Seventeen
Mia
“I ’ ve never been so exhausted in my life.” I stretch as far as the cab of Gavin’s truck will allow, trying to ease the ache
in my muscles. My toes feel pulverized from the stiff boots and my arches are cramped. I would’ve already taken them off if
I wasn’t certain my feet stink, clammy in the thick socks I wore.
Unable to summon the energy to lift my head, I roll my neck sideways to eye Gavin, fully upright and unbelievably alert in
the driver’s seat. His gray T-shirt is rumpled, forearms streaked with dirt, but he looks unaffected by the day. Like he could
go home and casually build a pergola, which is literally his plan for the evening.
“How do you do this day after day?” My words come out as a pathetic croak, and he darts a quick glance toward me. He returns
his eyes to the road, but at the next stop sign, he hands me my insulated tumbler from the cupholder without the slightest
wobble of his grip.
I, however, have to cradle the bottle to my chest with my forearm, not trusting my raw hands to hold on.
Watching me fumble with the straw, he asks, “Is it that bad?” His voice is gruff, and embarrassment swells over me.
Defensive, I hold out my hand as evidence that it is, in fact, that bad. I’ve been scared to look closely at my palms since
I took off my gloves, but it must not look great, because Gavin swears under his breath.
“Shit, Mia.” He flicks on his turn signal, eyes on the rearview, and swerves over to the curb, coming to an abrupt halt. “You
said your hands felt fine.”
“I didn’t want to hear ‘I told you so,’ or act like a big baby.”
“A big baby?” He gently loosens the cup from my grip, and now his hand is trembling, so maybe his muscles aren’t invincible,
after all. But instead of lowering it back into the cupholder, he shifts in his seat, worn jeans sliding on the smooth leather.
Gripping the straw between his fingers, he guides it to my lips.
“Drink.” One word, said in a gravelly tone I hardly recognize as belonging to my chill friend. It’s a tone that feels like
fire injected into my bones, yet it roots me to the spot, unable to do anything other than open my mouth and obey.
The water is cool against my throat, soothing yet another ache, and I suck down a long gulp, releasing the straw with a gasp.
“Thank you,” I say, and this time it’s less of a croak than a whisper.
He glares at me. “You’re thanking me, after I let you—” His voice cracks, and he darts another glance to my hands. “Mia, your
hands.” He puts the tumbler back in the cupholder, bumbling it this time, but when he reaches for my upturned hands, the tremor
is gone.
He slides his fingertips under my knuckles, cradling my hands with a gentleness totally at odds with the forceful way he handled
the tools earlier. He holds my hands with all the tenderness I’ve seen him use to plant petunias in a window box. He tsks as he takes in the raw edges of the fresh blisters, grimy with dirt that worked its way through the heavy-duty gloves.
“Mia,” he says again, and this time I recognize it’s concern roughening his voice, not frustration.
“It’s not that big a deal. I’ve been meaning to try out a new dictation app for writing anyway,” I say, only half joking.
Despite a sore back and what feels like a pulled tricep—or what I assume is my tricep based on how I’ve been describing heroes’
musculature for years—I enjoyed myself. A few blisters seem insignificant.
“I’m not worried about your job, Mia,” Gavin says. But before I can bristle at his words, and explain how my writing is so
much more than just a job for me, he adds, “I’m worried about you.” He tips his forehead against mine, and at first I think
it’s just an accident, that the confines of the truck cab and his height don’t mix, but when I shift to give him room, he
doesn’t pull away.
With my face upturned, our mouths are perilously close together. He exhales, the barest brush of air across my parted lips.
I hold myself still, so still, even though all of me is aching to kiss him. Yes, he’s my best friend, but also a man I want
so much right now that I crush my lower lip between my teeth to regain control.
He lets out a soft groan, audible only because of our nearness, and I look up to find his eyes trained on my mouth, darkened
to the deep blue of twilight with something that looks dangerously like need, the moment charged with the kind of desire usually
reserved for my characters around the 50 percent mark.
But Gavin and I were never supposed to reach this point together. We were supposed to bear witness to each other’s happy-ever-after,
not be the cause of it. But endings are the last thing on my mind right now. All I know is I cannot go another day without
kissing this man.
Exhaustion takes a back seat to desire, leaving me dizzy, only able to form a single coherent thought: Yes. Yes to the question
he hasn’t asked. Yes to a touch that should be denied. Yes, and soon.
His eyes lift to my own and recognition flickers in their depths.
