Only one problem. I’d never been this close to Levi’s face before, and it was utterly distracting. I’d never been this close to the rest of Levi before either. He was warm and smelled like leaves and something almost sweet. His hips fit snugly between my legs, and I wondered if I pressed myself tighter against him if I might find him hard.
For a fraction of a second, I lost my marbles.
There was no other explanation for it. No way in my right mind would I ever let my gaze linger on Levi’s pouty lips and wonder what it might be like to kiss them. Yet at that moment, my gaze lingered. And my mind wondered.
Chapter 11
Levi
I was so caught up in trying to get the remote from Frankie that it took me longer than it should have to realize the compromising position we ended up in. Her beneath me, our hands between us as we held onto the remote for dear life, our faces merely an inch apart.
For the first time, I noticed that her eyes weren’t just green, they had a thin starburst of hazel around the pupil like nothing I’d ever seen before. She glanced down, and at first I thought she was looking at the remote, but a second later comprehension flashed in my mind. She was looking at my lips.
Desire shot through my veins. It would be so easy to kiss her, to ease this ache that had been burning in me since the first time I saw her. And if Frankie’s panting breaths and pink cheeks were any indication, she would let me. Visions of us tangled naked on the couch flooded my mind, and my cock stiffened.
No.
I let go of the remote and shot backward, breathing heavily. My head was spinning.
“Fine,” I said. “Have it. Crazy person.”
“I’m the crazy person?” Irritation flooded Frankie’s features, and she scrambled upright. She pointed the remote at the TV, flicked it off, then wheeled it back around to shake it at me. “You’re an asshole, Levi.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I got to my feet but kept my distance from the angry girl. I could still feel her legs wrapped around me, and the temptation to finish what we started was fogging my brain.
I began walking to my bedroom, but Frankie ran around the back of the couch to intercept me. “No. You’re not going anywhere until you and I have a little chat.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
I sidestepped her, but she jammed her way back into my path a heartbeat later. I glared down at her but she simply glared back.
“We wouldn’t have to go through all this if you’d just be a decent human being for once,” Frankie said. “You think you’re tough shit, but you’re just a bully.” She stepped forward and poked the remote into my chest like an accusing finger, her jaw tight. “You need to get your act together before the people in your life decide that being around you isn’t worth the headache.”
“Yeah?” I knocked the remote away and rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you go write a blog post about it?”
Frankie’s forehead creased in confusion. “You read my blog?”
“Enough to know that I don’t need to take life advice from you. Don’t you get tired of being so saccharine all the time?”
If Frankie wanted a bully, she was going to get a bully. Maybe then she’d leave me alone.
“They eat it up though, don’t they?” I continued. “It’s pathetic. What I don’t understand is how none of your readers or your clients can see how fake you are. I may be an asshole, but at least I don’t pretend to be someone that I’m not.”
Frankie’s nose twitched up into a snarl. “It’s no wonder your fiancé left you. The fact that anybody was able to stand you for as long as she did is incredible. That woman deserves an award.”
Something cold lanced my chest and ice spread through my veins.
“Right back at you, sweetheart. I can’t imagine what kind of idiot would want to marry the likes of you, so good luck finding someone to fulfill your stupid wedding fantasy.”
We stared at each other for a moment before Frankie stepped back, shaking her head. “I need a drink.”
She left without another word, grabbing her room key from the table and slamming the door behind her. The slam reverberated through my bones.
Come to think of it, I could use a drink too. I went over to the bar and cracked one of the small bottles of whiskey, tossing it back without bothering to pour it into a glass. I walked to the window at the other side of the room and stared out. The snow was falling in thick heaps, and I could barely see the distant trees in the white haze. When I turned from the window, my eye caught on the window seat, which was piled with blankets and pillows. I could picture Frankie curled up there with a book and a contented little smile. She would be there right now if I hadn’t refused to turn the volume down on the TV. A pang of guilt crept in alongside all the anger, but I pushed it down.
I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and walked back over to the window to call Garrick.
“Hey,” he answered. “I was just about to call you. How’s it going?”
“I’ve had better vacations,” I replied. “Isn’t there any way you could get up here tonight? We could always go down for Valerie in the morning. It’s not that long a drive.”
“Yeah...” Garrick’s voice sounded pained. “That was why I was about to call you. I guess you haven’t heard?”
“Haven’t heard what?” My hand clenched around my phone.
“They just closed the road both ways on the mountain.”
“You’re joking me.” I stuck my face closer to the window and frowned up at the sky. Was it snowing hard enough to close the roads?
“Not joking,” Garrick said. “You can check the weather reports for yourself. There’s a snowstorm on the way.”
“That’s bullshit!” I took a breath, trying to put a cap on my frustration. It wasn’t Garrick’s fault that the weather had gone to shit. “When are they going to open the roads again?”
He hesitated. “Uh, they say maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe?”
“It depends on how quickly the storm moves through. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after.”
“No. Not happening.” I shook my head and went to grab my bag from my room. “I’m coming back down tonight.”
“Levi, you can’t. The roads are closed. They’re not letting anybody through.”
“So you’re saying I’m stranded here?”
