It's Complicated (35 page)

Tap tap tap
. Josie’s foot bounced against the thick table leg like a jackhammer on Ritalin. Although she’d already had a two-shot espresso and now nursed a latte, it wasn’t the caffeine that fueled her nervous movement. What a strange situation. Being pursued. Men didn’t do that with her. They didn’t keep trying. Once she decided to weed them out of her life they complied, a mutual agreement that it was over coinciding beautifully with the fact that it
was
over. Whatever purpose they’d served was over and she just moved on with her life. Done. The end.
Fin
.

Not Alex. Damn him! Ignoring him had been one of the hardest intentional acts of her life. The texts begged for a reply. His voicemails, with the warm, soothing tones of his voice, made her nearly cry—and nearly start dialing. An act of constant restraint kept her from responding, knowing she was being foolish. Her conversation with Laura yesterday confirmed that.

She was a fool.

Her heart stopped as she caught sight of him a few steps from the front door. Like those scenes in movies where everything suddenly shifts into slow motion, Josie eyed him from head to toe. The button-down oxford business shirt, crisp blue. The black dress pants, probably from a suit. Wingtips that would fit in at any financial institution on State Street. Freshly cut hair and a clean-shaven face. A slightly worried look creasing his brow. Intense brown eyes that seemed impossibly deep.

His arm reached forward to open the door, the curve of his bicep tight against the cloth of his shirt. If the scene had a soundtrack it would be lurid and sensual, sultry and tantalizing.

What the fuck was wrong with her?

Why wasn’t she with him?

Laura was right.

Laura was
sooooooooooooooooo
right.

Every fiber of her being, nipple to clit to brain, strained for him. Their eyes locked. The expected friendly smile and wave didn’t appear. Instead, his eyes narrowed, and he stopped a few steps inside the small coffee shop, hands planted on his hips. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top, a smattering of chest hair poking out. She licked her lips; he was smoking hot in dress clothes, such a departure from his casual look. He could be a CEO or a quant or a tech director. Or, he could be none of those and strip out of the striking outfit and be naked with her in her bed.

Or on the baseball field.

Heat poured into her core and she shifted, painfully aware of how sensitive she was, how her body ached for him.

And then his eyes stayed riveted to hers as he smiled, a grin so ferocious and predatory she felt the oxygen in the room disappear.

Oh, fuck me now
, she nearly begged.

“Josie,” he said simply.

“Alex,” she rasped.

“You got coffee already,” he said, clearly disappointed.

She shrugged. Words were gone. She could grunt in Morse code if forced.

Holding up one finger in a gesture designed to buy him a few moments, he entered the line. This gave her a great view of his ass for precious few seconds. Something about men in business dress had always made her pause and take notice. Maybe it was because so few men in her life had worn anything other than t-shirts and flannels. Perhaps it was the medical world, where scrubs and lab coats were de rigueur.

Or, perhaps, she was just really enamored of a grown-up, hot as
fuck
Alex standing there, just being.

Being
hot
.

What was Morse code for “I’ll get the rope while you draw up the contract”?

Drink in hand, he took a seat next to her. Heat emanated from every inch of his body, his posture different today. More powerful. Tense.

Angry?

Not at her, though. She could feel it. There was relief and happiness and attraction. But something she couldn’t put her finger on lingered beneath the surface. Animalistic and fierce, it seemed to have consumed Alex, though he did a good job of hiding it. A subtle shift, but she picked up on it. Finely honed skills in reading people, cultivated from years with an emotionally erratic mother, meant that she constantly scanned the emotional state of the person she was most invested in.

And that was Alex right now.

Whether he still liked it or not.

Having expected irritation or annoyance directed at her for blowing him off, this was a different animal (pun intended) altogether. His eyes were a bit wild and he carried himself with a more aggressive stance, eating the room as if it were his. The laid-back, grounded man she’d met at Laura’s birth was still there, but with an edge.

She liked the edge.

“Thanks for meeting me,” he said, toasting her with a white coffee cup. Laughing, she joined him. Both sipped in silence and she found herself grateful for his persistence. Mornings were the worst lately, the loneliness more acute. Her own stupid—what? Pride? Fear?—had made her clam up and stop responding to him. Alex coming to the research trial with Ed was brilliant. And yet….

“You knew who I was when we first met at Laura’s birth, didn’t you?” she asked, bold and open.

His shocked look told her he wasn’t expecting that. “Yes,” he said simply. “I’d been taking Grandpa to his appointments for a few months and had…” His voice trailed off. Curling one fist, he leaned in, then relaxed his hand. “Had noticed you.”

“Noticed me?”

“That’s code for ‘was too much of a wimp to ask you out.’” He drank half his coffee in one long swallow, the liquid burning his throat, an oddly pleasant juxtaposition against the pain of this awkward verbal groping.

“So instead you nearly fucked me in the on-call room at my friend’s birth?” Two women chatting next to them stopped, one leaning closer. He watched Josie take a dainty sip of her drink, her head tipped down, eyes looking up at him. Audrey Hepburn. Damn if she didn't look like her doppelganger.

Alex began rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s getting crowded in here,” he declared, standing. He reached for her elbow and guided her up. “Let’s go for a walk.” No choice. It was an order.

She obeyed.

“Not a wimp move,” she hissed. They both pitched their cups up and drank greedily, downing more of their morning joe.

“What? Asking you to go for a walk?”

“And the sex in the on-call room.” His hand reached out to the small of her back to guide her out the coffee shop’s door. A tingle of excitement zipped through her as his palm warmed her. God, she’d missed him.

“There wasn’t any sex in the on-call room.”

