Fourteen
Nico didn’t see himself as any sort of a hero, but the memory of Valerie’s relief at being protected from the coyotes—however vastly misplaced—had made him feel almost high. It was the first thing he thought of when he woke.
Make that the second thing, because Valerie had tucked up against him in the night.
This was both good and potentially embarrassing if she woke up before he got control of himself.
She was warm, making it easy to mark every spot they were touching: Her breast pressed against his arm, her hand on his chest, and her knee hiked dangerously high onto his hip.
Valerie was so curvy that every part of her formed an appealing arc, except for that face, with its striking angularity.
Her physical self was a contradiction, the same way her desire to plan memorials was at odds with her sunny personality.
He hadn’t asked her about that or what was happening with Ad Astra.
Maybe today he would. There was something about the quiet, secluded bunkie that begged for confidences. And other things.
He should have worn thicker pants. More layers. A ski suit.
Valerie yawned and rolled to the other side of the bed, dragging the covers with her. Luckily, the shot of cool morning air was enough to help things along, and by the time she sat up, blinking, he could face her without shame or strategically placed pillows.
“I’m so sorry for last night,” she said. “I’m such a coward.”
Her pretty hair hung smoothly to her shoulders, black in the gloomy light, and her face was soft with sleep. It gave him a sudden rush. What would it be like to see her this way every day?
“It’s not a problem.” He winced as he grabbed his shoulder. Apparently not moving for several hours so he didn’t disturb Valerie had taken its toll.
She pointed at him. “I saw that. My massage therapist taught me how to sort out morning kinks and I refuse to have you damaged because of me.” She knelt in her thin men’s pajamas and a huge pair of black-and-white fuzzy socks. “Can I touch you?”
Could she touch him? How was that a question? He cleared his throat and did his best to keep his voice low and manly, rather than squeaky with anticipation. “Sure.”
“Then lie on your stomach. You might feel this.”
That was all the warning he got. Instead of the soft, tentative touch he expected, her hands came down on him like hammers.
“Oh my God,” he gasped out a minute later as he felt a muscle release from a knot that had been there so long he’d accepted it as permanent.
It was like being squeezed by a pair of vise grips.
He was in heaven.
Valerie being Valerie, she found no reason stay quiet while working. “Tell me about how you started your job with Roger,” she said as her fingers went deep enough to hit an organ. It felt extraordinary.
His face was buried in a pillow that smelled like her, and he did his best to keep his hips still. Please let her not straddle him. He didn’t know what he’d do if those full thighs gripped him tight.
“Nico?”
He found his voice. “I started at the Bread Company right after university.”
“What’s your degree in?”
Nico had become used to these side quests in their conversations, and it didn’t bother him.
He was grateful to have something to focus on besides her hands and the soft bed and what he wanted to do to her and what he wanted her to do to him under the covers.
“Business admin, and I worked in the accounts payable department. It was easy enough, but not what I was looking for.”
“Was your goal to be Roger’s executive assistant?” Valerie leaned over and Nico paused to appreciate the sensation of her soft breath on his neck. His entire body was suffused by endorphins and this made him reckless with his secrets.
“I wanted to get into workflow management and thought I’d have a better chance at understanding the big picture working directly with Roger.”
Stefanie always said it was no surprise that someone boring enough to organize his socks would be into making endless checklists.
Although she had no idea what she was talking about, years of this kind of thing had made him wary about people’s responses.
He’d never told Madison, although she’d always said he should aim higher than being a mere assistant.
Valerie only hummed with interest. “I don’t know what that is,” she said as she attacked his rotator cuff. “Can you tell me?”
He relaxed slightly, but wasn’t sure if it was from her reaction or the way she was wiggling some tiny muscle that seemed to anchor his entire shoulder.
“It’s mostly analyzing and managing a process to create the best and most effective method,” he said.
“Then recording the steps so nothing gets missed and it can be replicated with the same result.”
“So, if someone gets a new job, you make a list of the stuff that needs to happen before they start and give it to all the managers?” She spoke with the bitterness of a person who had arrived on their first day to nothing ready and the feeling of not being wanted.
Nico waited for her to release the grip on his neck. “Exactly.”
“Why do you like it?”
“I like things to be logical and well ordered,” he said. “Good workflows mean people don’t waste their time or energy.”
