Hanging On (15 page)

* * * *

Thank goodness the massages were private. Sophia lingered afterward, hoping the rest of them would assume she ran out of there to avoid them.

The firm hands pressing into her muscles made her forget about life for a while. Everything left her head, allowing her to just exist in peace. She was already looking forward to the two others Sabrina had scheduled in the coming weeks.

Sophia straggled to her car afterward.

Her unhurried exit did help her to avoid mostly everyone. Drew waited in the parking lot, leaning casually against the driver’s side door to Sophia’s Fusion. He looked just as good as he had four hours ago. She didn’t know what spa treatments Sabrina planned for the men, but whatever they did suited him. He was relaxed. A light smile rested on his lips and echoed in his bright eyes. His body language clearly stated that he wasn’t going to let her leave without talking to him.

She approached, stopping out of his reach when all she wanted to do was press her body to his and lose herself in his kiss. “I have to go to work.” His expression didn’t falter. “Not for two hours.” He held a hand out, just as he had three nights ago when he followed her to the bathroom at Ellen’s house. Sophia saw the beginnings of a game she didn’t want to play.

She didn’t want a man who waited for her, holding out a figurative olive branch whenever she distanced herself from him. She wanted to be with him, but she didn’t want the complications he required.

She glanced at his hand, dismissing it outright when she felt like doing the opposite. That was the dominatrix inside, always in control, denying herself what she wanted because it would compromise what she needed.

“It’ll take me that long to get home, change, and get there.” He withdrew his hand and shoved it into his pocket, not bothering to hide his anger or his disappointment. “You keep a change of clothes in your car. You have no pets waiting to be fed or watered. Let me buy you dinner. I promise I will adequately apologize for unauthorized use of the
G
word.

From now on, we’re just friends.”

Sophia blinked at him, mystified. “
G
word?” Even as she asked the question, she wanted to kick herself.
Girlfriend
. She harbored the hope they could both pretend he had never uttered the word or the sentiment. She put

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up a hand before he could answer. “Wait. In the same breath, you asked me to dinner and apologized for calling me your girlfriend.” Mirth sparkled in his eyes, transforming his face from something perfect into something spectacular. Breathing became difficult. “I frequently buy dinner for my friends. I cook for them, too, a benefit you seem to resent.” He ignored her reference to the
G
word and the fact he had not actually apologized for using it.

She wasn’t going to lose her composure with him. “Yet I’m the only one you asked.”

Her sarcasm didn’t dent his humor. “The Spencers are having their brood over for dinner, Ellen and Ryan’s babysitter has a date tonight, Ty has plans with this wife, and Ginny is going home to reap the benefits of her massage. It’s just us left.”

His reasoning checked out, but the two of them alone together tended to not do friend things. Drew’s headlights flashed as he unlocked his car, startling her. She hadn’t realized she parked next to him.

“Come on,” he urged, rounding the front of his car. “You can follow me.”

He didn’t open a door or otherwise do anything gentlemanly to facilitate her entrance to her own car. His engine purred to life, and he glanced over, lifting his brow in a hurry-up gesture.

With a sigh, she followed him to what turned out to be a sports bar. The drive was only fifteen minutes, but she spent every moment alternately listing the reasons she should or shouldn’t have dinner with him. He was going to try something. She wanted to be sure she would rebuff his advances, but she was learning not to trust her reactions around him.

The inside was neither dark, nor well lit, but something distinctly in between. No smoke hung in the air, stale or otherwise. He held the door open for her to enter. She told herself it was in deference to her sex, not to her. Even Daniel held doors for her.

In a sweep of the room, she noted pool tables, video game machines, pinball machines, and a trivia contest. Drew signaled to a guy in the back to put his name on the board for pool, and she rolled her eyes. His plan was to watch her bend over a pool table and stare at her ass. That was subtle.

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Well, two could play at that game. She had no trouble staring at his tight, squeezable ass, either. She did it as she followed him to the bar, where he promptly ordered onion rings and a burger with extra onions.

It had to be his way of assuring her that he wasn’t planning to try anything tonight. Nobody ate that many onions on a date, not if they wanted to get lucky later.

The barkeep turned to Sophia. He was an older man who was either ignorant of or unimpressed by Drew’s status. “What’ll you have?” Taking her cue from Drew, she ordered a burger, minus the onions. She had to work, and the last thing she needed to do was sweat out the odor of onions. As a certified Italian, she had to be careful where powerful spices and vegetables were concerned. Sophia and Daniel spent a considerable portion of their teen years experimenting with the amount of odor they could make seep from their bodies. She could hold her own with him or anyone else.

