Walk (Gentry Boys) (6 page)

Except I did. 

I
did
care. 

Then the music stopped.  Evie released a breath that could have been relief or regret as I set her back on her feet.  Her eyes were wide as she slowly slid her arms from my shoulders.  She took a step back, fussing with her hair and dress.  I stood stock-still and watched her nervous movements. 

“Stone,” she started to say. 

“You should get back,” I interrupted, stuffing my hands in my pockets and trying to quiet the ache of arousal.  “Someone’s probably wondering where you are, since you’re part of the bridal party and all.”      

“I should,” she agreed, lowering her head. 

The slow, sensual music had been replaced with a raucous beat that had the partygoers whooping and howling like wild animals.  The brief spell that had led us to reach out to each other was broken. 

“It was nice meeting you,” I said, hating the coldness in my voice as I turned away.

It had to be this way though.  Otherwise I might be tempted to reach for her again.  As much as I was aching to get all hot and dirty and catch up on four years of sexual deprivation, Evie was obviously the type who deserved better than that. 

“Stone,” she called. 

I stopped.  I did not turn around. 

“Thank you for the dance.  Maybe we’ll see each other again.” 

I still didn’t turn around. 

“Maybe,” I whispered. 

I wasn’t sure if she heard me or not.  I started walking until I reached a small courtyard that smelled of honeysuckle.  I ducked behind the pillar of a small gazebo and only then did I turn back to Evie. 

She must have stood in place and watched me walk away.  She was still there, her arms crossed over her body as if she was cold.  Then, slowly, she turned back to the reception tent and headed in that direction.   Somewhere in the darkness I heard drunken male laughter and I tensed, keeping my eyes on Evie.  I didn’t relax until she disappeared back into the chaotic wedding reception.  I heard a woman shout her name in surprise. 

I sank down on the stone pavers beside the gazebo.  The position of the stars told me it was late.  The reception would have to wind down soon and Bash would be irritable if I was still wandering around instead of ready to help clean up. 

Polaris, otherwise known as the North Star, winked at me.  Funny, I’d never given stars much thought when I was a kid, but I’d read so many books in prison and some of them were on astronomy.  So now I knew all about stars.  I knew all about history and poetry and stars and goddamn Shakespeare. I’d never been a fan of books until I was locked away.  Then books and all the mysteries they contained became my best and only friends.  If I hadn’t spent years in a cell I probably wouldn’t know one quarter of the shit that occupied my head these days. 

But I’d know other things instead.  Like how to dance with a beautiful woman without grinding her like a sex-starved freak.  Like how to have a casual conversation about music and movies and work and fun.  I would have known all kinds of things. 

Maybe I would have even known about love. 

Evie

My legs still hadn’t lost their rubbery shakiness when Stone’s broad shoulders melted into the darkness.  He’d moved on with swift silence, like a giant, excessively muscled cat.

Apparently he was able to recover quite quickly from that sexually charged moment by the lake.  I, on the other hand, still hadn’t quite caught my breath.  The feel of his hands on me, the heat of his body, had been so startling, so thrilling.  When his lips touched my neck I nearly lost control and sank to the ground in a conquered puddle. I’d never been so turned on in all my life. 

If he’d wanted more I would have let him take it.  Just like that.  Some virtual stranger. 

Not just any stranger, but one who had apparently spent years in prison for a vague crime. 

A stranger who was both shy and bizarrely eloquent when he talked to me even as it seemed like the effort was strangling him. 

A stranger who was so insanely sexy that I understood for the first time in my life that ‘panty-melting’ was a real quality possessed by certain men. 

Stone. 

I didn’t know his last name.  Considering how quick he was to escape me, it wasn’t likely that I ever would.  Maybe he had a girlfriend. 

Or…shit…a wife.

I shook the notion off as highly unlikely. He might have just decided it was disturbing when some needy, nerdy chick clung to him in the darkness. 

My face was hot as I slowly made my way back to Briana’s reception.  Laughter burst from the night and somehow seemed directed at me.  I wasn’t being coy when I told Stone that men were persistent mysteries.  They were.  At least the ones who crossed my path. 

