Return of the Jerk (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 2) (41 page)

“LET’S JUST STAY
naked all day,” Nathan murmurs as Blair gets up to put her clothes on again. “Or better yet, you could wear that little apron and nothing else.”

Blair laughs. “Maybe I’ll bake you a cake sometime with that little apron on and nothing else.”

“Mmm, sounds good.”

Blair searches around through the covers for her shirt. She finally finds it on the floor along with her jeans and underwear. “Shouldn’t we go check on the goulash?”

“Yeah, but I still think we should stay naked. We’d be like nudists.” He gets up from the bed and puts his T-shirt on, reaches for his boxers. “No one would see us, except the dogs, and they’d never say anything.”

“Please, those dogs are such blabbermouths. They’ll tell everyone they know we were running around naked.”

He chuckles. “You’re just saying that to get out of it.”

“No, I’m not.” She slips into her jeans. “And, come on, do you really want Eddie, Duff, and Tommy Lee sniffing and licking your balls every two seconds?”

A strangled noise comes from the bed and when Blair turns, Nathan has collapsed onto it, shaking with laughter. “Damn . . . babe,” is all he manages to say before he bursts into another laughing fit.

She laughs, too. “You know they would.”

When they check on the goulash, it still isn’t ready, even though the delicious aroma is drifting through the house.

“The smell is making me hungry,” Blair admits.

“Yeah, me, too.” Nathan stirs the pot then turns the heat down. “Needs more time, though.”

Grabbing a couple of beers, along with some chips and a blanket, they head to the back deck where it’s not quite sunset. Tori has a hammock in her backyard she puts up every year when the weather warms, and Nathan decides that’s where they should hang out.

The lawn is cool against Blair’s toes as she walks over to it, carrying her beer and the blanket she nabbed from the couch.

Nathan gets in first, and then helps Blair climb in so she’s lying half on him and half next to him. They don’t really need the blanket, so he tucks it behind his head like a pillow.

“This is nice and cozy,” she says, as Nathan hands her beer back to her, the hammock rocking a little. “Plus, I like watching the sunset.”

“Reminds me of you.” He puts his hand up to the back of her head.

“Me?”

He nods. “Your hair.”

“You really do like redheads, don’t you?”

“There’s one I especially like.”

They smile at each other, and Blair’s heart swells with joy. She realizes this is the happiest she’s ever been in her entire life.

Without knowing it, Nathan has made all my dreams come true
.

After a while, Blair hands him her beer and he puts both bottles along with the potato chips on the ground.

She scoots up a little, slides her fingers to the back of his neck, and leans over to put her mouth near his. “Nathan,” she says softly, still enjoying the sound of his name. She kisses him on the lips first, then his cheeks, nose, and chin. Kisses him all over. Can feel him smiling the whole time.

Finally, Blair looks into his face. His eyes are closed, so she admires him. Runs her finger over his handsome features, tracing all the contours. Over his brow, forehead, and down his nose. Traces lightly over the bump where he broke it as a kid.

“Do you still remember how this happened?” she asks, curious.

“How what happened?”

“When you broke your nose. You fell off your bike when you were a kid?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “That’s right.”

“How well do you remember it?”

Nathan shifts position, so he’s lying more on his back and she’s on her side looking at his profile, her arm draped across his chest. “I remember it real well.”

“What happened?”

He glances at her then gazes up at the sky. “I was riding my bike on the street, going too fast, not paying attention. The bike skidded against the curb and I lost control. Fell off and hit my face right on the cement.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine.”

Blair shakes her head. “Was there a lot of blood?”

He nods. “Yeah, hurt like a sonofabitch, too. My mom had to take me to the ER, where they set it, but it healed with a bump. Told us later we could have a plastic surgeon fix it, but I didn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “Just didn’t.”

They’re both quiet after this while Blair studies the hawkish profile from his once-broken nose.

Nathan closes his eyes. “No.” He lets out his breath. “That’s not what really happened.”

“What do you mean?”

He turns, so he’s looking into her eyes. “I’ve been telling that same story for so many years. Truth is one of my mom’s drunk boyfriends threw a full bottle of beer at me and hit me in the face.”

“
What?
” Blair goes completely still.

“Broke my nose.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispers.

Nathan doesn’t say anything more as Blair stares at him in shock.

“And you were only nine?”

“That’s right.”

She can barely breathe. “He could have killed you!”

“Yeah, lucky he didn’t, huh?”

“I’m so sorry.” She puts her hand to his cheek. “I don’t even know what to say.” Blair can barely wrap her mind around how terrible it is.

“Not much to say.”

“Baby, you didn’t deserve that. You know that, right?”

“I know.” He licks his lips. “My mom made up that bike story on the way to the ER, and it’s the same one I’ve been using all this time.”

“That’s so horrible.” Blair’s eyes fill with tears and she wishes she could do something.

Nathan is still watching her. “Never told the truth to anyone before.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

He nods, puts his thumb up to her cheek and wipes some of her tears away. “That’s not even the worst part.”

“How can that not be the worst part?”

“The worst part is nothing happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“To
him
—Curtis, my mom’s boyfriend.” He shakes his head. “Didn’t expect her to call the cops, but I expected her to throw him out. Instead, he lived with us for another year. We all just pretended the bike story was true.”

Blair’s mouth opens, but no words come out. And to think she’s always liked his mom. She knew Lori had problems and was attracted to asshole men, but never realized it was this bad.

“Imagine it,” he says. “Had to spend every holiday with that fucker. Christmas, my birthday . . .” He trails off. “I hated him.”

“But why would she do that?” Blair is dumbfounded.

“Don’t know . . .” He closes his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Guess she loved him more than
me
.”

