31. Chloe
thirty-one
Justin doesn’t comment on my somewhat lengthy description of the restaurant staff, and I think I know what he’s thinking.
That I owe him three months’ worth of rent.
I still wonder why Lynn said what she said to me at dinner the other night. All those questions about closing down. There’s no smoke without a fire. And her questions were super specific. These types of questions don’t pop up without something to fuel them.
“About the rent…” I start. We need to have this conversation. “We really need to talk about it.”
He flips his blinker and pulls into a parking lot next to a warehouse. Ignores my question, opens his door, opens Moose’s door. A guy comes out of nowhere, they do the backslapping thing and move to the bed of his truck.
Oh well. I slide out of my seat and stretch my legs. It’s getting very dark now, not quite night yet. The sky is a deep blue, the new moon a slim sliver casting no light. Its delicate shape reminds me of a print in my childhood bedroom, of a girl sitting on the moon, the stars all around her. I wonder what became of that print, and stupidly my heart clenches. What became of all the dreams I had, growing up?
Time to be adulting, Chloe. Life is tough, and then you die. Deal with it.
“Ready?” Justin asks after he’s dealt with the guy and the equipment, and I’ve had my little dreaming awake session. “Let’s have a burger before we head back. I know the best place in the state.”
“Best burgers in the state? Coming from you, must mean something.”
We drive down a small road and park next to a red barn-like building. The Mighty Burger—that’s the name of the place—delivers on all fronts. Rustic, mismatched tables and chairs, menus in neat handwriting on massive blackboards above the ordering station, a huge selection of draft beers—mostly local—and merchandise. And the burgers! My god the burgers. Now that’s a brand. “Wish I could do something like that with the restaurant,” I mumble between two bites, really talking to myself.
“You want to turn Kevin’s Fine Dining into a burger joint?” Justin teases.
“Branding. Everything here is on point.” I take another bite and wipe the sauce dripping down my chin. “Need to entirely rethink the restaurant placement in the market.” Justin is not saying anything. He’s glancing at me like he’s waiting for me to say more. Almost like he’s afraid of what he’s going to hear.
I really do need to get to the bottom of what his mom said. I interrupted him earlier, when he brought up what Lynn asked me, because I was afraid of what he was going to say. Afraid to hear something I wasn’t ready to hear.
I’d been let go almost two months ago. And yeah, I took this job to help my family but not without the understanding that success here would help my resume.
Then the chef gave me a tough time from the beginning.
And now I have to convince my own family to trust me.
Last thing I need is the landlord telling me he’s pulling the plug.
But if that’s what he’s going to do, then I do need to know.
The sooner the better.
“About the late rent. And what your mom said. We need to talk.”
He plops a French fry in his mouth and says, “Why?”
Um. Why? “I need to know what… your intentions are. If you’re willing to work with us. And if you would—”
“Us?”
“Yeah. The restaurant.”
He wipes his hands on a paper napkin, tosses it in his empty French fries container, moves the container to the side. “Us.” His gaze bores into mine, then drips down to my lips. Us. We’d played with that word, with that idea, during our time away from time. He remembers. He knows I’m thinking about that too. Yeah, we should talk about that too.
“I’m willing to work with you, Chloe.”
“Okay, yeah. Um.” What’s the difference, at the end of the day?
“I don’t trust Samuel. I certainly didn’t trust Murphy. And I do not trust his widow or his family. Only person I trust is you.”
“Why?”
His only answer is a frown.
“Why do you trust me? I’ve never run a restaurant before,” I insist.
“You understand business concepts. You understand food. You have great taste. You’re smart. You have motivation. And most of all,” he pauses, his gaze trailing down to my mouth, then up to my eyes, making me feel all sorts of mushy and warm and forgetting the conversation to focus on what might come next (his hand tucking a wild hair behind my ear? His fingers lacing with mine? His head leaning over the table to take my mouth?), “most of all, we’re friends.”
