One Last Shot (Pub Fiction #3) (20 page)

“
Power outages.
Damn it.”

And just like that, I’m left standing in the dark, all the ingredients for the Pomtinis I’d made for Kat’s and my girls’ night resting in the shaker. Thankfully, they’re ready to go, ’cause I’m gonna need one if she doesn’t get her ass here soon. The boys are away at a conference until Thursday so we decided to have a Netflix-and-drinks night.

Did I mention how much power outages, storms, and lightning freak the Oreo cookies out of me? Always have, and probably always will. My mom used to joke and say it was because I was jealous of their abilities, that I was used to being the centre of attention, and hated them because they would come along and try to take the focus off me, that they’d steal
my
thunder. Another time she’d decided that the reason I hated them so much was because they’d bring out that smelly worm air, the scent I’d complain about lingering in the air for hours after a storm. I’d laugh when she’d try to come up with all the silly reasons I hated storms so much, her distraction tactic always seemed to work. My mom was the best thunder buddy, easily comforting me during the many summer storms we’d get. Then once I moved in with Kat, she became my thunder buddy, and together we’d say, “fuck you, thunder!”

“Shit.” Slowly making my way over to the small kitchen table, I begin feeling around for my laptop, hoping I can use the light from the screen as a makeshift flashlight. I’d been printing off some stuff for Matt that I plan to give him on Sunday before I stopped to make drinks. My heart beats a little faster as I feel my way around, hating the darkness. Before finding the computer, I find Mr. Felix curled up in my vacated chair, so at least now I know I’m close.

“You holding up okay, buddy? Yeah, of course you are. Mama’s the baby in this relationship, eh?” I pet his ears, eliciting a purr. “What the heck did people do in the olden days, Felix? How ever did they survive?” I ask, bringing the laptop to life. “You game for a little match of rummage drawer roulette?” Once I find a lighter and flashlight, then I’ll be golden. I laugh, carrying the glowing computer over to the counter and resting it above the junk drawer.

“Here’s hoping I find a lighter. Of course, it’s the only drawer I haven’t sorted, eh?” I say over my shoulder to Felix as I rummage through the mess. “Got one!” I fist pump, moving to light the few candles I have in the kitchen before making my way to the living room, again using the laptop to guide my way. A deep growl of thunder rumbles overhead, shaking the china cabinet. Placing my computer on the table, I light the six or so candles I’d luckily placed decoratively around the room with shaking hands. I’m just reaching for the last candle up on the mantle when there’s a loud bang at the door.

“Jeez, it’s about time,” I whisper, a bit jolted from the sudden noise. Luckily that thunder seems to have stopped, for now anyway, leaving only the relentless tapping of rain against the roof and windows. This experience hasn’t been too bad so far; actually, I’m pretty proud of myself.

Making my way to the door, I pick up my phone from the coffee table, intent on using the Flashlight app to help with lighting as I let Kat in.

“Thank you, Team Claire goddesses, I was thinking you’d never get he—” My words are cut off by the sight of a gorgeous man who greets me instead, one I haven’t seen for two days, the very one I miss like crazy. “Matty, hi, what? What are you doing here? You’re in Niagara Falls at the convention last night and tonight; I’m seeing you tomorrow!” I blurt confused, an amused smile playing across his face at my observations.

“Hey, Sugarshack. Nah, I’m here, actually,” he says, closing and locking the door before stepping in closer. He begins loosening his red and-blue paisley tie, and I notice how hot-as-molten-lava-cakes he is wearing that suit.

Fuck, I love this man in jeans and a t-shirt, but show me Matt Bishop in a suit and I’m a messy drooling girl in need of a new pair of panties, stat! Immediately my body reacts, my panties feel damp, my hand twitches with the need to touch him all over, wondering what I’d find under that sexy man suit. Oh, I know I already know what I’d find, but my mind likes to play treasure hunt over and over again, as if it’s the first time every time. A flash of lightning and loud crack of thunder shakes me from my reverie, making me squeal, in turn causing Matt to laugh.

