Ex-Daredevil

by Zoe Lee

  But nothing special otherwise. Of course.

  Scoffing at the very idea, I swiped a few unappealing men and then paused on a cutie. He looked a little nervous in his photo and the angle wasn’t his best, but it was honest. No red flags in his bio, other than that he liked DC over Marvel, so I swiped and sent a message.

  Halfway through my commute, he messaged back. He might have looked a little nervous in his photos, but his message was casual and warm. We went back and forth for half an hour before he suggested we meet at a bar only a few stops further on the train.

  Sounds great, I replied before slipping in my earbuds to listen to a comedy podcast.

  As I got off the train, detachment over meeting someone new started to creep in, instead of my usual feeling of anticipation. I pushed back at it. So this man probably wasn’t going to be haughty like Eliott, looking down his nose at me for enjoying my life even if it meant that once in a blue moon I landed in the wrong place. But he could totally be as good a kisser as Eliott, who had somehow plundered my mouth like a gentleman, then cordially invited me to plunder his mouth in return.

  He definitely wouldn’t make this noise when he came like—

  No, I denied myself, pissed off that my mind was going there. There was a reason I’d gotten out of the diner as quickly as possible, disappearing with a sassy, irreverent quip. Men like that weren’t for me, even if they wanted me for a couple hours. I was an androgynous, tattooed daredevil who wasn’t at all serious about settling down. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, but men like Eliott had no interest in that type of partner. Our hookup had been fun, but I needed to leave it behind me and move forward.

  Move forward, I told myself, then went into the bar and scanned the crowd.

  Someone touched my shoulder lightly and asked, “Gavin?” When I nodded at my date and smiled, he looked a little dazed. “You actually look just like your pics on the app. Wow. That never happens to me. S-sorry, I mean, you’re cute.”

  “So are you,” I said easily, then gestured toward an empty table. “You want to sit?”

  With an eager nod, he led the way.

  We chatted and ordered some appetizers off the happy hour menu. It was everything we say we want on a date. He was nice and asked a lot of questions about me, but didn’t avoid answering mine like he was hiding a bunch of shit either. It didn’t take him too long to relax enough to start throwing out little flirtatious quips without being pushy.

  And yet…

  Damn it, screwing around with Eliott had been as exciting as skydiving that day—maybe even more than the skydiving.. I hadn’t known what he would say next and every move he’d made once we locked ourselves in the bathroom had been completely unexpected. Egging him on had been a reflexive instinct from the thrill of my jump, and how much I liked the way he looked at me like he had no clue what to do with me. Men who kept their mouths pursed between criticism and snobbish barbs shouldn’t be so damn sexy.

  But he was.

  I’d fully planned on hooking up tonight, but I had never distracted myself from one man by sleeping with another, no matter the reason. So I kept the date light and noncommittal, and after an hour or so, I thanked him for the nice night and bowed out.

  As I walked out, I got angry at Eliott for the way he’d stuck himself in my brain.

  All the logic in the world couldn’t diminish my focus on him though.

  Skydiving—and all the other dangerous, idiotic activities I did, to borrow Eliott’s descriptors—made me appreciate life. Appreciating life always went hand-in-hand with being more open to even more new things, exciting things. It made me over-optimistic, like rose-tinted beer goggles, and let me take a second look at people or things I normally wouldn’t. But like I’d told Eliott, just because skydiving made me horny, that didn’t mean I tossed aside safety or my standards and just fucked anyone I could.

  The universe had just aligned that day: the rush of skydiving, almost literally crashing into Eliott, and the over-optimistic adrenaline goggles had been the perfect storm.

  If I saw him now, when I was my usual generally positive but still skeptical self, I’d see him clearly. I was sure that he’d turn out to be just another typical stuck-up, judgmental guy. One of those guys who maybe took a walk on the wild side with me for an hour or two, but would never be interested in more. Not that I would be interested, either.

