8. Ephemeral
Chapter eight
Ephemeral
H oly blazing buffalo hot wings, this guy looks pissed.
This guy being Thorn, and then pissed as in he’s standing at the entrance to the kitchen after literally making so much noise in the four-car showroom-worthy garage and banging the door to the house so ferociously that I can’t mistake his entrance unless it’s a bear who is freshly woken out of hibernation about two months too early and is not the least bit happy about it.
With his hands on his lean hips, his massive shoulders, arms, and chest doing their trifecta level best to test the endurance of his black button-up shirt, a pair of what has to be obscenely expensive dress pants, and probably literally tailor-made square-toed shoes, he looks like a different man. He’s freshly shaved, his jaw jutting out at an angle that would shatter a regular man’s if they tried that, his coal black eyes giving full glower.
Instead of being glacial, the air is blistering hot, and I’m surprised smoke isn’t coming out of his ass.
Err, I mean ears.
It’s not like I notice his ass. Ever.
But what the fuck?
Thorn’s body is right, even if he is wearing office clothes instead of field clothes. Side note: They might also be extra yummy on him. But why in the over-loving hairy cat Cahoonas is he sporting a full fake beard and mustache? He’s also wearing thick-framed black square glasses. A half lumberjack, half nerd, all evil, sexy, ovary-exploding twin.
“Why on earth are you wearing fake facial hair? And are those glasses prescription, and you normally rock contacts or…”
He takes one menacing, silent step forward.
Right. I have to say, it was irresponsible and rude of me to goad him into coming here, but his absence was not part of the deal. I wasn’t actually serious about ruining his life—not that serious anyway, and I’ve cooled down since then—but if I were, it would be hard to achieve said ruination when the man isn’t even here.
His jutting jaw gets a little bit more jutty under the fake beard. It is fake, right? This isn’t actually an evil twin for real, is it? He makes a full-blown wolf growl deep in his throat. One hand shoots out and braces itself on the wall while the other loosens the top button on his shirt.
We’ve gone straight past fuses and right to the whole gearbox, folks. An impending nuclear meltdown of the century.
I’ve just unleashed the beast, and I’m standing here at the stove, making one heck of a sandwich with only a flimsy metal flipper as my first line of defense. Okay, so I’d probably have the frying pan, too, but that’s a little much.
There’s probably something wrong with me, considering that I find this exciting.
The sparring.
The growling.
The wild disguise.
New fear unlocked. Further strange and fake facial hair kinks.
Peach Lips is on the giant cat tower in the corner of the room. There’s one in every room I’ve been in, and if it’s a large area, sometimes two. This one is a large-scale tree, about tree-sized. It climbs all the way to the roof, and Thorn’s architect clearly didn’t believe in low ceilings. It branches out, brown on the trunks and branches, and green carpet on the little dens and pedestals, the bucket beds, and the platforms.
There’s a stand that is clearly supposed to be hollow for jumping through to the next tier, but Peach Lips didn’t get the memo. She curled up there and is now sleeping a deep, happy cat sleep, her belly sticking straight through the hole, fuzzy and hilarious on the underside of the hole she’s covering.
I manage not to gulp in half terror, half something else, and flip my sandwich over so it doesn’t burn. I angle more to the side so I can see Thorn 2.0 Hairy Edition in all his angry, office-attired glory and grace him with my best, disarming smile. “Would you like something to eat?”
His nostrils flare in a very dragonish manner. “Would I like something to eat? No, I would not like something to eat.” But then…he inhales. Exhales. And a look of consternation grips his face before shifting to pure bewilderment.
Another growl fills his kitchen, and since the place is basically empty, as though they just finished the house or a magazine team was coming in here to expound upon the benefits of extreme minimalism, it echoes. But it’s not from his throat. It’s from his stomach.
That explains a lot. Hanger.
“Ahh.” I wave the flipper with more courage than I feel. “So you would like one.”
“What is it?” He gives me a look that could wither even the happiest, hardiest flowers and simultaneously melt all unguarded panties.