We may not know this side of each other—the longing, hungry side—but we’ve spent nearly a decade reading each other.
Whatever he sees on the open pages of my face is clear enough for him to gently set my hands in my lap, and position his own at ten and two on the steering wheel, and inhale so forcefully that I unconsciously mirror him, before he shifts the truck into gear and pulls back out onto the road, making a tight U-turn to head back toward town, determination in the tightening of his jaw.
Gavin jogs out of the pharmacy with an overstuffed plastic bag. He slides into the driver’s seat, leaning over to set the
bag in the back of the cab, and his shirt hikes up with the motion, revealing a peek of very toned abs.
To distract myself, I ask, “What did you do, rob the place?”
“Trust me, you’re going to want everything in there.” He throws the truck into Reverse.
“If there’s a bottle of wine in there, then you’re right.”
He lets out a soft laugh and pulls out of the parking lot. “Didn’t bother. I know that’s one emergency supply you do keep
on hand.”
When we reach my building and I try to get out, I encounter the first obstacle. Between my noodle arms and blistered hands,
I can barely undo my seat belt.
Gavin jogs around to my door, pulling it open. “Need a hand?”
I open my mouth to say no, but honestly, I’m not sure. “Up until today, the closest I’d gotten to planting a tree was an annual
donation to that charity you told me about.” I finally manage to unsnap my buckle and twist in the seat, ready to climb down
from the cab that suddenly feels very far from the ground. “So forgive me if I’m a little tire—” The last word gets clipped
into a yelp as my knees give way and I topple off the running board.
Except I don’t. Closing my eyes against the inevitable crack of my knees hitting the sidewalk, I find myself enveloped in something warm and sturdy and distinctly masculine. Gavin’s arms.
But this isn’t the kind of friendly hug we usually share. He’s wrapped me up in an all-out embrace, saving me from a fall
like some swooning debutante. Except I’m not at my first ball, overwhelmed with nerves. I’m in front of my condo in the arms
of my best friend, who is most definitely not a romance hero.
It’s always seemed humiliating to be carried like this, and that’s why I’ve never submitted my characters to the indignity,
despite my own secret soft spot for the getting-swept-off-your-feet trope. But in Gavin’s embrace, all I feel is tenderness.
“You can put me down now.” The words are muffled against his shoulder, and I inhale the earthy notes of mulch and topsoil
and the citrus aroma of the heavy-duty soap he uses after work, a mix of scents that’s uniquely Gavin.
“Not sure that’s a good plan.” His voice is a low rumble I could lose myself in.
I lift my head enough to meet his eyes and my stomach flutters. “What’s your endgame? Because I’m not letting you haul me
up two flights of stairs.”
“There’s an elevator.”
“After what you told me about your claustrophobia? No way.”
He lowers me to the seat but stays close, filling the open door with his frame. “You were a huge help today. The least I can
do is make sure you don’t face-plant on the sidewalk.”
“I really did have fun.” I’m doing my best to ignore the casual way he’s leaning, forearm on the upper edge of the doorframe,
T-shirt bunched at his biceps. To distract myself from how utterly kissable he looks, I say, “So what if my hands are a mess
and I’ve got aches in muscles I didn’t know I owned?”
He groans, looking pained, but the way it shoots straight to my core is pure pleasure.
I clear my throat. “Today was honestly the best thing to take my mind off, well, everything.” The deadline, the dread I’ll wind up failing my readers, the impostor syndrome.
“Trope tests aside, it’s been good for me to try new things.
Get out of my routines. But you might be right about me being a fall hazard.
Just help me down and I’ll make it from there. ”
“I’ve got a better idea.” He reaches into the back seat to pull out the first aid supplies. Once he’s slid the handles of
the bag over his wrist in a gesture I recognize from my all-in-one-trip groceries habit, he turns his back to me.
It’s the same back I rubbed sunscreen on during countless weekends at the lake. The same back he carried me on when I made
the poor choice to wear strappy stilettos out to college bars in slushy winter weather. The same broad, strong back I did
my best not to ogle this afternoon, unsuccessful in my attempts for the first time in years.
Yeah, Gavin is hot, but up until now I’ve been able to acknowledge his good looks in an objective way, not this recent and
very pressing urge to take him home and kiss him senseless.
Except, when he leans back, nestled between my thighs, and says, “Climb on,” kissing him senseless is the least of what I
want to do to him. “Seriously, Gavin, I can walk up a flight of stairs.”