by Sarina Bowen
That warm body pressed against her again, smelling clean and fresh, arms and legs wrapping around her and drawing her in tight.
“Nick,” she murmured, half drunk with lethargy.
“Shh.” A kiss brushed her ear. “It’s just backup. Sleep.”
She did.
Chapter Eleven
Ten minutes after she woke up in Nick’s bed, it became clear that the providing backup portion of the program was over.
The sun was shining far too brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Nick’s bedroom, the sheets cool at her side. A pair of boxers and short white running socks were stacked on the bedside table. She followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen, where she found Nick waiting for the Keurig coffee to finish dribbling into an oversized mug.
She smiled at him and bumped her hip against his as she snagged a mug and waited for her turn at the brewer. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at her as she leaned forward on the counter and bounced on the balls of her feet.
“I see you found the stuff I left out.” He lifted his mug out of the way and she slid hers into place.
“Yup.” She popped the coffee-grounds cup into the machine and pressed start. Looked down at her legs, bare from the hem of his T-shirt, which fell just below her crotch, to the white athletic socks on her feet. She grinned at him as she retrieved her coffee. “Thanks. My feet get cold.”
He didn’t say a word, flirtatious or otherwise, about the missing boxers. She felt self-conscious for a moment, but she shook it off. This was the man who managed to get her out of her pants faster than she’d previously have thought possible every time they saw each other. He’d recognize an invitation when he saw one.
To her surprise, he waved her over to the dining-room table, a glass and wrought-iron monstrosity next to the glass wall overlooking the lake. She perched on the edge of a chair, less than comfortable in her bare-assed state. She crossed her legs awkwardly.
“You got enough sleep? Feeling back to normal?” She nodded and took a sip from her mug. “Good. I need a breakdown of what this is going to cost the production.”
She spit her coffee back into the mug as a laugh burst out of her.
“Yeah, right.” She wiped her chin with the back of her hand. Drool. Smooth.
He leaned back in his seat and propped an ankle on the opposite knee. He was fully dressed for work, wearing a pressed shirt and tie. Scanning the room, she spotted his jacket draped over the back of the leather couch in the seating area.
He was in full-on business mode, the bastard. And she wasn’t even wearing underwear.
She glared at him from across the corner of the table and cracked her mug down against the glass, hoping she chipped it.
“What do you want to know?”
“What this incident is going to cost me.”
Ooh, he knew how to sound so superior, didn’t he? This incident? As if it weren’t her life on the line every step of the way.
“This incident? You mean the fire that may or may not result in me losing a significant chunk of my inventory?”
“I imagine that it will impact the production.”
“No.” Her rebuttal was instant. “It’ll impact me. I contracted with the show and I’ll honor that contract, even if I have to buy new to replace anything that’s damaged.”
It could break her. The extent of the damage was still unknown. But she wouldn’t let him see for one second how terrified she was.
“You’re insured, I assume.”
“Of course.” But the money wouldn’t come close to the cost of replacing everything if her entire inventory was ruined. “The main cost will be renting a rehearsal space. And I might be able to call in a marker or two. People owe me.”
He grilled her for the better part of an hour. After twenty minutes, she stomped back to the bedroom and grabbed the frigging boxers. She’d be damned if she was going to sit there flashing him through the glass-topped table while he treated her like an accountant. She grabbed a sweatshirt that hung halfway to her knees while she was at it. No sense flashing her tits, either.
Two cups of coffee later, they had brainstormed every possible scenario, from worst case to best case, and she felt surprisingly good. There weren’t more than a couple of scenarios that spelled utter disaster for her. She had a plan for every other eventuality, and there was nothing that kept her grounded like having a plan.
They were still arguing, though.
“No, it won’t cost us, time or money,” she explained for the third time. “I always build extra time into the production schedule. We can shut down rehearsal for a couple days, keeping a skeleton crew to make calls to suppliers and schedule deliveries, and then pick back up once Hector’s stage is free.”
She’d been able to call in a marker after all, persuading a colleague to let them use his vacant stage in the week it was dark between the end of one show and the beginning of another.
Nick stood up and collected their mugs, dumping the dregs in the sink and lining them up neatly in the dishwasher.
“So nothing else is going to get done in the next forty-eight hours?”
“Not unless you’ve got a magic wand shoved up your ass,” she snapped at him. “Which would explain some things.”
What did he think, that she could make the Chicago Fire Department move faster by batting her eyelashes at them? Which she would totally do if there were a chance in hell it would work.
He ruffled her hair as he walked past her and she jerked her head back, irritated to the teeth with his sudden playfulness.
He stopped in his tracks and spun slowly on one foot back to her. Took three steps over to the table and leaned into her space, caging her with an arm on either side so that she was trapped in her seat, glaring up at him as he grinned down at her and made to drop a kiss on her nose.
She ducked away, in no mood.
“So let’s get out of town.”
“What?”
“Your rehearsal space isn’t available until they break down the current show on Sunday night. The fire department’s going to need at least that long to go over the warehouse. There’s nothing you can do here. Everything is under control, or beyond your control, for forty-eight hours. Let’s play hooky.”
