by Hart, Emma
“Sadly,” he said quietly, still smiling, “You have to be a superhero to join the wedding party, and you just proved you aren’t.”
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t sound like a superhero. Unless it’s a superhero on a sugar high.”
“But she can fly.” His eyes danced with laughter. “You were not even close to that a second ago.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but stopped short as the words caught in my throat.
He was teasing me again.
Except this time, he was touching me while he did it, and my heart was going crazy. Boom, boom, boom. It beat faster and faster until my pulse thundered in my ears, and I drew in a sharp breath. All it did was dry out my mouth, and my lips followed.
I wet my lips with my tongue.
He glanced down at my mouth. He just barely tightened his grip on my waist, his fingers twitching as he fought the battle between looking at my lips and meeting my eyes.
Oh god, this is wrong.
I wanted him to kiss me. Right now. Out of nowhere. In the musty garage where the air conditioner had stopped working yet again, because that was so fucking romantic.
What was wrong with me?
“Noooo! Ewi! Bwing back Twiwight! Noooooooo!” Ellie’s voice reached a crescendo that slammed into me as the scream got closer and closer to the door.
Brantley and I parted like the other was on fire. I ran my fingers through my hair and looked away, my cheeks heating up furiously.
“What on Earth is going on?”
“He stole Twiwight,” a red-faced, sobbing Ellie said by the door. She sniffed. “He won’t wet Barbie get married, and I need Twiwight because she the bwidesmaid.”
At least, that’s what I thought she’d said. It was hard to tell between the snot and the crying.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brantley get on one knee and sit Ellie on the step. As I pretended not to look, he lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped at her eyes. Then, he pulled it off, and wiped her nose with it.
Damn it. That should not be a sweet thing to do.
Shame my heart didn’t get the message. It swooned right out of the garage.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Is that a bit better?”
She wiped her nose and nodded. “I want Twiwight back.”
He stood up. “Eli! Come here.”
There was silence.
“I’m going to count to five,” Brantley continued. “And if you don’t come here by the time I get there, your sister gets the remote control all afternoon.”
I rolled my eyes. “Such a man threat to make.”
He looked over his shoulder and winked.
Okay. Back muscles, winking, and gray sweatpants?
Shoot me down and call me Sally. I think I just came on the spot.
I was certainly a little uncomfortable down there, that was for sure.
I peered at him as he started to count. Yup. Definitely uncomfortable. From the shoulders right down to the dimples at the base of this spine…
“No! I am not watching Sofia all day!” Eli appeared as if from nowhere, and I suspected he was a lot closer than he’d pretended to be.
Brantley folded his arms across his chest, the snotty, tear-stained t-shirt hanging from one hand.
I gave up all pretense of not watching and, well, watched.
“Please give your sister back Twilight Sparkle.”
Eli frowned and held the purple pony closer to him. “No.”
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
“She won’t give me Eye-on Man!”
Eye-on Man. Oh, my god.
Brantley sighed. “Ellie, Barbie is going to have to marry Ken.”
Ellie folded her arms across her chest. “But Ken was kissing her fwiend.” She frowned. “Bad Ken.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t laugh.
“Very bad Ken,” Brantley agreed. “He’ll have to stop kissing her friend so he can marry Barbie. If you give Eli Iron Man, he’ll give you Twilight Sparkle back.”
She tilted her chin up, peering down her nose at Brantley. As her little lips pursed into displeasure, you could almost see the cogs of her mind whirring to make the decision.
Then, she slumped. “Fine,” she sighed. “Ewi can had Iron Man.”
God, I loved the way she talked.
“Here you go.” Eli held out the pony.
Ellie scrambled and took it. “Fank you.”
“Now, go get Iron Man, and leave each other alone, okay? You can have a snack soon.”
They both nodded in perfect sync. They even turned and ran in sync.
“You’d think I’d be used to that,” Brantley said, turning to me with a speculative look on his face. “But…Nope. Not at all.”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my lips. “It makes me want to run for the hills, honestly. It’s really weird.”
“That’s nothing. Not really.”
“What does that mean?”
He threw his t-shirt through the door and moved for a box. His muscles flexed as he picked it up, and shit, this was not in my contract!
“They didn’t speak until they were three. Not properly. I swear they can communicate with each other without speaking.” He checked the side of a box and grunted when he picked it up.
“Isn’t that a thing, though? Don’t they say that some twins do have some weird connection where they can communicate without words?”
“I think I heard that somewhere, too.” He huffed as he put down the box. “It’s weird. I don’t know if they couldn’t speak until they were three, or if they simply chose not to. Whatever it was, when they started properly, it took them about two weeks to go from saying twenty words a day to having conversations with everyone, no matter who they were.”
“I can’t imagine them doing that,” I said dryly. “They’re so quiet.”
He laughed. “And to add insult to injury, they can’t pronounce the ‘L’ sound, but if you ask Eli to name dinosaurs, he can say half of their names perfectly. At seven a.m., he told me he was a “vewociwaptor” with “fedders” on his arms. I don’t even know what a velociraptor is.”
