America’s Suitehearts

Sophie

Since adopting Wilson, I haven’t taken a single weekend away. Aside from my trips to visit Caleb in Europe, I’ve never officially taken a vacation. As our plane descends into Boston’s Logan Airport, I wonder to myself if a forty-eight hour jaunt to watch a women’s CrossFit competition counts as a vacation. With Boyd at my side, it feels like one. I squeeze his hand when the wheels touch the runway and the plane bounces before it slows to a stop and the passengers applaud.

“Welcome to Boston,” he offers and kisses the back of my hand. There’s a note of familiarity in his greeting.

“Have you been here before?”

He hesitates to reply, making me assume he came here previously with his witch of an ex.

“Oh, did you come here with Mag—”

“No.” He stops speaking while the flight attendant instructs the passengers when and where to disembark the plane. “I came here five years ago for a barista championship.”

I drop his hand, needing my own to cover my face and contain my laughter. “I’m sorry. Did you say barista championship?”

“Don’t laugh. It’s serious business.” His deadpan expression is disrupted by a smirk, making me laugh more.

“I need to hear all about this.”

We gather our carry-ons from the overhead compartment as he tells me what the competition comprises, the purpose of it, and what’s at stake. I revel in the new information because this may now be my newest favourite kind of competition. Coffee. No sweating. Travelling the world, tasting world-class espresso. Yes, please.

“So how did you fare in this international coffee spectacle?”

He exhales a long breath. “I finished third as an individual. Our team finished ninth.”

“Wow. So you’re the third-best coffee maker in the entire world? I believe it.”

He chuckles, but I’m dead serious.

“Just the third-best competitor on that day.”

I hook my arm through his as we tug our wheeled baggage through the terminal, bypassing the luggage carousel. “Forget about international recognition. You’ll always be the best coffee maker in my world. That’s all that really matters.”

He glances down at my smiling face, making me oblivious to the hoards of people crowding the airport. “Agreed.”

Our car drops us off in front of the upscale hotel I booked because it looked like it had a lot of things within walking distance. We approach the checkout counter, where I present our reservation number. The front desk clerk works efficiently to get things sorted until it comes to authorizing my credit card. For some reason, it won’t go through.

“There’s no way it’s maxed out. I always pay it. What if someone… hacked it or whatever they do? Oh, my—”

“Relax. It’s fine. We can use mine. I’ve got you covered.” Boyd kisses my forehead before pulling his credit card and passport from his pocket and handing them over.

The startling realization that I like when he has my back sends a rush of butterflies through my chest. I make a second realization and can’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry, but is your name actually Boyd Oliver Nicholas Edwards?”

He closes his passport quickly and tucks it away. “I’m not sure my passport would be legal if it wasn’t. I’ve heard all the jokes before. Go ahead; get it out of your system.”

“When you’ve worked a long shift, are you B.O.N.E. tired?” I laugh at my own stupid joke, but Boyd does show signs of breaking his stoic expression. “Oh, oh. When you get out of the shower and wrap yourself in a towel, are you B.O.N.E. dry?”

Even the clerk flashes a smile at that one.

“Maybe don’t bring up showers when we’re going to be sharing a room all weekend,” he breathes in my ear.

That’s enough to cause a hitch in my breathing and I lose all ability to be cool.

“Ready?” Boyd holds up the keys the employee passed him, sporting a wicked grin.

“Absolutely.”

After we get settled into our hotel room and grab a quick bite to eat, we head to the event space where Ashlyn is competing. Jim is doubling as her coach and fiancé this weekend, but he helps us find good seats based on Ashlyn’s lane assignment and tells us he’ll check in later.

The competition is intense. This event is women only, running as a fundraiser for women’s cancers. Just because it’s a fundraiser doesn’t mean anyone takes it easy. I learn that EMOM stands for ‘every minute on the minute’ and AMRAP stands for ‘as many reps as possible.’ I also learn that I have no interest in trying CrossFit. The way these girls are collapsing at the finish line is a hard no from me.

Ashlyn finishes the day in second place. We try to invite the couple on a double date for dinner, but Ashlyn insists she has a date with ‘gym’ because neither workout in the competition actually counted as her workout for today. Another hard no from me.

Regardless, that suits me fine, because I get Boyd to myself for an evening in Boston.

Unfortunately, by the time we get outside, temperatures are well below freezing, so we don’t make it too far from the arena before tucking into an old Irish pub.

“I wonder if there’s anyone here from ‘The Office’. You know?” I scan the room, looking for anyone who screams mobster, but everyone just looks like a misplaced college student or single middle-aged person hoping to make a love connection.

“The Office? Like the TV show or the Irish mafia?”

“The mob, obviously.”

“What do you plan on doing if you run into someone?” Boyd’s face is a textbook depiction of concern, but I’m enjoying this.

“Depends if it’s a street soldier or an underboss. The conversation will be different depending.”

“Sophie, wha—”

I erupt with laughter as we take two empty seats at the bar. “Your face. Priceless.”

He scrubs his hand over his stubble, running his finger and thumb along the sharp line of his jaw. “I thought you were going to try to make connections or something.”

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I wink and smile, hoping to make it clear I’m kidding. “I wouldn’t be surprised if my father has mobster connections in Toronto. Isn’t importing and exporting a big part of their operation?”

Mention of my father immediately changes the entire mood of our evening. We came here to get away from him.

