17. Wade
17
WADE
Every light in August’s house was on when I pulled into the driveway and turned off my pickup. The old engine of the 65 stepside Chevy clicked and clanked as I sat there and read the text my sister had sent while I was driving.
Bernie: M’s not talking, but I think they had words. Tread lightly.
She wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already guessed when Morgan walked out of her room alone. She’d obviously been crying. When she said August had left with their mother’s ashes and without saying goodbye, all I could think about was making my excuses so I could get back here.
A smart man never got caught between two sisters. Particularly when one was an old friend and the other was the woman he might be falling for.
Might be? Had been. Already fell.
Staying away wasn’t an option for me, and if Morgan had asked my opinion, I would have told her that giving August space didn’t work. The last thing she needed was to be on her own, coming up with reasons to start shutting us out again.
Shutting me out.
She needed to be challenged. To feel necessary and enjoy life the way she used to. The way she was wired to. And whether she knew it or not, she needed me.
The music hit me before I opened the door. Familiar music, like those old songs Yvonne used to listen to over a glass of wine or three when she thought we were asleep.
Merlin sprawled between the living room and the stairs, staring at me with tired, mournful eyes until I scratched him behind his ears. “What am I walking into here, old man?”
The coffee table to my right was cluttered with open photo albums and a bottle of tequila. The ladder and tarp we’d used for painting the other day were still there, where the damage from the tree used to be.
Her sister’s house was only minutes away. How long had she been gone before Morgan decided to come back to the table and let us know?
I heard August’s off-key voice coming from the second floor and lifted my head to listen.
“‘All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you whyyy,’” she sang-shouted, her voice moving closer while something started thudding down the stairs beside her. “’The seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling byyy’—Wade!”
She hopped down the last two steps, barefoot but still wearing her outfit from dinner, a full garbage bag in her hand. “Is family night over already?”
“It is for me.” I wrapped a hand around her wrist to stop her from skipping around me and gently pried the bundle out of her hand. “What’s in the bag?”
“A whole lot of junk I haven’t seen since I moved in, so it can’t be that important. ”
She was only one sheet to the wind, but it was enough. I thought back to dinner. Had she eaten anything before the questions started?
“I thought I’d get the room ready for when Chick gets here. He hates mess. He was the Felix to my Oscar the last time we odd-coupled.”
“What happened tonight, Gus?”
“Nothing new.” Her struggles against my hold were half-hearted, and from one breath to the next, she changed tactics and started nuzzling my neck. “You always smell good, did you know that? Do you want to have a drink with me? I usually only like it in margaritas, but after the first two shots you stop caring.”
Shots explained a lot. “I’m thinking you should have some water instead.”
“Thinking sounds boring.”
The music changed and she escaped my arms, doing an unstable spin that had me reaching for her again. “Remember this one? ‘I think I’m going to Katmandu! That’s really really where I’m going to. If I ever get ooout of here. That’s what I’m gonna do.’”
August was not a singer, but her over-the-top rendition almost had me smiling, despite my concern. She reached for my hand, spinning into my arms unexpectedly. “And now I’m dizzy,” she admitted, looking up into my eyes.
She wasn’t the only one, but my need to take care of her outweighed everything else.
“Okay, dancing queen, let’s go to the kitchen and sit you down before you hurt yourself.”
“Boring,” she repeated, but she kept her hand in mine to follow.
When my gaze snared on an old ocean-blue iPod plugged into a small Bose speaker on the counter, I recognized it. Sam had taken that thing with her everywhere .
“Every life deserves a soundtrack. This is mine.”
“There are so many songs about leaving on there,” August pointed out, still wiggling to the beat as if she couldn’t help herself. “‘Leaving on a Jet Plane.’ ‘The Road is My Middle Name.’ ‘On the Road Again.’ ‘I Was Born Under a Wandering Star.’ ‘Moving Out.’ Gene likes themes for cars. Maybe that should be Jiminy’s.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said absently, the black urn sitting beside the iPod a presence as I turned the music down. “So, you and Morgan talked.”
