Chapter 12 – His Iliac Furrow
Maya –
Even though it’s late afternoon, the tasting room is slower than normal. So slow, that the women of Whitetail—Addy, Clara, Bev, and Evan’s girlfriend, Mary—are all congregated at the bar. Bev and Mary are having a glass and they’re all deep in chat. Or they were until Grady and I walked through the front door, and all eyes settled on my hand being held by Grady’s. Chatting immediately ceased once they got an eyeful, and all their eyes got big.
Great.
My well-thought-out plan of not getting to know anyone, flying under the radar, and hiding in plain sight, has lost its steam. I certainly didn’t mean to gain the attention of any man, let alone the one with whom I’ve become obsessed. The last time a man turned my head, I was sixteen and he was barely a man.
Between Weston appearing, worrying about Joe, stressing about paying my rent, not to mention, or else, I don’t have time for a new man in my life. Obviously, or else wins, tipping the scales of my anxiety at the moment. If all this wasn’t enough, I just agreed to let Grady travel home with me. I guess I deserve that since I basically threw him under the bus last night by pretending he’s something he isn’t in front of Weston.
Not that Grady wasn’t flirty before last night. He definitely was. But ever since I threw myself at him, kissing him like he was mine to kiss, he’s been acting like he’s mine. What’s more—he’s acting like I’m his.
Not that I’m not interested, I am. Not that I don’t like him kissing me, I do—I definitely do. Not that I don’t like him touching me, or sitting in his lap, or even his teasing me. I like it all, and I think I like it too much. And now he’s insisted on traveling to Buffalo with me so I can see Joe.
I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with me, but I didn’t even try to deny him. I simply accepted the fact he’s coming home with me, to be subjected to my mother, who, prior to my leaving, incessantly pressured me to get back together with my cheating, good-for-nothing, murdering, mobster ex-fiancé. She did this solely because she wants a connection to the MacLachlans, as if being married to an Augustine isn’t enough for her. She has no idea what the MacLachlan family is really about.
First things first, I need to talk to Addy about getting a couple days off. I’m looking forward to seeing Joe as much as I’m dreading seeing my mother.
Addy comes around from behind the bar, looking from me, to Grady, and back to me. Her smirk turns into a smile which turns into a knowing grin. I’m not sure what she thinks she knows, but if she knows something, I wish she’d tell me.
As she approaches, Mary and Bev are following with their wine glasses, and Clara is pulling up the rear. Clara is the event manager at Whitetail and I’m still getting to know her. She’s almost full-term and expecting her fourth child in the next couple weeks. To say her personality is OTT would be an understatement.
Without my saying a word, Addy starts, “Crew told me you need some time off to see your family. Come on. Let’s go talk about that in my office.” In one fell swoop, she grabs my free hand, pulling me away. In the process, she looks over her shoulder and says to Grady, “Maya and I need to look at the calendar. Go have a dessert or something.”
Surprised Addy already knows I need some time off, I look back at Grady and he shrugs, but doesn’t seem to have an issue with it and heads to the bar. As Addy and I make our way to her office, I realize the rest of the Whitetail women are following.
When we get there, we file into her small, non-descript workspace. It’s tight and boring in here compared to the charm surrounding her buildings and property. I’m about to ask why everyone is here just to look at the calendar, but Addy beats me to it. “Go see your family for as long as you need. We’ll manage fine.”
“But you can’t miss the company Christmas party. It’s Monday in Addy’s Ordinary.” Clara shuts the door behind her and motions for everyone to move out of her way so she can sit, her big belly paving the way. “I have a sitter. This will be my last hurrah before hellion number four starts to torment me outside the womb.”
“Here.” Addy sits me in the office chair behind her desk and pushes a bowl of candy in front of me. “Have some Laffy Taffy.”
“Maybe you’d like a glass of wine?” When I look over, Bev is saluting me with her glass of red before taking a sip.
“Maybe I should grab a new bottle,” Mary says with a sly smile on her face. “Or two. This could take a while.”
My eyes widen, taking them all in. Finally, I turn to Addy and say, “I only need two days, that should be enough.”
“I told you it doesn’t matter. We’re not here to talk about that anyway.” Addy digs through the bowl of candy and pulls out three green pieces, handing me a purple one. “Do you like grape? We’re here to get the scoop on you. And Grady. Then you and Grady.”
