Kat and Nico stare at me with new expressions, like I’m someone they’ve never met before, some body snatcher who’s murdered the real Grace and is now walking around wearing her skin.
Nico says softly, “You really do like him.”
Chewing my lip, I nod.
Unsmiling, Nico nods, too. “Okay. Then I’ll tell you the truth, Grace. Yes, he’s a good guy. He’s reliable and honest, he’s considerate and unselfish, and he’s generous to a fault. He’s not one to wear his heart on his sleeve and I know sometimes things bother him that he’d never admit to, but he’s definitely good.”
His gaze grows penetrating. “And since we’re truth telling, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the one who needs to worry about getting hurt in this scenario.”
“Nico!” snaps Kat. “That’s not fair!”
But I’m not insulted in the least. If I were looking at things from Nico’s perspective, I’d think the same thing.
“Yes, it is, Kat. It’s totally fair. If you judged things by my dating history, that is.” My voice grows softer. “But if you judged things by the way he makes me feel, you’d know you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Nico doesn’t look convinced. “Yeah? So how does he make you feel?”
It falls from my tongue without even a thought, as simple and true as an exhaled breath. “Like everything bad that’s ever happened to me was worth it, because it was all leading up to him.”
After I speak those words there’s total, stunned silence.
Until a loud thunk comes from the doorway.
When I see what made the sound, my heart stops.
Barney stands there, two large suitcases clutched in his meaty fists. Brody is right behind him, staring at me with blazing eyes and two spots of color high on his cheeks. A large duffel bag sits at his feet, where he dropped it.
He dropped it because he heard me.
For a second I’m panicked. But then I decide, screw it. I’m already this far down the rabbit hole. Might as well go ahead and eat the cake.
“Your timing’s impeccable, Mr. Scott,” I say softly, meeting his eyes.
His voice thick, he replies, “And thank fuck for that.”
I glance at Barney. “Did you two kiss and make up?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Hard to stay mad at a guy who says he’s sorry ten times in a row—and means it.” He purses his lips, adding, “Not sure he’s good enough for you, though.”
Brody rasps, “I’m definitely not. No one is. She’s a fucking goddess.”
The way he’s looking at me definitely makes me feel like one. I bet if I concentrated, I could fly.
Brody makes a beeline for me. When he’s an arm’s length away, he grabs me and throws his arms around me. He squeezes me so tight it leaves me breathless. Into my ear he whispers gruffly, “Goddamn, witch face, you sure know how to knock a guy off his feet.”
“We’ll be in the kitchen raiding your liquor cabinet,” says Nico with a chuckle. “C’mon, baby. Barney.”
Their footsteps recede. When we’re alone, I say into Brody’s neck, “Radical honesty?”
“Yes.”
I lift my head and look into his blazing eyes. “I’m totally going to use this to try to get you to have sex with me before thirty days.”
He bursts into laughter.
“And thank you for apologizing to Barney. I know he appreciated it.”
Smiling down at me with wonderful warmth, Brody cups my face in his hands. “I didn’t do it for him, sunshine. You know I didn’t do it for him.”
When he kisses me, I’m smiling against his lips.
BRODY
Kat, Nico, and Barney stay for about an hour. We talk. We drink. We hang out like we always have, but this time it’s completely different, because this time I’m different.
No one ever told me it could be like this. Like you finally understand who you are and why you’re here, and all your broken pieces don’t even matter because there’s something so much more important to think about.
Namely, doing everything in your power to make the goddess suddenly in your life feel as amazing as she is.
And she is amazing. Way more than that. We’ve joked about my incredible vocabulary, but I don’t think there’s a word in any language that could accurately describe how balls-out fantastic this girl is.
Not girl—woman. She’s all woman, the kind who knows how to turn a boy into a man, and a man into a slave. Putty, that’s what she’s turned me into. Putty in the palms of her elegant, manicured hands.
