Текст книги "Revealed to Him"
Автор книги: Jen Frederick
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
But there were plenty of women who didn’t care. Some just wanted a guy who knew how to use his equipment and who cared if they had an orgasm. Natalie isn’t a fetishist and she’s not looking to be my mother. But she’s not quite in the “I just want to fuck” category either.
To be fair, I suppose some of the women I dated in the last couple of years wanted something more meaningful, but I wasn’t interested. Now I am. Real interested.
But if I don’t get my act together and pull up my big-boy pants, I could lose her before I even have her.
With that, I set off to find Sabrina. If I’m going to convince Natalie to move in here, I’m going to need to make some changes.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she greets me, but doesn’t move from the center island where she’s chopping up a pineapple.
“Good morning, Bri.” I kiss the top of her head, which isn’t that much shorter than mine. Bri’s a tall girl. “You got some coffee left over?”
She jerks her head toward an already filled cup, the steam rising indicating it was freshly poured. I take a big gulp before thanking her. “You’re an angel.”
“Late night, huh?”
“Something like that.” Talking about sex with my baby sister has always made me uncomfortable. This time is no different. I can still see her in diapers. I was thirteen when she was born, and my feelings toward her are more paternal than brotherly, which pisses her off. As she regularly reminds me, she already has a father.
But she’s twenty-two and knows exactly why I was late coming home last night.
“I hope you practiced safe sex,” she smirks, also knowing exactly how uncomfortable it makes me.
I rub a hand over my face and then into my hair that I’ve forgotten to brush after I showered. It’s probably a mess, but I don’t care. I’m debating how much to share with Sabrina about Natalie and not just because I want to move Natalie into the townhouse.
“You busy today?” I ask.
“I’ve got two morning classes and then I’m done. Why?”
“Want to go shopping?”
She squeezes her eyebrows together in confusion. “Are you offering to take me shopping? You hate shopping. You hate spending money.”
“I don’t hate spending money,” I protest. “I object to being wasteful. Spending two hundred bucks on a pillow that I’m not allowed to use because the sequins might rub off is wasteful.”
She waves her hand in the air as if my argument has no merit. “I am not buying your new girlfriend anything.”
“I asked you to do that one time.”
“Three times.”
I take a long sip of coffee that’s cooling fast. “I didn’t want to give a gift that was thoughtless, so I went to my dear sister for advice, and you did a great job. Which is why I’m coming to you again. Competency generates a repeat performance request.”
She rolls her eyes. “So what is it going to be? Clothes, jewelry? You know I do not do lingerie. That is still a hard limit.”
“Of course not,” I say with mock indignation. “If, hypothetically, I were to give you a photograph, could you re-create the room in the picture on the third floor? How doable is that?”
“What? You don’t like what we’ve done to it already? When we were decorating it four years ago, you said nothing too bright and no flowers. This is a totally gorgeous space!” Sabrina exclaims. “People would pay lots of money—lots of frivolous money—for what we did in this house.”
I scratch my head and wonder how my intention to bring Natalie here has turned into an indictment of the decorating taste of my mother and sister. I think it’s lack of sleep. If I’d stayed at Natalie’s place, I would have slept better, longer, and I would have had good-morning sex. Then I wouldn’t be making these obvious missteps.
“I have this friend—”
“Is this for the journalist? I thought you broke up with her?”
Gathering the reins of my rapidly shredding patience, I repeat, “I have this friend—”
“If it’s not that one chick, then who?” She taps a finger against her lip. “You were out late last night, and Victoria said you didn’t talk to anyone at the club when you were out with Ian and her. Was it that lawyer lady from Mom’s charity dinner the other night? She didn’t seem your type.”
While Sabrina runs down her short list of suspects, I refill my coffee. Leaning against the counter, I watch her with some amusement. She is going to be surprised, but in a good way, I think. Natalie and she would get along. Sabrina has a lot of creative energy she seems to try to suppress because she thinks we want her to fit into some business mold. Mom and Dad have told her that she can do whatever she wants, but Sabrina’s headstrong. Once she gets an idea in her head, you can’t shake it from her. So it doesn’t matter that she loves music, she thinks she’s got to be a banker or investment fund manager or do something that makes her a “real living,” as she calls it.
Kaga is one of those ideas. For some reason she thinks she’s in love with him, but like the business thing, once she wakes up, she’ll realize the error of her ways. But until then we all watch out for her to make sure she doesn’t butt her head against too many brick walls.
At the table, Sabrina gasps and slams a hand down on the pine surface. “Oh my God, I heard that Laura Severson got a divorce recently. Do not tell me you are getting back together with that bitch.”
I blink in surprise. “I didn’t know she was getting a divorce.”
