Good for You (27 page)

Chapter 48

REID

Dori is facing away, standing in the center of a room so similar to that first room we painted together that we could have been transported back in time. She’s humming while examining the spec sheet and wearing the same familiar shorts and construction boots with her faded M.A.D.D. tshirt. Ponytailed, her hair hangs down the center of her back. Buckets of paint and painting implements are spread across the tarp in the center of the room.

Everything would be déjà vu except for this—I know how soft her hair feels when I push my fingers through it, and how it looks loose around her shoulders or flowing over my pil ow while she sleeps. I know her scent, like something sweet and edible, an observation I whispered months ago when I wanted nothing more than to make her shiver from wanting me. I know her muscular shoulders and arms, her soft breasts. I know the feel of the tiny silver ring in her navel, its single heart-shaped charm brushing against the tip of my tongue. I know the firm curve of her waist, the smooth flare of her hip, the taste of her mouth. I know the feel of her losing control against me and trusting me to catch her when she comes apart.

Even stil , there’s more to this complex girl, and the physical craving I feel for her is merely an index to the rest of it. I know her patience, her kindness, her inherent desire to leave the world a better place than she found it. I’ve felt her forgiveness, her strength, and her ability to see something good in anyone. The whole of her is overwhelming, and the fact that I may have found her only to lose her scares the hel out of me.

Having sensed my presence in the room behind her, she raises her head from the paperwork in her hands. Turning slowly, her eyes connect with mine and widen, and she blinks in disbelief. My heart slams against my ribs, daring me to close the distance between us.

“Hey, boss,” I say. We’re standing ten feet apart and I want to know if she’s experiencing the same gravitational pul towards me that I’m feeling towards her. Her eyes are black from this distance, and I stare at her lips, her ears, her hands that stil hold the specs—they’re shaking. That tremor is for me, though I know better than to feel infal ible because of it.

“Reid?” Her voice almost undoes me, speaking my name. I have this injudicious urge to do whatever the present-day equivalent is of grabbing her up, tossing her over my shoulder and finding a cave to make her mine. My hands clench and she notices.

“I heard you need an experienced painter in here.” I lower my chin and stare into her eyes. “And I think I’m your man.” Her breath catches as I move closer. “Just so you know—I don’t believe in going halfway. I won’t quit until the job’s been performed to your complete satisfaction.” Her lower lip trembles and she sucks it into her mouth just enough to catch it with her teeth. “What then?” she asks. “When everything is done?”

Careful y, I touch my fingers under her chin and her lips open, her breath hitching again as she looks up at me.

“Then I start over, yeah? No such thing as ‘done.’” Her eyes slide down and she steps back, and I drop my hand. “Y-you can paint this room, and I’l do the other.”

“Whatever you want,” I say, and she nods and leaves the room at an almost-run. When she’s gone I release a pent-up breath.

Round One, tied? This is going to kil me.

***

Two photographers and a reporter from
People
have been assigned to this goodwil story. The public loves to see celebs acting like regular, generous people (who remain natural y beautiful while performing charitable acts, of course). Fans don’t see the schedule interruptions we impose on said charitable project due to our lighting prep and rearrangement, or the makeup crew, or the video camera getting a few short takes for the online mag. The positive side is less paparazzi outside, since sanctioned photographers al owed up close—with an authorized story

—trump any photo someone could nab from a distance, even with the finest in telephoto lenses at their disposal.

Just before lunch break, I’m alone and wondering if Dori wil be the one to retrieve me when my costar appears in wil be the one to retrieve me when my costar appears in the doorway. “Hey, sexy,” Chelsea says, slinking across the room in her white shorts and cherry red tank, her hair in a messy updo, cascading perfectly around her flawless face.

“Ooh, look at you!” She turns a little pirouette mid-room, admiring my work. “You’re harboring some wicked DIY

skil s behind that pretty face and those buff biceps. Who’d have thought?”

