Two Week Seduction (17 page)

“I was going to call a cab. You’re supposed to be home sick, remember?”

She flashed him an irritated look. “I think I can risk it. You’re not taking a cab.”

He relented with a nod. Damn it, for two people who had just had a night and morning of explosive sex, things had gotten really awkward, really fast. So, she rushed into her bedroom and dressed. Five minutes later, she grabbed her keys and was walking with him toward her car.

“Um…” How to ask this without appearing pathetic? “Am I going to see you this afternoon?”

He opened her car door for her, stepping back to let her get in. Sweet. If only it didn’t feel like the worst morning-after ever.

“I don’t know how bad my sister’s car problem is. And I still haven’t finished painting at Mom’s.”

A brush-off then. Okay. Would she still be able to drive while her heart was breaking into pieces? “But what about later? I still haven’t made you my lasagna.”

He had gotten into his seat and snapped the seatbelt in place. “I don’t know my schedule. Let me text you.”

She swallowed, her vision suddenly swimming. She’d told the man she loved him, told him the whole story behind her tattoo, and now he couldn’t even meet her for dinner.

“Okay,” she said. “Whatever works.”

He touched her cheek. A gentle press of his fingers while she fought to hold back the tears. “Hey, I want to, okay? I just don’t have a lot of time on leave and there are things I’ve promised my family I’d do.”

Right. His leave. He was going back to Afghanistan.

“Sure,” she said.

“Alea, damn it, look at me.”

She did. And when she turned to face him, his thumb brushed across a tear that had slipped free. His expression shifted to pained, and when he spoke, his words were excruciatingly gentle.

“I don’t do things quickly, Alea. I need to think about things.”

“Sure. I get it.” She so did
not
get it, but she wasn’t about to grovel.

“No,” he said, “you don’t. But I just can’t change my whole life so fast. Not without catching my breath first.”

“I know—”

“Damn it, Alea, I’ve only been home for a week. This whole thing between us…it’s been a week.”

He was right. From his perspective, it had only been a week. From hers, she’d been carrying his torch for ten years.

She swallowed, took a deep breath to steady herself, then nodded. If there was one thing teaching had burned into her brain, it was that some things took time. No matter how she pushed, no matter how much she wanted it, some things just took their own sweet time.

And sometimes they never happened at all.

“I get it John. Really, I do. Take all the time you need.”

“But I want to see you again.”

“I know.” Please, God, let it be the truth. It wasn’t exactly that she doubted his earnestness, but with John, she never knew where she stood. And she hated that, especially since her feelings were so blindingly clear.

He sighed and opened his mouth. But in that moment, his phone rang. He cursed, but made no move to answer it. But the damn thing just kept ringing.

“Isn’t that your mother’s ring tone?” she asked.

“It’s my only ring tone, but you’re right. It might be her.”

“It’s okay. Answer it.” Then for emphasis, she started the motor. A second later, she was driving while he popped open his phone.

“Hello?” Silence. “I said I’m coming, but— Yeah, okay.”

Probably his sister again. He never took that tone with his mother.

“I got it, Jean. Bye.” He thumbed the phone off and shoved it back into his pants.

“More sisterly demands?”

“She’s out of milk. Needs me to pick some up.”

She blinked. “Seriously? She wants you to do her grocery shopping?”

“This from the woman who jumps every time her mother calls.”

Good point. “Well, you jump when your mother calls, too.”

“That’s because my mother never calls without a good reason, whereas your mother—”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it. So we’re both led around by our families.”

This time he was the one to break the silence. He did it first with a touch. He laid his hand over hers on the seat. His palm was calloused, and a finger had obviously been broken at least once, but he still completely enveloped her. And in the awkward silence of her car, it was as big as a hug.

“I’ll text you later. I want that lasagna.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“But there’s something I want you to think about.”

She swallowed. What now?

“You’ve asked me to give up my whole life. Quit the military, come home to you, and…and I don’t know what.”

“The usual stuff. Work a job, have a life.” Have me.

“Yeah. All that. But what are
you
going to do?”

She frowned. She would have looked at him, but she was busy taking the freeway exit to the school. “Work a job, have a life. Be with you.”

“What about law school?”

Oh yeah. That, too.

“You say you want me, Alea.”

“I do want you. I love you!”

“So you keep saying. But what if…what if you’re running to me because you can’t decide about law school?”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Doesn’t it? I keep thinking about you in the bar that night playing pool. Thigh-high boots, leather skirt, badass attitude.”

“Yeah?”

“And then there’s the you with your mother. Simple skirt, silk blouse, and pearls.”

“I’ve never worn pearls in my life.”

He frowned. “You could have. It would have matched.”

She huffed out a breath as she steered her way through the parking lot toward his motorcycle. “So? Mom hates it when I wear leather.”

“I’d bet money she’s never seen you in leather or those boots.”

He had her there. But she still didn’t see his point. “There’s no upside to antagonizing my mother.”

He nodded, but his gaze was steady on her as she put the car in park. “The thing is I keep wondering—which one is the real you?”

“They’re both me. Why do I have to be one or the other?”

He shrugged. “Maybe you can be, but—”

“What?” Her voice was sharp. He was poking into some pretty sensitive topics. Law school
and
her mother.

“Do you really love me? Or am I just one last rebellion against your parents before you buckle down and go to law school?”

She stared at him, her jaw slack. “I can’t believe you think that.”

He held her gaze an uncomfortable amount of time. “You’ve asked me to give up my whole life—”

“God, stay in the military if that’s what you want. I take it all back. I’m not asking for a single thing from you.”

But he kept talking as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I need to know if it’s real. If what you said is real.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do anything more to convince you, John. You either believe or you don’t.”

