by Jill Monroe
“But now we have two weeks to pursue what we want.”
Two weeks. Her last thoughts before she drifted into a deep and sated sleep was that she wouldn’t worry about how short that seemed; she’d only work to make their time together perfect.
On Wednesday, semester grades were posted and Hastings Engineering made her a formal offer of employment. She asked for a start date after Tony returned to California and they agreed. She’d need work then to keep her mind off the fact that the love of her life was moving on, and to remind her what real life was all about.
“I’m really proud of you, Hayden,” he told her after she showed him the contract. “You worked harder than anyone to get your degree, but you knew what you wanted and went after it.”
She had worked hard, but it was strangely easy to forget all about engineering and throw herself into helping Tony. Over the next few days they fell into an easy pattern of working together on his cowboy documentary. By day they’d talk and laugh as they drove out to the remote locations where the cowboys worked. He’d film and she’d interview these rugged men and women, sometimes even camping along the trail with their subjects, listening to stories around the campfire. She’d even grown fond of cowboy poetry.
When Tony needed to change creative focus, he’d ask her questions for his next project about drug testing, and she’d describe her experiences volunteering for various medical trials. He was incredible at multitasking, going from one subject to the next, even tossing out suggestions for two more documentaries down the road.
His multitasking abilities also definitely extended to the bedroom. Or backseat of the car on a lonely stretch of rural Texas road. Or on a bedroll under a blanket of stars after the cowhands went to sleep. Still, she was happy to be home again now and to have Tony all to herself.
“Are you blushing?” Tony asked her.
She rubbed the back of her neck and avoided his gaze. What the heck was wrong with her? She liked having sex with this man. Loved it. Why should she even be remotely embarrassed at being caught thinking about making love with him? Just because she’d grown up with an outdated outlook on sex didn’t mean she had to suffer with it forever. Hadn’t she overcome that already?
She met his gaze, allowed her eyes to briefly fall to his lips, then rise back up again to meet his. “Not blushing. Flushed. I was thinking about you.”
Awareness flared in his eyes and he swallowed.
“Sex hasn’t been on my mind so much since that picture study I did.”
“Picture study?”
“Well, it wasn’t actually a drug trial. I was stuck in an MRI machine that scanned my brain as they showed me pictures of, well let’s just call it ‘sexy times.’ I rated the pictures on a turn-on scale of one to five and the tester would see if the activity in my brain verified what I said.”
“You were looking at sexy pictures and asked which ones turned you on? Yeah, no way I’d be interested in that,” he teased.
“That’s not all. There’d be videos and we’d also rate the suggestions the actors gave to their partners.”
“Like what?”
“Well, taking your finger in my mouth and demanding you think of me whenever you use it was one of the sexy ideas I was asked to respond to.”
“Something that still drives me crazy, by the way.”
“Guess I should have rated it higher than a four.”
“I almost dread what you said was a five.”
“C’mon, I’ll show you.” She grabbed his hand and led him into the kitchen. “So the suggestion for this room was to look at your man and ask, ‘Do you think the floor would be too cold for sex?’”
“Mmmmm, I’m willing to give it a try.”
“So I guess you’d rate that one as fiveworthy.”
“Definitely,” he assured her.
“Okay, follow me—I have another place for us to try.” And she led him into the bathroom. “The idea here is for me to light a few candles, and then wonder aloud, ‘Could we both fit in this tub to make love?’”
“That would do it.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re easy.”
Tony laughed. “Beginning? Give me another.”
“Next I write words on your body, and you have to guess what I’m spelling.”
He reached for the button on his jeans. “Let’s try it.”
“You don’t have to take off your pants. Your stomach will do.” But the joke was on her when he lifted his shirt up and over his head and tossed it on top of the hamper. Her mouth dried. Would there ever be a time when his chest and roped abs didn’t turn her on?
She flattened her palm against the hardness of his chest.
“Spell, woman, and I take points off for penmanship.”
With a smothered laugh she began to write. Her fingertip grew sensitive as she stroked the heat of his skin. The muscles of his stomach contracted and tightened as she wrote. She forgot about form and only concentrated on sensation. His hand captured hers, stilling her progress. His breath teased her temple. “Whenever you write something, I want you to think about this moment,” he whispered into her ear. “How you made a man hungry. I want you, Hayden. Now.” His lips lowered to her mouth, but she pulled away.
“You have to guess what I wrote.”
“Tell me,” he urged, his voice so sexy and filled with need her legs began to shake.
“I wrote, ‘Where would you like me to touch you right now?’”
“Everywhere,” he said, then wrapped her in his arms and drew her into the bedroom.
* * *
NOW THAT THEY were back in Dallas, she was determined to show him the city. They explored the downtown and the surrounding areas on elaborate dates that took her breath away. He even took her back to Lavish so they could swing from the chandelier, the cage and the bed. At night they made love until they couldn’t keep their eyes open.
“Since we don’t remember our first night together, I’m guaranteeing you won’t forget another one.”
