Back in the Burbs

by Flynn, Avery

  “For going after what you want. It’s been a long time since either of us did that,” she murmurs. “But watching you, I find myself inspired.”

  “Me too,” Sarah says. “I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for the last few days, but I’m done with that. I mean, I may not be able to go out and find myself a guy as awesome as Nick—at least not yet—but that doesn’t mean I can’t get the rest of my life in order… Starting now.”

  “There’s no time like the present,” my mother agrees. “Especially with inspiration like Mallory around.”

  I have no idea what that means, but I want to know—just not when I really do have to get ready for work. Making a mental note to ask her later, I give her and Sarah my first real smile of the day.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  And then I race up the stairs and dive straight into the shower. As I rinse the shampoo from my hair, I can’t help wondering if anyone at work will be able to tell I just had the best sex of my life with the boss or not. I feel like it’s tattooed on my forehead. Or vagina, at least.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I totally regret the thong—especially since it keeps crawling way too far north as I walk a potential client down the plant-lined hall at Holloway and Murphy to Gina’s office. I grit my teeth to deal with the pinch between my cheeks.

  “As you can see,” I say, gesturing toward the conference room where several of the paralegals are meeting, “while we’re a boutique firm, we have the ability to meet all of your needs.”

  “I just want someone who will fight for me,” she says, her grip tight on the strap of her black handbag.

  “Well then, you are most assuredly in the right place.” I knock on Gina’s door, wait for three full Mississippis, and then open it. “Ms. Washington, this is Gina Murphy. Now, can I get you coffee or a sandwich? I know you had to use your lunch hour for this appointment.”

  She smiles, her short, natural-styled hair perfectly framing her face. “I couldn’t bother you.”

  “It’s really not,” I say. “How about a turkey and Swiss from the deli down the block?”

  After she agrees and Gina puts in her own order, I walk back to the break room, where Tessa is dancing along to whatever is playing in her AirPods while compiling the staff’s lunch order. Turns out Gina’s niece isn’t a bad kid, she just got thrown into the deep end with absolutely no training when Viola went out on maternity leave. Now she’s working as the office intern, and I’m showing her the ropes of office management.

  “Can you add another turkey and Swiss for Ms. Washington? She’s Gina’s noon. And Gina would like a turkey on wheat, hold the mayo.”

  “You got it.” Tessa snaps her gum and gives me a thumbs-up. “Do you mind getting Nick’s?” she asks. “I have to go ask Steve if he wants onions or no onions.”

  I nod, trying my best to ignore the buzz of anticipation skimming across my skin. I haven’t seen him all day. In fact, I haven’t seen him since I did the walk of shame this morning.

  “Sure, I can do that.” I can. Really. Maybe.

  Suck it up, Mallory.

  I stop in the bathroom for a quick thong adjustment and lipstick refresh while I’m there—it means nothing—and then walk down to Nick’s office at the end of the hallway and knock. After his muffled “come in,” I let out a nervous breath and walk inside.

  His gaze only flicks up to me for a minute before going back to his computer screen. “Hi, Ms. Martin.”

  Ouch. That stings. Okay, that’s how we’re doing it. Fair enough. It isn’t like we were planning on a repeat or a relationship or anything.

  “Tessa is leaving in a minute to get the lunch order from the deli,” I say. “Do you want her to get anything for you?”

  “You’re a godsend. I’ve been fighting for the past thirty minutes with this ridiculous spreadsheet for payroll to send to the accountants and haven’t even gotten to think about lunch.”

  Spreadsheet? Payroll? Does he not realize why I was hired?

  “Here, let me.” I walk around to his side of the desk. My hands are halfway to the keyboard when I realize what I’m doing. “That is, if you don’t mind a little help.”

  He waves toward the screen. “Go ahead.”

  I lean down and scan the information. “Ah, I see what’s wrong.”

