Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (19 page)

He
struggled with an answer, his jaw tight, his lips mushing, so she went with,
“Yes it does, just not in the way you see it happening.” And because he towered
over her, she stood, not that it helped much, but it made her feel better. “This
is my paper.” She went with hands on her hips. “It’s my learning. It’s the best
I can do and it’s not wrong.”

“It
could be more right.”

She
threw her hands up. “And what would that prove.”

He
narrowed his eyes. This was intimidation at spitting distance. “It would get
you a better grade.”

“No,”
she stepped back, not wanting to give ground but her body making the call for
her. “It would get you a better grade.”

He
turned away and swore. Left her and went into the dining room. She scrambled
for her phone. She didn’t need this. She’d go to Kathryn’s. She saved the
document and closed the laptop, pulled the power cord from the point and hit
speed dial.

“Fuck.”
He was back. “I’m sorry.”

The
call connected. “Kathryn, it’s Zarley.” She listened as Kathryn told her about
the air mattress she’d borrowed from her sister, but she glared at Reid.

He had
his hands in his hair, he was breathing rapidly. “Don’t go. Please don’t go. That
was inexcusable.”

“Thank
your sister for me,” she told Kathryn. It would be so easy to cut out now. Be
done with this thing.

“That’s
the kind of shit that got me fired.”

But the
sight of his contrition, the twisted expression on his face, his posture and
his words were working her over, while Kathryn told her about another dancer
they knew who was doing a fundraiser for airfare to get to Paris and enter the Madame
Amour competition.

“I’m
right but I don’t know when to back off.”

She tuned
Kathryn out. Every dancer she knew wanted to compete for the Madame Amour
scholarship but it was like an urban myth, like Madame herself. No one she’d
heard of made it through the video audition round.

“I need
you, Zarley. You’re the only one who ever pushed back and meant it.”

She
covered the screen with her hand. “Not true.” It couldn’t be.

“True. Everyone
else relied on me to be right. It’s different with you.”

She
uncovered the phone and said to Kathryn, “When does that competition end?” She
needed thinking time, said, “Ah-huh,” to Kathryn’s response and then, “I was
just checking in. Hope you have a good night. See you at work Monday.” When she
ended the call, she didn’t have a decision and Reid stood watching her as if
she had the power to teach him more than what good sex was.

She
didn’t have that power. She couldn’t even master her own life.

“I
don’t understand what you want from me.”

He sat
hard on a stool.

“I’m a
pole dancer, not a life coach. I don’t go around fixing people’s problems.” He watched
her warily. What was she doing here? She had enough on her plate. And now he
wasn’t saying anything. “Reid.”

“You
could fix mine.”

“From
what I can see, you don’t have too many problems an occasional hard smack upside
the head wouldn’t fix. You’re like an overgrown puppy who doesn’t know his own
size and strength or when to heel.”

Another
man might’ve looked away. Reid’s eyes locked on hers like he had NASA
controlling their trajectory. “I guess our thing is done with then.”

This
had been a very un-thing-like day. Both of them on edge and irritated. But he
intrigued her and she still wanted his lips, his arms, his dining table.

“I
think we have a few lessons left. And there’s that promise you made me.”

His
eyes flicked toward the dining room.

“It needs
flowers or something, that table.”

“You
are all the decoration it needs.”

Excellent
idea. She walked into his space. He shifted his knees to let her stand between
them. “I fucked up with you, Zarley. I don’t want that.”

“I
still like what I see.”

“You have
no idea how good that makes me feel.”

“But
you expect too much from me. The sex is one thing, but,” she finished on a
frustrated exhale. The sex was a lot of things and the man was something
entirely foreign to her and all the more interesting for it.

“I need
a friend. You said we could be friends and lovers. That’s what I want from you
for however long this thing lasts.”

Friends,
lovers. A man who knew his own faults and wanted to change. It was still just a
thing.

She
could do that.

SEVENTEEN

Reid needed a drink. He hadn’t wanted one since he’d promised Zarley
he’d quit Lucky’s. He’d given it up cold turkey and not felt a craving since. Now
he craved with a deep ache in his belly and a tightness in his throat he
couldn’t relax.

Because
things had gotten emotional and there was no way he could walk this time. This
was his shit, and a woman he trusted to call him on it.

But he
simply couldn’t see what was in it for her.

It was
his road to walk.

She
stood between his legs while he sat on a kitchen stool, her hands on his
shoulders. He’d almost chased her off and now he was scared to touch her in
case it was too soon, in case he came off as so desperate she thought he was
pathetic. What man of his age was still a virgin? How did he get off telling
her she was C-grade?

She
tipped her chin up to eyeball him. “I can be your friend, but you have friends
who know you better. I wish someone filled my fridge with homemade food.”

“Dev
and Sarina. Owen, who you met that night at Lucky’s. Yes, they’re my friends. The
people I grew up with. But they’re also my partners and they got rich from
working with me, so it’s different. Yes, they call me on my shit, but they’ve
also relied on me for ten years to be right, to have the answers.” They walked
with him but it was still his road to walk alone. “And I always did, so they
learned to let me win.”

