by Lexi Whitlow
“Perfect,” Logan croons. “How about Thursday night? Let’s say seven? You know where I live?”
“Ta… Tatton Hall,” I stutter. I haven’t stuttered since I was ten.
“That’s right. There’s a gate about twenty feet up the drive. Hit the call button. I’ll buzz you in.”
“Okay.” My voice quivers.
“You sound like you have a cold. Are you feeling okay?”
“Just a little allergy.” That’s a lie. “I’m fine. I’m really looking forward to Thursday.”
“Me too. We’ll see you then. Have a good day, and congratulations.”
“Congratulations?” I ask, momentarily confused. He’s congratulating me on being asked to dinner?
“On getting funded,” he says, suppressing a laugh. “Wake County Legal Aid? That little thing?”
“Oh! Yeah. Thank you. Thank you again. No…” I’m babbling now. “It’s all just so overwhelming.”
“You haven’t even gotten started yet,” he says. I hear the smile in his tone. “It’ll get more so. Martha will be in touch. There’s lots of paperwork. Your start-up plan looks great. Just go with it. I’ll see you Thursday night.”
A moment later he’s off the line and I’m sitting, slack-jawed, staring at my phone.
Oh. My. God.
Okay. The legal aid project is happening. I have a shit load to do.
I’m having dinner with Logan Chandler. Oh my god.
What do I do about that?
Claire... She’ll know what to do.
* * *
Claire’s voice at the other end of the line reassures me.
“You have dinner. You tell him he’s a great cook. You hang on his every word. You make yourself mildly available. Exchange some spit if the opportunity presents itself, and then you go straight home before the underwear comes off. That’s what you do,” Claire states emphatically. “Do not, under any circumstances, sleep with him, go down on him, or let him…”
“Shut up! Claire!” I insist, laughing. “You really think I should go. You don’t think it’s weird?”
“It’s completely weird,” she admits. “You blew him off after the first kiss in high school because your dad threw a fit. You blew him off again when you got back to town—”
“I didn’t. I should have asked him out then. Before the money made everything so—”
“Exciting?” Claire asks.
“Complicated,” I moan.
“Either way, you didn’t ask him out when you got back to town. Now, you need to play it cool.”
“I’m not even—I don’t think I should even try anything with him. It just looks desperate.”
There’s a pause and a sigh at the other end of the line. “You think too much, sweetheart.”
“I know.” I knit my fingers together and crack my knuckles.
“Anyway, if you blow him off again now that he’s loaded, you’re just spitting in the eye of the universe. She’s been trying to get you two together since you were sixteen years-old.”
“Okay,” I relent. “What do I wear? To dinner with Logan? Who is sickeningly hot and just became the most powerful man in the county?”
Claire laughs loudly on the other end of the line. “A chastity belt! I’m checking Amazon right now. Maybe you can get free shipping.”
Chapter 8
Logan
I won’t put the salmon on until she’s been here a few minutes, but everything else is nearly done and can just stand until we’re ready to eat. I look around, making certain I haven’t forgotten anything.
“Relax, son,” Mom says, patting my forearm reassuringly. “I know it’s been a long time since you had a date, but trust me when I tell you, dinner is fine, even if you burn the rice. The house is every smart woman’s dream, and you look great.”
I nod, trying to remember the last time I went on a real date. Oh, yeah… that girl from the pool hall down by Cup-a-Joe. A pretty little brunette with a starfish tattooed on her ankle. She was sweet, and hot, but dumb as a box of hair. She climbed into the backseat of my Camaro, then onto my lap. We fucked face-to-face until I came, but without any joy in it. I took her home and never called her back.
That was a while back. Not a great memory. I have a bunch of not great memories. I need to file them away under ancient history, and start a new filing cabinet of current events.
The gate alarm buzzes loudly from the security system console.
She’s here.
“That’s my cue,” Mom says, smiling sweetly. “Be a gentleman, she’ll adore you.”
I want to be anything but a gentleman. I want to give her the grand tour of this ridiculously large house, christening every room along the way.
I want to get back at her for ditching me in high school. And I want to do it in every room of this house.
Mom beats her retreat to the far wing, where she and Drake make their residence in what used to be the servant’s quarters. I occupy the main part of the big house, as the contractors and carpenters term it. Right now, only half of the main house is open. The rest is still under renovation.
“Come on up,” I say, touching the talk button on the keypad. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“Okay,” she replies. I study the security monitor. A camera is focused on her where she sits waiting for me to open the gate. She’s got the top down on her Beemer, and she’s wearing a light colored, spaghetti strap dress. Her shapely knees are bare at the steering wheel.
She looks good enough to eat, even with the bad camera angle and monotone screen.
