by Box Set
So of course it was the only image on the endless tape loop in my brain. Really. I did that. How ridiculously humiliating. I’d thought hitting his dick with my chin was the most embarrassing thing that could happen between us. That’s what I got for underestimating my capabilities.
Mortifying Madison, able to make literally anything Super Weird.
But it wasn’t just the awful part of Couch Night that I fixated on. I thought about the flirting, the talking, the hilarity of the bubble bath (which I’d totally stolen and was running low on), the amazing kissing. Mostly the amazing kissing. Just the memory of it gave me goosebumps.
The whole thing left me in a very confused state. Between the humiliation and the hormones, I couldn’t decide if I wanted yet another do-over or if I wanted to never see him again.
That was a lie. I could decide, and I’d decided I wanted more. Besides, never seeing him again would involve finding another roommate, and who could be bothered?
But was that what he’d want? Or would he walk in and say, “About the other night… you should maybe find somewhere else to live.”
I got fired up just thinking about it. He couldn’t kick me out. My name was on the lease too. Then I remembered he hadn’t even said anything and this was all my imagination. Surely we were cool?
Well. I wouldn’t know until he got home.
I didn’t know much about Marc’s schedule, but I did know that he generally didn’t come back home from his weekends until after his classes were done on Mondays. I figured he went straight from his mother’s to campus. With school over, I expected I’d see him earlier, which wasn’t at all the reason that I made sure I was up well before noon that day.
Nor was it the reason I’d dressed in my favorite outfit over my Superman panties. A girl can look good for herself. It’s not always about a boy.
Okay, it was about a boy.
Problem was, the boy never came home.
Morning turned into afternoon and eventually I had to go into work. Actually, I was grateful. It gave me something to think about besides Marc and our crazy strange roomie situation.
“Shit. I forgot to call you. Pipe’s fixed but the main press has water damage,” JD said when I walked into the shop. “Repairman promises it will be working by tomorrow. You get another paid night off, kiddo.”
So much for counting on my job to occupy my mind. But, also, yay! Four-day weekends weren’t very common for me. Having learned my lesson last time, I skipped Booze4Less and headed straight home.
The house was still empty when I got there, which made me a little nervous. On the one hand, it made sense. Why wouldn’t Marc stay with his mother longer when he didn’t have any obligations here? On the other hand, I hoped his absence had nothing to do with me. What if he was looking for a new place to live? What if a barfing, couch-surfing comic nerd was actually not his ideal screwmate?
I was sure he’d be back eventually, but obviously it wasn’t going to be tonight so there was no use worrying about it. I shrugged off the disappointment, changed into PJs and settled in for an evening parked on the sofa.
Three hours later, I had forgotten all about Marc and was halfheartedly watching old episodes of Daredevil while putting a topcoat on my toenails when he walked in.
He had his bag in one hand, two bottles of wine in the other, and the sexiest smile I’d ever seen.
“You’re home,” he said, as he dropped his duffle by the door.
It was exactly the same thing he’d said when I’d shown up on Friday, and if I hadn’t been so happily stunned to see him I might have tried to overanalyze if there was the meaning in that.
“Yes,” I said, returning his grin, “but, as you can see, when I’m alone, I wear pants.” They were pajama pants, but they counted.
He laughed and I mentally patted myself on the back for not blurting out something ridiculous or mortifying. He probably had no idea that my heart was pounding like it was or that my breath had grown shallow since he’d arrived. Or how pissed I was at myself for replacing my adorable Lichtenstein-print skater dress with my dang sweats.
I mean, Marc had always been stupid hot, but had he been this stupid hot? Like, so stupid hot that I got too tongue-tied to even get awkward. That was probably a good thing. I considered bringing a picture of him to events where I had to try and be not-weird with strangers.
“Another burst pipe?” he asked.
“Same burst pipe. Apparently it did more damage than we’d realized.”
