I hurry down the broken front path because I’m chickening out in a major way.
The drive home was tense enough to break bones. Every red light, we looked at each other and had to grab on to the car. I’m aching from the effort. So now I’m possibly about to put my mouth on my childhood friend. The one person left that I can’t mess up. And I’m the first woman he’ll be with since his epic eight-year romance?
I’ll be the second woman he’ll sleep with, and meanwhile, my body has frequent-flier miles? I need a minute. I need to smell my armpits and brush my teeth. I only make it to the front door before I feel Tom’s hand on my arm.
“Come down the side of the house.” He squints up at the sky. “I think it’s going to rain.” He makes it sound like very bad news.
“I want to say goodbye to the fireplace.” I’m not even kidding. I want to sit against it, and think about Loretta, and ask her in my mind for her advice.
“It’s not safe in there.” He takes my forearms in his hands. “The power’s off. Come on.” It’s weird and overly insistent. He begins to tug me, and my suspicion deepens.
“Why, what’s in here?” I twist away and get my key in the lock, kick the door open with my toe, and finally see why he’s holding me back.
My fireplace is gone.
Whoever took it down didn’t do a particularly artful job. There’s a pile of bricks remaining and a hole in the ceiling, covered over by a tarp. The worst part is, Tom was right. The house now looks huge, stretching all the way to the back door. I see now what all of this was.
“Did Jamie tell you to just do it and beg forgiveness later?” I don’t turn my head. I know the answer. “Specialist demolition, huh?”
“I had to make a decision on the spot. I couldn’t get those guys for another two weeks, so I . . .” He puts his hands on my waist and turns me to him. “I’m sorry. I was hoping you wouldn’t see until the morning. I was going to get up early—”
“And you’d say that you had some guys in at the crack of dawn. I’d say, Wow, how’d you do that so fast? I click my fingers”—I snap them in his face—“and my wish is granted. You’re the good guy just doing what I asked you to do.”
“Yeah. That was my plan.” His eyes get a little mean. “That’s my role in your family, right? I’ve got to achieve whatever you guys need, instantly and perfectly. Or I’m out.”
“What are you talking about?” What a bizarre thing to say. “I can’t believe you took me out of the house while this happened.” I try to shake him off. “You were counting on the fact that you can get me to say yes to anything.” How fucking embarrassing.
“I was counting on you being reasonable and trusting me that this is the best way forward.” He holds me back firmer as I push against him. “There’s stuff all over the floor. It’s a building site. Talk to me. Yell at me.”
Outside, there’s a rumble that for a split second I think is Vince’s car. Light flashes, and I realize it’s a storm, and it’s rolling our way. We both look up at the new hole in the ceiling. The tarp puffs up in the wind.
“Oh fuck,” Tom breathes. “This really was not in the forecast.”
“Will it flood?” I step out of his hands.
“If they’ve done it right, it shouldn’t be too bad,” he says, but his eyes are doubtful as he looks down at the messy half-finished job, the bricks and the dust. He drops his grip on me. “I’ll go up and check.”
“Sure, like I’m letting you get on a roof at night when it’s about to rain. You have to live with this now.” I feel sick satisfaction when I see the look in his eyes. “You thought that you could get a little retroactive permission for something that had already been done. So, let’s just stay here and see if it leaks. I hope it does.”
“That makes no sense. This is your house.”
“I’m very irrational. I can’t believe you didn’t even let me say goodbye to it.” Another fresh wave of anger and disbelief strangles me.
“To a fireplace?”
“Yes, to a fireplace. You knew I loved it. You knew how much it meant to me. You said we’d light it again before the house sold.”
“You lived here on and off for years. You could have lit it anytime.” He leans a shoulder on the door frame and looks down at me in challenge. “That’s you, though. You just think you can pick things up and put them down, and they’ll always be there.”
My insides jump and I scramble around for something to do. “Aside from being spineless, and bowing to Jamie like always, you were unprofessional.” I bend down and pick up two bricks. “You know you were.”
