B00AAOCX2E EBOK (29 page)

At least, that’s the way it played out in my mind. Sadly, reality never compared to fantasy, and now I just felt naked and stupid.

I hastily pulled on my jeans and walked to the closet to pick out a top. I could feel Ian’s eyes on my back while I thumbed through the hangers in my overstuffed closet. Speculating about what he was thinking made it difficult to focus on the clothes before me. I forced myself to concentrate long enough to pull out a white angora turtleneck sweater.

After sliding the sweater over my head, I pulled out my high-traction snow boots and took them over to the bed. I was putting on my socks when I mustered the courage to look up and meet his eyes again. “What are you doing later?”

“Some studying. Why?”

“We still need to get together to do the website. Quinn wants it tomorrow.”

He groaned and rolled onto his back. “Right. I forgot.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be out with Mom, but I figure I should be free by three or four. That is, if you wanted to get together?”

“Four works.”

Ian pushed himself up, but I halted his motions with a lift of my hand. “Don’t rush out on my account. Sleep as long as you want.” After all, we’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. One of us might as well get some sleep.

The doorbell chimed.

“I better get going.” I stared at him with a crinkled brow, indecisive about whether I should wave, or give him a hug, or a kiss?
Screw it.
Being brave, I leaned over and pressed my mouth to his in a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

His eyes closed as he kissed me back, and I took that as a good sign. When they opened again, he nodded slowly. “Count on it.”

Giving him one last look, I left the room and went into the living room to get the door. “Hi, Mom,” I said after pulling it open.

Mom pranced into the apartment while pulling a pair of red furry ear-muffs off her head. “Brrr! It’s cold!” She dropped a quick kiss on my forehead with her freezing lips as she passed.

I shivered and closed the door. “I see it stopped snowing. How are the roads?”

“A mess, but they’re no match for my four-wheel drive. Are you ready?”

I gave her a half-smile. “Yeah. I am.”

“Why’d you say it like that?” Mom asked. She’s caught the touch of reluctant question in my voice, just as I’d intended.

I slid my hair behind my ear. “Well…”

“What?” she asked, holding her hands out in question.

“It’s just, I don’t remember making plans with you,” I said in a delicate, non-accusatory voice, knowing she could be overly-sensitive.

“What are you talking about? I called you on Friday.” After a beat, her nose twitched. “Didn’t I?”

“Not that I recall, no.”

A look of utter confusion passed over my mom’s face, before she finally shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, maybe I just thought about calling and forgot to actually do it.” She tossed her hand, indicating that it didn’t seem that important. “You don’t have other plans, do you? I just really had my heart set on spending some time with you. I understand, though, if your life is too busy to cut a small time out of your schedule to spend with your old mom.”

I groaned inwardly. Throwing in a side of Italian-guilt was a tactic she’d adopted from Nonni Rossini. “No, Mom, I’m free.”

She perked up. “Then it works out perfectly, doesn’t it?”

“Sure.” I walked to the breakfast nook table to grab my purse out of my backpack.

“Was that Ian’s motorcycle I saw outside?”

My hand froze on my cell phone. He hadn’t driven it in the snow, had he? Or had he pushed the damn thing all the way over? “Uh, yeah. That’s his.”

“He’s here, then?”

“Yes,” I admitted. My pulse accelerated.

“Good, he’s safe. Well, in that case, why don’t you see if he wants to come along? It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to spend time with both my kids.”

I pulled a face at the refrigerator. After all Ian and I had done to each other, hearing my mom refer to him as her kid, essentially equating him as my brother, downright gave me the willies. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“He’s had a long night. It’s probably best we let him sleep.”

She came up behind me and touched my arm. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I got your message this morning. Nathan told me Ian had to pick his stepfather up from jail, yesterday. Is he okay?” While my Mom wasn’t aware of the extent of Ian’s physical abuse growing up, she did know life at home had never been good. Why else would he have spent so much time at our house?

And it seemed she knew more than I did about what happened the night before, but it was pretty much as I expected. I looked away. “Yeah, mom, he’s fine,” I lied. Old habits die hard. “I… took good care of him.” Now
that
almost made me laugh.