Friends?
Friends?!
Is that supposed to be a good thing? He says it like it is, handsome smile and all. Then why is my belly clenching, threatening to send back my burger? I don’t want to be just friends with awesome, sexy, kind Justin. Justin who’s hiding more than burn marks under his tattoos. Justin who does so much for his community and so little for himself.
Justin who told me himself, ages ago, in an elevator, that he could never be just friends with me.
What happened?
He’s a rebound, sister.
I know, I know. But I also know how his hands feel on me, how his mouth feels on me, how awesome his kisses are and the way he grumbles against my skin and how it sends shivers down my spine and all the way to my core. I know the effect his mere scent has on me, and I’ve been basking in it for hours now.
Can I get more?
Just a little more.
Just another round of rebound.
That has to be a thing, right? My core feels heated and bothered at that thought.
Time to regroup and reframe. “Um, okay so, when can we talk about the rent?” Okay. Better. Breathing back in control. Topic back on work. Friends. Gotcha. “Just you and me.” I wave my hand between us. “That us.”
He winces. Ouch. That’s not a friend thing to say. That was a Boston thing.
Yeah, well, Boston happened to me, too, and if he doesn’t like it, I do. In case he didn’t notice, I’m not letting him forget that.
Besides, he’s probably going to make sure I am out of a job pronto, so who cares.
He unfolds his long, strong, fantastic body, standing and towering over me. Grabs our dirty dishes. Sorts trash from recycling and tosses them in the recycling and trash thingies they have next to the door as I follow him. Then he goes out to the truck and to the passenger door and opens it for me. “Moose, out,” he says as he holds the door and helps me up with a hand lightly on my elbow.
Yum.
Once I’m seated and our eyes are level, he pulls the seatbelt out and hands it to me. “I said I trusted you, Chloe. You’ll figure it out. We don’t need to talk about the rent.”
His eyes drop to the slit of my dress mid-thigh as I pull the seatbelt across me, then zip back up to meet mine. “Oh, okay,” I breathe. “Thank you.” I guess?
He pours water from his bottle into a metal container for Moose, then shuts my door while Moose runs around to get back in from Justin’s side. Then he gets in his seat and starts the engine.
And I start cranking numbers and timelines in my head. I don’t know what his expectations are. I just know I need to beat them.
We’re back on the road we took on the way down, but now it’s pitch dark. My thoughts are reeling with what he said, with everything it means. For the business. For me.
It’s a lot to think about. I had a beer, Justin did not. It’s been a long day, and without the entertainment of the beautiful landscape since it’s now pitch dark, my eyelids are heavy.
Justin took a shortcut, same as on the way down. It’s a small country road, and sometimes instead of following the curve of it, he just keeps going straight on a dirt road that goes up and down hills and eventually rejoins the larger, hard-packed road we were on. It lolls right and left, up and down. It’s perfect.
At some point we lose decent radio signal, and it’s crackling so much, I turn it off. Out of habit, I check my phone—zero bars. Not that I could use my playlists by connecting to Justin’s truck anyway. It might be in excellent repair, but it’s from a previous generation. Moose is dead to the world, his huge body filling the back seat.
The purr of the engine is our only soundtrack.
Justin’s scent envelops me, and I take a deep breath.
“You okay?” he says, glancing at me.
“I’m great,” I answer sleepily as I close my eyes and tuck myself deeper in the seat. I feel his gaze lingering on me, my skin reacting with tiny pleasure goosebumps until I drift off to sleep.
And then a loud grind fills the air. I peel my eyes open. We’re climbing a hill, and the noise becomes louder. “Everything all right?” I ask the universally stupid question when you know something’s wrong—you just don’t know what.
Justin frowns and cusses as the truck slows, seeming to struggle getting up the hill. He pulls to the side, on an open and somewhat flat field, just as the truck stops.
