Chapter Fourteen
Chap-ter Four-teen
T he first thing he no-ticed was the pound-ing in his head. The sec-ond thing he no-ticed was the smell—a mix of al-co-hol and sex.
Dina.
Im-ages of their time to-gether flooded his brain, but they were fuzzy, more like im-pres-sions re-ally. The springi-ness of her hair, the scent of her skin, some stum-bling around.
The ut-ter bliss of mak-ing love.
His eyes flew open as he un-stuck his cheek from the leather sofa. Sex had never been about love be-fore. But with Dina? It was a pos-si-bil-ity. He squinted in the harsh sun-light bathing his liv-ing room. He was alone. Forc-ing down the panic that knowl-edge al-ways caused him, he sat up, care-ful not to dis-turb the rocks in his head. Where was Dina?
“Dina?” There was no an-swer.
His mind skit-tered back to yes-ter-day and the de-ba-cle with his fa-ther. He shut his eyes tightly, as if that would block the mem-ory from re-turn-ing. He’d much rather think about Dina. But un-for-tu-nately, those ear-lier mem-o-ries were clear and pro-lific.
His fa-ther, his own fa-ther, had fired him.
Even though Ash-ley had lied.
He shook his head as pain sliced through him once again. He looked for a dis-trac-tion. Where was Dina?
Look-ing around his apart-ment, he didn’t find a note or any sign she’d been there. Well, maybe there was. The empty bot-tles were lined up on the counter—he didn’t think he’d had the pres-ence of mind to do that—and his clothes were folded on the re-cliner.
His clothes.
He looked down. Yup, he was naked. He was def-i-nitely hung over if he hadn’t no-ticed he was naked.
Shit. He’d had drunk sex with Dina. The one per-son he cared about and who cared about him. What had he done? What had he said? Had he told her about be-ing fired? Had he even made sure she was en-joy-ing her-self? Come to think of it, how had she got-ten here? And now where had she gone?
He started to pat his leg to feel for his phone and would have laughed at the stu-pid-ity, but there were too many stupid things in his life that weren’t funny. Rif-fling through his stacked clothes, he felt the hard rec-tan-gle of his phone and pulled it out of the pocket. Maybe she’d texted him. He turned it on.
She hadn’t.
He’d had drunk sex with her. She de-served more than a text from him. He di-aled her num-ber. When her voice-mail con-nected, his stom-ach dropped.
“Hey, Dina, it’s Adam. Give me a call.”
He prob-a-bly should have said more. But what was he sup-posed to say when he didn’t know ex-actly what he’d said or done. That con-ver-sa-tion shouldn’t hap-pen on a voice-mail, let alone via text.
Sit-ting in the cof-fee shop, Dina watched Adam’s name ap-pear on her phone screen and let it go to voice mail. This was one awk-ward phone con-ver-sa-tion she was not ready to have. Just as her voice mail dinged, in-di-cat-ing he’d left a mes-sage, Tracy walked up to her ta-ble cradling her cof-fee cup like it was a pot of gold.
“Meet-ing for cof-fee this morn-ing was a fab-u-lous idea,” she said, lean-ing over and kiss-ing Dina’s cheek. “Macken-zie didn’t sleep all night and I needed to get away from the house.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Dina said, stir-ring her tea. She could only imag-ine how dif-fi-cult it had to be be-ing up all night with a baby, and then tak-ing care of the same baby all day. Luck-ily for Tracy, her hus-band was a huge help. Some-day, Dina hoped to be as lucky. A vi-sion of Adam ris-ing over her flashed in her brain and she shook her head.
“Comes with the ter-ri-tory. Now, tell me what’s go-ing on with you. You have a glow.”
Dina reared back. “A glow? What kind of glow?”
Tracy leaned for-ward. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“Wha…what are you talk-ing about?” Sweat broke out on Dina’s up-per lip. Could she blame it on the hot tea?
Laugh-ter from her best friend told her the jig was up, and Dina let her head fall into her hands. “I am in so much trou-ble,” she said.
“Why? I’m sur-prised you waited this long.”
