Shay…
“Well, shit. That’s what I forgot.” Ben stared at the buzzing phone as he polished off a final bite of his pancakes. It vibrated at the corner of his kitchen island, where he’d tossed it from his back pocket as he’d walked by with me in his arms last night.
Before we’d done amazing things in his bedroom.
Forgot? His phone? Since that didn’t make any sense, because his phone definitely hadn’t been needed, I humored up the convo. “To take your clothes off? To take a shower?”
I couldn’t stop fantasizing about the fiercely sexy man doing both. One...and then, eventually, after we’d gotten him all sweaty and dirty...the other.
“That the rest of my life sucks.”
Okay. Play later. Serious now. His phone buzzed again. “Not Loading Zone, then.”
“No. That’s the best thing about my life...besides you.”
“Ahhh...” The family he’d grumbled about at dinner. “And I helped you forget the rest of it.” Wanting to soothe him, I moved into his space, gave him a hug, then kissed him softly, the way I’d done before—when I’d gotten him to stop thinking and just feel.
He touched his forehead to mine on a sigh. “Yeah, you did.”
“But now life’s calling?”
“Yep.” He stared at the thing when it buzzed a third time.
“Need to answer it?”
“Nope.”
“But you could. What if it’s an emergency?”
He glanced at me, then snatched the phone up and answered it. “What?” His tone was curt.
I busied myself with cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and loading his dishwasher.
After listening with a blank expression, he huffed out a sigh and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Just drinking?”
He gripped the phone harder as he listened. Then he growled low. “Are you hurt?”
A short pause followed.
“Him?” he gritted out.
I closed the dishwasher and began wiping down the counter.
He turned around, facing away from me, and raked a hand through his hair. “Do you need me to come over?”
“Then, he’ll be fine.”
“No.” He stalked into his living room. “I won’t. Go back to your room. Lock yourself in.”
He paced back toward the kitchen. “If he tries to break into the room, or you smell smoke, do what everyone else does. Call 9-1-1.”
His thumb punched the phone to end the call before he tossed it back onto the counter.
I stared at him. “That sounded brutal.”
“Me or her?”
“The situation. Your mom?”
“None other. Same shit, different day.” His expression darkened as he crossed his arms.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to get into it. Not on our day.”
“Your day.” And I wanted to give the strong man I’d come to care about what he needed to enjoy it. “Two minutes. Vent it and forget it.” I stepped up to him, pressed myself against his closed arms.
He opened them up and wrapped them around me. “You do have a way of making me forget...”
“So...” I turned slightly and grabbed his wrist, tracked the second hand on his watch, then pointed at him. “go.”
He gave me an amused look, then he took a sobering breath. “She said he was shouting, throwing things. Then he yanked down one of his bookcases that had doors. Glass shattered everywhere.”
His hands rubbed up my back, as if he tried to comfort who he could in the awful situation. “Shouting meant at her. She bears emotional scars from him from years of abuse. Abuse she chose to stay around for. Again and again.”
“Are they both okay?”
He tightened his hold on me, rested his chin on my head. “Her voice sounded small, broken. But I’ve run out of rope with him. He can hang himself with it for all I care. Unfortunately, she cares, whether or not I do.”
A long pause followed. I waited, patient.
“He accidently cut himself.” His arms tightened for a split second, betraying the pure animosity he felt. “Has a fucking bloody white dress shirt wrapped around his hand. But he won’t die of his injuries; asshole doesn’t have the common decency to put the rest of the world out of their misery,” he muttered.
The force of his tone had begun to fade, so I sensed he didn’t really mean that. His loathing toward his father didn’t reach the same depth as mine. Close, but not quite.
“She asked you to come over?”
“Yeah.” He eased back a little and stared down at me. “But she never listens to me when I do. She doesn’t have the courage to leave that son of a bitch, but she has no problem dragging my ass across town to play rescuer. Didn’t listen to me for two weeks while I stayed there playing mediator.”
I understood the whole family-not-listening thing. You’re standing there screaming, but nothing you say is heard, because you don’t really matter—not to them. “What if it gets worse?”
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance it will, and she knows it. But she needs to stand up for herself and live the life she’s chosen, so that I can live mine.”
“You have to be the one to cut it off.” My voice broke along with my heart, aching for all he’d suffered through, everything he’d lost. And it brought back all the messed-up shit I’d endured, had run away from, with my parents.
