The Spark

by Keeland, Vi

  I snorted. “I had a good chat with my plants earlier. Doesn’t mean I want to suck their face.”

  “Donovan…”

  I shook my head. “Autumn.”

  “I’m sorry about today. I’m giving you mixed signals. The kiss shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Like fuck it shouldn’t have.”

  “I like you, Donovan. I really do.”

  “And I like you, too. A hell of a lot. So much so that I can’t think straight lately. You’re all I damn think about. So what’s the problem?”

  “I told you. I don’t want a relationship.”

  “But you’re in one with Dickson…”

  “It’s a different kind of relationship.”

  “Well, I’ll take what I can get. Whatever the deal you have going with Dickson is, I’ll take it.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “Because…”

  Down deep I knew the answer, even though I didn’t understand it at all. “Because you have feelings for me, and you don’t for him.”

  “I know that sounds ridiculous. But yeah.”

  “Would it help if I was an asshole to you? Maybe we could plan on going out and I wouldn’t show up.”

  She chuckled softly. “You’re a good guy, Donovan.”

  I could tell this conversation was coming to an end. So I pushed one more time. “Tell me why you won’t go out with a guy you like. At least give me that so I can accept it and move on.”

  “I just…I want to stay focused on my job and finishing school.”

  I knew that was bullshit, but short of being an asshole, I had nowhere to go from here. This time it was me who let out the big sigh. Neither of us said anything for a solid five minutes after that. But I heard her breathing and wasn’t about to hang up. In negotiations, the first one to break a standoff almost always loses.

  “I’m sorry, Donovan,” she eventually said. “But I think we need some distance between us at this point.”

  I had to clear my throat and sit up. “Fine. Do you want me to have Storm’s case transferred to someone else?”

  “No. He trusts you, and that’s not something that happens too often. Plus, you got him a deal, so I’m guessing things are almost wrapped up.”

  “Yeah. He’ll need to appear before the judge to accept the terms, but that should take ten minutes.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to say. I’ll have my assistant call you when I get the date of the appearance, so you don’t have to talk to me more than necessary.”

  Autumn’s voice sounded as sad as I felt. “Okay.”

  I wanted to be nice, but I was frustrated, and the alcohol sure as hell didn’t help. “Enjoy your emotionless life, Red.”

  ***

  The following Friday was our work happy hour. I hadn’t had any contact with Autumn, not that I’d expected to after our last conversation. But still, the week had sucked. I lost an important summary judgment argument, wasted a full day drawing up motions to stop the bank from seizing more of Mr. Bentley’s assets—which they were going to no matter what, but the client had demanded I try—and today I had to fill in for a partner whose wife had lost her mother and second-chair a case for Dickson, of all people.

  I wasn’t sure what was worse, spending the entire day sitting next to him or the fact that he did a damn good job in oral arguments. At least Autumn never came up. Thank God. All I wanted to do was go home and commiserate to my plants, but Trent and Juliette weren’t having it. They’d practically dragged me to happy hour. And now, as I sipped on a beer I didn’t want, I realized why Juliette had been so gung ho about me coming tonight.

  “Donovan, this is my friend Margo.” Juliette smiled. “I mentioned her to you. She’s the yoga instructor.”

  I gave a curt nod. “How you doing, Margo?”

  She looked me up and down, not even attempting to hide her interest. “My day just got better.”

  Shit. The woman was beautiful. Petite with big eyes, full lips, and a tiny waist, but a hell of a lot of tits and ass—exactly the type I’d normally be attracted to, but I had no interest. Juliette, thinking she’d done me a solid, grinned at me and wiggled her fingers. “Tootle-oo. I’ll leave you guys to get to know each other better.”

  Great.

  Margo tossed her purse onto the bar next to me and raised her hand to get the bartender’s attention. “Can I buy you a drink?” she asked.

  I wasn’t interested, but I also wasn’t an asshole. “No, thanks.” When Freddie, the regular bartender, walked over, Margo ordered a baybreeze. I lifted my chin to him. “Put that on my tab, will you, Freddie?”

  “Sure, boss.” He knocked his knuckles against the bar. “You got it.”

  “Thank you,” Margo said. She turned to face me. “So Juliette tells me you’re single?”

  “I am.”

  “And why is that?”

  I lifted a brow. “Why am I single?”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t realize I needed a reason to be single.”

  Margo smiled. “You’re an attorney—a killer one from what Juliette told me. You’re obviously handsome. Don’t think that’s news to you since there’s a mirror right over there. And my friend says you’re a genuinely good guy. Men like that aren’t single for long.”

  I smirked and rubbed my lip. “Juliette said I’m a killer lawyer and a good guy, huh?”

  Margo shrugged. “She did. But don’t let it go to your head. She also said you could be a giant dick sometimes.”

  I laughed. “Alright. Now that sounds more like the Juliette I know. I was beginning to worry maybe she was dying or something, saying all those nice things about me.”

  Margo smiled and tilted her head. “So what’s your deal? Recent breakup? Manwhore? Commitment phobe?” She squinted at me. “I don’t take you for a momma’s boy.”

