Slow Burn (13 page)

How can I say he’s just a friend when I was going to use him an hour ago to get over the man I’m speaking with? “We weren’t talking about him.” I force the issue, not wanting to delve into the potluck of problems I have sitting on the table.

“Then we’re not talking about her. Besides, what’s it to you Haddie? I’m giving you exactly what you asked for, right? One night, no strings. So why do you care what Deena is to me?”

Ah, Ms. Exotic has a name. Deena? I hate the name Deena. Well, not really but I do now. I immediately imagine his voice moaning it, and I instantly feel sick to my stomach.

“You don’t get to keep me at arm’s length but then call dibs when it’s convenient for you,” he continues when I’m silent, lost in my thoughts.

“I’ve never done that!” A blatant lie but if I’m reaching, then I might as well stretch as far as I can.

“Bullshit, Montgomery. Dante or whatever the fuck his name is may mollycoddle you, stroke you when you need it but leave you alone otherwise, but I’m not like that. I’m not him. You can’t fuck with people’s emotions and expect them to want to be there for you, either.” He sighs out in frustration while I’m taken slightly aback by the bite to his tone.

“Who the hell mentioned emotions? Emotions weren’t included in my rules,” I say childishly.

“You want to talk about rules, Haddie? You want to know my rule number two? I don’t play games.”

“Hmpf.” It’s a disbelieving sound followed by a roll of my eyes he can’t see.

“Yeah. That’s one way to put it. Is there something else you called for besides trying to stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong?”

I open my mouth and then shut it, unsure how calling him because I just needed to hear his voice has devolved so quickly into this. Into me scrambling for words I can’t find to fix shit that doesn’t need fixing.

Because I don’t want this. Don’t want him.

“Well, then, if you want to actually talk instead of pull this ridiculous bullshit, I’m here for you … but, Had …? Whatever this is here … this passive-aggressive crap? I don’t do too well with that. We had our one night. You made it quite clear you didn’t want anything more than that, so you don’t get to call me up and question what I might or might not be doing with anybody else. You want no strings? Then cut the ties … but frankly, I don’t think you know what the fuck you want. So until you figure your shit out, I think it’s best that we say good night before we make a bad situation even worse.”

“Wait!” Desperation rings in my voice in the single word. And I hate myself for sounding like this, but I’m so lonely, so scared, and just want the comfort I know he can bring me right now.

I wait for the sound of the dial tone to assault my ears. Wait for the incessant beep that reaffirms why I have barbed wire wrapped around my heart—painful but necessary. But there is nothing for a few moments until I hear the phone scrape against the stubble on his face.

And I wait … my throat burning with the tears I want to shed but am so sick of. The ones that no longer bring me comfort.

“I’m here, Haddie. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” The timbre of his voice carries his concern and sympathy to me through the line.

The incoherent sound I make is all I can offer to thank him for not hanging up on me. For not giving up on me.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?” he asks gently as if he’s afraid if he pushes too hard I’ll run away and hide. Just like I want to. How he has me pegged so well, I don’t know.

“I’m sorry.” My words are barely audible. I don’t even recognize my own voice, can’t come to grips with how this man I don’t want to let in has gotten under my skin.

Losing Lexi was one thing I couldn’t stop, but losing myself
is something I never expected. And there’s something about Becks—his easygoing nature, his personality, his kindness—that has me reaching over my iron walls and wanting to connect. Wanting to reach for that shadow of myself that is floating away just beyond my reach.

The balloon without a string at the top of your ceiling. There. Present. But never within reach.

Until it deflates. Falls lifeless.

“Don’t be sorry, Had. Never be sorry for needing me.”

I don’t need you
. The words are almost off my tongue. But the gentleness in his tone causes the pain to burn brighter.

“You want to talk about it?”

You have no idea. I want to explain this all to you. How I want you, how I’m scared, how if I give you the whys, I know you’ll give me the get-over-it speech, and that’s the one thing I’m sick of hearing. The “Lex is dead, Haddie. She’d want you to keep living, keep dreaming, keep going. Live for her. Get over it.”

