For Better or Worse

by Lauren Layne

  By the time he and Heather were saying their good-byes at the front door, they had a hell of a lot more than pie. Turkey, white for him, dark meat for Heather. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, extra gravy, and his grandmother’s reminder that they should both learn to take smaller bites while they ate to ease their digestion.

  Josh hugged his family, and Heather did the same. He noted it was a genuine, full-body hug, rather than the stilted, formal hug of a stranger. She’d gotten comfortable with his family rather quickly, and it made him . . . glad.

  He liked seeing her like this. Easy. Relaxed. Happy.

  “You want me to carry something?” Heather asked as they finally managed to escape his family and were walking down the quiet street toward the train station.

  “I didn’t hear that offer when I was hauling your mountain of flowers on the way over.”

  “If you think flowers and pie are the same thing, you’re nuts. Hand it over.”

  “But you’re a wedding planner,” he said, keeping both stuffed paper bags out of her reach. “You’re supposed to love flowers.”

  “And I do. But I love pie more. I’m a woman first, wedding planner second, after all.”

  Josh grunted as he begrudgingly handed over one of the bags.

  “I love your family,” she said, tilting her head back and looking up at the clear night sky. “You’re lucky.”

  “I am,” he said in agreement. He was no fool. He knew he had it good. Yes, his mom was ­meddling and his dad’s deep-fried turkey had been a semi-­disaster, and his grandparents could be a little uptight, and his sister had sort of lost her shit when he’d gotten sick.

  But they loved each other. Were there for each other, messy drama and all.

  “You want to call your mom?” he asked as they climbed the stairs to the train platform.

  She looked at him in surprise. “How’d you know that’s what I was thinking?”

  “It’s a holiday. She’s your only family member. Not a stretch.”

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  “Not at all. We’ve got a few minutes until the train gets here.”

  Josh set the bags on a bench and sat down as Heather wandered away. Her mom must have picked up on the first ring. He noted Heather’s voice went up a full octave when she talked to her mom, full of enthusiasm that was . . . not false, exactly. The smile on her face was genuine as she chatted.

  But there as a purposefulness about her happy tone, as though she didn’t want to let her mom know how much it stung that they hadn’t spent the holiday together.

  Josh was willing to bet that Heather’s mother was a nice enough lady, but that maybe the older woman didn’t quite realize how important her recognition of Heather’s success was to Heather.

  As he watched her roam around the platform, laughing at something her mom said, he itched to hug her and tell her that she was enough, just as she was.

  No, not enough.

  That she was exceptional. Successful and driven and funny and bright.

  And hot.

  The thought of keeping his hands to himself where she was concerned was growing less and less appealing than it had been yesterday when he’d come up with the dumb plan.

  The train approached, and Heather dropped her phone in her purse and came to join him as he picked up the bags.

  “Everything good?” he asked.

  Heather shrugged. “Yeah. I thought she had to work today, but I guess she opted to take it off after all, so that’s good. She and a friend hung out, watched Julia Roberts movies.”

  Josh nodded in silent acknowledgment, wondering if it stung to know that her mom had used work as an excuse for why she couldn’t come to New York, and then hadn’t even ended up working.

  But she seemed in a happy enough mood as they found two seats together on the train, both content to wallow in the silent joy of full bellies and a long weekend ahead.

  It was enough, he thought as he settled more comfortably in his seat. Enough to be her friend.

  And then he felt something nudge his shoulder.

  It was Heather’s head. She’d fallen asleep.

  He smiled, shifting slightly to be at a better height for her, carefully cupping her cheek and positioning her head more firmly against his shoulder so it didn’t do that awkward lolling around thing.

  She let out a happy little sigh, and Josh let his hand linger on her face, just for a second.

  It was enough, he thought again.

  It had to be.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I TOLD YOU, YOU were drooly,” he said, wiping at his shoulder as they climbed the steps toward their respective apartments. “I have dried spit on my shoulder.”

  “You do not,” Heather retorted, not looking back.

  He probably did.

  She would have felt awkward about waking up with her head nestled under his chin, her arm looped over his waist, with his around her shoulder.

  But since this was Josh, he’d quickly made a joke about her snoring and was now complaining about her drool.

  Two topics that definitely ensured any intimacy between them was purely platonic and wildly unsexy. And although a part of her wanted him to see her as a woman, she was too high on the warm fuzzies of the day to let his indifference to her lady bits get to her.

  Heather felt horribly disloyal to her mom for having the thought, but today’s Thanksgiving had been the type of holiday she’d dreamed about on the Thanksgivings spent at the diner when her mom had to work, picking at green beans from a can and gravy that had congealed on the plate long before it had been set in front of her.

  The family element had been exactly right, too. The gentle bickering, the exasperation, and the love. So much love. It had been everywhere, from the way Josh had gently coaxed smiles from his grumpy grandma to the way Josh’s parents had snuck gooey, lovesick looks across the table.

