Chapter 9
Matt
I want to hold her hand. That’s all I can think about as we walk into the restaurant for dinner. Her hand is empty and could use mine to keep it warm. And, well, I want to be touching her at all times. Because, apparently, I’m creepy like that now.
I’m way more drawn to her than I accounted for. Aidan clearly saw more of this than I did with all of his “your girl” stuff. Because that’s the only thing I want her to be right now. Everything else is inconsequential. All that matters is that I make her mine.
But fuck that.
That’s the recipe for disaster. The equation to getting my heart stomped on, chewed up, and spit out yet again. And that’s a big old nope to that happening right now. I’m enjoying the single-and-free life, where nothing all that bad happens and I don’t have to worry about depression so fucking awful that I can’t get out of bed in the morning. So…no. None of that, please.
That doesn’t mean I won’t torture myself with taking her out to dinner and going to that wedding with her, where I’m sure she’ll look like a million bucks and I’ll want nothing more than to get her out of her dress and onto her back in my bed. I don’t even need the real thing to feel the torture, it seems. Just thoughts of the future are doing it already. Wonderful.
I shake the thoughts off—all of them—and return my brain to the present moment. The one where I’m with Cadence and we’re getting a table for two to eat and discuss all things Brian. Whoever the fuck he is.
When the waiter leaves us alone with our menus, I try to look through mine, but after a few moments, I feel Cadence’s green stare on me. She has a penetrating gaze that burns me with a single look, so I glance up over my menu before locking my gaze with hers.
“Yes?” I say, a small smile on my mouth.
“I need to know about you, Brian.” She sets her menu down and folds her arms on the tabletop.
“Well.” I let my menu join hers. “Let’s see.” Cracking my knuckles, I think of all the things I can say about this Brian character. I can be anyone I want to be and no one would be the wiser—even Cadence herself, for the most part.
So I do what any man in my position—which is the one where he actually likes the girl who needs the favor—would do. I tell the truth. About myself.
“I, ‘Brian,’ love baseball, fall weather, and my family. I have a younger brother, Jeremy, who lives near our parents while he goes to college. My sister, Dani, is in high school. And my grandpa is at a local nursing home, battling Alzheimer’s.”
Her eyes are wide as she cocks her head to the side and stares at me like she’s unsure who I was really talking about. This made-up Brian person or the real-life Matt. We didn’t say whether or not I’d make up a character—which isn’t shocking, considering we haven’t said much about anything at all to each other.
Yet we’ve had sex, which is usually the way I like it: sex without a lot of conversation.
But not with her.
No, not with her. Something bothers me about being out of order with her. She’s not the kind of woman you fuck and never call again, even though she says she wants to be. She’s just not, and I’m sure that’s why I’m so attracted to her. We always want what we shouldn’t have, don’t we?
She doesn’t get a chance to respond, because the waiter comes to the table to take our drink orders. We enter a staring contest without verbally acknowledging it, our lips tipped up into tiny smiles. Then the waiter comes back with her wine and my water. When he asks for our food orders, we ask him for a minute to look the menus over.
“Are you recovering?” she asks before sipping her drink.
I counter with, “Me or Brian?” as I open my menu.
She pauses with her glass at her lips. Then she sets it on the table and flips her menu open. “Either one.”
So I shake my head. “I took you home from a bar, remember? Not many addicts would be found in a place like that.”
She dips her head in a nod. “True. So, why water?”
“I need to keep my head clear around you,” I confess, leaning over my menu to be closer to her. “You’re dangerous.”
One eyebrow rises.
“Okay, the real answer?”
She lowers that eyebrow and nods.
I readjust my position in my seat. “I have a bit of a troubled past with alcohol. And other stuff. My ex was a bit of a user, and not being clear-headed about things blindsided me like you wouldn’t believe.” After picking my glass up, I slowly sip my water. “So I stick with this.”
“Fair enough.” She nods again. “So, how long have you been delivering packages?” Then she picks her wine glass back up.
I go back to perusing my meal options. “Seven years. It’s a good gig,” I say without lifting my head. Then I figure out what food I want and close the menu. “What about you?”
“Have you traveled at all?” she asks without answering my question.
It’s my turn to cock my head to the side and stare at her. “You think your family will ask you if I’ve traveled?”
“No,” she says, flipping her menu closed, “but they may ask if Brian’s traveled. I should be prepared.”
“You know, this is a lot of work already,” I tell her, propping my elbow on the table and my head in my hand. “I thought I was just going to enjoy some free food and dancing.”
“Which you are. It’s payment for coming with me.”
