After driving into work together for the first time, Lily held up her whiteboard to show me the quote she’d chosen. “What do you think?”
Glancing her way, I answered, “I think it doesn’t matter what I think; it matters what you think. If that’s what it takes to get your happy mojo back on track, knock yourself out.”
Her smile did me in. Every time.
Seeing Katie waving to get my attention at the end of the bar, I headed that way.
Reaching for a glass, I asked, “What do you need.”
Instead of calling out her order, she leaned in close and said, “Mr. Small Dick Energy stopped by earlier.”
Funny how I knew exactly who she was referring to. I set the glass down. “What did Lily’s ex have to say?”
“That he only took Tulip and the journals because he wanted Lily to come looking for him after she had a chance to calm down so they could talk. Asshole.” She looked around me, to where Lily stood at the far end of the bar, talking to Kurt. Another asshole. “Says he wants to apologize.”
“He knows where she lives.”
Katie smiled. “I think he wants to do it in front of witnesses. Have you seen Lily working her power tools? Accidents can happen on purpose, if you know what I mean.”
“Lily wouldn’t…” I stopped. Honestly, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe she would.
“Push a woman far enough…” Katie’s eyes met mine. “Also, he asked if you were still staying there.” She shook her head. “I would not confirm or deny.” At my why-the-hell-not look, she responded, “I don’t owe him any information about my best friend. Let him wonder.” She held up a folded cocktail napkin between her index and middle fingers, adding, “He asked me to give this to Lily.”
I motioned with my head. “She’s right there.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Sounds like a you problem.”
“He doesn’t deserve another chance.”
Did she honestly think Lily would take that scumbag back?
Yes. From her expression, it looked like she did.
Moving the napkin toward me, she said, “Say I give it to someone else to give to her, and maybe they were to, I don’t know, throw it out by accident, or drop it and spill something on it and mash it beneath their feet until it’s unreadable…I’d be off the hook.”
“Lily,” I called out as I grabbed Dorian’s message. “This is for you.” I held it out.
As soon as her eyes hit that folded cocktail napkin, her face lit up, her lips turned up into a huge smile, and she plucked her ex’s message from my grip without giving me a second look. A distracted, “Thank you,” and she turned back to her end of the bar, sliding the note into the back pocket of her mini-skirt as she walked.
Well, shit. After our talk the other night, I would have bet money that no way in hell Lily would let that loser back into her life.
Apparently, I would have lost that money.
A sharp pain shot through my forearm. “The fuck?” Katie pinched me.
“Why’d you do that?”
Plain old curiosity. “It’s Lily’s decision. If she takes him back, they deserve each other.”
“He wrote her a poem. About how beautiful she is, how kind and sweet and forgiving.” She faked sticking her finger down her throat and retching. “Total gibberish. But that shit gets her all revved up.”
“You read it?”
“Damn right I did. Right down to the part where he begs for another chance and promises to earn back her trust and to spend every minute of his free time with her.” Katie barked out a laugh. “All he has is free time! It’s Lily’s free time that’s in short supply because of all the hours she has to work to support herself and her deadbeat boyfriends.”
I looked over to the topic of our conversation in time to see her giving Kurt a warm smile. “Some women wouldn’t know a good man if he bit her on the ass.”
“That your plan?” Katie asked. “To bite her on the ass?”
“What? Me? No.” I busied myself, doing stuff that didn’t need doing.
“Well, just so you know, you’ve got more competition than Kurt and Dorian.” Katie leaned in. Then she motioned for me to come closer, which I did. “Lily has a secret admirer.”
I sprang back. “A what?”
“A secret admirer. Someone is sending her motivational quotes written on Speakeasy cocktail napkins.”
“That all?”
“Yeah, those quotes might seem like nonsense to you and me, but they light her up.”
“Light her up?”
Katie ignored my question. “In fact,” she glanced over at Lily. “I bet that’s why she looked so happy when you handed her Dorian’s note.”
Written on a folded cocktail napkin.
“She’s not freaked out that some anonymous person is sending her notes?”
“On the contrary, she’s the happiest she’s been in weeks.”
“Aside from her breakup, Lily is always happy.”
Katie shook her head. “Lily is a great actress. She shows people what they want to see. I don’t think she’s been genuinely happy for a long time. If some anonymous person sending her notes cheers her up and makes her smile for real, I hope he or she keeps right on doing it. Lily gets off on words.”