  Groaning, I stopped trying to lie to myself. It never worked anyway. I had had more fun with Eliott than with anyone else I’d met in a long time, and if I was interested, then there was nothing wrong with trying to see him again. Maybe he’d be as great as I remembered and maybe not, and maybe he’d be interested too or maybe not. But there was only one way to find out. It was as simple as taking out my phone and pulling up my contacts.

  Chapter 5

  Eliott

  For the first time in three weeks, I was leaving the office before six. I rolled my shoulders, straightened my tie, gliding through the firm of Santos & Zajac saying quiet goodnights to the other associates and interns still working. I rode the elevator down to the building’s underground parking, along with a few paralegals, stashing my briefcase in the trunk of my car.

  It was a half mile walk to the upscale bar where I was meeting Camdon, my best friend, and his brother-in-law Quincy for drinks. It wasn’t my kind of place, full of young executives of all types, but it was between my office and Camdon’s, who was a prosecutor.

  “Hey,” I greeted them when I found their table.

  “We ordered a bunch of appetizers while it was still happy hour because I’m starving,” Camdon said. “But I was half-expecting you to cancel.”

  “I wouldn’t be so inconsiderate,” I sniffed. “Quincy’s too nice to stand up.”

  Quincy grinned and gave me a lazy salute.

  Camdon scowled and exclaimed, “What the hell!”

  I flagged down a server and ordered some wine, knowing that would pacify Camdon, and then asked Quincy how he was doing, since I hadn’t seen him for a few months.

  “He’s on a bloodthirsty psychological thrillers kick,” Camdon groaned.

  “I’m done with those now—you kept ruining them,” Quincy retorted.

  “It’s torture!” Camdon declared. “You picked ones where the authors failed to grasp the law. I tried to give him suggestions for better ones,” he told me. “But he’s stubborn.”

  “Oh, he’s stubborn?” I laughed.

  “Give me a break, I don’t want to spend my free time bursting Quincy’s bubble by explaining the proper chain of evidence,” Camdon muttered, but he cracked a smile.

  Our orders arrived while Quincy was telling us we took our work home too much, so we argued we were lucky to be passionate about our jobs. Out to prove I had other things going too, I gushed about the program the symphony was doing next weekend. They shuddered and told me about the baseball game they were going to tomorrow.

  We zipped through the rest of our usual topics, sipping the wine, our minds sharp and tastes satisfyingly similar. I didn’t get the chance to unwind like this too often, and I was feeling more relaxed and loose-limbed than I’d felt in a long time.

  So when my phone buzzed on the table, I glanced at the screen absently, assuming it was just an annoying app notification.

  But I craned my neck down sharply when I saw Gavin Sycamore.

  My thumb hovered over my screen. He must’ve entered his contact information when he borrowed my cell to call his cousin, but I had no idea why. Wanting to know now though, I swiped painstakingly slowly to accept the call, as if I were detonating a bomb of some sort.

  “Hey, Eliott Navarre,” the voice that had crept into my masturbatory fantasies said.

  I was still disappointed in myself for having an unprotected, emotionless hookup with a stranger, which was risky and against my principles. It had been such an anomaly that I wished I could blame Gavin, but it would be childish to do so for my choices. Still, I’d never expected to encounter him again, so my
tipsy brain scrambled with this unsettling reality.

  Apparently, it was taking too long to do that, because he went on, “It’s Gavin, the skydiver. I put my number in your cell and texted myself after I called my cousin, in case you were a nefarious criminal or a serial killer. I may be a daredevil, but I’m not an idiot.”

  He laughed, and I had forgotten the talent he had for infusing it with an insolent challenge. If I were sober, I would have a snappy rejoinder and probably a few things to say about being overconfident and leaving me his number, but my mind was failing me.

  “I’d like to pick up my skydiving gear, assuming you’re too nice to have sold it.”

  Of course he was only calling to get his stuff back, even if it was after ten on a Friday.

  When something unpleasant gurgled in my throat, I had to be honest with myself and own that I was disappointed by that. It might have been unlike me, but I couldn’t deny that the fooling around and the conversation had been thrilling and invigorating. Which made it worse for him to contact me, only for it to be about his stuff, and not me.