“Henry has such a superiority complex, he’s not taking orders from a capo. It’s more likely he thinks he’s The Godfather, and you’re his territory to control.”

I stiffen at Boyd’s words. Gape at him. Want to fight back, but I can’t dispute his assessment.

“Soph… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He trails off, searching the room like he’s waiting for someone to rescue him. “I’m going to run to the washroom. Try not to befriend any Irishmen while I’m gone.” Boyd kisses my temple and walks toward the back of the narrow space.

The dark wood interior, dim stained-glass lighting, and hunter green vinyl upholstery make it feel small in here, but it’s cozy. That coziness doesn’t combat the lingering upset over Boyd’s comments, though. Seems like a job for liquor.

I flag down the bartender, who acknowledges me, but his hands are full with a tray of stout that he’s delivering to a booth at the far end of the room. While I wait, I feel a body press up against my back.

“Hello, beautiful. What brings you here?” A man who tops out at 5’3”, smells like cigars, and has no concept of personal space, stands entirely too close to my stool.

I shift sideways, creating distance between us. “My feet.”

“Ha! Clever. Can I have your name?”

Again, I inch back, creating more space. “Oh, you poor thing. Did your mother not give you your own?”

The nameless smoker is not taking the hint. “You’re funny. What do you do for work?”

I lean forward just enough to act like I’m telling a scandalous secret. “I’m a slaughterhouse worker.” For fun, I paste on my best serial-killer smile and waggle my eyebrows.

Unsurprisingly, he takes a few steps back, then leaves without another word.

The bartender arrives seconds later and takes my order. I request two glasses of Knappogue and wait for Boyd to return.

He arrives back to his seat at the same time as our drinks. “Make any shady connections?”

“Funny you should ask.” I giggle, trying to let the earlier tension from his comments dissipate. “A guy hit on me, so I may have implied that I had a career killing innocent animals.”

His face transforms from indifference to annoyance. Eyebrows pulled together. Lips slanted downward at the corners. He looks like he’d prefer I made friends with an underboss. “You really can’t shoot anyone down straight, can you?”

My jaw clenches at the same time my fingers do around my glass. I down my drink in one go, slam it on the counter and stand. “And you really can’t let that go, can you?” I shake my head as I walk to the door.

Boyd comes running up behind me. “Sophie, wait. It was a joke.” He turns me so our shoulders are square. “I just see you as this ultra-confident, fierce, intelligent woman, and I wish you’d just tell it like it is sometimes. You could have told him you were seeing someone.”

My rage level decreases slightly, but not enough to relax my scowl. I can see why that would come across the wrong way, like I don’t value our relationship enough to claim it. But I’m stuck on him being so upset about my lie to him. “Sue me. I don’t enjoy hurting people’s feelings. I couldn’t tell a virtual stranger that I didn’t want to go out with him because I’ve been taken advantage of so many times, I’ve lost count, and I was tired of being used as a stepping stone. I couldn’t just blurt out that my father has expectations for who I date and I didn’t want to give him more reason to be disappointed in me. I’m sorry if I hurt your ego, but I thought we were past that.”

“I am past it, and believe me, after one meeting with Henry, I understood.” He reaches out to take both of my hands and pulls them behind him until they connect. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel and get room service? Rent an overpriced movie on Pay-Per-View?”

It may have taken some prompting, but I clutch my hands behind Boyd and rest my head against his chest. “As long as it’s not sushi.”

He chuckles, so I feel the rumble, and that alone starts to melt away the fury I felt seconds ago. Not for the first time, I recognize how hard I’m falling for him. With every instance of push and pull, I get reeled back in tighter. With that, I’m also getting tired of resisting. Tired of putting up the fight and trying to stop myself from falling. Because he may be the first man who has shown romantic interest in me for me.

And that feels good. Really good.

“Ready?” he asks, tugging my hand.

“Absolutely.”

We settle into our hotel room, changing into pyjamas and curling up on the stiff sofa together. I almost forget that this is a temporary weekend away. I miss Wilson, but it’s nice to ignore pressing responsibilities that come from work and bills and narcissists.

Though, Boyd’s words from earlier linger in my mind as we watch a comedy that pre-dates both of us. The classic one liners result in a few belly laughs, but my mind is never far from the truth in what he said. The worst part is, I know staying at this company makes me look nepotistic or weak—both which are terms I don’t want to be associated with—but it’s not an easy decision to abandon a position that means abandoning my parents, too. It’s not easy to walk out on the women in that building who I made a promise to myself I’d protect. And it’s certainly not easy to walk away, knowing I’ll have the wrath of Henry to contend with.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Boyd leans down to kiss my bare shoulder. “You didn’t even laugh at that one.”

I blink several times until the TV comes back into focus. “Nothing.” I tilt and turn my head so it’s resting against his chest and I’m looking up at him. “Just thinking how nice it is to get away for a bit.”

“Yeah. It is.” He doesn’t look convinced that I’m telling the full truth, but he doesn’t press me on it, either. What he does is press his lips against mine, adjusting the angle with a soft finger under my chin.

My entire adult life, I’ve resisted doing what most men tell me. I’ve fought back when I felt like I had the power to do so, just for the sake of doing so.

But Boyd makes me want to concede.

To give in to him and let him lead.

To fall and trust that he’ll be there to catch me.