SWNOVELS Sweet Regret: Chapter 20
“There’s my Stolie.” My dad’s voice booms through the phone. The nickname he’s called me forever, two drawn-out syllables. “How are you? How’s school? How’s your asshole of a boss?”
“Good. Dad—”
“Those new pictures you sent me of Jagger? I’ve been showing them to everyone. Phyllis, my tennis friend, can’t believe how big he’s gotten. Josie. You know Josie. You met her a few years back at that barbecue we went to where the sauce wasn’t sweet enough and they ran out of dessert. That was her house. Anyway, I ran into her at the store—in the produce aisle to be exact—and she thinks he’s starting to look more and more like you.”
It’s not exactly hard for someone to think when they don’t have any knowledge of who his father is to make a true comparison.
“And then I showed Randy. He caught a ten-pound rainbow trout, so he’s convinced Jagger is good luck. He wants you to bring him back here sometime soon so he can go fishing with us.”
I love the man to death but he’s exhausting in every sense of the word. And I need him not to be right now.
“Dad. I—”
“Oh. Speaking of—”
“Dad,” I bark out even louder. “I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?” Concern oozes through the line.
The same concern I feel as I look around the mostly empty parking lot outside of work. “It’s my car.” My chuckle is one of disbelief as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m trying to start it and it’s not turning over.”
“Where are you?” he asks as if he’s right down the street and not several hours away.
“Outside my apartment,” I lie. The last thing he needs to know and worry about is me being alone in a parking lot at ten o’clock at night. “I know you can’t do anything, but I thought maybe I could try to start it so you could listen to it. That way when I get it to the repair shop, they don’t try to take advantage of me.”
“Sure. Of course.”
We go through the routine of me attempting to start the car so he can listen several times. “My guess is a bad alternator or starter but pop the hood. Take a picture of the battery cables to see if they’re corroded. If that’s the case, it’s a simple fix.”
“K. One sec.” I go to pop the hood but it takes me a moment to find the release and even longer to find where to put the little thing that safely props the hood up. The flash of the first picture I take blinds me temporarily.
“Hey?”
I yelp at the voice at my back and turn around, instantly on the defensive. But then I see Vince the minute I register that it’s his voice.
“Stolie? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” my dad’s voice barks.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine.” I turn my back on Vince and lower my voice. “AAA showed up.”
“Make him show you his ID so you know he is who he says he is.”
“He already did,” I lie.
“Okay. Call me later and let me know the estimate. If it’s too much, I can always drive down and change it for you.”
My smile softens. “Thanks. Love you.”
When I turn back around to face Vince, he’s already leaning under the hood of my car. He’s holding up the flashlight on his cell with one hand and tugging on the battery cables and tightening things I don’t know the name of with the other.
“I assume it won’t start? Cables look good. Maybe the alternator or starter,” he mutters as he inspects everything.
“Make yourself at home,” I say, with a quick glance up to the office building at his back.
“You don’t write. You don’t call. You ignore me at all costs.” He glances my way, the grin on his face enough to stop anyone’s heart, let alone mine. “And then you pretend your car is broken down in the parking lot because you’re so desperate to see me, but you’re not quite sure how to go about admitting it without looking weak.” He winks. “It’s okay, Shug. I’ll play along.”
Why does he have to be so charming? So amiable when it would be so much easier if he were the asshole to me that he is to many other people.
“You can’t be here.”
“Little too late for that,” he says and turns to face me. Without pretense, he grabs his shirt by the back of the neck, pulls it off, and wipes his hands off on it.
But I’m not looking at his hands or the grease on them. Not when Vince is standing there shirtless in the moonlight. It’s one thing to feel the hard lines beneath his shirt, it’s another to see them.
And oh, can I see them.
The grin on his face tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“I’m serious. McMann is watching me like a hawk. There are cameras in this parking lot he’s probably studying for all I know. Ever since the studio the other day, he knows something is up—”
“Something was most definitely up,” he murmurs as his eyes scrape down my body.
“See that? That right there can’t happen.” I take a step back and scrunch my nose.
“So you don’t want me to figure out what’s wrong with your car?”
“No. I don’t want you to stand there like that, half-naked in my work parking lot.”
“I’ll gladly be half-naked elsewhere. Like my hotel. Like your place.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “The back of my SUV over there could work too but might be a little cramped.” He chuckles. “It wouldn’t be the first time we made out in a car, though.”