I’m sitting next to her at the kitchen table listening to her talk and marveling at how fucking smart she is—seriously, she gives my brain a hard-on, I didn’t even know that was a thing—when Barney says, “You think A.J.’s okay, though? Chloe seemed worried.”
My head snaps around. “A.J.? What do you mean?”
Kat fidgets in her chair. Tapping her nails against her glass of wine, she says, “When we went by Chloe and A.J.’s to pick up the clothes, A.J. was sleeping.”
Grace repeats, “Sleeping? What’s wrong with that?”
Kat and Nico share a look. “Chloe said he had another headache and had to lie down.”
A chill runs down my spine. “Another headache. Oh fuck.”
“Yeah. We managed to pry it out of her that over the past two weeks he’s been getting them every few days. This one was so bad he took two Tylenol with codeine.” Kat pauses. “And when that didn’t work, he took two more.”
We stare at each other in silence.
Grace absently reaches for my hand. I squeeze it between both of mine as she sits forward in her chair.
“Has he gone to the doctor?”
Kat shakes her head. “He won’t go.”
“What?” shout Grace and I, horrified.
Nico finishes his whiskey in one swallow, and then sets the glass down with a shake of his head. “Chloe didn’t confirm this and I didn’t want to get into it with her today, but I think it has to do with what the doctors told A.J. to anticipate after his brain surgery.”
Grace’s brow furrows. “You mean these headaches are normal?”
For a moment, Nico stares down at his glass. When he raises his gaze to Grace’s, all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I mean that if he started to get headaches it was a symptom that the tumor had invaded the temporal lobe.”
Grace gasps. “No!”
Nico nods. “They weren’t able to get the whole tumor during his surgery, we know that. And with any remaining tumor tissue there’s always the possibility it will continue to grow—”
“But he could do radiation! Or chemo!” interrupts Grace, distraught.
“And kill healthy brain tissue as well as the tumor,” says Nico gently. “With side effects ranging from memory loss, speech impairment, changes in judgment-making capability, even changes in personality.”
I’m feeling a little queasy. “Changes in personality? Like what?”
Nico’s somber gaze cuts to mine. “Primarily . . . aggressiveness.”
Grace covers her face with her hands. She whispers, “Oh God. Chloe. The baby.”
“Yeah,” sighs Nico, raking a hand through his hair.
“But we don’t know this for sure, right?” I ask, desperate for some kind of hope.
“Not for sure, no. But I gotta be honest, man. A.J. told me right after he came home from the hospital that he was living on borrowed time. He knew even though the surgery was successful at removing most of the tumor it wasn’t a home run, that most likely he’d only bought himself another few years. And he was determined those years would be good, not spent hooked up to machines or sick from chemo drugs. If the tumor’s back . . . he’s gonna let it run its course and enjoy every last minute he can with his family.”
Grace slaps her hands on the table. Everyone jumps.
“Goddamn it!” She jolts to her feet, knocking her chair back. She glares at us, each in turn. “We are not,
” she says, breathing heavily, “allowing him to give up!”
Wow. Angry Grace is kind of terrifying.
“I don’t think we really have a choice. If this is A.J.’s decision—”
“No,” she says flatly, cutting me off. “This isn’t only about him. This is about his family, too, and his friends, and everyone who loves him. He can’t just unilaterally decide he’s not getting any more treatment without even finding out definitively what the problem is. No,” she says again, stiffening her back and squaring her shoulders. “That isn’t happening.”
Nico leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. It looks like he’s trying not to smile. Kat is worrying her lower lip. Barney, meanwhile, is grinning up at Grace with this big, dumb smile, like a happy farm animal.
I’d like to kick his leg under the table, but Grace wants me to be mature and not jealous, so instead I briefly allow myself to imagine him being trampled to death by a herd of stampeding bulls, and then I let it go.
But not before feeling the tiniest bit better.
“So what are you saying we should do?” I ask. “Go over there and confront him?”
