Tangle

by Locke, Adriana

  Relief washes over her face. “Good. You can even use these lessons later on real dates.”

  Real dates. This isn’t a real date and I know that. But hearing her say it out loud is annoying.

  I study her for a long time, not sure what to say. My normal spiel seems pointless—she’s the one who’s demanding boundaries, but the fact I’d go without them might mean I need them more than ever.

  She sits up in her seat. “First rule is no touching.”

  There’s no way I heard that right. My forehead creases. “What did you say?”

  “No touching.”

  “Um, is this for you and me or for me to use in general?”

  “Both.” She squares her shoulders. “Or whatever relationships you don’t want to commit anything to.”

  “What if I want to commit to sex later? I think you’re confused about the purpose of dating, Haley. It’s to touch.”

  She takes a straw out of the wrapper and slides it in her drink. “You have to be careful. Touching means something to a woman. One little brush of your hand or hand to the small of her back . . .” She pauses long enough to remind me that I touched her there walking in. “One moment like that, and it’s tattooed on a woman’s skin.”

  “So what you’re really saying here is you’re sitting there thinking about me touching you earlier?” I grin as my body temperature rises a couple of degrees. “Another point in my favor.”

  “No, it’s not,” she says, shifting in her seat. “It’s not a point in your favor, because you didn’t mean anything by it. You were just being flirty and doing what comes naturally.”

  “Right.” Wrong.

  “So no touching. Between us, anyway. Leave room for Jesus.”

  I scratch my head. “I’ve been to church my whole life, and I’m still gonna need an explanation on that one.”

  “It means if there isn’t room between our bodies for another body, we’re too close.” She relaxes back in her seat, watching my reaction with amusement.

  I’m pretty certain my jaw drops, because I feel air rushing in my mouth. “I’m not going to go around with a measuring stick and make sure there’s room for Jesus between us.”

  She grins. “You don’t have to measure. We’re talking about the proverbial Jesus.”

  “I’m not comfortable talking about Jesus at all.” Especially when it has to do with my body not touching yours. “Can we just agree I won’t try to turn you on? Because that’s what this is really about. And,” I say as she starts to protest, “I don’t want to do that. I mean, I’d happily do that. But I think doing that would make you upset in the long run, so we shouldn’t.”

  She laughs, but I see her pupils dilate. I notice the uptick in the rise and fall of her chest and the way her fingers rewrap against the side of her glass.

  This woman is going to kill me.

  “You’re rambling, Trevor.”

  “I know.” I tug at the collar of my shirt. “What else you got?”

  “The second thing is no compliments on appearance,” she says.

  “You have to be kidding me.” My palm hits the table, rattling the saltshaker against the pepper mill. “You don’t want me to tell you that you look pretty tonight?”

  “I mean, you can say things in a general sense, but no particulars. No commenting on hair or eyes or anything like that.”

  “I thought women loved that.” I balk. “I thought it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “It is if you’re on a date. If you’re wanting to be a gentleman and see if a date can ultimately lead somewhere.” She bridges her fingers together and rests her chin on her hands. “Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “My point.” She gives me a forced smile. “And the last thing is, no insinuation that there will be more happening—more dates, conversations, whatever. Take it a day at a time. A meal at a time, as it is between the two of us.”

  Somewhere between sitting down at the table and ordering drinks, I went wrong. I lost control. The power I usually hold in conversations and interactions with women flew right out of my pocket and into her sweet little hands.

  And to make matters worse, there’s a good chance I’m going to do something I never do: play by her rules.

  What in the actual fuck?

  I shake my head. “So no touching. No being polite. And no alluding to plans in the future. Am I right?”

  “You got it.” She smiles at Delia as she places our plates in front of us. “Trust me, Trevor. This is the way for us both to get what we’re after.”

  She’s probably right. In a super annoying, sensible, fucking logical adult way, she’s probably right.

