by Cat Carmine
“It’s so nice to meet you, finally,” Mom is saying.
“You too,” Celia says warmly. “Jace speaks very highly of you. I want you to know that you raised a wonderful man.”
Mom’s cheeks flush with pleasure at Celia’s words and I want to high-five my fake fiancee. She’s already hitting it out of the park.
Of course, maybe I was right about what I’d said in the cab — the less Mom likes her, the easier this will all be when I have to pull the plug. But I’m not going to worry about that now.
I hold Mom’s chair out for her so she can sit back down, and then do the same for Celia before taking my own seat beside her.
“I’m so glad we’re getting this chance to spend some time getting to know each other,” Mom says to Celia as I pour us glasses of red wine from the bottle that’s already on the table. Always the bartender, I think to myself.
“Me, too,” she says. “Though I hear Hannah and Trent are keeping you very busy with wedding duties.”
With that, they’re off on a pleasant conversation about the wedding. Every time Mom starts to change the topic, Celia steers it back into safe territory, and Mom is just as happy to keep gushing about the upcoming nuptials. After all, this is the first time one of her children is tying the knot.
By the time the food arrives, I’m actually starting to relax and I can tell Celia is too. Her smile comes more easily and she seems to genuinely be enjoying the conversation.
“Oh, listen to me,” Mom says with a laugh, after a long and involved story about why they decided not to go with a live harpist during the wedding ceremony. “I’m going on and on. Celia, you must tell me more about yourself.”
“Oh, there’s not much to tell, really,” Celia demurs. “And I just love hearing about the wedding.”
“Well, if you like weddings so much, you must be just thrilled to be planning your own. Have you made any decisions yet?”
“Uh, not really,” Celia says, glancing at me.
“It’s going to be a pretty small and casual affair,” I say.
Mom’s forehead wrinkles, and she sets down her fork. “Jace, you won’t elope, will you? Promise me you won’t elope.”
“I promise, we’re not eloping, Mom.”
She nods, but her face doesn’t relax. “Good. Because I feel like I’ve already missed so much of your life — I won’t miss this too.”
“You won’t, Mom,” I try to assure her again, but then to my horror, she picks up a napkin and dabs at her eyes with it.
“Jace, it’s been too long, honey. We miss you. Why don’t you ever come back to visit? What did I do wrong?”
Her voice is so plaintive that my heart twists. I feel like I have dry stones in my throat. Celia is looking at me with wide eyes. I can tell she has no idea what to do. To be honest, I don’t either.
I reach across the table and take Mom’s hand.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mom.” Jesus. I’ve done a lot to earn my reputation as a bad boy, but making my own mother cry is a rock bottom low for me. Guilt sits like a bowling ball in my stomach.
“Then why?” she asks. “Why do you have to be so far away? You never visit, you never seem to want to connect with us. You and your brothers barely speak. I had to beg Trent to call you to ask if you were even coming to the wedding. It shouldn’t be that way, Jace. Our family shouldn’t be that way.”
I squeeze her hand. “Mom, it’s nothing you did. You know that, right? You were the best Mom we could have asked for. I left because of … because of what happened with Trent and Luke. After they fired me.”
“But that was so long ago,” she says.
I nod. “I know.”
“I barely even remember what it was about.”
“Me either,” I lie. I glance over at Celia. She’s watching us and there’s compassion on her face, but curiosity too. I know she’s interested in what drove Trent and Luke and I apart. I’ve never really talked to her about it, and I don’t intend to. I don’t exactly come across in a great light in that story.
“Things will be different from here on,” I tell my mother, promising both her and myself. “I’ll come visit more. Christmas — how about that? It’s been ages since we’ve had Christmas together with everyone.”
Mom nods, dabbing at her eyes with the napkin again. “That would be nice. I hope you mean it, Jace.”
“I do.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” Celia chimes in. “We’ll definitely come out for Christmas.”
I can see the surprise in her face as soon as the words are out of her mouth. She looks over at me, but I smile and she gives me an almost imperceptible little shrug.
“Thank you, Celia,” Mom is saying. She smiles. “I think you’re a good influence on Jace. I’m glad he found you.”
“Me, too,” she says, reaching over and taking my hand.
For half a red hot second, it feels real. All of it. Her touch, her affection, the promise that we would come back here to spend the holidays with my family.
I take a long swallow from the glass of wine in front of me. It isn’t real, I remind myself, for what feels like the hundredth time this week.
It isn’t real, no matter how perfectly her hand seems to fit inside mine.
17
Celia
I don’t know if it’s the wine, or the sweet thrill of victory, but the entire way back to the hotel, my skin is buzzing. I reach over and slip my hand into Jace’s in the back of the cab — a gesture that is starting to feel surprisingly natural.
“I think that went well, don’t you?”
“Huh?” He turns away from the window to look at me. He’s clearly lost in thought.
“I said I think that went well. With your mom. I think she liked me.”
Jace smiles, but it’s missing his usual cockiness. “Yeah. She loved you. Just like I told you she would.”