Grace thinks for a moment. Then she sinks back into her chair. “No. No, I don’t want to upset Chloe, or embarrass him. I’ll figure something out.”
Kat reaches for her hand. The two of them exchange a fierce, determined Amazon warrior look that I really hope I’m never the subject of.
I’m starting to get the feeling I’d better keep all my ducks in a row or I’ll get my ass kicked six ways to Sunday by three best girlfriends.
Which is all kinds of awesome.
Nico catches my eye and grins.
I duck my head and hide my smile by rubbing my hand over my jaw.
“All right. We’ve loitered long enough, we’ll let you two squirrels get back to collecting nuts.” Nico stands, and so do the rest of us.
“Dude. What is it with you and the squirrel comparisons? Do we look like a couple of rodents?”
Grace says, “It’s because they’re so cute, right?”
Kat wrinkles her nose. “They carry the plague!”
Nico says, “Really? I thought rats carried the plague.”
Barney chimes in helpfully. “They do, and so do squirrels, rabbits, and camels.”
Everyone looks at him.
He shrugs, tapping his temple. “Got a lot of useless trivia up here. If you ever need to know which product was the first to have a bar code, I’m your man.”
Grace says, “That’s easy. Wrigley’s gum.”
Barney looks surprised. “Correct. How’d you know that?”
She answers, “The same way I know how many cars and lampposts are on the back of a ten-dollar bill.”
Barney replies instantly, “Four, and eleven.”
Grace grins. “Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room, during a dance.”
Super cocky, Barney shoots back, “A cat has thirty-two muscles in each ear.”
Now I’m starting to get nervous. I blurt, “Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer!”
Grace turns to me, grinning even wider. “Oh yeah? Well, elephants are the only land mammals that can’t jump.”
“I thought white men were the only land mammals that couldn’t jump,” says Kat, and everyone starts to laugh.
Thank God, because I’m only just beginning to get my feet wet with this whole “no jealousy” exercise, and listening to Grace and Barney play trivial pursuit almost gave me a heart attack.
I know she wouldn’t like it, but the possessiveness I feel for her tells me unequivocally how serious I am. She’s mine. I mean, I know she’s not mine mine, I’m a liberated guy, she’s her own person, nobody owns anyone, that’s not what I’m saying.
Oh fuck it, who am I kidding? I’m saying she’s mine and I’ll pound any motherfucker who tries to get between us.
Grace looks at me. “You okay?”
“Yep. Why?”
“Because you just let out this weird little grunt.”
My cheeks go hot. Jesus. I’m falling apart over here. Get it together, Brody! Embarrassed because everyone is now staring at me, I ask sheepishly, “Is it okay if we talk about it later?”
She gets it. I can tell by the way her eyes go all soft and how she smiles at me, secretly pleased. “Sure.” She reaches out and clasps my hand.
I raise her hand to my lips and kiss it.
Nico says, “Anything else you need, darlin’, just let us know, yeah?”
“Thank you, Nico.” Grace turns her warm gaze to Kat. Her voice lowered, she says, “You, too, Dramarama. Thanks for always being there for me. I love you.”
Barney, Nico, and I watch as Kat and Grace silently embrace. They stand like that for several long moments with their arms around each other, supporting each other, and honestly, I’m not a weepy dude, but it kinda brings a tear to my eye.
It doesn’t help that I’m imagining those three words leaving Grace’s lips while she’s looking at me, but that’s neither here nor there.
Grace glances at me. “You just made that weird noise again.”
Barney claps me on the shoulder. “He’s all right.” He sends me a conspiratorial wink. “Go easy on him, it takes a while to get your sea legs.”
Kat and Grace do this confused head-cocking thing, like, What the hell are you talking about? but Nico and I know exactly what he’s talking about.
He’s talking about falling in love.
“Fuck you, man,” I say gruffly, and Barney laughs.
Chuckling, Nico says, “Remember to tack when the wind changes, bro. Don’t want any slack in your sail.”
“Fuck you, too, Nyx.”
