Mr. Dangerous (The Dangerous Delaney Brothers Book 1) Page 5

  "I haven't had a lobster roll in ages," she said. "Your family's always thrown the best parties."

  "I thought this was just a quiet lunch," I said, bracing my forearms on the rail to look out at the bright blue ocean. "She surprised me with the guest list."

  "I thought maybe she had," Kate said.

  I didn't want her to think I was disappointed to see her. "You know she just got in this morning?"

  "She’s a character," Kate said, a smile warming her voice. "Everyone in your family is a character."

  "Don't remind me."

  "Especially you." She bumped me playfully with her hip. It felt comfortable being around her again. That seemed like a miracle, after how things had ended.

  "So how's life in the teams?" she asked.

  "Hard to sum up pithily. How's life as a high-powered lawyer?"

  "Miserable. I can sum that up pithily." She glanced at the delicate rose-gold watch on her right wrist. "I'm taking an unusually long lunch before I blazer up again and get back to work."

  "Thanks for coming."

  "I thought you might need backup."

  “Thanks, Kate.” I smiled at her fondly. We had different life paths, but she’d always been a good friend. It was nice to know we could pick up a platonic friendship again after all this time.

  "Your grandmother's going to do this all over again with someone else tomorrow," she said, her voice mischievous.

  "Oh, god, she probably won’t stop." I groaned. "She wants grandchildren."

  Kate took two glasses of beer from a caterer, passed one to me. “Here. You best start day-drinking.”

  When the guests had gone, I sat opposite my grandmother again as she poked at a slice of cheesecake. "You know I'm not the marrying kind," I said, "Even if you dangle Kate in front of me."

  "She is a lovely young lady.”

  "Yeah. She is. She deserves better.”

  “Better than my clever, cute, and occasionally charming grandson?” She shook her head. “What’s wrong with marrying you?”

  “Being married to a SEAL. Being married to a Delaney. Take your pick."

  Grandma huffed. "Would you give up this family curse nonsense of yours?"

  "I don't believe in a family curse, and you know that. I don't believe in magic at all." It had been Grandmother, after all, that had once threatened me with no more Christmas presents if I let my brothers in on the Santa secret. She knew I'd given up believing in magic before I was even in first grade.

  I’d stopped believing in magic when my mother disappeared.

  "That we were cursed by a witch? No. That we were cursed by that wreck? You absolutely do believe that, Robert."

  "That wreck. Such a way of putting it." I shook my head. "So passive. Like mistakes were made."

  “Mistakes certainly were,” she said back to me tartly. “But Rob, you deserve to find love.”

  “Then you should leave me to find it. Not club it over the head and drag it into the house.”

  She stared back at me, her chin rising slightly. “I just want what’s best for you.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You can’t hate me for being meddlesome. It’s only because I love you.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I said. “You know I love you. Don’t use that as a club.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors, darling.” She pushed back her chair. “You have to commit to one or the other.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “It’s too hot for May,” she said. “I’m melting.”

  “I though you only melted when there was a little girl with ruby slippers involved.”

  She shook her head at me. “I’ll see you tonight, Rob.”

  “No more surprise dates?”

  She walked inside without answering. I knew damn well what that meant.

  I waited until she'd disappeared back inside, the French doors latching behind her, before I called Naomi.

  I wandered down the hill towards the water, past the tennis court and the hot tub, as I listened to the phone ring.

  "What is it, Rob?" Naomi answered, with a smile in her voice that defused her words. "I knew I shouldn't give you my number."

  "Amy gave it to me within fifteen seconds, and you made me work for it. What's up with that?"

  "Amy was hoping to be your booty call."

  "Right, where did I put her number, anyway?"

  "I thought you didn't like blondes."

  "It's not that I don't like blondes. I just adore brunettes."

  "Really?"

  "Especially the stand-offish ones."

  "Well, good thing your grandmother is helpfully supplying brunettes for you." There was a light tone in her voice that sounded false.