“Tracy! We’ve only known each other a few weeks, and he keeps me at arm’s length. Be-sides which, I don’t sleep around.”
“I’m hop-ing there was more than sleep-ing go-ing on,” her friend said with a laugh.
Dina glared at her.
“Was it good?”
Dina shrugged. “Yes and no.”
“De-tails.”
Bossy lady. “It was Adam, he doesn’t do any-thing half-way.” She smiled. “But he was drunk, so it wasn’t as ro-man-tic as…”
“You’d fan-ta-sized it would be?”
If flames had burst forth from her cheeks, Dina wouldn’t have been sur-prised. In fact, she was sur-prised the cof-fee shop’s sprin-kler sys-tem didn’t kick on just to be safe. “It doesn’t mat-ter any-way, be-cause it shouldn’t hap-pen again.”
“Why not? And wait a minute, you can’t skip over the good stuff. I want de-tails.”
“Se-ri-ously?”
“Ab-so-lutely. I’m an old mar-ried lady with a baby. The last time I had sex just for the hell of it, was I don’t even know when. I need to live vi-car-i-ously through my ex-cit-ing sin-gle friends.”
“Then you should go make some,” Dina said.
Tracy threw her nap-kin at her. “Don’t make me beg.”
With a sigh, Dina told Tracy about the phone call, go-ing over to Adam’s apart-ment, try-ing to get him to talk, and how they ended up hav-ing sex.
“And you just left?”
“No, I fell asleep, as did he. Then I woke up. And then I left.”
“Why?”
“Be-cause it’s go-ing to be so awk-ward.”
“I don’t get it,” Tracy said. “Lots of peo-ple have drunk sex. Why is this such a big deal?”
Dina swirled her tea in her cup. “Be-cause we’re sup-posed to be friends who made an ar-range-ment. I was help-ing him seem more re-spectable for his fa-ther, and he was ac-com-pa-ny-ing me to the re-union. That’s it.”
“Okay. And you had sex. Why does that change any-thing?”
“Be-cause friends don’t have sex!”
“Uh, Dina? Yes they do.”
“I know, but we weren’t sup-posed to.”
“Why not?”
“Be-cause I didn’t want to seem pa-thetic. I re-ally like him, but I’m so not his type and he’s not mine. There are still things he’s hid-ing from me, I can tell. And he’s only tak-ing me to the re-union be-cause I’m help-ing him with his dad. Ex-cept his dad is mad at him, so it’s not re-ally work-ing. Which means he doesn’t need me any-more.”
“Any-one look-ing at the two of you knows he’s not stay-ing with you be-cause of some ar-range-ment you think you have.”
“An ar-range-ment I know we have.”
Tracy gave her a look and Dina squirmed.
“And leav-ing with-out talk-ing to him? You have no idea what he’s think-ing or feel-ing. You’re never go-ing to get those an-swers you want if you keep avoid-ing him. Not to men-tion,” Tracy leaned for-ward, “you missed out on all the good post-coital talk!”
“He left me a voice-mail.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “What did it say?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t lis-ten to it.”
“Give me your phone.”
“What? No!”
She held her hand out and Dina gripped her phone in her lap. There was no way she was let-ting Tracy lis-ten to the voice-mail.
“Then lis-ten to it your-self.”
Tracy had grown up with three broth-ers. She was mar-ried to a guy who wor-shipped her. She was a kick-ass mom. Dina had no doubt she’d steal her phone and lis-ten to the voice-mail on her own. Flar-ing her nos-trils, Dina pressed play and held the phone to her ear. A mo-ment later, she put the phone in her purse.
“What did he say?”
“Just to call him.”
“So do it.”
“I will.”
“Now. You’re not go-ing to feel bet-ter, or get the an-swers you need, if you keep push-ing this off. And I think you’re read-ing this all wrong any-way.”
“Oh re-ally?” Dina squeezed her hands to-gether. Was Tracy a mind reader now? She did have the cutest baby ever, so per-haps what-ever had al-lowed her to pro-duce that en-abled her to read minds too. Pretty nifty trick, even if deep down she didn’t be-lieve it.
