What is it about this guy wanting me without makeup?
He walks toward the door.
“Now that would be a travesty,” I say with a shame-on-you voice. “Almost as much of a travesty as eating my Versailles.” Though I admit, signaling to it, “I might eat the little bushes.”
“Eat the bushes? Alright.” He laughs mischievously.
The butterflies catch fire.
I groan and shove him back toward the door.
As I do, he steals one of my many bags of chocolates. “Hey!” I call, as he starts for the door. “You’re stealing my chocolates.”
He turns around and starts backing away slowly, facing me. “Come get them then.”
He raises the bag in the air a little bit and dangles it temptingly.
I rush at him and leap in the air, trying to grab the bag, but he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me close—fairly crushes me to his chest—and pecks my lips again.
I start, jerking back from the shock of the touch of his lips, the renewed burst of butterflies in my stomach, which seemed to flutter up to my head.
He waits, watching me, his arm still around me.
His eyes are leveled on mine. His nose is nearly touching mine. We’re breathing hard. He’s not smiling; his eyes are very dark and serious. Watching me with caution and intense interest, he tilts his head, eyeing my mouth from another angle. “Is your boyfriend taking you out tonight?” he drawls out.
He waits there, as if preparing—debating, thinking—to kiss me for real. “Trent and I had dinner last night,” I say breathlessly, nervously pushing at his chest. “And I…have work early tomorrow. You really need to stop doing that, Tahoe.” I turn around and wipe the back of my hand over my lips shyly.
He notices, and to taunt me, he licks his lips with his tongue, his eyes shimmering in challenge.
“We’ll see,” he says mischievously as he walks away with the bag of chocolates, waving a peace sign.
He smirks adorably from the door, and I shoot him a dark glare, wondering if the chocolate is really what he’s stealing from me.
LITTLE MAN
Early August, it’s official. Rachel and Saint are having a baby boy. She’s nearing her thirty-fifth week of pregnancy, and although they’ve wanted to know the sex for a while, the baby’s position made it hard for the doctors to tell for sure. Well. The baby cannot hide his jewels any longer.
On my way to the Saints’ place, all I can think about is whether or not I’ll tell Rachel how confused I am about Tahoe and me. I want to tell her, but the urge to push him to the back of my mind—survival mode—is acute.
I walk into their place and follow voices to the second story of the penthouse and down the hall to the baby’s room. I pause at the threshold and take in the lovely décor. There’s a huge white crib and a dreamy white rocking chair, and artisan paintings on the walls of palm trees and jungle animals.
I stay still for a moment, silent for I don’t know how long, because inside the room I see Rachel, Saint, and…him. I arrive the same instant that Tahoe hands Saint his first lacrosse stick.
It’s short and wooden, and it looks old and worn.
“For when the little guy turns fifteen,” Tahoe slyly tells Saint as he maneuvers the stick in a swift lacrosse move. “He’s going to have to fight to keep the ball from me,” he adds with a menacing twinkle in his eye, his grin at full wattage.
The sight of Tahoe giving the lacrosse stick to Saint clutches at my heart so hard I almost have to put my hand on my chest to make sure it’s still beating.
“Gina!” Rachel calls.
All heads turn to the door.
Tahoe’s blue eyes flare when he sees me and I can practically see him straighten. His shoulders span wider. His muscles tighten. His fingers curl into his palms at his sides. His lips curve up in a smile. He looks almost like a tiger, one just woken up from slumber, licking his lips because he’s just been presented with a woman.
A woman he once called “succulent.”
I force myself to breathe and I smile and instantly go hug Rachel. “If I’d known the baby would have a stick already, I’d have brought the ball,” I joke to her, but instead I give her a tiny silver spoon, which was also my first.
“For luck,” I say, postponing the moment when I have to turn around toward the silent men.
But I finally work myself up to it. I cross the room to congratulate Saint, and when Tahoe looks at me, it seems instinctive for both of us, it seems natural, that we somehow hug each other hello too. I flush when his arms envelop me and he says “hello” in my ear.
“Hey,” I say.
I feel his lips graze the back of my ear after he speaks—accident or not?—and he steps back, watching me with those perceptive eyes of his as we ease apart. He looks like a dark prince of playboys today, dressed in gray sweatpants and a soft navy T-shirt, a duffel bag with lacrosse gear at his feet.
He’s going to a game, I realize, with a kick of excitement in my stomach. And true enough, ten minutes after we’ve all chatted animatedly about the baby, he excuses himself to leave.
“I think I should go to your game,” I cautiously say, then quickly amend when Saint and Rachel raise their eyebrows, “just so you win.”
When there’s only silence, I head to the door, raising an eyebrow to see if Tahoe challenges me.
He doesn’t. He smirks, his eyes roiling with mischief. “By all means, if I had my way, I’d have my lucky charm with me always.”
We say goodbye to the Saints, who exchange a glance that’s a mix of concern, puzzlement, and amusement.
As we take the elevator downstairs, I glance at his profile. “It was very sweet of you to give little baby Saint your first lacrosse stick.”
“Yeah, well. Saint’s my best friend. I’m loving that little kid as if he were my own.”
