Somebody to Love

by Ann Christopher

  “That’s amazing. And then you moved to Napa?”

  “Yeah. Got hired at a great restaurant there and worked my way up to sous chef with my eye on the top job. But then Daniel’s dad, Nigel, had a heart attack last summer around the same time that the owners unexpectedly sold the restaurant and moved to Phoenix, leaving me high and dry. When Nigel asked Daniel to come back here to run Harper Rose’s winery, I tagged along. You know the rest. I’ve been living in their carriage house. Trying to find a job.”

  “Yeah, well, Edward’s my baby daddy. We had a birth control failure a couple years back, so don’t let anyone tell you that they don’t happen. That’s my Harper connection.”

  They laughed together for a delicious moment. Sean felt the sizzle of their renewed connection all across his skin and up into his scalp.

  “This is kind of messy. You and me. The Harpers.” Surrendering to impulse, he smoothed the baby hair away from her temple and savored the way a tiny shudder rippled through her as she sighed and her lids drooped to half-mast. He felt the responsive spiral of longing deep inside. “Edward. Ella. How’s that going to work?”

  Her gaze, brighter now, flicked back to his.

  “I don’t know. Thanks for outing us like that, by the way. With Edward earlier.”

  “Sorry. If you want him back, that seems like the kind of thing I should know before I get in too deep.”

  “You’re not sorry,” she said, eyeing him skeptically. “And I already told you I don’t want him back. I’m over it.”

  That was a perfectly good answer. The one he’d been hoping for. Too bad he couldn’t leave it at that. If she was truly over it, seemed like she wouldn’t protest quite this much. Seemed like she’d be more indifferent. Maybe he was living in a rainbow-colored fantasy world, but he wanted her to be truly over it. He didn’t want to have to keep putting asterisks by her explanations and swallowing his niggling uncertainty. That was no way to explore this new relationship.

  “I caught a glimpse of your conversation with him through the window when I was at the restaurant earlier,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Didn’t look over. Looked pretty intense.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Were you spying on us?”

  He shrugged easily, determined not to be deterred by her seeming outrage.

  “Kinda hard to spy on someone who’s standing in plain view on a public sidewalk. You can’t blame a guy for protecting himself. I don’t want the rug ripped out from under me.”

  Her lips thinned. “I’m not a rug-ripper. I was recently the rippee, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  He did not feel reassured.

  “That’s the thing about these breakups. Feelings get mixed up. People think they’re over it, but then they wind up in a rebound situation. I’m here because it feels like there’s something between you and me. I’m not here as some giant eraser to get Edward out of your mind. Or to somehow stick it to him. And I’m not here as a fuck buddy until a better option shows up.”

  She scowled. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. Much to my surprise. I’m all about scratching itches, but there’s more than that between you and me. Or there could be.”

  Now she looked floored. He was pretty floored himself, to be honest. Before he met Amber, he was all about fuck buddies. He was a true professional fuck buddy. Hell, he could have put that on his résumé along with all the restaurants he’d worked at.

  But not this time. Not with Amber. And he was determined to hold this line with her.

  “Is that what you think of me?” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “I’m new on the scene. I’m trying to figure out what I think. That’s why we need to have this conversation. Don’t get your hackles up. I just want to make sure you and I are on the same page.”

  She blew out a breath, eyeing him with a wary new respect as she answered.

  “I don’t want Edward back. Let’s be clear about that. But I am angry about the situation.”

  His heart thumped painfully at this confirmation that he was right. She wasn’t indifferent to Edward yet.

  Shit. Fuck.

  That was the funny thing about flipping over rocks like this, wasn’t it? You never knew what slimy thing might come crawling out at you.

  “Anger and love go together like peanut butter and jelly. Isn’t that what they say?”

  She hesitated.

  “Maybe. But I’m mostly angry at myself.”

  Now she really had his interest.

  “How’s that?”

