I nodded, my mouth full.
“This time they had two first-class seats available. Yay! No more getting squashed next to you.”
I gave a thumbs-up and then a middle finger.
She smiled. “And I’ve booked us a couple of rooms—”
I coughed. A couple of rooms. It stung. And choked me. Why should I have expected anything more? I swallowed the unchewed food, the strain in my throat almost hard enough to downplay the sinking hope that she wouldn’t want to go back to being anti-Mav.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded and took a bite. “Ate too fast.”
“Then slow down.” She gripped the wind-blown hair from her face and held it from her eyes. “We’ll stay at a place near Dunton and drive in. I reserved a car.”
Another nod. Jesus. I was becoming a damn bobblehead.
Finished, too soon, of course, I threw the wrappers away. “Why didn’t you answer my call?”
She pointed to the hotel. “Up there. Because I missed it.”
“Asleep?”
“No. I went out for a drink with Nettie.”
I stared at her, “The Vandella?”
“Yeah. She helped me get out of the theater. It was kind of a mess. And I couldn’t get my clothes…” She shrugged. “If we can’t get this ring to Felicia before tonight, I’ll need to buy something. I only brought one outfit.”
“You went out with Nettie.”
She frowned as she tossed me a glance. “Yeah.”
“While I was stuck in jail.”
With a huff, she opened the lobby door for us. “I’d hardly call it jail. It wasn’t like a prison—”
Never mind I hadn’t even done the “crime” to warrant an arrest. I’d step in for her anytime. Better me than her in that holding cell. “I was puked, bled, and pissed on.”
She directed me on to the elevator. Alone in there with her, I couldn’t let go of this stupid anger. “I got smeared with shit. And frosting.”
The doors closed and she tilted her head at me. “And attacked. Lay a little more guilt on me, huh?”
I slumped back to the wall and she stepped up to me, fitting between my splayed legs.
“If I could have busted you out of there, I would’ve put my catsuit on and done it. Dane said you were stuck. They’d gotten you at a crappy time of the night. The judge or whoever wasn’t available to do whatever they have to do and you were simply stuck there overnight.”
I knew this. Or I’d assumed it.
She cradled my jaw in her hand and goddammit, but I nuzzled into her touch.
“And I appreciate you taking the blame for punching Tito.”
In a too-swift move, she leaned in and placed a soft kiss on my cheek, just below my bruise. I reached out to hold her in place but she slipped back, my fingers tracing her sleeve as she left.
“Any time.”
She laughed once. Rubbed her knuckles. “Any time? More like never again. I didn’t realize how much punching hurts.”
I straightened and took her hand to massage it. “Well, I think he looked worse.”
She grinned, one side of her mouth kicking up higher than the other. “Damn straight.” As if suddenly realizing I was holding her hand, she cleared her throat, broke eye contact, and claimed the space in front of the control panel on the wall.
“Nettie, though?”
She raised her brows.
“Seemed like a nice woman…” I rubbed a hand through my stiff hair. God damn. I had frosting in there, too.
She blew out a pfft. “Nice? Try horny. That dancer wanted every and any man who looked her way.”
I didn’t comment. I recalled how it felt to be under the drag queen’s consideration. But no. She’d said I was too Hulkish. I sure felt like a huge Hulk in this elevator with Carly. She was larger than life but so dainty in size compared to me. Delicate. Precious…
“I only went out for a couple of drinks.” She shrugged. “I didn’t…”
“Get drunk?” I smirked.
She mock-laughed at me. “No, I didn’t. I made it back here fine—with the ring.” She patted her bag. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Missed me?”
“Maybe.”
I ducked down, forcing her to face me. “Are you sure you’re not still drunk? You? Missing me?”
The elevator chimed at our floor and the doors whooshed open. As always, the worst timing.
“I was lonely,” she admitted, trying to walk ahead of me, probably so she wouldn’t have to look at me.
Her voice was too soft for me to tease her at all. “Kind of hard with Violet being at camp?”