“Yep.” He let out a relieved sigh and glanced at his watch. “Time’s up.”
Then he dropped his face into the crook of my shoulder and began to kiss a trail up my neck.
I held him tight and shivered at the instant effect his sensual touch had on me. But with a smile, I broke our embrace and pointed down the hallway. “Shower. Ten minutes.”
He tugged at a belt loop of my jeans. “You sure no shower today?”
“Solo.” I shot him a stern look, turned his shoulders, and gave him a shove. “Nine minutes, fifty seconds.”
He glanced over his shoulder with an arched brow. “You gonna snoop while I’m gone?”
“It’s not snooping if you know about it.”
I passed the time by first using his formal guest bathroom. Then I wandered through his bedroom and living room, riffled through things he’d stowed away in drawers and noticed the stark absence of everything he hadn’t. No personal pictures hung on the walls. No mementos sat on any shelves. The expansive floors were bare tinted concrete. Not one of the giant windows had any kind of covering.
He returned as I fastened the second shoelace on my Converse. He tapped his watch. “Seventy-three seconds to spare.”
I reclined back onto his stiff black sectional. “Impressive. But I’ve taken faster. Nothing to it. Soap. Rinse. Dry.”
He fought a smile at my sarcasm.
Yep. You might have rocked my world last night, but you still needed to earn the rest of me.
“Well, what do you think?” He swept his gaze around the room, then scraped his keys up from a metal bowl on a skinny table by the door. The bowl wobbled with tinny clank that reverberated off all the hard surfaces around us.
I stood and held my arms out wide, palms up. “It’s...echo-y?”
“Yeah.” He crossed his arms and shrugged. “Doesn’t really fit me.”
Good you recognize that.
Last night, we had crossed a cold marble lobby, gone up a bank of gleaming elevators, then walked down a hall paved with fossilized limestone tiles that had continued halfway up the walls where they were capped with matching round trim pieces. After the easygoing warmth of National Geographic’s house and the clunky-yet-charming vibe of Ben’s ancient truck, Ben’s condo and its building felt like a barren arctic landscape.
Not even close to resembling the dryly funny and passionate man I’d begun to know. “Like the Escalade didn’t fit?”
“Yeah. Guess I’m going through an identity crisis.”
“Hey, we all stumble around in the dark until we find what works for us, somewhere we can relax.” God knows I’d been doing it long enough. I still hadn’t settled on a place to make mine in every way. But that didn’t stop me from searching, from wanting. And even though he’d broken away from his family, maybe he still struggled to define who he was. “Do you own it?”
I walked toward him and passed his kitchen, where white marble with sparkling gray veins capped blond cabinetry. A set of knives clung to a metal bar that stretched in the middle of gleaming white subway tiles. On the other side of a stainless steel cooktop stood a Cuisinart food processor that had been so pristine that morning, my pancakes had to have been its debut task.
Ben moved beside me. “Yes, it’s mine.” The heat of his presence drew close, but didn’t crowd.
And suddenly it didn’t matter what kind of place he lived in; home was never about walls or the objects inside them. Home was the people we let into our hearts. And up until a couple of weeks ago, that hadn’t existed for me. Not all the way, not deep. I turned into his open arms and stared up at him. Not like now. Not until you.
“But I’ve got the place on the market.” A defensive tone edged his unnecessary explanation. And he searched my eyes, like it mattered to him, what I thought of his place. As if my judgment of where he stayed flowed through to the man I held in my arms.
“It doesn’t matter. Not to me.” I kissed him softly. “I know who you are.”
You’re someone just like me. Searching, wanting.
Minutes later, we stepped out into a gloomy overcast day and began strolling down the sidewalk. A heavy mineral scent tanged the air. But everything seemed bright and fresh to me.
Ben slipped a hand into mine, entwining our fingers together. “Any thoughts on what you want to do today?”
I shook my head. “Today’s your day.” He made quite clear Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday were his.
“And I’m gifting it to you. No lawbreaking.” He gave me a pointed look. “But is there something you’d want to do with a boyfriend?”
My feet planted solid so hard and fast, our arms stretched wide until he jolted to a stop. And I had to take deep breaths to catch up to my thundering heart.
Why the sudden paralysis?
It wasn’t like he was trying to trap me or make me do anything I didn’t want to. He hadn’t slapped on a constricting label of ownership or expectation. At least, it hadn’t seemed that way. It sounded like he’d extended an offer.
