CHAPTER TWELVE
Elijah
Du Pont victorious in mayoral election despite Getaway Girl scandal.
Gets busy at his desk without delay!
—Southern Insider News
I pull up behind the moving truck and shift into park. In front of me, men are already hopping out of the front cab, putting on gloves and taking one final pull of their morning coffee. A man in coveralls throws me a salute, then rolls up the back hatch, probably waking up half the neighborhood. At least someone will be awake. I’m more zombie than human this morning.
Last night, I didn’t go back to Addison’s apartment. Didn’t go to the hotel, either. In fact, I sat on the couch in my office so long, the sun started to come up before I knew a minute had passed. What the hell happened? In the space of an evening, I was elected mayor of Charleston, had the hottest—filthiest—sex of my life. And I think I lost my best friend.
That last one is what has a wrench stuck in my throat.
Somehow this is my fault, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where I took a misstep. Yes, I was an active participant in fucking Addison on my desk. There are consequences for what happened. But I’m not seeing the full picture. Something is hanging out right in the periphery of my consciousness and it won’t become clear. No matter how much bourbon I drink. No matter how many times I replay Addison’s mouth under mine…her breasts in my hands. How uninhibited she was. Those satisfied whimpers.
“Not helping,” I mutter, taking a swig of my own lukewarm coffee. “Idiot.”
A whole night of thinking and here is what I came up with: Addison can’t just stay in my home without furniture. As well as I can remember, there’s nothing but a couple twin beds in some of the guest rooms and a handful of rolled up carpets. I’m the owner of the home where she’s staying and in the south, there are laws against guests being uncomfortable. Which is why I’ve moved my furniture out of storage at the crack of dawn and delivered it here, instead of showing up at City Hall the day after the election. There’s probably a cake and a banner in the lobby, all manner of folks waiting to slap me on the back, but I’m in last night’s clothes trying to see the outline of Addison through the windows. Has she already left for work?
“Hey, boss.” That muffled greeting is followed by a knock on the window. “You have the key to the front door?”
“No. We’ll have to knock.” I open the driver’s side door and climb out, my mouth tasting like sludge. “Let’s go find out if the lady of the house is present, shall we?”
“Yes, sir.” A trio of men follow me up the steps, two of them carrying bubble-wrapped side tables. “I’m glad to hear everything worked out.”
My hand pauses in the act of knocking. “I’m sorry?”
“With your fiancée.” He taps the side of his head. “I’m glad she came to her senses.”
Is he talking about…Naomi? The notion of her coming back and moving into this house, like nothing ever happened, is so absurd, I can’t help but laugh. During last night’s Epic Evening of Thought, Naomi made an appearance once or twice, but only in the capacity of what came after the wedding. Walking out of the church and feeling like an abject failure. A disappointment to someone who’d once believed in me enough to accept a marriage proposal. It’s something I try not to think about, but last night it continued to jump out and bite me. I’m not sure why. “No, this is a different woman who came to her senses.”
The mover’s face falls. “I’m sorry, boss, I didn’t realize.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Everyone still seems uncomfortable, so I give them each a nod. “I appreciate you coming out so early. Lunch is on me later.”
“Can I help you?”
Addison’s voice comes from the bottom of the stairs and I sidestep the men to get a look. Ignoring the odd ripple in my gut, I see that she’s sweating from a run, one earbud dangling from her right ear. Her cheeks are chapped from the wind and wispy black hairs are coming loose from her ponytail. I’m usually at work by the time she returns from her run, so it’s rare that I see her like this. But it feels like the first time. Probably because we’re miles away from her apartment and nothing looks or sounds or feels the same.
Also probably because I came inside her last night.
“Elijah?” she says, tilting her head and prompting me. “What’s up?”
“Come unlock the door. You’re getting furniture.”
She’s just as surprised by my irritated tone of voice as I am. “I…no. I don’t need it. There’s running water and a bed. A couple pots and pans. I was going to go grab sheets and towels at my place later.”
“What about a couch, television, dining table…”
“I’m not planning on staying forever.”
Why that rushed statement is a right cross to my face, I can’t say. But it serves to make me even more determined to deck out the house like a palace. “Unlock the door or I’ll call a locksmith. You’re going to be comfortable in my home, goddammit.”
Her mouth wobbles and she breaks into a laugh. “What is this? Aggressive southerning?”
Realizing I sounded like a moron, I can’t help but laugh, too. Unfortunately, that’s when I realize the movers are staring at her like she’s a siren straight out of Greek mythology, so my mirth is short lived. “Gentlemen.” I cut them a look, then send Addison the exact same one. “Goose.”