  "She wants me to settle down."

  "Oh."

  "I told her I'm not the marrying kind."

  "I know," she said, and I didn't like the way she said that. "So what is it, Rob? What do you need?"

  "Soft serve. At a bare minimum."

  She sighed. "You want me to abandon my work to take you for a cone?"

  "Not just any cone. A fresh-baked waffle cone."

  “You do know the way to my heart. I'll be right there.”

  I found myself smiling after our banter, but I sure as hell wished I knew the way to her heart.

  9

  Naomi

  We walked down a tree-lined avenue after we’d gotten our ice cream, enjoying the breeze off the ocean. I licked chocolate-coconut ice cream out of a sugar-fragrant cone. “Feels like we’re playing hooky,” I said, swiping stands of windblown hair out of my face.

  “It does,” he said. “And I’m even thinking of running away from home.”

  “What? Why?”

  He shook his head. “She’s going to parade suitable women in front of me until I leave town.”

  The thought gave me a pang. “Why?”

  “She wants—”

  “Not that.” I cut him off; the thought of Rob making babies with another woman made my heart hurt. I didn’t need to imagine it all over. “Why now? She really thinks she can sort your love-life out in two weeks’ vacation?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at me, as if I’d misstepped, then took another lick of his ice cream cone. His tongue was long and pink and made my mind go to dirty places.

  “You think my love life’s in such desperate straits?” he asked.

  “I think you need therapy,” I said.

  “I think you do.”

  I nodded. “Probably. I mean, I haven’t had a boyfriend in a million years.”

  He gazed down at me tranquilly. “Maybe you haven’t met the right guy.”

  “Maybe I’m just the wrong girl.”

  He shook his head.

  “What?” My tone came out irritated. That tone couldn’t have something to do with my datelessness, right?

  “I don’t like hearing you talk about yourself like that.”

  “Even though you’ll make fun of me non-stop?”

  “It’s different when I do it,” he said. He held his ice cream cone between two fingers so he could cup my shoulders in his big hands, turning me to face him. Which I did, reluctantly. “Because I see who you really are, Naomi.”

  I had to roll my eyes. “Oh? You know me better than I know myself? Despite being gone the last ten years?”

  “I see a beautiful, smart, independent woman.” His tone was mild, as if he didn’t notice mine. “Someone who could stand her own against anyone my grandmother dragged into the house.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. But I couldn’t help thinking about all the lonely nights I’d had in those ten years of my independent life, all the weddings I’d smiled through and all the times I had cuddled with my cats on the couch and wished I had someone to watch a movie with. But not just anyone. Someone like impossible Robert Delaney.

  And suddenly tears were filling my eyes. Oh my god. I was face-to-face with Robert Delaney, and I was getting weepy. His eyes widened. Desp
ite his SEAL-team-cool, the tension etched around his eyes and mouth suggested panic.

  I had to do something. And fast.

  So I tugged his shoulders down to me. He leaned forward, those broad shoulders comfortingly solid as I dragged him close, and I planted my lips on his. I kissed him too hard, too suddenly, my nose bumping into his. I felt my cheeks flare with embarrassment.

  Rob slid a finger under my jaw, tilting my face up to his. He kissed me. He had lush, soft pink lips. They were the one soft spot on that toned and hard body.

  My lips parted against his, welcoming him in. His lips felt cool, and his mouth tasted like mocha ice cream. His tongue swept into mine, sure and confident. As his tongue slid against mine, I felt a reckless throb of desire that ran through my body. Involuntarily, my hips swayed against his.

  His casted arm closed on my lower back, holding me tight against his chest. The warmth coming from his body was magnetic.

  Our mouths slid apart. Rob kissed me one last time, a chaste little peck on the lips. No more tongue.

  I glanced around, embarrassed; we were tongue-kissing like we wanted to tear off each other’s clothes in front of a boutique children’s toy store with a crayon-colored awning.

