Hit the Spot

by J. Daniels

  The corner of Tori’s mouth lifted. She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “I never wanted to kill you,” she argued quietly. “I wasn’t even fully committed to not liking you. I pretty much sucked at it.” Her eyes found mine again, then she reached out and held my face between her hands. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, all sorts of meaning in her voice.

  “Know you are, babe,” I murmured. “Don’t need to be, but I feel that.”

  “I still think you should hate me. Even if it’s just for an hour.”

  “I’ve never loved you more than I do right fuckin’ now,” I shared. “And that’s saying a lot, ’cause ten minutes ago I was crazy about you.”

  Tori sucked in the quickest, quietest breath. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were pressing together. She looked stuck somewhere between crying her eyes out and putting on the biggest smile of her life.

  I grinned, unable to help it. “You fuckin’ love me, girl. Look at you,” I murmured, wiping my thumb across her cheek.

  Tori blinked and allowed her lips to curl, then she let go of my face, twisted her upper body, grabbed her silverware, forked three squares of pancakes, and shoved them into her mouth, mumbling two words around her bite.

  “So much.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  TORI

  Three days later

  You win yet?

  I sent my message, then glanced up at Nate’s office door. It was still closed, so I looked down again, keeping focus on my phone while I stood behind the bar at Whitecaps.

  I had been on it all morning, more than I’d ever been on my phone before while working a shift. Just reading and sending texts, not talking, but still. It was unprofessional. I knew that. I knew it before Nate caught me and then caught me again the two times he’d stepped out of his office today.

  He didn’t say anything, just gave me a look indicating the level of unprofessionalism I was hitting. I read it loud and clear, tucked my phone away, and got back to work.

  Then my pocket vibrated again and I was reading and smiling and typing, doing this while keeping an eye out just in case Nate needed a third refill on his black coffee.

  I couldn’t help the sneakiness and the risking I was doing. Really…

  Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. I could help it. This could absolutely be helped. I just didn’t want to. I wanted other things more.

  I wanted to talk to Jamie. I wanted to be there with him on the flight to Florida he took yesterday morning. I wanted to be with him in his hotel room and do hotel room things, like have sex in the bed and in the bathroom, and if there was a desk, I wanted to be bent over it or have my butt hanging off the edge and my legs spread wide, because that’s what you did when you shared a hotel room with someone you were seeing. You had vacation sex, and I wanted vacation sex with Jamie.

  Our everyday sex was phenomenal so I knew vacation sex with him had to be out of this world amazing. I was really wanting to experience that.

  More importantly, though, over everything, over holding hands on flights and neighbors in the next room complaining about the noise level and middle-of-the-night wall banging, I wanted to stand on that Florida beach and watch my man take first place in his meet today.

  I wanted it badly. So, so badly. It was killing me not being there.

  But there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t do those things. Any of them. At least not this time. I had to work a job that never really felt like a job to me, until today and a little yesterday when I was thinking about Jamie alone in his hotel room. But now, right now, it was really feeling like a job and one I no longer wanted.

  Ridiculous. I loved working here. I always did.

  But today and yesterday and maybe for months, I loved Jamie, too. I loved him.

  Name doodling and spare house keys and can this be our thing kind of love, which was why I was being unprofessional and staying on my phone as much as I was doing. I was excited for him and sad that I wasn’t there and I loved him.

  I loved him. I loved him. I loved him.

  And I was certain he knew it, too.

  I hadn’t said it yet. Not really. Not so that Jamie could hear. I said so much and nodded and moaned yes yes yes when I was coming and he was in my ear, growling you fuckin’ love me, girl, but I never said it. That was our game. I wouldn’t say it then. If I did, we wouldn’t have that anymore, and I wasn’t ready to give that up. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be.

  I loved our game almost as much as I loved Jamie.

  Maybe I would say it when he got back from Florida. Maybe I would say it a month from now or in the next message I typed. I didn’t know. I was waiting for it to happen as much he was.

  Love was an adventure. It should be spontaneous and irresponsible and a little crazy. Not planned for. Not overthought. I had no idea when I was going to say those words to Jamie, and I liked not knowing.

  I wanted impulsive I love you’s and reckless desires. I wanted this how it always was between us—uncontrollable. Overwhelming. And never, ever contained.

  The phone vibrated in my hand as a new text appeared on the screen. I smiled reading it.

  Hasn’t started yet. All these assholes got their girls here to watch them lose. Sucks for them.

  God, he was so damn cocky. And I totally loved that, too.

  Sucks worse for me. I wanna be there.

  You are here, babe.

  I felt my cheeks warm.

  Oh, yes, I liked that. Jamie was saying I was with him even when I wasn’t. That was seriously sweet.

  I wanted to give him something seriously sweeter. So I pulled out my ticket book and flipped to the page I’d been doodling on all morning, snapped a pic of it, and sent it through with a caption.

  You’re here, too.

  The page had Jamie’s name scribbled all over in different sizes and fonts, some darker than others, with hearts and starbursts and decorative swirls filling in the white. And in the center was a thought bubble with the word LOVE deeply bolded.

