by Harley Stone
She laughed. Her gaze shot to my neck. She had to see the bruises, but thankfully, she didn’t say anything about them. Instead, she gave me a reassuring smile. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine. Come in and keep me company while I clean, will ya? I rarely have anyone other than family to talk to these days, and they’re all so freaking boring they make me want to melt my eardrums.”
That sounded serious, and like a fate I wanted to keep her from, so I followed her inside and went to the fridge like I owned the place. “Can I get you anything to drink? We have milk or… water.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Sorry. Habit. I… Um…”
Laughing, she went to the cupboard and pulled down two wine glasses. Opening a second cupboard, she paused. “Dammit. I must have drunk all the good stuff last time I was here. You wanna hit the store?”
“Yes!” I practically jumped at the invitation. “I made a list this morning.”
“For the love of God, please tell me there’s more on it than cereal,” she said.
We took the Escalade because Carisa said it made her feel bougie to drive it. I was just glad she wanted to drive, because it looked like a beast to park. Shopping with her was an experiment in people-watching and trash-talking that had me laughing harder than I had in ages. But, as we rolled up to the checkout, I pulled out my credit card and fun time ended.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, sounding offended.
“Paying,” I replied, voicing the obvious.
“Nope. Put that thing away before you hurt your bank account. Darius has this.”
“I want to help,” I insisted.
“Then cook for him. You’ll save him a fortune in food delivery.”
“I’d be buying groceries for me and Dylan wherever we stayed,” I said.
Her eyebrows rose. “Dylan?”
“My son.” I was surprised he hadn’t come up yet, but we hadn’t really talked about our families.
“Then you’re definitely not paying. There’s at least three-hundred-dollars worth of wine in that cart. It’s part of the deal I made with Darius. I clean and shop, and he splurges on the good wine.”
“Three-hundred-dollars? In wine?” I swallowed, barely stopping myself before I put a hand to my chest to make sure my heart was still beating. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around spending so much money on alcohol.
She grinned. “It should hold us over until Friday when I go grocery shopping again.”
I was out of my depth, dealing with people who clearly had a different relationship with money than I did. Backing off, I let Carisa pay for the groceries. Then we loaded them up and drove back to the house where she opened a bottle of the crazy expensive wine and threatened me until I accepted a glass. I justified it by helping her clean. We washed windows and chatted. I avoided the topic of Matt, but I did tell her all about my son.
“What about you?” I asked. “You have any kids?”
“No.” Sadness filled her eyes before she looked away. “I was married once, though. Bryan was a good man. We wanted to start a family, but he died before we could get pregnant.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What happened?”
“Inoperable brain tumor. We’d only been married a few months when they found it.”
She sounded so sterile, like a doctor delivering a diagnosis. My heart went out to her, but I had no idea what to say.
“At the time, I was working a stressful job at a big insurance company, and I couldn’t keep it together. But I had bills, and Bry’s life insurance didn’t go nearly far enough to cover them. I had to sell my house. Darius offered to buy it, but I couldn’t… Bry and I had purchased it together and everything about it reminded me of him. I couldn’t keep it. Darius let me move in here and he fired his cleaning lady to give me a job. I lived here and kept the place up for him while he was in the service.”
“He really is a nice guy, isn’t he?” I asked.
“He’s the best. I don’t know what I would have done without him. It’s been five years since I lost Bry, and my family thinks it’s time for me to move on. They keep trying to set me up. This place is my escape,” she explained. “Like a little oasis of wine and cleaning products.”
After the windows, we started laundry and I swept the downstairs while she dusted. We had just met back up to tackle the downstairs bathroom when Kaos appeared in the doorway with a food bag in hand. He was wearing the same black leather vest over a fitted white T-shirt, jeans, and boots he’d left in. My gaze was immediately drawn to the way his short sleeves hugged his muscular biceps. He had great forearms, too. They flexed as he held up the bag and asked, “You two feel like takin’ a break?”
Heat blossomed in my cheeks when I realized I was staring—and possibly drooling—and I dropped my gaze.
Beside me, Carisa shifted, dropping her sponge into the tub. “Absolutely.” She grabbed my arm and held me back for a moment as Kaos walked away. “You didn’t tell me it was like that,” she whispered.
More heat blazed in my cheeks. “Like what?”
She chortled, and the devious gleam in her eyes set me on edge. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”
Pretending I didn’t have the first clue what she was talking about, and failing miserably, I let her tug me along as she followed Kaos into the kitchen. He sat at the end of the bar, and Carisa planted herself two stools down, gesturing for me to sit between them. Bad idea. Very bad idea. That would put me entirely too close to the man for comfort, and I had no idea how my body would react. My brain screamed at me to abort mission and flee from the room, but I didn’t want to look like a raving lunatic. I probably wouldn’t even think about the last time we were together in his kitchen, while he was bare-chested with that tantalizing happy trail leading down to…
No!
