by Aven Ellis
A tingling sweeps through me from his nearness. He hands me a glass of wine, and my fingers briefly touch his, sending an electric shock through me as I feel his skin against mine.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” Beckett says softly.
I swear if I don’t start speaking he’ll hear my heart pounding.
“A toast,” I say suddenly.
“Yeah?” Beckett asks, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Damn it.
“Um . . .” I say, trying to think of one.
“Need help?” Beckett teases.
“Shut up.”
Now Beckett roars with laughter. “The no-toast toast?”
Now I’m blushing. And he’s laughing more. Okay, bonus, he can’t hear my heart pounding, so that’s good.
“I’ll do it,” Beckett says. “To getting to know you better.”
“Yeah?” I ask, my pulse jumping.
“Yeah. Now clink my glass because I’m starving.”
“Smart ass,” I say, tipping my glass against his.
“That’s Captain Smart Ass to you.”
I can’t help it. I giggle, and he flashes me that crooked smile in response.
As the city of Chicago glitters in the background behind us, I know this is the place I want to be. I want to be here, with Beckett, getting to know him. I know the dangers of this.
But for once, my rule-heavy mind doesn’t care.
And my heart couldn’t be happier about it.
Chapter 10
The Aubrey Rules To Live By, Rule #10: You can keep the clubs, drinking, and dancing. You can keep the five-star restaurants and kick-ass concerts. My dream date is one in which you simply talk over a glass of wine and discover each other.
**Amendment** Okay, so I’m doing this with Beckett but it’s as friends and with clients sometimes you do socialize, so this is different.
**Amendment #2** I know the amendment above is complete crap.
This has been the perfect evening.
I’m sitting next to Beckett on his couch, drinking wine and savoring every word he says. We’ve finished eating long ago, the plates pushed aside on the coffee table. I have my legs tucked up underneath me, and we’ve done nothing but talk for the past few hours.
And amazingly, I’m not the one doing all the talking. Beckett is opening up to me. Telling me how he grew up in Toronto, how he’s been away from home since the age of sixteen to play hockey, how his brother Brandon plays in Los Angeles, and he has two younger brothers that play in college. In turn, I’ve shared that I grew up in Seattle but fell in love with Chicago, that my parents are still married, and I’m an only child.
“So how did you get the house sitting job?” Beckett asks, shifting himself so his arm is draped across the back of the sofa. And as he does, his arm ever so lightly grazes my sweater.
My nerves jump in response. That simple move is torture. For him, he’s stretching, but for me, he’s so physically near, so close, his cologne drifts over me again. But at the same time, since he’s not interested, he’s so far away in reality and I know I’m getting in over my head tonight.
I should redirect him to the business conversation. But as I study his large brown eyes, the ones who are so interested in hearing what I have to say, I can’t. I just can’t.
Or more to the point, I won’t.
“Well, when I came here to visit, I returned home and told my parents I was in love with Chicago,” I say, taking a sip of my wine. “And I said I wanted to move here when I graduated. My parents were all about helping me live my dream, so when my mom found out how much apartments were, she came up with this option. You live in a luxury property with a minimal rent, all utilities paid, to keep the home in show condition. You see, she’s a real estate agent, and she uses a staging company in Seattle. I worked for them last summer, when I turned 21, to get my references for the Chicago branch of the company.”
“So you move into someone’s house until it sells?” Beckett asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Now, most of the time you supply some of your own furniture, but it has to match the feel of the space. Right now they wanted a super contemporary vibe for this condo, so mine is in storage and the staging company provided my current furniture. I probably won’t see my furniture for a while since mine is eclectic. My stuff is more suited to a quirky brownstone.”
“So how long have you been here?”
“Since I moved here in December,” I say. “So I’ve been basically living out of my suitcase since I arrived. So far, though, no contract offers have been made but I think the unit is overpriced for the market.”
“If it sells, you move, right? Do you know where you’ll go?”
“Wherever they assign me,” I say. “Could be anywhere in the city.”
Suddenly I realize something. If this condo sells, I’ll move away from Beckett.
I don’t want to be away from him.
Shit, what the hell is wrong with me? I take another gulp of wine and try to clear my head. I barely know Beckett. This means nothing to him so why am I even going here?
“This is a smart plan,” Beckett says, bringing me out of my thoughts. “You get to live in the nicest places in town but at a fraction of the cost.”
“I do,” I say. “You should have seen this one house I lived in last summer in Seattle. It was a floating house.”
“Floating?” Beckett says, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes, it was a house moored on Lake Union,” I explain. “It was a luxury home on the water. So incredibly cool. Two stories, boat slip, sunlight in every room. And best of all, it had a rooftop garden. I loved having coffee up there at night, where I could look out over the water and see the stars overhead.”
