Her Halloween Treat
Tiffany Reisz
Trick…or wicked treat!It was a devastating dirty trick—Joey Silvia just found out her boyfriend of two years is married. What. A. Dick. Joey knows her best chance to get over one guy is to get under another. Of course, heading home to her family's remote cabin in Oregon poses some challenges in the "available men" department…until she discovers this cabin comes with its own hot handyman!Holy crap, Chris Steffensen. When did her brother's best friend turn into a hard-bodied pile of blond-bearded hotness? He's the perfect Halloween treat—and a surprisingly dirty rebound guy. For a couple of weeks, anyway. Except that Chris has other ideas…like proving to Joey that this blast from the past is a whole lot more than a naughty Halloween hookup.
Trick...or wicked treat!
It was a devastating dirty trick—Joey Silvia just found out her boyfriend of two years is married. What. A. Dick. Joey knows her best chance to get over one guy is to get under another. Of course, heading home to her family’s remote cabin in Oregon poses some challenges in the “available men” department...until she discovers this cabin comes with its own hot handyman!
Holy crap, Chris Steffensen. When did her brother’s best friend turn into a hard-bodied pile of blond-bearded hotness? He’s the perfect Halloween treat—and a surprisingly dirty rebound guy. For a couple of weeks, anyway. Except that Chris has other ideas...like proving to Joey that this blast from the past is a whole lot more than a naughty Halloween hookup.
“You were intense last night.”
“Too intense?”
“Perfect,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. She needed to get him naked, and fast. Her body remembered the warmth of his skin on hers and ached to feel it again. “I want you to be with me the way you want to be with me. Don’t hold back. I can take it.”
“You took it last night pretty well.”
“Only pretty well?”
“Very well,” he said, nuzzling his lips to her neck. “You want to take it again?”
“And again and again and again...”
Chris kissed her mouth and she ran her hands down his back. She slipped her hands under his shirt, desperate to touch him. After all that hard work, his body had grown hot to the touch, and her cool skin bristled with pleasure as his heat suffused her.
She wanted more, more, more of him and she couldn’t get it fast enough.
Dear Reader (#ulink_114c2cec-21c4-5ff2-9f21-c40422f3b12c),
There are few places in the world more beautiful in autumn than Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon. I should know, because I live here. Shortly after my husband and I moved out to the mountain (technically a volcano), I hired a handful of local contractors to do minor repairs on our new house. They were annoyingly cute and very good at their jobs. I joked to my husband that if I wrote some romance novels about these guys, maybe I could write our home repairs off on our taxes as a book research expense.
Sadly, my accountant didn’t go for that idea. But I wrote the books anyway. Her Halloween Treat is the first book in the Men at Work trilogy, inspired by the men and women in all our lives who paint our houses, build our decks, landscape our lawns and generally make our neighborhoods nicer places to live. I hope you enjoy the story of Joey, on the rebound after a devastating breakup, and Chris, the sweet and sexy bearded contractor who puts all his handyman skills to use fixing her broken heart.
Enjoy!
With Love from My Secret Volcanic Lair on Mount Hood,
Tiffany Reisz
Her Halloween Treat
Tiffany Reisz
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TIFFANY REISZ is a multi-award-winning and bestselling author. She lives on Mount Hood in Oregon in her secret volcanic lair with her husband, author Andrew Shaffer, two cats and twenty sock monkeys named Gerald. Find her online at tiffanyreisz.com (http://tiffanyreisz.com).
Dedicated to...
Jen LeBlanc—“Don’t Stop Believin’,” my friend.
Contents
Cover (#u6c1681c1-6d22-5b55-b4d9-d8417c44587c)
Back Cover Text (#u0d023e86-6a48-50a0-8043-c874a8ef0175)
Introduction (#u7e7d9a42-fb81-5aeb-8a72-49462412eb7d)
Dear Reader (#ulink_90410f71-cb1c-54c0-94c6-92b81ed2b6b7)
Title Page (#u7b5ade1d-8bbb-54ea-8594-653ae6136e67)
About the Author (#u5c876c48-336a-540f-8615-3496badd74ee)
Dedication (#u7e6bea89-1153-5ade-8841-b4710bad6482)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_1eaebfab-9ba1-5df7-bdc7-a8024e2960b1)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_aad959df-b0c7-5b4b-a588-9b5b6c0edccf)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_00e29c21-18fb-59fc-bf83-54d71e35c9bd)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#ulink_9c8ed63e-5287-5d4c-bdd3-9b3e1ce4e0d7)
SHE WANTED TO blame her parents for naming her Jolene. Who did that? Who named their daughter after the most notorious other woman in country music? Once she’d learned who she was named after, Jolene became Joey and there was no going back. And yet just two days ago she’d learned the ugliest truth of her life—she’d been sleeping with a married man.
For two years.
Joey sighed and reached under her sunglasses to wipe a tear from her eyes.
“Jo?”
“Sorry,” Joey said.
“You don’t have to be sorry, babe.” Kira reached over and squeezed her knee. “We’re almost to LAX. You need to stop somewhere?”
Joey shook her head. “Keep driving. The sooner I’m out of here, the better. Thanks for getting me.”
“I can kill Ben for you, too. I’m willing to kill Ben. In fact, I might do it even if you don’t want me to.”
When Joey laughed it felt odd, and she realized it was the first time she’d laughed in over thirty-six hours.
“Isn’t murder maybe overdoing it?” Joey asked.
“Overdoing it? That piece of shit slept with you in Honolulu and with his wife in LA, and at no point in two years did he tell her about you or you about her? That is what happened, right? I didn’t make that up?”
“No, that’s right.”
“Then it’s not murder. It’s justifiable homicide. And don’t argue with me when I’m right. You know I am.”
Joey didn’t argue. She couldn’t because it was all true. For two years Ben had been her boyfriend. They worked together. They played together. They slept together. She believed him when he told her how much he hated living in LA. That he treasured his time with her in Hawaii. He’d move there permanently if he could, but work wouldn’t let him. Blah blah blah. Lies, all of it. Lies she’d believed, which is why she routed her flight through LA so she could surprise him. And surprise him she did. She knocked on his door and his wife answered. Quite a surprise for them all.
“So...murder?” Kira asked.
“No murder. Not yet, anyway.” She needed to fall out of love with Ben first. Hating him was easy. Not loving him was the hard part.
“Okay. But you just say the word, and I’m there. At the very least you should let me cut his balls off.” Kira grinned devilishly at her as she merged onto the I-105 ramp.
Joey swallowed hard, nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But just the balls.”
Kira dropped her at the terminal and helped her with her bags. Joey slammed the trunk shut and felt better. Slamming things, hitting things—she wanted to destroy all the things. Instead, she just rested her head against Kira’s shoulder.
“I wanted to marry him,” Joey said.
“I know.” Kira roughly patted her back. “I know you did.”
“I should have known. I mean, two whole years without him inviting me to LA?”
“I live in LA and I don’t even want to be invited to LA. This isn’t your fault.”
“What do I do?” Joey looked up at Kira. They’d worked together in the Honolulu office of Oahu Air, Oahu’s premier business-and first-class airline, before Kira had transferred back to the California office. They’d become fast friends and still were, even with half an ocean between them.
“Look. Here’s what you do. You go home to Oregon, you hang out with your family, you have the best time ever at your brother’s wedding and you bang the first hot guy you see the second your plane lands.”
“What if he’s the baggage handler? He might be a little busy.”
“Get your bag first. Then bang him.”
“I knew I could count on you for good bad advice.”
“I’m serious. Find a new guy. No guilt. No shame. No remorse. This isn’t about love. This is about you taking care of you. Sexually. It would piss Ben off, right? You jumping into bed with someone else right away?”
“If I burned his house down and threw his dad’s signed Gil Hodges home run ball in the ocean, it wouldn’t piss him off as much as me sleeping with somebody else right away.”
“Then go get it and get it good.”
“I don’t want to get it. The last thing I can think about right now is dating somebody else.”