  “Well, jeez,” Rob said. “If you’d told me that all I had to do to end our arguments was to tell you that you’re pretty…”

  I raised my hand between us, palm out. “Do not. That was a one-off.”

  He grinned. “Why did you kiss me, Naomi?”

  “We are not going to talk about this.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to talk on our way to Boston.”

  “We are not going to Boston together.”

  “I thought we could leave this afternoon.”

  “No, Rob.”

  He was grinning. He took another lick of his ice cream, watching me with those knowing blue eyes. His tongue slowly followed the curve of his ice cream before it disappeared back into his mouth.

  He was watching me watch him.

  “You’re infuriating,” I said.

  “In a good way.”

  I shook my head. It made him smile.

  10

  Rob

  We drove through a Dunkin Donuts drive-through on our way to Boston that afternoon. I had to admire whatever makes Rhode Islanders so intense about their scenery. Even the Dunkin Donuts had weathered panels and a muted wood-and-brass sign advertising its coffee. Despite the way the storefront blended into the landscape, we still had to wait in a long line of cars to get our iced coffees.

  "I'll put your milkshake in the cup holder for you," I said, taking both iced coffees from Naomi's hands. Our fingers overlapped, and I felt that surge of energy I did whenever she touched me. God, that kiss. Funny how just kissing Naomi was more satisfying than fucking someone else. “Now I know how you take your coffee: pale with milk, double up the sugar.”

  As she pulled back out onto the highway, she said, "You never told me about why you joined the Navy."

  "Oh, you know. Saw Top Gun. The whole stereotypical thing."

  She glanced over at me skeptically. I knew that wasn't going to fly, especially when we were going to see Joe.

  "I wanted to do something different with my life," I said. "Not follow my father into investment banking and politics. Or dick around trying to find myself in college, either, living off his money. Just... do. I wanted to do something. I figured the Navy would tell me who they wanted me to be."

  "I know, but usually careers are in the genes," she said. "Look at me. I mean, it's hard to do something for a living that you've never seen..."

  She wanted the big story. She wanted to know what made me tick. Like anything is ever that simple. If people were simple, she wouldn’t all but tell me to fuck off one day and kiss me on Main Street the next.

  "Do you remember that meet we had against Wickford?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I guess nothing stood out about that meet for you," I said. The way she acted with me, so hot and cold, meant she must remember that day on the bus, even if she didn’t remember the meet. "I PR'd on breaststroke. Bright spot of the month."

  Not that it had been much of a bright spot. That had been the month Mitch flipped the Audi. Somehow, Mitch had pulled himself out of the wreckage. He'd left the girlfriend-of-the-week behind as he crawled back up the embankment. And the car had caught fire.

  Thinking of it still made me nauseous, my stomach roiling with regret and guilt. I knew it wasn’t my fault. But he was my dad. If he was a selfish fool and a coward, how likely was it that I was the same kind of man?

  At first, he kept me and my brothers home from school, while he met with his lawyers. He had tried to protect us from the news. I remember the shouting match I got into with him. Your fuckups aren’t my problem, I told him.

  I’ve only seen my father tear up twice in my life. Once when he came into my room when I was a kid, sat on my Star Wars quilt, and told me that my mother was gone. I’d been asking where she was, frantic when Mitch or Rebecca just changed the subject. But that night, his breath had smelled like Scotch and he had told me that he had missed her and his face had twisted. That night, I’d hugged him, patting his back, telling him it was going to be okay.

  By the end of our fight, he had the same sheen in his eyes. But the second time, I’d felt grimly satisfied to see those tears.

  I had tried to hold my father when he cried when I was just a little boy. But no one had been there for me when I used to hide among the shoes in my mother’s closet and squeeze my eyes shut, the hems of her dresses tickling my face, and pretended that she was going to come find me. Just another game of Hide-and-Seek, one that had lasted my whole life.

