After Tonight

by Erin Nicholas

  Yep, that made sense.

  “Okay.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “But the physical stuff is important too.”

  “I think you’ve practiced that plenty.” Riley turned away and started opening his cupboards and drawers.

  He would help her find whatever she was looking for, but first he wanted to finish this subject. “But we have to be comfortable together physically,” he said.

  She turned back to face him quickly. “We do?”

  “We…as in me and my real girlfriend,” he said, but his thoughts were on all of the times he and Riley had been together in swimming suits and pajamas, when he’d had his shirt off, when she’d gotten soaked with water balloons and her white T-shirt had been plastered to her body, when she’d pulled off a tank top and replaced it with a T-shirt in the back of Kyle’s car. He remembered thinking, “Hey, Riley has boobs,” when he’d glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of her pale pink bra. But it had been only a few seconds. And it had been Riley. It hadn’t mattered.

  She’d slept in a tiny tent with him and Kyle while camping. She’d swum in the pond with them. She’d leaned her head on his shoulder in the backseat and slept all the way home from a Dierks Bentley concert in Lawrence, Kansas. He’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of a party at Damon Jenkins’s house when she’d gotten puking drunk and started telling Carrie Reynolds what she really thought of her.

  Yeah, they’d been physically close and not-fully-dressed several times together. And yet, now she seemed jumpy. And he couldn’t really focus on the fact they were talking about another woman together.

  “I get that it has to be more than physical,” he said, his thoughts still scattered. “But it has to be physical too.”

  Riley took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Of course. There has to be physical attraction too. And you have to want to be close to each other, touching, stuff like that.”

  “So, seems like Lucy might need to get comfortable with the physical side.” His eyes flickered to Riley’s mouth, and he felt a stab of surprise and desire at the same time. “Cooking breakfast and talking about current events while also touching and being half-naked.”

  He’d really like to pull the strap of her tank top down her shoulder and kiss her right there.

  The thought occurred to him and didn’t shock him as much as it should have. Especially considering they were talking about him doing all of this with one of her best friends.

  Riley gave him a frown. “Really? Already?”

  “Already what?”

  “You’re already changing the rules. You can’t get through one morning without wondering how to do things your way instead of hers?”

  He opened his mouth. Then snapped it shut. Dammit. The thing was, he hadn’t really been thinking about Lucy. If she was more shy and would take longer to warm up, of course he’d take it slower. Not make their first breakfast together half-naked. But he hadn’t been thinking about Lucy.

  Still, she had a point. “Okay, okay.” He looked at the table where they’d be eating. Fine. He could be taught. He headed for the backyard and returned five minutes later with a handful of the rhubarb that grew along his back fence.

  Riley watched him grab a plastic cup from The Stop, the convenience store on the edge of town, and stick the stalks inside. He set them in the middle of the table.

  She was clearly fighting a smile when he turned to face her.

  “I don’t have flowers. That and green beans and tomatoes are what grow in my backyard, and I know how you feel about green beans.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “You don’t like green beans straight from the garden. But you do like rhubarb. I mean, maybe not raw, but…” He shrugged. “You’re not really a flower kind of girl.”

  Her eyes got even rounder. “I’m not?”

  She wasn’t. He wasn’t going to be able to give her a rundown of all the reasons he thought that—for instance, she never wore flowered patterns on her clothes—but honestly, even if he’d been driving her crazy for twenty-six years, he knew her. Period. He wasn’t going to fight with her about it. “You’re not,” he said simply.

  “But this is about Lucy.”

  “Yeah, well, Lucy isn’t here right now.”

  They just stood looking at each other for several long seconds.

  Then Riley nodded. “Well, I didn’t do any bendy yoga, so I guess all of this is just as close as we can get today. But that’s why you’re practicing.”

  “So I need to plant flowers?”

  “I don’t…that seems…a little more involved than it needs to be,” she said after tripping over the first few words.

  Yeah, maybe. Which also maybe meant that he should do it. This was about doing things differently. But that seemed kind of—well, not permanent, because flowers weren’t, of course, but they lasted longer than his relationships typically did. Yeah, maybe he should plant some flowers.

  “What kind?”

  “Of flowers to plant?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll, um, ask Lucy what she likes,” Riley said.

  “What kind of flowers does your grandma like?” he asked.

  Riley looked surprised. “My grandma?”

  Riley’s grandmother and Derek’s were best friends. He knew Ruby as well as he did his own. And loved her just as much. “Yeah. My grandma loves lilacs.”

  “Mine does too. And roses, of course.”

  “I could plant roses.”

  “Roses are kind of hard to grow.”

  He shrugged. “I’m pretty good with plants.”

  “Why are you planting flowers our grandmothers like?” Riley crossed her arms.

  “Because if the relationship thing doesn’t work out, then I’ve still got someone to give the flowers to.”

  Riley didn’t say anything to that at first. She studied him for a moment. He lifted a brow. Finally, she said, “Grandma loves Butterfly Weed. And the butterflies and hummingbirds it attracts. And it’s easy to grow.”

