brecken
“Smooth strokes. Up and down. Paint! Don’t tickle,” Aria admonishes with a fake Russian accent, watching as I glide my paint-coated brush down my wall.
I can’t help the crack of a smile and short burst of a laugh. “Money Pit?” I ask, rolling my head over my shoulder to meet her eyes.
“Yup. But it’s still good advice.”
I roll my eyes at my sister and turn back to the wall. “Couldn’t I have been an only child?” I droll without bite. “And couldn’t I have hired someone to do this?”
“No,” Aria snaps indignantly and I can’t tell if it’s at my only child remark or that I would have rather paid someone to paint my apartment—an apartment I don’t even own—rather than having me do it. “It’s called pride of ownership, Breck. It’s called sweat equity.”
“Aria, you know I don’t own this place, right?”
“Yes. But you should. You should buy it and not move back to New York in a year because you should stay here.”
“Don’t start in on me again with that. I’m painting, aren’t I? Even though I hate absolutely everything about painting.”
I catch the sound of Wes’s chuckle from the other side of the room. “I ditto his sentiment. Not to mention I can already feel my hand cramping, and this is a million-dollar hand. How am I supposed to perform surgery with a cramping hand?”
“God. Why are men such babies? Aren’t you supposed to be tough? I doubt you’ll hear Rina complain when she gets here.”
“Rina?” I nearly drop my brush but recover quickly. My voice might have also gone up higher than a twelve-year-old before his balls drop. I stop what I’m doing to turn and face my sister who is rolling this soft gray-taupe color all over my walls. When I asked her what this was, all she said was that it’s called Thunder and it will make the red brick wall and white trim pop. I went with it since she knows far better than I do.
“Yeah,” she says absently as she continues to paint my walls. “I invited her to help. I hope that’s okay. Everyone else couldn’t come, but she has the day off and lives close.” She pauses and catches my eye for a flicker of a second, frowning at whatever my expression is. Probably because I’m standing here frozen, staring at her. “That’s okay, right? I figured the more the merrier with this.”
Is it okay? Hell yes and fuck no. I’m pissed at her. Again. She ran out on me. Again. I didn’t even hear her go, which is weird since I slept just as well as I told her I would. I can only hope it was sometime after dawn and the rain had stopped.
“That’s great. Smart thinking.”
And now I sound like my father saying that.
“You sound like Dad,” Aria teases with a laugh and Jesus, siblings, right? But still. It’s true. Because just the thought of Rina—
And no sooner is that able to formulate in my head than the doorbell rings. “Oh. That’s her,” Aria chirps in a singsong voice, setting the roller down in the paint tray and skipping to the door like she’s Mary Poppins. Without missing a beat she flings the door open and there on the other side is my Angel. Her blonde hair is on top of her head in a neat bun and she’s wearing ripped jeans, a loose-fitting pink tee, and a hesitant smile.
She’s nervous about being here.
About being near me.
My jaw tingles as I try to contain my grin. “Don’t let Aria catch you looking at her friend like that,” Wes chimes in, coming to stand beside me. I hadn’t realized he was there, and it seems I’m busted already.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Though I don’t remove my eyes from her either. It’s an action I have to force, and I find the more I look at her, the less I want to look away.
“She’s off-limits, Breck,” Wes warns, and I chuckle, turning to face my best friend.
“Like my sister was for you? How’d that work out?”
When Wes first told me he was with Aria, how long their whatever the hell it was had been going on for, he looked contrite. That’s all gone now. Now he comes off as satisfied and unrepentant.
“That was different?”
I cock an eyebrow. “Oh? Explain.”
“I was in love with Aria. Even as a teenager. You don’t stay with women long enough to learn their last names, let alone fall in love. And we both know that’s not what you’re interested in doing with Rina.”
I scowl, turning away from my friend and back over to the two women talking in my foyer. “Who said anything about love? Why does every woman I encounter have to be the one or I shouldn’t bother?”
“I don’t know, Breck. Maybe because you’re on the flip side of thirty and it’s time to grow up and settle down.”
“Maybe that’s just not where my headspace is yet. That doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.”
But all that aside, Wes has a very valid point. I have never had any interest in falling in love before. I’ve been too busy with work. Too busy building up my career. And simply, I just haven’t found anyone I’ve liked all that much. It’s not that I’m into playing the field or require a new woman every night of the week. I just don’t see the need to prolong something I know from the start isn’t right.
And then in walks this blonde…
“I’m not touching her,” I say in a low tone, leaving off the second half of that sentence: But I want to. Doesn’t matter. Wes knows me well enough to know I was thinking it anyway. Doesn’t change the facts as they are.
“Good. Because not only do I work with Rina and she’s one of Aria’s best friends, there is more to her than just her face and body. She’s had it rough, Breck. Really rough. She’s a good person with a huge heart, and the last thing I’d ever want to see is someone who has no intention of caring for her hurt her.”
I’m so tempted to tell him I know all about how rough she’s had it because she told me, but I won’t go there. It feels like I’d be betraying Rina’s confidence if I did. Besides, as fucked up as it is, I like having a secret like this.
I like having something so forbidden with her.
Something we fight and fail at and fight again.
But the truth is, “That’s a low blow. Nice to know what you think of me, buddy.” I slap his shoulder, hiding the sting of his words with sarcasm and a smile.
Three years ago, Rina used me a hell of a lot more than I used her.
Because I wasn’t using her.
I looked at her and I saw nothing else. All I could think was, I want that. And then the goddess surpassed all my wildest dreams and kinkiest fantasies without even giving me the benefit of her name.
Hell, she didn’t want me to have her name. I tried and she shut me up right quick. No names if it’s only for tonight, she had said. And I complied. Willingly. Wantingly. Because if I wanted her, I had no choice.
But now I know her name.
And my desire for her hasn’t waned. If anything, knowing her name and having her in my world has only increased it. She can fight this thing with us, but we’re inevitable.
“I’m sorry, okay. But I have to say this shit. You know I do.”