An Accidental Gentleman (18 page)

Slamming her hand on the wheel, she jammed on the brakes in front of the walkway to his building. “How can I know the difference? Fall in love, get married, have kids and then, what, if the guy’s hanging around five years later, he’s not an asshole? Lucky me, I picked a good one from a random, blindfolded drawing.”

Arms outstretched, nearly touching the windshield, she bowed her head.

“Katherine.” Fuck. He didn’t have a satisfying answer for her. Cracking a joke about her knowing he didn’t want kids would gloss over her pain. The weighty undercurrent of defeat beneath her anger. He’d reached her, rattled her, and he had no goddamn plan in place to steady her world again.

Unmoving, she sat with the engine running and her eyes closed.

The seat belt tightened across his chest. Stabbing the damn release, he freed himself and banged his knee on the gearshift trying to get closer. “Talk to me. Please.”

“I need you to go.” Hollow-voiced, she raised her head and stared out the windshield. “I’m not—this conversation—I need you to go.”

And he needed her to stay. His throat burned.

He pulled the door latch twice before the metal and plastic let go. The door creaked out an invitation to end whatever the thing was between them. Killed before they’d been able to name it. He swung his legs out and grabbed the roof handle. His shaky bones demanded the support.

“Brian?”

He froze.

Her breath hitched. “You’re more than a condom wrapper on the floor mats.”

Her quiet, wobbly words rearranged themselves into
I love you
in his heart. Big, scary words fixed to drop them into another argument or send her fleeing faster than she already was.

Staring across the well-kept lawn and the trimmed hedges, he saw nothing but the woman behind him. The one he dared not look at. “You’re not a backseat girl, Katherine.” Fuck, how long since he’d prayed—a true prayer, a plea for God to make her believe in him. “You never were. You’re the driver. You deserve to be the driver.”

He launched out and closed the door without looking back. A glimpse of her and he’d lose it.

One foot in front of the other, all the way to the apartment.
Keep walking, airman.

* * * *

Straight-backed, he disappeared into his building.

Her legs refused to ditch the car and follow him. Her throat rejected her order to open and call him back. Her fingers insisted they didn’t know how to compose a text.

Not a backseat girl. His words, his truth, but not hers.

After ten years of being nothing else, she wore the name with pride. Didn’t she?

“You let a habit go long enough, and it becomes who you are.” Her voice came out rough and raw, a whisper yearning to become a shout.

She threw the car in drive and left with less haste than she’d arrived. She’d wanted the passenger seat empty anyway. A fool’s wish. The silence accused as much as Brian’s persistent picking away at her beliefs. At her.

Even if she wanted to be the woman he imagined her, she wouldn’t know how. Her control systems locked out the capabilities for happiness and trust in a relationship. Accepting he operated the way he claimed to without cracking the case and testing his wires for herself would be impossible. Easier to classify all men under sex-only. Simpler.

Northbound on a rural route, she escaped the lights and traffic of the populated outskirts where the twenty-four-hour conveniences lived. The darkness, cut by no more than the twin lines of headlights, embraced her.

Saturday nights belonged to her alone. She didn’t pick up a disposable guy every week. Hell, not most weeks. But some nights, a woman needed to be touched by hands not her own. To be surprised and delighted by unpredictability.

Brian touched her with that spark. He made her feel desired. Her, not a set of boobs and a hole to fuck. He saw more than a faceless body. Wanted to be more than a pair of strong hands and a filling cock for her aching, thumping need.

Sex as more than stress relief when the demands of the world got to be too much. With the men she fucked, she took control. Brian brought his own needs and creativity to the table. Sexy and furtive, he turned arousal into a partnership with his capable hands and his hot breath.

She hit a stop sign, finally. Silly to roam so far, to blow the gas budget on aimless wandering to nurse her Brian hangover.

He’d left the ginger ale, the open can at her side. Warm now, and going flat, with the rim leaving a hint of metallic aftertaste. Jesus. She sat at the fucking crossroads in the dead of night sampling the memory of his mouth like her nieces giggling over boys on their phones. Middle-school mentality.

But driving home, she touched her lips again and again. Rubbing with her fingers, she imagined the taste of him.

