Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) (12 page)

He winked at me, put my bag carefully on his lap, and began to read. I scowled to keep myself from laughing, and left him alone with his daughter.

I was going to wander back to the kitchen to wait for Grant, but curiosity carried me to the open door of the next room over.

Alex sat at a round table with the pieces of his starship laid out. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he examined it. I leaned against the doorframe and looked around the room. The kid was a
Star Wars
fanatic. There were all types of memorabilia on display. There was an enormous Death Star on one wall and life-sized decals of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on another.

Amongst all that, was a single framed picture of a pretty light-skinned woman, smiling broadly from under the brim of a large beach hat. Alex’s and Natalie’s deceased mother, Shyanne.

I looked away from her picture and pushed away the odd combination of emotions it evoked in me.

“How long did it take you to put that together?” I asked Alex.

He glanced up at me, a little surprised, but then looked back at the mess of Legos and seemed a little hopeless.

“A few weeks. It has over three thousand pieces. I’ll never be able to build it again. She probably lost some of the pieces.”

I tentatively stepped into the room. “Can you buy any missing pieces?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t know what pieces I’m missing yet.”

I sat down in the chair across from him and picked up a few of the scattered pieces.

“Do you put all your models together?” I glanced around the room, mentally picking out all the model ships on display.

“Yeah. Some of them are Legos and some of them are other materials. I don’t really care about Legos, but the
Star Wars
stuff they have is pretty cool.” He gave me a slightly wary look. “Do you like
Star Wars
?”

I knew I was being tested. I was pretty sure I had passed Nat’s assessment earlier at dinner, but it was Alex’s turn to decide whether or not I was worthy.

It shouldn’t have mattered if he thought I was worthy. I had absolutely no plans to be a part of his life. None. As I told Grant, I wasn’t mother material. I wasn’t even girlfriend material.

However, even if it didn’t matter to me, it did matter to Alex.

I stole a cursory look at his mother’s photograph again and sighed.

“I have all the movies on Blu-Ray,” I confessed. “And I may, or may not have a poster of Hans Solo in my closet at home.”

Slowly, a smile appeared on his face.

“Hans is awesome.”

I passed the test.

Together, we began to rebuild his starship, chatting amicably about all things
Star Wars
. I don’t know how much time went by before I noticed Grant standing in the doorway watching us, or how long he had been there. I didn’t immediately go to him, though, and he didn’t interrupt.

I was actually enjoying the conversation with Alex; it was better than most conversations I’ve had with adults. Putting the pieces of the ship together was surprisingly soothing and comparable to how I felt making origami. I probably could have sat there for hours, but after some time, Grant finally came into the room.

“Alex, I’ll give you another half hour, little man.” He rubbed Alex’s head affectionately. “Then it’s lights out.”

I carefully put down my section of the ship and stood up.

“Thanks for helping me, Mayson,” Alex said.

To my surprise and horror, the kid got up and hugged me tight around the waist. I glanced at Grant with bewilderment, but he seemed a little surprised, too. Hesitantly, I hugged him back, awkwardly patting his back.

“Where’s my bag?” I asked Grant when we stepped into the hall.

“In the kitchen. Now that I know how to keep you here...” He trailed off and smiled.

“Is that how you won over your wife? You stole her pocketbook?”

“Nah, I did that with my good looks and remarkable charm.”

I snorted in response.

Once we reached the kitchen, he handed me my bag and leaned in close to me.

“You don’t think I’m good looking and charming?” he challenged.

I shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re all right for a thirty-nine-year-old.”

“Smartass.” He placed a light, quick kiss on my lips.

I pulled the strap of my bag onto my shoulder. “I have to go. My neighbor was kind enough to take Dusky out this afternoon and feed him, but he’s probably ready to go out again.”

“Do you want to take my car?” Grant asked as we walked to the door. “I can pick it up tomorrow or Monday.”

“No, but you can call me a cab.”

“I’ll come down with you. We can talk while we wait. We have some unfinished business,” he said ominously.

Downstairs, in the doorway, our unfinished business was conducted by touch. No words flowed between us as our tongues were tied in a salacious kiss. His hands were on my waist, holding me possessively close to him. My own hands were flat against his chest as if I meant to push him away, which I had at first, but I had given up quickly.

When we finally pulled apart a few inches, we were both breathless.

“It’s been thirteen long years,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “You said it yourself, we’re different people. So, why does everything with you feel so familiar?”

“It does seem familiar, but…” He kissed along my jaw. Then his lips were lightly touching mine. “I am hungry for you,
craving
for you like a man who has been starving for thirteen years, and you are the only one who can satiate my appetite.”

He kissed me hard, groaning into my mouth as he took his pleasure from me. When he stopped, I was again short of breath.

“When did you become so poetic?” I asked, and licked the taste of his mouth from my swollen lips.

“About five minutes ago when I tasted your smartass mouth,” he groaned and kissed me briefly.

As much as I wanted to keep kissing him, we
did
still have a few things to discuss, and my cab would arrive at any moment.

“Grant,” I panted his name as he kissed my neck. “I was serious earlier. I’m not mother material.”

He withdrew and looked down at me with dark, serious eyes.

“I’m not asking you to be a mother. I just want you to be yourself, to be Mayson.”

“Those are very pretty words, but the fact remains that you have two children and I don’t want to be a mom.”

“Again,” he said more sternly. “I’m not asking you to be a mother.”

I looked at him doubtfully but moved on from that.

