Or a future as a stripper.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
I gave him directions to my apartment complex and settled back into the comfort of the passenger seat. The radio hummed very softly with music I didn’t recognize and could barely hear. Mostly the car was filled with the sound of the engine zipping through traffic or purring at stoplights.
I should have been spitting fire at this man that had so completely insulted everything about me earlier tonight. But alcohol and my friend’s future wedded bliss had made me soft and culpable. So instead of wrapping Ezra in my deadly web and then biting his head off for a midnight snack, I closed my eyes and let myself feel gratitude.
“Thanks again, Ezra,” I said sincerely. “The party was a major success. Lilou was perfect. Meg is a genius. And you already know that Wyatt is the best. You did a pretty great job of swooping in to save the day.”
Of course he picked up on my change in attitude right away. “Are you being nice?”
I tilted my face toward him and frowned at his profile. “I blame the alcohol.”
His lips twitched but I couldn’t be sure if it was because of an almost smile or if he’d developed a facial tick. There was a good possibility he was about to have a stroke. “Me too,” he said.
Not knowing what else to say after that, we both fell silent. I turned in my seat so I could stare out the window, but the streetlights cast a glare and I ended up staring at Ezra’s reflection instead.
From where I sat I could see the faint stubble that had appeared along his jaw, equally as black as the hair on his head. His sharp nose that looked like cut marble in the window reflection. His high cheekbones and long throat. Those masculine shoulders that were so ferociously broad before his torso thinned to a tapered waist. He could have so easily been a model in a different life. Or maybe even this one still. Depending on how the restaurant biz turned out for him.
He drove with pure confidence, weaving in and out of late night traffic like he moonlighted for NASCAR. He commanded the car in the same way I imagined he handled all things in life—with total control and determination. And he never once lost his concentration to look at me.
He didn’t just do things. He conquered things.
All the things.
He was too much for me. Too sure of himself. Too successful. Too self-possessed.
Too manly.
Too way, way, way out of my league.
By the time he pulled up in front of my apartment complex, I had stopped breathing altogether. Nerves ran in panicked circles inside my chest, forever bumping into each other as they tried and failed to settle. I pictured them with their hands in the air and their mouths wide in desperate concern. Abort, abort! They screamed. Run for the hills!
As if I could just jump out of Ezra’s car, ninja-roll into the bushes and live the rest of my life foraging in the Appalachians. Pretty sure that was a future 60 Minutes cautionary tale in the making.
Ezra put the car in park and hovered his hand around the ignition. “Can I walk you inside?”
“Please don’t!” Waving him off, I said, “I got this. I’m just up…” I pointed in the general direction of the sky.
“Do you have everything?” he asked.
I wiggled my feet and tapped my purse in my lap. “Yep.” My hand slid over the door until I found the handle.
“Molly,” Ezra stalled me with just that one word—with just the way he used it.
I half turned to face him. For the first time in our entire acquaintance, I saw hesitation and maybe even uncertainty.
“What you said about my website… I’m just wondering… Maybe if you have time… I would be willing to pay you if you would take a look at it again.”
My pulse skipped as I stared at him in an effort to decipher if he was serious or not. Even if I didn’t have the Black Soul project right now, who would want to work with a restaurant owner that had no misgivings about calling you names and insulting your taste? No thanks. That initial five minute interaction pretty much ruined any and all future work-related collaborations between the two of us.
And hopefully all the non-work-related collaborations as well.
This was what happened when I was nice. I should know better than to be nice.
I prepared a professional excuse in my head, something about a new project and not having the focus for him. But what came out was unfiltered truth instead. “Ezra, that’s a terrible idea.”
“It’s not,” he insisted, not even phased with my answer, almost like he’d anticipated it. “I’m surrounded by ‘yes’ people. Save for Killian and Dillon, I have nobody willing to tell me the truth. They’re all afraid of me.”
I shouldn’t have laughed. Really. He was being open and honest and… open and honest. But the look on his face was like the businessman equivalent to a three year old’s pout.
After I laughed, he looked less adorable. It was more like the businessman’s equivalent of a murderer.
“Molly.”
He said my name and I shivered. I blamed the weather, the leather seats, and the full moon. “I’m afraid of you,” I told him. “Just not tonight because of, you know, the champagne.” He opened his mouth and I quickly added, “And getting me drunk every time I have to work with you is not an option. This isn’t normal for me. I’m usually very responsible.”
“Two Advil, two Tylenol.”
“What?”
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “And an Alka-Seltzer a half hour after you wake up.” His gaze found mine. “For your hangover tomorrow.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. Tomorrow I would be thankful for his home remedy, but tonight I couldn’t help but analyze him. “You’re always so…” I struggled with the right word to describe him. Thoughtful was the easy choice, but he wasn’t really thoughtful. That implied he was being generous with the information for the other person’s benefit. And Ezra was definitely not looking out for me for the sake of me. No, it was something more like… “Practical.”