“Is that what you are? My boyfriend? I’ve never had one before.” Not even close.
His expression softened. “If you want me to be,” he murmured, tone elevating with hope. He gave no indication that he cared about me being new at the whole trust thing—no judgment at all.
“Yeah.” I squeezed his hand. “I’d like that.”
What could it hurt? In fact, he’d insisted I try on a coat of legitimacy. Why not give a relationship a go?
Somehow, my feet began moving again. We strolled down the middle of the sidewalk, hand in hand, a first for me. The entire day even promised to hold a record-breaking amount of firsts. And I felt reborn, embracing my first Monday, the only one that counted as far as I was concerned.
Thinking back to his activity question, I shrugged. “I dunno. What do normal people do on Monday?”
“You are not normal. Don’t think of what we have to do. We do what you want to do.”
The whole not being normal thing stung a bit. All I’d ever wanted was to be normal, part of a family. From the very moment that intimate connection had been ripped away, the loss had been devastating and ever-present.
“What do most people do?”
He snorted. “On Monday? Work.”
“Oh. Work.” With all the goofing off we’d been doing, and when we’d been debating and he’d challenged us to our week, it hadn’t dawned on me that we’d be ditching real life 24/7. “You don’t have to work? We don’t?” I knew we had the tournament Saturday—him playing, me bartending—but I hadn’t considered the rest of our days.
“No. I texted Gabe last night. Rafe and Cade are both cool to help out one more week.”
His expression darkened for a split second, and I wondered if he’d been reminded of his absence in the weeks prior to my starting at Loading Zone...and his earlier family phone call.
But I didn’t mention anything.
You don’t want him to know your secrets. Don’t be digging up his.
The subject got changed the moment he hopped off the curb and tugged me into the street at a break in traffic, within the safe parallel lines of a crosswalk. Once we hit the other side and leapt onto the sidewalk, he cocked his head, narrowed his eyes, and stared down toward the Arts District. We stood at the threshold of the quaint business village where colorful awnings flaunted boutique shops, antique bistros beckoned patio diners, and cobblestone paths led the way.
He glanced back at me. “How ’bout I make it multiple-choice?”
“Great by me. Because I’ve no idea.” Not that it mattered. Because all I wanted to do, the only place I wanted to be, was with him, even if all we did was people-watch. Which is what I typically did during my afternoons: observe all the normal people and imagine who they went home to at the end of their days, once school let out, after the workday ended.
Instead, on my first Monday, I’d become one of the normal ones.
He arched his brows and gave a slight shrug. “We can do tourist stuff: museums, historical sites, beer-tasting pub crawl. Or we could be chill and go native: hang at a park, see a movie, grab a bite to eat.”
“You could eat?” I rubbed my full belly with my hand, remembering the plate loaded with pancakes. “I’m stuffed.”
“Two words I never thought would come out of your mouth.”
“Never will again. I overate. I woke up starving after you exhausted me.”
Heat sparkled in his gaze. “Prepare to eat those words. With plenty more food. Because I plan to exhaust you again. And often.”
I drew in a deep breath as he stared at me. My lips twitched into a smile while I thought about what he’d suggested, what I wanted...
“Maybe dessert,” he murmured at the exact moment the same idea hit me.
Only his thought came heavy with innuendo.
Mine went there for only a split second until...
“Like ice cream!” I exclaimed loud enough for couples across the street to hear. Dessert real families ate, one I hadn’t splurged on since I’d left mine. But with Ben, I felt brave enough to rewrite the experience. “Maybe in a little while, though. Have to make room.”
He stared at me, a mixture of humor and amazement in his gaze as his lips curved into a smile.
Without waiting to hear some witty comeback, I tugged him on down the cobblestone walkway, into the Arts District. “There is a movie I’ve wanted to see, but it’s no longer in theaters.”
He lifted my hand and pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles. “Why don’t we see whatever’s playing at the theater, then we’ll go back to my place and rent your movie. We’ll do a double feature.”
Perfect. I loved the idea of just hanging with him all afternoon.
“So, just go to the movies and randomly pick from what’s playing?” I’d walked past theaters many times before and stared at the movie posters. But I had no idea people blindly chose from a poster alone.
“Yep. Even normal people—law-abiding folks and all—can be wild and crazy.”
