The Fortunate Ones

  “I’m more of a paint-by-numbers kind of guy.”

  I laugh at the absurdity of that statement. “Yeah, right. I’ll make sure to bring you one the next time I see you.”

  He smiles and crosses his arms, leaning back against the counter on the other side of the island. I take in the black lounge pants and Caltech t-shirt he changed into. The dark gray material looks like it’s been washed a million times, soft and worn. His feet are bare, which is adorable in its own right.

  Then it hits me, like a stiff punch to the gut—I AM IN JAMES ASHWOOD’S HOUSE. I’m in his kitchen, hanging out, and he feels so comfortable he’s not even wearing socks!

  Maybe he’s noticed that I’ve gone silent, but he doesn’t try to coax me out of it. It’s infuriating, how comfortable he is in his own skin. I’m squirming on his barstool with a bourbon-soaked sleeve, sifting through lame topics of conversation until I land on one that is probably inappropriate, but interesting nonetheless.

  I decide to lead into it slowly, so I don’t spook him and his bare feet—and no, I don’t have a weird foot fetish. Except, maybe I do…he does have nice feet…

  “What’s on your mind?” he asks.

  Your stupid feet.

  “Oh, um, I was actually wondering about your last girlfriend? Someone told me she had a drug problem or something?”

  Well, so much for leading into it slowly.

  He sighs, like the subject still weighs heavily on him. “I’m guessing you mean Rebecca?”

  Shouldn’t he know who his last girlfriend was?

  “Um, I guess so? Pretty blonde?”

  “Yeah, that’s Rebecca. We weren’t anything serious.”

  Silence follows, which means if I want answers, I’m going to have to ask the questions outright.

  “And she was into drugs?”

  He clears his throat and stalls, clearly irritated by the topic. “Among other things.” He’s focused on a point just over my shoulder, and maybe I should take his closed-off demeanor as a sign to change the subject, but I’m interested. I want to know if he’s truly single or if he has a druggie ex-girlfriend who keeps him up at night. “It was a hard time. Rebecca and I weren’t together long, but those few weeks happened to coincide with her downward spiral. When we first started dating, I didn’t even realize she was using.”

  “Wow.”

  “She’s doing well now. Last I heard, she was in California at a rehab facility.” He frowns and drags his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I’m coming off callous about the whole thing, but I hardly knew her. She was my date for a few public functions. I never even brought her here.”

  My heart is a drum during a Dave Grohl solo—THUMP KICK POUND THUMP KICK POUND.

  “So you only bring certain women here?” I ask, probing just a liiiiittttle further.

  His eyes meet mine, and I’m surprised to find a hint of amusement there. “As you can see, it’s not some big prize. In fact, I think you might be the only woman I’ve ever brought here.”

  SWOON.

  “Because you’re embarrassed by your red plastic cups?” I quip, because I’m incapable of enduring an intimate moment without making a joke.

  His focus shifts to his stack of disposable cups and then back to me. “Well, most of the time they invite me back to their place.”

  REVERSE SWOON. Of course. I hadn’t even considered that.

  “Oh. So none of the women you’ve been involved with have asked to come here?”

  “In my line of work, you get pretty good at saying no. I’m not into the idea of someone moving in and spending a bunch of money decorating a place I hardly spend time in.”

  I grin. “So you just leave it empty. You’re either a much simpler creature than I thought you were, or you’re deeply troubled.”

  “Probably a little of both. What about you?”

  I lean back on the barstool, as if I’m trying to put distance between myself and whatever question he’s about to ask.

  “What about me?”

  “You mentioned a boyfriend a few weeks ago. Are you still seeing him?”

  “Seeing him? Yes. He lives at the co-op with me. Dating him? No.”

  My focus is pinned on the countertop, so I can’t tell if he smiles when he says, “Thanks for the clarification.”

  Then I remember something that will amuse him even more.

  “You know, he was actually at the window the night you picked me up for that party.”

  His brows rise in surprise. “So he saw you in that dress?”

  My cheeks flush. “No. I had the coat on, remember?”

  He nods, and I swear I see him replaying that night in his head. I wonder if he remembers the dress like I do. The feel of it against my skin is hard to forget, even when I want nothing more than to put that entire night behind me.

  I shift on my barstool and wince when my tank top brushes across the seatbelt burn on my chest.

  “Oh shit,” he says, pushing off the counter. “I can’t believe I just remembered. Do you want something for the pain?”

  I glance down at my chest and am surprised at how angry and raw the scratches look around my tank top. Under my gaze, the skin seems to throb even more. “Yeah, I guess so. It wasn’t hurting too much until I looked down at it.”

  He tells me to stay put, and I do. I learned my lesson last time, and I don’t think he’d buy it if I said I was searching for a bathroom a second time. He comes back quickly with a small, rattling bottle of Tylenol. I expect him to hand it over, but instead, he fills a small glass of water and doles out two pills into the palm of my hand. His hand grips mine to keep it steady so the pills don’t fall onto the ground. It’s something you’d do for a child, but I don’t mind him touching me, and I don’t mind how close he is now compared to earlier. He was standing half a kitchen away from me, but now we’d be toe to toe if I weren’t sitting on the stool.