  Why would I have thought it was anything else though? Thrill-seeking young men like him wouldn’t waste their time on a boring suit like myself.

  Still, the hurt was a stinging pain like a bad papercut.

  All I could do was pretend that I wasn’t hurt when I replied, “I’m not home right now.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I’m at a bar in the South Loop. Come have some wine, then we can go back to my place to get your stuff.”

  I imagined that he was just as stunned by the invitation as I was.

  He countered finally, “I’m a whiskey kind of boy, if I’m in the mood for a drink.”

  “You can order anything you want,” I heard myself promise.

  “Give me about an hour. Text me the name of the bar,” he demanded, then hung up.

  I blinked at my phone after I pulled it away from my ear. I texted him the bar’s name and reached for my water because I had obviously had a lot more wine than I’d thought.

  I looked up to find Camdon and Quincy staring at me suspiciously. “What?”

  They shrugged and we continued our conversation for an hour and a half. If I checked the time on my phone every two minutes, they were nice enough not to point it out.

  Right when I was about to call it and go, Camdon angled in and said, “A guy at the bar is staring at you. Is that the person whose stuff is at your house for some reason?”

  I looked over to find Gavin lounged artlessly against the bar like he didn’t have a care or regret in the world. He was wearing a The Kills band tee shirt loosely tucked into low-slung acid-washed jeans, a leather belt with a big silver buckle strapped around his nonexistent hips. His hair was in a braid again, and he had a nose ring now.

  He grinned unrepentantly and my sex-deficient cock twitched, stuck on cataloguing other details about him I’d either forgotten or forcibly erased.

  Unthinkingly, I got to my feet so quickly that I got a head rush, then muttered, “Excuse me for a minute.”

  I made my way over to him and inhaled slowly to hold onto my composure, but instead, I took in the oil or incense that clung to him. I was bombarded by memories of the sheer pleasure of our last encounter. My eyes fluttered for a second as I bit back a groan, then sprang open when I felt gentle pressure around the back of my neck. He was running my striped tie through his fingers, his knuckles bumping along my shirt buttons.

  He teased, “You look almost happy.”

  “I’ll try to keep it up,” I replied dryly. “But I was expecting you earlier, so I might be ill-tempered.”

  “So you do always speak like a Jane Austen character,” he mused. “I thought it was just when you were outraged or put out by an inconvenient encounter with a stranger.”

  Stifling laughter at his mockery of my diction, I said, “No, that’s my default demeanor.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be here anymore. I figured you would’ve gotten a better offer.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to wait more than ten minutes to get a better offer,” I said, and it came out cold because I felt a shitstorm of jealousy. “No need to waste your night with—”

  “Nah,” he said with a shake of his head. “Any other guy would be a waste.”

  His fingers pinched the end of my tie, and I rallied with, “Why don’t you come sit?”

  I put my hand on his lower back, where his spine angled outwards into his petite, high and tight ass, and he jolted beneath my touch. But then he declared with a cheeky wink, “Okay, but you’re going to regret telling me that I can order anything I want to.”

  Shaking my head, I guided him over to the table.

  Camdon and Quincy were as protective of themselves as I was, reserved with anyone but family and close friends. But there had been a lot of wine, which was the only explanation for the way Quincy smiled dopily, looking a little crazy, and introduced himself.

  “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Quincy and this is Camdon. How do you know our Eliott?”

  “I dropped into town,” Gavin said with a smirk, the vague words a lure that caught their attention. “Literally. I was skydiving and fucked it up, and almost hit Eliott’s car.” Quincy gasped while Camdon’s brows lifted. “He gave me a ride and waited with me until my cousin got there. You know how gallant he is,” he added, and while they only nodded sincerely, I could hear his ridicule, and knew he thought I was silly and old-fashioned.

  “You’re lucky you’re all right,” Camdon told him seriously.

  Conversation paused when Gavin caught our server’s attention and she bustled over, taking his top-shelf whiskey order after carding him, and then bustling away again.