  “Great. Perfect.”

  Riley shook her head.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That’s very sweet.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course.” She laughed and dropped her arms. “You don’t know that?”

  “So being romantic is really just doing thoughtful things,” he said.

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Then this will be easy. I’m a very thoughtful guy.”

  She snorted at that. And he realized that yeah, she would snort. He was very thoughtful. To everyone but Riley. Because he wanted people to be happy and feel good. He wanted Riley wound up.

  That realization seemed to hit him right between the eyes.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want her happy. But while he spent his time making the town a better place, making people’s lives a little easier, with Riley, it was different. He liked to give her a hard time and get her going. Why was that? Why was she the one spot he wanted worked up in his otherwise peaceful, relatively carefree life?

  That was…interesting.

  “You realize that having multiple types of coffee creamer for your overnight guests’ morning coffee is also sweet, right?” Riley asked.

  He frowned. “How did you know about that?”

  “The girls in the bar that first night,” she said.

  Damn, those girls had spilled a lot.

  “The whole idea is making them feel better about…whatever. And saying goodbye in the morning can be awkward. The coffee makes it better.”

  Riley nodded, still watching him as if she was pondering something serious. “That’s all you really need to do, you know,” she finally said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just have to think about how to make her feel good, make her happy.”

  He shifted his weight. Yeah, he got that.

  “And you already do that,” Riley pointed out.

  “Yes, but the orgasms the nig
ht before make the coffee taste even better.”

  She didn’t fall for him trying to lighten things. “You do understand this.”

  Of course he did. He wasn’t an idiot. No, he was just cursed with a deeply engrained desire to make things better around him. To make things work better, to make people feel better, to even make things look better. The fucking town square’s landscaping was a testament to that. But he also had an allergy to clinginess. He wanted to do things for people because he wanted to, not because they needed him to or expected him to.

  Honestly, with his parents, there was really no other way he could have turned out. His father was involved in everything from planning the town’s Fourth of July display to serving on the school board. And his mom didn’t trust his dad any further than she could throw him. She inundated him with texts all day and peppered him with questions as soon as he set foot through the door.

  So Derek had learned to balance wanting to take care of things with his absolute unwillingness to have someone on his ass constantly. He made women feel good—beautiful and desirable—he made them laugh, he was sweet to them. Then he got them out of his house and life before they could even begin to think they might have a right to know where he was going to spend his next weekend. A reputation for one-weekend stands and coffee to go had served him well. Those little creamer tubs and to-go cups were the best, most symbolic things he could have bought. I care that you have your coffee exactly the way you want it combined with I wouldn’t want you to spill it while you’re driving away from my house.

  “Making a woman happy between the sheets is easy, and then all I have to do is get through coffee,” he said. “That’s not really that much of a challenge.”

  “So what you need to practice is doing the sweet thing longer term.”

  “Guess so.” And risk the clingy thing. Dammit. He knew that would come. It was unavoidable. A “real” girlfriend, as they’d been referring to Lucy, would come to depend on him. But maybe it was time. Scott and Kyle seemed to be doing okay. Derek would just ignore the cold sweats the idea gave him.

  “And you need to practice keeping your clothes on the whole time you’re with someone.”

  “The whole time?” And his thoughts were right back on Riley again and how clingy her clothes were.

  Or had his thoughts ever really left Riley? Because he’d just been kind of wondering what he could substitute for the morning-coffee-creamer thing for a woman who didn’t use coffee creamer.

  But it wasn’t hard to imagine her without clothes. Her nipples would probably be pale pink to go with her pale skin. And she seemed the type to shave everywhere. He wasn’t at all sure why he thought that, but yeah, he really would put money down on Riley being bare. And she might have some hidden tats.

  And he suddenly wanted to know all of that.

  “What the hell, Derek?” she asked, snapping her fingers in front of him.

  “What?”

  “Are you actually thinking about me without clothes on?”

  How the hell did she know that? “It just kind of happened,” he admitted.

  “But I’m like a sister to you. Right?”

  She said the last word as if she would take no other answer. And the answer should be easy. It was yes. Absolutely. Up until about twenty minutes ago.

  “It’s just a reflex,” he said, frowning. “Calm down.”

  Was it so horrible that he might think about her as more than a sister? But yeah, to her, probably. He was just a pain-in-the-ass guy who’d been in her way forever and who had never gotten his shit together enough to even leave home.

  And what the hell was that?

  Riley Ames was not going to make him feel like a loser. Plenty of women thought he was damned amazing. God level, in fact. Yeah, he fucking loved that. And loved that she knew that. He wasn’t saving lives like Kyle or protecting the town like Scott, but he was making people here happier. Mostly female people, sure, but when they felt better about themselves, the people around them benefitted. It was a proven psychological fact that people were more productive and nicer to the people they interacted with when they felt good. Great sex was like eating healthy and working out and vacation. He was like their trainer.

