Dreamspinner Press Year Eight Greatest Hits

by Brandon Witt

  I did believe in love, despite what Drew thought. I knew it existed. But the end result just hurt too much to participate. My father had experienced that kind of love, clearly love my mother hadn’t shared. Even now, on the rare occasions he let us actually meet someone he was dating, I felt Mom… Ellen’s shadow there. She was there in the way he sometimes forgot and spoke about her. His downcast eyes when he realized he’d done it too much and fucked the date up good. My eyes burned a little, thinking of my gruff, tough father and his one-sided bond with a woman long gone. I guess watching that for half my life had affected me more than I cared to admit. Not to mention what I did every day. It made it so easy to forget. I had a whole eight-gigabyte memory card full of “love.”

  A car horn beeped, and I jerked a little. Looked around. Hmm. Once again clueless as to what I needed at Walgreens, I grabbed my phone.

  I’d never felt this way before. I’d never wanted to spend day and night wrapped up in and with someone. Never wanted to call him out of the blue, just to hear his voice. Never sniffed the couch cushions for a whiff of his cologne. Sure, I had more than my share of screwups. But didn’t that make me an authority in what it wasn’t supposed to feel like? Didn’t I owe it to him to make sure?

  I stared at the phone for a moment before dialing a number I never thought I’d use. The ringing provided a nice soundtrack as I started the car and reached for the AC before realizing I still had none. Darcy finally answered as I was rolling down my window.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I answered automatically.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing much.” He paused. It appeared he was finally perturbed to be speaking to a total stranger who’d chosen not to identify himself. “Who is this?”

  “You don’t remember me from the bar? Wow, you buy a guy a Guinness and just forget he ever existed.”

  “Mackenzie?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a pause. And surprise. “Hey.”

  Not the most stellar reception I’d ever had, for sure.

  “You free for a movie or something?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’d love to see you. I thought you’d lost my number.”

  “No, I’ve just been… busy lately. Maybe we can try the new iPic? It’s a little far, but it might be fun.”

  His laugh was deep. Nice. “I’d meet you pretty much anywhere. I think you know that.”

  Despite the fact he couldn’t see me, I went beet red. He was a charmer, for sure. “You want me to pick you up?”

  There was a pause. “In that heap you call a truck?”

  I couldn’t help the snicker. “Is that a yes or no?”

  There was a windy sigh. “That’s a yes. But I’m expecting some kind of payment for that kind of sacrifice.”

  “Popcorn?” I suggested innocently.

  He laughed again. I really liked that laugh. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter 19

  I PICKED him up in my rust bucket in the lot of the firehouse, determined to leave the Ghost of Relationships Past behind and have some fun.

  He whistled as I opened the truck’s squeaky door for him. “I see you went all out.”

  “Spit polished and shined, Darcy. Just for you,” I teased. “All the discarded bottles are in the flatbed.”

  He grinned, and then his face turned serious. “You look. Amazing.”

  Aw, shucks. I tried not to do my Gomer Pyle impression, but I could feel a sheepish half smile pulling at my mouth anyway. I did clean up pretty well, I guess, and I would just accept the compliment. My wine-colored oxford hadn’t ironed itself, after all. I’d actually managed to stuff both handfuls of my rear in some skinny jeans, and really, wasn’t that a cause for celebration?

  He hadn’t turned out too badly himself. I won’t insult his muscles by just calling them muscles. His muscles had muscles, and they were displayed to perfection in a form-fitting white Hollister tee. I loved the fact that his jeans looked like they’d seen better days, and worn boots completed the fuckable picture. I could actually smell him from here, and It. Was. Good.

  Hollister. Huh. I’d always thought of them as a teenybopper kind of brand. Oh Lord, I’d turned into my grandfather. Was I now using teenybopper in regular conversation? And who cares what kind of shirt he’s wearing? I scolded myself. He looks hot. Even though I really could smell him from over here. Cologne was good, but kind of strong. I mean, there was no need to take a bath in Jean Naté for my benefit. You know it’s not Jean Naté, you freak. Stop being so picky. Your mind is so full of Jordan you can’t recognize a good thing when you see it.

  I gestured. “Your carriage awaits.”