  “I told him that he’s crazy,” I said, hearing the words and feeling my lips move, but not quite believing I was saying them. “The wildest thing I’ve done all year is go fishing on Lake Winnebago with Camdon here and two other guys from college and we all got poison ivy.”

  “How come I didn’t get to go fishing?” Quincy mumbled.

  “Fishing’s stupid,” Camdon replied firmly, “and you’re a newlywed, idiot.”

  “Fishing is relaxing,” I corrected easily.

  Gavin chuckled and declared, “The spa is relaxing, Eliott.”

  I looked over at him, catching him looking back. Wariness crept in through the fading buzz from the wine, unnerved by having a drink with the stranger I’d hooked up with once. Even though I had invited him to. Our connection was broken momentarily as our server put down his drink, and then it reestablished while he took his first sip. He moaned softly in appreciation, tongue darting out to swipe his bottom lip, and I started to sweat.

  “How do you know Eliott?” Gavin asked, curious eyes shifting to Camdon and Quincy.

  “I met him in undergrad,” Camdon said.

  “Cam and I have been best friends since we were kids, and I’m married to his younger sister now,” Quincy explained with one of his easy smiles. “And I met Eliott right after…”

  There was a suspended moment where Camdon went, “Uhhh...”

  Quincy plopped his little elfin chin into his hand and fixed Gavin with a very serious expression before proclaiming darkly, “It was right after Eliott’s daddy almost killed a guy.”

  Gavin grinned and asked, “Pistols at dawn, huh?”

  “Cadillacs in a hotel parking lot,” Camdon corrected seriously.

  When Gavin looked horrified, I covered my mouth and tried not to laugh too hard.

  “I wish I’d seen it,” Camdon added with relish.

  “Two bastards, two mistresses, too many drinks,” I took over, making it as over-the-top as I could because it had happened ten years ago. Time had filled in the cracks it caused with dark humor, which came out as I elaborated, “At three in the morning, they’re both racing out of a parking lot in the same make and model cars and bam, they have a head-on collision and bang themselves up.” I added cheerfully, “The other bastard’s wife told m
y mom it couldn’t have happened to two nicer guys, and they’ve been best friends ever since.”

  Finishing his whiskey, Gavin narrowed his eyes at me and said, “And here you were, saying we don’t have anything in common. But we both have shitty dads. Mine,” he said grandly, thumping his sternum with a thumb, “dated my mom and got her pregnant while conveniently forgetting to mention his wife who lived less than an hour away.”

  “That’s terrible,” I murmured, my dark humor gone in a flash.

  “His loss,” Gavin said with a lot of bite, telling me clearly to back off.

  I almost pushed and offered more sympathy because my father may have been a piece of shit who couldn’t keep his fly zipped to save his life, but it hadn’t affected our childhoods. Whereas Gavin must have known at least some of the truth while he was growing up.

  But Quincy, always one to read the room and want to brighten it up again, offered cheerily, “Want to hear about the time Cam ‘accidentally’ ended up at a porn shoot?”

  Snickers escaped me and Camdon grunted dramatically. “Why is that your go-to?”

  “He does have so many other great stories to choose from,” I put in helpfully.

  “Do you want me to start telling this guy your greatest hits?” Camdon snapped.

  I looked away, catching Gavin studying me. “No, thank you, we all know I’m too cautious to have any greatest hits,” I murmured, heat flickering when Gavin’s hand stroked along his own neck. “Better you than me,” I added, shuddering at the very idea of having to endure the sort of shenanigans Camdon had gotten into during our undergrad years.

  “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself because of three-date guy,” Camdon claimed.

  An odd expression rippled across Gavin’s face, but before I could get a handle on it, it was back to its normal taunting self. “Why, Eliott, are you pining for three-date guy?”

  I scowled, but felt honor-bound to explain, “I’m not pining. I went out on three dates with a man about a month ago. And then some bear caught him when he started to fall off a bar stool at a club, and it turned out it was his ‘the one who got away,’ and that was that.”