Why We Fight (At First Sight Book 4)

by TJ Klune

  We were in so much goddamn trouble.

  I cleaned up as best I could, washing my hands before dabbing a wet tissue against the semen on the clothes. I honestly felt bad. Flavius could never know. Though, since he was a hairdresser, he probably would somehow. Hairdressers were omniscient that way.

  Once I’d done the best I could, I adjusted myself before buttoning the slacks and shirt again. I splashed my face with water, telling myself to get back under control. I could do this. I could do this.

  I nodded at myself in the mirror.

  I was Corey motherfucking Ellis.

  Jeremy was standing outside the bathroom.

  His cheeks were flushed under his beard, and his shirt was open a few buttons, the hair on his chest curling out. And the goddamn look on his face wasn’t helping. He was eyeing me hungrily, as if he wanted nothing more than to slam me against the wall and—

  “We are so screwed,” I whispered.

  He coughed as he took a step back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I want to eat your fucking face, you asshole! And you’re looking at me like you want to put your fingers in my butt!”

  He grimaced. “Oh my god, moment over, what the fuck—”

  “It is not. Dude, like, you have no idea. You’re going to get us caught!”

  “Dude,” he said mockingly. “Like, for real.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, you think this is funny? You’re going to ruin this! Everyone is going to know what’s going on because of you.”

  “Bullshit. If anyone is going to break, it’s you.”

  Dammit. He shouldn’t have said that. Of course I had to respond. “It’s on,” I snapped at him. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with. I’m going to be so disinterested in you, people are going to think I don’t even know you exist.”

  He took a step toward me. I took an answering step back and was immediately pressed against the bathroom door. He was right there, not touching but so close that I could feel the heat of him. “You won’t last a week.”

  “Fuck you,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He hummed under his breath. “That’s certainly something that’s going to happen.” And with that, he turned and walked down the hall, leaving me gaping after him. Before he turned the corner to the front of Phoenix House, he glanced back at me. “Coming?” he asked innocently.

  “Already did once,” I shot back, and grinned when he stumbled against the wall.

  I was going to fucking end him.

  SOMEHOW WE managed to keep our hands to ourselves on the ride home.

  Barely.

  He pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

  The lights were on inside. “Shit. I thought they’d all be asleep.”

  “It’s only ten,” Jeremy said.

  I blinked. “It is? Jesus. Well. This has been fun. Thank you for the lovely evening with the Super Gays and the orgasm. One was better than the other, and I’ll leave that for you to figure out.” I opened the door and got out, then shut it behind me. I started up the walkway but stopped when he said my name.

  Dammit. I wanted the last word.

  I looked back.

  He was smiling quietly. “I’m going to make you so happy. I hope you’re ready for that.”

  And then he gunned the engine like a douchebag before pulling away.

  He was around the corner before I managed to find my voice. “You asshole!” I shouted after him.

  I STOOD in front of the front door.

  “All right,” I muttered to myself. “It’s just Sandy. And maybe Darren. That’s it. Just go in, say everything went well, and that you’re tired and ready for bed. Don’t stop moving. Don’t let them trap you. Play it cool.”

  I opened the door.

  The TV was on. Maybe I could just bypass the living room altogether. Hell, if I was lucky, Darren was balls-deep in Sandy and they’d be distracted. I never had wished for my friends to be fucking in the living room before. First time for everything.

  They weren’t.

  I almost made it.

  “Corey?”

  I looked longingly down the hallway toward my room. It was so close. But if I ran for it, they’d know something was up.

  I forced a smile on my face as I looked into the living room.

  Sandy and Darren were sitting on the couch.

  And Paul and Vince were on the other couch.

  Even Wheels was there on the floor.

  Every single one of them was looking at me.

  “Oh no,” I whispered.

  Sandy arched an eyebrow. “You okay?”

  I nodded jerkily. “Oh yeah. Never better. Like, you have no idea. The best I’ve ever been. Fo’ sho.”

  Silence.

  I immediately started sweating.

  “Okay,” Sandy said slowly. “How’d it go?”

  He was a master. I didn’t know why I ever thought I could go against him. It was over. It was all over. “Fine,” I said. “Great. Super!”

  “Did they have a big house?” Vince asked.

  “The biggest! It had a million rooms! And a bidet!”

  “Hmm,” Sandy and Paul said.

  “Did you get the funding?” Darren asked.

  “What’s with the third degree?” I demanded. “Can’t a man come home to his own house without having to answer all these damn questions?”

  More silence.

  Shit. “I mean, uh. Yes. Thank you for asking, Darren. It appears as if the Super Gays were receptive to our needs. We were successful in our endeavor. Huzzah!”

  Wheels rolled over to me, sniffing at my shoes. Damn dog.

  “Really?” Sandy said. “That’s wonderful. You should tell us all about it. Go get changed and come back out here.” He smiled at me.

  Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I faked a yawn so wide, my jaw cracked. “Sorry, guys. Can this wait until tomorrow? It’s been a long night, and I’m really tired. You know how it is. Taking money from the rich really knocks you out.”

  “I can only imagine,” Paul said. He looked down at his dog and frowned. “Wheels, stop eating Corey’s shoes!”

