“Hi. Everything okay?”
“Oh yes, just dropped Tyler off.”
“Oh good, whose class is he in?”
“Mrs. Yee.”
“Oh that’s great, she’s wonderful.”
“Yeah, she seems cool.”
We stare at each other for a second.
“So you all had a good summer?” I ask.
“Yes, very good…You?”
I smile, and feel my eyes getting watery, clammit. “It was the best.” I place a fingertip in the corners of each eye to stop the flow. “How is he?”
She lets out a long exhale through her mouth and puts her hands on her hips. “He’s…okay? Kind of. I mean, it was rough for a few days there, I was really worried about him. He wasn’t sleeping and I guess he was drinking a couple nights in a row, but…he’s been seeing his therapist three times a week, and I think…I mean. It’s not my place, but…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But I think you guys should talk.”
“Oh.”
“Like, soon.”
“Oh. Okay.”
A horde of parents and five and six year-olds suddenly crowds in towards us, and Eve and I get separated. I hear her say “bye” and I have so many questions, but no time to think about anything other than getting backpacks into cubby holes and kids into their desks.
By 3:20, when my classroom is miraculously emptied and quiet, I start to tidy up and reorganize and pack up my things, and acknowledge the butterflies in my stomach and the re-emerging tingle in my lady parts in anticipation of talking to Vince, like soon.
There are no messages from him on my phone.
I reply to Marnie’s text: Staff room before home? Afdsoiui
With: Heading home! Talk later.
When I’m three blocks towards home, composing a speech in my head, I hear a motorcycle engine approaching behind me and stop in my tracks.
Un, deux, trois, ohhh merde, please be him.
The man on the motorcycle pauses alongside me and pulls off his helmet with his strong, slightly rough, very capable hands. Seeing his beautiful face again takes my breath away.
“Hello, Miss Parks.”
I have to clear my throat. “Hi.”
His eyes are the color of a summer lawn after a long day of welcome rains. “Sorry I don’t have more of a grand gesture prepared,” he grins. “I’ve been too busy going to therapy and working towards becoming a partner at my Dad’s brokerage, so I’m exhausted. But I’m doing it for you.”
“I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear someone say that.”
“You want a ride home?”
I nod my head. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Hop on.”
I put on the extra helmet, climb onto the seat behind him, hiking up my shin-length cotton skirt and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his back. He smells like a warm musky forest that I want to run through naked and get lost in with him.
When he parks the bike in front of my building, he stays on after I climb off. He removes his helmet, runs his fingers through his hair and says, “I didn’t call you because I figured you needed to get ready for school…”
“Yeah, I didn’t call you because I was getting ready for school, and…I didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me or not.”
He grins. “Can I come up?”
“Yes.”
He nods once. There’s a clarity in his gaze that I haven’t seen before. I’ve always felt like he could see right through me, but now I feel like I can see into him too. He locks both wheels of his bike and follows me upstairs. We don’t speak or touch or look at each other, but I feel the electricity of him on my skin all over.
As soon as we’re through the door to my apartment, I drop my bag, he drops his motorcycle helmets and messenger bag and my back is pressed up against the wall, his lips on mine, my hands all over him, and I finally feel like I’m home.
“I missed you so much,” he says, “I love you so fucking much, I’m sorry I was such a dick that day.”
“Vince, I’m more in love with you now than ever.” He kisses my neck as he unbuttons my blouse, and all these random words and sounds pour out of my mouth, until I’m finally able to form a sentence: “I realized I’m more me when I’m with you than when I’m by myself or with anyone else. I’m so sorry I had to hurt you to figure that out.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.”
“No, I do. I have to say this—wait. Wait.” I hold him away from me so I can get it out before my brain drowns in a bath of hormones and relief. “I keep thinking it’s like I was hiding this hole in my heart, and you came along and revealed it to me, and then you patched it up. And then I broke yours. I’ll never forgive myself for that…” I brace myself and wait for him to laugh at me for saying anything so corny out loud.
Instead, he says: “I would rather let you break my heart every day of my life than live without you.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh my God. Vince. We’re so cheesy.”
“I think we should stop talking now.”
I smile. “I have a surprise for you.” I slowly push my skirt down from my waist.
“I like it so far,” he smirks.
“You’re going to have to be gentle with me,” I say, as I push the skirt down a couple more inches to reveal the tattoo I got when I was in Indiana. It’s healing nicely. I think Joni Mitchell would be proud to know that her lyrics have a permanent place on my lower abdomen.
I watch his eyes light up as he reads:
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet
“For me?”
“For you, darlin’.”
He pushes my skirt down so that it falls to the floor, scoops me up in his arms and carries me to my bed, placing me down ever so gently. He kisses all around the tattoo, and keeps staring at it when he says, “You got any big plans for the Fall, or…the rest of your life?”