“Whoa there. Nobody said anything about dating. This is sex. No strings attached. Speaking to you as a twice-divorced woman, you are not allowed to date somebody new for six months. Sex is fine. Sex is good. Dating’ll get you into trouble. Also don’t buy a car, a house, a Birkin bag, or go to Vegas with five thousand dollars in your underwear.”
“Did you do all of those after your divorce?”
“Everything but the Birkin bag. Those bitches are pricey. So no bags. Unless you get one for me, too. But sex, yes.” Kira pointed her well-manicured finger right at Joey’s nose. “Have insane, hot, totally meaningless sex until you remember what a goddess you are and you’ve forgotten Ben’s name because you’ve been too busy screaming some other guy’s.”
Joey took Kira’s finger in her hand and squeezed it.
“You’re a good friend. Thank you for enabling my bad behavior.”
“It’s what friends are for.”
The drop-off lane was clogged with cars. As much as Joey hated to be alone, she couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Thanks again. I’ll text you when I land.”
“Do it. And text me when you find a new guy.”
Joey grinned. “I will. If I find a new guy.”
“You will. I know it. Just remember—it’s Oregon. That’s hipster and lumberjack territory.”
“So?”
Kira pointed at her inner thighs. “Watch out for beard rash downstairs. I speak from experience.”
* * *
JOEY BOARDED HER FLIGHT—a nonstop, thank God, which meant she’d land in Portland in under two hours. Being alone on a plane, cut off from the world with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company, was not what a woman who discovered she’d been inadvertently in love with a married man for two years needed. With no internet to distract her, all Joey could do was think about the signs she missed. Ben had been the seemingly ideal boyfriend—always attentive, always thoughtful. If he had to miss her birthday one week because he had to be in LA, he’d give her the belated birthday celebration of a lifetime the next week when he came back to Honolulu. Two nights at a five-star hotel. Room service. Wine. A helicopter tour the next day. And sex, so much sex, all night long. But no matter how much she tried to reciprocate, he wouldn’t let her. She’d offered to do her part, come visit him, even get a transfer to California. He’d have nothing of it. She was his “sanctuary,” he’d said. He couldn’t imagine Hawaii without her, he’d said. Someday he’d take over as president of the company and live in Honolulu with her, he’d said. She just had to hold on a few more years, and then they’d be set for life.
Wait a few more years? Yeah, she had to wait a few more years until he had the money or the guts to leave his wife. If that even was his plan. Maybe he’d been stringing her along. She would never forget that moment Saturday morning when she’d hopped a cab from LAX to his house in West LA. She had his address, of course. She’d seen it on his checks, on work forms, on his California driver’s license. She’d expected him to be home. And he was home. He was home and so was his wife, Shannon. Shannon answered the door with a confused smile and a “Yes? Can I help you?” Joey, equally confused, said, “I’m looking for my boyfriend. Is Ben home?”
That was the moment Ben stepped into the hallway, his Nikes squeaking slightly on the ocean-blue tile flooring. He was a handsome man, almost six feet tall, dark hair, dark eyes, a devilish grin but with a dimple that made a girl forgive the devil in him.
If she’d had any hope this was all a mistake, it evaporated the second Ben opened his mouth.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ben had said with unmistakable fury. He’d never looked at her like that before, talked to her like that before. He’d always been happy to see her. If he wasn’t happy to see her, it was because that pretty lady holding the door open and looking at him, then looking at her and then looking back at him, wasn’t some well-dressed cleaning lady, but his wife. And Ben’s wife was having as bad of a day as Ben’s girlfriend was.
“Surprise” was the only word Joey could think to say. Shannon had a few other choice words to say and Joey heard them all as she walked to the curb where her cab waited just in case Ben hadn’t been home. As the cab pulled away, Joey had turned around to see Ben running toward her. She couldn’t read the look on his face—not fury, but not regret, either. She didn’t care why he ran after her. Didn’t care at all. She was numb with shock and grief. She felt nothing and would never feel anything but nothing again. At least that’s what she told herself as she fixed her makeup in a bathroom in the Portland airport. If she never loved again, she’d never hurt again and wouldn’t that be lovely?
After doing the best repair job she could on her face, she picked up her luggage and the rental car. It was nice doing normal things, nice to do boring human things. Life went on. Cars still needed renting. Luggage still needed picking up. Brothers still got married. Sisters still went to their weddings. The world didn’t end just because a man told a lie. That was good. The world would have ended a long time ago and many times over if it did.
The drive from the airport to her family’s old cabin near Lost Lake on Mount Hood was about two hours. Two beautiful hours once she was out on Highway 26 and heading west. She passed over a subtle ridge and what little was left of the city disappeared. There was nothing around for miles but the mountain, a billion trees and low-hanging clouds that brushed the treetops and rolled through the forest like gentle smoke. While Oregon was known for its evergreens, the forests had deciduous trees aplenty and they’d all gone wild with autumn colors—red and orange and lemon yellow. Even in her grief, Joey admired the beauty, took comfort in it. Hawaii was beautiful like nowhere else in the world, but damn, she had missed Oregon’s forests. The scent—there was nothing like it. Clean, so clean—pure pine and fir and all so light and airy that if you didn’t stop to breathe in deeply enough you’d miss it. But if you did breathe in on a rainy, windy day you might just smell what the world smelled like right after it was born. The trees lay so thick on Mount Hood they looked like an oil painting with the paints piled in heavy layers of emerald and black.
Finally she turned onto the winding gravel road that lead to her parents’ old Lost Lake cabin. Her phone vibrated in her pants pocket and she fished it out—carefully.
“Kira, you owe me five hundred dollars if I get caught talking to you,” she said when she answered.
“What? Five hundred dollars?”
“Five-hundred-dollar fine in Oregon for talking on your phone while driving.”
“Then why did you answer the damn phone?” Kira demanded.
“I’m on my driveway, actually, and the speed limit is five miles per hour. I think I got this.”
“Good. Found a guy to bang yet?”
“Do we really have to call it banging? Sounds so...violent.”
“Screwing? Fucking? Knocking boots?”
“Knocking boots? How old are you?” Joey asked.
“Just answer the question.”
“No, in the four hours since I last saw you I didn’t magically meet someone and screw, fuck or knock boots with him in the airport. And I’m probably not going to meet one in the next four hours, either. Or the next four days or the next two weeks. You know Lost Lake is mostly a retirement community, right? Retirees and summer vacation rentals. The only full-timers are the people who work at the lake and that’s, like...twenty people.”
“Twenty? About half of them must be guys. I like those odds.”
“I don’t.”
“Why are you staying way out there, anyway? You can go find a hot man bun in Portland.”
“The cabin is free. Mom and Dad gave it to Dillon as a wedding gift.”
“Nice gift. What do you get when you get married?” Kira asked.
“They’re paying for my wedding and honeymoon. Better deal than the cabin.”
“That bad?”
“It was almost a dump when I was a kid,” Joey said. “Now it’s just a dump. Nobody’s stayed in it in ten years as far as I know. Dillon swears up and down he got someone to clean it up a little, but he’s been up to his eyeballs in wedding planning. As long as I don’t have to bunk with a raccoon, it’ll be fine. I can rough it.”
“Better you than me. Just let me know if you need me to come up and stay with you a couple days. I mean—in a hotel, but near you. I have some vacation days banked in case of emergency. Best friend accidentally fucking a married dude for two years qualifies.”
“It’s okay. But I appreciate it. I should go. I’m at the house.”
“How bad is it? Bad? Are there snakes? Don’t tell me.”
Joey could hear the wincing in Kira’s voice. Staying at a four-star hotel was her version of “roughing it.” She parked the car in the gravel parking spot and was pleased to see the exterior of the house was in better shape than she remembered it. Much better.
“Looks good actually. They painted it. It used to be this dull green but now it’s gray. Very pretty,” Joey said as she got out of the car. “Looks like cedar shingles.”
“Fancy.”
“And the landscaping is nice, too. Someone cleaned up the yard.”
