After Hours (28 page)

“You only bossed me around for a night, really. Like, properly.”

“Yeah.” Kelly nodded, averting his eyes. “I dunno quite why that was. Why I liked
you better, speaking your mind.”

I smiled, a bit cocky. “Maybe you like my mind.”

He tugged me closer. “I think you know I do. But back to your original question, about
why I like you?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe because like me, you grew up with nobody really fighting for you. Right?”

I nodded.

“Surrounded by people who were too beat down to give a shit, even if it wasn’t their
fault. Nobody showed you how it felt, to be cared about. Or wanted. But I know if
anybody got between you and your sister or your nephew, you’d kick and scratch and
bite to defend your own.”

“Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t . . . But yeah, it’s in there.”

“You grew up into a better person than the ones that raised you,” Kelly said. “And
that’s unusual, with people like us. Me, I’m an okay guy, brought up by a violent
drunk and a passive shell of a mom. I’m better than they raised me to be. That’s gotta
be rare.” Kelly smiled and stroked my hair. “So that’s why. Because you’ve got something
special in you, something that won’t stay buried, no matter how many times experience
tries to say it’s fighting a losing battle. That’s what made both of us take these
jobs, I bet. Believing maybe we could fix something ugly in the world, try to be of
use to the people everybody else has given up on.”

The first tear escaped, rolling hot down my cheek. I’d never thought about it that
way. I’d taken my job because I needed to be near my sister, but what he said was
right, too. I didn’t want to give up on those people, no matter how nasty and ungrateful
they sometimes were. I wanted to believe they were like Kelly, if you just dug deep
enough—a hard exterior hiding a vulnerable core.

“I got that same streak in me,” he said, “and I want it in my life. In a woman. I
want to fill in the gaps, fight all the battles you can’t, because of whatever—your
size or your gender. Maybe that’s sexist, but it’s what I want. I just want to feel
needed by somebody who deserves whatever I got to offer.”

I laughed, looking down to hide my reddening face. Kelly tipped my chin back up with
a crooked finger. “I’m not afraid of your tears.”

“I am, maybe.”

“Don’t be.”

My lips felt swollen, nostrils stinging. I cleared my throat. “When this all started,
I thought you saw me as some little woodland creature, one who’d give you a good chase
before you eventually brought me down and tore me to pieces. Sex-wise.”

Kelly laughed.

“Maybe we were two dogs all along, and all you wanted was to get in the pit with me.”

“Maybe. Even if I wasn’t, that’s what I got.”

I slid my hand down his arm to stroke his knuckles. I paused, one of his fingers feeling
odd. I rubbed the spot—a strange, smooth divot—and pulled back to examine it. “You
got your ring off.”

“I bit the bullet and took a pair of clippers to it when I got home from the hospital.”

“Oh, what a shame.” Such a personal inheritance, marred forever.

He shrugged. “I’ll get some jeweler to weld it back together someday, should the need
arise.”

“I guess it’ll wind up with a scar,” I mused, tracing my fingertip along the mark
on his neck. “Why’d you bother?”

“It just felt like something I ought to get around to. Like maybe it was keeping me
from considering myself fully . . . I dunno. Open to stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“You know. Letting somebody in or whatever.”

I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you think there’s enough of this ‘something’ between
us to actually be, you know . . . something more? For us to be a couple?”

“Would you like us to be?”

I pursed my lips and nodded.

“Okay then.”

“Jeez, that was easy. What about work? We don’t work in some office where we can afford
to be distracted.”

“You really think I give a fuck about some HR clause?”

I smiled.

He kissed my forehead, a gesture fast becoming my favorite thing. “We’ll keep our
mouths shut about it. But someday, if somebody catches us speaking too closely in
the parking lot or the break room, fuck what they think. By then they’ll have seen
us both doing our jobs perfectly well for who knows how many weeks or months. No one’s
really going to fire us, not if us dating isn’t threatening the residents’ care. Certainly
not Dennis or your number-one fan, Dr. Morris.”

After a pause, he said, “When you asked before, why it is I like you, I left something
out.”

“Oh?”

He grinned down at me, eyes narrowed and sinister. “You are
fucking
attractive.”

I blushed. “I’m okay, I guess.”

“I think you’re sexy. Real sexy.”

“Usually if I get called anything nice, it’s ‘cute.’”

