“So, what happened next? Did you get arrested or something? Am I your one phone call? Do you need me to get you a lawyer?”
I pause to bang the phone on the side of my head a few times. The patience I need for this phone call is quickly dissipating.
“Hello?” Quin says in a louder voice. “Did you hear me? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here,” I say calmly. “I’m not in jail. I’m at work. We came here after the fight to avoid the cops that were coming, and Rebel came out and just attacked Colin.” I quickly lose my cool as the rest of the story is revealed. “Then he told me he wants me to sleep in his bed!”
“Holy cannoli … do you have any idea how boring my life is compared to yours? While you were out being Lara Croft Tomb Raider, kicking ass and taking names, I was playing a Scrabble death match against my brother, and I lost. I lost, Tea. That was my night. You got wasted, whopped ass in a bar fight with evasive maneuvers, and then had one hot beefcake duel another hot beefcake over the rights to your bod. Life is so unfair.”
Resting my elbows on my knees and the phone against my head, I sigh out heavily. “Quin, I need you to tell me what to do.”
She pauses before answering. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. I’m lost. I don’t know whether to run away as fast as I can or do the opposite. I’ve had too many beers and it’s been too long since I’ve had sex, and let’s face it … I’ve never had it with a guy like Rebel. It’s too tempting for me to think straight. I should probably walk away, right? Tell me to walk away. If you tell me to do it, I swear I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” says Quin, using her serious tone, “let’s analyze…”
She’s interrupted by a banging at the bathroom door.
I panic. I don’t have the advice I need yet, and I’m not ready to face reality. “Jesus, can’t a girl have any privacy around here?!” I yell.
“You okay?” Rebel asks.
“Yes. I’m fine. Go away.”
“Was that Rebel?” Quin asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Awww … he’s worried about you. That’s so cute!”
I’m whispering, paranoid that he’s got his ear pressed up against the door now. “Quin? Analyze. And don’t let that knocking on the door affect your reasoning, either.”
“Well, it has to be factored in. I mean, he cares about you, right? Or at least he’s worried that you might have fallen in the toilet, so that’s worth something.” She takes a deep breath and continues. “Okay, so, you had a hot little moment with Rebel about a week ago, right? A little bump and grind on the couch?”
“Yes,” I say, sighing in embarrassment.
“And then he basically told you he wasn’t interested after.”
“Yeah, pretty much. And thanks for that synopsis, by the way. That wasn’t utterly degrading.”
“Shut up, I just have to be sure I have it all straight. And how did he act this week?”
“Distant.”
“Did you catch him looking at you at all? Did he make up stupid reasons to talk to you?”
“Maybe he looked at me once or twice when he came in to get coffee.” I picture him walking through the door and do recall him looking my way. Sometimes it seemed like his gaze lingered a little longer than it should have.
“He looked at you once or twice all week, or each day?”
“Each day.”
“Is that normal for him?”
“How am I supposed to know? I just started working here!”
“Fine. He’s the brooding type, we get that. But is he the stalking-slash-staring type?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Okay, then, we can maybe consider that he’s been regretting his decision to blow you off.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Sure we can. A guy like him isn’t going to keep coming around and making excuses to see you if he really doesn’t want to see you.”
I think about that for a second before answering. “I don’t know whether to agree with you because it makes some kind of weird sense or not agree with you because it makes no sense and I just wish it did.”
“I make sense. You should listen to me, always.”
“What else? Any other great wisdom for me, Yoda?”
“I don’t think you need my jedi man-skills to know that he’s definitely interested. He said he wants you in his bed, right? I mean, it doesn’t get any more obvious than that.”
“Well, he could mean he feels bad about me being on the couch and he’s offering me the bed instead. Maybe he’s going to go sleep with that blonde chick or on his brother’s couch forever. Maybe he’s just being nice.”
Quin snorts. “Please. The guy is all male. He’s not being a choir-boy saint.”
“You don’t know that.” Clinging to his ultimate rejection feels safer than just assuming he wants my body.
“Yes I doooo…”
“I’m going to ask him,” I say, not really meaning it.
“Go for it. I dare you.”
Dammit. Gauntlet thrown down. I’ve trapped myself. Funnily enough, I don’t run from it or try to find a way out. Quin’s dare fires me up enough to go into stupid and reckless mode.
I jump up before I can chicken out. “Fine. Hold on.” I put the phone on the edge of the sink and zip up my pants, making myself presentable before opening the door. I can hear her woo-hooing faintly in the background, down by the sink.
“Rebel?”
He’s sitting at my desk. Swinging the chair around, he looks at me. “Yes?”
“When you said you want me in your bed, did you mean with you in it too? Or me by myself?”
A half smile with a bitter flavor to it pulls up the edge of his mouth. “With me.”
“Okay, thanks.” I draw back into the bathroom and pull the door shut. My heart is hammering so hard, it’s making my shirt tremble. Grabbing the phone, I try to get control of my heavy breathing. “He said he meant with him in the bed too.” My voice is a strained whisper.
“Ha! I told you. Points for Yoda. Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“That’s what I’m calling you for, dope! You’re supposed to tell me!”