“Which is why I’m not her type.” I stated the obvious. “And she’s not mine,” I lied. Because Lily was every man’s type: Smart. Pretty. Sweet. Sexy. Sarcastic. Confident. Independent. Honest. With just enough vulnerable to make a man feel needed.
“Too bad.” Katie grabbed a fresh stack of napkins for her serving tray. “I think you’re exactly her type, she just hasn’t figured that out. Yet.” After lobbing that bomb at me, she got back to work, checking on her tables, while I got back to my own work, Katie’s words an unwelcome addition to those already scrolling through my mind.
Two pain pills will have you out for the night.
Stop putting off your medical eval.
I’m not ready.
If you’re discharged from the Marines, then what? Where will you go? What will you do?
“I think you’re exactly her type…”
“Hey,” Lily said, waving her hand in front of my face. “You working tonight?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“I think you’re exactly her type...” I tried to shake the words out of my head.
Lily shot me a look. “You need to take a break? Kurt could—”
Go straight to hell. “I’m good.” I reached for a glass then waited for her order.
“Two pints of Hawthorn Hill and two glasses of Audrey.”
I got right to work, pulling the beer first. Hawthorn Hill had won a year on tap at Speakeasy in a local craft beer festival. At the cider taps, I pulled two glasses of Griff’s award-winner. Rumor had it, the stuff tasted like sex.
My mouth watered at the thought.
Not for the cider.
For the taste of a woman.
Not just any woman. For my coworker/roommate…the one woman in all of Vermont I should not be thinking about tasting.
Fuck my life.
All four glasses in hand, I called to Lily, “Where are these going?”
She motioned to an older gentleman, standing alone. “You at a table?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Lead the way.” Luckily, my height allowed me to see above the crowd. “Here you go.” I delivered the drinks. A quick nod to accept his thanks and I headed back to the bar.
“Look at you, providing excellent customer service,” Lily teased, smiling as she poured three tequila shots.
Scooting around her to grab some limes and little salt packets to go with her shots, I teased back, “Learned from the best.”
Her smile grew. “That you did.”
Back at my taps I pulled glass after glass after glass, filling orders shouted from all around me, taking money, making change, collecting tips. A bartending machine. Until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy leaning over the bar, his hand gripping Lily’s wrist, not letting her move away.
I didn’t remember making the decision to intervene or taking the steps toward them. All of a sudden there I was. “You got a problem?” I yelled to a decent-looking guy, dressed nice in a wealthy-and-he-wanted-everyone-to-know-it style.
“I was just telling this tasty piece—” he slurred.
I didn’t need to hear the rest. A quick twist, a jerk, and a shove sent Obnoxious Drunk Tourist back where he belonged. “She’s not interested.” Even as the words left my mouth, I had no idea if they were true and I half expected Lily to go at me for being so high-handed.
“Let’s get out of here,” the guy said to his similar-looking friend as he scooped a wad of cash off of the bar and shoved it into a black leather…man purse? Leaving only the coins behind.
Good riddance.
Slowly, I turned to face Lily, ready for…whatever.
“Pro tip,” she said, all business. “Next time, don’t strongarm the customers until after I get my tip.” Then she got back to work like the incident and the insult never happened.
Later that night, after finally falling asleep naturally, without a pain pill, a scream woke me. Again. At least I thought it was a scream.
Instantly alert, I sat up, fighting the urge to jump from my bed to go find Lily, remembering Tulip. Instead, I focused on listening, straining to hear. All was quiet. But something felt off. Years spent in combat zones had taught me to trust my instincts. I held perfectly still, listened harder.
A low growl. A muffled thump. A male, “Fuck!” launched me out into the hall and through Lily’s open bedroom door—which she always kept closed at night.
In the shadowed darkness, I assessed the scene, noted the struggle. Someone fully dressed lying on top of Lily. A hand covering her mouth. Tulip’s teeth clenched on a sleeve, pulling with all her tiny might.
I flew into action, grabbing the back of the man’s sweatshirt and flinging him across the room, his body impacting the wall with a satisfying thud, landing face down on the floor. Then I went after him, throwing my much larger body on top of his, wrapping my arm around his throat. “Don’t move, motherfucker, or I will snap your neck.”
He replied with a strained gurgle.
The light clicked on.
I turned to see Lily, in a tight pink tank and silky sleep boxers, her hair a mess, her expression one of absolute shock, her arms cuddling her pup to her chest.
“You okay?”
Eyes wide, tears filling them, she nodded, petting Tulip’s head slowly.
“Call the police,” I told her, tightening my grip, trying to control my rage.
