by Kishan Paul
“What about Eddie?” Mom’s question sounded casual enough, but Ally wasn’t sold. The ball her mother-in-law just threw was one that would be spiked by her partner in crime.
“Funny you mentioned him,” Dad began. “I understand he’s staying in the little house in the back. We should invite him over tomorrow. What do you think, Raz?”
Ally focused on Razaa, silently begging him to say no.
He planted his elbows on the counter and leaned on them, not breaking their staring match. “I’m sure he’s available.”
“Eddie is not an option.” She grabbed the half empty bottle of perry, leaving her glass on the counter and headed for the deck. “I am going for a walk while you get the topic of finding me a man out of your system. Once I’m back, we’re not discussing this again.”
“Alisha, you are getting older. Things will start to wrinkle and sag. Your body will not stay attractive for much longer…” The sliding door slammed shut behind her, ending her mother’s description of Ally’s aging physique.
She made her way to the end of the deck and descended the stairs. The image of her four parents video chatting about her love life had her giggling. Although she didn’t enjoy their meddling, she didn’t mind it either. Their concerns stemmed from their love for her. Their desire to see her happy. What they failed to see was that her happiness revolved around having them in her life. The years alone had been hard, lonely. There was nothing about that world she ever wanted to return to.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
ICE CREAM
(A FEW MINUTES EARLIER)
Eddie leaned against the stone exterior wall of the building. The only illumination on the beach came from the lights pouring onto it from the living room of the house he stood against. Voices from inside floated out because the doors were left open. With the ocean on one side and the forest on all three others, the property was wrapped in privacy. It was the main reason he’d chosen the location. Granted, privacy worked best when the doors were shut and the blinds on the explosion-resistant windows were actually closed. He and Raz had installed security and surveillance around the perimeter to ensure the area remained private. All of this to help it achieve the potential he needed it to.
“Do you remember, Mitil Uncle, your Pappa’s college friend?”
Her mother’s question to Alisha had Eddie grinning. He tucked his hands in his jeans pockets and rested the back of his head against the wall, enjoying the back and forth going on inside. He’d lost his family. In fact, he’d spent more of his years without parents than he had with them at this point. Listening to Alisha with hers took him back to a time long ago where he had similar arguments with his own. An ache he hadn’t felt in a while tugged at him, and with it, a desire to go to a home that no longer existed and to have arguments he’d never have again.
He let out a breath and shook his head. Being around her screwed with his brain, and yet here he stood, waiting to see if she’d come outside. The talk from the morning needed to be finished. She’d said her piece, and now he needed to say his. If anything, it gave him a better grasp of how to approach the situation. Now he just needed to figure out how to get her to listen.
“What about Eddie?” As much as he appreciated her mother-in-law’s mention of his name, it sounded an awful lot like a crumb had been tossed out to a starving duck.
“Funny you mentioned him,” Mr. Dimarchi said. “I understand he’s staying in the little house in the back. We should invite him over tomorrow. What do you think, Raz?”
He laughed quietly, enjoying the fact that the Dimarchis were Team Eddie.
“I’m sure he’s available.”
Raz’s response reminded him that he really needed to be nicer to the kid.
“Eddie is not an option.”
Her reaction didn’t sting, it sobered him. He understood a lot more than he had before.
“I am going for a walk while you get the topic of finding me a man out of your systems. Once I’m back, we’re not discussing this again.”
Eddie moved deeper into the shadows.
“Alisha, you are getting older. Things will start to wrinkle and sag. Your body will not stay attractive for much longer…”
Her mother’s description had Eddie imagining the body she described. The sliding doors slamming shut not only silenced her mother but forced his mind out of the gutter it found itself in.
With bottle in hand, the aging woman in question strode to the stairs at the side of the deck. She slipped off her shoes and descended the steps, making her way to the beach below. Raz stood by the glass doors, watching her. Eddie moved out of the shadows, making his presence known before the kid decided to chase after her. Her son gave him a nod and closed the blinds.
True to their word, the brothers left him alone after his morning talk with her. As much as they probably wanted to know what happened, they’d never ask. He was entirely on his own.
Alisha headed toward one of the two lawn chairs positioned by the shore. She dropped the bottle she carried onto the chair, moved on to the edge of the water, and stared out into the darkness while the waves licked her feet.
A pale glow from the moon lit her features while the breeze pulled at her hair and her dress, turning them into flags that stretched out behind her. Instead of the anger he anticipated on her face from the family talk she’d just escaped, a smile stretched across it. She lifted her chin, allowing the wind better access to her skin. Eddie waited a moment, allowing himself an opportunity to admire her and the way the fabric cupped her curves.
He considered how to approach without scaring the shit out of her. Before he came up with a plan, she turned her back to the waters, her eyes locking on him.
He waved. “Nice night.”
She nodded but said nothing.
Eddie remained rooted to his spot while she sat in one of the beach lounges. He eyed the bottle at her side, wondering if she planned to attack him with it if this talk didn’t go well.