“I had one owner’s agreement.” He’s distracted, watching me move back and forth across the room. “What are you doing?”
“Making a neat pile. There’s nothing left for me to demolish, after all.” I go back, pick up two more, but he takes my hands, turns them palm up, and dusts them off. Princess Mode activated.
The urge to slap his cheek shocks me.
“I expected better from you. If I’d opened the front door, and the fireplace was still there, it would have been proof that I’m your equal business partner. But it’s obvious that I’m just another bit of red tape to get around. You are always going to choose Jamie. Always.”
“I saw a way of getting more money in the sale. The budget is—” he clamps down on the rest of that sentence. “I know you don’t care about money, but that’s all I care about right now.”
“You said earlier that we were a team. So let’s wait here, as a team.” A spatter of rain hits the porch, and a gust of wind blows through the house like it’s just come straight off the ocean. “Let’s see how bad this gets.”
Tonight, at the bar, soaking in his attention and love? It was a glimpse of what I’ll never get.
His jaw is getting that familiar stubborn edge to it. “I said I’m sorry. I wanted to stay ahead of schedule, and I knew this was the right thing for the renovation. If this happens, then the flooring can happen early. I’m not used to having emotions attached to a house I’m working on, or more than one person to ask.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you with my feelings.” I bend, pick up bricks, and add them to my pile. “Must be rough for you, having to work around me and my tiresome grandmother memories.” I realize that the floorboards in front of where the fireplace stood are visibly worn. That’s how often we stood there. And it’s gone. “This wasn’t yours to knock down, Tom.”
“I can’t understand being attached to a fireplace. I’m never going to inherit anything. Mom’s broke. My dad, well.” He half laughs, and it’s bitter. “He lasted about three months after the pregnancy test. Consider yourself lucky to have had a fireplace in the first place.” I try to interrupt but he won’t let me. What he needs to say has been building inside him a long time. “I have all these emotions and memories floating around inside me, but I have no right to any of them.” It’s the closest Tom has ever come to complaining about his situation in life. “I’m hired to do this. Think about how that feels for me.”
I pick up another brick. “As far as we’re concerned, she was your grandmother, too.”
“All I’ve got to prove that is an old Garfield key ring.” It’s a painfully true statement. He didn’t get anything in her will. He realizes instantly what that sounded like, and adds, “But I didn’t expect anything. I’m not a Barrett, after all.”
He backs me all the way to the door, into the safe, clear zone striped by the streetlight. “Stop doing that.”
I bump my fist on my heart.
“I’ve always been an inconvenience, my entire life. Remember how Jamie was so desperate to go to Disney, and I just couldn’t get well enough for it?”
“Yeah,” Tom says, sympathetic.
“I used to lie in bed, angry at my own heart. If it would just cooperate, everything would be easier. Jamie would be happy. We’d all go on a fabulous vacation. You are the only one who has never made me feel that way.” My strong voice falters.
“Darcy, this wasn’t about you. This was me, and my insane need to do everything perfectly, ahead of schedule, under budget.”
“I don’t expect perfection,” I say, but he just laughs bitterly.
“What’s the first thing you said to me when you got home and found me here? What are you doing here, Tom Valeska, world’s most perfect man?” He points up at the ceiling. “Here’s your answer. I’m not. You hold me to a standard I cannot possibly achieve. I’ve been trying for years, though. Believe me.”
“You don’t have to try anymore. Just be you. Do your best. Fuck up if you want.” I can see the strain that he’s been under. It’s in the set of his jaw and the tightness of his fists. He’s always the calm cornerstone holding everything together, since he was a kid, buying groceries and putting out the garbage. Every staff member left Aldo, except Tom.
He puts out every fire around him and he makes it look easy.
It’s not easy.
He shakes his head. “You have a hole in your roof and you have tears in your eyes. I am permanently falling short.”
“I think we’re going to decide that doesn’t apply anymore,” I say and the wind blows through us, rattling the back door. “No more perfect.”
