by Tif Marcelo
“My bad. I’m sorry.”
“Of course you are. Remind me not to count on you to tell me if I have spinach on my teeth. Some friend you are.”
Whoa-kay. I head to the laundry room and grab one of my T-shirts from the dryer. I knock on the bathroom door.
It opens a slice, exposing the shadow of Bryn’s body and an interrogative eyeball.
I cover my eyes. “Here you go, Your Majesty.”
“It’s not another pink princess one, is it?”
I snort.
She snags the shirt from my grip and shuts the door without a thank-you. Fine. “I’ll be in the family room catching the game when you’re ready. I can walk you home.”
“Okay.”
The couch in the family room is a magnificent specimen of soft suede and I plop onto it, feeling like a little boy in a big-ass bed. I flip the channels from one show to another, finding out the next Dodgers game is tomorrow, not tonight. I settle on an infomercial where the announcer’s voice lulls me to a comfortable position.
Bryn better come out soon. Lavenderhill is a hundred yards down the road, but my limbs are already too weak to move.
As a yawn escapes my mouth, all I can think of is the only thing missing right now is a nice warm body to snuggle up to.
11
BRYN
I’m a kid in a kangaroo pouch, tunneled into the darkness, into the warmth of skin upon skin. Hands in a prayer position under my left cheek, legs tucked into my chest, I’m finally safe, cocooned and protected against all of my worries. My breathing and heart rate are slow and steady, and I become even sleepier. Deeper and deeper I fall, into the depths of a controlled surrender to rest.
It’s nice. So, so nice.
“Bryn.” An echo slices through haze, much like the opening of a doorway into a room without light or sound. Then comes a slight pressure on my back, a shake of my shoulders. I struggle against it, crouch even further. I turn my back to it as a survival instinct. Dammit, not now.
“Wake up, Bryn.”
No. My eyes are weighted blankets, sewn shut, though I’m just barely conscious so my thoughts are clear but nothing else in my body works. Another shake, and I flop over like a sack of rice, parts of me top-heavy and shapeless.
“Just . . . one more second.” My words are garbled, mouth dry. My tongue feels like it’s been wrapped in cotton, lacking the skill to form the questions burning inside of me.
Who are you?
Where am I?
Then the memories of yesterday come in snippets. They’re of wine, of splashing water on myself, a stumble to the living room, and helping Mitchell out of his shirt so we could cuddle and watch the sunset from the couch.
Of feeling Mitchell’s erection on my belly. Of me licking up his neck. Begging for his kiss, of his arms tucking me into his chest . . .
My eyelids fly open, like someone suddenly pulled up the window shades. Bright white light jolts me upright, and I throw an arm across my face. The drape of my shirt billows lightly around me, and I acutely realize I’m not in my clothing. What I’m lying on are not the eight-hundred-thread-count sheets I splurged on last Christmas, and the smell around me is not the tea tree oil homemade laundry soap Victoria insisted I use.
My heart pounds as I peek around my forearm and take in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the mountains staring back at me. And with a shift of my gaze upward, I see Mitchell, perched on the cushion at my feet, shirtless.
My body rears against the couch, to the arm of the sofa. “Holy shit.”
“Yep.” He threads his hands through his hair, flexing his impossibly impressive set of guns. My eyes are drawn to the outline of his pecs and the definition of each and every ridge of his ab muscles.
Oh.
My.
The night’s memories trickle in like percolating coffee, too damn slow. “We didn’t . . . did we?”
“No, we didn’t. I must have fallen asleep when you were in the bathroom.”
Right. One drip, then the second . . . and then I remember the rest of our very short night, and my cheeks flame. “I totally curled up next to you.”
“I guess? I just woke up.” He gives me the side-eye with a twisted smile. “You were asleep in my arms. I slept all goddamn night long.”
I can’t tell if he’s happy or disgusted by it, and I’m immediately on the defensive. “Yeah, and so?”
“And I’m not sure how I feel about that, seeing as we can’t stand each other, usually.”
