16. Roommates
Chapter 16
Roommates
Reece drifted in a contented fog, vaguely aware of the warm, furry weight on his chest and its motorboat engine. His phone chimed with a text, rousing him from his nap, breaking the spell, and he rubbed his eyes and checked the device.
“Shit!”
Mr. Whiskers, clearly annoyed with the interruption, jumped from the bed and sauntered into the bathroom while Reece stared at the message on his phone.
Chelsea: How is your Thanksgiving?
He waited a few beats, pondering whether to answer. If he chose to ignore her, though, she’d keep pinging him, so he finally settled on a simple No.
Chelsea: Maybe you’d like to come over? I’ve got one of those rotisserie chickens.
She was out of her mind if she thought … He began thumbing a question about where the hell her husband was, but realizing she might interpret his snark the wrong way, he backspaced. He could tell her—again—that he wasn’t interested but instead opted for a noncommittal I’m busy. His phone vibrated. Tired, irritated, he answered with a curt, “Hello.”
“Who are you busy with?” Chelsea demanded.
“My wife,” he tossed back. Surprisingly, the words didn’t sound foreign or unpleasant in his mouth.
“Come again?”
Fully aware of the mistake he was making, he plowed ahead anyway. “I got married in Vegas last night. I’m spending Thanksgiving with her right now.”
She barked a mirthless laugh. “Not funny, Reece.”
“May not be funny, but it’s true.”
A string of unintelligible cursing came back at him, followed by a yelp of, “Who is she?”
“Look, Chelsea, I told you before, this thing between us is over. I’ve moved on. You should too.” With that, he ended the call. His delivery could have been less brutal, but it felt like blunt force was the only way to get the message through to her that there was nothing there.
He held his breath and waited, daring to hope she wouldn’t call back with each passing minute. After ten ticked by, he closed the cat in the room and padded down the hall to the kitchen. Neve had her back to him, chopping fresh herbs as she hummed and swayed in time to soft music coming through a speaker on the counter. The aroma filled his nose, and his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had anything since their Vegas breakfast, and his stomach had been tied in too many knots to fill it with anything substantial.
The dark blue so typical of late afternoon this time of year had fallen into place, cloaking the world outside. Without his permission, his mind wandered to whether anyone was in trouble out there and needed rescue. He should be on call. He should be ready to go. If it weren’t for Chelsea … Damn it!
He drew in a calming breath and inched closer to Neve. “Can I help?”
Seemingly unsurprised he stood there, she cast her eyes to the side. “Can you cook?”
“Yeah, but I don’t do it often, so I’m a little rusty. ”
“Well, let’s see if we can sharpen your skills. I’ll start you out with something simple.” She pointed the knife toward an empty wineglass within her reach; an open bottle of red stood beside it. “In the meantime, pour yourself a glass of merlot and keep me company. Glasses are up there.” Waving the knife, she gestured toward a row of pristine wineglasses lined in a perfect row on a dustless open shelf. “And before you say anything, I know it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon, but after last night, it feels like it’s midnight.”
With a mild chuckle, he helped himself. “I’m surprised you can drink anything after last night.”
“Hair of the dog.”
“Amen.” He raised his glass to her profile and took a sip. “Any updates from Shane?”
“Only that he and Charlie took care of the front door, so that worry is out of the way.” What should have been good news left Reece disappointed. Fixing her door was his job, and he hadn’t moved quickly enough. “Sometimes I get annoyed that everyone knows your business in this town—case in point, Dixie saw my ring and put two and two together to get six, which is probably why Luanne looked like the cat who got the canary. But at other times, it’s incredibly nice to be surrounded by people who care what happens to you and will fix your door even though you didn’t ask them to.”
“I took pictures and made notes while we were there. I was planning to fix it myself.” He came off sounding like a pouty six-year-old. Silently, he admonished himself for his selfish reaction. At least the damn door was fixed—that was what mattered, not his itty-bitty feelings.
“See? If they hadn’t done it, you would have. And if not you, probably Dewey or someone else. That’s the nice part about small-town living.”
