by Cora Carmack
I brought her head close to mine, pressing my nose into her curls as she laughed at the ridiculous voice Rowland was doing in imitation of his mother. Her warmth, her scent calmed me. And she made me see London in a new light. She made me see it how it was before my parents and all their pressure and manipulation had made me want to leave.
Again and again, Bliss seemed to be my new beginning, the thing to help me let go of the past and move forward.
She rested a hand on my thigh and looked up at me. I must have been tuned out for longer than I realized because she asked, “You okay?”
I laid my hand over hers and said, “Just glad to be home and to have you with me.”
She turned her hand over and laced her fingers with mine, and Rowland made gagging noises in the front seat.
“Oh shut it, Row. You’re just jealous because you haven’t yet managed to hold on to a woman for more than one night.”
“Managed? Managed? I should win an award for that. It’s harder than you think.”
Bliss snuggled into my side and asked, “So how long have you known Garrick?”
Rowland answered, “I’ve only known him since secondary.”
“High school,” I translated for Bliss.
“But Graham and Garrick have been attached at the hip since they were in nappies.”
“Diapers,” I added.
“Hey, she gets the gist of it. No need to translate every bleeding thing I say. I’m speaking English.”
“So what you’re saying,” Bliss began, leaning forward between the two front seats, “is that Graham is the one to go to for the embarrassing stories?”
“Excuse me.” I poked her in the side, and she squirmed away from me.
“Oh come on. Like you don’t know enough embarrassing things about me. You’ve been there for too many of them.”
“Do tell,” Rowland said, his eyebrows waggling at us through the rearview mirror.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” It was her turn to poke me.
“Wait.” Graham turned in his seat to face us. “Are you talking about being all hot for teacher?”
“Garrick!” I had a feeling I was going to be hearing my name in that tone all too often on this trip. “You told them?”
“I told Graham. Since Rowland doesn’t seem too surprised, I’m guessing he’s been filled in.”
Bliss bent and buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed.”
“Why would you be embarrassed?” Rowland asked. “You can’t get much hotter than a schoolgirl fantasy. After Graham told me, I had dreams for a week featuring girls in our old school uniforms.”
Bliss gave a garbled groan and sank even further until her face rested against her knees. I was still learning the intricacies of speaking Bliss, but I was fairly certain that groan meant that she thought she was dying of mortification.
I leveled a stare at him and said, “Thanks a lot, mate.”
Then I ran a hand across the curve of Bliss’s back and said, “There’s no reason to be embarrassed, because we didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t ever want to have to lie about us again.”
Call it an issue. Call it baggage. But I really hated lies. They’re ugly things, festering like wounds, spreading like disease. They’re winner-less crimes that hurt everybody in the end.
I felt her back rise and fall in a heaving breath beneath my hand. “You’re right.” She sat up, and I kept my hand between her and the seat. “I’m not sorry, and I’m done being scared of it.”
“Thatta girl,” Rowland said.
“That’s my girl,” I said into her ear.
“You hold on to that thick skin, sweetheart. Let Graham and I treat you to a few pints and you’ll have armor by the time you’re standing in the Taylors’ grand foyer.”
“You have a grand foyer?” She paled.
I scratched at my neck and said, “It’s really only slightly grand.”
“What about stairs? Do you have stairs?”
I nodded.
She threw her hands up. “That’s it. I’m gonna die. I knew it.”
I saw Rowland and Graham glance at each other in confusion, then look at me. I shook my head because I had no idea. Maybe I could be a bit lenient about that one-drink rule.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re not going to die. It’s just a house. Nothing to worry about.”
It really was just a house. I’d not ever really thought of it as a home.
She took a breath and nodded. Sitting up taller, she gave me a determined look.
Stairs. Cats. I loved the woman, but God knows I didn’t always understand her. She was so afraid of little things—mothers and fancy houses—but when she set her mind to something, she tackled it with such ferocity. Big things. Scary things.