Pick-ing up the phone, she re-di-aled Adam. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t an-swer.
She wasn’t.
“Dina! Where’d you…never mind. Hi.”
“Hi.”
Tracy mouthed “speaker,” but Dina shook her head.
“Where are you right now?”
“With Tracy.”
“Can you come over when you’re fin-ished?”
“Um, I have er-rands and…”
“Please? It’s Sat-ur-day. You can do your er-rands af-ter. I need to talk to you.”
“Can’t you just talk to me now?”
“No, this needs to be said face-to-face.”
There it was. He was go-ing to tell her he didn’t need her any-more. Her stom-ach dropped. It shouldn’t hurt so much, but it did. And he ex-pected her to come over to hear it?
She swal-lowed the lump in her throat. Tracy squeezed her hand. She’d for-got-ten Tracy was there. Hang-ing up the phone, she wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to go over. He can’t force me, right?”
“Honey, I think you’re jump-ing to con-clu-sions here. How did he sound?”
“Like Adam. Nor-mal.”
“Go over and talk to him.”
Adam paced his apart-ment, wip-ing sweaty palms on his jeans. Some-thing in her voice con-vinced him that Dina didn’t want to come over.
What was it about him that made women leave? His in-ner voice tried to re-mind him that he was the one who usu-ally in-sisted on ca-sual re-la-tion-ships, and that his mom had left be-cause of his dad, not be-cause of him. But there was a part of him that just couldn’t be-lieve that in-ner voice com-pletely.
Why had Dina left? Sex with him hadn’t been that bad, had it? He’d never had any com-plaints be-fore… And even though he didn’t re-mem-ber much, he was pretty sure he hadn’t told her he’d been fired. He shook his head. Dina wasn’t like the oth-ers. First he’d talk to her. Then he’d find out what the prob-lem was. Af-ter that, he’d fix it.
The buzzer made him jump. He barked “send her up” into the in-ter-com. Three min-utes later, he heard the el-e-va-tor ar-rive and he opened his door.
This was it.
His heart sped up as heat rushed through him.
Dina. She had an in-ner glow that made her cheeks rosy and her in-tel-li-gent eyes soft. She looked at him like he mat-tered. She was beau-ti-ful, de-spite the mis-ery giv-ing her eyes a sil-very amethyst tint. Her curly hair framed her face, her pale skin was al-most translu-cent, but her shoul-ders were hunched.
He wanted to take her in his arms and never let her go. He wanted to get on his knees and ask for for-give-ness. He wanted to beg her never to leave. He wanted to tell her he might love her.
His body went cold. Love her? He rolled the word in his head and his body tem-per-a-ture re-turned to nor-mal. The word didn’t scare him as much as he ex-pected it to.
But she was look-ing at him with dread in her eyes, like she was afraid of him.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice sounded like a bull-frog. He cleared it. “Dina?” He mo-tioned her in-side.
Con-fu-sion crossed her fea-tures as she walked in. “Hurt me? When?”
“Last night.” His body was frozen in place. If he’d hurt her, he’d never for-give him-self.
“No, you didn’t.”
Grip-ping the door-jamb to pre-vent him-self from fall-ing to the ground as his knees buck-led, he in-haled. Thank God.
She didn’t want to be here, with him. She was go-ing to leave him. He’d never get to tell her.
Back-ing up, he walked into the kitchen. He wanted to lock the front door, but that would be creepy. “Can I get you any-thing to drink?”
She blinked. “Wa-ter would be good.”
Some-one who wanted wa-ter wasn’t walk-ing away. Yet. Still, he kept watch on her as he grabbed a glass from the cherry cab-i-net and the fil-tered wa-ter from the sub-zero re-frig-er-a-tor. Hand-ing it to her, their fin-gers touched. He felt a charge run up his arm, straight to his heart. He wanted to be the one to get her wa-ter, food, what-ever she needed, al-ways. He watched her take a sip. He wished he were the glass, be-cause her hands wrapped around it as if she would never let it go. Point-ing to the liv-ing room, he fol-lowed her in. He watched her pause at the sofa be-fore sit-ting in the re-cliner.
