Southern Heartbreaker: A Charleston Heat Novel

by Peterson, Jessica

  I take a breath. Take a sip of whiskey. As difficult as things in my life feel right now, it feels good to talk about them.

  “I have a lot of really great help, which I know most parents don’t. So I’m lucky. But even so, the juggle is…Eva, it’s fucking brutal. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Things are really good right now. Bryce is happy and healthy, my family is healthy. Job is going ridiculously well—Grey and I have worked for years to get to this place. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and the mark we’re making on this city. I’m excited for projects we have in the pipeline.”

  “But?”

  Another sip. The alcohol bites; this cocktail is stronger than the first. I let out a breath through my teeth. Think about my answer. No one’s asked me that question. But if everything’s good, why the heaviness?

  Maybe because I haven’t told anyone how I’ve been feeling.

  Why am I telling Eva?

  Probably because she’s been open with me. Unafraid to admit that things are less than perfect in her world. Makes me feel safe—welcome—to admit the same about my own.

  So much of my life is about appearances. Expectations.

  But with Eva, I can just be myself. Worries and flaws and all.

  It really is so damn refreshing.

  “But I feel drained all the time. Like I’m breathing through a straw. Which doesn’t make sense. I love my work. Love my daughter. I feel good about the choices I’ve made, it’s just…” I shrug. “I don’t know. Guess I’m overwhelmed at the moment, especially with Grey going on paternity leave. I have this running to-do list in my head that never ends. Sometimes I feel like I live just to check off boxes.”

  Eva sips thoughtfully on her drink. “So, clearly I have zero experience with parenthood or kids or juggling being a single dad while running a company. But it sounds like you don’t have much time for yourself. When was the last time you did something you enjoyed, just because you wanted to? Not because you had to, or it was a line item on that to-do list. But because you wanted to?”

  Scoffing, I say, “I honestly can’t remember. I read before bed. Does that count?”

  “Welp,” Eva replies, sipping her drink. She angles her body a little closer to mine. Her bare knee brushes my thigh. Neither of us move. “What do you read? Please tell me it’s dinosaur erotica or something.”

  “I’d be down with some dinosaur erotica. But lately it’s just been a lot of parenting books. I’ve been feeling guilty for being away from Bryce so much, so…” I say. And then I laugh.

  Eva laughs, too. “So you’re punishing yourself by skipping the lizard sex and diving straight into, what, sleep training?”

  “Sleep training happened when Bryce was a baby, but…yeah. Something like that.”

  “Wow,” Eva says. “When did we become such lame adults?”

  “It happens slowly,” I reply with a grin. Her knee is still touching my leg, her skin burning a hole through my pants. “By tiny, depressing degrees. But I refuse to be lame tonight. We may be adults, but we’re not dead. Let me take you out—one more drink.”

  “But I’m supposed to meet Gracie here.”

  “Shit. That’s right. Never mind, then.”

  “Wait—lemme see if she’s texted.” Eva pulls her phone out of her bag. Her brows come together as she pulls up a chat. “Hm. Gracie says she and Luke got ‘tied up.’ I think she means that literally.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “I know, right?”

  My mind latches onto a memory: my hands bound with the straps of Eva’s bikini top over my head. Eva straddling my knees, ducking down to swallow my dick. Fast and wet.

  A pulse of heat gathers just where I do and don’t want it. We’d always been really good at that. Sex. Fucking. Making love.

  Even kissing—she and I could make out for hours. Totally in tune with each others’ mouths, moans. Hence the Dave Matthews Band tattoos.

  Feels like a lifetime ago. Especially considering the only person’s needs I’m in tune with at the moment are Bryce’s. Which include, in no particular order: ice cream, Paw Patrol, and pink crocs.

  “So you’re free for another drink,” I say.

  Eva looks up from her phone. Studies my face for a moment.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Just one. Please. Jackass is gone, I swear it.”

  She takes a breath. Lets it out. “Where do you want to go? If we were to get this one drink?”

  “You’re the one looking for inspiration. You tell me where you’re most likely to find it.”