Drew glanced over at her. “I heard you play pool.” She shrugged. “I’ve played pool.” She hadn’t picked up a stick in years.

Once upon a time, she had been pretty good. She had no idea how her dormant skills fared.

“Are you a wagering kind of woman?”

“What are we betting?” She steeled herself. He couldn’t suggest strip pool in a public place, but it wouldn’t surprise her if he wanted to barter something sexual.

“Five bucks a game.”

“Fine,” she said. “Get me a water. I’m going to use the restroom.” When she returned, her water was perched on the edge of the table, whose wooden ledge attested to a past filled with many other sweating drinks. Drew gestured to it with an offhand glance. Standing with a long stick in his hands, his real concentration was on the triangle of colored balls at the other end of the table. “I’d give you first break, but then you’d think I was coming on to you.”

He broke. Drew sank three balls with seemingly effortless grace. He made his way around the table, sending four more into the pocket before he made it around to her side. She sipped her water and wished she’d worn a short skirt or a top with a lower cut. That man needed a distraction.

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She adjusted her bra, fondling her breasts in a manner that was both overt and discreet. In a pinch, anything would do. Her breasts might not be huge, but Drew seemed fascinated by them anyway. It was a long shot, as he was standing next to her and his attention was centered on lining up his next shot. Anything he saw would be from the corner of his eye.

He missed. Straightening, he narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s not friendly warfare.”

“Friendly warfare? That’s an oxymoron.” Sophia selected a cue from the rack next to the table and lined up her first shot. She played conservatively, taking the easy shots first only because they’d leave the white ball in position for another shot.

Drew adjusted himself.

“Taking off your shirt would be more effective,” she suggested. “Rub some baby oil all over your chest so it glistens and tug your jeans down low to show the beginning of your happy trail. You’ll have every woman in a square mile clamoring for your attention, and a goodly amount of men.” He paused in the midst of lifting his beer bottle to his mouth, staring at her in mild astonishment. In the two weeks she’d known him, she had commented on his physical attractiveness, but she’d never grouped herself with those who wanted him.

The next shot put her near him. He stepped back to allow her room to pass. She turned her body sideways to squeeze through, keeping her back to him. Electricity crackled in the space between. She marveled at how much he affected her when she didn’t want to be affected, by him or any man. Her standoffishness wasn’t personal.

“Except you.” Did she imagine the desperation in his whispered words?

Completely lacking in mercy, she bent over the table. The jeans she wore hugged her ass nicely. She had three pair, all exactly the same. As difficult as it was to find jeans that fit right, she knew better than to buy just one pair when she finally found them. She heard Drew’s intake of breath as the heat of his stare penetrated the denim of her pants.

The slow grin stretching her lips was hidden from him. “I already have your attention.” It was an excellent shot. She sank two balls and established her control of the situation.

“You do realize that friends don’t flirt like this,” he pointed out.

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Definitely desperate
, she decided. This game was hers to lose.

Butterflies invaded her stomach, and she couldn’t breathe.
Which game?

Some games, she couldn’t afford to lose. Still, she couldn’t stop now. That would be acknowledging she was flirting, seriously flirting. Flirting meant interest. She had no interest in Drew. She was there because they had a friendly relationship. They had friends in common. Tomorrow, she would go to his house because they were sleeping together. It didn’t mean anything except that he was good in bed. If she kept repeating those words, she might convince herself.

“Most of my friends don’t find it distracting for me to adjust my bra.” She congratulated herself on keeping an unaffected air.

The waitress brought over red plastic baskets filled with their burgers.

Drew’s was littered with onion rings, Sophia’s with fries. She set it aside and sank two more in one shot. Then she leaned back, studying the table. All the simple shots were taken. Unless she got fancy, Drew was going to get a turn.

He leaned in close, brushing his arm against hers. Sparks flew at every point of contact. She wished she could jerk away, but she found her body leaning closer, pressing against Drew’s warmth. She doubled her efforts to concentrate on finding the next shot. Finally, she found it. She would have to bank both balls. Damn. This was the point in the game where she got her ass kicked.

As if sensing his opening, Drew made a pretense of stepping back to allow her room to maneuver. Once she bent down, he leaned closer and burped.

It wasn’t the sound so much as the smell. Extra onions on the burger and onion rings were not date food. If she was under the impression he meant this as a date, that illusion was shattered. Her eyes watered, but it had the opposite effect from what he intended. That was too much like something Daniel would have done to be distracting.

Sophia focused with iron concentration and sank the shot. With a satisfied smile, she straightened and regarded Drew with superiority. “I have a brother, Drew. It would have been much more effective to start stripping.” She won the game—one of them, at least.

