Her hair fell down her back like a sheet, covering a large portion of the plum color of her shirt, and a barely there wave had set in thanks to hard work and a little sweat.
I wonder if her skin tastes salty…if her pulse will thrum slow and steady or erratic like the buzz of a hummingbird’s wing while I suck softly on the vein in her throat.
“Winnie,” I called, eager to see her reaction to me and calm the one in my pants. We’d left on pretty good terms, and I felt pretty confident that I’d scored some points with the whole aiding-in-distracting-her-kid thing.
When Winnie turned and her nostrils flared more than her eyes, I decided maybe I shouldn’t have been so eager. And yet, even in the face of her distaste or disinterest or uncertainty—or whatever it was making the whites of her eyes get bigger and the plump of her cheeks hollow out—the scales tipped so far toward needing more time with her, with them, confusion felt like a distant memory. The Winslows were apparently like chips, as I was left completely unsatisfied with just a little of them.
“Busy?” I asked. She reached up to fidget with the ends of her hair, pulling a nonexistent piece out of her face—it was clipped back at the top—and shifting her gaze to the beyond boring pattern of tile on the ground.
It took a few seconds, but eventually, her shoulders relaxed and her eyes met mine again. “Just finishing up, actually.”
Fantastic.
“Come out to dinner with me,” I told her. I figured I had a better chance that way than if I asked her. It was one of those rarely practiced truths; people said no a hell of a lot less if you didn’t present them with an easy opportunity.
She looked down the hall to her closed office door, a door I knew concealed her daughter, who waited on her mom to be done. She was probably curing cancer or answering several unsolved meteorological quandaries, but no matter the math or science, she was, indeed, waiting for her mom to finish up.
She’s just doing it with style. I smiled at the thought.
Winnie’s eyes softened slightly at the change in my face, but they didn’t lose their edge completely.
Her expressions walked such a thin line, every smile only a heartbeat away from a frown, and every glare just moments away from ecstasy. So easily manipulated, I loved to see the way her face changed, and I often found myself playing with her just to get the chance.
Knowing exactly where the conversation was about to go and wanting her company badly enough not to care, I beat her to the punch.
“Lex too. I want to take you both.” I smiled and reached out to put my hand to her jaw, but I stopped when she looked hesitant. I tugged at the very end of a clump of hair instead. “Hell, I owe her dinner after how smart she made me look today. Players and coaches, everybody thought I taught her all that information.”
Laughter creased the very corners of her eyes, and she bit her lip, shrugging one sweater-covered shoulder. It was practically a turtleneck, the cowl covering nearly every inch of skin at her throat, but my mind wandered to the skin underneath as it moved and pulled, and suddenly, it seemed like the sexiest clothing ever made. Her wardrobe had been transitioning slowly along with the turn in the temperature, and I found there wasn’t ever something Winnie used to cover her body I didn’t like—except for the very obvious obstacle it presented when I tried to catch a glimpse of a whole lot of skin.
“She taught herself all that.”
“I know.”
“On a Wednesday.”
I smiled deeper.
“In an hour.”
I thought of the way Lexi constantly dug for information and imagined being the person who most often had to supply it. “She must keep you on your toes.”
She laughed and shook her head, the tension melting right out of her shoulders as we talked about her biggest accomplishment. “She’s easy. Far more mature than most kids, and looks the other way when I have to cheat and look up the answers to her questions on Google.”
I could picture it happening: Winnie, acclaimed doctor and brilliant mind, sneaking away to find the answers to questions posed by her six-year-old.
“That’s how I learned so much about Teen,” she went on.
“Ah. The clinical penis,” I said, remembering that day nearly two weeks ago. In some ways, it seemed longer. In others, it felt like no time had passed at all. I still wanted her with an intensity I couldn’t justify, and I still knew it was a bad idea.
The only difference now was that there was no stopping, no turning back—I couldn’t have if I’d tried.
“Dinner?” I prompted again. If I dropped it, so would she. I was going to have to be like a dog with a bone this time around.
