Authors: Megan Hart
He moved closer, angling his body for a hug I didn’t give at first, until it was either embrace him or push him away. It didn’t last long, and when I didn’t melt against him, he must’ve sensed my reluctance. Patrick stepped back.
“Do you think…you could ever…?”
I stared at him, then laughed. It hurt him more than anything I’d said so far; I could tell by how his mouth turned down and his lip curled. “Take you back? You are not asking me that, Patrick. Are you?”
“Teddy said it was because of you—”
“What? Teddy said…?” This sliced me. “How is it my fault?”
“Not your fault. Because of you. Because of how things happened with us, and what happened at New Year’s. Teddy said I was upset by what had happened, and that’s why I was doing the shit I was doing.”
I stabbed the air between us with a finger. “Teddy’s wrong.”
Patrick shrugged. “I thought a lot about what you said that
night, Liv. I thought a lot about how that made me feel, that I was jealous of another man for getting what I could’ve had but didn’t take when I had the chance.”
I held up a hand. “I am not your sympathy fuck, okay? Because you want to get laid, or petted, or cuddled, or what-the-fuck-ever.”
We both knew that not so long ago I’d have gone to bed with him if he’d asked. That I’d have tossed aside all reason for a chance at what I thought I wanted. I couldn’t believe he’d ask me this now, but then, I couldn’t exactly be surprised.
“I’m not interested in just a fuck.”
I stared at him long and hard. “You’re off boys, now? Back to women? Or just me?”
Patrick opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. He had nothing to say, or at least knew better than to say it. He hung his head. It was the only time I’d ever seen him look so ashamed.
I waited for him to speak or to turn away so I could go. He spoke.
“I’d be better for you than he is.”
“How do you figure that?”
“We’ve known each other longer.”
I laughed with twisted lips. “That doesn’t matter.”
He let his gaze move up, finally, to mine. He looked determined. “I don’t care if you’re still seeing him. I just think we should get each other out of our systems. Admit it, Liv, you’ll always wonder about me.”
“And you’ll wonder about me?” I gave an incredulous laugh, stunned at his audacity. “You had your chance, long ago. You didn’t want it then. You can’t make me believe you want it now.”
“I just can’t believe you’d marry him.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” Patrick said.
I sighed wearily. “You know what, Patrick? Alex has never lied to me about who he is, or what he’s done, which is more than I can say about you. I’m sorry you and Teddy broke up, and I’m sorry we’re not friends anymore. Believe me, I’m sorry about that.”
He crossed his arms over his gut, as if it hurt. “You know I slept with him.”
“Yes, Patrick. I know what you did with him.”
He shivered. “Well, maybe that’s why you like him so much.”
“I don’t like him. I love him.” I moved toward the driver’s side of my car, turning my back. “Fuck you, Patrick.”
“He can be a part of it, if you have to have him so much. I’d fuck him again. He’s a fucking great lay. “
“What?” I whirled, my throat going tight over a surge of nausea.
Patrick shivered again. I tried to remember how much I’d loved him, how he used to make me laugh. It was hard to remember the good times just then, with all the bad staring me right in the face. But there had been good times. Patrick had been my friend. I didn’t know this man in front of me, and I wondered if I ever had.
“Don’t use me to make yourself feel better,” I told him. “Or to prove to yourself you’re something you’re not. Don’t be…Dammit, Patrick, don’t go back to hiding who you are because you think it’s easier. That somehow you can pick up the pieces with me because it’s easier than moving on. Don’t
do that to me. Don’t make me your second chance. That’s not love. That’s selfishness.”
Patrick crumbled in front of me. “I’m sorry, Liv. I don’t know why I said any of that. I just miss you so fucking much, I haven’t ever gone so long without talking to you. No matter what happened to us, I never wanted us to stop being friends!”
“So you offer to fuck me and my fiancé?”
He shrugged and swiped at his face. “Everything is such a mess. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know why I’m doing it.”
I’d heard that story once before, when I’d stood in front of him with the ring he’d given me in my palm. “I can’t help you, Patrick. I’m sorry. You have to do this without me.”
Then I got in my car and drove away.