  I looked down. And to my horror, I saw a drying, crusty white film on the tip of one of my loafers.

  That Wheels was currently licking.

  “Wheels, no,” I shrieked as I jerked my foot back. “That’s disgusting! Oh my god, do you know what that is?”

  Everyone craned their necks over to see exactly what it was.

  “It’s nothing!” I said quickly. “Ha, ha. Just some dressing I spilled. Probably not good for a dog!”

  “Is that why your shirt is wet?” Vince asked. “Get it on you?”

  I nodded furiously. “Just, like, all over. It was so embarrassing. I need to take the suit to a dry cleaner before I give it back to Flavius. I should probably go look one up right this very second.”

  I turned toward the hallway and was going to walk calmly to my room when my name was said again. What the fuck was wrong with these people?

  I looked toward the living room again.

  Sandy smiled sweetly at me. “Congratulations. I’m so proud of you. Good night.”

  And then he winked.

  Sanford Stewart was a he-witch.

  “Good night,” I managed to say before fleeing.

  I SHUT my door just as my phone chimed in my pocket. I pulled it out, figuring it was Marina texting again.

  It wasn’t Marina.

  Good luck. You’ll need it.

  “Fucking Jeremy,” I muttered, but I was smiling so widely my cheeks hurt.

  Chapter 14: Wicked Games

  THE PROBLEM with having a secret… person was that it was a secret.

  Obviously.

  But my problem with having a secret person was that I had to see my secret person almost every single day.

  Oh, we kept our distance over the weekend that followed the annihilation of the Super Gays, only texting back and forth a couple of times. And the texts w
ere innocent, mostly about how Stephen had gone over the proposal and said that everything looked good. I’d even managed to stay mostly out of sight from Sandy and the others, begging off from going to Jack It on Saturday by saying that I wasn’t up for going out. Sandy didn’t argue, and he was distracted getting ready for his show. And then on Sunday, he and Darren were out for most of the day, which left me alone at the house.

  Which was awesome, because I couldn’t seem to keep my hand off my dick for any extended period of time, remembering the sounds Jeremy had made on the other side of the door.

  Monday morning came quicker than I expected, and I was both excited and dreading what was about to happen.

  It was at half past six that I learned just how fucked-up Jeremy Olsen was, and how much I had to up my game.

  Did I plan on watching him jog by the house that morning?

  No. Of course not. I was disinterested. I’d said as much.

  If I just so happened to be in the kitchen around the time I knew he’d be there, it was merely coincidental.

  And I liked standing at the window because I could see the pretty colors in the sky. Arizona sunrises were world renowned, and I thought I could take in the natural beauty of the desert around me.

  “What a lovely morning,” I whispered to myself as I took a sip of coffee. “Ooh, that’s good. That’s—”

  Jeremy appeared farther down the road, jogging as he normally did.

  “Hello, neighbor,” I said cheerfully, though he couldn’t hear me. “You get your workout on.”

  I barely even noticed that he was wearing tiny black shorts and nothing else. Why, it was the furthest thing from my mind. He was doing it on purpose, but he obviously didn’t know who he was fucking with. A child playing a man’s game. How cute.

  But instead of jogging right by, he stopped across the street on the sidewalk, chest heaving, hands on his bare hips, the shorts riding low.

  And without looking at me, he started stretching.

  Obscenely.

  “Whaaaaat is happening,” I breathed.

  At first it was just his back, pushing his hips out and rolling his neck. And then he must have thought his thighs needed work, because he lifted one leg behind him, and he reached back to grab his shoe with his hands. He pulled his foot up high, arching his back as he did so. The muscles in his chest and stomach flexed. His junk pressed against the front of his shorts. He dropped the leg and reached for the other, doing the same stretch.

  And then he turned toward the house opposite ours and bent the fuck over, pressing his hands flat against the ground without bending his knees.

  I dropped my coffee mug into the sink. It went everywhere.

  “What’s going on?”

  I screamed as I whirled around.

  Sandy was standing in his robe, eyes barely open.

  “Nothing! Nothing. My coffee spilled. That’s it! I wasn’t doing anything weird!”

  “Whatever,” he mumbled as he went toward the Keurig.

  I glanced back out the window.

  Jeremy was gone.

  So that’s how it was going to be, was it?

  Fine.

  He wanted to mess with the bull?

  He was going to get the fucking sledgehammer.

  “OKAY,” JEREMY said later that week, looking at his laptop and squinting his eyes. “It looks like we got a response from Desert Realty & Trust. They seem to be more than happy to make a donation to Phoenix House.”

  We were sitting in his office. Next to me was Marina, and on the other side of her was the accountant/financial advisor, a sweet older man named Bernie who offered his services to Phoenix House pro bono. He was mostly retired but still handled the books for Marina and a couple of other nonprofits. I’d liked him immediately when I met him, given that I’d been in a skirt and he’d bowed low, taking my hand in his and squeezing it gently. He was a gentleman.

  I didn’t expect to be called into the meeting, but Marina had insisted. Jeremy had apparently told her I’d done all the heavy lifting at the dinner (while leaving out the specifics), and she thought I needed to be involved in case they wanted to hear from me. I highly doubted Brad ever wanted to see my face again, but since he was a fucking shit weasel, I had no problem with that.

