ONE WEEK 1 (5 page)

“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

The crowd goes wild as Grey grabs Lila, hoists her up by the ass, and kisses the heck out of her for so long that a few chuckles and coughs start ringing out before he lowers her to the floor and takes her hand, his eyes so proud and full of love it’s hard to watch.

I sigh and avoid looking over at Devon, feeling a bit too raw to risk meeting his eyes, in case he sees something I don’t want him to see. Something he doesn’t want to see, no matter how hard he’s worked the last few days to make me feel wanted.

I didn’t get to sleep with him again, thanks to Aunt Myrtle arriving late—no RSVP, the old bat—and becoming my roomie, thanks to Mama and her interfering ways, so not only am I all gooey about the wedding and watching two people being head over heels in love, I’m gooey for a whole different reason and frustrated that I lost out on three more days of smoking hot sex with Mr Bedroom Eyes.

And I can’t do anything about it because he’s leaving later to catch a flight because one of his brothers broke his arm in a rugby match and he’s worried about the kid.

“You look like someone stole your favorite Barbie.”

Nope, they stole my Ken, and I’m not going to get to play with him again. Ever. He’s leaving me for the queen, and I don’t quite know how to deal with it.

I want to throw a tantrum and stomp my feet, but if I do my poor Ken will be ripped limb from limb by four big, strapping Hulks.

“Oh, shut up, dummy. I haven’t hardly seen you this week, and you’re redeploying soon. What’s up?” I ask Logan, taking his arm and following the rest of the guests out to the tent and the mountain of food and drinks that awaits.

Logan’s my favorite, but the guy’s so locked down and closed off it makes me mad and sad at the same time. We used to be tighter than a nun's legs, and now I’m lucky if I hear from him every two months.

I miss him, like crazy miss him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or if he does he just doesn’t care.

“Nothing. Just trying to get through this without running into Dad. What about you? You look miserable,” he murmurs, mussing my hair when I glare at his deflection and shake my head.

“You know, Lo, one of these days you’re gonna have to stop being such a baby and just say what you need to. Pretending the rest of us don’t exist will only get you so far before we actually aren’t there anymore and you’re all alone.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I do. I know what it’s like to want something and convince myself I can’t have it. Don’t need it. Unlike you, I don’t have a choice but to keep fooling myself, because I can’t, literally can’t have it. You can, you just won’t try.”

Logan glares down at me and firms his lips, and I have to fight back tears that he cares so little he isn’t bothered to ask what it is that I want. Before, he would have demanded an answer and moved heaven and earth to give me what I need. Now he can’t even force himself to respond.

“You won’t even ask?”

“Not my business.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Screw you, big brother.”

I leave him standing there, as alone as he wants to be, and go find Mama, needing her like I have since I was little. Her kisses still had the power to fix my booboos.

“He’s leaving in a few minutes,” Mama says sadly, looking over at him with a tear-filled smile. “Used to be he’d follow you around like a shadow.”

“Yeah, and now he won’t even spit on me if he can help it.”

“Ladies,” I hear from the left, and groan when Devon leans down and grins at Mama. “May I steal your lovely daughter for a dance?”

“Go on then. I need to find my guy and twist his arm into dancing with me.”

Mama walks away with a grin and a wave, leaving me alone with Devon and my still roiling emotions. I don’t need this right now. I’m too torn up about everything, and I’m not in the right place to play battle of the one night stand with him.

“Go away. I’m not interested.”

“Yes you are. Come on, imp, dance with me before I have to leave. Please?”

I go, because I can’t help myself. He pulls me into his arms and leads me, keeping me close, his face close to mine as he looks down at me, his eyes serious, not at all his playful, snarky self.

“I’m sorry I left you alone,” he whispers into my hair. “Even I’m not that crass. I got a call and I had to take it. I’m sorry.”

I shrug and stare over his shoulder, forcing myself to smile at Grey as they twirl past and then at Matt when he wiggles by doing some crazy dance move that lacks rhythm but is made up for in gusto.

“Imp.”

“It’s fine. We had a one night stand and good sex. Now I can move on, and maybe flirt a little and not be too self-conscious about my fat ass. It’s all good.”