The trees and shrubs looked well-trimmed. The old broken stone path leading from the driveway to the front porch had been repaired. Every stone fit neatly and perfectly into its place. She didn’t trip like she used to when she was a kid and not paying attention to the treacherous walk.
“And somebody decorated?” she said, clinging to Kira on the phone. “I don’t think this is the same house. Did I go to the wrong house?”
“Did you?”
“No. It’s 1414 Cottonwood Way. This is it. There are carved jack-o’-lanterns on the porch. Really good ones.” She admired the mysterious carver’s handiwork. One scary face. One grinning face. One face that looked eerily like Eddie Vedder if Eddie Vedder were a jack-o’-lantern.
“Wait a minute...” Joey said.
“What?”
“Something is definitely up.” Joey lifted the welcome mat—when did they get a welcome mat?—pulled out the key and opened the front door. She’d been expecting a bare-bones cabin. That’s how she remembered it, anyway. Her parents bought the place for a song when she was seven years old and never remodeled it, never refurbished it, but they’d certainly gotten their money’s worth out of it those long summers they’d spent here. Structurally, it was sound, watertight and well-insulated. But inside it had always housed yard sale furniture, squeaky metal cots and secondhand bunk beds, unpainted walls and a kitchen that made cooking on a campfire look inviting. But now...
“Wow,” Joey breathed. “Dillon must have decided to live here with Oscar after the wedding. Although I could have sworn he said Oscar hated nature.”
“Maybe he changed his mind? Love will do that to a guy.”
“Maybe...but still. This is like Architectural Digest gorgeous now. I don’t even want to think about how much this cost.” She turned in a slow circle in the living room. All the yard sale furniture was gone and in its place she found a distressed cedar coffee table, a large rustic leather sofa, a vintage oak rocking chair with what looked like a hand-knitted burgundy throw blanket tossed over the back. Someone had polished the floors to a high shine. The small woodstove had been replaced by a large stone fireplace with a rough wood mantel. And the kitchen had new tile on the floor, a fresh coat of rustic red paint, new rugs, new appliances—nothing but the basics but they were all high quality. Under the sink she found a recycling bin with the toaster box in it. It was that new.
“I wonder if they’re fixing it up to sell it.”
“House flipping?”
“Maybe. Still, nice of them to spruce it up before I came to stay in it.”
“Very nice.”
“Probably their way of making up for the fact that my lovely brother scheduled his wedding on my birthday.”
“Your fault for being born on Halloween. Perfect day for a Portland wedding.”
“Dillon and Oscar do love dressing up. It’s an ’80s movie theme. I have to pick a costume. Maybe I’ll go as Carrie.”
“Carrie?”
“You know—the girl with the blood and the prom and all the murdering—that Carrie.”
“You’re going as a mass murderer to your brother’s wedding?”
“It fits my mood.”
Except her mood was lifting a little. How could it not in this cabin, this beautiful cozy cabin in the woods? All the place was missing was a man to share it with. She and Ben would have had great sex in this cabin in the woods. They’d be in bed already. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not now or ever. Ben had committed an unforgivable sin. He’d lied to his wife. He’d lied to her. He’d betrayed her trust on the deepest level possible, and she would never take him back no matter how lonely she felt without him. And she did feel so terribly alone.
“This is a sex cabin, Kira.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I’m in a sex cabin, and I can’t have sex. This is depressing.”
“You can have sex. Go find someone to have sex with. Right now.”
“I’m in the middle of the woods. The next cabin is half a mile west.”
“Then start walking. Bigfoot’s probably out there. He’s probably well-hung.”
“And hairy.”
“I warned you about the beard rash thing.”
The floor creaked with the sound of footsteps.
But not hers. Joey hadn’t moved.
“Shit,” she whispered into the phone.
“What?” Kira whispered back, unnecessarily.
Joey looked up at the ceiling.
“Someone’s here. Stay on the line with me.”
“Yeah, of course. Are you sure?”
“I heard footsteps upstairs.”
“Then get the fuck out of the house. This isn’t a horror movie. Do not investigate.”
“Right. Going. Right now.”
Joey started backing up toward the door, her heart racing. The footsteps continued across the floor above her head. They were fast and purposeful footsteps, not at all tentative but also not threatening. They were heavy, too, like whoever was walking wore either work boots or cowboy boots. She hadn’t heard that sound in a long time. Even the VPs at her Oahu Air office often came to work in sandals or flip-flops—one of the perks of working one hundred yards or so from the ocean.
“Jo? You there?” Kira whispered again.
“I’m here. Hello?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Not you. I was talking to whoever’s up there. I think he’s working here.”
“Hey there,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. A male voice. A deep yet friendly voice. “Joey Silvia?”
“That’s me. And you are?”
“It’s Chris. I’m almost done up here with the ceiling fan,” the man called down to her.
“Has he murdered you yet?” Kira asked.
“Not yet. He says his name is Chris, and he’s doing something with the ceiling fan.”
“Is he hot?”
“Am I supposed to run screaming from him or have sex with him?” Joey whispered.
“Depends on if he’s hot or not. Go look.”
“You just told me to leave,” Joey half whispered, half yelled.
“You can leave, but find out if he’s hot first.”
“Okay... I’m going up. If my phone dies and/or you hear the sound of me screaming, hang up and call the cops.”
“What if he’s not murdering you, but you’re screaming because it’s such good sex? Do I still call the cops?”
“I’m not a screamer.”
“If he’s the right guy you will be.”
“I’m going to go up and see what he’s doing.” She glanced out the kitchen window and saw a large green Ford pickup parked behind the house with the words Lost Lake Painting and Contracting on the side in black-and-gold letters. Okay, not an ax murderer, then. Just the guy she should probably thank for doing such a good job on the house.
“I’ll stay on the line,” Kira said. “If you think he’s going to murder you, say, um, ‘I’m on the phone with my best friend, Kira. She’s a cop. And she’s sleeping with a cop. No, two cops. Cop threesome.’”
“I’m just supposed to work that into a casual conversation with a possible murderer?”
“And if he’s sexy and you want to bang him, just say, ‘Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?’”
“It’s the Pacific Northwest. In October. It’s forty-eight degrees out and raining.”
“Just say it!”
“You are the worst friend ever.”
“You’re welcome. Now go check him out. Try not to get murdered.”
Joey crept up the stairs and found they no longer squeaked like they used to. The rotting middle board they had to step over was gone. Someone had replaced the old stairs with beautiful reclaimed pine from the looks of it.
“You still there?” Joey said as she made it to the top of the stairs.
“I’m still here,” Kira replied. “You’re not dead yet?”
“Not dead. Yet.”
The upstairs of the cabin consisted of two small bedrooms with a full bath between them. And whatever magic had been done on the downstairs had wended its way upstairs, too. New bathroom fixtures of brushed copper. The grimy tub had been replaced with a new and huge bathtub inlaid with stone tile. Somehow this Lost Lake contractor had managed to make the house look both old and authentic and yet brand-new at the same time.
“Hello?” she called out.
“I’m in the master,” the male voice answered.
“I heard his voice,” Kira said over the line. “Good voice. Calm and manly. He’s probably comfortable hugging his guy friends and telling his dad he loves him.”
“You got that much from four words?” Joey asked.
“I’m very intuitive.”
Joey shook her head and walked down the narrow hallway to a partly open door. This had to be the master bedroom, not that she’d ever thought of it like that. Master bedroom sounded imposing, impressive. The “master” bedroom she remembered had a tablecloth for a curtain and a mattress propped up on a sheet of plywood and cinder blocks where her parents slept.
“I’m going in,” Joey said under her breath, her phone still plastered to her ear.
She eased the door open...stepped inside...looked up...
There on a step stool stood a man, a much younger man than she expected. All contractors were forty and up in her mind but this guy looked no more than late twenties maybe. He had dirty-blond hair cut neat and a close-trimmed nearly blond beard. He was looking up, concentrating on the wiring above his head. He wore jeans, neither tight nor baggy but perfectly fitted, and a red-and-navy flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, with a fitted white T-shirt underneath.
“Hey, Joey,” he said with a grin. “Good to see you again. How’s Hawaii been treating you?”
