Something's Come Up (14 page)

I sighed in relief—finally I had some familiarity here. “Oh, yes, Pace mentioned that. It sounds very interesting.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.

Just then, I caught Cary and Pace sharing a borderline uncomfortable stare as Celia played with her cuticles. I plastered on my best cheerful smile. I thought it might be best if I smile and nod for the rest of the time they were here. Or for however long it took for Celia to make me spontaneously combust with the force of her gaze.

Cary’s face softened. “It’s rewarding work. I’ve been very lucky to have my entire career with the same facility.”

Pace worked behind his deep marble bar, mixing drinks effortlessly. In all the time I’d spent on that bar, I hadn’t been aware there was actually alcohol stored back there. He never questioned his parents about dropping by, though all of the subtext in their actions suggested this was standard protocol, since he just graciously slipped into service to them.

“Adrian says he’s going to come up next weekend,” Pace said over the loud rattling of ice in his shaker.

“Oh, that’s good news.” Celia’s face unwound significantly and she let out an exaggerated sigh.

Pace rolled his eyes and grinned as he groaned. “What now?”

“Pace,” his mother cleared her throat again, as if I was poisoning the air around her, “I’m concerned about Adrian.”

He chuckled. “What’d he do?”

“He’s looking at law schools,” Cary said matter-of-factly, though not in the dramatic tone currently monopolized by his wife. His face remained soft, and it was clear he was the relaxed parent. Despite seeming to agree that law school was to the circus as the circus was to the circus.

“And this is a problem how?” He walked from behind the bar and handed a double gin and tonic to his mother and a single to his father.

“Frankly, we’d like to see him put his brain and compassion to good use,” Celia spit out.

I opened my mouth to retort, but thought better of it, settling for sitting back with my legs crossed.

“If you came to ask me, your son who is in law school, to talk your other son
out
of law school… Well, I’d say your logic is a bit flawed.” Pace strutted over and handed me what I hoped to God was a vodka and soda. I was a beer drinker, and he knew that, but it was clear that malt beverages weren’t acceptable in this setting.

“That’s not why we came, son.” Cary seemed genuinely sour at the implication.

Celia ignored their exchange. “He’s started dating this girl, who I think is contributing to the problem.”

“Problem?” Pace sat elegantly on the arm of the chair I was sitting in and rubbed my shoulder once before putting his hand in his lap.

Celia would do her best to singe a hole through that shoulder; I was sure of it by the way her eyes seemed to linger there even as she looked around the room.

“It’s not a problem, per se. She just seems a little… unfocused.” Cary did his best to sound like the peacemaker. Had I known him better, I’d have suggested he and I parachute out of there and leave Pace and his mother to their power struggle.

Turns out my seat was the prime observation deck. They moved around conversation like a calculated chess match.

“You’ve met her, then?” Pace sipped his drink and set it on the table next to us.

“Not exactly,” Celia piped in. “And, she’s certainly more grounded than that hippie he ran with for a while.”

I made a mental note to ask Pace if he knew anything about this mystery girl. That is, if any of us survived this cocktail hour.

Pace chuckled. “Mother, I assure you that if Adrian met this girl at Princeton,
unfocused
isn’t likely your issue with her. That wasn’t even your problem with Ember when they dated...” Pace slid his eyes toward me, then back to his parents.

His father also shot his eyes toward me, then to Celia, and back to Pace. “There was no problem with Ember, Pace.”

“Cary,” Celia cut in, “can we stop talking about Adrian’s ex and focus on this new girl?”

Pace took a deep breath. “Different girl, but same issue. Right?”

He avoided my eyes. Then, I put it all together.

“Oh!” I blurted out, taking a sip of my drink. “She’s white. I get it.”

Pace’s father coughed, but continued swallowing his drink, while his mother set her glass on a cork coaster so fast that if there had been any booze left in it, it would have splashed out in dramatic fashion.