Locking down those dangerous thoughts, I squeezed in beside him, brushing against his arm. Gritting my teeth, I ignored the sparks that erupted at the contact. Butterflies did gymnastics in my stomach, but I couldn’t be bothered with those, either. I scooted away from him, as far as the seat would allow. My entire body revolted at the sudden distance between us, and I had to force myself not to lean against him. Posture so rigid I probably looked like there was a stick up my butt, I fought to maintain control.
Kaos handed me a gyro. Our fingertips brushed, and I didn’t know whether to grab his hand or to wipe the memory of his touch off on my leggings. I settled for wrapping both my hands securely around the sandwich in a death grip so I wouldn’t lose my mind and do something stupid.
Like straddle him.
Straddling him would feel so good.
And it would be so bad.
Carisa was watching me. I could feel her gaze burning a hole in the side of my head, but I refused to look at her. She was already onto me, and the fire raging in my cheeks had to be giving her all the confirmation she needed. Thankfully, she leaned forward and looked past me, “Where have you been all day, cuz?”
“The club. What have you two been up to? Besides drinking up all my wine.” He gestured toward the empty bottle on the counter.
“We went grocery shopping,” Carisa said. “For actual groceries. Turns out your girl here can cook and is willing to use her culinary skills on you.”
“We’re just friends,” I said at the same time Kaos asked me, “You wanna cook?”
“Friends,” I said again, unsure of why I felt it necessary to repeat myself. “And yes, cooking is the least I can do. You’re letting us stay here.”
He held my gaze, and I got the feeling he was searching for something in my eyes, but I had no idea what. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Or anything. Bad enough that Carisa has you doin’ her job. You’re guests.”
Carisa snorted. “As if I could stop her.”
“I like to cook,” I said.
He gave me a lopsided smile. “Well, I like to eat, so…” Unwrapping his gyro, he took a bite.
His mouth was fascinating. Full lips surrounded by a well-groomed mustache and goatee. Stubble dusted his jaw and the lower half of his cheeks. He swallowed and his Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down.
“That’s settled then,” Carisa said.
I practically jumped out of my skin but recovered by pushing out of my seat—this time, toward Carisa—and leaping halfway across the kitchen.
“You okay there, Tina?” Carisa asked with far too much laughter in her voice.
Nodding, I opened a cupboard. “Yep. Just thirsty.” Quite the understatement, since my throat felt like the Sahara Desert. “You want anything to drink?”
She picked up the second bottle of wine she’d opened and poured the last of it into her glass. “Nope. I’m good, thanks.”
“Kaos?” I asked, trying not to look at him.
Carisa leaned forward, settling her elbow on the bar and using her hand to prop up her head as she stared at her cousin. “Yeah, Kaos, are you thirsty, too? Or is it just our friend Tina, there?”
I liked Carisa, but I was going to have to kill her.
“A glass of water would be great,” he replied. “And don’t mind my cousin. She treats wine like it’s a food group, and it makes her a little bonkers.”
Carisa rolled her eyes. “Grapes are fruit. It’s science.”
I filled two water glasses and plunked them down on the bar before circling back around to retake my seat. Unwrapping my gyro, I bit into it. The flavor was excellent, but my stomach was far too active for such nonsense and wanted nothing to do with food. Forcing down the bite, I reached for my glass and guzzled down the water. When I came up for air, both Kaos and Carisa were staring at me.
Calmly rewrapping my sandwich, I stood. “I’m gonna… I’m not all that hungry, so I’ll just put this away for later and get back to the bathroom.”
Before either of them could respond, I stashed my sandwich in the fridge and fled up the stairs. Halfway up, I remembered we’d left off in the downstairs bathroom. Too bad. I’d just have to settle for starting on Dylan’s bathroom instead, because there was no way in hell I was going back down those stairs.
I was busily scrubbing down the tub when Carisa joined me. She popped out a hip to lean against the sink, folding her arms as she watched me work.
“I like you, Tina,” she said. “I’ve decided you can date my cousin, but,” I started to object, but she held out her hand to stop me. “Don’t even try to deny your attraction. I was just in the kitchen with the two of you, and whew. Girl, if contact pregnancy ever becomes a thing, the vibes you two are throwing up could populate a freaking country. But that’s all fine as long as you don’t try to take away my job. I’ve got a good thing going here. I always knew Darius would hit it big, and I put in the time to ensure my spot as his favorite cousin. Nothin’ personal, but if you try to take this from me, I will smash a wine bottle and use it to rip out your jugular. Know that in your heart.”
That sounded pretty dang personal to me, but I held up my hands in surrender. “I would never take your job away from you.” I dropped my scrubber and sat on the edge of the bathtub so I could face her. “But you have nothing to worry about, because nothing can happen between me and Darius. Not for several months, at least. I need to get my life together first and figure out what I want to do.”
“Oh, honey.” Her eyes softened and she let out a little giggle. “You think you can control emotions? That’s so… adorable. Naive, but adorable.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are, which makes it even better.”
I kind of wanted to shake her. “Nothing is going to happen.”
She laughed, throwing her head back and everything. When she finally regained control, she wiped away tears from beneath her eyes and held up her wine glass in a mock toast. “To bullshit declarations of abstinence. This really is gonna be fun.”