“I could totally get used to this domestic stuff.” I speared a carrot stick into the bowl of hummus before crunching it. When I kissed Alex, he tasted of garlic and oil, a little salt. He handed me the end of the loaf of French bread he was slicing. “How was your day?”
“Fine. Here. Use this.” He pushed a small, shallow plate of shimmering oil toward me. “It’s garlic-infused olive oil.”
“Yum. Where’d you get that?”
“I made it.” He tossed a smile over his shoulder before turning back to the boiling pasta.
I dipped the bread in the oil and tasted. I moaned. “Wow.”
“Good?” Alex dumped the pasta into a fancy metal colander I’d never seen before.
“Delish.” I looked around his apartment, noticing a few more new things. “Did you go shopping today?”
“Yeah. I went down to King of Prussia.” He waved away
the steam and settled the pasta on a decorative platter. Then he pulled a crank-wound cheese grater from the counter, added fresh Parmesan and a handful of shredded mozzarella, some pine nuts and some of the oil to the pasta. “Hungry?”
“Starving. We were so busy today I didn’t have time to grab much of a lunch.” I watched him set out the food. “Why’d you go all the way down to King of Prussia?”
“Um, because it’s the only mall worth going to?” Alex carried the platter of pasta over to the dining-room table. “Grab the salad, would you?”
This bowl looked new, too. “Crate and Barrel? Pottery Barn?”
“IKEA.”
“Wow, you were all over the place.” Envy panged me. “I haven’t been to IKEA in forever.”
He looked up. “We can go this weekend, if you want.”
“I have to work on Saturday, and I still have some client jobs to catch up on.”
He frowned and sat. “Shit. Can’t you switch or something?”
“No, it’s my Saturday to work. I told you that.” I got up to grab the basket of sliced bread, and came back to the table.
Alex had already served me some pasta and salad, and I wiggled in pleasure at the service and the prospect of the food. I was lucky he was such a great cook. I had a few dishes I was really good at making, but hardly ever felt motivated enough to cook when it was just me. I was more likely to toss together premade items from the supercenter I grabbed on the way home rather than start from scratch.
Impulsively, I bent to kiss him before I slid into my seat. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being so wonderful.”
Alex had been lifting a serving of salad onto his plate when I kissed him, and his hands stopped halfway. Bits of red and green lettuce fell onto the cranberry-colored tablecloth. He blinked. Then smiled.
“I guess I know the way to your heart.” He dumped the salad and stuck the wooden tongs back in the bowl. “Right through your stomach.”
I let my bare foot nudge his calf. “And other places.”
He laughed. “Well, you’re welcome. You’re not so bad yourself.”
We ate and chatted about our days. His, aside from the shopping, sounded uneventful. A conference call taken on the drive to King of Prussia, a few e-mails sent. He had more travel lined up. The job was due to finish in another month or so.
“Then what?” I ran a slice of bread through the oil on my plate and added some of the delicious, gooey melted cheese from the pasta bowl.
“Then…I find another job, I guess.”
I swallowed the bread and cheese with a mouthful of good red wine Alex wasn’t sharing. “Anything in mind?”
He shrugged and used his spoon to help twirl his pasta. He wiped his lips with his napkin, then drank from his water glass. Watching Alex was sometimes like watching a movie. A picture come to life. Everything he did was so fluid, but precise. I spilled oil down my front. His lips barely glistened from it.
“They might keep me on, who knows,” he said.
I picked apart another slice of bread but didn’t put any in
my mouth. I’d eaten too fast, and my stomach was full now though I’d touched barely half of what was on my plate. “It’s nice to see you’re so lackadaisical about it.”
He paused then to give me his full attention. “I know how to work, Olivia.”
“I know you do. I didn’t say you didn’t. I just meant that you don’t seem worried about not finding another job. I’d be freaking out a little bit.”
“I have money.”
“I know you have money,” I said patiently. “But…you should still have a job.”
“If I don’t work, I can stay home all day and be your houseboy.” He ran a finger through the oil and licked it suggestively.
He was teasing, but the gesture still sent heat slip-sliding through me. “Oh, really?”
“Sure. Get me a little thong—” His voice caught for a second, his gaze flickered. He recovered with a drink of water. “You could come home to dinner every night. I’ll be a regular Mr. Mom.”
