by Katie Cross
“Very okay,” she whispered.
Unable to help myself, I smiled. “Me too.”
She moved toward me as if to resume our new favorite activity together, but I rallied all my control and held her back. My finger lifted.
“Ah! One more thing.”
A silent eyebrow rose.
“What is this to you?” I asked carefully. “I need to know now if you're wanting a friends-with-benefits thing or if this is you wanting . . . more.”
The words felt as heavy as my bumper plates. They were awkward in my mouth as if I couldn't force them past my teeth. But the last several months on that stupid dating app had taught me that people brought all kinds of ideas to relationships. For all I knew, Stella just wanted to kiss off some steam and resume where we'd been before, as friends.
For my sake, I sincerely hoped not, because I had a dark feeling I was halfway in love with her already.
Stella paused for a moment, and I could almost see her brain moving as she worked out what to say. Enough time to let me doubt what I'd said. Too fast, idiot, I told myself. One make-out session didn't a girlfriend make.
But maybe I wanted it to.
Because I was tired of them not sticking. Tired of trying again and again and again to find a spark. Now I had a raging inferno in my hands, and I wouldn't be able to settle for casual. There wasn't enough time in life to make me want that.
The same sort of silence had always come on our phone calls after I pitched her my crazy ideas, the ones she never stood behind. My heart hammered in my chest, but I didn't take the question back. Because we were grown adults and grown adults could figure this out.
“More.” She squeaked it out, cleared her throat, then said it again. “More. I want . . . I want more with you, Mark.”
“More.”
I repeated it almost breathlessly. She smiled and a hand came up to touch the side of my face. This all felt so fast. I woke up this morning worried about staring awkwardly at her while we lived under the same roof because I couldn't keep my eyes off her. Now I had permission to kiss her, to hold her, to . . . be with her.
My mind spun.
“Me too,” I finally said.
Her smile illuminated her face, brightening her already doe-like eyes, and I lost all my willpower. In one step, I had her crushed against me again, our lips connected, bodies pressed until I didn't know where she started and I ended.
This time, Stella pulled away a few years too soon. Her fingertips played with the hair at the edge of my neck, sending shivers down my back. Then she pressed her forehead to mine, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her close with a shaky breath. She burrowed into my neck with a little sigh as I tightened my arms around her. As Lizbeth would say, sweet baby pineapple.
We were in big trouble now.
19
Stella
Mark left twenty minutes later.
The moment the door closed behind him, I let my head drop to the desk with a groan. Silence answered back, and I was grateful for it. The solitude gave me the chance to pull myself back together in the whirlwind that had become my life.
Joshua possibly here, possibly not.
A sort-of argument with Mark.
Dealing with hard truths from the past.
Kissing Mark.
And then again.
And again.
Another groan escaped me. Not that I regretted the kiss—no one could regret a kiss (or all twelve) like that—but what it meant. The force I'd put behind it. The abandon with which I'd thrown myself into his arms.
Deciding to let go of false beliefs from my past and be happy was one thing. Jumping into a pool of happy-kissing the next moment was another one entirely.
With that thought bright in my mind, I threw my hair in a high ponytail, changed into a comfortable pair of sweats, an old race t-shirt, and a jacket. I shoved aside the paperwork and my computer. Mark had faith that Seiko would help us iron out this idea, and we waited for official word from Lizbeth on licensing anyway. We needed to find our next booking, but I couldn't do that without him or more information.
So I would trust him.
Work could be stopped to do something else this time, which was, sadly, a difficult concept to wrap my mind around. But I did it anyway.
I needed a run but didn't have the guts to go on my own. My brain still felt like scattered butterflies. I wouldn't be paying attention the way I should in order to be safe from the overly-adventurous mountain lion. No new prints appeared this morning, thankfully, and no protest barking from Atticus in the night.
Instead, I set to work on this cabin. Mark wasn't a slob, but he wasn't tidy either. It needed a little . . . touch. Not too much. Not back to the sterility of my former apartment. But enough that it didn't feel messy. The work gave my mind space to unfold. To wrap around the tingly feeling that Mark's kiss had left behind. The way my lips still burned and the giddy fireworks thrilled in my stomach with each recollection.
I grabbed a laundry basket tucked near the back door, where a stacked washer and dryer stood in the wall. Then I walked around, plucking free his clothes, his socks, his jackets, and shoved them all inside. His random bits of paper went with it, as well as a weight lifting book and an old DVD case that didn't have a DVD in it. Then I shoved it under the desk where he could find it.
Once that was done, I finished with a few other warm touches. A blanket across the back of the couch. Magazines on top of the coffee table. My favorite coffee mug hung next to his over the sink. The sight of the two of them together gave me a moment of wry irony.
“This is going to be great,” I whispered, still hearing echoes of grandma's optimism in my ears from our call earlier. “This is going to be great.”
It would be.
I felt that.