“I guess.” August let me go long enough to get two water bottles from the refrigerator and held one out to me with a sloppy wink. “Your water, as requested. Oh, and she told me she doesn’t care. So that obstacle is out of the way.”
“Doesn’t care about what?” I asked slowly.
“The race. The job. Jiminy. Any of it.”
That didn’t sound like the Morgan I knew.
August placed the cool bottle against her temple, letting the condensation drip down her flushed cheek. “She did worry I was taking advantage of you to get a renter and a job. And wonder if I was medicated. And she implied I might regret throwing away an extra working vehicle if Myrtle has another episode that’s too expensive to fix.” Her grin wobbled and my protective instincts had me stepping in her direction. “There was more, but then I told her I’d handle the boat and she gave me Mom.”
Damn it, Morgan.
She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body, and I knew how much she loved her sister, but occasionally her version of being helpful drew unintentional blood.
“Most of that is noise because she’s stressed about going back to work,” I said, “and feeling guilty for not being here to help you after the storm.”
She looked stunned, but I kept talking, rubbing her shoulders and refusing to let her spend any more time worrying about it. “What’s this about getting a boat?”
She sucked in a breath and held out her hands to indicate the size. “A wooden Viking ship. Miniaturized but still seaworthy and flammable.”
I’d always thought that was a joke. Sam had seen it in a movie once and always told us that was how she wanted to go out. Just set her on fire and leave her to the ocean she loved.
“Kingston’s dad is a woodcarver,” I told her cautiously. “He had a shop for forty years and he still works from home on specialty pieces. Just get me the specs and I’ll give him a call.”
“I can’t let you do anything else for me. This is my responsibility,” she emphasized. “Then I have to find a real boat to rent, because Rick was in the Coast Guard and he’ll never let us use his to break the law.”
“You might be surprised about that.” Rick would do anything for Gene and his family.
“I thought I could Google it and at least do the first part myself, you know? How to carve a wooden boat you plan to set on fire?” she joked before rubbing her temple with a wince. “You think Mr. Haywood would take the job?”
“I’ll get you his number and you can call him yourself.”
I made myself walk away from her to start looking through her cabinets. I found a bottle of Tylenol and handed her two pills, closing her fingers around them before resuming my search. “Take those.”
“What are you doing, Wade?”
“Looking for something to soak up that alcohol before we follow up dinner with a movie night. Got any bread?”
“I think I’m out again. Movie night?”
I aimed for a casual tone. “I suppose we could hop on your computer and watch some of those reaction videos you were talking about before. ”
She sipped her water and did a little two-step around the kitchen to the softer music. “You wouldn’t like them. It’s a guilty people-watching pleasure.”
I had to admit, it sounded depressing. Like looking through a window at a party you weren’t invited to.
I was old enough to remember when people had actual watch parties together, in the same room. But that was back when there were only a handful of channels, every world turned by the TV Guide and there were Blockbuster Videos instead of Starbucks on every corner.
Times sure had changed.
“There’s music too,” she told me with a snorting giggle. “You’ve never felt truly old until you’ve watched twenty-somethings listening to Bon Jovi or Phil Collins on the drums for the first time.”
She darted closer to play a quick, recognizable drum solo on my ass before dancing away again.
I sent her a look of playful warning, not that I minded her touch. “We’re not that old, Gus.”
“Middle-aged then.” She wrinkled her nose. “Did you have any idea that being middle-aged meant you’d be stuck in the middle of a brain that thinks it’s sixteen and a body that feels like it’s sixty?”
I grunted. That sounded about right to me.
“You should think about doing that for the icehouse,” she said suddenly.
“Doing what?”
“Pick a series and record your customers watching it. You’d have nerdy beer lovers forming a line out the door. Its brilliant PR. Phoebe would be all over it. If you let the camera focus on your sexy butt occasionally, you’d make a fortune.”
“My butt appreciates your confidence.” I pulled out some microwave popcorn and the package of cookies I found hidden behind a box of cereal. It would have to do. “I can’t lie, the regulars might riot. Especially if I got to pick the show.”
