When It's Right (2 page)

She cocked an eyebrow at him but bit back her reply. Sure enough, after a few more seconds of posturing, his shoulders slumped and he pushed off, turning to face her as he wiped his hands on a rag. His face was streaked with black and there were smudges on his shirt as well.

“Okay, fine.” His lips turned into a disappointed pout that melted her heart. “I admit it. This is beyond me.”

How to respond to that? Striving for neutrality, she gave him a wavering half-smile. “Should I start trying to figure out something else to do tomorrow night?”

The corner of his mouth turned down in confusion. “What do you mean? Your car got you here, didn’t it?”

He didn’t… Surely he wouldn’t. Her eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “And what makes you think it’s going to be able to make it to New York?”

“Come on, it’s not that bad.”

They both turned their heads as one, gazing at the car-shaped pile of rust currently lowering property values where it was parked on the other side of the street.

“Yes. Yes, it is that bad.”

“So it doesn’t have heated seats or power steering—”

“Or tread on the tires or brakes. The gerbils in the engine don’t work in the cold, Nate.”

He had to be kidding.

“Come on. You can’t really be ready to give up that easy?”

He wasn’t kidding.

Torn, she crossed her free arm over her chest and chewed on the lip of her travel mug. The twin feelings of excitement and dread had been warring with themselves in her gut ever since he’d brought up this crazy idea of driving to New York for New Year’s Eve. All through his explanation of his rationale, she’d been dumbstruck all right, but probably not for the reasons he assumed. Little did he know she’d already made her own resolutions—her own plans for how to get out of this rut. She chuckled to herself. Sinkhole was more like it.

Still, to hear the decisions she’d come to after so much wrestling with herself sliding out of his mouth as if they were obvious… The skitter-flash of pain across her ribs had taken her breath away. She needed to meet new people. To date. Of course she did. And she was going to, starting next year.

Because next year was going to be the year she finally gave up. It was going to be the year she got over Nate.

And masochistic as it was, a few days alone with him in a car, a night with the two of them together and drunk, in the wind and cold, amidst a million other people, sounded like a perfect last hurrah.

An aborted snort of laughter escaped her nose. When she put it that way, driving her disaster of a vehicle the whole way there was fitting, wasn’t it? She gave a dramatic sigh and shifted her gaze from the car back to Nate, finding his expression hopeful even though his eyes were wary. She pointed hers skyward. “Fine.”

“I knew I could count on you.” He balled up his rag and held his arms out, closing in for a hug.

“Uh-uh-uh.” She held up her hands in front of herself to stop him, and not just because that kind of contact, coveted as it usually was, was the last thing she needed if she planned to hold to her resolve. “Not until you clean up.”

He smirked. “You like me filthy.”

And didn’t that just give her ideas. Her stomach did a little flip. “As if.”

“Fine. Priss.”

He did a quick course correction. Draining the last of her coffee, she followed him back to the front door of his condo, catching it before it could swing closed behind him. He started peeling his shirt off while striding across the living room, just a step ahead of her. Cassie let her breath go in a whoosh.

God, the man looked good. A smooth back, lightly corded with muscle, and a trim waist from his lunchtime runs. Naked from the waist up, he wiped his face with his shirt, twisting and making all those lines up and down his spine seem to dance. He shouted her name, as if expecting her to still be outside. The sound died in his lungs when his eyes met hers, the distance between their bodies suddenly entirely too close.

For once, that seemed to register with him, too. His throat bobbed and his gaze drifted to her chest before darting back up. “Oh. Sorry. I thought…I forgot my…”

He didn’t say what he’d thought or forgot, and her mouth was too dry to make words. She held up her coffee cup, as if that explained anything.

“Right,” he said.

She found her voice. Forced out the word. “Right.”

She stepped left and he stepped left. Then right and right. Her face hot and her hands clutching, her eyes unsure of where to go, she went to get around him again when his palms settled, warm and large, on her waist. Her body burned. He should have smelled awful, like grease and sweat, in spite of the late December chill. And all of that was there all right, but it didn’t hold a candle to the deep amber scent of his skin. The heat.

Silence held for a beat too long. Their eyes did, too. A low rasp in the back of his throat sounded like a laugh, but it choked, fading into the same buzz of proximity and warmth her breath did. Lifting one palm from her waist, he made a strained half-smile and pointed down the hall. “Kitchen’s that way.”

She knew that. Just like she knew which way was up when she was this close to him.

“Right.” Forcing herself to look away, she pulled herself from the bubble he created around himself. Retreated to the kitchen.

“I’ll just be…” His voice trailed off.

“Okay.”

She waited until she heard the door swing closed again before turning the sink on, repeating to herself all the while that she was done with this. With this useless pining and this hoping for more, masquerading as simple friendship. Instead of rinsing out her mug, she rolled up her sleeves and cupped the stream in her hands. The bracing impact of water on her face helped to clear her head, but the images running through it didn’t cede an inch.

Especially when, as she replayed the last few minutes, she swore there was a look in his eyes she had never seen before. She swore she saw…hunger.

Chapter Three

Nate gritted his teeth and gripped the tennis ball at the top of Cassie’s gearshift. With more than a little force, he pumped the clutch and shoved the car into a groaning fifth gear.

Which was fine. Everything was fine. Sure, all his plans were in chaos, and that optimistic eleven-hour drive would probably be more like thirteen or fourteen with the rust pile topping out at sixty. Sure, the driver’s seat didn’t go quite far enough back and his leg was cramping and it felt like a spring was trying to shove itself into his left kidney. But it was
fine
. They were on their way, and nothing was going to sour this trip. He
needed
this. A little bit of discomfort was a small price to pay.

