by Lily Kate
“I’ve got time. I’ll be in touch soon.”
We hang up, and I’m left slightly mystified. He sounded pre-occupied, and far less enthusiastic than the last few times we’ve chatted. I’m not sure if he’s sore over our last conversation, or if he’s just lost interest. Or if something really has come up, and he’s just plain old busy.
I’ve got a weird feeling about the situation, but I can’t do much about it now. I’ll give him until the end of the week, and if he doesn’t call me back, I’ll assume he’s not interested and cut ties.
I’ve been procrastinating in my search for real estate thanks to the sudden influx of nights spent at one particular diner, but I’m feeling the itch again. More than ever, I want to be on my own, separate from Leo, focused on my own business. Leo’s been more unavailable than ever, and I want out before shit hits the fan.
I’m slipping my phone into my pocket when I hear a squeal and a giggle, and a flying object lands on my back. The wind is crushed out of me, and not for the first time, I’m surprised at how much punch Lexi’s small body can pack.
“Who was that?” she asks, her arms circling my neck and her legs wrapping around my waist piggyback style. “Onward, Bradley Hamilton!”
She points forward, but I don’t move yet. Instead, I twist her around like a magic trick until she’s cradled across my arms. In range for a kiss.
I lean in, nuzzle against her until she’s laughing at the brush of my five o’clock shadow against her cheek, and then finally, I taste her lips. Sugar and honey and berries, and a hint of sweet cream.
“Did you eat whipped cream again before you left?” I ask, my eyes locked on her beautiful green irises. “You forget I can taste it on you.”
“Maybe I wasn’t trying to fool you,” she suggests, wriggling until she lands on her feet. “I ate something else, too. Got a guess?”
“I like a challenge.” I hook a finger through the V-neck of her shirt and draw her close. I press my lips to hers, tilting my head to the side as I think. “Blueberries?”
“Wrong.”
Another kiss. “Raspberries?”
She makes a buzzer sound.
“You’re making things hard,” I tell her, and let my hands slide down to her waist. “Let me try again.”
“Okay,” she breathes.
I take her mouth in mine, hungry for the kiss. She’s been tempting me for weeks now, bending over the counter, winking in my direction. All part of her job, but to me, it feels like torture.
Maybe she’s tortured, too, because she melts into my arms. All malleable and sweet, like Laffy Taffy. Or Cotton Candy. Or whatever stupid analogy makes sense. I don’t have time to think of better comparisons because all of the blood in my body is flowing into my lower half and making my pants very uncomfortable.
She moans once, then again as her eyes close. I keep my eyes open, needing to watch the change in her expression as she loses herself in this, in me, in us. Her eyelids flutter, and I can feel the beat of her heart against my own. The rawness of us, of our closeness, has me dangerously thirsty for more.
My hand reaches under her shirt, my thumb running over the soft skin of her stomach. She arches so enthusiastically under my touch that it’s imperative I get her home at once.
“Why do we have to wait, baby?” I murmur against her neck. “Please come home with me tonight.”
“Hold me,” she instructs.
I glance up as the lights of a taxi swing down the street, cruising slowly. Since I don’t want to give them an excuse to stop, I pull Lexi into the alley behind her building, the same place where she reamed me out for kissing her in public.
If she doesn’t like public places, that’s fine.
We can do plenty of things just fine in private.
Her legs wrap around my waist as I lift her, my arm holding us away from the wall of her diner. My length is pressed against her, both of our jeans causing a painful amount of friction as she writhes against me.
“Tell me why we have to wait,” I demand. “I want to touch you, kiss you everywhere. I need you. Need to show you how I feel.”
“You haven’t...” she pauses to inhale. I shift under her, the motion brushing us even tighter together, and she lets out a hiss that sounds like need.
“I can feel how much you want this.” My arm around her waist presses her tighter to me. “You know how much I want this, too. What’s stopping us?”
“We need time alone together. It’s not about the date, Bradley.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“You promised! I want us to commit to trying this—wholeheartedly—before we make a mistake that can’t be undone.”
“This isn’t a mistake; we both know it.”
“Then be patient for just a little while longer.” She wiggles down. “Why do we need to rush this?”
I run a hand through my hair. “We’re not rushing anything. I’ve known you almost my entire life.”
“Fine, then let’s do this right. We know how to be friends, Brad. I don’t know how to date you. We have to take things slow because I don’t plan on us going backward.”
I grudgingly see her point. Until now, the only difference about us hanging out as friends and dating is a few stolen kisses. She deserves to be wooed, to feel special and cared for—to be shown off to the world, not tucked away in my apartment.
I choose a number, a date on the calendar that is fast approaching. It’s longer than I’d like to wait, but I do need some time to plan for what I have in mind. I offer her the time with a caveat. “After I prove to you that us dating is the best decision we’ve ever made, there’s no more patience. Deal?”
“Deal.” She hooks her arm through mine. “Shall we head home?”
“My place or yours?”
She offers a murderous glare.