  “Because I’m supposed to be a smart woman. How does a smart woman not notice that her boyfriend isn’t as wild about her as he should be? How does she overlook the fact that they don’t live in the same town and he’s not trying to change that situation? Why was it okay that he never talked marriage after all these years? How long was I planning to stick around? When was I going to reach my limit? Would I have stuck with the status quo for another seven years? It’s not like I woke up one morning and said I’m not putting up with this shit anymore. Edward pulled the plug. But why was that okay with me for so many years? Is that what I deserve out of my romantic relationship? A man who has no problems sleeping without me most nights of the week?”

  “That’s not what you deserve,” he said.

  Whoa. Where had all that urgency come from?

  It also seemed to catch Amber by surprise, judging from the way her eyes widened.

  “Maybe it’s what I think I deserve,” she said, an unmistakable tinge of sadness in her eyes. Of shame. “That’s bad enough.”

  Something came over Sean. A true moment of insanity. But he couldn’t sit quietly by while this woman spouted this kind of nonsense about herself. It just wasn’t in him.

  “That is not what you deserve. A brave woman like you who goes after what she wants in life? Whose inside is twice as amazing as the outside?” He shook his head, caught in utter disbelief both that she believed such bullshit and that he found himself patently unable to keep his heart away from his sleeve when she showed up. “You deserve a man who thinks he’s the luckiest guy in the world. Someone who thinks he’s won the lottery every time you walk in the room.”

  A ringing silence followed this declaration. His face burned while she stared at him long and hard, on the hunt for things he was happy to let her find in him. The tension between them cranked higher, but he didn’t look away. He didn’t know where all his newfound certainty came from, especially in a life that had been, let’s face it, a mess for a good forty percent of the time. He only knew that it was there.

  Why? Because this one thing in his life was right.

  “Amber…”

  She reached for him with an inarticulate cry. Or maybe he reached for her.

  Scuttling all of his best-laid plans.

  When he arrived tonight, he’d had all sorts of vague ideas about taking things slowly. Getting to know her better before tumbling back into bed. Making sure she knew he was really into her as a person, if nothing else. Verifying where they stood so he didn’t find himself embarking on another miserable trip home by himself in the cold. He’d suffered through two prior episodes of not knowing when he’d ever see her again and didn’t plan to sign up for a third.

  A wise and noble plan.

  One that made a spectacular swan dive out the nearest window as soon as he touched her again.

  They palmed each other’s faces. Tipped their heads. Locked lips and went deep with all the frustrated longing of the past few weeks. He stroked her hair. Her silky cheeks. Wordlessly murmured his approval when she pushed him back against the cushions and straddled him. Helped himself to handfuls of her thighs and ass to anchor her in place as he thrust for all he was worth. Absorbed all her gasps and breathy sounds of encouragement deep into his mouth. Ran his hands under the bottom edge of her sweater and over her heaving breasts encased in their satin bra. Impatiently unhooked the bra and did it all again, savoring her hot skin, plump breasts and pebbly nipples. Lau
ghed with triumph when she ripped her sweater over her head and tossed it and the bra aside.

  He was in the middle of considering the relative merits of fucking her there on the sofa or trying to make a dash for her bedroom and trying to recall how many condoms he had in his wallet when the worst—and best—possible thing happened.

  His phone rang.

  Not that he noticed it at first. Far too much of his blood had left his brainstem. But he did feel a strange vibration against his ass and hear an annoying bleating sound.

  “Sean,” she said, gasping as she broke the endless kiss. “Is that you?”

  Was what him? The one with the massive erection from a rock-hard dick?

  “What?”

  He followed her, trying to recapture that delicious mouth. Unfortunately, she turned her head and gave his chest a forceful little push.

  “Sean. Your phone.”

  Oh. Phone.

  He was about to tell her he didn’t give a shit about his damn phone when it dawned on him that it was his mother’s ring tone. Which was, of course, ice water through his hot veins.

  He shifted Amber off of his lap, giving her a final regret-filled kiss.