  A few keystrokes later and everything is adding up again—at least in the spreadsheet. For me, not so much. Rational, logical, boring me knows this is the workplace and Nick has made his position clear. Still, being this close to him, inhaling the scent of his aftershave, and trying—and failing—to ignore the way my body responds to him, I am having a really hard time remembering we aren’t having a thing. Then he pivots in his chair, turning so that we’re face-to-face and definitely within kissing distance. My breath catches and the world slows down to molasses-in-February speed.

  “So, Nicky.” Tessa barges in mid-sentence. Her wide gaze goes from me to Nick and back again, her eyebrows inching upward with every second.

  I start, rearing back. My cheeks burn with embarrassment after almost kissing my temporary boss and nearly getting caught. For his part, Nick seems completely unflustered. It isn’t fair.

  “Sorry.” Tessa looks down. “Am I interrupting? I just wanted to get Mallory’s order, too.”

  “Not at all,” Nick says, covering for me because I can’t quite form words. “Ms. Martin was helping me with my spreadsheet.”

  Wow. What a great way to make a first impression at my brand-new job. Way. To. Go. After Tessa takes down his order of a pastrami on rye with extra mustard and mine of another turkey on wheat, she skedaddles out of his office, giving me a curious look on her way out.

  “Thank you, Ms. Martin,” Nick says, picking up a deposition from the stack of paperwork on his desk. “The entire staff has you to thank for making sure they get paid.”

  I know all too well what that kind of formal thank-you means. I’m dismissed.

  Fine with me. I’m here to work anyway.

  The rest of the day is one fire after another, but that’s pretty much life in a small law firm. Clients show up late, some pop in without appointments, and there is the huge amount of paperwork flowing in and out of the office that has to get to the right judge, filed in the right order, or double-checked for errors.

  During my downtime, Tessa and I go over her career hopes. It’s actually pretty fun to talk to her. The whole world is still out there waiting for her to conquer it. In a way, I’m a little jealous of her for having that opportunity, but at the same time, whew, I’m not sure I’d want to go through my twenties ever again—with or without Karl.

  By the time I’m the last one in the office and thus tasked with turning off the lights, I’ve reorganized the inventory ordering system so the office won’t run out of toilet paper every three weeks, had a chat with the payroll company about how we can update the software on our end to be more efficient, and lined up three private investigators to come in for interviews next week. All in all, it was a pretty damn good day.

  “Burning the midnight oil?”

  I scream and jump about a mile high only to see Nick when I land. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

  Truth is, he spent the entire day locked up in his office. According to the paralegal pool, that’s not his usual procedure, so obviously he was avoiding me. Fine. I can deal with that. Whatever.

  “I hope you had a good day?” he asks as we make our way out of the office and into the elevator. “How about dinner to celebrate?”

  That sounds an awful lot like a date. “Is it an employee benefit, like the legal advice?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s a neighbor benefit.”

  I should say no. Going to dinner with Nick is not what I need in my life. We’ve gotten each other out of our systems—probably just rebound sex. Don’t they say that everyone has a post-divorce wild
phase? Maybe this is just the beginning of mine.

  What will wild Mallory do? I have no clue. What would Aunt Maggie do? She’d definitely choose dinner.

  “Dinner sounds perfect.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  One text to my mom and an hour later, I rinse off a soapy but clean dish and hand it to Nick. My belly is full of the best thing in the world to eat after a long day at work—breakfast for dinner.

  I’ll admit, when he asked, I didn’t think he meant dinner at his place, but honestly, it just felt perfect. No awkward silences over a restaurant table while waiting on our orders to be taken or dinner to be cleared away. We were both too busy sorting out who would make what and where to really pause long enough to feel weird.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says as he dries off the plate and puts it in the cabinet over the wine fridge. “You haven’t ever seen any of the Lord of the Rings? Frodo? The Shire? Gandalf? One ring to rule them all? We have to fix this. Tonight.”

