Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
“You did what ?”
Stanton pounded the granite breakfast bar with his fist, causing both their cereal bowls to bounce a little.
Ryan, smartly, had picked up his plate of toast in time and cradled it to his chest.
“It was one kiss.” Haleigh yawned. She should have waited more than twenty minutes after waking up to tell Stanton about her night. But she needed to hash this out with someone, and Jack wasn’t exactly an option.
They’d left the Target parking lot after agreeing to take it slow. Their ride home was mostly silent, but Jack had held her hand the entire time, in the car, then up the elevator to Stanton’s apartment on the fifth floor. He only let go to cradle her face and give her one last gentle kiss by the door.
Her heart flipped thinking about how good it had felt to touch him.
“That’s all it takes.” Her roommate shook his head, his mouth pursed.
Haleigh frowned. “I thought you liked Jack.”
“I do.” Stanton shook his spoon at her. A drop of milk splattered against her cheek. With a grimace, Haleigh swung her foot at his shin.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I like Brian for you. ”
Brian. Haleigh heaved a sigh. Her hot-as-hell complication. Just because Jack had confessed his feelings to her didn’t mean Haleigh was ready to let Brian go. She’d meant it when she told Jack that she needed them to take it slow. Whatever his reasons, he’d hurt her in Hawaii. He’d made her question them too. She needed to see that this time was different, that they were different, before she could be all in with him.
“I should tell Brian, right?” He was aware that Haleigh was doing this setup thing, but Jack wasn’t the same as her going out with a bunch of random people. She and Jack had history. They had a decade and a half of unresolved feelings.
“Are you one hundred percent sure about Jackson?” Ryan asked gently. His eyes softened at her expression. “You don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”
“But I don’t want to lead Brian on. He’s a good guy.”
Ryan folded the last bite of his toast into his mouth and placed his dish on the counter. “If you have doubts, I don’t think it’s leading him on. I think it’s making an informed decision.”
“Do you remember how excited you were about him last week?” Stanton’s eyes were wide and emphatic.
Haleigh did. He’d felt like a breath of fresh air after swimming underwater too long. He was so different from her. From Jack. Subdued where they were loud. Optimistic where they were cynical. He didn’t know every moment of Haleigh’s life. There was something appealing about that. Something she wasn’t ready to let go of.
She rubbed the heel of her hand into her forehead. “I don’t know what to do,” she groaned.
“Don’t do anything yet,” Stanton said. “You need to process this. Figure out what’s real and what’s years of pining coming back to haunt you.” Stanton brought his bowl of cereal milk to his face and took a gulp. “After a little distance, you might realize he isn’t actually what you want.”
Damn Stanton and his rational suggestions. Usually, he was happy to take a ride down a spiral with Haleigh, to what-if things to death and get dramatic about the possibilities of any situation. If moving in with Ryan was going to turn her friend into a functioning adult who gave sound advice, Haleigh might have to rethink her support for this domestic situation. She needed a wallowing buddy.
“What if distance doesn’t do anything?”
Stanton patted her head like she was being a good dog. “Then you let Brian down nicely and bone Jackson’s brains out.”
When Haleigh opened the passenger door of Brian’s car that evening, a bouquet of white and red Gerber daisies greeted her. Beneath them was a Congratulations certificate.
Haleigh smiled as she scooped up the flowers and sat down. “This is sweet, but I haven’t gotten the job yet.”
“You obviously didn’t read the certificate.” A grin twitched at Brian’s mouth.
She glanced down. Congratulations on surviving your interview.
A hearty laugh burst out of her. “We should give away more awards for mundane things. Or celebration cards at least. Existing is hard.”
“You got out of bed. Good job!” Brian suggested.
“You brushed your teeth. Huzzah.” Haleigh threw up her hands for emphasis, and felt the tension yanking at her muscles release.
The whole afternoon she’d been going in circles in her head. No matter what Ryan and Stanton might have said, Haleigh felt certain Brian should know she’d kissed someone else. And not just any someone. Jack.
But then she’d remembered Hawaii. How one hiccup in Jack’s schedule had been enough for him to hurt her. For them to break.
More than once she’d considered canceling her dates with Brian and Jack and embracing life as a closet gremlin. Figuring out what was right for her was too painful. Too scary. There was too much that could go wrong.
