Make It Right

by Megan Erickson

  Another clang. Another curse.

  “What’s going on out there?” Max asked.

  “They’re cleaning up and Brent keeps putting the tools in the wrong place. I think he’s doing it on purpose because he’s pissed Dad made us stay late today.”

  “I hate when Brent does that.”

  Cal laced his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Why do you think I’m out here?”

  Max turned off the Open sign and locked the door, then returned to the register to begin running the reports and closing it out for the night.

  “What’s with the . . .” Cal pointed to his eye and twirled his finger in a circle.

  Max reached up and prodded the bruised area. “Oh, uh, I was in self-defense class.”

  Cal frowned. “I thought you wore pads and shit so you don’t get hurt. And what are you doing in a self-defense class?”

  Max concentrated on counting the bills in the drawer before turning to his brother. “I was the . . . volunteer attacker. The instructor performed the self-defense skills on me.”

  Cal smirked. “Big bad fighter dude hurt little Max?”

  Max grabbed the credit-card slips and shoved them into a file folder. “More like a five-foot doll,” he muttered.

  Cal dropped his boots to the floor with a thunk. “What’d you say?”

  Max sighed and rested his fists on the counter. “It was a girl. A . . . friend of mine. She’s a black belt and she hits hard. Now don’t tell Dad.”

  Cal threw back his head and howled. “A girl beat you up?”

  “Well it’s not like I was allowed to hit back.” Max didn’t explain that he probably couldn’t have hurt her too badly. Her techniques were effective as hell.

  “So who is this badass chick?”

  Max felt the heat rise into his cheeks. “None of your business.”

  Cal stood up and leaned on the other side of the counter. “You like her?”

  Max didn’t answer, checking off the spreadsheet with the cash register totals.

  Cal slapped his hand on top of the clipboard. “You haven’t dated since Kat. You gonna change that anytime soon?”

  Max glared at him. “Since when do we do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “This heart-to-heart bullshit. You really give a fuck if I date?”

  Cal winced, a barely discernible wrinkle between his brows. “Hey, calm down. We all noticed you’ve been a little miserable. You got all flushed when you talked about her and acted like I was stealing your toy when I asked about her.” Cal took his hand away and shrugged. “I figure you should ask her out.”

  A date? Max hadn’t really dated in . . . well, ever. He’d picked up Kat at a party. He didn’t think they ever actually saw a movie together or something date-like.

  But that’s what Lea deserved. A date. But not from Max.

  “Nah,” he waved it off. “She’s a nice girl.”

  Cal didn’t answer and when the silence stretched on, Max looked up. Cal stood with his arms crossed over his chest. “This pity party getting old yet?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You fucked up with Carrie and you fucked up with Kat. That doesn’t mean that’s who you are. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a nice girl.”

  Max didn’t answer. The Max of the last three years didn’t deserve a nice girl. But maybe . . . well, maybe he could be a different Max.

  Cal unfolded his arms and rolled his shoulders. Truth time was over. “Whatever, just think about what I said.”

  Another clang. Another curse.

  “I better get out there to help. Finish the register.”

  Max watched Cal’s retreating back and then returned his eyes to the spreadsheet in front of him. But he didn’t see numbers. None at all. He saw Lea’s hair and her smile. The determination on her face when she had to face her hospitalized cousin.

  Lea was the real deal. And Max didn’t know if he knew what to do with something real.

  LEA STOOD OFF to the side of the class, listening to grunts and thuds as the students practiced the self-defense moves they’d learned today.

  There’d been another assault and theft the previous day. So the class had almost doubled in size.

  Max stood with a man and woman, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses in their technique. He met her eyes over the tops of their heads and then dropped them quickly, like he was embarrassed at having been caught. Lea smiled, watching her students again. But her gaze returned to Max like a magnet. And this time, those warm brown eyes of his met hers. He held her stare for a moment and as her smile began to drop, he tilted his chin up so she could see his grin. She returned it and then looked away with a blush.

  This was only the second self defense class and Max had taken to it with vigor. He said he enjoyed coaching the students because it gave him a total high when they completed something correctly.

  He moved away from the couple and looked up, meeting her eyes. A grin split his face and Lea couldn’t help but return it, flashing a small wave. He walked toward her, his handsome face full of brightness and charm. He only wore a pair of wide-leg sweatpants and a tight T-shirt and she wanted to reach into the elastic waistband to see if he was commando.

  Oh God, what was happening to her?

  “Hey doll,” he said, removing the padded helmet she’d made him wear today. Without thinking, she reached up and fingered the fading bruise she’d left on his face last class.

  He didn’t flinch. Instead, she could have sworn he leaned in to her hand. His thick lashes fluttered and she thought, not for the first time, how he had the prettiest eyes of any man she’d ever seen.

  “Hey Coach,” she said.

  He cocked his head. “Coach?”

  She waved her hand to the students, who had just begun to scatter as class ended. “Yeah, you seem to fit right into this. Coaching people through something physical.”

  He watched the trickle of students walk out the door. His mouth worked, like he chewed the inside of his cheek. That charming, easy mask he wore had slipped just a little.