Barney adds, “And you gotta ride those monster waves, buddy, head straight into that storm, because a secret island paradise lies on the other side, but only for the sailor with balls big enough to ride it out.”
“Excuse me, but when did this get-together become a scene from Moby Dick?” says Kat, exasperated.
I look at Nico. “So. Many. Jokes.”
He and Barney burst into laughter.
Kat comes over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. She whispers into my ear, “I’m so happy for you guys.”
“Thanks, Kat.”
“Also I’ll kill you if you fuck this up.”
I sigh. “I know, Kat. Get in line.”
She pulls away, smiles at me, and follows Nico from the kitchen. I walk everyone to the front door, Grace at my side.
Everyone says their good-byes. If Barney hugs Grace a little too long, I pretend to ignore it and keep my shit-eating grin plastered on my face, because that’s what my girl wants me to do.
She rewards me with a swift kiss on the lips as soon as she breaks away from Barney.
He and I nod to each other, and then they’re off.
Grace and I stand at the door and watch them drive away in the Escalade, Barney behind the wheel. Once they’re out of sight, she turns to me.
“I’m proud of you, Kong,” she says softly, going up on her toes to kiss me again.
I wrap my arms around her waist and drag her against me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She whispers, “Oh, you’re good.”
I nuzzle her neck, inhaling the soft, warm scent of her skin. “Do you want me to tuck you in now?”
“If this ‘tucking’ involves your outie and my innie, definitely yes.”
“I’m talking about getting you settled for bed, horndog!”
She smiles up at me, eyes shining. “Me, too.”
Is it normal to feel so happy it seems like you could float right off the floor? “You’ve got a mind like a fourteen-year-old virgin who just discovered internet porn,” I say sternly, trying my best to scowl, but when she takes my lower lip between her teeth all thoughts of scowling are toast.
“What can I say,” she whispers, rubbing her breasts against my chest. “You give me a giant lady boner.”
I
groan as she licks and nips my mouth, playfully touching her tongue to mine but immediately withdrawing, only to slide her hand between my legs and grip my thickening dick.
She purrs, “And speaking of giant boners.”
I gather her hair in my hand and wrap it around my wrist. Then I use it like a leash to pull her head back. “You’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?” I growl against her arched neck, cupping her breast in my other hand.
She answers breathlessly, “Maybe. But you’ll die a happy man.”
She can’t see it, but my smile is ruthless. In one swift move I bend and throw her over my shoulder.
“Hey!” she shouts, hitting me on the butt with her fists. “Put me down!”
“No can do, sunshine.” I saunter out the front door, balancing her body with one hand on her hip and another spread across her ass. I head toward the guest house, enjoying the feel of her, listening to her grumbly protests and watching her feet kick in front of me as I walk barefoot over the grass.
After a few minutes she says, “I’m getting light-headed,” so I stop and set her on her feet.
She wobbles a little, finding her balance. “You’re strong. I’m not exactly light as a feather.”
I make like a bodybuilder and flex my biceps, growling.
“Oh shit. We forgot the bags.”
“I’ll get ’em,” I say, taking her hand and walking again. “Why don’t you take a bath or something, get settled? I’ll open a bottle of wine, and we can chill for a bit before you go to bed.”
We walk for a minute, not saying anything, until Grace exhales a soft, wistful sigh.
“Uh-oh. What was that sigh? I don’t know that sigh yet. Is that bad?”
“No. That was my pinch-me-because-this-can’t-be-real sigh.”
My chest puffs out all on its own. Didn’t know it could do that. I squeeze her hand, smiling. “In that case, I suppose I should make one, too.”
Thoughtfully, she says, “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Life.”
“Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?”
She shrugs, looking out toward the restless ocean, glinting in the pale moonlight. “Both. If anyone had told me last week that my condo would explode in a fireball and I’d be left homeless but wouldn’t particularly care, I’d have written him a prescription for an antipsychotic.”
Sin With Me (Bad Habit) Page 17