But I also felt that same twinge of fear—albeit much quieter—that worried it would all go away. The heat of his arms replayed through my head. The bracing smell of pine and man and sweat. My skin prickled with goosebumps when I remembered his eagerness to touch me again, like a drowning man.
Mark, I felt in my core, was the best of men.
Resolve filled me again. Allowing myself to be happy wouldn't be easy, but it could be simple. Joshua still hung over my head. My utter lack of plans and steady accounting work followed next. Setting those aside to let myself be in the moment would take some practice, but at least I'd do it this time. Years lay behind me where I didn't let myself be happy. No more of that.
I'd pulled myself from the hamster wheel and now I stood in the vast, big world. The openness could swamp me, but I wouldn't let it.
No, dadgummit. I'd be happy.
With a satisfied nod, I headed up the ladder to unpack a little more, eager to be surrounded by the smell of Mark until he returned home.
The front door flew open with a bang three hours later.
Startled, I jerked up from my spot on the couch to see Mark strolling inside, two brown grocery bags in his arms. He grinned over the top of them when he saw me. The mouth-watering smell of Chinese food floated with him.
“Grabbed us some dinner,” he said as he kicked the door closed. Once he set the bags down on the table, he grabbed something out of one and pitched it to me. I caught it and then laughed. A bag of dark chocolates.
“Thank you.”
He winked and tossed his keys onto a nail in the wall. A brisk wind had blown in with him, leaving his cheeks reddened at the top. He had a glint in his eye when he headed toward me, then pulled me off the couch and into his arms. Any fears I'd harbored that all those kisses had been a fluke, or he'd want to run away after this and not talk again, dissipated in another warm kiss.
“That,” he murmured after he pulled away, a chilly knuckle stroking my cheek, “is worth coming home to.”
I grinned, my arms around his waist, still feeling heady.
“I like t
he sweats look.” He peeked around to take in my new attire.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Very sexy.”
“You have strange tastes then,” I said with a laugh, but couldn't deny there had been a small part of me that wondered if he'd get weird when I turned casual. I so rarely turned casual these days.
He kissed the tip of my nose and stepped back to peel his coat off. “Any word from Seiko?”
I shook my head. “Peeked out there and looks like she started a fire and the lights are on. Otherwise, she hasn't needed anything.”
He pumped a fist, then rummaged through one of the bags. “Bought some groceries but I already put most of them in the kitchen. The coffee, creamer, and other stuff can stay in here. Took a wild shot,” he said as he pulled two styrofoam boxes out, “and figured you were a kung pao chicken and lo mein kind of girl.”
I grinned. “Well done, sir.”
He smiled again in that lopsided way that turned my heart upside down. “Great. I went with broccoli beef, as one does, and fried rice. And I am willing to share.”
While I rummaged through the other bag and put things in the fridge—creamer, small milk, and some pre-peeled hardboiled eggs and cheese packets for his post-workout snacks—he slipped into the bathroom to change. When he emerged in an almost-too-tight t-shirt and gym pants, I felt a flood of heat through my entire body.
We settled into dinner across from each other at the table, where he unabashedly played footsie with me.
“So,” I drawled as I speared a piece of chicken. “Seiko seems quiet, and easy, and it's kind of her to help us out but—”
“We need to get our next booking.”
He leaned back in his chair, a grain of rice on his lips. I nodded and had a sip of chocolate milk I'd stolen from the fridge.
“Yeah.”
His teeth clacked together as he fell into thought, and I let the silence ride. Lizbeth's ghostly involvement in the moving parts of this left me feeling half-blind. What licensure? How long did it take? What were the next steps? He mentioned something about social media, but where? What would she talk about, and in what capacity?
The urge to talk to her followed, but I set that aside. For some reason, I didn't feel great about talking to Lizbeth. Maybe because Mark had once had—probably still did, on some level—strong feelings for her. Or because she held a more firm place in his life than I may ever hold.
I shoved those thoughts aside. They didn't feel great to think about. When I turned my attention to Mark, he'd stared at the ground, still lost in thought.
“Mark?”
He blinked out of it, then shook his head. “Sorry. I have a few more leads I can follow up on. Some other people that I can talk to that may be interested.”
“Are they pity people?”
He snorted. “No, but almost.”
That didn't feel great either, but he dove back into his food. Didn't seem to bother him that his plan for keeping Adventura halfway relied on the charity of others, but it wasn't a thought I wanted to voice. The congenial, warm air between us was too nice and I wanted to bask in it a bit more.
“I grabbed a few things for Seiko while I ran to the store,” he said. “I'd forgotten shampoo and soap for the bathroom out there. I'll get a firmer date and time for when her band will be here, then we can do the official booking.”
“Thanks.”
“After we eat, I'll send some texts.” He waved his fork around as if to illustrate his point. “We'll find someone.”