But in the end, she’d decided that Ryan and Stanton were right. She and Brian hadn’t talked about being exclusive. For all she knew, he was seeing other people too.
For now, they were hanging out and having fun. And that’s what Haleigh would do until she knew what she wanted.
Brian left the car in Park and turned to her. “Originally I’d wanted to take you into Boston, but the snow is making me second-guess that plan.” It had started coming down about an hour ago, heavy enough that Haleigh was wearing a good dusting of it despite the short walk to the car.
“Works for me.” Haleigh brushed the few flakes that hadn’t yet melted out of her hair. “I hate driving in the snow.”
“How about takeout and hanging out at my place? I promise we’ll do a city date when there’s less of a risk that my car will become a toboggan.”
Haleigh’s heart sped up a little. He talked about them going out again like it was natural. A foregone conclusion. She kind of liked it.
“Do I get to go through your drawers?” she joked.
“Is it really a fourth date if you don’t?”
Haleigh loved that he was keeping count.
Half an hour later they were climbing the stairs to his third-floor walk-up, the smell of garlic and tomato sauce from his favorite local Italian restaurant wafting from the bag in his hand.
He led Haleigh down the entrance hallway to the open living area. On two dog beds sat a pair of beagles staring at them in anticipation. Neither of them made a noise. (Haleigh hadn’t thought it was possible for beagles to be silent.) A calico cat sprawled across the back of the leather sofa.
“Haleigh, meet the crew.” Brian crouched and whistled once, and the dogs came running over.
“This is Pancake and Hashbrown.” Both dogs had floppy ears and tan, black, and white coats, but Hashbrown was shorter with a fully tan head, while Pancake had black markings on his ears and snout. “And that,” he gestured to the cat that had yet to move, “is Granola.”
“This is a far cry from how Twinkie meets you at the door,” Haleigh observed.
Brian laughed. “Twinkie marches to his own beat, and isn’t owned by a vet with training in obedience.”
The entire north side of his apartment was windows, with a gorgeous view of Quincy Harbor. Haleigh shed her coat as she stared out at the beach. Fallen snow sparkled in the sand, the agitated waves frosted with ice. “This is incredible,” she remarked.
Behind her, she could hear Brian gathering utensils and unpacking the food. “It sure beats the view of the parking lot I had at my last place,” he said.
Haleigh laughed. “My current room doesn’t even have a window.”
“Current?” He met her with a glass of wine and gestured for her to sit at the black dining table.
“That was a weird way to say it. Sorry.” If she stopped seeing the apartment as hers, it would (hopefully) be easier for her to think about moving out. “It’s Stanton and Ryan’s place now. I don’t want to crowd them. Which is part of why I’ve been putting so much pressure on this job interview. It would make finding a new apartment a lot easier.” Haleigh surprised herself by adding, “Dog-walking and editing aren’t exactly cash cows.” She was even more surprised that the confession felt easy to tell him.
“I can imagine. But it sounds like you did amazing.”
Haleigh eased the plastic cover off her lasagna and dug in. The first bite was warm and savory and delicious, everything you want when the world outside was blanketed in snow. “They still have other candidates to interview, so nothing is final yet.”
Imagine if she could show up to Joey’s celebration with a new job offer and a serious date. Everyone would be searching the sky for flying pigs.
As they ate, the dogs lay on their beds fast asleep. Haleigh angled in her chair to look at them. “What kind of dark magic is this? They aren’t even giving into their natural instincts?”
“Not a lot to hunt up here on the third floor.”
“I meant their other instinct. To be a vacuum.”
Brian laughed. “I use my fancy Dyson for that.”
“I bet you’re also one of those people who uses a lawnmower instead of goats for landscaping.” She did her best to sound disappointed.
“Thankfully I don’t have a yard. But if I did, I’d definitely have a riding mower.”
“Brian, think of all the unemployed goats.”
When they were done eating, she carried her leftovers and silverware to the sink. She turned on the faucet, but Brian gently took her hands.
“I’ll deal with it later,” he said, linking his fingers with hers. Their hands were almost the same size, and his palm was fever hot against her skin. Haleigh found herself wondering if the rest of his body ran just as warm. The thought chased a shiver down her spine, leaving something electric at her center.
