Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle (Play with Me, Snowfall, and After Midnight) (34 page)

“Hey, man, we’d better get out of here,” Owen said. “He’s got friends. Lots of very big, very drunk friends. Boston College football. You can choose ’em.”

“But I need to—”

Beer Gut attained standing, and his crew advanced as Owen and Sad-Eyed Guy backed away.

“No, man, we’re
outta
here.” Owen tugged his friend’s arm.

“I—”

“Don’t be an idiot, dude. They’re going to kick our
asses
.” Owen yanked him, hard, and the two of them turned and ran.

“Wait!” Nora called. “Wait, I don’t know your—”

They were not waiting. They were running, pushing through the crowd, heading for the
door as fast as they could go, and by the time her legs started to work, they’d already disappeared from her sight.

“What the
hell
happened back there?”

Miles and Owen had taken the elevator down twenty-two floors and run full tilt toward the Kendall Square stop for several blocks, ducking through parking garages and hotel lobbies to stay off the street, before they were able to convince themselves they weren’t being pursued.

“That asshole
kissed
her. Twice.”

Owen regarded him levelly. “It
is
New Year’s Eve.”

“She was with
me
.”

As he said it, Miles recognized the total absurdity of it. But she had felt like she was with him. She had been hot and vibrant and
his
while he kissed her, and funny and adorable when he’d let her go, and he’d been two seconds from asking her to leave the party with him and become
more his. All his
.

Probably it was a good thing fate had intervened in the way it had. Fifteen minutes and he had gone Neanderthal-possessive. The events of the last month had apparently unhinged him.

“You work fast, man,” Owen said mildly. “Also, you’ve got confetti in your hair.”

Miles shook it out, a slight rain of silver, and ran his hands through his hair to get the rest.

The train car they were riding in had been packed to the gills when they boarded it. An earthy scent blend of beer and hard alcohol and vomit and sweat permeated the air but was starting to fade as the car emptied out. They’d managed to snare two seats side by side. There were still people in the aisles, though, loud and jovial, as the car made its lurching way over the tracks, screeching and squealing as it cornered.

“Are you going to see her again?” Owen asked.

“I don’t know her name,” Miles confessed. All he knew was the precise way her smile bloomed, starting with the lift of her upper lip, finding her eyes last. He knew the shape of her fingers on another woman’s arm, telling her it was okay, she belonged. And he knew the thoroughness with which she inhabited a room.

Not much. A name would be more practical.

The look on Owen’s face would have made Miles laugh, if he’d been in a laughing mood.
“You’re
kidding
me.”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t get her number.”

“That’s what I was trying to
tell
you when you were dragging me out of there. I don’t know her name or her number.”

“You danced with her, you kissed her, you beat some guy up over her, she was ‘with’ you”—Owen inserted air quotes—“and you never asked her what her name was?” With his loony yellow hair and outraged expression, Owen looked like Doc Brown from
Back to the Future
.

“It didn’t come up.”

“How does that
not come up
?”

Miles stayed silent, and Owen narrowed his eyes. “Oh. You didn’t tell her your name because of the investigation.”

Miles sighed and used his shoulder to fend off a drunk T rider who had almost fallen in his lap. “I might not have felt particularly inclined to share that piece of information, no.”

“Well, now you’re screwed. How are you going to find her?”

“I’m not. She lives in Boston. I live in Cleveland. I’m not going to see her again.”
Except in my dirty fantasies
. Because he was already having intense flashbacks, to the way she’d looked on the dance floor, to the swift show of her smile as they’d talked, to the feel of her mouth and the exact curve of her ass under his palms.

“What about tomorrow night?”

Miles’s flight back was on the third. If he kept his ticket. It was tempting not to return to Cleveland at all. Maybe if he stayed away, all that had happened there would recede slowly in importance until it didn’t hurt anymore.

Miles shook his head. “It’s too complicated.”

“What’s complicated? I saw you kissing her. It didn’t look complicated at all.”

