Chapter 10
Everett sat back in his chair and thought about how his date had ended on Saturday night. He’d been over it in his mind several times since. He’d been called on his absent-mindedness while working in the garden with his mom on Sunday afternoon and again this morning by Hank, the head of security for Tranquility, when he’d failed to acknowledge him in the hall on his way in.
Monday morning was never a favorite for Everett, but his spirits were high today. He’d driven Maya home Saturday night after they’d lingered over dessert. He’d walked to the porch of her apartment complex, given her a short, but fantastic, kiss and asked if he could see her again. She’d told him she had a gathering she’d like him to attend with her on Thursday night. Arrangements were made and then Everett had left.
With no intention of screwing things up this time, Everett planned to be a perfect gentleman. There would be no going up to her apartment for a drink, no getting carried away by a passionate kiss, no down and dirty sex. He was going to go slow and steady, even if it killed him. And it just might.
“Hey. You free?” Carlos poked his head into Everett’s office.
“Sure. Come in.”
Carlos shut the door behind him and sat down across from Everett. “Something’s up with you.”
Carlos had tried to get Everett to talk while they were working out together that morning. But Everett had continually avoided answering his questions. Now it seemed, he was trapped. He stared at Carlos without answering.
“Okay.” Carlos leaned back in the chair. “I’ll start. Remember I told you I was seeing someone who works here?”
Everett leaned forward. He was fully present now. “Yeah? You ready to tell me who it is?”
“Not really. I mean I haven’t run it by her yet. But I’m going to. Because I can’t expect you to be open with me when I’m not open with you. Also, I want to tell you. I’m at the ‘shout it from the rooftops’ point in the relationship.”
Everett chuckled. It was unlike Carlos to be so jolly. The change in his friend’s demeanor since he’d started dating the mystery woman was a breath of fresh air. “I’m all ears.”
“It’s Amy Trinkus.”
“Ah. My ‘Opportunities in Excellence’ intern.” The woman was smart and beautiful and if she made Carlos smile like that Everett whole-heartedly approved.
“She’s amazing. And things are going very, very well. I’m going to bring her to your birthday party next month and then we’ll be ‘out’ to everyone at the company.”
Everett folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “Which means you’ll also be out to Kimberly.”
“Whatever. She’s a part of my baggage. I’ll deal with it,” Carlos said about his ex-wife.
Everett understood that too well. Rebecca and Elias were part of his baggage, and he and Maya had already had to slosh through a lot of it.
“So now you want me to spill, right?”
Carlos shrugged casually, but there was a gleam of curiosity in his eyes.
“I went out with Maya on Saturday.”
Shock colored Carlos’ features. “Maya? Maya who hates your ass?”
Everett laughed. “Yep. That’s the one. She doesn’t hate me so much anymore. Seems my mother talked her out of it.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. So how did your date go?”
“Absolutely incredible. We spent all day together. I’m completely at that woman’s mercy.”
Carlos chuckled. “You are so screwed. When’s the next date?”
“In four days.”
Carlos stood and held out his fist. Everett reached over and bumped it. “Not like you’re anxious or anything. Good luck, man. I’m glad to see you happy.”
“Same here.”
Carlos exited Everett’s office, leaving the door half open the way Everett liked. He tried to refocus on his overflowing inbox over the next few hours. By the time twelve-thirty rolled around, he needed to get up from his desk. He also happened to know that was Maya’s lunch shift. So it wasn’t a coincidence that he found himself wandering down to the cafeteria on the first floor.
Everett didn’t bother to grab food. That could wait until later. He picked up a bottle of juice and headed into the teeming lunchroom, his gaze roaming over his employees. Half the workers on the factory floor and about a third of the office workers were down here sitting at various tables in the large rectangular room. A few more were outside in the small picnic area.
A pair of incredible green eyes met his across the room. Maya sat with a mixed gender group of six workers in the corner. The table they sat at was completely full, but he wasn’t cowed. He headed her way.
Maya watched him the entire time as he strolled across the room and pulled up beside her spot at the far end. “Can I join you?”
Everyone else stared. Maya nodded. Everett grabbed a chair from a nearby table and pulled it to the end of Maya’s, close to her, but not quite touching. The people at the table, four women and two men, had gone completely silent.
“Hey,” Everett said casually, sweeping his eyes across the group.
This was not the first time he’d eaten in the cafeteria. And it was not the first time he’d sat down with a random group of workers. But it seemed that each time he did it he got this strange reaction.
“Amal. How’s it going?” Everett called out the older man who’d been working for him since their first year in this facility.