“I see.” He rocked back and forth on his feet for a moment, seeming to assess the situation, probably wondering as I was if it was a good idea or not to embark on Couch Night Part Deux.
It only took a few seconds for him to decide. He nodded to the open wine cooler on the side table. “If you’re interested in relinquishing your current drink, I could open a bottle of the real stuff.”
Oops. I’d forgotten I’d snagged one of his peach-flavored Bartles & Jaymes. It actually wasn’t half bad. I’d been missing out on this and the bubble bath for months, and I had lost time to make up for. Although I hadn’t necessarily planned on him noticing.
“Relinquish? I’ll just finish it off.” I chugged the last quarter of the cooler then set the bottle back down. “Bring on the wine.” Perhaps I hadn’t learned my lesson last time, after all.
But this was wine. Not Bourbon. Totes different.
Ten minutes later, my toes were dry enough to admire off the coffee table and Marc was handing me something red in a mason jar. Neither of us, it seemed, were fancy enough to have owned appropriate stemware. Or were we hip? It was so hard to tell the difference between poor and hip sometimes. I’d probably just break nice glasses anyways, so.
“What is it, anyway?” I asked, as he took a seat next to me. Not so close to me that we touched, but not on the complete other end of the couch either.
“I don’t remember. I just liked the label. Had a sandal on it. Made me think of vacations,” he winked, and I remembered the whole French sex plan he’d told me about.
“We should try to guess what it is.” I had no idea why I suggested that. Sometimes words just emerge from my mouth and surprise everyone, including me. I mean, I enjoyed a glass of Merlot now and then. That didn’t mean I knew a damn thing about specific flavors.
But when I don’t know what I’m saying, I seem to say even more of it. “Wine is very important in France. You need to know this stuff so you don’t look ignorant on your bangcation.”
“That sounds like a challenge. I’m up for it.” He held his glass toward me. I hesitated only a second then met his with a clink.
We swallowed in unison.
“Bitter,” Marc said.
“I can definitely taste the grapes.” I took another sip.
“Grapey. That’s a perfect description,” Marc agreed, and I flushed a little. I was proud he agreed. I smiled over at him and he held my eyes for a moment longer than necessary. The hotness! Swoon!
“Check the bottle,” I told him. “Let’s see how we did.”
He ran to the kitchen and came back with the opened and the unopened bottle, as well as a corkscrew. “We can move on to the other when we’re finished,” he explained.
Obviously Marc hadn’t learned any lessons the other night either.
He handed me the open bottle and set the rest down on the side table. Then he resumed his place on the couch, an inch closer to me than he’d been before, which was probably just accidental.
“Hmm.” I had really thought we’d nailed it, but I was way off. “Plum and mocha.”
“I didn’t get that at all.” He took another experimental sip. “Still don’t, really.”
“Me neither. Maybe we’ll do better with the next one.” I topped off our glasses and handed over the box of Fruit Loops I’d been munching from before he’d arrived.
“Dry cereal and wine?”
“I prefer to call it whole grains with my fruit salad.”
Reluctantly, he reached into the
box and pulled out a handful. I watched him out of the corner of my eye while he snacked. Unlike me who ate bunches at once and then picked the residue from my cleavage, Marc popped one loop in his mouth at a time. It was kind of weird and kind of adorable all at once. Definitely neater than my method. Deliberate.
After he’d eaten a few, his brows knit in confusion. “They’re all the same flavor,” he said bluntly.
“Ding, ding, ding. You might not know wine, but you can ID cereal like nobody’s business.”
“That’s just. That’s dumb. They should be different flavors. Lime. Lemon. The red one should be cherry. I was really looking forward to that being cherry.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I bit back a laugh, but my cheeks hurt from smiling. “I’ll try to have more varied snacks next time.”
“No. This is perfect.”
