Just My Type (16 page)
Sam said nothing, however, to the “Here Comes the Bride” rendition, and Mac was too far away to kick Dooley this time.
“Knock that shit off,” he muttered as the door swung shut behind Sam. “You want him to kill me, is that what this is?”
“Not until you pay me the fifty bucks you owe me,” Dooley said, not even looking up from the sports magazine he was reading.
“I don’t owe you fifty bucks,” Mac said.
“Then I don’t want him to kill you until I have a chance to win fifty bucks from you and get paid,” Dooley said.
Mac
hated
watching what he said and did around Sam. They’d been friends for so long there was almost nothing off-limits between them. They told each other everything, told the other exactly how they felt about things, could say
quit being a jackass
to the other and it would be taken only as
I must be acting
like a jackass today
rather than with any true offense.
89
Erin Nicholas
Mac was about at the end of his rope today. The tension was thick, obvious and juvenile. Hell, he’d almost prefer to have Sam break his nose and get it over with. If it would mean things would go back to normal, he’d gladly do it. The problem was, he wasn’t so sure things would
ever
go back to normal. And that made him nearly sick to his stomach.
Things had been great. His life had been just fine. Why did Sara have to come along and have feelings for him? He’d been okay with wanting her from a distance. Kind of.
Things were complicated now. Things had been easy before. He had everything he needed: good friends, enough money, a job he liked and was good at, a place to call home. Hell, that was more than most people had. He’d been happy. Content. Fine.
Now it was a mess.
All because of one tiny blonde.
Dammit.
“I don’t think I should have to give you a wedding present,” Kevin said from where he was playing solitaire at the coffee table.
“Okay,” Mac said.
Then he realized Kevin had spoken because Sam was back in the room. There was no talk about weddings, beach vacations, bikinis, honeymoons, or anything related unless Sam was within hearing.
They were trying to start a fight.
Mac knew why too. The tense silence between Mac and Sam, the two leaders, was as hard on Dooley and Kevin as it was on Mac and Sam. It affected the team. Which was bad for a team like theirs. They literally had life-and-death situations thrown at them on a daily basis. If the team wasn’t functioning, those lives were in more danger. The team had to communicate, trust each other, work together.
The kind of bullshit that was going on was a threat to all of them and anyone out there who was going to need them tonight.
Dooley and Kevin were trying to get everything out in the open and dealt with before they had a call…or the two of them went nuts.
“Seriously. I would have gotten you something nice too,” Kevin said. “Now I don’t think I’m obligated.”
Mac just concentrated on flipping a penny into the paper cup in front of him.
“Trust me when I say you want a gift from me,” Dooley said. “Right, Sam? I give good gifts.”
“Shut up, Dooley,” Sam said sullenly.
“No way. Not until I hear you say that you appreciated my wedding gift to you.” He turned a huge grin on Mac. “It’s a game. That you play in the bedroom. You roll the two dice and one gives you an action, the other one gives you a body part. So you roll and get
lick
and…” A wadded up fast-food restaurant bag hit Dooley in the head.
90
Just My Type
“Do
not
say even one body part. This is my sister we’re talking about for Chrissake.” Sam was glowering at Dooley and Mac sighed. This was just perfect.
“I was not,” Dooley said, grinning. “I was talking about your wife.” Kevin shook his head. “You have a death wish.”
“Anyway,” Dooley went on, clearly not caring. “I might get you something. I’m not gift-wrapping anything since I wasn’t there, though.”
“Fine,” Mac said.
It wasn’t like Mac to be the quiet one. He was one of the leaders, the first to give somebody trouble if they were in a funk or acting like a jerk. But he just couldn’t bring himself to poke at Sam. It was his fault the crew was tense. It was his fault his friendship was on the rocks.
“I bet Sara looked hot in her wedding dress,” Kevin said. “Of course, she always looks hot. There’s just something about a woman in virginal white that gets me.” Mac couldn’t help the smile as Dooley laughed at that. Kevin was a born-again Christian who was hardly shy about proclaiming his beliefs. Every once in a while, though, he said something like the old Kevin, the one they’d all known before his religious awakening six years ago, and it always sounded funny.