“Look out, boys.” Addison sways up the steps, removing the house key from a tiny, zippered compartment hidden in her running pants. “He’s flexing that mayor muscle now.”
“The inauguration isn’t for weeks,” I say, when she’s even with me on the porch. A sweaty strand of hair sticks to her neck and vaguely I wonder who saw her running. Men? Did they exchange words or a smile? The possibility makes me feel seasick, but I chalk it up to the hangover. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
“You’re going to be unbearable when it’s official.” She unlocks the door and pokes it open with a finger, throwing me a wink. “I take that back. You’re unbearable now.”
Relief settles in my stomach. Things are back to normal. Apart from the fact that she’s living in my house without me, that is. But if she was still out of shape over last night, she wouldn’t be poking fun at me just like always, would she? Truth be told, though…I’m not as relieved as I would have expected.
I follow her into the house, but come to a stop when I see a collection of cleaning supplies gathered just inside the foyer. “Lord almighty. Tell me you didn’t clean.”
“I didn’t clean?”
“You did.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This is an outrage.”
She wrinkles her nose as the movers lumber past with a couch. “I know this is going to come as a shock, but most people don’t have cleaning ladies. Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic? You changed residences in the middle of the night.”
“Now you’re stuck with a squatter.” She studies her nails. “This is why you never get in cars with strangers.”
“Now that’s dramatic,” I say, pointing at her. “And you’re not a squatter. You’re a guest.”
“Well, then.” She drops her hand and looks around. “The hospitable thing to do would be to give me a tour.”
“Haven’t you already taken an unguided one?”
“In the dark, yes. But I only poked my head into a couple rooms until I found a bed.” She smiles. “And before you ask, yes, I slept on a mattress with no sheets.”
“The hits just keep on coming,” I mutter. “All right, then, Miss Potts. Let’s start with the kitchen.”
“Aye aye, captain.” She clicks her heels together and salutes me. “Lead the way.”
When I pass her on the way to the room in question, I have the insane urge to pick her up and tickle her until she screams. But since day one, there has been an unspoken no-touching rule between us. Until last night. I’m determined to put this friendship back on solid ground, so the rule is back in effect, starting now. Ignoring my strangely itchy hands, I hold the swinging door open for her, my eyes straying back to that sweaty hair stuck to her neck as she passes. “Have you been in here yet?”
“No,” she whispers, coming to a stop. “I can’t believe you wanted to cook in my dinky little kitchen when you had this waiting for you.”
Frowning at her words, I regard the sun-drenched kitchen. Cream-colored cabinets, vintage fixtures, tiled backsplash. Marble-topped island, dark wood floors, stainless steel appliances. No denying it’s huge and almost over-the-top glamorous. Big enough to hold the members of a large catering company comfortably when we entertained. We. Naomi and I. Although, we never really spoke about entertaining, did we? It was just a given. Something our parents did and we would be expected to do. “Don’t be alarmed when you come home and the pantries and refrigerator are stocked. I’m appointing an intern as soon as I get to the office.”
She turns to me with an open mouth. “Elijah, no.”
“Addison, yes.”
“I’m moving back out.”
“Oh no. You’re staying put.” I escort her back out of the room. “This is what happens when you offer getaway rides to big, bossy southerners.”
“Don’t steal my jokes.”
My mouth twitches. “Downstairs would have been the billiard room. I’m guessing some kind of wine cellar that I never would have set foot in—”
“Why are you talking about everything like it’s past tense?” She stops me from climbing the stairs with a hand on my arm, but pulls back like she’s been shocked. “This is your home. All these plans you made don’t have to be thrown out like yesterday’s bath water.”
Discomfort climbs the back of my neck. “Are you saying you want a roommate?”
Her cheeks go pink, but she scoffs. “God, no. I came here to get a break from you.”
The impulse to pick her up is now twice as strong as before. Only instead of tickling her, I’d like to throw her down on these stairs and call her bluff. After her admissions last night, I know she likes having me around just fine. Loves it, if I recall correctly. The only thing that saves her is the movers. And that’s a scary thought. It’s scary that after last night, I’m noticing how the light makes her skin glow, how she says my name like a sigh. How tight her running pants are in the posterior. Pull it together. That’s what I tell myself, even as I search for a way to call her bluff without putting my hands on her. “If you want me to go, just say the word.”
Her eyes go wide and vulnerable, but she recovers fast. “Look who’s back to being dramatic.” She waves her hand at the staircase. “Finish the tour.”
