Hooked #4 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 4) (4 page)

I nodded quickly, leaping up and placing my wine on
the table before me. I grabbed the hammer and swept toward the steps with Drew
laughing at my heels. We went down to the library floor, where we could see so
much of the city. I brought my hammer up high into the air and rammed the great
beast into the wall, creating a large hole. I laughed, feeling the energy from
the blow course up and down my arms. I blinked toward Drew, beside me, shocked
at what I’d just done. “What—
“ I
called, laughing.

“Again!
Again!”
Drew shouted.

And so I hit it again, allowing another part of the
wall to fall. On the other side, I could see an old alarm clock and
slumped-over bed. I crashed again and again, already feeling weary from the
weight of the hammer. After a few more swings, I handed the hammer to Drew. He
grabbed it, thanking me, and then burst it through the adjoining wall, bringing
it crashing down. We were eliminating a room; we were forming an open arena for
a beautiful life, a beautiful house. I placed my hand over my mouth, imagining
Drew living here for many, many years—perhaps with children, with a wife. I bit
my lip, trying not to imagine me in the mix. We weren’t even boyfriend and
girlfriend. I was just his fuck buddy. His fuck buddy who was helping him
re-decorate
the walls of his home.

Finally, the room was complete. I allowed myself to
fall to the floor, the hammer in my hands. It was almost too heavy to pick up
at this point. Drew shook his head, laughing at me. “I’m going to go get some
more to drink,” he called to me as he sauntered down the hallway.
“And how about pizza?
You like pizza?”

“You know we live in Chicago, right?” I called back,
feeling sassy—feeling like my old self. The person I’d lost so long ago.

I stood up and peered out at the world, hearing Drew
down the hall as he walked down the steps toward the kitchen. It was nearly
nine-thirty in the evening on this work night, and I didn’t care at all. I was
going with the flow. I was spirited, to the wind.

I looked at my phone for a moment, finding a message
from
Rhetta
, the old woman who’d been at the class
that day.
“Great job, lady.
We’re happy to have you
back. You keep us young.” I bit my lip reading it.

I did a small pirouette in the window as I heard
Drew come back down the hall, carrying two fresh glasses of wine. “Well, well.
I think I just caught somebody dancing.”

“You saw nothing,” I answered him, teasing. I
grabbed my wine glass and did a few more pirouettes, walking back toward the
bedroom. “No spills,” I winked at him.

Finally we were back upstairs, splayed over his
couch. The wine was flowing; our conversation was easy, subtle. We talked about
everything. I told him that although I was sad to see my old dance studio go, I
was very much getting used to the new one. “I don’t know when I’ll have time to
really go through all the reparations that must be done. But I will,” I spoke
lightly. I was so confident, talking to him. It was
like
I wasn’t my usual self.

The pizza guy was soon at the door. Drew rushed down
the steps and grabbed the deep-dish, delivering the boy a hefty tip. He brought
the pizza back with forks and knives, and we dove into the deliciousness of
it—into the shining cheese, the pepperoni. Our conversation kept going, me
speaking between cheese bites.
 

Drew spoke about how he missed New York only
sometimes; that Chicago already felt like home. In many ways, he felt like
himself here. I wondered, peering at him, if he had ever shown me his true
self. Surely, he wasn’t a man who owned a Porsche. He wasn’t some asshole who
slept with multiple women, all at the same time. Rather, he was a man with
passion, with drive. He knew what he wanted, and he got it. I had to respect
that about him.

I rested my head on his shoulder as we spoke, after
I laid my pizza back down, half-finished; I felt my eyelids fluttering. I tried
hard to stay awake, to stay with him. But I felt myself falling away. He rubbed
at my shoulders, allowing me to comprehend that it was all right, that I could
let go. We didn’t have to have sex, I suddenly understood, for him to want me
around
. We were friends. We were more than
friends
. What that meant, I didn’t know. I didn’t really
care, either.

We fell asleep, there: he watching the second
Godfather and me snoring lightly on his shoulder. (He never said anything about
the snoring, I just suspected.) We woke up in the morning around four, with the
television blaring, with our heads together, and we crawled back to the bed,
wrapping ourselves in the blankets. We slept on another five hours, until the
Chicago sunlight came coursing in through the skylight. I sighed into his
chest, feeling happier than I’d been in my entire life. I felt, in a way, free.

CHAPTER
FOUR

The next morning around nine I woke up, blinking
wildly. I turned toward Drew, who had his shirt off, his body splayed out like
a wild
child’s
. I rubbed his chest, kissing his
muscled shoulders. “Hey, baby.”

He blinked, as well, trying to catch my gaze. He
smiled and pulled himself up, wrapping his arms around me. “What do you want to
do this morning?” he asked mid-yawn. “How did you sleep?”

“Good,” I murmured. I felt so grand, even with the
fact that we hadn’t had sex the evening before. We’d gotten to know each other
on an intimate level; we’d gotten to understand each other beyond the realms of
our naked bodies.

Drew reached his hand down to the ground and found
his phone. “I’m starving,” he declared, rubbing at his stomach. I turned,
finding that the pizza from the previous evening had been cleared, as had the
wine glasses. I wondered what sort of housecleaning elves he had around here. I
wondered if they questioned who I was; if I was one of many.

“Yes, Hector? Hi. Yes.
Me and the
lady
would really love some breakfast. Yes. If you could deliver it—yes.
That would be grand.” Drew nodded into the phone, playing with my hair
intimately as he spoke. “Twenty minutes sounds perfect. See you then.”

I stretched my arms around his neck and kissed him
on the mouth playfully, feeling the heat off his body. “Who was that?”