Ugh, it’s not even guys in dress shirts and suits that do it for me. Usually, that’s the last thing I’m attracted to. Falsity in any guise is a total turnoff, and the power thing always rubs me the wrong way.
But maybe it’s because there’s nothing false about Thorn. Even when he’s not rocking the I could kick your ass and snap you in half without breaking a sweat getup.
“Brie, those green apples I found in the bottom crisper, the farmer’s sausage off the top shelf, and some raspberry jam.”
His face contorts. It’s so unfair that even grimacing , he’s so uber-attractive. “That sounds like a combination that shouldn’t meet.”
“And yet, it smells delicious. I heard your belly rumble. You can’t deny it.”
He points a thunderous finger at me like he’s going to bring lightning down from the sky and strike me with it. In other words, total god vibes. “You were going to have a house party. No, not a house party. A block party. Do you have any idea what the inside of this place would have looked like after?”
I flip the sandwich onto a plate and slide it across the island, which, lucky for me, currently stands between me and Mr. I Left You Unattended For Five Minutes And Look What Almost Happened.
“I said I was considering it. Maybe. Try the sandwich. We can’t have this conversation when you’re hangry. Nothing ever gets accomplished. You should probably also shed the fake facial hair. It must be a bitch to try and get cheese out of it.”
He stalks across the kitchen and grabs the perfectly toasted concoction like I’ve just thrown down, and he can’t resist a challenge. “A good therapist once told me it’s not always actions that speak the loudest. Intentions are just as harmful.”
I walk to the massive, industrial-sized stainless fridge and start gathering up the same ingredients to make myself round two, and probably round three and four, because I doubt a man who is Thorn’s size is going to be full after one sandwich.
I start assembling, using the bread I found in the fridge. Yes, in the fridge. From one person who doesn’t like waste to seemingly another, it’s those little telltale signs that say Thorn wasn’t always rich.
His online bio was pretty vague when it didn’t relate to his current company and net worth. I did some searching of my own, but apparently, if you’re rich enough, you can scrub even the internet to some level of cleanliness.
“You’ve seen a therapist?” I ask.
He flicks the freaking huge, hairy mustache up with one hand and brings the sandwich to his mouth with the other. Cheese strings pool out between the bread and his mouth, and oh my freaking flowers, does he have to make that deep, moaning sound of appreciation?
He pretends he didn’t make any such sound while he chews. I also pretend he didn’t so my face doesn’t burn at three thousand degrees.
I focus on the fake beard. It’s so shockingly real-looking, but spontaneous facial hair growth to this degree can’t actually be a thing, can it?
“Is that so surprising?”
The cutting board and knife that I used are still on the counter. I concentrate hard, ostensibly for knife safety. “Not really.” Yes. Guys like Thorn like to give the impression that they’re tough, gruff, and untouchable. None that I have ever met would be macho enough to admit they went to talk shop with a professional.
The ice shard lodged in my chest where Thorn is concerned starts to thaw just a little. Just to be clear, my chest, head, and lady bits are not in agreement on where we stand with this man. Also, just to be clear? It’s hard to stay staunchly on the opposing side of anything Thorn-related when he goes and makes it obvious that he’s a human and not just a robot.
“Before I did security, I saw some things in the past, in another life, that were…unsettling. I wanted to get over it because staying haunted wasn’t an option. Talking helped. I’d highly recommend it. Ten out of ten, as people like to say, but then, I had a great therapist.”
“That’s truly remarkable. I’m glad they were able to help.”
I mean it. I feel a stirring of pride and a little bit of hurt for the man Thorn was. If he’s doing high-level security now, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that he did some kind of service. Special ops, military, navy? I doubt he was a killer for hire, so yeah, it’s probably something regimented. Not that you can’t see some horrible things go down even when you’re serving your country and not working rogue.
“Have you ever gone?”
This is just a straight-up reminder that my past is public knowledge and has been thumbed through and plundered by this man.