  My problem was that I wanted to climb Jeremy like he was a tree and I was a squirrel so I could put my nuts on him.

  (Yes, my brain was mostly scrambled. Whatever.)

  But since we had an audience, I was on my best behavior.

  Mostly.

  Marina was looking down at her tablet, and Bernie had his own laptop set up on the other side of Jeremy’s desk. If I just so happened to be gnawing on the end of my pen seductively (kind of), then so be it.

  Jeremy kept glancing at me, the skin around his eyes tightening.

  I smiled at him from around the pen.

  “How much are we talking?” Marina asked, completely unaware that I was partially fellating a writing tool.

  “Opening the file,” Jeremy muttered. “Give me a second.”

  I pulled the pen out of my mouth. “This is exciting.”

  Jeremy looked at me again.

  The pen went right back in my mouth.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Chewing on the pen, huh?” Bernie said, and I nearly choked on it as it slipped in my fingers. “Used to do that when I was a kid. Nervous habit.”

  “Yeah,” I said, refusing to look at him as I dropped it in my lap. “Nervous habit.”

  “Eh. There are worse things. Like cocaine.”

  We all stared at Bernie.

  He ignored us as he looked back at his laptop.

  “Okay, here we go,” Jeremy said. “Let’s see what it says. ‘Desert Realty & Trust is a proud supporter of the Tucson community, blah, blah, blah. We believe in giving back to create a sustainable whatever whatever.’ Ah, here we go. ‘We have always been a proud supporter of LGBTQ rights and promote diversity in our workforce—’”

  I rolled my eyes. Apparently they didn’t know they had a Brad.

  “‘—and we are pleased to announce that we will be donating in the amount of ten thousand dollars….’”

  I deflated slightly. While it was nice, I was hoping for more.

  “That’s great,” Marina said, and she sounded like she meant it. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe—”

  “There’s more,” Jeremy said, and I saw the smile beginning to form on his face. “That’s ten grand per quarter in 2017.” He looked up at us, and he was beaming. “That’s forty thousand dollars total, spread out over next year.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  Marina jumped up and began to dance around, hands raised above her head. She almost knocked herself out with her tablet, but I didn’t think she would’ve even noticed if she had. “You guys!” she crowed. “Wow. Wow!”

  I laughed as she pulled me up with her, making me dance. Marina had moves, for an OG lesbian, and it was infectious. She let me go and went to Bernie, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him on the cheek before rounding the desk and practically tackling Jeremy. He laughed, head rocking back.

  And since we were apparently celebrating, Bernie stood and kissed my cheek before Marina came after him again. Jeremy watched them for a moment before turning to me. He arched an eyebrow as he opened his arms.

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  His fingers wiggled at me.

  I stood slowly, setting my pen on the desk. His gaze tracked every step I took. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes, and I saw his throat bob.

  Instead of hugging him, I grabbed his hand and shook it. Before I let go, I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand.

  And then I let go.

  He glared at me.

  I ignored him as I went back to my seat. I sat down and picked up my pen again, tapping it against my cheek as I stared at him, daring him to try to fuck with me.

  “It’s a start,” Bernie was saying. “A good st
art, but a start nonetheless. Have we heard back from Stephen Morgan yet? Or any of the others?”

  Jeremy startled before tearing his gaze away from my mouth and shaking his head. “Not yet. Probably later on in the week. I’ll keep on them, just to be sure.” He frowned as he looked down at his computer. “Would it be bad if I left Brad out of our thank-you response?”

  “Absolutely not,” Marina said, grinning fiercely. “Because from what you’ve told me, fuck that guy.”

  FRIDAY MORNING, Jeremy decided to up his game.

  All I was doing was deep-throating another banana, so it absolutely wasn’t my fault.

  I should have known I was in trouble when I saw him jogging with a water bottle, something I’d never seen him do before.

  I choked on the banana when he stopped again on the opposite side of the street, tilted his head back, and poured the water on his face, rivulets dripping down his neck and chest and stomach.

  I sprayed banana all over the window.

  He smirked before he jogged off again.

  Thankfully I managed to clean it up before Sandy stumbled into the kitchen.

  “OH NO,” I said as the cable for my phone charger slipped from my fingers behind my desk. “I’m such a klutz.” I bent over the desk slowly, only because the desk was old and I didn’t want to break it. The space between the wall and the desk was small, and it took me forever to get it out. I grunted and groaned in absolute frustration. “Of all the things. Oh. Oh, I almost got it. Just gotta pull on it a little bit harder. There. Right there. Oh, here it comes. Here it comes!”

  I heard the door to the office slam. I glanced back over my shoulder to see Jeremy had left what remained of his lunch behind. Poor guy. I hoped everything was all right.

  IT WAS easy to fuck with each other since we weren’t actually fucking each other. And while we kept it mostly out of sight (we weren’t that stupid; impressionable kids and all that), it was escalating toward something I didn’t know if I was in control of any longer. August stretched out before us, hot and dry, and the days were moving by so damn slowly.