Chapter 5
“ARE YOU READY?” Gavin pulled his door shut, making sure it was locked. He opened and closed his hand, stretching out the tightness of his skin. The pounding of his heart thumped in his brain. Spending time with Charlotte had been all he could think about. She’d consumed his every thought. But meeting her family before he’d had the chance to really get to know her made his insides shake.
Not to mention he felt guilty over chatting with AngelaBennett this morning.
Charlotte stood by the steps, leaning against the railing where they’d shared a kiss the night before. He hadn’t planned on kissing her and he half expected her to push him away.
But she didn’t and if he hadn’t stopped, he wondered if the kiss would have led to an invite inside and maybe another drink, which would have been fine, but he needed to take things slow. He liked her too much to turn things into a short-lived fling.
She smiled at him and her dark eyes glimmered with mischief.
He took that as a good sign.
That was until he stood next to her and she tilted her head and smirked.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she said with her arms folded across her chest. “I mean, maybe we shouldn’t have our second date be at a family gathering of sixty of my relatives.”
“We’re labeling this a date?”
Talk about mixed messages. Her body language said take a hike, but her words were an entirely different story.
“After last night, I think a date or two are in order, but not under the scrutiny of my family. That will surely kill whatever last night was, trust me.”
“Our first date was with my family, only fitting our second is with yours.” Part of him wanted to throw in the white towel, but he couldn’t help thinking about her conversation with her brother. “Besides, won’t it be fun to show up with me and get them to stop pushing you.”
“It might make it worse and not just for me.” She curled her fingers around his biceps. “I don’t think you understand what you’re getting yourself into. My family can be overwhelming and not in the teasing sense your sister was last night.”
“Do you not want me to go?” His words sounded harsher than he’d meant, but his confusion and frustration levels were at an all-time high.
“I didn’t say that. I’m just giving you an out and trying to let you know that I wouldn’t be upset if you bailed.”
“I’m not the bailing type of guy.” He snagged her hand and tugged her down the steps. He really had no right to be mad. She had a valid point about her family. They barely knew each other and that would certainly show in any conversation “We’ll take my truck.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“All right, then. Let’s go.”
He helped her into the cab before climbing in the driver’s side and revving the engine. It wasn’t necessary, but it helped to claim his nerves. He clipped his cell phone in the holder, finding his favorite country playlist.
He slammed the gearshift into reverse. “Do you know whose car that is?” He craned his neck, trying to get a good look at the person sitting in the car.
“No idea,” she said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
The man behind the wheel waved. Gavin nodded.
Once on the highway, racing down the road at seventy-five, his mind and body relaxed.
He glanced at Charlotte, who’d kicked off her sandals and rested her bare feet on his dashboard, showing off her dark, pink toenails. A silver chain with a heart pendant dangled from her ankle as she tapped her foot with the beat of the music.
“You never told me what the party is all about,” he said, mesmerized by the way she twirled her fingers in her long dark hair.
“We actually have a monthly gathering to celebrate any birthdays, engagements, graduations, whatever. My father’s family has been doing it for decades. This month it’s celebrating my sister’s birthday and pending motherhood, any day now, and my cousin’s engagement.”
His mind wandered to his conversation online earlier and what AngelaBennett had said about her break-up. Quickly, he shoved the thought away. If he was going to have any chance with Charlotte, he’d have to stop logging onto the dating site.
After he said goodbye to AngelaBennett. He owed her that.
“Your family really does this once a month?”
“Like clockwork. Not everyone attends all the time, but pretty damn close.”
“I take it everyone lives in Dallas?”
“Get off here and take a right.” She pointed to the exit sign, her fingernails matched her toes.
“Everyone. It’s like no one is allowed to leave. I actually went to school at MIT, which nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack. I got a job in Silicon Valley, but was lucky they encouraged remote locations, so I came back here to make the family happy.”
“My family is basically the same, only we’re all first responders.” He followed the directions she’d given him, basically knowing the area as his ex-girlfriend didn’t live too far away. Actually, just three streets over from where she said her parents lived. Not that he’d ever been to his ex’s house. He often wondered, during their eight-month relationship if she’d been embarrassed either by his lower-middle-class status.
Or just him.
“We don’t gravitate to any one job. We’ve got doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, business professionals, and a few professors tossed in for good measure.”
He turned onto a long private driveway. The gate had been opened for the Porsche that had pulled in ahead of him. Large, green bushes dotted the road. The front yard was the size of a small park. In the distance, a white house with black shutters that looked more like a country club than home, filled the sky.
“You grew up here?”
She nodded. “I probably should have warned you, but my family has just a smidgen of money.” She held up her hand, pinching her thumb and forefinger together.
“Mind if I ask what your parents do?” The closer he got to her childhood home, the faster his heart beat. He wanted to do a quick U-Turn and haul ass. He should have considered the address when she’d given him the chance to back out. He didn’t do rich folk well. Lydia had tried to ‘educate’ him on the finer things in life. He would always prefer a good longneck to a fancy bottle of wine. Not that he didn’t like wine, he did. But he preferred not to spend more than a twenty on a single bottle.