Her career in Philly. Life after college. Falling in love with me.
I was the one that struggled with the big picture. I never quite knew what I wanted until it had already slapped me around a bit.
Or until she walked into my life with an imaginary cat.
“SHE DOESN’T NEED another one, Rowland. She’s good.”
We were both good. If I drank any more, I wouldn’t have a filter by the time we met my parents, which was a bit like not having a life raft on the Titanic.
“Oh, come on. What’s the point of working in a pub if I can’t get my friends completely sloshed?”
There was something terribly wrong about being in a near-empty pub midday and having as much alcohol as we had.
“I don’t know . . . gainful employment? Saving up to finally stop living with your parents?”
“Ssh!” He waved a forceful hand at me, like the two people in a booth across the bar were going to hear.
“First of all, that was cold, mate. And second, I have my own flat. It just happens to be above my parents’ garage. That doesn’t count as living with my parents.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Row.”
“Just for that . . .” He poured another glass and slid it in Bliss’s direction.
I snatched it away as she reached for it, and pulled it away from her.
“Hey!” Her bottom lip curled into a pout. An almost irresistible pout.
“Sweetheart, I think you’re fine without it.”
She teetered toward me on her stool, wrapping a hand around my neck. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the base of my neck and she said, “Well, if I can’t have it, you should drink it.”
Rowland cut in, “Now, that is a plan. Maybe another drink will make you less of a bore.”
“I’m not boring.”
Graham gave a loud snore, pretending to sleep with his head balanced on the top of his mug.
Bliss laughed raucously, and the only thing that kept her from toppling off her seat was my hand at her waist. Graham’s eyes opened, and he winked at her before giving another overdramatic snore.
That did it.
I took hold of Bliss’s stool and dragged it over right next to mine. She squealed and fell into me. I tried to not to look too obviously annoyed at Graham as I draped my arm over her shoulder and took a swig of beer.
Rowland cheered, Bliss hummed against the skin of my neck, and I told myself one drink wouldn’t hurt.
Famous last words.
4
Bliss
“OKAY, NOW WE’RE really done,” Garrick said, his voice deep and hypnotic.
I didn’t want to be done. This was so much more fun than meeting his parents. I rested my chin on his shoulder and said, “Just one more.”
He glanced down at me and said, “Trust me, love. You’re going to want to stop now. Otherwise you’ll be making up songs and talking about how good I smell and getting inappropriately touchy.”
I laid my cheek down on his shoulder and slipped my fingers just below the collar of his shirt. “I thought you liked it when I was inappropriately touchy.”
Garrick stilled my hand at his neck and said, “Not when we’r
e about to meet my mother.”
Oh God. His mother. It shouldn’t be funny, but I found myself laughing anyway. I had to laugh . . . or I might cry. I know he said that Rowland and Graham were joking, but I was fairly certain he was just trying to keep me from running.
Rowland said, “Your mum will understand. The two of you are practically on a honeymoon already. It’s pretty nauseating.”
Graham added, “Of course she’ll understand. I mean, she’s your mom. It’s not like she hasn’t had sex before.”
Oh God. Now I was going to laugh and cry.
Graham leaned around me to look at Garrick, whose face was scrunched up in possibly the only unattractive expression I had ever seen on his face. Taunting Garrick further, he said, “I bet your parents are doing it right now. Sneaking in a quick shag while your flight is ‘delayed.’ ”
Garrick slid off his stool. “And . . . that’s our cue to call it a night.”
“And call a therapist.” Graham smiled.
“And get coffee,” I added. Definitely coffee.
Garrick stood behind me, and his warm hands gripped my shoulders. I leaned back and tilted my head until my head rested against his stomach, and I was looking at him upside down. I blinked. Or I meant to, anyway. Instead, my eyes stayed closed, and the dark swirled with color, and I had the sensation that I was tumbling down a long black hole. I peeled my lids open, and then had to squint against the light of the bar. Between being upside down and being two drinks past the point of caring, the world was horrendously disoriented. “I think . . .” I looked up at Garrick. “That I drank too much.”