  “I think this is dumb,” I say. My fingers burn with the knowledge they won’t get to touch her again. And hell if I don’t want to know how soft her skin is against me. How her tiny hand would fit in my large, calloused one. Shit. “I think this is really dumb.”

  “And I think you’re dumb.”

  I look up at her, and she’s smiling the sweetest damn smile I can imagine. “I was wrong. You are mean.”

  “I told you.”

  I have a feeling I have no idea how mean she can be.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HALEY

  Am I supposed to assume we are not having dinner tomorrow?” Trevor slides me a sly smile.

  The truck rolls back to Dogwood Lane beneath the bright silver stars. My stomach is full, both from the wonderful food and the ridiculous laughter. I can’t remember a time when my cheeks ached from smiling so much.

  Once he agreed to my guidelines, things normalized between us. There were jokes and stories and more innuendos than one conversation needed. But the best part was I could see in his eyes that he wanted to touch me as badly as I wanted him to . . . but he didn’t. There’s relief, and satisfaction, in all that.

  He’ll be gone soon, Haley. And you’re okay with that, remember?

  “No, actually, because that’s against the guidelines,” I say with a casual shrug.

  “I hate your guidelines.”

  “I know.” I try not to laugh. “But we didn’t get to work on my résumé, so that is a sticking point. I fulfilled my end of the bargain. You didn’t.”

  “That’s so unlike me.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “I always make sure I fulfill my end of the bargain before getting mine.”

  “Of course you do.”

  I settle back in the seat. The leather is warm from the heater Trevor turned on for me, and I yawn as we enter town.

  “Sleepy?” he asks.

  “No. Not really.”

  I turn my head to look at him. He’s so handsome as he rests one hand on top of the steering wheel and strokes his chin with the other. There’s something so inherently sexy about a man who’s in control, and that’s exactly how Trevor looks right now—in control.

  I just need to be in control too.

  “This is probably against a rule,” he says, “but I enjoyed having dinner with you tonight.”

  “I enjoyed tonight too,” I say honestly.

  He presses his lips together. “Do women really overthink everything?”

  “Yes. Women really overthink everything.”

  He looks at me. “Are you going home and overthinking everything we talked about tonight?”

  I consider telling him the truth—that I started overthinking things way before he even showed up at my house. But if I do that, if I admit there’s something to overthink, he might get the wrong impression. Whether that I’m somehow clinging to something that isn’t there, or that I’m trying to get out of spending time with him, it doesn’t matter. Either would be bad.

  “Don’t lie,” he warns. “Or does that bout of silence give me the answer?”

  “Yes,” I admit. “I’ll overthink things. But that really has nothing to do with you, so don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “How does it have nothing to do with me?” He shakes his head. “Such an ego killer.”

 
I ignore the ego part and answer his question. “Because I could be on a date with Penn right now—not that you and I are on a date—and I’d be overthinking it.”

  His jaw tenses, but he keeps his eyes glued to the road ahead. “I don’t think Penn’s a good choice for you.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because I’m a guy, for one. And I know what guys like Penn are thinking.”

  “Me too. He’ll sleep with anything that lies still. This is not a secret.”

  “Exactly, which is why he’s a bad choice for you.”

  “You’re wrong,” I tell him. He gives me a look that would make me shrivel if I cared. “Penn is not a bad choice. He’s not a choice at all.”

  He makes a sound of satisfaction and bobs his head back and forth. “Well, I’m glad you see it my way.”

  I roll my eyes as my phone rings on my lap. I look down and see it’s Jennifer. I eke out a breath and sit straight up.

  “Hey,” I say. “This is Jen from the flower shop. Do you mind if I answer it? It’s rude, I know, but—”

  “No. Get it. Absolutely. I’ll be pissed if you don’t.”

  I swipe the phone quickly and press it to my ear. “Hey, Jen.”

  “Haley, hi. I’m sorry for calling you so late.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m just coming back from Rockery, actually.”