No, it hadn’t been complicated. It had been the simplest thing in the world, totally primal. A straight hit of sex to the brain, a hard-on so hard it still hurt. A craving he’d have to shut down as soon as he could get on top of it.

“I’m not exactly God’s gift to women right now. Being suspected of a felony isn’t, you know, chick catnip.”

“Chick catnip,” snickered Owen. “Man, you could sell that shit for, like, a million dollars.” He sobered up. “You’d just tell her you didn’t do it, man.”

If only that worked. A month ago, Miles would have believed it, too, but he was on the other side of one of those life lines you crossed where you never saw the world the same way again.

“If Deena didn’t believe that, why should some woman who’s never met me before in her life?”

“Because she’s not a shallow bitch?”

Owen had met Deena only a couple of times, but they’d never hit it off. Deena was too serious for Owen’s tastes, not inclined to laugh at herself or find humor in, say, the idea of chick catnip.

“Deena’s not a shallow bitch.” As hurt as Miles was, as much trouble as he was having understanding her actions, he hadn’t reached the stage of hating her—at least not yet. She had been a big part of his life for many years, and during those years she’d been sweet, affectionate, and loyal.

Although it did raise the question: If you never tested someone’s devotion, how could you possibly know how they’d behave when the chips were down? Could you call someone loyal if their loyalty was just the everyday kind of showing up?

“I don’t understand why you feel the need to defend her. What kind of despicable human being deserts her fiancé when he’s under suspicion for a crime?”

“One who believes he committed it, I guess.”

Owen looked as if he would have spat if they hadn’t been in the subway. “Or one who was already looking for a way out.”

Miles stared at an ad overhead.
Are you between the ages of 18 and 38? Do you suffer from anxiety?

Yes
, thought Miles.
No
. And then,
Maybe. Just a little. Since my world got pulled out from under me like a cheap rug
.

“People aren’t all like Deena,” Owen said. “You must have some friends who’ve been supportive of you.”

Miles had told exactly three people what had happened: his lawyer, Deena, and Owen. None of them had asked him if he was innocent or guilty. His lawyer had explained that, as a
matter of policy, Miles was innocent in his eyes, and he didn’t want to know anything more than that. Owen—well, Owen was Owen. He had a sealed juvie record and a lifelong battle with shoplifting impulses, and if he hadn’t asked whether Miles was guilty, it was probably because he didn’t give a fuck if he was. But Deena?

She hadn’t asked whether he was guilty, because she’d assumed he was. She’d looked at him with accusation, with blame, with
betrayal
in her eyes.
How could you do this to me?

Miles shook his head.

“You’re telling me that out of all the people you’ve told, no one has taken your side?”

“I’m telling you I haven’t told anyone.”

“People at work?”

Miles shook his head. “It all happened so fast. Board calls me into a meeting, and
blam!
Suspicion of embezzlement, police involved, unpaid leave. I’m apparently lucky they didn’t fire me.”

“But surely you’ve sat down with your staff and talked about it …?”

That look on Deena’s face. As if he’d slapped her. Then the worst part. He’d drawn a deep breath, down to his toes, because who could have told him, before he’d experienced it, how much balls it would take to claim your own innocence? Who knew how much it would feel like a confession of guilt?

“I didn’t do it,” he’d told her.

There had been a split second after the words came out of his mouth when he’d believed they’d make a difference. That she’d trust his words when she hadn’t been able to blindly trust his character.

She’d looked down at her feet, and he knew: It would always sound like too much protest, too late.

“The first time I sat down with my lawyer, he told me, ‘Innocent until proven guilty is a legal concept, not a guarantee that the average Joe will give you a fair shake.’ ”

“Maybe she’s not the average Joe.”

They both knew Owen was talking now about the woman at the New Year’s Eve party.
There’s nothing average about her
, Miles thought, and then,
I spent fifteen minutes with her. That doesn’t make me an expert on who she is
.

“Okay. Maybe she’s not. Seriously, though: I’m going to pursue this girl when I have
nothing to offer her except a long-distance relationship and a criminal investigation? That’s appealing.”