My heart tripped at his remark and I had to turn away from him before I tried to read too much into it. We got caught up with the action on the television then. Or, he did. I, on the other hand, stared quietly at the screen while my brain freaked out. Was this night going where I thought it was going? My hands were sweaty just thinking about it. Maybe I should slip away and freshen up. Another round of mouthwash would really clash with the wine, though, so I decided against it.
But too soon, Daredevil ended, and the silence felt heavy so I rushed to fill it. As I do.
“How is your mom?” I asked. I really did want to know. I’d been naked in a bed with him and still barely knew anything about him. Also, how else to make things sexy than to bring up someone’s mother? This was why I didn’t date.
He sighed. “Fine.”
I knew I shouldn’t pry, but nearly two glasses of wine in, and I was ready for a good chit-chat. “So, is it… like is it terminal, or just chronic?” I took another long sip. Still no mocha, but maybe a plum? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a plum, so maybe not.
“Is what terminal?” He clicked off the TV as it started into the next episode of Daredevil.
“Your mom’s condition. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.” I regretted bringing it up. He was looking more and more uncomfortable, and I’d spoken without thinking. What if his mom was dying? What if she only had a short time left? Oh, God.
Yep, I was definitely capable of more humiliation where Marc Kirby was concerned.
But then he said, “My mom doesn’t have a condition,” and grabbed another handful of Fruit Loops.
“I’m—” What was I? Confused, mostly. “I’m sorry. I mean, not sorry that she doesn’t have a condition. That’s not. Anyway. Ava told me you go take care of her every weekend. I just assumed she was sick.”
Marc looked slightly ashamed. He took a deep breath, and then a deep swallow of wine, and then another deep breath.
Lo and behold, we’d finished the bottle.
I poured us some chardonnay, which tinted pink when it hit the dregs of merlot.
“Do you have siblings?” Marc asked. Not where I thought he was going.
“I have a sister twelve years older. She’s more like a cousin or something, since we grew up so far apart. Why?”
“Because I have a brother. Paul. He’s eighteen months younger.” We clinked our glasses and sipped. “White grapes, this time.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Maybe a touch of apricot.” I did not taste any apricot. But it sounded like a good thing to say. The kind of thing that would be printed on a bottle.
“Paul has always been my mom’s favorite. No matter what I did, she’d pat my head and then praise Paul. I got honor roll. He got C’s. Still, guess who got to pick the fancy dinner because he’d ‘tried so hard’?”
Ouch. That was never the case with my sister and I, because we’d both basically been only children. Also, both solid B students. High five.
“I just finished my PhD with a job offer in hand. Paul barely managed to get his GED. And yet my mom coos over him as though he’d gotten a Nobel. Check the bottle, I feel good about that apricot thing.”
I revealed the description on the bottle. “Pineapple and vanilla?”
“No,” Marc said.
“No,” I agreed.
“Anyway, then Paul got busted for small time dealing, and now my mother doesn’t have anyone to manage the business on the weekends. She could hire someone else, but I’d thought that if I spent more time working with her, we might finally have a chance to get closer.”
“And?”
“Hasn’t happened so far.” He took another swallow of his wine. “Pineapple? Really?”
“Really. Maybe it was mislabeled.”
“Could be. This one was homemade.”
“No way. Are you serious?”
“Sort of. My mother’s neighbor is an amateur vintner and has been bottling everything from reds to meads to dandelion wine for as long as I can remember. He’s even won a couple of awards, but he says if he ever does this for business, he’ll stop finding the pleasure. So we just enjoy everything he makes while it lasts. He’s getting older. Not too old to stop threatening me with a bare-butt-whipping every time I drive the moles off Mom’s lawn and into his, but…”
“Your mom lives next door to a home-winery? Is this in Kansas City, Missouri?”
“No, a little further out. My mother runs an organic farm outside Lawrence, in Kansas.”
“That’s kind of cool.”
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“You’re just, you know. All professorial and bookish. It’s hard to imagine you digging around in the dirt.” Though it did explain how extremely well built the man was. Also, I liked the thought of Marc and Dirty in the same sentence. Hulk-growl. “What exactly do you do for her?”