  The Tanners would likely never know the gift they’d given her, but she was grateful all the same.

  When they reached their respective front doors, Heather made a grab for one of the bags and peeked inside. “Is this the one with pie in it?”

  He glanced down into his own bag and gave her a victorious grin. “Nope. You’ve got the carrots and potatoes. I’ve got the pie.”

  She held out the bag to him. “Trade.”

  “Hell no. I want a piece of this pie just as badly as you do. Maybe with a cup of really excellent coffee.”

  She groaned. “You know I can’t handle it when you talk dirty.”

  Josh stepped closer and wiggled his eyebrows, lowering his voice to a husky tone. “Can you smell it? All those dark roast beans? A hit of smoke, a little bit of chocolate. The way its rich bitterness rolls over your tongue, mingling with the sweetness of the pumpkin pie.”

  “So this is how you coax women into your apartment? Because it’s totally working,” Heather said with a whimper.

  Something flickered in his gaze, but then he smiled and it was gone. “Actually, I’m inviting myself into your apartment. My coffee stash is still in your place from this morning.”

  “Even more impressive,” Heather said as she shoved her key into the lock. “You’ve managed to get yourself an invitation into my apartment.”

  “Ah, but will it get me into your thong?”

  She rolled her eyes and ignored him, stepping into her apartment and knowing he would follow.

  “Speaking of this morning, are you still wearing a thong?” he asked, shutting her front door.

  “Speaking of this morning, how about you hand over that spare key?” she shot back as she hoisted the bag onto the counter and began putting leftovers in her fridge.

  “I see you’re helping yourself to my family’s leftovers,” he said.

  “Okay, fine, keep the key in the short term,” she said, shoving aside a cart
on of milk to make room for a Tupperware of gravy. “We’ll have joint custody of the leftovers.”

  Heather pulled down two plates for their pie as Josh went about the process of heating water and scooping coffee into her French press, trying to ignore the little sense of contentment she felt at how easily he fit into her apartment.

  Almost as though he belonged there.

  “Pecan or pumpkin?” she asked.

  “Really?”

  “Both it is,” she said, cutting two enormous slices of pie for him and two smaller ones for herself.

  Heather waited patiently for the coffee to finish before taking a bite. Josh did not, and he was already on his second slice of pumpkin as they settled at her table with two steaming cups of coffee and plates of pie.

  “Can I ask you something without you freaking out?” she said. His chewing slowed and his gaze went wary, and Heather lifted her fork in reassurance. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to answer.”

  “Okay,” he said hesitantly.

  She put a piece of creamy pumpkin pie in her mouth, slowly withdrawing the fork as she studied him, wondering at the wisdom in asking.

  What the hell.

  “I’m missing something, aren’t I?” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “About your past. You don’t have to tell me what it is if you don’t want to, and I promise never to ask specifics, but there’s a piece missing, right? Something I don’t know about you? Something you don’t like talking about? That’s why you got all mad at lunch the other day. It’s why your entire family will talk endlessly about your childhood and yesterday, but anything a few years back is off-limits.”

  Josh stared at his coffee for a long moment, and for a second she thought—hoped—he might actually confide in her.

  Instead he merely nodded. That was it. A nod.

  Heather swallowed her disappointment.

  “Okay!” she said with false brightness. “I won’t mention it again. Really. I know you don’t want to talk about it, I just sort of wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy, you know? And I—”

  “4C. Heather. Stop.”

  His voice was quiet. Steady.

  She clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize,” he said, starting to reach across the table, and then stopping, as though thinking better of it. “I’m sorry. It’s not you that I don’t want to talk to. I just don’t like talking about it with anyone. My family knows what went down because they were there, as do some of the friends who stuck around. But trust me when I say I sometimes wish I could erase their memories.”

  “It was that bad?” she asked quietly.

  “Not so much.” He fiddled with his fork. “It’s just that I don’t want to be defined by something that happened in the past. I want to be defined by who I am now, not something that happened a couple years ago.”

  “But I wouldn’t—”

  “Yes,” he interrupted kindly but firmly. “You would. You wouldn’t want to think of me differently, or act differently around me, but you would. And I don’t want that.”

  She sighed into her coffee, knowing a lost cause when she saw one. “Okay.”

  “I like us as we are,” he said. “I like the way you act around me now.”

  A corner of her mouth lifted at that. “What, slightly bitchy?”

  He smiled back. “Not bitchy. More . . . unabashed.”

  She snorted. “Just how every woman wants to be described by a man she . . .”

  Josh’s gaze sharpened. “A man she what?”

  Heather froze, as every swear word in the book ran through her head at warp speed.

  “Nothing. I don’t know,” she said, dropping her fork onto her plate and carrying it to her sink even though she hadn’t finished her pie. Didn’t matter. Her appetite was long gone.