“I love this,” said Valerie. Her fingers dug in with her enthusiasm. “Do you get to do this in your work with Roger?”
“No, but a job came up at a different company that looks interesting,” he said, thinking of Gia’s email. He hadn’t told anyone he was considering leaving, but it was easy to tell Valerie.
“What’s stopping you?”
“I’m needed here.”
“You could apply just to see. You don’t have to take it.”
Just to see. That wasn’t usually how he ran his life. He looked for certainty. Stability. “I’m here for the summer, anyway.”
“It might be good to have a change that you want. You’ve been with Roger for a while, haven’t you?”
Her tone was merely inquisitive, but it sounded like she was echoing Madison’s accusations of being stuck. “How about you?” he asked to change the topic. “Why did you go from weddings to memorials?”
“Would you believe me if I said it was an untapped market?”
He thought. “You have the entrepreneurial smarts to take advantage of that,” he said.
“Aw, you charmer.”
“It’s more, though.”
She worked on his lower back for a minute and he tensed in anticipation that she might go further down.
She did not, to his relief and chagrin. “It is, a bit. I loved working with Ruth, but then I went to the memorial of a friend’s grandmother.
She was worried she wasn’t giving her grandma’s memory the effort it deserved, because all she wanted to do was hide away and cry. ”
He wanted to see her face, but she had him pinned with iron fingers. “Did you want to do full funeral planning?”
“I never wanted to be a funeral director or deal with questions about embalming or cremation and casket costs,” she said.
“I see my role as providing people with a final way to send off their loved ones and helping them celebrate their memories instead of dwelling in the grief.” She paused.
“It’s a beautiful way to help people in need that I didn’t feel planning weddings. ”
“I can see that.”
“There was one client whose mother had always wanted to learn to surf,” she said.
He could tell she was smiling. “It was one of her biggest regrets that she never did. We had the celebration of life in a surf workout studio that used stationary boards so guests could learn a few moves out of the water. The family loved it, and it made them feel like they were living one of her dreams.”
“That’s incredible.” He never would have thought of that. “What’s going on with Ad Astra now?” She must be dealing with it on the rare occasions they were apart, because he never saw her working. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“I’m still thinking about it.” Was that extra pressure on his neck a warning, a subconscious stress gesture, or sheer coincidence? “Alexis wants to partner with me and turn Ad Astra into a bachelorette planning company.”
“Is that a thing?” He had a distant memory of Stefanie’s bachelorette years ago. Kimmy had gotten the bridesmaids matching shirts and they’d gone for dinner and to a bowling alley. He didn’t recall it requiring intensive scheduling.
“It could be. I worked with a bride who dumped her maid of honor because the woman booked them first-class flights instead of chartering a private plane to Sifnos. Lots of people would prefer to pay to have a proxy yelled at instead of themselves.”
“Is that something you want to do?” Surely she had left the wedding industry for a reason, and this seemed like diving back in.
She made a noise halfway between a raspberry and a groan. “Well, you saw the aftermath of my last event. Penny told half the city how bad my company did, and the other half saw it online for themselves.”
This was true and there was no point trying to tell her it wasn’t. Most small businesses existed on a knife edge, and reputation could tip the blade. “Roger said he would help.”
“After what happened, I owe him, not the other way around. It is what it is. My mother always points out that I give up everything I start. Like quitting a good job with Ruth.”
The pillow moved under his face as he frowned. “I thought you left to start your own company.”
“In other words, I quit. The reason is irrelevant to her, only that I did.” Valerie pressed down. “There. I think we’re done here.”
She ended the conversation with a feathery brushing of her fingertips across his shoulders that would have made him shiver, had his muscles not been so lax he could barely move.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so physically content, although he was concerned about her attitude toward Ad Astra.
Giving up on something she loved didn’t seem like Valerie, but how well did he know her, really? Perhaps her mother was right.
However, even if that were true, it seemed less than supportive to point it out to your child.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
He kept his answer safe. “You might have added another inch to my height.”
“Anytime. I took a few shiatsu classes as well,” she said. “It’s nice to be able to fix people, don’t you think?”
He turned to look at her, feeling his neck fully rotate for the first time in years. “I do.”
She was lovely in the dim bunkie, and Nico wished he could run his hands over her as she’d done to him and make her feel the same kind of peace. Then she moved and the moment whispered away from him. He would have braved a thousand coyotes to get it back.