Down Shift

by K. Bromberg

  Because I’m used to things—whatever they are—always being my fault. Every mood swing. Every bad day at work. The change in the weather for God’s sake, if I were to believe Ethan.

  So I stare at the broad lines of Zander’s shoulders, his hair disheveled from the wind on the walk home, his eyes focusing on where he’s pushing the house key around on the counter, and I wonder what I’ve done wrong this time.

  “Tell me something, Getty.” He lifts his head finally and meets my eyes. “If you were in the restaurant tonight and saw the two of us, what story would you have made up to explain us being there?”

  His question throws me momentarily. His eyes hold fast to mine as he rounds the front of the counter and leans his hips against it. There’s something so distinctly masculine about the stance that I stop and stare for a moment before answering him.

  “Why?”

  “Just humor me.” He flashes me a heart-stopping grin, and between that and the intensity in his eyes, it’s impossible to refuse when he pats the counter beside him for me to sit.

  Suddenly leery of being close to him when I’ve been just that all day, I move slowly and take my time hopping my butt up on the countertop, scooting back so that my legs are dangling over the edge.

  “If I was making up a story about us, I’d say that we were friends who met for dinner after working all day.”

  “Friends.” He makes a noncommittal sound and then shifts so that he can meet my gaze. I squirm under his quiet scrutiny: eyes narrowing, tongue tucked in his cheek, hand placed way too close to the side of my thigh. “That’s all you’ve got, Socks?” He shifts so that his pelvis is against the counter, hip hitting my knee. “That’s not very creative coming from an artist.”

  I start to scoff, immediately reject his label, but the warning look in his eye stops it on my tongue. “Sorry.”

  Annoyance flickers over his face, but it’s gone just as quickly as it comes. “Don’t apologize.”

  I begin to say I’m sorry again and stop myself, heeding the cautionary tone in his voice. “What’s your story, then?” He doesn’t like mine—then he needs to give me his. But the minute I make the comment, I feel like I’ve just played right into his hands even if I can’t figure out what the endgame is.

  “I’m glad you asked.” A shift of his feet. His hips slide farther into mine. That flutter of something deep in my belly. “I would have seen a famously successful painter—world renowned in fact,” he says with a lift of his eyebrows, “going to dinner with the inspiration for her next painting. He’s a championship-winning race car driver. Ruggedly handsome. Not pretty at all.”

  I scrunch up my nose. “A little pretty.”

  He places his hand on my knee and squeezes gently, a playful warning. But his hand remains there and even as he continues speaking, all I can think about is the sudden warmth and weight of his touch. “They are there discussing their next project.”

  “What if she doesn’t paint people?”

  “Oh, she does.”

  “She does?”

  “Yes. She’s branching out. Challenging herself. A nude of him is next on her list.”

  I throw my head back, the laughter bubbling up and over, and the sound of his laughter mixed with mine is comforting. “No. Not a nude. He’s not pretty enough for a nude.”

  “Touché,” he says with a shake of his head, and his grin widens.

  “Tell me more about them.”

  “She’s trying to ply him with cheap wine, get him drunk, maybe take advantage of him a little later.” I raise my eyebrows. “She thinks she can teach him a few things in all aspects.”

  “Oh.” The sound falls from my lips. Is he implying what I think he’s implying?

  “Oh?”

  “So they’re more than just friends, then?” My mind runs wild. About as wild as my heartbeat when Zander moves between my parted knees so that he’s face-to-face with me. And the dim light in the room that he just blocked with his change in position only adds to what suddenly feels like the intimacy of the moment. The shadow that falls over his face and the quick dart of his tongue to wet his lips draws out all kinds of feelings within me, that slow, sweet ache in the delta of my thighs included.

  “Do you want them to be more than friends, Getty?” The way he says my name, the intention laced in that single word, calls to every single part of me.

  And I know we’re definitely not talking about a made-up scenario right now. We’re talking about the frustrated kiss he gave me at work the other day and the fire he says I’m not ready to light that has kept me up thinking late at night.

  “I don’t know.” I try to steady my breathing as he places his hands on the counter beside my thighs and leans his body into me.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I need to know more about them.” I try to buy some time. Attempt to gain some clarity in the face of his powerful physical presence so I can decide which side I want to win: my need for things to remain simple with him or my want to feel more than just his kiss.

  By the look on his face, I can tell my request throws him, but he recovers quickly. “More about them? Hmm. Let’s see. She’s had a troubled past. He wishes she’d talk more about it—trust him—because he’s a much better listener than her canvas and paints are, but he understands that these things take time.” Even with the sudden serious turn of the conversation, his last comment pulls the corners of my mouth up in a smile.

  “And him? What about him?”

  “You tell me.” It’s not a request, not a demand, but it’s clear that he wants to know what I think of him.

  “I think—”

  “She,” he corrects.

