“They’re fine,” the grandfather said, the inflection in his tone reminding me of Alan when he said those words. It was like they all followed the same placate-Robin script. “I’ll let them know you called.”
“Sure you will,” I muttered, then hit end call on my cell before tossing it on the rug beside me. Anger vibrated through me, making my hands shake. I hated them. Hated my mother for leaving, hated Alan for sending the twins away, hated the grandparents for trying to erase me from their lives. Hated them all.
My phone buzzed then with a new text, making me jump. I yanked it off the rug, thinking for a wild moment that it was the grandfather with a change of heart. Then I realized he wouldn’t be texting me. I looked at the screen and saw a message from Abby.
Having a few people over tonight. Want to come?
I’d heard about Abby’s parties. Had seen the pictures on Facebook of her and her friends, grinning and glassy-eyed, their lips curled around bottles and shot glasses and bongs. For a personal trainer, she sure did have a lot of unhealthy habits. Then again, I could say the same for myself as an aspiring dietitian. Still, in spite of this, I didn’t even hesitate as I typed in my reply.
I’ll be there in an hour.
* * *
Abby lived on the eighth floor of a ten-floor building in a sketchy area of the city. She shared the compact two-bedroom apartment with her best friend from high school, Deena, who waitressed at a popular seafood place on the waterfront. She must have been there tonight, because the only people present in the apartment when I showed up were Abby and some guy.
“That was quick,” she said as she ushered me inside and gave me a quick hug hello. “Are you okay? You look a little shaken up. Did that creepy guy who lives down the hall try to lure you into his apartment? Because I swear, he does that to me and Deena every—”
“I’m fine,” I cut in, shedding my jacket. Underneath, I wore a long, banded tank top over black leggings.
“You sure?” She hung up my jacket in the tiny hall closet and then faced me again, still concerned.
I nodded and smiled widely. Abby knew nothing about my recent family troubles. With her, I liked to keep things surface-deep and fun.
“Okay,” she said, letting it go. She led me into the living room and motioned toward the scratched leather couch, where a dark-haired man was lounging with a beer. “You remember Damien from when we went to Fusion a couple of weeks ago.”
Of course. The guy Abby had practically dry-humped on the dance floor. The one who tried to get us to kiss. “Hi,” I said brightly, though I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see him again.
He nodded at me and downed the rest of his beer, eyes never leaving my legs. Abby seized my arm and pulled me toward the little galley kitchen. “Let’s go mix up some daiquiris,” she said, glancing at her beeping phone. “My friends are on their way over right now.”
“Mine too,” Damien said with a smile in my direction. Was he referring to his friend Cody? Mr. Trouble himself, who I knew had my number but had never contacted me after that night at Fusion? My stomach clenched with…something. Excitement? Dread? Determination?
I needed a drink.
“Cheers,” Abby said once we both had a frozen daiquiri in hand.
“Cheers.”
We clinked glasses and took some very unladylike sips. The rum burned a path to my empty stomach, where it settled into a pool of warmth. Much better. I didn’t even mind when Damien joined us in the kitchen and held up his phone to take a picture of us. Abby and I posed sportingly, heads together as we raised our drinks. Damien captured the image and then immediately started tapping away on his phone.
“What are you doing with that?” I asked.
He grinned. “Just texting a little preview to my boy.”
“You remember Cody, right?” Abby said, cocking a blond eyebrow. “Damien texted him earlier to let him know you were going to be here and he got all excited.” She laughed. “I think he had plans already, but he cancelled them so he could come here instead.”
“Yeah, I remember him,” I admitted, keeping my voice flat. He hadn’t called me, after all, so I couldn’t have made too much of an impression on him. I was surprised that he was so eager to see me tonight.