  “Sorry, Sweetness. It’s my mother in Cincinnati. She’s a cancer survivor. She’s getting back to me about her test results. I have to take it.”

  “Of course,” she said, hastily standing and leaning in to swipe her lipstick off of his mouth with her thumb. “Go ahead.”

  It was hard to let her go, but he managed after giving her hand a quick squeeze. Then he hit the button and waited for the picture to resolve, experiencing the same slow creep of dread he always felt when the painful Cincinnati part of his life reached out to him.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hey, Mama,” Sean said. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” She beamed and waved, looking happy and healthy in her appalling red sweater that featured a spangled green Christmas tree. Shining black hair in its sleek bob. Glowing skin. All the hallmarks that became that much more precious around ten years ago, when she first began her cancer battle. “I got good news today!”

  Sean’s heart stopped mid-beat. “Your scans were negative?”

  “My scans were negative!”

  “Thank God,” Sean said, collapsing against the sofa’s cushions with relief. Amber, who was redoing her bra, silently clapped and cheered, making sure to stay out of his phone’s line of sight. His grin widened. “So things are good?”

  “Things are great,” his mother said. “Not as great as they’d be if I could get you to come home once in a while, mind you. But pretty great.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. There it was. The first shot fired across the bow of the SS Guilt Trip. “I’m out here trying to find a job. And it’s a couple days before Christmas. Can we save the guilt trips for after New Year’s?”

  “Oh, there’s always plenty of guilt to go around,” she said airily. “Did you get my gifts?”

  “I did. And they are unopened. Did you get mine?”

  “I did. Under the tree. So what’s new on the East Coast? Any prospects?”

  “I’m working on it,” he said, shooting a discreet glance at Amber, who seemed engrossed in returning the bottle of wine to the refrigerator, but of course had to be hearing every word. The last thing he wanted at this exact moment was to emphasize the grave nature of his job prospects and the fact that as of today he had officially exhausted any leads he had on employment in Manhattan. Hiring a headhunter was, therefore, in his immediate future. Maybe the prospect should cheer him up—at least he’d have a team to help him find a job—but it didn’t. All it meant was that he was too big a loser to find a job on his own. And the clock was ticking on Amber waking up to that fact and giving him the boot. For real this time. “I expect things to pick up after the first of the year.”

  “Well, you know I’m praying for you.”

  “I’ll take that. So what’s going on in Cincy? What are you doing for Christmas dinner?”

  “I’m here with Mike and Dara.” Now grinning like a kid who’d found a beribboned key to FAO Schwartz in her Christmas stocking, she widened the shot to reveal that she was, in fact, in the cavernous foyer of his brother Mike’s McMansion. The place was decked out like one of the windows of Bloomingdale’s flagship store during the holidays, with a gigantic tree that stretched past the graceful staircase and up toward the vaulted ceiling, twinkling white lights on every available surface, garlands, Santa Clauses, nutcrackers and, in pride of place on a console, a ceramic Christmas tree with colored lights. “They told me I could spend the weekend in the mother-in-law suite. So that’s what I’m doing.”

  Of course she was, Sean thought glumly.

  Because that was how Mike rolled. With mansions featuring mother-in-law suites and every other fucking thing under the sun. Sean had already endured his mother’s proud updates on Mike’s booming legal career as a solo criminal defense attorney, Mike’s swimming pool, Mike’s sauna and Mike’s latest car. At this rate, he’d be hearing about Mike’s helipad and Mike’s private jet this time next year.

  What must that be like for the old girl? One son who was Cincinnati’s answer to Johnnie Cochran. A second son who fucked up every chance he got.

  Feeling the onset of another bout of self-pity, Sean decided to fight the darkness. Daniel was always telling him to stop feeling sorry for himself. Daniel might be a pain in the ass half the time, but he was also often right. Galling, but true.

  So Sean forced a smile, acutely aware of Amber’s return to the living room and her curious gaze on his face.