  “She thinks that he has this big persona he feels he must live by—the grandiose asshole.” I get a lift of his eyebrows with the term. “He’s stubborn and infuriating . . . but underneath all of that, he has a kind heart. He’s confident and sure of himself in a way she only wishes she could be. And despite that, she knows he’s been hurt somehow or has seen hurt, because most men aren’t patient enough to stand back and let her go through what she’s going through without pushing. And he isn’t pushing, so she knows that he gets it, even though he doesn’t know what ‘it’ really is.”

  He nods his head and runs his hands up and down my thighs. And I swear to God he does it out of a comforting reflex, because I can tell the minute he realizes he is doing it—his hands falter in motion, eyes widen momentarily—and yet he keeps them where they are and doesn’t remove them.

  “What about him? Why does she think he’s here on the island?”

  I twist my lips, so many theories coming to mind, and yet I’m not sure how to go about saying them. “Because he hates Sundays.” Better start with some humor and see how he plays it.

  That earns a soft chuckle from him. “Really?”

  “Yeah. And probably any day that ends in y, since he’s away from his passion, but she gets a feeling there’s more there. She’d listen if he wanted to talk about it, but won’t ask.”

  “Questions always get you in trouble,” he murmurs.

  “Not always,” I muse.

  “Does she want to be more than friends with him, Getty?”

  Hello, trouble. Guess he’s trying to prove his point.

  An even intake of breath. The pounding of my heart. The scent of his cologne. The hope of possibility. “She’s afraid.” My voice is barely audible.

  “Of him?”

  All I can do is nod my head. His lips are right there. The memory of how they felt on mine front and center. “Of everything about him.”

  My chest hurts to draw in air. My body aches in a way I’ve never felt before. Anticipation. Fear. Uncertainty. All three surge through me. Deplete me. Revive me.

  “Why would she be afraid of him, Getty?”

  My name again. It’s his way of bringin
g me back to the moment and out of my head, where the ghosts swim. His way of reminding me of my new name, of my fresh start, of new beginnings.

  “Because she’s the disaster. The one who can’t do anything right. The one who can’t teach him anything and so he’s going to be disappointed when he finds out she’s nothing like who he thinks she is.”

  He angles his head and stares at me, eyes searching and so intense that I break our connection and look down to where his hands are on my thighs. “Not hardly a disaster. A little timid maybe. A lot gun-shy. But time will help that.”

  With a rebuttal held on my tongue, I visually trace the lines of his hands on my legs to distract myself. The broad fingers with a few cuts and scrapes from working on the deck. This whole conversation has pushed my thoughts out of my comfort zone. And I wonder what they’d feel like running over my body.

  The thought makes me want to hyperventilate. The idea of him seeing me naked. Ethan’s criticisms trying to force their way in my head.

  You’re the worst lay I’ve ever had, Gertrude. So bad I may need to take up with the housekeeper just to be satisfied. Your body’s too soft; your tits aren’t big enough. And for fuck’s sake, it’s not my job to make you come. It’s not my problem you can’t get off. And if I ever see you try to do it on your own, we’re going to have a big problem.

  “Uh-uh. Look at me. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”

  I can’t. I don’t want to lift my head so he can see every single thing about me—my inadequacies, my fear of experiencing more, my hope for more—in my eyes. Because I can’t hide it. I can fight it, but I definitely can’t hide it.

  Since I’m focused on his hands, I follow the movement as they lift off my thighs and come up to cup the sides of my cheeks, forcing my eyes to meet his.

  “I thought we were talking about her,” I assert, needing to get this back in the make-believe realm, because his eyes are too honest, his touch too tangible, and I am starting to imagine the possibility of there being something more between us when I know he can’t really mean it.

  He nods in response, angling his head to the side as he studies me. “We are,” he murmurs as if it’s real, his eyes narrowing as he leans closer into me. “He wants to ask her so many questions but now knows she’s afraid and he doesn’t want to spook her.”

  “Maybe he should just ask. Maybe she’ll answer him. Maybe she won’t. They’ve had quite a few glasses of wine after all.”

  “Ah, yes. Liquid courage. It does wonders for the nerves, or so I’ve heard.” I’ve never been this close to another man for this amount of time besides Ethan. It’s unnerving and exhilarating all at once to know that this is my choosing. “Maybe he’s afraid of her too.”

  I snort in jest. “You’re kidding, right? Look at him and look at her. There’s no need for him to be afraid of her. She’s average and he looks like he just walked off the pages of a magazine ad.”

  “I think she’s not seeing herself clearly.”

  “Well, I think he’s full of shit. Tell me why he’s afraid of her, then.” I sound defensive, bothered, and maybe I am. All that’s missing is a huff and crossing my arms across my chest in denial. But perhaps I’m so conditioned to the Ethan setup where he built me up just to tear me down that I’m afraid of believing any compliment.

  “Because he’s afraid he’ll get too close to her. He realizes that regardless of how strong she is, she’s still fragile emotionally and that they have some kind of connection despite their constant bickering. He worries about what it will do to her when the fix-it list is done and he has to go back to his real life.”