She chuckled again. “That’s right. You like space-y escapism. Oh! We can watch one of Chick’s movies before he gets here. Mutant Bounty is the most popular. Though according to him…” She blew a raspberry and offered up a thumbs down.
“Bad sci-fi doesn’t exist.” Although the thought of her friend was putting a bad taste in my mouth today.
“You’re going to eat those words.”
If she hadn’t been drinking or feeling vulnerable, she’d be on her back by now and I’d be eating something a lot more satisfying than words. I hadn’t had a chance to try that with her yet.
And you won’t tonight, so get a grip.
“Go set it up while I make popcorn.”
“Yes, sir, Motor Daddy.” She saluted and I ground my teeth together at another unexpected wave of really fucking inappropriate arousal.
I closed the albums, turned off the music and put the bottle back in the pantry, setting it high enough that she’d have to find a step stool to get to it tonight. By the time I was through, the popcorn was done, the movie was starting and I’d gotten myself under control.
This was what she needed right now. A friend. I could be that for her.
Twenty minutes in, I was ready to admit defeat, in more ways than one.
What was going on with the bounty hunter, anyway? Was he a prince? Was he dying? Was he really that bad at his job? Because so far, he’d gotten his ass beat five times and hadn’t caught a single clue.
Is the distraction making you feel better ?
No, it was not.
The problem wasn’t really the movie—that actually had a cult classic feel and some decent CGI. But I couldn’t pay attention to the plot, or the lack of one, with my dick working so hard to get my attention.
August was falling asleep against me. Her feet were curled up behind her, full breasts pressed into my side and one hand open on my stomach, too close to my erection for comfort.
I needed to leave.
The old me would have. Good old reliable Wade would have carried her to her bed, tucked her in and left another bottle of water and an aspirin within arm’s reach before locking the door behind him.
Instead, I was hard as a rock and fighting my desire to pull her closer, torturing myself by reliving the sexual adventures we’d had together over the last week. Along with more meetings like the one we had in my office, I’d gone to an adult store for the first time in my life and purchased a pink vibrator, thinking she might like the experience.
I’d been stupidly surprised that she already had one. It was a different kind—mine was meant for insertion, while hers was designed to basically suck on her clit—but when I made some noise about returning it, she’d clutched it to her chest. “No takebacks! I need this since you’re playing hard to get.”
I’d had no idea how much I would enjoy watching her with both of them, or how hard it would be to leave her with them for the cold comfort of a shower and my hand.
Phone sex was another first for me. I’d called to say goodnight after she’d spent one evening writing, and she was already in bed. She’d jokingly asked what I was wearing, and before I knew it, I was describing all the things I wanted to do to her body while we both got ourselves off. I never thought I’d be into that, but the sound of her cries in my ear that night was something I’d remember on my deathbed.
We’d avoided each other for years, but she was making up for it now. Every time I reached for her, she was reaching right back. Turning me on. Making me laugh. Making me think. Making me want to go back in time and give myself a beatdown for all the time I’d wasted staying away from her.
Before the dinner and tequila, I’d thought tonight would be the night. I knew things had changed, but her delectable body was wrapped around me like she belonged there, and it was getting harder to remember she was tired, tipsy and understandably sad. In that frame of mind, I’d be a convenient distraction tonight and a regret in the morning. We both deserved better than that.
My erection had its own thoughts about delaying things yet again, and I shifted to give myself some breathing room, causing her to stir.
“Don’t go,” she murmured.
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly at the request. “You need to get to bed, Gus.”
“Come with me.”
I swore silently. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not ready to be alone yet.”
Hell. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
She didn’t waste any time getting up, and I let her pull me to my feet, unwilling to tell her no despite my previous decision. I seized her shoulders and pointed her toward her bedroom, then took Merlin out for one last quick walk. After I’d turned off the television and the lights, I walked down the hall to join her.
Her bathroom door was closed.
I stood there uncertainly, taking in her unmade bed with its blue sheets and multicolored quilt and remembering the last time we’d spent the night together. It didn’t matter that this bed had enough room for both of us—sleeping beside her without touching her the way I needed to would still be torture.