  He turned back to her. “Kind of always wanted to be a coach.”

  Lea grabbed a mat and began folding it. “Of what?”

  His movements faltered. “Hockey.”

  “Yeah? Why don’t you, then?”

  The mask rose when Max shrugged and didn’t answer.

  Before Lea could prod, Jackie called her name and she spoke to her for a couple of minutes while Max continued to fold the mats.

  After Jackie left, Lea returned to his side. “You don’t have to help me clean up.”

  “I want to,” he said, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “Shit, I have to get to class though—“

  Lea waved him on. “It’s fine, I got this.”

  “You sure?”

  Lea nodded. “Of course.”

  Max hesitated, then grabbed his coat and left.

  Lea continued to clean up the room. That was one of the agreements for her to host the class, she had to clean up afterward. She didn’t mind. Jackie usually needed to run to get back to her studio and Lea liked the peacefulness of being alone, doing something physical.

  Although, today, her leg was killing her.

  She hauled the mats into the supply closet and stacked them up in the corner. Then she placed the pads Jackie had loaned them on the metal shelving for next class. The room was lined with metal shelves, full of wrestling gear, jump ropes and other exercise equipment.

  Lea glanced up and saw that someone had placed a footpad on one of the topmost shelves, separated from the rest of the loaned gear. Not wanting it to get lost in the shuffle, she grabbed a chair, dragged it in front of the shelves and stood on it.

  The chair, however, had other plans. As she hoisted herself up and reached for the pad, a front leg of the chair buckled, sending her careening into the shelf. The chair leaned precariously forward as she gripped the top shelf with one hand and braced herself on the shelf below, a k
nee on the same shelf and her other foot on the worthless chair. It had seemed sturdy but on second thought, that was probably why this chair was stuck in a supply closet. It was broken.

  “Um, this is not good,” she muttered to herself, while contemplating how to get out of the situation without killing herself or knocking down a whole four-shelf cabinet full of jump ropes. She imagined getting twisted in them, doomed to spend days trapped in this supply closet, bound in rope and probably contracting cauliflower ear.

  She examined her predicament as she clung to the shelf. She could jump, but that would be painful and a slight shift of her weight made the chair threaten to completely collapse. She had visions of smacking her face or chin into the shelf in front of her so she would have to walk around campus with a bloody nose and chipped tooth.

  As she thought about risking a nighttime of alternating between ice and a heating pad for her leg caused by a jump to the floor, an arm wrapped around her lower back. Another arm slipped under her legs and she was hauled up and off the chair, then turned and pressed against a strong chest.

  Legs dangling in the air, hands flat on his collarbones, Lea looked into Max’s face from beneath her fringe of bangs. His eyes squinted and his lips tipped up in a wicked grin.

  “That was neat trick there, doll, getting yourself tied up so I had to come save you.”

  Lea squinted her eyes back. “I could have gotten down myself.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how did you plan to do that?”

  She pursed her lips. “I was going to climb down.”

  “You were going to climb down.”

  “Yep.”

  He looked pointedly around her at the broken chair, which had collapsed completely forward, its back resting on the lowest shelf.

  “Right, that looked safe.”

  “Well, thank you for being the white knight to my damsel in distress but you can put me down now.”

  His eyes glinted. Definitely glinted with amusement. “I’m your white knight?”

  The hollow of his throat dipped as he swallowed, that small bit of skin beckoning to her to touch. Kiss. Lick. She curled her fingers to keep them where they were.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you had class?”

  “Forgot my water bottle. My Camelbak is my best friend.”

  She smiled. She felt the same way about hers. She carried it around everywhere.

  “Well, fine, I guess I can admit I’m glad you came back.”

  Max beamed at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “All right, now put me down, Coach.”

  And then, Max honest-to-God started swaying, his eyes closed, lips pushed out, while singing in a high-pitched falsetto, “Put me down, Coach. nah nah. I’m ready to stand . . . bop bop bop . . . todaaaay.”

  She couldn’t help it, he looked so hilarious and he sounded so awful, that she burst into laughter and clapped her hand on his shoulder. “Please! Please stop singing. I’ll do anything!”

  Max stopped singing, and he slowed the swaying so that he gently rotated his hips from side to side, still holding her tightly with both arms wrapped around the bottom of her butt. Those eyes, so warm and playful focused on her face. There was a little bit of wickedness in them too, which filled her with an anxious dread.

  “Anything?”

  She didn’t like this look in his eye. “Wait—”

  “Go out with me,” he blurted.

  She snapped her jaw shut, then licked her lips. “What?”

  His gaze darted back and forth between hers. He was nervous. “Lea Travers, will you go on a date with me?”

  “I—”

  You said anything—”

  “Okay, but I might have some caveats.”

  His dark eyebrows dipped. “I don’t know what caveats are but they sound fancy.”

  She giggled. “I mean, I might have some stipulations . . . or . . . amendments to my blanket anything.”

  He finally stopped swaying. “State these caveats and maybe I’ll agree.”