“No.” I’m not sure how the conversations shifted from him calling my bluff and showing up here to this level of intimacy. I swallow thickly, my palms feeling suddenly sweaty and uncomfortable on the knife. “There was no money left over after the hospital bills. The house and most of our things had to be sold. What I could scrape together after, I used to buy the bus.” I’m not the strong, independent type by choice. I guess. Maybe I’m not even all that strong and all that independent.
A normal person wouldn’t look up, just about chopping off a finger instead of hitting the sausage, and find Thorn’s frown the least bit attractive. At least not a normal, strong, independent person.
“You’ve been through a lot.”
He knows that because boundaries and personal privacy notions don’t exist for him, but I can’t even summon up the same amount of my usual annoyance.
“I like you better when you’re more the asshole type, just an FYI.”
I quickly get the sandwich together, butter the bread, and set it onto the still-hot pan. I adjust the gas stove, taking care because cooking with gas is a whole different level and there’s only so much char I can handle. Also? Cooking with gas seems less dangerous than the electric current Thorn and I seem to have drawn. He came in all his prickly, Thorny glory, but now he’s just…I don’t know what he is, and that’s a problem.
“Anyway,” I say with my back turned so I can’t see if his eyes are doing sparkly things or if his face has gone soft, “so have you. Mine’s just public knowledge.”
“Sorry,” he has the grace to mutter. “Sorry, the job called for it.”
“Yeah.” I flip the sandwich around long before it’s even time. “I get it.” Doubly, what the farge has this man done with the regular Thorn? Apologies? The man I know didn’t apologize to anyone for anything. I think I like lumberjack/office nerd Thorn 2.0.
A beat of silence and hot eyes on my back. I’m so painfully easy when it comes to not wanting to make others uncomfortable that it’s natural for me to break first. “I wasn’t really going to invite anyone here. I would never do that. As someone who grew up with little but a heck of a lot of love, I never aspired to this level of wealth. I don’t have an opinion on it. Others can do what they wish with their money. It’s not for me, but at the same time, I would never disrespect or ruin someone else’s property.”
“I didn’t figure that you would.”
My lips wobble, but in a smiley kind of way, not as an indicator of future bawling. “Yeah, right. That’s why you’re here now when your note told me to make myself at home for the duration of the week because you wouldn’t be present.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t be here.”
“It was heavily implied.” Left with the note was a credit card, a phone, and the name and contact number of a driver. “I get it. I forced myself here. But you forced me to take a vacation. No choice. We were at an impasse in our vendetta.”
“Is that what this is? A vendetta?”
“In our life ruining competition.”
He exhales loudly and grunts a little. I should not be starting to figure him out and bracing for the caveman noise only to find that predictability slightly endearing . That would be called letting my guard down, and I just can’t do that. It’s so, so, SO much easier to be butting heads and clashing wits with this man than to think of anything else. At the same time, I’m not naturally a fighter. I’m a nice person, and I’ve put real effort into truly becoming that way.
“Now that you’re here, are you going to stick around? You do know it’s bad manners and just straight-up weird to invite someone to your home and then ghost them.” I don’t even know what I want the answer to be.
“Invite is a strong word. So is ghosting,” he responds noncommittedly.
“I knew you were close by. You do security for a living, and most of the time, you’re pretty good at it. I expected six thousand and eighty-five cameras except in the places that might be considered creepy because it’s not your style to push past people’s boundaries and disrespect their personal privacy.”
“It’s my job to safeguard that.”
“Yes. So…I’m sorry I had to lie to get your attention.”
“It’s just part of the game of who can annoy the other more. I’ll cede this round to you. I didn’t believe you’d actually do it, and I wasn’t planning on coming back here. I would eventually have talked to you over the cameras if required, but…”
He sounds as baffled as I am that he’s here.
I’m not surprised he is, but what I am surprised at is the little tickle in my belly—alright, fine, lower —that tells me I was pushing past annoying him into wanting to see him. And not just because I forced my way to be at his house either. But more because my va-jay is a secret fangirl who is fangirling so hard.