“You don’t plan to have any?” I raise my gaze to his.
But he’s watching the elevator numbers drop, and drop, and drop, and doesn’t say anything more until we head to his Ghost, climb aboard, and drive over to the lacrosse field.
“I’m pumped up you came.” His voice is deep and fiercely honest as he slides a mischievous look my way as his car screeches to a halt in his reserved parking spot.
“Me too.”
I sense him starting to get into vicious zero-zero mode as we climb out and enter the field building. “Hey.” His voice stops me a few seconds after we start down the halls, him with his duffel slung over his shoulder, heading toward the locker room, me starting in the opposite direction to the stands.
I turn to face him in the middle of the hall. He taps his dimple. I inhale for control. Then I head back and kiss his dimple. “Don’t kill anybody tonight.”
“Just team Black,” he says, grinning as he disappears down the hall.
* * *
He demolishes the other team.
All I keep hearing as he works his stick, checks team Black, clicks and pops the ball, and works the game is:
“Face off!”
“Score Red!”
“Face off!”
“Score Red!”
“Face off!”
“Score Red!”
“Face off!”
“Score Red!”
* * *
We’re the last ones in the locker room as he finishes changing, but rather than leave, he drops down on the bench and pulls me down with him.
“Hey. Next month…come over with me to my parents’ anniversary dinner? I’m tired of the speech they give me every time I go home, same damn tune over and over.”
“They want you to stop your womanizing ways, yadda yadda?”
“More like yadda yadda.”
“They don’t want you to stop your womanizing ways? Huh.”
“Just come.”
I flush. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because I know a man like Tahoe could definitely make me come.
The word sits in the air between us, low and soft. His eyes are
dark and stormy, as they get when he’s thinking about something I can only guess at, and I wonder if the word has the same effect on him that it does on me.
I really didn’t need the image of him coming, but now it’s in my brain. I picture his features contorting in ecstasy, harsh with effort, the way I imagine a man like him comes, and he must look so sexy, so very sexy. How he pumps, raw and ready, and I hear him laugh now and I’m all red as I wonder if he knows that my mind wandered there.
He tells me the exact date we leave. “I’ll pick you up at nine. We’ll fly down there.” His eyes reveal none of his thoughts, but that does nothing to calm the flush on my face.
“What’s the weather like?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“You’ve never been to Texas?”
“Never.”
He laughs. “It’s a trip to hell in the summer.”
ROOTS
It’s the second Thursday of September when I climb aboard Tahoe’s Hummer and we drive to the airport. Recently things have felt a little tenser between us. The air feels charged, as if our bodies are made of electricity and the space between us is a crackling outlet just waiting to be plugged in. I’m glad, though, that neither of us feels pressured to talk, and instead we listen to “Elastic Heart” by Sia and a few other songs that play on the radio.
Tense or not, we keep stealing glances at each other, and whenever we do, a smile tugs at our lips. Which makes me happy—happy that he seems glad to have invited me to join him.
He pulls us into an airport dedicated to private aircraft, where a pilot greets us and loads our luggage into the plane’s outer compartment.
I follow him into the huge private airplane and Tahoe asks me to take a seat, then heads to the cockpit to take the handle, with the pilot settled in the copilot’s seat.
I fasten my seat belt and admire the luxurious interior for a few minutes before Tahoe leads the airplane to the takeoff belt. Before I know it, we’re speeding down the runway and taking off.
I read Heaven, Texas during the flight, and when my eyes start to ache from reading, I tuck my book away and alternate between admiring the blue, cloud-specked sky and tracking the plane’s progress across the multiple screens along the aircraft walls.
The speakers flare. “You okay back there, Regina?”
Grinning, I peer down the plane aisle toward the cockpit to find him glancing past his shoulder at me. He’s wearing a headset and has a twinkle in his eye that makes my stomach warm. He winks and says, “We’ll be landing shortly, buckle up.”
I check my seat belt and watch the mix of dry and irrigated Texas land patches come closer and closer. My nerves and excitement keep building. I wonder when I’ve ever looked forward to something as much as I do to spending time with him.
After he lands the plane effortlessly, we head down the tarmac toward a large SUV waiting outside.
Soon we’re heading out of the airport and into the city and toward a sprawling two-story house set amidst oaks and cedars and a driveway dotted with stylishly cut rosemary bushes.
I’m excited to be here. As we head up the driveway, I notice that Tahoe’s more interested in my reaction than anything else.
“You grew up here?”
“In the city, yes, the home, no. I bought it for my parents when I was able to upgrade them—a token of gratitude for putting up with me.” He smirks then leads me toward the front door.
I soon realize that everything is definitely bigger in Texas. The guys, their hands, feet, and definitely their houses. “Mi casa es su casa,” he says with a smirk, drawing it out in Spanish. His hand is light and coaxing on my back as he leads me forward and it makes me feel a sense of protection.
His mother is the epitome of what a mother should look like. Warm, slightly chubby, with rosy cheeks and neatly cropped hair and a lovely old-fashioned dress. His father is tall and blond, as blue-eyed as Tahoe. Their faces light up at the sight of him walking through the front door. But his mother’s smile instantly turns into a frown.