He swal-lowed. “About last night…”
“It’s fine. I know ev-ery-thing is dif-fer-ent now and that’s okay.”
“Ex-cuse me?”
“Our ar-range-ment. It’s ir-rel-e-vant now.”
He must have had way more to drink than he thought.
Run-ning a hand over his hair, he rose and paced the room. “Okay, let’s back up. Last night, I was drunk, you came over, we had sex. Does that about cover it?”
She nod-ded with-out mak-ing eye con-tact.
“What ar-range-ment are you talk-ing about?”
“The one where I help you with your rep-u-ta-tion and you go with me to my re-union.”
“Yeah, that’s the one I thought you were talk-ing about. Only I have no idea what you’re ac-tu-ally say-ing. Why does one thing have to do with an-other?”
“Be-cause I’m do-ing a ter-ri-ble job im-prov-ing your rep-u-ta-tion and your clod-pate of a fa-ther isn’t chang-ing his mind.” She cov-ered her mouth. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Do I want to know what a ‘clod-pate’ is?”
Her face heated. “It’s an old-fash-ioned term for id-iot. I don’t know why it popped out like that.”
Adam couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Leave it to Dina to pick that word. He loved that quirk of hers. Hell, if he was right, he loved ev-ery-thing about her. “That’s quite al-right. What I don’t un-der-stand is why you think that has any-thing to do with our hav-ing sex.”
“Be-cause you don’t need me to help your rep-u-ta-tion. So we have no rea-son to keep see-ing each other.”
She had the most ex-pres-sive face he’d ever seen. Ev-ery emo-tion showed in her lovely vi-o-let eyes. What shade would they turn if he told her he loved her?
“Why do you think we had sex last night?” he asked.
“Be-cause you were drunk. Which sur-prised me, be-cause I didn’t think al-co-hol en-abled a per-son to have sex. But you…” She blushed. “You did quite well.”
The woman who had “clod-pate” on the tip of her tongue said he per-formed “quite well.” He wasn’t sure how to take that.
He reached for her hand across the space be-tween the sofa and the re-cliner. Her skin was soft to the touch. Her fin-gers were thin and del-i-cate. He held tight to make sure she didn’t pull away. “We had sex be-cause I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind.” Be-cause I love you.
Her mouth opened.
“From the mo-ment I met you, I haven’t been able to think of an-other woman. Ev-ery time I’m with you, all I want to do is touch you, feel your skin against mine, taste your lips, play with your hair. Yes, I was drunk and that low-ered my re-solve, but we did not have sex be-cause I was drunk.”
She re-mained silent, her eyes wide.
“Why did you have sex with me ?” He swal-lowed, not sure if he wanted to hear the an-swer. For some rea-son, when he was with her, un-ex-pected words tum-bled from his mouth. Not vo-cab-u-lary words like “clod-pate,” but words from his heart that he kept hid-den away from ev-ery-one else.
“Be-cause you’re ir-re-sistible.”
Good lord, if he didn’t think he’d scare her with the fer-vor of his de-sire, he’d leap off the sofa, and take her again right there in the re-cliner. But the last time they’d had sex was on the sofa, and she was now sit-ting on the re-cliner. He needed to make sure she had some-where to sit in his apart-ment if he could some-how con-vince her to stay. Or re-turn.
He wanted their next time to be dif-fer-ent than their first—slower, more in-ten-tional, sober.
“We’re sup-posed to be just friends.” Her voice wa-vered be-tween ac-cu-sa-tion and dis-may.
“We still are friends, but I’ve wanted us to be more than friends for a while now.”
“What do we do about our ar-range-ment?”
He rose and ap-proached her with cau-tion. Lean-ing over, he rested each hand on an arm-rest, ef-fec-tively box-ing her in with his body. He low-ered his head un-til it was a hairs-breadth away from her face. Her lips glis-tened and a blush rose from her neck across her cheek.
“Screw the ar-range-ment.”