CHAPTER EIGHT
Addison
The all-cereal diet ruined my life: one woman’s claim.
—Southern Insider News
I hop off the bus at the Meeting Street stop, picking up the pace once the disembarking passengers thin, everyone heading in their own direction, me zipping toward the market. It’s a gorgeous April day—but it’s a hot one. Businessmen amble past, fanning themselves with newspapers. Sidewalk vendors can’t sell cold bottles of water fast enough—and it’s only the morning. Still, I can’t find it in me to complain. Not after last night.
Elijah brought his friends to meet me. I got angry with him and he…came through. Fixed it. Apparently he missed the memo that men are only supposed to make things worse.
Not only did he make this gesture and apologize, but I really liked his friends. Sonia with her adorable rambling and Lydia with her soothing wisdom voice. Chris watching them both like he’s the luckiest man alive. And most of the time…I’m pretty sure I watched Elijah. It’s hard not to on a regular basis, but throw in people he feels comfortable around and he’s even more incredible. Halfway through our meal of Chinese takeout, I had to lock myself in the bathroom for a reality check. It was not a double date. No matter how much it felt like one, with Chris trying to embarrass Elijah by telling stories from their days at the Citadel. The way a friend might try to do in front of his friend’s love interest.
I turn the corner and take a deep whiff of the boiled peanuts scent hanging in the air. Smelling them is almost as good as eating them, which is a good thing, because I’m too stuffed full of cereal to fit even one little peanut. For some reason, more and more boxes keep appearing in my cabinets and I can’t resist that second bowl in the mornings.
Maybe the faux-date scenario is the reason I had a sex dream about Elijah last night.
In the dream, he blew into my apartment and didn’t say a word, barely bothering to close the front door before shedding his tie. His eyes were hard, hungry. All of him was. I stood in the living room—naked as the day I was born. Exposed. Unable to breathe. He looked at me and knew everything. The feelings I’ve been suppressing with no success. How much I want him inside me, pinning me down, using me. One sweep of his eyes and he knew.
Dream Elijah reached me, now shirtless. So aggressively male and muscular and big all over. “Are you ready for your fuck?”
“Yes.”
He ran a hand down his stomach. “Come and get it, sugar.”
Even in sleep, I could feel my tether snap and I wasted no time unfastening his pants with shaking fingers and taking out his waiting erection. I climbed him, whimpering and sobbing, sinking down onto his rigid inches while he watched me, his lips curled in a cocky way. For a while, he let me struggle around on him, bouncing and trying to get an advantageous angle. And then he laughed. Laughed, turned, slammed me against the wall and fucked me like a man who’d chosen me as his last meal.
God, I can still feel him thrusting in and out of me as I turn the corner toward the market, sidestepping a woman pushing a stroller as I go. When I woke up from the dream in the dim morning light, I was already halfway to an orgasm, a pillow stuffed between my legs. I’ve never been desperate enough to hump a pillow, but yes I did turn over and ride it like a rodeo bull, peaking less than ten seconds later. Yes, I did.
I stop at the corner and take a deep breath, not wanting to walk past a bunch of vendors with flushed cheeks. I’m already wondering how I’m going to manage the feat later when I see Elijah. Will I ever be able to look him in the eye again and not think of him in beast mode, taking me up against a wall?
Oh who are you kidding? You’ve been imagining that for a month.
“True facts,” I mutter, stepping into the street—
—just in time for three reporters with cameras and microphones to rush me.
“Getaway Girl!”
“Miss Potts!”
“Is it true you’re related to Naomi Clemons?”
I drop my purse and stoop down to pick it up, my pulse going bananas in my ears. Okay. Okay, they made the connection finally. To be honest, I’m a little surprised it took them this long, but I was enjoying the delusion they’d lost all interest in me. At least it doesn’t seem like they’re speculating about Naomi and I sharing a father—that’s a huge plus. “Um…” Doing my best to gather my thoughts, I stand, put my head down and look for a way through the reporters. “Excuse me, please. I have to get to work.”
“Are you dating Captain Du Pont? Have you seen him at all?”
“Where is your mother now, Miss Potts?”
The wind is knocked out of me, but I rally. “If you find out, let me know,” I say on a humorless laugh, making another move to get around the group. “Let me pass.”
“You’re not close to Miss Clemons. Why were you at the wedding?” One of them persists, pushing a microphone in front of my face. “Were you there for Captain Du Pont?”
Yes, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Feeling a lot like I did in my dream last night—naked and exposed—I pause with my hand on the market door. “Look, I’m not dating anyone, but I’m partial to blonds with strong chins and dimples. I don’t know where my mother is, and I went to the wedding because I was in the neighborhood.” I blow a kiss at the camera. “More importantly, we’re having a flash sale on ornaments today at Jingle Balls. Buy one, get one half off. And I’m taking fall appointments for commercial and residential decoration services, starting with Halloween and ending with Christmas.” I rattle off my newly designed website, give a pinky wave and leave the reporters with their jaws on the floor.
As soon as I’m out of their line of vision—and thank God they don’t follow me into the market—I drop down and stick my head in between my knees, breathing like a racehorse.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. I just started a business.” My cell phone rings in my purse and I fish it out with a trembling hand, already knowing who it is. “Hey.”
Elijah’s exhale blows down the line. “I didn’t catch you in time.”
“Nope.”
“How bad was it?”
Thankfully, the market isn’t open yet, because I fall into a cross-legged position, right in the center of the main aisle. “Eh.”
“Eh?”
“I didn’t answer their questions. But they asked about my mother.” I tilt my head back and focus on the ceiling. “That sucked a little.”
A pause. “You haven’t talked to me very much about her.”