Garrick nodded, and if his heavy-lidded eyes were any indication, he wasn’t exactly sober, either. Or he was turned on. Or both . . . hopefully.
He said, “I think I’m friends with a couple pricks.”
Graham stood, leaving his half-empty beer on the bar. “Take it easy on the mushy stuff, Taylor. We know how much you love us. No need to make a spectacle.”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Garrick said.
I agreed by looping my arms around his waist and laying my head against his chest.
Rowland said, “At least she’s relaxed now. I did you a favor.”
I was gloriously relaxed, in fact. And I figured . . . maybe we could stretch out this fake plane delay for a little longer, get a little time on our own in the city before I had to walk the plank. I slid my hands down to the leather belt that wrapped around his hips, and lifted up on my tiptoes. Humming, I found the warm crux where the muscles of his shoulder flowed into his neck. This was the perfect part of him. When I took a deep breath, I could almost imagine we were alone, and I was surrounded by him.
Garrick cleared his throat. “Maybe a little too relaxed.”
I opened my lips and tasted perfection, too. A small noise of satisfaction rolled from my lips, and somewhere behind me I heard, “Rowland really did do you a favor.”
Gently, Garrick pushed me down until my feet were flat on the ground, and I could no longer reach his neck.
He held up his middle finger toward his friends. Graham raised his eyebrows, and Garrick seemed to realize we weren’t in the States anymore. He blinked and shook his head, and then added a second finger. It looked like a backward peace sign, but I knew it didn’t mean that. Not here.
Graham shook his head. “Damn it. The Americans got to you.”
Garrick flipped him off with two fingers again, this time with a bit more conviction. I watched on, only vaguely aware of what was happening, until the both of them burst into laughter.
I rolled my eyes.
Men.
Garrick kept a tight hold on my hand as we left the pub, and then we headed back to the car we’d arrived in. Garrick lowered me into the backseat first, and then climbed in after me.
I neglected the seat belt in favor of wrapping myself around Garrick. I found that spot on his neck again and sighed. “You really do smell so good.”
He laughed. “You always say that, especially when you’ve been drinking.”
That’s because it was true. I’d never really gotten scent as a turn-on. When I’d bought cologne for previous boyfriends, it kind of all smelled the same to me. I usually made someone in the store pick for me. But with Garrick . . . God, I just wanted to be surrounded by his smell all the time. If I couldn’t be near him, I wanted to wear his clothes or sleep on his side of the bed.
I was a creeper. I could accept that.
Maybe it was the alcohol or being in a foreign city or the fact that this was the first time we’d really been out drinking together since the night we met; Whatever it was, I wanted him, so bad that my skin itched to touch his. I fiddled with one of the buttons on his shirt, trying to act as innocent as possible. And then ever so slowly, I slipped his top button open. His head didn’t move, so I went for a second button.
Apparently one button was my stealth limit because he totally caught me. I smiled up at him as sweetly as I could and slid my fingers under his shirt to the bare skin of his chest. His chin dipped, and he stared at me in warning, but he didn’t stop me. I trailed my fingers across his collarbone and from his shoulder back down to his chest. He watched me with dark eyes, and the arm draped over the seat behind me came down around me. His fingertips slid under my shirt to curve over my shoulder.
Shifting, I faced him, leaning my other shoulder against the seat and draping my legs over his lap. Immediately, his other hand curved around my calf.
I might be clueless about a lot of things, but I knew my fiancé. He was definitely a leg man.
Between his touch and the alcohol, I felt light-headed.
That might have been mostly the alcohol, considering how heavy my head felt and the way the world in my peripheral vision kept swooping and spinning. His fingertips found the back of my knee, and I giggled at his touch.
