The Boyfriend Contract

by Victoria James

  She’d always been able to weather the storm, bear the insults, and keep going. She’d always held out hope that she’d find her place in the world, that she’d find her people, she’d find her man, she’d have a family, children whom she’d love and protect. But right now, more than anything, she wanted someone to lean on, someone to protect her, to tell her it was all going to be okay. Right now, she didn’t want to do any of this alone. What had she been thinking?

  She clutched the handrail tightly at the sound of knocking on the front door. It was straight ahead. All she had to do was walk straight down the stairs and open the door. But anxiety gripped her without warning and held her still. She took a deep breath and tried to move but couldn’t.

  What was the point of drinking wine if it didn’t make you brave?

  She was going to make a further fool of herself in front of Cooper. First the baseball situation, then the town hall, the ice cream, now this. What kind of adult couldn’t deal with mice? Or maybe it wasn’t the mice. Maybe it was everything.

  She wanted to sit down, she wanted to crawl into bed and just wake up a new person.

  “Emily, are you in there? I’m getting kind of worried, open the door!”

  She took a deep breath and tried not to cry like a baby as she descended the stairs. She shielded the corner of her eyes with her hand and then ran down the stairs and into the door before whipping it open. Cooper stood there frowning. He had the best frown she’d ever seen.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  …

  Cooper walked into Emily’s house, knowing immediately that something was wrong. Her face was white and had a few red blotches and she wasn’t even pretending to have it all together. She was like a different person. A very hot, very sexy different person, which presented another problem entirely. She was wearing some flimsy camisole top with spaghetti straps and a lacy neckline that showed way too much creamy cleavage for him to not notice, or for him to keep lying to himself and pretending that he wasn’t insanely attracted to this woman. But right now the glimmer in her eyes had nothing to do with attraction. She looked slightly crazed and extremely panicked. “It’s…Buttons.”

  She clutched his forearms, and her bare hands on him sent a searing jolt of desire through him. They never touched. Well, rarely. Especially after the baseball lesson day when he’d figured out just how attracted to her he was. After that, he went out of his way to make sure he never touched her. Her hands were soft, even though her nails were digging into his skin. He forced himself to remember they were talking about her cat.

  “What happened to Buttons?” he asked, his voice sounding choked. He tried to remind himself he was here because something was wrong, even though all he wanted to do was kiss her.

  “She’s a serial killer.”

  “What?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and jacked a thumb over her shoulder.

  He glanced that way. Damn. That cat was impressive. At least a half dozen mice—though, it was hard to get an exact body count since there were no fully intact bodies—were littered down the grand hallway. Buttons had been such a lazy-looking thing, he hadn’t had high hopes, but this was the work of a very fine predator. Emily made a gagging noise as she quickly peeked over her shoulder. That’s when it registered. Somehow the scattered mouse bodies, heads, and tails must have been disturbing to her. “Buttons did this?”

  “No, I did. I ripped their heads off with my bare hands.”

  He laughed out loud. She was pretty funny. She also hadn’t removed her hands from his arms, and he liked that. Buttons came sauntering toward them, purring.

  “Good job, Buttons,” he said as she entered the vestibule, not even a piece of fur out of place.

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore, Buttons. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Emily said.

  He laughed again, and she glared at him. “This is what we wanted her to do, remember?” he said. “Come on, let’s deal with this bloodbath.”

  Her eyes widened and she clutched his forearms tighter. He was dying a slow death. Her mouth was slightly open, and her lips were full and so damn soft-looking that he had to focus on something else. He’d been in denial, thinking he could do this, that he could get through this reno and then leave her, but he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. He knew he wasn’t going to just be able to walk away from Emily. Her hands were soft and smooth on his skin, it was dark and late, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the night with her, not cleaning up mouse carcasses, but in bed.

  The last woman he’d been in bed with was his wife, five years ago.

  While he’d missed sex, while he knew he couldn’t go the rest of his life without it, there had never been one woman who’d made him want it again, on a personal level. Emily made him want all those things again. He liked talking to her, hearing her voice, hearing her thoughts. He loved that she was smart and strong and brave, but he was intrigued by the vulnerability he caught glimpses of every now and then.

  That night of the council meeting, he’d hated that the town had turned against her. He’d hated that even though she presented valid and beneficial ideas, no one was open to change. And that’s when the irony of it all had hit him—he couldn’t handle change well, either. The woman in front of him was evidence of that. He’d followed her down to the pier because he hated thinking of her being alone and disappointed. When he saw her sitting there staring off into the distance, her shoulders slouched, completely defeated, he’d wanted to pull her into his arms. He’d wanted her to know she had his shoulder whenever she needed it. Instead, he’d clung to the status quo like a lifeboat.

  “I can’t. I can’t deal with the murdered bodies and random pieces of rodent,” Emily hissed, her statement making him remember why he was actually here.

  His eyes narrowed on her face and noticed how pale she was, not at all like she was joking. “All right. I’ll deal with it. First I need to check on that boiler,” he said, trying to sidestep her.

  She pulled on his shirt, stopping him. “Wait.”