“My dad is a heart surgeon, specializing in heart transplants and my mom is a criminal lawyer.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Hard shoes to fill, so when I went into technology, I thought my parents were going to flip.”
“And what do your siblings do?”
“Everyone followed in Dad’s footsteps and became some sort of doctor, except my one sister who is closest to me in age. She went to law school, but married a doctor, who by the way, is my ex-boyfriend.”
He gripped the steering wheel, whipping his head in Charlotte’s direction. “What did you say?”
“You heard…WATCH OUT.”
He slammed on the breaks, nearly hitting the expensive sports car in front of him as they approached the front of the circular driveway, and valet parking.
“I’d rather self-park,” he muttered, clearing the cobwebs from his brain as he slid from his truck, reluctantly leaving the keys in the ignition. If she just said what he thought she’d said, then she was his friend from the internet and that was just weird.
But cool.
However, he wasn’t sure how she’d take finding out he was who’d she’d been chatting with.
He out a long breath. “Sorry, you threw me with the whole ex thing.”
“Did I, really?” she asked with her head cocked and a slight grin.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think she knew he was sexyfirefighter. But if she did, he thought she would have said something between the time they’d left their duplex and now.
“I can’t imagine having to see my ex in that situation all the time. Kudos to you.”
“Thanks, but I love my sister and want her to be happy. Besides, I’m used to it by now. It’s been three years,” she said as she stepped from the truck with the help of a parking attendant. “It’s a non-issue at this point.”
He didn’t buy it. “Is this the sister that’s pregnant?” He laced his fingers with hers, feeling the electric spark the moment their skin touched. He knew he’d have to tell her who he was, but better in private versus a public family gathering.
“Same one.”
“You mentioned we’re celebrating a cousin who just got engaged as well. I figure I should know who that is so it doesn’t seem like I’m clueless about your family.”
“Her name is Lydia. Lydia Rosedale and she’s—”
He yanked his hand away with a quick jerk. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Life had tossed some interesting twists of fate his way, but this had to be one of the cruelest.
“You know her?”
“I used to be in love with her,” he admitted.
Charlotte’s bourbon eyes widened, then narrowed into tiny questioning slits. “You’re the Gavin Clark she used to date? She told me about you and how overwhelming you could be. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together when you told me that on-li...”
“Is that how she tells it? She doesn’t mention that she told me she no longer loved me and was going back to her rich boyfriend three weeks after I’d been burned and nearly died, AngelaBennett? Did she tell you that?” He bit down on his tongue, stopping himself from making matters worse. It wasn’t Charlotte’s fault that her cousin had kicked him when he’d been down, but to be brought to a family party where her engagement was front and center was more than his normally easy going self could tolerate.
“No, she never mentioned anything about your accident. She only said that you…”
He let the long pause linger for a moment before responding, which didn’t ease the tension growing in the warm air. “That I what?”
“Do you really want me to say it?”
He snagged two glasses of champagne some idiot offered, chugging one. The bubbles tickled his throat as the liquid slid down his esophagus. “Yes. I do.”
“That you were her ‘wild oats’ before settling down.”
He dropped the fancy plastic cup on the tray and snagged another one. He held it out to Charlotte.
“No thanks, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” He downed that one, ignoring the fizz that shot to his nose. “I’ll take one more.”
“You should slow down.”
“Really? I think I deserve to get rip roaring drunk considering I’m about to see the woman who ripped my heart from my chest and wiped her feet on it, all the while grappling with the idea that the woman I’m currently dating is also the woman I just started chatting with online, and she knew it.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t know until this morning when I saw your tattoo on your back.” She took him by the hand, guiding him through a sea of people, around the side of the house…no mansion, that looked more like a posh resort. “I didn’t say anything because, well, I don’t know why. I guess I wanted to have fun with it being anonymous a little while longer.”
“You had to know I’d figure it out the second you mentioned your sister’s situation, which you only told me online.”
“Are you really mad at me over the online shit, or are you still hung up on Lydia?”
“I’m not hung up on her, but if I had known all this shit, I would have taken that out you gave me.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, right in front of the gate to a large pool and at least 40 people mingling about the concrete deck. “Put the drink down, have a tall glass of water, and in about an hour you can leave if you want.”
He hated being called on his bluff. No fucking way would he leave, especially when he could potentially fuck with Lydia. He tossed back the champagne, coughing as soon as the glass left his lips. “How close are you to your cousin?”
“We used to be really close, but she knew about my sister and my ex and didn’t tell me, so that put a damper on our relationship, not to mention I didn’t like how she handled the situation with you, even though I knew nothing other than she used you while she strung along Alan.”
“You seem to know enough.” He scanned the party, looking for a petite girl with medium length blonde hair. It took only a minute before he found Lydia, draped over some tall dude in a dress shirt and slacks. Who the fuck wore that to a pool party?
“Want to have a little fun with both of our ex’s?” He looped an arm over Charlotte’s shoulders.
She tilted her head.
He smiled before leaning in and pressing his lips against hers a little more harshly than planned. He blamed it on the alcohol that had already gone to his head.
“What do you have in mind, my sexy firefighter?”