Текст книги "When We Met"

Автор книги: Christina Lee

Соавторы: Molly McAdams,A. L. Jackson,Tiffany King
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

chapter three

Chloe

My six-inch Manolos clacked all the way down the cobblestone street to the new space. For a couple of hours last night, I had sketched and planned the shop in my notebook. I was tense about showing Blake my idea because even though he frustrated the hell out of me, he also made my stomach do this weird flippy nervous thing. He was easy to dislike from a distance, but up close I felt vulnerable and probably acted like a silly little girl.

And I was so not going for it. He had the potential to ruin my grade on this assignment and I didn’t know who the hell he thought he was.

I brought the pink Chuck Taylors in my bag and planned to put them on as soon as I stepped inside. They clashed horribly with my outfit today. I supposed I could have worn something else, but I looked darn good in this Prada skirt and blouse that I had gotten on sale at Nordi’s. Maybe there’d been some small part of me that wanted to look my best for Blake as well. Maybe I wanted him to see me as a capable and confident woman.

When I rounded the corner, I saw Blake leaning against his truck. He must have gone home to change after work, because tonight he wore dark-wash jeans and a light blue T-shirt. His hair looked slightly damp, like maybe he’d just showered, and his fingers gripped two cups of iced coffees from Common Grounds.

As I approached, his eyes skimmed down my body and landed on my heels. His jaw ticked in irritation, but I didn’t plan on allowing him to intimidate me.

When I reached him he met my gaze, straightened himself from the car bumper and thrust a container at me. “I got you a hazelnut coffee.”

I looked down at my cup and saw he had added cream and maybe some sugar. He’d remembered how I took it. “Cool,” I said, trying to shake away the effect the sentiment had on me.

He stared hard at me, as if willing me to say something else, before finally nodding and heading toward the door. What the hell had that been about? I dug out the key to let us inside.

Silently I opened my sack, slipped off my heels, and then laced up the sneakers. When I looked up, he was watching me with a damned twitch at the corner of his lip.

“Shut it,” I said, and then yanked my notepad out of my bag.

“At least you decided to be sensible,” he said as I got to my feet. Sensible. There was no use for that word in the world of fashion.

My eyebrow shot up. “I’ve never heard a guy complain about a woman wearing heels.”

His gaze slowly slid up my legs. Great, I’d just given him a reason to check me out.

My heart beat erratically upon his inspection.

“True,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. “They do make women’s legs look amazing. But they also look like they might hurt.”

“The things you do for fashion,” I mumbled, and then jerked open my notebook, hoping to change the topic.

“I’ve been working on my idea the last couple of nights.”

I turned to the page where I’d made all of my notes. I scanned down the list to remind myself what I’d written because suddenly my throat had gone dry. “I was thinking of an Old Hollywood theme.”

He nodded and looked around the space as if picturing it. “Okay.”

“I want to use old film reels and hang them in a few different spots. I figured I could pull out the yards of tape from each spool and string them all around the space. From those pipes, for instance,” I said, motioning to the exposed brick wall and the industrial ducts hanging low. “Then I’ll pin some things for sale on the strands, like our vintage jewelry.”

His fingers rubbed along his jaw and I found myself holding my breath waiting for a response. Any response. He’d been a theater major after all, so he knew about staging. Or maybe he sucked at it or hated it. Maybe that’d been the reason why he dropped out.

“Are you a fan of old movies?” he asked.

“Well, duh,” I said, trying to level my voice so I didn’t sound like an excited child. “Casablanca, Sabrina, Roman Holiday. I want the effect to be like an old black-and-white film and the props will reflect that.”

“Sounds all right, I guess . . . pretty cool idea, not that I’ve ever seen those classic movies,” he said, and I pumped out a breath. Well, that wasn’t a breaking news story. “But I’ve definitely been a part of stage productions that had sets from different eras.”

I turned the notebook sideways to my sketch of the space. “This is what I was thinking as far as shelving goes.”