“Hector, of course.
My head
kitchen guy.
He thinks the kitchen’s a mess, of course. But he’s going
to prepare us something anyway. He’s Mexican, and he keeps walking around the
kitchen, complaining about the grossness of it. He’s used to much better back
in New York. He keeps complaining in Spanish, thinking I can’t understand. It’s
hilarious.” Drew started laughing, allowing his stomach to pump up and down. I
laughed with him, watching as his eyes closed.
He seemed
really, truly happy.

Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door.
Drew rose, allowing me to stay in my small t-shirt beneath the covers. I smiled
at the young women who brought up the food. The kitchen helpers, Drew told me
later. They were Hector’s daughters, in their mid-twenties, like me. “Hello,” I
said. They gave me only small waves back.

The spread was immaculate.
Small
breakfast sausages, muffins, eggs, fruits.
Mimosas had been poured, of
course. I rubbed my hands together and leaned toward the platter, smelling
its
wonderful, savory and sweet flavors. “They really go
all out, don’t they? I don’t know how you don’t weigh a thousand pounds.”

Drew patted at his stomach, grinning at me. “Just
wait a few weeks. I think Hector’s trying to fatten me up. He wants me to have
a wife, you see. So he can make more and more food. He says he’s bored with
cooking just for me. I fired him after he said that, but he knew I was just
joking. He’ll never leave me.” Drew sliced the sausage with his fork and knife
and bit into it ravenously. I loved his passion, his appetite for everything.

“Okay.
So.
What’s on the
docket for today?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “I actually have to get to
work,” he said. “Probably should swing by there around noon.”

“Ah,” I felt that familiar pang in my heart. He
would take the route to my old dance studio, and yet he would see a monstrosity
at the other end.

“What about you?” Drew asked, changing the subject.
“You have anything special planned?”

“I might head to my new studio, actually.
Start fixing things up.
I’d love to have more dance classes
in the studio, build up a bit more money.”

Drew nodded. His eyes seemed distracted. “You could
ask my good old aunt to come help you?”

“Actually, she’s on mommy duty. Jackson’s sick.”

“Babies are always sick. This is another one of
Hector’s sayings, not mine,” Drew said, taking a bite of his muffin and smiling
at me.

“You aren’t into the baby thing, are you?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Are you?”

I shook my head. “I’m too young to think of it. I
mean, I can hardly remember to feed my cat.”

Drew laughed. “I’d like to meet your cat,
officially. He seems like a ragamuffin.”

“That he is,” I nodded. I took another bite, chewing
soundlessly. I’d been a lot hungrier than I thought.

“Where’d you get him?”

“I actually got him after I dumped my college
boyfriend,” I laughed.

“Ah.
That asshole.
The lazy one?”

My eyes widened before I remembered that I
had, in fact, told
Drew all about Kevin. I nodded. “Indeed.
Boomer was supposed to be like—my replacement I guess.”

“Did he get the job done?”

I shrugged. “He was good company.
Kept
my feet warm.”

“And what more could you want in a man?”

Drew brought himself up from the bed and began
dressing quickly. He grabbed a black shirt and began buttoning it professionally,
eyeing me. “Stay in bed as long as you want. I know you’ve had a really hard
past month or so, and a lot of that’s because of me. I want you to relax as
long as possible, okay? Just stay in bed. Watch some television. Maybe they’re
on Godfather Part III by now, if you’re lucky.” He leaned down toward me and
placed a kiss on my lips, making me feel such passion deep in me. I wanted him.
I hadn’t had him in what seemed like so long.

And then, after he pulled on his pants, his tidy
shiny shoes, he was gone. It all happened in an instant.

I leaned back in his cozy blankets, in his pillows,
and felt like I was in a sort of igloo of comfort. I felt the compassion in his
voice, even then, about what had happened the past month or so. I couldn’t care
anymore. I was right where I was meant to be.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Mid-afternoon, I crawled from the bed and got
dressed. I sauntered down the steps and saw the spectacular mess we’d made the
evening before with the sledgehammer. Bits of the wall had splattered all over
the floor. A single man, dressed as a butler, was sweeping next to the wall. He
gave me a cordial hello as I flew past him, embarrassed.

When I arrived downstairs, I smelled the most spectacular
scents emanating from the kitchen. I stepped toward there, wondering if Drew
had come home for lunch without telling me. But on the inside of the kitchen,
there were ten or so people, all of them whirling around hot stoves and boiling
pots of water. I brought my hands to my face as I realized they were cooking
enough food for a king.

At the helm, a stocky Mexican man spoke to them in
succinct Spanish. The people before him—some of them Mexican, others Indian, white,
black, and every other nationality in between—stared up at him, unblinking.
They followed his orders precisely. They slapped hundreds of broad tortillas on
the table before them and began creating burritos, stacking them high in the
air with beef, vegetables, and cheese. My stomach started to grumble. Why were
they making a hundred burritos?

I leaned too close to the swinging door and I felt
myself fall forward, into the air of the kitchen. Nobody looked toward me
except Hector, the head chef. His eyebrows narrowed at me. I flipped back my
blonde hair nervously, knowing I’d just walked in where I didn’t belong.

“What you doing here, Miss? We have very important
operations here in the kitchen,” Hector spouted, using his stout legs to carry
him toward me.

“I’m—I’m sorry—“

“You are looking for Master Thompson, no?”

“Of course not.
No. I just. I know Drew left this morning—“

Hector’s eyes grew wide with the realization.
“Ah-HA!” he laughed. He clapped his hand in front of his chest with authority.
“I know who you
is
. Drew told me you’d be here. But
I—I completely forgot!” He waved his hand in front of his forehead and rolled
his eyes, “You must understand. This is our busiest day. Master Thompson has
instructed us to make one hundred burritos for the food drive downtown. We have
to make them all by three in the afternoon, and then we have to deliver them.”

I was shocked. “You’re making all of these for the
food drive?”