Fearsome (42 page)

“Here we go again,” Carson mutters.

“It’s true!”

“I know,” he growls. “You don’t think I play that over and over and regret not doing something then. I was afraid of hurting my brother. Seeing you two together made me sick. Sick! But I failed to act on it immediately from day one.”

“Why?”

“Because for a long time I thought Dylan was my weakness. I couldn’t be happy because I worried about Dylan. I couldn’t go to college because I had to take care of Dylan. I couldn’t have more in my life, other than work, because Dylan consumed all of my energy. I allowed myself to believe that I was doing the right thing by letting Dylan be with you even though it felt so wrong.”

“So you’re not made of steel. You do have weaknesses?” I give a small smile to restore the peace.

“I do. But I can’t blame Dylan. He’s not really my weakness. I actually think he makes me stronger. I have to be… for him… for me… because failure isn’t an option.”

“Geez. Now we’re back to Mr. Perfect again.”

“I’m not perfect at all. As you know, I can be too uptight, too controlling, too opinionated and too stupid when it comes to you. You’re my weakness.”

“Really?” The thought that I can bring this impressive man to his knees inflates my ego with a jolt.

“You’re a weakness in a good way. When I’m with you, I let part of my tough exterior down and you bring out a side of me that I like. Do I make any sense to you?”

“You make perfect sense to me.”

Forty-One

I put on the final touches of black ink, splattered in some places. The photo of Carson hugging Dylan at the party is captured in my own style. I blew the photo up and hung it on my wall so I could paint my own rendition of it. The goal is to capture their love for each other and their stand-out charisma in a sea of bodies. I am pleased with the finished product and it gives me pause to memorize Carson’s loving gaze on his younger brother. It makes me miss Carson more and it’s the reason I could never really leave Hera to move back to New York. Knowing he’s a short distance up the road from me is a geographical significance that I don’t want to lose.

I pull off my smock and take a quick shower to scrub the paint from my nails and arms. The house has a distinct, ever present chill, like any old Victorian home, so I put on a black tunic sweater with a mock turtleneck and my black leggings, topped off with my chunky glasses to remind me of my afternoon with Carson in the library. I put Carson’s key necklace on over the sweater. I wear the necklace every day and flip it between my fingers when I think of Carson.

I try out the new flat iron I bought online. Imogene showed me how to create a new look. It makes me look a little more sophisticated, I think, when I straighten my hair out to its full length, letting it drape in thick, silky strands.

The third floor is the warmest part of the house, so I stay in my bedroom and work on the bed with my laptop on a lap desk. It’s these times of day when the girls are working at the diner that I daydream too much, thinking about Carson.

Sometimes I get funny texts from Dylan, sent to a wide circle of his friends; photos of a sandwich he’s eating, or his feet propped on a table. His messages are optimistic and are meant to reassure us, especially Carson. However, when my phone pings, I am always hoping it’s Carson. He will no longer initiate anything between us. Lauren called it; he’s waiting for me.

I run some tests on a program and take a few work phone calls while Bert snuggles on the bed at my feet. I like to run my toe over his jowls and under his chin. He flips over on his back with his legs in the air, hoping I’ll rub his belly. “You males are all the same,” I say to Bert.

“What about us males?” Carson fills the doorway, his hands raised above his head, gripping the doorframe, and one bare foot bent slightly forward in a casual stance.

“I didn’t hear you come in. What are you doing here?” I try to fight back a smile so I don’t look too eager.

He shrugs. “I still have a key. I decided that I need to show you what you’re missing.”

“You mean sex?”

“Nope. By the way, your hair looks great like that.”

“Are you trying to get in my pants?”

“Nope. There will be none of that.”

“Did you bring your handy dandy tool belt to hammer something senseless? Something to drive me insane?”

“Nope. I’m making dinner. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

“But you can’t cook.”

“Imogene gave me some tips. It won’t be as good as Dylan’s cooking, but I’ve got some moves.” He is serious and it occurs to me that he is intentionally staying outside of my bedroom.

“Dylan used to cook for me. Is that what this is? I thought you weren’t jealous of Dylan and our short affair.” I had to put that out there since it seems to be one of the main reasons why I can’t give myself completely to Carson.

