“Great.” He smiled huge, once again blinding me with the boyish indents in his cheeks. “Let’s work on a plan then.”
Filling my lungs almost past the point of full, I prepared myself to completely open myself up in ways I never had before. I knew, ultimately, that was my only chance.
“You’re going to have to step outside of your normal box,” Danny warned, giving me one last chance to bow out.
I shrugged. Made a joke of my own. “I guess there’s no better time than now. The television in the room doesn’t get TLC.”
“A Hoarders hiatus?”
“Looks that way,” I answered through a smile, mocking myself for the hell of it. If I wanted to get anywhere with my new obsession, I was going to have to get used to it.
Danny smiled at me, shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was going on—or, maybe, he was just excited—and snapped his fingers.
“I’ve got it!”
“You’ve got what?” I asked. “Chlamydia?”
I thought it was funny, but he just shook his head in disgust.
“Lesson one: When you insult me by insinuating I’ve fallen victim to a sexually transmitted disease, you’re also insulting your future daughter-in-law.” He shook his knowing index finger at me. “Not a good idea.”
I sighed.
“Now, what I’ve got . . . is the first stage of your plan.”
“And what would that be?”
“Immediate maneuvers. You’ve got to get on this pronto. Don’t give it any time to settle.”
She had more going on than he knew. “I don’t want to pressure—”
“Not pressure,” he corrected. “Just, something . . .” After a few seconds of thinking, he snapped his fingers again. “Take out your phone. Send her a text.”
“A text? Isn’t that kind of impersonal?”
“Sure. But it gives her space while at the same time taking it away. Understand?”
“I don’t think I understand much of anything any more,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry,” Danny mock-comforted with a hand on my shoulder, “We’ll make sure we put you in a good nursing home.”
“What am I supposed to say?” I huffed out, uncomfortable with my newfound vulnerability.
“Anything.”
“Great. Again, you’re very helpful.”
“Just break the ice before it gets too thick, Wade. That’s it.”
“Fine. Go away then. I can’t do it with you standing here.”
“Good man,” he agreed with a half-ass salute. “I’ll go snuggle up to my woman. Let me know when you can do the same.”
Unclipping my phone from the clip at my belt, I unlocked the screen and opened a new text window.
The blank space ridiculed me, blinking its cursor and daring me to say something that wasn’t completely ludicrous.
Fat, clumsy fingers typed out a message and hit send.
Hi. It’s Wade.
Shaking my head in shame, I couldn’t believe myself. Really fucking eloquent, Wade. Good going. She’s sure to swoon in no time.
By some sort of miracle, by the time I stopped berating myself, my phone whistled to indicate an incoming message. I settled my elbows onto the smooth bar in front of me to read it.
Um, hi.
My body immediately shot straight back to standing. She typed ‘um’? People don’t type ‘um’ unless they want to emphasize the awkwardness.
Shit. I was fucked.
Thinking hard enough to make my face scrunch up, I considered my next message. It was do or die time, and I had one hell of a survival instinct.
Did I ever tell you about my propensity for sleep walking?
Waiting patiently for technology to catch up with me, and for her to receive my message, was the longest twenty seconds of my life.
Or, at least, in that moment, it felt like it.
Restless fingers drummed the shellacked wood of the bar next to my bottle, and I avoided eye contact with any and everyone. Part of me couldn’t believe this was me doing this, or that this was my life. The other part of me told that part to shut the fuck up and get with the program.
Finally, her phone chimed signaling my message. She glanced at it, but she was too engaged in a conversation with her daughter to be able to look immediately.
Quickly, my feelings turned fickle, each twenty second increment from that point forward feeling longer than the last.
Danny finally woke up, feeling the lasers shooting from my eyes, and started doing his job by distracting Haley with nuzzling in the soft spot of her neck. Conversation slowly lulled, and Allison finally found the freedom to pick up her phone off of the bar surface and read it. I chose to take it as a good sign that she hadn’t forgotten about my message in the time that had passed.
A tiny crease formed in the skin at the apex of her brow and then stretched to its maximum as her face registered surprise. No doubt she hadn’t been expecting me to go this direction.
All that astonishment gathered and danced, arcing like a rainbow from her eyes straight into my chest.
My phone dinged.
Not that I can recall.
Not wanting to waste time, my fingers flew across the screen, typing and erasing until I got my message just like I wanted it. And then I erased and retyped, correcting all of the autocorrect mistakes to make it say what I actually wanted it to. Once I sent that message, our conversation bounced pretty quickly back and forth.
Huh. Well, I do. It makes me do all kinds of stupid stuff.
Like what?
Well, as a kid I made one really unfortunate trip to the roof for midnight flight training.
A smirk curved both corners of her luscious mouth.
Is that right?
Yep. Didn’t turn out too well. You’ll be shocked to hear I can’t fly.
Ouch.
Of course, that wasn’t the last of it.
No?
No. One of my other episodes ended with the front of my dad’s Lincoln parked squarely in the remains of our mangled garage door. World’s shortest joyride.
When you cause mayhem, you make sure to do it big, huh?
