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“Hi.” He was obviously very surprised to see her, but not nearly as very surprised as she was to see him. “Good morning.”
“What are you doing here?”
He looked taken aback. “I live here.”
“You live here?”
“I think that’s what I just said.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Somehow she’d forgotten that or hadn’t noticed and now she was even more flustered because it was extremely sexy.
“Where is Marjory?”
“Ah. Marjory.” His smile dimmed. “She had a stroke. We had to put her in an assisted-living facility.”
“Oh, no.” She hugged the painting to her, feeling even more guilty now for not keeping up with her neighbor and friend, staring at the last person she’d expected to see. Then something he said penetrated.
“You put her in an assisted-living facility?”
“I’m her great-nephew.” Then he stuck out his hand as if they hadn’t spent the previous night sweating and straining toward gigantic climaxes together, but were meeting for the first time.
“Tyler Houston.”
Oh, my Lord. Tyler Houston. Big brother of Katie, her erstwhile track teammate, and awkward little brother of Cameron Houston. Cam was every schoolgirl’s bad-boy dream come true; true to form, he’d met a wasteful and tragic end in early adulthood. No wonder Tyler had looked familiar. Trust Darcy to think that sense of déjà vu was some sign from the universe rather than the simple fact that she actually did know him. Vaguely anyway.
“I’m…” She took one hand away from the bubble-wrapped painting to shake his, and her perspiring skin made an embarrassing sucking-tearing sound as it separated from the plastic.
“Darcy Wolf.”
“Wow. Darcy Wolf.” He shook her hand, staring at her as if she were the big bad one. Then he dropped his arm and chuckled, but not as if something were funny in a good way.
She was pretty sure she knew what he was thinking. Both of them had gone into last night as a fantasy, the chance to leave behind their real identities and follow a powerful attraction to its passionate conclusion without baggage or expectations.
Now it turned out they had a shared past, more parallel than intertwined, but related certainly. There were many people Darcy didn’t want to find out that she’d stripped to seduce a workman at her house, and he would know a lot of them. In fact, Molly’s husband, Bruce, was a distant cousin of his.
She’d bet Tyler was about as happy to discover who she was as she was to discover who he was. Namely: not.
“Well.” She could feel herself blushing and stupidly clutched the painting harder as if she could cool her face that way. At least she’d told no-longer-Garrett that he was her first seduction, so he couldn’t tell anyone she probably made getting naked for strangers a habit. On the other hand, he might be enough of a gentleman not to tell anyone at all. That would be nice. “Tyler Houston. Imagine that. Ha.”
Her intense discomfort amused him apparently. Or something did. “Come on in. I don’t have to leave for your house for another fifteen minutes. The coffee’s still hot and I have a blueberry cake that should be finished.”
“Oh, you know…I just wanted to drop this off for Marjory.” She held out her ludicrously padded package, feeling a panicked need to run from this complete reconfiguration of her last twelve hours so she could think the new version through.
“It’s a painting. By Mr. Hous…uh, your great-uncle. I wanted Marjory to have it back.”
“Thanks.” He took the painting. “You don’t want to keep it? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh. Well.” She moved her hair back behind her shoulders, where it never wanted to stay, desperately trying to think of some reason not to keep the artwork other than loathing. “I’m just…I…Well, she should have it.”
He winked and she felt a little fizzy in response. “I didn’t like his work, either. But Aunt Marjory was proud of him. She’ll appreciate this, thank you.”
“My dad loved the painting. He hung it in his study, over his desk.”
“That’s nice to know.” His eyes warmed with sympathy and her fizz got fizzier. “I heard about your dad last year. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I miss him, but I’m glad he’s at peace now.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t figure out who you were. I assumed the house had been sold by now and that you were the new owner.”
“No. The old one.” She took a step back, frantic to escape. This was horrible. How did you have a polite catching-up conversation with someone as if you hadn’t seen him in years, when last night…
“Sure you won’t have coffee?”
“No. No. No, thanks.” She grimaced. Think she could say no a few more times?
“Okay.” His eyes cooled. “See you later.”
“Uh. I’m probably going to be out most of the day.”
“Right.” His lips scrunched into a line; he turned back into his house, lifting his hand. “Bye.”
Darcy nodded idiotically at the back of his head, then turned and fled up 64th Street, not feeling entitled to the shortcut anymore. She turned right on Clarke, south on 63rd, into her house and directly to her phone, desperately needing Molly.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
“Hi, Molly. Um…I need to…Last night…”
“Uh-oh, crisis.” Molly sighed. “I had three already this morning. Can’t find favorite shirt, didn’t like breakfast, left shoes across the street at Ricky’s house.”
“Sorry, I know you’re swamped.”
“For you, I can handle it. Just don’t call me Mom or honey.”
“Deal.”
“So?”
Darcy wrinkled her nose and launched herself into furious back-and-forth pacing across the now-rugless hardwood floor in the living room. “Last night. You know that painter I told you about?”
“Uh-oh. You did it…or rather, you did him?”