He turned his head her way and grinned at her. She knew that grin.
“Chris?” This Chris was that Chris?
“Chris? Who’s Chris? You know this guy?” Kira rasped in her ear.
She knew this guy. It was Chris, wasn’t it?
Oh, my God, it was Chris.
Chris... Chris Steffensen. Dillon’s high school best friend. The skinny, scrawny, long-haired, baggy-pants-wearing, Nirvana wannabe even a decade after Nirvana was an appropriate thing to be obsessed with at their high school... This was that Chris? That Chris she wouldn’t have trusted to screw in a lightbulb, and now he was wiring up a ceiling fan? And seemed to be doing a very good job of it.
“Did you...did you fix up this whole house?” she asked, rudely ignoring his question about Hawaii.
“Oh, yeah. I’m doing some work for Dillon and Oscar these days. Long story. You like what we did with the place?”
He grinned again, a boyish eager grin. She couldn’t see anything else in the world because that bright white toothy smile took over his face and her entire field of vision. Damn, he was pretty. When did he get so pretty? And he was taller than she remembered. He must have had a bit of a post-high-school growth spurt. Taller and broader. Those shoulders of his...well, there was only one thing to say about that.
Joey hoped Kira was still listening.
“Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
2 (#ulink_ed2b6953-f24e-5182-89ad-501d0d8019b2)
CHRIS STARED AT HER, brow furrowed.
“Joking,” she said. “I know it’s bad weather.”
“It’s Oregon weather. Should we awkwardly hug now?”
“God, yes.”
“I’m going to hang up,” Kira said, laughing into Joey’s ear. Joey ended the call and stuffed her phone into her jacket pocket.
“Did you...just hang up on somebody?” Chris asked, his eyebrow slightly arched. When did he learn how to do that?
“Yes. No. She hung up on me first. It’s okay. We’re friends. We do that a lot. Hug now?”
He jumped lightly down from his stool, and Joey stepped into his arms. He’d said “awkward” and it was but also it wasn’t. First of all, he felt good—warm and solid and strong. And second, he smelled good, like sweat and cedar. Finally, it was just Chris, after all, even if it had been nearly ten years since she’d seen him.
“God, it’s good to see you again,” he said softly, like he meant it. It was the absolute opposite of Ben’s “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Yeah, you, too.” She stepped back out of his arms before making a fool of herself by bursting into tears.
“You’re a day early. Dillon said you wouldn’t be here until tomorrow.”
“I changed my flight. Is that a problem?”
“Not a problem at all. I just meant to be out of here by then. But I’m almost done. The master was the last thing. Ceiling fan, then paint.”
“No hurry. Stay as long as you need to. All night even.” She winced. Why did she say that? “So...how are you?”
“Fine.” He sounded slightly suspicious. She didn’t blame him. She was acting slightly odd. Finding out you’d been dating a married man could do that to a girl. “You? How’s Hawaii?”
“Lovely. Lots of volcanoes.”
“You’re on a volcano right now.”
“Hawaii and Oregon have a lot in common. Volcanoes and rain. And...that’s it.”
“They’re practically twins. You look great, by the way,” Chris said.
“I’m wet.”
Chris’s eyebrow went up another notch.
“Wet from the rain,” she said hastily.
“Right. The rain. Hawaii’s been good to you.”
It was sweet that he said that, but she looked like hell and she knew it. She’d dressed in the classic Oregon uniform of Columbia jacket (red), jeans (blue), rain boots (a nondescript army green) and no umbrella. Umbrellas were for tourists, which meant her dark hair was plastered to her forehead. And she’d cried a little in the car and given herself raccoon eyes. She had naturally warm brown skin, which she’d inherited from her Mexican-American father, and a Hawaiian tan on top of it, so at least she wouldn’t appear as washed out as she felt. If she’d known Chris would be here looking as good as he did, she would have made more of an effort.
“You look fantastic. I barely recognized you with the short hair and beard. When did that happen?”
“Short hair? Um, eight years ago? The real world made me do it. The beard? Last November. Bad breakup. She dumped me for a Trail Blazer. I stopped shaving. Everyone told me I looked better with the beard so I kept it. I trimmed it, though. I had a little ZZ Top thing going on.”
“A Trail Blazer? Like one of the basketball players or the cars? Because if she dumped you for a car, that’s weird.”
“The basketball players. Apparently she had a thing for tall guys.”
“You’re tall. You’re huge.”
That eyebrow went up one more notch.
“I keep saying sexual things without meaning to,” she said. “Sorry. I’m running on very little sleep. I can’t be held responsible for what my mouth does.”
The eyebrow was as high as it could go.
“I did it again, didn’t I?” she asked.
“It’s okay, Jo.” He furrowed his brow. “Do you still go by Jo? Joey? I don’t want to call you that if you don’t. Are you Jolene now?”
“Definitely not Jolene. Everyone still calls me Jo or Joey. They better since it’s all I answer to.”
“Joey, it is. I’m almost done here, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You aren’t in my hair at all. The cabin looks amazing. I can’t believe you did all this.”
“Not all of it. I had to subcontract the exterior. I can do cedar siding but it takes forever.”
“But the rest of it? The floors, the kitchen, the paint...the pumpkins?”
“Some kids were selling pumpkins at a stand by the road. I’m a sucker.”
“Were you always good at painting and flooring and advanced pumpkin carving and you just kept it a secret?”
He shrugged. “I learned a lot of it from Dad. Except the pumpkin carving. That’s self-taught.”
“You go to school for this?”
He nodded. “Yeah, trade school. Then I apprenticed for a few years. Anybody can learn to do this stuff. Just takes time.”
“Mount Hood must keep you busy. Half the cabins around here were falling down when we were kids.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I had to turn down four other jobs to do this one for Dillon.”
“You could have told him no.”
“Nah.” He grinned again. “He said you’d be staying here for the wedding. I couldn’t let my high school crush crash in a dump, could I? If the ceiling caved in on you, I’d never forgive myself.”
Joey laughed, rolled her eyes.
“So now you finally admit it.”
“Only took me ten years. But don’t worry. I’m totally over you.” He waved his hand, signing a “done” motion. She might have believed him but for the twinkle of mirth in his eyes.
“You never told me...were you the one who put the roses in my locker on Valentine’s Day?”
“Maybe...”
“Did you pick my lock?”
“No. Dillon did.”
“Oh, that asshole.” She shook her head in exasperation. “I told him I was going nuts trying to figure out who did it, and he played dumb. He’s so good at playing dumb I believed him. Or maybe I thought he was just dumb.”
“He didn’t want to out me. He’d been through that himself.”
“Yeah, that was a rough year,” Joey said, remembering the year when the rumors about Dillon being gay got started. He’d trusted the wrong friend with the secret and in a week the entire school knew. She and Chris had taken shifts with Dillon, walking with him to and from class, to and from home. As long as there were witnesses around, they were pretty sure nobody would jump Dillon and beat the shit out of him. They’d had a few close calls. Chris had bloodied more than one nose protecting Dillon. “I’m so glad he had you back then.”
At least this time he didn’t raise his eyebrow at her, but she could tell he wanted to.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Not had you. Unless he did. Which is fine. I kind of wondered what you two were up to in the garage.”
“Smoking weed.”
“That’s not sexy at all.”
“Sorry to disappoint you with my straightness. I promise, I was born this way.”
“It’s quite disappointing. I already had yours and Dillon’s wedding planned before my own.”
“That’s far-thinking of you. That wasn’t even legal until last year here.”
“I was a dreamer. And I thought you’d both look so cute in bow ties.”
“I’ve never been happier to be not marrying Dillon than I am right now.”
“No respect for the bow tie. It’s a classic. James Bond wore a bow tie. Brando wore a bow tie.”
“Pee-wee Herman wore a bow tie.”
“Yes, Pee-wee.” She pointed at his chest. “That’s who you should be for the wedding. You are going, aren’t you?”
“I’m going,” he said. “I wasn’t really planning on wearing a costume, though.”
