“The card was a joke,” I lied in an even tone. “I grew up with these guys, was like their sister, sort of. Haze was always one to push buttons.” My eyes narrowed slightly as I looked at Candy. “Maybe I should set the two of you up? It’d be a match made in hell.”
I knew how bad my friend was feeling when she just gave me a weak smile with no stinging retort, but I couldn’t stand around there for that.
“I’ve got work to do. I’ll let you know when I go on a coffee run.”
“Let me,” Janet said, her voice like a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Trouble was, I didn’t need one.
“That’d be…” I went to grab my wallet, fish out some money, but she just shook her head gravely.
“On me, love.”
Oh god, kill me now. They’d finally put two and two together, coming to the same conclusion that my mum and the guys’ parents had come to—that my relationship with the pack was doomed. Which was fine because we weren’t having a relationship, and I needed to set whoever had sent those flowers straight.
It was Haze, my brain said.You know it was Haze.
You’d think the fucking smartarse incapable of a romantic gesture like that, but you’d be underestimating the man, just like everyone else did. Because those flowers? Someone had bought a huge number of peonies for Dad’s funeral, and after it was all done, I’d collected the flower arrangements set up in the chapel and brought them home, shoving them all in a big jar of water and leaving them on my desk.
“You should throw them out,” Haze had said one day as he was hanging out in my room. It was his day for Riley watch, the unofficial round-the-clock schedule the guys had set up after Dad… “They’re starting to die.”
I’d just looked up at him then, and he’d paled but didn’t apologise. He knew words made no fucking difference, so he just stared and stared, then wrapped me in the tightest hug known to man.
Deep, bone-deep positive feedback, it helped ground me in the moment, bringing me back to here and now, not in that damn chapel with the stiff simulacra of my dad lying in the coffin. Here, with him. He pressed his lips to my cheek, there and gone again, before he pulled away. But the scrape of his boyish stubble? It stayed there long after he’d flopped onto the floor, fiddling with my phone to make another playlist.
I came back to the present day with a jolt, standing dumbly in front of my office door before I unlocked it and went in, sinking down into my chair. I fired up my laptop, and as I was waiting for it, I grabbed my phone, finding the email with the contact details on it before grabbing a pen. I spun it in my fingers, around, around, then tapped it on the desk as I read through the numbers over and over. Then, with a hiss, I scribbled them onto a piece of paper and forced myself to punch them into the phone.
At the sound of the phone ringing, I felt like I was back at uni again, my heart in my throat as I rang some guy I was interested in. While I considered myself an advocate for equal rights between the genders, the actual practice of making a call to someone I had feelings for was so damn nerve-racking, I was ready to go back to the fifties every time. Right as I was about to end the call, someone picked up.
“Babe…” He was asleep still, or half so, his voice scratchy and raspy with it, but I could hear the smile there. “You got my flowers?”
“Yes, and you can’t send flowers to my office—”
“So I should send them to your house instead? Well, now that I know where you live, I can do that.”
“No, Haze,” I said, more firmly now. My teeth were locking down, and we weren’t even a minute into this conversation! “Don’t send me flowers at all.”
“So you’re more a wine and chocolates kinda girl? Gotta admit, thought I was on the money with the flowers, but maybe it was the old Riley that loved peonies. What’s grown-up Riley like?” I sucked in a breath to tell him that I didn’t want anything. “Does she like naughty gifts I can’t possibly send to your office? Lingerie and sex toys to slide into that sweet little pussy…”
Which of course brought my attention back to the crumpled up card in my hand. He kept talking, promising me a thousand dark pleasures in a voice that sounded like whiskey and sin, as I smoothed it back out.
Thanks for the explosive night, Red, it read.I can’t get your taste out of my mind, and I need more.
“The note,” I said, interrupting his flow. “Did you write it?”
“Well, it wasn’t gonna be Colt, was it?” he replied, and I could just hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. “I get it was a little forward, but I was feeling…inspired when I ordered those flowers last night.”
“Last night?” God, I was going to need to be checked out by a cardiologist, because my heart was racketing around in my chest like a frightened rabbit’s, which just brought Candy’s stupid analogy to mind. “What happened last night to make you send me flowers?”
A small grunt from him, deep, dark and self-satisfied.
“We always came into your dreams, your fantasies, back at home, but teenage Riley and teenage Haze didn’t know enough to flesh that shit out. Personally, I was just glad for that moment of connection.” All humour was gone now, replaced by a longing so frank, it took my breath away. “I’d lie there, seeing what you dreamed of, feeling the pleasure you felt while you thought about us…”
A harsh swallowing sound.
“Sometimes, it felt like the only thing that kept me fucking sane. I wanted and needed you so fucking much, and then I’d get yanked into these hot little fantasies as you played with your pussy. Made me want to run across town, kick down your door, and take over.”
I found myself shivering at his suddenly dark tone.
“That’s how we always knew you were the one. We never dreamed of Valerie or Cheryl or Cy, only you, Riley. The dads and Mum all thought it was some teenage bullshit, but when you brought me in last night? Fuck, Riley…”