Desperate for a distraction, I studied the fairy lights on the wall above her headboard, and the other wall, where a frame filled with snapshots dangled from what looked like fishing line. Pictures of mountains and oceans and skylines I’d never seen in person.
Places she’d been that I hadn’t, or places she still wanted to go?
I let myself imagine how it would feel to get out of my comfort zone and leave this zip code for more than a weekend race in New Orleans or Chicago. There was no reason I couldn’t travel. Business was good enough that the garage could survive me disappearing for a few weeks here or there. I’d always imagined doing it, but I’d never made it happen.
Was it because I was set in my ways, or because I didn’t trust myself not to get the bug like my father? That selfish, shiftless bug that had been fine with abandoning the people who relied on him in exchange for instant gratification and the freedom to not give a shit.
“Your turn.”
She was framed in a soft halo of light with her hair down, wearing feminine boxer shorts and a shirt that hung off one shoulder with the words Pobody’s Nerfect stretched over her full, unbound breasts.
I couldn’t be more fucked if she’d come out stark naked.
Heading blindly into the bathroom, I closed the door behind me with a solid thud.
Not tonight.
I ran my hands under the cold tap and splashed the back of my neck, then took off my shirt and hung it on the door hook next to her bra.
Give me strength.
“Only until she falls asleep. ”
After that I’d get up, walk back to the apartment, get into my own bed and take myself in hand until the urgency passed.
It had to pass eventually.
The lights were off when I joined her again, but it wasn’t pitch dark. I could see the garden lights through her window. My door. This was her view?
“Wade?” She was lying on her side facing the center of the bed, her back to the window.
“I’m here, Gus.”
I took my boots off before lying back carefully on the mattress beside her. Over the covers again. Head against a pillow that smelled like August.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, hoping she’d take the hint and pass out before I forgot to do the right thing.
“I was planning to get you here for an entirely different reason tonight.”
My cock flexed against my jeans at her admission. Knowing we’d been on the same page only made this harder. Made me harder. “Is that right?”
“It is. You were going to be putty in my hands.”
My smile was strained in the darkness. “Another time, Gus. You’ve had a rough day and tonight isn’t the night.”
I could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. Why wasn’t she going back to sleep?
She needs a friend, not a fuck.
Damn it.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she said too swiftly to be believable. I waited in silence until she added, “I wasn’t expecting to react like that.”
She was talking about her mother’s ashes. “I know.”
“Morgan went to the street where it happened. Walked it. Even if I’d gone with her, I couldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t be strong enough. ”
I reached for her hand, instinctively twining my fingers with hers. “I don’t believe that. I think you’d handle it fine.”
“Really?”
Not wanting to cross any lines, but unable to keep my mouth shut, I exhaled slowly and said, “Morgan had to see the street, thank your friend and stand in the church, because it was the tangible, physical proof she needed to process that Sam was gone. But that proof has been around you for nearly two years, hasn’t it? You live here, work here, the view from your window is the first and last thing you see every day… Italy might be where she left, but this was where she lived. After handling that, I think you could take on anything.”
She squeezed my hand and spoke quietly into the darkness. “It sounds strange to say, because it’s a natural part of life, isn’t it? Parents dying before we do? But sometimes it feels like I’ve lost a physical part of my body. She’s always been there holding me up, and now she’s not. I keep waiting to get my balance back, to find a new normal. Then something like this happens and it knocks me flat on my ass again.”
Sam’s death had spun us all, but I knew it wasn’t the same. I didn’t want to imagine how I’d feel if anything ever happened to my sister or Phoebe.
“I barely remember my mom,” I started carefully. “Bernie was still a baby when she died and I wasn’t much older. There are still times when I wonder what she would think of me now. My decisions. How I live my life. You have over forty years of memories with Sam. It’s a gift, that time, but maybe it comes with a price. And you two were closer than most. As far as I know, the only time you were really separated was when she was married.”