“Aw, man.” Rowland said from the front. “You two are like a bunch of randy teenagers.”
I felt like a teenager. I hadn’t been this drunk in ages. I was too busy working and working and then working some more.
Being an adult blows.
I tilted my head up to Garrick and said, “I can’t feel my lips.”
“Here, let me check.” His mouth slanted over mine, his tongue dipping between my lips, tangling with mine. He tasted like beer and himself, and I realized that he’d had almost as much to drink as me. He pulled back. “Nope, they’re still there.”
He grinned playfully, and that was when I knew he’d had plenty to drink. Laughing, I hooked my arms around his neck, and lay back against the seat cushion, pulling him with me.
“Hey, hey now!” Rowland called. “No sex while I’m driving. That’s a public hazard.”
Garrick’s lips ran down my neck, and I couldn’t seem to make myself stop giggling. I called back to Rowland, “So pull over.”
“Are you seriously going to have sex in my car? Because that’s hot. Can she be on top?”
Garrick said, “Eyes on the road, Rowland! No one is having sex.”
I frowned, and he kissed my puckered bottom lip. He muttered, “You are a public hazard.”
Graham leaned around his seat to look at us. “You two don’t need coffee. You need a fucking tranquilizer.”
Groaning, Garrick’s hands slipped off my body to brace against the seat. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, and I whined at the distance.
Whined. I would have been embarrassed if I wasn’t so turned on.
He clenched his fists and tilted his head back against the seat.
Of all the times for him to practice restraint. I was going to burn up in my skin here.
Staring up at the ceiling, he spoke, his voice strained. “Sorry about that.”
“Sorry?” I asked. “Who’s sorry?”
“I’m not!” Rowland said.
I trailed my fingers over his arm. “I’m sorry you stopped.”
Garrick glared at Rowland in the rearview mirror until his eyes focused bac
k on the road. Then he turned to me and pointed at his friend. “That’s why I’m sorry.”
Somewhere in my body, I was fairly certain I still had a brain. And it had probably been shouting at me for a while. But my hormones must have had fucking megaphones because that’s all I could hear. I sat up, my arms and legs shaky with pent-up need. My shirt was twisted, and you could see the blue lace of my bra and the swell of my chest peeking out from the neckline of my shirt. I adjusted it quickly, glancing to see if Rowland or Graham had seen, but luckily they were still looking ahead. My eyes skipped to Garrick’s dark gaze. Yeah, he definitely hadn’t missed it.
A bolt of electricity shot through me, and I pressed my thighs together, trying to relieve something, anything. Garrick leaned over and his lips brushed my ear. So not helping the situation. As I tried to keep from squirming, he said, “As much as I’m dying to have you right now, you’re mine. And I don’t share.”
I swallowed, and squeezed my legs tighter. This was somehow the worst and best moment of my life. In fact, most of our relationship fell into those categories. Best boyfriend. Worst embarrassing moment. Best kiss. Worst excuse ever. Best (well . . . only) sex. Worst timing. But I could take all the worsts, if the best always followed.
His nose brushed my jaw and his breath fanned across my neck, and I swear my body shook in response. You would think with the morning he’d spent distracting me before our flight, I wouldn’t be so desperate for him now, but I was always desperate for him.
Plus, even though we lived together, I never saw him enough. Between plays and the additional jobs it took to pay our rent in Center City, it felt like we were always on the go. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone out for a night together, at least not when we hadn’t just finished a show and weren’t exhausted.
All those years of making up excuses not to have sex, and now I was busy trying to think of an excuse to ditch his friends and his parents and keep him all to myself.
His lips brushed against my ear again, and I dropped a hand to his thigh and squeezed. I wasn’t sure whether I was signaling him to stop or to give me more; I just knew I was dying from his proximity alone. A low rumble spilled from his throat, and I glanced up front to make sure his friends weren’t watching. They weren’t, so I took a chance and slid my hand a little higher.
