By the Book

by Scarlett Parrish

  We liked to do everything together.

  “Boring.” She wrinkled her nose, the scowl disappearing when I kissed her. Briefly. Any more than that and we might be tempted to allow ourselves to carry on, and in public that wouldn’t do.

  We were always ready for each other, physical health permitting, but with the underlying tension there, buzzing like an electrical cable to the rhythm of Cross, Cross, Cross, there was more danger than usual we’d forget where we were.

  Hardly glancing at the menus, familiar with what was available already through regular patronage, we placed our orders and made flirtatious small talk until our mushroom soup arrived. Or at least that was what I planned to do. Georgia, however, bit the bullet.

  “Have you spoken to him?” Both forearms on the table on either side of her place setting, she leaned in, eyes shining.

  “Him?” I gave her nothing but a light smile and a restrained mirroring of her posture.

  “Yeah, you know.” Dropping her voice still further, she added, “Daniel.”

  “Should I have?” I lifted my brows, trying not to smile at the childish expectation illuminating her face. Certainly I wouldn’t appear as diabolical as Daniel when I looked at her that way, but my hair was dirty blond to his dark, my eyes blue to his brown. And there was something naturally devilish in him anyway.

  I may have indulged in threesomes on more than one occasion, but unlike Daniel Cross, I at least had the advantage of looking innocent.

  “Not necessarily.” She shrugged, her shoulders far more nonchalant than her tone of voice. “Just wondered.”

  “Couple of text messages, that’s all.”

  “He hasn’t said anything?”

  “Well, there was that one e-mail he sent.” I frowned as I considered how to phrase my next sentence.

  “What was it about?”

  “There was an attachment. Something he’d mocked up in Photoshop. Ah!” I clicked my fingers, grinning as if suddenly enlightened. “He sent me your sexual report card; that was it.”

  “Bastard.” She tried to kick me under the table but merely skimmed my leg with the toe of her shoe.

  “Texts, passing the time of day, that was it.” Truthfully I’d been glad of that. A little something to maintain the lines of communication until I worked out how I felt about what had happened. To establish okay, we’re still cool with each other. This was the most awkward stage after bringing in a new third. Making sure nothing had changed while acknowledging that, of course, everything had.

  “But he was okay?”

  “Seemed so. Didn’t want to push it. He was the same Daniel as ever. Joking. Talking about his work. Just like”—I paused when the waiter bought our starters over, let the conversation wait until we were able to once more take possession of our privacy—“nothing had happened.” I lifted my spoon, tapped it lightly against the side of my bowl as if the faint tinkle would help me find the right words. “No, no, that’s not the right way to put it. More like”—I took a deep breath—“we’re both making an effort to prove how normal everything is after our distinctly unnormal evening.”

  “Hmm.” Georgia’s brow furrowed, and she contemplated the soup before her, not yet partaking. “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Definitely,” I said before taking my first mouthful. God, I needed that. “He’s making an effort to get things back on track. Carry on as normal.”

  Every time either of us slept with someone else, things changed. Sometimes an inordinate amount of effort put in to proving how “okay” someone was afterward proved the exact opposite was true.

  But it was inevitable. We’d look at each other differently. That’s if Daniel and I looked at each other at all in future. Our dynamic had changed. Pinning it down, articulating it, adjusting—all of that would come in time, hopefully.

  “At least if it all goes tits up now, it’s not too big a disaster,” Georgia commented. “It’s not as if we ran the risk of screwing up a friendship of long standing. Pass me another chunk of bread, would you? Thanks. Anyway. What I mean is, you knew Daniel well enough to introduce him. He was game. Good. But it’s not like either of us has known him for years and years, or we have any established relationship parameters with him. We’re not breaking any rules with him because there are no rules. We can’t go by the book in this instance. No one’s written the damn thing.”

  “I guess.” Sometimes she surprised me with her pragmatism. And I always fell into the trap of thinking someone as adventurous as Georgia couldn’t surprise me anymore.

  “You know”—she jabbed her finger in midair—“you should call him.”

  “Pardon?” The beer I’d ordered did little to cool me down.

  “Yeah. Do something blokey. Take him down the pub.”

  “Aw, like a playdate, you mean?” I cocked my head, fluttering my eyelashes in a parody of gentility.

  “Fuckwit.”

  “Bitch. I’ll put you over my knee.”

  “Promises, promises.” Georgia winked before turning her attention back to her starter. “Nothing like a bromance. Just hang out. Establish where things stand. You know.”

  The look in Daniel’s eyes after he’d fucked Georgia that first time told me no way was he embarrassed, touchy, sensitive about this. Quite what it said, I wasn’t sure. But not embarrassed. Not that. Never that.

  “Course, when you call him…” Georgia’s voice was a playful singsong, not pleading but leading up to something.

  “When?”

  “Yes, when.”

  The thought of seeing Daniel again in a social “Hey, aren’t we normal?” setting made my blood spark with nerves. Or anticipation. Or excitement.

  “Georgia Lawrence is always up to something when she gets that look on her face. And don’t ask what I mean. That smile. You’re thinking something.”

  “I am not.”

