My teeth are fully gritted, my jaw aching from the pressure I’m putting on it, when Presley walks in.
“Who wants donuts?” she yells, holding up two big pastry boxes.
I can smell the fried dough from here, and my stomach rumbles. Relief washes over me, because what is more comforting than a chocolate frosted?
“Me! Me!” Travis, Matthew, and Ames run at her, and she catches them with her free arm, hugging them into her.
“Go get some paper plates from the pantry and I’ll split them up,” Presley tells them, and they rush past me.
Forrest and I have just brought my dresser up, and it’s in the middle of the living room but that’s not stopping me from unpacking plastic bins of my clothes and putting pairs of jeans and sweatpants into it.
Stopping, I rise to greet my sister-in-law. “Thanks for bringing those, I think everyone could use a sugar break.”
She winks at me. “I could tell, even if I wasn’t here yet. Our family is a bit much, yeah? I figured that morale wouldn’t last long in this small of a space.”
“Well, thanks.” I make a pshh noise.
She blushes. “I didn’t mean it like that! This place is great, I’m happy for you. I just meant … seven hundred square feet is a tiny space for so many Nash’s.”
“Truer words have never been spoken,” I agree.
We’re about to head over to the table where my vulture family members are scarfing down all the good donuts when a knock comes on the doorframe.
“Anyone home?”
Ryan stands there, a bamboo plant in her hand, looking just as fucking perfect as she always does.
My cock stirs, reminding me of the fantasies it’s been all too privy to when it comes to this woman. Jesus, I need to get a handle on myself, my nephews are in the room.
“You came.” I smile at her.
She shrugs. “I figured everyone else was going to see it before the housewarming, why shouldn’t I? Plus, I’m here to make sure Forrest doesn’t fuck up your Internet installation.”
I should have told both she and my twin brother that I’d already called the cable company to come hook that all up, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Ryan had come to help me move in, and for some reason, it means more than anyone else being here. Probably because I threatened them all and reminded them of all the favors I’d done. She’d come all on her own.
And in a way, it showed that she was interested in … whatever it was that was going on between us.
“Hey, you don’t touch those cords. I’m going to wire it so he has the fastest Wi-Fi this town has ever seen.” Forrest flips his middle finger up at her, and his stepsons cackle.
“Dad, you have to put a dollar in the swear jar!” Ames tells him.
Ames is the only one who is comfortable enough to call my brother Dad. Probably because he doesn’t remember his real father, a soldier who was killed when my youngest nephew was only a year old.
“What? I didn’t say a word!” Forrest holds his heart like he’s wounded.
“Our kids are too smart for you. I agree, give us the dollar.” Penelope holds out her hand.
“Kids, don’t ever give your mother money. She’ll spend it on shoes.” He points his fingers at the boys as if he’s teaching them a very important life lesson.
“They’re going to appreciate the shoes a woman wears when they’re older.” Ryan snorts, and I can’t help my eyes skimming down her legs to observe the plain white Chucks she has on.
“She’s right!” Penelope points at Ryan like she’s just made the most valid argument in the world.
“What’s that?” I ask, nodding to the plant.
She extends the small elephant figurine full of rocks with a bamboo shoot sticking straight up out of it. “It’s tradition to bring someone a bamboo plant when they move into a new place. It’s supposed to bring luck to your life in that dwelling. So I hope this one works.”
I take the gift from her. “I hope it does, too. Thank you for bringing this.”
The gesture is small, but the meaning is big.
Over the next two hours, we move the rest of the furniture in, get a majority of the boxes unpacked, and my apartment starts to resemble something lived in and semi-homey. Part of me can’t wait until they all leave, so I can spend my first night alone in the first place I’ve ever owned, well technically it’s rented, on my own.
“Fletch, why do you have hundreds and hundreds of DVDs?” Penelope asks, looking through one of the crates I’d brought with me.
Forrest cackles. “He used to be obsessed with collecting them. Would use any spare dollar he could to go to Best Buy in Lancaster and pick out the cheapest DVDs. They’re not even good movies.”
“Dumb & Dumber? American Pie 2? Major League? These are all idiotic teenage boy movies. My kids would love these, though they’re filthy.” My sister-in-law laughs.
“Ew, DVDs, Mom? Yeah, right. Those things are ancient. You couldn’t get twenty-five cents for those on eBay,” Travis tells his mother.
“Well, if that doesn’t make you feel like an old geezer …” Keaton laughs, and all the adults nod in agreement.
“I think you saying geezer makes you older,” I tell him, shrugging my shoulders.
After we’re done, everyone heads downstairs for the free pizza I promised them. When I come back out into the living room, Ryan is the only one left, and she’s sitting at my desk. Her fingers fly across the keyboard, and by the adorable way she’s chewing her lip, I think she’s probably jailbroken my laptop, gotten me access to restricted sites, and whatever else it is that brilliant hackers do.
“You should have a website,” Ryan says as she surfs around my measly laptop.
I really hope I cleared the browser history. Nothing like the girl you’re crushing on finding porn in your Google search.