“Hold on. I need to go write this in my diary … June fifteenth … Teagan Cross tells me I am in charge of planning her life…” She sighs with pleasure and fakes a sniff. “My little girl is finally seeing the light, finally acknowledging the one true path to happiness…”
“Which is…?” I ask, getting annoyed with her stalling.
Her voice goes all serious. “Doing what I say, of course. Duh. Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go out there, walk all sexy-like, smile in a devious way, and tell him you’re ready to rock his world. You’ve got to totally own that shit. Work it into the ground, baby.”
I roll my eyes at the sad vision she just created in my mind. “Uh, no. That’s not going to happen.”
“Teagan,” she whines, “I have the whole thing figured out. It’ll be so romantic! And you’ll be so, so sexy, I promise!”
“Gah, you’re totally stupid. I’m not doing that. You do it if you want with your next victim, but if you want me to follow your advice, you need to Teaganize it or I’m going to be forced to wing it.”
“No! God, don’t do that. Geez, talk about a four alarm fire. Okay … just … go out there and smile and tell him you’ll do it.”
“Just like that? All cut and dried like it’s a business deal?”
“Sure, why not? Don’t assume there’re stars in his eyes. Just assume he wants to have a good time and since that’s what you want too, it should work out fine, right?”
I pause, my heart hurting a little over her characterization of his motivations. “I guess.”
“Ha!” she yells. “I knew it! You totally like him!”
“No, I don’t.” My denial sounds hollow even to my own ears.
“Yes, you totally do! You’re all mopey when I talk about it being just f
or fun. You like him, and don’t try and deny it.”
“Fine. I might like him. But what’s the point? We’re totally not compatible.”
“Bullshit. You were made for each other. He’s hot, you’re hot, he’s smart, you’re smart, he likes sex, you like sex. What more do you need?”
“How do you know he’s smart?”
“Well, he owns his own business and he hired you. That shows brains.”
“True. But there’s more to a relationship than those things.”
“Yeah, so what? If you never take him up on the offers he makes, how will you ever find out if you can even have a relationship?”
“So, you’re saying I need to go sleep with him to see if it will work?”
“No, dumb-butt, I’m saying, go connect. He wants you in his bed; that means he’s interested in something. Go find out what it is. If it’s just sex and you can’t do that, then tell him. If it’s sex and then you’ll see later what level it can go to, well, go with your instincts.”
“But what if he breaks my heart?”
“But what if he rocks your world?”
I huff out an annoyed breath. “Quin, you’re really not helping. You were supposed to talk me out of this.”
“Bullshit. I just told you what to do and you’re going to do it. And you’ll be happy you did, too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Now, what are you still doing on the phone with me? You have Grade-A man meat waiting for you in the other room. Prime beef, baby. Time to chow down. Rawr, rawr.”
“Ew, Quin. Just, ew.”
She giggles. “Toodle-oo! I’m off to go bust out some hundred-point words in my Scrabble-off. Little bastard is totally going down. You’ve got me all fired up. I’m going to own that board in T minus fifteen minutes, give or take.”
“Tell your bro I said hi.” He’s three years younger than we are but already working on senior-level math courses. Unfortunately for him, he’s one of the most competitive guys we know and his sister’s talents normally eclipse his in the language skills department. I’m glad I’ll be missing all the shit-talking that’s about to go down over there in their house.
“Tell him hi yourself. You’re invited to a barbecue tomorrow. Be there or I disown you. And if all goes well with His Hotness, you can bring him to the ‘cue with you.”
“Fine. Later. Wish me luck.” No way in hell am I bringing Rebel to her house or anywhere else. He’d probably consider it a marriage proposal or something. So not cool.
“You don’t need luck, sweet cheeks. You have the goods.”
“The goods?”
“Yeah, the goods. You know … the lady garden he wants to plow, the squeeze box he wants to play his favorite tune on, the love tunnel he wants to navigate…”
“Quin, you are seriously demented. Go Scrabble yourself stupid, would you please?” I click the phone off and stick it in my back pocket without waiting for an answer. I have a hot boss just outside the door waiting to either send me to the moon or to the depths of hellish depression, depending on how the next few hours go. Might as well get to the living part of life.
Putting my hand on the doorknob, I twist it, wondering what the rest of my night will bring and whether I’m ready to deal with the fallout.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HE’S NOT IN THE OFFICE when I come out. There are sounds coming from the garage, so I follow them until I find Rebel crouched down by my engine again. I’m glad for his sudden interest in my car; it takes some of the pressure off the sexy part of being around him and this whole come-sleep-in-my-bed thing.
“Whatcha doin’?” I ask as I come up and stand next to him, acting as cool as a cucumber or so I hope.
He stands straight but keeps his eyes on the car. “Just verifying you have all original parts here.”
I nearly have a heart attack when his arm comes up and drapes itself over my shoulders. So much for the cucumber thing.
The heaviness of the sensation is more than just the weight of his muscle and bone; it’s all the things it could mean or might not mean rolled into one big, fat confusing feeling. I hate all the mystery, but I’m too much of a chicken shit to do anything about it, so I just stand there staring at my engine with his big arm on me and my heart going a mile a minute.