And definitely something he would miss. He could already feel the ache. How long would it take him to form friendships in Vermont? He wasn’t like Charlie, the golden retriever of the family, or Noah, who enjoyed the people side of bartending. Reece was private, a loner. Not the kind of guy who made friends easily, though he valued having a few close ones. And if he did form a friendship or two, would the bonds become as strong as the ones he already had here in Fall River?
Doubtful .
Oh-so-casually, Neve dropped a mini-bombshell. “So … sounded like a pretty tense conversation in your room before your butt strolled out here.”
He nearly spewed the wine he’d just swallowed. “You heard?”
“I should have warned you. These walls are paper-thin.”
“Huh. I’ll have to remember that in case I snore.”
“Thought you didn’t snore.”
“You would know,” he quipped. “Did I snore last night?”
“I have no idea because I was passed out. I think I could have slept through an earthquake. But you’re evading, which is fine if that’s the route you want to go. I won’t push, but I just wanted you to know I’m here if you want to talk about it.” A mild chuckle jiggled her shoulders. “I won’t hold my breath, though. Knowing you, Mr. Stoic, you’ll keep it locked away in your vault with the rest of your emotions.”
He leaned against the counter and watched her work. Something about the domestic scene caused his muscles to uncoil and his tongue to loosen. “In case you didn’t figure it out after eavesdropping, that was Chelsea.”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. You were barking, and it was hard not to hear. But seriously, she’s still calling you?”
He bobbed his head. “I know, right? She’s not taking no for an answer.”
“Sounds like she’s got an incurable case of Reece Rescue Syndrome.”
He sipped his wine, filling his mouth with cherry jam and a hint of oak. Damn, that was good.
His mind whirred with ways to redirect the conversation, but Neve got there first, taking them deeper in the direction he didn’t want to go. “We might have touched on this before, and I get that Chelsea wasn’t your ‘one,’ but why haven’t you ever been in a long-term relationship?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. For a long time, my priorities were elsewhere, and they were at odds with a relationship. Then I went through a phase where I just wasn’t interested.”
She kept her side to him and her head down, so he couldn’t read her expression when she said, “Not even in … sex?”
A smirk lifted a corner of his mouth. “I’m always interested in sex. Just not the drama that goes with it. Didn’t seem worth the price when I could take care of my needs by myself.”
“Right. You’re the independent type. So you didn’t … ”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Look, without getting into the details, let’s just say there have been times when opportunities presented themselves, and I took advantage. I don’t say that with any pride, but it is what it is. Or was.”
“Opportunities,” she repeated. “Like with Chelsea.”
He puffed out a breath. “Yeah, like that. With the benefit of hindsight, that’s an opportunity I would take a pass on today. A hard pass. Which leads me back to my point about drama.”
“What drew you to her in the first place?”
“I think it was that we shared the same world. We understood what it felt like to have that adrenaline high and what it felt like when you came down from it. What it felt like to finally find someone only to discover you were too late. For a long time, I thought that if I wanted to get serious with someone, the only candidates had to be part of that world too, so that shrank the dating pool quite a bit.”
“Did you date anyone else who also worked in search and rescue?”
“Other than an occasional beer or catching a band, no. Chemistry just wasn’t there.”
Neve scraped her diced herbs into a bowl. “But Chelsea was different.”
“She wasn’t so much different as it just seemed to click for a while. We were into the same things, we were both available—or so I thought—and she made it abundantly clear she wasn’t looking for long-term. Seemed like a fit for a time. But everything went to hell in a handbasket when I found out she was married. Plus, she had lied about keeping it casual. Turns out she wanted long-term or, more importantly, an excuse to dump her husband. Poor schmuck,” he muttered. “Enough about me. How come you’ve never been in a committed relationship, Doc?”
Her eyes traveled to the ceiling and stayed there. “Well, school took up all my time for a while. Then it was getting my practice off the ground. My schedule didn’t leave a whole lot of time for starting up a relationship.”
For reasons he didn’t understand, he resisted asking the next question, he really did. But curiosity won out. “What about short-term? You know, ‘opportunities.’” Breath caught in his chest as he waited for the answer he didn’t want to hear.