“Why?” I say.
She looks at me as if it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. “Um, because you run a business.”
Ryan referring to my art and furniture as a business is the first time I’ve even thought of what I do as … well, a business.
“If you got online, built a website, maybe opened an Etsy store … it could probably double or triple your revenue. I can set up both for you at no cost. The friend discount.”
She’s right, I should have set up some kind of branding months ago. Make it official, make it searchable. No business made it without an Internet presence these days, and even if I wanted to be a solitary island out there in my barn, it was stupid not to establish at least minimal brand association.
Though my mind sticks on her words. The friend discount.
“The friend discount, huh?” I put down my keys on the hall table my mom brought in and walk over to where she sits at the desk in the corner.
Ryan’s eyes slowly blink up at me, the color an intoxicating amber. “Yeah. For free. Also, I have nothing better to do right now, and it’ll take me a day. You should thank me, you’ll get a five-thousand-dollar website for chump change. All you have to do is buy me a slice downstairs.”
I’m getting closer to her, without even realizing I’m doing it. One second, I’m halfway across the room, then standing in front of the desk, and now I’m almost brushing my leg against the chair she sits in. But damn, when she said friend discount, and with her sitting here, alone in my apartment …
I like it. I like her, in my space … no one else around.
For the last five years, I’ve fought every urge. I’ve swum in the opposite direction of my instincts, and the upstream stroke has robbed me of so many things. I can’t do what feels natural, I had to give up partying and drinking in order to save my soul.
But this? Wanting Ryan Shea? That’s something I just can’t battle anymore. I don’t want to. The pure animal attraction, with something deeper running through the center of it that I’m not ready to acknowledge … that is one thing I can lose myself in without fear of losing myself.
Stepping fully in
to her space, I put out my hand, hoping she’ll take it. Ryan looks nervous but lays her palm over my own, and I pull her up gently. The door to my apartment is open, and I can hear the muffled noise of the lunch crowd, including my family, down in the restaurant. It smells like cardboard boxes and mozzarella sticks, and the chime of the new clock on my wall alerts us to the fact that it’s three p.m.
These are all the things I notice right before I pull Ryan to me and kiss her.
Because once my lips are on hers, I can’t think. And I don’t mean, I can’t think straight. I really mean, I’ve lost all ability to connect rational thoughts.
Her mouth is warm and pliable, searching as my tongue slips in and begins dancing with hers. It’s been five years since I kissed a woman, and at first, I can’t find my groove. I’m fumbling and too excited, and all I want to do is grind every part of myself into her. It’s kind of pathetic, but then Ryan shifts her angle and we click into place.
The meeting of our mouths is sensual, hurried, breathless, and … right. It’s just so damn right that I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to kiss her. Ryan tastes better than any liquor, sweeter than smooth summer wine and spicier than cinnamon whiskey. It takes every muscle in my body to keep us upright, to stop myself from stumbling backward with her into my bedroom. Now that I’ve had a taste, there is no way I can’t drink the whole bottle.
I’m an addict; stopping after the first drink is not possible for me.
Her hand comes up between us, and she pushes my chest until our mouths pull apart.
I’m still in a haze, half-drunk off her taste when I realize she’s talking. “I … can’t. I’m not … looking for this.”
I must nod because Ryan’s eyes are pleading for understanding, and the silence between us is tense and getting more awkward by the moment.
Oh fuck, how damn wrong I was. I should have been very afraid, terrified even.
Because it’s completely possible I’ll lose myself in this woman. And never get the old Fletcher back.
19
Ryan
Another day, another class with my middle schoolers.
Sometimes, I wish our summer course was more than once a week, because I’m beginning to grow restless without much else to do. My boss keeps calling, asking if I’d like some remote work, but …
I don’t know, I just can’t seem to muster up the energy to want to do it. Working with the kids is bringing me so much joy, and I know that not one project she could pitch me could measure up to it. I’ve been trying to sit still, like Presley says, and only do things that make me happy.
But it’s so damn hard. Not moving at a fast pace forces you to think, it forces you to open up all the ugly thoughts you shoved down in a box in the back of your brain, and sealed tight. You have to unpack the turmoil in you, and I’ve never been good at that.
What I do know is that I like teaching the computer course. I like going to yoga three times a week, especially since they’re free. I’ve taken up walking in the mornings, all over town before a lot of people are up. And sitting under the stars at night.
That last one sounds cliché, but there is nothing like a country sky at night. I’ve never seen so many stars, never had such darkness, with no artificial light sources around. It makes a person feel really damn small.
I’m halfway through a dusk walk, the AirPods in my ears playing some murder mystery audiobook, when I hear the clomp of feet behind me. It’s not unusual, I’m walking around the lake slash reservoir at prime running hours. After work, but not too late.
A hand on my shoulder, though, now that startles me.
“Ah!” I jump to the side, thinking someone is pushing me or falling into me. It’s one of those knee-jerk reactions where you kind of just freak out and flail your limbs because you’re surprised but also disoriented with headphones in your ears.