“I do have work to get back to.”
“Damage control, fixing my life, fixing your life, fixing everyone else’s lives, stopping them from needing fixing in the first place, and keeping the world going round, I get that. If you live here, then this is likely where you work from when you’re not…on the ground, or whatever you call it.”
“Office work never suited me. It’s fine for a little while and somewhat inevitable, but I prefer to be out there in the field, taking jobs like everyone else. My salary has no correlation to what I love doing. Death before desks and all that.”
I flick my sandwich over, realizing I’ve been standing here and staring at it for far too long. It’s nearly raw on one side and black on the other.
Damn him and his distracting, disarming presence.
“Are you going to eat that?” he asks. I turn and find him eying the plate.
“Yes. Absolutely yes. I’ll make you another.”
“I happen to have a thing for char. Usually on hotdogs and marshmallows, but this could be another surprising favorite.”
Surprising is right. I can’t believe this guy has ever eaten a hot dog or a marshmallow in his life. Those seem like resoundingly normal things, but they’re also total junk food, and someone with abs and pecs and muscles for days probably doesn’t even have a cheat minute .
I slide it across the island yet again and start working on getting a third together. I do remember to shut the stove off so the pan doesn’t start smoking. Gas and cast iron—two things I haven’t had the pleasure of cooking on before.
“But…yes. I’ll be going back to work,” he adds.
“For the rest of the week?”
“Quite possibly. I left instructions on the note. The number of a driver, my credit card information, and anything else you might need.”
“You did. It was…slightly shocking. The credit card thing. And the cat posts and litterboxes. Thank you for that.”
He seems momentarily disarmed by my niceness, and I hate that. I’m not this mean, surly, demanding person. If there’s a fight in me, I’d like it to be for good. The world could use less pain. That’s what my mom would have wanted.
“I won’t be using your credit card.”
“I thought you’d say that. But you can. Seriously. Just don’t order a plane or a car. It has a limit.”
“I won’t even be using it to order pizza. The fridge is fully stocked, and I have my own credit cards too. Thank you, though. It’s incredibly…kind.”
At first, I thought it was a one-upper in the game of destruction we’d unwittingly unleashed on each other. A big chess move, though don’t ask me what kind, because I don’t even know how to play. Then I saw the cat posts and the litter boxes, which were picked out with so much care. I’d passed it off as an assistant doing Thorn’s bidding, but now, I’m not so sure.
He obliterates the sandwich and nods at me. “Alright, then. I’ll be heading back.”
“The world still needs saving,” I comment.
“It’ll always need saving. Good and bad are things you can count on, like funerals and taxes. There’ll always be a need for security.”
“But you have to stay one step ahead of the other up-and-comers who want to take your spot, eat at your table, and steal your mergers.”
He looks like he wants to shrug but doesn’t. “And we’re getting your life back together and giving your image an overhaul. I think you’ll like it.”
“Do I get a say in it?” I ask.
“You can tell us to scrap everything when we’re done if you like.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but you won’t because we offer a one hundred percent satisfaction guarantee or your money back,” he says confidently.
“I’m not paying you.”
“I think we both know what this has cost already.”
I’m not the same person I was before meeting him. I know from past experience how many ups and downs can be crammed into a very short time, but it seems fitting that my brand won’t be the same either. Change isn’t always bad. I have to learn that.
“So I’ll see you when it’s done? Or you’ll get someone else to show me?”
“They’ll call. I’m only supervising. I’m not heading this project,” he tells me.
“Yes, because of the world and the merger.”
“Yes.”
I don’t know how many times we’ve both said yes in the past two minutes. Too many. Thorn looks collected, even more so because of the fancy, expensive black clothing that fits his body like a chef’s kiss, but I realize he’s not entirely calm and unruffled, which makes me feel not exactly calm and quite unruffled. I fall back on humor to save me.