“Nah. You got this way of pursing your lips at work, when you’re thinking about shit . . .”
Kelly fake-shuddered with arousal, eyes rolling up. “All that you got going on with
the big eyes and the pink cheeks, I can see through that act. You’re a raccoon underneath
that bunny costume. I like your claws as much as your whiskers.”

I laughed.

He flopped down beside me with a sigh. “Can I crash here? I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Of course.”

Settling in, he pulled me tighter against him.

“You’re not even going to try to take advantage of me?” I asked. “You really must
be wrecked.”

Eyes shut, he smirked.

“Here,” I said, turning in his arms. “Let me guarantee you a good, deep sleep.”

His eyes opened just as my fingers found the waist of his pants, and his lips parted.
I thought for a second he’d stop me, but the hand he reached out merely stroked my
arm, making all its tiny hairs rise. When I got his button open he did the rest, lowering
his fly and wrestling his pants away. For a minute or more I fondled him through his
shorts, until he was stiff and thick and his breaths had grown sharp and hungry. He
pushed his waistband down, releasing his bare length into my palm. He felt just like
he should, big and powerful. Only this time I got to wield it. I got to be the one
doing.

It was nothing like the things we’d done before. The angle was awkward, the eye contact
intense and intimate and humbling. He let me watch every stage of his arousal as it
transformed his expression from intrigued to dirty to desperate. As he neared orgasm,
he cupped my ear, fingers fidgeting in my hair. No orders this time, just a series
of near-silent grunts as I stroked him closer to the edge. Then—

“
Please
.”

He needn’t have begged. Just now, watching him was as hot as fucking him, and I was
as antsy for his release as he was.

“
Yes
. Please.” Again his eyes shut, expression pure and perfect agony. His twitching arm
and hips told me he was a goner.

He came with the softest, sweetest moan, filling my cupped hand in three long spurts.

“Good.” I left him panting, slipping away to tidy my palm with a tissue. He moved
so I could free the covers and we kicked our way between the sheets. I hadn’t even
realized how chilly the room had grown until we were enveloped by all that warmth.

“You need something?” he asked.

I kissed his temple. “No, I’m perfect.” Perfectly satisfied, and perfectly exhausted,
same as him.

“I’ll get you back,” he mumbled, already fading. “Don’t you worry.”

“I’m sure you will. Thanks for making it sound like a threat.”

“Mmm,” he hummed with a smile, and rolled over. I switched off the reading lamp and
draped my arm around his waist.

“I’m gonna fall in love with you,” Kelly said. His words hung in the darkness, bright
as candle flames.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. And I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anybody. Not beyond that dumb
kind you feel when you’re young.”

For a long moment I just nibbled my lip, dumbstruck. When I did speak, all that came
out was a soft, “Wow.”

“I’ve never loved anybody, for the right reasons,” he said quietly. “I love my mom,
but I don’t respect her. I loved my grandfather, but I also never really felt like
I knew him. A part of me might even love Don, but I can’t ever tell him that . . .

“If I fall in love with you, it’ll be because I know you inside and out, and because
you’re somebody I want to be a better person
for
—instead of in spite of.”

What he said gave me chills. It felt like he’d opened some secret door and let me
come inside and handle the softest parts of him, off-limits to the rest of the world.
It meant far more than the bones of any dusty secrets I might exhume on my own.

“There’s nothing I can say that’ll be anywhere as nice as what you just said.”

“Just let me say it first.”

I smiled, unseen. “As you command.”

After a pause he added, “You know, it’s not so bad, needing someone. And not even
needing someone . . . Letting someone help you.”

“Are you saying this to me, or yourself?”

“You . . . And maybe me.”

“I’d rather want someone than need them,” I decided. “But you’re right. It’s nice
to have someone to fall back on, when things suddenly go to shit.” I’d had that in
Kelly, that night at the ER. I just hadn’t known it until he strode into the waiting
room.

“Someone to rely on,” Kelly murmured. “Some man who’d bust his ass so you could work
through your RN, full-time. Or something more. If you wanted that.”

I blinked in the darkness. “He’d have to be an awfully rich man, if I tricked myself
into thinking I was cut out for medical school.”

“Nah. Just some loner with his house already paid off and inexpensive tastes.”

These were thoughts for another time. For another year. I had plenty to learn as I
found my feet at Larkhaven in the coming months. Just as much to learn as I fumbled
my way into a romance with this strange and startling man.