  She keeps looking at me. Two and a half beats later, she sets her empty glass on the bar with a definitive thump. “Do single dads still dance?”

  I pull back, furrowing my brow. “Do I still dance. Eva. My God. I’m offended you’d even ask. Hell, I even got my curmudgeonly older brother to dance. To Bowie, no less.”

  “Aww, how cute were Greyson and Julia dancing together at their shower? Great playlist, by the way. Nice mix of wholesome wedding band songs and subtly dirty R&B.”

  People usually don’t set up speakers and a dance floor at a baby shower. But Grey has come a long way since he first met Julia a year ago—before, he didn’t smile, didn’t have a life outside work, and definitely didn’t dance—so dancing with his family and friends in celebration of the new life he’s beginning felt right.

  I tilt my head in a mock bow. “Something for everyone. I’m proud of a lot of things, but that playlist ranks at the top of the list. Thank you.”

  Eva and I meet eyes. She grins. I grin.

  A beat of warm interest passes between us.

  I was exhausted when I got here. But now I feel as alert and alive as Bryce is at 6 a.m. on Saturdays (during the week, I can’t wake her up for the life of me, but on the weekends she rises without fail before the sun). Could be the excellent buzz I have going on. More likely it’s the gorgeous girl in front of me. Her full mouth. Dark eyes. Bare shoulders.

  Shoulders I want to sink my teeth into.

  “So if we were to go out dancing, where would you take me?”

  She grins. Shifts on the stool, her knee pressing more firmly against my thigh. “I have some ideas.”

  My dick twitches.

  “Let me call my sitter.”

  Because if I’m going dancing with Eva, ten o’clock is way too early.

  Chapter Six

  Ford

  I offer Hannah everything short of my eternal soul to stay until midnight. Cash. A yacht. A Bahamian island to sail that yacht to.

  Luckily she agrees to the cash.

  I’m free as a bird. For the next couple hours, at least.

  I feel high on life walking down East Bay Street beside Eva, my hand hovering over the small of her back as we navigate our way through the Friday night crowd that packs the uneven sidewalk.

  I’m carrying my suit jacket in my other hand, the collar hooked on my first two fingers over my shoulder.

  “Finally feels nice out,” Eva says with a sigh. “The way summer should feel.”

  She’s right. The summer months can be pretty damn miserable in downtown Charleston. The heat, plus the ever-present humidity, makes the air feel close and stagnant from the end of May through the end of September.

  Only at night does the city cool down. Right now the temperature is just above bearable, with a salty breeze coming off the water nearby.

  “I’m usually in bed by now, but I have to say it feels really good to be out,” I reply. And I mean it. The warm air, the warmth of the whiskey, of Eva’s body close to mine—makes the world around me seem to swell with possibility.

  Freedom.

  A half dozen scents fill my head as we walk toward the market. The sting of cigarettes. The savory smell wafting from the kitchens of the restaurants we pass.

  Eva’s perfume. She smells so good.

  I find myself keeping closer, and then closer still, to inhale it.

  She glances at me over her s
houlder. “Ford. Are you sniffing me?”

  Our faces are inches apart. My eyes move to her mouth.

  “Are you going to cancel our dancing date if I say yes?”

  “This is a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I don’t want it to be?”

  “Then I change my answer to no. No, it’s not a date. It’s whatever you want it to be.” I meet her eyes. “Take the hint, Eva. I just want to be with you. You’re the one calling the shots here.”

  Her expression softens. She looks back down, and my hand collides with her back when she steps aside to let a stroller pass.

  Her mostly bare back. My fingers tangling in those lingerie-like straps of her tank top. Thumb finding purchase in the middle of a line of tattooed Neruda.

  I wait for one—or both—of us to pull away.

  Neither does.

  Her skin is soft. So fucking soft in a familiar way. The way your favorite song by your favorite band is familiar. It takes you back to places, times, selves you were that you’ve long since parted with.

  Jesus Christ. Three drinks in and I’m already waxing poetic.

  I forgot what being around this woman does to me.