And I’m not sure what’s worse to me. Him telling me that and ruining this perfect image I’m holding close of him or letting him in, allowing whatever this is to run its course and then devastate him like Lex’s death did Danny.

I hear the jingle of a dog’s tags in the background, and for some reason, the sound makes me smile. So I seize on to the idea of Becks having a fur person to keep him company at night, my mind trying to distract me from the vulnerability that is seeping from my every fiber.

“No.” The word is a soft exhale on my lips.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to come over?”

Yes
.

“No,” I lie, unable to take that next step in admitting how much I want that right now. Having Becks here would be like admitting there is a chink in my armored heart. And the only problem is that I’ve let him in—past the steel walls—but he can never know. If he knows, if he lets me
into his heart, into his life, then I open him up to feeling how I feel.

“What do you need from me?”

And my heart squeezes at his words. Not what
can
I do for you but what do you
need
from me? Where is the arrogance when I need it? Can’t he be an asshole so that I can cling to that, grab onto that to help me push him farther away?

Protect him and isolate me?

“Nothing … I just …” I can’t finish my thoughts because I want to tell him everything I need from him. Why I want him but won’t let myself risk the chance of hurting him. At my own fear of taking a stupid blood test. So many things but all I can do is live day to day, moment to moment.

But isn’t that part of the problem? If I’m adhering to that theory, then I should be living it up. If tomorrow is unknown, I should be living with reckless abandon, throwing caution to the wind. Driving with the top down. But I’m not.

Because I’m scared.

I close my eyes as a silent tear slides down my cheek, and I try to shove my fear away, but I get a sense that I don’t even need to speak because Becks just knows.

“I’m here, okay?”

I nod my head as if he can see it and sit there for a few seconds before realizing it. “’Kay.”

“So, uh, we never finished the other day.”

I let the silence hang, unsure of what he’s talking about and at the same time wondering if I have enough in me to care and knowing damn well that I do.

“I was born in Texas. Moved at age six to the Santa Cruz area for who knows what reason. … Hmm. I feel lame doing this, but it’s only fair, right? Let’s see, it’s just my little brother, Walker, and me.”

I smile at the comment, love that he’s giving me his turn to tell his history. “Mm-hmm,” I murmur so that he knows I’m listening and encouraging him to talk more.

“When I was twelve, I think, my dad got transferred down to Santa Monica. … He was a big wig at the bank he worked at, and their corporate headquarters was down here, so we moved. I was so mad at him for making me leave my friends and my football team that I packed a bag and ran away.” He laughs at the memory, and the sound of it lifts the veil of grief some. “I made sure I had my Nintendo Gameboy and some snacks and sat on the green electric transformer box that was just out of view of our front door for a while, pondering where to go. And then of course, my mom knew my biggest weakness—chocolate chip cookies—so she baked some and called all the kids in the neighborhood to eat them on our front lawn. She made sure she yelled loud enough to every kid within earshot about them. … I couldn’t take it, so I came home after a whole hour and a half of running away.”

“So we moved down here. Played football and baseball and wrestled in high school. Was a decent student. Became friends with a kid in high school named Smitty. His dad worked on a local race team. One day he asked if I wanted to go, and I had no interest really, but shit, two hours at the track and I was hooked. But it wasn’t the driving that was the draw. Hell yeah, there was an adrenaline rush, the pull of the speed, but it was the organization of the crew, the calculations of the gas and timing. … All of the mechanics of it mesmerized me.” He sighs as I hang on his every word, wanting to ask so many questions about that first time and about so many other things, but my acknowledgments remain soft murmurs and sounds.

“I asked if I could help, became a regular at the track and learned everything I could. I stayed out of the way initially, but then as I grew confident, I made suggestions, filled in when a crew member couldn’t make it. Then one day when I was about eighteen, I saw this cocky son of a bitch named Colton take the wheel of a car out at Fontana. Heard he was some Hollywood actor’s son, so I stayed to watch
him wreck because the ones who think they’re better than everyone else always do. He looked about my age, but shit, he surprised the hell out of me because he had some real talent. I introduced myself to him, he came out a few days later and tested the car, and, as they say, the rest is history.”