“Kidding,” I say. “But I’m not kidding when I say I’ll see you at the gym tomorrow morning.”
The murderous glare darkens to dangerous levels.
“I will pull you out of bed,” I tell her. “You promised me.”
“No, I warned you.”
“I’m up for a challenge.”
“Good,” she harrumphs. “Me too. Good luck.”
“Good luck?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You’ll need it to deal with me tomorrow.”
Chapter 19
BRADLEY
She was more right than I care to admit.
Lexi is clueless about the gym. And grumpy, as promised.
When I told her it was time for pushups, she thought I was talking about ice cream. When I mentioned dumbbells, she thought I was talking about a person. When I asked her to walk on the treadmill, she yelled at me about not wanting to be a hamster on a wheel for at least five minutes.
She called me a monster for dragging her out of bed, and then went on to describe how evil I was for subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment. But the real cruel and unusual punishment of the whole morning had been the moment I’d knelt next to her to demonstrate a proper sit up and my hand had accidentally brushed against her ass.
In yoga pants.
Instant recipe for disaster.
I’ve never done a hundred sit-ups faster in my life, but it was either that or have Lexi think I’m a huge perv who gets turned on with a slight knuckle graze against her hip.
After we finished, I took the longest and coldest shower of my life.
Even so, I’d never had more fun during a workout—ever.
When I finish up in the men’s locker room, I’m surprised to find Lexi’s still inside the women’s. I spent a long time in that shower, and I have to wonder what on earth she’s doing in hers.
I’m about ready to put out an APB on a woman of her description when she pops out of the dressing room with a grin on her face.
“I figured out a way you can pay me back for all this,” she says, jaunting past me with a hand on her hip. “For this cruel and unusual punishment.”
; “We already have a deal.”
“What? That you have to eat every item on the menu? You poor thing. I haven’t even been charging you.”
“I’ve been leaving tips double the cost of the meal.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, shifting her toe on the floor. “That wasn’t why I made the deal.”
“I know, sorry, hey. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I reach for her wrist and wrap my fingers around it. The way she’s looking now, I’d do whatever she asked of me. So, I tell her that.
“Anything?”
“Say the word.”
“Great. My brother’s birthday party is in two weeks. Come with me.”
“Lexi...”
“You said anything.”
“Anything for you.”
“Lucas is my brother, and he used to be your best friend. Why are you so opposed?”
“We haven’t talked!”
“Neither had you and I. Does that mean we should go back to staring awkwardly at one another?”
“For the record, I never stared awkwardly. And the answer is of course not, but—”
“No buts. Explain what the huge problem is, and I’ll consider letting you off the hook. Otherwise, I’ll assume there’s no problem except you don’t want to go with me.”
“That’s not it at all, and you know it.”
“What’ll it be, Bradley?”
I grit my teeth. The thing is, I don’t really have anything against Lucas. Except for my own idiocy. He tried to visit me in the hospital once, and I’d snapped at him. He’d said something about feeling sorry about my knee, and I’d reamed him out. Something about not wanting his pity.
Unlike Lexi, he didn’t come back to try again. Which sucked at the time. I’d already been feeling like half of a person—a man without a career, a passion, and a stupid knee. Yeah, I’d pitied myself. Yes, I know plenty of other people have it worse, but that still didn’t make it a fun time for me.
So, on top of wallowing for myself, I’d wallowed because of Lucas, too. I’d liked that Lexi kept coming back, trying to get me to open up to her. I take full responsibility for being the idiot in this situation and the reason for our extended silence.
But Lucas—he should’ve come back. Tried again. Smacked me on the head and told me to apologize. Something. Anything. The fact that he’d never given me a second thought had left a sour taste in my mouth. That’s not what friends do.
I look up, determined to put my foot down. But there, in Lexi’s pretty green eyes, I see more than a glimmer of amusement or a test of my dedication to this—whatever sort of relationship we have between us.
There’s a want—an ask—there, so to my surprise, I find myself agreeing.
“You’ll come?” She jumps up and down. “Really?”
“You couldn’t seem to find that sort of energy when I showed you how to do a pull up.”
“Because I was conserving my energy.”
“Right.”
“Please promise me you’ll try to have fun.”
“You’ll be my date, right?”
“Well, it’s not a date, date, but yes,” she says, pausing for a smile. “I’ll be your date.”
“Then it will be fun.”
“Are you going to talk to Lucas?”
My eyebrow inches up. “Do I have to?”
She blows a big breath of air from her lips. “You’re only coming for me, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I’d really appreciate it if you tried to make an effort with him.”
“He clearly doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Well, if you make an effort and he rejects you, we’ll know that for a fact. Right now, all I’m hearing is you’re too afraid to talk to him.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then that settles it.” Lexi reaches out and straightens my t-shirt. “We have a date.”
“If you’re hoping to get our group back together, the same way things were before, I wouldn’t hold your breath,” I warn. “Even if we convince him to come back, things have changed. We’ve changed.”
“We won’t know if we don’t try, right?”
I groan.