  When I’m finished taking the medicine, he takes the glass and sets it on the countertop. Even though he’s done playing nurse, he doesn’t move away. His attention is on my chest, and I will my breathing to slow down when he reaches out gently, brushing his fingertip across my skin, just barely touching the edge of the wound.

  “How badly does it hurt?” he asks. “One to ten.”

  My breath catches in my throat when his fingertips brush across my collarbone.

  Does what hurt? Him touching me?

  It burns.

  I shake my head, aware that it doesn’t really answer his question, but it’s the best I can do right now. I don’t trust my voice with words.

  His fingers brush higher, up near my shoulder, and they light a fire beneath them. My stomach squeezes tight, and my chest is rising and falling so fast it feels like I’m spiraling through the car accident all over again.

  It would be different if his touch was hard and deep, but this thing he’s doing feels more like torture. The light drag of fingertips across my skin means I can’t control the goose bumps or the shiver that rolls down my spine.

  Every nerve ending in my body is focused on his movements, on where they might go.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “It’ll leave a bruise, I’m sure.”

  He seems pissed by the notion and drops his hand, turning away to drop my glass in the sink. In the blink of an eye, the atmosphere in his kitchen has shifted. There’s enough pressure brewing in the space to kick-start a hurricane. I can’t stand the awkwardness, and I consider trying to bring the conversation back to the pleasant topics from earlier, but it seems futile. Besides, who am I kidding? I am currently equal parts hot and bothered, all because James platonically stroked my clavicle. It’s embarrassing, and my opaque cloud of emotions suddenly crystallizes into an intense urge to flee. I’m afraid to find out just how much sway James has over my libido.

  Best to not overstay my welcome, I think in a desperate attempt to rationalize my feelings. We all have that one friend who’s the last to leave
the party, ignoring the fact that you’re cleaning up in your pajamas. It’s not like James invited me back to his place at the end of a sexy date. He is definitely not trying to seduce me. He probably just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to drop dead of a brain hemorrhage.

  I slide off the stool and clear my throat, lest any residual hormones try to make me sound like a lust-filled schoolgirl.

  “I should probably get going.”

  He glances back at me, his eyes matching the stormy atmosphere. “What?”

  “I don’t want to keep you.”

  “Keep me?”

  I nod. “Yeah, you know…” I glance around. “Like you said, if I stay too long, I might start decorating!”

  That makes him smile again, and his smile is worse than the storm clouds.

  “Let me take you home at least,” he says, moving around the island, presumably to get his shoes.

  “It’s okay, I can just ride my—”

  Shit.

  I completely forgot about my bike. I didn’t remember to grab it from James’ car before the tow truck driver drove off, but it’s just as well. Last I saw, it looked like it’d been folded into an origami swan. The repair job would likely cost more than a new bike.

  He frowns, presumably thinking the same thing I am.

  “Did that bike have any sentimental value?”

  Sentimental value? Well no, other than being my only means of transportation.

  “No.” I shrug, trying to play it off. “Like most of the inanimate objects in my life, it was a fixer-upper I found on Craigslist. It probably would have crapped out in the next few months anyway.”

  His handsome face is a mask of disapproval.

  “Good thing there’s Uber, right?” I add with a weak smile.

  He nods and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “That’s probably for the best.”

  I want to know what he means, and usually I would bite my tongue, but he’s requested an Uber for me and I’m about to leave. No doubt another few weeks will go by before I get to see him again, so I bite the bullet.

  “Why is it for the best?”

  He looks up at me from beneath his brows. “You know why.”

  His response is an arrow to my heart.

  “I don’t, actually.”

  “We’re fooling ourselves here, Brooke.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  He leans forward and props his hands on the counter. His head falls and his gaze is focused down at his bare feet. It takes him a second to collect his thoughts, but when he does, he glances back up and asks me with a stiff tone, “What do you want out of the next five or ten years?”

  Easy. “I want to find another job teaching French or Spanish. I want to travel and see as much of the world as I can. I lived in Europe after college for a few years, and I might want to try that again.”

  I think my answer will make him happy, but his smile, half twisted in sadness, proves me wrong.

  “That’s great. I want those things for you too, but I want to be honest about what I want. I’m sick of serial dating, sick of living out of an empty house I don’t want to come home to at the end of the day.”

  “Okay, and what does this have to do with—”

  “I want a wife and a family, and I want it soon.”

  His words coil around my neck like a noose.

  “A wife?” I clarify with a squeaky lilt to my tone.

  “And kids.”

  “Doesn’t that sound a little too, I dunno—forward?”

  He laughs and pushes off the counter. “I’m not proposing marriage, but I’ve gotten to where I am today by looking into the future. In five years, you want to be traveling the world. I want to be married and settled down.”

  My voice is barely a whisper when I reply, “So what are you asking?”

  “It’s obvious that we’re attracted to one another, but we have to be realistic, don’t you agree? The math just doesn’t work.”

  He looks down at his phone, and I can tell from his furrowed brow that my Uber must have arrived.