  She tapped her fingers on his shoulders, enjoying the feel of his muscles on her palms. “No wine.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like wine. The smell makes me gag. So no wine. I’ll drink beer. Preferably IPAs.”

  He blinked. “I agree.”

  “And no movie theaters because those chairs are really uncomfortable.” The for my leg went unsaid.

  Max nodded immediately.

  “And—”

  “Geez, more?” he rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed.

  She wanted him to keep saying yes, but she wanted to see how far she could push him. How many demands would he put up with? “Aaand,” she continued, “I want to do something I haven’t ever done.”

  Max’s muscles stilled under her hands. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes roamed her face, as if he could look through hers and see inside.

  “Are you going to ask me how you’ll know I haven’t done something before?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, but his arms tightened around her. She couldn’t stop herself anymore and ran her hands down his shoulders to rest on his biceps. He’d taken off his coat, so he only wore his thin T-shirt, and that vein along the top of his bicep bulged as he held her. She took her right index finger and ran it over the pulsing skin.

  There was something about this moment. He was so alive against her, so real. She didn’t want it to end.

  Out of the corner of her eye, his chest moved with deep, rapid breaths. And she felt something against her thigh. Something hard and getting harder. When she raised her eyes back to his, he shook his head, the movement a little jerky. “No,” he said.

  What were they talking about? “No what?”

  “No, I’m not going to ask how I’ll know.”

  She smiled. “Confident?”

  He huffed out a breath and said softly. “Not at all.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You still want a date with me?”

  His chest hitched. “If a date with you means I get to look into your eyes when you smile and smell your hair when I’m close and feel those fingers on my skin when you laugh, then yes, doll. Yes, I want a date with you.”

  It was too much and not enough all at the same time. Because he was all around her, he was her—supplying her legs and providing her heat and giving her breath because she inhaled him every time he exhaled.

  It wasn’t enough because she wanted the liberty to run her fingers through his hair and kiss those lips and feel more of the hard heat of him currently pressing against her thigh.

  But this was inappropriate on so many levels because what did she think she was going to do? Hump him while surrounded by smelly gym mats?

  “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “You going to put him down now?”

  Slowly, ever so slowly, he let her drop. She didn’t know if it was so she could feel all of him on her way down or if he wanted to ease the pain in her leg. Or maybe it was a little bit of both. But either way, when her toes touched the ground, part of her mourned the loss of weightlessness.

  He didn’t unwrap his arms from around her waist and he bent down, so all she could see were those kind eyes. “We both know, doll, that you could have gotten down if you really wanted to.”

  “You caught me, then,” she whispered.

  His eyes blinked slowly and then he bent closer. His lips brushed hers, just the faintest touch and delicate taste before he pulled away. “Yeah, I did.”

  He let her go and backed away, reaching down to pick up his coat where he’d dropped it on the floor. “I’m already late for class, but it was worth it.”

  Another flashed smile and then he was gone.

  She licked her lips, tasting him on her tongue and inhaling his scent with every breath.

  Chapter 10

  MAX STARED AT his third list of possible dates. He slashed a big X through them and tossed the paper in the trash.

  He stared at his p
hone. He didn’t want to have to do this. Nope. Nope. Nopetown: population infinite.

  Danica Owens hated him, and he didn’t much like her, but Kat was no help and Danica was the only other person who knew Lea well enough to help him with this date.

  He wanted to curse Lea, but when he thought about those dark eyes and the feel of her in his arms, all warm and soft and vibrating with a nervous energy, he started daydreaming about them both being naked—then he didn’t want to curse her anymore.

  But he had no chance of getting her naked if he couldn’t come up with a knockout date.

  So, Danica was his pinch hitter.

  Fuck.

  He dialed her number, which Alec gave to him with a clear warning to be careful with Lea because Danica had no use for balls and would mount his on the walls with staples.

  He crossed his legs.

  The phone rang three times before Danica’s confident voice came on the line. “Yeah?”

  “Hey. Danica. This is . . . uh . . . Max.”

  Silence.

  “Max Payton.”

  More silence, then a rustling on the other end and a muffled, “Give me a minute, Mon, okay?”

  A feminine voice muttered something in assent, then giggled.

  He couldn’t help himself. “Who you got there?”

  “Why are you calling me, Payton?”

  “I’m going to need you to describe exactly where you are, who you’re with and what you’re wearing. Feel free to talk in a breathy voice.”

  “Payton—“

  “I ask everyone that when I talk to them on the phone.”

  “Fuck you, Payton.” It sounded like she was walking. “I’m going to ask one more time before I hang up. Why are you calling me?”

  Damn it. “It’s about Lea.”

  The sounds on the other end stopped and then an ominous voice. “What did you do?”

  “What do you mean what did I do? I didn’t do anything!” His voice cracked. He cleared it.

  “Why are you asking about Lea? And you have about five seconds before I drive there and staple your balls to the wall.”

  Shit, Alec wasn’t kidding.

  “Put down your stapler, office-supply psycho,” he took a deep breath and stated his case. “I asked her out on a date. She said she wants to do something she’s never done before, and I need help with what I can do.”