He turns the key in the ignition. The engine cranks, and I hear the sound of something spinning. But nothing else happens. “Fuck.” He pops the hood open, reaches over for a flashlight in the glove compartment, and slides out of the truck.
I come out and hold the flashlight for him and watch him check levels and wiggle wires. Then he goes to the back of his truck and pulls out things and changes things and wiggles things. Asks me to get behind the wheel and start the engine. Wheeze, nothing.
He does more mysterious things.
I turn the key again.
Wheeze, nothing.
After maybe half an hour of this, he wipes his hands on his jeans and says, “Ever slept under the stars?”
I do a little happy jump that he doesn’t see while he closes the hood.
Minutes later we’re on our backs in the truck bed, Moose at our feet, some moving blankets spread under us, an old jacket of Justin’s spread over us. Justin took care of setting up the truck’s flatbed while I did my business in the field, and that’s where we’re spending the night. We both have our hands under our heads for support, looking at the stars.
“Best night of my life,” I whisper. The flatbed is hard and cold, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
Justin grunts and I laugh softly. He doesn’t bring Boston up, though.
“Best night of my real life,” I whisper again, and I feel him shift next to me, his side against my side, warming me. I want him to reach his arm around my shoulders, but he doesn’t, and I don’t dare move.
Friends. Get that in your head, Chloe.
But I tilt my head when I say, “Night,” and catch him looking down at me.
“Night,” he says back, and we roll our heads back to face the stars but neither of us close our eyes.
It’s too beautiful. A myriad of constellations, the thin moon in a corner, the deep dark sky behind it like the velvet pillow to so many diamonds. The air is cool and fragrant, animals ruffling and owls tooting and Everything. Is. So. Perfect.
I drift asleep knowing I had that in my life, and it’s more than most people can say.
I startle awake to the sound of Moose growling. My back is cool, but my front is warm, my cheek against something soft and that smells awesome. I blink my eyes open just as my arm is being lifted slowly, softly. “Baby,” Justin’s low voice rumbles inside me.
Oh good. I’m dreaming. Yummy dream. I shut my eyes tightly. Where was I? Justin calling me baby. Mmm. My thigh over his hard, warm body. My head over his—
“Clover, baby, gotta move you. Don’t be scared, alright?”
Moose growls louder.
I push up and realize I’m tangled over Justin and it was So. Good. “Oh, sorry, sorry,” I say and retreat.
“Clo, listen to me. Don’t freak out. I’m gonna grab the rifle behind our heads, okay.”
I sit up. “Whaaaat?” I shriek, immediately clasping my hand on my mouth. “Why?” I say, the word muffled behind my hand.
He grabs from the long box behind our heads that I thought held only his tools but turns out, it also holds a big-ass rifle that gleams eerily in the night. “There’s a bear, sweetie. Don’t freak out.”
My hands clench in fists, my body tightens, and the most feral, primal, loud scream escapes me. “Aaaaahh!” It comes from way inside, from somewhere I didn’t know existed. It goes on and on until I’m out of breath, and then it stops, and my eyes bug out of their sockets. My whole body is so tight, it shakes, ready to snap.
The forest goes silent. No more owls. Nothing but a scuttle fast disappearing, far, very far.
“Fuck was that, Chloe?”
No more “baby or sweetie,” I guess. Oh well, that had to happen.
“Is it gone?” I ask, my voice coarse.
Justin scoots away from me, kneels, and arms his rifle. “Looks like it. But just to be sure,” he adds and shoots up in the air.
“Ouch! That was loud!” I plop my hands on my ears. Moose whines and tucks his head between his paws.
“That was loud? Babe, did you hear yourself?”
Babe?Hmmm.
“You were going to kill a bear. I had to do something.”
He opens his rifle and removes the casing. “I wasn’t going to kill it. Just scare it away.”
“Scare it how?”
He chuckles. “With the sound of the gunshot. You beat me to it.”