“When you grow up dirt-poor, and adopted like a rescue dog, you will do anything to fit what you’re needed for. And I’m fucking up. I am, Darcy. I’ve fucked up my numbers.”
I feel a sense of dread when I look at his bleak face. “Fucked up how?”
“I told the crew I’d bring them over to my company on a better rate. And I had an error in my spreadsheet. The most basic error, right in my face. I have to pay them the rate I promised, plus their motel—so it’s coming out of my margin. I’m doing this for free, basically.” He sighs, resigned.
The overprotective part of me overrides everything. The anger and betrayal are now silver and bronze medalists. “I—”
“Don’t say you’re going to fix it. My problem, I am fixing it. If Jamie finds out about this, I’m done. He will never let me live it down.”
“Why do you care what my brother thinks of you?”
His mouth gets a wry twist. “Your twin brother.”
We’re close enough that I look at his mouth. Just quickly, a glance. Another gust of wind blows through my clothes and his hands tighten on me.
“Why do you work so hard for us?”
“Because I don’t want to know what it’s like to be locked out. Ever again.” His eyes are stark with honesty. “I will fit what I’m needed for. Don’t forget, I was the wrong fit once.”
“You’ve always been exactly right. I have measured every single man I’ve ever met against you. No one compares. That’s been scaring me a long time now, because what do you do when you can’t have your dream man?”
He says nothing, but inside he’s on fire. I feel it.
“You are perfect, Tom Valeska. Perfect for me. Do you want me, even though I’m hardly worthy?”
Lightning flashes. “I’ve wanted you my whole life.”
“Then have me. Choose me.”
He takes one last stab at deterring me. “I’ve fucked up. I’m not the person you expect me to be.”
“Don’t care.”
His unforgettable eyes are the last thing I see before he pulls me up onto my tiptoes and puts his mouth on mine. Thunder cracks above us and then, the world goes silent.
In a parallel dimension, we’ve always been right here in this doorway, since that night when I was an idiot eighteen-year-old and replied, I know. In this different timeline, he swallowed the hurt and decided to be patient one last time. He knocked on the house of destiny’s front door, put his mouth on mine, and we’ve been kissing ever since.
We’ve survived in that alternate reality, backlit by thunderstorms and summer days. Holiday fireworks illuminate our faces. Years have passed for us there, in daylight and darkness. My hair grew down to the ground. Autumn leaves gathered at our ankles, and the seasons turned like a kaleidoscope behind us.
We’ve never endured another’s touch, and we’ve never had to be apart. It’s the place my true heart has always existed, beating unfaltering and perfect, and it’s been safe, because it was with him.
Now we’re leaning through the web-thin layer into this dimension and sinking into these older bodies. Every other kiss I’ve had in my life has been wrong. I’ve always known it.
It’s why with other men, I never stay, I never sleep, and I never love.
Breaking from my mouth, he says in disbelief, “Is this how you kiss?”
Before I can think of how to answer, he puts a knee between my thighs and hitches me up a little higher. He returns to my lips with a groan caught in his throat. I have now found something I like better than sugar, and I’m an instant addict. Worse, a junkie. I’ve subsisted on his one-second glances my whole life, and now I’ve got his mouth on mine? I know what I’d do to keep him. He should feel afraid.
The first touch of his tongue loosens my knees and I’m grateful that he’s holding me up. I shudder a breath out. He inhales it, changes our angle, exhales it back to me. Air is better from his lungs. Life is better with his kiss.
The word mine is now something I need to make him understand.
The second touch of his tongue is an inward slide, and it’s not calculated to seduce me. I’m being licked for my flavor. I feel the point of his tooth, the scratch of his chin on mine. There’s a pause of deliberation for a moment, and then I feel his pleasure shivering out of his body, absorbed into my skin. I’ve been tasted, and I am exactly right.
I think the good boy pipes up in the fogged logic section of his brain—You’re being too wet for a first kiss, too hungry, too animal, check she’s okay—and he tries to end the kiss with a gentle squeeze on my waist.