You bet. Especially my latest episode. Talk about screwing things up. Trust me, I really wish I could go back and change this one.
What happened?
Ah, Jesus. This was the hard part.
I wandered away from a place I really should have stayed. There’s a good chance I really hurt someone I care about.
Wow. The results of your sleepwalking sure are . . . devastating.
Devastating. Fuuuck. My hands tightened into fists, and an imaginary vice clamp made its best attempt to rupture my frantically beating heart.
With the hold of a button and swipe of a finger she was done with our conversation. I watched as she powered down her phone, shoved it in her small purse, and put it behind her.
MY PULSE POUNDED IN MY fingertips, the intensity of its beat making them ache.
Squeezing them into my palm, I tried to distribute the blood, and then released them with a shake. I’d always felt the brunt of my anxiety in my hands, a distinctly physical manifestation of the speed with which my heart pounded. The blood flow became too much for the small veins in the tips of my fingers to keep up with, and as a result, my fingers would actually throb.
I both hated and loved it, an undeniable tell of my anguish but confirmation of life all at once.
I didn’t know how much of Wade’s words were true; how many were false. I didn’t know if he truly regretted leaving, or if, maybe, faced with a week together on an inescapable boat, he just wanted to make things less awkward.
Thus, the problem with being a woman. Over-analyzation was completely unavoidable, and for once, I didn’t feel like dealing with it.
I wanted to sit on my stool at the bar, spend time with my daughter, future son-in-law, and son, and deal with everything else more complicated later.
Happiness radiated from both Haley and Danny’s faces, but
one face wasn’t happy.
And it wasn’t happy because it wasn’t anything.
Where was Hunter?
“Where’s your brother?” I asked, tapping Haley on the shoulder in an attempt to move Haley’s attention from Danny to me.
She turned to me quicker than I expected, but her answer came in the form of a question.
“Are there women on this boat?”
“Yes,” I answered obviously.
Danny talked through a chuckle. “I’d say he’s out surveying them.”
“Ooh,” Haley cooed. “I can see his questionnaire now.”
Danny played along, forever on her wavelength without having to put in any effort. I wish I followed her as easy. “Are you single?”
“Are you a virgin?” she added.
“Are you currently on any medication that could be used to treat a sexually transmitted disease?”
“Yeah, I don’t want to hear anymore,” I interrupted with a dramatic wave of my hand. “Somebody tell him to come here and hang out with us. He’s got a week to pick up as many women as he wants, but for now, the woman who created him requires his attendance.”
“Boom!” Danny declared, holding out a fist for me to pound.
Not one to disappoint him, I obliged.
Haley had questions. She always had questions. “Why can’t you summon him?” Her eyes searched the surface of the bar and came up empty. “Where’s your phone?”
“Dead,” I lied, only allowing one guilty glance at my purse. “I forgot to charge it last night.”
Danny’s eyebrows moved up his forehead infinitesimally, but he looked down before I saw anything else shoot across his face. Whether he purposely averted his eyes or not, I’d never know.
But I could certainly guess.
Yeah, she had this secret locked up at tight as her virginity, alright. The problem was, she sure as shit wouldn’t have kept that from Danny boy had he been around either.
She’d blabbed. The cute little backstabber.
Unwelcome and unexpected a familiar hand settled on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I tried to fight the cringe as it made a bid to cover my face, but Danny’s smirk said I hadn’t been completely successful.
It also confirmed the fact that Hunter was probably the only one who didn’t know what happened between Wade and I last night. If I could do anything to help it, that wasn’t going to change.
“The . . . matriarch . . . demands . . . your . . . attendance . . . at . . . the . . . forward . . . bar,” Haley muttered as she typed, moving her thumbs dramatically. “There. Sent. He’ll be here when he stops talking to the ladies enough to look at his phone.”
“So about an hour,” Danny teased as he eyed Wade’s offending hand. Apparently, it had no plans to leave.
“There he is now,” Wade muttered from behind me, bringing all of our eyes to the door. The hulking figure of my son filled the entirety of the doorway.
“Good,” I mumbled stupidly, rolling my shoulder minutely to help him get the picture.
He squeezed tighter in answer, ground his weight down even harder.
Blowing out a sigh, I resigned myself to my new hand-shaped parrot. It mocked everything I said and valued just like the actual bird would have.
I forced my muscles to relax, and as I did, he started to rub. Minutes went by with mindless conversation between the ‘kids,’ and I just listened, melting into my seat. Gently, Wade worked at the tension, moving from my shoulder to my neck when my body language hinted that he should.
Reaching behind me, I grabbed at his other hand, bringing it up to my opposite shoulder and gesturing for him to rub. I was glad he was behind me so that I couldn’t see him smirk.
He’d lulled me into submission, and I’d barely even put up a fight. All it took was one measly shoulder massage.
But my body was too tired, and it felt too good to fight it.
I’d argue with him later.
His thumbs worked at my muscles, kneading and circling to give me the most benefit.
My head lolled back into his chest, and not even a second passed before his lips touched my forehead. A huffed breath shocked and warmed the surface of my skin with the dissipation of a liquid, coating and conforming to my features like it was filling out a glass.
