Chapter 5 #2
A few chuckles turn into light giggles. Her hand covering her mouth as if her confession is so raunchy and sinful, she’ll go straight to hell for admitting I’d be her first younger man.
It’s not a fact lost on me. I already knew it by the way she’s acted.
But damn if it doesn’t do something to my ego, knowing I’d be this stunning woman’s first at anything.
Her laughter fades into something quieter.
More fragile.
A soft smile replaces it, her lips still curved as she exhales through her nose. The sound lingers like an echo, too intimate for the setting, too heavy to be innocent. I don’t press her, just watch her. Let her feel what she needs to feel because this isn’t a moment that wants to be rushed.
After a beat, she places both hands on the wheel again. Straightens her back. Re-centers herself like a woman who’s been through far worse storms than this and knows exactly how to survive them.
“Then we don’t decide today.”
I nod once. It’s the closest thing to an agreement we’re going to get. No promises. No future, just a pause. A moment suspended in the air, like heat shimmering off the asphalt beneath me. She reaches for her sunglasses and slides them back down over her eyes.
“I should go.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, standing but letting my finger caress her neck the same way I did that night. She shudders, so responsive to my touch. My cock hardens. “Me too.”
I move out of the way, closing her car door quietly beside her and stepping onto the curb. She shifts the car into gear. Doesn’t say goodbye. Just gives me one last look over the rim of those lenses. A flicker of something unreadable passes across her face before she pulls away.
I watch until the white coupe disappears around the bend, and I still don’t move.
I stay rooted there in the parking lot, like a guy who just stumbled across something precious that no one else sees and has no idea what to do with it.
She didn’t shut me out. Didn’t push me away. She let it breathe, and so will I.
Even if every instinct in me already wants more.
Standing here, sweaty and stunned. Dick is halfway hard, and my brain is completely fried.
Even though I watched her drive off, I’m standing watching the direction her coupe went, even if she’s long out of sight.
I drag a hand through my damp hair and turn toward the clubhouse, still not entirely convinced I’m not crazy for pursuing her.
Then I think of the curve of her mouth. The quiet inhale when I told her she'd be my first older woman. I’d be her first younger man. My ego swells with that thought.
She wants me.
There’s no doubt about it. I want her. Yet waiting this out is completely not my nature, and it sort of sucks. My phone buzzes. I stoop on the sidewalk, digging through my bag to find it. When I look at the screen, I’m shocked.
Dom.
Of all the people. Calling out of the blue isn’t his thing.
Holy shit, what if he saw us? I stand, look around the parking lot, the clubhouse up ahead, and everywhere possible for his dark clothes and scowling face.
When I don’t see him, I blow out a harsh breath and tamp down the sudden panic clogging my throat.
“Hey, Dom, what’s up, man?” I try to sound normal, even if I feel anything but.
“Fucking hell,” he grumbles by way of greeting. “Check your calendar.”
I make my apologies as two ladies pass, and my bag is blocking the sidewalk. I kick it toward the freshly mowed grass before responding.
“Why?”
“Because apparently there’s some bullshit gallery opening,” he bites out, the words practically dripping with contempt.
Viewing art to his genius brain has got to be torture. He’s used to solving shit and figuring out complicated crap that no one understands or really gives a shit about. Watching paint hang on walls is far too slow for him. Sometimes too slow for me, despite my love of drawing and sketching.
“Barrett family backed bullshit. Some stupid-ass ribbon-cutting or new showing. I don’t fucking know.
But my fucking mother’s name is on the plaque or some bullshit on the donor wall, and she wants me there.
I fucking swear, why me? Why can’t she call that do-nothing sister of mine? Art crap is her scene.”
I grin for two reasons. The first is about how pissed he is, even if he’s right.
“Correction, your sister is into the artists, not the art.”
“Fuck you.”
I chuckle. It’s so true, and yet he still gets pissed about her chasing beneath her station in life. Last I heard, she was holed up in the Garment District in New York City with some loser doing more drugs than creating anything. Clothes, art, or otherwise.
“Did your mom call to remind you or something?”
The second reason I grin. Dom calling to bitch about it means he wants me there.