Her eyes darted back to him, and her cheeks took on a telltale pink. “I guess you could say I’ve taken advantage too.”
“Nothing stuck, even after your practice got going? ”
“Nope. Well, and there’s another reason. This is Fall River. I think I dated all fifteen single men in this town.”
“What about Cantrell? He’s not in this town.”
“No, but there weren’t any sparks. I wanted them to catch, but they didn’t.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Long beats of silence charged the air. He waited. And waited. Because he really wanted to understand what made her tick. Neve was so beautiful it was hard to look away. She had a warmth about her that pulled people in like a magnetic rope, and he wasn’t immune. She was wicked smart. Funny. Fiery. Challenging. An aura of playfulness surrounded her. And just below the surface, a sex kitten lay in wait, ready to pounce. All the personality traits that turned a woman into a man’s obsession.
“Not going to give me an answer?” he prodded.
“No. Not yet.”
Another stroke of silence ticked by, and he spouted, “I told Chelsea I got married last night.” Neve wheeled, eyes wide, mouth open, and knife in hand. “Ah. I guess you didn’t overhear that part.” He flicked his forefinger toward the knife. “And watch where you point that thing.”
Neve lowered the blade. “You told her that?” A glow of incredulity danced in her eyes. “That seems like a very un-Reece-like thing to do. In fact, you’ve been downright un-Reece-like ever since we landed in Vegas. Are you sure you didn’t wind up in some kind of Freaky Friday moment?”
“That’s called cutting loose.”
“Which is something you don’t do very often.”
The fact that Neve knew him so well filled him with a warm buzz. “As for Chelsea,” he sighed with regret, “I could have handled that better. It was a knee-jerk reaction to her not getting the message and me being overly tired. That’s not an excuse, just reality. I was an asshole. I admit it.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, she agreed I was an asshole.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“So you’re not even going to counter the bit about me being an asshole? I only floated that out there so you could deny it’s true and stroke my ego.”
“Seriously? ”
“Moving on. Besides cussing me out, I don’t know what she said, though I’m pretty sure she won’t be sending me a Christmas card. I think the message sank in this time, though, because she hasn’t called back.”
“And that’s something she normally does?”
“Ever since we parted ways, yeah. She calls until her phone runs out of battery. I’m kidding. Let’s just say she calls repeatedly, and when I don’t answer, she finally gives up, but she’s tenacious.”
Shaking her head, Neve returned to her dicing. “Sounds like she’s in denial.”
“Do you have any best practices for how to get someone to leave you alone?”
Neve peeled an onion and attacked it with her knife. “You’re asking me ? Sorry, dude. You should hit up someone with more experience with relationships. That’s not me.”
Good sense told him to rein in the next bit, but common sense was in short supply lately, so he barreled ahead. “If I were to marry anyone right now, it would be you.”
Her mouth opened and closed—several times. “What?”
God, why couldn’t he have kept his big mouth shut? “You heard me.”
Her mouth wiggled from side to side. “The thing is, you did marry me.”
“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Muttering something unintelligible, she turned back to her chopping.
The wine mixed with acid in his stomach and soured. “Maybe we should move on to a more benign topic.”
“Oh, you mean like our wedding blackout?” she deadpanned.
“I said benign .” He stuck his head in her fridge. “Like me pulling together a salad to go with the fettuccine. Would you chop a little extra onion that I can use?”
Despite the air hanging between them like a curtain of awkward, the mood soon lightened, his stomach settled down, and they were working side by side, her bossing him around and him not minding one bit. This was comfortable, easy, relaxed—but that was how it had always been around Neve … except for this morning, when he’d awakened beside her soft, silky skin and moments later caught a glimpse of perfect white globes sticking up while she was prone on the floor.
Wonder what they would feel like in my hands ?
Yeah, that wasn’t inappropriate—just like the dirty thoughts that had sprung up in his mind this morning. The sight had conjured images that had made things almost painful, and the sensation was currently repeating itself, knotting his belly and tightening other parts of his body. He shifted his stance to accommodate his growing reaction to said images.
She elbowed him. “You okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You sucked in a huge breath and then stopped breathing.”
“Uh, brain fart.”
