by Elise Faber
A fact that didn’t escape her notice. Probably because he was currently tucking the covers up and over her.
“I didn’t take you for one of these men.”
He’d just straightened, and her words made him frown. “What do you mean?”
“Manly. Caveman. Protective.”
Some of the fear that had gripped him since seeing her fall, since he’d thought she was going to kick him out because he kept flubbing things with her, faded. Enough for him to say, “I don’t know whether to be insulted or complimented. You think I’m manly?” He fluttered his lashes. “Oh, thank you.”
She snorted. “Ice, please, Mr. Caveman.”
“For the record,” he said, heading for the kitchen. “I’m always protective.” A beat. “Especially, when it comes to a woman who matters.”
“Brad—”
But he was just going to let that statement hover in the air.
He took the opportunity to escape into the hall.
Twelve
Heidi
She just stared at Brad’s retreating back and tried to figure out what in the fuck she was doing.
Getting naked in front of him—or naked in intervals, she supposed.
Showering clothed with him—or more like showering semi-clothed with him.
Talking with him—as though it were no big deal to have this man in her bedroom, casually discussing her pajama and T-shirt collection.
It was a big deal, and he’d said . . .
A lot.
Too much, probably, but she was good at isolating parts of her brain, at pushing things down. Because part of her couldn’t believe it—not because she didn’t think it was possible for a man to really like her, to want to look after her, and be with her.
But because she didn’t believe this man could feel that for her.
And back into circles she went.
She liked Brad, sincerely enjoyed spending time with him. She just . . . didn’t trust him.
“You’re asking too much, Heid,” she murmured. “You want too much.”
Now that was her mother talking, always telling Heidi to lower her expectations. “No one wants to listen to a female scientist.” That was when she’d announced she wanted to be a physicist, like her dad, in kindergarten. “Girls aren’t good at math. You should take Home Economics, learn some real skills.” That had been in high school, when she’d been testing into calculus and applying to colleges. “You should stop going to school before no man ever wants to marry you.” That had been just before she’d received her PhD. “You work too much. You’ll never have a family if you keep going like this. Men want their women to be home.”
That had been last week.
Good times.
The worst part of it was that she did want to have a family of her own. She wanted to get married and have babies, to bemoan dirty diapers, to get a pet—though definitely not one as unruly as the Fuzz—and to have her washing machine break down and have to go to Lowe’s to buy a new one. She wanted to have all of those things.
She just also wanted to have her career.
Why was that so difficult?
These were modern times, with modern women and men. Jason Momoa could wear a pink scrunchie, for God’s sake. Harry Styles could pose on the cover of a magazine in a skirt. Transgender and gay rights were expanding—she wasn’t so naïve as to consider those rights were already equal to hers as a white, cis person, but strides were being made. People of all genders and color and sexual orientations were living their lives and standing up for equality.
So, why couldn’t she just work at a job she loved and have a family she loved?
Why did her mom seem to think she had to sacrifice one for the other?
She didn’t mind having a man in her life, one who gave her input on her choices, so long as her partner was open to her having the same input on his. She certainly didn’t mind Brad’s strength, the way he’d swooped down the hill, how he’d clearly been worried for her, but he had to also not mind her swooping in to save the day just as often.
If she cooked, he could do the dishes.
If she worked late, he should figure out dinner.
If she wanted to go somewhere, she didn’t need his permission, though she had no problem offering a check-in.
Because wasn’t that what partners in life and love were supposed to do?
Support one another. Be there for each other. Love despite flaws and shoulder the burdens of his life on occasion because she knew that he’d shoulder them for her just as often.
That was the kind of man she wanted.
But maybe he didn’t exist.
Maybe it was a fantasy. Maybe that was why she was single. Maybe that was why she would never have a family, like her mother threatened.
She wanted a unicorn.
And, as much as she hated to admit, unicorns did not fucking exist. Well, they definitely didn’t exist outside of her glorious unicorn of a job. She supposed that was existing, at least in one form, so maybe she should qualify her thought. Men as unicorns didn’t exist.
Brad walked back in, the T-shirt she’d given him fitting snugly on a chest she’d been nose-close to not long before, one she’d spent plenty of time kissing months before. He was definitely yummy, but again . . . she didn’t trust him.
Didn’t trust that he could be what she wanted.
It would be easy, so fucking easy to just invite him to join her in bed and to have her merry way with him—when she wasn’t feeling lightheaded or like her groin was a rubber band that had been stretched too far. But wouldn’t that discount all of those things she wanted, push aside that unicorn she was searching to find, even if she could somehow compartmentalize that this was a fling and nothing more, and that she could never expect to find a note or receive a goodbye.
Except . . . he’d left a note.
Except . . . she’d told him how his disappearing had made her feel, and last night, when she’d passed out on him during the movie, he’d—sort of sweetly, she might add—tucked her into bed, fully clothed, and then had left her a note.
A man who changed.
Perhaps she’d found her unicorn, after all.