“Don’t you dare,” I warn him. “Do not go easy on me.”
He obeys instantly, dropping back to me with a sense of relief. He presses his hips against me without shame, and how badly he wants me has me gasping. He’s not going to go easy on me tonight.
“No one else is kissing you anymore,” he tells me in a conversational hush, not breaking our contact. “Your mouth is mine.” The thought is more than he can bear; now we’re twisting each other’s clothes and the kiss is like a conversation with no words—louder and louder, talking over each other: Listen to me. No, you listen to me.
In unison: I will kill anyone who touches you.
We’re changing the sky and affecting the air. When the cloud directly above us boils over and the rain pounds harder, I barely register it. A fine mist is settling on our clothes.
My breathing sounds like I have absolutely zero cardio fitness. I’m going to wear myself out here in this doorway, but it’s okay—the person I’m kissing will look after me.
Don’t fail me now, heart.
The thought knocks me out of my rhythm, and he trails fingertips up my neck and takes us back to soft. Sweet. Light enough to give me a chance to rebalance my body and my heartbeat. I become aware of sounds again; it’s raining properly now, hammering on the tin roof of the porch.
The grumble of thunder above us is deafening, but it’s a tiny wolf-howl that breaks us apart. We stare at each other and say at the same time: “Patty.”
We don’t care about the mess; it’s the fastest way, so we stumble through the ruined house in the dark. Every time I trip, his hands pull me upright. Like bad, selfish humans we pause at the back door and kiss again to fortify ourselves for the run through the overflowing gutters. His tongue promises me more, if I can just make it to the studio. I’d swim the English Channel if I had to.
By the time we toe off our shoes and pull the glass door of the studio closed, we’re soaked to the skin. The light switch won’t work, my alarm clock display is black, and Patty is nowhere to be seen. On top of the wardrobe, Diana goggles down at us before ducking back down into her apple crate.
Tom is deeply apologetic. “Patty, come here.” Her face peeks up at us from under the bed. “I feel so bad.”
“You didn’t know.” We try for a minute more until she creeps out, tummy on the floor, until she’s into her bed. I put a blanket over her and tuck her in tight. As we straighten up, lightning flashes and he gets a proper look at me. I see his wet shirt stuck to his body. We both make identical lustful eye flutters and heave simultaneous exhalations as the room goes black again. Then we laugh at each other.
“You’ve had a kiss like that inside you, all this time?” He begins on the buttons of his shirt, quick and thoughtless, like he’s about to dive into a pool. He gets about halfway when he gives up and steps closer to me. Another few seconds without me against him is not something he can bear. “I think I need to update my life insurance policy.”
“Better call them now.” His laugh is in my mouth because we’re kissing again. I feel flatness on my shoulder blades; I’m against the wall. Only my toes touch the ground. The gold bubble is skintight around us. When my head rolls to one side and his mouth moves to my neck, I can see the steam rising from his damp shoulders. The machine in his chest is working in overdrive.
For years as I’ve watched Tom’s mouth as he talked, I’ve known how he would kiss. Earnest and sexy and primal. Each lush press is to learn what I like—but he’s realizing I like it any way he gives it. Soft, slow, teeth and tongue. Fast and rough. Bonus points for a hand on my throat. A squeezing handful of my butt has me shuddering and oversensitized; the seams on my clothes are like blades against me. He shows no sympathy and instead takes a tour of my body. When my breast is in his hand, he feels the stud in my nipple against his palm.
“Bed,” he says in his alpha voice, and my Underswears lose their elastic. I’ve said the exact same thing to him. I wonder if I made him feel this way.
“You’ve finally caught up.” I’m being transported backward with no effort on my part. I feel lighting cables under the soles of my feet but I’m not snagged or tripped. He’s got me. “I tore a room apart and told you to get in my bed, and you just—”
He tips me down onto the bed.
“I’m going to make up for it, I promise,” he says with a smile in his voice.