Amal reached past the woman between himself and Everett and fist-bumped him. “Good. So happy to have you as our sole owner these days, Everett.”
Everett grinned. “Me too.” He was becoming more comfortable with people’s comments about Elias and Rebecca. It had been hard for so long to figure out how to deal with the awkward conversations and mumbled apologies people gave when they addressed the issue. But between getting the company for himself, changing the name, and pep talks from Julia about the ‘messaging’ he was becoming more and more at peace with it.
“Aren’t you eating?” Maya asked.
Everett shifted his gaze to her. Somehow, with her hair haphazardly tied back and her uniform shirt rumpled from a long, hard day of work, she was as sexy as she’d been when she was all put together on Saturday. “I’ll eat later. I came to see you.” Maya’s eyes grew wide, and Everett saved himself by looking around the table. “You all. How is everyone?”
Before an awkward silence could smother them, Amal jumped in. He told Everett about which machines on the factory floor were working well and which were causing them trouble. The others at the table pitched in with comments, all of them timid at first but opening up when Everett responded with empathy and humor. His comment about the box-maker being a perennial pain in the ass seemed to really relax everyone.
Maya didn’t say a word through the entire thing. Though she laughed several times, and every time Everett glanced over at her she was smiling. When she’d finished eating her salad, she leaned forward in her seat and placed her hand on his knee under the table.
That little touch meant everything to Everett. He managed to stay focused on the conversation with his employees even though her warm hand threatened to completely distract him.
“Okay. We gotta get back to it,” Amal announced.
The workers all stood, and Everett deeply felt the loss of Maya’s touch. He followed them out of the cafeteria as they walked down the short hallway back to the factory floor.
Maya was at the back of the group behind Everett and everyone else. After he said goodbye to the others at the edge of the massive room, he turned back into the hallway and nearly ran into her.
Maya grabbed his hand and pulled him down a side hallway that led to a storage room. Without any explanation, she opened the door to the room and shoved Everett inside.
The light came on automatically. The cramped space was filled with shelves stuffed with broken down boxes. Everett whirled around and grinned down at Maya, who was pressed against the closed door.
“You are so bad.” He couldn’t help but tease her.
“Don’t start. I just needed a minute alone.”
Everett took a step toward her. She took a deep breath and her breasts skimmed his ribs. He shivered. “I know what you mean.”
Maya played with her hair, making Everett jealous. He wanted to run his fingers through those thick locks. “You have this reputation as a bit of playboy, you know.”
“I know.”
“People, especially women, talk about how you are notoriously smooth. But you’re not so smooth around me. You’re kind of nervous and dorky. You were like that all those years ago, too.”
Everett furrowed his brow. “Are you complaining?”
Maya’s hands left her hair and found his upper arms, gripping them as if her life depended on telling him what came next. “Oh no. You misunderstand. I find it sexy as hell.”
Everett could hear the air as it was sucked involuntarily into his lungs. “Yeah?”
“If,” she raised an eyebrow, “if it’s me that makes you this way.” She cocked her head. “Do I make you nervous?”
“I think unsettled is the better word.”
She grinned. And just as he was admiring her sweet, genuine smile, she reached up on her tiptoes and planted a soft kiss on his lips.
Everett was still reeling when Maya pulled the door open and ran out.
****
Maya couldn’t help but gawk. And she wasn’t the only one. It seemed the entire room had stopped their own activity to stare at Everett.
While Maya was concentrated on the way his gleaming white teeth were planted into his lush bottom lip, the sparkle in his eyes as he focused on his task, and the way his long fingers were so nimble and sure, she was pretty confident everyone else in the room was impressed with his candle-making skills.
“So, um, when I arranged this activity, I had no idea an expert would be coming.” Janice said it with humor in her voice. Everett’s hands stilled as he stared at Janice.
Then he glanced around the room, seeming to notice for the first time the way he was the central focus of everyone’s attention. “Oh, um.” He sat back, moving his hands away from the masterpiece perched on the folding table in front of him.
There were sixteen people in the room, and apart from Maya, Everett, and Janice, every one of them went back to their own task, like they’d been caught doing something wrong.
“It wasn’t a criticism,” Janice jumped in.
The quarterly artists’ group ‘family gathering’ always started with dinner and ended with a craft of some sort. They’d made baskets, paper, jewelry, and even pottery. But this time Janice had been in charge of the activity and she’d chosen candle-making. Then Maya had gone and invited the man who literally built a business on the hobby.
“She didn’t mean it that way at all,” Maya confirmed.