“Wes…we’re fuck enemies,” she said, surprising me. I’d honestly thought we were coming to a blatantly opposite place. Apparently, my notions weren’t anything more than romantic propaganda pushed by a misinformed heart.
“Fuck enemies?” I asked with a sardonic laugh.
“Like fuck buddies without the friendship.”
Sharpness twisted my chest and squeezed at the bluntness of her words.
It took me a few seconds longer than I would have liked to calm my racing thoughts, but eventually, I focused on my most important truth: That wasn’t how I felt.
“Win,” I said. “Truthfully?”
She nodded tentatively, unsure of what I had to say but willing to hear it. She looked like she thought it would be callous—mean, even.
“I’d have to change a thousand things over to be your enemy.” Her breath left her in a surprised whoosh. “You and I are friends.”
“Wes…” She shifted on her feet, as though maybe she weren’t so sure.
“Maybe you could hate me,” I conceded. “But I could never not like you.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said with her mouth. Not even a little, she added with her big, honest eyes, and I finally relaxed. Her talk of being enemies was just that—talk. A mechanism to distance herself from a man whose every move screamed he needed it.
But my needs currently worked in opposition to my wants, and I’d never been that good at denying myself instant and frequent gratification.
“Good,” I told her, prompting again, “Dinner?”
Uncertainty haunted the dark depths at the centers of her eyes, but the pull she felt toward me, the same magnetism that made me ask, kept her from saying no.
“Okay. But it’s a school night, and Lex—”
“We’ll go to my restaurant,” I interrupted, too busy celebrating my victory to give any consideration to the fact that it was already eight o’clock—not that it would have changed anything if I had. I had to have their company. “In and out in record time, and if she’s a picky eater, the chef will make her anything, whether it’s on the menu or not.”
“You don’t have to worry about Lex and food. She eats just about anything. I’m the pickier one between the two of us.”
Something, some feeling deep in the pit of my stomach, told me she wasn’t just talking about food. Life and experience and a hell of a long time raising her daughter alone had taught her to be selective about everyone they welcomed into their lives. And she wasn’t sure I was worthy of it yet.
Neither am I.
But I wasn’t ready to say good-bye, so I used a word I couldn’t remember consciously using in years. “Please?”
She looked surprised at the word, and though she looked beautiful, I couldn’t feel anything other than disappointment. My mother had died giving birth to me, but I still suspected she’d have been disappointed in the way I’d treated people for the last several years—and I knew my father would have.
Even though I greatly respected nearly everyone, their backgrounds and unique outlook and successes, I hardly ever showed it.
And when I had demands, I usually demanded them. Maybe I needed to stock up on honey and give up a little bit of my vinegar.
“Okay. I’ll get Lexi.”
I smiled widely. “Good.”
“But you’re buying my dessert too.”
“Hey,” I teased. “I own the place. Something tells me I can make it happen.”
Winnie and Lex had been grateful for my help in avoiding taking the labyrinth of trains they would have normally taken to get home, and I was happy to have company on a journey I normally made all on my own. Just three weeks ago, I had been convinced I was most content with the opposite.
Like I said…big ol’ bag of what the fuck.
I drove nearly silently while they chatted, Winnie mostly asking specific questions in order to get Lexi talking a little more. It’d been a busy day, and according to what I had witnessed, that was one of the times she felt the least like talking.
And I couldn’t say I blamed her. I usually didn’t feel like it either. Why everyone thought every silence needed to be filled with chatter all the goddamn time was beyond me. Some of us were content to be quiet.
Still, this was a little different.
Winnie had finally shared with me that Lex had been diagnosed as high-functioning on the autistic spectrum—through an entirely unplanned conversation during postcoital supply-closet talk. I couldn’t be sure, but it kind of seemed like she’d just needed to get it out, and I’d been happy to listen. Granted, I’d still had my hand on her breast and probably would have been content to do just about anything. But in hindsight, I really was glad I’d listened—and that she’d trusted me enough to share it with me.