“Ryan, it’s me!” I hear a deep voice say over the voices narrating my audiobook.
I rip out my wireless earbud and whip around, my heart beating fast, to see Fletcher standing there. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry, I called your name twice.” His lopsided grin has my eyes fastening on his lips.
My gaze doesn’t stay there long, because the man is shirtless. I can’t help the way my eyes run down his naked torso, along the lines of his pecs, the way a bead of sweat drips off one nipple. I’ve never been particularly drawn to a man’s nipples, but hell if I can’t stop looking at Fletcher’s. My eyes drop lower, to his abs. They’re not sculpted out like someone on a romance novel cover, but there are six defined bumps that are possibly even sexier than the ripped and toned muscles of a body builder. Just the peak of muscle underneath normal, human flesh makes him more approachable, which I think makes me more attracted to him. He’s not the typical pretty boy, Roman god I go for … there is a real down-to-earth quality about him.
Fletcher has the kind of chest hair that is sexy, without being too much, and it darkens in color as the trail of it slips beneath his waistband. He has on simple black running shorts and black sneakers, with wireless headphones around his head. I wonder what he’s listening to.
“Uh-huh …” He clears throat, and I realize I’ve been staring at him for far too long.
Tapping my one earbud to stop my book, I fight the furious blush working its way over my cheeks. “Sorry, just … in shock I guess you could say.”
He gives me a look as if to say, “yeah, about my body.” Hmm, how adorably cocky.
“Again, sorry. I just saw you and didn’t want to not say hi.”
“I guess it would have been awkward if we were both running around the same lake without saying hi.” A nervous laugh comes out of my mouth.
Also, because you kissed me in the most toe-curling way two days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. Which I do, right in front of him … start thinking about it. I can tell he’s thinking about it, too.
Lord, that kiss was good. It was the kind of kiss that warms you up from the inside out, like sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter night and allowing sweet, rich hot chocolate to fill your tummy.
“You pushed me away when I kissed you.”
Another giggle bursts from my lips. “Talk about not making this awkward.”
In truth, I was being a coward about it, and he was being more of an adult even with our three-year age gap.
I had pushed him away. The reaction my brain and heart had while Fletcher was kissing me … it scared the crap out of me. It was enough that I thought he was the first decent man I’d met in ages, but then he had to go and kiss me into oblivion and …
Shit.
I sigh. “I know I did. Fletcher … I told you my dating history. It’s not hard to make the assumption that I jump into relationships. I am the type of girl who practically lives with a guy after the first date.”
“Well, my apartment is definitely not big enough for that.” The joke has him smiling, and me giving him a glare.
“I’m serious. I don’t know how to … go slow. I’m not even sure I’m ready to try to date someone, when I don’t even know what I want for myself.”
Fletcher nods and then gives me a look that says he’s going to level with me. “You may jump in too quickly, but I’ve never even jumped in. The longest relationship I’ve ever had was probably a two-month fling in high school where I only hung out with the girl with other groups of people. I’ve spent the last five years completely avoiding dating, so all I know is slow. Or should I say, my dating speed is like one mile per hour, the car is barely even rolling.”
That makes me smile, because he’s so good-looking and honest, it’s a wonder how he’s still on the market.
Fletcher continues. “I think we should stop ignoring this connection between us. There is that spark, and it’s rare. Even I know that, and I haven’t been in a relationship … well, I think we established, ever.”
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I feel that spark way too often. I can�
�t trust that feeling anymore, because it always burns me.”
He shakes his head, that boyish smile of his making my heart do a backflip. “Nah, I don’t buy that. You might have been attracted to those guys, but you didn’t feel the spark. Your mind has just convinced you that a certain kind of lust is that spark. Think about it, hard. Do you think about me the same way you did with those other men? When we’re together, isn’t it different?”
His questions hits me square in the chest, and I realize I haven’t met this Fletcher yet. For the entire time I’ve known him, he’s been the goofy, emotionally weak, work in progress. The baby of his family, the injured one that they worry about and who takes the crutch they’ve given him and leans on it.
But this man? He’s wholly charming. Self-assured and giving me the business while he pulls zero punches. Shirtless, not to mention. He’s my dream guy on a silver platter, and even though I made a promise to myself, I feel that resolve weakening.
“Maybe it is,” I whisper, but we both know that in this case, maybe means definitely.
“Just give me a chance. We’ll go slow. Snail’s pace slow.”
It could be the sweat dripping down his chest, or the way his denim-blue eyes sparkle in the setting sun, but a sureness swamps me, stealing every last inch of will power.
“Okay.”
Just one word, but I feel my whole world go topsy-turvy.
20
Fletcher
In the days after the town hall dance, I made my bid to the town council about the clock tower.
I got a call that they’d chosen my contract and would love for me to build it.
Not only does it pay, literally, to be a hometown boy … but it helps that I probably bid thousands of dollars lower than the other builders in order to win this project. That, and they know I’ll do a hell of a job.
Nash Brothers Box Set Page 65