She saw the truth of her words hit him. It came as a slow compression of his face. His eyes flickered down for a moment, and his lips tightened before settling into his customary blank expression.

And then his phone buzzed again.

This time, she was the one who cursed.

He thumbed it off without even looking at it.

“So, I’ll…um…see you tonight. For lasagna?”

She nodded. “Sure. I’ll have it ready by six, but it can reheat if you need to take more time with your sister.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

And then nothing.

He just looked at her while she scrutinized him. Neither of them moved forward for a kiss.

A moment later, he sighed. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

“Yeah.”

He popped open the door and got out of the car. She watched him pull on his helmet, settle down on his bike, and then look at her for another long moment.

She mustered a smile for him. She couldn’t see through his helmet if he gave her one back, but he did raise his hand before starting the engine. And then a moment later, he roared out of the parking lot.

Five minutes later, she was on the freeway heading for the grocery store to buy what she needed for the lasagna.

Four hours after that, he called to cancel. His sister’s car was a disaster and he had to fix things before she went to work in the morning.

By midnight, she’d eaten her way through a quart of ice cream and a two-pound bag of peanut M&Ms. Didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around the pillow he’d used. Or from crying into her own.

Chapter Seventeen

Alea spent the day distracted. It wasn’t just wondering what he was doing. It was the other thing he’d said. The thing about law school.

So as soon as school was done, she went home by way of a Starbucks to get a fortifying latte. By the time she walked in her front door, she’d decided it was time to grow up. And even if it wasn’t, the deadline to respond to the schools was looming. She needed to make some decisions about her future. And that meant pulling out acceptance packages and sorting through them.

She didn’t have to make a full decision today, but she had to start. That was all she could face at the moment—a start. So she whipped up a batch of muffins as a way to delay even further, and while they were baking in the oven, she grabbed the first envelope off the top of the pile.

And her heart sank to her toes.

Every word, every picture, and even the scholarship offers, made her feel more and more disgusted. She didn’t even need to open the next package before she realized the truth—John was right. She didn’t want to go to law school. In fact, she couldn’t really remember why she’d applied.

Actually, that was a lie. She’d applied because that’s what her family did. They became lawyers. Growing up, the question had never been—what do you want to do with your life? It had always been—what type of law are you going to practice? The only reason Sam had escaped was because he was a terrible writer. Plus, the moment he’d seen the movie
Top Gun
, he hadn’t wanted to do anything else. It was be a pilot or die. She even got him a T-shirt with that written on it—Fly or Die. And yet it had still taken years of table arguments and family pressure before he’d escaped. And only then after his promise to look into JAG.

She hadn’t been so lucky. She was a great communicator and had no interest in the military except to ogle their Men Of calendars every year. She never told anyone she pretended every photo was of John. So she’d delayed law school by doing Teach for America, but in the end, she’d caved. Just like she always did when the family pressure got to be too much.

What had she said to John? Nothing’s gained by antagonizing her mother. Nothing, of course, but her own life, her own destiny, her own choice of career.

Well, hell.

The oven dinged and she pulled the muffins out. Then she stood over them, waiting for them to cool while she sucked on her burned fingers and glared at the envelopes. She’d been telling herself for months now that she had to be mature. She had to think things through instead of going with her gut. That, in fact, had been how she’d convinced herself to apply to law school in the first place. She’d made up a spreadsheet listing all the pros and cons starting with the increase in income and ending with the good things she could do as a family lawyer. Even then, she’d known she wanted to work with kids.

But when she thought about that future, she saw herself tutoring struggling students. She also remembered all the times a kid had come to her with family problems or school problems or life problems. She didn’t see herself in court arguing for guardianship. She saw herself in a classroom.

Which meant her pro and con list was total bull. She was someone who led with her gut, who made decisions based on a feeling. Any attempts to think things through ended up with her spending thousands of hours and dollars applying to schools that she didn’t want to go to.

That was over. Unless… Her mind spun with all the logical arguments the other way.

God, changing the path of a lifetime was hard. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed her phone and speed-dialed John. He answered immediately. She could tell from the connection that he was driving. Hopefully that meant he was coming home, but she didn’t pry. Instead, she told him what she was thinking. She talked every part of it through. And he listened.

He never argued, never tried to persuade her. He just listened and occasionally asked a pertinent question. God, it was liberating to find her way through this with him. And by the time she’d made her choice, she knew she loved him even more.

“That’s it,” she finally said. “I’m turning them all down.”

“You sure?” he asked.

She searched her heart for any doubts. None whatsoever. “Absolutely positively.”

There was a moment’s hesitation on the line. “You’re not doing this for me, are you? Don’t do it for me—”

“John, you and I are an entirely different question, which I’m not going to talk about now. Not over the phone. But this is about me and my future. It’s what I want and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Don’t apologize.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “It shouldn’t be about me.”

But part of her wanted it to be. Part of her wanted all of her major decisions to include him. She didn’t say that though. Instead, she told him to a wait a second as she flipped on her computer. And then, while he was on the phone with her, she sent emails to every single school thanking them for their interest, but turning them down.

And by the time she was done, she felt lighter and freer than she had in her entire life. In fact, she felt so good she put the muffins away. “You know what I’m going to do?” she asked John.

“I’m dying to know.”

“I’m going to go out for a walk.”

“A walk?”

“A power walk. A get outside and breathe the humid air walk. I might even get myself a dog.”

She heard him choke on his laugh. “A dog?”

“Don’t you like dogs?”

“I love dogs, but are you sure you want one?”

She nodded even though he couldn’t see her. “I’ve never had a pet because Mom hated all the fur that got everywhere. But I don’t live with my mother anymore. And I want a pet.”