“Don’t do that. You’re beautiful,” he snarls, tipping my chin up and looking deeply into my eyes.

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Can you maybe try not to talk to me so much? You’re making me feel—”

“We were supposed to spend the rest of the week together, and you’ve been avoiding me like the bloody plague.”

“I got a new roomie, and while she may be deaf as a post, she’s not blind or stupid. Having sex with her in the same bed would have been tricky,” I grump, trying to put some space between our bodies and failing when he only pulls me closer.

“You could have come to my room, you know.”

“Uh, not on your life, player. I do not do the walk of shame.”

That startles him, and this time he’s the one pushing me away, his eyes stark.

“You feel shamed by what we did?”

Aw, cripes. That came out totally wrong, something I don’t feel and never want another person to feel. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t want him to feel just a little shitty for skipping out on me and then trying to use a lame ass excuse to make me feel better about it.

“No, but I also didn’t—don’t want to cheapen what it meant to me by creeping out of your hotel room at five am because we’re done having sex and you can’t deal with cuddling. You wanted me, and you got what you wanted. That’s done. Now you’re going back to your life and I’m going back to mine. End of story.”

The story sucks, and I want so much to have a chance at a rewrite, but since it’s not gonna happen I at least want it to end with some of my pride intact and him not knowing how I went and started feeling more for him than is smart.

“Imp.”

“It’s okay, Devon. It’s not like we made any promises to each other, you know.”

He sighs and nods, and I swear I see some regret there before his face goes blank and he gives me an empty smile that makes my heart hurt.

“It was good though. So good.”

“Yeah.”

“I wish—”

“Your brother broke his arm?” I interrupt, not needing another round of disappointment to go with the boatload I’ve had for the night.

Together he and Logan will have me crying into a gallon of chocolate mousse and whipped cream. I don’t mind it. It’s just that the tears totally ruin the flavor.

“Yes. Ryan.” He sighs. “Garret rang me, and while everything seems fine, I can’t risk it. He wants to go in for rugby when he’s out of school, and he can’t if it’ll be a recurring injury.”

“You love them very much.”

I like that. It means he’s as into family as I am, and that’s what I’ve always wanted, to love someone who shares the same values as I do. Family means everything to me, and maybe that’s why I’m so pissed at Lo. He feels the same; he’s just being a stubborn ass.

“Yes. They’re everything to me.”

I understand him then, as those eyes of his go soft and a smile tilts his mouth. He’s spent all these years raising three boys and being their everything, and that’s all he knows. All he wants to know.

There’s no room in his life for anything else, and honestly, even if there is, I don’t think it would make a difference. He won’t let it.

“I gotta go make sure Lila’s surprise from Mama and me is ready,” I say, pulling away and smiling, though it hurts. “If I don’t see you before you leave, tell Ryan and the boys I said hI, and tell Garret I said Amelia is really pretty but I don’t thinks she’s as into him as he is her.”

I leave him with his mouth hanging open and make my way to anywhere that isn’t near him. I don’t get to talk to them a lot, since we’re not that close, but I follow them all on Facebook and sometimes I send them messages to cheer on their achievements.

Like I said, I’m real into family, and those guys are part of mine, even if their big brother’s a douchebag.

Oh, shit.

I don’t know what to do with myself, and instead of being the grown idiot that I am, I do the childish thing and bury my head in the sand and just pretend that I don’t know a thing, that nothing’s changed and that I’m not terrified out of my mind.

Instead I focus on everything around me that’s either improved or gone to shit. For instance, the day I got back to the city and walked into the office and coincidentally bumped straight into Peter he’d jumped back like I have the clap and apologized as if I hadn’t been in the wrong, not watching where I was going.

Shocked me, to be truthful, but I’d nodded and taken in his face.

“Are you wearing concealer?”

He’d blushed deep red and scuttled away like I’d lit a fire in his shorts. I learned later that day that someone had hit him, a lot, and that he’d been wearing concealer to hide his two black eyes and bruised jaw.

Love to kiss the hell out of whoever did that.