He stopped beside the couch and asked her to wait there, then began moving the coffee table out of the way.
“I am not doing yoga ten minutes after eating lasagna.”
“I’m not doing yoga ever.” His eyes crinkled with his smile. “I’m not bendy.”
“Then, what? Did you ask me here to help you rearrange your furniture?”
“Patience, grasshopper.”
Dropping onto one of the leather cushions, Haleigh amused herself petting Granola as she watched Brian move everything but the TV mounted to the wall. Excusing himself for a second, he disappeared into one of the bedrooms off the kitchen, only to return a minute later holding a VR headset.
Haleigh clapped her hands, causing the poor cat to scatter. “Oh my god. Are we going to play?”
“You are, if you want. You sounded so excited about it the other day.”
He’d listened when she talked. And remembered. Haleigh’s body grew warm.
The device was basically a pair of oversize goggles with two controllers. Brian looked like RoboCop as he moved around, his thumbs fiddling with the joysticks. All he needed was a metal suit.
His black hair was a mess when he removed the headset. Haleigh had the urge to muss it further. While straddling his lap. And kissing him breathless.
She shook her head. Who knew video games could get her so riled up?
She immediately lost her bearings as soon as the headset was in place.
Brian’s hands cradled her elbows. “I’m going to back you up into your boundaries. Then you can hit the right trigger and follow the directions on the screen.”
The game he’d set up was a scavenger hunt. The animation was rendered so beautifully, and so realistically, that she kept forgetting to use the joystick to navigate.
She spotted a treasure chest half-buried under a tree and made a beeline for it. She felt Brian’s hands gently circle her arms. “Whoa,” he said, guiding her backward. “You and the couch almost really got to know each other.”
He continued to catch her every time she stumbled toward something in the real world. Sometimes it was his fingers spread across the small of her back, other times a light palm on her hip, or a tender clasp of her arm.
It was kind of a turn-on, never knowing when—or where—she could expect his next touch. Like being blindfolded during sex. Haleigh might have kept wandering out of bounds once she’d gotten the hang of things, just for the rush.
When her game was over, she offered him the headset. “Go ahead and try to beat that score.”
Brian grinned. “I wouldn’t dare.”
She had no idea how to react. She was so used to competing with Jack, but winning seemed to be the farthest thing from Brian’s mind.
“Do you want to try a horror game?” He put the goggles back on and began setting something up with the controllers. “I downloaded one after you mentioned it the other day.”
“Only if you hold on to me so I know I’m not alone.”
“I think I can handle that.” His voice was heavy and graveled.
This one was a simple survival game where the only objective was to avoid a horde of zombies. The level started in the middle of the woods. Everything was dark and claustrophobic, while the sound of zombies groaning pressed at her ears, seeming closer and closer. Every once in a while, she’d catch a glimpse of one rambling toward her from the trees and let out a screech.
They looked way too real.
Brian stood behind her, his breath a warm brush across her neck. He ran his hands lightly up and down her arms, and she could feel their heat through the wool of her sweater.
When his lips met the space between her neck and her shoulder in the softest flutter, she fumbled the headset off her face. In the game, a zombie was probably feasting on her, but she didn’t care.
Brian managed to set the device on the couch moments before they crashed into each other.
His hands pulled at the hem of her sweater. She stumbled backward until she felt the edge of the dining table meet her legs, then she slid up on top and hooked her knees around his hips. Raising her arms, she let him drag the sweater up her frame. Their kisses deepened, mouths open, tongues dancing, teeth dragging over lips.
His fingers teased the straps of her bodysuit, and, for a second, Haleigh was ready to help him yank them down. But she stopped herself. If she was going to take things slow with Jack, she had to with Brian as well. She’d never be able to think clearly if she was sleeping with them.
Though her body was an inferno, she softened the press of her mouth against Brian’s, and unraveled her fingers from his belt loops. He responded in kind, and with one last, slow kiss, they pulled apart.
She rested her head against his chest and sighed. Through the windows, she could see that the snow was coming down harder now. She could hardly make out the harbor, just a block or two away.
“I should probably get back to Stanton’s before this gets any worse,” she whispered.
And before her heart got any more confused.