“I’ve been having a lot of those myself today … after the massive brain fart that was last night. What are we going to do, Reece?”
“First we’re going to enjoy a nice dinner. Then we’re going to bed.” He rushed to add, “In separate rooms. I’m talking about getting a good night’s sleep. We’ll be able to think more clearly in the morning and work up a plan of attack.”
“I googled Nevada laws while you were napping,” she blurted out.
“And?”
“If that license is real, it looks like our only recourse is to go through a formal process to unwind it.”
“Doesn’t Nevada do quickie div—annulments?”
“You have to take up residence. Six weeks or something, I think, which isn’t long—all things considered—but neither of us can afford that kind of time away from Colorado right now. We may as well take care of it from here.”
Reece no longer questioned whether the paperwork was legit. The marriage was real, and though ill-conceived, it would take more than wishing to make it go away. Now the question was whether they got an annulment or a divorce. But he’d wrestle with that thorny issue later. “Like I said, we’ll think more clearly in the morning.”
“And I still have the clinic to deal with. God, why are catastrophes all piling up at once?”
“Marrying me is unexpected, shocking even, but a catastrophe ? Ouch. Avalanches are catastrophic. Tidal waves. A meteor plowing into the earth.” She replied with an epic eye-roll. “Let’s focus on the easy one first. Can your backup in Ouray keep being your backup while you put the clinic back together? What’s her name again? ”
“Lark Bunting. I think so. I’ll have to call her tomorrow and double-check.”
“Does she know she’s named after the state bird?”
“No idea. She’s from New Jersey.”
Their easy banter continued over dinner, during kitchen cleanup, and afterward, as they sat on the floor in front of a crackling fire, drinking Mexican coffees. Reece had brought Mr. Whiskers out of the guest bedroom, and the cat was curled up between Neve’s crossed legs. Pearl lay at Neve’s back, either snoring or letting out tiny yelps as she ran in her sleep. Reece sat spread-legged amid them, using Neve’s couch as a backrest.
It occurred to him that this was the most comfortable Thanksgiving he’d enjoyed in a long time, despite the day being … surreal. He was simply being , and he liked it.
Neve raised her mug to her mouth and took a careful sip, leaving a tiny dollop of whipped cream on her lower lip.
He pointed at it. “You’ve got whipped cream—right there.” If they had been intimate, he would have simply leaned in and licked it off. Maybe taken a little more from her cup and spread it over her mouth. Better yet, pulled off her sweater, unhooked her bra. and—
Jesuuuuus! This is Neve you’re thinking about. He normally didn’t have such specifically lewd thoughts about women. And he shouldn’t be having them about this woman he’d known his whole life. It was almost … criminal. Didn’t keep him from having them, though.
He stared at her plush pink lips and conjured the kiss he’d laid on her in front of Elvin and the world, but his memory was fragmented. For one insane moment, he considered asking her for a redo. In fact, his brain was all over the damn place. He had been on a roller coaster of emotions since the day before, and he couldn’t decide if it was exhaustion shorting his circuits or being this close to Neve.
She placed her mug on the floor and slid Hailey’s locket along its chain, and his attention zeroed in on her bare fingers. “What did you do with your ring?”
“I tucked it away in its fancy little box to keep it safe. I didn’t have time to check consumer law in Nevada, but I’m betting you can return it and get your money back. Speaking of un-Reece-like behavior, that ring … ”
“Who says that’s not like me?” He had no problem with the notion of showering a woman he loved enough to marry with expensive gifts. Except he had no clue what being in love felt like, and certainly not to that extreme. While he’d witnessed it, the sensation was as foreign as the aliens in a Star Wars movie. “Did you ever consider I might be the kind of guy who enjoys spoiling the woman in his life with nice jewelry?”
“Eighty-thousand-dollar nice?” she scoffed. “I see you’re still wearing your ring.”
He glanced down at his left hand. “So I am. I hadn’t even noticed.”
Her denim blues went round. “You’re not going to leave it on, are you?”
“I’ll take it off later and put it in the fancy box with yours so I don’t lose it.”
Funny how its weight felt natural on his finger.