  “At the shower, you said you were single. But are you dating?” she asks, starting to walk again.

  The second part of her question lingers in the space between us. Are you really ready?

  “I am,” I reply. “I think a part of me will always mourn Rebecca. And it took me a really long time to even think about putting myself out there again. Four years, to be exact. But over the past six months or so, I’ve started to feel ready. So I’ve done the whole blind date thing, eHarmony and whatever. I’ve had some fun, but nothing too serious. Not that I’m not ready for serious. I just haven’t clicked with anyone yet.” I look at her. Resist the temptation to curl my palm around the nape of her neck, the way I used to do when we were walking around campus. “Are you? Dating?”

  She turns her head to look at me. “I am. But like you, I haven’t found anyone who’s clicked. Not in a while, anyway.”

  We’re devouring each other again, our gazes locked. The night and the ocean and the people around us falling away.

  Look at us, I want to say. Together again. Both lonely and overwhelmed.

  Both single.

  Imagine that.

  The fire in her eyes dims. Replaced by that sadness I’ve glimpsed before.

  Why what how.

  I want to know everything about this look. This weight.

  This woman, who is still as true to herself today as she was at nineteen.

  Struggling, but authentic.

  Eva slows her steps. The night and all its sights and sounds comes back full force. I look up at sound of a bass line’s heavy thud. The sticky sweet smell of chocolate.

  We’re standing outside a multi-story brick building right on the market. It’s a touristy part of town, the bar and its blinking lights wedged between a t-shirt shop and place that sells forty flavors of fudge.

  I recognize the bar, its name lit up in green halogen lights.

  “Jacob’s?” I say. “Eva, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  The mischief is back in her smile and her eyes. “Don’t tell me that suit’s made you too proud to go to Jacob’s. It’s a Charleston institution.”

  “No it’s not,” I say. “It’s a place where underage college kids go to do Jäger bombs. You do know they have that on tap, right? Jägermeister? On principle, I do not go to places that encourage imbibing that sludge of death. It’s just…wrong.”

  “Wrong in all the right ways, you mean.” Eva reaches for my hand and tugs me toward the door. “C’mon. First round of Jäger bombs is on me. And yes, you are letting me pay this time.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I growl, sending my dick a silent plea to behave after the sudden shock of feeling her fingers thread through mine. Her hand feels warm.

  Right.

  I swear, some moments it really does feel like we’re picking up right where we left off more than a decade ago.

  The bouncer barely glances at our IDs before waving us in—“yeah, y’all are definitely over twenty-one”—and then Eva is tugging me up one flight of stairs, then another. It smells like stale beer inside, undercut with a hint of fried bar food.

  Lovely.

  The thump of the bass gets louder the higher we climb. At last we come out onto an open air patio that leads onto a bar-slash-dance floor. There are people everywhere, bobbing their heads in time to the song the DJ is playing.

  I recognize it. Even though the soles of my new Gucci oxfords are sticking to the floor—good Lord, what is that?—I feel my entire face breaking out in a smile.

  The song is “What’s Your Fantasy” by Ludacris.

  Only the song Eva and I memorized spring semester junior year as a way of procrastinating while attempting to study for our exams. She’d do the girl parts. I’d do the guy. Occasionally we’d switch just to show each other up, acting out the lyrics with enthusiastic abandon.

  We were a popular attraction at parties back then.

  Immediately Eva glances over her shoulder. Mouths the very filthy lyrics as they boom through the speakers. Those espresso brown eyes flashing with the challenge.

  I lift a brow. “You really wanna go there?”

  “Oh yeah,” she says, starting to move her shoulders to the beat. “Show me what you got, Mr. Suit and Tie.”

  I fly through the next verse, not missing a damn thing. She laughs, and fuck me, I wanna pull her to me and lick my tongue into her mouth.

  That filthy fucking mouth that’s still singing those filthy fucking lyrics.

  I refrain from licking her. That’s something horny nineteen year olds do. Thirty-two-year-old dads still in the day’s work clothes need to have a little more decorum than that. Right?

