by P. Dangelico
That was the last thing I wanted or needed.
“You don’t have it,” he said softly. “You have my admiration.”
Chapter Sixteen
Scott
“Can you please leave?” Laurel glared at me from above the rim of her reading glasses. “You’re being very annoying, Scott. Hey, I got an idea––why don’t you go home and annoy your wife?”
Laurel went back to doing payroll.
A few days after Sydney’s confession and I still hadn’t recovered. That and her brush with death. Rationally, I knew she was out of danger, but I couldn’t get the rest of me to accept it. I couldn’t silence the voice that said it was my fault she’d almost been killed. That I’d been seconds from losing her because I’d been, once again, caught up in my own bullshit.
Consequently, I’d been cutting my workday shorter and shorter since the accident––anxious to get home and see for myself that she was alright––when what I really wanted to do was stay home altogether. But, no, she’d demanded that I not hover, so I’d physically gone back to work while my mind remained elsewhere not doing anybody any good.
“All I asked was a simple question.”
“And the simple answer is the same one that I’ve given you the last four times in the last half hour––no, the doctor has not called. Take it from a woman who’s raised five boys. If the doctor doesn’t call with an MRI result right away, then it’s good news. It’s when they call that you should worry.”
We’d had a few days of sun and mild weather, and the snow was beginning to melt. Out the picture window of my office, I could see a few crocus blades coming up. Spring wasn’t too far off and so was our busiest time of year: calving season.
“You know what, I’m going home.”
Laurel glanced away from her computer. “What a great idea. Tell Sydney I said I’m sorry, but I’m no saint.”
“We’re going to have a long discussion about your attitude when I’m thinking right,” I said, walking through the door.
“Sure thing, boss,” I heard her reply with a chuckle.
The call came in on my ride back home, the Star Wars theme filling the cab of my Ram pickup.
“Hey, Dad…so are we doing that now, texting?”
As soon as Sydney had fallen asleep the day of the accident, I’d called Dad to tell him what had happened. The call had gone straight to voicemail, but that wasn’t what got my attention. It was that I received a text in return, wishing her a speedy recovery. My father hated texts. He once chewed out Charles Barkley for texting instead of calling.
“I’ll make this brief,” he said, ignoring my question. Then he coughed. It sounded wet, and a soft rasp remained even after he’d cleared his throat. To say it concerned me would be an understatement. My father wasn’t a young man and walking pneumonia could sneak up on anyone.
“You don’t sound good, Dad. Have you seen a doctor?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You sound like you could be getting pneumonia.”
“Listen to me, Scott. I’m talking to the board about appointing Sydney as acting CEO at the end of the month. They’ve had enough time to get comfortable with the idea of your marriage.”
I nodded as he spoke, but my head was still on the cough. I’d lost people I loved in the past because I hadn’t paid close enough attention, hadn’t pushed the subject when I should have, and I’d lived to regret that decision. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let it happen again. “I’m calling Mom to make sure you go see a doctor.”
“Call your mother because she’s your mother and she misses you, but leave me out of it…” It was easier to convince one of my bulls to behave. “How are things with Sydney? She told me you were giving her a hard time.”
His tone was relaxed, which meant he was good and pissed and wished he could beat my ass the same way he had when I was twelve and he caught me throwing all of Devyn’s underwear in the pool because she wouldn’t let me play with her brand-new Macintosh Color Classic.
It was the first time I’d smiled all day. “I’ve apologized so you can stop sharpening the knives.”
He grunted in approval. “I’m asking you one last time before I make the announcement––are you sure you don’t want to come home and work for the company I built for you.”
My smile sank. Frank Blackstone was a hall-of-famer when it came to dishing–out guilt, and I can’t say it didn’t strike a chord. Of course it did, but that did not mean I was going to swap a life I loved for one I didn’t out of some sense of duty.
“You built that company for you. Don’t kid yourself.”
When he didn’t argue, the worry kicked up again. “Dad, I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah…okay,” he said, “Sydney it is then.”
He sounded so damn disappointed I found myself wanting to give him some hope even though I knew I had no intention of ever going back. I never got the chance. A beat later the call dropped.
Sydney
One day bled into the next. Mornings faded into magic hour which turned into brilliant sunsets. It was like Fourth of July fireworks every night outside the enormous cathedral-style windows of Scott’s house.
My body healed faster than even I had anticipated. Four days after my showdown with the bull, my shoulder was only sore when I used it too much and my knee was almost a hundred percent. The scab on my forehead would take a little longer.
In the meantime, we fell into a routine of sorts. Scott worked. I worked. We ate dinner. We spent nights on the couch. He watched basketball while I worked on the laptop. Each night, alone in bed, I’d inevitably end up staring up at the ceiling wanting him.
We’d reached a stalemate on that front. I wasn’t going to make the first move and he hadn’t tried again. It had all the earmarks of a real marriage. Without one perk, of course. Which fed the tension. It grew into a big lumbering creature, the third roommate in the house who we both pretended didn’t take up too much room, and didn’t make a racket and knock stuff over, and didn’t insist on making it awkward.