“What makes you think I want to go anywhere with you?” She kept her lands locked on the edges of her seat as he bent low enough to breathe in her ear.
“Because one of the reasons you’re pissed is that I didn’t fuck you up against the counter when you strolled out here with no underwear on.”
She opened her mouth to retort, probably with a reflexive insult about his mother that would not, in this case, have gone over well, when she just gave up and dropped her head against the back of the chair with a groan.
Who was she trying to kid? She wondered if craving heroin was like this never-ending need to touch him and be touched by him, no matter how pissed at him she felt or how stupid she knew it was.
Also, ouch. This chair was welded wrought iron to match the table. Not a good prop for making dramatic gestures with your head.
“Ah, screw it. Where are we going? I’ll have to tell the boys.”
“Ever been to Lake Geneva?”
Two hours later, they were in a ridiculously expensive sports car, top down, warm summer air blasting them, sun beating down, on I-90 West to 294 North. She’d managed to convince Nick that she needed something other than his boxers for a weekend away, but she hadn’t talked him into letting her take another shower, if only to wet her hair and get her crazy half-corkscrewed, half-flattened curls into some kind of order.
“It’ll only get wrecked anyway. Just pull it back or put it up or whatever the hell you do and let’s go.”
She pushed a button and tilted her seat back. Nick was under strict instructions to point out any exotic farm animals, like cows or horses. She kicked off her flip-flops and propped her bare feet on the dash, wiggling blue toenails in the summer sunshine.
Feel
ing Nick’s frown, she flashed him the soles of her clean feet.
“It’s all good. Relax. You can let that magic wand go now.” She winked at him and he snorted. The stereo blasted on high to compete with the rush of wind, the Stones praising fat-bottomed girls and gin-soaked barroom queens. She closed her eyes and the bright sun shone red through her eyelids. The occasional whiff of manure reminded her that they were officially a hundred miles outside the city.
After two hours of desultory conversation and a short nap between Rockford and Appleton, she was feeling peckish and made Nick pull over at a rest stop so she could raid the convenience store.
She came out with the largest vat of Diet Coke on tap, a family-size bag of Twizzlers, and a hat that said Green Lake, Wisconsin, Birthplace of the Republican Party.
And a bottle of water for the health nut.
Nick spotted the hat first and gave it a double take as she handed him his water.
“Thanks. You liked that hat, huh?”
She grinned and tore into the bag of Twizzlers. “Oh, yeah. Do you know how much fun this hat is going to be back home? They’ll plotz.”
“Not a lot of Republicans in the theater world?”
“Ya think? Half of us are gay, we’re all broke, and none of us have finished paying off our student loans.”
Nick just shook his head and opened the car door for her. She slid in butt first and thanked him, pulling a licorice stick out of the bag with her teeth. When he sat in the driver’s seat, she tilted the bag at him in offering.
He recoiled and set his bottle of water in the console between their seats. “Do you know how bad that shit is for you?” he asked, gesturing toward her diet cola.
“I like the taste.”
“It sucks the calcium from your bones, you know. You’re going to end up a big puddle of mush on the floor before you hit fifty.”
“While I can appreciate that your need to micromanage the world is almost as fierce as my own, let me save you some stress right now.” She pulled her new favorite hat down low over her eyes, reclined her seat again, and settled back to enjoy the ride. “Getting on my case about my eating habits is only gonna irritate me. You’ll take my pop away when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands. Just give up now.” She knew she sounded cranky, but after the way he’d crawled up her butt with a microscope that morning, she was in no mood to be lectured about anything.
Nick didn’t say a word. Just accelerated swiftly up the on-ramp back to the highway and merged with the fast-moving traffic with a minimum of fuss.
In the end, she napped again and woke up when they hit downtown Lake Geneva. The picturesque streets of the town known for antiques and art fairs were packed with cars as the weekend visitors poured in. She shifted in her seat and wondered why this was supposed to feel like getting away from the big city. Her sigh was audible.
“I booked us at the Willetson Inn downtown. I didn’t figure you for a cabin-in-the-woods kind of girl. Once we park, everything is walking distance.” Nick kept his eyes on the traffic as he spoke to her.
More sleep had definitely helped her mood.
“Sounds perfect, thanks.” She dropped her hand on his knee for a moment and squeezed. He glanced at her.
She smiled and gave a little shrug.
“I’m looking forward to getting out of the car. Not that it isn’t the nicest car I’ve ever been in.” She ran her hands over the butter-soft leather seat under her legs.
“It’s kind of a waste in the city, but I don’t splurge often and I wanted it.” He pulled off the main drag and down a side street before turning into a narrow drive next to an enormous Victorian gingerbread house painted in deep blues and roses.
“Midlife crisis?” she teased, keeping her voice gentle so he’d know she was only joking.
“I don’t have time for one of those.” He grinned back. The last of the tension between them evaporated, for now at least. “I’m too busy trying to get that microscope out of your ass.”
She rolled her eyes at him as she got out of the car.
“I’m not even going to make one of the dozen jokes that so obviously need to be made right now. Because I’m a classy girl, damn it.”