“Come here, baby. My plan was to surprise you sooner. I’ve been tracking the storm all day. Knowing there was a chance of power outages, I figured I should be here with you. The conference was shit, so Ryker and I decided to leave after this evening’s keynote. He was the only guy left we wanted to hear from. So I’m later than I thought, but I’m here now, and I’ll keep you safe the rest of the night.” He kisses my nose, linking his hand to mine as he walks us to the living room, the golden glow of the candles dancing warmly over his grinning face.

“Oh, well, maybe we should text Ryker. Kat is on her way over.”

“Did you check your phone lately?”

“No, why?”

“’Cause she probably texted you a while ago. Ryker called her this afternoon telling her he was coming home. Didn’t she call you? She was supposed to.”

“That little sneak, let me see,” I say, pulling the phone out of my pocket. Noticing the text alert on the home screen timed barely ten minutes ago, I swipe to read Kat’s message.

Kitty Kat:
Surprise! Have a good night. Call me tomorrow. Xx

I look up to see Matty smiling. “She’s tricky, that one,” he laughs, knowing I’m not mad at all.

I text her back.

Me:
Be safe, you’re lucky I love you!

“She’s lucky I love her, some days.” I toss the phone down, making my way into Matt’s embrace. “I’m happy it was you at the door. Thank you for coming to protect me.” I stand on my tiptoes, to kiss his soft lips. An idea takes root in my mind; I barely hide my excitement. “Why don’t you get comfy? I’ll get us a drink, and be right back,” I say, handing him the laptop off the table. “It’s fully charged and I’ve got the first season of
Vikings
downloaded. We could drink the Pomtinis I made and have a marathon, if you want?”

“Sounds perfect, baby.” He pulls his suit jacket off before taking the computer from me, resting it on the arm of the couch.

Smiling, I head to the kitchen to gather everything I need for my hero’s reward. A sexy reward I want to give him for coming to protect me tonight. There’s another flash of lightning, but the thunder is slower to follow and isn’t as loud.

I’m so fucking lucky, and I’m sure to get luckier soon.

Matt

I
watch her
retreat to the kitchen, smiling at the sway she’s got going on, one that makes my dick ache to be inside her. I don’t think she realizes how beautiful she is, especially when she’s illuminated by candlelight.

I loved surprising her like this tonight. I had to practically beg Kat not to spill the beans to Claire about us coming home early. Seeing her face light up when she saw me made skipping out on the rest of the conference worth it. I might have lied a bit about the keynote speaker being tonight, when he’s really in the morning. Truth be told, I could care less. I’ve missed holding my girl through too many storms so I wasn’t missing another, not after we just got back together. At the end of the day, I’m right where I wanna be.

Opening the laptop, I quickly run my fingers over the trackpad and bring it to life, intent on finding the video per her request. Then my eyes stop and my pulse accelerates with what I see on the screen: it’s open to her Gmail account.

My heart begins to jackhammer in my chest, my face heats up, my ears echo my heart’s rioting beats as I read a few of the lines she’s written, and my mouth feels like I’ve swallowed sand, it’s so dry. I don’t think I could speak right now if I tried. My eyes scan the page, reading the date of the message she’s left open. It’s in the form of a letter and it’s one addressed to me.

“What the fuck, it’s from over a year ago? I never got this,” I mumble, completely confused. I quickly read the whole note—it’s about how she found a cat and named it Felix, just like my cat when I was a kid. The information makes me smile. I never made the connection when she introduced me to Felix the other night when I brought her home after she’d barged into my office, the same Felix who has just crawled onto my lap and is purring like crazy, rubbing his head against Claire’s computer screen. I guess I’d had other things on my mind, and it’s not like she divulged that information then, either.

Looking up to make sure she isn’t coming in, I take the opportunity to look around a bit more. I notice that the email I’m looking at is in the drafts section of her mail, which makes sense because I never had an email from her in the whole two years she was gone. Moving back to the main drafts folder, I see more emails; there are a whole lot of emails, in fact, and they’re all addressed to me. What the hell all this is or means is beyond me, but I’ll tell you one thing, it makes me really fucking excited. It means all this time she thought of me after all, wanted to talk to me, but didn’t. I want to scream in relief, in triumph, but I don’t.
What should I do with this knowledge?

Just as I’m about to get up to go find her, I feel her presence. I look up to see that the candlelight is again illuminating her, but this time it’s casting a low glow on a beautiful but tear-stricken face. She knows.