Shocked, I absentmindedly take the purple candy and lean back in my chair.
“She needs wine,” Bev states, and Mary immediately starts to stand, but I stop her.
“No-no. I can’t have wine. Grady and I are running later—a 10K race. The way my life is going, one glass would turn into a bottle, and I can’t be sluggish for the race. I need to be at the top of my game because I want Grady to eat a salad.” I wait for them to say something, but they don’t. They’re staring at me, either frowning, wide-eyed, or confused. “What? He never eats vegetables.”
When no one says a word, Mary finally sets her glass down on the desk. “Okay. Let’s start from the beginning. Who’s that shithead we heard about showing up at your door last night?”
My eyes widen, wondering how they know about Weston.
“Sorry.” Addy tips her head as she unwraps a piece of candy. “Crew told me and I told them.”
I realize my plan hasn’t only lost steam—it’s fallen off the track and landed in a deep abyss, never to be seen again. I guess now there’s no reason to hide anything besides me almost marrying into a family of organized crime. They don’t need to know that.
“Well, he’s my ex-fiancé, although he’s not happy about the ‘ex’ part. He’s been trying to rectify that, but when I wouldn’t budge, he became persistent. So much so that I left. I couldn’t take it any longer—him, my mom, his family … it was exhausting.”
“Why did you break it off?” Bev asks.
I shrug, tired of rehashing this for the second time today. “I found out he was cheating on me.”
“Son-of-a-bitch.” Clara shakes her head while rubbing her tummy.
I go on to tell them all about my past with Weston, Joe’s epilepsy, my pain-in-the-ass mother, and how I’m a physical therapist.
“That’s it,” I say, chewing on my grape candy. “Before this all happened with Weston, I was really boring.”
“Don’t you dare think you’re done,” Mary says, finishing her wine. “We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. Tell us all about Grady.”
“Yes.” Addy steps forward and half-sits on the edge of her desk. “We want to know about Grady. I hardly know anything about him. What’s he like?”
I try to hide my smile by biting my lip. “He’s sweet.”
Instantly, they all look taken aback.
“He is?” Clara looks like she doesn’t believe me.
“That’s not what I expected you to say,” Addy adds.
“Maybe she’s just used to the asshole, so Grady seems, you know … sweet … in a way,” Mary tries to justify Grady being sweet. “Or maybe Maya likes gruff, distant men who are full of themselves.”
Now it’s my turn to look confused. “Full of himself?”
“Poor choice of words.” Addy shoots Mary a look. “Grady’s not full of himself, not by a long shot. If anything, he doesn’t like attention. However, he can be a little distant, and maybe rough around the edges.”
“I guess I can see that if you don’t know him.” He was definitely that way to begin with, but not anymore. “He’s different than he was when I first met him.”
“I’ve always thought Grady was lovely,” Bev states, taking her last sip of wine.
Addy smiles at her older friend. Mary pats her shoulder, but Clara rolls her eyes.
“We still haven’t gotten to the good part,” Clara demands. “For the past week, he won’t order from anyone but you, he’s sat in the tasting room for hours watching you work, now he’s holding your hand, and tonight you two are running a race. Who even does that? So yeah, we want the behind the scenes VIP pass, Maya. Preferably before I pop this baby out—tell us something.”
I tip my head, not knowing where to begin. Do I start with me being a creeper or about me being fascinated with his injuries? Neither is probably a good idea, even I know it’s weird and I don’t know these women very well. I’m still in the making-a-good-impression stage.
I decide to go with the less embarrassing option. “I think maybe he warmed up to me when I started working on his shoulder.”
“I knew it!” Addy exclaimed before looking around to the other women, smiling big. “I did that. I set up the physical therapy date. I set them up just like I set you up,” she stresses, pointing to Mary, who smirks and shakes her head. “Just call me the matchmaker. My skills are honed to perfection. I can’t wait to tell Crew.”
Clara sighs and waves a hand at Addy before looking to me. “Tell us about it.”
“He stood me up the first time I came to work on his shoulder, although I think he was home but just wouldn’t answer the door. I stopped by the next day and surprised him, because he’d just gotten out of the shower. His hair was wet and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. And he smelled good.”