  He groaned and vaulted up into the cab. I fiddled with the AC for a moment before remembering again. I turned to speak, but he’d already guessed and groaned comically.

  I grinned. “Carriages don’t have air.”

  “You’re so cute,” he said, and I froze.

  I’d last heard that in a steamy shower, cocooned from reality, my hands on either side of Jordan’s face. I didn’t expect the swift kick to the gut that came along, free of charge, with that memory. I blinked and shook myself visibly. Didn’t matter what I thought I’d seen in his eyes. I’d been wrong.

  I put the car in drive, determined not to pick out anything wrong with Darcy for the entire ride. By the stoplight, I had five things. Five. Okay, taking away the Hollister tee, then I had four. But the cologne wasn’t dissipating. I mean, I have no AC, you know. People do need to breathe.

  We made it to the iPic theater in record time, blowing past the rabble (yes, rabble—teenaged rabble with purple hair and lots of obnoxious friends) with my prepurchased tickets. I enjoyed my James Bond moment as I flashed my iPhone screen at the counter guy, and soon we were ensconced in our plush orange recliners, munching on free popcorn.

  “Thanks for treating, by the way.” Darcy stuck his iPic pillow behind his neck like we were on an intercontinental Delta flight. “I like a sugar daddy.”

  “Cute.” I gave him a poke in his flat stomach. “Dinner’s on you. Besides, you put out, right?”

  He laughed that great belly laugh that I was really starting to like. Then he startled me by dropping a kiss on the curve of my neck. “I sure do, beautiful.”

  He put a piece of popcorn in my astonished mouth, forcing me to close it or choke. I chewed on the buttered piece, pondering my two pressing concerns: one, how did movie theaters get their popcorn like that: and two, was Darcy a top or a bottom?

  “So what are we watching, anyway?”

  “Fast six.” I realized the polite thing to do would have been to ask if he liked the Fast & Furious series, but if he didn’t, I couldn’t date him anyway.

  “And if I haven’t seen one through five?”

  “Then you’re basically un-American. Besides, what’s there to know? Fast cars, pretty girls, hot guys, stealin’ stuff in ways that could never happen… aaand you’re all caught up.”

  His beautifully chocolate brown eyes went skyward. “Let me guess, you’re a Rock fan?”

  “And Paul Walker, and Tyrese… the Asian guy, and a little Vin Diesel action doesn’t go amiss either. Any way you look, you win.”

  “I haven’t liked the Rock since SmackDown.”

  I pretended to clasp my hands in prayer and closed my eyes. “Let him keep his gay card, Lord, for he knows not what he says.”

  He grinned. “You’re lucky you’re fine.”

  “Am I?” I lifted my brows. A queen did need his compliments, after all.

  His hand on the back of my neck should have alarmed me, especially since it was fairly bear sized. But he was gentle, and the callused pads of his fingers rasped gently on the sensitive skin of my neck. When he pressed his mouth to mine, my eyes fluttered shut and my hands went to the collar of his Hollister shirt. His mouth was clean. Firm. Minty breath misted over my face briefly as he pulled away, and I smiled.

  “W
hat are you smiling about, beautiful?”

  “I’m glad we decided to do this.”

  “Been waiting on you, darlin’.”

  My eyes went from blissful to slightly squinty. I could do without all the nicknames. I mean, my parents had given me a perfectly serviceable name. Sometimes they’d told conflicting stories about how they’d decided to give it to me, but still. I had one.

  “Mackenzie.”

  Exactly. See, Jordan knew my name. Wait, that hadn’t just been in my head.

  My head whipped around to see Jordan standing in the aisle next to our seats, giving me a decidedly unpleasant look. I felt guilty. Caught. As if I was doing something wrong. And then I remembered. Oh, yeaaaah. I let him fuck me and then he didn’t call. What did I have to feel guilty about? What, should I have been pining at home with my phone clutched in my cold, lonely fingers? I was glad. Glad he saw me out with a hunky, cute guy living my life.

  “Jordan,” I said neutrally.

  He looked good. He always looked so damn good.