I paused, hands on a box, and gazed over at him. “It’s a dinosaur,” I said slowly.
He stared back at me flatly. “Shut up. I thought it was a breed of dog.”
I tried to glare at him, but there was a playful glint in his eye that made it impossible not to grin. “Has anyone ever told you you’re pretty sarcastic?”
“It’s how I weed out the idiots from the people worth talking to.” He winked and picked up a pink bike. “The idiots don’t get sarcasm.”
“Huh. That explains why I barely have friends. Most of the people in this town are idiots. Now, I feel better.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Oh no, they really are idiots.”
“Not that part,” he said through gentle laughter. “The part about you not having friends.”
I shuddered. “I spend all my working hours dealing with people. I do not want to have to do that after work, too.”
That gentle laughter got louder. “Then, I’m honored you’re here and talking to me when you shouldn’t be.”
I mock-curtseyed. “As you should be.”
He heaved a large box full of clinking things up and set it on top of another one. He looked over at me, a half-smile creeping onto his face, and shook his head. “How long until that furniture arrives?”
I opened my mouth to answer, only to be interrupted by the sound of something large pulling up outside. “I’m gonna go with right now.”
“Shit,” he muttered, looking at the garage.
***
“You the angry lady who called and demanded we not deliver this today?”
I glared at the delivery driver and held out my hand for a pen.
His eyes widened, and he extracted a pen from his chest pocket, clicked it, and handed it to me.
I scrawled my signature on the bottom of the pape
r on the clipboard to confirm I’d received the delivery.
“Wasn’t it obvious when she insisted upon checking inside all the boxes to make sure everything was there before she’d do that?” Brantley nodded to the clipboard as I passed it back.
The delivery guy made eye contact with him and gave a quick raise of his eyebrows as if to say, “Yeah, it should have been.”
I shot Brantley a hard look before clicking the delivery guy’s pen and passing it back. “Then your company should pay attention to its customers. I booked the delivery for a certain day, and that’s when I expected it. Not a damn week early.”
Delivery guy shrugged. “Sorry, Miss. I deliver what they give me. Take it up with the manager.”
“I tried. Hence your delivery note.”
Brantley pushed off the side of the garage door where he’d been leaning as I checked all the boxes. “Thank you,” he said to the driver, taking hold of my shoulders and steering me back inside the garage the way he had done with Ellie when I’d arrived an hour earlier.
He jabbed the button to shut the garage door.
“Why are you shutting the door?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the way his fingertips sent tingles across my bare shoulders.
“So, you don’t terrorize the delivery guy anymore.”
“I wasn’t terrorizing him,” I insisted. “I was simply informing him of all the things he does wrong.”
“We can agree to disagree.” He released me and stretched his arms over his head. “Let’s get this furniture stacked against the wall we somehow managed to clear, then you can get on with your weekend.”
I leaned against the wall, folding my arms across my chest with a smirk.
Brantley looked around, then stilled, sighing. “The furniture is outside on the drive, isn’t it?”
My smirk got a little larger. “Yup.”
“Shit.”
Chapter Nine
I’d made a terrible mistake.
Sure, Declan was handsome. He had that dark, brooding look that was the reason so many people were attracted to Ian Somerhalder. He was definitely the kind of guy you’d look at four times in the grocery store and proceed to leave with a tingly clitoris and a hankering for a little time to yourself and Tumblr.
Also, he was perfectly nice. Thirty-two years old, had a great job in accounting, visited his mom once a week, loved to vacation in the mountains, and liked Harry Potter.
Yep, he was perfect.
So, why had I made a terrible mistake?
Simple. He was too perfect. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect laugh—even his nose was perfect. Not a freckle or a mole or a blackhead in sight.
And with perfect guys came perfect problems. There had to be something buried deep down inside him, waiting to bubble up.
I watched him as he talked.
I wasn’t listening.
I was thinking about the way Brantley caught me when I tripped earlier.
About how hot his hands had felt through the relatively thin material of my tank top. About how firm he’d gripped me, how warm his breath had been as it fluttered over my mouth and cheek, how—
“Kali?”
I jerked back to the here and now as Marcie placed the check on the table.
“Are you done with that, honey?” She pointed to my half-eaten dinner.
Crap.
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” I offered Declan a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been a terrible date.”
He smiled, like he didn’t mind at all.
Hmm. Maybe he was a psychopath?
“No, it’s fine. I’ve had worse dates. Besides, you said you worked today, right? We probably should have rescheduled so you weren’t tired.”
Mhmm. Were they thinking about another man on your date, though? Someone they had no place thinking about?
I bet they weren’t.
Also: he was responding to me way too positively.
Was I nitpicking for the sake of it now?
Ugh.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Here—I’ll pay my half of the check.”
He waved his hand at me when I reached for my purse. “Absolutely not. If you must, you can pay for date two.” He flashed me a grin and slipped his card in the book without checking the total. “Excuse me—I need the restroom.”
I smiled tightly.