She hauled her overnight bag out of the backseat and followed him inside. They checked in and dropped their bags in a grand bedroom with bay windows and honey-yellow wood floors. An antique sleigh bed dominated the room.
Maxie took one look at the bed and headed for the door. Evaporated tension or not, she needed more time before any of that went down. Not that there was any doubt in her mind that it would. Hell, knowing the two of them, she’d suggest a walk and they’d end up doing it behind the lilac bushes in the park.
“Show me around? I gotta stretch my legs.”
Nick locked the door behind them and they headed out to explore the town.
An hour into their stroll, it occurred to Maxie that maybe this was something Nick did with every woman he dated. Swept her away for a charming weekend in Lake Geneva, complete with antiquing and fancy bed and breakfasts, indulging in window-shopping and occasionally venturing inside stores. Currently she and Nick were in one that sold nothing but old maps.
She turned to look at him as he flipped through cardboard sheets of old maps mounted with photo squares. A moment later, his face lit up with joy.
“Hey, look! Poland!” He pulled the map up high enough to angle it toward her. “This is from, what, 1834? Look at the drawings of the soldiers around the border.” He pored over it. His voice dropped to a murmur. “That is amazing. The detail is incredible. Who knew you could find things like this?”
Nah.
This wasn’t a man who took a lot of time wandering around quaint towns or checking out shop windows.
She laughed when Nick started dickering with the portly mustachioed shop owner, negotiating a reduced price in exchange for adding a frame job. In the end, both men were grinning, each convinced they’d gotten the best of the other, and Maxie’s stomach was rumbling.
Before they could agree on a place for lunch, she spotted a shop that made her squeal and drag Nick in through the open door.
“What are we doing here?” he asked, scrunching his nose up at the mothball smell of the store.
“Thrifting!” Lunch could wait. There was nothing she loved better than diving into the tightly packed racks of thrift-shop clothing, digging for buried treasure. “Look at this. I think I need it.” The magenta bowling shirt had black piping on the collar and pockets. She held it up to her chest and pressed it against her. “What do you think?”
“I think you could buy something that wasn’t already worn out by someone else.”
“Pfft. Boring. Ooh, what about this?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
So that was a no to the muumuu. She flipped through hangers on the rack with a pro’s speed.
“Clothes are costumes, Nick. Didn’t you ever try out for the school play?” She glanced at him and could have sworn he blushed as he looked away.
“I ran ticket sales.”
The crack of laughter that rocketed out of her startled them both.
Nick drew his eyebrows together. “What?”
Maxie pursed her lips, trying to fight back her grin. “You were the money. Even back then.” Ah, it was a lost cause. She let her grin fly. “I can picture it now, teenage Nick is his three-piece suit. Jesus, that’s scary.”
“I wasn’t a total dork. And it was a really nice suit. Burberry, I think.”
“Burberry? Oh, Nick, you were an old man even in high school.”
He cleared his throat and looked away from her.
“What? Not high school?” She was confused. He muttered something indistinct. “I didn’t catch that.”
Nick sighed. “Seventh grade. It was seventh grade.”
Her eyes grew big and she tried not to let her jaw drop. “Oh, poor baby. You were an old man in middle school.” She patted him on the arm. “C’mon.” She pulled him over to t
he T-shirt rack.
“What?”
“We’re going to teach you a little bit about wardrobe. And how much fun you can have with it. No need to play the same role for your entire life, Drake.”
In the end, because he refused to pick, she chose a Sex Pistols T-shirt for him and a Pussy Riot T-shirt for herself and paid for both while Nick kept arguing with her.
“Enjoy both of them. I’m not wearing that.” He held his hands behind his back when she tried to hand him his paper bag.
“Have it your way.” She gave in and led him out of the shop. The concrete sidewalk radiated heat stored up over the course of the hot, sunny day. “I’m starving. Must eat.”
“I’ve seen what you call eating, woman.” A tow-headed kid on a silver Razor scooter whipped in and out of pedestrians, zooming toward them. Nick grabbed her hand to pull her out of the way. He didn’t let go after the kid passed them. “I want actual food this time.”
She wiggled her fingers in his grip, settling her knuckles more comfortably in between his. Their hands swung back and forth between them, the movement almost exaggerated, until she couldn’t contain her happiness and laughed out loud for no reason at all.
Nick grinned at her and pulled her out of the way of a double stroller pushed by a harried mom with another kid hanging off one hand.
Rush hour in Lake Geneva was Saturday afternoon at two o’clock, apparently.
Maxie jumped out of the way before the stroller mom took out her pinkie toe. She started to snap out a “Watch yourself!” or perhaps something a little less appropriate for kiddie ears, when Nick clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her backward.
She narrowed her eyes at him when he left his hand on her face. And licked his palm.
His fingers tightened on her jaw for a moment before he released her, dragging his thumb across her bottom lip while his eyes locked on hers.
She couldn’t remember why it had seemed so important to get out of that hotel room. What the hell were they doing on a busy sidewalk instead of in a private room with a great, big bed?