He handed her the ice pack then started to sit on the bed, before hesitating and straightening. “Let me go finish changing first,” he said and turned, disappearing into the closet.
She couldn’t deny that she watched his yummy ass bounce as he made his way.
Perv.
Yes, she supposed she was.
Well, she’d just chalk it up as another of her unenviable qualities—career-driven, bossy, outspoken, workaholic, and a total perv.
And that was just the short list.
A minute later, Brad reappeared, his arms full of clothes and towels. “I saw your washer’s in the hall,” he said. “I’ll just start a load.”
Heidi’s mouth dropped open.
But he was already gone, and when he stuck his head in a little later, telling her to make herself comfortable and he was going to call for pizza, her mouth fell open a second time.
Make herself comfortable?
With him puttering his way around her place doing laundry?
And apparently also making a salad as an appetizer, which he filled with corn and shredded chicken and beans, all of which she didn’t remember being in her kitchen, but must have been, otherwise the man had mysterious pantry stocking abilities—either that or Instacart, she realized after she’d dopily stared for several minutes at the salad that was more filling than most meals she ate on a regular basis.
He’d set the TV remote on the nightstand, retrieved the book she’d left propped open on her coffee table—much to her chagrin, since she never seemed to be able to organize her books all that well.
She was always pulling down an old favorite and rereading part of it, jumping to her favorite scenes before forgetting to put it back.
Once a week, she forced herself to do a focused walkthrough of her place, gathering those half-re
ad books and stashing them back on the bookcase—in alphabetical order by genre, of course.
But that wasn’t important.
Okay, it was important, just not important to this exact moment, because what was truly important right then was the fact that Brad was being . . . well, The Unicorn.
Without a word, without being asked.
He was just being . . . Brad.
And by the time he brought a plate of pizza to her, her resolution to stay far away from him was steadily being chipped away. Hell, the truth was that had been gone the evening of the wedding. What she felt chipping away in this moment was her resolve to keep the man firmly in the friend zone. Because it was as though he’d picked the thoughts out of her brain and had manifested himself into that Unicorn.
Pretty man.
Nice man.
Helpful man.
Unicorn.
Heidi was being sucked down in the whirlpool, that resolve dripping to the wayside, her need for him taking its place, and growing, and even worse—what would be even more devastating to her heart, to all of those carefully held dreams she worried about ever coming true—she worried she was falling for him all over again.
“God,” she hissed, tossing the remote on the bed next to her with a groan.
She needed to stop living in her head.
She needed to stop circling this dead horse.
Did she want to have a fling with Brad, even knowing that despite the pretty words, it would inevitably end?
Yes.
She . . . just didn’t want the broken heart.
This was like one of the calculations she was so good at, only except for detecting the space between electrons or attempting to figure out the top-secret shit (the speed of those electrons and how they moved, so it might be implemented for communication across the globe), this one was more . . . cost-benefit for her heart.
And if one night had dinged her confidence, had her thinking about this man for months, so on edge now, when they were hardly friends, what would a relationship do? What would happen when she grew attached and then he said goodbye?
But what if he didn’t?
She groaned again, sitting up and shoving her mouth full of the pizza he’d brought her.
Self-medicating with food.
Because she already knew what her answer was going to be—even despite all the whirling thoughts in her head.
Because whatever anyone might say about Heidi’s faults . . .
She wasn’t a coward.
Thirteen
Brad
Something had shifted.
He didn’t understand exactly what it was, except that it was as though someone had pricked the barrier holding the atmosphere of the room, the air that always seemed to ripple with awareness, with a pin, and the tension was slowly leaking out, a balloon deflating molecule by molecule.
He’d folded Heidi’s now clean and dry clothes.
He’d changed back into his original, also clean and dry, had put the temporaries back in her bin, that bin back on the shelf. He’d fed her—once with salad because he was too freaking worried about her having not eaten all day to wait an hour for the second, which was the pizza he’d ordered, laden with meat and veggies to make up for that lack of lunch.
She’d gobbled down three pieces, moaning about how delicious it was, before later groaning and patting her stomach, saying that she’d need to invest in larger pajamas.
Now, he was sitting in a chair next to the bed, she’d turned on some reality TV show, and they were coexisting peacefully.
That tension continued to ebb away, along with his guilt, and he was starting to worry less, to actually enjoy himself.
Then she spoke.
And his heart seized.
“Brad.”
She was going to kick him out. Well, fuck that. He wasn’t going to leave her. He wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. He needed to take a page out of his so-called manly book and dig in his heels.
“Brad?” she repeated.
He kept his eyes glued to the screen. “Yeah?”
“Come into bed with me.”
Suddenly, the TV was nowhere in the periphery, his gaze flying to hers, locking onto hers. “What?”
She patted the pillow next to her. “That chair’s not comfortable, and you’re going to get a crick in your neck. Come relax with me.”
