Page 45 of Que Será, Syrah

“Sure, some of the time. But…”

“Did you know that, from the hills, you can look out over the whole valley? Sometimes, at night, you’d throw parties, and those houses would blaze with lights, like something out of a fairy tale.”

“That was my family—not me. I only ever threw one party. And that was the one you came to. So…maybe you weren’t missing out on as much as you thought.”

“Yeah, there was no missing you that night. The enchanted princess, dancing in the moonlight, coming apart in my arms. You were like something out of a fairytale, too, come to think of it. A total fantasy. And then, just like in Cinderella, you disappeared. Only I didn’t even have a glass shoe that I could use to track you down.”

“Cinderella,” I scoff. “Please. That was never our story. And anyway, why would you have needed a shoe? You knew exactly where I lived. You walked me home, as I recall.”

Clay shakes his head. “I guess there really were two of us in that delusionship. That’s comforting, in a way.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning, if you believed that, you were putting way too much faith in the navigational capabilities of my lust-soaked, half-baked, seventeen-year-old brain. I had no idea where I was that night.”

“Seventeen?”

“I’m not saying I could have never found my way back there. But the odds were not in my favor. Given how fried I was, it was a miracle I found my own way home.”

“What are you talking about?” I frown, as I sift through my memories, trying to recall the moment; everything we’d said, or done. “Did you not have a ride home? I thought you were eighteen?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry…what?”

“Neither of us were thinking about anyone’s ages back then. Why would we? We were kids. It wasn’t an issue.”

“I wasn’t a kid. I was eighteen.”

“Barely,” he replies dismissively. I’m startled until I remember that, of course, he’s seen my license. Of course, he knows more about me than I do about him.

“Besides,” he continues, “my birthday’s in August, so what’re we even talking about? Two months? That’s close enough for that to make no difference either.”

“Says the cop.”

“Deputy,” he corrects teasingly.

“An L.E.O. by any other name,” I shoot back at him, widening my eyes, daring him to disagree. “Besides, I thought you were a ‘by the book’ kind of guy?”

Clay rolls his eyes. “Not always. I try to be. But…well, here we are. So, I’m obviously willing to bend a few pages where you’re concerned.”

“Hmm. Lucky me,” I purr as I stroke down his chest and belly, feathering the lightest of touches across the bulge in his briefs. Full disclosure? I don’t entirely hate the idea that he wants me this much, after all this time, and despite all his reservations. Who doesn’t want to be irresistible?

“Yeah?” he asks, as he studies my expression. “How lucky? Because you still haven’t said—are you spending the night, or do you need to get back?”

“Oh, I’m definitely staying,” I promise, bending over him to kiss his lips. “You’re not the only one with fantasies to explore, you know. In fact, I think we’re going to need more than one night to address even a fraction of them.”

“Hell, yeah,” he says as he pulls me close, wrapping an arm around me, trapping me against him. “I’m counting on it.”

Birds chirp loudly outside the window the next morning, but it’s not that that pulls me from sleep. It’s the traffic noises filtering in—louder, closer, more constant than usual. I blink my eyes open and find myself alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar bedroom. It takes a moment for my brain to wake up and my memories to unwind. I stretch and twist in the sheets cataloging all the little aches and twinges I’m feeling, smiling as I remember how I acquired them. Rawr.

Somewhere close at hand someone is making coffee. It smells delicious, although not quite as delicious as the sheets which smell of sex and Clay.

I do love solving mysteries and connecting dots—as much as I love the spontaneous appearance of anything serendipitous in my life. And last night gave me all those things in spades. I’m thankful now that I never gave beer boy a name in any of the fantasies I’ve concocted about him over the years. Because I don’t think Clay was one that would ever have occurred to me, and that might have led to confusion now. I start to laugh as I remember our conversation, but then the other shoe drops.

He lied to me. He let me believe that the reason he reacted so poorly to being called Romeo was merely due to his dislike of alliteration. He even let me apologize—twice!—for my mistake, all the while withholding the truth about our shared past. It was only after I’d changed the rules of engagement, when I’d gotten the upper hand by walking away, that he’d deigned to tell me the truth. Which is not sitting well with me this morning.

The problem is that I have a type. I tend to be attracted to the kind of man who’ll do and say anything in order to get what they want—me in their bed, their ring on my finger, etc. And while I know it’s not fair to judge Clay based on how men like Nico have behaved, the truth is, I never expect any of them to act like bastards until they do.

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