“Evie!”  Kendra materialized from the dancing crowd as soon as I rejoined the party.  The bridesmaid dress we both wore looked far more glamorous on her tall figure.  “Where have you been?” she demanded, appraising me.  “You look strange.  Guilty.”

“Went out for a smoke,” I lied. 

“You don’t smoke.” 

“I started tonight.  That’s why I look guilty.” 

My friend studied me with a frown.  Then she shook her black hair and grabbed my hand.  “They’re cutting the cake.” 

“Good.  I’d like some cake.” 

Kendra looked me over shrewdly.  “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.  By the way did Briana’s cousins say anything?”

“Like what?”

“Well, I think there was some nutty girl in a flapper bridesmaid dress telling people to go fuck themselves in the ladies’ room.” 

Kendra’s mouth twitched.  “I hadn’t heard that.” 

“Good.  She must have left then.” 

I clapped along with everyone else while Briana and Gavin cut the cake.  I waved and blew kisses as they left the wedding. 

Then I went home and tossed and turned for hours until I let my fingers stray between my legs to ease the throbbing ache that wouldn’t let me sleep.  The closer I got myself to climax the more I kept seeing Stone.  I kept remembering the broad muscles that were barely contained underneath his plain work shirt.   With a ruggedly chiseled face that would speed up the pulse of any girl and a body that belonged on a romance novel cover, that boy was (to use a juvenile term)…Hot.  As.  Fuck. 

I was in the middle of picturing his boring white shirt slipping from those strong shoulders when I came, curling my toes with a soft groan.  The idea of bare male shoulders may not seem like enough erotic material to send a girl straight to gasping ecstasy but when she was as deprived as I was it didn’t take much.  The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was turning my cheek to the soft pillow and thinking it was all wrong because in my mind I was still pressed against Stone’s hard chest as we danced in the dark. 

Since it was Saturday and I hadn’t set my alarm, I slept until nearly ten o’clock. When I finally padded into the kitchen for a caffeine infusion I felt moody, irritable.  Last night’s encounter with Stone had brought up some feelings I usually shoved aside with impatience.   There was something about him though, a connection, however brief and awkward.  And then came the moment when we clung to one another with barely restrained lust. 

Damn.
 

Even in the cold light of morning I couldn’t quite let go of that moment.  Yet I had to admit that sex, or lack thereof, wasn’t the only reason I was feeling out of sorts. 

Maybe it was the post wedding blues, that smug ‘always a bridesmaid’ bullshit.  I was happy as could be for my friend.  Yet there was also a small sting of envy. I remembered how my mother once said that the world ordered itself in pairs.  It certainly seemed true that being half of a couple was a rather universal objective.

So where did I fit in? 

I considered the question as I poured a cup of coffee. Really, not every guy I’ve ever been with could be dismissed as a douchebag, even though there were a few who deserved the insult.  Yet there was always something missing; something intangible, something crucial.  Fire, passion, fascination, all rolled together into one magnetic pull that there was no arguing with.  It existed, I think.  At least it seemed that way for other people.  For my part, I was still searching for a reason not to have fake orgasms with some sweaty character who humped his clumsy way in and out for a few minutes and then acted like I owed him money. 

No, I wasn’t settling for that shit.  No one should.  

“Just you and me, Teddy,” I told my guinea pig as I lifted his sleeping body out of his habitat.  He opened one baleful eye and if it was possible for a rodent to look annoyed then this one definitely did.  

Teddy cheered up when I gave him the run of the living room.  I didn’t do that very often because Teddy liked to crap green food pellets everywhere and he was always poking his curious nose into places it didn’t belong.  

I sat on a couple of big floor pillows, opened a bag of powdered donuts and watched my orange pet defecate on a nearby celebrity magazine.  But then he turned right around and ate his own fecal matter so everything evened out before I could do anything about it. 

After a few minutes of channel surfing, I found one where
Titanic
was just starting. I hadn’t planned on spending an un-showered afternoon sitting on my living room floor with powdered sugar decorating the Nirvana t-shirt I’d scored at a thrift shop, but it’s just not possible to turn off
Titanic
if you’ve got a beating heart.  And at the end when you’re sobbing and wiping your nose on the front of your dirty t-shirt because no one’s watching but an orange guinea pig, you think how lucky you are that you’re not in love if love means one half of you has to freeze to death and then sink to the bottom of the Atlantic while the other half feels guilty for the next hundred years. 