“Yeah,” I say, reaching for him. “I know a guy.”
Epilogue – Vince
Ten months later
The wedding of Neil Devlin to Sharon Hale is warm and pleasant and understated, just as they wanted it to be. A second marriage for both of them. I am as sure that my Mom would like Sharon as I am that Charlie adores her and that my Dad will love and cherish her for as long as she’ll have him. Watching him slowly give himself up to her has been good for me and Gabe, as neither of us ever thought we’d see the day he’d look at any woman the way that he looked at our mother.
Life goes on.
My Dad’s married again. Gabe’s been dating a great lady for over two months. Charlie even has a little girlfriend, as I predicted. Russell and Sadie broke up like half a year ago, and I even sort of get along with him when we have to see each other.
As Dr. Glass would say: “All in good time.”
The good times with Nina continue, but I’ve been waiting patiently for what feels like an eternity to get to this moment.
She looks warily at the drinks I’ve just made for us at the bar at the back of our friend’s restaurant during the reception. I just invented this cocktail. It’s big and Irish green and contains twelve ingredients. One for each month I’ve known her.
“It’s called a Lucky Motherflorker,” I say.
She laughs and takes a sip. “It tastes so bitter and so sweet.”
“You got that right.” I pull something out of my left pocket and slide it across the bar counter towards her. “This is for you.”
Her eyes go wide at the sight of the little black velvet box, but she doesn’t hesitate to grab it and open it. That’s my girl.
She looks a little confused when she sees the key inside of it. “But I already have a key to your place,” she says.
“This is just a metaphorical hypothetical key to our place. A couple of months ago I told a guy I know to keep an eye open for two bedrooms in Carroll Gardens
or Cobble Hill, so you can still walk to work, and there’s a place about to come on the market that I want to show you tomorrow. I really think you’ll like it. And I’d really like to live there with you.”
She smirks.
God, I love it when she smirks.
“Well, that sounds great, but I’m not in the mood to get raped or murdered this summer.”
Ahh, memories. “I promise I’ll keep my hands where you can see them. So you know exactly what they’re doing to you at all times.”
She giggles. “People do this? Meet in a liquor store, rebound with each other, go on a double date with their exes and then move in together?”
“We do.”
“Yeah. We do.”
“Good.” I pull another box out from my right pocket, and walk out from behind the counter. It is too fucking priceless that the Beyoncé ballad that she loves just happens to be playing when I get down on one knee in front of her.
I hear Eve scream from the other side of the room, and I don’t even care that all my co-workers are watching me do this, all I care about is the look on Nina’s amazing face.
“I want to live there with you as your husband. If you’re open to that.”
“I am. I am very open to that.”
“You’ll marry me?”
She pulls me up, takes the ring and slides it onto her perfect finger. “Vince Devlin, I’m gonna marry the fuck out of you.”
And that’s how I know that it’s summer again, and that for us, it always will be.
Author’s Notes
Quote from the song “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell from the album Blue.
If you have a Spotify account, you can listen to this song on a rather eclectic Spotify playlist of songs that I listened to while writing Rebound With Me HERE.
Quote from The minute I heard my first love story… by Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi.
Since this poem isn’t in the public domain, I can’t include the whole of it in my book, but you can find this perfect tiny poem all over the internet, and on my Pinterest board HERE.
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Other Books by Kayley Loring
Sexy Nerd
Not gonna lie to you.
When he walked into my restaurant, I thought he was the hottest man I’d ever seen in person.
And then he spoke.
And I realized who he was.
The world now knows him as John Brandt—ridiculously wealthy handsome genius workaholic startup founder and tech entrepreneur. I will always think of him as the annoying geek who was my older brother’s best friend. He yanked my pigtails and called me Tiny Dancer. I put rubber snakes in his sleeping bag and called him Johnny B. Nerdballs.
Market research has told him that he needs a girlfriend for an important business trip and gala event. He says he doesn’t want to bring someone that he has to impress or make an effort with, so he thought of me and figures I could use a nice vacation from my life right about now.
He is one cocky nerd. Even if he’s right.
I need the money and he can actually help me with my career, but I think he needs to be schooled in the art of treating a lady right. Lucky for him, I am just the woman to finally teach him…Turns out his total lack of social skills does not correspond to a lack of skills in the bedroom. At all. He even teaches me a few new tricks.
Every time he opens his obnoxious mouth I can’t believe this guy’s for real. Every time he touches me, every time he reminds me of who I was before I started to lose myself in the big city, I can’t believe that what we have right now is fake.