She put
her hand to his neck. “That’s a lot to unpack.”

“What
do I need to do to make being my friend right for you?”

She
took her hands away, folded them over her chest. “That’s not how friendship
works. It’s not a transaction.”

Wasn’t
it? If there wasn’t Plus between them would he have had Owen and Sarina in his
life for a decade? How long would Dev want to cook for him now that there was
no basis for their relationship? And with the contractual ban, with the fact
they’d sided with Kuch on ousting him, didn’t that shoot the unicorns and
rainbows version of friendship in the foot?

She put
a hand absently on his thigh. “You were the weird, loner kid, weren’t you?”

He was
the weird, quiet, too big-too-soon kid whose mother was Mighty Mouse, tiny and
solitary and ferocious where it came to his needs, but struggling in a small
town where being a single mom still had a stigma attached to it. He was the
church fundraiser kid, with unpopular obsessions, strange enthusiasms and
charity bin clothing, but a brain that didn’t quit, didn’t let anyone forget he
was different, destined to do something bigger than the town on a road to
somewhere. He remembered the hours his mom worked in the diner. The hours he
spent alone. He didn’t have it bad. They weren’t unhappy memories.

All he
could do was nod.

She put
her hands on his chest, traced his tattoo, and leaned in. “I always liked the quiet,
weird, loner ones.”

But he
wasn’t quiet anymore. He’d learned to speak up, to be loud, to insist on being
heard, not to suffer fools and to champion his beliefs.

He wanted
to kiss her, put his hands on her. Show her he wasn’t all bad. He wanted her to
understand him more. “Do you know what a ziggurat is?”

“Sounds
like it should be a nightclub for very sexy, highly compensated pole dancers.”

If she
understood him, he had a chance, remote but possible, of holding her interest
keeping her close. “They were temples. The nightclubs of the ancient Sumerians and
Babylonians.” That was stretching things. Ziggurats were holy places. “They
were like the Egyptian pyramids, but not tombs, constructed from stone bricks
in layers with access ramps and lots of security. Usually a town was built
around them.”

“You
liked ziggurats when you were a kid.”

“I like
them now. They’re complex and advanced architecturally but that’s not the
point. The point is when I designed Plus it was unique. But by the time I
worked out how to fund it there were others who’d locked onto the same concept.
We had to prove its value over and over again to secure financing to build and
market it. Most of those other competitors struck out, and that was good for
us. But because we’ve been so successful, there’s a raft of new ones, looking
to take a chunk of our installed base. I had a plan to rebuild the business so
it was unassailable technically for at least another few years. The rebuild
project is called Ziggurat.”

“You
keep saying I and we and us.”

“Because
I’m going to get it back.” Her hands came away. At some point during his ramble
she’d leaned in closer, but now she’d put distance between them. “Customers and
stockholders have all been promised Ziggurat, but Plus will screw it up without
me.”

She
didn’t look away but she wanted to, it was in the angle of her chin.

“Then
they’ll be punished. They’ll lose customers, the value of the company will
fall, it will be open to a takeover.”

Her
eyes flickered over his face. “I never watched those Olympic games I missed. Couldn’t.
I knew all the competitors, some were friends, but I couldn’t watch, it was too
hard. It was everything I’d wanted and would never have. Thinking like this is
making it much harder for yourself.”

“You
didn’t watch because you had no recourse. It’s not like you could get back in
the squad. I can. I should’ve thought of it sooner, I can turn the media, the stockholders.
I can get the company back and then Ziggurat won’t fail.”

“Is
that even possible?”

“Yes.”

“You’re
so sure.”

“Yes.”

“And
it’s what you want?”

“If you
could’ve gotten back on the team. If the circumstances had been different,
wouldn’t you have wanted that?”

“Yes.” She
whispered it. She closed her eyes and lowered her face. “I’d have done almost
anything for the chance.”

He
dipped his head to watch her expression. “Then you get it.”

She
took a step away. Out of reach of his arms. “I think it’s different for you. There
is only one US Olympic gymnastics team. There is only one, maybe two chances, a
female gymnast can represent her country in an eight-year stretch.”

“You
think it was easy building Plus.” For Plus he’d put aside having a normal life.

“I
think you have more opportunities. You can go forward. You don’t need to go
back to get what you want.”

“They’ll
get hurt in this.” Owen would lose his job. Sarina too. Dev would hate what
happened when Ziggurat failed. Kuch’s reputation would be on the skids.

“If
they can keep up with you, then they have to be smart enough to see that might
happen.”

“You
think I’m arrogant.”

She
smiled. “I think you’re still the weird, loner type. I think you could do with
a dash of modesty.”

He
ground his teeth. “Modesty is pretending not to have skills, not to be good at
whatever it is you’re good at. What’s the point in pretending?”

“It’s
not pretending,” she scoffed. “It’s not tooting your own horn. It’s not
assuming you’re better than someone else and hogging the spotlight.”

“But if
you deserve the spotlight, then what’s the point not claiming it. Waste of
everyone’s time.”