We arrived at our door and she still didn’t meet my gaze. She dealt with unlocking the door and shrugged again, sending the other side of her collar slipping down. Standing behind her, I wanted so badly to reach out and smooth the tension from her neck.
“Yeah, actually.” She opened the door and let me in. After she entered and closed the door, she tossed the room key card to the table. “It’s always been just me and her.”
I’d never gotten her story firsthand, of course, but Richard had filled me in. I’d guessed at the blanks. Perhaps because he spent more time with her, they’d gone through the obligated so what’s your biography kind of spiel. Carly’s days revolved around making sure Richard lived his own life successfully, so I couldn’t begrudge him for knowing more about her.
She’d gotten knocked up by her high school sweetheart just before she graduated from college, and they’d married. Some kind of golden boy from their small town, he turned out to be an unfaithful ass, but Carly declared she’d divorced him before Violet was a year old because he didn’t respect her. The guy remarried and was never involved with Violet, but he and his affluent family were extremely opinionated. Once her ex found a new bride, they’d fought Carly on custody, which she’d won. It was the impetus to relocate to a brand-new place far from Kentucky.
“She’s a homebody, well, I am too, so we’ve never been alone.” She spoke quietly, like maybe she was afraid to get this off her chest, and kept her hands busy with checking her tote bag.
“And I’ve always known she’ll grow into her own person. Go to college. Move out. Live her life. I know it’s coming, but I’ve neglected to recognize what that will mean for me.”
I didn’t answer and kicked my shoes off near the front door. They could go in the garbage. All my clothes could. Thank God I had brought another pair.
“It’s weird to think about being alone.”
“She’s only ten. You’ve got some time yet.”
She sighed. “Well, yeah. But last week reminded me of something I haven’t considered in a long time.”
I tossed my jacket down to my shoes. “What’s that?”
“Life’s a little more fun when you have someone to share it with.”
“Like with Nettie in New York?” I pulled my shirt off and headed for the bathroom. I could finish undressing in there.
When she didn’t react to my joke or move, I stopped.
Stock-still, she stared at me. Three feet separated us. Fuck that.
I went right up to her, fast enough she jerked back, startled, dropping her jaw. Her hand came against my stomach. Flesh to flesh, she burned me.
“Or…with me…?”
“With you…everywhere?” She inhaled a shaky breath and closed her eyes for a beat. “You’re already everywhere I go.”
Wanna bet? Take that shower over there, for instance…
When she slid her hand up my bare chest, I sucked in a hard shot of air. “Then you should know you’re never truly alone.”
She scoffed. “In other circumstances, that would be a really creepy, stalker thing to say.”
I pressed closer, wrapping my arm around her back to snug her to me. “What are our circumstances?”
What the fuck am I playing with here?
“Um.” She curled her fingers against my collarbone and then pressed them flat again. Her na
ils scoured just enough to bite. “Um…”
I held her closer so her hand was sandwiched between us. “Hmm?”
Her eyes were wide and not leaving mine. This close, I owned even her breaths. Every single pant of air she grabbed, was because of me. I didn’t want to bask in the power of affecting her like this, but it didn’t feel…right. Not yet. Not like this.
Don’t push.
It wouldn’t be hard—
Funny. I stepped back and adjusted my pants to try to hide that fact. She shot her stare there anyway. Too late, too little. No, more like too late, too big— Oh, for fuck’s sake.
It wouldn’t be a challenge to let us fall head-first into lust here. A shower awaited me, or us. And a bed. Privacy. Our circumstances were perfect for a good old quickie to get this tension out of the way. But it wouldn’t do a damn thing for the feelings I’d never get slack in when it came to her.
She’d reserved two rooms in Colorado. Not one. And until that was the first thing to come to her mind, actively wanting me not just in her but with her, I had to step back.
Right into a table with a lamp. It went crashing down and I at least caught the lampstand before it busted.
“Mav?”
“Just give me a minute.” And then I hid in the shower.