Lily didn’t move.
“Come on, honey.” I kept my voice calm, encouraging. “Keep it together. Get your phone.”
In a daze, she shook her head, eyes locked on the man beneath me. In an instant, something shifted. Her body went rigid, she stood tall, tossed Tulip onto her bed then reached for the wooden baseball bat beside it. “Let him go,” she said, her voice hard, her expression fierce.
The sudden change had me asking, “What?”
“Let. Him. Up.” She positioned the bat up near her shoulder, MLB style, ready to slam a fastball over the wall.
Since I liked the current badass version of Lily better than the shocked, dazed, on-the-verge-of-crying version of a moment ago, I released my hold, willing to let the scene play out, to let her take back control…to a point.
At the removal of my arm, the man inhaled then exhaled a few deep breaths followed by a cough and a scratchy, “Fuck.”
Limited vocabulary, that one.
My good knee to his back, I forced all of my weight onto him. “Any weapons?” I ran my hands under his armpits and down his sides.
“No, I don’t have any weapons.”
Hmmm. That whiny voice sounded familiar. Even so, taking no chances, I removed my knee, sliding my hands farther down his body, over the empty back pockets of his jeans, down then up his skinny legs, looking for any signs he was lying. “Roll over.” I shifted so he could, still watching his hands, ready to disarm him if necessary.
At the sight of his face, an ice-cold chill shot through my body. “Dorian.”
“Who the hell did you think it was?” He started to sit up, sounding more like a petulant child than a repentant adult.
“Well let’s see, Dorian. I woke to a scream. I came into Lily’s dark bedroom to see a man on top of her while she struggled beneath him, his hand over her mouth.” Then I remembered and lunged for his throat, slamming his head back to the floor. “Did he know?” I asked Lily.
Dorian pawed at my hand, straining to breathe.
“Know what?” Lily asked, moving closer.
“About your mother.” Who had been assaulted, then killed, at night, in her own bed. “How she died.” I may have been speaking to Lily, but my eyes burned into Dorian’s, his tearing and panicked. If he knew, and still snuck into her room in the dead of night, I would kill him.
Lily’s hand settled on my shoulder. “Stop,” she said softly. When I didn’t, she squeezed. “Please. He’s not worth it.”
Yet the thought of choking the life out of him felt pretty damned satisfying.
“I never told him.”
Yet she’d told me? I’d have to give that more thought later.
“Did you know?” I asked Dorian, loosening my grip enough for him to respond.
He whipped his head from side to side. “I didn’t know. I don’t know anything.”
“Let him up,” Lily said, still holding the bat though no longer looking ready to swing it.
Even so. “Put it down.”
“Let me up.” Dorian tried to push me away. As if he could move me if I didn’t want to be moved.
“Your choice,” I told him. “You could wait a minute while Lily puts down the bat she’s holding, or you can risk it.” I stood, stiffly and not all that gracefully, but I made it upright without assistance. I took that as a win.
In a show of smarts I hadn’t expected, Dorian remained on the floor.
My leg tight, I limped to Lily and carefully removed the bat from her hand. “Let me hold on to this, okay?”
She nodded. “Get up, Dorian.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Give me back my house keys.”
“You didn’t get your house keys back?”
“If I thought he’d use them to sneak into my bed in the middle of the night, I would have made more of an effort,” she responded, heavy on the sarcasm. A good sign.
Tomorrow I would change the locks.
Dorian stood, reached into the front pocket of his hoodie, and handed Lily two keys on a round metal keyring.
“The one to her workshop, too,” I told him.
He looked at me like I’d popped a third eye. “No one goes into Lily’s workshop.”
Huh.
“In case it needs to be said out loud,” Lily said, facing Dorian. “You are no longer welcome in my home. Don’t come back.”
“Who the hell would want to?” He wiped off the front of his pants. “You’re both insane.”
“Maybe we should call the police,” I suggested. “To have this on the record. Just in case.”
“Do what you want,” Dorian said, trying to sound unconcerned. Failing. Everything could have ended there. But no. Dorian had to add, “I won’t be back. She’s not worth it.”
My father’s blood boiled in my veins, pulsing with an instant rage that sent my fist flying into Dorian’s face.
Shit.
He crumbled to the floor, moaning.
“I’m sorry,” I told Lily. I’d worked so hard over the years to control that part of me, had hoped only alcohol brought out the beast. Shit.
“Down here, asshole,” Dorian said. “Shouldn’t you be apologizing to me? I’m the one you hit.”