My chest tightens with satisfaction. Sort of. Just like last night, I’m still unsettled and it’s more than what happened between Addison and me. There’s something out of reach and it’s driving me crazy. With a tight nod, I head upstairs and turn right down the south hallway. “Guest rooms, mostly, down this way. Although that door at the end…”
“What?”
“I think she…”
“You can say her name to me,” Addison says, her voice bright as she glides past. “This was going to be her house.”
“Right.” I follow Addison, wondering why my ex-fiancée’s name sounds so foreign on my tongue. “I think it was going to be a meditation room.”
“Oh.”
A crack of laughter leaves me. “How do you pack so much judgment into a single word?”
“Practice.” She seems to brace her shoulders before walking into the small room that overlooks the bay. “I can’t get over the view. I spent most of the night sitting on the third-floor balcony watching the boats.”
Don’t sing to them or they’ll crash on the rocks. The thought catches me off guard, but it sticks. I can picture her up there, dark hair flying around in the wind, beckoning to passing sailors. Will I ever get to see her up there? “You like the house?” I rasp.
She shrugs one shoulder. And coming from Addison, that’s a resounding yes. “It reminds me of you.”
Why am I holding my breath? “Does it?”
“Mmmhmm. Old-fashioned and charming…” She squints at my backside. “With a big old kitchen.”
The heat that weaves up my neck is humiliating, but I cough my way through it. I’m not sure if my usual embarrassment is at play, or if I’m remembering for the thousandth time how hard I came when she used that damn finger on me. Was it supposed to make me shake like a damn teenager? “It’s not polite to make ass jokes about your tour guide.”
“Oh come on. You know I love that thing.”
When she crosses to the window and looks down, I ask, “What are you looking at?”
“Just checking to see if your milkshake brought all the boys to the yard.”
I sigh.
She rolls her lips together to flatten a smile.
“Since meditation isn’t your thing, what would you use this room for?”
The smile drops completely. “That hardly matters.”
“I want to know.”
Her hands slide into her pockets as she turns in a slow circle. “Probably…an ornament assembly room. I don’t know.” I barely have time to picture her materials and ribbons strewn all over the floor before she shoots out of the room. “Okay, Captain. I got up early and swung by my place to pack some clothes and get my car, because I have plans. Let’s wrap this hospitality mission up.”
Plans. I want to know them. Badly. But her tone tells me it’ll be a cold day in hell before she tells me a single one.
“Hospitality doesn’t have a time limit,” I say, following her while trying to ignore the tight side-to-side sway of her backside. Not so easy, now that my hands are acquainted with its shape and texture. “You should know, you’ve been generous with yours for months.”
She slows to a stop and pivots to face me, a line between her brows.
I’ve gone from wanting to tickle her, to getting her under me…and now I just want to shake her. “Why do you look surprised?” I step closer, pressing a finger to my chest. “I’m grateful, Addison. For all the times you stayed up and kept me company, made me dinner, let me be in a bad mood. Let me have the remote.” We both laugh quietly. “Now it’s my turn.”
“I liked having you there,” she whispers, turning her face away. “It was okay.”
A thud starts in my chest. “I was an asshole last night. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared into my own head like that. We should have gone home together and talked once we’d gotten some sleep.” She says nothing. “We were good, just as we were. We can go back to that right now.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but the movers choose that moment to breach the top step with a headboard. It takes me a second to place it—hell, I barely had a hand in picking any of the furniture—but the rich wood finally rings a bell. The master bed. Addison and I stand there and watch as one of the movers nudges open a door with his foot, guiding his partners back through the entrance. It’s obvious she didn’t include the master bedroom as part of her nighttime tour, because she gasps at the size of it, the domed ceiling, the view of Charleston’s wealthiest neighborhood beyond.
“We can’t go back, Elijah,” she murmurs. “We should never have been living together to begin with. It put all this on hold.”
What? “No. I put it on hold.”
“And I helped make it okay.”
The half-defeated, half-determined tone of her voice is making me nervous. “Addison—”
She’s already moving. “I have to go.”
“Wait.” Halfway down the stairs, she turns, framed by the foyer, chandelier above and a hand poised on the railing. I get this odd déjà vu feeling, like I’ve seen this image before. Or maybe I’ve dreamed it. “Yes?”
“When am I going to see you?” I’m shouting and I don’t care who hears me. “Or are you just cutting me off.”
“Even best friends don’t see each other every single day.” She laughs, but it falls flat. “Just…can I have a little time?”
Time to do what? After a dead string of seconds, I nod, no choice but to agree. When the door closes behind her, the energy in the house drops and scatters…and I can’t shake the certainty that nothing will be the same next time I see her.