“Nice,” Beckett says. “I’d love to have seen that.”
“I have pictures of it on my Connectivity page so you can,” I say. “We need to connect by the way.”
“We do, don’t we?” Beckett says, his eyes focused on mine.
Oh, boy. I’m feeling flushed, and it sure as hell isn’t from the wine I’m sipping.
“Okay, we’ll connect before I go home,” I say, nodding. Again, funny. Normally I’d reach for my phone and do it right now, but with Beckett, I enjoy talking to him. Watching his expressive face. I don’t want anything interfering with this time together tonight.
“So what’s the downside to home staging?” Beckett asks.
“I have to be super neat, which isn’t my strong suit, but it’s worth it.”
“If the contents of your purse are any indication, I can see that neat might be an issue.”
“Excuse me?” I ask. “What’s the matter with my purse contents?”
“I’ve never seen so many mascaras, lipsticks, and crumpled receipts fly out of a bag in my entire life,” Beckett says, his eyes dancing at me. “You have two eyes. How many mascaras do you need?”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll give you that. But I can’t resist mascara. So if I’m in the drugstore and they have one on sale, I have to try it. I’m still questing for my Holy Grail mascara.”
Beckett furrows his brow. “Holy Grail mascara?”
“The perfect mascara,” I say. “Once I find it, I’ll stop searching.”
“So when you find it, you’ll know it,” Beckett says, his face taking on a serious expression. “And then that’s it. You’re done.”
I know he’s talking about mascara, but my romantic heart—which I thought had gone into deep freeze since my mutual break-up with my last boyfriend, Tate—wonders if Beckett could be my Holy Grail for relationships.
“Yeah,” I admit softly. “Just like that.”
A silence falls between us. His eyes are still on my face, and I once ag
ain notice how gorgeous he is. How he speaks so softly and has such a gentle, shy way about him but is so strong and athletic and masculine at the same time.
It’s an intoxicating blend.
One I’m finding hard to resist.
Finally Beckett clears his throat. “So despite the appearance of your purse, you can keep the condo neat?”
I laugh. “Yes, I can, thank you. My job is to keep the place feeling like a home you’d want to move right into. I simmer rosemary, lemon, and vanilla on the stove to make it smell nice, set the lighting, fluff the pillows, stuff like that.”
“But in reality, you’d have dishes in the sink, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, that’s what you’re saying,” I tease.
Beckett grins at me. “I stand corrected.”
“And you have to be ready to go out whenever they have a showing, so I live at Starbucks.”
“Because you can’t be there when it’s being shown.”
I nod. “I can’t tell you how many days I’ve run out the door due to a surprise showing. In my yoga pants, no makeup, and I find myself at Starbucks surfing the Internet until they are gone.”
“That part would suck.”
“Yes, that part is crappy but the rest of it is a good way to live in Chicago until I can afford my own place.”
Which obviously wouldn’t be here.
I turn and look over his shoulder out the window. It’s snowing again, a puffy, heavy snow that is going to bury the city again tonight.
“The amount of snow here is crazy,” I say, changing the subject.
“You haven’t been to Canada, have you?” Beckett asks.
“Nope.” Then I grin at him. “What do you miss about Canada?”
“My family,” Beckett says. “My old friends. I’ll get to catch up with everyone when I go back in the summer, though, so that’s good. But there’s one thing I really miss. That I took for granted until I moved away.”
I pause for a moment. Is he talking about his old girlfriend? The one I saw him in all the pictures with on social media?
“Yeah?” I ask, although if he misses her, I don’t want to know.
“Timmy’s.”
I wrinkle my brow. “What?”
“Tim Horton’s,” Beckett says, his face lighting up. “They have the best coffee. And donuts. I’d kill for a cup right now. We play in Buffalo in a few days, and I’ll be able to get one there, but damn, I miss that coffee.”
I burst out laughing.
“What?” he asks, looking confused.
“You sound like a junkie in need of a fix.”
“I am, no doubt about it.”
“Ahhhhh, the accent comes out on doubt too!” I cry in delight.
“Shut up,” Beckett says, but as he says it, he flashes me a grin.
“I will not shut up.”
“True,” Beckett says. “It’s probably humanly impossible for you to stop talking.”
“Beckett,” I protest, “that’s not true. At all.”
“Okay,” Beckett says, putting his wineglass down and pushing up the sleeve on his sweater to reveal his watch, “I’m going to see how long you can last without saying a word.”
“What? This is ridiculous. Contrary to what you believe, I’m capable of being silent.”
“Sure.”
“I can,” I say defiantly.
“Let’s see how long before you crack under the pressure of silence? Okay, starting . . . now.”
