by P. Dangelico
Fifteen minutes later the six foot two termite is back. “Mmmm, those wood shavings sure hit the spot,” he singsongs while rubbing his flat abdomen in circles.
He peels off his hat and gloves, pulls the sweatshirt over his head and off, revealing an undershirt. It rides up and I swiftly avert my eyes. Once done with his striptease, heavy emphasis on the tease part, he gets under the covers…and scoots closer and closer. A little too close for comfort. I can feel his body from my shoulder to my ankle.
“Jeez, Vaughn. Stay on your side, will you. I’m not a pregnancy pillow. Hug yourself if you’re lonely.”
His chuckle is deep and dark and gives me dirty thoughts. For a moment I wonder what it would feel like if he–– “We need to be close to transfer body heat,” he says.
Before he got back into our makeshift bed, he threw another log on the fire, turning the room into a sauna. Not to mention what his proximity is doing to me. Time for an exaggerated eye roll. “Did that bullshit line work for you in high school?”
“Umm, no.”
The strange inflection in his voice piques my interest. I look over and find him watching me. “I’m getting a rapey, One Hour Photo vibe from you right now.”
“Why is everything a movie reference?” He’s propped up on an elbow again with genuine interest on his face.
“It’s my jam,” I reply, tucking my hands under my head.
“Why movies? Why not books, or music?”
The sound of his low, intimate voice does funny things to my nether region. I’m trying to fight this thing growing between us tooth and nail, but it’s getting harder and harder each day. Translation: I am screwed with a capital S. He can’t be sweet and smart, thoughtful and funny all wrapped up in a package that looks like that and not give a girl ideas. It’s like dangling chum in front of a shark. In case you missed it, he’s chum and I’m the shark in this scenario.
“I like those things too, but I love that you can tell an entire story with just one glance, and that it can mean something different to each person.”
“Hmm, good point.”
“And then there’s always the grand gesture, the moment of redemption. The boy gets the girl––or the boy. The crooked cop does the right thing and turns himself in. The hero gives his life for the drowning kid…the grand gesture hardly ever happens in real life.”
“You like it when the boy gets the girl?” he murmurs, his eyes taking in every salient point on my face one piece at a time.
My face registers one thing only––suspicion. He’s in a strange mood tonight. And try as I may, I can’t figure out where he’s going with this.
“He doesn’t always get the girl, Fancy. But I do love the grand gesture. Every epic love story has a grand gesture.”
The silence impels me to look over again. Brown eyes twinkling in the firelight, all the hard planes of his face outlined in gold. Ugh, somebody save me from myself.
“Still getting that One Hour Photo vibe from you.” So what do I get after comparing him to the creepy stalker Robin Williams played in that movie? I get an even bigger smile out of him. Men, explain them to me. “Are my insults ever going to score a hit?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“But keep ‘em coming. I’m excited to hear what comes out of your mouth next.”
“Fancy?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you live in this dump?”
Sighing, he parrots my pose and lies back with his hands tucked under his head. The sigh indicates this is a much more serious conversation than I’d intended.
“This was the house my grandparents lived in when my mom was a kid. She grew up here.”
“And?”
“And they were going to turn it into a commercial property so I asked Norma to give it to me instead. I’m fixing it up for my someday family.”
“Are you close to your mother?”
“She passed away when I was fifteen.” He turns and meets my eyes. “Ovarian cancer.”
Stop. Somebody make him stop. That hurts. Damn that hurts. It feels like I just got double barrel kicked in the sternum. My gaze shifts to the ceiling in fear I’ll lose it.
I’d assumed he’d led a charmed life. What a dumbass. I, better than anyone, should’ve known not to draw such conclusions, to not judge him based on appearance. Things are rarely what they seem. The ache fades into the background and a large dose of shame takes its place.
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been really hard for you.”
“It wasn’t easy.
“I’m not close to mine,” I blurt out. Again, my mouth doing it’s own thing. “I don’t even think of her as my mother. More like a distant relative I’m forced to tolerate every once in a while.”
“How come you’re not close?”
“It started when I was born. We had a falling out over a small discrepancy.” My voice is toneless, dispassionate. The benefit of a bad experience is that once it’s wrung out of you every drop of emotion, it’s done for good. “She was under the impression that babies care for themselves. Eileen was your quintessential party girl. Not much time for maternal bonding when she was juggling multiple boyfriends. When I was eight she met Dan and decided that raising his son and a daughter was way too much work so she left me with my grandparents.”
“And your dad?”
“Don’t know who he is. Neither does Eileen. But honestly, that’s never bothered me.”
One minute of silence drags on, two.
“You better not be looking at me with sad eyes, Vaughn, or you’re going to get bitch slapped and I’m just the bitch to do it.” I look over and find him with his head propped up, a crooked smile and half moon eyes twinkling. “What about your father?”
His face lights up. “He’s great. The best. We’re very close. He’s one of the reasons I went to law school. He’s a federal judge.”
That makes me smile. God knows why, but it makes me feel better knowing that his dad was there for him when his mom was sick.
“Did he remarry?”
“No…he was only forty-five when she passed.” His gaze cuts to the fire. “I guess some people only get one chance at love.”