  Rachel stood a scant two inches behind him, as if they were attached by Velcro, looking effortlessly fabulous, as usual.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

  My eyes cut to Rachel, and I smiled sweetly. “Obviously. Hey, Rachel. Good to see you again.”

  Hopefully, Jordan would know what I really meant, which was I’d cut a bitch if I could.

  She smiled politely, clearly unsure of why we warranted anything other than a brief wave and a hello. “Nice to see you too. You were at Jordan’s party, right?”

  “Good memory.”

  Jordan was ignoring both of us and was squinting, laser-like, at my redheaded companion. “This a friend of yours?” He pointed to Darcy.

  I shrugged. “I tried going to movies with my enemies, but it just wasn’t the same.”

  Darcy grinned. “Is he always like this?”

  Jordan sighed. “Unfortunately. My name is Jordan, by the way.” Pointedly. He all but said, “And you are?”

  Luckily, my date was just as clueless to the presence of tension as he was handsome. “Darcy. Good to meet you.”

  There was an awkward silence that settled between us.

  “I talked to Drew,” Jordan said. “He told me you were on the job tonight.”

  “I finished early,” I said sanguinely. “So I called a friend.”

  He flashed a smile that wasn’t a bit genuine. “Good to know your phone is still working.”

  I smiled. “It is.”

  The cartoon popcorn and its goofy looking soda companion danced across the screen, and Rachel tugged at Jordan’s arm. “Honey, we should get to our seats.”

  “Good to meet you, Jordan. Rachel.” Darcy gave them a friendly wave and resettled his pillow behind his head.

  Jordan’s jaw went tight, and I wondered if the cool, always-collected Jordan would cause a scene. God knows I wanted to. It took everything in me to remain detached and aloof, when all I wanted to do was get closer to him. Put my hands on his face and kiss all the objections out of that gorgeous head. And I knew then that my date was over. Getting over Jordan wasn’t really an option right now, and Darcy was far too good to be used. Too bad he wasn’t an asshole. Crap. That made me even more annoyed than usual.

  I looked pointedly at the crowd building behind him. “You’re blocking the aisle.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me before Rachel ushered him on, and I pretended absolute ignorance as the chairs behind us squeaked. The little shit was sitting right behind us. I could hear their whispers, probably as she questioned his bizarre behavior and he made up something to spin it away. I could smell him, even over Darcy’s atomic cologne cloud. I could even feel his eyes making the back of my chair rather prickly. I was glad the chairs were so big he couldn’t see my head, because my ears were definitely turning pink.

  Darcy leaned close after the first preview finished. “We should see that,” he whispered somewhere near my ear.

  “We should,” I nodded. We wouldn’t. Not unless he understood that we could only be friends.

  His tongue took advantage of the closeness by traversing down the shell of my ear, and I shivered a bit. No, I told myself sternly as his teeth sank into my lobe. No to whatever my asshole, which had decided that involuntarily clenching was an acceptable activity, was thinking. After a quick glance at his lap, I bit my lip. No to whatever his dick, clearly visible through his worn jeans, was thinking. That wasn’t fair to either one of us. When I turned my face to tell him so, his mouth landed on mine, and I wasn’t capable of speech for a minute or more. I blinked as he pulled away, feeling a little confused.

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “I’m not,” I said, avoiding his eyes.

  He took my chin in his hand, and suddenly I was forced to meet those velvety brown eyes. They were warm but perceptive. Hmph. I guess Darcy understood a little more than he let on. “So he’s the reason you took so long to call me?”

  “Maybe,” I whispered.

  His lips misted over mine again. His tongue dipped into my mouth this time, briefly, before he ended the kiss. “When you’re done playing in the closet, we’ll go out again.”

  I flushed. “That’s fair.”

  He groaned, letting go of my face and scrubbing hands down his own. “Nothing is fair about me not getting to tap that sweet ass.” He peeked through his fingers. “Unless….”

  I grinned. “Dream on. Thanks for the hard-on before a two-hour movie, by the way.”

  He flashed a white grin my way. “Just reminding you of what you’re taking a pass on. And why I’d be worth it.”

  Damn. I snorted. I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew Jordan would be a cock blocker the first day I met him.