“Good.” His confirmation only adds to my warm glow, but his face continues to look distracted. “So what’s wrong?”
“Huh?” he says again. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Jace, I know you well enough to know when something’s wrong.”
He raises his eyebrows, a trace of his usual cockiness returning. “Oh, you know me that well, do you?”
There’s a hint of challenge in his voice. I grin.
“I’d say I know you pretty well. Like I know you crack your knuckles when you get nervous. I know you like parading around in a towel for a good ten minutes after you come out of the shower.” I bite my lip. “And I know you get this sexy little crease in your forehead right when you’re about to com—“
“Grand Windsor Hotel,” the cab driver announces, slowing the car to a stop in front of our hotel.
Jace raises an eyebrow, and then we’re getting out of the cab and crossing the lobby towards the elevators. As soon as the doors slide shut behind us, Jace puts his hands on my hips and pulls me to him.
The heat of his body against mine never fails to thrill me. He’s so big and solid, so muscular, that just being near him makes me feel small and protected and almost blind with lust. But even as he lowers his head to graze his lips against mine, I push him away.
“You’re changing the subject,” I tell him, hands on my hips.
“I didn’t say anything,” he says, looking genuinely confused.
“You didn’t have to. You’ve been quiet for half the evening and now you don’t want to talk about it so you think you can just make me be quiet by having sex with me.”
He grins again. “Can’t I?”
I laugh, even though I don’t want to. “Not this time.”
The elevator doors open on our floor and we walk in silence towards the room. When we get there, Jace goes into the bathroom.
“I’m going to have a shower.”
“Okay.” I try to read his expression — he doesn’t look mad, but I can also tell that he doesn’t want to talk. I sigh, and while he’s in the shower, I flop down onto the king-sized bed, tu
rn on the television, and start flipping through channels.
I replay the evening in my head while I wait for him to get out. His mother had been lovely — very welcoming to me, and she seemed to love Jace and his brothers enormously. I just didn’t understand what the rift between him and his family was. He said it had something to do with his brothers’ business, but I’d never heard him say more than that. I wonder if talking about it tonight is what has him on edge.
Jace takes forever in the bathroom, and I’m just starting to think he’s fallen and can’t get up when I finally hear the water turn off.
He emerges from the bathroom wearing just a towel, his skin still slick with water. I watch hungrily as he lets the towel fall, and then roots around in his suitcase. His dick is semi-hard and swinging low and heavy against his thick muscled thigh, and I can tell by the deliberate way he’s moving that he knows exactly how much he’s toying with me right now.
I’m not going to fall for it though, and force my eyes on to the television as Jace pulls on a pair of black boxer briefs and slips onto the bed beside me.
I put on an episode of The Big Bang Theory, even though I don’t think either of us are paying attention to it. My mind is still turning over the events of the evening and Jace’s body is tense beside me, as he’s still lost in his own thoughts as well.
After a while, he slings his arm around my shoulder, and I curl into his chest. It feels different this time — not like he’s trying to seduce me but that he wants the closeness.
I take a deep breath and take my chance.
“Tell me about your brothers,” I say softly, my lips against his bare chest. “Tell me about what happened.”
Jace’s muscles tense under my cheek and for a moment he doesn’t say anything, but then he softens.
“I was an idiot,” he says plainly.
“You’re not an idiot,” I insist. “There’s got to be more to the story than that.”
He shakes his head. “Back when I was in my early twenties, I was an idiot.”
I splay my fingers across his firm chest. “Tell me,” I say. I still keep my voice soft, as if I’m trying to calm a scared stray dog.
“I’m the baby of the family,” he says, shifting a little beside me so that his chin rests on the top of my head. “Trent’s the oldest, and there’s only a two year age difference between him and Luke. I’m younger than Luke by five years, so I was always a bit separate from them. It was always Trent and Luke and then me, the afterthought.”
He pauses and then goes on. “Trent and Luke were always the golden boys — excelling at everything they did. And then there was me. Always in trouble in school, at home. Drinking, fighting, getting into shit, you name it. And it only got worse after our dad died. So while Trent was off getting his Ivy-league MBA and Luke was becoming this world-class furniture designer, I was working at a skate shop and getting high on the weekends.”
I shift in his arms so that I can look up at him, but he’s staring at the television. I let him keep talking, sensing how rare it is for him to open up to anyone about this kind of thing.
“When they started Loft & Barn, Mom begged them to give me a job there,” Jace continues. “They didn’t want to do it — I hadn’t exactly given them any reason to think I was going to be a responsible employee. But she begged. And then I decided I kinda wanted it, so I promised them I’d clean up my act and be a model employee.
“The one thing I had going for me is that I’d always been good with people — probably why I’m good at bartending now. So Trent decided to make me an account manager — a junior one, I guess. I had a really small portfolio, because they were still kind of testing me, but I went in every day and I wore a suit and it was actually going pretty well.
“Then one day one of the other account managers asked if I could cover a big meeting for him — he was supposed to be inking a major deal but his wife went into labor and he was in a panic. I told him not to worry, that I’d do it.