“Love?”
At the query his gaze returns to me, the emptiness that filled it a moment ago replaced with curiosity. “Yeah, love. You know, romantic love, soul mate kind of love.”
I can’t. I can’t even. The snort cannot be contained. “Soul mate love?”
“What? You don’t believe in soul mates?”
“Are you serious?” His nonreply prods me to continue. “If you believe in that, then I’ve got some horrible news for you. Brace yourself, the Easter bunny isn’t real, either.”
Surprise, shock, doubt. Each one takes a turn on his face.
“You don’t believe two people can fall in love and stay in love? What about all that grand gesture stuff?” He’s searching for clues that I’m messing with him, which he is not going to find because I am as serious as a tax audit.
“Yeah. That’s why we need movies and books and music. Because real life is as bleak as shit. And as far as falling in love, you can thank some powerful chemicals for that. The rest of it is a made up thing––like Christmas––to get us to spend money on holidays. It’s purely a commercial construct.”
“But you’ve been in love?”
“Of course, I have. I was in love with Damien Gatti in the fourth grade. He told everyone he caught me picking my nose, which was pure fiction by the way. In the seventh grade it was Billy Hansen. He never looked my way once––actively avoided me on a number of occasions. Turns out, he was looking in Jon Renavitch’s direction. In the tenth grade it was Steve Boran. He was in love with me. He was also in love with the entire cheerleading squad. Need I go on? You’re personally experiencing the repercussions of my last altercation with love.”
I’ve baffled him. He’s baffled.
“What about Cal and Cam?”
Tucking
my hands under my face, I give his query good thought. “Random act of God. Black Swan event. Even a broken clock gets it right once in a while. Call it what you want.”
His brow furrows. In his eyes, I can see that now familiar streak of stubbornness asserting itself. “My parents were crazy about each other.”
“And your father never remarried. What’s love done for him?”
“But they had it. When it was good it was great.”
“This from the man that avoids relationships like the plague.” I fluff my pillow and get comfortable.
“Maybe it’s about finding the right person,” he says staring into the fire, gold tracing the sharp line of his jaw, of his straight nose. He almost looks sad as he says it.
“And maybe unicorns run wild in Yellowstone National Park. Careful, counselor. Someone might mistake you for a romantic.”
“And if I am?” His attention returns to me. Although he’s smiling, there’s no humor in his eyes. Or his voice for that matter. And as tired as I am, I can still see he’s hiding something.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Adjusting my pillow, I get comfortable. The dry heat is making me drowsy, my eyelids fluttering shut. “Fancy…”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming home early,” I mumble somewhat coherently, sleep seconds from claiming me.
“Sweet dreams, Jones.”
Turns out, my dreams were all about him. And there was nothing sweet about them.
Chapter Fourteen
If my life was my anything like my favorite romantic comedy of all time, When Harry Met Sally, this would be the part where the super cute montage would play. Cue the running in Central Park together. Cue us sharing an ice cream Sunday at Serendipity and him wiping whip cream off the side of my mouth with his index finger, then sucking on it. Cue us going to see The Book of Mormon and chuckling as we exit. And I would be wearing hats. Because naturally all cute montages require hats, even though I never wear hats in real life. Breaking news: none of that nice shit happens. You know what does however? Bickering––lots of it.
“Try it,” he says––or rather, taunts.
“I don’t wanna try it. Just looking at it makes me want to hurl.”
“I never took you for a coward.”
“I’m a coward because I don’t want to put that in my mouth? Look at it! Why would anybody in their right mind put that in their mouth?”
The silence that follows makes me nervous. I glance up from my cell phone––I routinely like to torture myself by checking Facebook to see how fabulous everybody else’s life is in comparison to mine––and find him coming around to my side of the kitchen island armed with a dish of the kale he’s been cooking.
“Get away from me with that!”
“A small taste isn’t going to kill you.” I jump off my stool and run to the other side of the island, keeping a safe distance between the stuff he’s holding and my mouth. “It might actually add a couple of minutes to your life.”
“Or, I might gag on it and choke to death.”
“You wouldn’t die. I’d perform the Heimlich and if necessary mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” he informs me with a smug smile.
For obvious reason, I glower back. “You’re creeping me out.”
“Then you’ll owe me for saving your life.”
“Another reason not to touch that sludge.”
The doorbell starts ringing. And rings. And rings. My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “If this is one of your pussies I will lose it.”
“One of my what?”
I don’t wait to see what his face makes of that, I take off for the front door. “Hold your goddamn horses!”
The incessant ringing is making me mental. I rip open the front door because I need to make my irritation clear, and find the perpetrator of this crime against my ears looking up at me with a sullen pout.
“Audrey?” I mumble in bewilderment.
“Amber.”
Still a cheeky little shit. “What are you doing here?”
She struts right past me wearing a backpack large enough to trek across Antarctica with, and bangs it against my hip in the process.
“Ouuuch. Jeez, what do you have in there, a dead body?”
“No,” she answers, as if it were an actual possibility.
“What are you doing here?”
“You said we could hang.”