“Only because someone else’s vagina was ‘Exit Only’ at that moment. My ‘Enter’ sign was forty feet tall with rhinestones and blinking LED lights. And an eight-piece brass band. With tubas and everyth—”

The crush of Alex made her shoulders go flat against the brick wall he pulled her next to, her arms up in the air, one holding a coffee she instinctively preserved, the other snaking through his hair as he kissed her with such ferocity her lips felt bruised. They’d dipped a few feet into a small alley around the corner from the firehouse museum, and as he raked her mouth with his tongue, all fire and need, she saw the bored morning walkers going about their business as if she weren’t being ravaged a few feet away.

He smelled so good, and tasted like coffee and hope.

“Don’t do that again,” he growled, one hand on her waist, the other casually holding his coffee cup.

“Don’t what?”

“Shut me out.”

Swallowing hard, she tried to think of what to say.

“I mean it, Josie,” Alex added, his eyes hard and soft all at once. The pulse at his jawline throbbed, his muscles tight. “I’ve had my eye on you for months, and it felt like fate the night you came in with Laura. It was fate. Everything from that moment made sense with you. All of it.”

“Alex, I—”

He was breathing hard, the heat of his exhales pushing against her neck.

“I was so worried about coming on too strong. Maybe you faded back because I wasn’t direct enough.” One knee pressed between hers, his core pushing hard against her, their abdomens so close she could feel his heartbeat through a very obvious erection.

“I won’t make that mistake twice,” he added, punctuating the thought with a slower, unraveling kiss that made her stand on tiptoe to savor every bit of his mouth. Her hands loosened and she felt the coffee cup slide down, crashing to the ground, a light splash of liquid registering on her ankle, the taste of his soft tongue so exquisite she felt like she shifted into a new dimension. A vague, muted sound told her Alex dropped his coffee as well as his heat pushed into her, his lush skin sliding against her cheek, the sound of his breath like a dare.

Something between them began to buzz.

“Is that a vibrator in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” she murmured against his mouth.

Pure delight poured out of him, the old Alex returning fast with his laughter as he broke contact with her, pulling back. Rummaging through his pocket, he found the offending phone. “Damn it. Work. Gotta go.”

The march of people past them, to the left, was a blur of faceless bodies and feet, as if their heads weren’t there. The alley seemed so detailed, in contrast, and every part of Alex’s appearance, from the button on his collar that wasn’t quite all the way through the button hole to the streak of her lipstick on his lips, seemed rich and coarse and solid. Real.

The hard, aggressive Alex was still here, but reduced by half. The man who stared back at her had a decisiveness that mixed with his openness and invited her in.

Invited himself in.

Open the door, Josie. Say yes.
That was Laura’s voice.

Yes.
That was hers.

Josie’s own voice replied. “When can I see you again?” she asked.

The worried look came back as he read something on his phone. Shoving it in his pocket, he shook his head slightly, as if banishing the thought. “Whenever you want.” His hand slipped around her waist and he kissed her lightly on the lips.

A brief thought of Ed, of his decline, her conversation with Gian, hit her. Should she bring it up now? No. Not yet.

Bzzz.

“Shit.” He kissed her cheek and began to walk away. “I really do have to go. Just text me. Promise?” Walking with purpose, he marched off.

“Promise,” she whispered to no one.

Promise.

“Something’s wrong with him,” Josie began as she marched into the cabin. Then she did a double-take and made a low whistling sound.

“Holy shit.”

“It’s a little messy,” Laura confessed.

“And my fingernails are a little over the top.” She flashed her hands at Laura. They spelled
I-heart-J-I-L-L-I-A-N-heart
. The hearts were bright red, the nails pink and white.

The cabin looked like a baby bomb had exploded in it. Burp rags covered the back of every chair or couch. A hamper full of laundry was next to a spot on the couch with an end table littered with large, empty glasses and plates that held what appeared to have once been pizza. A few empty salad containers littered the area. Breast pads were stacked neatly next to the table.

And then there was the giant pile of laundry on the floor.

That moved.

“Jesus Christ!” Josie shouted, jumping back. A leg stuck out from under a pile of towels. The leg was attached to an underwear-covered ass and a naked chest.

Dylan was sound asleep in a pile of clothes in the middle of the room, snoring lightly. His arm curled under his head like a pillow.

Josie pointed. “What’s that?”

“Dylan.”

“Not who. What?”

“He’s tired,” Laura whined. “We all are. Mike’s probably out there asleep in his Jeep.”

Josie shot Laura a
what the fuck
look. “His Jeep? Are you guys fighting?”

“No!” Laura wailed, pacing back and forth with the baby in her arms. Cherubic and serene, she was so sweet looking. The rosy-pink skin and a smattering of baby acne on her nose reminded Josie of how tiny and new Jillian really was. A breathy snort came from the baby, whose mouth puckered and suckled in the air.

“Then why is he in his Jeep?”

“He pretends he’s going for a run but every time he does that I look out there and he’s asleep in the front seat.”

“Um…why?”

Laura pointed at Dylan, who was now spooning with a nursing pillow and a beach towel. “Same reason as that. We’re completely wiped.”

Josie reached for the baby and Laura transferred her as if handing over a live grenade. “Don’t wake her. I just got her to sleep.” The handoff successful, Josie marveled at how lightweight the baby was. Wrapped in a pink fleece blanket and wearing a jumper with characters from an Eric Carle book, Jillian was a piece of perfection in a sub-ten-pound body.

“Thank you! Hang on,” Laura said as she dashed out of the room. The distant sounds of a toilet flushing and running water were followed by Laura’s reappearance. Josie wandered into the kitchen and searched for the coffeemaker. The countertop was covered with what looked like every dish in the house, two nursing bras, more burp cloths, and about nineteen coffee mugs, all containing anywhere from one to two inches of coffee.

But no coffeemaker.