“Yes.”
“And now begins the fallout. Won’t say I-told-you-so, but want to.”
“No, last night was fine. More than fine. Perfect. He was…”
She stopped pacing, unable to tell her best friend, whom she told absolutely everything, any details. “Well, it was perfect.”
“I’m getting the perfect part, but you’re not in crisis over that.”
“No. So. This morning, I go to Marjory Houston’s house to take back one of her husband’s paintings.”
“The hideous one from your dad’s study?”
“Yup. Only it’s not Marjory Houston at the house.”
“No, she’s at Royal Oaks.”
“Instead it’s…Well, it’s…”
“Tyler Houston lives there now.”
“Right. Him.”
“And?”
“Him, Molly. Him.”
Molly’s gasp came over the line loud and clear, followed by a giggle. “Oh. My. God. You seduced Tyler Houston?”
“Apparently.”
Molly of course only saw the humor in this disaster and helped herself to a good long belly laugh at Darcy’s expense.
“You didn’t recognize him?”
“Why would I? I only saw him a few times that I can remember, and that was over ten years ago. He’s at least five years older than me, and let’s face it, sort of invisible next to his brother.”
“But you can see him now, I take it.”
“He grew up.” She pictured him coming into her room naked except for the towel and then naked without the towel and couldn’t help a dreamy smile. If only he’d stayed Garrett. But even now, knowing he was Tyler didn’t change that last night was perfect.
“So what now? When are you going to see him next?”
“I’m not.” She started pacing again. “Obviously.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it was only an accident that he turned out to be a real person. While he was a fantasy, the entire experience was amazing.”
“Oh, give me a—”
“I’m serious.” She directed her pacing to the ugly brown couch by the front window and sprawled on it. “And I want more.”
“You just said you weren’t going to see him.”
“No. With someone else. A different fantasy. Last night was amazing, Molly. I felt so free and powerful. And sexy, like movie-star sexy. The most amazing high I’ve ever had. I want that again.”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
“No. I’m telling you, it was incredible.”
“Yeah, I hear heroin gives a pretty good high, too. Doesn’t make it a good idea.”
“Honestly.” Darcy gave a boring beige throw pillow a good solid punch. “Do all people start parenting everyone they know after they have kids?”
“Only when they need it.”
“Molly…”
“You know, the more I think about it, you and Tyler could make a really good couple. He’s smart, funny, really sharp. He’ll be teaching at UWM next fall. Bruce admires him, and you know Bruce, he doesn’t suffer fools.”
“I know that about Bruce.”
“So why not? Is he interested? I mean, obviously he was last night. What guy wouldn’t be with your, er, charming offer on the table. But this morning?”
Darcy scrunched up her mouth. He had looked at her sort of eagerly now that she thought about it. He had invited her in for coffee. Her insides started to warm and soften. His eyes were such a gorgeous color. Sometimes blue, sometimes green, often both. They made her—
Wait, what was she thinking? “Whether or not he’s interested is beside the point. I’m not interested.”
“Why not? He’s a hell of a catch.”
“I’m leaving town in a few weeks. Why would I want to start something? The only thing I have room for is fun.”
“Right.” Molly made a characteristic scoffing sound and Darcy could picture her disapproving face as if she was in the room next to her. “So. Then, uh, tell me, what’s your next big fun?”
“Well…” She tipped her head to one side, wondering why Molly had asked the question so oddly. Maybe because she didn’t really want to know? But Darcy did. What other fantasy could she fulfill? Another of her favorites popped into her head as if it had been waiting impatiently for its turn. “Next I’m going to dress in a sexy, black-leather-mini outfit, stiletto heels, killer makeup and strut into a bar baring my bad-assed attitude for all the world to see.”
Molly made a choking sound. “I need antacids just listening to this.”
“Aw, c’mon. Haven’t you always wanted to be a hot confident babe-ola just for a little while?”
“No, for God’s sake, and you know why? Because I have a brain, that’s why. Fantasies are called fantasies for a reason, and that reason is this. Because. They’re. Not. Real.”
Darcy frowned. Not that she expected sensible, practical, anti-glamour Molly, who met Bruce in high school and never looked back, to jump up and down at her idea, but she sounded stretched extra thin and had the day before, too. “Hey, girl. Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
“No. Nothing is bothering me.”
Darcy let the silence hang. “Moll…”
Molly sighed. “Bruce.”
“Bruce…what?”
“He’s…started going to some personal trainer.” Her sentence accelerated like a sports car. “So what, suddenly he hates the fact that he’s getting old and fat when he’s been a work in progress for years and years?”
“Bruce is working out?” She tried to picture beefy jolly Bruce breaking a sweat over anything but a Packers game on TV. “Bruce?”
“He met this woman through his work, selling her the usual physical therapy equipment. She offers to train him, which she does on the side. He accepts. She’s young, stunning, looks like Angelina Jolie. I haven’t seen her, this is his description. He talks about her all the time, how great she is, how strong she is, how smart she is…”
