Maya And The Tough Guy (31 page)

Jayce was drying a couple of glasses and placing them behind the bar. “What are you talking about?”

“Maya. She wants to ask you out, she just can’t get up the nerve.”

Jayce turned to face him. “Huh?”

Kellen sighed. “I overheard her talking to Zoey and Addy yesterday about how she can’t find a way to tell you she’s changed her mind.”

Jayce let this sink in. He thought about her weird behavior lately and about how he’d been trying to avoid her because of it. He thought about the conversation where she’d asked him if he was sleeping with anyone and he’d basically told her to fuck off. “Shit.”

“Yeah, so I’m giving you a courtesy heads-up,” Kellen said. “Thought you might like to know.”

Jayce didn’t know how to feel. He just stood there, frowning with his mouth hanging open.
 

“So? This is good news, right?” Kellen asked.

Jayce snapped his eyes up to Kellen’s. “Why hasn’t she told me?”

“I don’t know, man. She’s nervous I guess.”

“Is she afraid of me? Because if she is, then I don’t want anything to do with her. I’ve done everything I can to show her how much I care about her and if she’s still afraid of me, I just can’t handle that, you know? I shouldn’t have to. Eventually she’s gotta give me a little trust.”

“I don’t think that’s it, Jayce. She’s just nervous. You know how nerve wracking it is, asking someone on a date or telling them how you feel. If you wait her out, she’ll eventually get the guts to tell you. But I’m thinking if you wanted to, you could probably speed the process along by giving her an open opportunity.”

A bar patron made his way to the end of the counter. Still wrapping his mind around this new and important news, Jayce made his way to the customer and filled his drink order. Then he dragged his feet back to Kellen, who was watching him with a mixture of amusement and expectation.
 

Jayce stared at him. “You’re sure about this?”

“Yeah, Jayce, I’m sure. I wouldn’t bring this to you if I wasn’t.”

“It’s just I don’t think I could take it…” He left the rest unsaid.

“I know. I understand. But this is solid intel. She likes you. She wants to make something happen with you.”

After Kellen left a few minutes later, Jayce spent the rest of the evening thoroughly distracted by this new prospect. And despite his desire to protect his heart from more pain, he felt hope take hold and fill him up.
 

#

Maya worked the bar from five until closing on Saturday night. Working with Jayce had become an almost impossible task. The distraction made her nearly incompetent as a waitress. Not only was she worried about finding a time to tell him something she didn’t know how to say, she was also overwhelmed with attraction to him.
 

Every time he talked to her, even when it was just to tell her a drink order was ready, she got all flustered. When she bumped into him or brushed against him accidentally, she became a complete wreck. She dropped three glasses and delivered two wrong orders that night, not to mention the countless times she’d had to have a customer repeat himself because she couldn’t stop her lustful thoughts from wandering to Jayce.

By the end of the night, Maya was exhausted. After the last customer left, she helped Jayce close up. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning and they were alone in the bar. She was sweeping the floor when she heard the jukebox come on. The song was
We Danced
, by Brad Paisley. A song about two people alone in a bar after hours, losing themselves in conversation and falling in love.

Maya turned to see Jayce leaning on the jukebox, his back to her. He’d played the song once before and Maya hadn’t paid attention to it, but now she knew why it made the drunk version of Jayce cry. He turned around, no tears in his eyes this time, his expression blank. “You wanna dance?” he asked, holding his hand out to her.

She was transported back to high school. He’d asked her to that prom. He’d driven her to that prom. And yet she’d still been stunned when he’d turned to her and asked that same question.

Now, she smiled and stepped into the circle of his arms, threading her arms around his neck and resting her cheek on his chest. They danced, swaying lightly to the music. His hard body full of warmth and the promise of good things to come.
 

As the song ended, Maya stepped back and looked up at him. “I love you, Jayce.”

He tried to keep his expression neutral. The effort was obvious. But his jaw tightened and his eyes grew more liquid; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Is that so?” he asked. Even his voice betrayed him when it cracked just slightly.

Maya nodded. “That’s so.”

He cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked down at his feet. “Well, my feelings are the same as always. I love you, Maya.”

This time, the words excited passion inside of her that she’d never felt possible. She was going to find happiness with this beautiful man. It seemed a gift too improbable to believe. “Would you like to go upstairs?” she asked.

He looked up at her, then, fighting back a grin. “In a minute,” he said. “Kind of wanna get reoriented to this new world I’m in now.”

She let out a laugh with a rush of relief. “I know exactly what you mean. I can’t believe this is happening.”

He turned and put another song on the jukebox before taking her in his arms and dancing with her again. As they danced, he asked, “What’s this mean? For our future?”

She ran her hands over his shoulders and upper back. “Right now, it just means we’re in love and we’re going to see where this goes. We can talk about the logistics later. Now, I just want to feel this. Feel you. You know?”

He squeezed her close to his body. “I want you to know I’m miles ahead of you. I mean, I’m
there
. I’d propose right now if I thought you wouldn’t turn tail and run. So…the pace of this thing is on you. You need me to slow down or speed up, just let me know.”

“Okay. And if you feel like I’m not giving you enough or understanding your feelings enough, you let me know, okay?”

His hands were roaming further and growing more possessive by the second. “Right now,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “I just want to take you to my bed and make love to you with honesty for the first time; to not have to hold all this love inside of me while I’m inside of you. ” He pulled back and cupped her face between his hands. “Say it again. While I can see your eyes this time.”

She smiled up at him. “I love you, Jayce.”

