Deal

by Shey Stahl

  She sucks.

  “Colton cheated on me with his roommate’s girlfriend after my dad got sick. I caught them in bed of all places doing the nasty, the horizontal mambo, bumpin uglies,” Tathan starts laughing at this point, his shoulders shaking, “boinking ... banging ... I could go on for days with this one.”

  It’s apparent that I spend entirely too much time on Urban Dictionary and have had maybe too many glasses of wine.

  He laughs. “Did you kick his ass?”

  “I threw a firecracker into the bed with them.” I told him proudly. “I aimed at the goods but missed. Either way, he went out with a bang.”

  He looks terrified but amused. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  “You were on my bad side ... but I used office supplies against you instead of fire. I was almost arrested for the firecracker incident too so I’ve laid off the explosives.”

  “For throwing a firecracker?” he can’t help but laugh again, shaking his head.

  “I may or may not have set his car on fire too.” I point at him. “No one had any proof!” I decide it’s time to change the conversation to him. “Do you miss your parents?”

  His head slumps and he nods. I instantly feel horrible about asking that. I just blurted it out without thinking.

  Nice timing.

  Of course, he missed his parents, fuckface! What kind of horrible monster are you to bring this up?

  “It’s been ten years ... but it doesn’t get any easier.” He tells me. “Paul and Elle have been great though.”

  “How do your brothers deal with it?”

  “Better than me...” his voice trails off into a whisper. “They were older ... maybe it was easier for them.”

  “I don’t think it’d be easy on anyone.”

  I pay attention to the song playing on his phone and smile. I love listening to Elvis Presley for many reasons, most of which has to do with my dad. He used to play all his records when I was a kid so the love was pretty much forced on me. Although I did come to appreciate his songs and the meaning they held. This one in particular, “Pieces Of Me,” was one of his favorites. I never knew much about my mother but from what I gathered, her and my dad had some problems. Problems he regretted that weighed heavily on him since there wasn’t anything he could do to fix the situation. She was gone and once they’re gone, there’s nothing you can do.

  “My favorite line is, well I found the bad parts, found all the sad parts...” I say, leaving it at that.

  And then he says, “I guess I threw the best parts away.”

  “Elvis was amazing and I was apparently born in the wrong decade.” I tell Tathan, sinking down in the water.

  “I think we both were.” He moves slightly shifting and reaching for another beer. I take that moment to refill my wine and stare up at the sky full of stars. It’s so peaceful out here and the way the warmth of the night feels on my skin, this feels almost like heaven.

  “Were you close with your dad?”

  “Yeah.” I say, smiling at the memories of him. “My mom died when I was just three months old. She was hit by a car when she was running one morning.” My voice fades when my gaze drifts and finds Tathan.

  He sits back against the concrete, his brow furrowed in pain almost. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t remember anything about her. My dad said I looked just like her and the photographs I’ve seen we could be twins.” I shrug. “But my dad raised me all by himself. He never dated anyone I can remember, it was ... just us. When I went away to college I came home every weekend to check on him and then he got sick. It was out of the blue too. Just, hey, I have stage four lung cancer.”

  It takes Tathan a moment before he speaks, deciding on his words. “It’s never easy. Doesn’t matter if you watch them die over months, or it just happens in one day, they’re gone.”

  He knows exactly how I feel and I know that right then I am exactly where I want to be and with who I want to be with at this exact moment. Tathan just gets me, we have such similar life experiences, well, not the he’s rich one and I’m not one, but the love of our family and the tragedies we have both suffered run so parallel. I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone, especially not Colton. He looks so inviting, wet bare chest, arms spread open and laid back, I want to just curl up in his embrace and snuggle him. I start scooting towards Tathan, wanting to see what hot tub kissing is like when a noise draws our attention toward the gate and I realize I forgot my Saturday night buddy was coming over. Casey.

  Fuck. Just fuck.

