His eyes tracked around, and she could easily imagine he was taking all of her in. Her skin prickled as if he’d actually touched her. “Boring? I doubt that’s true.”
She swallowed and rubbed a hand over her arm to soothe the goose bumps away. “It’s very true. No story here.”
He chuckled again and leaned back. “Everyone’s got a story. I hate to call you a liar, darlin’. So I’ll just sit here and you can imagine I said it.”
What? Of all the… She grabbed the pen and pad of paper. “Are you sure there’s no message I can take for you to pass along to Tim or Skye when they get back?”
The smile dropped just a little, and she instantly regretted the tone of her voice. “Nah. Just that I said hi, and they can try me anytime on here if they’re in the mood.”
“All right.” She had to say something more. Make amends for being so upset earlier. “I hope you stay safe, Mr. Robertson.”
“Dwayne.” He perked up at that. “Do you, now?”
“Do I what?”
His voice lowered to a purr. “Hope I stay safe.”
“Of course. I hope everyone stays safe.”
He winked at her. Winked! Then in a slow, smooth voice that had the hair on her arms standing straight up again, he looked dead at her. As if there weren’t two computer screens and thousands of miles between them. As if he could actually see right through her, into her, know all her secrets. “You know, you really are a pretty one, aren’t you?”
She gasped and clicked the end call button.
Of all the… Veronica watched as her hand tapped the pen against the desk in rapid-fire motions. Then the pen slowed, stopped, and rolled away.
What an arrogant example of the male species, thinking she needed to hear he found her attractive and that he could sucker her in with that honey-coated Southern drawl. He probably wasn’t even from the south, just developed the accent to lure in unsuspecting females.
Or maybe she was being overdramatic. He was being nice. It was a compliment. She had to stop turning everything people said into an inquisition, dissecting their reasoning behind their words. He’d been kind. And it’s not like she had to speak to him often anyway. That’s the absolute truth. She could just put Dwayne Robertson and his wandering eyes out of her mind completely. The conversation meant nothing. Nothing at all.
But she couldn’t help the smile that crept over her face as she stood up and turned the computer off.
Chapter 4
Saturday night, and Madison was a woman on a mission. Mission Jeremy.
Too bad her brother didn’t get the memo and was unconsciously doing everything in his power to ruin said mission. Or maybe he did get the memo and was on a mission of his own. How else could she explain why Tim insisted on playing yet another game, rather than heading home to hang out with his wife? It was sabotage, obviously.
Mission Make Madison a Pure Spinster.
Sorry, bro… that’s not gonna happen. She grinned at the thought of her brother’s imagined outrage. Men could be such hypocrites. Always thinking they had to defend the virtue of their womenfolk while they didn’t have a problem taking a lover or two before marriage themselves.
She watched from behind lowered lashes as Jeremy poured himself an iced tea in her apartment’s kitchen. A real kitchen, not a dinky kitchenette. She knew he had some misguided thought that going after her would break the bonds of brotherhood or some such crap. And maybe there really was a secret guy code that you didn’t date your friend’s sister or whatever.
But why? Why was that even an issue? If Tim dated her best friend… Okay, that didn’t work, since her best friend was Matthew, and he was gay. The thought gave her a serious chuckle, which she swallowed. But that was all beside the point. Then again, she lacked the Y chromosome, which carried the stupid gene as far as she was concerned.
Jeremy took the slow route back to the coffee table with his tea. And since he’d played his card early in the round and wasn’t needed again until the next one, he took his time.
He paused by a picture of her from graduation, and she got another good look at him.
If his one hang-up was that he didn’t want to offend or piss off Tim, that might be a tricky one to overcome. They were best friends, had been since TBS ten years ago.
But to her mind, that meant Tim should be happy they were together. If the guy was good enough to be Tim’s best friend, wasn’t he good enough to date Tim’s sister?
It was a logical thought process.
Too bad men were born without a logic gene. That one, she reasoned, must be connected to the second X chromosome.
“Madison.” Veronica nudged her and pointed to the deck. “It’s your turn.”
“Oh, whoops! Mind drifted,” she said easily. Playing Apples to Apples might have been a bad idea, as the downtime between rounds gave her mind way too much time to wander.
Madison drew a green card and laid it down. “Disturbing.”
A quick hush filled the room as everyone else glanced at their cards. Madison watched as Jeremy continued to stare at her pictures. “Are you going to play this round, Jeremy?”
He took a side step over, grabbed the top card from his stack, and tossed it down without even giving it a glance before resuming his study of her photos.
Madison rolled her eyes. Nice.
Finally, Veronica laid down her own card, chewing her lip as she did. Madison shuffled them on the table without looking, then sorted them into a pile and picked them up. “Drumroll please.”
Tim beat his fingers on the coffee table.
“What is disturbing? We have… mold.” She laid down the first card. “Pretty gross. Next one is conspiracy theories. Definitely something to play with your mind. The third card is…” She rolled her eyes. “A little on the nose. But it’s the morgue.” She’d be willing to bet that was Jeremy’s. “And then lastly we have our winner.” She snorted with laughter as she laid the card down face up. “Beanie Babies.”