He moved behind me to glance over my shoulder and I could smell his clean soap scent and a hint of cologne or aftershave. He leaned forward and I felt his breath on my neck. It’d been some time since I’d even allowed a guy to get this close. Especially a completely frustrating, albeit good-looking one. “That’s a pretty good sketch.”

“I am in the School of Design.”

“Believe me, I didn’t forget,” he huffed. “You seem to remind me every chance you get.”

I gasped and looked up at him, only to see annoyance reflected in his eyes. “I do not.”

“Okay, you don’t.” He tugged the notebook from my fingers and I wanted to grab it back and tell him to go screw himself, but I kept myself in check.

What in the hell had he meant by that comment anyway?

He motioned with his hand. “So you’re thinking an A-frame shelving unit against this wall here and then a circular display in the center?”

I nodded and twisted a lock of hair in my fingers.

“Sounds fine,” he said. “There’s only one thing wrong with your logistics.”

“What’s that?”

“It would be impossible for the kind of unit you designed to hold any kind of weight.” He pointed to my drawing. “It would implode once you placed anything heavier on it—even a stack of clothes.”

“I guess that’s where you come in,” I said, throwing up my hands. “You’re supposed to help steer me in the right direction.”

“You mean you trust my judgment?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m not just some deadbeat that pounds nails into wood?”

My pulse picked up. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to,” he scoffed. “I can see it in your expression.”

I clenched my fists. “No, you can’t!”

“Just drop it,” he said, handing back my notes.

“No, I don’t want to drop it. Tell me what in the hell you mean.”

He glared at me for a long, painstaking moment before finally speaking again. “Do you remember that day a couple months ago when you walked by the construction site where I was working?” I nodded. “The guys were getting rowdy. That’s what they do—they work hard all day and blow off steam by acting stupid.”

I folded my arms, unsure of where he was going with this. “Nice way to make excuses for them.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do. Just telling it like it is,” he said, gritting his teeth. Obviously I frustrated him the same way he frustrated me.

“I could tell what you were thinking by the damned look on your face,” he said, pacing around the space.

“They were being pigs,” I said, trying to defend myself. No way was I in the wrong. “When guys act like that, they don’t deserve my respect.”

“Point taken,” he said. It looked like he was going to say something else, but then he restrained himself.

“Whatever. Let’s just get moving and clean this space up,” he said in a clipped voice.

It sounded like he wanted to get a million miles away from me, and I still didn’t understand what I’d done wrong.

I remembered that day he’d just brought up vividly. I’d been walking home from Happy Hour at Gruby’s, where my roommate Courtney worked. I hadn’t been out in a long time. Fact is, I rarely went out. But my other roommates, Indy and Misha, convinced me to meet them there and I had a really good time. When their boyfriends showed up, I took off to walk home, feeling pretty lighthearted.

When I turned the corner and passed this construction site, I began hearing catcalls. I scowled and ignored those hard-hatted idiots until they began shouting stuff that really struck home. Things that reminded me of rumors my only boyfriend in high school spread about me—after he took my virginity and dumped me.

“She’s got a stick up that fine ass.”

“Bet she’s never been laid properly.”

“I could show her a thing or two.”

And then a voice rang out. “Guys, knock it off.”

I turned toward the sound. It was Blake Davis and I was stunned into silence. He was sporting stubble, dirty fingernails, and clunky work boots. He looked so different from his casual clean T-shirt and jeans attire from his days at the university.

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do that girl in five seconds flat,” the guy sitting next to him had blurted out.

Blake’s gaze met mine, his eyes hard and unyielding. “Never in a million years. Not my type.”

My breath had caught. His words made me feel lower than the mud on his shoe. I forced my chin up high and continued walking home. My hands shook the entire way.

Since then, I’d always wondered why his words had affected me so much.

Add that to his confrontation tonight, and I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to come to enough of a mutual understanding to work together on this project.