  She shuts the gate behind her, tosses her towel aside and does a fucking cannonball into the hot tub drenching both Tathan and me.

  He looks a little shocked with water beading down his face. “I think she drank that entire bottle.”

  Sure enough, she’s holding an empty bottle of wine that she sets down on the edge of the concrete and shakes the one beside me seeing it’s still half full. “Let’s party!”

  When I scoot away from Tathan, Casey notices our proximity and smiles, drifting to the side of the hot tub to sit on the edge. “Was I interrupting?”

  Tathan smiles but doesn’t say anything because I practically shout, “No!” before he can get a word in.

  “If by interrupting you mean was I hoping to cop a hot tub feel, then yes, you were most definitely interrupting,” Tathan states with that smile and those dimples.

  Thank God for the hot tub because my cheeks were already red so my embarrassment is masked by the heat. Fucking Casey has impeccable timing.

  Sunday, the morning of the bridal shower, should have been about Casey but she wants to talk about Tathan and go over the seating chart one last time. It’s all shit we could have done last night instead of drinking wine in the hot tub with Tathan and listening to TLC.

  Priorities. We have them.

  “My Aunt Carol needs two seats.” Casey says through giggles as we sit at the kitchen table in her mom’s house. It’s where the bridal shower will take place in about three hours. “And Bryan’s Uncle Tom needs to be next to the bathroom. Has some kind of bladder problem.”

  “That sounds fun.” I set my mocha down and point to the left of the seating chart. “Put them there.”

  She’s really just making small talk because what Casey really wants to talk about is Tathan and what’s going on between us. After that she’s going to want to talk about her bachelorette party at the Red Revolver tonight.

  Thankfully Casey is not a Vegas kind of girl. Neither is Bryan. He plans on hitting the strip clubs around Phoenix.

  Good for him I say. Get your lap dance.

  Casey feels the same way. “He can do blow off a hooker’s ass for all I care as long as he shows up for that wedding.”

  I laugh because that’s exactly something she would say. I could never see Bryan doing that though.

  “So...” and here it comes. “Have you...?”

  Casey thinks I had sex with Tathan last night when she went to bed. She thinks this because of the way he was looking at me last night in the hot tub.

  I didn’t. Sure, we kissed again, but no sex. Just a little Elvis and wine this past week.

  “We sat up until two in the morning listening to Elvis and sang completely out of tune.”

  “Some would call that dating.”

  “No, it’s called... well, I don’t know but I’m not dating him.”

  “Uh-huh.” She’s giving me a look. One I don’t want. So I push her. “Shut up. We made a deal. One date. One rule.”

  “And what’s that one rule?”

  “He can only have one date. No matter what.”

  “For the last week you’ve been sitting in a hot tub with him every night. If you’re not dating him, you’re hot tubbing him.”

  Zane choses then to walk over. “What’s that?”

  He actually looks excited. As if this is something he should know.

  I do have to admit, our behavior begged the question were we dating?


  In my mind, no, we weren’t.

  But we might have been hot tubbing.

  The bridal shower was uneventful. Casey got a few vibrators and lots of sexy lingerie. Most of us were excited about the bachelorette party tonight though so the bridal shower was just like the pre-party. By the time the bachelorette party rolled around that night, I was already drunk.

  Zane went with me to my apartment so I could change into my dress. As we were leaving, Tathan was just leaving his apartment too.

  “So...big party tonight, huh?” He asks.

  “Yeah.” I give a nod down the hall and motioning for Zane to walk ahead of me and give us some privacy. He was somewhat reluctant until I kicked him in the ass. “Heading out to the Red Revolver.” I tell Tathan, moving my eyes to his.

  Why did you just tell him that? He’ll probably follow you now.

  Tathan raises an eyebrow and takes in my dress letting out a slow whistle. “Guess I’ll have to expand the patrolling tonight to mark the territory.”