I gave him a light shove, rolling my eyes. “Go ahead, take my breath away, Mr. Tightrope Walker.”
He arched a brow at me. “It’s called being spontaneous.”
“Sounds like my whole life.” See an opportunity? Take it.
A few blocks into the Arts District, we ended up at the six-screen neighborhood cinema.
We quietly scanned the handful of movie posters. After a full minute of silence, I crossed my arms and glanced at him. “How do you know the movie will be any good?”
“We don’t. Luck of the draw, roll of the dice. We either like it or we don’t. It’ll be dark, and if we aren’t interested in the movie, there are lots of other things we can do that normal people do in movie theaters.”
“Oh?” My curiosity sparked with his nonchalant tone. “Like what?” Like he promised we could be illicit, naughty. But isn’t that illegal? Indecent...or...lewd something or other?
“Pick a horrible movie and find out.”
Well, hell. Now I don’t know what to pick. He made a horrible movie sound scandalous.
In the end, I chose an iffy Sherlock Holmes movie, skipping an action adventure, a comedy, some sappy romance, and a couple of artsy flicks. I figured with “iffy”, I had a fifty-fifty shot at a horrible movie for a chance to find out what his back-up plan entailed.
Sherlock ended up being funny and interesting. But even with my attention riveted to the big screen, I found out what Ben had meant halfway through the movie.
Our clasped hands that relaxed on the armrest, gently broke apart. He lowered his hand until it settled warm and heavy on my inner thigh. When he spread his fingers, curved them downward toward the seat, heat radiated through the thick denim of my jeans. And a deep sizzling ache spread upward.
My breath caught as the aching heat intensified—without him doing any other thing.
He angled his face toward me. And the fingers of that devastating hand curled on my thigh. “You okay?”
I nodded, then whispered, “You’re turning me on.”
With the shine of a brighter scene on the screen, I caught his smirk before he leaned closer. “I am?” The two words were barely whispered, feathered over my lips.
His hand dragged a little higher, fingers tightening.
And I instantly lost all interest in the movie.
We left the theater amid a throng of moviegoers nearly an hour later. We hadn’t done much of anything that a “horrible” movie would warrant, at least I didn’t think so. We’d softly kissed. He’d gently stroked, but nothing overtly sexual happened: No clothes came off, no skin-to-skin contact, and his hand had never moved from the middle of my thigh.
Yet my body buzzed, wild and alive. Clearly, there were a whole lot more erogenous zones than I’d realized. His soft lips, rough whiskers, and warm breath traveling across my jaw, down my neck, and over my ear, barely touching my skin, proved to be effective sensual weapons.
Back on the crowded pedestrian street in broad daylight, I took a deep breath to clear my head—with the hope that the extra oxygen would also reset my charged body.
A soft drizzle floated down from a grayish sky like a snow globe. We veered left, heading toward the protective awnings of the shops. Without saying a word, he automatically switched sides so that his broad body blocked the slight wind and mist.
When he slipped his warm hand into my colder one, a thrilling heat spread into all kinds of exciting places. But we kept walking, him oblivious, as I exhaled a slow breath to steady myself.
The end of the awnings marked the outer edge of the Arts District where a handful of quaint neighborhoods began, each unique depending on which direction you turned, a couple with storefronts on the main streets. He glanced down at me. “Where now?”
“You mean, after I blew it picking a horrible movie?”
He tugged me toward him, then enfolded me in his arms. His warm breath feathered over my lips. There it was again, one of his sensual weapons, teasing mercilessly without his doing much more than breathing. His eyes searched mine. “It was a little horrible.”
“Maybe just a little,” I murmured, staring up into darkened eyes that promised so much more pleasure than the small taste he’d given me.
“We’re just getting warmed up.” His taunting words were as powerful as his teasing breath, because my body pressed closer against his, craving more of his delicious heat.
All of a sudden, my stomach growled between us.
We both laughed at the intrusion. Then I gave him a slow kiss, making a promise of my own, before I broke free and tugged him forward. “How ’bout that ice cream you promised?”
Minutes later, after ducking into an old-fashioned ice cream parlor a couple of blocks down, I slid my hand into his again and led him toward my favorite neighborhood. “Let’s walk down Maple Lane.” I balanced my double-scoop ice cream cone with my free hand and took a small sugary nip from the very top.