“You have to. It’s on the invitation. And Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was an ’80s movie.”
“How about a costume that doesn’t involve bow ties? Maybe something more along the lines of John McClane. Die Hard, maybe? Easy costume.”
“So you’ll just wear gray slacks and a dirty nasty white T-shirt to the wedding?” She feigned disgust but the thought of Chris in a sweaty sleeveless undershirt was quite...nice. Nice as the weather they weren’t having right now.
“And bloody feet. Don’t forget that part. Who are you going as?”
“I was thinking Carrie. Bloody prom dress to match your bloody feet.”
“Carrie came out in the ’70s.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve seen every Stephen King movie at least five times.”
“Five times? What is wrong with you?”
“Don’t ask,” he said.
“Got any other ideas?”
“Got a metal bikini? You can be Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi.”
“It’s a little chilly for that, don’t you think?”
“There goes that fantasy.” He smiled again. She blushed. Oh, my God, they were flirting. She was flirting. He was flirting. Flirting was happening. Did Kira make this happen? Or was it Dillon? Was he trying to put her and Chris alone in the house together? Very possible. Dillon never liked Ben. And she knew a setup when she saw one.
“So...who are Oscar and Dillon going as?” Chris asked.
“They won’t tell anybody. It’s a big gay secret, Dillon said.”
“He called it a ‘big gay secret’?” Chris asked.
“You know my brother.”
“Intimately,” he said. “Wait. Never mind.”
“Any guesses?” Joey asked.
“Kirk and Spock from one of those ’80s Star Trek movies. They’re both nerds. It could work. Walking, talking fan fiction.”
“My money’s on Bill and Ted,” Joey said.
“Whoa.”
“Exactly.”
“You know who you should go as...” Chris pointed his screwdriver at her and it was neither threatening nor sexual. Especially when he flipped it casually and stuck it in his back pocket like a kid gunslinger holstering a toy pistol.
“Who?”
“Since the guys hijacked your birthday for their wedding...you should go as what’s-her-name from that movie.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“Girl. Redhead. Birthday cake.” He snapped his fingers repeatedly. “You know, Molly Something.”
“Sixteen Candles?”
“That’s it. Didn’t her sister get married on her birthday?” Chris asked.
“Day after but close enough. Oh, my God, that’s a great idea. Dillon will think it’s hilarious. He loves that movie. I’ll go as Sam. All I have to do is get a red wig and a floofy bridesmaid dress. Or some kind of Laura Ashley nightmare to wear and a hat. Will you come with me?”
“As who? Don’t say Dong.”
“No, you can put on a pink button-down shirt and be Farmer Ted. Just pop your collar.”
“Will you let me walk around with your underwear in my pocket like he did?”
“You remembered my birthday. You can walk around with my underwear in your teeth if you want.”
Chris’s eyes widened just slightly.
“This conversation got weird fast,” she said.
“I’ve never had anyone offer to let me hold their underwear in my mouth at a wedding.”
“Well, it is Dillon’s wedding.”
“Fair point.”
She rocked back on her heels. “I’m just gonna get my stuff out of the car. Or maybe I should wait since the bedroom’s not done yet.”
“The other bedroom is all set up. You can put your stuff in there.”
“Our old bedroom? You fixed it up?”
“I did. Go check it out. Turned out pretty nice.”
He wore an expression on his face that made her a teeny tiny bit suspicious. She walked out of the master bedroom and down the hall into the second bedroom. She’d always liked that room better. Better view of the forest and she could even catch the occasional glimpse of Mount Hood’s snowy peak on clear days.
She opened the door and her jaw dropped. Chris had outdone himself. The plaster that covered the walls had been removed, leaving the rough wood boards exposed. They gleamed a golden hue in the warm lamplight. A hand-woven blue-and-gray rug covered most of the hardwood floor. A large bed sat in the center of the room. The headboard and footboard were all dark wood, roughly carved but sanded smooth, stained and polished. Piled high on the bed were pillows and blankets. The downstairs woodstove had been brought up to the guest room and a hole cut into the wall to vent it properly. Framed photographs of Mount Hood and the surrounding forest in all seasons lined the walls. It was everything rustic and luxurious and lovely all in one. She could be very happy in this room and in this house. Or, at least, not as miserable as she thought she’d be. Even the frames on the photographs were beautiful distressed wood. A small thing but she admired it, was grateful for it.
“You’re good,” she said as Chris came to stand behind her.
“So I’ve been told. But don’t be too impressed. A friend of mine makes those frames, not me. But I did make the bed.”
“You do excellent hospital corners.”
He chuckled softly. “No, I mean, I made the bed.”
“You...carved the bed?”
“There’s all these trees around here. Might as well put them to use.”
“You literally made the bed?”
“I literally made the bed. Impressed?”
“I am. Are you trying to impress me?”
“I don’t know. It is working?”
“It’s sort of working.” It was definitely working. “So...you want to get a drink later? My treat.”
Kira would be so proud of her, asking Chris out for a drink two days after being dumped.
“You betcha.”
She was officially back in Oregon. You betcha? When was the last time she heard that?
“But I have to finish up the master first.”
“Can I help?”
“You want to help?”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t. What are we doing?”
“Painting. I finished painting the ceiling. Gotta paint the walls now. It’s all taped off already.”
“I can paint. I’m good with the trim.”
“You start the trim, I’ll roll the walls. But you’ll need to take those clothes off.”
“Chris, we just, I mean—”
“You’ll get paint on your clothes, Jo.”
“Right. Paint. I’ll...just get my stuff out of the car and change clothes real quick.”
“Take your time. I’ll finish wiring the ceiling fan.”
“Did you make the ceiling fan, too?”
“No. But I did put on the stairs and the stair rail. It’s all pine.”
“You’re really good with wood.”
“You did that one on purpose, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Let’s pretend I did.”
Chris didn’t laugh at her but she caught him smiling as he left her alone in her new room. Well, not her room but the room that would be hers while home for the wedding. She hadn’t taken a vacation in a couple years. After everything that had happened with Ben she was tempted to take it all at once and not go back to work until after Thanksgiving. In fact, she was sorely tempted not to go back to work ever. Not there, anyway. Not if she had to face Ben.
Except she’d promised Kira she wouldn’t make any major life changes for six months. It was good advice, very wise. She had to go back to work, didn’t she? Of course she did. She was in the right and Ben was in the wrong. She wasn’t about to let him win by quitting and slinking away with her tail between her legs.
No. Stop. Joey refused to think about Ben or work or anything else as she hauled her suitcase and overnight bag up the reclaimed pine wood stairs and into the bedroom. Funny—she’d been looking forward to a quiet night alone in the cabin before facing her brother and parents and giving them the news about her and Ben. She wanted the one night to pull herself together, to figure out a story to tell her family about why she broke up with Ben that wouldn’t make her look like the worst person on earth and/or the stupidest person on earth. But hanging out with Chris and working on the house seemed like a far better way to get her head together than sitting alone in an empty cabin and ruminating on every clue she’d missed, every blind eye she’d turned. Better to work, do something, distract herself, stay busy. Painting the master bedroom with Chris actually sounded sort of fun.
She pulled on an old long-sleeved T-shirt that she slept in and tied a red bandana around her hair. When she went into the master bedroom she found Chris had finished up with the ceiling fan and was pouring a warm brown paint, the color of milk chocolate, into a large plastic tub. He was whistling.
“Is that ‘All Apologies’?” she asked as she selected a two-inch paintbrush from his kit on the floor.
“It is.”
“You’re whistling Nirvana while you work. You know most people whistle happy tunes.”
“So ‘Heart-Shaped Box,’ then?”
She pointed her paintbrush at him. “You’ve changed completely, but you haven’t changed at all.”
“I could say the same to you,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes. She was ninety percent sure he’d just checked her out. Good. She’d been checking him out since she walked in the door.
He handed her a small roller tray filled with paint. She dipped her brush in the tray, soaked it with paint and coated the wall by the doorframe with a smooth line of warm mocha.
“Wait, not that wall,” Chris said, his voice full of pure panic.