When he walked Sophia to her car later, he didn’t try to kiss her. She drove away feeling like something was missing.

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Her heart wasn’t in her work that night. She went through the motions, affecting the proper tone and demeanor, hoping nobody noticed her mechanical delivery.

* * * *

With a satisfied smirk on his face, Drew watched Sophia’s Fusion drive away. She was coming around. He wasn’t sure waiting for her and forcing her on a date was the right course of action. Ellen had advised against it, though Jonas had only shrugged and said it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

There was something more going on here, something Ellen and Jonas knew about, but they had no plan to share with him. His only clue was Jonas’s cryptic statement about Sophia having been through “a lot.” What did that mean, exactly? Obviously, Sophia had been hurt before, but by whom? And how?

He would get the truth from Sophia eventually. It would take time, but he would prove to her that she could trust him.

Of course, burping in her face like that was a definite gamble. Drew had never let himself have fun like that with someone with whom he was planning to have multiple sexual encounters. He’d dated models, actresses, and heiresses. Not one of them would have had dinner with him at a bar while playing pool. None of them would have been amused by his attempt to be gross.

Sophia was different. Her initial reaction had been surprise, followed closely by enjoyment. She’d laughed at him. He liked her laugh and the unpretentious smile that went with it.

Drew climbed into his silver Mercedes. He had some errands to run before he headed to his parents’ home, which happened to be just down the street from his own house.

Miranda Snow was in the kitchen pummeling dough when Drew strolled in and kissed her on the cheek. His mother cooked to relieve stress, and she was very good at it. Many of Drew’s early recipes were ones his mother taught him. However, she only made bread when she was exceptionally upset.

“You okay?” He knew she wasn’t.

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She blew a strand of her short blonde hair away from her face.

“Peachy,” she lied.

“Want to sit on the couch and talk about it?” Not knowing the extent of his mother’s emotional upheaval, he tempered the threatening smirk. “I could write on a clipboard and sip some brandy while you rant and rave.” Miranda shot him the look of death and punched the white mass in front of her. The couch joke was something between Drew and his sister, Lila. As the children of a very successful psychologist, they spent many afternoons being urged to talk about their problems. Those sessions invariably took place in the kitchen and were punctuated with instructions to
“add more
garlic”
or to
“cut those peppers into smaller cubes.”

“I’m making sourdough.” The words came out in grunts.

Drew dragged a high stool closer and sat down. He didn’t offer to help, knowing the look she just shot him would be nothing compared to the explosion that would follow an offer of help when she didn’t want it.

Miranda’s volatile temper was also a joke between Lila and him. Their mother was all talk and no action, so her explosions were safe and often fun to watch.

“Really, Mom, what’s wrong? Where’s Dad?” She looked around the kitchen, as if she was surprised to find her husband absent. She grunted again. “Packing.” His parents’ marriage was rock solid. Drew wasn’t overly concerned.

“You just got back from Brazil.”

Miranda’s expression turned dreamy as she remembered Brazil, and her violent actions halted. Her smile was short-lived, as was the cease-fire on the dough. “Lila thinks she’s staying in Minnesota.” That explained everything. Miranda and Jonathan encouraged their children to travel. They were proud when Drew was accepted into culinary programs in Switzerland and Paris. As long as the absence was temporary, the Snows didn’t have a problem with their children leaving.

Drew, ever the good son, not only returned, but he purchased a home just down the street. Lila, ever the independent daughter, lacked a driving need to return home.

“Mom, Lila’s twenty-six. You can’t have Dad fly to Minneapolis and haul her back to Michigan.” The dough was ready for the oven. Drew rose to his feet, pulled out a bread pan, and sprayed it before setting it on the

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counter. Then he came around behind Miranda and put his hands on her shoulders. “She’s won a very prestigious fellowship. You should be proud of her.”

“I am proud of her.” The violence left Miranda. She slumped, defeated, and let Drew envelop her in a hug. “She’s not coming home for the Fourth of July. I miss my baby girl.” She sniffled a bit, and then looked up at her son. “If you would stop tomcatting around and settle down, I’d at least have a daughter-in-law.”

The idea of settling down with Sophia did appeal to him. Referring to a woman as a girlfriend wasn’t something he did lightly, or often. When he did, he meant it. With a tiny laugh, he released his mother and washed his hands. If he was reading the situation correctly, this was going to be a long night filled with pastry making.

“I’m trying, Mom. If it’s possible, I found myself enamored of a woman who has commitment issues.”

Miranda arranged her dough into the pan Drew prepared and slid it into the oven. Facing her son, she handed him a clean towel. “Let’s make baklava, and you can tell me all about it.”

“After you tell Dad to stop packing.”

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