“Not getting, already done. Finite. Quickest divorce in New York State. I guess they could not stand each other.”
After I broke it off with Laura, she wasted no time in hooking up with a friend of mine. At the time I’d thought he was too good a friend to be comforting my ex with his dick, but after I’d gotten out of the military I realized that I had almost nothing in common with the guys—and girls—I’d hung out with as an arrogant trust fund kid at Columbia.
“Wait, if you didn’t know she was getting a divorce, then were you sleeping with her while she was married?”
Sabrina looks as scandalized as if she’d found out I’d been caught having sex in Central Park.
“It’s not Laura,” I answer, puzzled. I hadn’t seen—or talked—to Laura in about two years, unless you counted that time we ran into each other by Rockefeller Plaza. I had popped into the LEGO store to buy Megan’s oldest a Harry Potter set, and Laura must have been buying out every store around the rink, because her hands had been full of shopping bags. She’d given me a kiss on the cheek and told me to call her. I promptly forgot her number. At the time I was still seeing the journalist or “Ms. Snoopy,” as Sabrina liked to call her.
“So who is she? And why doesn’t she like how the third floor is decorated?” Sabrina asks with impatience.
And apparently a thousand questions are what I’m going to have to pay to get this favor done.
“I have a friend,” I start again, only to be interrupted.
“Is that what we’re calling them now?”
I cut to the chase. “Sabrina, what is it going to cost me to get you to do this for me?”
She sits, knees drawn to her chest, looking like the baby girl I used to push on the swings at the park. “You know what I want.”
“Ask for something else.” Anything else. The implacability in my tone makes her frown, but wisely she doesn’t press.
“Fine,” she huffs. “I want you to be there when I tell Mom and Dad about my new job.”
I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I would’ve been there anyway. Ask again.”
“Tell me,” she implores and grips my fingers. “Tell me exactly what your objections to Kaga and me are. Don’t say it’s our age—I know that can’t be it.”
I drag my prosthetic down my face in frustration, wondering if the carbonite fingers would make it more or less painful when I poke my eyes out. “You’re right. It has nothing to do with your age difference.” It would make me extremely hypocritical, given that Natalie is probably ten years younger than me. “The issue is more complicated than your age. And it’s not my story to tell.”
“But you won’t even let me talk to him, so he can’t tell me the story.”
“Let it go.”
She turns away so I can’t see her hurt, but I know it’s there. It’s painful to see her distressed, and I blame that all on Kaga. It seems that it wasn’t so long ago I could coax her out of a pout with a trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar or an ice cream in Bryant Park. That ship has sailed. Now she wants to have a relationship with one of my good friends, whose personal life is more fucked up than a Bravo reality-TV show. No, I don’t want her involved in that. If that makes me an asshole older brother, then so be it. I’ve been called way worse for lesser infractions.
But I stay quiet as she gathers her composure and makes up her mind about my favor. “I’ll do your little decorating project. I’ll reserve my reward to be named later.”
“Done,” I agree with relief.
“So when does this need to be accomplished? What’s my deadline?”
“Today.”
“What?” she screeches. “I can’t accomplish this today. Are you high?”
“I need it done today. Or at the latest, tomorrow morning.” I pull a credit card out of my pocket and slide it across the table. “Whatever it costs.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother? The last time we decorated this house, you wanted to buy everything used because you could not believe that a sofa could cost more than a couple grand.”
“I still don’t. I think that the furniture you made me buy was highway robbery. But I’m not asking you to buy furniture. I’m asking you to re-create a couple rooms.” I pull up the pictures I’ve taken on my phone and show them to her.
“Did Barbie decorate this bedroom? I’ve never seen so much pink outside Victoria’s Secret.”
I shrug. I kind of liked it. It was different than anything I had and it fit her. It made me feel like . . . I was trespassing into something solely her own and making my own mark.
Sabrina sighs. “I’m going to assume you are redecorating for a woman and not a child. If you’d shown me this earlier, I would have scratched Snoopy off my list right away. She does not look like a woman who sleeps in a Disney princess bedroom.”
“What is the kind of woman who sleeps in a Disney princess bedroom?” I ask, curious. Natalie’s a grown woman who writes gritty science fiction novels and plays video games in her downtime.
“Someone who didn’t get enough time to play with dolls as a kid.”
I wonder if that’s true. Maybe Oliver forced her to play catch with him. Whatever her reasoning was, it didn’t bother me. My dick didn’t get any less erect in her sweet-smelling bedroom filled with lace, pink, and ruffles. In fact, if this is what a Victoria’s Secret store looked like, I’d have to stay away, because the association would get me instantly hard.
