8 - Silas #2
I felt a flash of disappointment, but I knew that she was ultimately right.
This was her property and she had full right to run it the way she saw fit.
Even in her assertive shut-down of my petition, she wasn’t cruel.
Just sharp and resolute. Which was…kind of hot, in a way.
I made a sound of surrender and reached down to give the tabby a scratch behind his good ear before we retreated to the kitchen.
“Deal. Tell you what, to thank you for not evicting him from your property effective immediately, how about I give you a foot rub?” I asked.
Lane scoffed. “Okay, I thought sarcasm was Dax’s specialty.”
“It is,” I confirmed. “And mine happens to be foot rubs. I imagine running around all day in heels isn’t exactly the best thing ever.”
“Sy, you don’t have to…” she started but I could already hear the longing in her voice.
“I want to,” I reassured her. “Plus we have some time to kill while the food simmers.”
She still didn’t look one hundred percent sure, but she let me lead her to the living room anyway and settle her down on the couch with a foot bath.
I knew we’d have a random bucket somewhere in the back of the truck.
After washing my hands, warming them under the hot water and hunting down some coconut oil in lieu of anything conventional, I knelt in front of her and slapped my towel-clad knee.
“Sy, are you sure? This doesn’t feel very—oh. Oh.”
The moment I traced my calloused thumbs against the pressure points along her arches, her whole body seemed to sink into the couch. She did her best to try and bury the little noises of satisfaction that seemed to be lodged in her throat, and it only made me adjust my technique.
I wanted to make it as hard as possible for her to stay quiet as I kneaded hours of courtroom tension from her feet. I wanted her to melt. A shudder ran down my spine watching Lane squirm around like that.
For someone so usually self-contained, she made for such a pretty sight when she lost just a bit of that control.
“Do we really have to stay here? It’s just a drizzle.” I’d completely forgotten about Dax and Bear.
As if in answer, there was a loud clap of thunder followed by an extra loud torrent of rainfall.
Bear marched past the window and jerked his thumb in its direction. “Care for a little evening stroll, then?”
Dax dropped his head against the armchair’s backrest, defeated and noticeably sulky.
As I continued to massage Lane’s feet, I wondered to myself what his problem was.
I’d known Dax since we were in first grade.
At one time, I thought I knew everything about him but the last decade or so had proved me horribly, terribly wrong.
I knew that I was going to have to confront him about it at some point. I owed the kid I once thought of as my brother that, at the very least.
*
“That was so good, Sy,” Lane mumbled around her last mouthful of taco, sliding her empty plate away from her with a sigh of satisfaction.
I grinned, having to admit to myself that it had been pretty good.
And if Dax and Bear’s empty plates were anything to go by, I think we earned the bragging rights.
“Couldn’t have done it without my sous chef,” I said playfully and Dax rolled his eyes.
We were all seated on the floor around the low, round coffee table, borderline comatose after the dinner we just devoured. But from the sounds of it, the rain wasn’t letting up at all.
Lane’s head perked up and turned to the window, like she’d read my thoughts. “Doesn’t look like you guys are gonna be going anywhere any time soon.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Bear confirmed. He gave Lane a look. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. It’s well past time we clocked out.”
“Just clock out anyway,” she said, leaning back to reach for the leather card box off the end table. As she did, the soft jersey fabric pulled taut, outlining the lean, curve of her waist and the gentle swell of her chest.
I flicked my eyes to the side and caught Bear’s red ears as he cleared his throat. Dax, for all his crappy mood, still seemed jolly enough to stare shamelessly, even tilting his head to the side and only looking away when she shifted back to her sitting position.
Lane, evidently unaware of the quiet ructions she’d just caused, slid the cards from the box and began to shuffle them expertly, her slender, deft fingers moving with more skill than I was expecting. “Anyone up for Euchre?”
“Yeah!” I said enthusiastically, shuffling until I was sitting more comfortably. Bear shrugged and Dax stayed stubbornly quiet, but he was quickly overruled by the majority vote.
After she split the deck with a practiced, sharp snap that had all three of us raising our eyebrows, she dealt out five cards each in rapid succession, then flipped the top card of the remaining pile face up. A jack of clubs.
“Pairs. Silas, you’re with me. Boys, try to keep up,” she said without even checking and no one bothered to object. Not even Dax.
“You sound confident, Whittaker,” Bear said, a stifled smile dancing on his lips. “I hope you’ve got something to back up that challenge.”
“I’m not a poker player, Bear. I don’t bluff,” she said breezily.
Bear chuckled and shifted only to wince. It was a quick, fleeting expression but I watched Lane catch it.
“Oh, that reminds me. Hang on,” she said, getting up and disappearing to her room for a few moments only to reappear with a handful of heavy throw blankets. She handed one over to each of us.
When she handed one to Bear, his eyes flashed.
“Floor’s drafty down here. Take this before you start freezing and choking. I want a fair game when I beat the two of you,” she said smoothly.
Bear’s throat bobbed but he accepted the blanket, his movements slow. Even though she didn’t say it out loud, I knew that all three of us knew exactly why she did what she just did. It had little to do with her competitive streak, though I knew that was strong as hell.
The look in Bear’s eyes when she went back to her seat stirred something inside of me.
Part of it was jealousy, I was man enough to admit that.
But just a bit of it. The core truth of the matter was that I’d been friends with Bear for years.
I cared about him, and to see someone offer him that kindness without making a big deal of it for the sake of his pride… it only made me like her more.
Dammit.
What kind of twisted scenario was that, where I was simultaneously jealous and happy that the woman I may have feelings for cared about my friend. Probably the same twisted world where I developed feelings for a client in the first place.
Then it hit me…Feelings. I’d breezed past that self-admission so quickly, it hadn’t really hit but now my heart was pounding like a drum at the thought of it. That was fine, I could surely admit to myself that I liked her. Who wouldn’t?
I was just a man and Lane was Lane.
I could surely get through a card game with her as my partner without making a fool of us myself like some high school boy with a crush.
“Ready?” Lane asked, taking up her cards.
I grinned. “Absolutely.”
The game moved at a breakneck speed, perfectly matching the frantic drumming of the storm outside.
Lane and I fell into an easy, devastating rhythm.
Every time Bear tried to play a conservative, tactical hand, Lane would cut him off with a high trump card, flashing me a wicked, victorious smirk that made my chest tighten.
Opposite us, the dynamic was pure chaos. Dax was playing entirely too aggressively, trying to lone-wolf the points, while Bear sat stiffly, his stoic patience wearing thin as he tried to manage Dax’s reckless moves.
"You're throwing the game, Miller," Bear grumbled, tossing his cards down as Lane took another trick.
Dax just scoffed, leaning back against the armchair and reaching for his empty bottle. "Maybe your strategy just sucks, Boss."
“This is exactly like the Astor plumbing fiasco a few months ago,” I chuckled, collecting another pile of cards Lane had just won for us.
She snapped to attention immediately. “That sounds ominous.”
“Oh, it was,” I confirmed, leaning back on my elbows.
“Company gag order, Sy, reel it in,” Dax warned me, his eyes narrowing over his hand.