by Brandon Witt
We yammered on about our jobs for a little while longer. Then sports. Then weather. Then back to sports. It was around the time we started going on about the latest Heat game that I realized Kelly was actually pretty cool. And available. You don’t turn him down if he offers to get together again, I lectured myself. You forget Jordan. And Trevor. And Nick.
“We’re going to the Heat game next Saturday. You should come. The firm has a box and everything.”
“Wow, you just got hired, and you’re already all up in the firm’s VIP box?”
“Hey, perks are perks.” He shrugged. “So. You interested?”
And there it was, out in the open. You say yes.
I grinned. “In D. Wade? Of course.” That’s not yes, I silently screamed.
He laughed. “The game, Mackenzie. The game.”
“As lovely as a box sounds, I like to watch my basketball games like real folk. In the cheap plastic seats with sticky armrests.”
Kelly wasn’t slow on the uptake, and he shrugged with a half smile. “Maybe another time, then.”
“Maybe.”
We continued to talk and razz each other for another ten minutes before Jordan came to introduce him around to some of their coworkers. I meandered over to the table laden with food, swearing up and down that I would only get one more thing. Okay, two more things. A beer and then I’d git while the gettin’ was good. And then the God of Pushed Luck appeared, and there Trevor was, right there between the seven-layer bean dip and a curiously spicy salsa. I munched down hard on my bacon-wrapped shrimp, hoping against hope that he’d keep moving.
“Mac. What are you doing here?”
“I was invited,” I said shortly. I doubted he could say the same. There was no way Jordan would invite him without at least telling me he would be there. “Does Jordan know you’re here?”
“Last time I checked, I was an associate at the firm. I didn’t know I needed a written invitation.”
“Is that Trevor-speak for no?”
He flushed a bit and hit back the only way he knew how. “Nice of you to dress up for the occasion. You look very… comfortable.”
I narrowed my eyes. More Trevor-speak. Comfortable meant messy all day long. “I look like the majority of people here, actually. Last time I checked, an Armani suit is inappropriate for a backyard barbecue.”
“I just left the office and didn’t have time to change. And this is Hugo Boss, actually. I don’t know why they haven’t snatched your gay card yet.” He brushed some invisible lint off said suit and continued, “Besides, you bleached all my Armani suits. I never thanked you for that.”
“Welcome,” I said in a singsong manner.
I dropped my empty buffet plate in the trash and migrated toward the beer cooler. Trevor followed like a bad rash.
“I was under the impression that this wasn’t your type of event. I had to drag you to the last event we had for the firm. From what I recall, you insulted a partner by calling his wife his daughter, hid your mushroom caps in the potted plant because they contained pâté, and put ‘Like a G6’ on the radio.”
I didn’t know which of those to even address first, so I went with the most offensive. “It was duck liver, Trev. Did you know that?”
His mouth couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to smile or frown. The half grin he settled for was far too familiar for my peace of mind, and I looked away. That half grin was usually followed by him saying “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I knew without speaking that he remembered too. Sometimes the breakup seemed too recent for words.
“I also remember you demanding that we leave a mere hour after we arrived.”
“I seem to remember you being satisfied with how I made up for it,” I said shortly.
I bit down on my tongue, hard, and looked away swiftly. I could feel him looking at me and went for another bacon-wrapped shrimp. Laura waved at us from across the patio, where she was standing with Jordan. It didn’t take my PI skills to see that her eyes didn’t quite meet up with her open expression. They were like chips of blue ice glittering in our direction, and, judging from the way Trevor shuffled away a few steps, those eyes meant business.
“Time to greet the host, I suppose,” I murmured.
“She doesn’t give a damn about pleasantries,” he said. “She doesn’t want me standing with you. Or near you. Or in the same—”
“I get it.” My laugh was bitter. “Tell her she has nothing to worry about. I’ve moved on.”
“To what? Mr. Perfectly Unavailable?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Please. You’ve been watching him since you got here.”
My mouth opened for instinctive denial and then snapped shut. Maybe I had. As I looked at him laughing in the firelight, rocking back on his heels, I realized I didn’t have to defend admiring a person of such abject beauty. In the end, I just shrugged. “So what?”
His eyes went narrow. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Anything’s better than the last rotted tree I fell out of,” I murmured. I reached around the aforementioned Rotted Tree and snagged a beer out of a cooler stacked with ice. “But thanks for your concern.”
I made my way down the whiteboard steps that led to the beach. Everything was so perfectly manicured elsewhere on the property that the third squeaky board was almost endearing. I left my sandals by the last step and trekked across the sand, letting the scents and sounds of the beach at night overwhelm my senses. The seawater smelled like salt and fresh linen, and it was cooler down where the ocean met the sand. I dragged a beach chair into the very edge of the surf and dropped into it, letting the water swirl around my ankles in a frothy white lather. I took a sip of my beer and let the bottle dangle from my fingertips, then dug my toes deep into the sand. I would probably track sand into my truck (and apartment), but I couldn’t scrounge up enough energy to care. If the tide came in much farther, the water would wet the bottoms of my cargos, but I couldn’t care much about that either.