Boy, he was presumptuous.
I peeked at the bill, pulled out cash, and slipped it in the book. And ran—right into Marcie.
She winked. “Your dad called. There was a family emergency.”
“You’re my favorite person in the world,” I told her, squeezing her hand.
This time, I managed to escape the restaurant.
It was still hot and sticky outside, but I’d had the foresight to wear a looser dress, and now, I was glad. Declan had picked me up from my house, which now meant I had to walk home.
Not a bad thing.
If only I’d brought flats in my purse.
Oh, well. I couldn’t win them all. I’d listen to my feet scream at me all night, but for now, I needed to get away from the restaurant.
I made it onto Main Street, away from the seafront where the Coastal was, and heard a car behind me. My stomach dropped—Declan would have left the restaurant by now, and if this was him, it was about to get real awkward, real fast.
I winced and peered over my shoulder. A familiar, black Range Rover crawled to a stop next to me, and the window on the driver’s side wound down.
Brantley poked his head out of the window. “Alone?”
I frowned. “Where are the twins?”
He nodded. “Sleeping in the back. It’s easier to shop when it’s quieter. What are you doing walking through town by yourself?”
“A not so great date,” I replied, tucking hair behind my ear.
Slowly, his bright gaze ran up and down my body, lingering on my bright-red heels for a moment too long. “And you didn’t drive?”
“He picked me up, and I, um…”
He half-grinned. “Want a ride home?”
“No, it’s fine. It’s out of your way.”
“It’s three blocks over. Not Los Angeles.”
“Still, you have to go there and then back.”
He rolled his eyes. “Then at least let me drive you to my house. Walk from there.”
I paused, running my teeth over my lower lip.
“Get in the damn car, Kali,” he said firmly. “It’s getting dark and you’re by yourself. I can’t leave you in the middle of town.”
“I—”
He looked at me dead in the eye and repeated, “Get. In. The. Damn. Car.”
I checked the road and, after seeing it was clear, got in the damn car.
“Thank you.” He smirked at me and quickly looked over his shoulder when one of the kids snort-snored in their sleep.
I peered back at them. Both wearing pajamas with dogs on, they each clutched a stuffed toy—Ellie a monkey, and Eli a blue dinosaur. They both slept soundly, with Eli sucking his thumb.
Brantley reached back and gently pulled it out of his mouth before pulling away from the curb. “Damn thumb sucking,” he sighed. He glanced at me. “A bad date, huh?”
“Not so much bad,” I said slowly and carefully. “More that he was suspiciously perfect.”
“Ah, the decent guy. Terrible bunch of people.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop it. I didn’t connect with him, that’s all.” Mostly because I kept thinking about you. “I kinda ran out when he went to the restroom.”
“You stiffed him with the bill?”
“No! He’d left his card, but I put the cash for my half of the bill. What do you think I am, cheap?”
“Well, that escalated quicker than I thought it would.” He glanced at me, lips tugging up. “Not at all. I was only wondering.”
I wanted to roll my eyes again, but in the interest of not giving myself a headache, I decided against it.
“He thought I was tired from working thi
s morning and apologized for not rescheduling.”
“And that’s too perfect?”
“Yes. I was being a dreadful date.”
“At least you can admit that.”
“He assumed we’d get a second. Said as much.”
“Ooh.” Brantley winced. “Didn’t ask?”
I shook my head.
“You’ve had a bad day, huh? Get woken up early after too much sangria, have to spend the entire morning at my place thanks to an asshole delivery service, witness a dispute over a pony and a superhero, then you have a shitty date and have to be driven home by your client.”
Well, when he put it like that…
“And I have blisters on my feet because these shoes are new. So, just a heads up, I’ll be painting in flip-flops this week.”
“They’re great shoes, though.”
I looked down. “Yeah, they really are. Shame they’re painful. Maybe they’re the kind of shoes you wear to watch TV and feel good about yourself.”
“Yeah. They’re those kinda shoes.” His dry tone had me staring at him.
“What does that mean?”
He pulled up into his driveway. The headlights illuminated the side of the house, and he smiled at me. “Nothing. I was agreeing with you.”
I would have called bullshit, but he got out of the car and pulled out his front door key before I had a chance to respond.
Whatever. I’d let it slide, mostly because I should have taken him up on his original offer to take me home. The blister on the back of my foot was now dangerously painful.
Well, like he’d said, I’d had a bit of a shitty day, so what was one more thing to add to the list?
I got out of the car, wincing as I put weight on my right foot and my shoe rubbed the sore blister. “Shit, shit, shit,” I whispered.
“Here.” Laughing, Brantley walked around the front of the car, holding a small, long, rectangle something. “A Band-Aid. For that blister.”
I gasped, taking it from him. “Oh my god, I could kiss you.”
He raised his eyebrows.
I froze.
“I mean,” I started. “Not—you know. Kiss you. I could kiss you, but I won’t kiss you. Oh my god, I have to stop saying kiss you. Crap. Never mind. I’m just going to shut up now.”