I press to open, watching her pass through.
Here we go.
I decided to go semi-casual tonight. I’m wearing slightly frayed, well-worn Levi’s, paired with a starched, button-down Oxford shirt with cuffs rolled up, exposing some of my ink. Keeping with the preppy theme, my shoes are loafers, but expensive ones. My outfit is a mixed bag of I don’t give a shit and I can afford not to give a shit.
It’s a personal style I’m cultivating now that I’m out of the mechanic’s uniform, I guess.
“Really nice house,” Bryn says, stepping out of her car. “It’s beautiful.
I drop down the steps, meeting her halfway. “Yeah.” I grin. “It’s something else, if I do say so myself.”
She looks up, then to the left and right. “It doesn’t look this big from the street. It’s a lot bigger than I thought.”
I let that thought linger in the air between us, but I don’t make the joke I would have when I was in high school.
“Come on in.” I nudge her forward. “After dinner, I’ll give you the tour.”
She crosses the threshold, passing close. I catch a whiff of some rare scent that—for an instant—clouds my head. It’s sexy, citrus, and musky, all at once, in combination with another, more primal scent that I identify as all Bryn. The taste of it in my nostrils makes my gut tighten and my balls lift.
“You look nice,” I say, trying to deflect and distract. I take her bag, placing it atop the sideboard by the stairs.
“This is amazing.” Bryn spins around a little as she takes in the house; her eyes are wide with wonder.
Most of the work in this part of the house is completed. There are just a few touch-ups and punch list items remaining. The furnishings are still spare, but I was able to retain enough original furnishings from the Tatton estate to put a few items in each room, so they wouldn’t appear completely stripped.
“Lots of work left to do,” I admit. “And I have rooms full of furniture to buy to make it home.”
Bryn smiles and it just about hobbles me. It’s the same smile she had all those years ago in high school. Her smile melted me back then like cheap ice cream, and it’s having the same effect now.
“That sounds like a fun project to take on,” she says.
I nod. I need to collect myself or I’m going to blow this. I’ve got to stick to the plan.
“I need a glass of wine,” I say. “Would you like a glass of wine?
”
“Sure.”
I know jack shit about wine, but I’m learning a thing or two about how to make these sorts of decisions. There’s a guy at The Wine Merchant up at Ridgeview who lives and breathes high-quality wines from all over the world. He’s educating me.
I uncork a bottle of what he calls a classic red from Venezuela, pouring Bryn’s glass first, handing it to her. She waits for me before sipping.
“Umm, that’s nice,” she says, offering another soul-crushing smile.
“I guess.” I shrug. “I don’t know much about the stuff. I know what I like.”
Bryn settles on a stool at the center island while I try to gather myself across from her in the kitchen. She’s studying the place—and me—with intense curiosity. I wonder what she sees.
“I’d say, based on the good wine and the nice work you’ve done on the house so far, what you like is pretty good.” She swirls her wine in the glass. “And if dinner tastes half as good as it smells, you’re batting a thousand.”
I lift a wooden spatula at her. “No baseball references,” I say, giving a lopsided grin. “I played football. The baseball references go way over my head.”
“I doubt that,” she teases. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“Probably not, sorry to disappoint.”
I check the temp on the oven before sliding the salmon steaks in to cook.
“I can’t believe you’re cooking,” Bryn says. “Don’t you have a housekeeper and a cook? Someone who does these things?”
“Not a cook. I like cooking. Before… I always had to make do. Now, I can do whatever I want, eat whatever, prepared however. It’s amazing. It’s one of the coolest things about having money; the ability to eat well. It’s why I asked the contractors to finish the kitchen first.”
I look around, taking in the stone countertops and professional-grade, stainless steel appliances. “This is what money has given me. A well-stocked refrigerator and the ability to feed my family with something that isn’t crappy fast food or frozen, served from a microwave.”
Bryn places her wine glass on the counter, folding her hands in front of her.
“Is it that different?” she asks, eyes narrowed with intense curiosity. “The before and after?”
I nod, placing palms down on the counter, leaning in. “It’s that different,” I admit, feeling the wine soften my attitude. “I’ll tell you how different it is. The night I bought those lottery tickets, I was supposed to pick-up pizza for me and Drake to have for dinner. It’s something we did every Friday. Hungry Howies. The place is right down the street from here. Instead of getting dinner, I dropped ten more on lottery tickets.”
I level my gaze on her.
“I made a conscious, deliberate choice to forego food for the hope of something more sustaining; an incredible long shot. But that’s where my head was at the time. A starved soul, looking for the kind of sustenance that cannot be acquired in the check-out line.”
The wine must be hitting hard. I’m getting philosophical.
Bryn has no response. I can hardly blame her. I’m barely making sense to myself.