“Who am I kidding?” I grumbled as I hauled Teddy into my lap.  “Right now I’d trade a hundred years of guilt for a few days with a decent guy.” 

Hell, I might trade two hundred years for a few days with Stone. 

I felt silly about the thought before it even finished rolling through my mind.  I wasn’t some swoony kid. I was a grown woman with a job, an apartment, a pet guinea pig.  Even though men didn’t fall down at my feet when I walked by they didn’t cringe either.

I was at
least
a five on a scale of one to ten. I was self-reliant. 

And smart. 

And horny.

And…lonely. 

Teddy’s little face tipped upwards and he sniffed the air as he stared at me.  I nuzzled him affectionately and then deposited back him into his home.  Just then I remembered how Briana had given me the key to her old apartment with instructions on how to take care of her cat until she returned from her Cabo San Lucas honeymoon to claim him.  Darcy would be around but Darcy was about as affectionate as your average tree lizard so I’d agreed to stop by every other day to lavish some love on Mr. Fitzgerald. 

Thinking about Briana’s old calico cat got me thinking about Briana’s apartment.  That made me remember Briana’s bridal shower and how I’d lugged a garbage bag full of empty liquor bottles to the dumpster.  At first I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy who lifted the dumpster lid and tossed the heavy bag inside like it was nothing heavier than cotton balls.  But then he’d started walking in the same direction I was going so I trailed several feet behind and had a grand old time checking out his ass.  He kept his head down while he walked but as he fumbled with the door to his apartment he turned his head and I clearly saw his face.  I had recognized him right away when he stumbled out of the night and found me sitting beside the lake but I was startled when he said that he recognized me not from the dumpster encounter but from the diner.  That day at the diner I’d been so lost in my own memories and emotions I hadn’t even noticed him.  It was funny because Stone was the kind of man who was nearly impossible to overlook. 

Someone in network television must have designated today as Sad Movie Saturday because after
Titanic
ended, I saw that
The Notebook
was just starting and right after that came
Marley and Me
, which was actually about a family dog but left me practically hyper-ventilating just the same. 

Later, as I chewed on freshly delivered pizza and sniffed through
Terms of Endearment
I found myself thinking about the mysterious Stone again.  It wasn’t just his looks that caused my mind to keep returning to him.  There’d been something disarming and honest about every word he spoke.  He had no reason to be so forthright with some girl he didn’t even know.  If he’d been up to no good he’d had a chance to prove it, but he didn’t. 

Stone hadn’t given me any hint as to whether he’d be happy to see me again.  However, tomorrow I’d be right there in his neighborhood since I had to take care of Mr. Fitzgerald.  What would be the harm in knocking on his door to see if he wanted to have a cup of coffee? Or dinner? Or a lap dance? 

Pervert.  Stop. 

I flashed back to Stone’s frank confession. 

“Just got out of prison.  Stole a car.  A girl died.  Brother who hates me. This is the longest conversation I’ve had with a pretty girl in four years.”

When he was done talking he’d looked at me with something close to defiance, as if he was sure I would run away from him. I didn’t.  I’d witnessed the way life could spiral out of control and shatter, leaving nothing but sharp pieces behind.  I imagined that it took a mighty amount of nerve to glue those pieces back together.  So Stone the Stranger would get no condemnation from me, at least not for that.  Instead he got a dance.

And tomorrow, when I stopped by Briana’s apartment to pay some attention to her cat, he’d be getting a visit.  Maybe he’d be glad.  Maybe we’d go have coffee and discover we had a lot more to say to each other. 

Or maybe he’d just tell me to fuck off. 

“You never know,” I told Teddy. 

I hadn’t said that aloud in a long time.  A long time ago it used to be one of my favorite everyday phrases, back when I was an optimistic sister trying to counter her brother’s pessimism. 

“You never know,” I said, louder this time, to my listening guinea pig. 

Teddy stared at me with simple eyes and then crapped in my palm.  Such is life.