If You Let Me: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

by Nikki Lane

  I felt immediate relief when my bare foot hit the floor. He repeated the steps for the other foot while I kept steady using the mountains he called shoulders for support.

  He scooped both shoes up from their straps and handed them to me. “There you go. Better?”

  He kept his eyes on me, and for a few seconds I was convinced I couldn’t move.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He smiled and dipped his head to me as I stood there with my shoes hanging from my fingertips.

  I gingerly walked back into the club, discovering Shelby and Tyler hadn’t left their spot. I hated the feeling of walking barefoot on the cold floor. Ew, what did I just step on? I wasn’t a fan of cockblocking Shelby, but I wanted out of this place and bad.

  “I have a room upstairs,” Callum said, probably noticing Shelby was still preoccupied. “If you want to come up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t much different than the horned-up doofuses I was used to.

  “While you wait for Shelby. She seems a bit busy with Tyler.”

  “I think I’ll just wait outside.”

  There I was. Pussying out. Lady balls—non-existent.

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, I’m in Penthouse A.” Callum looked behind me at the floor to ceiling windows. “It does look like it’s about to rain.”

  He’d already managed to remove my shoes. Who knew what he was capable of removing when we were completely alone.

  “I promise to be a complete gentleman.”

  He looked at me with expectant eyes, waiting for me to respond.

  This was crazy. I mean really…

  So what if it had been too long since I’d had sex? And what did it matter that the last person I did it with was my ex? Nothing wrong with that. Everyone went through dry spells here and there. Of course, now, it was starting to feel like it could become a chronic condition.

  “Okay,” I said, not sounding too confident.

  I walked to the elevator with Callum and took a deep breath as the closing doors sealed my fate for the rest of the night.

  * * * *

  I shot straight up in the bed. This wasn’t my room. What the hell did I do? My memory was a blur. I dug my face into my hands, piecing together the clues.

  Clue number one—I was naked as the day I was born.

  Clue number two—I was lying in a bed that wasn’t mine.

  I was no Sherlock Holmes, but this wasn’t good.

  Someone lay on the far side of the king-sized bed still asleep. Damn, what was his name? Something British sounding. Or Scottish.

  Conner. Something with a C. Cal. Calvin.

  No.

  Oh my God, was this really happening?

  Callum!

  He looked even better sober.

  I swung the comforter off and dodged around the room to look for my clothes. I scooped up a pair of pants and let them hang from my finger as I gawked at the label. His suit probably cost more than my car. I tossed them back on the floor and grabbed my dress. My head throbbed as I bent over to slide it back on. No time for bra and panties. In the purse they went.

  Callum stirred a bit but remained asleep. The blanket covered most of his body, except for his impressively shaped arms.

  Where the hell were my shoes? I couldn’t think through the impending hangover, fogging my brain. And I couldn’t very well ask.

  Broken heel. Sometime after the third mini alcohol bottle from the bar in the room—or maybe it was the fourth—I vaguely remembered some drunken rant about the unfair beauty standards men inflicted on women. I’m sure that was a real mood booster. Then I’d had a few more drinks to take the edge off.

  I smoothed down my hair. I didn’t even want to think about what I looked like at that moment. I could feel the mascara still caked on my lashes. I made my way toward the door, hoping I didn’t leave all my dignity in between the white sheets. My first walk of shame, and I knew it would be my last.

  I slinked out the door and made a beeline for the elevators.

  Chapter 2

  The urge to take a shower as soon as I got home was overwhelming. The hot water poured over me as well as the panic of not recollecting the majority of the night after going to Callum’s room. I scrubbed my skin with extra vigor, but the dirtiness I felt wasn’t something that could be washed away with soap. Holy water maybe. If Sister Bernadine could see me now—the top student at St. Margaret’s High School sleeping with a man she knew for a whopping 30 minutes.

  After a shower and a strong cup of coffee in my hand, I called Shelby’s cell. Should I share the never-to-be-mentioned-again act that was last night? She’d be proud, oddly enough. And I wasn’t sure if that would satiate her determination to get me laid or fuel her ambition to keep this shitshow going.

  Shelby answered the call just before I was sure it would go to voicemail.

  “Hey,” I said. “How did your night go?”

  “Don’t ask.” She groaned what sounded like a walrus mating call.

  “That bad?”

  There was some shuffling on the speaker. “How was your night? Tyler said Salt and Pepper took you home. Did anything happen?”

  I wasn’t sure how that story got started, but I had bigger problems to deal with.

  “No, it was pretty uneventful. Came home. Watched some movie with the cat. Boring.”

  The flush of the toilet. “You’re rambling, Rose. You always ramble when you’re hiding something.”

  I slurped my coffee, trying to find the right thing to say.

  “What time did you get home?” she said.

  Uhh. I couldn’t remember the time I went to Callum’s room, let alone the time I supposedly got home. “One. Yeah about one.”

  “It took you an hour to get home?”

  “No, I mean…it wasn’t exactly one,” I replied.

  “You’re lying,” Shelby said, her tone of voice growing louder. “So help me if you don’t start dishing—”

  “Okay,” I said. “I might have made a little detour on the way home.” I put the call on speaker and headed to the washer and dryer.

