Chapter 8
I Thought Canadians Were Cuddly
Eli
Iam a nice guy. The one who helps his friends move. The one who’d give the shirt off my back if it meant someone else stayed warm. Giving back actually makes me feel good.
But if you asked my former partner, she’d say I’m too nice. That my bleeding heart is a liability if I ever want to build an empire. That one day, someone will inevitably take advantage of my kindness. Or worse, latch on to it like a spider monkey.
And right now, as I glance to my right and see annoyance personified sitting in my passenger seat, I’m starting to think she might’ve had a point.
This woman has been in my truck for exactly forty minutes, and I already feel like I’ve aged a decade.
If she’s not talking—rapid-fire, unfiltered—she’s on her phone, scrolling, tapping, flipping through screens like stillness makes her itch. She carries tension the way some people carry purses and her energy annoys the hell out of me.
It also does something else.
Because every time she pauses, rubs her temples, exhales without realizing she’s doing it, I clock how tired she actually is. How she never seems to shut off.
She’s a force of nature—loud, witty, and possessed by a relentless energy. She also doesn’t seem to know how to relax. Against my better judgment, I feel that familiar pull; the instinct to slow her down and take care of her kicks in before I can tell it to mind its damn business.
She’s an enigma.
And I don’t like how much I want to figure her out.
Max.
Fucking hellcat. She talks like she’s paid by the syllable and flirts like she’s testing me for sport. Every look, every smirk, every damn smart-ass comeback feels like a trap I willingly walk into.
I need her out of my head and out of my space.
Drake and I have the biggest pitch of our careers in a little more than a week, and we still have kinks to iron out in the business plan before we’re ready. This…Max…is the last thing I should be dealing with right now. A distraction with legs. And a mouth. And laugh. And…
No. Focus.
I need to break something. Anything. Just to feel like I’m in control again. To bend the world back to my will before I allow her to finish what she’s starting—before she breaks me.
I grip the steering wheel a little tighter as we roll down the two-lane road toward my next stop, irritation simmering under my ribs.
If I’d told my mom I was too busy to drive her tonight, if Drake hadn’t decided tonight was the perfect night to go out instead of working on the business plan with me, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.
If I’d been at the table, tightening projections and refining the presentation, I wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t be driving through the night with temptation in my passenger seat and a storm brewing in my head.
“Where are we headed?” she asks like a restless kid.
“Dropping something off to a friend,” I say.
That should’ve been the end of it. Should’ve.
But then she reaches for my radio.
Smack.
I swat her hand away without thinking.
She gasps like I slapped her soul. “I know you did not just put your hands on me!”
“And I know you did not just put your hands on a Black man’s radio.”
“All you had to do was say stop, or move, or anything! You didn’t have to touch me!”
“Like you’d actually listen to anything I said? I asked you to be quiet and you couldn’t even manage that for five minutes.”
She folds her arms, eyes narrowing with challenge and something far more dangerous—mischief.
Eyes on the road, Eli.
“All I’m saying is, if you were going to put your hands on me…”
Her voice dips into something sultry, almost teasing, as her fingers drag slowly down the center of her chest, skimming the curve of her cleavage like she’s trying to short-circuit my brain. “There are other places you could’ve touched. Or hit, even.”
She can’t be real. There’s just no way this is my life right now.
My mother raised me to respect women—to listen to them and never silence them. I’ve never believed that love and roses are required to sleep with someone, or even to fuck them senseless.
I’m just a man who knows himself. And I know where I tend to lose control.
Because once something catches my attention—once someone does—it stops being casual. It stops being simple. My focus sharpens and curiosity turns intentional. I don’t chase recklessly, but I don’t half-step either.
I usually engage with women who want the escape without the reality of staying. High-powered women who flirt with the fantasy of disappearing off the grid, only to realize after a few days that the quiet unnerves them. They realize this life isn’t something they can, or want to, hold on to.
That’s where it’s supposed to end.