  “Lawrence. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “All right, all right. I was just thinking, when you give Daniel a call…”

  “When, yes.” I nodded, waited for her to continue. She had that “plotting” look on her face. A stirring in the pit of my stomach and somewhere farther south told me I’d like it.

  “Maybe you could suggest, purely as a way of reestablishing the mature, adult relationship dynamic between the three of us…”

  “Yes?”

  Georgia winked. “You could suggest a rematch.”

  * * *

  There was a mere sliver of something out of the ordinary about our slow walk to the row of taxis. Georgia had an early start, and no matter how horny I was, she needed a cab ride home—alone. And sleep. I needed—judging from the state of me—a cold shower. This time, this evening, I filtered my perception of the world through fear-tinted spectacles.

  Lord knew why I was so nervous. It wasn’t as if we could see much more of each other than we already had. But the thought of asking him to…of telling him Georgia wanted…of admitting I was intrigued by the idea of…

  Nervousness colored my behavior, from the way my hands trembled as I zipped up my jacket to the way I walked out onto the street with my head down, determined not to make eye contact with anyone. Even Georgia.

  My mobile phone, an anorexic sliver of technology, doubled in mass. Tripled. Quadrupled. Radiated mockery. Lurked in my inside pocket, threatening to explode unless I did something with it.

  “Well?” A smiling, laughing Georgia linked one arm through mine. “Are you going to?”

  “What, now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “But we only have a couple of minutes’ walk to the taxi stand, and I don’t want to waste time with you on calling Daniel.”

  “Ooh.” She sucked in a breath through pursed lips. “Slick, Hutton, very slick. You could almost persuade me.”

  “Could I?”

  “No. No, best not. Christ, I want to, but a night with you and I’ll be knackered. Why I agreed to an early shift, I don’t know.”

  “You n
eed the money?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged, linked her arm through mine. “It all comes down to that.”

  “I almost wish we hadn’t had this evening out,” I said as we turned the street corner. She frowned, waiting for me to explain, and I winked. “Reminding me of what I can’t have.”

  “You’ll just have to go home, have a cold shower, or take care of things yourself, won’t you?”

  “You, Lawrence, are the classiest chick I’ve ever dated.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t, Hutton. That’s why God gave you a right hand. I know I sure make use of mine often enough.”

  “You’re a cruel woman, putting images like that in my mind just as you head home.” I slid an arm round her waist, pulled her close for a good night kiss. Better to get this done now than when she was halfway into a taxi. Sure, we had an audience at times, but the cab driver would be inappropriate. Invited thirds were okay. Complete strangers, not. “If you wanted, you could send a video to my mobile phone. You know, just to entertain me.”

  She swatted my arm away, laughing, and pulled open the door of the cab at the head of the queue. “Pervert.”

  “That’s me.” I took a step back, edging away to make the good-byes easier. She had a nasty habit of teasing me so badly I often did go home to “take care of business.”

  “And call him.”

  My eyebrows lifted.

  “Daniel.” Georgia winked. “Tonight. Go on. Set something up. If you can.” Code for I want you both. Again. Given the presence of her driver, she couldn’t go into too much detail, but I knew what she meant.

  And I couldn’t help but picture it as she rode off into the sunset under a blanket of fantasies, me under orders.

  Though nervous, I had no way of explaining my nerves to myself, or at least didn’t want to face up to the cold, hard truth, so I pulled my phone out into the open. Oxygen made it shrink to normal size and mass, not at all threatening. I slid open the casing, scrolled through my phone book, and stared at DanX on the list, my gait slowing to a stroll not half as leisurely as it must have looked. People walked past, not impeded by my slowness, like torrents rushing by a pebble in a river.

  I tapped Call a few times with my thumb, each drumbeat exerting a little more pressure than the last until it built up enough momentum to click the button.

  “Hey.”

  “Daniel?”

  “No one else.”

  “You busy?”

  “Nothing important. Just writing a sex scene between two men, a donkey, and a bucket of custard.”

  “What?”

  He chuckled. I imagined the breath tickling my ear, and looked around me as if passersby all knew what I was thinking.

  “Not really. Honestly. What kind of man do you think I am? Don’t answer that.” Again he laughed. “What’s up? Unless you were just calling for the pleasure of hearing my voice.”

  I imagined him sitting back in his seat, maybe with a thumb hooked into the waistband of his jeans—

  My imagination colored in the outline of him for a split second before my conscience nudged me back into the present. “Am I interrupting you?”

  “You’re always welcome to interrupt me. After all, we’ve sort of bonded now.” He paused. “Don’t you think?”

  I exhaled. Slowly. Wanting to listen to him but not wanting to give myself away with a gasp or any signal of surprise, embarrassment, or fascination.

  “Anyway.” His single word punctuated the conversation, moved it from playful and borderline flirtatious to businesslike. The Daniel of my imagination sat up straight, gripping the arm of the chair, and his smirk vanished. “What can I do you for?”

  Gulping, I looked around as if trying not to see Daniel. “Can we talk?”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “That’s what we are doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Not here though.” Jesus. Why did I say that?

  “You want to get together?”