“Spoken
like a man who’s never truly looked failure in the eye.”

He
shook his head. That made no sense. That’s what he’d been talking about, hadn’t
she listened to anything he’d said?

“You
didn’t fail, Reid. You had a setback.”

“A
setback.” His hands went to the top of his head, elbows flaring. “My career got
shredded. I lost my company.” Maybe he’d lost every friend he’d had.

“You
lost your job.” She took another step away, but she didn’t pull her punches.
“Every pundit out there predicts you’ll come back stronger. I lost my calling,
the whole basis for my talent and training, and whatever chance there was of
continuing to work in the field. You have an income from investments, money in
the bank. Your home town is still proud of you.” She closed her eyes. “Mine
thinks I’m a stupid, selfish slut and they don’t know I’m virtually a
stripper.”

If he
opened his mouth it would be to shout. Not because she’d nailed him to the flag
post of his own self-importance, but because she’d trash-talked her own life. He
wrapped his hands around the bottom of the stool and gripped. She was right,
this was a setback. She’d experienced the dead end of all of her hopes and
dreams. He’d fix his mess, but Zarley couldn’t be allowed to denigrate herself
like she’d done.

She
fiddled with her laptop. He breathed through his anger and when he could
finally trust himself to talk without raising his voice, he said her name.

She cut
him a look. “I’m not the kind of friend you were thinking about having. Maybe
we should stick to fucking.”

“I want
that.”

She
said, “Huh.” As if everything was clear now.

“I want
the fucking but I want the friendship too. Exactly as you gave it to me, right
between the eyes, so there’s a chance I can get it in my head. I’m too used to
being alone. He tapped his chest. “Sometimes alone is shit. But there’s
something we have to get straight.”

She
gave him an oh yeah look, turned fully to face him with a hand jammed on her
hip.

“You
don’t put yourself down in front of me. Ever. You don’t think of yourself as a
slut or as selfish or as stupid. You are none of those things. Never were. Never
will be.”

She
blinked and then laughed. “You’re supposed to be annoyed with me for calling
you on your bullshit entitled asshole attitude.”

He was,
but under the uncomfortable itch of the burn it’d generated, he’d loved it. “I
don’t usually do what I’m supposed to do.”

“I
noticed.” She smiled and it took his anxiety down about thirty thousand feet.

“Are we
done poking at each other’s sore spots for the day?”

“I
think we’ve only just started. I haven’t said anything about you being a bully,
about you being moody and grumpy and socially awkward.”

He gave
her the oh yeah look back and kinked a finger at her.

“I
don’t do assholes.”

“I get
that, loud and clear. Bring it.”

She
laughed again, shaking her head. “And render you incapable of what I really
want.”

“What
do you really want?”

“It’s
time to test the new furniture out. Are you a man of your word? I seem to
remember a promise to do dirty things to me over your new dining table.”

Where
was the line between anger and affection, hard words and lust, and they just
scrubbed it out. “I seem to remember there’s a full-frontal pic of you I need
to see.”

She
reefed her t-shirt over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Jesus Christ, he
wanted her so badly he might not have the strength to make it last longer than
getting her naked.

“I’m
not sure you get this sex thing yet.” She started on her jeans, popping the
stud, rolling the zipper down. “Actual flesh and bone beats image every time.”

She
wriggled, shoved the jeans down her legs and stepped out of them. Her panties
were blue. The color of the blood that pumped three times as fast as it should
through him was blue too, so hot it was the heat center of a flame.

He
still craved a drink, but it was the liquid sweet of her skin he wanted on his
tongue, her pleasure moans he wanted in his throat. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

“You’re
so damn slow. Clothes off, Reid.”

He let
go the bottom of the chair and flexed his stiff fingers. She watched him lose
his shirt, her eyes going all heavy-lidded. Then he stood and advanced on her. She
bolted, like she’d done earlier. He didn’t chase her, he didn’t need to, he had
her, at least for now, at least as long as he could keep her interested.

She
wasn’t near the table where he expected her. She was laid out over it, completely
naked, her hands stretched above her head, one knee raised and her back arched.
The vision knocked a Neanderthal grunt out of him. It was better than he’d imagined
because the Zarley in his head wasn’t trembling as if she wanted him as much as
he wanted her. The Zarley in his head didn’t squirm when she heard how gone he
was, didn’t whimper when he ran a hand slowly from her instep to her collarbone
over skin so warm and soft it affected his breathing. That Zarley didn’t smell
like sex and she didn’t look at him like this was more than something she was
doing for her own amusement, to educate him.

When
he’d sat at this table in the furniture showroom, the Zarley he’d conjured in his
head was a pale, cardboard cutout, the product of a weak imagination. But that
Zarley had gotten him stone hard in the store, had him mumble to the shop
assistant that he needed a moment to himself, had made it so he couldn’t go
near the table; could barely look at it once it was delivered, without being
affected. This Zarley, fuck, this flesh and bone and muscle and moaning woman
laid out for him was reordering the way logic worked in his brain. An entirely
new algorithm for his life.