Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Zander
Addie is mesmerizing.
The sun beams down on her, like its sole purpose is to spotlight her.
Her hair shines a brilliant orange and her freckles are out in full force, across her cheeks, over her shoulders, dipping beneath the neckline of her V-neck T-shirt.
Even her wireframed glasses, glinting in the light, undo me.
I could stare at her all day and find something new to obsess over.
She’s sunshine personified.
She’s also a massive distraction and I should not even be attempting to write in her vicinity.
All my brain can muster are compliments about her.
I’ve slipped them over to her, sticking them to her keyboard or thighs, on bright yellow sticky notes she brought with her.
My laptop screen remains blank. The cursor blinks ominously. It’s mocking me.
It says Zander, you’re done for.
Zander, look at the slight upturn of her nose. She’s a whimsical elf.
Zander, you haven’t said it yet, but you love her.
Zander, it’s a little bit insane you’ve known her less than a month but have never felt so strongly about anyone.
Zander, remember that tattoo on her thigh? Remember her breasts as she bounced above you? Remember her coming undone for the first time on your dick?
Okay, so I’m in over my head.
Fuck.
Addie looks up from her laptop, balanced on her beautiful, smooth thighs, and catches me staring. A flush forms across her cheeks and all I can think of is the last time I saw her like that. Her above me, her chest and cheeks rosy and hot.
Stop it. I cannot get an erection in the park.
“What?” Addie asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say, then, “You’re beautiful.”
“This is so not productive for my word count.”
“No, unfortunately not.”
“I mean, it is and it isn’t. I’m not getting down what I want to, but I am writing a pretty hot sex scene. Problem is, I don’t think my readers really expect that from me. All my previous sex has been more implied than anything, as is the way of historical fiction.”
I laugh, then drag a hand over my face. “I’m so glad we’re in the same boat.”
“I’d love to see you write a sex scene. Mr. Tell Me Everything You Need would respect the hell out of fictional women. I could see you writing some hot stuff based on everything you said to me.”
I groan. “Addie, we’re in public.”
“Oh,” she says, eyeing my suddenly very tight shorts. “Are you having an issue?”
The way she bites her bottom lip kills me. It does not help my shorts situation in the slightest. In fact, it makes it worse.
I close my eyes and think about anything other than her.
I think about lifting weights and woodworking in Gran’s backyard.
I think about my drab apartment…but then the pieces of Addie in my apartment filter into my memory.
The flowers she grew for me, the birthday socks I chose to wear today, the disco ball trinket she gave me for my car.
Her.
“I’m having an issue, yes.” I sigh and move my laptop from my thighs, straighten my legs. There’s a noticeable bulge forming. “It is illicit how good you look and you’re not even trying. You’re just in a T-shirt. How do you make that look majestic?”
She shrugs. “Probably because I wore your favourite bra.”
I take this as permission to unabashedly stare at her chest. I note the pink straps of the bra she switched into after the rain. Sure enough, her nipples are peaked beneath the fabric. My dick throbs.
“Fuck, Addie, what’re you trying to do to me?”
She giggles and grins. She’s a fucking vision.
I want to bend her over the railing of the gazebo we’re sitting in and pound the shit out of her.
Unfortunately, it’s mid-afternoon, school’s out, and the children of Beaver Creek are frolicking through the park.
I can’t risk getting caught, not with my record.
This is the thing that sobers me. And maybe it would if I didn’t have the history I do. Maybe it wouldn’t. I’ll never know. But my shoulders slump and gloomy Zander takes over.
Damn him. I haven’t missed him.
Addie clocks it immediately and scoots over. She closes her laptop and slips it into a tote bag she always has with her, then moves my laptop so she can stretch her legs out next to mine. Her head rests on my shoulder.
“Where’d you go there?” she asks, her tone low and light, a change from our teasing just moments before.
“You don’t want to know,” I say with a sad, breathy laugh.
“I do, though,” she says and grabs hold of my hand. She folds her fingers around mine and I brush my thumb against her palm. “I always do.”
“I was just thinking about how I’d like to do unspeakable things to you in this gazebo and—”
“And that made you sad?”
“Not in the slightest. I just started thinking about how there are things I can’t do. Can’t risk. Like, public sex. Maybe that would be hot and tempting for a lot of people. I know that’s a big fantasy, right?”
“I mean, not necessarily my fantasy.”
“Necessarily?”
“I dunno. One of my fantasies was a man actually giving me an orgasm and you kind of did that multiple times, so now I need to think of a new fantasy. I should avoid public stuff?”