  Temptation, thy name is Netflix and chill with my superhot neighbor who kisses like it’s his job and loves what he does for a living. Speaking of which…

  “I have work tomorrow.”

  “Amazing, so do I.” He tosses the tea towel over one shoulder and leans against the granite counter. “We’ll only watch the first one.”

  I pull the sink drain and watch the suds disappear along with my willpower. “How long is it?”

  “Good movies aren’t about how long they are.”

  That is definitely a lie, but the kind that I want to believe. I have no idea what it is about this man, but he just gets to me. Every. Damn. Time.

  “Nick.” I hold out my dripping hands for the towel.

  “Fine.” Instead of handing over the towel, he starts to dry my hands. “It’s nearly four hours. But it’s worth it.” He hangs up the towel and walks me out of the kitchen into the living room. My purse is on the coffee table. My heels are still by the front door. “Come on, I have a big screen, a really comfy couch, and I won’t even say all of Sam’s lines during the movie.”

  “Is this just an excuse to sit in the dark and make out?” I’m not saying I’m projecting, but yeah, I am totally projecting.

  “That is an extra added benefit.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “For friends with benefits and only friends with benefits?” Confirming that last bit for myself? Absolutely. So what if I just decided over soapy dishes that it was time I sow some wild oats, be free, roll with it. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

  We settle in on the couch, with me tucked into his shoulder, and he turns on the movie. We don’t even make it through the opening title sequence before Nick has lost his shirt and my pants are in danger of coming off. Without a single protest, he scoops me up in his strong arms and carries me upstairs. In any other circumstance, it would be ultraromantic, but I’m not looking for romance. I’m not looking for love. I’m definitely not looking to fall for anyone.

  This is just for fun. I have absolutely nothing to worry about.

  And if my ovaries are taking bets on which one of us is lying, well, that’s nobody’s business but my own. They’re traitorous bitches anyway.

  I sink my fingers into his hair, nuzzle his neck, and tell him all the things I want him to do to my body tonight, a list of demands that it’s apparent he’s more than willing to deliver as he starts taking the stairs two at a time.

  He drops me onto the bed, and I bounce with a giggle that gets stuck in my throat when he unbuckles his pants and climbs onto the bed over me, his strong arms caging me in.

  His eyes twinkle as he grins and says, “Oh, we’re definitely going to do that second one you mentioned.”

  That one is my favorite, too, so I grin right back.

  Then he leans forward and shows me all the ways the things on my list of demands can make me scream an orgasm, and I’m practically hoarse by morning when I tiptoe home and get dressed for work with a silly, satisfied smile on my face.

  The next two weeks follow a similar pattern.

  At work, I find more and more ways to make myself useful and ensure Nick’s office runs smoother. It’s an incredibly satisfying job. And Nick is the epitome of professional there, never crossing a single line. But when the clock strikes five, by some unspoken agreement, we meet up at my house for some light packing, then dinner with my mom and sister, or we head to his place for an evening of cooking and teasing and walking the dog.

  And always, every night, Nick suggests we watch a Lord of the Rings, which is code if I’ve ever heard it for wanna fuck?

  I’m not ashamed to admit the hobbits never make it out of the village as far as I’ve seen.

  In fact, it’s gotten to the point that my heart starts to pound with desire every time I hear Sauron’s name in the opening scene. I don’t think that’s the reaction Peter Jackson, the director, had in mind at all when he made the film, but all I can say is kudos, Peter. Kudos. I fucking love your movie.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Nick and I have a rhythm in the kitchen that almost feels like we’ve practiced it all our lives. I place pasta into the boiling water on the stove just as Nick finishes chopping basil and turns to toss it in the saucepan as he puts the finishing touches on the alfredo sauce.

  Everything has been going so smoothly, I hate to rock the boat with an uncomfortable question, but it’s been bugging me for a while now. I hesitate, and almost decide to wait and ask tomorrow instead, but then remind myself that’s what Old Mallory would do.