“Who indeed,” I say, automatical y posing for the cameraman who fol owed her in—ful awareness of which side I’m presenting, al wide smiles and exaggerated laughter. I'm looking at Chelsea and not the camera, like we’re alone in the room. We do a few shots with me recreating rol ing mint green paint on a wal , though I’ve already finished the first coat, including the patching, priming and cutting in top and bottom. There’s not so much as a swipe of green on the ceiling or the floorboards, either.

As though I invoked her, Dori stands in the doorway the next time I glance up, taking in the room, the cameraman, the fact that Chelsea is hamming it up, holding a brush tipped in green paint and pretending to dab it on my nose. I take Chelsea’s wrist and move the paintbrush away as Dori whirls and disappears. I cal her name, but she’s gone.

Chelsea takes al of this in with wide green eyes and I rol mine when she says, “Is that
the
Dori?” And then I squint at her. “Wait. How do you know

—
Chad
. Dammit, Chelsea. What the hel happened to attorney-client privilege?”

“He didn’t say a thing to me, I swear!” She holds up one hand and pantomimes placing the other on a bible. “I just, you know, see things on his desk occasional y…” Her fingers wrap around my arm and she whispers frantical y.

“Reid, please don’t tel him. Oh, God, I would be in
so
much trouble. I swear I haven’t told anyone anything and he’s not discussed a
thing
with me.”

I sigh and examine her face. Chelsea is a girl who absorbs gossip. She loves it but doesn’t spread it unless it’s common knowledge. “
Fine
. But leave it alone.” She locks her lips and tosses an invisible key behind her, nodding.

“Come on, gossip girl, let’s go find your husband and get something to eat.”

*** *** ***

Dori

Every time I convince myself I’l never see Reid again, he turns up. Roberta straightens every item on her desk and avoids my gaze while pretending she’d forgotten that Reid was one of the celeb volunteers. The two red spots on her cheeks beg to differ. “And anyway,” her brows crinkle, “I was under the impression you two were friendly.” Now it’s my turn to be visibly flustered, and with my darned ears ful y exposed, too. What can I say?
My parents
don’t want me dating a Hollywood heartthrob who’ll just
use and discard me
, or how about
I told him I couldn’t see
him anymore and he couldn’t comply fast enough, and
now I haven’t seen him in a month and I didn’t think I’d
ever have to be this near him again
.

When I continue to stand there, silent and disconcerted, she misinterprets my uneasiness as repulsion. “We’l find you a different project to work on. They’l only be here this week. You can come back next week. I’l just cal —”

“No, I’l be fine.” She thinks I dislike Reid, when nothing could be further from the truth.

When I saw him this morning, I wanted to run across the room and throw my arms around him and not let go. I wanted to tel him I would take whatever he could give me, however long it lasts. That’s when I recal ed the Janis Joplin quote Deb taped to her bedroom mirror years ago:
Don’t
compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got
.

And then he said, “Hey boss.” So glib and casual and over whatever had been there between us. Whatever I’d imagined was there. The other stuff, the flirting, that was just classic Reid—sexy and effortlessly seductive. And replicated with his stunning costar ten minutes ago.

Maybe I
should
switch projects. Be smart and bolt while I can.

“He’s got enough experience to be given specific tasks, so you won’t have to supervise him or even be near him,” Roberta says.

Fighting the urge to tel her she’s got it al backwards, I nod and slip out back to get something to eat. I don’t look around the yard for him, and don’t intend to remain outside any longer than it takes to gather lunch and go back inside.

As luck would have it, what I grab is a bowl of fruit and an iced tea, and my ears go hot remembering the first time Reid tried to kiss me, when I shoved him away. I’m Reid tried to kiss me, when I shoved him away. I’m conscious of someone speaking nearby, hearing the name before I’m ful y paying attention. “…Chad Roberts, and despite my good looks, I’m not an actor. I’m just Chelsea’s husband.”