It was a challenge to himself and a promise to her that she adored.
Te adoro.
She adored the man. How was she going to let him go?
The Friday before she began work, Hayden couldn’t put it off anymore—she had to shop. Jeans and T-shirts and hoodies filled her closet, but she needed business attire. At least a week’s worth, then after her first paycheck she could indulge a little more.
She came home with her arms full of bags, and she imagined doing a fashion show for Tony with all the stuff she’d bought, but when she keyed into her apartment, he was talking excitedly on his phone. He flashed her a thumbs-up sign, so she carried her new clothes into the bedroom, taking them out of the sacks and hanging them in the closet.
Suddenly Tony gripped her around the waist and spun her around. “I’ve just gotten the funding for a new documentary. A companion to Lost Causes but it would focus on the plight of girls on the streets.”
She hugged him tight. “Oh, Tony, I’m so happy for you.”
“The best part is, if I can pack the car up tonight, I could be back in LA by Sunday and start on it ASAP.”
Leaving her was the best part? Her arms flopped to her sides. “But you still have two more days in Texas.”
“I’ve finished all the principle photography here. All that’s left is the editing, which I can do at home.”
“Home? I thought you were beginning to think of this place as your home. With me.”
He rubbed his chin and backed away. “Now’s not the time to discuss this.”
Avoidance. Their old standby. “Well, when is?” she asked, propping her hands on her hips. “You’re leaving in a few hours.”
“You knew we had only the two weeks,” he said, his body growing rigid.
“Two weeks together, sure, but not two weeks only. I figured when the time came we’d discuss how we’d make a long-distance relationship work.”
He took another step away from her. “I don’t do relationships.�
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“You don’t do?” she asked, exaggerating the last word and feeling like a shrew. “I thought we were building something together.”
“I apologize. I never meant to give you that impression,” he told her, his voice cool and his manner so formal.
Her shoulders slumped as she mentally reviewed every conversation they’d ever had about the future and realized those equaled one big zero. “No, you never misled me. I presumed too much.”
The tension in his shoulders visibly lessoned. “I tried to make the time we had perfect.”
Something in his words triggered the part of her brain she’d been ignoring for the past two weeks. The cautionary part that always put a damper on the fun to spout off boring warnings and suggestions like slow down or maybe give this a second thought.
“You tried to make it perfect?” she asked. As she mentally turned over every moment, yes, since he’d moved into her apartment with her, their time together had been nothing but perfection. He’d planned these over-the-top, romantic dates that would put a bachelor-dating TV show to shame. They spent evenings exploring her favorite things and her interests and their nights making love.
He’d invited her along to the film sites, and she’d assumed he’d wanted to share that part of his life with her. To include her in what had taken him off the streets and saved his life. But now she realized he’d taken her with him because she’d asked. Hell, this was the closest they’d ever come to an argument.
Hayden rubbed at the tension forming in her temples. “So was any of this real?”
“What do you mean? Of course it was real.”
“At least be honest with yourself. You didn’t try to make these two weeks perfect for me. You wanted perfection.”
“What’s wrong with that? We should all strive to be the best. To get the best out of ourselves and the people around us.”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s what we should want, but with the understanding that it’s not what we’re going to get. Perfection isn’t real. It’s an illusion. For a guy who’s usually pretty in touch with what’s going on in his own head, you’re missing out on a lot of things.”
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“You’re a filmmaker, you work to make everything in your movie flawless.”
“Documentarian. I don’t make features. Believe me, I know and show the way the world is.”
“So that you can make it better. It’s one of the reasons I love you. Anyone could have filmed those kids in Lost Causes, but not everyone would have worked to get the funding and the support to give those guys a shot at something better. Or would have gone back year after year to challenge and encourage them.”
“It’s my job.”
“And you performed that same routine on me, too.”
“How so?”
“That whole trip from the roller rink to the cabin, those were all my fantasies. I’ve wanted a car painted like a ladybug since I was nine. Boom—you made it happen. I’ve never gambled, you take me to a casino. I’ve never been to Oklahoma, so we go on a road trip. It’s so clear now. Somehow you think the only way a woman will love you is to be perfect and give her whatever she wants and to fix whatever’s wrong for her. You were so intent on convincing me that you were a good guy, but you never convinced yourself.” Something he’d probably internalized as a little boy raised by a woman incapable of actually giving love.
“Did you squeeze in some pop psychology classes in between those engineering labs?” he asked. Then he stomped into the spare bedroom where he’d set up his editing equipment. Without a word, he began backing up his files and shutting everything down.
She leaned against the door frame. “But I fell under the spell of having you give and give and give to me, and it was wrong.”
“You’re rejecting me now?” he asked as he wound a power cord around his arm so it would pack neatly.
“No. Never, but I know me, too. I like to fix my own problems, not have someone do it for me.”
Lay it out for him now. Show him all your cards.