“Yeah, Sara is a honey,” Dooley agreed. “She’s so young and sweet that I try hard to keep my thoughts pure, but no man could have missed that she’s turned into a gorgeous woman.” Mac grit his teeth and concentrated on gently flicking a penny at the Styrofoam cup. Dooley was simply telling the truth. He was also trying to get a rise. It was nothing Mac should react to. He should take it as a compliment. He’d married that sweet, gorgeous woman after all. But he
hated
thinking about other men looking at her like that.
“You think this is the way you want to take this conversation?” Sam asked.
“It isn’t gonna kill you to know that men find your sister attractive. You’re either great at the whole denial thing, or you’re stupid, if you didn’t think that was happening,” Kevin said.
Mac raised an eyebrow and kept his mouth shut. Kevin was generally the peacemaker, the voice of reason, not the antagonist. And he never called people stupid.
“Is that right?” Sam asked, leaning back in his chair. “So I should just let you all talk about my sister however you want to? It shouldn’t bother me?”
Kevin shrugged. “None of us are saying anything bad about her. And if you think your sister was going to her grave a virgin, without ever having anyone lick any of her body parts, you’re stupid.” The silence in the room was several agonizing seconds long. Everyone stared at Kevin, first, because he was
not
the one to talk about body parts in any context and second, because he’d dared to
really
put the situation out on the table.
Kevin put three cards down in front of him, studying the game rather than his friends. “Besides, if Sara wants Mac to be the one to lick her, then it should be Mac,” he said decisively.
91
Erin Nicholas
Well, there was no ignoring the issue now.
Dooley finally recovered enough to laugh and then clap his hands. “I totally agree, Kev,” he said.
“Totally. And I’m getting you dice after all,” he said to Mac. “Because there’s also
kiss
,
stroke
and, my personal favorite,
suck
.”
They all jumped when Sam’s hand slammed down on the tabletop. “And that’s all there is, right?” Sam said. “Marrying her means Mac gets to fuck her, right? That’s what it’s all about?”
“You would rather he’d slept with her without marrying her?” Kevin asked calmly.
“No!” Sam shouted. “No! I don’t want him touching her!”
“Why not?” Kevin asked. “At least you know he knows what he’s doing.” And suddenly they were at the root of the problem. Just like that.
“Is it so wrong for me to want my sister to be with someone who might appreciate more about her than her ass?” Sam demanded.
That
was what Mac had been waiting for. He was out of his chair and around the edge of the table, the front of Sam’s shirt in his fist, Sam on his feet, in seconds. “Now who’s being the son of a bitch?” he snapped. “You can say whatever you want about me, but it better by God be true.”
“You’re going to stand there and tell me you’re in love with her?” Sam asked, glaring right back, unconcerned about Mac’s hold on him.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Mac asked, shaking him. “It’s Sara. She’s…amazing.”
“And young and innocent and thinks you walk on water,” Sam nearly spat at him. “That and being exactly your type—it’s not too hard to love that, huh?” Mac shoved Sam away from him before he put his fist in Sam’s face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like you haven’t known she’s seen you as a hero for years,” Sam said, advancing on Mac again.
“Like you haven’t loved knowing she thinks you can do no wrong. No matter what you screw up, or who you screw over, you can always count on Sara to think you’re perfect.” Mac squeezed his fists tightly, fighting to hold onto his temper. “Are you sure you’re not just jealous?” he asked. “You should have been her hero, Sam. You should have been the man she looked up to.
You didn’t want that. Now you’re pissed because someone else is important to her.”
“And you want to keep it that way,” Sam shot back. “Talk about jealous. You realized Sara had grown up and realized she was going to eventually fall in love and you hated the idea she might call someone else for a ride home, or to ask advice, or to take her to some party. So you convinced her she was in love with you.”
Mac stared at his friend. He hadn’t consciously wanted Sara to fall in love with him, but yeah, he hated the idea she would need someone more than she needed him.
Fuck.
92
Just My Type
“She started this,” Mac said, his voice calmer. “She came to me first.”
“You should have said no.”
“I did.”