  Again, I wasn’t saying the words, not exactly, but kind of, maybe…I was.

  My phone started vibrating with a call as I was sliding my ticket book away, and although I had been using it all morning, I hadn’t been talking on it.

  Texts were one thing. I could be discreet with those, like I was doing right now by keeping my phone below the lip of the counter. But taking a call was different. That would be difficult to hide if Nate walked out.

  Too bad I totally didn’t care if Nate walked out right now and saw me. Jamie was calling and I wanted to answer it. So I did.

  I was certain I could convince Nate of this phone call’s importance later if I needed to. And if I couldn’t, well, I did have a nice run here.

  “Hey,” I answered through a smile, keeping my voice down. I turned to face the kitchen, listening to beach breeze and the rushing of waves in the background. I could hear the crowd gathering around to watch.

  If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was there watching, too.

  “That from today?” Jamie asked, talking about the picture. “Fuck. Can you hear me? Hold up, I’m movin’. There’s too many fuckin’ people over here.”

  “I can hear you.” I chuckled at his irritation, then followed up my laughter with an honest, “Sort of,” lifting my shoulder as I said it.

  The background noise grew quieter in my ear. I could tell Jamie was still outside near the water, but he was away from the crowd now, not standing among them.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Better.”

  “And?”

  “It’s from today, yes.”

  “You got more of those?”

  My mouth twitched. “Pages and pages,” I answered honestly.

  “Fuck,” Jamie breathed, and I knew right then how much he thought of the picture I’d sent him.

  It was totally just like saying the words.

  “Wanna be here,” he went on telling me, talking about the meet. “I haven’t won this yet and been wantin’
to win it. Got my sponsors here. Got people who came out to see me, no one else, but I’m two seconds away from saying fuck it, you know?”

  I bowed my head, heart swelling and that funny, fluttering sensation warming my belly. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I know how you feel. I totally hate it here.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie replied, understanding. He knew I was crazy about this job. “I get back tomorrow,” he continued. “Flights not landin’ ’til late, but I wanna see those pages, babe. All of ’em.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll come to you. Got my key so you don’t gotta wait up.”

  “I’ll be up,” I told him, knowing there was no way I’d be able to sleep waiting on Jamie. I never could. Even when it had only been hours since I last saw him, I still twisted in my sheets restlessly and stared at the bedroom door.

  He exhaled heavily in my ear.

  “What?” I smiled. “Your fans follow you or something? Move around again.”

  “Years, babe,” Jamie mumbled, his voice rougher and richer, carrying meaning.

  He was definitely not talking about his fans.

  The hand I had curling around the lip of the counter behind me curled harder. I lost my smile. Jamie was referring to how long he would’ve waited for me again. He was feeling that truth hundreds of miles away and making sure I knew he was feeling it.

  I was. And right now, I did not need him making sure I was feeling anything.

  “Damn it. Stop being so sweet,” I scolded, looking up and checking behind me for Nate. His door was still closed so I turned back around, informing Jamie while I did that, “I’m already hating this place today. You’re just making it worse.”

  “Makin’ it worse for me just by breathin’, Legs. I think you can handle me telling you somethin’ I’ve already fuckin’ said.”

  My mouth fell open. Oh, my God. Seriously?

  Even when he was being a little dickish, he was still sweet.

  “I’m gonna go before I set fire to this place and hop on the next plane,” I told him, pinching the bridge of my nose. “You say anything else and I’m afraid that’s what it’s coming to.”

  Jamie laughed in my ear. I was completely serious.

  I dropped my hand, grinning as I listened to that beautiful sound while turning toward the front of the restaurant. I spotted Shay tending to one of her tables, then looking near the door, I saw Kali leading Jenna, Brian’s sister, and her seven-year-old twins, Oliver and Olivia, to an open booth in my section.

  I’d met them a few weeks ago when Syd started having her Sunday family dinners.

  Olivia jumped up and waved frantically at me when she caught my eye. Her pigtails bounced in the air. I waved back to her and Jenna. Oliver kept his attention on the game in his hand as he slid into the booth.

  “Gotta go, babe. Shit’s about to start,” Jamie announced after he was finished sharing his amusement, but he was still grinning. I could hear it. “That okay, or are you lightin’ a match?” he teased.

  Yep. Totally grinning. I ignored his teasing and focused on a much more pressing topic.

  “Text me after you win?”

  “Call you,” Jamie corrected me, letting me know a text wouldn’t do. He was going to be wanting to talk to me after.

  I could’ve argued and insisted on the text, but I didn’t. Job be damned at this point. Plus I was certain I could sneak in another quick phone call somehow.

  Which led to me agreeing and giving Jamie a “’Kay,” instead of anything else. “Good luck,” I added.

  “Don’t need it,” he replied.

  I sighed, was in the middle of an eye roll and about to tell Jamie I knew he didn’t need luck, when he lit the match himself.

  “Don’t need it,” he repeated, voice softer. “Like that you wanna give it, though, babe. Means somethin’ to me. More than anyone else givin’ me that.”