The dynamics between us had shifted drastically since our heart-to-heart in the bathroom. He was literally tripping over his own feet to help me any way he could. It felt unnatural and awkward at first––to let someone do for me––but once I started to lean into it, I never wanted it to end.
The night before I was set to leave again, I couldn’t sleep. I also didn’t want to leave. Which was the first time that sentiment reared its head. Around one, I gave up trying and decided maybe a little warm milk spiked with brandy was in order. As I shuffled through the dark house, on my way to the kitchen, the enormous windows revealed heavy snowfall with flakes the size of quarters, painting an absolutely magical picture.
Hearing me mucking about in the kitchen, the dogs appeared. I didn’t mind having them sleep with me––I kind of missed their warm bodies, to be honest––but Scott had forbidden it while I was still injured, and my shoulder had agreed. One false move and I would’ve been back to square one.
“Hey, guys.” They danced around me, tails wagging. “Wanna keep me company while I try to get my drunk–on? Yes? Okay, good.” They looked at me like I needed to get my head checked.
I poured a second shot of brandy into the milk, grabbed the mug, and walked into the den, my attention consumed by the snowfall. The security floods had been turned on, backlighting the show Mother Nature was putting on. I turned a little, ready to plop down in one of the massive down-filled chairs in the living room, when I realized there was a body on the couch.
“Jesus!” My hand went over my heart and he smirked. “What are you doing up?” I barked, sounding affronted to find him lounging in his own house. It’s safe to say the sexual tension was making me as edgy as a cat on a hot tin roof. It was either that, or the straight-up lack of sex.
“Couldn’t sleep…you?” He rolled off his back and went up on an elbow, head in hand, chest bare and his jeans unbuttoned. I’d never seen a sexier sight
, so handsome my eyeballs got wet. Among other things.
Trusty mug in hand, I settled in the chair across from him. “Me neither.”
We sat in silence for a while, and Tension, our third roommate, decided to join us. I could feel his eyes on me while I kept my attention on the snow. “It’s so pretty.”
“You won’t think that once you’ve seen it a few more hundred times.”
“But you don’t mind it? I mean, you choose to live here.”
“I love it here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be…this is home.”
“It suits you.” I sipped the warm milk, hiding the hot flush of my cheeks behind the mug.
And it did suit him. He always walked in wearing a soft smile at the end of the workday, his expression relaxed. He wasn’t the type of man you could keep cooped up like an exotic flower in a hot house. Scott needed the outdoors, the elements, the challenge.
“Do you…like it here?” I heard a few seconds later.
“More than I thought I would––stampeding bulls aside.”
“I warned you.”
“Yeah, that bear spray sure came in handy.” I stifled a grin. I loved giving him shit. It shouldn’t have been this much fun and yet it was.
“Yeah, well”––he smiled one of his dimpled ones––“I’m teaching you how to shoot a pistol as soon as the snow clears.”
I made a face, not at all happy with that news. “Do I have to?”
“You live here now. You should know. I can’t handle another heart attack and I have a feeling I can’t stop you from running.”
“What about you guys?” I said to the dogs sprawled out at my feet. “Wanna play bodyguards?” The dogs stared back like I was too stupid to understand that they lacked the power of speech.
My eyes lifted to find Scott’s gaze laser focused on my chest. The long t-shirt I’d worn to sleep had slipped off my shoulder and exposed my cleavage. I pushed it back up. “How did you wind up with these two?”
The small smile Scott had been wearing up until this moment slowly melted away. “I…” My smile dropped as well. Whatever the story was, it wasn’t a pleasant one. He sat up and leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, absently running a thumb back and forth over his lower lip. He did that a lot when he was thinking something over. And right now I could see he was considering how much to tell me.
“Do you remember my friend Charlie Hewitt? He was at Devyn’s wedding.”
I racked my brain for a face to attach to the name and it finally dawned on me. “Didn’t he work at Blackstone for a short while? In property management?”
Scott nodded.
Then I recalled the rest of the details. The dude was never on time. Never. We had to assign someone else to follow up on the properties he handled because we were getting so many complaints. I only knew this because Frank had cursed up a storm when he’d been made aware. Then he showed up to work drunk one day, which was obviously a fireable offense.
“He had a substance abuse problem, didn’t he?”
With a pained look on his face, Scott nodded. “Charlie and I had been best friends since the fourth grade. And yeah, in hindsight he probably did.” His gaze flicked away briefly. “We both partied hard back then.
“He was infatuated with this girl I’d gone out with a handful of times. I had no interest in her so…I…I set them up, thinking I was just helping a brother out…”
The sinking feeling in my stomach said I was going to regret asking about the dogs. Scott looked off, into the snowfall as if he could escape his own memories.
“I thought I was doing a good thing…For a while, they seemed happy together––I mean, he was still partying a lot, but we all were…”
His gaze met mine again.
“We were at a wedding in the Hamptons…at some point in the evening, I ended up on the beach, drinking. Meghan found me and started coming on to me.”
I sucked in an audible breath.