  “What kind of detour?”

  My stomach turned over. “The kind that put me in a penthouse room.”

  “Holy shit, Rose!” I could tell she was bouncing up and down like my sex cheerleader. But instead of toe touches and cartwheels, she just motorboated people. “Salt and Pepper?”

  “Callum,” I reminded her.

  “Right. Callum. Even his name is sexy.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s not one of my finer moments.”

  “Screw that,” Shelby said. “You’re talking.”

  I took a deep breath and started the washer.

  “Details please.”

  I didn’t think I’d get away so easily. Better to rip this wax strip off quick because this was one hairy lip.

  “My shoe broke and he invited up to his penthouse because you and Tyler were sucking face all night. Against my better judgement, I did, and that’s that. The end.”

  “Rose!”

  “Will you stop yelling?” I replied, cowering back from the phone. “My head feels like I got slapped in the face with a hammer.”

  “Those are not details.”

  “I can’t even express to you the embarrassment of this morning.”

  “I’m your best friend. If you don’t talk about it with me, then who—”

  “I just want to forget it ever happened.”

  Ha. No problem there.

  She paused a few seconds. “Was it that bad?” She practically whispered the words like it was too awful to speak aloud.

  “No,” I replied. “It’s not that.”

  “What was he like under that suit? Was he huge? I bet he was.”

  “I can’t really remember,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “What do you mean you don’t remember?”

  “We had a few drinks and started making out and…it gets kind of sketchy
after that.”

  “How sketchy?”

  “Like blacked out, can’t remember a damn thing, sketchy.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, but really, when you think about it, this does seem like one fucked-up joke.”

  “Damn,” she replied. “You really outdid yourself.”

  “I know. I was just so nervous.”

  “This is something I never thought would come out of your mouth. Mine maybe, but definitely not yours.”

  I took a deep breath. “I know.”

  “So, this is good,” she said, more upbeat this time.

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. You got the rebound out of the way. Now, Paul isn’t the last horse you rode out of the barn.”

  I plopped on the coach. Walter hopped on top of me and placed himself in prime petting position. “Yeah, just some stranger I met at a bar. Who’s way older and probably married.”

  “Did he have a ring on?”

  “No,” I said. “But with my luck, anything is possible.”

  “What happened this morning?”

  “I hauled ass out of there as soon as I woke up.”

  “Oh my God.” She giggled.

  “It’s not funny, Shelby.” I scowled when she giggled harder.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. Are you going to see him again?”

  “God no.”

  “Damn, I got whiskey dick with Tyler, and you’re complaining?

  To Walter’s dismay, I’d gotten up from the couch to close the blinds. The sun had reappeared behind the overcast sky, making it almost impossible for me to keep my sore eyes open.

  “So wham, bam, thank you, mam, sir, whatever.”

  “Men do it all the time,” I said.

  “True. It just doesn’t seem like you.”

  “I don’t have his number. And I don’t know if he has mine. And how would that work, anyway? Hey, Callum. It’s me, Rose, the girl that blacked out in your hotel room and can’t remember the probably insane sex we had all night.”

  “Do you think it was all night?”

  “Focus, please.”

  I was restless. The mail truck buzzed outside as it made its rounds.

  “We will never speak of the never-to-be-mentioned-act again,” I said as I made my way to the mailbox.

  It was unseasonably hot out. My front yard was starting to resemble the one next door, which had been empty for so long that the realtor sign had faded. Someone had come by months ago to write over the phone number with a black Sharpie, an elegant touch.

  “It’s just sex with a stranger, Rose, not Lord Voldemort.”

  The mail was nothing but circulars and a bill or two. On the way back to the house, I noticed the black pick-up parked in the empty house’s driveway. Had it been sold? Rented out maybe?

  “I think I’m getting new neighbors,” I mumbled into the phone.

  “What?” Shelby asked.

  I gently shook my head to clear the fog. But when did that ever work? “I need to crawl back into bed. I’ll call you later.”

  I ended the call before Shelby could finish her sentence. The hot sun was baking me alive, and my stomach felt like it was trying to win the gold medal in gymnastics. Once I was back inside, I turned on the ceiling fan and turned out all the lights, popped two heavy-duty ibuprofens, and crawled into bed.

  * * * *

  The sound of a lawn mower startled me awake. I checked the time on my phone. It had been barely 30 minutes since I stopped obsessively pinning things on Pinterest to sleep. My headache wasn’t gone but had been dulled by the magic of medicine. Still, the sound outside my window felt like it was pulsing directly through my brain.

  I closed my eyes to coax myself into sleep, but it was useless. The lawnmower might as well have been in the bed next to me. After flinging the comforter off, I peeked through the window.

  My eyes zoned in on a shirtless set of abs pushing a John Deer. He had a backwards ball cap on and earbuds in. How could he hear anything through that incessant nagging of the mower? I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but I had the sudden urge to rearrange it. Could he have picked a worse time to do this?