She showered away the clinging scents of exhaust and oil without dallying. Muted and melancholy, her faded desire lay like an ache beneath her ribs and flared as she crawled under the covers in sleep shorts and a cozy tank top. Sleep wouldn’t come, and neither could she.

The room where she’d lived her whole life. Her closet, stuffed with nuts and bolts going back to childhood. A place Brian would never belong. Safe. Comforting. Stifling.

She retreated to the garage, to projects lying piecemeal in neat rows on bleached rags. But the rhythms of work, too, failed to drive away the emptiness and wondering.

The living room couch offered safe haven, as soft as the blank TV screen was silent. The cable box kept the time creeping forward in blue-white numbers. The hour crossed past three, past four, into five. Pre-dawn light filtered through the shades.

As a door closed in the hall, she slouched into the cushions. Since the spots had invaded Mom’s vision, she liked to be the first to rise. She started her mornings with the sun, watching the parade of pastels crest the horizon. Storing them up, just in case, for the eventual day when the blackness consumed her.

The toilet flushed and the sink whistled. Ought to check the washers again, maybe replace the valve stem this time. Mom walked soft on the carpet, but she trailed her hand along the wall as a hedge against falling, and the skip-rub-rustle led into the kitchen.

Unseen. Kit hugged a pillow to her chest. Brian would be a spooner, for sure. All cuddly and sincere. He didn’t dwarf her, either. They might share the big-spoon duties. Trade off for fairness.

As the coffee maker kicked on in the kitchen, she slid sideways and tucked her feet up. Back wriggled into place against the cushions, she evaluated. Brian would be firmer, and not only in his pants. He took care of himself. Boxing might have given him his toned abs and muscular arms. He’d sure seemed surprised when she mentioned learning a few moves. Before the night had slammed into the wall and burst into flames.

They’d saved themselves at the end, though, hadn’t they? Another chance, if she dared to keep playing with fire.

The thing he’d said about Dad staying. Mom had made a choice, and she’d chosen right.

A fresh direction for her restless energy. She rolled off the couch, pitched the pillow into the corner, and went to learn the secret.

The patio door stood open, the screen pulled shut to keep the bugs out. A second mug waited on the frosted glass tabletop. Cushioned chair angled east, Mom held her coffee below her nose. “I wondered if you were going to admit you were awake. If you stayed up all night, you’ll want the caffeine.”

Of course, Mom would’ve noticed. The couch slouch maneuver always failed. Kit dropped into the open seat and cradled the ceramic warmth. They sipped in silence as the clouds turned lavender, then pink, in thick bands racing each other to the edge of the world.

“How did you know Dad was the right man for you?” The last time she’d started such a stilted, awkward conversation with her mom, she’d been eleven years old, and Erin had her half-convinced she’d bleed to death in seven days if she didn’t learn to flip over and walk on her hands.

Head tipped back, gaze on the horizon, Mom smiled. “He danced with me at my cousin’s wedding.”

“Mo-om. I know the story of how you met.” A thousand thousand tellings she’d rolled her eyes and turned up her nose at. Love. How disgusting when parents held the starring roles. “I want to know how you knew.”

“I’m telling you.” Mom sipped slowly. Settling unevenly, her coffee mug clanked against the table. “We talked to each other. Face to face, not through screens the way they do today. We found common interests and shared values. Long before he worked up the nerve to ask me out, I knew I’d say yes.”

Dew glittered on the grass between the concrete patio and the dark soil of the garden. Created in the night, the sparkling carpet disappeared in the morning. Fleeting beauty, burning off under the sun.

“But how did you know he’d stay?” Some sequence of events must have revealed Dad’s worthiness. His honesty, his commitment. If Mom had traced all of the wires back to their sources and found them sound, she could use the same method to search out Brian’s faults. “That he’d keep his promises?”

Mom twitched. She stared at Kit, not quite straight on, but with the sideways tilt that said she was really studying her. She wore a soft expression, the outer corners of her eyes and mouth sloping down.

“Oh, honey.” She snaked her hand across the table, found Kit’s fingers, and squeezed. Strength. Mom still had it in spades, though her hands carried lines now, and her knuckles had grown more prominent. “I didn’t.”