“What?” Veronica shrieked in surprise, then immediately shrank an inch as if she wanted to take it back.
Tim pumped his fist. “Yeah, that’s right! That one was mine.”
“I don’t get it.” Veronica took the red cards and stuffed them on the bottom of the stack, grabbing a fresh card from the top for herself. “How are Beanie Babies more disturbing than the morgue?”
“It’s not always about the best match,” Madison reminded her. “It’s whatever the judge thinks is the best, period. Best funny card, best serious card, best whatever. I happen to find the game works best when I play for laughter. Plus, those things always creep me out. Their eyes… it’s like they are just staring at you.”
“Know your audience,” Tim crowed as he snatched the green card and set it to the side with his other greens.
Veronica looked confused but didn’t ask further.
Skye came next and laid down her green card with a wicked smile. “Charming. What’s charming in your cards?”
As Madison glanced through her cards, she couldn’t concentrate on her best pick. Jeremy finally sat down next to her on the floor, his knee brushing hers as he settled into a spot and picked up his own hand.
Did he feel the same chest-tightening thing she did when they were close by? She hoped so. The world wouldn’t be fair if she suffered alone in silence. Realizing she was last to go and everyone was waiting on her, she tossed down the first card she glanced at, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
Skye picked up the red cards and started to giggle immediately. Madison bit the inside of her cheek. At least her sister-in-law got the point of the game.
“What is charming? You guys said… Republicans?” Skye raised a brow at that. “Uh-huh. Moving on. Bonbons, yum. Diamonds, which are naturally any girl’s best friend. And last but not least…” Skye loo
ked right at Madison with a huge grin. “Festering wounds? Seriously? There’s a card for that?”
Madison shrugged innocently. “Apparently. Somebody played it.”
Eventually, after a minute of debate, Skye chose diamonds.
“They’re just all sparkly and fantastic,” she said when the rest of them groaned and Tim smirked.
“Thank you, baby.” He leaned over and kissed her, sliding the green card to his ever-growing pile.
“No fair. Nepotism at work,” Madison grumbled.
“I don’t think it works that way when you don’t know whose card belongs to who,” Skye pointed out. Then she glanced at her cousin. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.”
Veronica looked down in front of her, no green cards in sight, indicating she’d yet to win a round, and shrugged. “I don’t have very good cards.”
Jeremy straightened his red cards and set them aside. Then he drew the top green card and laid it down. “Sexy.”
A pleasant buzz hummed through Madison’s bloodstream as she contemplated which card to put down. There was the safe bet, kilts. Totally effective, completely true. Or there was the more amusing choice, cabbage. Nonsensical, but funny.
She’d never liked playing it safe. And she wasn’t in the mood to laugh right now. Biting the inside of her cheek, she laid down her choice.
Jeremy grabbed the four cards and shuffled them with his eyes closed, then picked them up.
“Being in love.”
There was a chorus of aws, and everyone knew it was Veronica’s card.
“Then we have recycling.”
Clearly Skye’s.
“French wine?” Jeremy asked with a skeptical look for everyone. “What’s wrong with a good, cold beer?”
Skye motioned him to keep going.
“And then we have… my body.”
Tim and Skye erupted into laughter. Veronica blushed furiously and grabbed her empty water bottle as if she were going to take it to throw it away. But Jeremy said nothing, only stared right at Madison.
He knew it was her card, no question about it.
Her brother and Skye said something, but she didn’t hear. The world blocked out, and nothing existed but Jeremy. His eyes were like melted chocolate, pools she wanted to fall into.
“Jeremy.”
He broke the connection to glance at Skye. “Sorry, yeah?”
“Pick a winner.”
“Ah, right.” He gave the cards another glance and pushed forward the card reading being in love.
“That’s mine!” Veronica bounced back to her seat and grabbed the card. “I won one!”
Everyone clapped to jokingly celebrate her victory and she smiled.
But Madison was too busy trying to figure out if Jeremy realized he was rubbing his knee against hers under the table, or if it was just a coincidence.
She never was a big believer in coincidences.
***
Madison stood and stretched her legs. “That was fun, you guys. Thanks for coming over to help me break the place in.”
Veronica curled up in the recliner. “Do you need help cleaning up?”
Skye stood and grabbed the chip bowl, now full of crumbs, and walked it over to the kitchen. “Of course she does. We’ll—”
“We’ll get out of her hair so Madison can clean,” Tim finished for her.
“Timothy,” Skye scolded.
“No, he’s right. I’m sort of specific on how I like to clean. Thanks though, Skye.” She gave her brother a look from the corner of her eye. He so owed her. “Veronica, you wanna stay and help, maybe watch a movie afterward?”
“Yes!” She jumped up and started grabbing every cup in sight as if her life depended on a clean house. “You don’t mind driving me back to the house afterward, do you?”
“Of course not.” She shoved Tim and Skye toward the door.
After Skye headed out to the parking lot, Tim turned back around and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, squirt.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, smiling when he all but skipped after his wife.