The meeting was the next day, but I spent that night getting high with some of my old buddies from the skate shop. I completely slept through my alarm the next day. Missed the meeting completely.”
His voice is tight and I look up at his face. He’s staring at the ceiling now but still running his hand up and down along my arm.
“Oh, Jace,” I say. “It was a mistake. Mistakes happen. God knows I wasn’t an ideal employee when I was that age.” Of course that’s a lie — I’ve always been Miss Goody Two Shoes. If anything, I gave too much of myself to Turner & Crosby. I let them take advantage of my desire for approval, and I worked so hard and tirelessly that I wasn’t even sure if I was still happy there or if I was just killing myself out of habit.
Jace shakes his head. “It wasn’t just the mistake though. When I finally got into the office that day, Trent asked me how the meeting had gone. That was when I realized what I’d done — but instead of confessing, I lied and said it was fine, that they were on board.”
His voice sounds hollow, and I can tell how much it hurts him to admit how he fucked up. But I can’t believe he’s still punishing himself for something that happened almost ten years ago.
Jace clears his throat. “Anyway, long story short, they lost the account. It cost them at least a million dollars in business, maybe more. Today that would be small potatoes for them, but back then, when they were just getting started, it was a big deal. When Trent found out he was furious. If I’d told him the truth from the start, he probably could have patched things over with the client, explained about Lorenzo’s wife going into labor. It all would have been fine. But because I lied, Trent didn’t end up following up with the client until weeks later, and by then it was too late — they’d gone with another company.
“Trent was pissed, obviously. He said I didn’t take their business seriously — that I didn’t take anything seriously — and that I couldn’t be trusted. Then he fired me.”
Jace sighs and I watch as his chest moves up and down.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. I don’t really know what else to say. “I know you’re mad at yourself, but it was almost ten years ago. It doesn’t seem like your brothers still hold a grudge — it seems to me like they’re both really happy to have you here.”
Jace shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.”
He leans in and kisses the top of my head. His lips are soft and warm against my scalp. I cozy up deeper into the crook of his arm.
“I know I’m right,” I say confidently, and Jace chuckles.
“Always a lawyer,” he laughs. “But yeah, things do feel different this time. Maybe it’s you.”
“Me?”
He nods thoughtfully. “They like you, Celia. And seeing me with you makes them think I’ve finally got my shit together. Shame we’re going to have to break up in a month.”
My stomach clenches. Why do I keep doing this? Letting myself relax into the comfort of being with him, only to be reminded that none of it’s real?
“Yes,” I echo. “It’s a shame.”
18
Jace
When I wake up in the morning, it’s to the sun streaming in from the window beside our bed, and to a beautiful woman nuzzling deeper into the crook of my arm.
I gaze down at Celia’s dark wild hair, at the way her eyelashes fan out over her pale cheeks, at the way her chest moves slowly up and down, moving her full breasts lightly inside her skimpy tank top.
We had talked most of the night, until neither of us could keep our eyes open anymore. We’d fallen asleep just as the Chicago sky was starting to turn pink. Despite the fact that that was only a few hours ago, I still somehow feel as if I’ve had the deepest, most peaceful night of sleep in my life.
It’s like a weight has been lifted off me. I’ve never talked about my history with my brothers with anyone before, and for so long, it’s been like a festering wound. Talking to Celia about it was like ripping the Band-Aid off, and finding that the wound is actually more hea
led than you thought, and that with a little air, it might someday be nothing more than a faint scar. Suddenly it seems almost silly to be still hanging on to this thing from ten years ago — it should be something we can laugh about when we get together, not something that keeps us apart.
And I have Celia to thank for that. Somehow talking to her just feels easy. Natural. Like something I could do for hours, days, a lifetime. I’ve had my share of all-nighters in my life, but I’ve never spent one doing nothing but talking with a woman like that.
Something about Celia makes me want to let her in. It makes me want to let her see past the bad boy exterior, past the tattoos, past the chill bartender persona I’ve spent so long carefully cultivating.
I gaze down at her again as she stirs but doesn’t wake. I smooth down her hair and run my finger lightly along her jaw, admiring the sheer perfection of her face.
I realize with sudden heart-stopping clarity that I have feelings for her. Real feelings. Feelings beyond wanting to fuck her until she screams.
And the very idea fucking terrifies me.
Celia is too good for me. She’s smart and successful and beautiful — exactly why my family likes her so much, and exactly why she should never settle for someone like me.
I try to slip my arm out from underneath her but the movement jostles her, and her eyes pop open.
“Hi,” she murmurs, sleepily trailing her fingers along my bare chest.
“Hi.” My voice sounds hoarse, even to me, but Celia doesn’t seem to notice.
“How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby,” I admit.
“Mmmm. Me, too.”
She hoists herself up so that she’s propped up on an elbow and then she leans in and grazes her lips against mine.
The feeling of her mouth on me thrills me. A rush of blood goes instantly to my cock and I shift in the bed so that I can get a better angle. She presses her body against mine, smashing her breasts against my chest and rubbing her pussy along my thigh. Dear God, could this woman be any more perfect?
