His feet stayed planted, rocking us, his hand fitted to mine.
“Maggie . . .” Canaan exhaled, twisted on the swing so he was angled toward me.
I read the message in his eyes. I felt it forming on his lips. That was less terrifying than the response I felt coming from me.
“I’ve got a boyfriend,” I whispered, even as my hand seemed to tighten in the haven of his.
“So you keep saying.” His head dropped so it was aligned with mine. His gold eyes looked yellow, feral almost, in the dark. “But are you bringing that up to remind me? Or to remind yourself?” The swing creaked as Canaan slid closer, waiting.
“Both,” I whispered.
“No boy in no city would ever stop me when it comes to you.” His other hand lifted to my cheek, the scratch of his fingertips so familiar it had me pressing into them harder. “So it’s up to you to listen to that reminder when I do what comes next.”
“What are you doing?” My voice broke.
His eyes dropped. “I’m going to kiss you.”
“I’ve got a boyfriend,” I repeated, the words barely registering out loud.
Still, the corner of Canaan’s mouth worked. “Then don’t kiss me back.”
When his mouth touched mine, a surge of energy ran through me. His mouth was still, unmoving, and I could already feel my body unraveling from this simple touch. It wasn’t that a man’s mouth was pressed to mine—it was that it was Canaan’s mouth. I’d never experienced the same feeling with anyone else, before or after him. Nowhere to the same degree or even on the same scale. It was the kind of connection that could make a person prone to sentimentality believe in the guise of soul mates.
My hand tied in his tightened at the same time my lips moved against his. Oh god. I was kissing him back. For the briefest of moments, he was still—with what I guessed was surprise—but that didn’t last long. His hand moved down my face and curled behind my neck to draw me closer, his mouth matching the beat of mine.
A gasp slipped from me, fueling the flame burning inside him. His hand released mine to wind around my waist, his arm curling behind it to drag my body to his. My chest crushed against his; this time, the gasp seeped from his mouth. My hand explored him, winding up familiar slopes, dipping into canyons, until I’d reacquainted myself with the man’s body that belonged to the boy I’d fallen in love with years ago.
When his tongue moved inside my mouth, my body gave a traitorous tremble. Never losing his stride, a smile curved onto his lips. His hands stayed locked in place behind my neck and back as he kissed me until I felt my head spin—from lack of oxygen or excess sensation, I wasn’t sure. My own hands more than made up for his careful restraint, though I managed to keep them above his belt.
A minute or an hour later, Canaan’s mouth released mine, though the taste and ache of him lingered. My chest was moving so quickly, it suggested I’d been doing something far more vigorous than upright making out on an old porch swing. Canaan didn’t miss it. Despite the smug tip of his mouth, his eyes mirrored what I knew mine looked like.
His stare held mine for a moment as his fingers curled into the back of my neck. He was telling me something. Maybe trying to tell me everything, but it was nothing I was ready to receive.
“Good night, Maggie,” he said as he stood.
The skin between my eyebrows creased with confusion as I watched him move toward the stairs and down them one at a time. “Good night?” I hadn’t meant it to come out sounding like such a question.
“You sound confused. You look confused,” he added when he glanced back at where I was still frozen on the swing.
I was confused.
Had Canaan Ford just kissed me—intensely—then gotten up to end the evening? It wasn’t like I’d been pumping the brakes, my overeager hands pawing all over him. It wasn’t like I wasn’t still so wound up and tangled with need that if he came back and carried me inside right now, I wouldn’t give myself to him without a second thought.
“Are you okay?” His eyes were glowing in the night as they inspected me.
“Are you sure you’re the same Canaan Ford I married forever and a day ago?”
His hands slid into his pockets when he shrugged. “Yes,” he said instantly. “And no.” That came not so suddenly.
“Because the old Canaan Ford would have already had me on my back with my dress up around my waist by now.” I didn’t dull my words because now wasn’t the time for half-assed honesty. Not right after making out with my ex—voluntarily and eagerly—who I was trying to get a divorce from.
He rolled his neck, his jaw grinding. “But this version knows the only way to win you back is using this.” He knocked the side of his head a few times with his fist.
“Instead of . . .?”
“Instead of what is very, very insistent I throw myself back up these stairs, lay you down on the first patch of porch I can get you on, and get that dress around your waist.” Like saying it out loud was tempting him, he took a couple steps back, putting himself on the grass.
Him saying it had me picturing it and feeling all kinds of urges in places I shouldn’t have wanted to feel Canaan’s body take control of. My hands wound around whatever part of the swing I could reach to keep me from going to him and making the closest patch of grass substitute for the porch.
Canaan continued to back away, still watching me. “Thank you for the best second first date in the history of second first dates.”
My body relaxed as he moved away. A little. “Don’t think there’s a whole lot of second first dates to compare it to.”
“Why you say that?”
“Because most people are smart enough to recognize that if something didn’t work once, it’s not going to work the second time around.”
He blew out a huff of disagreement. “Please. Giving up after one try? That sounds like everyone’s a bunch of quitters.” I didn’t miss Canaan’s smile, even through the blanket of dark. “And I’m no quitter, Maggie Ford.”