  The lawn wasn’t that big. It shouldn’t take him too long to finish. From what I could determine at my perch by the window, he was of the strapping variety. I went back to bed and scrolled through my phone for a few more minutes while he finished up.

  And to my relief I was right. The sound of the lawnmower finally ceased. I was irrationally delighted. I set the phone down and picked up Walter from the side of the bed. After he was comfortable and purring in the crook of my elbow, I closed my eyes.

  The silence was short-lived. More irritating sounds of gas-powered machines filled the air. A weed whacker, and then maybe a blower. Walter looked at me with a scowl, almost as if he were asking me what the hell I was going to do about it. We both couldn’t be losing our beauty sleep.

  “Okay,” I said, springing from the bed.

  Walter leapt to the floor with a yowl. It wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation. Although I’d made great strides with increasing my confidence in certain situations, I still had trouble asserting myself. Walter sat and watched as I haphazardly slipped on my sneakers, his tail flicking back and forth. He was silently judging me as usual. And even though I’d spoken many words to him over the years, he’d never answered back with more than a condescending look and meow. Thank God.

  The source of noise was rounding the corner of the house next door. I took a deep breath and charged the short distance. The guy guiding the blower didn’t see me coming. I stood there until he noticed me.

  It took a few minutes, but finally he turned, the blower pointing right at me. It flew up my t-shirt, exposing what I’m sure were my two shocked nipples.

  “Could you watch where you point that thing?” I yelled as I held on to the hem of my shirt.

  He turned the blower off and ripped out the ear buds. A sly smile was tugging at one corner of his lips. “How long have you been standing there?”

  Another deep breath to refocus. Don’t think about how two complete strangers have seen your nipples within two days.

  “A while. Are you going to be much longer?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Sorry?”

  He set the blower down and grabbed the shirt hanging on his shoulder to wipe the sweat from his face. The ball cap came off, revealing damp russet-colored hair that matched the beard.

  My headache was returning. I still had papers to grade, and I wasn’t in the mood to be coy.

  “The noise,” I said. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s 3 o’clock. A little early for bed, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t want to concede on that point. “I’m nursing a migraine and would really love it if you wrapped it up.”

  In my rage, I hadn’t noticed how much better the lawn looked. It had officially knocked mine into the number one slot of ugliest lawns on the block.

  He reached for his water bottle. “You’re welcome to help me.”

  “You want me to help you do a job you’re being paid to do?”

  Based on his good looks, I’d bet that line worked more than once.

  “Just a suggestion. Although I recommend a bra of some sort before you start. Might need the support.”

  The blood rushed to my face, and the first hiccup surfaced. I sealed my mouth with the back of my hand. Fucking hiccups. It was something that started when I was a child. I’d get upset but hold it in, sometimes for days at a time. Hiccups would manifest from the anxiety. It didn’t happen as often, but I’d yet to outgrow it.

  The guy was a bit startled.

  “Don’t get use to seeing this neighborhood.” Hiccup. “Once whoever hired you moves in, I’m going to share our little conversation.” Hiccup.

  I would never, but he didn’t know that.

  It was his turn to hold a firm stance with arms crossed. “I can sav
e you a lot of time.”

  “How’s that?” I asked, feeling very accomplished.

  “I’m the new neighbor.”

  Chapter 3

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groaned.

  The sounds of drunken yelping and laughing wormed into my ears. The house next door was bursting with people, a steady hum of music emanating from inside. It looked like a damn frat party over there. It was nearly ten on a school night. Didn’t these people have day jobs? Ever since nipplegate, I’d avoided any contact with the new neighbor, and the one time we had spoken, we hadn’t bothered to exchange names. He’d finally moved his stuff in, but it wasn’t like I was going to bake a pie and sashay my ass over there to say hi. If I could find a pie now, preferably fresh out of the oven, I’d use it to throw it into his face.

  My extremely low tolerance for anything remotely annoying at this bleak hour increased my energy for the short walk to the house. In galoshes, sweatpants from the floor, stained with last night’s dinner, and a hoodie, I stomped next door like the cavalry. Without the horse.

  I scowled at everyone I passed but barely reached the front door when I heard someone say, “Do I know you?”

  Him.

  “Hey!” I said.

  A commotion between two drunkards distracted me a bit.

  “Come on,” he slurred. “Let it out.”

  His condescending tone was just the fuel I needed to spit fire.

  “Listen up, whatever your name is”—I took a few steps closer, trying my hardest to keep my eyes on his face—"I have to work in the morning, early, to do an extremely important job that requires me to be fully functioning. So, why don’t you wrangle up your friends and shut the fuck up.”

  “Damn, baby.” He rubbed the top of his head, the muscles in his arm bulging. “You’re way too beautiful to be so mad.”

  “Oh, this is nothing asshole,” I said. “Keep it up and I’m calling the cops.” I turned on my heels, ready to pat myself on the back.

  A few witnesses hooted and hollered taunting remarks at my target.

  “Wait…you’re the chick from other day.”

  I didn’t think it was necessary to confirm his realization. I kept walking, satisfied I had made my point. My adrenaline was pumping so hard. Would I even be able to fall back asleep?