If I’m not careful, though, I won’t know when to stop. That’s when things tilt—when interest turns into something heavier.
That’s how it always starts. Attention turns into attachment, and care deepens into surrender. It isn't about possession or control. It’s just too much, too fast. It's an intensity that asks for more than most people are prepared to give—or release.
It’s a pattern I know well.
And even though Max is standing right in front of me, daring me to give her everything I usually reserve for women who seem like they can handle it—handle me—I’m not convinced I’d survive her if I did.
She pokes, she prods, she pushes every damn button I didn’t even know I had. And the worst part? Some sick part of me wants her to keep doing it.
How the hell is this pint-sized seductress having this effect on me?
Who the hell is she?
Where did she come from?
And more importantly—how do I get her out of my truck, out of my head, before she imprints herself on me like some kind of psychotic, sexy parasite?
Fucking feral freak.
She’s still flirting and nearly fondling herself when I finally get fed up.
“Are you serious right now?” I snap, eyes locked on the road.
“What?” she shrugs, all fake innocence and big eyes, like she’s not out here mentally stripping me for sport.
“You don’t even know my name and you’re—” I wave a hand in her general direction, searching for words that don’t start with God help me, and end with on my knees.
“What’s wrong, Bear?
“You can stop calling me Bear. My name is Eli.”
Without missing a beat, she grabs my free hand off the steering wheel and forces a shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Eli. Even though I wouldn’t peg you for an Eli.”
I glance over at her, eyebrows raised. “You thought my name would be what, exactly?”
She bites her lip, thinks a little too hard about it, and finally smirks. “I don’t know. Something like Kofi. Or Butch. Something that sounds big and majestic.”
“Butch sounds majestic to you?”
“In a ‘fix your carburetor and knock the cobwebs off your coochie’ kinda way? Absolutely.”
I blink at her. “What is wrong with you?”
“Oh, come on, Bear! You don’t like a woman who speaks her mind?”
“You don’t speak your mind. You say obscene things. Loudly. It’s like you want the world to know you’re a freak.”
She waves it off like I’m the one being unreasonable. “It’s just the two of us in this truck! Who are you afraid will hear?”
Then she tilts her head, eyes dancing with mischief. “I thought mountain men were supposed to be all sexy and void of sexual inhibitions. Like cavemen with an endless supply of Cialis. You, sir, seem like you’re afraid of something. Pinned up or whatever.”
I sigh, exhausted. “Can we please try the quiet thing again? Just for a little while?”
She leans back, grinning. “If you let me play music.”
Music. This is…safer. “Fine. Nothing loud.”
“Almost time for hibernation, huh? Gotta keep things low-stimulation?”
I don’t respond. I have no words for this woman. Not because I’m a man of few words—though I am—but because she’s the embodiment of too much.
“What song’s on repeat on your phone right now?” she asks.
“I don’t play music on my phone.”
“Huh?”
“Did I stutter?”
She blinks. “You might as well have. How do you listen to music?”
“The way normal people listen to music. Records. You know, vinyl?”
She tilts her head. “I know of said technology. I’ve just never met anyone besides the occasional DJ who still buys records. And my grandma.”
I stay quiet. I know what’s coming.
“Wait. Are you a DJ?”
Silence.
But Max is immune to silence. “Bear? Come on, this is way too cool. Tell me.”
I sigh. “Used to be.”
Her eyes light up like I just handed her a secret. “Favorite record?”
“Whitney Houston. Whitney.”
I know most DJs—most men—would’ve rattled off something hip-hop.
And don’t get me wrong, I’ve got favorites that start at Run-DMC and end at Common and DMX.
But I grew up a mama’s boy, and I guess her taste rubbed off on me more than I ever admit out loud.
Which makes me wonder why I just admitted it to Max so easily.
I brace myself for the teasing, ready for some joke about me being soft, when instead she leans in a little and asks, “Which song?”
It’s the easiest question she could’ve asked me.