Oh. “Are we safe?” I bring my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
“Oh yeah. That bear’s not coming back. Plus, they’re harmless.” He stashes his rifle back into the box and snatches it shut.
They’re harmless? “Um… are you sure? It’s a bear.”
“Yeah, little black bear.” He pats the space next to him.
“Still. A bear!”
“Bears around here don’t attack humans. Not unless it’s a mama bear and you’re messing with her cubs.”
“So why did it come here?”
He considers me for a beat. “Probably looking for food.”
“But we don’t have food! Ergo, we are the food.”
“You might have a point there,” he says playfully.
Playfully! “Are you serious?” My eyes dart all around us, as if a bear was waiting to lunge at us.
“They have a strong sense of smell.”
“And? We don’t have food.”
“And… you’re a messy eater.”
“What?” I say on an exhale, remembering how juicy the burger was and how I licked my fingers and washed my hands before but not after dinner.
“Probably smelled that burger on you,” he continues.
What?
He chuckles. Again.
I speak between clenched teeth. “Just what I said. We are the food.”
“Not what you said.” And in the night, I can make out his smile, the white of his teeth.
“I said, We are the food.”
“You said, ‘Ergo, we are the food’.”
“So? It means—”
He links his hands behind his nape. “I know what it means, I just think it’s cute how you use it when you’re riled up.”
I huff and slide to Moose, giving him a pet on the head. He exhales loudly and stretches out on his side, ready to resume his night.
“We can sleep inside the cab, if you’re scared,” Justin says. He’s sitting upright on the blanket, his legs outstretched in front of him.
“Should we?”
His voice dips down. “Only if it makes you feel safer.”
My insides melt at his concerned tone, my temporary annoyance gone. I’m not going to deny the fact that everything now brings me back to Boston. The fact that we’re stranded in the night. The fact that he’s taking care of me.
Taking care of my fears.
My gaze darts between the cab and the flatbed. “I like it better here.”
He moves so he’s lying on his back. “Come on,” he says, patting that space right next to him. “I wanna get a little sleep.” His voice is gravelly and soft at the same time. He smooths the blanket out for me and leaves his arm extended.
Not wanting to make assumptions, I lie on my back, farther down, my head on my folded arms and not where it wants to be—on his arm. “You didn’t get any sleep?” I ask, my eyes safely fixed on the stars.
I feel his body turn toward me. “Nope.”
“Because of the bears?”
“Nope.”
“Then why?”
His voice dips. “Because of you.” His arm nudges closer to the top of my head, his bent elbow nesting me to him.
My heartbeat is at its max. Surely he can hear it. I continue to resist looking at him, again not wanting to make assumptions. “Do I snore?” I snap.
His soft chuckle is the only response.
“Ohmygod, I snore.” Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?
“You don’t snore.”
Good. Then back to his answer—‘because of you.’
“I was looking at you sleep. You never gave me your peaceful sleep, so I took it.”
My head whips to him, my breathing labors, and my throat clenches. “I never… what?” I wet my lips.
“I held you while you slept in the elevator. You were tense.” He trails the space between my eyebrows. For a moment, I feel like he might bring his finger to my lips, but he retreats and adds, “Then after we made love in the bedroom, I fell asleep and woke up to a cold and empty bed. Never got to see you sleep peacefully.”
Is he seriously bringing up making love? Not having sex, not fucking, not doing it. No, he says ‘making love’ and he says it with reverence, after he told me we’re just friends. How am I supposed to deal with this?
Going with attack as the best defense, I answer, “Is this some kind of fetish? Like, do you have a list of things you need to check off during your one-night stands?”
In the softening glow of predawn, his eyes register hurt, and his head jerks back a bit. Then he softens and says, “You’re beautiful when you sleep, Clover. I knew you would be. But then I saw it last night, and I couldn’t get enough of it.” His eyes roam my face, pausing on my lips. His arm that was behind my head closes in on me, trailing down my side, his fingers playing against my ribs. “And just so you know, you weren’t one of my one-night stands.”