Confused still, I shrug. “You should consider yourself lucky, then.”
“That’s the thing. I do.”
I’m stunned. “Well, good.”
He shakes his head.
“What’s that for?” I cross my arms.
“What?”
“That look. What’s so funny?”
“It’s nothing.” And yet he sniggers. Taking the pillow from under me, I whack him on the shoulder. He clutches his arm like I pummeled him with a baseball bat. “Ouch!”
I whack him again, and he yowls like a coyote. And again, because besides the ice and tension around us cracking at every whomp of the pillow, his expressions are hilarious, making me laugh. “What’s . . . so . . . funny?”
Wisps of his hair fly upward as the pillow lands on his shoulder. “You . . . you want to win, no matter what. Every conversation, every decision. You have to have the last word.”
“No I—” I start.
“See? No chill. Even if you and I agree, you insist I know it.”
My mouth opens, but I clamp it down.
He nods knowingly. “Let me guess, now you’re just wanting to prove me wrong altogether, right? You’re going to show me that by not speaking I totally got you wrong.”
I growl. This man. This man is infuriating. Hot, yes. Clever—yeah, I’ll give him that. Right now he’s having too much fun at my expense. But I won’t give him the satisfaction. He wants us to continue to spar.
So I stand abruptly, pull my hair into a bun, tucking in the ends, and huff past him. Two can play this game of chicken.
“Whoa, that’s it? Conversation’s over?” He stands and faces me.
And then I see all of his body in its oh-goodness glory: shoulders and abs and a hip dip that leads into the sinful Neverland just below the low-slung waistband of his pants. Hair disheveled, and with a look that begs innocence—though I know he is anything but—that stops me in my tracks.
But I’m tougher than he thinks. “Look, I apologize for overstaying and for inconveniencing you. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t apologize . . . unless you regret last night. Do you?”
My mind roars back to the laughs we had, the heart-to-heart moments I didn’t expect. Admittedly, I had a good time. Not once did I want to kill him.
I shake my head.
“Me either. And I don’t regret you staying over.” Mitchell walks over to me, slowly, as if gauging my reaction. I don’t move, partly out of stubbornness, partly from curiosity. His body blocks the sunlight, and he looks down on me with a grin, the lower half of his face covered with fuzzy, sexy facial hair.
I don’t know where Mitchell’s change of heart is coming from, or why I’m okay with us being so close. What I am sure of is the presence of a growing ache in between my legs, a hangover from our unfinished business.
His lips quirk up. “Last night, you said we should have kissed.”
My face heats. “I said that, didn’t I?”
“Did you mean it? Now that we’re sober, do you mean it?”
I close my eyes and think. Think, Bryn.
I know where this is going, and this is bad news. This attraction is a conflict of interest, and all wrong. But the electricity between us—it’s palpable. It has both a negative and a positive charge that draws me to him and pushes me away, th
ough equally powerful. And I know he feels it, too. So I tell him the truth. “Yes.”
“Good.” Mitchell crosses the thin line between us. His fingers graze my jaw, following it to where it meets my hairline. He threads his fingers into my hair. The gesture is so intimate that I lean into his hold, and my face turns up to meet his. “Because I can’t get that almost-kiss out of my mind. Can I kiss you now?”
He asked. Mitchell remembered to ask, and that alone becomes an aphrodisiac, the thing that tips the scales to the pro side of this conundrum. And what the hell, right? This decision can’t be any worse than my throwing myself at him last night. One kiss—we’ll stop at one kiss. “Yes—”
He catches my bottom lip and sucks it before I can finish my sentence, turning the ache between my legs to a full throb. I palm his muscled chest, scrape my nails across his skin as he takes my mouth wholly, sweeping his tongue inside to meet mine. My fingers can’t get enough of his skin as they trace the curves of his chest and splay against his abs. My thumbs find his navel and the hair below it, and temptation has them trailing down to where his jeans are clinging, almost begging me for freedom.