Nine
Carly
A minute.
He’d been in the shower for twenty before I got antsy. Maybe he’d been that dirty. It sounded like a smorgasbord of body wastes—and frosting—had gotten on him, so actually, twenty minutes probably wasn’t even nearly enough time.
And ordinarily, I wouldn’t concern myself with his shower times. Today, though, we had a plane to catch. A flight to Colorado, a drive out to find Felicia getting her nature kick on, and then back to Orlando.
Back to normal. Back to…circumstances that Mav and I could live in.
“What are our circumstances?” I muttered it to myself as I watched the Weather Channel, passing time.
Our circumstances were that he was too good to be true. That I wasn’t and probably never would be ready to take that dive again and let a man matter in my life.
Our circumstances were that his sexy ass was showering in a steamy bathroom just feet away, washing away chocolate that, if it hadn’t come from a drunk, I could have licked from his jaw where some had been hidden. His hotness hadn’t even faded with his dirty state of dress. And the injuries on his face gave him an even ruggeder, bad boy appeal. Yeah, our circumstances were that I was still trying to catch my breath and tell my supposedly shriveled and dried-up, jaded-divorcee ovaries to chill.
I flexed my fingers in the comforter, crumpling the downy fabric in my grip. He’d been so firm. Such smooth roughness. Taut muscles and bronzed skin. I could have walked my fingers right on down those washboard abs and unbuttoned his jeans—
“Mav!” I shot to my feet, unable to linger in the hazy la-la land of fantasies of him. Not now when I’d be stuck next to him on a plane.
“Yeah?” he yelled back from the slightly ajar door.
“I’m going to the lobby for a snack.”
“’Kay.”
I grabbed my purse and the room key and left. “I’m sure as hell not going to be there within reach when he gets out,” I groused to myself as I went for the elevator.
If I were, the steam from the bathroom might get to me and make me vaporize my clothes right off my body. And he’d just happen to be there. And—
I stabbed the ground-floor button like it was an eye to poke in on a cartoon.
After perusing the snacks in the vending machine for a few minutes, texting Violet, buying some Tylenol and an ice pack from the convenience stand for Mav’s wounds, and suffering through a phone call with one of Richard’s ex-wives, I was unhornied enough to face a freshly showered Mav.
Or so I thought. He must have missed the memo about needing to pack for this trip because he’d neglected to bring a razor. Or he’d gotten the other memo not intended for him, the one that’d clue him in to the fact stubble was a dangerous turn-on for me.
I smiled at him when he packed his small bag. As soon as he turned around, I bit my lip and held in a slight whimper.
Our drive to JFK was a quiet one, and with the number of yawns he let out, I had a feeling our flight would be, too.
As we stood in line to board, he rubbed at his eyes.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Not really. I was too worried.” He blinked hard.
“That the frosting groomsman would want to do more than hug?”
He snorted a laugh.
“Or that the misidentified Thor would find his hammer? Or yours?”
“God.” He groaned a long laugh and pulled me into a side hug. Maybe it was a chokehold. My face was mashed up close to his armpit and brought me inches from that dark five o’clock shadow on his jaw. I frowned and held back whimper number— Oh, we’re keeping tally now. Two. Twice he had me desperate today. At least since I’d decided to count.
“You’re such a goof.” He let me go and we resumed boarding the plane.
Once we settled into our seats, he made a show of looking behind us. “Where’s Susana Mae?”
“Probably in love with her ancient vibrator.”
He closed his eyes, chuckling. “How long have they been making them?”
Now I cracked up. “Because I’m a sex toy historian?”
“I mean, with the advent of electricity…”
I secured my seatbelt. “Well, I’ve never seen one on Antiques Roadshow.”
He slanted his head against the pillow. “Do you want to check in with Count Grayson and”—yawn—“Lady Rebecca?”
“You’re going to pass out as soon as we take off.”