  He forced a tight smile because he really needed to put some distance between them. His attraction to her was getting difficult to keep under control. “Yes?”

  “I can’t let you help me.”

  Her eyes were slightly glossy and her cheeks were flushed. “How much have you had to drink?” he asked, really hoping that was the problem.

  She winced and looked away. “A half bottle of wine, but that has nothing to do with my current situation.”

  “Okay, I thought I was here to help you solve your crisis of the day.”

  Clearly, that was not the thing to say, because she glared at him and perched her hands on her hips. Lord help him, he was a weak man, because he used that as an opportunity to glance at her cleavage.

  If he had a sweater on he’d have taken it off and draped it across her.

  “I don’t have a daily crisis, and even if I had, you haven’t been called in to deal with all my catastrophes. You called me, remember? About some boiler issue that you failed to resolve before the end of your work day? Yeah. I’ve been dealing with my own drama all on my own. Fine, maybe you have dealt with house drama, but you’re getting paid for that. This…this is why I can’t accept your help tonight. This idea that you’re solving my problems…that I need a man to solve my problems for me.”

  Oh, hell. This was going sideways fast. He didn’t even know how to counteract this kind of logic. “I’m not a man solving your problems. Don’t even try to make this a guy-girl thing. I’m a person who’s dealing with a rodent situation because you’re afraid of mice.”

  She held up a hand. “I’m not afraid.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Then turn around and let’s go get a shovel and a garbage bag. You can either hold the bag or scoop the body parts.”

  She made a gagging sound and clutched his arm. He tried hard not to laugh. “Fine,” she croaked, then turned in the direction of the mice again and shielded
her eyes.

  “Emily?”

  She blinked furiously. “I can’t be weak. I’ve been strong for so long. I can’t let the mice break me.”

  It dawned on him, perhaps belatedly, that this wasn’t about mice. This really was about the fact that he was a man. She really saw him helping her with the mice as a sign that he might have some kind of upper hand or as a symbol of the fact that she couldn’t cut it.

  “Hey,” he said, crouching slightly and holding her bare arms, her soft skin making it very clear to him that they were very different, in the best possible ways, in ways he would only ever intend on relishing, not exploiting. He had never viewed femininity as inferior, just different. Just like he couldn’t deal with half the shit women had to. “If you think that needing me to help you with mice means I’m proving I’m the superior sex then you don’t know me at all. I’m your friend. I knew something was bothering you, so I came over. Yeah, I called about the boiler, but the truth is that you sounded upset. Now I’m helping you. That’s it. There’s no score sheet. There’s no—” He paused and racked his brain for a synonym of tit for tat, because his mind went straight to the gutter and he couldn’t say it. “There’s no…way I’d lord this over you. If I were a woman, would you bat an eye at asking me for help right now?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I just…wanted to do all this on my own.”

  “Why? Why the hell would you want to do this on your own? What do you have to prove to anyone?”

  She opened her mouth like she was going to tell him, and it became very clear that she did have something to prove to someone. The more he got to know Emily, the more he realized just how many layers she had. She might drive an expensive car, wear designer clothes, and come from money, but there was no denying she was made of steel. And there was no denying he wanted to know more. Damn.

  She gave a nod of defeat and swept an arm in the direction of the mice. “All right. Go. Deal with Miceageddon. You win.”

  “Let’s be clear about something,” he said as he walked by her and into the mice-ridden hallway. “Cleaning up dead mice isn’t exactly what I call winning.”

  That earned him a half laugh. “How about while you do that, I get you a drink? I might have to walk outside to get to the kitchen, though.”

  “I can get my own beer once I’m done with this. I’m just going to check out the boiler in the basement first. I’ll meet you in the family room.”

  “Okay. Can you also pull out my steam cleaner so I can disinfect the floors when you’re done?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll need to find rubber boots, maybe a hazmat suit or something. Mice carry the hantavirus.”

  He was halfway down the old wooden stairs to the basement when he laughed at her antics. As he reached for a shovel, garbage bags, and the steam cleaner, he realized that being at Emily’s place, cleaning up dead mice, was the most fun he’d had in a long time.

  An hour later, he watched Emily wash her hands and scrub them down like she was a doctor heading into surgery. The mouse situation had been dealt with, and they were standing in the laundry room, using the only functioning sink on the main floor. He tried to hide his disappointment as Emily took an oversize hoodie from the dryer and wrapped herself in it. He had turned into a teenage boy.

  “So do you think that’s it?” she said. “It’s over?”

  He leaned against the counter. “I’m sure Buttons is pretty tired out. I’ll call the wildlife guys again and maybe have a few more traps set in the basement.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what they were supposed to do in the first place?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Oh, I promised you a beer,” she said, walking past him.

  He reached out and caught her wrist, grasping it gently. She turned to him, her face becoming pink. He had no idea why he’d just done that. He knew why he wanted to; he just didn’t know why he’d given in. This could go either way. He could drop her wrist, pretend like nothing happened, and walk out of there. Or he could be the man he used to be, the one who didn’t hide from life, from emotion, from love.