  In the end, because Dad could only fight battles on so many fronts at once, he'd let me return to school. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I had been surprised to have my friends sock my shoulder and say hi like usual. Like nothing had happened.

  "So?" Naomi prompted me. Those big golden-brown eyes were full of concern. "What made you bring up the meet against Wickford?"

  "I was just thinking about when we swam together," I said. "That's all. I happen to remember the day I PR'd."

  "Yeah," she said. "That was senior year, right?"

  "You remember?"

  "I remember that you stopped talking to me." There was a teasing note in her voice, but her eyes were sad.

  "It was probably because I was scared of you." I took a sip of my iced coffee. My romance with Naomi had always felt strange and precarious, even though I’d known Naomi all my life. Sometimes we had sat at the kitchen island to do homework together while her mother cleaned our house. We had been friends with milk mustaches, drawing ears on each other’s kindergarten self-portraits. Then one day I turned around and we were teenagers and I couldn’t stop looking at the pouty shape of her mouth or the spark in those brown eyes.

  After our meet against Wickford, Naomi had smiled at me as she tossed her backpack onto the floor and slid in next to me. I’d felt comforted by the warmth of her shoulder pressed against mine like any other day. My father was a fool, not the hero he had been in my eyes, but the rest of my world hadn’t changed. I still had my friends. I still had Naomi.

  When she fell asleep, like always, I’d turned my face into her dark, chlorine-scented hair. I should get off the bus with her; I should tell her how I felt. Life was too short not to kiss Naomi.

  My own eyes drifted shut. I was exhausted, my eyes bitter and aching from the sleepless nights since my dad’s crash.

  And in my dreams, something hit the bus. I saw myself clawing my way up towards the road, pulling up handfuls of new grass in my desperation to get away from the crackling heat.

  I woke up, leaning forward in my seat, shaking my head to clear away the images. I could still feel the frantic pounding of my heart, the heat against my skin. I couldn't stop picturing Naomi left slack-mouthed and broken behind me, the flames licking at that glossy hair that was spilled across my should
er now.

  I’d been suddenly furious at her. She shouldn't trust me the way she did. I hadn’t even been man enough to ask her to prom. Some of my friends–and my grandmother, the one adult who talked to me–expected me to go with Kate. Kate and I were broken-up for a reason, but it was prom, the season of romance and miracles and second chances. I’d been reluctant to choose between the old family friend and the new crush. The thought made me squirm. I was being a loser, just like my dad. Naomi was so sweet that she wanted to be with me anyway. So pathetic. I was just going to hurt her.

  I had shaken Naomi awake. My legs were restless and fidgety. I couldn’t stay there next to her. "I'll move. You can stretch out on the seat."

  But as I slipped out of the seat, as Naomi watched me with wide eyes, and moved to the back of the bus, I'd known she wouldn't fall back asleep.

  I hadn’t gotten any sleep either. Nights of insomnia, worrying over my father and my brothers and what I had done to Naomi, had haunted me until I went into the Navy.

  Naomi smiled in disbelief, shaking her head. "You were the king of that school. Every day was like when we went to lunch at Abby's. I'm pretty sure you had no reason to worry about earning my ire."

  "You were always grouchy. Just like now."

  Her eyes widened. She dared to look away from the road so I had the full effect of those big hazel eyes and her cheeks flushed pink. "I was not grouchy. I liked you."

  "You barely talked to me."

  "I was shy. I was nervous that if you noticed you were sitting with a peasant, you'd move to the back of the bus with your buddies again."

  I took a sip of my iced coffee while I thought about how to respond. I had indeed moved back to my old spot on the bus after that day, avoiding Naomi's eyes when she watched me go past. There'd only been a few more meets after that before swim season came to an end.

  "Peasant," I said. "You know, this is America. The whole class thing? Overplayed."

  "Rob, you know, back in high school, when you came over and asked, is this seat taken and started chatting with me like we were old friends? Back then, I thought the whole class thing was overplayed."