Mitchell moans in my mouth, and I respond with a haphazard breath. My lungs can’t catch up with my galloping heart. It would be so easy to take this kiss back to his bedroom, to the couch.
But it’s too risky. I’ve already put Paraiso at risk.
As if reading my mind, Mitchell slows and lifts his lips from mine. Concern fills his eyes. “We should stop, right?”
“Yeah.” My voice is hoarse. “It’s best.”
“I know.”
I nod and straighten, pulling shreds of my usual professional self back together. “I don’t want . . . um, that . . . to change the issue about the live stream. I need the cameras to be here. I need it to pay you rent.”
His eyes darken and he seems to choose his words deliberately. “It’s not just my decision, Bryn.”
Annoyance pricks me. “Then can you meet with your brothers and make a decision?”
I’m startled when a cat enters through the front pet door. King Lear, if I remember correctly. He heads to the silver bowls in the corner of the kitchen, ignoring us altogether and turning his back on us, tail like a slithering snake. King Lear eats like he’s been out all morning.
It’s morning.
Oh shit. “What time is it?”
“Lemme grab my phone.” He passes me and reaches over the counter, stretching his torso. His jeans fall even lower around his hips, and God help me, I look again.
Now, to touch him again.
I straighten the shirt, which is three times larger than what I need. The thought occurs to me that, holy shit, I have bed head, morning-after breath, and a face smeared with makeup. No . . . really, Bryn? This is the first sleepover you’ve had in the last year, and it’s totally unplanned and completely awkward.
“Found it,” he declares. “Ten thirty.”
“Crap!”
My eyes snap to his just as he shoots me a similar panicked look and says, “Shit, I’m late.”
“I’ve gotta go. You take this bathroom and—” He takes the stairs two at a time as his cell phone rings in his hand. “Hello? I’m sorry. Slept in and . . . I’m on my way.” His voice fades as he travels deeper into one of the bedrooms without saying goodbye. Is he going to call me later? Will we set up another meeting to follow up? We still need to talk about what’s going on with us.
Us? Whatever. I shake my head loose of these thoughts. It was just a kiss, a kiss we had to get out of the way.
Into the bathroom I go and back into my own clothes. A cluster of purple stains dot the front of my tank, just above my right boob. My eyes are bloodshot and ringed with smudged eyeliner. A layer of ick blankets my skin. I change back into Mitchell’s T-shirt with UC Berkeley written across it—and I wince at my betrayal, since I’m a Stanford alum. To boot, it’s too big for me, but I use my hair tie and cinch the sides. It’s going to have to do.
I scoop water into my mouth, swish, and use a paper towel to dab the remaining makeup off my face. I finger comb the tangles in my hair. But on the way to the front door, I hear the cat meow pathetically next to his empty food bowl. It stares at me with its gray eyes.
“Are you hungry, King Lear?” I ask. It answers me by stepping around me, rubbing against my calf. “Oh, you know how to get to me, don’t you?”
I call up. “Mitchell? Your cat is hungry.”
No answer.
King Lear yowls like I’m pulling him by the tail.
“Mitchell?”
I look at my watch. Ten forty.
Dammit. “Fine, I’ll feed you.”
I open the pantry with a gasp. The shelves are half-empty, stocked with ramen, boxes of mac and cheese, and protein shakes. The home cook in me winces. Mitchell eats just about as badly as a college student, and it’s a wonder his muscles can thrive under these conditions. But the feeling is short-lived, because the man is grown, right? And he holds my fate in his hands.
He can take care of himself.
I find canned cat food on the bottom shelf. “Chicken, liver, or beef? What’s your poison?” Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. “Chicken it is. Now, the can opener.”
I pull the drawers, one by one, to no avail. The place is worse than a poorly stocked cabin in the woods. Finally, I find what I can tell is a drawer full of stuff.
It’s the Messy Drawer. The one every house has, where we stick old cell phones, paper clips, and apparently in Mitchell’s case, pictures.