“Baby.” I stand, moving Felix and tossing the computer aside on the couch.

“No.” It’s a murmur. “It’s okay. I’m relieved actually. I realized, just now, as I was coming back in: I left my Gmail open on the computer.” She bites her bottom lip.

It’s only then I notice that she’s wearing nothing but a red bra and matching panties, a martini shaker resting against her thigh. I take her in, as she stands there contemplating her next move. I’m not gonna lie, the view is a spectacular one.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, I’m in front of her in one fluid motion. My hand moves to her cheek, hoping to ease her, the other removes the icy shaker from her side and places it on the table. That only serves to free her hands to try to cover herself, which was not my intention at all. I get it, she’s feeling stripped bare.

“No.” I remove her hands from her chest, kissing each before letting them go. “No more hiding.” Reaching for my waist, I start to pull at my shirt, needing to bare myself to her, too. I untuck it from inside my dress pants before unbuttoning it and tossing it into a heap at the side of the room. Toeing my socks off, I kick them over to join my shirt before loosening my belt, then pulling off and discarding my pants, leaving me face-to-face with Claire in nothing but my boxers.

“Now we’re even,” I say, moving in closer, touching her small frame with my larger one. “It’s time we bare all, my sweet girl,” I say.

She gasps: “I love you Matty, so much. I hope you know that.”

Her words strike me, matching the flash of lighting that’s illuminating the room. Closing my eyes, I revel in the power behind the conviction with which she’s spoken.

“I know that, baby. I really, really fucking know it. I feel it. I feel it so much. Especially now, standing with you like this and…after seeing what I saw tonight.”

“Matty,” she cries, reaching her arms around my neck. Again, there’s that feeling that she’s trying to anchor herself to me. Emotion clogs my throat, making it hard to swallow.

“I love you too, Sugarshack. Waiting for this moment has been worth it. You’ve always been worth it. I’m not me without you, baby. Wanna tell me about them?” I whisper into her hair.

“I wrote you,” she says quietly, like it’s not a life-altering admission that changes everything I thought about our roles up until now. As if knowing that I wasn’t the only one pining and waiting isn’t mind blasting, and not only vindicates—but validates—why I could never seem to shake this girl. It’s because I was never meant to.

“I saw that,” I chuckle, and she shrugs, pulling her head back to look up at me.

“I wrote you a lot. I talked to you as if you were home with me. I missed you so much, but I couldn’t be who I needed to be for you. I wrote so I wouldn’t call you.”

“Jesus, Claire, all that time? Why didn’t you send them? Two years I waited to hear from you. Not the Kat-version I’d get when I finally drove her crazy enough to tell me, either. I would have loved the Claire Herself-version. Damn, I want to know everything—”

“I was scared,” she cuts me off, “I needed an outlet, a way to share my life with you, but not with you. You know? I guess I figured this way you couldn’t hurt me. You couldn’t leave me behind. I just didn’t realize how much we were both hurting anyway, regardless of what I thought.”

“Thank fuck you’ve come to your senses,” I smile, dropping my forehead to hers, trying to lighten the mood. I know this is tough for her. I’ve never seen Claire so exposed. I want to make her see that I’m right here along with her. I want her to keep going. The desire to fire question after question is killing me, but I need to let her take the lead.

Thankfully, she keeps talking. Opening up to me, offering a glimpse to her thought process. She jumps as a roll of thunder brings a fresh wave of heavy rain along with it. I softly rub my hands up and down her arms hoping to both comfort her and encourage her to keep talking. “We’re alright, I’m here.”

She nods, giving me a small smile. “I didn’t realize how often I was writing. Turns out I was doing it almost everyday, until one day I got a message from Google telling me I’d reached my maximum storage allowance, that I’d need to either pay for more or delete things. That’s when I realized there were so many, hundreds. So I paid for the bigger account, because there was no way I could risk losing them; they were like my safety blanket. I read them over and over, hovering over the send bottom so many times, but I never could muster the nerve to hit it. But one day I will. One day I promise I’ll share them all with you, Matty. I will. Not today, though,” she smiles, pulling me closer again, burrowing into my chest.

I’m so overcome with her revelations that I honestly can’t think of what to say. What I really want to do is take her back to her room and slip inside her, the need to make love to her is incredible.