  His explanation captivates me. Pulls on my heartstrings. Causes an unexpected mini-flutter of panic at the idea of him leaving. So I decide to voice some of my thoughts out loud. “So he’s afraid for her?” I need clarification so my mind doesn’t run wild with this and make anything I want out of it.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, he’s afraid for him. What if she paints him with an incredible set of abs? A perfect eight-pack that he can’t seem to get in the gym regardless of how hard he works at it? I mean that’s a valid reason for him to be afraid. To have to leave her when she makes him feel better about himself than anyone else has in a long time.”

  My inhalation is shaky. And while he’s trying to add levity to the unexpectedly deep conversation, his comments still hit home with a sincerity I never expected from him. I can’t help the small smile on my lips when what I really should be doing is figuring out whether he’s serious about being afraid of getting closer to me, or if he is just saying it to lighten the sudden insecurity I have after admitting I’m afraid of him.

  Or rather she’s afraid of him.

  I struggle to find a balance, because all of a sudden I feel outmaneuvered and a bit vulnerable, and my mind latches onto something he said.

  “I would think if she’s going to be painting him nude, he’s going to be more concerned about the size she paints another area than just his abs.”

  He throws his head back and laughs while I sit with eyes narrowed wondering if I just in fact flirted with him. And while to other women, that may sound like the stupidest observation ever, for me, it’s something I can’t remember having done in the longest time. In fact I’m so used to downplaying every conversation with a male—sparse eye contact, proper distance between us, an air of disdain—for fear of possible repercussions that it takes a minute to compute that this really is me sitting on a counter with a very hot man standing between my legs.

  Cue the nerves.

  But it’s hard to be too anxious when Zander is laughing the way he is and I’m the one who caused it.

  “You’ve got a point there,” he chuckles, and runs one hand through his hair, leaving it adorably tousled before returning his hand to the top of my thigh in the most natural of actions. “She has a very good sense of humor.”

  “Hmm.” I’m busy watching him. Studying him. The little crinkles around his eyes when he smiles. The slightest dent in his chin that’s noticeable only from up close. The five-o’clock shadow shading his jawline. “She does?”

  “Yes, she does.”

  Silence falls around us as his thumb subtly rubs back and forth on my thigh. Tension fills the room as expectation builds over what’s going to happen next.

  My nerves reappear. The panic button suddenly pushed, so I try to escape the uncertainty of what to do or say next.

  “I thought you said he had questions for her,” I finally stammer when the unknown becomes way too much.

  “He does.”

  “And . . . ?” I prompt when he takes a long pause, my mind struggling to stay alert when my hormones are all focused elsewhere.

  He slides his hands up and down the tops of my thighs, his lips twisting as he thinks about what questions he wants to ask the most.

  “He wants to know why she thinks she’s a disaster. He wants to know what he can do besides be patient to help her.” His voice becomes softer with each word, more serious, more intent. “He can’t figure out why even though he’s sworn to himself he needs to stay away from her, he can’t seem to follow through.”

  “I don’t think she can answer that last question for him.” I feel the need to shift, fidget, under the intensity of his blue eyes and yet I do neither.

  “True.” He arches one eyebrow up, a shy smile ghosting his lips as he lifts his hands to my cheeks again. “Maybe she can answer this one for him.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you think she wants him to kiss her?”

  My breath stops. Heart pounds. Body stills. “Does he want to kiss her?”

  “There you go answering a question with a question again, Socks.”

  “You didn’t answer.” Classic avoidance.

  “Neither did you.” That shy smile again. The brush of his thumb over my bottom l
ip, which takes everything I have to not close my eyes and sink into.

  “Yes.” Oh shit. Did I really just say that?

  “Yes?” he confirms, voice soft but certain.

  I nod my head. Swallow over the nerves that just seized up my throat. But all thought is lost as he moves ever so slowly into me.

  “Good, because I don’t think he was going to take no for an answer.”

  Processing his comment is impossible because his lips are on mine and my faculties are temporarily and willingly drugged.

  His lips meet mine with soft brushes asking for acceptance. I part my lips and grant him access to take more from me. Our tongues touch, intertwine, in a soft dance of greeting. His fingers frame my face, angling it, and my skin warms beneath his touch. The desirous groan from the back of his throat spurs me on, gives me a sense of confidence that whatever I’m doing is enough for him.

  And God yes, it’s doing it for me. His kiss is gentle yet demanding. So soft it feels like a dream, but I definitely know it’s not with the heat of him standing between my legs and the taste of wine still on his tongue.

  His hands move. Slide down my rib cage and cup my ass before pulling me closer toward the edge and into him.

  My head is light. My heart is full. My nerves are slowly being taken over by the haze of everything about him: his cologne, the quiet murmur he makes, the pressure of his hands on my lower back, the softness of his lips, the finesse of his kiss.

  My hands begin to move as our lips continue to taste and tantalize. Taunt and satisfy. I slide the palms of my hands over his back, where his muscles tense as his hands mirror mine. Both in unison. Me more hesitantly, him more sure in his touch.

  I push away all thoughts of my life before: of Ethan and how after we were married, kissing was never allowed other than soft pecks outside the house for people to see how much he loved his doting wife. Of his crass comments about how mouths were good for only one thing and those apologies were not to be spoken but to be given.