“Dysfunctional and codependent are the words you’re looking for. I’m very familiar with them.” She didn’t sound offended. Just resigned. “One of the reasons I wanted to get this house was to pay her back for all the times she supported me when I was in my struggling writer, barely-working-for-minimum-wage phase.”
“You did that. She was happy here. And whatever anyone wants to call your relationship, it worked for you both and you still loved each other at the end of the day. I think being loved like that has to be worth whatever pain comes after. Even if it ends up knocking you on your ass.”
Losing August after finally knowing what it felt like to touch her, talk to her and be myself around her? That would be a hard fucking fall.
She raised her free hand to swipe her eyes. Shit. Had I made her cry? “You’re very philosophical in the dark, Wade Hudson. But I wish you didn’t have to be so nice.”
“I’m not that nice.” I let her hand go to trace her arm with my fingers, loving her softness. The way she moved in closer, silently asking for more.
“You really are. And it’s not fair, because you’re already a gorgeous, mechanically gifted man with healthy family relationships and financial security. Honestly, I’m not sure how you’re single, other than the fact that you were recently homeless and you spend all your free time with Gene and his buddies.”
I huffed out a laugh. “That has put a crimp in my eligible-bachelor status.”
When she scooted closer and leaned her head on my shoulder, I took the opportunity to press my lips to her hair.
“Is that why you’re not interested in Lemons anymore?” she asked. “Because it’s affecting your love life?”
“I wasn’t that interested in racing before we started. It can’t be that hard to believe I’m less interested five years later.”
She scoffed and snuggled even closer, oblivious to what she was doing to me. “It is though. That’s like saying Morgan doesn’t like symmetry and filing cabinets. Wade not being into cars doesn’t compute. ”
I managed a chuckle through my tight throat. “Working on cars does make up the majority of my life, sure. I like the challenge of fixing what’s broken, the way the parts come together to form the whole. But there are other things I’m interested in. More than interested in.”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
She propped up on one elbow and placed her hand on my chest, looking sincerely confused. “Why?”
Why? “Is that a serious question or are you fishing for compliments?”
“I’m not sure you’ve noticed how deeply fucked up my life has been recently. The fact that I’m lying in bed with a man I’m desperate to sex up and talking about my mother’s ashes couldn’t have been your first clue. I mean, honestly. I should be surrounded by yellow caution tape.”
I wanted to interrupt but I could see she was on a roll.
“My sister thinks all my choices are questionable, my agent thinks I’m drinking a grief-and-perimenopause cocktail as a best-case scenario, and I’d rather watch other people experience things online than actually live a life. Even for a fling, I’m not the best bet because I might not be staying in?—”
I hooked a hand around her neck and pulled her in for a kiss before she could finish her sentence.
She moaned out a laugh, parting her lips greedily for mine. “Why do you keep interrupting me with your mouth?” she asked against my lips.
“Seemed like the right thing to do.” When she climbed on top of me, I groaned, grabbing her ass and grinding her against the hard ache of my erection. “Are you complaining? And what the hell is peri menopause?”
She wheezed out another chuckle while I bit her chin. “That’s your takeaway from everything I just said? I had to look it up after my doctor visit, but I wouldn’t recommend it for you.”
She rocked against me and my eyes rolled back in my head. Jesus, that felt good.
“Do you know how lucky you are to have a penis?”
“Feeling pretty lucky at the moment.”
“So am I.”
She pressed her forehead to mine and she kissed me again. Lightly. Teasingly. “You could be luckier. Are we going all the way tonight, or are you still playing hard to get?”
I flipped her under me, reveling in her gasp and the legs that instantly locked around my waist. “I don’t want you to regret it tomorrow.” I didn’t want her to regret me . “You know I have other ways to make you feel good, Gus. Nothing else has to happen tonight.”
“Yes, it does.” Her hand slipped between us and started struggling with the button of my jeans. “I love what we’ve been doing, but I want all of it, Wade. Everything with no regrets. Please. I need...”
Please. I need.
I didn’t have it in me to refuse her anymore. When her hand closed around my cock through my boxers, I knew I was done.