This time he didn’t fight the emotion. The smile bloomed on his face, which flushed, darkening his skin and brightening his eyes. He let out a laugh and then kissed her deeply. Then he led her down the hallway, flipped off the last of the bar lights, and took her upstairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

About The Author

Carter Ashby is a hardworking housewife and homeschool mother by day, and a romance reader and writer by night. She lives in rural Missouri with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
 

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Addy And The Smart Guy

Spring break arrived, a week after helping Zoey move—or rather keeping Zoey occupied while Kellen and Jayce helped her move. Now she found herself with a weekend free of plans.
 

Spring break had meant little to Addy when she was an undergraduate, and even less, now, as she worked through her Master’s degree. She would still have work to do, mid-terms and essays to grade. Her parents wanted her to come spend some time with them. Even though St. Louis was less than an hour away, she still lived in the city and went home on weekends rarely.

It was hard to avoid the bigger breaks, though. Addy hated to hurt her parents’ feelings, but she was just happier in her little one-bedroom apartment in the city, where there were no rules or expectations but her own. Still, it would be nice to hang out with Zoey and Maya for a while. If she could separate them from their boyfriends.

Addy was a teaching assistant to Dr. Greyson McDaniel. He had a small desk for her in his office, up against the far wall. Addy sat there organizing her files. She taught Political Science 101 for Grey—Dr. McDaniel. After talking about him to her friends, she’d gotten in the habit of thinking of him as Grey. She mentally berated herself and determined to get back in the habit of calling him Dr. McDaniel. She was prioritizing her work on her laptop so she could take it home with her when he walked in.

Addy glanced back and smiled. Though she tried not to be in the office with him when he was there, sometimes their schedules overlapped. He looked fantastic as always.
 

A raggedy professor, he kept his hair a little too long and his clothes a little outdated. His glasses came off sophisticated, rather than nerdy, but the way he shoved them up the bridge of his nose frequently softened his image. His face, though, was achingly beautiful. A strong nose and jaw, sharp lines and the perfect amount of stubble. A slim, fit body which she only knew about because she’d seen him in his gym clothes on occasion. When he went to the gym, he pulled his hair up in a stubby ponytail that was somehow adorable and sexy at the same time.

Addy just couldn’t stand to look at him. It hurt too much.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Hart,” he said.

“Good afternoon, Dr. McDaniel.” She’d already turned back to her computer screen.

But then the door clicked shut. She jumped. Frowned. It was unlike him. Whenever they were together in the office, he always left the door open. He was very conscious of propriety. Just last year a well-known professor in the psychology department had been caught in a scandal involving two of his freshman students, a male and a female. Drugs had been involved. The publicity had seemed to never end.

Dr. McDaniel had more than his fair share of young, female admirers, but he was always extremely formal and distant, never wanting to invite scandal. Even a rumor could destroy his reputation, and maybe his career. The dean had been on a personal mission to eliminate all incidences of improper fraternization between teachers and students. Just the fact that Addy was the teaching assistant to a single, good-looking professor automatically put her and Dr. McDaniel on the dean’s radar.

So for him to close the door seemed a major lapse in judgment. She shook it off, continuing the task at hand. She’d be leaving in a few minutes anyway.

“Got big spring break plans?” he asked

She laughed because it was funny. She didn’t need to explain to him why it was funny, he already knew what a tame life she led.

When he didn’t say anything else, she suddenly got a nervous feeling. He was still there. Standing back by his desk, she suspected. What was he doing?

She turned. He was facing her, but not looking at her. He was frowning down at the floor and holding an envelope.

Her heart sped up. She began running through possible scenarios. Had she done something wrong? Had he done something wrong? Did that envelope contain bad news? Did somebody die? Get fired?
 

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

He looked up, suddenly, as though just realizing she was there. “What? Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine.” He leaned back against his desk, blinked, and looked away.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Good.” She hesitated and then turned back to her laptop.

“I’m going on vacation,” he said.

Um, okay
. “Oh, cool,” she said. “Taking the girlfriend?” She couldn’t say the name of the woman Dr. McDaniel had been dating the past few months. She’d met her. Seen her around. She was gorgeous, mid-thirties like him, sophisticated and pretty much perfect in every way.
 

“No,” he said.

Her fingers paused over the keyboard. “Oh.” She went back to typing up a work schedule for herself.
 

“I have this cabin out in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Nobody there knows me. It’s quiet. Secluded.”

She checked her email one last time to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. “Sounds real pleasant.”

“It is. I’m flying. In the morning.”

She nodded, then shook her head at the amount of work she had to do. “Well I hope you have fun. I’ll be doing all your work for you, it looks like.”

She’d meant it as a joke, but he hadn’t laughed. Huh. Weird.

“And you don’t have to think about this now, or anything,” she said, “but when you get back, I think you’re going to have to meet with that Gwen Morris. Yesterday she gave me this lecture about how her father paid for her to take ‘Dr. McDaniel’s poly-sci 101 class…not Addison Hart’s.’ I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to piss her off, but she’s got it out for me.”

“I’m sure you’ll handle it,” he muttered.

“I can’t, is what I’m saying. I mean, I don’t know what she wants or believe me, I’d give it to her just to shut her up—“

“Addison?”

He rarely called her by her given name. It was usually Ms. Hart to him. She swallowed and turned, frowning up at him.
 

“Um. This is for you.” He crossed the room and handed her the envelope.

She took it and stared at it.

“Like I said, I’m leaving in the morning. Have to be at the airport at nine to get through all the security. But…again, this place. Nobody knows me. Or you. It’s…it’s really nice. I just…I wanted you to have that…,” He nodded toward the envelope. “Just in case.”
 

Then he turned and just left.
 

Addy sat twisted in her chair, staring at the door he’d left open. What the hell? She opened the envelope. Inside was a round trip ticket to North Carolina. “Holy shit,” she whispered.