Now it’s my head that jerks back, caught immediately in the nook of his warm, hard arm as he clenches around me, bringing me closer to him. “You were not.” He dips his head closer to mine, our foreheads almost touching, and his voice lowers to a murmur. “You were so much more than that. That’s why I was so pissed when I found you’d left without saying goodbye. And why I was still pissed a week later, when you came into my pub to bust my balls about the…” his lips get close to mine, “fucking…” his tongue darts out, “rent.” He’s moved his body over mine, not touching but almost, one arm cushioning my head, the other holding himself slightly up so he’s not crushing me. The stars behind him pale, dawn peeking to our right, his intoxicating scent mellowing me to the core. All I see is his face over mine, the sky, and the stars behind him, and I want this moment to last forever.
Then my hand shoots to his nape, and he dips down and takes my mouth in his, and I want this moment to last forever. His eyes shut, and his forehead creases, and his mouth explores mine, a slow, lush, erotic melding of tongues swirling and lips and teeth nibbling. He angles his head the other side, his kiss deepens, and I meet him stroke for stroke as his body brushes against mine. Leaving my mouth, he trails down to my neck, kissing and licking the soft skin from my ear down to my shoulder, then back up, his hands, all the while, behind my head holding me up to him. “Fuck, Clover, I missed you, baby,” he growls in my neck. “Missed you so much it drove me crazy.”
I hook a leg behind him, pulling him closer. “Justin…”
He lifts his head to meet my gaze, and again I see hope and pain and desperation.
“I’m right here, honey. Right here with you.”
He doesn’t say anything, just kisses my forehead, his lips there for a beat, his breathing deep while I rake my hands on his back, the feel of his muscles enough to make me shiver.
Then he takes my mouth again, his kiss so hot I whimper and press myself deeper against him.
He runs his hand against my naked thigh, his erection presses against my belly, then he trails under my dress up to my panties, up to my bra. Breaking the kiss, he lifts himself off me just enough to look at my body with hooded eyes. Then he brings the hem of my dress up my thighs until it bunches around my hips and runs a finger under my red lace panties. “You been wearing these since yesterday?” he growls.
“Y-yes.”
“Fucking hell, Clover. When were you going to tell me?”
“W-what?”
“You had to know that dress drove me crazy, but, baby, if I’d known about this…” He pushes the panties aside so he can plunge a finger inside me. “Shit, you’re so wet. So fucking wet for me. I wanna see you come.”
I could come just from the sound of his voice, from his scent, from the way he looks at me, like I’m so precious he can’t believe it, like I’m the sexiest woman he’s ever seen. “Come for me, baby, show me again how beautiful you are when you come on my fingers.”
A low wail emanates from me, and I clench my lips.
“Let it out, baby, it’s just you and me. Show me how loud you are for me.”
My body trembles, my orgasm shaking me, and I let it out, a long cry that swells and heaves out of my control, like I’m possessed. I’ve been so close for so long, being with him all this time, my release is both a relief and a disappointment. I want more. As I come down from it, I look at the beautiful man looking at me, and I wonder how it is that I’m so lucky. Then I wonder how I can protect my heart so it doesn’t shatter into pieces.
“Where’d your mind go?” Justin says, peppering kisses on my cheekbones, my temple, my head, my eyes.
One-night stand rebound was safe. Pining for Justin who I thought kinda sorta hated me for a minute (maybe not that much) was safe. This is anything but safe. “I’m scared,” I admit in a whisper.
He blinks several times. “Then we can be scared together,” he growls and takes my mouth in his, puts his hands all over me, lifts me and sets me against him, laying me face down against his hard chest. His strong arms close around me, his warm hands roaming up and down my frame until one settles under my butt and the other across my shoulder blades. I close my eyes to the sound of his heartbeat and the forest waking up.
Then Moose lets out a deep sigh, and we both laugh.