I laughed at the appalled look on his face.
“We’re turning into women. Those women,” he said, glancing down the hallway, “are ruining us.”
“I’m not a woman. I still have my freedom. Now you, on the other hand, are fucked.”
“You’re fucked, too, asshole. It’s not like you’re out getting strange pussy. Just marry her and get it over with.”
I shook my head in frustration. “I ask her all the time. And she always says,‘Not today.’”
“Want me to talk to her for ya?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
“I’ve always said you’d need me one day. Maybe now’s the time.” Cane’s trademark cockiness was written all over his face. “Yeah. Let the guy that knows what he’s doing help out.”
I rolled my eyes and walked to the kitchen, tossing my cup in the trash. “I don’t know what I need to fix this shit, butit’s not you.” I watch Cane toss his bottle in the trash. “She’s it for me, Alexander. She’s the one. I just need her to see it.”
Cane grabbed my shoulder as he walked towards the island. He leaned against it, crossing his arms in front of him. “She sees it or she wouldn’t still be with you. Maybe she wants you to get on one knee and all that bullshit.”
“If I go doin’ that, she’s gone. There’s no way she won’t run. I just...” I looked out the window at the leaves swaying with the breeze. “I need to figure out what she’s so scared of. That’s the key. And then change her perception.”
TWO
KARI
I spritzed my brush with coconut body spray and ran it through my hair. I pulled it through slowly, hoping for the calming effect the motion used to have on me as a little girl. My mom used to brush my hair and Jada’s before bed every night. She’d spritz our long locks with strawberry-scented detangling spray and tell us stories while she worked out the knots. Sometimes they would be funny stories, sometimes she’d recite poems or retell nursery rhymes, sometimes Aesop’s fables. It became one of those things that soothed a part of my soul. It was that effect I was looking for while standing in Max’s bathroom, dragging the brush down my hair.
It never came.
I set my brush on the vanity. My things were strewn across the countertop like they belonged there. My red toothbrush was in the jar by the sink, right next to Max’s green one. My toothpaste was next to his because I hated his mint-flavored brand and he wasn’t a fan of my cinnamon one. I glanced at the medicine cabinet, knowing that my Tylenol and tampons were in there, too.
I grabbed the edge of the counter and bowed my head. Lying in bed a few steps away was a man that many women would jump allover—literally and figuratively. He was gorgeous, smart, completely put together. And he wanted me.
And I’m just too broken for him.
A part of me wanted to grab my things and bolt back to my house, the house I refused to give up. It was the one thing that reminded me, and Max, that I had not given him any assurances. I had not promised him forever. Truth be told, I hadn’t guaranteed him tomorrow.
When I looked into his eyes, I knew that he knew I wanted to be with him—tomorrow and the next day and the next one after that. But there was no sense in committing myself. There was no sense in pretending like there would be a forever with Max.
Because, as heartbreaking as it was, there wouldn’t be.
There couldn’t be.
That’s why it was supposed to be just a sexual thing. Just a friends with benefits, minus the friend’s part, if necessary. I really thought that could work. It had worked with other men before him. It was the best way to operate, the way to disengage, to keep a distance. To not become entwined.
At the end of the day, or night as it were, I really underestimated the draw of Maxwell Jacob Quinn.
A few weeks after meeting him in a serendipitous way at Pinnacle Peak, I realized I wasn’t talking to any other guys. I wasn’t taking the bait when a hottie would toss me a line. I wasn’t returning calls. I wasn’t scheduling dates, for a lack of a better, more courteous, word.
I waswithMax.
Once I realized how far I had fallen without knowing it, I knew I had to keep some sort of barrier up. He was gorgeous with his jet-black hair, spiked up in the front. His emerald-green eyes shone like gems. His tall, muscular frame was as hard as a brick wall and when I was held tight against it, breathing in the smell of him, it was a grown woman’s version of Disneyland—the happiest place on Earth. He was irresistible.
But I had to resist because it would end. It wouldn’t be fair to him for it not to.
I wondered if every morning would be the last I would wake up to a sticky note on my purse. If every evening would be the last time we’d play Jeopardy together, wrapped up together on the couch. Each day was like the tick of a bomb, another click to the inevitable detonation of this perfect little world I’d allowed myself to succumb to.
Max had been so patient with me, so kind, like he knew I needed to maintain space between us. He’d never pushed me for anything and let me call the shots, more or less. But now that we had been together for over a year and Cane and Jada were married and having a baby, things were starting to change just a little. I could see it in Max’s eyes—he wanted that, too.