I sigh at the delicious memory of Grady in all his bare male beauty. I feel my face relax just thinking about touching Grady’s bare skin for the first time.
When I look to my audience, they’re listening with rapt attention, and something about the way they’re looking makes me comfortable. I could be wrong, but I think they like me. It could be because I’m good at waiting tables, or I’m mostly on time, or I’m a good listener even if I haven’t been a good sharer. Still, I’m one hundred percent sure they’re not merely nosy because I’m Maya Augustine, daughter of the owner of one of the largest privately-held brokerage corporations in this hemisphere.
No, I’m pretty sure they’re nosy simply because of the undiscovered female gene that makes everyone with a vagina nosy. They simply want the dirt about Grady holding my hand and why in the world we’re running a race tonight. Something about this makes me relax, sort of like a truth serum, and the results will surely be like crack for their nosy gene.
“Yeah, he was half-naked. He had on a pair of sweatpants, but his chest was right there for me to perv on. I shouldn’t have perved, I know this. I’m a healthcare provider, for the love of it all, I should’ve been professional. But it was hard and I think I failed because the whole moment was weird and tense. Very, very tense. It was honestly embarrassing.”
Clara and Mary’s expressions are absolutely greedy. Addy’s trying to hide a smirk, and sweet Bev is sending me supportive vibes, relaying to me that I should keep going, so I do.
“It wasn’t just his chest, but his arms are veined and honed to perfection. It was so hard to focus when measuring his range of motion, I fumbled and had to do it twice, which was even more embarrassing. I’m afraid he noticed, even though I tried to play it off as doing something important. When I was so flustered by his veins, I looked away only to see his iliac furrow.”
“What?” Addy interrupts.
“Yeah, hang on.” Mary leans forward in her seat. “You saw his what?”
“Please tell me the iliac whatever is some new slang for his dick and you got to measure it, too,” Clara pleads and Bev frowns at her.
“Of course not,” I shake my head. “It’s the muscle below his abs going from his hip bone to his pubis.”
“His pubis?” Mary echoes.
“Yeah.” I can’t help the smile that creeps over my face. “His pubis.”
Bev pats Mary’s arm. “She’s a healthcare provider, dear.”
“It’s the V?” Clara guesses. When I grin and nod, she goes on. “We all know what that points to. So, I take it you didn’t get to measure it?”
I shake my head and ignore her. “I felt him watching me the whole time, so I had to look away only to see his bare feet. There was something about his bare feet that was almost intimate, I couldn’t help from getting turned on, so I looked back up, but there was the iliac furrow, and the muscles and the veins … there was nowhere safe to look, so I started to blather on and lecture him about eating too much sugar.”
“Eating too much sugar?” Addy gives me a confused frown as she chews on her Laffy Taffy.
I sigh, leaning back into her office chair. “Yes. I didn’t know what else to talk about. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re a strange bird, Maya Augustine,” Clara shakes her head. “But I like you.”
“You do?” Like everything else, it pops out of my mouth before I can catch it and swallow it down.
Clara looks taken aback, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her that way. Nothing ever seems to phase her. “Of course, I do. Why would you say that?”
I shrug. “I’ve just … never had a lot of friends, that’s all.”
“So, wait,” Addy starts, looking distracted. “You said you met your ex when you were sixteen and even though it might’ve been bad at the end, you were together until recently, right?”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“That’s a long time. Have you ever dated anyone else?” she goes on.
I shake my head, biting my lip.
A big grin spreads across Mary’s face. “No wonder his bare feet made you wet in the wonderland. You’ve only ever been with that asshole and now you have Adonis holding your hand and racing you through the woods. You’re like an awkward fairytale for physical therapists everywhere.”
I try not to wiggle in my chair thinking about Grady’s bare anything, but the words just won’t stop now that they’ve started. “My brother, Joe, has some health issues. I just found out today he’s been having seizures again. Since Weston knows where I am, there’s no reason for me not to go see Joe, even though I have no desire to be anywhere near Weston. Since that’s a possibility, Grady said he’d come with me. I feel bad, but like a big fat chicken, I didn’t argue.”
“Why do you feel bad?” Mary asks.
“Because, when Weston showed up on my doorstep, I was shocked to see him. I was even more shocked to see Grady. I had no idea what to do, but I knew I had to do something, so I threw myself at Grady. I kissed him and acted like we’re together, and now he’s playing along, only it doesn’t feel like he’s playing. It feels real.”