The sound of a chair being dragged across the sand made me squeeze my eyes together tightly. God, if Trevor had followed me out here, I would—
“Party’s up there,” Jordan said, dropping into the chair now a few scant inches from mine.
I sighed in relief. “I know.”
“I didn’t know he was going to be here.”
I waved a hand. “It’s fine. Considering the lengthy list of bad names I have for him, Party Crasher seems mild.”
His eyebrows went high, and he took a swig of my beer before sitting it on the arm of his chair. “That’s a very mature attitude. Very unlike you.”
I grinned and pointed at the longneck. “Three beers. I guess I’m a lightweight.”
“You should stay here tonight, then. I have a few guest rooms.”
“That would be weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Let’s see. You’ve squired me around, introduced me to your friends, and now you’re offering me a place to stay? Weird.”
“I squired you, huh?” I could hear the grin in his voice, even as he hid it behind the bottle.
“You did,” I confirmed.
“We’re friends. Friends, Mackenzie.” He ruffled my hair. “Don’t you have friends?”
Somehow I didn’t think Robby and Drew counted, but I gave him a snooty look anyway. “’Course I do. But we are not friends.”
He shrugged. “We’re not enemies.”
My peripheral vision was on overdrive as I drank him in like I was dying of thirst. Even his bare feet, digging into the sand, made my stomach clench. They had high arches. And clean, neatly clipped nails. Fuck, was I admiring his feet? I needed to get laid worse than I thought.
I don’t know whether the beer made me loose or my conversation with Trevor made me bold. I had no excuse for the words that came out of my mouth next. “What I want from you, Jordan, friends don’t do.”
I expected him to be offended. Or stalk off and leave me and
my perverted thoughts on the darkened beach. Or order me off his property. The last thing I expected him to say, his voice gone quiet, was “I know.”
When he added nothing, I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, ‘I know’? You know and you don’t care or you know and you’re thinking about it? Or you know and you—”
“I don’t know, okay? Sheesh. I just… know. We have this weird chemistry thing, right? And I would know what to do about it if… well, if you weren’t….”
“A guy?” I pushed out of my chair and began stomping off. “You are so—”
He grabbed my arm as I passed and forced me to stop in my tracks. “Wait a damn minute. You can’t get mad at me every time I’m honest with you. Or go off with another guy.”
I flushed. “The mechanic.”
“And Kelly. And Trevor.”
“You’ve been watching me!” I accused.
“You’ve been watching me,” he snapped right back. He sighed, letting go of my arm and leaning back in his chair. “Hell, this is just getting too weird.”
“Well, it was a picnic at the park for me.”
“It would help if you would stop dropping bombs on me and stalking off. For God’s sakes, just… sit.”
I sat. “So?”
“So… let’s just talk, okay?” He dragged a hand through his hair and then down his face. “Can we do that?”
“Fine.”
“Okay.”
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms. “Okay.”
“Fine.”
When I glanced over, he was shaking his head. “What?”
“I can’t help but wonder what psychobabble my mother would come up with to describe all of this.”
“Your mom’s a psychiatrist?”
“Yeah. My father too. I’m sure they’d be up all night sinking their teeth into this one.”
“Oh, you poor child.”
He snorted. “And your parents?”
“My dad was a police officer, as well as my brother, Robert. So was I,” I added as an afterthought. “Family business, I guess. And my mom is… gone.”
“Gone?”
I shrugged. “Not around. I don’t know what she does nowadays.”
He gave me an unreadable look. “I don’t know what to do with that,” he said.
“Well, you could say you’re sorry, which would be stupid because you didn’t know her and you don’t really know me. Or you could keep asking me questions about that trifling bitch, and I’d have to make one of those beautiful eyes quite black. So we should probably just sit and listen to the damn beach.”
After a moment’s pause, he said, “You think my eyes are beautiful?”
I turned to face him. “That’s what you got out of all that?”
“My other options didn’t appeal to me.”
I laughed. God, it seemed like when I was with him I laughed a lot. Smiled a lot. I reached over and took his face in my hands and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “That may have been the best response I’ve ever had to telling someone about the most painful event in my life.”
It was time to let his face go, but my fingers weren’t budging for some reason. “Do you trust me enough to try something?”
“Like what?”
I exhaled on a cross between a strangled breath and a laugh. “Now, is that trust?”
He flushed. “I guess I’ll try anything once.”
“That’s the reasoning you use for trying sushi, J, not a kiss.”
His eyes went wide. Normally that amazing shade of blue, they were nearly black. “Oh, is that what you’re going to do to me?”
“No, it’s what we’re going to do. To each other.”
My thumbs, still resting on either side of his jaw, stroked the area there compulsively, the area where soft skin met rough stubble. He reached up, not to push me away but to lock his hands around my wrists. He let out a laugh that could only be described as nervous.
“You should have just done it. Now I’m all anxious about when we’ll do it. How will it go? Will you take the lead or should I—”
I pressed my mouth to his, gently. His breath (which he’d apparently been holding) misted across my lips, soft and warm and slightly minty.