Janice glanced down at the candle Everett had been hunched over. It looked about a thousand times better than anyone else’s. “I didn’t realize you actually designed the candles.”
“He does.” Maya could hear the pride in her voice. “All thirty-six designs.”
“No.” Everett shook his head. “Elias designed a few.”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Okay. You designed most of them.”
He shrugged, and his shy modesty was freaking adorable.
Janice leaned toward Everett. “I was thinking. We do these classes at the community college. Like adult ed classes. The artists from our group volunteer their time to teach a class in their expertise and the money from tuition goes to the group. It would be awesome if you would teach a candle-making class.” She smiled sweetly.
“Oh no.” Everett held up his hands. “I’m no artist.”
“What?!” Maya nearly shouted. “Of course you are.”
Everett turned his dark eyes to her. “I’m just a businessman, Maya.”
“Bullshit.” As soon as she said it she whirled her head around to see Cassandra’s ten year old laughing. She mouthed an apology and turned back to him. “We need to address this.”
Everett ignored that. Instead, he put the finishing touches on his candle and held it out to her. “For you.”
Maya took the candle and turned it to look at all sides. He’d used six colors, beautifully matched and well blended together. And right in the center was a perfectly formed heart with a small, jagged crack down the middle. Over the crack was a crisscrossed white bandage.
Maya was speechless. And while she was incapable of saying anything, he turned his attention to Janice and her skinny husband, Lebron, who’d moved over to Everett’s side of the table to ask him for help with their candles.
Maya waited until Lebron had his candle finished and Janice was nearly done before she called attention to herself. “Hey, Lebron.” The man’s head shot up. Maya took a moment to giggle internally at the fact his name meant brown-haired boy and yet he was completely bald. “You’re an accountant, a numbers guy, right?”
Lebron pushed his glasses up on his nose and the stark contrast between his appearance and that of his gorgeous buxom wife beside him made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. “Yes.” His gaze landed on Everett. “Since you’re a new member, I should tell you I teach classes on business and accounting for artists.”
“I’m not—” Everett began.
“Honey,” Janice interrupted. “He owns the E.E.R. Tranquility Candle Company.”
“Actually its just Tranquility now,” Maya said.
“Oh!” Poor Lebron looked embarrassed. “I didn’t realize. I thought you were just an artist.”
“He is an artist!” Maya folded her arms across her chest. “He is an artist and a successful businessman. Isn’t that what you’re always telling us we can be, we should be?”
Lebron started to stammer something out, but it was Everett who took over the conversation. He held his hands out in front of him. “Okay, okay. I’m an artist. You win.” He grinned at her, and she nearly collapsed from the beauty of it.
“You win,” Janice repeated and held out her hand, reaching past both men to bump fists with Maya, who gladly reciprocated.
Everett spent the rest of the night dodging requests to give a class on candle-making by saying he’d think about it. Maya pulled him out of the community center as soon as people started filing out of the double doors.
While Maya would normally have driven to the gathering, this time she’d gotten a ride from her friend, Jenna. It allowed her to get Everett to drive her home, something he seemed just as delighted about as she was.
On the short ride through Richmond, Maya fiddled with the fancy radio in Everett’s car, commenting on how overly complicated it was. Everett just drove and smiled.
When they reached her apartment building, Everett once again walked her to the porch. This time, when he leaned in for a soft kiss, Maya reached her hand behind his head and pulled his mouth to hers. Opening up, she tangled her tongue with his. She moaned into his mouth as her other hand ran up his chest.
Everett pushed her back against the side of the building, his strong arm catching them both so she didn’t feel the impact. The sweet pressure of his body pinning hers to the hard surface was intoxicating. To her very core she felt his desire, mingling with her own, as their mouths met, breaths meshed, and bodies rubbed against one another.
But almost as quickly as she’d started it, he ended it. Maya was breathless as he pulled back and took a step away from her.
She reached for him. “Come up.”
Everett shook his head, swallowed hard, and took two deep breaths. “No. I don’t want to mess this up.”
She tilted her head at him. “How would you do that?”
“By rushing into things. That’s what we did before, and I lost…It didn’t work out. I want…I want to have something with you, Maya. And so we need to take it slow.”
Her body slumped against the wall even as her heart swelled. This meant something. She didn’t have the room in her head right now to analyze it too closely. But she knew it was important. So she nodded, still unable to breathe properly.
Everett leaned in and gave her a soft peck on the lips. “Tomorrow? I can take you to dinner?”
She nodded again. Apparently, Everett’s kisses left her mute.
He smiled and left. Maya thumped her head against the wall and looked up at the starless night. “Fuck.”