Avoiding my eyes again, he looked forward and if it was any other man I would have sworn his cheeks flushed. “I’ll email you the details of what I’m looking for. You can decide for yourself what you think about the project.”
“You’re crazy.”
His smile was short-lived and filled with self-confidence. “I’m used to getting what I want.”
I felt my sigh all the way down to my toes. “Now that I believe.”
His phone buzzed in the cup holder as if accentuating his point at three in the morning. Which meant it was time for me to end our temporary truce and go to bed.
“That’s my cue to leave,” I mumbled more to myself than Ezra.
“That’s not what you think—”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” I said quickly.
But apparently he felt like he did. “It’s my sister.”
I talked over him, knowing it didn’t matter who it was because it wasn’t my business. “I’ll see you around, Ezra.”
I hurried from the car, partly because it was a chilly night and partly because I couldn’t wait to get away from him. He had been nice. I could admit that.
But I also had to acknowledge that I wasn’t myself around him. Under normal circumstances, I was polite and kind. I listened attentively and responded considerately. I was all the adverbs that were nice, and reserved, and mature.
Something about Ezra made me lose my cool. I became a snarky, nagging shrew with bite. The filter over my mouth and mind dissolved completely and I was left with only raw truth and rough edges. And I had no problem telling the man no. Which was crazy for me, since I was a ride or die people pleaser.
Deciding to forget about Ezra completely and only remember the non-Ezra parts of the evening, I made my way up to my apartment, totally ignoring the Alfa Romeo that waited to drive away until I was safely inside my building. I started stripping as soon as I’d
dead bolted my door. Purse on the kitchen counter. Shoes trailing behind me. Dress off. Bra off. Hair up.
I grabbed an oversized t-shirt, then headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and deal with the excessive process of taking off my party makeup. Why, oh, why was waterproof eyeliner such a vindictive biotch?
I settled for good enough and headed for my bedroom.
That’s when things went off track.
I stared at my bed for a long time. I had made it this morning so it was nice and inviting with the covers turned down at one corner. My phone was on the brink of dying, so I needed to charge it. And then I needed to go to sleep. I was still buzzed and I had things to do tomorrow, and a million other reasons I had to go to bed that I couldn’t exactly remember off the top of my head.
So that’s what I did.
Just kidding. I turned on the hallway light and headed to my studio where I spent the next three hours trying my best to make domineering shoulders and a jawline that could cut glass. I obsessed over eyes that were nothing but endless mystery. And a mouth that could be so inviting and open, and then cruel and closed off in the span of three seconds.
The moon went to bed before I did. And when I finally released myself from my painting prison, I was no closer to getting the lines, angles, and colors right than I had been a week ago.
When I went to bed it was out of pure frustration and defiance. And when I closed my eyes it was his that taunted me from my dreams. His eyes stared at me, daring me to try harder, be better, to give up this fight with my lust, and give in to my tiny, insignificant crush on him.
Chapter Nine
Buzz.
Buzzzzz.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
I rolled over and slapped my open palm on the nightstand. Then I slapped it again, hoping to find my cell phone. Fumbling around like a blind zombie for a few seconds, I finally grappled the thing into my possession and squinted at the time.
Noon.
Ugh.
I flopped on my back with the unanswered phone still in hand. I’d had six hours of sleep. Or something like that. Clearly, not enough.
For a second, I stared at my bedroom door and remembered why it had been so late early when I finally fell asleep.
Ezra.
Vera. It was Vera’s engagement party and I had celebrated in excess. And everybody knows that when you drink too much you’re wired for hours afterward.
Full of energy.
Unable to fall asleep.
Ugh, again.
Despite my sleepy state, urgency to destroy last night’s evidence paintings pounded through me. Like a herd of elephants rampaging on roller skates.
Or maybe that was my head?
Either way, I knew I had a mess to clean up—literally and figuratively.
My cell started to buzz again, and I cursed at the ceiling fan slowly spinning overhead. Instead of bringing the phone to my face, I rolled over and planted my face on the phone—after I’d swiped answer of course.
“Hello?” a man said—just kidding, that was me. I said hello with a man voice because that’s what I sounded like first thing in the morning.
“Molly,” my mom sighed into the phone. “I thought you’d been trafficked.”
I rubbed my eye with my fist. “Huh?”
“Sex trafficked,” my mom clarified. “When you didn’t answer the first time.”
“I, uh, wha?”
“Molly Nichole are you just now waking up? It’s noon!”
My mother was as hardworking as they got. She had been a public school lunch lady for thirty plus years, so that meant she was used to being up at hours that I still considered the middle of the night. She spent her day managing rowdy kids for both breakfast and lunch, and then she went home and managed my dad who was just as bad. She never took sick days or slept in on weekends. She didn’t have hobbies or shows that she liked, and didn’t really know how to have fun in any capacity. She worked, and she worked, and she worked.
And she expected me to do the same.