“Your mouth is just as soft as it looks,” I murmured against his lips before kissing him again. Deeper this time. I pulled away and caught my breath.
“You didn’t like it?” He sounded surprised, and I didn’t blame him. His technique was perfect—just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount of tongue, but it was just that… technique.
“You’re overthinking it.”
He ran a hand over his face. “We need to try again. I keep thinking I’m kissing a guy, I’m kissing a guy. Makes it sort of hard to concentrate.”
I laughed. “You’re not kissing some guy, Jordan.” I lowered my mouth over his again, almost touching. “You’re kissing me.”
I had time to see the determined glint in his eyes before his mouth covered mine, and all of a sudden I was falling, falling, falling, and I didn’t want to stop. All the sensitive nerves that apparently lived on my lips and face and ears were sounding off like crazy as time slowed down to nothing at all. He changed the incline and slope of the kiss, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth with little ado, and I felt something wild and primitive building deep inside, trying to get out. I resisted the urge to reach for his zipper, resisted the urge to feel him pulsing and throbbing in my hands, helpless to my will. I didn’t think he was quite ready for that. I was more than ready for that, as my dick wrote a proclamation and demanded to be heard. I was ready for a hand job, a blow job, a fuck-me-in-that-beach-chair-right-now job, and it was time to take a step back before I ruined everything.
We tore apart at the very last minute, when it was either breathe or die, and sat back in our respective chairs, not looking at one another.
“I should go,” I said unnecessarily.
“Yes,” he said, eyes trained on the water. “You should.”
Chapter 13
“I DON’T think I’ve ever seen someone sell so many cookies.” I scowled at Drew, who didn’t seem to understand that Girl Scout cookies were seasonal. “By the time I got back with cash, they were completely out of everything.”
Drew grinned, tilting my chair back dangerously. “For God’s sakes, Mac, did you at least get some useful footage?”
“If you mean three hours of Mrs. Blake manning a Girl Scout cookie booth with the worst inventory in the history of man, then yes. If you mean anything pointing toward any actual cheating, then no.”
“Why don’t you just accept that you were wrong? Move on with your life.”
“If nothing else, these are going to be invaluable in their family album.” I shrugged. “I got a great pic of the two youngest at the face-painting booth.”
Drew stared.
“What? There was a face painter in the park today.”
“Certainly explains the paw print,” he said, rolling his eyes.
I turned my head to give him a better view of the glittery small paw print, painted on my left cheek. “It was necessary, Drew. For cover.”
He grinned and motioned me forward. When I was close enough, he took my jaw in his hand, turning my head a bit more to examine the art. “Isn’t the glitter additional?”
“Are you two ever planning to do any real work or stand there groping each other all day?”
Jennie, our long-suffering office manager, sailed past us both, her spindly, pale arms laden with a thick stack of folders. She unceremoniously dumped the stack on the already-cluttered surface of my desk. The pile landed with an impressive whoosh on the flat surface, and a few papers fluttered in the air. She pushed thick-framed glasses up on her pert nose with a careless finger, and gave me an expectant look. When you combined that expression with a bun so tight it could make a ballerina jealous, Jennie was this close to reminding me of my elementary school librarian. I grimaced. “I think you meant to put those on the desk one
office over.”
“You mean mine?” Drew grinned. “Dream on, pretty boy.” He waggled his fingers, demonstrating no papers, I presume. “This is what coming to work every day looks like.”
“Jennie?” I asked hopefully.
“This watch?” She pretended to glance at the slender timepiece. “Says five.”
“And not a minute after? Jennie, is there some spell someone put upon you that will reverse if you’re here a second past five?”
“You’ll never know.” She grinned and slapped a manila folder in my hand. “You’ll need this.”
I could actually differentiate each individual coil in that bun. Visions of liberating her chestnut hair danced briefly in my head. By any means necessary, I think Malcom X had said. I cut my eyes away from the scissors on my desk.
“Remind me again why I don’t fire you?” I asked.
“I’m positively brilliant at my job.” I would have loved nothing more than to disagree, but she couldn’t have been more right. She continued at my silence, “And no one else can live on birdseed… which is all I can afford on my paycheck.”
Also correct. Both the birdseed and paycheck part. She certainly was scrawny enough. Jennie had worked for us for the past five years, and I had yet to catch her eating something without a Yoplait label.
“Well, the both of you can leave,” I said sourly.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” A faint whiff of Chanel No. 5 was all that was left of Jennie. Expensive Chanel No. 5.
“Birdseed, my ass!” I shouted.
Drew set my chair back on all fours but made no move to vacate. “So you ready to call it quits with the Blakes?”
“This Sunday should be the end. At this point, it’s just painful to watch. My last stakeout, the woman took the kids to a matinee at the Discovery Museum. That’s the day after the cookies and face painting. My camera is so full of dedicated wife and mother, I could barf.”
He smirked. “What’d I tell you?”
I shrugged. “If it didn’t ever happen, we wouldn’t almost own this illustrious, tiny-ass building.”
“Here’s to three more years of people not trusting each other as far as they can throw one another?”