The table is set and in just a few minutes the scent of sweet, roasted salmon wafts through the house. I top off Bryn’s glass before plating up a meal I hope will prove satisfactory to her.
I’ve prepared parmesan steamed rice pilaf and orzo with a touch of pesto; butter braised, whole artichokes with an orange sauce sprinkled over their tops; and sugar-cured, seared salmon steaks, oozing with tenderness. On the side we have yeasty dinner rolls with honey-butter spread that teases a sweet dessert taste before our genuine dessert of frozen, lime-infused cheesecake, sprinkled with dark chocolate flakes.
Our meal is excellent, the conversation is better.
“Jesus,” Bryn moans, sucking on the last bits of graham cracker crust wrapped cheesecake. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
I smile, a slight buzz from the wine animating me. She’s enjoyed her meal, and for that I’m gratified.
“The Food Network,” I admit, grinning. “Not bad for a mechanic, eh? Amazing what a hick like me can pick up if he’s paying attention.”
She shakes me off. “You’re not a hick, and you shouldn’t use that word.” She pauses. “You never were, you know. You just didn’t get the shot you deserved.”
“I’m okay with that word,” I say. “I know it’s been used about me plenty times.”
“Well, don’t do it,” she states firmly. “It’s not ever who you were. Not really.”
“Okay. Tell me what you do like. Tell me about you. Who did Bryn Beckett, most-likely-to-succeed, become?”
She stares at me blankly, attempting in vain to produce a response.
“I… I… I haven’t become anything yet,” she says. “I guess I’m still a work in progress.”
I clear our plates, wrapping the few leftovers, placing them in the fridge, leaving the clean-up for later.
I give her a brief tour of the finished rooms in the house, and a peek at the one’s still in-progress, stepping around saw-horses, passing by plastic sheet draped archways. Then we move to the living room, which is a little over-large for what I have in mind, but it’s still a nice room with lots of mood, despite the plastic contractors drape hanging against the far end, separating the main living area from the rest of the renovations.
“You don’t seem like a work in progress,” I observe, settling on the couch beside Bryn. I refill our glasses as Portishead plays softly in the background from hidden speakers. “You seem like a woman who knows exactly what she’s about.”
“I dunno,” she offers tentatively. “I want to do useful things, like the Legal Aid project. I want to rattle a few cages. Extend a little upheaval into the patriarchy.”
She smiles awkwardly, continuing. “It occurs to me that hanging here, with you, like this, is just feeding into the same old trope, and that bugs me.”
I’m glad I bug her.
“I mean here we are,” she says, becoming more animated with more wine. “You’re the guy who can make or break every dream I have. If I make one wrong move you could change your mind and pull the money…”
She’s right. Of course, I’d never do that.
I lean forward, taking the wine glass from her hand. She’s not going to need it.
My lips find hers, pressing, separating them. I slip my tongue in, testing her depths. She’s salty and sweet, tart with expensive wine, and warm. She’s surprised, but her lips melt with mine immediately. I pull her close, then closer, sucking in her essence with my tongue and mouth.
In a minute or less she comes up for air, breaking our kiss.
“Jesus,” she whispers, breathless. “Jesus Christ.”
I don’t seek invocations. I don’t believe in deities or ghosts. I want her inside my lungs, pressing against my heart. I want her; mind, body, and dedicated soul.
I pull her onto me, her hips straddling my own. I suck her in, my right-hand firm against the nape of her neck, my left exploring, seeing however far she’ll permit me.
She feels just like I imagined her all these years, weightless, firm yet soft, compliant in response to my advances, accepting when I move forward. I slip my left hand around her ass, pulling her closer, tighter over a crushing hard-on that’s been a decade or more in the making.
We kiss again. This time deeper, heated. Our tongues probe, entwined, exploring. She’s liquid heat, arching under my touch, moaning, super-charged. I smell her, and the scent is hungry. If I let my hand fall between her legs, I know she will be slick, dripping wet.
I break the kiss, leaving her breathless, aching, hips tilting in a careful rhythm against my still safely secured jeans.
“Easy. Easy,” I say, bringing the inevitable to an early conclusion. “We need to think about this.”
I don’t want to think about this. But I don’t want to get involved in something that’s not going anywhere, either.
Her hands lift, tracing the conto
urs of my chest, slipping down, following the line of muscle along my abdomen, then lower.
“Think about what?” she says.
That’s what I want. I want her to want me.
I shift her off me, placing her on the couch safely away from my begging erection and every other idea I have of what I’d like to do.
“You should go home now,” I say. “Think with a clear head. We’ve both had too much wine.” In the background soft music plays over the stereo system; it’s a haunting lullaby designed for bedding.