  She stared at him expectantly, like there had to be a reason he’d reached out and touched her. He saw all those moments since he’d met her flash before him, reminding him that he couldn’t keep hiding. He saw her that first day at the Sleepless Goat, and he remembered that feeling in his gut, the one that told him there was something special about this woman. He saw all her expressions of wonder as they walked through the house, he saw her bravado the night she and his sister decided to take on Moose. He saw her embarrassment when he taught her how to throw a ball, the day she’d struck out at the game, her vulnerability and strength at the town hall, and then her dejection on the pier later. He saw all of it and knew it wasn’t enough.

  He knew he wanted more. He wanted to step back into the land of the living. He wanted back in on life. He had tried to tell himself it was just because she was sweet and beautiful, but he knew deep down it was more.

  “I don’t need a beer. I’ll just head home.”

  Her face fell, and he knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted. He hadn’t moved away, and he hadn’t dropped her wrist. It was as if, now that he’d touched her, he couldn’t make himself go back to that place without her. “Do you have plans next Saturday night?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Uh, um. Besides hiding from mice in my room? No.”

  He smiled—despite these crazy life revelations, she made him smile. “Maybe I can give you a break from the mice. There’s a steakhouse restaurant in a town not too far from here. It overlooks a gorge. I think you’d like it.”

  He didn’t dwell on the fact that it was the first time he’d asked a woman on a date in over a decade, or what that meant. But he knew he couldn’t keep living on the sidelines, not now that Emily had come into his life. The tension between them grew, more intense than it had ever been, because he was finally doing something about it. But what he really wanted to do was tug her over to him, to hold her body against his, and to bury his hands in her hair and kiss her until she couldn’t stand on her own.

  It took him a minute to realize she didn’t exactly look…thrilled. She actually took a step back, and her neck was turning red. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I mean it would be bad, really. Awful, most likely. You and me? Nope.” She even shook her head at the end, to add more insult to injury.

  He straightened his shoulders. “Why?”

  She waved a hand in his direction. “You work for me. How awful will it be if we’re a disaster couple? Then you’ll get all offended and walk off the job—”

  “I’m not like that. Also, I’ll try not to be offended that you’ve already decided you’ll be writing me off.”

  She gave him a sheepish smile. “Fine. Then we need ground rules. Some kind of agreement. A contract.”

  He stilled. “A contract?”

  She crossed her arms. “Yes.”

  He rolled his shoulders, determined not to get thrown off track by her odd request. There was no denying his feelings for her anymore. How bad could this contract be? “Fine, I’m good with contracts.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Oh.”

  He grinned and pulled out the notepad and small pencil he always kept in the back pocket of his jeans. He had no idea who the hell he was anymore, but apparently he was the guy about to sign a contract with a woman for a date. Not just any woman. Emily, the only woman in five years to interest him in a relationship. “All right, go.”

  She cleared her throat. “Okay, fine. No getting your family involved. No details, nothing.”

  “Hell no, we don’t want them involved. Fine, done.” he said, jotting it down happily. This was easy. He could do this. His family was already over-involved. “But that includes Callie.”

  She sucked in a breath. “But she’s my best friend.”

  “As much as it pains me to admit this, Austin and Brody are my best friends. I’m not telling them any
thing.”

  She leaned against the counter. “Fine. I’ll just tell Callie we’re going out and nothing more.”

  “That’s fair. Okay, what else?”

  She pointed to the paper. “No commenting on what I order for dinner.”

  He glanced up, unable to resist teasing her. “Like Cheetos?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No taking me to places that offer Cheetos as an entrée.”

  He laughed as he added that. “Fair enough.”

  “No sharing of childhood stories.”

  Perfect. Childhood stories were too personal. “Absolutely. I second that.”

  “No downplaying my successes to make you feel like more of a man.”

  He stilled momentarily then wrote it down, making a mental note to go over all this stuff later at home, by himself, with a beer in hand. He should have known it wasn’t going to be simple. “Fine.”

  She bit her lower lip and then pointed to the list again. “You have to teach me how to play baseball for real. Catching, throwing, hitting, and if I’m really awesome, then pitching.”

  “Done,” he said, his voice sounding gruff from the unexpected emotion in his throat. What the hell was happening to him?

  She exhaled. “I’ll take you to any Jays game of your choice in Toronto. I choose the seats.”

  “Hell, yes.”

  Her eyes sparkled, and she smiled at him as though she’d won the lottery. “We eat hot dogs and drink beer.”

  “Obviously.”

  “No asking personal stuff. Especially pertaining to Darth.”

  Dammit. He wanted to know about him. He held her stare, and hell if he was not going to give in. “Fine. No Darth and no personal dating history.”

  A strange look passed across her eyes. “Fine. Um, I’ll add one more thing—if I have rodent issues, you have to deal with them, since you’re so talented.”

  She smiled triumphantly, and he fought the urge to pull her to him and kiss her. He also fought the urge to question out loud how he was getting into this mess. But she kept smiling at him, and he knew he wasn’t going to say no. He just might not make it that obvious. “So, if we only ever go out once, I’m stuck dealing with your rodent issues for a lifetime?”