He wasn’t happy either. He was trying to heal the breach, I could tell, and I appreciated the effort. But I wasn’t quite ready to wave the white flag.
He’d have to settle for the cream-colored one for now.
Luckily, when his lips left my skin and I returned my head to its normal, upright position, the clan hadn’t noticed. I could only imagine what a discussion that would have been.
Perfectly timed to our privacy, Danny turned the conversation back in our direction when Wade’s strong hands left me.
What once was unwelcome was just as quickly missed.
How cruel life could be.
“So we dock in Nassau in the morning, right?”
Whipping my schedule out of my purse, I consulted the itinerary and confirmed, “Yep. Seven AM.”
“That sounds too early for vacation,” Hunter muttered, whisking the paper out of my hand to have a look for himself.
“Ugh. Yep. Seven AM.”
“What’d you think I was lying?” I queried, yanking the paper back out of his hands.
“No. Sorry. I just had to see it with my own eyes.”
“I’m planning to go float the day away on the lazy river at the Atlantis. What are your plans?” I asked the group.
“Water slides!” Danny and Haley cheered simultaneously and then slapped five like teammates. I rolled my eyes in response.
“I guess I’m going to play third wheel to these two,” Hunter half-grumbled at the same time Wade informed me, “I’m with you.”
Great.
“Fine. Sounds like a plan. We have to be back on the ship by two o’clock, so if you want to do a lot of things, you better get an early start.”
Hunter looked like he was in physical pain. “Relax,” I told him. “It’s not like you don’t get up early for work on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, but that’s for work.”
“Consider me your boss then,” I offered with a dramatic wave of my hand.
“Ooooh. She owned you,” Danny teased, patting Hunter on the shoulder to ease the sting.
Or, perhaps, rub it in further. It was one or the other.
“I’ll own you too,” I warned with a narrowing of one eye. It was the standard ‘mom stare’ I’d been perfecting for years. My kids very rarely took it further than that when they were growing up. One look said it all.
Everyone laughed, feeling good and flying high on the vacation fumes.
“Come on,” Wade suggested, pulling me off the stool and moving my body so it was situated directly in front of him. Fingertips whispered softly along the fabric draped over my back. “Let’s go eat dinner before the three stooges get out of hand.”
“Larry, Mo, and Curly?” Haley asked, curling her body into the bicep bulging out of Danny’s t-shirt.
“More like Scary, Schmo, and Burly,” Danny commented through a smile, pulling Haley off of her stool and ushering her forward much like Wade was doing for me.
“Who’s who?” Hunter asked as we moved toward the door as a group.
“Well,” Danny started, explaining, “You’re obviously Burly. Big guy that you are. And I’m the Schmo that landed your Scary sister.” Turning to Haley he winked. “No offense, doll.”
“None taken,” she said with a full body shake. Haley was nothing if not honest and that included with herself. She knew how scary she was. She was just glad she found someone to tolerate it.
So was I.
The threat of an early morning made for an early night. Thank God.
A quick dinner preluded a swift dispersal. It seemed everyone had varying plans, but mine were pretty simple. Make it back to my room and fall asleep.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep in—som
ething that eluded me more and more as my age wore on—but I could at least make the most out of tonight’s rest. This crowd was going to wear me out in a hurry.
And I’d naively thought that traveling with just Haley was tiring.
She had nothing on the group at large. Of course, she was a part of the group and that certainly factored.
Plopping back on my bed, I closed my eyes, giving myself a moment to rest before I went about the tedious task of stripping myself out of all of my winter clothes.
Just the thought of it made me grumble. Whimper. Call out for mercy.
It wasn’t that winter clothes were logistically a bigger deal than summer ones, but it made me feel better to whine. This was just the first acceptable topic.
Lifting my jello-like arms one by one, I watched as they fell lifelessly back to the bed before instructed to do so. Deciding that actually lifting them was too much work, I crab walked my fingers over the comforter slowly, crawling them up the side of my ribs and ending where my buttons met in the middle.
Nimble fingers worked them apart swiftly, and the fabric fell open with ease once I finished.
Unfortunately, I’d have to lift the entirety of my weight off of the bed if I wanted to get it down my arms and off, and for the first time in a while, I cursed the overabundance of my breasts.
I struggled for another two minutes before whimpering once more and stopping for another rest.
Just a few minutes to close my eyes was all I needed.
The next time my eyes opened, it was morning.
My biggest regret was that I didn’t get those eight hours without my bra.
WHEN ALLISON CAME OUT OF her door that morning, she looked like she’d had a rough night.
Minor indentations ran lines along her cheek, down the line of her jaw, and into her a long neck that was thankfully making an appearance. If I had to guess, I’d say all of that was hinting at the fact that she fell asleep on top of something.
The second thing I noticed was that she didn’t look particularly happy to see me.
Her normally serene blue eyes licked like flames, and the shape of them was distinctly thinner.
Thankfully, it got better when I held an ice cold Coke out in her direction.
“You sure are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” she remarked with a surly undertone, grabbing the Coke and sucking back a slug through the straw without preamble.
Accidental Alpha Page 11