“Baby . . .” Blair shifts position and wraps her arms around Nathan, hugging him tight. He hugs her back and she can hear his heartbeat through his chest, his breath shaking. She wishes she could erase the pain.

Eventually, he draws back, wiping his eyes. “Kept that secret for years.” He looks down at her with a wry smile. “See, I am a good liar after all.”

She puts her hand to his jaw.

Nathan lets out his breath. “Irony is he eventually left
her
. Not the other way around.”

“Lori does love you,” Blair says. “I think she’s just really messed-up.”

“Yeah.”

Something occurs to Blair. “What about your Uncle Lance? Did he know what happened?”

Nathan shakes his head, pressing his lips together. “No, he didn’t know. My mom made me promise not to tell him.”

“And you kept that promise?”

“I was a kid. And she’s my mom, so yeah, I kept it.” He looks at her. “Wanted to tell him, though. I hate secrets.”

“What would your uncle have done?”

His face grows serious. “He would have beat the shit out of Curtis. Maybe even killed him.”

Blair nods.

He picks up her hand, brings it to his mouth and kisses her palm. “It was probably best I didn’t tell him. Didn’t want the one person who really cared about me going to prison, you know?”

Blair watches him, but doesn’t say anything more. Thinks about what a heavy burden that must have been for a child. Wishes she could do some damage to Curtis herself. Lori, too.

And then it dawns on her.

“Oh, my God, that’s why you never had the bump fixed, isn’t it?”

Nathan eyes flash to hers.

“You wanted her to have to see it every day, to remind her of what happened.”

He’s still holding her hand, and he clutches it tight. There’s a storm of emotion behind his eyes, but then Blair watches them go calm and steady. “That’s right.”

When the goulash is done, they dish out a couple of big bowls for themselves and take it outside to eat on the back deck. The sun has gone down, and Blair lights two of Tori’s IKEA lanterns.

It’s a peaceful spring night, and the air almost tastes like summer.

Nathan can’t seem to pull his eyes from her, so they’re constantly gazing at each other. Blair discovers it’s a relief to finally be able to look at him as much as she wants.

At least I don’t have to hide that anymore.

“This is delicious,” she says, devouring her bowl of goulash. “They taught you well. I’d say they almost turned you into a Hungarian.”

Nathan laughs. “That’s what they used to say, ‘
Egy magyar embert csinálok belőled.’
He grins. “A Hungarian man made it.”

“Do you speak Hungarian, too?”

“I picked up a little.”

“What other languages did you ‘pick up’?”

“Learned some Thai and a little Marathi when I was in Mumbai.”

“Really? That’s impressive.”

“Guess so.” He shrugs, stirring his food. “Turns out I have kind of an ear for languages.”

As they eat, Eddie, Duff, and Tommy Lee are sitting nearby, patiently watching. One of the cats, Joan, is also outside, but she doesn’t seem interested in their food and wanders off into the yard to hunt for her own evening snack.

After finishing their bowls, Blair gets up and goes to put them in the kitchen sink with the dogs trailing behind her. They’re following her every move with such anticipation that Blair finally decides, w
hat the heck,
and gives them each a little bowl of goulash.

“I decided to give the dogs some goulash,” she tells Nathan when she goes back outside.

He’s gazing up at the night sky, deep in thought, but turns to her with a grin tugging at his mouth. “Not sure if that was such a good idea, babe.”

“Why not?”

“Goulash dog farts? Don’t even want to know what those are going to smell like.”

Blair’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t even think about that!”

He chuckles. “Probably have to fumigate the whole house.”

“We’ll just open all the windows. It’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.”

She walks over to where he’s sitting on one of the steps leading into Tori’s yard.

He reaches up for her hand and pulls her down to sit close beside him, their legs touching. “So, what about you, princess?” He keeps her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Any dark skeletons in your childhood closet?”

Blair sighs. The truth is she had a great childhood. She always felt safe and loved, and she knows what a gift her parents gave her. Oddly, the only skeleton—if you could call it that—was her unrequited love for
him
. Her obsession nearly eclipsed everything in her life—at least during high school and into her twenties, all the way up until they got married. “No,” she says. “I had a wonderful childhood.”

He nods. “I can imagine. A beautiful princess living in a fairytale castle.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Mom some kind of corporate hotshot, dad is a . . .” Nathan looks at her in confusion. “What does your dad do again?”

“He’s a CFO.”

“That’s right. And two younger brothers to do your bidding.”

She scoffs. “Hardly. It’s more like they were there to annoy me. And I didn’t live in a fairytale castle.” But then she feels bad because she realizes, compared to the house he and Tori grew up in, it
was
a castle. “I’m not really a princess, either.”

He tugs on her hand. “Stop talking and let me finish my story.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“The beautiful princess has long, flowing red hair and pretty hazel eyes. She’s kind of a crazy perfectionist, but at the same time, no one can deny the castle is clean and cozy.”

Blair snorts with laughter.

“She has a little dog named Scooter and a white cat named Fluffy who adore her and follow her everywhere.”

“Sorry to interject, Mr. Storyteller Man, but our dog’s name was Gypsy and our
black
cat was Shadow.”

“Scooter and Fluffy,” he says pointedly, “sleep at the foot of the princess’s pink canopy bed every night.”

Blair looks at him in amazement. “How did you know I had a pink canopy bed?”

He smirks. “Because you’re a princess.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure what I think of this story.”

“The beautiful princess has a beautiful life, with lots of friends and family who shower her with love every day.”

She meets his eyes, but doesn’t say anything.

He brings up her hand and kisses it. “I’m happy you had that, babe. Real glad for you.”