“Can I?” He reached for the potential weapon she gripped.
Without a word, she handed it to him. When he sniffed the contents, his lungs filled with the scent of some kind of fruity spirits. He took a swig from the bottle, swallowing down the fruit-flavored drink that really had no right being called alcohol. Eddie pulled up the second chair beside hers and sat on the side, facing her. “I hear your dad’s friend’s divorced son is single.”
She side-eyed him and snatched the bottle from his grip. “Do you always listen in on other people’s conversations?”
“Believe it or not, people actually pay me good money to do just that.”
She leaned her head back, wrapped her mouth around the bottle, and took a swig. He couldn’t stop watching her, envying the glass her lips encircled. “If you don’t want anyone to hear what you’re talking about, you really should keep the door shut.”
She pulled the drink from her mouth, resting it at her side. “I’m really not in the mood for advice. I just want to enjoy the night.”
After a good minute of night enjoyment, he cleared his throat. “You sick of them yet?”
“No.” She laughed and shook her head. “My family is a special brand of ridiculous, but this intervention wasn’t too bad. On my first wedding anniversary, my mother told me that a woman’s uterus has a short life, and mine would shrivel up and fall out if I didn’t have a baby.”
“I can relate.” His own sister and her constant urgings for him to settle down irritated the hell out of him, but he always went back for more. He planted his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward, breaching a little of the distance between them. “Speaking of crazy, who has your cell phone?”
Surprise turned to understanding as she patted her hips, realizing she didn’t possess the device in question. “My father-in-law borrowed it when he took family pictures.”
“I take it you gave Mr. Dimarchi your access code too.”
“I am going to need to change the code.” She draped her arm over her face. “He s
eemed so harmless.”
“If by harmless, you mean pretending to be you and inviting a strange man over tonight for a drink, then yes. He is.”
She let out a breath. “You know what the irony in this is?”
The light of the moon danced in her eyes. “What?”
Alisha pointed her index finger at him. “The one instance you actually respond to my message, is the one time I didn’t even text you.”
He cringed at her assessment and its accuracy. “Do you want me to leave?”
She reached over and grabbed his wrist. “No, I wanted to see you.” Deep-brandy orbs even darker in the night locked with his. “To make sure you were doing okay.”
Her eyes screamed for him to say he was fine even if it was a lie, to make her feel better. But he didn’t have to lie. “I am.” He leaned in. “Want to know why?”
“Why?”
“After all the shit you’ve given me. After constantly telling me how much of an asshole I am, it turns out you have feelings for me.”
She blinked but said nothing.
“Which made me wonder. Were all those years of your angry drama, pinned up sexual tension? Is this how you handle the men you’re attracted to?”
The laugh that escaped her flowed through him, making him want her to do it again. She turned to her side, facing him. “That angry drama was just for you, Eddie. Because you are a special kind of asshole.”
“You called me special? Is that your attraction to me talking?”
“No, just my irritation to your arrogance.”
The wind blew her hair across her face. She tucked the locks behind her ear. One strand stayed glued to her lip. Eddie leaned over and moved it, tucking it with the others.
Her smile faded as she watched him. “Eddie, this connection between us. It’s based on trauma. It’s not real.”
Although he believed her explanation to be pure unadulterated bullshit, he knew better than to share his opinions with her. His hunch was she knew the connection between them not only existed but was powerful. The idea of something that intense scared the shit out of her.
When he walked away that morning, he’d promised her he’d come up with a way to make this work and he had. He’d found a way to convince her to give them a chance. One that hopefully wouldn’t make her turn tail and run. He cleared his throat. “My mind keeps coming back to the whole road thing you went on and on about…”
Her face scrunched at his description.
“…and I realized you’re right.”
“About?” She didn’t move. Her attention fixed on him.
Eddie grabbed her hand and held it with his two larger ones. “The problem is that your vision is a long, drawn-out, thousand-plus-mile drive. And if you look at things in that way, of course we can’t work. I have another proposal. What if you consider looking at it in a different way?”
“How?”
The fluttering in his gut began again. He fixed his attention on the hand he grasped, on the rise and fall of her knuckles, the long thin fingers, and the small wrist that controlled them all. A hand she hadn’t pulled out of his grip, and hopefully he’d still be holding it once he was done talking. “If instead of a long-distance trip, we envisioned it as…” He paused, trying to come up with a better analogy. “Going down the street to that really good ice cream shop we’ve been wanting to check out.” He made soft circles with the pad of his thumb against the wrist he held. “You know, the one everyone’s been talking about, and we enjoy a few licks.”
Ally watched their hands, not meeting his gaze. Her lips parted from the soft gasp she made, it was clear she was impacted by him. Evidence that encouraged him to continue. “Find out if it’s all that good or not and then go on with our lives. If you’re right, and it’s some hero-trauma stuff, then it’ll just take a lick or two to figure it out.”