I squeezed his fingers. “I don’t know what I want yet, for the future. I just know
I want . . . I want you to need me back,” I whispered. “For more than just sex.”

“Sweetheart, I already do. I need you for what you let me be for you last night.”

“Oh.”

“I’m nothing without people relying on me. You ever feel tempted to offer me a foot
rub, save your energy and ask me to fix something instead.”

“If it makes you so happy, I’ll break stuff on purpose.”

“No.” He turned around and kissed my forehead, then coaxed me to flip so he could
do the spooning, hugging me tight. “There’s always something broken. No need to make
trouble when there’s plenty already waiting. Just lemme fix what I can, when you can’t
do the job yourself.”

“I will,” I promised. He already was. Fixing that ache in my chest, just being here,
holding me. Chiseling a few bricks out of his cold gray tower, just enough for me
to slip inside and feel shielded from the wind and rain.

With a shallow, yielding noise, he went slack, muscles surrendering their duties,
his arm a warm weight against my waist.

“Goodnight, Kel.”

Gently, I turned enough to kiss his jaw and feel his stubble against my lips, its
usual rasp softened by an extra day’s growth. From the rest and routine he’d sacrificed,
to come and be with me, to let us see each other for the helpless, frightened humans
we were.

We got a little something between us.

So little. No thicker than a layer of cotton now. The thinnest membrane of latex when
I’d next welcome his body inside mine. Barely anything at all, with those stubborn
barriers demolished, just us two, lying here as the dust settled.

Just us two, stripped and spent, hearts beating together in the dark.

With the most heartfelt thanks to my dear friends and talented peers—Ruthie Knox,
Charlotte Stein, Edie Harris, Serena Bell, Del Dryden, and Shelley Ann Clark—for their
energy, time, and input.

Thanks also to my editor, Jesse Feldman, for seeking me out and inviting me to New
York, and to my agent, Laura Bradford, for pushing me there in her wheelbarrow.

And with extra big thanks to my kick-ass mom and to Mary Ann Rivers (and unwitting
colleagues), for their expertise. If I bungled any clinical details in this book,
may the blame lay firmly on my own shoulders.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at

Cara McKenna’s next novel,

UNBOUND

Available October 2013 from InterMix

Three Weeks Ago

From: Merry

To: Lauren, Kat

Subject: Farewell drinks?

Hey gals! Anybody free for pre-vaca drinks tomorrow? I figure it’s pretty likely I’ll
get taken captive as a sex slave by some rippling, kilted Highlander next week, never
to return. Promise you’ll keep San Fran warm for me.

I’ve got a zillion things still to wrap up at work, but I should be free by 7:30.
Any takers? So hoping to see you guys one more time before I fly out.

Mer

From: Lauren

To: Merry, Kat

Subject: re: Farewell drinks?

Wouldn’t miss it—I could use a drink this week. Or three. Just tell me where.

L

From: Kat

To: Merry, Lauren

Subject: re: Farewell drinks?

Hell yeah. See you then!

Kat

From: Lauren

To: Merry, Kat

Subject: re: Farewell drinks?

Is it totally cunty that I’m sort of looking forward to Merry being gone for a month?
Probably. But I swear she lost her old personality, right along with the weight. If
it gets any worse she’ll start tossing her hair and giggling every time someone tells
her how great she looks. My last nerve. She is on it. Bon voyage.

Okay, yeah. That WAS cunty. Whatever. See you tomorrow!

Cuntily yours,

Lauren

Merry blinked at her phone’s screen, just as another message alert
ping
ed.

From: Kat

To: Merry

Subject: re: Farewell drinks?

Uhhh . . . o_O I’m guessing Lauren didn’t mean to reply all. And I don’t think she
knows she did. Shall we just let her keep thinking that, or . . . ??? Anyhow, I can’t
wait to see you tomorrow!

Awkwardly,

Kat

Merry frowned, considering her reply.

She wasn’t hurt.

Well, yeah, she was. But not surprised. Lauren’s default setting was
snide,
but it stung Merry to have her suspicions confirmed. She’d lost ninety-two pounds,
but clearly she’d gained something else—readmission to the joys of high-school bitchery!
Nothing like a Reply-All faux-pas to make thirty-one feel like fifteen.

She squished the carpet between her bare toes, wiping her smudged screen with her
sleeve.
To confront or not to confront.

Lauren had told her once, “You can be fat, or you can be a bitch. But you can’t be
a fat bitch. Bitchiness is a luxury only hot girls can afford.”