* * *

We spent the next hour in silence as we moved boxes to the back room. Well, technically, I slid them toward the back and he lifted and carried them. He was surprisingly strong, and as he raised each box, I couldn’t help appreciating his taut and muscular forearms. Working construction obviously had its benefits.

I decided we needed a bucket and supplies to give the place a thorough scrub-down. I wrote down a list of items and headed out the door to the small market down the street that stayed open past nine. Blake followed, mumbling about getting some bottles of water.

As Blake and I moved through the aisle that displayed detergents, he pointed to the floor cleaner in my hand that had a bright pink label and said, “Did you plan to match your cleaner to your outfit?”

I gaped at the pink Converse sneakers I’d completely forgotten I was wearing. With a skirt. Like some used-up fashionista on someone’s worst-dressed list.

“Stop thinking so hard,” he mumbled close to my ear. “I was only joking. Lighten up.”

I spun on him. “Pretty sure you could use some lightening up of your own.”

Just then I heard someone call my name. I looked up and saw my mother’s committee friend heading down the aisle toward me. Her heels were high, her lips bright red, and her outfit immaculately put together. I glanced at Blake as my skin broke out in a panicked sweat. Sure enough, she’d tell my mother she’d seen me out late with some guy, looking disheveled, and then I’d be subjected to the Spanish Inquisition.

Blake seemed to pick up on my rising alarm and in a huff he said, “Don’t worry, princess, you can pretend not to know me and I’ll do the same. Meet you at the cash register.”

Before I could even react, he was gone, and my mother’s friend was in my face asking me questions. I could barely concentrate because I’d been too busy thinking about Blake’s words. Was I really that uptight? Why did I care so much about how I looked or what people thought about me? At what point had my life become so orchestrated?

As soon as my mother’s friend was gone, I snatched a different floor cleaner from the shelf and met Blake at the front of the store, where he stood with a bucket and mop. I placed the sponges and soap on the counter and turned to look at him.

He stepped in front of me, before I could say anything else. “I’ve got it. You can hand my receipt in to Jaclyn so I can expense it.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but his eyes tore into mine and I clamped my lips shut. “Don’t even say it, princess. I make way more money than you do. Unless you’re living off your daddy’s trust fund or something.”

I drew my hands into fists as he greeted the cashier. I stood behind him, breathing heavily and staring at the back of his head. His hair was perfectly wavy and for the first time I noticed a piercing on the top of his ear. It was a silver hoop and I had the urge to yank on it and tell him he was wrong. So very wrong about me.

We walked back in silence, me fuming beside him and refusing eye contact. As soon as I stepped back into the shop, I got busy cleaning the floors. An hour later we were both on our hands and knees scrubbing the baseboards and I was silently cursing the fact that I was getting my Prada outfit dirty. I probably did look like a princess, constantly rolling up and adjusting my skirt. It was my own dang fault for refusing to change into different clothes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Blake scowling. All at once his arms shot to the back of his neck, and he began tugging his shirt over his head. His flat and tight stomach was on full display before the second shirt that was hidden beneath fell back over his abs.

I pretended not to look too long and instead took a deep breath, focusing on my task. Suddenly that same shirt was in front of my face. “Here, put it under your knees.”

“What? No, I don’t need—”

“Yeah, you do,” he said. “I can tell you really care about your clothes. They probably cost a lot more than my damned T-shirt.”

Was this his way of apologizing or making fun of me?

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.

He thrust it closer to me. “Please, take it.”

I stared at his shirt a few moments more before grasping it, smoothing it out on the floor, and then placing my knees on top of it.

“It’s my mistake for not bringing a change of clothes,” I mumbled.

He turned away and continued working on the far wall in silence.

I wanted to redeem myself, or at least say something to break the ice. I looked back at him. “I noticed your piercing . . . um, earlier. I like it.”

I held back a cringe. I was usually more of a fan of clean-cut guys.

He barked out a bitter laugh. “Really?”

“Where, um . . .” I struggled to come up with a question to keep the conversation going. “When did you have it done?”

He heaved a deep sigh. “A couple years ago . . . on a dare.”