“You always do.” Mom squeezed my arm. “You tell Ian to come see me soon. I wanna see for myself that he’s doing okay.”

“I’ll do that.” I pulled on a jacket and a pair of gloves and took one last lingering look at my bedroom door. “Okay, I’m ready.”

***

Chelsea sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee and reading a book, when I returned from brunch with mom.

“Hey,” she said when I entered, breaking into a smile.

“Hey, yourself. What are you up to?”

“I’m reading a novel. What’s all that?” Chelsea placed her mug on the table and nodding her head at the bags swinging from my arms.

I grinned. “A pair of boots, two shirts, a skirt, jeans. Oh, and the coolest Asian lamp. It’s kind of an hourglass shape, with wrought iron and rice paper… well, you’ll have to see it.”

“Was this a mom-sponsored trip?”

“As a matter of fact, it was.” I placed the bags on the couch to free my hands, then shed my excess layers of clothing. After being outside, the apartment felt like a brick oven. “Turns out she got a more sizable tax return than she anticipated, so she decided to spend a little on her poor, starving college student daughter.”

“How nice of her.”

I nodded and went into the kitchen to get some coffee. I knew as soon as my body temp adjusted to the apartment, I’d be freezing again.

I was carrying my mug to the table when Chelsea said, “So, you and Ian, huh?”

“What?” My voice wavered and my eyes darted to my bedroom door.

“He left a few hours ago,” Chelsea said with a highly amused smile. She closed the book in front of her and used her toe to push out the chair opposite her. “Sit.”

I dropped into the chair.

“So…?” she prompted.

I brought my legs in to my chest and dropped my chin on my knees. “How did you know?”

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “You weren’t exactly discreet. The looks you were giving each other last night were highly suspicious, but it was the heavy breathing and moaning through the bedroom walls that really gave you away.”

My face heated and I lowered my forehead to my knees. Had we really been that loud? “Sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Besides, Ian’s the loud one.”

I laughed and Chelsea joined in.

“So, was this the first time?” Chelsea questioned, and I nodded. “What changed? I mean, I always suspected it would happen sooner or later, but— ”

What’s that, now?
“You did?”

“Oh, come on. Anyone who has ever been around the two of you for more than five minutes can feel the sexual tension. You guys snap, crackle and pop with it.”

“What are you talking about? This is all recent.”

Chelsea’s brows rose. “Really? Because I’ve been aware of it since you moved in. And as much as you may want to convince yourself otherwise, it’s not typical for best friends to hang all over each other so much, and hug each other, and give little kisses—”

“They’re
pecks
!”

“And the
arguing.
Half the time, I can’t tell if the two of you are really mad, or if you just really get off on pretending to be mad.”

I tossed my hand. “I’m Italian! That’s how we show affection.” Or it’s at least how Mom and Nonni always had.

“And you’re always hitting him, and he seems to love it.”

“’Cause he knows I’m just being playful. I would never
really
—”

Chelsea gave me a somber nod. “I know you wouldn’t. But my point is, the stuff you two do is not just run of the mill friendly behavior.”

I shook my head. “Whatever. We were just close.”

“I’m close to Casey, and you don’t see me kissing him all the time, or climbing onto his lap, or smacking his butt. You can believe it or not, but we’ve all sensed there was something more there.”

I threw my hands in exasperation. “Who’s we?”

“Casey, Amery, me…even Parker. We’ve all been wondering if the two of you would ever wake up and see it.”

This was all mind-blowing news to me, and I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of my friends talking about us behind our backs. “Now hold on a minute. I’ve
never
had romantic feelings for him before last week.”

“Okay,” she said with that same pitying smile. “If you say so.”

“I haven’t! He’s always been just a friend.”

“I’m sure you believe that, too.”

I gawked at her, flabbergasted. And intrigued. She seemed so sure. And I guess that if I had witnessed all this about another set of friends, I’d probably think something was going on there, too. But was she right? Had there been something there before?

