Bottled Up: April Fools For Love (3 page)

Because Betty was blocking the way to the door and he couldn’t make a run for it.

And just maybe he was going to stay, because he couldn’t get over the fact that Blue-eyed Betty remembered his name. And for some reason, that he was kicking himself for not discovering sooner, she didn’t hate his guts for the way he’d left things. She remembered where some of his scars were. He had to find out if she’d be willing to get to know the new ones. To be honest, he’d never forgotten the crescent shaped birthmark on her hip either. As long as he didn’t take off his clothes, he could ask her out. Right? He’d pay back her friend and explain the situation.

Nate tapped the metal wrench on the plastic piping. He was a man’s man. He could fix this. He looked up at Betty twirling a strand of hair as she talked on the phone. Maybe he could fix a lot of things.

CHAPTER THREE

Betty walked around the small kitchen breakfast bar and into the living room. She was far enough away that she could whisper and not be heard, but not so far away that she didn’t have an eye on Nate.

“You will never believe who walked in the door.”

“Oh, I am so going to kill Twila. I missed the whole thing? Did he get naked, or was it just a g-string?”

Everyone had lost their damn mind today. “Why would the plumber get naked?”

“Um…” Ang coughed like she did when she was formulating a lie. She obviously had some kind of prank planned, but it would have to wait.

“Whatever you’re doing, I’ll be pissed at you later. Nathan Dallas is in my house to fix my pipes.”

Ang was silent.

“I know you saw that cologne ad. And the hot Vitaboost ad. You know about…” Betty glanced back and saw Nate watching her. She tugged on her hair and took a couple more steps away. “You know how we left things. And he looks so good, Ang. I can’t believe he’s in my house. Do you think he remembers
everything
about me?” Betty sure remembered everything about him. But more than that, she wondered how he could have left her like he did without a word. Having him show up on her doorstep brought all the teenage lust to the surface, sure, but it also dragged some baggage with it. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to slap him for loving and leaving her, shake him for being such a coward for leaving her hanging without any resolution, or jump on him and find out if he still shaved his chest.

Ang’s voice brought her out of her dilemma with a brand new one. “Is the cologne ad the one you have hanging in the bathroom?”

Oh shit
. She needed to get that out of there. What if he had to pee?

“I am
so
glad you reminded me of that. That would have been really embarrassing.”

Ang laughed. “Isn’t he in the kitchen? You know the picture on the fridge, right?”

Betty’s stomach fell to her feet.
Shit
.
Shitshitshit
. Her brain had fried the second she’d realized it was Nate. She’d completely forgotten about the glossy paper with his oily pecs on it hanging over the frozen foods section of her home. The ad was an oldie, but a goodie, and the black sand he was standing on filled one of her bottles. The vitamin supplement wasn’t the reason the VitaBoost ad was pinned up with a magnet. It was a memory.

Nate was damn near naked and holding a huge barbell in front of his…

A laugh came from the kitchen.

“Ang, I gotta go.”

Her friend was sputtering as she ended the call, but it was Betty who was stumbling for words when she walked into the kitchen and found Nate holding the picture of himself.

He cocked his eyebrow at her, and a dimple popped on his left cheek. It was something she’d fantasized about endlessly. But not while he was holding up proof she’d been pining for him after all this time.

“I didn’t even think they printed this anymore.”

They didn’t. She’d found an old magazine at a half price book store and snatched it up when she’d seen his face smoldering out at her.

“This is really embarrassing. It was a motivation pic for me,” she lied. “I’m on a diet…and…could I have that back?” She reached for the magazine page and he pulled it behind his body at an angle that she had no hope of reaching.

Well, she could reach it if she scaled him like a climbing wall. Her eyes dropped to what would be a hell of a foothold before she got her bearings and put her hands on her hips.

“You know you’re attractive.” Betty cleared her throat. “Attractive enough to not bother with me when you made it big and took off around the world.”

“You can’t know how sorry I am that I left things the way I did.” He handed her the picture back. “I thought you might have been keeping it for another reason. It’s not every day I see a picture of myself stuck to my ex’s fridge.”

“Were we together long enough to call it a relationship? Don’t worry about it, Nate. We were kids. Kids grow up, right?” She didn’t have time to feel foolish when he pulled his lips between his teeth. She felt the burn she’d never lost for him start to smolder. She should be mad at herself, but all she could really feel was longing. Remembering the job that had taken him away before they’d had a chance to explore each other, she closed the gap between them. She had to ask: “What would have happened if you hadn’t left?”

Nate’s hand rested on her face. He tilted her chin up and suddenly Betty was back in school. She was performing on stage, and Nate was still her Romeo. Only he didn’t have to leave for another country now. He was really here.