My eyebrows shot up. “A dare?”

“Yes, a dare. Bet you’ve never even done anything on a dare, princess,” he muttered. “Bet it’s too spontaneous for you.”

“What the hell, Blake? Of course I have,” I spat out. Now I was seething.

He squinted at me. “Yeah?”

I shrugged and met his eyes in a challenge. “And stop calling me princess.”

“Fair enough.” Then a devious glint registered in his eyes. “So . . . truth or dare?”

chapter four

Blake

I didn’t know why I was being so obnoxious to Chloe; she just seemed to bring it out of me. I knew I had her now, though. No way would she play this game with me. She was too damned uptight.

“What?” she sputtered. “Here . . . now?”

“Yes, now.” I laughed. She was slightly endearing when she was so flustered—when she let her prim and proper mask slip. “You’ve got somewhere else to be?”

“I . . . barely even know you.”

I could see her pulse pounding at her neck. She was getting even more nervous. Was it because she was trapped here with someone like me or because I was calling her out of her comfort zone? I let the minutes tick. We were about to find out.

“Fine.” She took a fortifying breath and then said, “Truth.”

I turned away, trying to hide the pulse in my jaw. I knew it. She’d chosen the safer response.

“Here’s hoping for honesty,” I said, meeting her eyes.

She nodded and twirled a lock of her hair, looking unsure of herself again.

Something about her made me want to dig deep, to find out what she was really made of. There had to be a different person—a decent, compassionate person—under all of that restraint. I’d already seen glimpses of her. But maybe I was only headed for disappointment. “Since you didn’t think I made a fair assessment earlier, tell me what you were really thinking the day you walked past the construction site.”

Her eyebrows rose to her hairline. “Like I said, I . . . I was pissed and disgusted. When you came to my defense out of nowhere, it stumped me.”

She thought she was done, but I planned on getting more out of her if I could. I just had this natural curiosity, despite being completely frustrated by her. Because when she was caught off guard—like she’d just been by my question—she became more real and I wanted more of that.

“And?”

“A . . . and . . . well, first, I wondered what you were doing there.”

I looked down, avoiding her gaze. No way could I talk about dropping out with this girl. Unless she gave me more—showed me more.

“And second, what you said about me—the ‘not in a million years, not my type’ part . . . well, it . . . it sucked to hear you say that.”

I met her eyes while her chest heaved. I had affected her back then? Because truth be told, I was completely captivated by her vulnerability right now.

“Okay,” I said softly. I needed to make sure that I played this situation carefully, because I didn’t want to scare her away. I cleared my throat. “I get it. Makes sense.”

I got busy on the other wall, effectively dropping the subject, and letting her off the hook. Letting us both off the hook. For now.

We were silent for a few more minutes before I heard her tentative voice. “Your turn. Truth or dare?”

She probably expected me to say dare because she figured we were so different. I studied her eyes and then moved down to her lips. They were red and shiny like her tongue had just skimmed across them. She was a pretty girl. And right now, all soft and uncertain, she was even more gorgeous.

I shook that foreign thought from my head. “Truth.”

Chloe’s lips parted and she stared at me for a long moment until she finally recovered. I immediately regretted my decision. Especially if she was going to ask me why I dropped out of school. If she did, I probably wouldn’t answer.

“Why did you . . . say that about me . . . that day?”

She looked past me to the wall, wringing her hands. It made me want to soothe her, put my fingers over hers to still them. Never in a hundred years would I have guessed that my reaction that day would still be bothering her, months later.

“I hear catcalls all day long. So when it happened again, I looked up to see who their next target was.”

“Target,” she said, scrunching her face into a grimace.

“And then I saw you. And I got it—you’re a great-looking girl, Chloe. Plus that outfit you had on that day really . . .” I needed to stop talking before I dug myself a grave. She’d probably think I was having dirty thoughts about her. And I wasn’t. At least not more than a couple of times.

“What?” Her face was relaxed and open like she truly wanted—or maybe needed—to know what I thought of her. For reasons I might never begin to understand.