Frank laughs in response. “That is not a position to be taken lightly, young man. That girl is a firecracker.”

“Oh, don’t I know it!” They both laugh.

My head is spinning.

Chad Roberts.

Chelsea Radin’s husband.

The same name of the attorney in charge of Deb’s trust.

***

“Mr. Roberts? Could I speak with you a moment, please?”

“Certainly.” He seems genial, and he
is
good-looking.

I’ve had a hard time catching him separated from Chelsea’s side. He and his actress wife are obviously friends with Reid, and I’ve concluded that what I thought was flirting between Reid and Chelsea earlier was just the two of them play-acting for the photo shoot
People
is doing that wil benefit both Habitat and the opening weekend of their movie.

Jealousy is an unpleasant, alien sensation.

We walk a few feet from the demolition site—Chad has been helping Frank take down a dilapidated shed in the back yard. “This may be an odd question, but by any chance… are you an attorney?”

“Yes, I am.” He gives me a perplexed look. “Do you need legal assistance?”

This is too bizarre to be coincidence. “No. Maybe. Um.

Do you work for Barnes, Bancroft and Cole?” He pul s the work gloves from his hands and takes the water bottle I hand him. “Yes, I do.”

I take a deep breath as al the dots connect. This has to link to Reid. There’s no other explanation.

After a long drink, he peers at me. “What is this in relation—”

“There’s a trust that you administer, I think. It’s for Deborah Cantrel ?”

His eyes flick towards the house, where Reid is, then right back to me, like he realizes he’s giving something away. “Um, yes, that’s true.”

“I want to know who’s funding it.”

Swal owing, he frowns. “Look, Ms…?”

“Cantrel . Dori Cantrel .”

His eyes widen and understanding dawns. “
Oh
. You’re her sister, I assume?”

I nod and he purses his lips, laying a hand on my arm.

“While I can certainly appreciate your wanting to know that information, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.” I glance towards the house. Reid is inside, assisting with the kitchen demolition. Has he told his attorney not to tel me anything? And if so, why? “How can that be? I’m her
family
. I have a right to know.”

His look is placating, which makes me want to scream. “I understand your feelings, Ms. Cantrel , I assure you. And there are copious details of the trust that I
can
divulge, if you’d like. In fact, I’d encourage you to come by my office you’d like. In fact, I’d encourage you to come by my office sometime next week perhaps so we can discuss those details—but the identity of the donor is restricted information.”

“How is that possible?” I know I’m not going to get anything from him, and my frustration mounts higher with every composed rebuff he offers.

“Our client wishes to remain anonymous.”

“But…
why
?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

Reid exits the back door, glances around and catches sight of us speaking. “Can’t, or
won’t
?” I ask while staring at Reid, who hasn’t moved. Chad fol ows my gaze and sighs, compressing his lips again—a perfect analogy for the fact that I won’t get anything further out of him.

I don’t know what game this is, including the questionable twist of fate that put Reid on my Habitat project
again
. His eyes shift from his attorney to me and he remains frozen at the door. Did he think I wouldn’t research that trust, wonder where it came from and who was behind it? I’m torn between intense gratitude for what he’s done for Deb and crushing terror of how easily it could end. And then I do the only thing I can do with this jumble of information.

I turn and leave.

Chapter 49

REID

Wearing the same bewildered expression she wore this morning when she turned and I was there, and with the same tone of voice, she says, “Reid?” from the opposite side of the stil -closed screen door, making no move to open it. Her dog stands next to her, staring at me with—I swear—its eyebrows knit in aggravation. “What are you doing here?”

I want to be exasperated with her, angry even, but I can’t.

What comes out is the thing that built and ran through my head al day, but without the fire. Like al that’s left of me are these smoky whispered words before I dissipate and blow away. “I’ve come to ask how you do it. How you feel what I know you’re feeling and then walk away like that.”