“Charlie caught her trying to kiss me, but he also saw me push her away, so he started in on her immediately, calling her a slut, a whore, you name it…It wasn’t the first time I’d seen them fight. And it usually got ugly fast. But this time it got even uglier…she told him she’d settled for second best, that she’d always been attracted to me and only went out with him to kill time until I was ready to settle down. Which…was a ridiculous fantasy.”
His Adam’s apple quivered as he swallowed.
“What happened?” came out a rough whisper.
“Charlie pulled out a ring box, said he was going to propose that night but he couldn’t find the right moment. I had no idea. He hadn’t said a word to me––probably because he knew I would’ve tried to talk him out of it.
“Anyway, I left them on the beach yelling at each other and figured they’d work it out like they always did. Next morning, I got a phone call from his brother. The housekeeper had found Charlie hanging from the pipes in his loft.”
I felt sick, close to throwing up the milk I’d savored only minutes ago.
“He’d bought these guys from a breeder in the UK. When he told me he was on a waiting list for two puppies, I told him he was a dumb fuck who could barely take care of himself…They were delivered the day after his funeral. His brother didn’t want them, so I kept them.”
Cupping both furry faces between my hands, I planted a kiss on each one of their big heads. “I’m sorry, Scott.”
“Yeah,” he said with a faraway look on his face I didn’t like one bit. “Me too.”
I watched the snowfall, digesting everything he’d told me. The picture was finally coming together.
“Is that why you left? Because you didn’t want to be reminded?”
He took his eyes from the snow and placed them on me. “Because I didn’t want to wind up like him.”
Chapter Seventeen
Scott
I heard the music blasting through the house as soon as I stepped into the hallway attached to the garage. Aretha Franklin, by the sound of it. Which was why the dogs weren’t at the door to greet me. She’d been gone two weeks and it felt like a hundred years. I was beginning to hate this house when she wasn’t here.
Shucking off my jacket and work boots in the mudroom, I followed the trail of music and the scent of vanilla into the kitchen. My wife was home. At the threshold, my feet stopped and my pulse raced.
Sydney was dancing with the dogs. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, hanging to the side. The ubiquitous Yale Law sweatshirt, which my dick and I had seen too much of, was falling off one shoulder, her legs bare. She’d stopped hiding them from me the night we returned from the hospital.
She held a wooden spoon to her mouth like a microphone and lip-synched I Never Loved A Man, her face animating every syllable, while Juliet barked and Romeo pranced around.
“You’re a no-good heart breaker
You’re a liar and you’re a cheat
And I don’t know why
I let you do these things to me
My friends keep telling me
That you ain’t no good
But oh, they don’t know
That I’d leave you if I could.”
Sheer awe filled my chest. I would’ve sworn on a Bible that I’d never seen anything more captivating. And it wasn’t that she was having the time of her life, or that she was drop-dead sexy in nothing but an old faded sweatshirt. It was so much more than that. Something that went deeper than skin and scars.
Despite what she’d suffered––something so fucking horrendous it had left a reminder on her gorgeous body––she believed that she was lucky. Lucky, for shit’s sake! She laughed like life was not only good, but good to her. The depth and breadth of strength my wife possessed astounded me. Not because of what she’d suffered, but because of her willingness to meet each and every day as if she hadn’t.
“Ready…here comes the second verse,” she said to the dogs, unaware of my presence. I curled my lips around my teeth to stop from laughing at
the weird, jerking moves she made while she danced. On the plus side, the knee seemed to be completely healed by the looks of it.
“Don’t ya never, never say that we were through
Cause I ain’t never
Never, Never, no, no…loved a man
The way that I, I love you
I can’t sleep at night
And I can’t even fight
I guess I'll never be free
Since you got, your hooks, in me.” Aretha’s voice drifted out of the sound system loud and clear.
I wanted to go to her. I wanted to be part of this…this feeling. Anybody who got near her got sucked into it. I saw it with Laurel, Drake, and Ry––even my father had gotten caught up in her orbit. I’d been living under a cloud since Charlie died. Eight long-ass years. I just hadn’t known it until something bright and shiny walked into my life, lighting me up and making me see what I’d been missing.
I love this woman. The realization punched me in the chest. The one that followed was even scarier. I wanted her to love me back.
Romeo finally noticed me standing in the doorway and trotted over, Juliet joined him shortly after, their tails whipping back and forth. Sydney’s eyes met mine, wide and full of surprise, the wooden spoon frozen in place near her mouth. I was done playing games, pretending I wasn’t up all night thinking about her, jerking off every morning to fantasies of what I wanted to do to her.
“I missed you.”
Her face softened. “I missed you too.”
Brushing the dogs away, I walked up to her, took the wooden spoon out of her hand, and chucked it over my shoulder. The dogs went chasing after it. Then I took her face in my hands, cupping her cheeks, while hers came up to gently cover mine and her thumbs brushed against the inside of my wrist.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” I warned, my gaze roaming indiscriminately over her face, one that I’d come to know better than my own. “Then I’m going to peel away this ugly fucking sweatshirt, and worship every inch of your body with my mouth. And when you think you can’t come anymore, that I’ve wrung you dry, I’m going to fuck you and prove you wrong. If you have a problem with anything I’ve just said, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
