29. Brock Jones
Chapter twenty-nine
Brock Jones
Ariel should be in her car right now. She should be driving home, probably while listening to some awful pop song about how guys suck.
Instead, she’s asleep in my passenger seat.
I drive past the restaurant and, consequently, her car parked nearby.
I’ll call someone to handle it. Even if I have to hire a tow truck to get it to my place, it’ll be worth it.
I glance over at her. She put her hair in a claw clip earlier, but it’s started to slip.
I think she was too busy trying to win the arcade games to notice.
Strands of hair frame her face. Her lips, still stained a cherry red, are slightly parted.
My jacket is draped over her like a blanket.
She looks vulnerable and beautiful and far too good for every guy who’s ever looked at her, including me.
Which is why I should take her home. Help her inside, then leave and tell her that her car will be there in the morning.
But I can’t. Not when right before she fell asleep, she murmured something about being grateful to not be alone tonight. How could I leave her after that?
Tonight has been filled with should haves .
That seems to be the theme when Ariel is around.
It’s not a big deal, though. We’ve stayed together before at the cabin, and I have a guest bed, so we won’t accidentally fall asleep together like we did at my parents’.
My stomach flips at the memory. That didn’t mean anything.
She was scared and needed a friend. Tonight she needs a friend too.
Her best friend is states away. I’m just filling in for Sutton.
I stop at a red light and look over again.
My jacket falls a little, exposing Ariel’s collarbones.
What would it be like to trail kisses across them?
I jerk my head forward and grip the wheel.
Okay, so maybe I’m not quite as platonic as Sutton, but it’s still nothing to be concerned about.
Ariel is gorgeous. She’s the kind of woman that, under different circumstances, I’d drop to my knees and beg for a chance with.
It’s natural that I’d be a little attracted to her.
That doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it.
I’ll take her home, let her sleep in my guest bed, and she’ll leave the next morning feeling less alone. Nothing more, nothing less.
I pull into my driveway with tense shoulders. The other issue with my plan is if Ariel wakes up while I’m transferring her to the bed. What will she think of me carrying her? I push away the questions in my mind. It’s too late to back out now. It’s late, we’re here, and that’s that.
Leaving my door open so I don’t wake her up by shutting it, I go and unlock my front door so it’s easy to get inside before heading back to the passenger side of the car.
After gently unbuckling her seatbelt, I slide one arm beneath her thighs and the other behind her neck.
Ariel stirs a little as I stand with her, but stays asleep. I breathe easier with each step I take.
I carry her inside to my guest room. Thankfully, it’s not hard to get the door open, and her eyes remain closed the whole time.
I carefully lay her down and wait until I’m sure she’s not going to wake up before removing her heels and draping a blanket over her.
I pause by the bed. Yet again, I’m undone by the vulnerable state she’s in.
The urge to protect her surges like electricity in my veins.
The feeling is inexplicable, but undeniable.
I force myself to leave the room. I close my car doors and front door, then make a few calls to handle her car.
After that, I write a note so she doesn’t get too scared when she wakes up someplace unrecognizable and leave it on the nightstand, along with a pair of my sweatpants and a t-shirt.
Then I close the door and head to my home office to get some work done.
Focusing with her down the hall will be difficult, but I have to push through.
This business is my future. It has to be my top priority.
I’m deep in the trenches that is my email inbox when a soft knock makes me jump.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Ariel says from the doorway.
She nervously tugs on the hem of her shirt.
Correction– my shirt. I rub my bleary eyes and take her in.
My t-shirt and sweatpants swallow her petite frame.
Her hair is down and wild. She walks further into the room and I want to pull her in my lap more than I want to breathe.
I need sleep. I’m going to do something terrible if I don’t get any soon.
“It’s okay. Are you all right?” I rasp.
She gives me a soft smile as she reaches my desk. “I am. Thanks for letting me sleep here.”
“No problem. You seemed pretty tired, though I guess that changed?”
She shrugs. “I figured you’d be awake so I thought I’d come check on you.” She walks around my desk. Too close. Then she pushes herself up to sit on the edge. Much too close. “Thanks for the clothes, by the way. My dress is not comfortable to sleep in.”