  “Yeah.” I laugh shutting my apartment door and turning to lock it behind me only to see Zane at the end of the hall dry humping the wall. He’s pretty drunk too. It’s a good thing we’re taking a cab to the bar. “Gotta protect the pride, huh?”

  “Oh, for sure.”

  I smile and start to walk away when he grabs my hand and pulls me back. “Can I get just one kiss?”

  He’s asking for kisses now?

  He shifts closer his body brushing the length of mine. Fighting a shiver at his proximity, he brought his thumb up to stroke my lower lip and then his lips are on mine, soft, tender, sweet but yet, there’s some control there too.

  Have you ever had a kiss that gives you a feeling like you know exactly where it would head if you let it? Not all kisses lead to sex. That’s not at all what I’m getting at here.

  I’m talking about the ones that lead to those shitty emotional feelings. Those kisses.

  They suck.

  What surprised me is the way his body firmly aligns with mine and gives me that little hint of possessiveness I know he has.

  We exploded right then in probably the hottest kiss ever. EVER. Picking me up he slams me back against my door with his lips frantic on mine, rubbing, twisting, pulling, gasping, you name it we were doing it right there in the fucking hallway. The scorch of his tongue, his hands, I should just open my door and let him in because that’s where this is going. Between his tongue filling me, the way his teeth scrape against my lips, it’s all so much more than I was expecting from him right then. When he eases back, needing to breathe, he throws me off by cupping my cheek with his right hand and then kisses my fucking forehead like what you read about in some kind of fairytale romance.

  I gasp when he lets me down, he chuckles and moves his mouth to my neck, over my jaw and then pulls away like he’s steadying me for a moment, trying to figure me out.

  “Enjoy your evening.” He says, his body hovering intimately over mine and he lets go of me completely and then turns to walk down the hall ahead of me.

  He sucks.

  Because now the entire night I’m going to be thinking of that kiss and him. If I had to guess, it was by design.

  When Tathan passes by Zane (who I conveniently forgot witnessed all that), Zane makes a clawing motion and gives a loud MEEE-OWWW at him only to have Tathan wink at him, so he says when I get to him. “Jesus, muff,” Zane throws his arm around me. “That guy is wet dream worthy.”

  Don’t I know it.

  The Red Revolver on a Saturday night is packed. I can barely move as the loud bass thumps through my veins. I’ve had too much to drink, as has everyone else in this club. Casey’s to my left with a guy she doesn’t know grinding against her ass and two more in front of her.

  I can feel a guy behind me, his hands on my hips, low and tight as he moves to the beat with me. I don’t know him, probably won’t ask for his name and when this song is done, we part our ways. It’s how nights like this go and he and I both know it. I’m not taking him home, though judging by the way he moves, he wants me to and he’d probably be fairly decent in bed.

  Half way through the song, I turn to face him. He’s hot, tall, built similar to Tathan but he’s certainly not Tathan because he doesn’t make my skin flush and my heart race when I see him. When I stare up at this guy, I can’t see what color his eyes are, though I know for a fact they’re not the brown I’ve been dreaming about.

  He smiles down at me, his hands slipping lower on my hips pushing me into his. To my left, there’s movement and Casey squeals with what seems like delight. Turning, I face her hoping she’s okay and that those dudes groping her haven’t crossed the line.

  I’m met with someone staring at me and then the hands that were occupying my waist fall away, as if he knows he’s lost this chance for a happy ending tonight.

  The man before me smiles.

  I poke his chest exaggeratedly. “What are you doing here?”

  “Protecting the pride.”

  Right about then a song I absolutely love comes on. “Blurred Lines.”

  I reach for Tathan, more than likely the seven rum and cokes I’ve had provoking me to do so but that kiss and all the others he’s given me lately runs wild through my body and lines are blurred. They’re fucking non-existent right now.

  The dance floor floods with people and we’re smashed together. My arms lock around his neck, his on my hips fisting the fabric of my dress between his hands.

  Our bodies curve to one another, grinding to the beat, our breathing hot and heavy.