Joey gasped and spun around “What? Sorry. Did I—”
He grinned. Broadly.
“Oh, you asshole,” she said. She brandished her paintbrush in his direction and he ducked.
“I’m not sorry but I want to be sorry.”
“I’m going to paint now, and if you scare me like that again, I’ll paint your flannel.”
“But this is my dress flannel. I wore it to my father’s funeral.”
“Please tell me you didn’t wear a flannel shirt to your dad’s funeral. Please.”
“I didn’t. But only because Dad’s still alive.”
She sighed, shook her head and got back to painting while Chris returned to his whistling and rolling. He was the same Chris even if this Chris had short hair, a perfect beard and clothes that actually fit his body. His distractingly good body. She made herself focus as she painted. It was nice transforming the dingy beige walls a cozy chocolate color. It was the perfect color for this room. A forest color. A homey color.
“You picked the color?” she asked.
“I did, yeah.”
“I love it. I wouldn’t have thought a color so dark would look good in here but it does.”
“Dark warm colors work best in low-light rooms.”
“Did you learn that in trade school?”
“Pinterest.”
She stared at him.
“What?” he said. “It’s my job.”
They returned to their painting. Chris had a Pinterest account. Now that was adorable. He was adorable. If he got any more adorable, she would be forced to adore him.
Joey wished Kira hadn’t told her to sleep with the very first guy she could find as part of her recovery strategy. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about Chris like that. She wanted to think it was because she was starting to get over the shock of her breakup, but she was afraid she was flirting with Chris just because her best friend told her to, and because she wanted to soothe her bruised heart and ego with the balm of male attention.
Chris wiped sweat off his forehead and peeled out of his flannel shirt. His basic white T-shirt showed off his sinewy forearms and strong muscular biceps to marvelous effect.
Okay, so she was flirting with him because she wanted to and for no other reason. Thanks to those sexy arms of his, her conscience was now officially clear.
“You know what would look good in here? White bed linens,” she said. “That would make a nice contrast with the dark brown paint. Like a hotel bed.”
“Good idea. That would look hot. I mean, nice.”
It would look hot. This room with this paint and that big bed with fresh white Egyptian cotton sheets? She was glad he was thinking what she was thinking.
“I’ll pick some up tomorrow,” she said.
“I’ll do it. I still have Dillon’s credit card.”
“We could both go tonight. I can help you pick stuff out,” she said. It was still early evening. They could make it to Portland or Hood River if they hurried.
“We could get our drink after,” Chris said. “Maybe dinner, too?”
Had Chris just asked her out on a date? A real date or a “we knew each other in high school and are morally obligated to catch up with each other” date? She’d assume it was the latter and hope it was the former.
“Dinner sounds great,” she said. “Painting made me hungry.”
“Me, too. But we did good. Good team.” He held out his fist and she bumped it. The room did look pretty amazing.
“It was fun. I needed to get my mind off stuff. This helped.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “That’s how well it worked.”
“Glad I could help by putting you to work. If you need more distraction, you could clean the gutters.”
“You know what? I’m good. But thanks for the offer.”
“Dinner now?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Chris turned on the ceiling fan to help dry the paint more quickly. Joey went to the guest room—her room apparently for the next couple of weeks—to figure out what to wear for their date. Not a date. Not really. Well, sort of a date. She had two missed texts from Kira.
Text message one read, Have you banged him yet?
Text message two read, How about now?
Joey wrote back, No, we haven’t banged yet. He’s an old friend from high school. We are going out to dinner so stop texting me. If/when there is banging, you will be the first to know.
Then she sent a quick text to Dillon letting him know she made it to the cabin a day early and she’d see him tomorrow unless he was dying to see her tonight, which she knew he wasn’t because she still had a feeling he’d planted Chris here in the cabin for nefarious reasons. Seemed like something Dillon would do.
She cleaned up for dinner as quickly as she could. Chris had seen to everything in the house, every little detail. He’d even installed a rain showerhead and put new soft cotton towels in the bathroom linen closet. It was like staying in a hotel, a hotel that came with its own sexy contractor/concierge, which made this the best hotel she’d ever stayed in.
While drying her hair she realized she was smiling. That was good, right? She’d cried all Saturday night on Kira’s couch at her place in LA. Smiling was a huge improvement over gut-wrenching sobbing. She felt more human back in Oregon, back on the mountain and near the lake where she’d spent so much of her childhood. If she wanted to go to the lake she could walk there blindfolded—out the back door and down the cut stone path to the edge of the forest. Then five hundred and sixty-eight steps on the dirt path. She knew the exact number because she’d counted as a kid because kids did weird obsessive stuff like count their steps. It was also one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven steps to the main road and nine hundred ninety-one steps to where she and Chris and Dillon had set up their campfires in high school.
It had always been the three of them back then—her and Dillon and Chris. Dillon wasn’t the sort of brother to resent his sister’s company. He’d needed her, even wanted her, around. Part of it was fear. At age fourteen he’d confessed to her he was ninety-nine percent sure he was gay, and she’d kept his secret for him until he’d worked up the courage to tell their parents. He’d told Chris shortly thereafter, and she and Chris had been first his secret keepers and then his protectors when the secret got out. At the time it hadn’t seemed strange that Chris had guarded Dillon’s back after her brother got outed at their mostly rural high school. They’d been friends forever. Of course Chris watched out for Dillon because Dillon would have done the same for Chris. But only now, after so many stories in the news about kids and bullies and suicide and school shootings and all that, did it occur to her that Chris had put his life on the line by protecting Dillon. Dillon’s life was on the line every single day just for being Dillon, but Chris had been right there with him, throwing punches when needed, and sadly, those punches had been needed.
Thinking back she was so grateful both Dillon and Chris survived those two ugly terrifying years of high school with their bodies and spirits intact. Still, she had to wonder if her constant worrying for her big brother was the reason she never got around to noticing how hot his best friend was?
By the time she finished blow-drying her long, dark hair and dressing in clean jeans, her knee-high leather boots and a red sweater, Chris had finished up in the master.
“Your car or my truck?” he asked as he pulled on his jacket. “Or should we go separately?”
She paused before answering. If they went together in the same vehicle, that meant they’d both have to come back to the cabin tonight. If they drove separately, Joey could come home alone and Chris could return to his place, wherever that was. Driving separately made sense. Driving together made it a date. Chris had left it up to her, like a gentleman. She liked that.
“Your truck,” she said. “The only small cars the rental place had left were Miatas. I don’t trust rear-wheel drives in Oregon rain.”
“I’ll drive, then. Truck’s a little messy, fair warning.”
“I can handle it.” She pulled up her jacket hood and opened the front door where she promptly received a slap of frigid sleet right in her face.
She stepped back inside the house and closed the door.
She wiped the sleet off her face and looked at Chris.
“Nice weather we’re having,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
3 (#ulink_a8c69816-b5e3-5516-ada7-6e8f46e6073b)
THEY ATE IN, which was fine. More than fine as Chris had filled the fridge per Dillon’s request with all the basics. She threw together a salad while Chris cooked chicken on the George Foreman grill. It wasn’t haute cuisine but it tasted a lot better than that mouthful of icy rain and sleet had earlier. While they ate she flipped through her pictures on her phone and showed Chris photos of the beach and her last whale-watching excursion. None of the pictures in her phone were of her and Ben together. He was camera shy, he’d told her. Another red flag she ignored.
Chris took out his phone then and showed her before, during and after pictures of the cabin as he’d cleaned it up and remodeled it. She couldn’t believe how thoroughly he’d transformed it.
“This place used to be such a dump,” she said. “Remember?”
“It was a nice dump, though,” he said. “Lots of good memories here. It was fun working on the place. It needed help.”
“How much is all this costing Dillon?” she asked, waving her fork around the newly remodeled cabin. Now that Chris had fixed the place up so beautifully, she was half-tempted to see if Dillon would sell it to her. Although with all the renovations, it was probably out of her price range.
“Not as much as it should. I gave him a discount on the labor. The interior work was about five. The exterior another five.”