“Maybe it’s because he wants it to be real,” Addy says, with a faraway look in her eyes. She’s probably patting herself on the back for her supernatural matchmaking skills.
“That man hasn’t looked like he’s been acting for the last week. He wants you, and you need to let him go home with you. How bad can it be, anyway?” Clara asks.
Thinking of my mother, my mobster ex-fiancé, and his organized-crime-laden family, I decide not to answer that question. To them, I’m just Maya, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as I can. For the first time in my life, I feel normal.
But I know the answer to her question, and I think it has the potential to be bad.
Really bad.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when Addy’s desk phone rings, and she turns to answer it.
“Really?” she asks into the phone, but looks to me as a smile spreads across her face. She stands and her eyes widen with excitement when she continues. “We’ll be right out.”
“What’s going on?” Clara asks.
“Yeah,” I add. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Addy moves to the door, waving her hand for me to follow. “You got a delivery and Evan said it’s something pretty! Well, he didn’t say pretty, but he did say it was pink and girly, so it has to be pretty, right? Come on, let’s go see what Grady sent you.”
Why would Grady send me anything? He’s been with me constantly—sending me something would be silly.
But I’m a curious girl nonetheless, so I hop up and am the first out the door.
When I round the corner to the tasting room, I see them, and Addy was right—they’re pink and pretty. But they aren’t just pretty, they’re beautiful. A huge arrangement of pink blossoms are overflowing on the bar, but it’s not a bouquet. They’re brimming out of a basket and look more like a plant rather than cut flowers. It has to be over three feet wide and just as tall. I grew up with fresh flowers displayed in our house at all times, and this one would impress even my mother.
My heart stops as I’m halted in my tracks, the rest of the nosy crew stopping with me. None of us utter even an ooh or ah, when the arrangement is completely ooh-and-ah worthy.
This is because Grady is standing next to my delivery and I instantly know it’s not from him. Ever since I first laid eyes on him, he’s been grumpy, brooding, teasing, sweet, or downright panty-melting hot. But I’ve never seen him angry, and it’s radiating off of him.
“Umm.” Clara breaks the silence from beside me. “I take it those aren’t from you, are they, stud muffin?”
Grady doesn’t move, but his eyes dart to Clara and narrow.
“No, I’d say these are definitely not from Grady,” Bev guesses.
“They are pretty,” Addy adds, hesitantly.
I feel someone touch my arm and hear Mary as she leans in close. “I think he might explode.”
That was all it took.
Grady crinkles a piece of paper I didn’t know he was holding and turns to roughly pick up the basket, heading to the kitchen.
I move quickly to follow, calling, “Wait, what’s going on?”
But he doesn’t wait or explain anything to me. Like he’s been in the kitchen a million times, he stalks straight to the back door where the loading dock is located. Right when I clear the doorway, I see him at the dumpster just in time to hear the crash as he violently slams the flowery pink plant inside.
“Holy shit,” Clara mutters from beside me. I agree wholeheartedly.
I move to Grady and look down into the dumpster where the plant is now mangled with all the smelly trash.
But I don’t care about the flowers. I look back up to Grady because all I care about is him being upset. “Are you okay?”
His rage is still festering, but I see him take a deep breath and he lowers his voice. “You’re not going back to him.”
Confused, I shake my head. “What? Of course, I’m not.”
He takes a step and his hand comes to my jaw where he levels his eyes with mine. “You’re not going anywhere without me, and I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I lift my hand to gently give his wrist a squeeze and soften my voice to calm him. “Okay, but you have to tell me what all this is about.”
“Oleander.” He lifts his hand up with the crinkled piece of paper to read it aloud. “My dear Maya—An oleander for you as a reminder of how anything around you can be deadly if you don’t choose wisely. It’s time to come home.”
My eyes widen and he instantly crinkles the paper again, throwing it harshly into the dumpster, with what I now know is a poisonous plant.
“It’s signed Byron Murray,” he growls. “He’s not getting anywhere near you. None of them are—I promise.”
I exhale and nod right before he pulls my face to his where he kisses me—deeply and passionately—showing me he’ll take care of me.
“Holy shit,” Clara exclaims again.
“You got that right,” Mary agrees.