“How do you know what I feel?” she returns, but she can’t be angry either. There’s surrender in her tone, and I focus on nothing but the hum of it, threading through her armored words to find me.

“Open the door, Dori.”

She shakes her head slightly.

“Are you alone?” I ask and she nods, and I tel her again,

“Open the door.”

She reaches towards the inner handle and pauses. “Did you do it? The private room for Deb?” I nod once. “Why?” My hands bracket the doorframe and it’s al I can do not to fal to my knees, standing here looking at her and knowing that this is it, this is my one shot and there may not be another. She’s strong and she’s stubborn, and if I can’t get her to admit how she feels, she’l be lost to me. “Dori, open the door. Please. And I’l explain whatever you want me to.”

Her fingers brush over the lock and it clicks, but she doesn’t move to push the screen door open, so I do. I step inside and let it close behind me, and our eyes link as I reach back and blindly shut the solid door, too, and turn the bolt. “Come here,” I say, reaching for her, and she sways towards me, bracing her smal hands on my chest. Keeping me at arm’s length, in the most literal sense.

“Why? Why?” she asks, and I’m struggling to comprehend how this could threaten her.

“Why did I do it? Because I love you. There’s no other motive—I real y am that simple.”

Holy shit
. I just told her I love her. There’s no going back.

Nothing to do but own it. But there’s the crux of the matter—

I want to own it.

Her eyes are ful and her mouth trembles. “What do you mean, you
love
me? And what about when you stop? What then? What happens to my sister then?”

My hands are at her shoulders, tracing her arms and cupping her elbows as they bend to my need for her. “I think
love
is a fairly self-explanatory emotion. And I don’t plan to stop. But there’s no stipulation. The trust Chad set up for your sister is life-long and has nothing to do with what I feel, or what you do—or don’t do. It can’t be annul ed, if that’s what worries you.”

She starts to cry, tears running slowly down her face.

“Everything worries me. How can you love me? I’m—I’m nobody.”

“How could I
not
love you?” I insist. “No one has ever affected me like you do. When you told me goodbye last month, I tried to let you go. I told myself it was the best thing for you because you wanted it. But you’re wrong, Dori. I’m good for you even if you don’t know it yet. I know because I’ve never
been
good for anyone before.” I fight to keep the pressure of my hands on her relaxed and control ed. “You al but lost your sister, and fought through a loss of faith that would destroy most people, and you didn’t fal to pieces.

You manned up when your parents needed you. But just because you’re strong and resilient doesn’t mean you never need someone to be there for you, to take care of you.” I grip her elbows. “You needed me that night at the club.”

She swal ows. “I did. I did need you. But I can’t be that helpless somebody-save-me type of girl—”

“You’re
not
helpless. In fact you’re the most maddeningly self-reliant girl I’ve ever known—”

“How is that maddening?” she cries, pul ing her elbows from my grip and wrapping her arms around herself.

“Because you won’t let yourself need me,” I say, the words echoing in my ears like the battle-cry of the co-dependent. “Both of us are so good at resisting being control ed, or having any control over someone else, that we don’t know how to need and be needed. Last summer, I let myself believe I could get past what I felt for you, not because what I felt was insignificant, but because
I always
have
. I don’t linger over relationships. Hel , I don’t
have
relationships. I didn’t realize until I saw you in that club that I was no closer to getting over you than I’d been the last time I’d seen you, three months before.”

I lower my voice and step closer, narrowing the gap between us. “I’ve changed since I’ve known you. Not because you made me into someone else—but because you showed me a path I’d never paid attention to, and I chose to fol ow it. And yes, I’ve asked myself over and over
can it be that easy to just choose to be a better man? Can
it be that fucking easy?
”

She flinches and I take her hands from where they have her opposite elbows in a death grip, pry them loose gently until our fingers intertwine. “I’l be more careful with that word. I’m not trivializing this.” She raises her eyes, wide and dark and wet. “I know exactly what I’m saying. I’l wait, if I have to wait. I’l do whatever it takes. But I want you, and wil continue to want you, and I should warn you—I don’t see it ending. I’m al in, Dori. And I won’t be holding back this time.”