With her.
Garrick sighed. “It’s a luxury resort, Levi. It’s not like you’re on some deserted island with nothing but a volleyball to keep you company. I’m sure you’ll make it.”
He had a point, but that didn’t make the reality any easier to swallow. I was stuck in this hotel for the whole weekend with Frankie, the person who probably hated me most in the world.
“How’s Frankie doing?” Garrick asked a moment later.
“Fine, except for the fact that she’s going to skin me while I sleep,” I muttered.
“What did you do?”
I frowned at his accusation. As far as I was concerned, Frankie was just as at fault as I was. She started it. Sort of.
“We had a disagreement,” I said. “She’s gone off somewhere to lick her wounds and plan a painful death for me.”
“A disagreement about what?”
“Not important.”
I wasn’t willing to admit that we’d initially fought about the volume level on TV. I was even less willing to admit where the fight had gone from there.
“Why can’t you just leave the poor girl alone?” Garrick asked, irritation creeping into his voice. “What was the one thing I asked you to do before you left?”
“Hey, she wasn’t nice either.”
“I wish you two would just fuck and get it over with already,” Garrick said
I thought about her trapped beneath me on the couch again, and my cock throbbed uncomfortably.
“If you don’t have anything a little more useful to suggest, I’m going to hang up now,” I said.
“Listen, I feel bad,” Garrick replied. “I
’m going to see what I can do to set you guys up for the weekend. I’ll get the hotel staff to rustle up a care package.”
“Sure, whatever.” I sighed and glanced back out the window. The wind whipped the snow into swirls in the air and whistled past the windowpane. I supposed I could see how driving home right now might not be an option.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Garrick said. “If I were you, I’d try to patch things up with Frankie.”
“Talk to you then.”
I hung up and tossed my phone onto the couch. A frustrated scream built in my throat but I pushed it down. I thought about going outside and kicking the snow, but that wouldn’t clear the roads and the last thing I needed on top of this dumpster fire of a situation was cold feet.
I grabbed another mini-bottle off the bar instead. Gin, this time. Maybe being drunk all weekend was a viable option. It was easier to stomach than the thought of going to apologize to Frankie, which I knew was the right thing to do. I didn’t apologize to anyone. I’d made a name for myself in my family’s business as a hardline negotiator who didn’t give a shit what anybody else thought of me, and I carried that with me everywhere.
Why did I feel bad for Frankie? I didn’t know anything about her. She didn’t know anything about me, except apparently the most interesting thing there was to know. She was probably sitting in the bar right now congratulating herself for giving me a taste of my own venom, and I couldn’t blame her for it. By all rights that made us even. Didn’t it?
I let the empty bottle clatter into the trash and hoped that Garrick’s care package contained booze. Lots of it. And in normal sized bottles, too.
My answer came around twenty minutes later. I was lying on the couch, staring at the dark TV screen. I tried putting the football back on, but all it did was aggravate the knot of guilt in my stomach. So I watched nothing instead. I couldn’t decide whether I was waiting until Frankie got back or waiting until I dared to go talk to her. I knew I needed to go tell her about the roads at least, unless she and Val had already had a similar conversation.
Just as I was deciding whether to storm the minibar for more spirits or head out to find Frankie, someone knocked on the door. I got up to answer it and was surprised to see a bellhop standing there with a big plastic bag in one hand and a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Mr. Wheeler?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Your brother called and requested we bring some items up to the room.” He thrust the bag toward me.
“Thanks.” I took the bag from him and wrestled a bill out of my pocket to tip him. He accepted it gratefully and hurried off back down the hall.
I emptied the bag on the kitchen table, and my curiosity soon hardened into frustration. This was my brother’s grand solution for making the weekend bearable? There was wine, at least, though Garrick hadn’t stopped there. I wished he had. I couldn’t tell what pissed me off more—the game of Monopoly, or the box of condoms.
Chapter 12
Frankie
I was getting tired of the endless string of holiday songs. Normally I loved Christmas music, but tonight I wasn’t in the holly jolly mood. I sagged over the bar top like a deflated balloon, keeping one hand on my drink while the other rested on the phone in my lap. I’d picked it up to call Val a few times now, but stopped myself every time. Not only was she dealing with her own problems at the brewery, but I couldn’t justify calling a client to vent to her about my problems. Even if I felt like we shared a deeper connection than I was accustomed to with clients, it didn’t change the fact that she was paying me. I rarely felt lonely, but it struck me hard now. The realization that the one person I wanted to talk to was the one person it would be ethically wrong for me to call hollowed me out.
“Another drink?”
I looked up to find the bartender smiling at me. Xavier, his name tag read.
“Yes, please.” I finished the rest of my beer and placed the empty glass on the bar.
Xavier was already pouring me a fresh pint. “You seem like you’re having a rough day.”
“I’ve had better.”
“Is it a guy?”
He placed the frothing pint in front of me and leaned his hip against the counter. He was a friendly looking guy, somewhere in his mid-forties with brown hair beneath his bald crown and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. I wasn’t the kind of person to spill my life story to strangers, but I was in a funny sort of mood. I looked around to see if anybody else was listening, but the bar was basically empty. A couple sat in one of the far tables and an old man in a suit was playing one of the video lottery machines, but apart from that I was alone.