“So where are you guys, now?” Chelsea asked. “Are you together?”

That was the big question, wasn’t it? That was what had my chest tight and my stomach all twisted in knots. “Your guess is as good as mine. We just went for it. We didn’t stop to establish what it meant in the long term or anything.”

“Which answers my question of whether you really thought about what you were risking?” Chelsea said.

“Believe me, I’ve thought about nothing else since my feelings started changing.”

“That’s good.” Chelsea placed her hands flat on the table and spoke in a business-like tone. “Now, let’s address the important question: do you want to be with him?”

I gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. What about him? Any clue what he wants?”

I released a heavy sigh and dropped my chin on my knee again. “Who knows what he wants? I mean, we talked for a minute this morning, but it was weird and rushed because I had to leave.”

“Okay, say he came over later and told you he loved you…?”

That would be incredible. But this was Ian we were talking about. The only time he ever used the word “love” was as a joke. Plus, he wasn’t into the whole commitment thing. It seemed too much to hope that our night together would have changed that.

“You know what?” I said, feeling a little sick. “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. My head’s all… ahh!” I shook my hands around my head, trying to impress upon Chelsea the utter chaos of my thoughts.

“I understand.”

The house phone rang and I froze. Chelsea looked at me to get it, since I was physically closer. Registering the panic on my face, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.” She crossed the room and picked it up the receiver. “Hello? Hi, Daddy.”

I blew out a breath of relief, laughing at how silly I was being. What had brought on the onslaught of sudden panic? No, I knew that. It was too soon. I didn’t plan to see Ian until four. I wasn’t ready to talk to Ian yet, wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

Sighing, I rose to my feet and walked to the couch. To busy my shaking hands, I lifted the deep purple velvet top with spaghetti straps that Mom had bought me. It had been an impulse buy, so not my style, but I’d been unable to put it back on the rack.

Not that I’ll be able to wear it anytime soon with the big love bite on my neck.

“Sorry, Ivy,” Chelsea said. I looked over to see her holding her hand over the receiver. “This is going to take a while. Can we talk later?” I nodded and she made her way to her room. “Yes, I’m done with my speech but I still have to prepare a skit,” she said into the phone before she disappeared.

Returning my top to the plastic bag, I gathered my bags and carried them to my room. Ian had made my bed before he left, which I thought was pretty considerate. I dropped my things on top of my desk, and went to sit on the bed’s surface. All obvious signs of our night together were gone. I grabbed the pillow Ian had slept on and brought it to my nose. It smelled like cucumber/melon body wash and coconut shampoo, both of which he used in my shower. But beneath that, his natural scent lingered.

I inhaled deeper and my lower belly coiled as the memories teased me again. I sighed and fell back on the bed, hugging the pillow to my chest. I really had some problems I needed to do for my Social Statistics class and thirty-five pages of reading for my Research Methods class, both of which were due the following day, but I ended up just lying there, thinking about Ian and our night, and fretting over what would come next until I finally drifted off into sleep.

A sixth sense woke me sometime later, causing me to bolt upright in bed. The pillow I’d been hugging fell to the floor. My head turned about as I looked for the source of whatever it was that brought me awake so suddenly. I found the answer in the clock. It was a quarter to five.

Where was Ian? Had he stood me up?

I rose to my feet and rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I went to the door. Just as I reached out for the doorknob, I heard a male voice coming from beyond the room accompanied by a second male voice.

I pulled the door open and poked my head out. Casey sat on the edge of the couch as he fiddled with a white laptop on the coffee table. Chelsea sat to his side, and Ian rested on the arm of the couch as they watched some kind of cartoon on YouTube.

I frowned as I surveyed them, wondering when this had turned into a group gathering and why nobody had bothered to wake me.

Ian tapped Casey’s shoulder and opened his mouth to say something. He stopped when he noticed me standing in the doorway. Our eyes met. His smile was faint and reserved. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I returned softly over the blood rushing in my ears.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Casey bounded to his feet, crossed the room and swept me up into a hug. It was far more enthusiastic than Ian’s reaction.