  Get to the point, why don’t you, Daniel? “Uh…” Damn it, you’re hemming and hawing too much. Speak like you’re not a total fucking retard, Hutton. “Yes. If that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Just, you know. Residual awkwardness. About. Things.”

  “I don’t feel awkward at all.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. I’m Daniel Fucking Cross.”

  I stopped and leaned against a shop front. “Oh. Well.” I drew in a deep breath. “Good. Good.”

  “Hey, listen, Reece. Are you okay? You sound a bit jittery.”

  If he could tell that much over the phone, there was no point in trying to hide anything from him. “I am a little.”

  “Why?”

  “Jeez, you’re direct, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not the one who’s jumpy about what happened.”

  “I definitely am,” I blurted out, and breath snagged in my throat. It was the most honest thing I’d said in a long time.

  “And that’s why you want to get together? Face your fears?”

  I swore there was a distinct element of teasing in his voice, and I’d have laid money on the likelihood that Daniel Fucking Cross had a smirk on him like the cat that got the cream.

  Neither of us spoke, and despite the cool evening breeze, a tense silence descended, coiling itself round the conversation like a snake. It constricted the distance between this street corner and wherever Daniel was, bound us, became a thing apart, something tangible.

  Gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles probably showed white, I looked heavenward, and my throat tightened around the breath I struggled to draw. No one paid me any attention, too wrapped up in their own lives to realize mine was…

  …tilting.

  “Something like that.”

  “Yes. These things are…I was about to say ‘easier,’ but maybe not. These things are always best done face-to-face. Just to bleach out that awkwardness you’re prone to, Reece.”

  “Force the issue.”

  “Exactly. Phone calls are a bit stilted. Or can be.” Daniel cleared his throat. “You’re welcome to come round here anytime.”

  “What, like now?” I could have kicked myself, but the pause, the heavy pause, the held breath, the freeze-frame between us told me, Not yet. Don’t panic yet.

  “No time like the present.” And he unknowingly echoed Georgia’s words from earlier.

  I closed my eyes against the relief or something similar that coiled in my gut. That snake was back. No. A serpent.

  Or some kind of fallen angel.

  “Reece?”

  I swallowed back the nerves and the don’t do this and the feeling of foreboding disguised as opportunity. “I’m in the city center just now, so”—I took a deep breath—“you said you live on Turner Road, right?”

  “Yeah; get the cab driver to pull up outside number twenty-two—”

  “I’ll just walk.” I could have taxied over but theorized the ten, fifteen minutes between now and Danielgeddon would give me the opportunity to either man up or chicken out.

  “Great.” There was definitely a smile in his voice. Definitely. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter Seven

  Georgia sent her customary “That’s me home safe” text message, and I nearly turned on my heels and headed straight home. I didn’t know why I had such a feeling of you shouldn’t be doing this, or at least didn’t want to face up to the reason it existed, but exist it did. The pit of my stomach wouldn’t settle, and a quiet voice in the back of my head whispered, you still have a conscience, then?

  I called him. He said to go round there if I wanted.

  Hitting Send, I stopped, leaned against a guardrail lining the curb, and tried not to look too suspicious. I clutched my phone, hoped my frown would create a holographic image of Reece Hutton puzzling over a text message to cover whatever was really happening inside me. Come on, Georgia. Forbid me. Tell me no. Stop this.

  Great! Let me know how you get on. Will g
rab some sleep now. Speak soon. XXX.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, slamming the phone shut and tucking it away in my pocket, out of sight. I carried on walking, each step making me more and more nervous because each step brought me closer to Daniel.

  And when I reached his apartment block, he must have been looking out the window for my approach because he let me in without a word when I buzzed his intercom.

  His front door opened as I reached the top of the stairs, and attitude streamed out of his every pore. He laughed when I faltered.

  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” I asked.

  “Oh, this?” He looked down at his bare torso, low-slung jeans resting on his hips. “If I’m working at home, I usually just hang out in shorts or jeans.”

  “You couldn’t have pulled a shirt on?”

  “You want me to?” Daniel grinned. “It’s nothing you haven’t already seen before. Besides.”—he stood back to let me cross the threshold, and closed the door behind us, not speaking again until he’d stepped ahead of me—“I thought I’d give you another chance to see my ink.”

  It was just as well he now walked ahead, padding along the laminate flooring in bare feet, because he wouldn’t see the widening of my eyes.

  “Hang your jacket up if you like.” He pointed to the coat hooks on his left and hovered in the kitchen doorway while I struggled with my zip.

  “Yeah, well.” After shrugging off my jacket, I hung it up with trembling hands, then wiped my palms on my jeans. “It’s some tattoo.”

  “I’m proud of it. Helped design it myself.” He winked before entering the kitchen and asked, looking over his inked shoulder, “Coffee?”

  It took a moment for his words to register. As he flicked the kettle on, with his back turned, I saw his ink as if for the first time. Last time he’d been naked and…Christ, he’d been fucking my girlfriend. I hadn’t known who to watch. Her. Or him.

  “They’re ready to spring out of your shoulders.”

  Daniel looked back at me and grinned. “I chose a good artist. Coffee?” he asked again.