I’ve laid my heart in front of her like an offering. I’ve made my case and rested it. There’s nothing more to say. We stare at each other, both so silent that I hear her dog’s nails tap arthritical y across the floor to a large oval cushion where it flops down and regards us both with a sigh. Our hands are locked between us, and hope is there between us, too, because she isn’t pul ing away.

Pushing up onto her toes, she presses her lips to my chin and along my jaw. I release her hands to grab her up, wrapping my arms around her while her arms twist around my neck and her fingers shove into my hair. “Reid,” she gasps, her dark eyes on mine. “I do… want you.” My hands slide over her hips and when I lift her, she wraps her legs around my waist and fuses her lips to mine. I moan into her mouth and she responds in kind.

I stride to the stairs and go up, releasing the bottled up need in one long, breathless kiss. I can’t get enough of her.

“Where?” I say when we get to the top. She points down the hal , and I obey, no sounds but the greedy hum from her throat and mine, our mouths working in perfect concert, and the thump of my decisive steps on the ancient floor.

I lurch into her room—watery blue wal s and fish swimming in a school across the ceiling and
nothing
out of place. Kicking the door shut behind me, I move to her bed and press her down on it. There’s no contemplation or circumspection because she’s pul ing at my shirt and kissing me harder than she ever has and we’re frantic, like it’s been years since we touched each other. Yanking buttons through buttonholes and stretching fabrics and unzipping zippers is al done in the few seconds in between kisses when we come up for air, because al I want to do in this moment is worship her with my eyes, hands and mouth.

Trailing her nails down my back, she arches into me, stil ing the breath in my lungs. She protests when I pul back, but grows mesmerized as my fingers slip over and around and under and through, and I fol ow the path with my lips and tongue. I kiss her stomach, flick the bel y ring with the nail of my index finger, and she gasps.

“Please,” she whispers, and because of what has just occurred to me I’m thinking
godfuckingdammit
but have enough sense not to say this aloud.

“Dori… as much as I seemed like a man on a mission when I showed up here, I didn’t plan for… I didn’t think…” I rest my forehead against her ribcage. “I don’t have a condom,” I confess.

“There are some in my bag,” she says, so quietly that I barely hear her. I glance up in surprise and her ears go pink. She’s lying alongside me wearing nothing but her cotton panties and she’s mortified that she has condoms in her purse?

“Oh?” I say, reaching to unloop the strap of her huge, familiar bag from the headboard where it’s hooked over the smooth post cap.

“Aimee and Kayla—the quack shack on campus was handing them out last week. They grabbed like a year’s supply and insisted I take some.”

I thrust my hand into her bag and root around amongst al manner of odds and ends, hearing the crinkle of square cel ophane packets when my fingers brush them. I grin, arching a brow. “There’ve got to be at least a dozen in here.” I drop a handful onto her bedside table, watching as the blush spreads to her face and descends down her neck. Her heart hammering beneath my palm, I kiss her.

“They’l be put to good use, I promise.” My voice is heavy and predatory, and she shivers under my hand.

I remove the last bits of clothing from us both, stroking and kissing her slowly and deeply until I can’t hold back any longer. Rol ing onto my back, I lift her on top and tel her that she’s in charge—this time.

*** *** ***

Dori

“I should probably ask when your parents are returning,” he murmurs into my ear. I can’t believe he can stil make me bury my face in his neck after what we’ve done, but apparently my sense of propriety survived intact. “Because I
will
win them over eventual y, and I assume I’d be starting at less than zero if the moment they realize I’m back is the same moment they walk in on me satisfying the hel out of their daughter. For the third or fourth time.” He’s lying on his side, propped on one elbow and tracing patterns across my skin. The sunlight flooding my room when we began has filtered to the ruddy, muted light of sunset.