He let go of the tennis ball and scrubbed a hand across his face. Problem was, there wasn’t just “a little” discomfort. He snuck a peek at Cassie before shifting in his seat and directing his gaze back at the windshield.

Everything
was suddenly uncomfortable.

Back in his living room, him without his shirt, dirty and sweaty, frustrated and itching to be out of there and on the road, her looking at him like he was…sexy… They’d had a moment. The kind of moment they hadn’t had since back when they’d first met, when the will-we-won’t-we had hovered over them, hot and tangible and covering everything. The air between them was hot now. Stifling.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the crackle and pop of the in-and-out signal from the radio, racking his brain. Something had shifted between them. Something had changed. Ever since…

A tickle of a memory itched in the back of his mind. No, this tension hadn’t started when he’d broken up with Giselle. Cassie had been her same old self then. It had been a little later. A few days, maybe? Yeah… Over dinner on her couch, watching reruns together, he’d turned to her and asked her what she wanted to do that weekend. Because it was a given. He wasn’t seeing someone, so he’d spend the time with his best friend.

Only that clearly wasn’t what she’d been thinking. A shadow had crossed her face and she’d twisted away from him, picking at the label on her bottle. She’d told him she had plans.

He’d laughed it off. Of course he had. Her life didn’t revolve around him, and it was selfish anyway, wasn’t it? Bile rose in his throat. It was so selfish, assuming she’d always be there for him, ready to give him all those extra hours because he suddenly didn’t have anyone else to share them with.

The laugh had been false, though. It hadn’t been funny. Somewhere, deep beneath the nonchalance, there’d been a feeling behind his ribs, an uneasy twisting, like a premonition. A sensation that she was pulling away from him. And he didn’t like it.

Fighting the odd little ache there, he rubbed his chest. Fidgeted. Bobbed his knee up and down, only to smack it into the molded plastic beneath the dash.

“Mother—” He swallowed the remainder of his curse and bit down hard.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Reaching down, he squeezed his hand into the limited space to stroke his thumb over what would probably turn into a bruise.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive?”

He glanced over at her for just a second. He hadn’t even asked; once they’d gotten everything switched over from his car, he’d just held out his hand and she’d dropped the keys into his palm without a word. When it was just the two of them, he always drove. Besides. He cast another quick peek over at the place where she sat. It wasn’t as if her seat pushed back any farther than his did.

“Maybe later.” He doubted it, but who knew?

“I probably should, you know,” she mused. “When we get up north. North Carolinians don’t know how to drive on ice.”

He shook his head at her. She might have been born in New Jersey, but she was as much of a Southerner as he was, these days. “Says the woman who thinks sixty degrees is cold.”

Laughing, she shrugged. “Not my fault my blood’s all thinned out. But I still have skills.”

He didn’t doubt she did.

As the dull throb in his knee faded into the background, silence descended over them again, competing with the static from the radio for his total lack of attention. God, he missed the stereo in his car. Leaning forward, he fiddled with the tuner but came up with nothing but crackling banjo music, some warbling country singer and an evangelist. None of them was going to keep him going until they pushed through into civilization again.

Over on the other side of the car, Cassie’s eyes were fluttering closed. A ray of setting sunlight pierced the clouds and spilled onto her face. And in that instant, she looked so pretty, he had to force himself to return his gaze to the road. So pretty he hated to disturb her.

He did it anyway. He punched the button to turn off the noise coming out of her speakers, then reached over and poked her leg. She made a little grunting noise and sat up straighter.

He drew his hand back and settled it on the wheel. “Unless you want me to take a nap, too, you’re going to have to help keep me awake until we’re out of the mountains.” He pointed at the now-silent radio. “That thing is useless.”

“Told you we should have stayed in Charlotte,” she mumbled.

That made him frown. “What fun would that be?”

She sounded more awake now as she shifted around in her seat. “How much fun is sitting in a car all day?”

“Plenty, when it’s you and me.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Maybe things hadn't gotten off to the smoothest start, but they were going to have an amazing time, goddammit. They were off on an adventure. Together. Then doubt crept across his mind, and his jaw flexed. “Are you seriously regretting this?”

She yawned. “So far? Are you kidding me?” Their gazes met, and he watched her absorb the stricken look on his face before tearing his eyes away. When she spoke again, her tone was softer. “I mean, as awesome as it is standing around for hours watching you try to fix a car—”

“Like you didn’t enjoy yourself. You were staring at my ass the whole time.”

He was kidding. Of course he was kidding. But she wasn’t countering it, wasn’t snapping back with her own snide remark. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but inside he was panicking. Cassie didn’t see him that way. Never had. Or had she? And did he want her to?

Finally, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself.” But it didn’t sound like her heart was in it.

His wasn’t either as he snipped, “I’m not. My ass is fantastic.”

Again, silence.

The sun dipped behind a thick bank of clouds, and Nate stared forward as he gripped the wheel. How was everything going so wrong? When did things stop being easy with Cassie? They had always been easy.

“You didn’t have to come, you know.” He couldn’t stop the hurt from bubbling its way through the words.

She sighed. “I wanted to. You know that.”

“It’s hard to tell at the moment, actually.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just…I don’t know. I’ve got a lot going through my head right now.”

“Such as?” His eyebrows were high on his forehead. She hadn’t mentioned anything bothering her.

“Ugh. Nothing.”

“No, really. Tell me.”

“Seriously. Nothing.”

He didn’t believe her for a second, and he couldn’t shake the feeling this had something to do with him. He hesitated. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong? Or if you were…mad at me. Or something.”