“It just . . . it showed off your curves, okay? The guys were going nuts. Like big fucking apes or something.” I laughed and shook my head thinking about what a bunch of dumb-asses they could be. And most of them were older than me. “Even still, they were being idiots, and girls shouldn’t have to put up with shit, which is why I came to your defense.”

She stared at her sneakers, a rose hue stretching across her neck and up to her ears. Then she reached out her hand and patted mine, just once. “Well . . . I guess I owe you a thanks for that.”

Something in my chest gave way, like a release of my pent-up frustration over this girl.

“And . . . I wasn’t really being honest when I said that about you . . . ,” I said. “I was just pissed at the way you responded, like you had lumped all of us together.”

She nodded and our gazes clashed for one long moment. Like we’d finally found some authentic middle ground, other than sharing similar taste in coffee. “Truce?”

She shot out her hand and I took it in my own without hesitation. Her fingers were warm and delicate, a contradiction to the impenetrable shell she’d presented this entire time. I figured this was our way of starting over and I was cool with that.

* * *

Tonight I stood in line at the Common Grounds and was about to order two iced hazelnut coffees when Chloe walked through the door in her work attire and spotted me. Her cheeks glowed pink like she’d had the same idea about getting us drinks for our night ahead.

We had worked on the space three more times these past two weeks. She progressively became more relaxed, allowing her dry sense of humor to shine—and even swapped out her outfits, so I didn’t have to give any more of my T-shirts to the cause.

She’d change into jeans—designer, of course—with those pink Converse sneakers as soon as she got to the space, using the small bathroom in the back. It was hard not to notice her perfectly round ass in that tight denim, and I looked every chance I could get. I was a guy, after all, and I knew how to appreciate a woman’s body.

But no way did I want her to know that I thought she was hot. Not that it mattered anyway. We were way too different and she wasn’t the kind of girl that would be down for a casual hookup. She was very driven and expected a lot of herself, and maybe her mother did as well, given the phone calls she was constantly fielding from her.

When Chloe heard her name ring out from a table near the coffee shop door, her eyes darted around nervously and then back toward me, as if she’d wished she hadn’t spotted me in the first place. A couple of impeccably dressed ladies sat drinking cappuccinos and as she trudged over to them, her head bent as if in frustration.

As I placed our drink order, I noticed how she gave one of the women a quick kiss on the cheek. She had Chloe’s same coloring and eyes, so I could only assume it was her mother. Given their hushed conversations by phone, I gathered her mother liked to hear the details of her daily life. I might kill for that kind of attention.

I looked down at my dingy cutoffs and heat prickled my neck, as my instincts told me that Chloe wouldn’t be comfortable with me stopping by her table. I hadn’t had time to change out of my construction boots today, but at least I’d brought a fresh T-shirt to pull over my head as soon as I got into my truck. So I walked past Chloe and out the door without another glance in her direction.

When I returned to the space, I left Chloe’s coffee on a large box near the shelf she had stained dark brown, and then got busy sawing more wood on the other side of the room.

Chloe and her mother seemed very close and I tried to imagine what that kind of intense attention would feel like from my own mother. Especially since I was more like the expectant parent in my family, always reminding Mom of her AA meetings and therapy sessions, checking hiding spots in the cupboards and smelling her breath for any hint of alcohol.

I gave Chloe the silent treatment when she walked through the entrance, but couldn’t help noticing how quickly she clicked the lock in place and drew the shade down even farther.

“Avoiding someone?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Her back against the door, she shut her eyes momentarily as if getting her thoughts in order.

“I . . . lied to my mom,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, as if she was being followed. “Told her I was going home to study instead of coming here so she didn’t ask to tag along and see the space.”

I made harsh markings with my pencil as I measured another piece of plywood. “Why?”

She shook her head, melancholy lacing her eyes. “I . . . just want this to be my project for now. I’ll surprise her with it when we finish.”