“Why are you doing that?” I ask, the double meaning behind my words making my face go red.
Luckily, he ignores the other meaning. “If you have all original parts, the car is worth a lot more. If you don’t - if someone’s swapped out some of those original factory parts for newer stuff - I’d tell you to let me go online and find original parts to replace them. Get it back to the starting point and work from there.”
“I’d love to think about all that, but right now I have just about enough discretionary dough to buy a beer and that’s it. But I appreciate the thought. I know you’re busy with a lot of cars. You’re going to have to work tomorrow and Sunday probably to deliver that GTO as promised on Monday.”
“Don’t remind me. Come on.” He begins walking over to the stairs that will lead us to the apartment, his arm still trapping me at his side.
I follow along almost numbly. My mind is racing so fast, I don’t have enough juice left in it to worry about where my feet are going and how they’re actually operating without sending me to the pavement.
Are we going to sleep together? Will there be sex or is this some kind of weird slumber party thing? Does he like me? Is he just jealous because he thinks Colin made a move on me? Do I care about any of that?
It’s all too much. On one hand I love that Rebel is such a closed-off person, because it allows me to avoid talking about any of this stuff with anyone but myself; but on the other hand, I hate it. I wish he’d just come out and say whatever the hell he’s thinking and stop torturing me like this.
He drops his arm and gestures for me to walk up the stairs in front of him as he turns off the big lights above us. Maybe I should follow Quin’s advice right now and sway my hips a little, but after one step of trying it, I decide against this very bad idea. He’ll probably assume I’m drunk and make me sleep on the couch again. Better to just stick with what I know and play it safe. I clomp up the stairs with heavy steps.
We both stay quiet until we’re in the apartment and the door is closed behind us.
“Do you want a drink?” he asks, moving into the kitchen.
I stand in the main room, swinging my purse nervously. “Water would be good. Thanks.” I fling my purse towards an armchair and cringe a little as it hits the glass coffee table and makes a big clanging noise. “Oopsy.”
As the sounds of liquid filling a glass come to my ears, I consider my next move. My fingers twist around each other in response to my awkward state of mind. I could just wait for him to do all the work and panic the entire time as I guess what his next move might be, or I could take a step myself; then I’d have the upper hand. But my feet seem to have become glued to the carpet. My brain tells my legs to move forward, but it’s just not going to happen.
Rebel comes out of the kitchen with one glass in his hand. He gives it to me and then stands there.
I raise the glass to my lips, taking four tiny swallows before pausing. “Aren’t you going to have any?” It’s more than weird having him stare at me like this. What if I choke mid-gulp and spray his entire chest with a drool-water mix? Yeah, definite turn-off.
I lower the glass and look around for a place to put it. My frozen legs are suddenly a big problem. My hand is trembling enough that I can see it moving the surface of the water.
“I’m not thirsty,” he says.
I nod. “Makes sense. Heh-heh.” Oh, God, that was stupid! Say something cool! Keep the conversation flowing! “You’d probably only want a glass of water if you were thirsty. I mean, you could drink anyway, but then you’d have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and that’s a pain.” Gah! Shut up! Diarrhea of the mouth alert! Bail out! Bail out!
“Do
you want to sit down?” he asks, gesturing towards the couch.
I give him a crooked smile. “I’d love to, but I can’t.”
“Why not?” He frowns at me in confusion.
“Because my feet and legs don’t seem to want to cooperate right now.” I sigh out heavily as I realize what needs to happen. “Listen, Rebel, I have to just get something off my chest because if I don’t, I’m afraid my entire body is just going to go haywire and then who knows what’ll happen next. I could end up burning the whole place to the ground.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
I look to the floor and then the ceiling, trying to gather my mojo. My head is spinning suddenly and I’m not sure if it’s residual beer effects or my blood pressure about to redline. But I take a deep breath and start anyway. Might as well get this party started … or ended, as the case may be.
“You and I had a moment on that couch like a week ago, and to say it ended badly would be a massive understatement.”
He opens up his mouth, but I hold up my hand to keep him from responding.
“And it’s cool with me, believe me. I got over it. I’ve never been left high and dry like that before, but whatever. Every ego needs a taking down once in a while, right?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Shhh, let me finish. So … I go out for beers with Colin tonight after being ignored by you all week, and suddenly you’re all up in his face with angry man stuff and then you invite me to sleep in your bed.” I point to his chest. “You … are a confusing person. That’s just a fact.”
I use my accusing finger to twirl some of my hair around, trying to ease myself through the embarrassment of putting my shit out there for him to examine and do whatever he wants with.
“I honestly don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, Rebel, because you never say anything about anything, and I don’t know what you want.” I’ve got eyes on the ceiling, the floor, the walls … anywhere but on him. “But whatever it is, I need this job and I can’t afford to lose it. So if you’re going to fire me, you know … I’ll do whatever I can, short of booty sex, to keep it. But I hope that’s not what this is about. I really do.”