“A beard? Oh no. I like my son clean shaven, thank you very much,” his mom says, kissing him noisily.
“It’s not your beard to shave, Momma,” he smirks, smacking her with a kiss.
“Oh, I can’t stand the feel of facial hair!” She laughs and rubs his cheek, and Tahoe looks at me and gives me a smile that sends my pulse racing.
I can, I think, then I frown and push the thought aside.
“Tahoe! Did you ask Saint about my internship? I’m graduating next year.” A girl of about twenty with blonde hair and a cute sundress walks in from the living room. She glances meaningfully at her watch, as if saying her time is running out.
“I told you, you can intern with me,” he says, rumpling her hair.
She groans. “I want something challenging. Not my big brother cutting me slack.”
“Fine then, I’ll ask Carmichael. He’s the biggest asshole in business this world knows. Content?”
She hesitates, then purses her lips. “Perfectly. Don’t forget, Tahoe. I’m going to ride you on this,” she warns.
“Trust me, I’ll handle it.”
He signals at me then. “I brought a friend.”
His mother’s eyes turn round as saucers. “Oh.” She blinks. “Ohhhh, a girlfriend.”
“No,” I abruptly interject. “I mean, yes, a girl friend, but not girlfriend.”
“My brother doesn’t have girls who are friends, so you’re as rare as if you were the latter,” the sister says wryly. “Livvy,” she introduces herself.
“Gina.”
“Never brought anyone home,” I hear his father say, looking at his son with shining, hopeful eyes before he comes and hugs me.
* * *
We all sit down for dinner together.
My happiness is momentarily dulled when I compare his family to mine.
I’m relieved when T-Rex drops beside me and hands me a drink, almost as if he sensed I needed it. “Thanks,” I say with a grin.
When his mom and sister bring out the next course, Tahoe kicks my ankle, drawing my gaze to his. “You okay?” he asks. He’s staring at me knowingly, his blue eyes sharp as tacks.
“Yes. I mean…” I shrug, and I laugh ruefully. “I envy your relationship with your parents. I can tell you’re close even if you may not see each other often.”
He frowns thoughtfully, and I can see him start to get frustrated on my behalf. His lips curl in a regretful smile. “How long has it been since you saw your parents?”
“It’ll be two years this Christmas. I love them, and I know they love me. But it’s hard to be close with so much distance. So many years of scattered phone calls. Distance creates distance and then you stop wanting to get close.”
Our eyes hold in silence. He hands me his drink when he sees I’ve finished mine, and I appreciate him not giving me his opinion at all. I appreciate him listening—the fact that he asked.
I sit next to him quietly as everyone chats, and I take a sip, and he takes my fingers in his and squeezes reassuringly. “You’ve got us.”
“Damn right,” I say, imitating his drawl.
He laughs, and I laugh too, both of us staying right where we are, with his hand on mine.
Then we’re both silent, the classical music his mother chose to play in the background tonight so soothing that it seems natural not to talk. Plus he’s a guy, he seems content being silent now, squeezing my fingers between his large, callused ones.
His family notices, and because I don’t want them to think there’s anything going on, I pry my hand free and continue enjoying our dinner together.
His mom confesses that all of her friends told her he’d grow up to be a heartbreaker.
Tahoe assures her he never stays long enough to get that far.
I kick his ankles, telling him he should be ashamed of himself.
He kicks mine back and says he’s not ashamed at all.
His parents watch us with these odd, happy grins that have a hint of
sadness in them and pain. Not raw pain, the kind of pain that’s subdued, hopeful—almost healing.
I love that their idea of celebrating their anniversary was having a quiet dinner with their children.
I’m also glad we will be staying for the weekend here.
There is so much comfort in this house. Every nook is bathed by warm lamp light and books you hadn’t known you wanted to read until you spotted them. There is warmth in every corner; in the decorative throws on the couch arms; the living, breathing plants by the windows.
His parents head to bed shortly after dinner, and as I follow Tahoe upstairs, my breath catches in my throat as I look around the upstairs living room.
The room has sleek floors, white and gray marble, and huge windowed walls. I can practically see all of the Hill Country from here; white, yellow, and blue lights twinkle at us from below.
A quiet fireplace stands to my right, and to my left, a huge wall is plastered with black-and-white pictures of oil fields.
I scan the room and my eyes stop on the man who stands directly in front of me.
He looks warm. Rumpled. Strong. Hard muscles, soft skin and scruff. He has a wineglass in his hand, accounting for his wet pink lips and narrowed blue eyes.
We don’t say anything. He just nods his head to the right, gesturing for me to follow him.
He leads me down a long corridor, where I can see his room through a cracked door at the end. We stop just before his door at a room on the left.
Past the door, a big white bed with light blue accents stares back at me. Silk and cotton sheets beckon me to sleep for decades on them.
“You can sleep here then,” he rumbles. “Towels are right there, you’ve seen the living room, kitchen is downstairs—”
“Where will you be?” I hear myself ask. I regret it the moment it comes out of my mouth. I feel myself blush, and then force myself not to take it back. I force myself to stay silent until he answers.