Lily responded with, “You totally deserved it.
My chest loosened a bit. Still, I bent to look into her eyes, dreading the fear I’d so often seen in my mother’s eyes when faced with my father’s rage. Before I could protect her. “I would never hit you. Ever.”
Rather than fearful, she looked surprised. “I know that.”
“I promise you. No matter what happened between us, I wouldn’t hurt you.”
She reached for my hand, kissing the knuckles I’d just slammed into her ex-boyfriend’s face. “I know,” she repeated, as if she didn’t think I’d heard her or believed her. “I know you would never intentionally hit me or hurt me in anger.”
Relief weakened my knees. But only for an instant.
Lily turned her attention to Dorian. “Get out. You’re dripping blood on my floor.” Kneeling beside him, she added, “I’ve decided not to call the police, after all. And you had better not either. If you do, I will make sure you’re the one to get locked up.”
“He’s violent,” Dorian said. “Dangerous.”
“Not to me,” she told him. Then she walked into the hall bathroom and slammed the door.
In that moment, I loved her for believing in me.
Whoa.
Rather than think any more about that, I hauled Dorian to his feet, escorted him none too gently to the door, and tossed him onto the porch. “I ever hear you make any kind of move on her, yourself or through one of your friends, physical, verbal, rumor, anything. If you even get close enough to talk to her, I will hunt you down and tonight will seem like a beer with the boys compared to what I’ll do to you.”
Dorian did not waste a second in making his escape, stumbling down the stairs, running to his car.
As soon as his taillights disappeared around the corner, I went back inside to find Lily. Seeing the bathroom door still closed, I ducked into my room to slide a pair of jeans over my boxer briefs—to remind my dick we’re not here to play—and pull on a long-sleeve tee.
The bathroom door opened, and Lily walked back to her bedroom. I gave her a few minutes before going to check on her. From the open doorway, I watched as she stood staring at the bed, lost in thought.
I knocked.
She jumped, clutching at her chest.
“Sorry,” I said. “You okay?”
“When I woke up to his weight on top of me, holding me down, before I knew who it was, I felt such crippling terror. Completely helpless. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My pulse pounded so hard all I could hear was the sound of it in my ears. I remember thinking ‘It’s happening to me. I’m going to die just like my mom did.’” She bent to pick up the baseball bat. “A lot of good this did me.” Still, she set it back against the wall at the head of her bed.
“I can teach you some moves to protect yourself.”
“I’ve taken self-defense classes. They don’t help when you wake up to someone lying on top of you, holding you down.”
“I can teach you things they didn’t. When you’re ready. If you want.”
“What I want is for something like that to never happen to me again.” She rubbed her shaking hands up and down her bare arms.
“We don’t have to talk about it right now.” I walked to a chair in the corner of her room and picked through a bunch of lounge-at-home clothes draped over it. “Put this on.” I handed her a pale pink hoodie and a pair of matching fleece pants decorated with dozens of French bulldog faces that looked like… “Is that Tulip?”
She walked up beside me. “Aren’t they adorable?” Easy as that, she sounded back to her cheery self. But I knew she wasn’t. “I have them in a bunch of different colors.”
“Adorable?” I turned toward the bed where Tulip lounged, watching us. “She’s not adorable.” I walked over to pick her up. “She’s fierce.” I held her up. “A tough girl.” Taking on Dorian, trying to pull him off of Lily, refusing to back down.
“My protector.” Lily joined us, pulling my arm down so she could kiss Tulip’s forehead. Then she turned and set her lips gently against my pec. “You, too.” She looked up, her beautiful blue-green eyes meeting mine. “Thank you.” Her arms went around my waist.
I held on to the dog to keep my own arms occupied.
“You’re welcome.” I sounded like someone held captive in the desert and deprived of water.
She set her cheek to my chest, her body so close. Felt so…fucking good. Don’t think about fucking! Somehow, my free arm wound up draped across her shoulders, my hand settling on the smooth, bare skin of her upper arm. Which was when I felt the goose bumps.
A slap back to reality, I jumped away. “You’re freezing.” I should be taking care of her, not lusting after her. “Put some clothes on.” Still carrying Tulip, I walked toward the door. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.” Did she have tea? Did she even like tea?
It didn’t matter. On a mission to provide warmth in the form of a hot beverage, I escaped Lily, her bedroom and…feelings I should not be feeling for my temporary roommate, who had just been through a very traumatic experience. I would boil her some water and she could do whatever the hell she wanted with it.