“That’s not much for this kind of makeover.”
“You can swing a lot of bargains if you know what you’re doing.”
“And you definitely know what you’re doing.”
“I do now.” He took a bite of his salad and it appeared he was trying to cover up a smile. Of what? Pride? Pleasure in her compliment? Because this felt like a date?
“Is Dillon selling the place?”
“Did he say something to you about it?”
She shook her head. “No. Just a guess. I know Oscar’s not the mountain-life sort of guy. He said he hates nature so much that when someone says being gay is ‘unnatural’ he takes it as a compliment because nature is so gross and horrible.”
Chris laughed. “Oscar’s great. You’ll like him.”
“So are they selling it?”
“Not selling it. They’re planning on renting it out. He asked me to fix it up and gave me a ten thousand dollar limit. I used every penny.”
“He can afford it,” she said. Dillon made mid-six figures at his law firm, and Oscar was several years older and very well-off from his investment banking job. She didn’t begrudge Dillon his success, though, not with the hours he put in. She much preferred her forty-hour workweek and her evenings and weekends off to enjoy her life. And she had been enjoying it. Until meeting Ben’s wife, that is. But tonight...she was kind of enjoying tonight.
“So...can I ask something?” he said.
“You just did.”
He glared at her.
“Ask,” she said.
“Why’d you come back?”
“My brother’s getting married? I would assume that’s a good enough reason.”
“No, you said you changed your flight to come back early. You had a weird look on your face when you said it.”
“Oh. That.” She sat back from the bar. They’d eaten at the bar on counter stools instead of the table. Since the bar was small they sat on opposite sides facing each other. It felt more informal that way, more like friends than the strangers they’d become to each other. “I had booked a couple days in LA between Hawaii and here. I had plans with a friend and they sort of fell through. So I came home a day early.”
It was technically true. Her boyfriend was also her friend and she’d had plans for them. She’d barely wrapped her mind around the accidental affair she’d been having for the past two years. She wasn’t about to drop all that on Chris’s lap. The lap could be used for much better purposes.
“You called it home.”
“What?” Joey asked.
“You called Oregon home. You said you came home a day early. Do you still think of Oregon as home?”
“Well... I did grow up here. That makes it home.”
“Does Hawaii feel like home?”
“No. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s been an adventure, but it’s never felt permanent. Maybe it will someday. When I go places and people ask where I’m from I still say Oregon, even though I’ve been living there for years. So yeah, Oregon is home still. And I’m glad I had it to come home to after...you know, my plans didn’t work out. I feel better already being back.”
“Sorry your trip didn’t work out with your friend.”
“It’s okay. It’s for the best, really. Will you excuse me?”
Joey put her napkin down and walked quickly but not too quickly to the downstairs bathroom. She didn’t have to go, but she did need to take a few deep breaths to calm herself down. Crying with Kira all night and a few hours painting a bedroom with Chris wasn’t going to heal the wound that fast. But she refused to succumb to tears. Ben didn’t deserve any more of her tears.
In the kitchen she heard the distinct beeping of her phone. She’d set it to wolf whistle whenever she got a message.
“That’s Dillon,” she yelled through the door as she dried her hands. “What does he want?”
“He wants to know if I’ve banged you yet.”
“Oh, shit...” Joey buried her face in her hands, took a deep breath and peeked her head out of the bathroom.
“That text wasn’t from Dillon,” she said.
Chris eyed her with amusement—thank God.
“Not unless you put him under ‘Kira’ in your contacts list. I didn’t know I was supposed to bang you.”
“Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“Yes, ugh.” She eased back down onto her bar stool, wincing in her extreme embarrassment. “I have to tell you something.”
“Before or after I bang you?”
She grimaced. “Cute. Here’s the thing.” She clasped her hands in front of her.
“How do you feel about spooning? I’m for it myself if I get to be the big spoon.”
“Now I remember why I didn’t have a crush on you in high school.”
He laughed, which was good. Better than getting up and leaving before she could explain herself.
“I told you I had plans with a friend in LA and they didn’t work out? Well... I have a boyfriend. Had a boyfriend. At least, I thought he was a boyfriend.”
“What was he?”
“A husband.”
“He was your husband?”
“No. He wasn’t my husband. That’s the problem.”
Chris started to sit back but then clearly realized he was on a bar stool and leaned forward instead.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“No...no, it really isn’t good. Ben works at Oahu Air. He’s one of the VPs there. Luckily not of my department. He commutes from LA. Couple weeks in Honolulu. Couple weeks in LA. He says he hates LA, and I believed him, but I like LA so I thought I’d visit him there. A surprise. Happy surprise? No. Not happy surprise.”
“What happened?”
“I went to his house and rang the bell, and his wife opened the door.”
“Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly. Two years. We dated two years. Nobody at work knew he was married. He kept it a secret for whatever reason. Probably so he could date in Hawaii, which he did. We were together two years before I figured out he was married. And I didn’t even figure it out. It had to be shoved down my throat.” She took a ragged breath. “So...as you can imagine, I’m feeling pretty stupid.”
“You shouldn’t feel stupid. Sounds like he had his game down pat.”
“Nobody at work knew. Not even my friend Kira, who worked with him in the LA office. Kira told me that the best way to get over one guy is to get under another.”
“It’s a sound theory, really.”
“When I got here I was on the phone with her. And I told her you were cute, and she told me to sleep with you. I told her to mind her own business. She’s not good at that part. As you saw. Again, sorry. That was awkward.”
“You’re having a bad week. It’s okay.”
“You know, Dillon never liked Ben. I thought it was because Dillon’s never met him. Ben would never come back to visit home with me. He’d only see me in Honolulu. Dillon must have known something was off. I should have known. That should have been a bright red flag in my face.”
“Do you remember what you said to me when Cassie dumped me my senior year? It made me feel a lot better.”
“I said something?”
“You said something.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Forget it. Wanna go see Batman Begins with us?’”
“That’s it? That’s the big thing I said to you?”
“It wasn’t a big thing. It was a little thing. It made me feel normal again, going to see a movie with you and Dillon. It made me remember that life goes on and that’s a good thing.”
“And it was a good movie.”
“Fucking A it was.”
“So you think we should watch a Batman movie?”
“No.”
“What should we do, then?” she asked.
He put his glass of wine down and moved his plate out of the way.
Then he moved her plate out of the way.
Then he leaned across the bar and kissed her lightly on the lips.
Joey’s eyes widened as he pulled back.
“I should have asked if I could do that before I did that,” he said.
“You can do that.”
“I already did it.”
“You can do it again.”
Chris leaned in again, kissed her again. By the time that kiss was done, she had her smile back.
“And again,” she said.
“Are you sure? This is a little weird.” Chris winced. He was even cute wincing and that was cute.
“Weird? Why?”
“Because I wanted to do this ten years ago. And then I didn’t think about it for, oh, nine years and six months or so. And now...here I am doing it. High school me is freaking out.”
“What about grown-up you?”
“He’s freaking out, too. But in a much cooler way. Like, so cool you can’t even tell.”
“I can tell,” she said.
“How?” The corners of his eyes crinkled a little when he smiled.
“Because I’m freaking out and I’m projecting.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, and in high school you were perfect.”
“You’re prettier than you were in high school, too.”
“And?”
“And...”
“I didn’t look perfect in high school?”
“You wore a chain wallet.”
“So there was a lot of room for improvement.”
“You improved. You definitely improved.” She leaned forward and kissed him back.
He deepened the kiss subtly and gently, but she felt the change. The first kiss had been tentative and sweet, the second kiss playful and now this third kiss...this third kiss was something else entirely.
Ben didn’t have a beard. No facial hair at all. And she was pretty sure she’d never kissed a guy with a real beard, not just a five-o’clock shadow. Very quickly she decided she liked it. The hair tickled her top lip and her chin while he softly kissed her lips, and when the tickling grew to be too much, she opened her mouth to him and he slipped his tongue between her teeth.