I open my mouth to speak but then zip it shut. Beckett stares at me, grinning, and I’m desperately trying not to laugh. I avoid his eyes, but I feel them on my face. When I turn back to him, he’s still locked in this intense gaze, but the seriousness of it is betrayed by the smile on his handsome face.
I can’t take it and burst out laughing. “Okay, stop staring at me!”
“You’re easy to crack,” he says, laughing.
“Is this what you do to opponents? Stare them down?”
“Nah, I chirp at them.”
“What? Chirp?” I ask, laughing. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“Chirp, you know, get under their skin with comments.” A quizzical expression passes over his face. “You really are the perfect person to handle my account because you don’t know anything about hockey, do you?”
Right. His social media expert. And despite all this banter and conversation, that’s what I really am, aren’t I?
My chest draws tight from his words, but I force a smile on my face. “I know zero, but you could have Mallory handle your account. She’s experienced.”
Beckett groans. “No. No way. She’s fake. I can only imagine what her tweets would be like. I’d sound like an idiot.”
Once again, I should say nothing. I should be professional, back up her expertise, all that crap.
But I can’t do that to Beckett.
“She’s a bitch,” I blurt out.
Beckett studies me. “You’ve only worked there a day.”
“I don’t care, I call it like I see it.” I sit forward on the couch, growing more animated as I think about this. “The first thing she did? Warned me that I’m going to pay my dues. She made me bring her breakfast. She rejected the banana I got because it had too many spots. Who the hell does that? I also had to get her lunch. She only eats boring bland foods and she says she hates bread but she needs to eat five freaking pies because she’s crabby from only eating foods that taste like cardboard. And she stares at shoes all day on the Internet, too, which is ridiculous considering her title and I—”
And as I’m telling my story, I accidentally wave my arm out and smack Beckett in the side of the face.
“Oh!” My hands fly to my mouth. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
Beckett rubs his hand across his jawline, where I clipped him with my hand.
“First you call me a smart ass and now you hit me in the face?”
My cheeks are on fire. “I’m, so, so sorry. I talk with my hands and I got overdramatic.”
Beckett flashes me that crooked grin. “It’s okay, I get punched in the face for a living, remember? It’s fine.”
I peer closer at him, and to my horror, I see I’ve scratched him with my ring.
“You’re bleeding,” I say, mortified. And before I even think what I’m going, I brush my fingers against his face.
The second I do, Beckett’s eyes widen in shock. I freeze. I’ve touched him. Shit, I never should have touched him. Panic fills me and I go to jerk my hand away, but as I do, Beckett reaches up grabs my wrist.
I can’t breathe. Butterflies are swirling at a manic pace. My heart is about to explode inside my chest.
Right now I’m inches from him. His dark-brown eyes are locked on mine. I shift my gaze to his lips, his gorgeous, full lips that I desperately want to feel against my own.
He’s still holding my wrist in his hand, his fingertips gliding back and forth across it in a sexy way that is making every nerve I have tingle with desire.
Then he slowly puts my hand down, releasing his grip.
The moment is over.
But that moment told me everything I needed to know.
He’s feeling it, too.
Beckett clears his throat. “I’m good, no worries.”
“Okay.”
A silence falls between us, and I decide it’s my turn to fill it.
“Sorry. Talking about Mallory got me all worked up,” I admit.
Beckett smiles at me. “I can see that.”
I grab one of his throw pillows and hide my face in it. “Gah, Beckett, I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I’ve never been so unprofessional in all my life.”
I feel the pillow being pull
ed away from my face, and Beckett is peering at me.
“Is that in the rule book?” Beckett asks.
I blink. “You remember the rule book?”
“Of course I do.”
I swallow hard. My rules that were meant to keep my life organized and focused are being challenged on all fronts by this man and the feelings I’m starting to have for him.
“Yes,” I admit, “it is one of my rules.”
“Do you know what I like about you? You’re honest. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever met.”
Guilt floods me. “Well, I’m not ethical. Work and personal should be separate.”
“Is this personal?” Beckett asks softly.
“I think you know it is.”
“Then it stays between us,” Beckett says simply. “I met you before I even knew what ChicagoConnect was. And looking around that conference table, I would have walked if it weren’t for you.”
My heart leaps at his words. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Beckett says. “So much bullshit. Mallory would tweet stupid stuff on my account, I have no doubt about it. And don’t laugh because I said doubt,” Beckett warns.
I can’t resist laughing. “That’s like asking me to be quiet.”
“True,” Beckett agrees, smiling at me.
“So we . . .” I hesitate, as I don’t even know what to call us. “We’re friends. Outside of ChicagoConnect, assuming we get the account. Is that how this is going to be?”
Beckett rubs his hand over his face. “Yeah, for now.”
Could be more? Is that what he means?