Madison closed the door and shook her head. The man was a giddy idiot for his wife. Which wasn’t a bad thing… unless it left her on full-time KP for the rest of their lives.
Then again, if she kept racking up the IOUs from her brother, maybe she could parlay those into not giving her grief about a new relationship she was hoping would start up soon…
As she leaned against the door, Jeremy walked up, hands in his pockets, caught in quiet contemplation as always. “Sure you don’t need any help?”
Madison was sorely tempted to say yes, just to keep him with her. But Veronica was there. And that just wasn’t going to do. So instead, she went along with her Mission Jeremy plan and said, “Thanks, but no.”
He looked almost relieved, like the thought of sticking around in close quarters with her might have killed him. Flattering, really. But as he walked by her to open the door, she slid her arm around his waist and gave him a side hug. Completely platonic, non-threatening.
Everything in his body stiffened, from his shoulders down to his hips. She could feel the muscles on the side of his torso clench under her hand. But she didn’t linger, much as she really wanted to lift his shirt and feel that skin with her bare hands.
“Thanks,” she said as if nothing happened, and stepped out of reach. He stared at her a moment, very much a deer in the headlights. So she planted a hand on his back and gently pushed until he stood on her doorstep, then waggled her fingers in a sassy good-bye wave and closed the door with a quiet click.
“He likes you.”
“Ah!” Madison jumped and held a hand to her heart as she spun around. Veronica stood behind her, dishcloth in hand, staring at her as if Madison were one of those optical illusion posters that you could make change shapes if you just concentrated hard enough.
“Scare a girl to death, why doncha?” As her breathing returned to normal, Madison walked toward the kitchen.
“He does, doesn’t he?” Veronica followed along on her heels, determined, it seemed, to get an answer. “And you like him.”
“That’s not exactly it.” Like was too tepid a word for what they had going on. It seemed so bland, so… mashed potatoes, hold the gravy.
“I think I’m right.” Her voice stronger now, buoyed by confidence, Veronica grabbed a plate from the drainer and started wiping it down. “I think you both like each other. And you’re doing a little mating dance to see who might make the first move.”
“Now there, I can say with one hundred percent honesty, you’re wrong,” Madison said smugly. Because I already made the first move.
“Oh.” A little crestfallen, Veronica put the dish away in the cabinet and grabbed another. “I’m sorry then. I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”
Madison waved that away and turned on the water, waiting for it to get hot. “Not at all.”
They worked in silence, making a nice wash-and-dry team. As Veronica settled the last glass back in the cabinet and shut the door, she said, “Thanks for letting me hang out here this evening. I always feel a little in the way at their house. I mean, when both of them are home.”
Madison hopped up on the counter and let her feet dangle. Her heels fell into a comfortable thud-thud pattern against the cabinet below. “I know what you mean. It’s why I got this place as fast as I could once Skye showed up. They never kicked me out, never said I had to go. But I knew it’s what they needed.”
She thought back to her empty second bedroom, and the light finally went on. “I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I think about that before?”
“Think about what?” Veronica hung the dishtowel neatly over the handle of the oven.
“You need a place, right? You want to get out of Tim and Skye
’s townhouse.”
“Hmm,” Veronica said, looking a little sad. “I can’t really afford my own apartment right now.”
“Which makes what I’m about to say so perfect!” Madison hopped down and grabbed Veronica’s shoulders. “Move in with me. I’ve got a spare bedroom. And I sort of really hate how quiet this place is.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious!” Picking up steam, Madison jumped in place a little. “I always have roommates, and this is my first time living alone. Frankly, I hate it. And the bedroom is a good size. Plus, since I have a bathroom in the master, you’d get your own bath, even though it’s out in the hallway. Come on.” She grabbed Veronica’s hand and tugged her down the hallway and into the nearly empty second bedroom.
Veronica stood in the middle, spinning slowly, Then she ran a hand over the screen of the elliptical machine.
“We’ll move that out of here, of course,” Madison said. “Frankly, I should just sell the thing. I run outside or on the treadmill in the weight room anyway.”
Veronica said nothing, just continued to turn, staring at the ceiling, the walls, the closet.
“It’s not the Taj Mahal or anything, but it’s a safe complex and I’ve never had problems with the neighbors.”
Still nothing from Veronica, only wide-eyed staring around the room and her lips slightly working, as if speaking to herself.
“Uh, you okay?” Madison wondered if she’d spoken too soon. “If you’re not interested, I promise I won’t be offended.”
Finally, she stopped spinning and faced Madison. She could see tears gathering in the other woman’s eyes. “No. I mean, yes, I’m interested. I’m very interested.” She sniffed, then gave a quick laugh. “I don’t know if I can afford half the rent.”
“Whatever. We’ll say a third, since my room is bigger and has a private bath.” Frankly, she’d have let Veronica move in for free, but Madison had a feeling saying so would hurt her feelings. Or her pride, which Mad could relate to. “It’s not the money that I care about. We can work that out so you’re comfortable. I just want someone else here. Living alone doesn’t really work for me.”
Officer Breaks the Rules (Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful.) Page 5