“Yes and no,” I said.
Xavier raised one of his patchy brows.
That one simple movement triggered something that made the whole story spill out. His eyebrow tugged a thread inside of me. I tried to keep the story as simple as possible, identifying myself as the maid of honor. I wasn’t keen to get into the specifics of my unusual job.
By the time I’d finished my tale, or the approximation of it, anyway, I was half-finished with my pint, and I felt twenty pounds lighter.
“I don’t understand how someone could be so horrible for no reason,” I said. “What do you think?”
Xavier, who was now leaning on his elbows, nodded slowly. “He sounds like a man in a lot of pain.”
This surprised me since I hadn’t even told Xavier about Levi’s ex.
“Or he’s just an asshole,” I replied.
Xavier shrugged and stood, pouring himself a glass of coke from the spray nozzle. “Could be. Assholes usually take pleasure in being assholes, but he sounds miserable.”
“He’s not miserable,” I said. “He’s smug.”
As I thought about it, though, I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t say I’d ever seen Levi smile, except in that dream. I hadn’t spent much time with him, and my very presence seemed to make him unhappy, but maybe it wasn’t my presence that did it.
“Either way,” Xavier continued after taking a drink. He waved his cup in my direction. “Not your problem.”
“It feels like I’ve made it my problem,” I said. “When we fought in the room, things got personal.”
I felt ashamed of what I’d said to Levi, even if he’d volleyed it right back. I couldn’t tell whether I felt worse about what I said to him or what he said to me. It all hurt, just in different ways.
Someone sat down at the far end of the bar, drawing Xavier’s attention. My heart jumped, and I flicked my gaze down to see if it was Levi. Nope. Just the old man who’d been playing the video lottery. Based on his gap-toothed grin, he’d gotten lucky.
Had I wanted it to be Levi, or was I afraid that it would be?
I’d been sitting at the bar for nearly half an hour, and I still couldn’t figure out whether I wanted to go back to the room and sort things out or run off into the night and never see him again. The second option grew more tempting with every drink.
Even though I hated him for saying everything he did, there was a part of me deep down that knew there was some truth to it. I wondered what Levi would say if he knew I was divorced.
Xavier came back over after he finished serving the old man. “You want some chips?” he asked, tossing me a bag of chips from the basket behind the bar. “On the house.”
I laughed. “If I start crying can I get some pretzels too?”
Xavier looked toward the bar’s entrance, and a wrinkle of concern tapered his brow. A second later, Levi sat down beside me.
“Glenmorangie, please,” he ordered. “Neat.”
Xavier nodded, poured him his drink, then looked at me. I gave him a short nod and he moved down to the other side of the bar.
Levi brought the glass to his lips, took a sip, and placed it gently back on the bar. He cleared his throat. “The roads are closed.”
My heart sank. “What?”
I looked over to see if he was playing a prank on me or something, but he was dead serious. He
licked his lip and looked down at his glass.
“Yeah. Snowstorm, I guess. They might open up tomorrow, but Garrick said it looks like we’ll be stuck up here all weekend.”
“Great,” I muttered, finishing up my beer.
A whole weekend with Levi. I began to wonder if stealing a skidoo would be worth the jail time and potential hypothermia.
Xavier brought me another beer and passed it over with a kind smile. I drank it in silence, wondering why Levi was still sitting there. If he’d come out here just to tell me about the roads, shouldn’t he have finished up his whiskey and gone by now? Why’d he order a drink in the first place? Levi had made it quite clear that being anywhere near to me was the last place he wanted to be in the world, and I thought I’d done the same.
After a while, his presence started to irritate me. It was bad enough that I was stuck here the whole weekend. I didn’t need him following me around, reminding me of everything I didn’t like about myself. He probably didn’t even care. I bet he was just bored because he didn’t have anyone to antagonize back in the room.
When he finished his whiskey, he ordered another. I was down to half a beer, and I took a big swig of it before clearing my throat.
“Are we just going to sit here in silence all night?”
“It’s going well so far,” he replied, staring down into his drink. It was a typical Levi thing to say, though his voice held none of its usual arrogance.
Screw it. He wanted to sit here, he was going to get an earful. “I’m divorced,” I announced. “So you were wrong.”
Levi lifted his face to look at me, but I kept my gaze firmly on the basket of chips behind the bar.
Talking with Xavier must’ve loosened my tongue because soon I was telling Levi a story I never thought I’d share with him.
“I got married when I was nineteen to this guy Aaron. My maid of honor was my best friend from school, and I thought I was going to have the best wedding ever.” I paused to take a drink. I could still feel Levi’s eyes on me, but I was too afraid of what his expression might reveal to look over at him. “It wasn’t. I didn’t think she was doing it on purpose at the time, but my supposed best friend did everything she could to ruin my big day. Then the two of them started having an affair. I caught them. We got divorced. I didn’t build my business so I could fantasize about the wedding I’ll never have. I want to prevent anyone else from having the horrible one like I had.”
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