping I’ve interrupted the right kind of exercise that leaves you breathless. Not the horizontal kind.”
“Jake?”
“Well? Safe to talk or are you still entertaining?”
“Jogging.” With a bit of luck, he would focus on that rather than the disappointment I couldn’t hide from my voice. It wasn’t her and I was pissed because I hadn’t looked at the caller ID before I’d answered it.
“Need a huge favor,” he began, as I wandered to a park bench and sat down. “Rebecca is seriously struggling. She needs a break and I’ve been neglecting my beautiful wife. I need you to come home and babysit your niece next weekend while I whisk her away for—”
“Don’t finish that. I get the gist. No need to go there.”
“Some R&R, you dirty fucker. Anyway, everyone else is busy and short of enrolling Livvy in the kids’ home, you’re it. I doubt Lace would appreciate me using Grove House as a kid’s hotel so parents can go on a fuck fest.”
“And, you went there.” I groaned.
“Of course. Had to remind you I have a beautiful wife who is a dancer. Do you know how bendy dancers are?”
“Don’t. Stop.”
“Exactly. I’m in danger of forgetting myself.”
I had to fight against the surge of fucking annoyance that I felt. It wasn’t right to hate someone just because they were happy. Shit a fucking brick. My brother was definitely desperate. I’d been in his kid’s space for a few hours, a day at the most, and even then I was under close guard at all times. My mom would always hover. I knew there was probably a list of people a mile long he’d rather have asked. So for him to come at me and ask me to do this, he clearly needed to get Becca away. In fact, between me and Livvy, I wasn’t sure who would end up looking after who.
“Seriously, bro, I need this. It’s the only weekend I’ve got off for the next few months and if we don’t do this now, well, let’s just say I’ll be on a restricted diet.”
I didn’t want to do this. Leaving here flew in the way of my plans to get Carly on side and show her how good it could be if we just gave the ‘we’ bit a chance.
“I might have plans, and anyway, you know I’m not exactly equipped for this kind of task long term.”
“Agreed. That’s why Rebecca’s roped Carly in. Lacey is tied up at Grove House and Tommy is on Sevens hellion duty, but she’s not blood. You are. I figure the least you could do is come home and participate… pay for pizza, that kind of shit. Besides, when she goes home, Livvy will be asleep so your expert participation will be minimal. You’re night duty and she’s on during the day.”
Hearing her name nearly made me drop my phone.
“I’ll be there.” I tried to make it sound like I was grumbling, but his laugh told me that I’d answered with more enthusiasm than he was expecting.
“Okay,” he laughed. “Someone’s keen to see his niece then. Carly’s picking up some shit for the studio, too. Just help her out. Don’t completely disappear. Flash your cash and be there at night so she can go home.”
Well, this put a whole new light on the situation. Some enforced together time was just what I needed. “Uh… does Carly know I’m on the night shift?”
I tried not to smile as I said those words. Day shift, night shift, hell, any shift I was going to be in her space like the oxygen around her and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
“No, she thinks Mom is, but she’s got some fuckin’ stomach flu and I don’t want Livvy catching that, so you’re up.”
I desperately wanted to ask him to keep it quiet and not tell her, but I couldn’t do that. Being honest, I was shitting it that she’d duck out of the job if she found out I’d been recruited to help.
“I’ll drive her home with me.”
“Whatever. I’ll call her and let her know about the change in plans then.”
Uh, no, bro. That would be a disaster. “I’ll see her on campus this week. I’ll tell her.”
“Whatever. Thanks brother, you’re going to love spending time with Livvy. She’s hilarious and will either make you want to procreate immediately or smash your bollocks between two bricks to safeguard yourself for the future. Laters.”
Laughing, I realized he’d already hung up and my apprehensive mood from earlier was well and truly gone. I’d been given an unexpected opportunity, a gift, and I was going to make the most of it.
* * *
I survived the week without any intimate interaction with Carly. I did, however, do that slightly stalkerish thing of being in places where she might be. I didn’t want her to forget that I existed, and when she did spot me, her eyes flashed with some untold emotion I couldn’t decipher. We had two of our three scheduled mentor sessions and everything went as it needed to. For the first one, she was extremely nervous and coy about being with me. Fortunately, we’d gone back to the library, so it worked well. After forty minutes of strangeness, she got her head together and the lesson proceeded. Most of my body was jangling with excitement at being so close to her, but as we were in public, it was easier to get myself under control. After all, delayed gratification is part of the art of seduction. Lesson two, she was as cool as I was. She avoided eye contact, and it was as if she’d resigned herself to believing whatever bullshit she’d cooked up in her head the night she left my apartment. That was when I realized I needed to do the magician’s appearance trick around campus. I was hoping that it would cause her to doubt the shit she believed to be true. If only she realized just how much I wanted her to be mine. She’d see that this long drawn out week had an end game.
My brother had texted me the day before we were due to have our final session to check he was still good to whisk Rebecca away. I replied so fast the typing of letters on my phone couldn’t keep up. That was when Carly sent a text cancelling our last mentor session. I was expecting it really because there was no way she could meet me and make it home in time for Jake and Rebecca to leave. I didn’t reply. I didn’t trust myself not to taunt her and as I’d agreed with Jake, I arrived to pick her up and drive her back home instead of my brother.
Let me tell you, that did not go down well.