She stilled his hands with hers, drawing his attention. “You, Anthony Garcia, having you in my life makes it better. To come home to you. To share the quiet times with you. We’ve worked so hard to keep up the adventure that drew us together we forgot to keep it real. I want us to work, but I also need something I can trust.”
The light behind his dark eyes faded, and his face lost all expression. She’d just broken the spell.
“You don’t trust me?” Disbelief and anger and anguish laced every word of his question.
All his life Tony had been labeled as untrustworthy. From his mother to the school to the judicial system. He’d fought himself and the opinions of others to become a man who could be counted on. Trusted.
Hayden battled every instinct that screamed at her to apologize. To reassure him that she didn’t mean what she’d said and had only spoken in anger, because only some of that was true. She did trust him. With her life and her body. No, it was him that couldn’t trust in his own potential.
“You say you love me, then at least fight for what’s growing between us. You can do a relationship, even a long-distance one. We can text and call and video chat. Scores of other couples manage it.”
“Don’t you see, Hayden? I don’t want to fight. I’ve had enough of that to last two lifetimes.” He grabbed his computer and his suitcase and headed for the door.
“You film reality, Tony, but you don’t want to live it.”
He pressed his lips together, and for one brief moment she thought maybe he’d give her a reaction. Something. Instead he reached out and gently touched her hair. Saying goodbye. “These have been the most amazing weeks of my life. I hope you won’t look back and have...regrets.”
He kissed the tip of her nose as he always did, then spun away from her and left her apartment.
* * *
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN you put all your cards on the table and lost?
She had to start looking for some better metaphors, because all these poker references reminded her too much of the man who’d dumped her.
Hayden had done the ice-cream bender.
The movie binge.
The vows to permanently go off men and get a couple of rescue dogs.
Okay, the dog plan was a go. With her new salary at Hastings Engineering she could afford the rent on a small two-bedroom home with a yard. Great for a puppy or two to run around in and play fetch. At night they could snuggle on the couch and watch movies and take walks after work. Sounded perfect—nope, scratch that because nothing was the P word—as she’d childishly begun to think of it. Instead the plan sounded really good. Workable. Doable.
She’d even driven out to PharmaTest to see if being at the place where they’d first met could somehow break the lonely spell, but Larissa no longer worked there and Hayden had left quickly, feeling stupid.
She’d settled into that transitional phase of life. No longer a student, she now embraced full-fledged tax-paying, retirement-planning adulthood. So when she wasn’t packing up her apartment for her impending move, or wasn’t driving around in the neighborhoods surrounding her new place of work for rental properties, Hayden searched the internet for the average length of time it took for a broken heart to heal. General consensus seemed to be about three months.
She looked up advice on how to speed up that three months, but the best advice was to stop doing things you used to do together. So basically that knocked out driving, sleeping and eating. One article suggested listing all the qualities that made up an ideal mate, then comparing and contrasting those to the last guy. Surely an exercise that demonstrated just how far from perfect—ugh, she hated the word and there it was again—the ex really was. But five minutes later she’d tossed that magazine aside because Tony’s qualities were her match for the ideal mate. Except for the running away, the avoidance and shying away from intense emotion.
When the third month of her getting-over-Tony plan neared, she tried to focus o
n enjoying the calm of aloneness for a while. Only her coworkers seemed obsessed with talking about their partners and asking about Hayden’s social life. Significant othering was definitely part of the adult world.
Except for Tony’s adult world.
He was apparently happy just where he was, moving from one brief relationship to another. Oh, and why wouldn’t he be happy? He’d escaped his past and built a great present for himself.
For the first time it crossed Hayden’s mind that he’d worked so hard to escape the devastation of his past and succeeded, only for her to tell him that because he didn’t want to move forward with her, there was something wrong with him. She wrapped her arms around herself and realized she had treated him terribly. Unfairly.
He’d hoped she’d not look back on their time together with regret. Well, she had tons of regret now, mostly that she’d added to the conflict in his life. Hadn’t she expected him to bend to her version of love?
* * *
THREE DAYS LATER, she came home to find a package waiting on her doorstep, forwarded from her old address. When she spotted Tony’s name on the return address her heartbeat sped up as adrenaline rushed through her. The puppies barked in greeting when she opened the door and she followed them outside to the backyard, hugging the parcel to her chest. She tore off the packaging as the dogs frolicked and tumbled around her feet. A piece of cardboard dropped to the grass and Boots shredded it with her paws and teeth. Hayden smiled a moment at their antics, then looked at the gift Tony had mailed her.
A DVD fell into her hand. He’d finished the cowboy movie.
He’d tucked a note inside the case. “I wanted you to be the first to see it.”
“Who wants a treat?” she called to the puppies, and they raced to beat her to the back door.
After preparing their favorite snack of peanut butter, she popped the DVD into the player and pressed Play.
The beautiful Texas horizon filled her TV screen. She’d kissed and loved with Tony as he’d filmed dozens of sunsets, and she remembered the warmth of the fading autumn sun and the searing heat of his kisses. Then the screen faded to black and words appeared.