“Can’t you let her be the judge of that?”

Miles crossed his arms. “Can you leave it alone?”

Owen clamped his mouth shut and leaned back in his seat.

Miles felt bad. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m sorry because I know you were probably going to go home with that blond woman and I blew it for you.”

“I’m not worried,” Owen said serenely. “
I
have her phone number.”

A group of travelers hanging off one of the poles broke into “Sweet Caroline.” It made conversation nearly impossible, which was not such a bad thing, because it gave Miles a few minutes to think. Mainly about the feel of
her
mouth against his, soft and yielding and then not yielding at all. Hot and wet and aggressive as hell, which he liked, along with those roaming hands. Christ, he was getting hard again.

“I wouldn’t be ready for anything, anyway,” he told Owen when “Sweet Caroline” had run its course. “Deena moved out only two weeks ago. We were together for more than five years.”

Owen just looked at him.

“That’s a long time. We lived together, our possessions mingled. Everything I did was all caught up with her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why are you being such a dick about this? It would obviously be a rebound thing.”

“Maybe I think you
need
a rebound thing. And you’re punishing yourself by not letting yourself have one.”

“I’m not punishing myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“What would I be punishing myself for?”

“Letting this embezzlement thing happen on your watch.”

Fucking Owen, who knew him too well. “Look. The point is, I don’t have her name and number, and it’s probably for the best.”

“I can
get
it for you. I can find out.”

“How?”

“I’m sure Erica knows someone who knows someone who knows who she is.”

“No,” Miles said.

“Come on, dude.”

“No.”

Because she was too nice to do that to. Too nice to drag her in, drag her down. Make her a quickie stop on the Miles-deals-with-his-pain train.

You don’t even know her. How do you know she’s nice?

He thought of the way she’d chosen to give her smile, to give her self, to the people in the room who needed her most. To him, too.
I just know
.

The fact that he was arguing with himself, the fact that he was claiming intimate knowledge of someone he’d exchanged a couple hundred words with, danced with for less than a minute, and kissed once, was more proof that he was totally irrational where this woman was concerned and that staying away from her was the best thing for both of them.

Owen sighed. “I’m worried about you, man.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a good lawyer. That’s what matters.”

“That’s not all that matters, is it?”

He could take the feel of her, the strawberries-and-salty-arousal scent of her, the quick smile and flippant humor of her, the
goodness
of her, and pack it into a mental box. Shove it on the highest shelf of some attic, behind the humiliation of having his board tell him they thought he’d steal from the nonprofit he’d founded—from hungry kids, for Christ’s sake. Behind the pain of having his fiancée tell him, if not in so many words, that she didn’t believe in his innocence. He had that kind of mental control. He could do it.

“It’s all that matters right now.”

* * *

Nora had just received yet another email, the gist of which was that her friend Selena had racked her brain and contacted everyone she knew but couldn’t figure out who the hell Nora was talking about.

Nobody knew who he was.

Nora found it implausible that in this day and age of total connectivity, at a moment in
history when she could track down the girl she’d played with on the climber in elementary school with about ten keystrokes, she couldn’t find a guy she’d publicly swapped spit with at a legend-quality New Year’s Eve party.

She’d posted it to Facebook. She’d tweeted it. She’d emailed her sister, her sister’s roommate, her sister’s roommate’s friend.

Nada.

Well, no, not
nothing
. She’d gotten back a bunch of messages and tweets and emails from horny guys who’d apparently gotten a little too much enjoyment out of her (brief, safe-for-work) description of the interaction she’d had with the Sad-Eyed Guy.

I wasn’t the guy who danced with you at the New Year’s party, but there’s always next year
.

Heya, hot stuff, New Year’s Eve isn’t the only night of the year where you can kiss at midnight
.

My dick is 9 inches long and I can make you forget him
.

So much for the power of social media. Scratch the surface off the Internet, and once again it would prove that it was porn all the way down.