  He still lived in his hometown and there was nothing fucking wrong with that. No matter what Riley thought. She was the least clingy person he knew. She didn’t even cling to fond childhood memories or the idea of being in her hometown every year at Christmas. Some clinginess wasn’t all bad.

  “Are we cooking or what?” he asked crossly.

  He was hungry. And up early. And turned on by a woman who was off-limits. And who he didn’t really like that much anyway.

  The least he could get was a good breakfast.

  She was making crepes with Derek Wright. How had that happened?

  “That one’s the best yet.” He slid the last crepe onto the plate and handed it to her. “Now what?”

  Riley narrowed her eyes. This was nice. He wasn’t giving her a hard time. He wasn’t messing around. He was following her directions and making crepes that were turning out to be really good.

  “Blueberry pomegranate chai seed jam,” she said, reaching for the jar in the sack she’d brought in with her. “I roll it all inside, but you can put it on top if you want.”

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  It did?

  He wasn’t going to tease her about her not-plain-old-strawberry jam? He wasn’t going to give her a hard time about the chai seeds?

  That was nice. And weird.

  It was like he was lost in thought or distracted or something. Or maybe it was like he was being normal. How he was with other people. Not her, of course. Derek was never not messing around and not giving her a hard time. But she assumed he was normal and not irritating at least some of the time with other people. He seemed to be well-liked.

  She spooned jam onto the crepes and Derek rolled them up. Then she dolloped whipped cream on top, and he took the plates over to the table. She frowned at his back.

  But this was definitely not how he usually acted with her. Hell, the last time they’d been alone in a kitchen together, he’d started a food fight.

  Her mother had been pissed. Until Derek teased her and got her laughing and charmed her right out of her bad mood.

  Yeah, Derek was going to be fine at this relationships stuff. He was wonderful with her mother, their grandmothers…hell, he was sweet to the entire town of Sapphire Falls. He basically romanced the town all the time. He’d just never applied it to a woman.

  The thing was, once he decided to, he’d probably be really good at it.

  How had she not seen that? She hadn’t thought it through. Because with her, he was a…pain in the ass. He liked to push her buttons and tease. And not in a sexy way. In a…well, a pushing-her-buttons kind of way. He was different with her, but yeah, he kind of had some potential for being boyfriend material after all. Maybe there was a chance he could pull it off.

  Like a 40% chance.

  But that wasn’t good enough for girls like Lucy. No, Riley wasn’t actually training him to be the perfect boyfriend for Lucy. Lucy wasn’t interested. But Derek didn’t know that and it was fun to lead him on, letting him think that Riley was hauling him out of bed before his alarm because Lucy was a morning person, when really Riley just wanted to mess with him a little. She owed him for the ants in her peanut butter. At least. Anyone would agree. And she wanted to test him. Test him to see just how far he’d go to become a “better man” for these sweet, nice girls he thought he wanted to date.

  Riley poured coffee and carried the cups to the table. She drank it black and so did Derek. In spite of the multitude of cream flavors he kept around.

  “You okay?” she asked as she slid into the chair perpendicular to him.

  He cut into one of the crepes. “Yeah.” He lifted it to his mouth. He tasted the bite, chewing slowly. Then he nodded. “This is really good.”

  “Thanks.” She sipped her coffee.


  He sipped his coffee.

  She took a bite of her crepe. Which was really good.

  He took another bite.

  She took another sip of coffee. And tried not to grind her teeth.

  At her parents’ house, she would give a hundred bucks every morning just to sit at the table and eat without conversation. But with Derek, this felt awkward.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that was blueberry and pomegranate together,” he said, taking another bite.

  She blinked at him, waiting for him to make some disparaging comment about pomegranates. She didn’t really know how someone would disparage pomegranates, but Derek would find a way. Even if he didn’t mean it. She knew, had always known, that about 70% of the stuff he gave her shit about was just to give her shit and wasn’t actually how he felt.

  When she’d gone through the phase where she’d studied and listened to everything the Beatles had ever done, Derek had delighted in telling her “behind the scenes” stories about the guys. About 90% of what he’d told her was complete bullshit. Just like the things he’d told her he’d read about the dangers of a vegan diet when she’d gone through that phase had been 90% bullshit. Just like the statistics he’d cited when they’d argued about the government’s climate change policies had been 90% bullshit. Just like most of the things they’d ever argued about had been around 92% bullshit on his part. He just seemed incapable of agreeing with her and having the conversation end cordially.

  All of which made her conscience completely clear about her fake nice-guy training program.

  And maybe it wasn’t entirely fake. If he warmed up a towel for a woman while she was in the shower, even once ever, Riley would have done a very good deed.

  But Derek said nothing disparaging about pomegranates. He just took another bite.

  Riley slapped her hand down on the table. “What are you doing?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Eating.”

  “You’re eating crepes,” she said. “With blueberry pomegranate chai seed jam.”