“It’s Saturday,” I croaked. “My one day to sleep in.”
“Why do you need to sleep in?” she demanded, her voice hardening with concern. When my mother got nervous she didn’t flutter around like a butterfly afraid to land, she tromped through the situation like a dangerous predator that had been threatened with extinction. My mom was not a dainty flower. She was a Tyrannosaurus Rex—lethal except for the tiny arms.
“I threw Vera an engagement party last night, Mom. It ended late. I’m tired today.”
“Hungover you mean.” Well, she wasn’t wrong. “But that was nice of you. Vera’s a good friend.”
My mom loved Vera. She loved the entire Delane family. We’d been neighbors growing up. Well, my parents and Hank were still neighbors. It was only Vera, Vann and me that had moved on.
For her—someone that valued a hard work ethic— Vera’s dad, Hank Delane, was everything a man should be. He loved his dead wife fiercely and honored her memory by sticking around and doing right by their kids. He worked as hard as possible to provide a good life for them and see that they were well taken care of.
Because of him, Vera and Vann had also learned to work hard. My mom saw them owning their own businesses and doing well for themselves as a tribute to the father that raised them. As a kid, she’d encouraged me to spend as much time over at their house as possible. And now as a grown-up, she pushed me to be as much like Vera and Vann as possible.
And if you hadn’t picked up on it by now, she did not think I was doing a very good job of emulating them. Something she blamed on my dad.
It didn’t matter how many times I told her that I worked for a great company or that I could pay all my bills or even that I had a benefits package—which, by the way, was more than Vera could say until recently.
She took my interest in painting as a sign that I was two days away from giving my life over to the bottle and quitting everything I’d worked so hard to achieve.
Art was just an outlet for the lazy deadbeat in me.
Because obviously there was a lazy deadbeat living inside me, listlessly scratching at my interior walls in a half-hearted attempt to slump its way out. “Get out of my way, Work Ethic!” it would yell from the couch of my heart, throwing empty two liters of Diet Coke at my brain all while scratching its hairy butt. “I can’t see the TV, Retirement Plan!”
Then it would yawn, revealing Dorito-stained teeth and grumble, “Okay, fine. I give up,” before it’s head dropped back and it started snoring loudly.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be here all week.
“Molly,” my mom snapped.
“I’m listening,” I answered quickly, half wondering if my daydreaming hadn’t accidentally turned into real dreaming. There was a line of drool down my chin. A good indication that I might have fallen asleep for a second.
“Your father wants to know when you’re coming home for dinner.”
I shoved my face into the pillow and breathed until my pillowcase was hot and smelled like morning breath. I loved my parents. I really did. And they loved me. At least I hoped they did. But family dinners were always stressful.
Deciding it would be better to get it over with rather than drag it out for the next month or ten years or whatever, I said, “I’m free this weekend.”
“Tomorrow then.” My mom turned her head from the speaker to cough. When she returned she sounded older than she had before. I knew she was tired, but this version of her first thing on a Saturday made her sound worn out. “I’ll make your favorite.”
My heart softened with her gesture. She could be sharp-tongued and impatient, but she was gold on the inside. Pure gold.
“Thank you, Mama.”
She chuckled at my endearment. I only called her mama when I wanted something so it had become a kind of joke to us. “All right, Molly. You’re awake now, so go make the most out of today.”
“Love you.”
There was a slight hesitation because
she grappled with expressing emotion. Finally, she admitted, “Love you, too.”
I hung up the phone with her and flopped back on my pillow. My mother was the person I loved most in this world. She was also the person that had messed me up the most.
I tried to console myself by believing that was the norm. Most moms meant well. That didn’t mean their children weren’t loaded with baggage that they had to carry for the rest of their lives.
Right?
Was I crazy to think that maybe, just possibly, my mom had overburdened me?
I’d tried to talk to Vera about this before, but she hadn’t had a mom growing up. She looked at my family the same way I looked at hers—with longing and subtle feelings of wishful what ifs.
Sure, through her eyes, I had two parents and family dinners every night. She saw my mom take me shopping and help me sort through drama at school. She had been there for my first period and given me the most awkward sex talk in the history of sex talks. She’d gotten her nails done with me once in awhile, if it was summer and she didn’t have to work in the lunchroom.
But from my first-hand perspective, I also knew family dinners came with a price. And I often wondered if it would be better with only one parent if that meant you didn’t have to listen to two parents fighting all the time. She took me shopping, but only bought me outfits she deemed appropriate and mature enough. She’d spent many nights talking to me about friends from school, as in which ones to hang out with, which ones had potential, and which ones I should avoid at any cost lest I end up catching their dead-beat tendencies. She’d handed me a box of tampons and told me that I could now get pregnant. And that if I ever came home knocked up, she would never speak to me again. And yes, I’d sat through the sex talk with her, but I walked away feeling more confused than ever.
I was also fairly confident that my parents had only had sex the one time and that I was magically conceived in the accidental process.