“Young lady,” she began, fixing me with an even sterner expression than before, “I assure you that’s not a concern. I
do
however, take issue with your racist assumptions.”

My eyes bugged out, but before I could speak, Pace stood and put his hand up. “
Mother,
Steph is no racist. She hates everyone on an individual basis. Equal opportunity and all that.” He winked at his mother, who stood and smoothed out the front and back of her skirt.

I was speechless. He’d nailed it on the head with his comment, so I felt there wasn’t anything to add. Luckily, there wasn’t silence for long.

“Well, we must go. OB research dinner tonight.” Carrington II proceeded to stand and collect the nearly finished glass of gin from his wife.

In a flurry of WASP-like goodbyes, Pace never took his eyes from mine. They were inscrutable, a smoky mix of seduction and punishment curling through them. His father made eye contact with me as he nodded a curt, if not amused, goodbye, but his mother…not so much. She merely looked me head-to-toe once,
literally
lifted her nose, and marched dutifully out of the apartment without so much as a nod.

When the door shut behind them, Pace locked the door and growled as his shoulders sank. “So close,” he murmured.

“Huh? So close to what?” I set down my drink and walked toward him, my nipples still hard from watching him move behind the bar.

He playfully growled as he turned around. “We were so close! My mom was deflecting off us to talk about Adrian and you had to throw out the w-word.”

My nostrils flared. “White? What?! For the record, there was no deflecting—that lady had her claws out. What the fuck is her problem, anyway?” Annoyed with the tone of the conversation, I turned and walked back to the other end of the living room to fetch my drink. “It’s because I’m Irish, isn’t it?”

“Now is not the time for jokes, Steph. Jesus, you can’t just say whatever’s on the tip of your tongue!” He turned as he yelled and I swallowed my drink before I choked on it. “Not if you want to be taken seriously.”

“By who?” I spit out. “Them—or you? I wasn’t exactly prepared for a meeting of the snobby mother, Pace.”

“She’s not—”

I put my hand up. “Whether or not she’s actually a bitch, she sure gave her best performance in front of me just now.”

He sank into the leather couch and buried his face into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“What the fuck for?”

He looked up and his face was slightly anguished. “She was being a world-class cunt, and I didn’t stand up for you.”

“Pace Turner!” I smiled as I walked toward him and quickly straddled his lap. “Did you just use the c-word?” I said, mock-scandalized. “And about your own mother?”

He shrugged and hit me with the sexiest smile in his arsenal. “She knows how to be one sometimes. Seeing me with a girl she didn’t pre-approve of pissed her off. She’s used to getting her way.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Like mother, like son, huh?”

He brought his lips closer. Instead of kissing me, he spoke, his lips moving against mine. “If she knew what I was about to do to you, she’d disown me.”

My panties suddenly seemed too tight as he got rock hard in a split second, right underneath me.

“Mmm,” I moaned, “if the Doctors Pace only knew about their son’s extracurricular activities…”

“Sit,” he commanded.

My cheeks heated as I did what he asked. “Did the run-in with Mommy Dearest fire you up much?”

Pace loosened his tie and grinned, though there was no amusement in his eyes, only carnal lust. I leaned over him, reaching to help with his tie.

“Sit back,” he said.

“Just shut up for a second.”

I undid his belt and let my hands follow the fabric as his pants fell around his ankles. He was so hard, so ready, I couldn’t resist. I had to put him in my mouth, even for a second, to remind him what I was capable of before he tied my wrists and entertained me with his talent show.

He let me, and then I let him. It’s how we worked, and, family aside, it was working.

 

H
ow many people can say they’ve been to Iceland?