This was now officially a real kiss. A really real kiss. A kiss that was going places. She cupped his face, lightly stroking his chin and cheeks with her thumbs as she deepened the kiss. Chris made a soft sound in the back of his throat, a distinct sound, pure pleasure. She wanted to hear it again.
And again...
Joey couldn’t believe she was doing this, kissing Chris. Not because it was Chris so much as it wasn’t Ben. Kira told her the quickest way to get over one guy was to get under another, but that was Kira’s thing, not hers. Joey never even dated in high school and had one boyfriend in college. She’d never had a one-night stand, never took risks like this, making out—and maybe more—with someone who’d been a virtual stranger all of two hours ago.
Except he wasn’t a virtual stranger even if they hadn’t seen each other in years. This was Chris Steffensen. He’d driven her and Dillon to school for two straight years of high school. He’d taught her how to shoot a bow and arrow one summer at the lake. He’d walked on her brother’s left side while she’d walked on his right between classes Dillon’s senior year when the bullying was at its absolute worst and she had actual nightmares her brother would be the next Matthew Shepard. But Dillon had made it through that awful time and gone off to college in New York. Meanwhile Chris had gone to work and she hadn’t given him much thought since then.
“I wish we hadn’t lost touch after school,” she said against his lips.
“Losing touch isn’t that bad as long as you, I don’t know, start finding touch again.”
She smiled into his lips and touched his face once more. “I think I found it.”
With the bar in the way they couldn’t do anything but kiss. So they had a couple choices—just keep kissing or find somewhere more comfortable.
“You want to go somewhere more comfortable?” Chris asked.
“You read my mind.”
Chris pulled away from the kiss and crooked his finger at her.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I was thinking the couch. It’s a new couch. It needs christening with a good make-out session.”
“Or,” she said.
“Or?”
Joey would blame Kira for this tomorrow. Tonight she had no one to blame but herself.
“The bed’s new. Why don’t we go christen it?”
Chris looked at her a moment. “You sure?”
“We can fool around.” She almost said “bang” and that was definitely Kira’s fault. “Or we can rent Batman Begins. But for either of those things, I’m sure it’s more comfortable than the couch. We’ll see where it goes, all right?”
“All right. Lead the way, then.”
She was shaking with nervousness and excitement as she headed up the stairs. They really were very nice stairs.
“You do such good work,” she said.
“I hope you’re still saying that an hour from now.”
“I was talking about the woodwork.”
“That’s one name for it.”
“Chris.”
He pushed her gently back against the wall and kissed her deeply again, not too hard but hard enough she wanted more. A strategic kisser, Chris was—he knew how to make her want more.
And more.
And more...
“You gave me my first kiss,” she said.
“You remember?”
She nodded breathlessly. “I’d almost forgotten. It was here at the cabin.”
“Out back,” he corrected. “We had a campfire.”
“Mom and Dad went out to dinner and left the three of us here.”
“We got in the liquor cabinet and had a couple shots,” he said. “That was a bad idea.”
“What? Making s’mores while drunk was the most fun I’d ever had.”
“You got chocolate all over your lips,” he said. “You told me to help you get it off.”
“Where was Dillon?”
“He’d wandered off to piss in the woods.”
“Oh, that’s right. He got lost and it took him an hour to get back.”
The memory was hazy. She’d been fourteen, Chris sixteen, Dillon seventeen, if she remembered correctly. Chris had his hair pulled back in a blond ponytail, and he wore board shorts instead of his usual ratty jeans. That night he’d looked almost handsome and she’d been a raging ball of vibrating estrogen capable of orgasming from a hard sneeze and able to fall in and out of love with total strangers all in the span of one day or less. The Jack Daniel’s they’d all dipped into had made her head fuzzy and Chris ten times more talkative than usual. He’d told her dirty stories like the one about the three guys who had to share one bed up at Timber Ridge Lodge, and the guy on the right of the bed wakes up the next day and says, “I had a dream somebody gave me a hand job,” and the guy on the left of the bed says, “Crazy, I also had a dream somebody gave me a hand job,” and the guy in the middle of the bed said, “Weird. I had a dream I was skiing.”
That was what it was. He’d told her the skiing/hand job joke and she’d snort-laughed chocolate from her s’more all over her mouth. And she’d told him he had to help her get it off since it was all his fault that she’d laughed while eating and made a massive mess of herself. She’d expected a napkin, a towel, a leaf, something to clean herself off.
Instead, he’d kissed her. Not a kiss, a lick. He licked her lips, and quickly it turned into a real kiss, her first kiss. Before anything else could happen, they heard Dillon tramping back to camp. She’d hated her brother right then and right there. Why couldn’t it have been number two instead of number one, Dillon? Until that moment in her young life, she had no idea having a male tongue on and in her mouth could be the single greatest sensation of all the sensations she’d ever sensated. He’d tasted better than a s’more, and if that wasn’t the highest compliment a fourteen-year-old girl could give a guy, she didn’t know what was.
“I still think about you when I eat s’mores,” he said. “Is that weird?”
“I still think about you every time a Nirvana song comes on the radio.”
“That’s the sexiest thing any woman has every said to me.”
He kissed her again before she could laugh and then she didn’t want to laugh anymore. All she wanted was to kiss and kiss and kiss some more. He was a wonderful kisser and she was quickly getting used to the soft tickle of his beard on her lips and chin and cheeks. And a small evil part of her was relishing the knowledge, even reveling in it, maybe also wallowing in it, that Ben would blow a brain gasket if he knew what she was doing right now. He’d always had a jealous streak, which she’d found flattering at first and increasingly irritating over the past few months. It had seemed out of place, uncalled for. She’d never given him a reason to be jealous. Now she knew he’d been projecting, covering up for his own guilty conscience. Well, fuck him. He had no say in what she did anymore.
She pulled back from the kiss only to open the bedroom door. Chris flipped the lights on but only long enough to turn on the lamp and then the overhead lights were off again. There was a definite chill in the air so she sat on the edge of the bed patiently while Chris threw a few logs in the woodstove and started a fire. It was a pleasure to watch him work. He had quick and efficient large hands that moved with surety at every task. Door open, logs in, newspapers in, more logs, match lit and then...fire. Warmth infused the room, which might have had something to do with the fire in the stove and might have had something to do with Chris taking his shirt off. Not the T-shirt, not yet. Just the flannel he wore over it, but the sight of his strong bare arms was enough to raise her temperature a degree or two especially since he was taking it off while walking toward the bed.
“You’re not supposed to be this sexy,” she said as he came to stand in front of her.
“Sorry?”
She put her hands on his hips, slid them under his white T-shirt and felt his hard flat stomach.
“I accept your apology.”
“I’ll never do it again.”
“See that you don’t.”
“Do you want to take your shirt off?”
“That’s not fair. I only have a bra on under my shirt. You had a T-shirt on under yours.”
Chris sighed, a put-upon sigh. Then he took his T-shirt off.
“Better?”
She stared at his chest, at his bare shoulders and stomach. This was a man who worked very hard and his body showed it.
“Much, much better.”
Chris reached down and gathered the fabric of her sweater in his hands. She raised her arms and let him pull it off. It joined his flannel and T-shirt on the floor. She really hadn’t planned on seducing Chris or being seduced by him tonight, but apparently her subconscious had known better because she’d chosen her favorite plum-colored lace bra to wear under her sweater. Did she remember to put on the matching panties? Oh, yes, she had. Chris would probably assume she’d planned this when he saw them. She hadn’t, but she didn’t care if he thought that.
He bent and kissed her again. Inch by inch, he eased her onto her back with kisses as he crawled onto the bed, his knees on each side of her hips, his arms bracing himself over her. She might be on her back but she refused to lie there passively while he kissed her lips and neck and chest. With her right hand she cupped the back of his neck. With her left hand she went exploring. He was lean, almost thin despite the presence of some impressive muscles, and when she ran her hand down his back, she could feel the outline of his shoulder blades under his warm skin. She lingered a long time on his back, loving the width of it, the length, the strength. And she couldn’t think clearly enough to do much else at the moment as Chris was nuzzling her neck with his mouth, and his beard tickled the tender skin under her ear.
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