Those bare shoulders were pulled up into a delicate shrug as she waved a hand around in his direction. “But you honestly don’t need to be. I didn’t have any misconceptions about what was happening tonight. Where it could go or what it could mean. Really.”
Uh-huh. “You don’t need to pretend with me, Nikki. I think we both know—”
“No, Garrett. I don’t know what you think you know about me. But—”
“I know it’s been three years. And before that dry spell you’d gone out with precisely two guys. Both of whom you ended up engaged to. So I’d say, yeah, you probably were serious.” Too serious for a guy like him.
“So, I’m going to pretend it doesn’t creep me out that you know that. And I’ll wait until you leave to have my discussion with your sister about privacy, trust and boundaries—”
Oh, man. This was going downhill fast. Holding out a staying hand, he tried not to get caught up in all the ways the bit of red rushing to the skin at Nichole’s neck and shoulders was different than what he’d sampled earlier.
“What?” she snapped.
“Don’t get pissed at Maeve about this.” And already with the complications a simple exchange of names might have avoided. “Please. She was just giving me some reassurance about the crowd she hung around with. Making sure I knew you weren’t trouble. That you were...you know...into commitment...a ‘nice girl.’” There was something about the slow upward push of her brows that warned of danger, had him backtracking as he tried another tack. “Not that I don’t think you’re nice now.”
“You should probably just stop, Garrett.”
Yeah, he probably should. Get out of there and get started on figuring out what it was going to take to appease his little sister when she found out he’d gotten her into hot water with her closest girlfriend. Only the way things were right now—hell, less than a single night and already he felt the press of new responsibility settling on his shoulders—he needed to know she was okay.
She’d trusted him. Let him into her bed. “Nikki—”
“Here’s the thing.” Shaking her head, Nichole tucked a wild curl neatly behind her ear. “Tonight was an accident. An error in judgment on both our parts. So why don’t we both agree to put it behind us? I mean, it’s not like we’ve been tripping over each other these last few years. I’m guessing it’s a pretty safe bet our paths won’t cross again anytime soon. And, believe me, I’m okay with that. This wasn’t supposed to be more than a single night anyway.”
He blinked. No way. She was just being tough to protect her pride.
Except those almond eyes were steady, clear as they held his. And wasn’t that an ironic twist? The first woman he’d pursued with the intent of having something “more” didn’t see him as anything more than the kind of one-night stand he’d been ready to leave behind.
It shouldn’t have rubbed—but, man.
Shaking it off, because he knew it was for the best, Garrett nodded his acceptance. Walked back to the bed and, catching the soft line of her jaw in his palm, tipped her face to drop a kiss at her temple. “I’m sorry about this, Nikki.”
She blinked at him, the corner of her mouth tipping the barest amount. “Don’t be. I’m not.”
* * *
Two hours later and Nichole had given up on the idea of sleep altogether. And if ever there was a time for a BFF to step up it was after she’d been busted selling out the details of her friend’s nonexistent sex-life to The Panty Whisperer. Which was why Nichole was parked in front of her laptop, staring down the video feed as—across the country—Maeve paced in a knee length T-shirt in front of her own laptop.
“It’s not like I was detailing the chronicles of your personal Red Shoe Diaries on Twitter, for God’s sake.”
Nichole balled her hands on her hips, glaring through cyberspace as she waited Maeve out.
It didn’t take long before her friend gave under the pressure, her entire form signaling defeat as the arms crossed defiantly over her chest went spaghetti-loose along with the rest of her body and she spilled into the couch behind her. “Okay, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have told anyone about your personal business and I don’t even know why exactly I did—except Garrett isn’t like a real person. He’s just got this knack for extracting information from people. He’s patient. Unrelenting. And when he wants to know something...nothing gets in his way.”
This she’d heard before. But it didn’t change one simple fact. “My sexual experience is none of his business.”
None.
God, the way he’d looked at her so apologetically as he’d nailed her with the “commitment” tag and “nice girl” nonsense. This guy she’d brought home without even knowing his name had wrapped her up in all the labels she’d spent three years trying to shed. She wasn’t looking to get married. Didn’t want—anything. Especially not from him, and so it didn’t matter what he thought.
With that reminder, Nichole blew out a stiff breath.
Sliding the arm flung across her eyes up to her brow, Maeve frowned at her. “I know. I know. And I really am sorry. But now that you’ve met him, how can you even wonder about his ability to get what he wants?”
Nichole shook her head. “The guy lives in town. If he’s so worried about your lifestyle why doesn’t he meet your friends?”
Maeve stared up at the ceiling. “When it comes to my dates, given the opportunity, you better believe he’s all over them. But girlfriends not so much. You know that saying about having to beat women off with a stick? That’s what it was like for him with Bethany’s, Carla’s and Erin’s friends. Mine to a lesser extent. But he avoids our girlfriends pretty much like the plague. Besides, the last few years he’s been so tied up with building the company and working to get his degree there hasn’t been a whole lot of time for anything else. I barely see him.”