At that, I sit up straight again. “Oh, so I’m a prostitute now? Is this Pretty Woman: Man Edition?”
She flushes bright red, her face on fire. Naturally, this is when our waiter comes back to take our food order. So we rattle it off and hope he doesn’t care about our dinner conversation.
“I didn’t say that,” she says quietly. “I’ll pay for your dinner tonight if it’ll make you happy.”
“Just being in your presence makes me happy,” I confess, smiling at her in a sarcastic way to cover up the fact that I told her the truth.
She wads up my straw wrapper and chucks it at me. When it hits me square in the chest, we both softly chuckle, but a sparkle in her eye tells me that she’s warding the truth off. Hiding behind being playful and asking these questions. She thinks she’s getting made-up stories, but she knows she’s hearing some truths. The more I tell her, the more I want her to figure out what’s true and what isn’t. The more fun this is. The more I enjoy being around her. The more I lo—
I abruptly stop laughing and clear my throat. “So, what are your parents’ names? Seems like something I should know before the wedding.”
She grabs her wine glass. “It’s just my mom. Sally.”
I give her a sympathetic look. “Sorry to hear that.”
But she waves me off. “It’s fine. My mom is more than I can handle most days, anyway. Between her and my sister…” She trails off and then takes a sip of her drink.
“Your sister—she’s the one getting married?” I ask before drinking some water. My throat’s dry after that almost-confession, mental or not.
She nods. “Mmhm. Gina. Her fiancé is Paul. He’s a good guy.”
“Is Gina older or younger than you?” I prod.
“Younger,” she says, looking uncomfortable as she gazes away, perhaps for the waiter, hoping he’ll bring the food.
But that means I’m getting close to something personal. Something I probably want the answer to. So I dive in. “So how come you’re not the one getting married, then?”
When she pins me with her gaze, hurt blazes from her eyes. Pain I didn’t anticipate radiates over to me, and I reach a hand out to cover one of hers. She allows it, staring at our hands.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I seem to keep upsetting you.”
“Well, isn’t this conversation supposed to be about you?” she asks, putting her hand in her lap.
“No. Not me.” I shake my head. “Brian. Remember him? I sure do. Well, kinda.”
That gets her to crack a tiny smile, which I gladly accept. “I do,” she says purposefully. Then she focuses on me and holds my gaze, a sexy smolder glittering in her eyes. “And I wonder if he likes grape jelly over strawberry jam.”
∞∞∞
Cadence
The rest of dinner went fine. Really well, actually. He’s cute and funny. Okay, he’s sexy and hysterical. I don’t want to think about him that way because I don’t want to get attached, but I do think about him that way. He seems up for something more between us, though he hasn’t come out and said it. So maybe he’s not. Maybe this is just how he is with women who bribe him into going to weddings with them. I wouldn’t know otherwise.
We’ve laughed for nearly the whole meal, and I figure we’ll continue to do—until the not-date takes a sharp nosedive. Once we’ve paid the check—or, rather, he’s paid. He wouldn’t let me touch it—we leave the restaurant and find ourselves face-to-face with the bride-to-be. My sister. Gina.
Oh yay.
“Cade?” she asks, her eyebrows pinched together. “I didn’t think we’d see you here! And hey! It’s Brian!” In the most embarrassing move ever, she wraps him in a hug and says, “It’s good to see you again! You’re treating my sister right, aren’t you?” Then, even more embarrassingly, she winks at him and knocks him on the lapel of his shirt.
What the hell is going on?
“You too, Gina,” he says like this isn’t unusual and/or awkward as hell. “Is this Paul? I’ve heard so much about you, man. Good to meet you, and congratulations on the wedding.” He reaches his hand out to Paul.
Paul accepts the handshake. “Thanks. I’m sorry though. I don’t know who you are. I can’t always keep up,” he says, making a weird hand gesture that’s probably supposed to apologize for his lack of knowledge.
“No, I told you about him on Sunday morning. This is Brian,” my sister squeals, “Cade’s date to the wedding!”
“Ahh, yeah. You know, Gina did mention your name,” Paul tells him. “Sorry. Wedding brain.”
This is such a strange moment that I don’t have enough time to really examine how opposite Paul and my sister are. But I don’t particularly care in this moment, either. That’s not what’s important. What’s important is getting the fuck out of here before more trouble I can’t fix starts.
“Speaking of dates,” my sister says, flicking her wrist toward me. “Did you ask him about Friday yet?” She jerks her chin toward him like he can’t hear us speaking.