“Crick—” He shook himself. “Neck—”
Pushing her elbows up beneath her, she reached out and snagged his hand. “Brad. Honey,” she murmured. “I’m inviting you into bed with me.”
But he hadn’t won her over yet. He hadn’t shown her that she could trust him.
Hadn’t—
Dumb shit. He needed to get his ass in gear.
Shoving out of the seat, he crawled in beneath the blankets next to her, initially leaving a couple of feet between them, then deciding, what the hell, and sliding closer, slipping his arm beneath her, shifting his body so they were pressed together, shoulders to thigh.
“How’s your ankle?”
She pointed and flexed it a few times beneath the covers. “Better. The ice helped.”
He made a face.
“I saw that.”
“How could you see that?” he asked, smoothing a hand up and down her spine. “Your face is in my chest.”
“Fine. I sensed it.”
“Sensed what?” He was playing dumb.
And he was rewarded for his acting skills when she tilted her head back so she could glare up at him. “Sensed that,” she grumbled, waving a hand in the direction of his face. “More lemon-swallowing.”
“I hate that you got hurt because of me.”
She sighed. “Yes, you startled me.” She pushed up farther. “But no, you’re not responsible for my clumsiness. Nope. That all comes from me. Want to ask the room at large who’s the girl who once managed to stab her hand and toe with the same knife? Or the one who burned herself because she was in too much of a hurry trying to make breakfast once and managed to catch both her hair and the hem of her T-shirt on fire at the stove. Oh, and that doesn’t include the time I broke my wrist skiing, the concussion I received from walking into the open door of a locker, or the torn ACL when I tripped walking up the stairs.”
He paused, hand stilling on her back. “Up the stairs?”
A grin. “Yup. You heard that right. I tripped going up the stairs, right in front of school my sophomore year.” She rolled her eyes. “I actually tore it so badly that I had to have surgery. Don’t laugh!” she accused when he attempted to bite back a smile.
Fingers brushing over her cheek, her jaw. God, her skin was like silk. But he also loved the look in her eyes, the teasing expression on her face. “I still can’t believe you tripped up the stairs.”
“I told you not to laugh.”
“I’m not.” But he was chuckling now, his chest vibrating with the sound, even as he kept taking this opportunity to touch her.
He might not be smooth, but he wasn’t dumb.
He’d ended up in bed with the woman he wanted, and he wasn’t going to squander this opportunity.
Now, to get her as addicted to his presence as he was to hers. Cue evil laughter, plotting-to-take-over-the-world hand rubbing.
“Like I said,” she muttered. “I’m klutzy, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Well, next time, I’ll make sure to not frighten you near inclines.” Or declines either, he supposed.
“Cora always says I’m likely to kill myself just walking down the street to 7-Eleven to get a slushie.”
“Remind me to never let you out of my sight,” he said, half-joking.
Only half, because he was half-serious, too. Broken bones and torn ligaments and twisted ankles. Burns and stab wounds. God, he shuddered to think of what might go wrong in that top secret lab of hers.
She could blow up herself and the world right with her.
“The only place I’m somehow not clumsy—” A smile before she re
laxed back down on his chest. “No, it’s two places. One at work—and mostly because I have computers to do the dirty work, assistants to handle any of the finicky work, and anything I have to do is usually stationary, so there is significantly less chance of my klutz skills to factor in.”
He smoothed a hand down her hair. “And the other?”
Her chest rose and fell on a long exhale. “The other place is . . . ice skating.”
“Ice skating?” he asked incredulously.
“Yup.” A laugh. “And I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
Nope. She couldn’t. Because he was wondering how many stab wounds he might end up with if blades were strapped to her feet. He assumed it would be a great many.
“You’re thinking that with my amazing clumsy skills, that someone is going to end up bleeding out on the ice.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
“See?”
“See what?” he asked.
“See, that I am—” A yawn. “Exceptionally smart. Even if I do watch”—another yawn—“horrible TV as you accused.”
“Well, I don’t understand the appeal of watching people who don’t even like each other stumble their way to the altar.”
She gasped, sitting up and the fatigue slipping out of her pretty hazel eyes. “They like each other. They love each other. They’ve moved across the planet to see if they’re compatible—”
“Or for a green card.”
Heidi paused, considered that. “Yes,” she agreed. “I do think that sometimes that’s the case.”
“I’ll add very smart to your list of positive attributes, right along with talented at work, ice skater extraordinaire, and—oh, how did you learn how to skate? Didn’t you tell me once that you grew up in California?”
A smile. “All of last night,” she said. “I did tell you that.”
“So, Cali girl somehow learns to do a popular low-temperature activity?”
She shuddered, settled back down on his chest. “Okay, first rule for my new Californian. Don’t call it Cali.”
“No Cali.” He nodded. “Got it.”
“The second rule—or I guess less rule and more . . . general knowledge that you can put to good use is that hockey is big in California. It is especially big in Northern California, and because of that, there are plenty of opportunities for skating in the area.”
