Meeting Mr. Wright (9 page)

“I miss them, Callie,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I wish they were here.” It’s just so like her to try to hold it together, because she’s always been the kind of person who felt like she had to be strong for everyone else, and that need intensified after they died. It happened exactly one month after Gabby’s eighteenth birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan left the house all dressed up for a night at the theater, but there was a thunderstorm and the roads were slick, and Mr. Morgan swerved just a second too late…

I was spending the night at her house, and was standing next to her when she opened the front door to two police officers who were offering their condolences. I rarely left her side during the rough months that followed. That kind of experience forms a bond between two people that’s so thick that I don’t even need her to tell me what she’s going to say next. I already know, and I wish I could do something to make it come true for her.

“I’d give anything for them to be here,” she whispers.

“I know you would,” I say, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight. I struggle to find the right words to say, not wanting to offer her some trite sentiment by telling her that they’re in a better place somewhere watching over her. That kind of thinking is rarely a comfort to a person who would rather have her loved ones right here with her. “I love you,” are the words that finally leave my mouth.

She’s quiet a moment before she says, “I love you too.” It takes her a while to let go of me, and when she pulls away she’s smiling through her tears. She fans her face and quickly swipes her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and I have to smile at her. She never could handle too much emotion at once.

“Please unzip me so I can get out of this thing before I get mascara all over it.”

I laugh as I imagine the shitstorm that would follow her realizing that she had a black smudge on her pristine white dress. After I unzip her, she walks back behind the screen in the corner of the room.

“Talk to me about something that won’t make me cry,” she says, sounding a little more like herself than she did before.

“Okay,” I reply, wracking my brain to come up with another subject. I wind up saying the goofiest thing that comes to mind. “Would you still marry Ben if he sounded like a chipmunk?”

I think her laugh is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

I
T’S CLOSE
to midnight when I’m driven out of my bedroom by the unrelenting thumping of a headboard against my wall. Ethan has never really been all that wild in bed, so either he’s trying to antagonize me in the tackiest way ever, or his new girlfriend is seriously rocking his world. I know that he wants me to
think
she is, at least. With him, anything is possible. Regardless of the reason for the late-night interruption, I don’t want to listen to it.

Since I’m not going to be able to get any sleep at this point, I might as well try to get some work done. My windows are open and the breeze floating through them is a pleasant kind of cool, so I grab my laptop and make my way outside, hoping that I’ll be able to get a wifi signal out there. I walk out onto the patio and over to the fireplace, flipping the switch that I saw Nate use to turn it on last night. The hammock hanging between the pillars on the right side of the porch practically calls to me, so I plop myself down onto it and flip open my computer.

I squint against the brightness of the screen out here in the dark, but it doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust. Luckily I’m able to sign onto the family’s network. There are a few web development quotes in my inbox, so I take a look at my calendar to figure out if I can fit the work into my schedule. After I respond to those clients, I pull up a project that’s nearly finished. I play around with some font sizes and tweak a few colors until I’m almost satisfied with the end result.

“You gonna sleep out here?”

I’m so startled that I nearly fall out of the hammock, and manage to keep my laptop from crashing to the ground thanks to some surprisingly quick reflexes on my part. I was so lost in my work that I didn’t even hear Nate approaching.

“I’m certainly not going to now,” I say breathlessly, dramatically clutching my chest.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says with a light chuckle as he walks around the far side of the hammock. “I saw that the fireplace was on and wanted to make sure that everything was on the up and up out here.”

“In case I was a thief?” I ask, grinning.

“Thieves don’t usually sit down and make themselves comfortable, but I guess you never know.”

“Obviously a thief has never sat in this hammock.”

Nate smiles as he slides his fingertips along the ropes. “Mind if I join you? This is usually my spot when I come home, but now it’s been usurped by some…by some-”

“Stranger.”

“No,” he replies tenderly, shaking his head. “Definitely not that.”

My heart skips a beat as he looks down at me with an undercurrent of longing. Before I can second guess myself, I move over to make room for him. As he eases onto the opposite side of the hammock, he accidentally brushes my foot with his arm.

“Jesus, Callie. Your feet are freezing.”

“That’s why I turned on the fireplace,” I say, hurrying to finish the email I was working on when he interrupted me.

Nate hops off the hammock, walks over to a cabinet that’s on the other side of the porch, and he pulls out a plush-looking blanket. He unfolds it as he walks toward me and he spreads it over me before he lowers himself back into the hammock. I can’t help but smile at how attentive he is; he always seems to be so completely aware of what it is I need, which is remarkable considering I’ve only known him for a few days. I decide not to dwell on that fact, because thinking about how sweet he is will get me in trouble.

“Thank you,” I say, loving the warmth against my bare legs and relishing in Nate’s body heat as he slips beneath the blanket. He grins at me as he reaches over and pulls my feet onto his chest. He rubs them, working out the dull ache there like it isn’t even a thing. A small sigh escapes my lips as I ignore my work and let my head rest against the ropes and enjoy the feeling of someone taking care of me. It’s been forever since I felt anything like it.

“So,” Nate says, grinning at me. “What are you doing down here?”

I take a deep breath and tap my chin with my index finger while I decide whether or not I want to tell him the truth.