“Will you stop? Please?” The man is exasperating. And sexy. And . . . “I told you we can’t do this, and I meant it.”
“Shug, you can tell yourself that till you’re blue in the face but give me some credit. We both know differently. Good, bad, indifferent, this thing we have doesn’t seem to want to go away.”
“Put your shirt on,” I order, completely ignoring him.
“You weren’t at the meetings today. Earlier tonight. Is this part of the we can’t do this so I’m going to ignore you thing again?” he asks as he takes a step closer.
Keep your eyes on his.
Not his body.
Not the dark tattoo snaking up his biceps and part of his torso.
Not the happy trail that disappears just beneath the band of his jeans.
“I had my reasons,” I finally say.
“Which were?”
I couldn’t stop thinking about you or the way your hands felt on me. The way your lips tasted. The thought that I don’t think I could ever get enough of you.
But that’s just lust, Bristol. Pure, unadulterated lust fueled by one Vince Jennings, the hottest man I’ve ever seen.
That, and it doesn’t help that it’s been some time—a very long some time—since I’ve had sex. Being a single mom means Jagger comes first. It means my needs aren’t always met, and while I’ve completely accepted that, it doesn’t make them go away.
But me being horny and in a dry spell doesn’t mean I have to give in to the man making my body ache with need.
Because Vince is still Vince. He’ll leave. I’ll be left behind. And risking my job to satisfy this itch he’s created isn’t worth it.
And the other day in the studio came way too close for comfort. It was a moment of weakness that I have no intention of repeating regardless of how incredibly hot he looks standing there shirtless.
I’m not just living for me anymore. Isn’t that what it all comes down to?
That kind of selflessness is something Vince has no clue about.
But those are all things I can’t exactly explain to him, so I settle on, “I was busy.” His expression tells me he knows I’m full of shit. “I figured you’d be at the studio.”
He snorts. “I’m stuck. Writer’s block or whatever you want to call it. It’s becoming a thing and I’m not particularly thrilled with it.”
“So why are you here?”
“Had a last-minute meeting with Will and Jasmine. Needed to discuss a few things that have come up that I want and don’t want to cover before we head back to Fairfield next week.”
The statement intrigues me. The mention of having to go out of town next week, not so much.
“You must have a crap ton of work to do if you’re still here at ten at night,” he says.
“I was enjoying the silence. The incredibly fast Internet. The lack of interruptions.” I shrug and know with my next statement that I’m letting him in more than I think I had previously intended to. “It’s the best place to study.”
“Study?” Even in the moonlight, I can see the surprise in his eyes.
“LSATs. Better late than never, right?”
“Bristol.” He stares at me with a subtle shake to his head. “That’s great. Congrats—well, congrats on a high score because I know you’ll get one, but . . . why didn’t you say anything before?”
“You don’t need to know everything about me.”
His chuckle rumbles through the night. “You let me stick my face between your thighs, but get offended as if I’m invading your privacy when I ask about going to law school?” He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Are we back to being Stand-offish Bristol again?”
I huff and he laughs. “I didn’t think it mattered. In a few weeks, you’ll be back to your world, and I’ll stay here in mine. You knowing I’m taking the LSATs doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things.”
He angles his head to the side. “Why can’t you study at home?”
“Why can’t you call Hawkin and try to fix things with your best friend?”
“That was a subtle change of topic.” His laugh is quick and his sigh is heavy.
“Nothing gets by you.”
“Like you said, in a couple of weeks I’ll be back to my life and you to yours and my reconciliation or lack thereof with Hawke won’t matter.”
“True, but you miss him. You miss them.”
“That’s neither here nor there.” He clears his throat, cups the side of my face, and runs his thumb over my jaw. I should step back, need to, because for all I know, Xavier scans the cameras every minute, and yet for once, I give myself the grace to tilt my head into his palm. “You’re exhausted. Burning the candle at both ends, huh?”
“I’m fine,” I say and, as if on cue, my yawn comes.
“Let’s get you home.”
“I have to call AAA. My car—”
“Will be fine here for the night. I’ll get it taken care of for you.”
“I can handle it myself. I don’t want anything from you.”
Vince’s eyes flash up to meet mine, the words from our past still as poignant now as they were back then. “I know you don’t. But sue me for wanting to take care of it for you.”