  I inhaled sharply through my nose, feeling it tingle. “Damn it,” I whispered. “You suck. I’m hanging up now.”

  Jamie chuckled in my ear. “Later, babe.”

  I disconnected the call and stuffed my phone into my back pocket. Then I grabbed a short stack of napkins and three rolls of silverware from underneath the bar, moved out from behind it, and padded across the room in the direction of the booth Jenna and her kids had claimed.

  * * *

  My phone was vibrating in my pocket. Long vibrations letting me know I was getting a call, not a text.

  I immediately pictured Jamie standing on a podium, cocky smirk in place, holding his first-place trophy in one hand while flipping off his competition with the other.

  Was he finished already?

  I stopped pouring Oliver’s sweet tea, glanced up, and saw Nate was still out on the floor talking to his mother, who had stopped in for a visit with Marley, Nate’s adorable baby girl.

  My boss was right there. Barely ten feet in front of me. Crap. There was no sneaking a phone call now. Nate would totally bust me. Three strikes and I was out.

  Begrudgingly, and against all of my heart’s desires, I ignored the call and went back to pouring the sweet tea.

  My phone stopped vibrating, then a second later it started vibrating again, and not indicating I had a voice mail waiting on me. No. This was another call. Jamie didn’t even bother with a message. He was hitting Redial.

  He was really wanting to talk to me. And I was really wanting to talk to him. Screw it. I set the pitcher down, let go of the glass, and reached for my back pocket.

  Nate turned his head at that exact moment, as if he could fucking sense my unprofessionalism from where he was standing and the lengths I was willing to go to, and looked at me through his dark-rimmed glasses with eyes that were hard and suspicious and calculating firing strategies.

  At least, that’s what I was seeing.

  I flashed him a smile that was top-notch employee professional, and resumed gripping the pitcher and the glass.

  Nate looked away and resumed speaking with his mother. The phone stopped vibrating. I closed my eyes and gathered breath in my lungs, started to expel it slowly and calmly, hoping to embrace that feeling instead of going manic up in here, but nearly choked on my breath when my pocket started vibrating yet again.

  My eyes flashed open, widened, and focused on Nate’s profile. We were up to call number three.

  Three. Three attempts wasn’t just wanting to talk to me. Three attempts was needing to talk to me. Later wouldn’t do. It had to happen now.

  My heart started racing.

  I spun around while digging my phone out of my pocket, bringing it in front of me after I was facing the kitchen so Nate couldn’t see it. I looked at the screen, my thumb automatically sliding to unlock it so I could shoot Jamie a quick text of explanation when the name of the caller came into focus.

  My thumb quit sliding. Jamie wasn’t calling me right now. My mother was.

  And after the final vibration cleared the screen a second later and my missed calls displayed, I saw it had been her calling me all along.

  My stomach clenched. My heart was racing for an entirely different reason now. My mother never dialed me up urgently like this.

  What if something was wrong? Oh, God…

  Gripping my phone in my hand, I spun around and held it in the air, waving it and grabbing Nate’s attention.

  “It’s my mom,” I whispered, counting on his ability to read lips since my voice couldn’t carry any louder right now.

  Worry had its hand curled tight around my throat.

  Nate nodded, then jerked his chin at the door to the employee lounge, indicating that was where I needed to take the call. I made it out from behind the bar before I was dialing her back, but I never made it to the lounge.

  My mom answered on the first ring, and I heard her voice, her panic, which told me all I needed to know before she even uttered the words a breath before my phone hit the floor.

  I never even bothered to pick it up. I was too focused on getting out of there and getting to my
parents.

  As it turned out, I did leave in the middle of a shift that day. But not to hop on a plane.

  While my man was winning another title, I was driving to Raleigh Regional Hospital.

  My father had suffered a heart attack.

  * * *

  “Mom,” I groaned, covering my face with my hands as I stood at the foot of the hospital bed.

  I had arrived minutes ago after hightailing it out of Dogwood Beach like a bat out of hell.

  I shaved close to forty-five minutes off my three-hour drive time. I got cleared at reception and assigned a visitor’s pass, was told my father’s room number after screaming my demand for it, and ran through the ER with tears streaming down my face.

  I was expecting the worst. My father hooked up to machines and possibly unconscious, or news that it was just too late, we’re sorry, and we did all we could do.

  My mother could’ve been calling to inform me of this devastation. However, I had no way of knowing since my phone was back in Dogwood Beach.

  I was panicked, hysterical, and scared out of my mind.

  So you can imagine my shock and alarm when I threw open the curtains to his room, darted inside, and saw the state my father was currently in. Sitting up in bed. Hooked up to machines but with nothing beeping, only monitoring. Eyes alert. Smile tugging at his mouth as he watched my mother’s continuing freak-out.

  That’s right. The man was smiling on the day he’d possibly had a heart attack.

  Possibly because I didn’t know for sure if he’d had one or not. I was still trying for specifics. It was like pulling teeth at this point.

  Dropping my hands to the foot rail and holding there, I frowned at my mother as she stood beside the bed, arms folded under her chest, foot tapping, and anxious eyes glued to the monitor.