“Was Canadian?”
“He passed away when I was seventeen.”
When a loved one dies, you start referring to them in the past tense. That was just beginning to register for me, too.
Damn. He was too young to be without a father and a sister.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said, earnestly. I wanted badly to know the story, felt like there had to be a big story behind both deaths, but I didn’t want to pry.
Shane finished undoing the last button of his flannel and tossed it on the back of the seat, then flashed his eyes back toward at me. Now he had on only a ribbed rank top, and good God he was ripped. Shoulder so broad he looked like a roman statue. Chiseled, too.
My entire body flushed with heat, and I felt the need to swallow come on strong.
He stared back at me, and it was like his eyes said all the words he was refusing to say out loud. Everything about the man drew me in. He didn’t have a pretty boy tan like the beach bums and the club guys who hit on me in Florida. I bet Shane never used hair gel in his life. I also bet he knew how to at least change a tire, something that my last boyfriend was unable to do when our car broke down on the highway.
I don’t know if it was in spite of that, or maybe because of his radiating rawness, I felt drawn to him like I’d never been drawn to a man before. When I looked closer I noticed traces of scars on his forehead and arms. I didn’t want to ask what they were from, didn’t want to be that girl prying. Hockey fights, maybe? Real fights?
He was built like he’d win every fight he was in. Tall, long limbs, a lean body with rippling muscles. I wondered what else he did apart from hockey.
Yes, that was definitely his selfie. And that was probably an average photo at best.
But the thing that was the hottest—or maybe scariest (both?)—about Shane? His wolf-clear eyes that seemed to be churning out a million thoughts a minute. And not that I’m a mind reader, but something about him told me many of his thoughts were not of the pure nature.
And those eyelashes.
“I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out suddenly, when he took a step closer to me. I thought he was just moving toward me for no reason, and then he leaned down to pick up a piece of paper that had fallen from his shirt pocket when he tossed it on the chair.
I didn’t even know why I said that. I don’t have a boyfriend. My ex-boyfriend, in fact, is a lying asshole.
All saying it did was that when he stood back up, I felt silly.
He cocked his head slightly and smirked. “Oh really? How’s that going?”
“That’s…really not your business.”
“So your boyfriend wouldn’t like to know that you were requesting a dick pic from a stranger yesterday?”
I clenched my fists at my sides.
Just like I thought. A million thoughts a minute…
He continued, “Or is that just how you do things in Florida, Dino? Keep them nice and open?”
“We’re on a break,” I bit out, not willing to fully admit that I had mostly just made up my boyfriend out of thin air.
“What’s his name?”
I glanced at my father’s old liquor stash, and the name just came to me. “Jameson.”
He followed the line of my sight, which was unfortunately fixed on a whiskey bottle of the same name. “Jameson. Huh,” he said.
I walked behind him toward the kitchen, where he opened a couple of cabinets. One had peanut butter, jelly, and bread in it. My father’s last trip to the grocery store. When someone dies, even the mundane parts of their lives, like peanut butter, all of the sudden become eerie artifacts.
“Where are the cups?” he asked, turning toward me. Scrunching up his face, he looked uncomfortable as he blew out an exaggeratedly loud breath, indicating how hot he was.
“Bottom right cabinet,” I said, pointing.
He grabbed a glass, and then grimaced again, rubbed a finger on his collarbone. “Damn. I can see why you’ve got on those now,” he said, gesturing toward my tank top and orange and blue short shorts from college. “When I first saw you standing in the door I thought you just liked being scantily clad.”
“Do you mind?”
“If…?”
Not waiting for my response, he then proceeded to take off his tank top, too.
Cocky freaking bastard.
In the process he revealed the washboard abs I’d seen in the ‘selfie incident’ last night.
Something fluttered in my stomach as I wondered what it would be like to run my hands over their ridges. I think he pretended not to take notice of my gawking eyes as he poured himself a drink of water.
“So, how was your night last night? Did you score?” I asked, needing to remind myself of the inappropriateness of my thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“Your ‘plans.’ The one you were really texting last night, not accidentally like me. I’m assuming you had a date. Did you score?”
“Ohh, right!” He nodded slowly. “My date.”
I pinched my eyes toward him, unable to get a read on what he meant by this.
“What does that look mean? Did you even have a date? Or did you just make that whole thing up?”
He shrugged and dodged the question. “You’re a lot cuter than I thought you would be. For a girl with a reluctance to send selfies.”
You’re a lot cuter than I thought you would be, too.
Although cute was an understatement. He was Calvin Klein model hot.
I refused to acknowledge his attraction, since doing so would give him the upper hand.
Even though I already shot myself in the foot with my stupid boyfriend comment.
“Do you just send out your selfie to every number in your contacts and see who replies?” I asked, trying to deflect away from a conversation about me. “I caught a guy I knew in college doing that when he sent the same picture and message to both me and my roommate.”