  “Are you driving? Do you need to go?”

  I glance at Trevor. He gives me a thumbs-up before turning his attention back to the road. “Nope. I’m sitting in a truck being chauffeured around.”

  Trevor makes a face at that. I fight not to laugh.

  “Oh, okay.” She clears her throat. “Tom and I sat down yesterday and had a heart-to-heart about the business and retirement and what we want out of life. You know those conversations always lead to tears.”

  I feel myself teeter-tottering on the edge of hope, the icy side of disappointment taunting me. My throat tightens as I hold on to the phone for dear life, and I wish I could reach for Trevor’s hand.

  “I bet that was hard,” I say with a gulp. “How’d it go?”

  “Well, we decided to close this weekend because Tom’s aunt is coming to town, and we really want to spend time with her. She’s a sweet lady, and we don’t see her often enough to warrant spending all day at the shop.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “It’s a part of Tom’s issue with the shop to start with. It takes up so much of my time.”

  “I can understand that too.”

  “He’d actually floated it as potentially for sale to a Realtor last week, unbeknownst to me. So when I came to him with the idea of you helping me out, he came clean . . . and agreed this might work.”

  I swallow back a cheer. Remaining professional is hard when I just want to blurt out, Did I get the job? Trevor seems to see my struggle, because he chuckles quietly next to me. I fire a glare his way, and he makes a show of smoothing his face of any humor.

  Bastard.

  “So,” Jen continues, “as a compromise to keeping it open, I agreed to a vacation in Hawaii for our anniversary in a couple of weeks. Which sounds so First World problem, I know.” She laughs. “But it does lend me a problem in that I have no one to manage the shop while we’re away.”

  I take a deep breath and focus on the lights that flow by the truck instead of on the way my spirits soar entirely too high.

  “I was hoping you’d come in and do that for me,” she says. “I don’t know when you were thinking to start, but it would be the first of the week.”

  “Yes,” I almost shout. “Of course. Oh, Jen, I’d love to.”

  “Great. You did an amazing job with the arrangement the other day, and your passion for flowers reminds me so much of my own. I can start you off two dollars more an hour than you were making at the library, which I talked to Sandra about today. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course.”

  “Perfect. If you want to come in and train next week, you could officially start then.”

  I cover my face with my free hand. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try not to squeal. “Yes. I’d love that,” I say.

  “Great. Come by sometime Monday or Tuesday and we’ll hash out the details. Welcome aboard, Haley.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  She ends the call, and I let my phone drop to my lap.

  “So?” Trevor asks. “You’re killing me, woman.”

  I turn slowly to look at him. I can feel my eyes widen, the heater in the truck drying them out. “I got the job.”

  Trevor smiles the biggest smile I’ve seen him share as he grabs my leg and squeezes it. “Congratulations,” he says. “That’s awesome. Are you excited?”

  “Yeah,” I say, still in disbelief. “I’m kind of shocked, but, I mean, this is . . . amazing.”

  “It is amazing.”

  The truck pulls to the curb in front of my house. Trevor cuts the engine and climbs out while I search for my phone, which somehow dropped on the floor. By the time I’ve picked it up and have my bearings, he’s opened the door.

  He takes my hand, his palm warm and strong. I step out and follow him to the door.

  “Guess I don’t need that résumé,” I say softly as we step onto the porch.

  “I mean, maybe not now,” he says. “But it’s always a good thing to have on hand.”

  He runs his fingers through his hair. Peering down at me, his eyes sparkle in the moonlight, and I want to reach up and touch his face. And thank him for dinner. And the support. And making me feel so capable . . . and pretty.

  “I think tomorrow calls for a celebration dinner,” he says. His voice is soft in the night air, and despite the warm temperature, I shiver. “I know planning ahead is against the rules, but you’ll have to cut me some slack on this one.”

  “Great,” I say, giving in to the happiness I feel.

  “It was that easy?”