When I was a kid, every Saturday morning, my mom would crank up that album—Whitney—loud enough to shake the walls. It was her way of getting me and my brother Elliot out of bed to do chores.
My dad was usually off working, but me, my brother and my mom would dance around the house like we were on stage. Her and my brother would sing into a wooden spoon, I’d try to keep up, and Whitney was always the soundtrack.
Those mornings are stitched into my memory—laughter, soap bubbles, and that voice. Always that voice.
I nod, letting a rare smile touch my lips. “Which song? Every song.”
She nods like I just earned points. “I dig that.”
I glance over. “You dig that?”
“You can listen to vinyl, but I can’t say the word ‘dig’?”
“I’m older than you. It makes sense for me to say things like that.”
“You’re not that much older than me. I’m thirty-two. How old are you?”
“Older than you.”
She groans. “We’re back to this again?”
“What?”
“You keeping secrets and being a terrible road trip buddy.”
“This isn’t a road trip.”
“We’re in a car. We’re driving longer than an hour. If you let me stop and buy gummy worms, it’s officially a road trip.”
“Seriously, what is wrong with you?”
“You’re such a grumpy bear. I thought Canadians were cuddly.”
“I’m gonna need you to stop stereotyping Canadians.”
“Sorry,” she huffs as we pull into the lot of the Peppermint Elephant—Canada’s answer to Spearmint Rhino, only slightly more polite and with fewer thongs.
Max eyes the neon lights warily. “Umm, Eli? I think I’m overdressed for this place.”
I glance at her. “You’re wearing a sweater dress.”
“Exactly. What do women wear in this place? Thongs?”
Are you wearing a thong?
Stop it, Eli!
“I’m just saying,” she pouts, “I’m overdressed and under-contoured. I’ll stay in the truck and let you do your thing.”
“Yeah, no. I don’t know you well enough to trust you alone in my truck with all this tech.”
She smirks. “Perceptive, eh?”
“Max. Out of the truck.”
She jumps to my command. Quick, obedient, like her body responds before her mouth has a chance to catch up.
I sort of like how the flicker of pride stirs low in my pants at the way she listens to me.
I grab Drake’s wallet from the center console then slam the door shut behind me. I walk to the back and grab a coat for her. She has to be cold.
People who aren’t from here never pack correctly.
Snow looks cute on postcards, but living in it is a whole different sport.
Most of the Black folks I know have never seen it in real life, and even the ones who grew up around winter weren’t trained for this.
Canada doesn’t do mercy. And Max is out here dressed like optimism alone was going to keep her warm. She is unprepared as hell.
“Here, put this on.”
“Uhh. It doesn’t go with my outfit?”
I blink. “So you’re really willing to freeze to death because my green coat doesn’t match your little yellow sweater dress?”
She frowns like I’ve personally offended her aesthetic. “Did you not just hear yourself? It’s green.”
“Whatever,” I mutter, tossing the coat back into the truck.
“Okay,” she says, pausing. “Fine. I’ll take the coat.”
That’s what I thought.
I reach back in and grab the coat and watch as she wiggles herself into it. It fits her more like a throw blanket.
I follow her toward the entrance—and immediately notice the change.
Those cute suede boots? They’ve soaked up snow like sponges.
Now they squeak faintly with every step, and her confident strut turns into a careful, tiptoe shuffle.
She’s trying to play it cool, shoulders back, chin high, like nothing’s wrong…
while walking like the ground might betray her at any second.
One heel slips. She catches herself. Keeps going.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
She’s still got that sway, still moving like she knows she’s being watched, but now there’s tension in it. Her knees are stiff, steps short, balance negotiated one cautious foot at a time.
And somehow, the combination of wet boots, stubborn pride, and sheer determination makes her even cuter than she was two minutes ago.
She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met—especially in a place like this.
I hadn’t even considered that she and Drake would likely be the worst pairing imaginable. Together, the two of them will annoy the shit out of me.
I shake my head at the thought, then grit my teeth and walk in, praying I survive this intolerable, insatiable woman.