“I help with a variety of things. In the spring, I supervise the planting. In the summer, I help get everything to the farmer’s markets where we make most of our money for the year. In the fall, I help with the books and the budget.”
“And in the winter?”
He smiled like he was about to tell a secret. “That’s when we’re selling her organic body care products.”
“Wait. Wait. That cucumber-rose bodywash of yours is actually yours?” In the back of my head, I’d assumed it was left over from some date or another, and he’d just kept it as a guilty pleasure. Now there was truly no excuse why he hadn’t been sharing, and I was not going to feel guilty over stealing it. Not that I had been feeling guilty, but I wasn’t going to start.
“It’s my mother’s. But, I do help with the distribution. And the occasional flavor. Cucumber rose was my idea.” His face lit up. Of course it was. “Not for much longer, though. This year I’ve been training my replacement, and as soon as summer is over, I’m done.” He raised his glass in celebration.
I mirrored him. “Congratulations. I bet you’re looking forward to it.”
“I am.” But the twinkle disappeared from his eyes.
“You’re also going to miss it.”
He seemed to ponder that for a moment.
Then he abruptly changed the subject. “So what about your job? I figure you sell a lot of your work online or around town. But where do you go every night? A print shop, right? You make t-shirts or something.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one Ava had been dishing roommate secrets to. But shoddily, since neither of us knew much.
In my hopeful, imaginary version of events, he’d asked her about me. If it had been her volunteering the info, I didn’t want to know. Ava had been present for too much of my awkward to be trusted to volunteer good info. Also, Ava enjoyed being an agent of chaos. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she threw us together just for her own amusement.
“Do you like that?” he asked. One brow raised over his chocolate-brown eyes. Yes, I did. Oh, he meant the print shop.
“I actually love it. I make t-shirts and canvas bags and aprons and pillows. Sometimes clients even let me do the graphic design. Everything I do is interesting. It’s different every day.”
�
��That sounds so…unstructured,” he said, with an air of disgust. Academics, man. I thrived on the freedom.
“Not your style. I get it. But I think that’s what I love the most about it. It never gets boring. It takes skill, but you can also totally zone out while you’re working. I come up with my best ideas halfway through a print run. Plus, it’s super convenient. I stay late a few times a week and print my own stuff that I sell online. So it’s a twofer.”
“Your boss knows you do that?” He sounded incredulous.
“That I use the machines for my own stuff? Yeah.” Marc clearly thought I was capable of more subtlety than I really am. No way could I have pulled something like that over on JD for my entire six years of employment. Not with my tendency to run off at the mouth when I’m nervous.
Marc studied me. “And he’s cool with that?”
“Well, I give him blowjobs,” I said as casually as I could.
“Oh. I—oh. I mean. Oh. The cost of doing business…” he trailed off.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer and cracked up. “Oh my God, Marc. I was joking. He lets me because I buy own supplies and he’s a good person who wants to see me succeed. There are good people in the world, you know.” The cost of doing business. My word. He was all ready to justify it for me. What a gentleman.
On the other hand, he was also ready to believe it of me. Hmm.
“There are?” At least he was laughing with me.
“Of course there are. Two. Maybe even three. My boss is one of them, for sure, and maybe so is that neighbor who gives you the wine. The others are merely rumored.”
“Well, there are no good people in academia. That’s just a fact.” He turned slightly to face me.
“Maybe you should quit and open a print shop. It encourages goodness, apparently.” His eyes were the exact shade of the ink used for Luke Cage’s skin, how had I not noticed that before? But instead of deflecting everything like the character did, these eyes pulled me in. I was staring, but so was he.
This was it, this was it! I held my breath waiting for him to lean in and…
The couch shifted as Marc stood up.
Oh.
“About the other night…” he began, and my stomach sank to my knees. Damn it. This was it, but the wrong IT.