Sitting up, he lifted his armrest to make room for sprawling out more. As much as he could while still in the seated takeoff position, he reclined into his seat. “Hmmm.” He closed his eyes. “Maybe before.”
I smiled at him, taking in the darkness of his thick lashes on his cheeks. That stubble called to me again, and I stared at the angle of his lean jaw. The cut on his upper lip was still red and angry, and I winced inside at the fact he’d had such a shitty night. I’d been lamenting the looming prospect of being truly a single, not just a single mama. He’d been holding off drunks and weirdos in a police station.
If I could, I’d kiss his pains away, soothe his—
“Did I miss a spot?”
I jumped back at his lazy, drawling voice. One eye was shut and the other was open, staring at me with a brow raised high.
Hmmm. Okay. He’d caught me staring at his mouth.
“Want me to get the ice pack? Or do you want the Tylenol?”
He’d already rejected my maternal nurturing twice. “Just sleep.”
Was he instructing me to? “Me?”
“I just want sleep.” He sat up to lift my armrest and then held out his arm. “But you’re welcome to join me.”
I hesitated. It was an open invitation. Didn’t mean I should accept. Coworkers didn’t snuggle. Neighbors didn’t sleep next to each other.
But Mav was more than that. He’d always been, even if it’d kill me to admit it.
“Come.” He reached out and hauled me down next to him. “Here.”
“Maybe I’m not sleepy.” I said it weakly with a stupid smile on my face.
“You were out partying all night with a very outgoing drag queen. You’re tired.”
I cozied into the nook against him and sighed. “I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute.”
“Uh-huh.” I felt his rumble of a sound as he nestled his face into my hair.
*
When I woke up, my head was on Mav’s chest and we were reclined. Like floating on heaven and hell. The roar of the plane had knocked me right out, but as soon as consciousness trickled in, I was in agony of wanting him. Cocooned in his warmth with his arm around me. Swooning from the dense woodsy smell unique to him. Hungry for the intimate comfort—
I scooted up, away from him immediately. How long had he been watching me sleep? It’d be wise to sacrifice the temptation to stay lying with him at that drawling tease in his tone. I wouldn’t put it past him to cop a feel, and I wanted to be totally aware of that occasion so I could enjoy it too.
He was relaxed in his chair, the ice pack I’d gotten him under his eye. As I moved off of him, he lifted his arm. In his hand was…
“Hey! You’re reading without me?”
“Only a couple of pages.” He shut the book, dog-earing the corner first. “We’re about to land anyway.” With a wink, he promised, “We’ll have storytime for bed.”
Bed. Didn’t he mean beds? I’d reserved two rooms because…it seemed safer. Less risky than assuming that since he kissed me on the street would mean he’d want to finish the deal.
If Tito hadn’t stolen the purse… I sat fully in my seat and secured my seatbelt. I’d like to think we would have continued en route to my bed upstairs. I’d been in lust enough to be on board with it. But earlier, before he showered… He’d stepped back. Reconsidered, maybe. And it killed me to wonder why. The semi-comfortable silence between us edged closer to awkwardness of epic proportions. Of course, he’d asked me what our circumstances were, which I’d interpreted vaguely as “what’s going on with us?”
Perhaps my lack of an answer turned him off.
Mav had fallen straight into the do-not-trust category since I’d met him for no other reason than he was a guy. Jaded? Yes. I’d say rightly so. Believe me, you haven’t met my ex.
Mr. Maverick Green had stayed in that category yet remained in my life because he was too damn possible. He was the kind of guy who’d make perfect sense as my other half, and for that fact, I’d worked extra hard to maintain a stiff distance between us.
Now, post-cupcake-ring-drag-queen-dancing-punching-thief time? I didn’t know what our circumstances were anymore. That kind of redefinition would require unsugary alcohol, plenty of ample zoning out time to overthink, and copious amounts of girl talk with Lexi—which was out for the moment. If I asked her for advice, she’d either cry, coach me to screw him in public, or turn it into a discussion about what we’d name our babies.
Next To Me Page 8