“What if I refuse to leave here? I’ll have squatters rights eventually, won’t I? Wait, I forgot. You know a really good security firm that could come and remove me. Anyway, I’ll be leaving at the end of the week. You have my phone, and the one you left with the note is way too nice. I can’t accept it, even as a loaner. I’m supposed to unplug while I’m here anyway. How will you get in touch with me?”
“I happen to know this really good security firm…”
“Ahh. That does make sense, doesn’t it, in a mildly stalkerish way.”
“Yes.”
I’m glad I haven’t put another sandwich on. I’d char it beyond recognition for sure. Thorn takes every ounce of my focus right now. He steals all the oxygen in the room by looking so different and so him, by showing up and being nice and using phrases like, I’m sorry , and saving the world .
“I’ll see you around then. Eventually, maybe. Until then, I’ll just pretend it’s not weird at all to be in your house, alone, without you.”
“Just think of it as a timeshare.”
“Aren’t those things scams?” I scoff.
“Some of them are great. You liked Amanda. Becca is super nice, like Amanda, and she’s a genius when it comes to marketing. You’ll like her. I’ll get her to meet with you personally.”
“On my bus.”
He said he has to leave, but he’s still rooted to the spot. “If that’s what you want.”
“After this week, that’s where I’ll be,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Yes,” I echo.
“Thank you for the surprisingly delicious sandwich. I’ll just…be off.” At least this time, he looks over his left shoulder.
“Okay.”
“Yes,” he says again.
Then, he does something I don’t think is possible for a man like him. He shifts from one foot to the other, tilts his jaw down, juts it out stubbornly again, and walks out. There are doors all over the place in here, and I haven’t explored what’s behind many of them because that would make me the creepy intruder. Kind of. I’m not even sure which one opens to the garage, but like any other normal house, this one has it. I’m sure that’s the way Thorn 2.0 leaves.
And still without explaining the facial hair.
I study the food I’ve spread out on the island. I’m in a five-star kitchen in a five-star house with five-star everything. Anyone would think they’d won some kind of lottery just by being here, but the path to this moment has been so strange that I’m still reeling.
I’m also reeling from how I know Thorn and I both started the day with different intentions and then, somehow, it changed. It wasn’t even some big event, but I know we just saw something in each other that we weren’t used to seeing. Sometimes, it takes something heroic or tender, and then you realize the person you thought was a huge jerkus is, in reality, okay.
So what even just happened?
All I did was make a freaking sandwich. Hardly heroic.
He came to kick me the shit out of his house, but I’m still here. How did that happen? Timeshare my ass. Will I ever see him again? He was vague, but in a way that sounded like he was making a joke out of not seeing him again. I didn’t even know he had a sense of humor. Maybe it was the cheese in the sandwich. Name one thing cheese can’t fix. How is this even my life right now? I’ve thought that before, and not in a good way.
Is this a good way? Do I want to see Thorn again?
My nipples stand out so hard against my dress that the answer for them is undoubtedly yes. Two hard peaks to the sky, yes. There are other parts of me echoing that positive sentiment.
If we’re not playing a vendetta game anymore, then what are we doing? Doubt. Challenge. He likes that. He thrives on it, lives for it, and rises to it the way I’ve risen to the challenges in my own life. I can’t just go to his workplace if I get bored in a house with endless things to do and…and…say what?
Throw down a challenge about my life? Say I don’t think he’ll make good on his word, and I want to see the project so far, even though I’m supposed to be unplugged? I can take Peach Lips for inspiration. How can anyone redesign and rebrand us if they don’t understand the meaning behind all of it in the first place? She’ll melt some hearts. I can be my usual honey and not the astringent vinegar that Thorn seems to bring out in me.
That would involve seeing him again unless he’s left the city.
Do I truly want that, more than nipples and hormones level deep?
Again, what am I even doing here, and how has this become my life, even just for a week?
Cameras. Thorn has them all over the house and yard, no doubt. He can see me anytime he wants, but I can’t see him. Maybe he’s not the only one who responds to a challenge because, suddenly, this feels like a game again. A game where the rules have changed and the stakes are different, but a game I can participate in without worrying that I’m doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Or all the right ones.