  Oookay, it’s time to go. I gather my purse from the counter and laugh, realizing something.

  “You know, you played this all wrong,” I quip.

  He looks back up, curious about the shift in my tone.

  “You’re right, there is an attraction. We were supposed to fool around for a few months, ignore reality for as long as possible, and then have this discussion after a nasty blowout. Things should have gotten messy and complicated.”

  He chuckles and shakes his head. “I don’t want to rob you of your 20s.”

  “Well this way you’re robbing me of a few months of what would undoubtedly be really good sex.”

  “Is that right?” His scorching gaze nearly makes me regret my joke. “Is it too late to choose door number three?”

  My mouth goes dry and before I can embarrass myself any further, I turn toward the front door. We walk alongside one another like two well-adjusted adults who don’t tumble into bed just because it would feel really good. We look toward the future and plan our lives accordingly. I’ve never regretted acting responsibly so much in my life.

  “You know you have it easy, really,” I say, peering up at him as we walk. “There must be thousands of women in Austin ready to ovulate at the mention of a five-year family plan.”

  He arches his brow. “Do you know of any?”

  My stomach drops. We’re joking around, but still, the thought of setting him up with someone else isn’t funny yet. I refuse to drop the cool-girl act though, so I force a laugh.

  “Maybe you should just post a job opening through your business—or better yet, make a Tinder account. Slap on a photo with you wearing a suit, maybe link to this address, and make sure to mention that annoying little dimple that appears when you really think something is funny.”

  His gaze is hot on the side of my face when he replies. “Thanks for the advice.”

  A car honks out front.

  It’s time to leave.

  “Thanks for the ride. Sorry about your car.”

  He smiles. “Thanks for the talk. Sorry about your bike.”

  “Is that what it was? A talk? It felt more like a therapy session.”

  “If that’s how you feel, you should come back for another appointment, lie down on my couch…”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I’ll see you at the club,” I counter, taking one last look at him as he holds the front door open for me.

  Though, for sanity’s sake, I hope I don’t.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

  The question snaps me out of my brief reverie and I straighten in my chair, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles out of my skirt. It’s the second time someone has asked me that recently, and my answer is the same.

  “Ideally, I’d like a long-term position with a family either here in the States or somewhere abroad.”

  The woman sitting across from me —Mrs. Lancing—smiles and glances back down at her clipboard. She’s been interviewing me for the last 30 minutes, making her way down what I presume is a list of a million and one questions. We’ve gone through the gritty details about my resume and experience. I recounted the work with my last family, careful to leave out the irksome details of my departure. Still, Mrs. Lancing is curious.

  “Was there any reason that position didn’t work for you?”

  I smile sweetly, trying hard to keep my focus on her and not the large mounted moose behind her head. Their entire house is filled with animal carcasses, mainly deer heads and elk antlers. On the way to the sitting room where we’re conducting the interview, I had to walk past a taxidermied black bear twice my size. Apparently Mr. Lancing is a big game hunter, a masculine hobby I can only assume helps him compensate for a particular anatomical shortcoming.

  I swear the moose’s eyes follow me when I shift in my seat and reply, “Not at all. I loved Sophie—my student—and I had a very professional r
elationship with her mother, Ms. Bannon.”

  She sets her clipboard down on her lap. “Then why aren’t you still working there?”

  I swallow hard. “Ms. Bannon asked me to leave. She felt there was no longer a need for—”

  Her smile falls. “You were terminated.”

  “Well…yes. I was fired, but not for reasons on my end.”

  Her eyes narrow.

  “If you call Beatrice at the agency, she can fill you in on all the details—”

  “Of course. I’ll give her a call.” She smiles, just to save face, and then she stands, signaling the end of the interview. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Ms. Davenport.”

  I stand and shake her hand, fully aware that I will not be getting the job all thanks to that five letter word: F-I-R-E-D.

  She offers to show me the way out, but I tell her I’m fine on my own. I can’t stand another minute of small talk, especially if she’s not even going to offer me the job at the end of it. I’m frustrated that another potential position fell through my fingers because of this bizarre black mark on my record—although, would I really want to work for a family crazy enough to fill their house with dead animals? Stop killing bears, you psychos.

  Outside, the bike I borrowed from one of my roommates sits on the sidewalk waiting for me. The neighborhood where the Lancings live is so nice that I didn’t even bother locking it up. Unfortunately, it’s also about a 30-minute bike ride from where I live, and worse, it’s hilly. I had to wear nice clothes for my interview, and while I strip off my blazer and stuff it in my purse, I’m still left in my skirt and blouse. At least I thought ahead and packed tennis shoes.

  I know I could call an Uber and save myself from biking home in a Texas sauna, but money is tight at the moment. I’m trying to save up as much as I can, just in case I never find another tutoring position, not to mention the fact that I need a new bike since my old one was turned into an aluminum pretzel. I’m assuming it’s beyond repair, as I haven’t spoken to James since the night of the accident. One week and two days, but who’s counting? I figure he would have reached out if there were any part of my bike worth salvaging.