Merry hated that motto, but she still remembered it word-for-word, five or more years
after Lauren had decreed it. As though a girl couldn’t be big
and
a bitch, and for that matter, hot. Though sadly, it seemed perhaps a girl could not
be Lauren’s best friend if she didn’t
stay
fat.

Which was a rather bitchy policy, Merry felt. Nearly as bitchy as that email.

Was
she more annoying, now? She hadn’t thought so.

Like anyone on earth
isn’t
annoying, from time to time.
And if she was chirpy and smiley when people complimented her, it was because her
mom and had raised her to accept praise graciously, never to deflect or apologize.
Save your deflecting for the insults—there’ll be plenty. Swallow the kind words whole.

Merry sighed, physically feeling the angst, forcing it from her body as she’d trained
herself to do in lieu of muffling it with food.

Let Lauren sulk. Let her vent. Let her think Merry had turned traitor by veering off
a comfortable, delicious collision course with diabetes or joint problems or whatever
else she’d managed to ignore until last year.

Maybe Lauren would come around, in time. And if she didn’t, Merry might have to admit
that maybe Lauren was an additional two hundred pounds she’d be well rid of.

Sucked, though—ten years of friendship, and she’d never managed to notice how codependent
they’d been. Kind of like how she’d never quite realized she was fat, despite the
numbers on her jeans tag and the scale giving it to her straight on a daily basis.
People were nothing if not selective in their perceptions of reality.

She hit Reply.

From: Merry

To: Lauren, Kat

Subject: re: Farewell drinks?

Awesome! 7:30 at Americano. First round’s on me.

Mer

Yeah, awesome. Merry could be the bigger man . . . even if she was now the smaller
girl. She’d broken some unspoken, fat-girl solidarity pact she’d subconsciously entered
into with Lauren. She could forgive the woman for feeling betrayed or abandoned.

Though yeah. It
was
pretty cunty.

She turned to the catastrophe that was her living room, strewn with three weeks’ hiking
supplies she had to magically clown-car into one pack. She lined items up by necessity—tent,
sleeping bag, water filter on the front line. Essential clothes, followed by if-there’s-room
clothes . . .

Friends love each other,
she thought, checking the caps on her travel bottles.
Friends hurt each other.
Friends came and went, but Merry had already lost a lot in the past year and a half.
Her mother, then a third of her body weight, then her . . . Well, not her
boyfriend
. Her fuck-buddy. Jason had quit texting a few months ago, right around the time Merry
had spun giddy circles in a department-store dressing room when the zipper slid home,
practically dancing out into the street carrying her first size-twelve dress, with
a side of intoxicating confidence.

Magically, a few weeks later, she’d had to take that dress to a consignment shop—it
was too big now. After this vacation, she might need to do the same with all her tens.
Holy shit.
Size eight.
The single digits. She might actually one day fit into the sample sizes she patterned
at work. Shangri-fucking-La.

The weird thing was, she still felt like the old Merry, inside—caring, competent,
fun, loyal. But now people were reacting differently to the package those qualities
came in. Guys from work who’d never said more to her than, “How do you change the
toner in this thing?” were suddenly asking about her weekend, her vacation, her opinions
on the latest reality TV scandal.

While part of her was thrilled—these were side effects of the weight loss she’d been
hoping for, after all—another part had to think,
caring, fun and loyal don’t really count for much, do they?
Not unless they came wrapped in a pleasing female shape. Not if you wanted to get
past the proverbial receptionist with a guy. Which kind of sucked.

And yet . . . she did want that. Thirty-one, and she’d never been in love. She’d been
infatuated, sure. She’d been in love in a guy’s general direction, but she’d never
felt that light and heat shining back on her. She’d been clad too heavily in her own
self-consciousness to welcome it.

Now the armor was gone. She felt exposed, but the sensation was as thrilling as it
was scary. And if she ever wanted to get tangled in the writhing tentacles of passionate,
mind-blowing, stupid-making,
reciprocal
true love, she’d have to make peace with this naked feeling.

Perhaps Lauren, like Jason, had preferred the old Merry, the Merry who’d bend over
backward to please the people she liked, who put herself last.

You’re welcome to her,
she thought, stuffing her sleeping bag into its sleeve.

This new Merry’s off to walk across Scotland.

And she’s not coming back until she’s fucking found herself.