  New Mallory squares her shoulders and just asks, “So, umm, I’ve been wondering something.”

  Nick turns the burner down as he continues to stir the sauce slowly. “Mm-hmm. What’s up?”

  “If you and Aunt Maggie were so close, why didn’t you ever do anything around her house or mow the lawn or anything?” The question has been gnawing at me for weeks. I’ve really gotten to know him, or at least I think I have, and he’s a great guy. I just can’t reconcile the Nick I know with the Nick who wouldn’t do something as simple as occasionally mow an old lady’s lawn.

  He holds my gaze, as though he’s trying to decide how much to say, and my stomach sinks. I’m not going to like his answer, I’m sure, but I have to know. “Just tell me. I can take it.”

  His eyes soften. “Oh, hon, it’s nothing bad. Not really.” He walks over and pulls me into his arms. “I used to do all the things around her place. That’s how we met, actually. I knew she was having trouble with her lawn guy being reliable, so I walked over one day and offered to mow it for her. I just got into the habit of coming over a few times a week, changing her light bulbs, fixing her dryer, whatever she needed. Even after she went to live in that active-living facility, I tried to continue to keep the house up for her.”

  My eyes widen. “Then why did you stop?”

  His mouth turns down. “I was mowing the lawn one day when her solicitor came by, and he threatened me with trespassing. Said if I went onto her property again, it was an insurance liability and he would be forced to prosecute. Nobody ever came to take care of her house after that. When the tree fell onto her porch, I decided enough was enough.” His jaw clenches. “I had the HOA send her notices of violations.”

  My heart pounds. “You’re the one who reported Aunt Maggie?” I try to slide out of his arms, but he’s not having it.

  “Hear me out first, Mallory,” he begs. “I was trying to get the attorney to see that her house needed upkeep and to let me take care of it. But he simply ignored the notices at first. So I sent more. And more. At some point, I kept thinking, surely they will take care of the property. Surely they’d rather let me take care of it than let it fall into disrepair and mired in legal issues.”

  I shake my head. “But Aunt Maggie got all the notices. They were in a drawer in her kitchen.”

  “I never sent a notice to Maggie, not before she lef
t and not after. I sent every single one to her attorney’s office. He must have come and put them in the drawer at some point, maybe after realizing you would be taking possession. I swear to you, Mallory. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt Maggie.”

  And I believe him. “I just can’t believe Thad Lagget would neglect his duty to care for the property.”

  “Her attorney wasn’t Thad Lagget.” Nick narrows his eyes. “Her attorney who handled her estate was Lester Stills. I think someone else took it over for probate, but I’d bet my law degree Mr. Stills was with a management firm pocketing her money every month. But what could I do? I couldn’t risk trespassing.”

  A pained expression flits across his face, and I know it must have been hard for him, unable to help Aunt Maggie. I hug him to me, rest my head on his chest. “You did your best, Nick. She would have appreciated that.”

  But then I lean back and ask, “How come the notices stopped when I took over the property? I mean, the porch is fixed now, thank you, Mikey and my first paycheck, but I’ve still got periwinkle shutters and a number of infractions.”

  Nick’s cheeks sport twin spots of red. “About that, well, I’ve been meaning to tell you…I’m not just on the board. I’m the president of the HOA.”

  Oh my God. I can’t help the belly laugh that has me doubled over. When I can catch my breath, I notice Nick has his arms crossed, staring down his nose at me.

  “Hey, now, we’re not all bad. You know there have to be rules and order, right?”

  I laugh again. “I can’t believe I’ve been sleeping with the president of the damn HOA all this time.”

  He walks back over to the sauce and gives it a few more quick stirs. “That’s not the only thing you’ve been doing with him.”

  So true. Delicious thoughts of other things I want to do to him tonight, and calling him Mr. President while I did them, make me full-on blush. Totally adding that to tonight’s demand list.