“I’m a recovering drug addict, Grant. You left because of my addiction.”

“You are a
recovering
drug addict, Mayson, and I didn’t leave because of your addiction.”

“Right. You left because you didn’t want to watch me die,” I said dryly.

He nodded slowly. “That is part of it, but we don’t have time to get into the rest of it. You don’t have to tell me what you are, Mayson. I see what you are. I see you better than you see yourself.”

I snorted. “I don’t know about that because I’m very honest about the person I am.”

“I believe that, but you're honest about the person you
think
you are.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I said, “We can debate that all night and never come to an agreement.”

“We can, but we don’t have time for that, either. What’s next on your list?”

“There is so much you don’t know about me. To be perfectly honest, there is so much
I don’t
know about me. I can’t remember everything. Some things are really cloudy and other things are completely dark.”

“We’ll learn together along the way,” he said, bringing a hand up to my face.

“But…” I raised my hands helplessly and let them fall back on his chest. “I’m not exactly what you would call a stable person.”

He shrugged. “Who’s stable these days? Do you think I’m stable being a single, working father?”

I eyed him cautiously. “Well, I would hope that you are stable since you do handle deadly weapons fairly often.”

He smiled and wrapped his arms around me. I stretched my arms to wrap around his neck, not by choice, but by reflex.

“
You’re
a deadly weapon,” he said in a low voice that made me shudder slightly. “You fucking slay me.”

With that, the conversation concluded when his mouth again devoured mine.

The taxi arrived a moment later. Grant opened my door for me and leaned in to kiss me once more before closing the door. He handed the driver some money and gave him my address. Scowling, I put my window down.

“I don’t need you to pay my cab fare,” I snapped. “I can pay for my own cab fare. This is
not
going to be one of those relationships where you walk around with your big fat wallet throwing money around and making me feel like a damn moocher, Grant Alexander.”

He leaned on the door and peered down at me with a big grin.

“Of course not,” he said and meant it. He wasn’t just trying to pacify me. “I am just making up for starving you and nearly catching you on fire this afternoon.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Why are you still grinning like that?”

His grin grew wider, which worried me a whole lot.

“You acknowledged that we are now in a relationship.”

He laughed when my mouth fell open in realization.

I had no time to argue with him, slap him, or kick him or anything because he stepped away from the car and then we took off down the street.

“It was just supposed to be lunch,” I muttered agitatedly under my breath.

I zoned out a little bit during the drive, as I thought about how quickly things had progressed—or deteriorated, depending on one’s point of view. I had gone to Grant’s with expectations of lunch and the determination to push him back out of my life, but in one afternoon, I folded like a cheap suit. I didn’t get any lunch. I didn’t push him out of my life. Instead, I left his home late at night with kiss-swollen lips and wearing his clothes.

I pulled the neck of the shirt up over my mouth and to my nose. It smelled like him, like Grant. The shirt had been clean when he had given it to me, but after having his body pressed against mine and being so close to him for hours, the shirt smelled like his body.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. When I opened my eyes, we were stopped in traffic, waiting for a light to change in front of a coffee shop I used to frequent in the evenings after work. Ice spilled down my spine as my eyes met the eyes of the man standing outside the shop, smoking a cigarette.

He was so average looking that in most cases I probably would have overlooked him a dozen times before I noticed him. He had dull brown hair, a plain face, and below average height and weight for a man. There was not one thing extraordinary about him, but something about him felt so menacing, that I refused to walk anywhere near that shop after three p.m. when he was usually there working.

The first time I’d encountered him, he’d been sweeping the floors inside as I stood at the counter ordering my drink. I had felt his eyes on me, but I’d ignored him. It was the city; very often some weird people stared or said strange things. I learned to ignore it long ago, but that guy’s eyes on me were hard to disregard. So, I’d looked up, hoping that if I met his eyes directly, he would have felt forced to look away as many people who stared tended to do. When I’d met his eyes, however, I was jarred by both the familiarity of the man, and the nausea the site of him induced. I didn’t know where I knew him from, but I was sure I had seen his face before.

He’d smiled at me and said hello. His voice had been polite, but the sound of it made my skin crawl.

Fear and disgust had simultaneously swarmed over me, and I became so frazzled by the man that I’d dropped my coffee. When he’d rushed over to clean it up, I’d bolted. I’d run into him a couple times more close to the shop, with the same sickening result. He had always been nice, always said hello, and always scared the hell out of me.

Sitting in the cab, out of his reach, I should have felt safe, but I didn’t. I should have looked away from him immediately, but I didn’t do that, either. He nodded his head once in acknowledgment, gave me a short wave and a beatific smile.

I gagged and my stomach twisted violently as my dinner threatened to make a reappearance.

After the cab dropped me off, I searched my surroundings anxiously, as if I expected to find the man standing nearby. Once I was inside my apartment, behind a locked door with Dusky jumping happily up to greet me, I felt a little better.

Then I remembered that the dog needed to go out and cursed aloud.

“Why couldn’t you be a vicious guard dog?” I asked Dusky accusingly.

If someone attacked me, the dumb dog would more likely just bark at them rather than tear off a limb.

I went to my bedroom closet, glanced at the poster of Hans Solo, and quickly put on a pair of sneakers in case I had to run. I tucked a small can of pepper spray into my back pocket. As an afterthought, I stowed a switchblade in my front pocket. The blade and pepper spray were gifts from Lily after I moved into the city. She took her personal defense very seriously after she had been attacked by the same guy twice.