Waking up the next morning didn’t bring an instant reminder of what had happened the night before. No, it didn’t hit me in some sudden rush—it was more of a gradual effect.
My response, however, was not so gradual.
Jolting up in my childhood bed, I found my blankets and sheets twisted around me like I’d spent all night spinning in my sleep. After untangling myself, I kicked the blankets off the bed and sat there, hoping I was still going to wake up. Praying I was still stuck in a layer of sleep and would arise to discover that all of last night had been a dream.
I didn’t wake up from it.
As my mind ticked through the alphabet of swear words, A through Z, my chest felt like it was going to explode. I’d kissed Canaan last night. I’d made out high-school-custodian-closet-in-between-periods style. Holy shit. Not that there was anything holy about what had happened; try the alternative.
My fingers patted my lips like I could still feel them swollen and bruised from how he’d kissed me. As I replayed what had happened, I felt my body swell with that familiar ache of need, the same one he’d drawn from me last night when I would have done just about anything he wanted had he asked.
I despised him. I wanted a divorce. How had he managed to get me to kiss him and want what followed that kiss? The answer was simple—Canaan was my addiction. The habit I needed to kick. The one I thought I’d beat years ago. But as with most addictions, last night I’d gotten one taste and now I wanted it all.
Screw the month agreement. I couldn’t be around him. I’d thought I was over him, but last night had proven how entirely wrong I was about that. There had to be some other way to get a divorce from him—one that didn’t involve me sacrificing everything I’d worked for over the past half decade.
After showering and throwing on some clothes, I got out of the house as soon as I could. Canaan’s truck was already gone, which meant he was probably at the shop, but I still hightailed it to my car like he might burst out the garage apartment at any mome
nt.
I wasn’t sure where I was heading until I pulled into the bowling alley parking lot. It didn’t look like it was open yet, but Rachel’s car was out front and I needed someone to talk to. Grandma would have been my first choice, but she was gone. Reed might have been a second choice, but given the topic, he was the last person I wanted to discuss last night with.
Reed. My good, loyal, dependable doctor of a boyfriend. Who I’d cheated on. With my ex husband. Or current husband, given the law. Christ, I could have pitched the soap opera of the century with that plot.
The doors weren’t locked, so I slipped inside the bowling alley.
“We’re not open for another half hour,” Rachel called from one of the lanes, where she was organizing balls. When she glanced back and saw me, she stopped. “Never mind. We’re open for emotional support all hours of the day.”
“I kissed him, Rachel.” Saying it out loud had me throwing my purse across the room.
“You kissed who?”
“Who do you think?”
Half her face pulled up, like she was afraid to say it. “You kissed Canaan?”
I made a ding sound and dropped into one of the plastic benches stationed behind the lane she was at. “Of course I did, because why wouldn’t I want to complicate an already impossible situation?”
Rachel bit at her lip. “Did you do anything else?”
“No.” My arms crossed. “But it wasn’t for my lack of willingness had he hung around for more.”
“He didn’t hang around for more?”
“Nope. We kissed, he said good night, then he walked away.”
Her light eyes widened. “And you’re sure it was Canaan Ford you kissed last night?”
My arm flew out. “That’s exactly what I said to his face when he started to leave.”
Rachel had to cover her mouth to hide her smile. “You said that to him?”
“Of course I did. When did Canaan ever leave when he could have more? When did any guy ever leave when he could have more?”
“Um . . .” Rachel looked around like she was thinking. “Last night. Pretty sure that was the first time ever.”
“I came to you so you could make me feel better, not more confused.”
“Sorry, it’s just that I’m kind of confused.”
“Because he walked away when I was pretty much nonverbally begging him to fuck me?”
Rachel gnawed at her lip before answering. “Because you’re so upset he did.”
Her answer cut short whatever I was about to reply with.
“I guarantee that if you two had done the naked tango last night, you would be a million times more angry than you are now.”
I blinked at her. “Naked tango?”
“I’ve been trying to watch my F-bombs when I’m out in public. Especially when I’m at work.”
“Great. So everyone’s gone and grown wings and a halo while I’ve been gone. I’m the last heathen left.”
Rachel heaved a couple more balls around to arrange them by weight from the looks of it. “You have spent the last five years in Chicago.”
“And you’ve spent the past however many years married to Brian Meeks.”
Rachel giggled. “That should have been enough to earn those wings and halo.”
I got up to help her maneuver some heavy balls. Some physical labor might make me feel better. “What should I do?” I sighed, since the question was more a rhetorical one.
Rachel’s expression suggested there was no way in hell she was touching that question. “Listen, I know you and Canaan were, like, the example for what not to do in marriage, but come on. You were barely eighteen when you got married. Still in high school, you were knocked up and he was messed up from losing his brother.” It all came out in a rush, like she’d been holding that back for a while. “If that doesn’t say doomed from the start, I don’t know what does.”
Replaying what Rachel said in my head, I could see how immature and naïve we’d been to think marriage would fix all that had gone wrong in our lives. Sure, we’d been crazy in love, but that was no reason to go straight-up crazy and take the journey down the courthouse aisle.