I can. When I told Red I’d go with her to Rome over spring break, I had no idea we’d have an hour layover in Reykjavik. As we circled the capitol, I couldn’t help but think it looked like we’d unknowingly flown through some interdimensional portal and into a snow globe. Stephanie had claimed the window seat, so I leaned over her lap for a better view. I was thrilled, almost breathing easier, to be somewhere so exotic, and I couldn’t stop smiling as my eager eyes took in Viðey, a large island in Kollafjörður Bay. Steph seemed amused at my interest in that particular location.

“Dude. Are you dating me as a beard to hide your John Lennon fetish?”

When I cocked a confused eyebrow at her, she explained the island was the home of the Imagine Peace Tower, a tower of light envisioned and built by Yoko Ono, the widow of late Beatle, as a memorial to him. When I asked if we could see it on the way back to the US, she shook her head.

“They only light it up from October to December. Maybe some other time.”

Some other time?

I felt my mouth drop open. While we’d graduated to “dating,” I couldn’t believe she’d slipped up and said something so long term. Neither could she, judging by the startled look she shot me a moment later. I reached out and brushed an unruly strand of copper hair from her cheek; she blinked nervously up at me with those wonderfully expressive eyes. She positively glowed in the sunrise emanating from the airplane window, so much so that it looked as if she had a golden aura. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I was done for.

When the girl you’re casually screwing and dating starts to look like she was literally sent from Heaven, you better reassess your priorities before someone gets hurt. Especially when she speaks like the spawn of Satan.

We had a three hour layover in Amsterdam. As we hung out at the airport bar, Steph joked that we should race to a hash bar and have a quick three-way with a hooker. Sadly, there was no time to see if she was serious before catching our connecting flight.

It was late in the evening by the time our cab dropped us off at our hotel. The Forum Roma was startling in its beauty and I wondered just how much Red had gotten paid for her recent date with The Black Eyed Peas. By the time we checked in and got to our room, I was feeling both insecure and exhausted. Steph spouted off fluent Italian at everyone we encountered, and I was consumed with how completely powerless I was under the language barrier. The significant amount of Latin I’d learned between medical school and law school served no purpose here. I knew a little Spanish, but that only helped me with adjectives on signs around town, nothing substantial. I tossed my carry-on onto the bed as she tipped the bellhop, who was blatantly fixated on her cleavage. Jealous and grouchy, I announced that I was taking a shower.

I stripped and adjusted the temperature to a flesh-searing degree. I’d barely lathered my head when I felt her hands slide over my shoulders and down my back. A contented sigh fell from my lips as she reached around my chest and her fingers glided down my slick abs.

“Want me to wash your back? Or your front, perhaps?” Her gravelly voice would have been perfect for a career in phone sex if the whole “photographer to the stars” thing ever fell through.

Unable to resist her siren call, I turned to face her. Her flaming hair was still dry and soft, but tiny droplets of water peppered her cherubic cheeks. I tilted my head back and let the suds wash off of me and out of my way.

I brushed the droplets off her face with my thumbs and momentarily lost myself in those passionate eyes of hers. For once, she didn’t look away, didn’t make a wise crack, didn’t reach for my cock… She seemed to search me as intently as I did her.

“I—” I stopped myself, trailing off as the shower rained over us. The connectedness I felt with her in that moment was so deep, it swallowed my words.

“You what?” she whispered, but her whispers always had a hint of growl.

I shook my head and touched her gently, enjoying the way my dark fingers looked against her light skin. I pulled her under the water with me and she laughed lightly, closing her eyes. My chest felt tight as I took in her exquisiteness. The water cascaded over her lush hair, deepening the shade of red to burgundy; she seemed uncharacteristically tranquil. I tightened my hold on her instinctively and the reality of how in over my head I was momentarily overwhelmed me.

Though I fought against it with everything I had left, I couldn’t keep my mouth off hers. And there, in the waning sunlight on the other side of the world, I made love with Stephanie Brier for the first and last time. We started in the shower, slowly...leisurely. I could have stayed under the spray with her like that forever, but when the lukewarm water made her teeth chatter, I dried her off and carried her to the bed.