My fingernails rasp across the light stubble on his chin and his eyes close. “Have I satisfied
you
?” I whisper, and he growls and kisses me.

“
No
. I think I’l need consistent access to you for some interminable amount of time to even begin to get ful of you.” His touch feathers across my bel y and climbs upward.

“My parents are on a couples’ retreat. They won’t be back until Sunday.”

His fingers halt at the lower point of my sternum and he crooks an eyebrow. “Please say you aren’t teasing me.” I turn my head back and forth against the pil ow and he kisses me hard and deep. “Can I stay the night? Is that al owed?”

I trace the line of his nose and one eyebrow and he leans into my hand and closes his eyes. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t approve, and it’s their house. Of course, they wouldn’t approve of this, either.”

He nods, opens his eyes. “I’m wil ing to do this however you need, with one exception.” I frown, my mind a riot of possibilities until he rol s his eyes. “The
exception
is I’m not going away. Don’t ask me to do that ever again.”

“Are you sure?” I say, ever doubting him. It isn’t fair, how I doubt him, and I wonder if he’l gather that my loss of faith extends further than I’d ever known it would, severing lines of trust and leveling my confidence like a city-flattening tornado. I’l be rebuilding a belief system from scratch over the next few months, maybe years, and it won’t be easy. Or pleasant.

“I’ve never been this sure of anything.” His serious demeanor is broken when my stomach rumbles as though I’ve forgotten to eat for days. His smile turns up on one side. “Except possibly that I’d better feed you. Let’s go out.”

“Out, where people can see us?”

“You might as wel get used to being Reid Alexander’s girlfriend.” He laughs at the look on my face. “Oh, come on.

It can’t be
that
bad.” He pul s the sheet over our heads, straddling me in the darkness. “Fine, we’l order in. One more day’s reprieve to keep me a secret. Any longer and I’l think you’re ashamed of me.”

Some rough, vulnerable edge to his voice tel s me this statement isn’t as offhand as it sounds.

“I don’t want to be
Reid Alexander’s
girlfriend,” I say, and his smile fades. I reach up and frame his face with my hands, the heartbreaking need there so exposed that my eyes sting with tears. “I want to be
your
girlfriend. As long as you’re who you are right now, with me, I wil
never
be ashamed of you.”

“Are you sure?” He echoes my earlier question, his dark blue eyes locked on mine.

“I’ve never been this sure of anything,” I say.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my wonderful critique partners Elizabeth Reyes, Carrie Sul ivan and Jody Sparks. Each of you chal enges me to continue honing my craft by being as liberal with the criticism as you are with the praise. Thank you for both. Through every step of the process, and while slaving over your own projects, you’ve been encouraging and inspiring. I couldn’t have done this without you.

To my beta-readers—Ami Kel er, Robin Deeslie, Hannah Webber, Zachary Webber, Alyssa Crenshaw, Lori Norris, and Joy Graham—thank you for being wil ing to trudge through the manuscript in rough draft form. Your comments and suggestions were fantastic, and the feedback was crucial.

To my BFF Kim Nguyen-Hart, you’re the reason I stepped out onto the indie-publishing wire at al . If you hadn’t given me a love-fil ed shove, I might never have done it. Hugs forever.

To my copy editor, Stephanie Lott (aka Bibliophile): you’re the best safety net ever. Thank you for the time spent on multiple read-throughs, for your determination to make what I write appear as close to perfect as is possible, and for the discussions of what, exactly, constitutes irony.

Thanks to Zachary, Hannah and Keith, for never tel ing me to shut up when my characters take over my every waking thought, and I can’t stop talking about them. Ditto Mom, who excels at confidence-building, and Dad, whose patience is endless.

Thank you Paul, for everything. I adore you, and I hope you never, ever doubt it.

Final y, as always, thank you to every reader who reads the stories I’m compel ed to tel . I love and appreciate your enthusiasm and support.