“Uh, yeah, but generally you call first and make plans.” Ignoring me, she drops her backpack and kicks off her Uggs, shrugs off her down jacket.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
I turn and find Fancy standing in the hallway, sleeves rolled up, jeans hanging on his hips, feet bare. I’m so used to his masculine bling, I hardly notice it anymore and yet I can image what any other straight female would be thinking. Even a thirteen year old one.
Drying his hands on a dishtowel, a wide grin breaks across his face as his gaze jumps from me to Audrey. Meanwhile, Audrey stares up at him with stars twinkling in her wide green eyes.
Another one bites the dust.
“She’s a fun size version of you,” he says with way too much joy on his gorgeous face.
“Hel…uh…I mean heck no. He’s not my boyfriend.” Ethan scowls at me. Looks like I’ve wounded his delicate male ego. I have a feeling it won’t be the last time. “Can you please take your animal magnetism elsewhere? I need to have a chat with my sister and you’re scrabbling her brain.”
“Sister?” He looks mildly shocked at first. A second later his amusement returns with a vengeance.
“Half sister,” I amend.
“There is absolutely no chance of me missing a minute of this,” he replies with way too much cheer in his voice.
Awestruck, Audrey continues to walk around like she was invited to do so.
“How did you know where to find me? Does Eileen know you’re here? And how did you get here anyway?”
“Google. You mentioned his name. No. A bus.”
“That’s…disturbing. Phone please,” I order, holding out my hand.
“Please don’t call them yet. Please!” In seconds, she’s on the verge of tears, her face contorting into hysterics. Teenagers, smh. “Please, Amber. You know how she is. She’s the worst mother! She leaves me home alone all the time and she never picks me up from school on time. I’m always the loser sitting on the front steps at school waiting for the crappy parent.”
Dramatic streak a mile wide in this family. Family…huh. Yeah, I guess we are some kind of family.
“First of all, watch your language.” Trust me, the irony is not lost on me. I get a super sulky look for that. “Second, Dan is a good man. He’s a good father. Some people don’t even have one parent, let alone two.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize that there’s another person in the room who can attest to that. His eyes hold mine for a minute longer than I deem necessary while something big passes between us. I can’t explain what it is but I can feel its significance.
“How about some hot chocolate?” We both turn to stare at the man who just spoke. Ethan drapes the dishtowel over his shoulder and raises his winged eyebrows in question.
“Okay.” Audrey beams sunshine and rainbows up at him, her smile so broad she’s in serious danger of popping off her purple braces.
Minutes later we’re all in the kitchen. Audrey and I take a seat at the island while Martha Stewart, also known as Ethan, is making fancy hot chocolate. I eyeball the purple container with French writing as he turns and slides two mugs across the granite counter.
“You get your hot chocolate powder at Vosges? Really?” Across from me, he takes a sip, heavy-lidded eyes watching me over the rim of his mug.
“You know I like the good stuff,” he murmurs in a voice that can only be described as seductive. It makes me uneasy, this subtle, but not so subtle change in him. “Why are you squinting?”
“Hmm, no reason,” I answer. I’m suspicious by nature, therefore I shrug his stran
ge behavior off as me being suspicious by nature.
“What’s with the A names?”
I shrug. Because really, the truth is simply that pathetic. “Most likely Eileen was too lazy to get beyond the first letter of the alphabet.”
“That can’t be true,” he says with a one sided smile.
“I wish I was kidding.”
“I want to be just like you when I grow up.”
I glance at Audrey and find her staring at Ethan with a goofy grin decorating her face. “No, you don’t,” I argue, horrified at the thought of Audrey aiming so low. I want so much more for her.
She turns to face me, her expression suddenly serious. “Yes, I do. You’re my hero.”
“Did you sniff glue before you came over? I’m not even a grown up. In fact, you’ll probably beat me to it. You’re probably a better grown up at thirteen than I am at almost-thirty.”
“I’m nothing like you. You’re super cool and I’m a loser. You’re not scared of anything. And you have a super hot boyfriend.”
I’m speechless. Also, I stopped listening after she called herself a loser.
“I will address the ridiculous things you’ve just said in order or importance. First of all, don’t ever, ever call yourself a loser again. I hate that word. Hate it. What does that even mean? What are you losing at? From where I stand you’re smart, funny, and you have your whole life ahead of you to get it right. I don’t even have medical insurance. I eat all the wrong foods at the wrong time of day. I didn’t finish college.” I can tell by the look on her face I have yet to sway her opinion. “I don’t even know how to drive a car! Second, let’s use the word super a little more judiciously. You’re throwing it around willy-nilly.”
“You don’t know how to drive?” says the eye candy across from me, the baby v between his brows only making him more appealing. This attraction thing is getting really inconvenient.
“No. And him––” I say, pointing to said eye candy. “He doesn’t even like me.”
“I like you,” someone murmurs in a disgustingly low, sexy voice.
The hell?
I do a double take, my focus returning to the hot piece who just spoke. Casually leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, highlighting his spectacular biceps, his smug expression is directed straight at me. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. My eyes narrow and my lips curl around my teeth in displeasure. At my are you freaking serious face, his smile gets even brighter.