He grinned. “Fine. I admit it. I was fucking with you last night.”
My eyes widened.
“So it was just you, Florida Sunshine,” he went on. “You’re one lucky lady.”
I heated on the inside, but my posture stiffened on the outside.
“Do you usually get dates acting like this?”
“What do you mean ‘like this’?”
“Acting like you’re God’s gift to women. A little humility goes a long way, you know.”
“I mean, you want to go on a date with me. Clearly I’m doing something right. And you have a boyfriend. Jameson.”
“That wasn’t a date. That was just a catch-up because I don’t know anyone else in town, Dick.”
“Why wasn’t he at the funeral, by the way?”
“Like I said, we’re on a break,” I repeated. I had to find a way to squeeze out of this boyfriend lie before it got me in trouble.
“I’m confused. Seems to me if I was on a break with someone I liked, even if we were on the ropes, I’d forget our quarrels to be there for them in a time like this.”
He finished drinking the water, then refilled it and handed it to me. An odd gesture, but I was thirty and I accepted it. Why was I acting so weird and awkward? Why couldn’t I just be truthful with this man?
A knot jumped up to my throat as I drank, and I swallowed extra hard.
The reason hit me, and emotion welled up inside my stomach.
I didn’t really have anyone who I could share this part of my life with. No siblings, my mom absolutely tried to pretend this chapter of her life never existed in Black Mountain. My friends sent ‘feel better’ texts but none of them were willing to come up to the frozen tundra of the north with me, heaven forbid in December. I wasn’t used to fully sharing myself with people.
I fought the emotional surge coming through me. I didn’t want to tear up in front of a stranger, who apparently had the ability to zoom in with laser focus on my insecurities.
“Gotta get you some bottled water,” he said as he took the cup back fro
m me.
His chest was sweat glazed as he filled the cup back up with the faucet. Seriously, what was my life right now? The sexiest man I’d ever seen up close—and a virtual stranger—chugging water shirtless in front of me.
“Why’s that?”
“Tap water’s no good here.”
He said the words with menace, almost like an attack on me.
“Why not?” I said, if only because it seemed like he was baiting me to ask why.
“Your father’s mine contaminated the town water supply. You never knew about that?”
My heart jumped, the way he said ‘your father.’ It felt a tad like he was blaming me.
“When was that?”
He finished chugging his drink, then poured me another. Walking to my refrigerator, he laughed when he looked inside.
“Yep. Your Daddy’s got the good stuff in here, as I suspected.” He brought out a jug of filtered water and set it on the counter. “Guess your Daddy never told his daughter about that contamination bit.”
My nostrils flared. I had enough to process this week, and I poked him in the chest. He was being a dick for no reason which was starting to annoy me. And in the wake of my father’s death? I empathized with the fact that he’d had his own tragedies to deal with from his past. And he hadn’t gotten into how they had passed away, which made me wonder. But I wasn’t going to stand for the way he was talking to me right now.
“Look, buddy,” I said. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to. I don’t care if we used to ride bikes when we were ten, and I’m sorry that something happened to Louisa and your father. But I will not have you insulting my father one week after he died. Let me grieve.”
My pulse sped, and I cursed the fact that I had to look up at Mr. Tall Eyelashes because he was possibly a good foot taller than me.
He spread his arms out behind him and leaned against the kitchen counter.
“You’re right. My bad.”
“Thank you.”
“But Look, Dino, I went through the same when my father died. He tried to be a good man, but he wasn’t perfect. No one is. I know it’s hard for you right now.”
“So what are you saying then?”
“I’m saying, you’re only here for a couple of weeks and then you’re getting the hell out of here. Do you want to have a saintly image of your father? Well then by all means, tell me to fuck off. You’re well within your right. But I knew your father.” He laughed, an evil noise. “I probably saw him more than you did the past ten years or so. And if you want to know more about him, you let me know. And I’ll tell you the type of man he really was.”
I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help it. An anger rose up inside me, and before I knew what was happening, my arm was raising, my hand was moving, and I was slapping him across the face.
He blinked a few times, cocked his head, and his eyes widened.
“You just slapped me.”
“Because you were being an asshole,” I stuttered, my heart pounding.
“Does that deserve—”
I cut him off. “I’m sorry for slapping you. I shouldn’t have. But you come into my house, unannounced.”
“Because your mother asked me to.”
“You could have texted me to let me know. But that’s not the point. Then you insult my father…”
“I didn’t insult him, I just said the mine contaminated the town’s water and he never told you.”
“That’s an insult in my book.”
“I’m more just making the point of how sheltered you’ve been.”
“Just…stop! Okay?”
I stepped back from Shane and looked at him with a couple of feet in between us. He leaned up against the kitchen counter top, not quite smirking, like the slap wasn’t even a big deal or something.
He shrugged, seeming unaffected.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
‘Not like’ was a severe understatement.