“There’s nothing to say. She left when I was in first grade.”
Elijah curses under his breath. “I’m sorry. Didn’t realize you were so young.”
I swallow. “I had my grandmother. That’s more than some kids have.” Refusing to wallow in something that happened a decade ago, I push to my feet and head down the aisle toward my booth, where it’s nestled in between a hot sauce vendor and a fancy hat saleswoman. “In other news, I just plugged the expanded business on the air. Website and everything. So I guess there’s no turning back now.”
“No shit?” His boom-crack of laughter makes me smile. “You found a way to make them work for you. That’s my Goose.”
My heart lifts up like a balloon, lodging in my throat. “Yeah.” I turn into Jingle Balls and drop my purse on the closest table. “I don’t think…I probably wouldn’t have done that unless you’d told me I could do it.”
Did I just admit that out loud, sounding like a starry-eyed schoolgirl? I can almost feel his breath against my ear. Slow and steady. “Aw, sugar. Just telling the truth.”
Everything about the confession and the moment makes me way too vulnerable, so I rush to put it behind us. “Also, we might have to postpone our dinners for a while. I have a feeling a lot of blond dudes with dimples are going to be knocking on my door.”
“What?”
The jealousy I think I hear in his voice is definitely just wishful thinking. “Bye, Captain.”
“Hold on, now. Wait. What did you mean—”
“Smooches and butt squeezes. Byeeeee.”
“Addison, I’m coming over tonight.”
This is fun. “I’ll probably be there.”
“Don’t give me a probably.”
“Do you know anything about the cereal that keeps appearing in my cabinet?”
“I have to go,” Elijah says, clearing his throat. “See you tonight.”
When he disconnects, I frown down at the phone. “Huh. That was weird.”
*
I thought death would be more dramatic. Storm waters rising up and carrying me off or ex-husbands surrounding my bed, demanding to know where I buried the gold. One thing I did not expect was to perish surrounded by blinking Christmas lights and tourists. But here I am. I am most definitely meeting my maker within the hour.
There’s a layer of clammy sweat under my clothes, I’m short of breath and I can’t seem to focus. Everything is dull, moving in a confusing kaleidoscope. Sick. Common sense tells me I’m sick, probably with the flu, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. My head tilts right and I stumble, ramming into a display of glass shepherd figurines.
“Miss, are you okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” My words boom in my skull, rattling everything. “Ow.”
“I’m a nurse, miss.” Hands guide me into my folding metal chair. “You’re not well. Is there someone I can call for you?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say Elijah, but I don’t and it makes my ribs ache even more. We’re two weeks away from the election. He can’t just waltz into the City Market. If the abundance of tourists didn’t recognize him, the other vendors and smattering of locals would. “There’s no one. I’m fine. There’s only an hour left until we close.”
“You need to go home, sweetie,” says the disembodied voice. Vaguely, I register hands digging in my apron and more talking. I see my cell phone in someone else’s hand and make a grab for it, but the effort costs me and I slump back in my chair. “Is this Elijah? Yes, my name is Francine and I’m a nurse. No—no, sir. Calm down. She’s fine. She’s right here, but she’s very sick. You were the last number she called and I just…”
The next thing I remember is being carried like a limp doll. I recognize these arms. They caught me once when I almost fell down the stairs outside my apartment. The one and only time they were around me. I curl toward the warmth of my savior, then immediately begin to burn up and squirm to be put down so I can cool off. The arms don’t let me.
“You were just fine last night, Goose. Just fine.” Elijah’s voice makes me slump, because surely the familiar, hearty timbre of it will heal me. It’s much angrier than usual, but it’ll work. “You think you can be mean? Just wait. I’m going to give you hell once you’re better.”
His heavy tread jostles my face against his chest and I take a huge gulp of his scent, tugging his coat close, rubbing against it like a cat. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
He’s quiet so long I wonder if I imagined him and I’m just floating down the street. “I can be mean when a nurse calls me from your phone. I can be mean then.”
“Are you going to lose the election now?”
A hand ghosts over my hair. “No. And you don’t worry about things like that.”
“I worry about it all the time,” I whisper.
I can sense him leaning down, can smell his shampoo. Malin + Goetz. He keeps the simple white bottle of it in my shower and I allow myself to sniff it every third day. “Why don’t you talk to me about it?”
“Because that’s not why you keep coming back.”
“Addison…”
My subconscious is screaming at me to shut up, but I barely have the strength to acknowledge it, let alone follow instructions. “I don’t have time to be sick. Requests have been coming in all week from the website. Everyone in this town wants a nativity in their front yard on Christmas. I’m the ball joke salesgirl, Elijah. Now I have to add mangers to my wheelhouse.”
“I’ll help you when the time comes. Right now, just stop being sick, please.”
“Blond men, too. I’m getting a lot of website requests from blond men.” My laugh is semi-hysterical. “They’re definitely not interested in mangers.”
“What are they…” Elijah growls. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know. You’re not really planning on accepting dates from these idiots, are you?”
“No. I’d just spend the whole time missing you.”
There’s a break in his step. “I’d miss you, too, Goose.”
A few seconds later another voice, calm and familiar joins the haze. “Okay, Captain. Put her in the back seat with me.” Being upended causes me to groan and Elijah to curse, but I’m quickly leaned up against something soft. “It’s Lydia, Addison. We’re taking you home now, sound good? We’ll fix you right up. Have you taken any medicine or…”
Everything is upside down. Lydia’s words turn into sounds and eventually fade into nothing. I think I hear Elijah yelling at me, but I’m too tired to answer. And then I can’t, because sleep claims me and I’m more than happy to allow it.