  “Who am I to tell you not to celebrate me? That’s ridiculous.”

  He chuckles. He takes a step closer, his eyes locked on mine, and for a long moment, I think he’s going to kiss me.

  His head dips down, his cologne filling my nostrils, and I war with myself about whether to lift my chin and prepare to dissolve or to take a step back like the smart woman I am pretending to be.

  If only he weren’t so delicious, if spending time with him weren’t so easy. Fun. Tempting.

  The battle inside my brain takes a second too long. Trevor’s lips quirk up as he leans away.

  “I forgot about Jesus,” he whispers.

  I laugh. The frustrated, pent-up aggression is heavy in the notes, and it makes Trevor laugh too. I stick my key in the lock with a little more force than it requires and pop the door open.

  “Tomorrow at seven?” he asks.

  “Perfect.”

  He leans forward and presses the very edges of his lips to my cheek. My breathing slows, my heart thumping evenly in my chest as I feel the sparks shooting through my veins rattle off like a holiday fireworks show.

  When he pulls back, he smiles. “Good night.”

  “Good night” is all I can say.

  I watch him walk down the sidewalk and get to the front of his truck.

  “Go in,” he says. “Lock the door. Then I’ll go.”

  I start to argue for the sake of arguing. But it turns out my voice won’t work.

  It’s probably for the best.

  I go inside and lock up and then peek through the window. He pulls away down the road, and I grin the entire time.

  See you later, sexiest-friend-I’ve-ever-had-whom-I-can’t-touch-and-it-makes-me-crazy-but-I-need-to-be-a-responsible-adult.

  I lean against the wall. “I got the job.” I grin even harder. “And I had dinner with Trevor Kelly. Not bad for a random day. Not bad at all.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HALEY

  You did great, Mia!” I shout.

  The handful of students still in Aerial’s gym cheer as Mia
lands her gymnastics trick. Neely watches from her office, a satisfied look on her face. I know Neely thinks she hit the jackpot by getting Mia as her soon-to-be stepdaughter. Mia loves gymnastics as much as Neely—a collegiate gymnast back in the day—always has.

  My little buddy runs across the mats, her ponytail swishing back and forth, and wraps her arms around my waist. “I’ve been working on that forever. I was starting to give up.”

  “No,” I gush. “You don’t give up. It’s not what we do.”

  “I know. I remembered that and it’s why I didn’t.”

  I give her another squeeze before she pulls away.

  “Hey, Mia,” Keyarah calls out. “Wanna go home with Madison and me and watch a movie?”

  “Can I?” she asks Neely as she approaches.

  “If it’s okay with Susan.”

  Their mom gives Neely a thumbs-up. The trio of girls grab their things and skip outside, and just like that, the bustling gym is eerily silent.

  “It’s funny how quickly it gets quiet,” I note.

  “It goes from a hundred to one in an instant.” She walks onto the mats and starts picking up towels. “Thanks for helping me out today. The girls wanted to practice their routines, and I couldn’t be out here and in the office working on competition paperwork at the same time.”

  “I didn’t do too bad,” I joke, helping her pick up. “I mean, I’ve never tumbled a day in my life. But I was slightly impressive with my ‘Point your toes!’ comments here and there.”

  Neely laughs. “You’ve been a gym mom for years. You should’ve picked up something by now.”

  I hand Neely a couple of towels. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “I’ve always had a fear that some woman would come into Dane’s life and kick me out. You’ve been so lovely to me, and I really appreciate that.”

  “Oh, please,” she says. “You are as important to that little girl as I ever will be. She loves you, Hay.”

  I rest my head on her shoulder. “Yeah, well, she can stop growing up and wanting to spend all her free time with her friends. I’m relegated to spending my time with Claire now if I want to see a friend, and Claire’s probably going to get me arrested one day.”

  Neely laughs, patting me awkwardly on the head. “Maybe there’ll be another little one for you to—”