“I’ve never been jealous of Dylan. I know how much he has struggled. I would never want to live with the demons that battle in his brain.” He’s about to say more and then clears his throat to end our conversation. “Be downstairs in an hour or I will come and carry you down. Don’t cross me on this one.” His lovely mouth curves and I am tempted to ask him for a kiss, but I will follow his rules.

An hour later, when I walk downstairs, I smell tomato sauce and burnt garlic and enter the kitchen to a scene of Carson flinging spaghetti noodles against my new refrigerator. There’s a pile of cooked noodles on the floor and a trail of them sticking to the fridge.

“What are you doing to my new appliances?”

“Imogene told me how to test the pasta to make sure it’s al dente. I think I got it.” He picks up potholders and takes the boiling water off the stove and dumps the noodles in a strainer in the sink. He moves fast, sliding on his bare feet, tossing olive oil in the pot and then tossing the drained pasta back into it. He adds more olive oil and a touch of marinara sauce from another pan. I see empty jars of Rao’s Marinara Sauce on the counter.

“You got me Rao’s?” I am excited.

Carson smiles. “Sit down. Imogene told me it’s your favorite and you miss it. I bought two cases for you when I was on the Upper Westside yesterday.” He nods to the boxes on the floor.

I put my hands together gleefully as if he just unveiled a pony to a five-year-old. He dresses our pasta bowls with more sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. “So what’s the nasty smell?”

“I annihilated the garlic bread. Apparently the two-step directions were too complicated for me.”

I laugh, seeing the charred bread log on the counter. “It’s the stove. It’s made for a professional chef and it’s easy to ruin your food if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Now you know why Talia is the only one who uses my range.” His remark is meant to be funny, but I feel a pang of envy that Talia spends several days a week cooking for Carson and handling his laundry, folding his boxer briefs!

He fills two glasses of wine. “Eat,” he commands.

I dig in and eat with a craving for my favorite starchy carbs, twirling mounds of spaghetti on my fork against the pasta spoon before shoving it in my mouth. “Forgive me, but no one looks attractive eating spaghetti and I’m really hungry.”

“Go ahead. Slurp all you want.” He is pleased with himself. “Oh, and I fucked up the salad, too. It was supposed to be arugula with shaved fennel. I accidentally pulverized the fennel in the food processor, so the salad is arugula with a side of arugula. But this is very good wine and there’s ice cream for dessert.”

I bark a laugh. “I thought you would offer yourself up as dessert. Isn’t that a guy move?”

“Nope. No sex, babe. And if that’s what your previous boyfriends offered, I don’t want to hear about it. Got it?”

“Sure.” I twirl a smaller amount on my fork and try to look a bit more elegant, if that’s possible with spaghetti. I like that he calls me babe, a new endearment. “There weren’t any other boyfriends, Carson. And Dylan was… you know, a moment in time.”

He nods and keeps eating and re-filling my wine glass.

When I work on my dish of caramel ice cream, he gets up to do the dishes. With his back to me at the sink, I watch his butt like it’s the swim relay at the Olympics when the hunky anchor is coming down the lane for the photo finish. My eyes never leave Carson’s ass.

“Getting enough there?” he asks without turning around.

“I have plenty of ice cream, thanks.”

“No, I meant the view.” He turns around and points to the window over the sink where my reflection looks back at me.

“Oh. Yeah, it’s a nice view.” Caught red-handed. I smirk and lick my spoon.

“Don’t do that.” Carson is looking at my tongue. “That new hair, with those glasses? It’s like having a horny, sexy librarian staring at my ass.”

“How do you know I’m horny?”

“Because I’m horny,” he growls. He takes my bowl, finishes loading the dishwasher and washing the pots by hand.

“Thanks for dinner and doing the dishes. It was a very nice surprise.”

Carson turns around and leans against the sink. “It doesn’t have to be a surprise. I’m happy to do this anytime. I’m happy to do a lot of things for you that have nothing to do with sex. Believe me, when I get horny, I don’t cook for any old girl.”