Nichole blinked as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. She’d forgotten about the school thing. A detail Maeve had shared with her. Garrett had put all of his sisters through school and only started himself when everyone else had been paid for and finished.
“So that’s what he meant by saying he was trying to get back to living a little.”
Maeve, casting all dramatics aside, sat upright, leaning forward. “Really? What else did he say?”
Suddenly Nichole felt unsure about the lines in this family dynamic she’d somehow gotten tangled in. Rather than try to sort them out, she opted to put the conversation back on track. “Okay, I know you would never be careless with my privacy or indifferent to my feelings—it just took me by surprise.” Like so many things that evening. “But from now on can we agree—?”
Maeve waved her off with a shake of her head. “I swear. Never again. Not another word about your sexual experience to him.”
Nichole arched a brow. “How about you just leave me out of the conversation completely?”
Maeve’s mouth squinched up and she cocked her head. “Yeah, that’s probably not entirely realistic. This is Garrett we’re talking about. And now that you’re on his radar I imagine he’s going to feel a little protective of you. Which means I’m probably going to be answering some questions from time to time.”
Nichole’s mouth popped open, but Maeve just shrugged. “He kind of can’t help himself. So...welcome to my world!”
“Maeve!”
Her friend sprang up from her slump at the couch and hustled right up in front of her laptop, resting her chin in the vee of her palms. “So now that we’re back to being besties again...on a scale of skim milk to heavy whipping cream....”
* * *
Garrett pried one eyelid open, scowling hard as the screeching of a tiny banshee emanating from down the hall reached his ears.
“I know you’re there, Garrett Carter. You pick up this phone right now or so help me....”
So help her
, what? She was going to fly home and jab her little finger at his chest? Scowl up at him with those eyes that said he’d betrayed her in the most fundamental way and she was both hurt and disappointed?
Garrett’s other eye was open and his feet were swinging over the side of the bed in a second flat. Reaching for the extension at his nightstand with one hand, he rubbed at his morning stubble with the other.
“A little early, isn’t it, Maeve?”
“You’re alone?”
He blew his breath out with a good deal of his patience. “It’s only been...” squinting at the clock, he noted it was just after five “...a few hours since I left her apartment. Do you really think I’d stop and pick up someone else on the way back?”
The answering silence said she wouldn’t put it past him.
“Geez, yes, I’m alone. And, for what it’s worth, I had no idea who she was.”
A little hiss sounded through the line. “Yeah, but everyone else did. What were you even doing at Sam’s party?”
“It was a party for his brother. You know Jesse? My oldest friend? Artist? Touring for the past two years? Any of this ringing a bell? So, Nikki’s close with Sam?”
“We’re out with him, like, once a week at least. He’s part of the core crowd.”
Garrett’s brows dropped down, the fog of sleep clearing faster now. “Wait. He hangs out with that old crowd from my class—”
“Give me a break, Garrett. I see Sam and the guys all the time. These days they’re more my friends than yours.”
What the—?
“I’m not surprised you don’t know. Aside from the fact you’ve been AWOL for the last few years, doing your twenty-two-hours-a-day summa-cum-look-at-Superman-earning-top-honors-while-running-his-company thing, you’ve got a reputation as kind of a psycho when it comes to your sisters. I wasn’t about to tell you, and it doesn’t surprise me no one else had the guts to do it either.”
This time the deafening silence was booming out of his corner as he let that little gem sink in.
Maeve.
Hanging out with his friends.
A pack of low-life scum who thought the nickname Panty Whisperer bad-ass enough to ooh and aah at its inception, giving high-fives and back-slaps as though going home with whomever it had been back then hadn’t simply been some callow escape, but a conquest worth celebration.
They’d been hanging out with his little sister.
And lying to him about it.
“Oh, wait. Before you flip. I’m not talking about Joey and those guys. Mostly Sam. Once in a while Rafe and Mitch show up. And, to be clear, I don’t date any of them. Ever.”
A relieved breath hissed through his teeth and a few seconds later his jaw unlocked too.
“Helloo? Earth to Panty Whisperer, betrayer of sisters’ trust everywhere.”
Wow. Little Maeve with the one-two punch. The girl knew how to drop a bomb and then turn the tables in a heartbeat. God help the guy who landed her.
“Maeve, just give me a minute to catch up. To wake up, okay?”
He could hear her tongue clucking through the line. Could practically see that impatient posture and pouty scowl. The same one she’d been pulling since she was six years old. Of course back then it wouldn’t have been directed at him. Back then he’d been her hero. The one to intervene on her behalf with older sisters who didn’t want clumsy hands breaking their stuff.
“Ready yet?”
“Yeah, why not? Go ahead and give it to me.” He pushed up from the bed, figuring there wouldn’t be any getting back to it after this, and headed in search of sustenance of the coffee-and-cookies variety.
“I can’t believe you told Nikki you knew how long it had been since she had sex. I can’t believe, after you figured out who she was, you would be so thoughtless as to violate my trust like that. And you didn’t just stop at....”