Pictures of him in uniform, in camo, a helmet, and a thick bulletproof vest. He’s with a group of other soldiers, men and women, in front of a military vehicle. Under their feet is packed dirt, and behind them is haze and mountains. Next to the pictures are two full bottles of pills.
I slept all goddamn night long.
“Ahem.”
At the sound of the voice behind me, my insides lurch, and I turn. The drawer shuts with bang, and I stutter my next sentence. “Wh-where can a girl get a c-can opener around here? Poor King Lear’s about to starve.”
Mitchell approaches me with his hand out, until he’s a step away. His body radiates heat, and he smells fresh from the shower. He’s shirtless, still, but it’s not his body that’s got my attention. It’s his eyes, now serious but unreadable. “Gimme.”
It takes a beat for me to realize he wants me to give him the can of food, and I do, slapping it in his hand just for effect.
“The thing with these cans, is”—he flips the can over—“they have their own pop tab.” He flicks the tab open.
“Well, good. Then I guess you can finish up the rest of the way.” Tearing my face away from him, and hoping he didn’t read the guilt on my face, I turn to King Lear. Because it feels easier to tell the cat goodbye. “I’m off.”
I’d never walked so fast out of a man’s house, and it’s not because Mitchell caught me, or the presence of prescription meds. It’s the thought that beyond that heart-stopping kiss, I was so close to learning more about this man, more than I want to know. Banter and sarcasm, criticism and business I can do. An errant kiss and a sexy encounter? I can handle.
But more than that would require investment. And heaven knows I have nothing left in my pockets.
Joel and Joey are walking out of the small house as I approach Paraiso.
Crap.
When they spot me, Joel lifts the camera onto his shoulder. Joey motions for me to stop and points at the microphone on the camera. I nod my head, understanding that while I don’t have my mic on me, it’s still picking up some sound. I begin a slow walking pace and will myself to act natural and calm, as if I hadn’t polished off a bottle of wine all by myself last night, only to wake up in Mitchell’s arms, kiss him, and then find out there’s more to him than I expected.
Nope, nothing to see here, folks. I env
ision myself as smooth as fondue.
“Sorry, guys. Just had to head out for . . . coffee.” I pass them. The pressure of their stares and of the lens eggs me on. “What I meant was, I had coffee and I threw the cup away before I got here . . . in a garbage can . . . because I would never litter, of course.”
Shit.
Joel yawns and Joey grins.
Keeping a smile plastered on my face, I step onto our welcome mat and unhook my carabiner of keys from my pants.
But my fingers grab nothing but air. My upper body sags at the memory: they’re on Mitchell’s countertop.
“Bryn!”
Oh no.
Please don’t come down.
And yet I know there’s no avoiding this situation. I turn toward the sound of Mitchell’s feet on gravel. With my acknowledgment, the camera follows my gaze to my landlord, but quickly spins back to me.
Mitchell halts, face going flat. After a beat he resumes a slow, methodical pace. It’s torturous, so I meet him halfway, camera trained on me, and with a haphazard thank-you, I grab the things I left behind—my keys, phone, and shirt—before heading back, doing my best interpretation of someone who was completely expecting this.
I stumble into the front door, relieved to be inside rather than out. While Joey turns on the stationary cameras, Joel sweeps the room with his, taking in the first look of the day.
While I grab my mic on the island and clip it on me, my customer service goes on autopilot. “Need a cup of coffee, you two? I’ve been dying for one all morning.”
I wince at my mistake. And with a knowing look, the kind that reminds me once again I cannot lie worth a damn, Joey hands me the shirt I dropped at the front door.
My phone rings. My stomach drops at what I know is coming as I press the phone to my ear.
It’s Vic. “Nice shirt, ate. Funny, though—Stanford alums wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a UC Berkeley shirt.” Then laughter.
Double shit.
12
MITCHELL
Adam Sullivan peers at me through his dark-rimmed glasses from his sleek leather chair across the room. He’s got a notebook on his lap, a pen in the crevice between pages. An open can of Coke sits on the glass coffee table in front of him, though I haven’t seen him take a drink.