“I felt so sure that everything would work out when we decided to get married.”
“You were eighteen. You also felt so sure that bangs were a good look for you, but yikes.” Rachel gave me some side-eye as we continued wrestling bowling balls.
“So pretty much I didn’t have a clue when I was eighteen is what you’re saying?”
“About the bangs? Hell yes. About Canaan?” She shrugged. “I think you got him right. Just not the child marriage decision.”
I elbowed her. “We were legally adults.”
“And in case you haven’t read the articles on us Millennials, eighteen is the new eight.”
“So in your opinion, I got him right. The marriage wrong.”
“In my opinion—let me say again, my opinion, which means it’s not fact unless you’re my husband—I think you got both right.” My head was starting to tip when she added, “But the timing was off on one.” Rachel nudged her arm into mine. “And timing is everything, my friend.”
When she moved over to the next rack of balls, I stayed where I was, my mind feeling like someone had just turned it inside out and given it a wring. Either nothing made sense or everything did.
Either way, I wasn’t ready for whatever the answer was.
“So you think I should give him a second chance?”
Rachel gave me a funny look. “I think you should give yourself a second chance.”
Like the good chicken I was, I made sure to get back to Grandma’s before Canaan could get off work. I’d already ignored his two calls, but he’d be harder to ignore in physical form. Especially since I’d arrived at the conclusion that he was my bad habit I couldn’t quit.
Once I’d gotten inside, I made sure to lock every bolt on every door, and I didn’t have a light burning in the place when I heard the rumble of his truck moving in the driveway. It was after eight, which was a long day of work for someone who’d been gone by the time I rolled out of bed around seven. Before, Canaan had avoided work—especially in his dad’s shop—like he had a deadly allergy to it. That had obviously changed.
When I heard his footsteps moving up the porch steps, I stopped breathing and ducked farther into the dark corner of the living room I was hiding in. The dark living room. I saw the utter humor in a grown woman behaving this way, yet it didn’t keep me from covering my chest with a pillow when I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding.
When he knocked on the door, I caught myself as I started to move toward it. Apparently my subconscious was a defiant little minx who couldn’t be trusted. Noted. I’d be sure to strangle the life out of her before letting myself anywhere close to Canaan again.
Another knock, but this time I stayed in place.
“Maggie, come on. Open the door.” The screen door whined as he was quiet for a minute. “Are you really not going to open the door?”
I’m not here, I thought, trying to project the illusion his way.
“Your car’s here.”
It was like he was reading my damn mind.
I’m asleep.
“I know you’re in there. Listening. I know why you’re avoiding me. Same reason you’ve been hiding the past five years.” He didn’t offer any follow-up to that—letting the possibilities stagnate in the air.
He knew why I was hiding in a dark house from him? He knew why I’d been avoiding him for years?
Why?
I thought I’d known; I’d lived my life believing I had. Now I knew the lies I’d fed myself were fabrications, leaving blank spaces in their place. If he knew why I had done all of this, I wanted to know.
Why?
“Please, Maggie. We should talk. We need to talk.” Canaan’s voice was quieter. “If I rushed things last night, I’m sorry. If you regret what happened, I’m sorry. But please, open the door. Let me in.”
My
eyes burned, but I rubbed them to keep the tears away. From his voice, I could tell he was holding himself to blame for last night when really, that was my fault. He’d leaned in, but I’d leaned in closer. He’d kissed me, but I’d kissed him harder. He’d pulled back when I’d been desperate for more.
“Maggie.” Another knock echoed through the door.
I tucked my head into my arms, fighting what I wanted to do versus what I had to do. I wanted to invite him in—but I had to keep him out.
“You’ve got a delivery. Flowers.” His voice was so changed it could have been a different man standing outside. “They’re roses—red ones—which must mean the asswipe who sent them to you doesn’t know, or want to know, a thing about you.”
I thought I’d heard the doorbell ring earlier when I’d been in the basement, going through more of Grandma’s stuff, but I’d been too up to my elbows in canned goods and old china to go check it out.
“‘Wish I was there with you now.’” Canaan snorted. “This guy’s a doctor, right? Think he could put together more than one moronic sentence.”
Wish I was there with you now?
For some reason, those words pissed me off more than they comforted me.
“Shouldn’t someone who cared about another, instead of sending them flowers, just be here?” Canaan didn’t wait for an answer, not that I was going to give him one. “Your grandma just died. The woman who raised you from the time you were five. Shouldn’t your ‘boyfriend’ be here with you, instead of sending you cliché flowers with cliché notes? Shouldn’t he be here?” His voice rumbled through the door, almost like there wasn’t anything between him and me at all. “A person who claims to care about you and love you should be here for you. They should be here, Maggie. With you.”
He stood outside the door for another few minutes, but I never went to it. I couldn’t. It wasn’t until he’d left that I was able to answer him.
“I know.”
Playing the role of the skilled chicken-shit, I’d managed to avoid Canaan all of yesterday too, which meant I hadn’t seen him in two days. If I could avoid him until Grandma’s funeral, I’d be good. If I couldn’t, then I was screwed. In any and all definitions of the word.
Exes With Benefits Page 10