She laughed. “Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“I do.” Eddie decided to read her amusement and the fact she hadn’t shut him down as positive signs. “Trips to the ice cream shop are all either of us can handle right now. I’m only in the States for a month, and even if I walked away from my career, your long-term thing wouldn’t work.”
He turned her palm over, inspecting the outline of the delicate bones under her skin. When he brushed his thumb over the more pronounced one, she sucked in a breath. He fought the urge to smile. Instead, he continued to trace tracks along the skin.
“For one, I make a bad road trip companion. I’d want to drive. We’d fight over the music choices. You’d want to talk. Two, between the both of us, we’ve got a shit ton of baggage. We’d need to rent a trailer to carry all our luggage, and to be honest, I’m not even sure how I feel about mixing our suitcases. What if they don’t get along?”
She hadn’t uttered a word. She didn’t have to. He could feel her attraction, her need for him to keep touching her. All of which were making it hard for him to keep his own arousal at bay. “Considering your aversion to assholes and the fact I am one, there’s a good chance you’ll try to throw me out within the first fifty miles of the trip. My proposal is simpler. I want you. You want me. Let’s take a short trip and taste the ice cream. No planning. No promises. No packing. And when we’ve had enough, we move on. Uncomplicated.”
She slipped her hand away from his and sat up, positioning herself on the side of the chair, facing him. She stared at her palms. “It would confuse Jayden.”
The fact she was using someone else as an excuse instead of just shooting his suggestion down, another promising sign. “Don’t tell him. No one needs to know. This will be our special ice cream shop experiment.”
She shook her head. “Eddie—”
He cut her off before she could finish. “Aside from psychoanalyzing and diagnosing it, don’t you wonder about this thing between us?”
Eddie grabbed her hands and pressed them against his cheek. “My body reacts the same way to you when you touch me as yours does when I touch you. I keep wondering what would it be like to give into it? What would it be like if we touched more?” His voice grew husky at the thought of doing just that, and he planted a kiss on her palm. “I’ve spent way too much time wondering, and now I’m ready to get it, get you out of my system.”
“If one taste’s not enough to get it out of our systems?”
The little seed of hope that sprouted earlier had just grown into an adult tree with three dozen fucking saplings growing around it. “Then we keep tasting until it is enough or until it’s time to go. We’re both adults. We know how to walk away.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Look at me.” He tugged at her hand. “Please.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “It can be that simple. Your instinct is to say no. But before you do, ask yourself why it’s a no. What’s the worst thing that happens if a consenting man and a consenting woman enjoy ice cream together for a month, maybe less, maybe more, and then go their separate ways?”
Her gaze landed on his mouth, adding embers to the desire burning within him. He leaned his face close to her ear, filling his lungs with the scent of her. “An intelligent woman once told me that people usually regret the things they could or should have done more than the mistakes they’ve made.”
“You’re using my words.”
“I am. If you say yes, we’ll use more than just your words.” Eddie reached over, running his fingers across her cheek, letting his thumb brush against her lip.
She leaned her face into his touch. His fingers stilled against her skin as his focus shifted to her eyes and how they fixed on his mouth. Eddie leaned in, hovering his face over hers, waiting for her consent. She rested her hand against his lips. He didn’t consider it a rejection. Her body screamed her truth.
When she rose to her feet, pulling her hand from his face in the process, he didn’t rise but grabbed her wrist before she could walk away.
“I want to go to the ice cream shop with you. Think about it?”
Alisha left
him on the beach without a yes or a no.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
THE NIGHT
Ally stood on the deck, her fingers tucked into the handle of the sliding door behind her. She envied the sleeping inhabitants of the home. It was barely one in the morning, and sleep had not been her friend this night. In the hopes the smells of the outdoors and the crash of waves would drown out the thoughts in her head, she’d snuck out. Now outside, she was forced to accept she might have had ulterior motives for the outing.
Eddie’s proposal plagued her. His touch, his words left her wanting things she shouldn’t. Things that intrigued her more than she cared to admit. Images of those desires overruled her thoughts and heated her body, had her tossing and turning. Desires that currently ran havoc inside her, had laid dormant for so long she assumed they were feelings she could no longer experience.
Ally argued with the hunger. She understood why she wanted him. He was her knight who raced in to save the damsel. It was that very reason she needed to not give in. She crossed her arms around her chest and squeezed. While most ran from danger, he ran toward it. A jolt of adrenaline to his system. He was the proverbial bad boy every good girl was warned to steer clear of but always sought out. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Which also made his proposition even more appealing. How nice would it be to get the bad boy out of her system? To put those fantasies to rest.
He’d asked her what was the worst thing to happen if they gave into their attraction for a little while with zero commitments. She’d asked herself the question a thousand times since. The only answer she could come up with was the fear she wouldn’t be able to quench the need that had her currently pacing the back of the building.
She scanned the moonlit forest looming behind the house. Life taught her a great deal about loss. Lessons that made her more pessimistic, made her see each person as a temporary, turning them into imaginary gravestones in an imaginary cemetery. Her fears controlled her decisions.