“I want to know more about this chick. You’re going to spend thousands of dollars re-creating two rooms for her. I might only be twenty-two, but I’m not dumb. You want to bone this girl. The question is why you have to redecorate rooms that already exist in your own house just to have sex with her.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have to do any of those things just to have sex with her.”
“Oh.” She nods knowingly. “You’ve already been in her pants and want to continue to do so. Got it.”
“My friend”—I emphasize the word—“suffers from severe anxiety. She’s living in a place that I don’t think is very safe. There are threats against her life. I’d like her to come and live with us for a time. In order to make her comfortable, it makes sense to provide her with familiar surroundings.”
Sabrina slaps the table. “Why didn’t you just say so? Geez. Men.”
I watch her pocket the credit card and stomp off. When she gets to the door, she stops. “I’m happy to spend your money and I’m happy to re-create this Barbie Dreamhouse on the third floor, but I’m not happy with your explanation. And I’m telling Mom,” she ends ominously.
That went well.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NATALIE
I wake up to an empty bed and a text message.
You were sleeping when I left. Text me or call me when you wake.
I reach over to feel the side of the bed that is as empty as it is cold. And there is no indentation, no sign that he spent even a minute in bed after we had sex.
I sit up and look around. There are pillows strewn everywhere and I’m not even under the sheets. Instead, Jake wrapped me up like a burrito.
I have a choice here. I can be hurt because he ran off like I was some one-night stand from a club or I can take it for face value—that we were two people who satisfied a sexual urge with no promises of commitment.
And we’re more than two people. We’re at least friends. The things we shared last night were too wonderful and too intimate to be the words of a smooth operator who wanted an easy lay.
He didn’t leave me exposed, but covered up. Bundled into a cocoon of blankets. And even if I was some conquest, then so what? I opened the door last night. Well, technically Jake opened the door, but I unlocked it, and I didn’t freak out when he came inside. That’s a huge win.
So I’m not going to be upset that I woke up alone. I’m going to be happy that I was brave enough to have a new friend in my apartment and that I had amazing orgasms with a man, not a vibrator.
Speaking of my vibrator, I kick off the blankets and toddle into the living room. A quick perusal shows that Jake picked up in here a little bit. The pillows from the sofa are stacked, one on top of the other, and the vibe is resting on the coffee table. All of that is going to need to be cleaned. With sanitizer.
But as I stare at it, heat floods me as I remember how he wielded it. Like a pro, if there is such a thing. But if he’s not going to be around to use it, then I’m definitely going to need batteries, although I doubt that a fully charged vibe is ever going to make me feel as good as Jake did.
“Hi, Jason. Did a package get delivered to me yesterday?”
“I’ll go check, Ms. Graham.”
I busy myself with breakfast while I wait.
“Yes, came late. Must be after I left or I would have brought it up for you.”
Doubtful, I think, and rude to blame our night doorman. More likely it came during the day and Jason was just too lazy to bring it up, or at least figured that the crazy lady in apartment 3-D wouldn’t notice. But who cares? Again, I’m not going to let these little pebbles in the bottom of my shoe ruin my day. There’s a pain in my chest and yes, some regret that I woke up alone this morning. I mean, doesn’t everyone like morning sex?
I slap the spoon on the counter and shake the granola into my bowl a little too frantically. Granola? This is a morning that calls for sugary cereal. I sweep the granola into the trash and pour a heaping serving of marshmallows and chocolate crunch cereal. Too bad I can’t sweep my memories of Jake, damn him and his talented dick, into the trash with the granola.
I slam the cabinet door shut and shove a handful of cereal into my mouth.
A hot chocolate and two pounds of sugar later, I’m ready to tackle my manuscript, so that I can stop avoiding Daphne’s increasingly frantic emails. I can see by a quick review of my inbox that she’s reaching alarming stress levels. Her subject lines are now all caps and are using more exclamation points than should be allowed in any correspondence that doesn’t have to do with the New York Times list or a movie option.
Jake’s good loving along with my mild irritation at his absence spurs some creative organ in my lizard brain, and the words fall out of me. I can barely type fast enough to capture them all. I don’t leave to eat, drink, or even pee. It’s not until my stomach growls some five hours later that I look up from the screen.
My back and neck and shoulders protest when I push away from the keyboard. Sitting in one position is turning me into a hunchback. I’m going to have to use the treadmill desk for the rest of the day. In the kitchen, I hear the rhythmic bleat of my phone. Picking it up I see I’ve missed several text messages, but none of them are from Jake. “What the hell” leaps to mind, but I stamp it back down because I don’t care. I. Don’t. Care.