  We say absolutely nothing. No words need to be said. Our bodies are saying enough.

  Thinking of that kiss in the hall, I want his mouth on me so I move my hands to his cheeks and pull his lips to mine. His light scruff scrapes my chin but that kiss stops fucking time. He gasps, as though he can’t get enough, his tongue darting inside my mouth immediately.

  Gliding his fingertips over my ass, he pushes his hips into mine still moving to the beat.

  He’s hard.

  I’m wet.

  Adrenaline rushes through my veins, gives me courage so I hike one leg up around his waist. Not sure what I’m doing here but we both start panting, hands frantic. We’re in a club and my friends see what we are doing and start making catcalls. The raucous shout of laughter brings us back to reality.

  Goosebumps overwhelm me at the touches but then they’re gone just as quickly because he pulls away. I can see the hunger in his dark eyes. No way did he want that to end and pulling away seems to have caused him actual pain. His left hand raises and runs over the back of his neck seeming conflicted.

  “Please don’t drive home like this.” He says, backing up again. He’s going to leave. I can see it in his eyes. “Take a cab.”

  “Or you could take me home.” I wait to see what he’ll say next, knowing if we are alone tonight, the deal’s off and we’re fucking.

  Amalie! Don’t!

  “No,” he shakes his head and leans in to whisper in my ear over the music. “Been there, done that. You’re going to be sober the next time I fuck you.”

  “Who says there’ll be a next time?” My lips move against his ear.

  He smiles against my cheek. “All I need is one date. You should know that by now.”

  “Cocky much?”

  “Oh, I’m going to show you cocky and you will remember,” I swallow as he continues, his breath blowing over my ear in the most provocative way, “it this time.”

  Panties melted again.

  Weddings are beautiful. I suppose all weddings are but Casey and Bryan’s wedding was breathtaking. I’d like to say I had a hand in creating it but Zane and Casey’s cousins did most of the work.

  As I’m standing off to the side watching Casey and Bryan stuff cake in each other’s faces, Tathan to their right taking pictures, Paul comes to stand next to me with the remnants of champagne in his glass.

  “You look beautiful.”

  I turn to look at him smoo
thing out my lavender dress and fixing the one curl that keeps falling out of my artfully pinned up dark hair. “Thank you.”

  I should have been mad at Paul. In a roundabout way, he set Tathan and me up.

  He looks at Tathan and gives a tip of his head toward him. “Thank you for giving him a chance.”

  I snort. “It’s only one date.”

  He smiles and takes the last drink of his champagne. “Sure it is.”

  He sees right through me and continues with his train of thought. “Every relationship starts with only one date, ya know.”

  I look up at him not knowing how to respond. I’ve spent so many years protecting my heart and my head from the emotional trauma that relationships gone bad can cause that I’m not entirely sure how to change the way I am hardwired to be around men.

  I think he’s going to walk away but he stays. He carefully watches Bryan and Casey, and the way Tathan is capturing every moment for them to re-live years from now. “His parents had something very special. They’d known each other since they were babies but Jason had a plan for his life. They didn’t marry until they were out of college and had their careers going but it never stopped their friendship before that. It was what was most important to him. To her. They really were best friends.”

  “Tathan and I certainly haven’t started out that way, Paul … he has annoyed me more over the past few months than any other person I know. We despised each other. ” I look up at him as I slowly sip my champagne.

  Paul steals a glance of the happy couple before returning his gaze to me, “But just think about why he would devote so much attention to you, hell, even move in across from you if not for the fact that there is more to him wanting more with you. Tathan’s a keeper, he’s devoted, loyal, and has a passion for anything he sets his mind to, look at how passionate he is about what he’s doing right now. That same passion he will feel towards anyone who will hold his heart as well.”

  Damn, if I wasn’t second guessing myself on this whole Tathan thing, Paul’s ringing endorsement was definitely causing me to do it now.