“Sure you’re okay in the rain?”
His question was innocent, protective. But he had no idea that I’d lived most of my life out in the rain, exposed to the elements. But we didn’t need to go there, he didn’t need to know the dirty details about what I’d been through. Not on my first Monday.
“I won’t melt.” Lighthearted. Where I wanted to keep the day.
“Your ice cream will.” Said the man who’d refused his own ice cream and wouldn’t even accept a lick from mine.
In defiance of his suggestion that any harm would come to either me or my cone, I licked an entire surface layer beginning with the bottom of the salted caramel toffee crunch and ending with another slurp off the top of the french vanilla.
He watched with amusement, then shook his head as he began leading me down Maple Lane. “Love these old houses, so full of history.”
My heart warmed, happy to my bones that he’d been through one of my favorite haunts before, that we might’ve even passed each other on the fabled street without realizing it.
“Which one’s your favorite?” I hungered to know what he liked, learn more about the man who’d begun to infiltrate my well-guarded heart.
“Hard to pick. I like so many of them. I’ve been keeping my eye out for one to come on the market. Something with more character than my ‘echo-y’ condo. But there are only thirty-two houses, and it’s rare for any of them to go up for sale. Hannah’s house reminds me of these.”
After I finished another ice cream lick, I nodded toward one with a fence made of slender tree branches that still wore some of their bark. “I’ve always liked this one.”
Beyond a small rise sat a quaint white cottage with a curving shingled roof. Between the organic fence and the storybook house, a steppingstone path meandered through whimsical free-form flowers, pastels of lilac, cream, and pink, that blurred as they bobbed in the misty rain. Nature’s rare snapshot struck me, as if we’d stepped into an impressionist painting brought to life, like one of the priceless works of art I’d spied on while wandering the galleries of public art museums.
“Yeah, it’s cool. Look at that chimney.”
I tore my gaze from the flower garden. A weathered yellow-and-pink brick structure rose from the curving light-brown shingles. But the chimney didn’t rise in a straight line. From its fat base, it curved left, right, then left again as it narrowed toward the top. A rusty bent piece of metal capped it off.
“Huh. I’ve never noticed that before.” I’d always gotten lost daydreaming in the cozy feel of the flower garden. I stared up at the cottage and smiled. “I half expect Hansel and Gretel to burst out that country kitchen door.”
Over the next few minutes, we made our way down the charming lane. He commented one thing or another about some of the houses, a few that he’d taken the time to research in depth, others that he wanted to. All the while, I devoured the rest of my ice cream cone in silence, content to listen and learn about the man more than the houses.
As we neared the end of the street, my heart began to pound a little heavier. The house I wanted to see every single time I walked down Maple Lane appeared right as we turned along a gentle bend.
But before I had a chance to say anything, he paused right at the corner of its property line. “This one’s my favorite.”
I blinked. “Really? Mine too.”
A ton of emotion hit me at once: relief, amazement, skepticism.
Do you see what I see?
Would he appreciate the sad decrepit house the same way...see her hidden beauty?
The front garden and lawn had died, replaced by clods of dirt melting in the misty rain. Broken bricks had upheaved and fallen over down a long walkway with empty beds on either side. Porch steps sagged. Roof eaves rotted. A paint-chipped wooden railing guarded a derelict two-story with cracked windows and dangling shutters.
He sighed and tightened his hand around mine. “It’s been neglected for too long. ’Bout time someone paid attention to it.”
Tears began to well in my eyes. Is this what being normal is like?
Because I’d been wanting the same thing he’d been after...all along.
One almost-horrible movie, a delicious double-decker ice cream cone, and a stroll down the very lane with a house that I’d felt a kindred spirit with made me think he’d won the day.
But will I be able to live every day like this? Going legit? Abiding by the law?
More importantly, could I trust in that dream again? Or would someone steal it away?
I need to be certain.
Because my life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance. Others who’d been neglected far too long still relied on me. They deserved attention too.
He pulled me out of my whirling spiral by tugging me onward, back toward his condo. “Ready for your next movie?”
The movie I’d been wanting to see for a while. About someone who fights for others, risks it all to help those who’ve suffered, puts her life on the line to save humanity itself. One soul at a time.
“Yeah.” I gripped his hand tighter and cast a wish up into the cloudy sky that I could have both: the man taking a chance on me and the hearts I fought so hard to protect.