It’s been two months since the wedding, and I’m surprisingly good. I went on a blind date—sans the tentacle arms of one Kurt Engelhouser—and I really like the guy.

Dillon lets me order whatever I want at dinner without giving me the look that says ‘you really think you need that?’ and he doesn’t make fun of me for wanting to take things slowly. He kisses me goodnight—on the cheek—and leaves me at my door, happy to just be with me for me and not what he can take.

And now that’s all blown to hell and back because I’m a fucking dummy and I went and ruined things before they even started. I don’t know how this is going to play out, and I honestly can’t say I’m okay, but I will be, just as soon as I do what I should have done three years ago.

“Abi, you got a minute?” I ask, poking my head in her door.

She motions me forward without looking up from her desk and makes me wait while she gets done reading. Classic psyche-out tactic, but whatever. I no longer need to care.

“What is it, Slade?”

“I need you to know that I have to leave this morning, I have a very important call to make, and I kinda won’t be back. Ever,” I say, enjoying the shock that fills her eyes and leaves her mouth hanging open.

She’d be really pretty if she weren’t such a bitch, but hey, that’s not my problem anymore.

“What the hell are you talking about? You can’t just leave!”

“Yeah, I really can. No contract, remember? It used to scare me that you could kick me to the curb without so much as a week’s notice, but now I am totally glad I let you screw me over that way because it means you can’t make me stay.”

So what if I’m enjoying this? I’m not spiteful by nature, but hell, with the way my week’s been going, I so need to get the upper hand on something. And it looks like that something is Abi.

Yay!

“Slade!”

I’m grinning as I walk away and grab the box of keepsakes from my desk, because I hear her cursing all the way.

“Hey, Becky?”

I turn to Trish and arch a brow, looking over her shoulder to the clique of bitches huddled behind her.

“Where are you going?”

Oh, so they’re worried because the office drudge is leaving. Figures they’d spend years making my life hell because I’m too fat and quiet to fit in, but now that they’ll have to actually get off their skinny, manicured asses they want me to stay.

Huh!

“Home.”

“Are you sick?”

I can tell by the way she asks that she knows I’m leaving, and the thought is not one she likes. This woman and her friends have spent three years shuffling their workload to my desk because they’re lazy and entitled, just as a lot—not all—but a lot of beautiful woman are.

Things come easy to them, so they think they can coast through life on looks alone while the rest of us regular Joes and Janes do all the work. I hope Abi hires someone just like her so that the lot of them are forced to do something, for a change.

Not spite, just that I hate to think that’s all she’ll ever be because no one wants to push the pretty mean girl to be more.

“No, but I am sick and tired. Do me a favor? Use the brains God gave you and do something other than going to hair appointments and waiting for others to carry the load. You’re better than the vacant shell you make yourself out to be.”

I walk away and don’t look back, because honestly, I don’t have time to care about her feelings, or anything else, for that matter. I have something to do, and I plan to do it before I lose the courage.

When I get home I dump my box and kick off my shoes, grabbing the phone and my old address book. I breathe deep and dial, part of me hoping he doesn’t answer even as the other part hopes he does.

“Baxter.”

And just like that I feel the need to say
carrot
. Broccoli. Turnips. Anything but what I’m about to say.

“Devon.”

The silence hangs between us for a full minute before I hear a door close and then the squeak of a chair.

“Imp? What’s wrong?” he asks, and I can almost see the exact same look on his face as the one Grey gets when I sound this unsure. Weird to know that a guy I don’t really know all that well knows me down to the tone of my voice.

“Nothing. Well. Maybe something, but it’s not bad, at least I think, it’s not, it’s just that I—” I let the sentence peter out and drag in a lungful of air, feeling lightheaded from that mouthful.

“I think I’m pregnant, and I thought you should know. That’s all. Think about it and call me when you’re ready to talk.”

I hang up and disconnect my phone and put my cell on silent, grabbing the pharmacy package from the kitchen counter and breathing all the way to the bathroom.

I’m not sure yet, as you can tell from the tests in my hand, but if I have to suffer through two minutes of utter hell, so does he. Seems only fair.