“Babe, there’s not an inch of space up there for anyone else. Are there other women in the world?”
“No,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Not until I’m over you.”
“I hate it when you say that,” he said, kissing her hair. “Come out with me and the guys.”
“You didn’t want anyone to know about me.”
“You can trust the guys. No one will tell anyone anything about you,” he said, laying an arm across her thighs where the covers were bunched. “Kick back and have some fun somewhere you know you’re safe. I won’t let you out of my sight.” Which was exactly what she wanted and the problem at the same time. He shifted to take something from his pocket and turned her hand over to place it in her palm. A key. “To my place. Shower. Do whatever you want.”
Curling her fingers around it, she focused on the metal digging into her skin. “I can’t,” she said, trying to hand it back. “I can’t go into your bedroom and look at everything I’ll never be a part of. Making your life more real only makes it harder to accept I’ll never be a part of it.”
“I want you in my life,” he said. “You are a part of it. We’ll get past this.” He leaned back while raising his shoulder, forcing her head up so he could look her in the eye. “There’s a bathroom opposite the second bedroom. Use that if it’s easier.”
Rather than standing in the same space he occupied without clothes most days? Yeah, it probably would be. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll grab my stuff.”
“Lock the door behind you,” he said, helping her off the bed. “Ritch has a key, I’ll go down and clean up, he has stuff to bring out of the truck, so you’ll have privacy for a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to go to any effort for me.” His palm skimmed down her side from her ribs to her hip, reminding her that she was almost naked. The sweet rasp of the calluses on his skin felt so good. “Your hands are rough.”
The quizzical expression he laid on his palm put a smile on her face. “I work for a living, Candy-Cane.”
“It’s a good thing,” she said, touching his face. “Such a good thing. Your hands are amazing.”
He didn’t look any the wiser, maybe because she wasn’t making much sense. “Okay,” he said eventually and left her there by the bed. “Take your time… and put something on before you come downstairs.”
Sometimes it was easy to forget that other people lived in the building. “Yes, sir,” she said just as he went out of the room.
A night on the town with Turner and his buddies. That was fine, right? Normal. Nothing could go wrong… could it?
TEN
“So there are four of you,” Poppy said to the man on the other side of the bar, Jasper Naughton, hence the name of the place ‘Naughtie’s.’
“We all went to school together, if you can believe it. Preston…” Naught said, pointing at the man in the day-worn suit pacing on the sidewalk outside the front of the building. They could only see his head as there wasn’t much glass on the frontage, but she’d been introduced to him before he ran out to take a phone call. “He went away to college, law school, did the whole book smart bit. He’s a highflier now.”
That had to be an achievement for him by the way his friend boasted… either that or his friend was just really proud.
“And Ritchie owns BJ’s?”
Rotating on her stool, Poppy watched Ritchie and Turner shooting pool. Apparently, there was a bet that had never been resolved and it was top priority.
“Barnett Junior’s Hardware,” Naught said. “His old man was a real sonofabitch. He grew up rough, so it was sort of a relief when the fucker died. Ritch was just eighteen. The life insurance was a surprise. He probably set it up when he was drunk and forgot about it… Anyway, it got Ritch the business. Tools was about all he knew. He spent about every waking minute at the Venture growing up. I think if the life insurance hadn’t hit when it did, Ritch and Turner would be in business together.”
“The Venture?” she asked, twisting back around to face him, accepting the martini he slid across the bar to her.
“Yeah,” he said, noticing one of his servers approaching. “One sec.”