A few minutes later, Abby’s friends arrived in a flurry of laughter and perfume and cigarette smoke mixed with fresh air. Abby introduced me to everyone as “Robin, my partner in crime at Bay Street Fitness.” The women greeted me enthusiastically and then proceeded to the kitchen for drinks. Someone turned on the stereo, and soon the place felt like a mini version of Fusion. I wondered how Abby’s neighbors tolerated it, then remembered her telling me once that her upstairs neighbor was old and deaf, and the guy who lived below her was rarely there. As for the rest of the floor, maybe they were heavy partiers themselves. It was that kind of building.
Damien’s friends showed up at around eleven, most of them already smelling like they’d showered in beer. Including Cody, who headed straight for me as I stood near the stove, working on my fourth drink. Or was it the fifth? I’d lost count.
“Hey, good girl,” he said, grinning down at me. I’d almost forgotten how tall he was. And how hot.
“Do I know you?” I bit my straw and blinked up at him, eyes wide. He frowned, looking almost hurt. I laughed to let him know I was only joking, and something flashed in his eyes for a moment—embarrassment, maybe?—before his features relaxed into a smile again.
“Of course you know me.” He placed his hands against the stove on either side of me, blocking me in. “I’m hard to forget.”
Hot and arrogant. Unfortunately, just my type. I kept still in his little trap, breathing in his scent of beer, spicy cologne, and…was that women’s perfume emanating off his T-shirt? Either he liked that kind of thing, or he’d been pressed against a woman very recently. My guess was the latter.
“Ever hear of personal space?” I asked, bumping my hip against his left arm. When he didn’t move, I added, “I still have the use of my knee, you know.”
His eyes flashed again with an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint and he stepped back a few inches, out of ball-crushing distance. “You’re a tough one,” he said, smirking. “I like it.”
You would, I thought. He seemed like the type who lived for the challenge, the thrill of the chase. Usually, guys like him lost interest after claiming the prize. But that didn’t concern me. Playing hard to get with a guy who so obviously thrived on it was a fun distraction.
“So what do you do?” I asked in a veiled attempt to distract him from his desire to get into my leggings.
“Do?”
“Do you work or go to college or…?”
“Yeah,” he said, which didn’t answer my question at all. Maybe he wasn’t too bright. “How about you?”
“Both. I go to Kinsley and work at Bay Street Fitness with Abby.”
He reached behind him to grab a fresh beer from the six-pack by the fridge. “What’s that, a gym?”
I refrained from pointing out that the “fitness” part of the title implied a gym. “Yeah. It’s really tough looking at sweaty, muscular guys all day, but I manage. I’ve learned a lot working there.”
“Really.” He swallowed half the beer in one gulp and moved in close again, his free hand drifting to my waist. “Like what?”
I placed my empty glass on the counter beside me and licked my lips. “Like the anatomical terms for muscles. This,” I said, touching a fingertip to the space where his neck met his shoulder, “is the trapezius muscle. And right about here…” My finger slid down to his chest. “…is the pectoralis major.”
Cody’s eyes darkened, and he pressed his groin against my hip. “How about this muscle?” he asked in my ear.
“I don’t know the exact term,” I replied casually, “but I’m pretty sure it translates to ‘stays in pants.’”
His laugh tickled my neck. “Whatever you say, good girl.”
I bristled at this ridiculous nickname. I’d show
him good girl.
“You want to get out of here?” I asked, clutching the hem of his shirt. Again, I caught the scent of perfume, a potent reminder of the last woman who’d stood this close. Strangely, it didn’t deter me.
“What do you think?” He set his beer bottle next to my empty glass and took my hand, tugging it. “Your place?”
I shook my head. “I have, uh, roommates.” This wasn’t technically a lie. Taylor’s family were my roommates of sorts. Kind of.
“Yeah, me too,” he said quickly. “So we can’t go to my place either. Do you have a car?”
“I took the bus here. You?” He also seemed like the type to shirk the whole “drinking and driving is dangerous and illegal” thing.
“Taxi,” he said, his full lips thinning in disappointment. I kissed those lips, I thought, my brain scrambling for details. Had I enjoyed it? I couldn’t recall. The end of that night was a total, obliterating blur.
I was counting on tonight being the same.