I didn’t understand this girl at all. I was still seething from how unwelcome I felt in the coffee shop and I wanted to find out right this instant what her deal had been.

I stood up, releasing the measuring tape from my fingers, and stalked toward her. “Truth or dare?”

I had figured we were getting somewhere these past few days. I was beginning to enjoy working alongside her on this project. I thought we were forming a friendship, and instead she’d left me confused all over again.

The question was, why did I care so much?

As I drew nearer, her breath hitched. I stared her down as the puzzled look on her face changed to worry. She bit her lip, aware that I was annoyed about something.

“Truth,” she whispered, and then blew out a shaky breath. Not having changed from her designer work clothes yet, she’d left her top three buttons open, exposing her silky skin. I could see the outline of her lacy white bra through the sheer material.

Some part of my brain went haywire and I imagined her panting against that door while I reached out to unclasp those buttons with my grimy fingers. I’d get that shiny white material all filthy and then I’d rip it down the center, exposing her to me.

Damn, where had that thought come from? It was like my anger toward her had became murky and twisted and had developed into a complete turn-on. It spurred me to step even closer to her. Like I had something I needed to prove. Except I didn’t exactly know what.

“What was the shit you just pulled in the coffee shop?” I said. “Afraid to be seen with someone like me?”

“It’s not that.” Her shoulders sagged. “It’s . . . look, maybe you haven’t noticed, but my life is already scripted. My mom made huge sacrifices for me and she reminds me nearly every day. She wants me to finish what she started—making a name in the industry—and the plan doesn’t include any boys.”

“Christ, it’s not like we’re dating or anything,” I said, ruffling my fingers through my hair. “We’re working together on a project.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s in my business on a daily basis. It wasn’t always like this, not until I was deciding on colleges, and lately it’s been worse than ever. . . .”

It was true that it sounded that way when I’d overheard their conversations. Her mother seemed to expect a play-by-play. Still it was a stark contrast to the mess I had going on in my own family, so it was hard for me to wrap my head around.

“Jesus fuck, you’re an adult, Chloe,” I said. “You don’t even live at home, which is more than I can say, and you have your own life on campus.”

“Do you know how much ass-kissing I had to do for her to allow me to live off campus and not commute from home?” She met my gaze and her eyes blazed with resentment. “I work to help pay for my books and rent, but she and my grandmother pay the bulk of my tuition. We get a discount because she’s on the board of the design school, and yeah, she throws that in my face as well.”

She pushed off the door and brushed past me. “I just have one more year to be the good little daughter and then I’m leaving, moving to New York City, and I’ll be far away from her.”

But even she looked uncertain about her own statement. Like she was trying to be tougher and more confident than she really was. Something settled in the center of my chest. Something that felt like empathy, but I pushed it way down.

“I understand wanting to get away and live your own life, believe me,” I mumbled.

She rounded on me. “Yeah? So what the heck is your story?”

“I’m not sure I want to tell someone like you, someone who walks around like she’s got a stick up her ass. I mean, I get that you have mommy issues, but believe me, princess, it’s light-years away from what I’m going through,” I practically growled.

As she stood there, her eyes glassy and hurt, I had the desire to pull her against me and show her exactly how worked up she was making me.

I rubbed my fingers over my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I don’t need your judgment on top of everyone else’s.”

She slowly shook her head in defeat, her lips seemingly unable to form any words.

I walked toward the stacked wood. “Why the hell do you care anyway?”

“Believe it or not, I’d like to get to know you,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “I don’t . . . I haven’t . . . been around a guy in a while and you kind of . . . unnerve me.”

I looked back at her and gulped down my surprise. “How?”

“I can’t really explain it. It’s just ever since . . . you know.” She wrung her hands again like she was wound so darn tight. And the look in her eyes—like a wounded animal. My chest tightened in response.

What I wouldn’t give right now to have a do-over of that one day she was referring to now. And this time, our eyes would meet and we’d find acceptance and understanding in each other’s gaze, instead of so much damned misinterpretation.