  “Nice,” he told his mother, infusing his voice with all the enthusiasm he could muster. “I’m sure you’ll have a blast.”

  “And did you hear Mike’s news?” she continued, now backing into a huge kitchen full of gleaming white marble and Italian tile, copper, expensive cabinets and professional appliances that made Sean’s chef’s heart ache with longing. That was a hundred-thousand-dollar kitchen if he’d ever seen one. Oh, what he couldn’t create in a kitchen like that.

  “Nope,” he said tightly, stifling a sigh and engaging in this song and dance with her the way he always did. And why hadn’t he heard Mike’s news? Because he and Mike didn’t talk and hadn’t since Sean left Cincinnati years ago after he finished cooking school. Not when they could help it, and they could usually help it. A fact of which their loving mother was acutely aware.

  But a mother’s hope sprang eternal and he knew what his mother was doing. The same thing she’d done for decades, ever since she realized that one of her sons was oil and the other was water. She clamped an olive branch firmly in her mouth and impersonated a peace dove, hoping that if she kept trying to build this bridge and kept tap dancing fast enough, they would all forget the unforgettable. Namely that Sean had once thought he was in love with Mike’s wife. That Mike had won her in the end, the same way Mike always won everything in the end and had for Sean’s entire life. That Sean and Mike had nearly come to blows when Mike finally revealed that he and Dara were together, a fight that surely would have ended with Sean’s face smeared across his mother’s floor.

  That Mike was a winner and always had been.

  That Sean was a loser and probably always would be.

  His throat locked down with all the usual tension generated by these recitations of Mike’s latest glory, but luckily his mother could carry on these conversations virtually unaided.

  “I’ll let him tell you,” she said, excitedly beckoning to someone out of the camera’s view. “Oh, but I can’t help blabbing about Dara’s big news. She won her first big trial this week! And Mike made her a partner at the firm!”

  Sean felt that he did a respectable job maintaining his game face and congratulatory smile. Especially when you considered several key historical points, including the fact that Mike and Dara had fallen in love right under Sean’s nose at that very firm, and that Mike had once employed Sean as a paralegal at that very
firm, a career that had gone down in ignominious failure when Mike nearly fired him. Again, oil and water.

  “Awesome,” Sean said. “I figured it was only a matter of time on the partnership thing.”

  “We all did,” she said, reaching out an arm and scooping both Dara and Mike into the picture.

  Sean froze. He’d hoped he’d have another second or two to get his mind right about this inevitability, but no such luck.

  There they were. The perfect couple. Mr. and Mrs. Mike Baldwin. Also known as the two people who had caused Sean the most excruciating emotional pain he’d ever experienced outside of his father’s death.

  Honestly, he had to hand it to them. They looked a little uncomfortable to be put on the spot like that, but otherwise they somehow managed to get more attractive whenever he saw them.

  Mike looked more and more like their father every year, stern and handsome with that immaculate five o’clock shadow and streaks of gray now infusing the hair at his temples.

  Dara? Still gorgeous, with her sweet brown eyes and angelic face. She wore some silky red top that showed a generous swell of cleavage up front, leaving him with the stark reminder that he’d never touched that cleavage. Never even kissed her, much as he’d wanted to. But time had passed. She belonged with Mike. Always had, always would, as she’d told Sean years ago. Plus, he’d left Cincinnati. With the distance of time and space, he’d developed the ability to examine the situation with clear eyes. She’d been the fantasy woman of his youth. Twenty-something puppy love. That was all. And as a mature adult he realized, in the logical part of his mind, that he couldn’t spend his entire life looking back at a fantasy that had never been his for the taking and probably never would have gone the distance anyway.

  The vulnerable, boyish part of him, on the other hand, could never quite stop asking those crucial questions:

  Why Mike?

  Why not me?

  Ridiculous, wasn’t it? Especially when he already knew the answer:

  No woman would ever want Sean when Mike was available.