We’d never spoken much about children, even when I’d told him about Pippa. The thought of an infant with my curls and Alex’s gray eyes seemed startling and distant, not something I’d ever wished for, but once spoken of impossible not to want.
“You do want kids, don’t you?” he said.
“I guess so. Do you?”
Alex set aside his fork, then nodded. “I’d like kids. Yes. It’s time, I guess. Before I get too old.”
I tossed a small hunk of bread at him and he caught it neatly, then tucked it in his mouth. “You’re not old.”
He grinned and chewed, swallowed. “Nah. I know.”
I was quiet for a few minutes as we ate. I thought of the accusations my mother had hurled at me, her words unkind but not unreasonable. “Alex.”
He looked up. “Yeah, babe.”
“You don’t mind that our child wouldn’t be my first?”
He put down his fork. He took my hand. “No, Olivia. Does it bother you?”
I shook my head. I’d come to peace with my decision long ago. I loved Pippa for being on this earth, and I was glad to be a part of her life, but I had no claims to her as a mother. “No.”
His fingers squeezed. “I admire what you did.”
“My mother told me no man would ever want to marry me, since I’d had a child and given it away. That men wanted children of their own. I thought she was stupid. I think she meant that it was because I was young,” I said. “But even so, it was a lame thing to say.”
“It was a mean thing to say, and I’m not surprised you’re angry about it.”
“Oh, I’m not mad anymore.”
He squeezed my fingers again. “Oh, yeah?”
I laughed after a second. “Okay. Yeah. It stings. But…you don’t care, really?”
Alex pushed his chair back from the table and tugged my hand until I came to sit on his lap. I put my head on his shoulder and toyed with the buttons on his shirt. I’m not small, but with Alex I always felt soft and feminine.
His hand came to rest just above my knee, and it was warm through the thin washable silk of my trousers. “I love you.
Whatever you’ve done before, or whatever you do in the future.”
I loosened a few buttons on his shirt so I could slip my hand inside. “That sounds like a line from a romance novel.”
His breath huffed against my hair. “I’ve spent a lot of time in airports and on planes. I’ve read my share of romances.”
“Why me?” I asked, shamelessly angling for compliments to take away the sour memories of my mother’s words and what had happened in the parking lot after work.
Alex shifted my weight on his legs. “You ate pot stickers for breakfast.”
I sat back to look at his face. “That’s not the answer I was expecting.”
“And because you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen,” he added. “And because your talent blew me away the first time I saw those photos you took. Because you can almost kick my ass at
Dance Dance Revolution,
but not quite. But really, it was the pot stickers.”
I had to laugh at that, for how ridiculous is it that food had led to love? “Why?”
He shifted again and I got off his lap onto my own chair again. He laughed and swirled another slice of bread through the oil on his plate and handed it to me. “I’ve spent a lot of time around people who think their entire value is tied up in their body mass index. Men who obsess about their workouts to the point they can’t talk about anything but cardio and reps. Women who think emaciation is sexy.”
I raised a brow. “So in other words, you’re trying to tell me I’m—”
“Voluptuous,” he interjected. “Pneumatic. Curvy. Gorgeous.”
I looked down at my breasts and shifted to glance at my thighs. “Uh-huh.”
“My point is, none of the women—or men—I’ve been with for the past few years would’ve eaten a pot sticker for breakfast.”
“Sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time with the wrong people.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of friends, Olivia. Not real friends. But I have a fuck-ton of money, and had nobody to spend it on but myself. It’s easy to get caught up in a lifestyle.”
I had no problem seeing what he meant. I pushed the platter toward him half an inch. “People who care about brand names, for example?”
He smiled. “Baby, for the people I was hanging with, Crate and Barrel would be slumming.”
I thought of the scarf he’d been willing to leave behind and replace with another. “You won’t find too much of that sort of thing here in Annville.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Tell me about it. I have a serious hard-on for a really good plate of Indian food and a bookstore. Fuck, I think I’d slap an old lady with a fish to have a really good bookstore around here.”
“Slap an…” I goggled, then giggled.
It was that way with him; one minute we were talking about the mysteries of life and the next he had me breathless with laughter.