Chapter 8 Eagle #2
I clear my throat and realize I have no idea why I’m here.
I don’t know what I expect. Lacey and I have never hung out.
Other than what I felt and tasted fucking around in the restroom last night, I have no intimate or personal knowledge of this woman.
I didn’t know she lived with her mother.
Although, as I scan the place, I see huge dog toys scattered around the floor and a dog bed in one corner that looks big enough for me to lie down on.
“Dog?” I ask, nodding toward the bed.
She sniffles and nods. “German shepherd. She’s a huge, lovable furball, but she’s very protective of my mom and me.”
I nod, liking the sound of that. I haven’t even met her mom, but seeing this house and this neighborhood, I find it hard not to feel protective of these women.
It’s not a bad neighborhood by any means, but it’s clearly working-class, nicer than the area I grew up in, but still.
Two women alone brings out the instinct in me, and I’m glad they have a dog around.
“Inside with your ma?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I boarded her with a really great day care place for the weekend. My mom works almost every weekend on the early shift. When I have a three-day event—” she lowers her eyes “—like this one, Ruby would be alone too long otherwise.”
“Ruby?” I ask, curious about the name. “Why Ruby?”
Lacey blushes and purses her lips. “It’s my favorite stone. I always thought growing up that the prettiest engagement rings were rubies. I never understood why people liked diamonds when you could have a gorgeous red ruby. So, Ruby.”
“Makes sense,” I say. It occurs to me that she really wasn’t kidding about the Lantana being her dream job. If she had strong opinions about engagement rings as a kid, she’s probably been wedding-obsessed for a long time. “Better name than my dog had,” I say.
I hate telling people about my childhood, but the mood is already low enough, and maybe, just maybe, the story about my dad’s dog will give her a laugh.
“You have a dog?” she asks, brightening.
I shake my head. “Nah. I live in the compound, and it’s not a pet-friendly kind of place.” Although, it could be, seeing as half the time we’ve got kids and toys where we once had pool tables, half-naked women, and full kegs.
I shrug off my jacket, and Lacey takes it and hangs it carefully over the back of one of the chairs by the table.
“So, growing up, my old man fixed cars—or at least, that’s what he called it.
One morning, he found a dog hiding under the wheel of some broken-down junker.
” I shake my head, thinking about it. “My old man spotted it and called out, ‘Well, ain’t you sexy.’” I chuckle a little bit at the memory.
“My ma hated it. Pops brought that dog inside, and until the day it died, he called that poor fucker Sexy. Whenever my mom pissed him off, my pops would yell, ‘Come on, Sexy. Give Daddy a kiss.’” I shake my head.
It was gross and ridiculous, just like my dad.
“Ma especially hated when he’d fight with her, because then he’d really pour it on. ”
A smile finally spreads across Lacey’s face. I smirk and tell her, “And the funniest part was the dog was a boy. Dad tortured Ma by smooching and loving on his ‘sexy boy.’” I roll my eyes. “No shade to dudes into dudes. Love is love and all that shit, but Dad just did it to fuck with her.”
Lacey looks me over, and a small giggle slips past her lips. Then she covers her mouth and starts cracking up. “I don’t know what’s funnier, hearing you say ‘dudes into dudes’ or imagining your dad asking Sexy for kisses.”
She’s laughing harder now, but it’s not like she’s finding my stories all that funny.
It’s like something releases inside her, and she laughs and laughs until suddenly something shifts and she’s sobbing, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Her shoulders shake, and she lowers her head, crying into her hands.
“Oh fuck. Lacey…” I go to her and hold her again, this time pressing her soft body hard against mine. I feel the shudders of her chest, the sadness that tightens her back and weakens her knees. Her weight is fully against me, and she’s clutching me like she never wants to let go.
I stroke her hair and just let her cry. I can’t say I’ve comforted a lot of women in the past. I’m more the cut-and-run type, but this is different.
Lacey is different. I’ve never had to hold someone through some kind of wrong being done to them.
I’m usually facing off against someone who’s done me wrong.
Or who I’ve screwed over—either accidentally or on purpose.
There’s no judgment here. Nothing I did wrong here, nothing to feel bad about.
Except, of course, that Lacey is hurting.
But somehow her pain makes me want to come closer.
I want to do what I can to ease this for her, even if all I can do is let her drench the front of my Tom fucking Ford shirt with tears.
I chuckle when I realize she’s using a dress shirt that probably costs more than a month’s mortgage payment on this place as a tissue.
She lifts her head and peers at me through wet lashes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This is bullshit. I shouldn’t be taking all this out on you.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. “I was just wondering how many of those six Gs this shirt cost those fuckers.”
Lacey gasps and wipes her face dry with her hands. She sniffles. “Eagle, that shirt… I Googled it after the tailor left.”
I hold up a hand. “I don’t even want to know.”
She looks at me then, her face red and puffy from crying, her sleep shirt wrinkled and damp from tears. “Eagle.” She whispers my name. “Why did you come here tonight? After what I did last night…”
I shake my head. I don’t know why I came here. I don’t know what I want to admit. I may never be good enough for a woman like Lacey.
I take a step back from her. The urge to be honest, to touch her, to tell her I don’t know what I want but I’m drawn to her like a kid’s drawn to candy. I feel stupid. I don’t know what to say. I sure as fuck can’t tell her the truth.
“I can go. I just wanted to—”
“Don’t,” she says, stepping close to me.
Her nipples are hard again, and her eyes are blazing with intensity.
The tears are gone, and she’s licking her lips, bare of that siren-red lipstick.
She’s as raw as a person can be, and she’s looking at me with an honesty that makes me feel exposed. “I want you here. I want you to stay.”
I shove my hands into my overpriced pockets, not knowing what to say or do.
“I brought beer and pizza. I thought you might be hungry. You want some?”
“I want you,” she says. “Just you. I don’t care if it’s complicated. I don’t care about tomorrow and my job. Tonight…I just want you.”
For a second, my guts tighten into knots.
She doesn’t care about tomorrow, and somehow that stings.
I want her to want more from me than just one night.
I want to be the kind of guy that she can picture a future with.
I want to be enough for this woman, this woman who, for the last two years, I’ve watched work and dance, laugh, and kick some serious ass when it was called for.
And now, she’s offering me a part of her. She’s offering me tonight.
I could hold out for more, but I’m not that guy. I know tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, and it sure as hell isn’t promised to guys like me.
I shut down my brain and kick my heart to the goddamn curb. She’s offering me tonight, and that’s more than I even deserve.