Pushing the start button on the coffeepot, he grunted his acknowledgment of wrongdoing, knowing it would be a move just short of suicide to interrupt the rant in progress for the petty satisfaction of pointing out that she’d broken Nichole’s trust first.
Garrett was halfway through his first cup of coffee when the quiet from the other end of the line hit a point where it was clear this wasn’t just Maeve taking a breath, but she was waiting for a response.
Setting the mug aside, Garrett rubbed a palm over the smooth finish of his kitchen table. “So, aside from being pissed you’d told me about her dating history, did she sound okay?”
There was another silence from across the miles, though this one Garrett wasn’t quite sure how to read.
Then, “She was fine. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“You know. Because she’s a commitment girl.” He still didn’t know how they’d gotten their lines crossed so badly. In all these years he’d never made such a mess—
“Oh, that. Yeah. Get over yourself, Garrett. She wasn’t looking for serious with you. Which I’m pretty sure she actually told you already.”
Yeah, she had. But maybe he just hadn’t liked the sound of it. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to believe it was true because for some reason he didn’t like the idea of it in the context of her...with him.
“Okay, I can practically hear you worrying over there. But you’re going to have to take my word for it. Nikki is fine. This was exactly what she needed. Except the part about it being you and all.”
Thank you, Maeve.
“She wanted to prove to herself she could have a little fun without it having to turn into some white-dress event. And she did. So no biggie.” Maeve let out a giggle in the background. “Though next time I’m guessing she’ll get the guy’s name first.”
Next time.
Garrett closed his eyes against the words. Figured out it only facilitated the mental peep show—Nichole leaning back on her bed with those big brown eyes peering up at...not him. Hell.
Walking over to the counter, he refilled his mug and threw half of it back at once. Time to wake up and get on with the new day.
“Yeah. Hopefully.”
SIX
Nichole sank the six and watched the cue ball come to rest neatly behind the four. Nice.
Across the felt landscape Maeve tapped her foot impatiently against the leg of her stool, watching as Nichole adjusted her stance and lined up her shot.
“Wow, your form’s really improved.”
Nichole paused, glanced up. “Huh?”
“No, really.” All nonchalance, Maeve waved toward the pool cue, the twitch at the corner of her mouth a warning of what was to come.
Hard to believe it had only been a week with the amount of ribbing she’d taken. But there it was. A week since she’d had the hot press of Garrett’s mouth against hers, the weight of his body—
“You’ve got a firm grasp on that butt...while the shaft just glides through your fingers. I don’t know...it’s almost like you’ve had some practice with the wood lately.”
Mouth hanging open, Nichole fought the slow burn spreading across her cheeks and neck...and lost. “Seriously?”
Maeve smirked. “Ohh, shoot! Your alignment just went to hell.”
“You wish.”
Leaning over the table she straightened out the shot, drew back, focused—
“Gentle with the tip.”
—and scratched. “Maeve!”
Her friend looked less than chagrined. “What? This is pool. I was working the lingo. Whatever your depraved mind does with it is on you.” Jumping from the stool, she winked. “Plus, I really want to win!”
Nichole waited until Maeve was all lined up before settling a hip at the side of the table. “You know, Maeve, there’s more to the game than your stroke. The stick you choose, for example.”
An expression of horror crept over Maev
e’s face. “You wouldn’t.”
No, she wouldn’t.
Well, maybe just a little. “I recently had my hands on a nice hard wood. I think I’ll tell you about it. In detail. Let’s start with—”
“Enough!” Maeve’s frantic squeak was punctuated by the one-two thud of the eight and the cue sinking in short order. “You win! Oh, my God, I feel dirty.”
Nichole tossed her hair over her shoulder, reveling in the victory. “As you should, cheater.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maeve grumbled, too competitive to let any loss go without at least a brief sulk and most likely one more go at retaliation. Only she seemed to shake it off in a blink, her smile returning to full blast. “So, what do you want from the bar?”
“Whatever. You pick.”
Maeve leaned in and craned her neck in an exaggerated manner. “Garrett? You want something too?”
Nichole froze in her spot as the skin across her back began to tingle and burn.
“Hey, Nikki, maybe Garrett would like to hear what you thought about that stick you were using? How much you liked the feel of that hard wood and all? Heck, maybe he could even help you perfect your hold!” And with that she darted off for the bar.
He wasn’t there. He couldn’t be.
And yet even as she turned she knew.
Her gaze started at the floor and the size-twelve boots planted in a wide stance less than a handful of feet away, crawled up the saddle-brown twill of cargo-style pants and followed the gray long-sleeve tee stretched to perfection over his torso before making the unsettling jump to firm lips slanted in an off-kilter smile and the single raised brow demanding clarification.
“Maeve just being Maeve?” he asked, and the breath Nichole hadn’t realized she’d been holding rushed out in relief.
No lie necessary. “Exactly.”
Only those too intense blue eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “So the wood you guys were talking about was really...wood?”
She hadn’t believed it was possible to choke on words that weren’t her own, but there she was, sputtering as though she’d swallowed a string of oversized letters cut from rough stone. They blocked the pathway from her lungs to her mouth, making the intake of breath an impossible thing.