I’m afraid that by the end of the month either I will have punched him in the face, or the last man on earth I ever thought I’d fall in love with will have broken my heart. Or both.
SEXY NERD is a standalone older brother’s best friend / fake relationship romantic comedy with a real sexy nerd, real laughs, real steam and a real happy ending. Brainy is the new sexy!
Every Inch Of You
VIVIAN: I’m in hell. Three months ago I got dumped and it sent me into a downward spiral of red wine and pie. Now my Type A sister is getting married and she’s hired me a personal trainer so I can look respectable standing next to her as the maid of honor.
The good news: she’s paying for the hottest hard-ass personal trainer in town.
The bad news: he used to be the fat kid at my high school, the one my popular friends bullied. He was my friend, the first boy I’d ever kissed, and the one who claimed I broke his heart.
The worst news: He is now the hottest man I’ve ever known, still hasn’t forgiven me, and I have never wanted anyone more in my life. But I can’t erase the past any easier than I can get rid of those stubborn last five pounds.
BRAD: A fat boy’s best revenge is to work out, get hot, and then get all the women. In high school, I only wanted one girl. Fate has brought her to my gym, and I am going to make her feel the burn like she’s never felt it before.
My plan is to torture her with ab work, get her to fall for me, then blow her off and break her heart like she did to me.
But she’s making it so damned hard…to do that last part.
I hope she doesn’t figure out that deep down I’m still Fat Brad, the book nerd who eats his feelings and would do anything just to kiss her.
EVERY INCH OF YOU is a standalone sexy second chance romantic comedy with lots of laughs, plenty of steam, an HEA, no cheating, no cliffhanger. It’ll work your heart, your core and your glutes!
The Workation (Work Less, Play More: Book One)
When twentysomethings Molly Kidd and Ryan Murphy formed a startup company in Seattle three years ago, they agreed that they were perfect for each other—as business partners.
Molly made the rules: they will never date each other, they will never talk about their personal lives, they will never visit each other’s homes. Fortunately, they have so much fun spending so much time working together at the office that they barely have time to do or talk about anything else anyway.
Now that it’s winter and everyone at their small successful company is overworked and grumpy, Murphy gets this crazy idea that they should all take a work vacation at a resort in Hawaii. Yes, the woman who organizes the workations at this resort happens to be gorgeous, but Murphy believes it will benefit the whole team to have more work-life balance.
Molly refuses to admit that she’s intimidated by the thought of the most important guy in her life falling for this perfect lady, so she agrees to the trip despite being equally uncomfortable with the idea of relaxing in a bikini in front of her coworkers.
Turns out it’s impossible to draw a line between business and pleasure in the sands of Oahu, and giving in to temptation could lead Molly and Murphy to lose more than just their hearts. But would it be worth it?
THE WORKATION is a standalone, the first in the Work Less, Play More series.
It’s a friends to lovers romantic comedy that works!
The Flirtation (Work Less, Play More: Book Two)
I like my men like I like my tea—HOT and BRITISH.
I love my job. The more time I spend working to make my wealthy clients’ financial dreams come true, the easier it is to ignore the shocking reality that there’s no one in New York that I’m even remotely interested in dating and that my sister is convinced my overused vibrator is going to destroy my lady parts.
Better yet—I actually get paid to Skype with Luke Mason (aka Sir Flirty McFlirtson) a hot British business co
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But now our mutual client has invited us both to a private villa in the Bahamas for our first face-to-face meeting. When there’s no longer an ocean separating us, I’m afraid he’ll either find out what a dork I really am—or—this international merger will heat up in ways that neither of us are prepared to deal with.
THE FLIRTATION is a standalone, the second in the Work Less, Play More series.
It’s a transatlantic romantic comedy that works!
THE WEDDING SEASON (Work Less, Play More: Book Three)
It may be a creative marriage made in heaven, but Erin Duffy is cordially inviting Scott Braddock to go to hell…
ERIN: There are millions of guys in L.A. so I why do I keep bumping into my nemesis Scott Braddock? He’s hot. He’s rich. He’s cocky. I’ve been competitive with him as a writer since college, and my former dormmate lost her mind after he had hot sex with her. He is nothing but trouble for me.
Now we keep going to the same weddings, and I keep accidentally hooking up with him. But I will not let the fact that he’s mind-blowing in bed make me lose my head.
I came to Hollywood to be a successful screenwriter, and I will let nothing stand in my way. Especially not naked Scott Braddock.
SCOTT: Ever since college, there have been two things I’ve wanted more than anything—to be a successful screenwriter and to date Erin Duffy. She's a pain in the ass, and I want her to be MY pain in the ass. I screwed things up with Erin big time at school, but now our agents want us to work together and I have the chance to make things right.
Rebound With Me Page 18