  I munched on popcorn as the lights went low. Damn me for not calling him before I fused my brain to that closet case. Damn me for not meeting him first. My questing fingers reached the nonbuttery part of the popcorn too soon. Damn the teenaged Kirk Cameron look-alike working the butter dispenser. Someone who thought eighties teen idol was a good look shouldn’t be trusted to dispense buttery goodness. And I needed butter if I was going to die alone, wrapped in an afghan. Anything else was just inhumane.

  Chapter 20

  THE AC unit shut off, sighing like a great beast, and almost on automatic, my legs did the Russian Cossack dance. The covers went flying. I wasn’t hot. Or cold. I was… restless. Waiting for… something. Nothing?

  In lieu of my old nighttime ritual—that smoky, delicious, lung-killing bitch, nicotine—I’d decided to give tossing and turning a try. I wouldn’t break, no matter how much I wanted to. It had been a month since my last, and I was making good on this promise. But sometimes late at night, when the mood was right and the silence was good, I wondered if my fingers would always itch for her papery touch and her smoky kiss.

  I wondered if Nick still smoked. What he was doing. Feeling. Wondered what he’d think of this Jordan situation, certainly. And if he agreed that Drew’s bitchy observations about my patterns were correct. That was certainly the bad thing about dating friends. When you broke up, you lost in more ways than one.

  Before I knew what I was about, I was putting in my iPhone code and pressing an old number. I listened as it rang with bated breath, half hoping to get his answering machine and not his actual—

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. Nick. It’s….”

  Oh, jeez, did you say “it’s me” after so long? Or it’s Mackenzie. He knows who it is; he has caller ID. For Pete’s sake, say something before—

  “Mac? Are you still there?” The warmth in his voice made my legs go a little weak. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Nick. I’ve been… busy.”

  “Uh-huh. Busy.” His tone made me grin. “Too busy to return my damned calls? Why’re you ducking me?”

  “I… I don’t know.” I really didn’t. I guess playing the injured prima donna suited me better than facing our past relationship like a mat
ure adult. But I wasn’t going to say that.

  “Well, at least you’re here now. I have a ton of crap to tell you. I don’t know how we’re going to catch up,” he lamented.

  I laughed. “We should start at the beginning, I guess.”

  And it was just that easy. He told me stories of meeting Peyton and tsked when I told him about Trevor. We laughed over the hilarious trials and tribulations of running the bed-and-breakfast and were nearly reduced to tears over my telling of spying on that Girl Scouts meeting. And as always, he made me retell my first day on the job hijinks, which he laughed at as if it was the first time.

  His laughter finally reduced to chuckles. “Jeez, Mac, no one can make me snort with laughter like you do. I mean, what’s it been, like four years?”

  “Five.” My throat felt tight. Too freaking long. That was the problem with disposing of old friends—leaving pieces of yourself behind with each one. You could make new friends, but there were only a few who knew what you looked like back in college. Less who remembered what your first day on the force was like, when you locked a perp, your badge, and your gun inside your running patrol car. Less still who’d held you late at night after your mother ran off on your family, letting you cry until you felt like an emptied-out husk of your former self.

  I snapped my fingers for Finn to jump up on the bed—he was horrible at fetch, tricks, and Frisbee, but he was a champion at snuggling, especially for the difficult times. Then my forgetful mind remembered anew that Finn wasn’t there.

  Only when Nick snorted did I realize I’d spoken aloud. “I remember when you got that mutt from the shelter. I can’t believe you let that prick have your dog.”

  “I didn’t let him do anything,” I said, annoyed. “One day I came home and Finn was gone.”

  “Jeez. You can pick ’em, can’t you?”

  “I picked you, didn’t I?”

  “I picked you, dear. Man, that Alzheimer’s is a bitch, isn’t it?”

  I had to admit—he was right. He had done the picking up, on a three-hour flight to Los Angeles, talking my ear clean off while I tried to sleep and ignore the chatty blond. Somewhere over the Sierra Mountains, I’d slammed my mouth over his—I maintain, just to shut him up. We’d spent the weekend in Santa Monica, holed up in his aunt’s cottage, making fun of her California cooking (bean sprouts and sushi mostly) and getting to know each other. We hadn’t been apart much after that.