I chuckle, kiss her crown. “I guess it depends how public. This could get me thrown back in jail, probably with a sex offender charge. The backyard, though, would likely be fine.”
“I do have a backyard at my disposal. What about your apartment balcony?”
“Hmm, risky, but probably doable.”
Addie’s quiet for a moment. She plays with the floral fabric hem she’s added to her jean shorts.
“Is this something you think about often?” she asks, like she isn’t quite sure she should.
“About doing you in public places?”
She lets loose a glorious cackle, then covers her mouth. The sound echoes off the pointed roof of the gazebo.
“No, about what you can and can’t do.”
I stare out the entrance. Lucy lazes on the stairs, muzzle resting on the top step, watching us.
Her tail thumps against the stair rail as she notices me looking over.
I wiggle my fingers at her in a wave, but she doesn’t move.
My unofficial therapy dog has taken a vacation since Addie walked into my life.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sometimes I worry about it, but most of the time it doesn’t really cross my mind until I’m in a situation where something can’t happen. My agent had a kid last year. Twins, actually. They’re so sweet. Blond curls and big blue eyes. I went home and sobbed after I met them.”
“Oh, Zander,” she whispers.
“I felt stupid later, but I just…in that moment, I suddenly realized I’m not sure what would happen if I had kids. I knew people in prison who had their kids taken away after they’d been sentenced. And, I don’t know, maybe that was warranted for some, but for me?”
“Do you want kids?”
I glance over at my dog again. Part of me never thought I would be capable of raising anything, given how I grew up.
When Gran got me Lucy years ago, she handed me a tiny, floppy puppy who instantly settled in my arms. I knew in that moment I would do anything for that dog.
And I have. I’ve treated her better than my parents ever treated me.
“It scares me to admit I do. I have no role models to fall back on and ask how to raise a child. I’m so disconnected from my parents that I changed my last name to Gran’s.
Lucy makes me believe I’m capable, but I know animals are different from human babies.
What if I find out the hard way I can’t do it? ”
Addie smacks her lips and calls for Lucy. Lucy bounds up the final step and trots over to the two of us. She licks Addie’s hand, then hops onto my legs and begins slobbering all over my face. Addie shoots a grin my way.
“I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. I’ve seen how you treat Lucy and interact with the kids in town when they see her. You’re nurturing. You care deeply. You’d make a great dad.”
Lucy settles between us, nudging her cold nose against my elbow. I disentangle my hand from Addie’s and bury it in Lucy’s fur. Addie does the same, and our hands meet in the middle. I take a deep breath and try to accept Addie’s judgement of me.
She’d make a fantastic mother. I would hate to stand in the way of that. I shake out my hair, letting a few wayward strands fall into my eyeline, and tell her yet another of my worries.
“When my publisher wanted to do a book tour for my memoir, I had to figure out laws surrounding travel and criminal convictions. I guess I hadn’t realized how complicated all that can be.”
“Were you able to do it?”
“Yeah, I was on Good Morning America talking about…everything. I also went to London for a stop. It might be easier now, since I’m further out from sentencing and parole. I don’t know. It makes me queasy thinking about it now.”
“It’s cool. We can just travel Canada until you’re brave enough to tackle it again. Lots to see here.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Nova Scotia.”
“Oh, yeah? Peggy never took you?”
My stomach flips. The fact she remembers something I told her on the day we met lights me up inside.
“I never went anywhere as a kid, actually, so no, not then. I haven’t travelled much as an adult, either. It’s kind of sad. There’s so many places I would love to see, but I’ve never really felt like I was on my feet enough to do it. Or maybe that I didn’t deserve it. I don’t know.”
“You deserve it. Trust me. If anyone deserves to give themselves a break, it’s you.
” She pauses, draws her legs to her chest, and folds her arms over her knees.
She curls up and rests her head on her arms, giving her a better view of my face.
“We’ll go in the fall, okay? The trees are gorgeous in Cape Breton then. ”
I smile and lean in. Addie’s eyes flutter shut as she meets my mouth. I taste the chocolate on her lips from the cookies she made for me to give to Gran. A recipe Adelaide searched high and low for, simply because Gran couldn’t find her recipe from 1965.
“You’re making plans for the fall already, huh?” I breathe against her.
She places a quick kiss on my lips, pulls back. “I could make much sooner plans as well, if you’d like.”
“Any plan you have, I’m there.”
“Great. Then you’re my date to the Canada Day Festival on Wednesday.”