“I didn’t want to leave. By the time they got me back in the states, you were already in college, and…”

She had tried to forget about Nate in college. She’d gone out on dates. But they’d never made her feel the butterflies she’d felt with Nate. No one had her laughing with joy as she read a letter. No one else sent her souvenirs of the world. Now Nate was here, and it should be awkward. Instead his hand touched her and she couldn’t remember why she’d given up. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear and licked his lips. Her stomach fell out of her hoo-hah and flopped around at her feet like a fish out of water.

God, he was gorgeous.

But even with his stunning hazel eyes and adorable dimple, she realized she was keeping him from doing his job.

Betty coughed and stepped back. She ducked out of whatever spell he’d spun around her and waved her arm in the general direction of the sink. “I suppose I should let you get back to work. I promise, there will be no more pictures of yourself to distract you.”

Well…there wouldn’t be after she went to the bathroom and took the other one down. She figured the picture in her closet was safe to leave up.

CHAPTER FOUR

Nate had never expected Betty would have a picture of him in her house. Sure it was Photoshopped and he had been covered in makeup, but she’d taken the time to cut it out and hang it up. Even now, she didn’t ball up the add and toss it away. He watched her fingers as she flattened out the wrinkle he’d put in the paper and placed it on a table.

Nate remembered that shoot location. He hadn’t been able to decide what to mail back to her, but then he’d found the little cut glass bottle with diamond shapes around the middle, and had scooped up the sand even before he’d washed the oil off his chest.

That was before the last thirty pounds of muscle he’d put on working out his frustrations at the local YMCA. As he’d gotten older, keeping the super slim form hadn’t been as easy. Or as important. But the repetition and familiarity felt good.

Now, if the shirt didn’t stretch a lot at the arms, he tended to bust fabric. Remembering that fact, Nate glanced at the invisible Velcro seam on the side of his arms. Sure enough they were starting to pull apart. He hurried to fix them while Betty left the room.

There was no way he was taking his clothes off. That meant one thing. He had to try and fix this sink. Crouching down he held onto the open cabinet doors and tried to come up with his best bullshit excuse as to why he couldn’t fix it this time. Opening the top of the brand new wrench, he got it pressed onto the pipe and tightened it as much as he could. He was about to spin the sucker and hope for the best.

Then his toolbox started to buzz.  He let it go to voicemail, but the phone started up right away again.

Nate held his seams together as he opened up his toolbox and retrieved the phone. He made sure to shut it before the handcuffs caught the lights.

Betty was coming back into the kitchen so he kicked the toolbox lock with his foot and answered, “Um…Bently Plumbing. This is Nate. How can I help you?”

Betty smiled at him. She bought it.
Phew.

“Thank fuck you are still keeping up the charade. We just got a call from the client. She wants to abort your services. Apparently you know the recipient of the client’s gift dance?”

Nate found himself nodding at the phone before he realized he would have to have at least some of this conversation out loud. Explaining his predicament without giving away why he was really here was going to be tricky. At least while he was on the phone, he didn’t have to pretend to be fixing the sink.

“It is a tricky situation over here, boss. My snake wouldn’t really cut it. I might have to head back and get a few more tools. And this might be more of a building line issue than an isolated apartment problem.”

That sounded good, didn’t it
? Nate looked to Betty. She was frowning and looking into her sink.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, but get your ass out of there before you get found out. I’m guessing by all the role play, you’re not down for this job anyway.”

Nate kicked the cabinet doors shut before Betty could start looking at the wrench he’d gotten stuck on the pipe.

“If you really need me at the job across town, are you going to send someone else to finish here?”

Okay, so he was being really obtuse, but he hoped his boss would get the message. He didn’t want anyone else stripping for his Blue-eyed Betty.

“Oh, shit. Not only do you not want to strip for this woman because you know her, but you don’t want anyone else getting her off either? This is a business, Dallas. If someone pays another five hundred bucks for a different dancer to take their clothes off for this woman, I will send them out.”

“Well, maybe I should hang here then if you can’t get someone out immediately.”

“Fucking shit, Dallas. It’s a chick. It’s not like your dick can’t find another dozen like a damn dousing rod.” His boss huffed. “If it makes you feel better, I doubt this Ang lady will order again. She did this for an April Fool’s Day prank. And she said it was a stupid idea. Does that put your little sensitive heart at ease?”

It shouldn’t. But it did.

“As long as you’re sure we can get this problem fixed for the client. I’m good with that.”

Nate hung up before he would have to lie any more in front of Betty.

“You can’t fix it?”