Nobody would take that bet. Her heart pounded. “But—”

“Love is a risk.” Mom nodded, slow and thoughtful, her gaze distant. “A big, scary risk. If you take it, you might get hurt. But if you don’t, you’ll never grow.” Rocking their clasped hands, she swayed in the warming air. “Do you remember, you were just four—I found the kitchen stepstool dragged to the counter and the toaster missing. The door to the garage stood open, and out on the dirty slab you sat, half your father’s old toolbox scattered next to you, and a pile of plastic and metal in front. Do you remember what you told me?”

God, that morning. She’d clamped the machine between her feet and twisted the screwdriver in both hands to crack open a box of wonders. “I wanted to see what made the toast jump.”

Matching smiles dissolved into giggles.

Mom had called the shop. Dad had brought home a working toaster. The parental talking-to about not destroying things from the house had been completely undercut by Grandpa Jake.

He’d perched her on his lap after dinner, with the toaster’s remains spread out on the table, and given her her first lesson in repair, tsking at the screwdriver scrapes around the holes. “We leave things prettier than we found them, Kitten. The best parts, the parts that do the hard work, are on the inside where no one else sees them. But you’ll know.”

Mom patted her hand. “You’ve always been my bold baby. Taking chances, adventuring because you needed to know. You grew closer to your father and your grandpa, and I let you go because you loved the work so much.” The breeze carried her sigh toward the sun. “But maybe I should’ve taught you more about the things a father has trouble explaining to a daughter.”

She’d been daddy’s girl—grandpa’s girl—since that day with the toaster. Mom and Erin had their female bonding stuff, and she hadn’t pined for the lack of girl talk all those years. “I never asked. I never needed to.”

Not before Brian.

Raising a speculative eyebrow, Mom flashed her I-know-you’ve-been-in-the-cookie-jar face. “Love is an amazing gift, honey. If you think you’ve found it, don’t let fear stop you. A bruised heart is no different from a skinned knee or a blistered finger. It heals.”

Erin’s hadn’t healed. Her heart had grown callused and bitter. But maybe she hadn’t let the wounds heal. Love might not always end in disaster.

Trying to avoid painful complications hadn’t helped with Brian. Arguing with him hurt. The churning questions in a sleepless night stung. Not seeing him again would slice through her. She took a deep breath. “You’ll put a Band-Aid on and kiss it better?”

“Always.” Mom pushed herself to her feet and waved her in. “Kissing things better is on the first page of the mom contract.”

Kit took the hug on offer, clutching tight. Moms did make everything better, no matter how tall daughters grew.

The sun, strong and bright, rode the horizon. The long night lay behind her. Something new and unknown lay ahead.

“C’mon and help your old mother in the garden.” Mom tugged her down and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “The weeds need a strong, young back to clear them out so the seeds worth nurturing can grow.”

* * * *

As the rhythm settled in his muscles, Brian moved with mindless instinct. The speed bag rebounded against his gloves, the force it delivered as measured as his own.

The office stayed open ’round the clock, seven days a week, and so did the gym. Sunday afternoon didn’t draw much of a crowd. A few guys down the other end worked the weight machines, filling the room with the clanking white noise of unhurried reps. The pair in the ring sparred with laughing taunts broken up by the occasional thud and groan.

He had the bags to himself. On the speed bag, the power and timing of each punch had to be spot-on. Too little, and the rhythm would never come together. Too much, and he’d send it careening in unpredictable arcs and lose their equilibrium.

He hadn’t found Katherine’s balance yet. He moved too slowly for her liking. But she wasn’t tethered. Hooked in. If she went bouncing off in an unexpected direction, he couldn’t clasp her in his hands and steady her for another try.

She might never come back.

His arms ached. Every time she darted away, he tried to hold on tighter. His brilliant strategy landed him nowhere but the gym, working out his frustration. Saturday—Christ. Last night had been a clusterfuck. He’d demanded a date, and he’d gotten what he deserved for pushing her.

He should’ve turned down the blowjob last week. He shouldn’t have turned fooling around into a transaction. The intimacy he wanted with her couldn’t be forced, not in one date, not in a hundred dates. She either felt the connection or she didn’t.