“I don’t even know why you’re still here at this point.”
“A weakness for favors to mothers. I’ll go.”
He stalked through the house in his noisy boots, grabbing his tank top and flannel on the way out.
“See you later, Dino.”
I watched him from the window as he walked outside, tossed his coat and shirt in the front seat.
Who goes outside in this weather shirtless, by the way? Only when you’re close to the Canadian border.
Then he lingered, hands on his hips for a few moments, staring at my house, no idea that I was looking right at him.
I wanted to hate him.
No, I did hate him.
Shane North was the epitome of sexy without trying. A mountain man by birth, he belonged in snow country.
I felt like I was watching Planet Earth: North Edition as he blew out several breaths that were visible in the cold air.
Maybe what I hated more was that he was right. I didn’t know very much about my father, other than the very few details my mom had told me. She didn’t much like talking about him.
I’d known him as a loving father who would call me once every week for a Skype chat in high school.
What kind of man was he, really, though? Did he have some secret he was hiding? It made sense to me that my father would want to present a sugarcoated version of himself to his daughter.
It dawned on me: the journals. I could read through those and try to investigate.
As I sat down to go through them, I found my mind wandering and my body buzzing.
I could still feel the sting of my hand striking his cheek. I hadn’t had much human contact this week, and that bit of contact had made my heart race.
The look of surprise in his eye when I did that gave me the chills just remembering it.
Try as I might to ignore this facet of our interaction, I couldn’t: he might be a pompous dick, but Shane North was my first crush, and that was when he was just the gangly brother of my friend.
Now, he was all grown up, well, he was what certain dreams were made of.
And not the frozen variety. Of the other, liquid type of dream which I refused to admit to while Shane still filled my brain.
He was also a huge jerk, I reminded myself. The way he carried himself, with that cocky, holier-than-thou attitude made my pulse accelerate with anger.
I could see his haunting, intense eyes in my mind, and even hear what his cocky response would be to my thoughts.
Yeah, Florida, Anger. That’s what you’re feeling. Keep telling yourself that. I’m sure how hard your pulse is racing has nothing to do with your attraction to me.
I tried to refocus and read my father’s journals, but I was all riled up.
4
Shane
“Shane, seriously?”
“So are you not going to sell it to me because I don’t have a shirt on or what?”
Marsha took a deep breath. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“What’s that mean? I live here.”
“Not last year you didn’t. You were away at college, stayed there all year.”
This is one of the things I hated about living in a small town. Everyone always had to be up in your damn business. Even at the corner liquor store.
“Back now.”
“For good?”
I shrugged.
“You gonna head back to Michigan State and play hockey?”
I shook my head. “Nah. Lost my scholarship and Mom needs me here, anyway.”
She held her hand on the top of the vodka bottle and didn’t let go until I looked her in the eye.
“Boy, you’ve got the wild spirit. You better channel that or you’ll end up somewhere you shouldn’t be doin’ somethin’ bad.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have even sold this to you. No shirt, no shoes…”
“And I still get service,” I winked as I took the bottle from her.
“Lost potential, boy. You remind me…”
Marsha trailed
off as I left.
She was a good person but I couldn’t get caught talking to her for another one of her life advice rants. Not right now, when my ruminating thoughts were on a high.
Natalie had pushed me over the edge. Just seeing her brought up a stew of thoughts that had long been gone.
She had the same sandy hair that her father used to have.
I tried to remind myself that she probably had no idea about what her old man was up to, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of staying in her place any longer than I had to.
I fulfilled the promise to her mom and got the hell out of there. Even if I had to instigate to do it.
It was later in the night now, and the cold wind howled and blew cooler as I got back to my place. I brought in my tank top, coat and flannel from the front seat, as well as the fifth of vodka.
Up here when the days got short and freezing, drinking was what most people did to put up with that.
My mom did it, my dad did while he was around, and my sister, well, I wish she would have just stuck to drinking.
Me? I had cut down substantially. Almost never drank any more, but I was feeling especially wired and out of sorts after my meeting with Natalie. I needed this to calm my nerves.
The cold air felt good on my bones as I turned the key.
Yeah, I was insane and I knew it, rolling around in the dead of winter shirtless. But right now I wanted to feel the freezing cold. It reminded me that even though Louisa and my dad were dead, I was alive.
I made my trademark drink, a White Russian. I took the first sip and stared outside, into the inky darkness. Seeing Natalie had brought forth a surge of powerful emotions and memories, highs and lows, long buried in my past.
Images of playing with Natalie and Louisa when we were carefree kids jumped to the front of my brain. Back then, there was no difference between us, aside from the fact that Natalie had a shiny new bike and Louisa and I had used garage sale bikes. We razzed her for that bike, yes, but in the end we didn’t care. We were just friends riding down to the creek in the summer. That was a high from my childhood.
Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 3