Our conversation is interrupted by Imogene and Lauren making a commotion as they come in the front door. “Who made dinner?” Imogene yells as she comes down the hall.

“Ah! Mr. Blackard, did you follow my instructions?” Imogene smiles to me, sniffing, looking for some sign of how the dinner went.

“I got about fifty percent of it right. There are leftovers in the fridge for you and Lauren.”

Lauren pops into the kitchen with snow still in her hair. She stands next to Carson at the sink and looks at me, waiting for the game replay.

“Lauren, your eyes are about to pop out of your head,” I say, getting up to put my wine glass on the counter.

“Babe, don’t forget I’m coming tomorrow to fix the downstairs toilet that keeps running and I’m going to measure the windows. I’m not going to replace them when it’s this cold, but I can order them.” Carson kisses me on top of the head and starts for the front door. I am a little tipsy and giddy that he called me babe again, another obvious move on his part.

“Babe?” Lauren whispers.

I ignore her and head to the door as Carson puts his boots and coat on.

“Is this your new strategy? Show up and fix things, cook for me, call me babe?”

“Yep,” he says and looks past me to see if the girls are listening. We both know they are staying perfectly quiet in the kitchen so they can hear us. “You told me you didn’t want me barging in anymore, but I’m thinking
fuck that
. I’m going to be around and you’re going to know it.”

“To what end? Why?”

“So you’ll know how good it feels to be wanted and needed; to know that it’s what you really want.”

“You think so?” I linger, hanging back at the far end of the front hall.

“Yeah, I do.”

He strides toward me and covers my mouth with his lips that taste like marinara sauce and wine. I let a small moan escape and he probes further, running his tongue inside every part of my mouth before tugging on my bottom lip with his teeth. We slowly pull apart, not wanting the kiss to end.

“I’m going to get in my truck and think about you on the drive home. Then I’m going to go to bed and think about you until I fall asleep. When I wake up, I’ll think about you again and then I’ll have to take a cold shower. I’m going to pick up lunch because I know you like when Sushi Dan is town. So I’m going to bring you lunch. I’m going to work in your house the rest of the afternoon, not because I want to fuck you, but because your house needs work. I wouldn’t mind if you think about me, too. Even if it’s my ass that turns you on.”

I am touched by his thoughtful assertiveness and insistence and he’s so goddamn sexy. “I love Sushi Dan.”

His mouth does that slight curve again. “I have to leave before I kiss you again.”

“Wait a minute. Who is Talia cooking for? Are you going to sneak home and eat the good stuff?”

“Nope. I gave her three weeks off. So it’s you, me and my bad cooking.”

“That was generous of you. It’s paid time off, right?”

Carson shrugs. “She needs to see her family in Poland.”

“And I bet you paid for the trip. You’re such a nice person.”

Carson picks up my hand and kisses it. “I’m coming back for you.”

He sure knows how to shut me up. I bask numbly in his flirtation before he leaves and I lock the door behind him.

“What was that?” Lauren asks, running down the hall towards me. “Babe?”

I shake my head. “He wants to come over and fix things.” I shrug.

Imogene joins us and crosses her arms. “He wants to fix you.

My cell phone pings with a text from Carson.
You’re always on my mind.

Lauren reads it and does one of those spastic cheerleader jumps. “He’s courting you. He’s wooing you until you admit that you’re in love with him.”

Imogene is more reserved and, for some reason, I trust her advice more than Lauren’s. Something about Imogene’s dark red lipstick and dark wavy hair with her Jessica Rabbit body makes her seem like a woman who reads men well. “He’s very serious, Jess. It may look cute and innocent, but make no mistake. Carson is deadly serious about what he’s doing. Do not fuck with his heart on this. If you have a problem, you tell him now.”

Her warning carries a great weight, this time I understand. I can’t dismiss her the way I brushed off Carson’s warning about Dylan.

Forty-Two

For the next two weeks leading up to my show, Carson arrives every day to work on my house and to cook dinner. I work in the library or paint in the studio and sometimes I wonder if he’s downstairs breaking things so he has projects to work on. I really don’t care. I listen like a hawk for any sign of the door opening and grin to myself when I know he’s arrived.