A hundred more questions rose to the tip of my tongue. What's your online plan? Is the website live? How long until we can book online? I quelled them for later. Before I could speak again, he grumbled about spam calls but didn't seem to need a reply. I let him speak through things while I half-listened, my thoughts still churning in the background.
Once our appetites slowed and I folded my container closed to eat the rest tomorrow, he lifted both his eyebrows.
“So,” he drawled, “you ready for 007 3.0?”
A rush of butterflies in my stomach took me by surprise. I hadn't watched a movie with touchy Mark yet.
Perhaps this would be my new favorite.
“Yes, I am. Are you?”
He grabbed my wrist and tugged, pulling hard enough to yank me to my feet and back into his arms. Then he easily lifted me off the ground. I squeaked, startled to be airborne, and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Born ready,” he said.
Minutes later, we sat next to each other on the couch, the bag of dark chocolates on his lap, and the next 007 movie flickering across the screen. He had an arm around my shoulder and had tucked me into his side. I leaned against him and enjoyed the way he absently played with a lock of my hair.
Somewhere in this day, I'd settled into something that felt like coming home again. The low, warm glow I hadn't felt in so long I'd almost forgotten that it existed. The one that felt like being happy.
And I couldn't hate Joshua for the gift he'd given me at Adventura.
20
Mark
“If someone knocks on that door one more time . . .”
The drawled threat no sooner dropped off my lips than another tap tap tap came from the front door. Stella had the gall to look amused from where she stretched on the floor, having just returned from a run. With the rock music that had been blaring out of the dining hall for the last four hours, there wouldn’t be an animal in sight for days.
An exaggerated sigh escaped me as I shoved myself off the couch and headed for the door, pasting on a wide smile as I pulled it open. Seiko's agent, a middle-aged man with an oily black mustache and smile as flexible as steel, waited on the porch for the 1,764th time.
“Can I help with something?” I asked. If he noticed my gritted teeth, the man gives no sign. I hadn’t even bothered to learn his name. Another rendition of the same song we heard an hour ago blasted in the background. I loved it when I first heard it after Seiko and I went on a date four months ago, but now wanted to drive nails into my ears just so I'd never have to hear it again.
“Water bottles.” The man pushed his lips up in a strange duck-face imitation. “They're looking for chilled, bottled water.”
“There's a tap in the kitchen.”
The man's eyebrow rose. “About that—”
“Have a good day.”
Stella schooled a chuckle when I slammed the door in his face and groaned when he knocked again.
“Don't get that door,” I muttered. “Not one more time.”
She held up two hands in silent acknowledgment, then slowly straightened. The last three days of living around each other had been . . . blissful? Was that a word? Sublime? Something that straddled the world of this-is-stuff-of-dreams and I-can't-believe-she's-into-me, whatever that was.
A particularly off-pitch chord reverberated through the air again. I gritted my teeth as Justin slammed the back door shut behind him.
“When,” he muttered, “are they leaving?”
Atticus slunk in behind him, heading straight for Stella on the floor. She laughed as he licked her face to death even though he'd just returned from the run with her. The dog couldn't get enough of her.
“Tonight,” I said.
“You're sure?”
I wasn't, but I couldn't take away his hope. “I'll make it happen.”
He nodded, then sank onto the couch and rubbed his temples. Stella straightened from where she'd been lunging on the floor and winced when another crash of drums rippled through the forest.
“Well,” I muttered. “At least mountain lions won't be a problem.”
Stella ran a hand along the back of my shoulders as she walked to the ladder. The trail of her fingers against the sensitive part of my neck made me shudder, and it took all my willpower not to spin on my heels and race up that ladder after her. Instead, I contented myself with remembering that we'd watch another 007 movie tonight—our favorite nightly tradition—and then make out afterward.
Once Stella disappeared, I turned my attention to my phone. The driving beat outside didn't help my internal anxiety. None of my contacts had returned my messages. Apparently, no one within my circle of influence, Seiko aside, wanted to rent a crummy cabin on the edge of a summer camp.
Who knew?
My phone buzzed with a text from Lizbeth that set my hair on end.
Lizbeth: Sorry, Mark. I haven't been able to get to the zoning question with the city answered. It's all weird because you're technically between Pineville and Jackson City. I'm not sure which jurisdiction you're under. We need to call but I haven't had the time.
Mark: No worries. I can take care of that.
Lizbeth: Then let me email you some information that you'll need.
Mark: Has the HomeBnB been set up yet?
Lizbeth: No :( We have to resolve this first.
I tilted my head to the side to crack my neck and release some tension. No meant that so many things were left undone, and until they were done, nothing could be rented. Lizbeth was helping me because she wanted to help, but unpaid labor was also unreliable, even in a family. Without paying her, I wouldn't ask her to make this a priority over her new marriage.
Still irritated me though.
Mark: Send me everything you have and Stella and I will take it from here. Thanks for all you did, sis.
* * *
Lizbeth: Sorry! It's just been so busy.
* * *
Mark: It's all good.