  “Definitely not a momma’s boy. But I also haven’t had a recent breakup. I’m not afraid of commitment, and if I’m a manwhore, I’m not very good at it considering it’s been about four or five months since I had sex.”

  Margo sighed and bowed her head dramatically. “Then you’re the worst kind of single man.”

  She was amusing, and I was curious, so I bit. “What’s the worst kind of single guy?”

  She held her hand over her heart and shook her head. “You have it bad for a woman who isn’t interested.”

  My smile fell.

  Margo noticed and rubbed my arm. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring your head down.”

  I forced a smile. “It’s fine. You didn’t.”

  Freddie walked over and slid Margo’s drink across the bar. “One baybreeze for the pretty lady.”

  “Thanks, Freddie.” I nodded.

  Margo sipped her drink while studying my face, then set her cocktail on the bar and rubbed her hands together. “Okay, lay it on me.”

  I shook my head. “Lay what on you?”

  “Your woman troubles.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. Sometimes it takes a stranger to give you perspective on what’s going on—unless you already know what the problem is.”

  Honestly, I felt pretty desperate. But this woman seemed nice, and she’d clearly come here with different expectations for the night. I didn’t want to be a total downer and ruin her evening. “It’s fine, but thank you for the offer. I appreciate it.”

  Margo drank some more of her cocktail, and then as I was finishing off my beer, she said, “I’m in love with a married man.”

  I coughed the alcohol down the wrong pipe and spoke with a hoarse voice. “Come again?”

  She smiled. “You heard me. He owns the gym I work at and two others.”

  “Shit. Does he know?”

  Margo wagged her finger back and forth. “Not so fast. If we’re not going to go home together and try to make each other forget, we’re going to share our secrets fair and
square. What’s her name, at least?”

  “Autumn.”

  “Pretty name. Does she have red hair?”

  I smiled. “She does. And green eyes.”

  “Nice. Donald has blue eyes.” She nodded toward a table. “Wanna go sit and talk? I don’t know if it will help either of us, but I don’t have anything better to do.”

  I laughed. “Sure. Why not?”

  Margo and I talked for the next two and a half hours. It was a shame I was so consumed with a woman who had no interest in being with me, because I really liked Margo. She was smart and a straight shooter. Plus, yoga instructor. Her advice to me was to do the exact opposite of what I’d done with Autumn—not walk away. She suspected the same thing I did—that Autumn had been in a bad relationship and gotten burned or lost someone, which made her lose trust in men. So she suggested I show her I could be trusted by not giving up so easily.

  I wasn’t entirely sure her approach was correct, but it had been nice to look at things from a woman’s perspective. Unfortunately, my advice to her wasn’t as thought provoking. I’d told her to find a new job and not look back. Donald liked the attention he was getting from her, but was never going to leave his wife—who was currently pregnant with their second child.

  We walked back over to the bar so I could close out the tab. “Let me ask you something… Do you have a type?”

  Margo smiled. “Apparently married, balding, and a jerk.”

  I chuckled. “No, I meant, have you met Trent?”

  Her brows shot up. “The short guy who’s really young?”

  I smirked. “That’s the one.”

  “Juliette introduced me to him earlier. I’ll be honest, he’s not the type I’d usually go for.” She smiled. “You, on the other hand…”

  I nodded. “I get it. But give him a shot. He’s a great guy. He’s also thirty, even though he doesn’t look it. Someday that will be a good thing.”

  She bit her lip in contemplation before smiling. “Okay. What the hell? I will.”

  “Come on, I’ll hook you up talking to him on my way out.”

  It was still early when I got home, only about ten o’clock. I took a quick shower and watered my plants—this time, without bitching at them. Maybe my talk with Margo had done me some good after all.

  The entire week I’d been pissed off, but I suddenly felt a bit more relaxed. So I sat down, took out my phone, and scrolled to my photos, going straight to my favorites file and the one lonely picture in the folder. Autumn. I’d had no idea that twenty-four hours after taking it, the picture would be all I had to keep me from thinking the entire weekend had been a figment of my imagination.

  And now it was a reminder that fate had brought her back to me.

  Maybe Margo was right. Good things don’t come to people who walk away. They come to people who fight for what they want. It was what I’d done in school and in my career, and it had served me well, so why was I giving up so damn easily on something I knew in my gut wasn’t over?

  The answer didn’t take long to come to me. I wasn’t.

  Screw that.

  Throwing in the towel wasn’t my style.

  I was good for a full twelve rounds in a fight, so we had a long way to go.

  With one last glimpse at the photo, I switched over to contacts and brought up the very first name. I’d have to tread lightly—there could be a fine line between letting a woman know you were going to wait her out and harassment. I needed to figure out how to handle it properly, but for now, I’d start with a simple text.

  Donovan: I miss you.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  Autumn

  “What do you think of this?” I pulled a green silk dress I’d bought but never worn out of my closet and pressed it against my body before turning to show Skye.

  “It looks Gucci with your skin and hair.”

  My forehead winkled. “Gucci?”

  Skye rolled her eyes. “It means it looks hot. Sometimes I can’t believe you’re in your twenties. Your vocab is the same as my mom’s.”