God, if I cared more, I might crush the phone in my hand, if that were possible. Taking a deep breath, I respond to Daphne’s first, because I’m afraid if I don’t respond I’m going to give her a coronary.
Me: I was writing. Am writing. You’ll be happy.
Her response is immediate.
Her: I’m having a heart attack over here. The managing editor was in asking when I could expect the ms. I can’t keep lying to him and telling him it’s soon if it is not going to be soon. We can’t move the publication date of this book. All the co-op is paid for. The bookstores are expecting it. (1/2)
(2/2) You’ll be ruined if you miss the date.
Me: Thanks for the reminder. I know. I’m going to finish. I promise. I’ve never let you down and I won’t start now.
I know she wants to write something further, so I block her, temporarily, so I won’t have to see her constant admonishments. After I eat this sandwich I’m going to dive back into the cave and—
And there’s a knock on the door. The phone rings at the same time and the face that pops up is Oliver.
“It’s me, Oliver,” he says from behind the door. “I’m alone,” he adds.
I hesitate before walking to the door. Jake is absolutely right, I would feel more comfortable if there were cameras and I could see who is at the door without actually going up to it. As it is, because I can’t see, I’m still nervous. Because it’s Oliver I only have to give myself a five-minute pep talk to open the door as opposed to the usual ten– to fifteen-minute one that ends up with me walking into my bedroom and putting a pillow over my head.
“Sorry,” I apologize as I let him in. “I think I’m still on edge from the clown.”
“Don’t apologize. I wouldn’t want to open the door after that clown showed up in front of mine either.” He gives me a one-armed hug and raises a deli bag. “I brought lunch.”
“You are the best cousin ever.”
“I’m your only cousin, Natalie.” He places the bag on the counter while I get the plates. “I was coming home late last night and saw your lights on. I knocked and, well, I could tell you were busy.”
My cheeks turn rosy as I guess at how he could tell I was occupied. “Was I really loud?”
He looks away. “I could, ah, tell you were enjoying yourself.”
Now we’re both blushing. I busy myself with rearranging the plates and forks.
“How much do you know about this guy?”
“A lot.”
“Like what?”
How could I share with him the things that Jake had told me? They seemed too intimate and precious to be repeating. I might not know what his favorite food is or what he enjoys doing during his spare time, but I know that he knows what it’s like to be afraid, to be different in ways that Oliver will never understand.
“Important stuff,” I say to keep things vague. Oliver looks skeptical. “What does it matter?” I ask.
“He could be taking advantage of you. I’m happy that you’re not alone, but we don’t know this Jake guy.” Oliver takes a huge bite of his sandwich.
“He must be decent, or why would you have hired him?”
“Hiring someone to investigate a potential problem isn’t the same as knowing him enough to feel comfortable about him dating your cousin.” The side of his mouth quirks up and a long crease appears. His fatal dimples don’t have the same effect on me that they do on other females, though I’m not immune to the charm.
Reaching over, I squeeze his forearm. I’ve learned that his biceps have no squeezability. “You’re the best and I’d say that if I had a dozen cousins.” I take a bite of the ham sandwich he brought me. “But I think Jake is a good guy.”
“If he is so decent, where is he now? Shouldn’t he be here eating with you instead of me?”
It takes effort not to look toward the bedroom. “I don’t ask a lot of questions about your personal life because it’s none of my business, but also because you don’t have the best relationship track record. And while you aren’t as bad as the tabloids make you out to be, you are hardly an angel.”
He scowls. “I don’t have time for a real relationship right now. You know my focus is on winning. So I look for women who want the same thing. To sleep with a winner.”
“God, Oliver, you are more than a football player.”
He shrugs me off as if it is unimportant. “Look, I’m not going to be an asshole about it. Just know I’m concerned. Plus, if I need to beat his ass up, I will.”
“Noted. Get out of here because I need to write. Daphne is telling me I’m going to put her in the hospital if I don’t finish this book on time.”
Oliver laughs and ruffles my hair as he leaves.
I check my phone one last time to see if Jake has left me any messages, but the only other ones there are unread texts from Oliver, which I mark as read since he’s discharged his brotherly warning in person. After those are discarded, I’m left with an empty screen. Again I remind myself of my victories—allowing someone into my apartment who is not Oliver, Daphne, and Dr. Terrance, and having sex with a real live person for the first time in three years. And that the sex was amazing. Fantastic. Superb. Stuff worth writing about.
If he doesn’t call again, then it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Sure, it will sting. All rejections sting, but the world won’t end.
It’s not a very convincing argument, but as it’s the only one I have, I return to my office. At the very least, I can finish my book.
I close the door, place my headphones on once again, and shut out the rest of the world. The only thing that can exist for me for the rest of the day is this book.