Nate looked down into her sea blue eyes and knew instantly, he should have become a plumber. He wanted to fix everything for her when she looked at him like that.

“Unfortunately, no. But I am having them send someone else. Really soon.”

She frowned at the sink full of water. “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to cook dinner without a sink.”

“This next job won’t take all day.” Nate thought about the handcuffs in his tool box and wondered if he even had it in him to go to his next real job. He looked at Betty and got lost in her eyes again.

She smiled back. “Why do you keep staring at me?”

“Because I’m trying to get up the nerve to ask you to dinner.”

Her full lips pressed together like she was trying to contain her perfect smile. When her lips parted with a laugh, he felt his chest puff in pride. Then the Velcro made a noise in the silence.

“What was that?”

Nate relaxed his arms. “That was the noise my heart strings make when they are being tugged by a beautiful woman I should have never lost touch with. And you didn’t say yes yet. Can I take you out to dinner? I can come back and pick you up at seven.”

“I think I’d like that. I’d offer to write down my address and phone number, but you already have both through the plumbing company.”

The address, yes, but he didn’t have her phone number. He was supposed to arrive and strip, not ask her to fill out a phone survey afterwards.

“Actually, the company forwards the calls through their offices. Could I have your number?”

“Sure.”

He hadn’t planned on her grabbing his phone. His background was a pic of himself stripping.
Shit
.

“Oh.” Betty held the phone away from her line of sight.

“Um…that was a photo shoot from a while ago. It was a little crazy.”

“I guess so.” She handed him his phone back. “Those old ladies look like they were having a good time. Maybe you should enter my number.”

The old ladies had been excited as hell until he’d tripped over his malfunctioning tearaway pants. Having a nursing home crowd give him a golf clap instead of a tip hadn’t been his finest moment. He needed to change that picture. His handler had come along for that first job, and put the blasted pic back on his homescreen every time he left his cell within the other man’s reach. Nate swiped to wake the device. “Sure.”

He put her phone number in his contacts.

“Now I just need a picture for your profile.” He held up the phone and was immediately grateful for the upgraded camera he had. “My god, you’re beautiful.”

Betty laughed. “Says the model.”

He lowered his phone. “Says the man. Any man who enjoys a beautiful woman would agree with me. Hell, even if they play for the other team, they’d recognize your appeal, especially when you bat those eyes. I thought about those eyes a lot in the last ten years.”

She lost the joking lilt to her smile and the air thickened around them. He hoped he wasn’t coming on too strong. Or too desperate, but he regretted not picking up the phone to call Betty more than blowing his savings on parties. He regretted only having one night with her. He didn’t want to walk away from her again with any regrets.

Nate had heard about his friends finding the one. He’d heard about chemistry and feeling something in their guts that told them this was different. He’d always thought it was a crock of shit. A girl was a girl, or at least that’s what all the other models had told him. They never got how he could be in love with someone he couldn’t touch. Nate always tried to explain how she made him feel, but it never came out well. And he couldn’t convince the other guys on the shoot anyone was worth giving up his freedom for. But this wasn’t anyone. This was Betty Townsend. This was the girl who’d written him letters when he couldn’t even get his so-called friends to answer the phone. And she was looking at him like she regretted letting him go just as much as he regretted leaving.

He should get out of here. He should let the past be the past, but the air was too thick. He remembered the tug on his heart, he’d always had with Betty. But he’d forgotten how intense the heat was when she got near him. He knew he wasn’t being responsible. He’d been hired to take his clothes off. He didn’t expect a second chance to be naked with Betty. But this was not how he wanted it to happen. He wanted to have a good job. He wanted to run into her in the supermarket and ask her out. He wanted to pick her books up for her when she dropped them, just like she used to do in High School. He’d known she was dropping them on purpose then to get his attention. He hadn’t cared. She always smiled when he picked them up. It was worth all the tardy slips.

Now he could recognize the look in her eyes. He’d seen other women look at him like they wanted to climb on top of him. He’d had nights with other women, but this was Betty. He was getting a second chance, and even if this wasn’t the way he’d wanted to see her again, the only way he wanted to move was toward her.

“Betty. Can I kiss you?”

Her eyes widened. Then she nodded in slow motion, and her dark chocolate waves swung into her eyes.

He stalled when he tucked her bangs behind her ear. His hand lingered on her cheek, and when he rubbed his thumb across her lips, he found them too soft to resist.

Nate prayed his Velcro would hold. Betty was successful, she was beautiful and she deserved so much more than a failed stripper. He shouldn’t be leaning in for a kiss, but as his lips touched hers, he really couldn’t give two shits about what he was supposed to do.