I can hear the dog’s tag rattle again, and I want to ask Becks about their friendship, his love life, what his parents are like … but I snuggle into the silence, grateful for the comfort I find in him opening up and the lack of questions he aims in my direction.

It’s weird that he understands just what I need and yet I haven’t asked for a single thing from him. The thought settles into the recesses of my mind, and I wonder what exactly that means and how it fits into whatever this is here that I’m fighting so ridiculously hard.

He continues talking aimlessly about Rex, the mutt he rescued from the animal shelter, and his brother and their family house in Ojai. All safe topics. All great info but not what I want to know the most: Who is Deena? What is she to him?

And then I’m mad that I care. Furious actually, so I let him ramble. Not wanting to give in to my catty side again and make him regret staying on the line and talking.

Silence falls back across the line after a bit. “Hey, Had?”

“Hm?”

“As you can tell by my rambling, I’m kind of lonely tonight. Would you mind hanging on the phone with me until I fall asleep? You don’t have to talk or anything. … It’s just nice to know you’re there.”

I know damn well he’s not lonely, know he’s lying to take some of the embarrassment off me, and hell if it doesn’t make me want him that much more. A soft smile is on my lips, the salt on my cheeks stiff as my muscles move, his kindness weakening my resolve. “Sure.”

And I can feel it happen. That part of my heart starts to tremor with the first beginnings of a hairline fracture as he
chips away at it with his hammer consisting of patience and understanding.

Minutes pass with just the even rhythm of his breathing and the thumping tail of a dog against what sounds like his mattress. I sink farther into my bed, into the silent comfort of his presence on the other end, and let it wrap around me.

“Thank you.” The murmured words are on constant rotation in my head, but I’m not sure if they ever make it out of my mouth. And if they do, Becks never acknowledges them.

T
he sounds of the club ring out in a continuous thump of bass and beat. A little too loud, a lot too trendy, and way too superficial for my taste. Give me a dark corner, a draft beer, and some short skirts paired with pairs of boots, and I’m in Heaven.

Then again, a man has no right complaining about the ample display of bare flesh making the rounds in front of me. But damn, just like that first night we met in Las Vegas, I can’t help the one sight my eyes keep drifting to.

The one person they keep getting lost on.

This is beginning to be a serious problem.

Now that I’ve tasted the temptation of Haddie—taken her scent, her sounds, and her addictive flavor to compare others against—hell if that one time hasn’t been seared into my goddamn memory.

And damn.

Just damn.

Then there’s that look in her eyes. The one that screams she needs someone to help her see through the grief, to
prove to her that opening up doesn’t mean she has to close the fuck down.

And hell if I’m not a sucker for long-legged blondes with smart mouths who need a shoulder to cry on. Who the fuck am I kidding? The only crying I want her doing is my name while she comes. But that would make me an insensitive fucker, and I’m anything but. Hell yes, I may be thinking it, but, c’mon, it’s Haddie.

I’d be a stupid bastard not to want her again. Or a blind one.

My groan as I watch her work her clients on the floor—laughing, connecting, entertaining—is smothered by the music of the club, and it’s clear as day that there’s just something about her that pulls me in and makes me care. Like “sitting on the other end of a silent phone line for two hours just to make sure that she’s okay” type of thing.

I’ve sure as hell never done something like that before. She sounded so lost, so much like a little girl. How in the hell could I hang up when she so clearly needed me?

And as I watch her across the club from me, she most definitely does not look like a little girl. The way she moves is beyond enticing. The sway of her hips and the flip of her hair over her shoulder. I take in her shapely legs and the low cut V of her top hugging those perfect tits of hers. Lips glossed, smoky eyes, and body screaming to be sexed.

As much as my dick is begging for a second—huh, I guess I should say a fifth—time to make her come and find its way between those supple, tanned thighs of hers, all I want to do is be close enough to see her eyes. To make sure she’s okay.