  “Uhh. Thank you?”

  She flipped the page of her magazine while sitting on my bed with a smirk. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  I chuckled and walked over to the mirror. “Do you think the material is too clingy?”

  She flipped another page, lifted the sample flap on a perfume advertisement, and brought it up to her nose for a sniff. “There’s no such thing as too clingy. Where are you wearing it? Also...” She wrinkled her nose. “This smells like shit.”

  “Let me smell.” She held out the magazine, and I walked over and smelled the page. “I like it.”

  She shook her head again and mumbled under her breath. “You really are turning into my mom.”

  At twenty-two, Skye was only six years younger than me. But sometimes it felt like she could be my child. That’s probably because she’d been an actual child when we’d met six years ago.

  “What’s the dress for?”

  “Court tomorrow with one of my kids.”

  She shut the magazine and wiggled her eyebrows. “Ahh…the hot, rich lawyer who steals shampoo from hotels and has a shitload of plants. What’s going on there? I need all the details. Did you see him again?”

  I nodded. “Yeah…and things got a little complicated.”

  “Complicated good or complicated bad?”

  “I sort of went to a party with Blake—I told you they work at the same firm. Technically Blake is one of Donovan’s bosses. Anyway, at the party, I wound up making out with Donovan in a bathroom.”

  “Holy crap.” She tossed the magazine to the side and clapped her hands together. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  I sat down on the bed and sighed. “I don’t, Skye.”

  “So dump the other guy.”

  “It’s not that…”

  “So what is it?”

  “I’m just… I’m not ready.”

  “Okay, well…what are you doing to make yourself ready?”

  I frowned. “You’re throwing my own words back at me, aren’t you?”

  “Nope. I’m just recycling good advice.”

  I smiled sadly. “I know, I know. I lectured you and pushed you for years. You don’t have to remind me what a hypocrite I am. I’m good at talking the talk, but apparently not so good at walking the walk.”

  Skye took my hand and squeezed. “It’s okay. We walk when we’re ready to walk. But maybe you need to start taking baby steps.”

  “I have been. I’ve been dating the last few years.”

  “No, you’ve been having sex with men you see no future with. You only date guys who aren’t looking for an emotional connection. The one time you really connected with a guy, you spent a weekend with him and wouldn’t have sex. Don’t you think that’s an issue? You’ll sleep with a man you’re not that into, and won’t with the one you are. I’m not sure that counts as taking baby steps. It’s more like crawling.”

  I blew out a deep breath. “Maybe. But I like things the way they are.”

  “Do you really, though? The thought of hot lawyer banging some other woman doesn’t bother you?”

  Skye and I had made a pact years ago never to lie to each other about what we were feeling. No matter what. We’d gone through some pretty hard truths, so I wasn’t about to lie to her now.

  I frowned. “That actually makes me feel like throwing something—like a lamp out the window, without opening it first.”

  “Oh, honey.” She smiled sadly and squeezed my hand again.

  Ten minutes ago, I’d felt like Skye was my daughter, and now she felt like the more mature one. In some ways, she had grown more than me. She’d even had a serious boyfriend for almost a year now. And while I dated, I kept things limited to sex. Until last year, I hadn’t met a man who interested me enough to want more. Then I lost my luggage and fell hard in only three days. But I’d run the other direction as fast as I could, and eventually stopped thinking about him every day—
until life threw me a cruel curveball.

  “When was the last time you talked to Lillian?”

  Lillian was my and Skye’s therapist, and the way we’d met. Usually I never ran into another patient while I waited for my weekly appointment. Lillian’s office was super private and discreet—she had two separate waiting rooms so patients never had to see each other. But one day I was early, and Skye came in crying without an appointment. The receptionist mixed up the rooms, so the two of us wound up sitting across from each other. It only took fifteen minutes of talking for us to bond, and the rest is history.

  “It’s probably been about two years now,” I told her.

  “Do you think maybe it’s time to go back? You’re doing amazing—don’t get me wrong. But you deserve so much more out of life.”

  I sighed. I’d stopped going because I didn’t feel broken anymore. When I’d started seeing Lillian, I was a mess of shattered glass. She’d helped me put all the pieces back together. It wasn’t until now that I realized that my pieces were just taped together, not permanently glued.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Skye smiled. “Now give me details on the kiss.”

  “It was…” I shook my head. “Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I completely forgot where we were and felt lost in the moment. It’s hard to explain, but Donovan just has this gruffness to the way he touches me that makes me feel like he’s losing his mind for me, and it’s the sexiest thing ever. It was like that the weekend we spent together, too. He’s almost dominant when things get physical, which I’d normally hate, but I know in my heart it’s not a control thing for him. It’s more of him expressing how much he wants me. If one of the partners hadn’t interrupted, I think we might’ve ended up having sex against the wall.”

  Skye’s eyes bulged. “You got caught?”

  I shook my head. “We almost did, though. But I was able to slink out, and then I feigned being sick and Blake drove me home.”

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “Donovan? No. We talked on the phone later that night, and I told him I thought we should keep our distance.”