“Let’s just say that there was some noise in the room next to mine. I was worried that if I stayed in there any longer that I’d get sucked into some strange bad porn vortex.”

Nate draws a breath through his nose, and as he continues rubbing my feet, his strokes have a little more pressure to them.

“Can I just say, without any personal agenda, that I’m really glad you broke up with that asshole?”

I nod and look down at my keyboard. I’m not really sure what to say to that.

“It’s fucking tacky to do that to anyone, let alone someone you…” Nate trails off, shaking his head. “Sorry, things like that just piss me off.”

“If it makes you feel any better, there was an over-the-top enthusiasm to the banging that made me think it wasn’t authentic. And the moaning was…theatrical.”

Nate laughs. “The pounding shows a lack of finesse. And I think it takes more talent to make a woman feel so good that she can’t make any noise at all.”

My cheeks flush as I look up at him, and his eyes are so intense when they look into mine. My breath catches as I remember that night I spent with him, the times when he made me feel so good that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. Having accomplished his mission of getting me all flustered, Nate changes the subject.

“What are you working on?” he asks, like he didn’t just set my world spinning.

I take a deep breath to steady my pounding heart. “Just a few quotes for some site work. I don’t usually take time off, and I’m really scared of falling behind. Just a day or two more of turnaround time can make the difference between a really happy customer and a really angry one.”

Nate nods, resting the back of his head against the hammock. “I thought one of the great things about being your own boss was getting to take time off whenever you wanted to.”

“Not when you have a small business,” I reply, laughing. Time off? Is he kidding? “Although it is kind of cool to be able to work from wherever I want.”

“Except your bedroom up there,” he says with a crooked smile.

“Except my bedroom.”

“Can I see what you’re working on?” He nods in the direction of my laptop.

“No,” I reply softly with a grin. I close my laptop’s lid. It wouldn’t be a big deal to let him see a few of my projects, but I’m way too self-conscious about my work and I’m worried about what I would do if he didn’t like my designs. Ridiculous as it may be, I feel like it would crush me a little.

If my reaction bothers him, he doesn’t let on. “Do you have any advice for someone just starting a business?”

I raise my eyebrows because I’m kind of surprised at his question. “Why, are you thinking about starting one?”

“The friend I met in DC before I came here, he wants me to partner up with him to design a line of outdoor gear.” Nate’s fingers lay still on my feet, and I miss the kneading immediately. I also notice the way his eyes are downcast when he talks about this venture, which is a good indicator that he isn’t too excited about it for whatever reason. And I want to know what that reason is.

“My first bit of advice is that you should probably be excited about your product if you have any hope at all of being successful selling it,” I tease, gently nudging him with my knee.

It takes a long while for his eyes to meet mine. “I am,” he says when he finally looks at me. “It’s just that my dad thinks it’s a waste of time. He’s not really being very supportive.”

“If he’s anything like my mom, he just worries about you. Back when they were younger, starting a business wasn’t as big of a gamble as it is now. It was a gamble, don’t get me wrong, but not like today. They don’t understand that we don’t have the options that they did. The corporate environment is so different now, and with every company cutting costs and maxing out their workforce, it’s not enough just to work hard and be the best. It’s difficult to move up. To move anywhere,” I tell him. “Sometimes you need to take things into your own hands. Or try to, at least.”

Immediately his expression softens, and instinctively I know that I’ve said the right thing. Nate gets back to work on my feet, and I take a deep breath and sigh as he hits a sore spot that needed some attention.

“I like my job,” he explains. “I just want to try something new.”

“I think you should do it. Do you have a name picked out?”

“Kyle—my friend—he likes Rocky Mountain Rec, but…I don’t know.”

“I like it too.” It doesn’t even take me ten seconds to start mentally configuring logo ideas, even though Nate hasn’t given me the slightest indication that he’s at all interested in my input. “It’s simple, it rolls off the tongue. Conveys the purpose of the company,” I say, finishing the sentence with a yawn.

Nate gives me a soft grin before he gently pats my foot. “C’mon,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock. Once he’s standing, he offers me his hand. I’m too tired to argue and too intrigued not to take it.

“Where are we going?” I let him pull me up. He takes my laptop, then walks over and shuts off the fireplace.

“Back to the house, to a porn-free room where it’s nice and quiet. You can sleep in my room tonight. I’ll take the floor. And tomorrow morning I’ll ask Mom to give you a new room.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say, blinking my sandy, tired eyes.

“I know.” He smiles at me, and it’s such a beautiful sight that I just stand up and follow him into the main house.

I
FOLLOW
Nate through the kitchen, and the house is eerily quiet compared to how loud it usually is in here when the Wright clan is together. I do my best not to make any noise, so I tiptoe quietly across the floor because I’m worried about waking someone.

“I’m the only one who has a room down here,” Nate explains. He’s not exactly talking in his normal voice, and the softness in the inflection makes me smile. “No one can hear us.”

He leads me into the living room, with its movie-screen-sized television and wood beamed ceiling, then down a long hallway. Snapshots in vintage frames decorate the walls, and part of me wants to ask him to slow down so I can get a good look at them. But my eyes are heavy, and there’s time to look tomorrow.