  The song ends. Eva bellies right up to the bar, dropping my hand to dig her wallet out of her bag. I plant that hand, still ringing with the memory of her touch, firmly on the bar. But I can’t resist standing close to her, my front to her back, as she waves down the bartender.

  Close enough to give any scumbag in the vicinity definite back the hell off vibes.

  I lean in. Murmur in her ear, “Please tell me you were kidding about the Jäger.”

  Eva orders two Coronas and, turning, hands one to me. The beer is ice cold, bits of lime clinging to the mouth. Usually I don’t like fruit with my alcohol. But tonight, I want to see Eva lick this lime off her bottle.

  “Of course I was. I’m fun, but I’m not a masochist—I don’t want to spend my Saturday puking. Cheers.” She touches her bottle to mine.

  “What should we toast to?”

  Her eyes are smiling. “Old friends?”

  “But we were never friends.”

  “Correction: we were always friends. We were just always more than that, too.”

  “I’ll cheers to that.” Clanking bottles again, I tip back the beer. It’s delicious. Refreshing, a little tart on account of the lime. “It’s really good to see you, Eva. I needed this.”

  She swallows her sip, and goddamn, her tongue darts between her lips, catching some of that lime from the corner of her mouth.

  Is sex on the first date too much, too soon? Asking for a friend.

  “I did too. Still can’t get over the fact that my friend and your brother are not only head over heels in love, but having a baby together. Small world.”

  “I told you. Feels star-crossed to me.”

  Eva takes another sip. Looks down at the bar.

  “What?” I ask, feeling a twist inside my chest. Shit, am I coming on too strong? I’m not drunk, not yet, and I’m definitely not sloppy. I’m only trying to be honest. Screw games or playing it cool. That stuff is for spineless assholes.

  It’s just been so long since I’ve done this. Since I’ve felt this. Anything close to this level of interest and arousal.

  If there’s anything being a venture capitalist has
taught me, it’s that you shouldn’t let shit that feels right slip through your fingers.

  Then again, maybe that’s a lesson I should’ve learned a while ago. Before I let Eva go the first time.

  Eva shakes her head, eyes moving to meet mine. “Nothing. We’d just—Ford, c’mon. You and me? We’d never work now.”

  That flare ignites into a full-blown fire.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” she says with a laugh. Like the answer is the most obvious thing ever. “Difficult to forget what a jackass you were the first time we dated. And things are different now. We’re different.”

  “Well, yeah. But to your point, isn’t that a good thing?”

  But before she can reply, the opening strains of “Pony” by Ginuwine pulse through the bar. Eva’s eyes go wide. Her lips move into a smile against the mouth of her beer.

  “Dude. We can’t not dance to this song. C’mon,” she says, tossing a couple bills onto the bar.

  I wanna pick her brain. Tell her never to call me “dude” again. Push her on why, exactly, being different from our college-aged selves makes us incompatible as adults. Because I’m digging this, and even though we’ve only been together for all of a couple hours, I already know I want to see her again. Tomorrow. As soon as she’ll let me.

  But I also don’t want to come off as a possessive creeper. I figure—hope—we’ll have plenty of time to talk later.

  I’ll have plenty of time to plead my case when some of the best R&B ever made isn’t playing.

  So I follow her onto the dance floor. She raises her arms as she cuts a route through writhing bodies. We’re not the only ones who noticed the music is getting better; lots of other people are pouring onto the floor, and it’s getting crowded.

  Not that I mind. We find a spot in a far corner, close to the DJ. The bass is so loud I feel its thump in my sternum. Despite the fan blowing air nearby, it’s hot as hell. I’ve got my jacket draped over my forearm. I lay it over the back of a nearby booth. Hope it’s there when we’re done—this just happens to be one of my favorite custom-made suits.

  Then Eva is turning toward me, and we’re suddenly very close. Her breasts brush against my chest, but she doesn’t stop moving. She’s smiling, biting her bottom lip. Furrowing her brow while she mouths the lyrics. Dancing with the same confident rhythm she had when we first met.