11
Kaos
THE MOMENT TINA fled out of earshot, Carisa turned on me, gesturing wildly at the now vacant stool between us. “What the actual fuck was that?” she asked.
The “that” in question, had been one hell of a sexually charged lunch. Tina had been blushing and stammering, and every muscle in my body was sore from the strain of not reaching for her. Of not wrapping my arms around her and burying my face in her neck. If my cousin hadn’t been there, things between Tina and me probably would have escalated until I stripped her bare, sat her ass on the countertop, and fucked her right there in my kitchen.
And then afterward, there would have been hell to pay.
But since I couldn’t say any of that without sounding like I was out of my fucking mind, I decided to be a smartass. Gaze snapping to the stool, I replied, “That was once a tree. Though technically, it started out life as a seed. Which begs the question… what came first, the seed or the tree? I’d say the answer depends on whether you believe in creation or evolution.”
She blinked. “Are you for real right now?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Are any of us really real?” She was making this too damn easy. “I could be a figment of your imagination. This entire universe could be just a program aliens are running in your head while you’re plugged into their matrix. Who knows? Maybe your drunk ass slipped and bashed in your noggin, and now you’re stuck in your own mind.”
Her expression flattened. “I’m talking about the fireworks going off between you and Tina.” Carisa narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you guys… hooked up yet?”
Hooked up? What were we? Teenagers? I shook my head. “It’s not like that. She’s going through a messy divorce. Her ex is a piece of shit, and I’m putting her up until she can get free of him.”
Carisa continued to study me. “She said she has a kid.”
“Dylan.” I fought a smile at the mention of the boy. “He’s a quick-witted little asshole who likes to put me in my place. You’ll love him.”
Her expression went all soft. “That is adorable,” she said, pointing at me.
“What?”
“That thing your face does when you talk about him. You called him an asshole, but you like the kid.”
“He is an asshole,” I defended. “Way too smart for his own good, but he’s also a great kid.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She pushed the rest of her sandwich aside and took another sip of wine. “I like Tina. She’s… she’s a good person. She has a work ethic and morals and shit. Insisted on helping me even though I tried to explain that this is my job. The woman isn’t looking for a free ride. When we went grocery shopping, I thought I was going to have to throw down to keep her from paying. Luckily, I snagged a few bottles of wine I figured were well out of her price range. She had no choice but to let me flash your credit card.”
I grinned. “That’s dirty.” And I was glad Carisa had done it. Since Tina wasn’t working, she needed to keep whatever money she had.
“Sure is.” Carisa sounded proud of herself. “Tina’s a little uptight, but I’m betting that has to do with her ex. It’s clear there’s sparks pingin’ between you two, so what’s the problem? Why haven’t you made a move?”
“One does not make moves on single moms.” I finished off my water and stood, taking my wrapper to the trash.
Sliding her elbows onto the counter, she laced her fingers, plopped her chin on top of them, and stared at me. “Why? You don’t think single moms need love, too?”
It felt like a loaded question. Wondering what kind of trap she was setting for me, I replied, “Single moms don’t need casual.”
“Oh.” Her nod was exaggerated. “So, you’re an expert on the sexual needs of women. I get it now. Please… mansplain away to me.”
Yep. I’d walked right into that one. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Good, because I’d imagine being a single mom would be really lonely. Having a kid doesn’t magically erase a woman’s desire to be wanted. It doesn’t rip away her sex drive. Besides, who says it has to be casual? You like her and her kid. If things go
well between the sheets, this could be an actual relationship.”
There was no universe in which I wanted to discuss sex drives and relationships with my cousin. I needed to turn this ship around. Quickly. “I’ve only known her about five minutes.”
“Yet she and her son are staying here,” she fired back. “In your house.”
“They had nowhere else to go.”
She eyed me. “King County has more than ten-thousand homeless people.” She swirled the remaining swallow of wine around in her glass before downing it. “Bet some are moms with kids who are also out of options. Strange how you never brought any of them home.”
I let out a sigh. “It’s complicated.”
“Yep. Relationships always are.” She rose, wrapped the rest of her gyro up and put it in the fridge.
“He beat her,” I said, hating the way the words tasted in my mouth.
Carisa spun around, her brow furrowed in concern. “The bruises… on her neck. He did that?”
I nodded. “But that’s nuthin.’ I saw pictures. The fucker did a lot worse. It was bad. Really fuckin’ bad.”
She closed the fridge, leaning against the door, and let out a breath. “Well, shit. You’re probably right to take things slow then.”
My eyebrows shot up. “I’m right?” None of the women in my family had ever made such a crazy announcement. “That’s a first. Shouldn’t there be balloons and streamers and shit?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Let’s not get crazy, I said probably right. Only time will tell.” She moseyed over to the sink, rinsed out her wine glass, and set it in the dishwasher. Pushing off the counter, she headed toward the living room like our conversation was over. But as she reached the doorway, she spun around to frown at me thoughtfully. “You’re a good man, cuz. One of the best I’ve ever known.”
Carisa and I gave each other non-stop shit. I was used to her throwing insults or backhanded compliments my way, so I waited for the other shoe to drop.