I push my chair back some to create distance between us.
“You know it’s three in the morning, right?” she asks.
Golden light from the nearby lamp illuminates her face. Makeup is smudged around her eyes, making the blue even brighter. And her lips look like she just got done eating raspberries. I want to kiss her and find out if she tastes as good as she looks.
I scrub my face with my hands. If there was a way to scrub my brain too, I would.
“Yeah, my computer monitor has a little clock in the corner,” I tell her through my hands.
She laughs. “Do you know how to read it? You should go to bed.”
“I’m almost done here,” I lie and pull my hands away. “I’ll go soon.”
“I thought we were past the whole lying thing, Carolina.”
I sigh and tip my head back, staring at the ceiling so I don’t stare at her. “I’ve spent too much time away from work lately.”
“Yeah, you’ve spent it living. Hasn’t it been fun?”
Of course it has, but it’s also been awful. How can I explain to her that all of these experiences have been tinged with anxiety that I’m going to fall so far behind I’ll never catch up? I remember Slater’s words, about how no woman has ever understood. I can’t help but think that he’s right.
“Have you ever thought about hiring someone?” Ariel asks before I can respond. “Like a junior agent.”
“Why, so they can steal my clients the way Vonjerkface steals yours?”
Something hits me in the stomach. I look down to see she threw a pen at me.
“They wouldn’t be stealing your clients. You’d be their boss. You could give them some lower-profile clients to help with your workload. Didn’t you say something about college athletes? You could give them all of those.”
I’ve briefly considered hiring someone in the past. But the idea of handing my clients off to someone else is nerve-wracking. No one can do things the way I can. I get to know all my clients personally, and make sure they’re taken care of. How could I trust someone else to do the same?
I wave a hand. “I don’t have time to train someone.”
Ariel rolls her eyes. “That’s the exact reason why you should. Or have Marie do it. I’m sure she knows what needs to be done. You had to train her, right? I think it’s worth at least considering.”
I rake a hand through my hair. Not gonna happen.
“I’ll consider it,” I say to appease her.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Her eyes rove over my face. I feel exposed and wonder what she sees when she looks at me. “I know you won’t, but you should. I bet Shaw would help you vet people too. He would know what to look for as a client.”
“It’s too late at night to talk about this,” I mumble.
“You mean too early in the morning, and I agree, but someone thinks that circadian rhythms are meant to be disturbed.”
I sigh. “If I go to sleep, will you leave this alone?”
“Sure.”
I give her a flat look.
“Oh, you don’t like being lied to?” She smiles. “How funny, neither do I.”
“I regret bringing you here.”
“If you were asleep, you wouldn’t have to see me anymore.”
Unlikely, considering the image of her in my clothes is going to haunt my dreams tonight.
“Give me ten more minutes, then I’ll go.”
“Okay,” she says, but she doesn’t leave the room.
“What are you doing?” I ask her with a raised brow.
“Waiting for–” she glances over her shoulder at my computer screen. “Three twenty-three.”
“You’re going to sit right there while I’m trying to work?”
“No, I’m going to sit here until you admit that the ten more minutes thing was a lie to get me to leave. Then we’re going to go to bed.”
“We?” My voice is low. “Is that the real reason you came in here? Can’t sleep without me after Wednesday night?”
She leans slightly toward me, a challenge in her gaze. My blood heats. “If I said yes?”
I swallow. Any comeback I had disappears in the face of her boldness. It takes me too long to recover. Tension thickens in the air.
“I’d say it’s late, and we’re both tired,” I finally manage to whisper. “We shouldn’t do anything we’ll regret.”
Something that looks a lot like hurt flickers across her expression, but it’s gone just as fast as it came. She fakes a laugh and kicks my leg with her bare foot.
“I was joking . You’re too easy to mess with, Carolina. I’m going to bed.” She hops down from my desk.
“Goodnight,” I call before she’s out the door.
“Night,” she says softly, then disappears.
I push both my hands into my hair as she walks away.
I’m alone again. The only thing to keep me company is my work and the chorus of should haves running through my mind. The one repeating the most?
I should have kissed her.