Although I may already be invited, I’d need to check with my family assistant to see what is on the old Harrington family obligations calendar.
Normally, she adds things to my calendar without texting.
Not that I care. I live day by day, so unless the gallery opening is today, I wouldn’t know about it.
“Yes.”
Interesting.
She called him immediately after leaving here if he’s already calling me. It had to be a short and rude phone call.
“Sounds like you’ll be having a wonderful mother-son bonding then.”
I chuckle, letting the sarcasm fly into every word. Sometimes his misery is just plain funny.
“Fuck you,” he snaps, in an even grumpier mood than usual. “You know how much I fucking hate these things. Standing around while people drink champagne and pretend some paint splatter represents emotional trauma and corresponding death.”
“Isn’t that your whole vibe?” I ask, just to poke the bear. “Especially lately?”
“Fuck off.”
We all had heard about the case and his lady. Diego said it’s a sore bone to pick, yet I can’t help myself. Dominic is an asshole sometimes, getting him riled up is easy and entertaining, even if at his expense.
“Are you going?”
Dom sucks in a breath. The sound he makes when smoking weed. He’s done it so many times over the years I’ve known him that the sound is imprinted into my brain.
“I don’t have a fucking choice. It’s family legacy shit. Show face or deal with the fallout.”
“I thought you lived for the fallout. Being an asshole to your mom at the gala attests to it.”
He coughs, sputtering on me, giving him shit for giving her shit. Especially now that I might have a thing going with her. He’s going to have to be less of an asshole if I have any say in it.
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious, man. Lighten up with her.”
Silence.
Long enough to make me shift my weight, eyes scanning the parking lot again like he might storm out of some parked car and drop kick my ass for even saying it.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
His voice cuts, flat, cold, sharp enough to hit a nerve.
That’s always the case with these two. I’ve casually wondered a time or two in passing years what happened between the two of them to get this bad, but now it’s at the forefront of my mind more than ever.
I grind my jaw and grab my bag, starting to walk toward the clubhouse.
“She’s not the villain you make her out to be.” My grip tightens around the handle of my tennis bag, treading into sharky waters. “She’s always been nice to me.”
The hiss of a breath on the other end. Rough and tired. A decade in the making, from the sound of it.
“Yeah, she’s always nice to those she didn’t birth.”
Bitter.
Filled with hurt that isn’t going to be solved on the sidewalk of his mom’s tennis club.
Yet I saw the pain in her eyes when she barked at him.
Felt how destructive it was to witness, unimaginable if on the receiving end.
He speaks to her with such venom, I don’t know how she keeps her composure.
But she didn’t that night. Maybe it was Dom.
Maybe his dad and girlfriend, who’s my age. Maybe both.
It’s death by a thousand cuts with these two.
“Fair enough, Dom.”
I shift, squint up at the sun, and pretend like this conversation isn’t peeling the skin off layers of emotional trauma. Like that, there’s not enough paint in the world to get it out and display it in an art gallery.
“Still. Don’t be a dick at the opening. She’s proud of the gallery, and probably worked her ass off behind the scenes. You could at least pretend to give a shit for an hour.”
Silence again.
He doesn’t bite. Doesn’t agree. The fact that he doesn’t argue is a win for me. I blow out a slow breath, my gaze drifting back toward the drive where her coupe vanished.
“Whatever.”
“Anyway, I’ve got to go. Tee time,” I lie, knowing I’m grabbing a whiskey and a massage, and hopefully a happy ending depending on which woman I get to rub me down. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Do I sound like I need anything?” he growls, still raw from my judgments of him, which don’t happen often. They might start increasing in frequency depending on how this goes with Babs. “I’m giving you the heads up. You’d better be there. I’m not sitting through that garbage-fest alone.”
Ah, that’s the real reason for the call. He does need me to go. To keep him entertained, or at least from exploding like he did at the gala. Possibly to run interference. Either way, I’m going for her.
I make it to the door of the club and nod at the employee greeting guests.
“What day and what time?”
“Thursday. Six o’clock. Dress code is the usual pretentious and boring bullshit.”
He hangs up without another word. This day just got better. I have a date with Babs. The funny thing is, she doesn’t even know it yet.