“Just a sec,” I said, sliding away from him and into the hallway adjacent to the kitchen. Abby’s bedroom was wide open and filled with people, some sitting on the bed passing around a water bong and some sprawled on the floor, looking through old yearbooks and laughing hysterically. Deena’s bedroom door was closed and, upon further inspection, locked tight. That left the one and only bathroom, which was empty at the moment but wouldn’t be for long. However, I was now at the point of drunkenness during which the passage of time felt vague and elastic.
Back in the kitchen, Cody was now leaning against the stove, beer bottle back in hand, and flirting with a cute brunette. Seriously? I stepped between them, plucked the bottle out of his hand, and pulled him out of the kitchen.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said to the brunette as I dragged him away, toward the still empty bathroom. Once inside, I locked the door and flicked off the light.
“Think again,” I told him, boosting myself onto the small counter. He moved between my legs as if by instinct, pushing me further against the pointy sink faucet. “You won’t be catching up with anyone later.”
“Is that so?” He grabbed my hips with both hands, holding me firmly in place as he rubbed against me. I gasped at the solid friction of his jeans against my thin leggings. “And how do you plan to stop me?”
Words escaped me at that moment, so I settled for showing him instead. As my hands slid up his shirt, seeking out those pectoral muscles I’d pointed out earlier, his cell phone buzzed. “Fuck,” he said, pulling away slightly. I thought for sure he’d ignore it, but he extracted the phone from his pocket and looked down at it. The screen illuminated the tight space between us as he studied whatever text he’d just received. “Fuck,” he said again, a little louder this time. He glanced at me, torn. “I have to, um…I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
“You’re joking, right?” I unwound my legs from his hips when I realized that no, he was dead serious. He was leaving me here, ready and willing, so he could go answer a text. Likely a text from some other woman. Maybe even the same one whose perfume had branded his shirt. Once again…seriously?
“I’ll be right back, I swear,” he said, backing away. “Just…don’t move.”
He left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I continued to perch on the too-small counter, in the dark, one ass cheek hovering over the sink, debating in my head about how long I should wait in here. Was I truly this desperate?
Luckily, I was saved from finding out just how desperate when the door opened and the light came on, blinding me. Instead of Cody, one of Abby’s friends stood there, mouth agape as she stared at me. “Oh, sorry,” she said, backing out of the room. “Didn’t think anyone was in here.”
I hopped down off the counter. “I’m done,” I said, brushing past her out the door.
On my way back to the kitchen, I was intercepted by Abby. “Having fun?” she asked, looping her toned arms around my shoulders. The rest of her body swayed into mine, almost knocking me over. She was a few ahead of me on the daiquiris, obviously. “I saw you with Cody. That man wants you so bad.”
Apparently not badly enough. “I think I’m gonna head home,” I told her, gently extracting myself from her grip.
“Noooo,” she whined. “Crash here. It’s still so early.”
“I’m feeling kind of queasy.” I cringed at my own words. This was so unlike me. I used to be the last one to leave a party.
“Go puke and you’ll feel better. That’s what I do.”
“No, really, I—”
“There you are,” said a voice in my ear. Cody, back from his all-important private text conversation. “Sorry,” he said when I twisted around to face him. “I had to, uh…diffuse a situation.”
I didn’t even want to know. Abby gave me a thumbs-up and took off, leaving me with Cody near the entrance to the kitchen. I raised my eyebrows expectantly at him.
“Look,” he said, his gaze focused somewhere over my head, “I gotta take off now, but maybe we can meet up tomorrow night and finish this?”
“Tomorrow night,” I repeated as a nagging memory poked through the fuzziness in my brain. Oh yes. Tomorrow. Saturday night. “I have…” A date with a hot single dad. “Plans.”
“Any way you can cancel them?”
I considered it for a moment. Could I? No. Jane had worked so hard to orchestrate this date. It meant a lot to her, and I owed her one. In fact, I owed her several. “No, I can’t cancel,” I told Cody, who frowned.