Before I can answer, he speaks up. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t heard about Friday. What’s Friday?” he asks, looking at me with a huge shit-eating grin on his face.
“Friday’s dinner with the family.” Gina puts a hand on his shoulder. “And we want you to be there to connect with the family before the wedding. Our mom can’t wait to meet you.”
“Mom can wait—” I try to say, finally waking up enough to butt into the conversation.
But Brian cuts me off. “I’ll be there.” Then he turns to me. “What time should I pick you up, Cade?” he asks, using my nickname, his eyes sparkling with so much lust and amusement.
Fury flies out of my pores, and he knows. That amusement in his eyes grows by the second.
“We’ll figure it out in the car,” I grind out between clenched teeth.
“Wonderful!” My sister shoots her beaming smile my way. “Well, it was great to see you both. We’re going to eat now.” She takes her fiancé’s hand and leads him toward the door of the restaurant. “Have a great night, you two!” After an overdramatic wink to me, she follows Paul inside.
When the door shuts, I spin and nearly sprint to the car. This is not how I wanted this night to go. Not even close. And I’m wishing I’d have stood my ground and met him here. Then this whole thing could be over already.
He waits until he’s close to the car to unlock it. After the click, he grabs the handle and opens the door for me. “Your sister is lovely.” His upturned lips practically beg me to fly off the handle.
But I don’t. “She’s a peach,” I say as I get inside the car.
His chuckle floats in the air as he closes the door and walks around to his side. Once he’s in, he starts it and we’re off. To where, I have no idea. But I’m too mad to care.
“Were you planning on telling me about Friday night?” he hedges, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shifter.
I shake my head without offering any further explanation.
“Care to tell me why?” He lets the gear shifter go and hovers his palm over my thigh.
I still say nothing, staring at his fingers as if they’ll suddenly turn into birds.
When he rests his palm on my jean-clad thigh, he doesn’t ask another question. Instead, he goes with something smoother. “You look great tonight, by the way. I like this look on you.”
“What look?” I ask before I think better of it.
With a slight squeeze of his fingers, he says, “The look that says we slept together tonight. The way your hair isn’t quite as neat as it usually is. The jeans instead of the business suit.” He keeps his gaze on the road.
Until he realizes I’m not responding. Then he glances at me, one dimple flashing my way and doing its magic. I don’t want compliments. I don’t want niceties. We’re not in a relationship, and once this wedding is over, this is over. So I change the subject and give him what he wants so he’ll quit.
“I was going to tell her you were sick.” Then I realize my mistake and clear my throat. “I mean, that Brian was sick. Or busy with work. Either one.”
“Or you could have just asked.” He smooths his hand down my jeans in a gentle, comfortable way that makes me wish he’d do it forever.
And that’s exactly why I say, “We agreed to the wedding. Nothing more. You shouldn’t have to be subjected to my family twice for no good reason.”
“Oh,” he says, trailing his finger from my kneecaps up the seam of my legs, “I can think of a good reason.”
I clamp my hand over his just before he reaches the Promise Land. “And we also agreed to one night, which has spilled over into two. That’s more than enough.”
Another one of his light chuckles fills the car, giving me goose bumps I don’t want to admit to. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“It’s the deal we made,” I insist, though I feel like a five-year-old who’s upset about not getting cookies after dinner.
“I distinctly remember that your package-handling skills were part of the deal,” he reminds me, “and I don’t think I’ve been shown those yet.” He flashes me a wink and one dimple. “You’ve seen mine, Cade.”
Inwardly, I want to kiss the hell out of him. Strip him down and show him exactly how expert my package-handling skills are. Outwardly, though, I don’t know if I have much choice but to agree. I mean, I have a choice. Obviously. But I’m leaning so far toward giving him what he’s asking for that I can’t make myself stop.
After several sexually tense moments, I say, “Fine.”
He pats my leg, a permanent smirk etched onto his face. “That’s what I was hoping to hear. Well, not quite, but I’ll take it.”
But, to turn the tables and put this back on my terms, I cover his hand with mine and clarify with, “Friday night though. After you’ve graced my family with your presence.” My own sarcastic smile spreads across my face. “Tonight, you drop me off at home.”
“After I’ve—”
“Nope,” I say, popping the P at the end of the word and shaking my head. “Right now.”
The hand under mine flies into the air in a surrender gesture. Then, with a glance my way, he smiles and winks like he thinks he won this round. But I now have three deliveryman-free days to get some work done and focus on my marathon goals.
If nothing else, I bought myself some time.
Now, to use it in ways that don’t include wondering what he’ll think of me in that new bra-and-panty set…