  Josh followed her, his own plate in hand, although his was empty. He set it beside hers on the counter, and when Heather tried to move away to put more distance between them, he lifted his arm, resting one hand on the counter so that she couldn’t move forward without touching his arm.

  And touching him was really not on the agenda right now.

  “A man you what, 4C?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do.”

  She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “I really don’t. Really. I don’t know what I was going to say.”

  It was true. Even now she wasn’t sure what word her brain was trying to come up with. It was as though the sentence had come from the deep, forbidden part of herself that she kept on lockdown.

  “Take a guess,” he said, coming infinitesimally closer. Not enough to touch, just enough for her to feel his body warmth. Smell his cologne. See the dark gold of his five o’clock shadow.

  “You’re not the only one who thinks some things are better left unsaid, Josh.”

  His eyes narrowed just slightly. “No?”

  She shook her head and took a step backward so she could move around him the other way, but he lifted his other arm, slowly lowering his hand to the countertop so that she was good and truly caged by his arms.

  And they were good arms.

  Even beneath his dress shirt she could see the curve of the biceps, see the way the fabric stretched across his chest and shoulder. Her eyes dropped to where the top button lay open, just enough to perfectly frame his Adam’s apple and give a glimpse of the smooth skin beneath.

  And suddenly Heather knew exactly what word her subconscious had been trying to say:

  Want.

  This was a man she wanted.

  Rather desperately.

  All of the swear words sounded in her head again, louder this time.

  She might want him, but she didn’t want this. Didn’t want to be another of his flings, another in a long line of Josh Tanner’s conquests. Hell, not a week ago she’d watched that Kitty girl slink into his apartment all trim and sexy and shiny haired.

  And tomorrow there’d be another Kitty, and the night after that yet another, and—

  “Heather.”

  “What?” This time she wasn’t brave enough to meet his eyes.

  “Look at me.”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to finish that sentence?”

  “Positive,” she blurted out.

  His laugh was startled, maybe a little hurt, but more likely it was just his ego that was stinging. She suspected not very many women rejected him.

  But then not that many women had to live next door to him, either.

  Lucky for them.

  “A couple minutes ago, you asked if you could ask me something,” he said. “My turn.”

  “I already told you, I don’t know how I was going to finish the sentence,” she lied.

  “That’s not my question.”

  “Fine. And then you’ll move?” she said.

  Josh smiled, the warmth of it making her hot. “Sure. And then I’ll move.”

  She gestured impatiently with her hand for him to continue.

  “Did you sleep with Trevor?”

  Her eyes flew to his. “What?”

  His face was unreadable now, his smile gone. “That night when Trevor came into your apartment. Did you sleep with him? Or any night after?”

  She laughed disbelievingly. “You don’t get to ask me that. Not with your constant string of women coming in and out.”

  Josh inched closer, and Heather shifted backward until her butt hit the counter, her hips now just inches from his thumbs. “Did. You. Sleep. With. Trevor.”

  Heather frowned in confusion and shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “Because I needed to know if you belong to someone else before I do this.”

  His mouth dropped to hers.

&n
bsp; And just like that, Heather was kissing Josh Tanner with everything she had.

  Chapter Nineteen

  JOSH WAS A GOOD KISSER.

  She’d kind of hoped she’d been imagining that the last couple times, but nope. The man was really, truly good at this.

  She’d known from the very second he’d opened the door with no shirt the first time they’d met that she would enjoy it. The real surprise came from the fact that this kiss wasn’t just skilled, wasn’t just hot like the others had been, although it was both of those—the surprise was that it was perfect.

  As though their mouths had been meant for each other.

  He started off slow, his lips lightly brushing over hers. No tongue, just his lips against hers as they explored each other, trying to see how they fit—if they fit.

  And they definitely did.

  His tongue caressed the center of her bottom lip. Open.

  She obeyed, and then his tongue was sliding against hers. Heather whimpered and lifted her hands to his face, her palm cupping his jaw as the other hand slid around to the back of his neck, keeping his head bent to hers lest he come to his senses and pull away.

  Josh’s hands found her waist, his fingers curving around to her lower back as he pressed forward until they were chest-to-chest and she was pinned between him and the kitchen counter.

  He tasted like nutmeg and coffee and Josh, and it was the last one that was the most potent of all.

  His hands slid up her sides, his thumbs idly moving over her rib cage, stopping just beneath her breasts, which were now full and heavy and wanting.

  Heather made a whimpering noise of need and he groaned in response, his arms winding all the way around her now, drawing her to him as he tilted his head and took the kiss deeper, hotter.

  It was the sort of kiss that was better than sex. Unless, of course, one was talking about sex with Josh, in which case she was pretty sure this was just the appetizer.

  When they pulled back to breathe, he rested his forehead against hers with a soft laugh. “Well, what are we going to do about this, 4C?”

  In response, she lifted her eyes to his and slowly brought her hands to the front of his shirt, her fingers toying with the second button before flicking it open.