K. Bromberg: Slow Burn

“It’s pretty cool working for myself.” I shrug, glad he’s keeping this casual and trying to avoid any awkwardness. “I have a couple events coming up with that company Scandalous that bought some of the older nightclubs around town to revamp them. They hired me to do the promotion for the reopenings, and if they like how things turn out, they’ll retain me as their premier promotion company.”

“So, you’ll have a high-profile client that will attract other clients. Nice,” he says, drawing out the last word and absently nodding his head.

“I haven’t clinched the deal yet. This chick doesn’t count her chickens.”

He snorts out a laugh. “Well, you should start counting because we both know it’ll be a success just because it’s you .”

A part of me is pleased he thinks so favorably of me, even after last night. He flicks on the blinker and glances over at me, before looking back to the highway in front of him.

“So what’s your story?”

I furrow my brows as I stare at him, thinking the question odd since we’ve known each other more than a year, but then I realize in all that time, aside from superficial questions, Becks and I have never spoken about our pasts, how we got where we are. And then it bugs me because I can’t figure out why he’s asking me. I mean this is supposed to be casual, so we shouldn’t weigh it down with any history.

“Becks,” I sigh out his name. “Look, I appreciate you trying to make this situation so it’s not awkward, but we don’t have to do the whole ‘twenty questions about your past’ thing.”

He chuckles low and shakes his head like he’s trying to process what I just said. “You must have dated some real winners in your past. First of all,” he says, looking over to me and then back to the road as I try to not appear irritated by his comment. “I’m not asking you because I feel obligated. I find you intriguing and am curious about what got you here to this point, so humor me….”

“And second?” I ask, a little taken aback by his interest.

“Second? Hm. Second, I don’t have a clue what I was going to say because those sexy legs of yours distracted me.” He laughs, and how can I be anything but flattered? “But I assure you it was damn good.”

“Smooth,” I tease, enjoying the ease between us.

“Oh, there’s still a whole helluva lot of rough.” He smirks and reaches over to pat my knee. “So humor me?”

I sigh loudly, not getting the point of this exercise since there isn’t a future between us. “Grew up in Long Beach. Pretty normal childhood. One sister, Lexi,” I say as if he didn’t already know and glance over at him to see if he noticed the waver in my voice, but he’s looking at the road ahead of us. “Was okay in school, nothing stellar. My mom got sick my junior year and—”

“Sick?”

“Breast cancer,” I tell him as I watch the shock flicker across his face that more than one person in my immediate family has been afflicted with the devastation of this disease. “She was in and out of treatment, surgeries, whatnot well into my senior year but I managed to get into UCLA.” I smile at the memory of how torn I was because Lexi went to Arizona for school. How I’d wanted to follow her and fulfill our goals of getting an apartment and living on our own together, but I wasn’t accepted there. “I walked into the dorm freshman year and there was this brown-haired girl with curious eyes and a shy smile sitting opposite of me.”

“Rylee.”

“Yep. My parents left after I’d unpacked, and Ry and I have been inseparable ever since. We went through the freshman fifteen together, boyfriends, heartbreaks, so much during those four years and everything life threw at us after. I graduated with a degree in PR and got lucky right off the bat with an internship at a company called PRX. Worked my way up from gofer to managing my own events. I loved my job there and was able to build a decent reputation after proving that the cute little blonde was more than just a decoration.”

“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.” The words on my tongue falter at his oddly satisfying compliment. “So, why leave and start HaLex, then?”

The smile tugs at the corners of my mouth while my heart aches with the sadness of the truth. “Because Lexi and I always wanted to do something together…. Even when we were little, we’d pretend to have a business where we scheduled our Barbies for photo shoots or had our Cabbage Patch Kids doing commercials.” I laugh at the memories that flicker through my mind. “So, we decided with her business degree and my established connections we’d try it. What did we have to lose? I had a few clients offer to give me some smaller jobs, so I quit PRX … and two months later, Lex was diagnosed.”

“Had …”

I shrug, try to act like it’s no big deal when in fact it was my whole world tumbling down. “Yeah, well … now …” I let the thought drift off, unsure exactly what else there is to tell of my heartbreak. I clear my throat of the emotion, and the car falls into silence.

“Your mom is okay now?”

The shards of heartbreak spike anew. “She was in remission for four years and then it relapsed. The second time was bad.” Chills chase one another over my skin. “Double mastectomy, endless chemo and radiation … just bad.”

He reaches out and holds my hand in his, a silent show of support that’s unexpectedly welcome when I’m so used to shunning it. I appreciate his avoidance of the word sorry , the most overused word on the face of the earth when someone becomes ill or dies. The quiet falls again, both of us lost in our thoughts.

After a bit Becks brushes his thumb back and forth over the top of my hand, and while it’s a simple, nonverbal acknowledgment of my grief, it’s also a subtle reminder of the damn good sex we had last night. My body reacts without thought, that ache between my thighs reawakening unexpectedly. I steal a glance over at him, but his attention is focused completely on the road ahead of us.

Does he feel it too?

Ah crap. Lock it down, Montgomery . No need to be thinking with your crotch when this was a onetime deal. It’s not a budding flower, for God’s sake. Think snapdragon. Think Venus flytrap. Think shutting it down to prevent his dick from dominating your thoughts.

“Last night …” It’s all he says, his voice trailing off as he glances behind him to change lanes.

Dick dominance gone .

Hello, awkwardness .

No need to cool the ache of desire between my thighs now because that sure as hell was the jolt I needed to pull my thoughts and body from the edge of desire.

I feign that I need to scratch my other arm, an excuse to pull my hand from his and break our connection.

His sigh tells me he sees right through my bluff, so I stare at him, waiting for him to look my way again. I need him to see the expression on my face that says I’m totally cool with what happened. But he doesn’t look at me—not even a glance—so that I can figure out what it is he’s getting at.

“Was it about Lexi? I mean, you’ve got to talk to someone eventually or else—”

“Nope,” I’m quick to respond, a knee-jerk reaction. I’m not doing this right now. Don’t want to; don’t need to. Please, don’t ruin my feel-good mood, Becks . “Sometimes don’t you just want to have a little fun without complications? You know how it goes, Becks. Shit, vibrators are cool and fun, but nothing gives more satisfaction than the mighty tongue.”

He barks out a laugh, and I know I’ve chased the question away for now. “I don’t know from your perspective, but from mine, tongues are most definitely welcome.” He glances over at me with a suggestive look before shaking his head and laughing again.