“Speaking of trying new things, will you be swinging by the diner this afternoon?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Great,” she says. “We can carbo-load for our next workout.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“It’s science.”
I call a truce, mostly because I’ll carbo-load all day long at the diner. Pancakes and waffles. Oatmeal and fries. I’ll eat ketchup by the spoonful for the chance to sit next to Lexi all night long.
She starts toward the door. Before I can think, something comes over me, and I reach for her hand. I link my fingers through hers, noting the hesitation on her end. It lasts only a second, and when she glances over her shoulder, her lips have curved into some semblance of a smile.
“Let me walk you out,” I say. “I wish I could drive you to the diner, but I have to be here until Leo shows up.”
“Uh, hello?” She waves a hand. “Twenty first century. Women are allowed driver’s licenses. I can drive myself.”
“It’s not about the driving,” I tell her, picking up my pace to join her side. “It’s about tagging along for the ride.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
She curls toward me, smelling of sweet flowers and honey. Her hair is still damp, her face free of makeup, and it’s complete temptation to skip work and follow her anywhere. Everywhere.
I lean in, press the slightest kiss to her lips, and then hold there as I whisper against her cheek. “There’s a pretty great view of a woman I happen to enjoy.”
“Down, boy,” a voice comes from behind me. “Didn’t realize we had speed dating on the premises.”
Leo’s voice grates against me, my heartbeat racing as I turn to face him. I honestly hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to the fact that I’m in the lobby of my own business.
At the sight of his smug smile, I’m jarred by how much I dislike being in the same room with him. It’s more than time for me to move on now, to bigger and better things. Hell, I don’t even need a bigger space, I just want my own.
“Leo,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. “Didn’t expect to see you here so early.”
“I guess you didn’t,” Leo says, his eyes traveling and lingering over Lexi. “Feel like introducing me to your friend, Brad?”
It has my blood boiling the way he looks at her. Maybe I’m oversensitive this morning, but there’s an interested gleam in his eye, and I don’t like it.
“Lexi,” she says, smiling and extending her own hand. “Bradley and I go way back.”
“Bradley.” He smirks at the name. “I guess so.”
“What brings you around this early?” I ask. It’s a battle these days just to be civil.
Even if he’s not skimming off the company somehow, he’s keeping a secret from me. I lost my livelihood once because of an accident. I’m not losing my career a second time because of a stupid mistake and the wrong choice of partner.
“Swinging by for a quick sauna before my massage,” he says easily, his eyes switching back to me. He’s got a spray tan that makes him look like an Oompa Loompa, and he’s sporting a gold necklace visible at the plummeting neckline of his t-shirt that’s nearly showing off his nipples. He always did care about his appearance, he’s just never been such a douche-canoe about it before. “You taking off early?”
“Just walking Lexi out.”
“I can see myself out,” she says, offering me an apologetic glance. “I’ll catch you later, Brad.”
I nod, my jaw working overtime as she slips through the front doors leaving one finger wave behind before disappearing around the corner.
“You didn’t tell me you were dating anyone.” Leo crosses his arms, leans against the wall behind him. “The infamous Lexi, huh?”
“W
hat are you talking about?”
“Come on, man, I’ve known you for years. Lexi this, Lexi that. Then these last few years, nothing.”
Leo and I had met as fellow gym rats a few years before my injury. I’d never brought Lexi around him for this very reason. He likes pretty things, including gorgeous women. Even if Lexi hadn’t wanted me back then, I certainly wasn’t letting her fall into Leo’s grasp.
“We grew apart. And now we’re friends again.”
“Simple as that, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have a problem with me?” Leo takes a step closer, lowering his voice. “Look me in the eyes, Bradley.”
My gaze had been darting around without my noticing. Mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to lose my shit in the lobby of our business. I have certain lines that I prefer don’t get crossed, and making a public fool out of myself or my business partner is one of them.
But if he wants to play this game, I’ll go along for the ride.
Raising my gaze, I meet his. “I don’t know. Do we have a problem?”
“What are you insinuating?”
“Not a thing. I was standing here, talking to my friend. You walked up. End of story.”
“She’s a friend, huh? Sure looked like more to me.”
I inhale, then let the air sizzle out slowly. “I’m not trying to argue with you, Leo. We’ve never talked much about personal things. Leave it alone.”
“I’d leave it alone, but it appears to be interfering with the workplace.”
“Interfering with the workplace?”
My blood pressure is rising, and I look through the windows debating how long it’d take me to get outside. If he keeps egging me on, it’d probably be best to just leave. Unfortunately, I don’t always act on what’s best for me.
He raises his eyebrows, waiting.
So, I lay into him. “What about your three cancelled shifts last week? We had a budget meeting for tomorrow, but apparently you’re too busy to make that one, too. As a matter of fact, we could have it now, if you’d prefer. I’m available.”
“I see that.” He nods toward the door, insinuating Lexi. “But I bet you wish you weren’t.”
My fist reaches out, curls around the front of his stupid t-shirt. “Leave her out of this.”