“Well, then,” he said, skimming his fingers down my arm. “Text me if you change your mind.”
He smiled at me and walked away, taking with him whatever beer he had leftover along with any plans I had for seducing him tonight. But he’d be back, I knew. When it came to sex, guys like him always finished what they started. And so did girls like me.
Upset stomach forgotten, I made my way back to the kitchen and poured another drink.
Chapter 14
I couldn’t recall ever being so nervous before a date.
“My God, Rob,” Taylor said when I dropped my brush in the sink for the third time. “What is the matter with you?”
I picked up the brush and leaned into the bathroom mirror, checking the progress of my hair. I was trying to loosen the curls I’d made with my curling iron, but it seemed like my right hand had a mind of its own. “Nothing,” I told Taylor, who sat on the edge of the tub, keeping me company while I got ready.
“Why are you acting so freaked out? I thought you liked this guy.” She paused for a few seconds to study me. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she asked, a smile in her voice. “You really like him. That’s why you’re so nervous.”
“I don’t like him.” I held the brush firmly and worked it through my curls. “I mean, I like him, but not like—” I sighed. “He’s not my type, okay?”
“Yeah, and you also said you don’t date guys with kids. Yet here you are.”
I stepped back and adjusted my dress, a short, form-fitting black lace number I’d picked up earlier at the mall. You could never go wrong with a little black dress. “It’s not a real date,” I said. “It’s just something we’re doing to make his mother happy.”
“Well, that’s…weird.”
Now I laughed. All of this was weird, but fortunately Ryan had a sense of humor about it. He’d texted me earlier, asking if he should pick me up at my door like a proper date. I’d told him sure, and that I wanted flowers too. Roses. Pink ones.
“What do you think?” I asked Taylor, posing in front of her with a hand on my hip. “Fancy enough for Masino Ristorante?”
She nodded. “You look stunning.”
I gave her a grateful smile and glanced at my phone. Six-thirty. He should be here any minute. My hand shook slightly and I dropped my silver clutch on the bathroom tile.
“Come on,” Taylor said, bending to pick it up for me. “Let’s get out of here before you break something.”
Downstairs, Michael sat in th
e living room with Taylor’s father and Leo the dog. All three of them stood up when they saw us.
“When is this young man scheduled to arrive?” Steven asked, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
“Soon,” I said, confused by his enthusiasm. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
Jesus. This was not helping my nerves. “You guys can go do something else. I mean, this is just a casual thing. No need for formalities.”
He waved a hand. “Nonsense.”
“We have to meet him,” Michael added, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“Get a good look at him.”
“Make sure he’s good enough for you.”
I glanced at Taylor, silently ordering her to call off her men, but she just grinned and shrugged. They were clearly all in this together, even though their concern was somewhat misplaced. If anything, they should’ve been worrying about Ryan and whether I was good enough for him. Newsflash: I wasn’t.
The doorbell rang, causing Leo to bolt across the foyer and bark his head off. Steve grabbed his collar and held him back while I swung open the door.
“Hi,” I said to Ryan, who stood on the other side, dressed semi-casually in charcoal-gray pants and a light blue button down shirt that almost exactly matched his eyes. And he was holding—oh my God—a dozen pink roses. I smiled, which quickly turned into a wince as Leo’s barking grew even more frenzied. “Sorry,” I shouted over the racket as I gestured for him to come in. “He has stranger anxiety.”
“I can tell,” he said, handing me the roses. I thanked him and raised them to my nose for a sniff before handing them off to Taylor for safekeeping.
“He won’t bite you,” Steve said, loosening his grip on the dog’s collar so he could get closer to the new guest. “He just wants to check you out.”
While Ryan was being thoroughly examined by Leo, I introduced everyone. I could tell by the quick look Taylor shot me that she heartily approved. She’d probably expected someone more dad-like, maybe a younger version of her own father. But looking at Ryan, “someone’s dad” wasn’t exactly the first attribute of his that sprang to mind.
Until Now Page 11