“That’s what you told me at the wedding. Then you go to St. Croix with her…”
“
After
her,” Mac corrected.
“And come back married,” Sam went on. “You told me you were going to tell her nothing was going to happen. Ever. How is marrying her telling her that?” Mac looked at his friend, decided that if Sam was going to punch him he would have already done it and asked, “Are you going to listen to what I’m going to say?”
“Am I going to like it?”
Mac thought about that. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said honestly.
“I swear to God, Mac, if you say anything about licking or sucking…”
“Shut up,” Mac said bluntly. “We haven’t even slept in the same bed.” That seemed to surprise Sam enough he did stop talking. For a few seconds. “Yeah, well, you forget how well I know you and how many stories you’ve told about your women,” Sam said. “I know you’re not even all that fond of sex in a bed.”
It was true. Mac preferred more unconventional sex. Beds seemed so clichéd. “I’m trying to tell you…” He couldn’t honestly say that he hadn’t touched her. “We haven’t had sex.” Probably more information than Sara wanted her brother and his friends to know, but that was too damned bad.
Sam looked skeptical as he gave one nod. “You gonna tell me why, I suppose?”
“Because…” He sighed. Because he wouldn’t be able to do the right thing and get her to break things off if he made love to her. He’d be completely addicted then and his selfish nature wouldn’t let him leave her alone. “I can’t break her heart and I know I can’t be married to her.” Kind of true. He liked the idea of having Sara all to himself for the rest of his life in many ways. But he wasn’t what Sara wanted…or deserved. So okay, he’d known she looked at him with stars in her eyes and yeah, okay, he’d liked that. Having a woman like Sara think he was great was good for his ego. He’d had plenty of women think he was great. Then again, he made a habit of spending time with women who had low standards.
“Being married to her has already been that bad?” Sam asked.
Mac could see the tension in Sam’s shoulders had eased somewhat. “I suppose you’re going to be pissed at me if I say yes?”
Sam seemed to have to think about that. “Maybe. Hell, I’m so messed up about all of this I don’t even know.”
“We’ve barely
been
married. We’ve spent our married life so far on an airplane and in my car with her asleep the whole time.”
93
Erin Nicholas
“And last night,” Dooley piped up.
Mac didn’t take his eyes from Sam. “I slept on the couch.” He held up a hand quickly as he saw Sam about to respond—probably with a
bullshit
. “Sara went to bed and I slept on the couch no matter what you want to believe.”
“Why?” Sam said simply.
“Yeah,
why
?” Dooley echoed.
“I know I’m not good for her, Sam,” Mac said, feeling his gut clench as he admitted it. “I know I’m not going to be able to give her the life she wants. Or deserves. Okay? I might be a lot of things, including an asshole at times and a dog when it comes to women, but I know Sara and I know my lifestyle is not going to be right for her. I’m too damned old, cynical and stubborn to change.” Sam crossed his arms and watched Mac with a strange expression. “You gonna explain to me how all of that equals you marrying her? Because so far, that sounds pretty damned stupid.”
“She thinks she’s in love with me, Sam,” Mac said. “And I can’t break her heart. For one, she won’t listen. For another, I just…can’t. I can’t hurt her. So I need to show her she doesn’t want to be with me.
Make her be the one to break things off.”
“You had to
marry
her for that? You couldn’t just date her or something?” Mac knew a wedding seemed—okay,
was
—a little over the top. With anyone else he would never have gone to such extremes. But this was Sara. He’d always gone to extremes for and about her.
She had to walk away from him and this was a guaranteed way of making that happen. He couldn’t go through it more than once so it had to be extreme and
effective
the first, and only, time.
“She thinks she wants it all, and she’ll never let go of that if I don’t show her what that really means.
She has to move to Oscar and be a part of my life before she’ll realize she doesn’t want it. I can’t move her to my hometown, to live with me, without marrying her, Sam.” Sam sighed and nodded. He understood that part.
“I’m just not going to…make it any more real than it has to be.” Mac wasn’t about to admit to Sam that
not
sleeping with Sara was the hardest thing he’d ever done and he was avoiding it more for his sake than hers. He was just going to keep telling himself she couldn’t truly satisfy his needs anyway.