Stumbling into Love
Page 8

Feeling her eyes on me once more, I look at her again. I see a hint of arousal that she tries to hide, but it’s too late. I see it there, calling to me like a beacon. I don’t understand her at all. One minute she’s looking at me like she wants to rip off my clothes. The next she’s trying to get away from me as quickly as possible. Another mystery I need to solve.
“So what do you think?” Aiden asks.
I take a pull from my beer like I’m pondering his question. In reality, all my brain cells have gone south.
“Don’t tell me you’re a Republican?” He shakes his head, grinning.
“A man never tells,” I say.
He laughs at my response. Thank fuck, because I have no idea what we were talking about—or more to the point, what he was talking about.
“What’s going on over here?” Mackenzie’s mom, Katie, asks as she takes a seat next to her husband on the couch, across from me.
“Just talking. How long until the food’s ready?” Aiden asks, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and fitting her into his side.
“The girls just finished setting up, so dinner shouldn’t be much longer,” she says.
Then her eyes land on me. I see them turn, calculating. She leans in, placing her elbows on top of her thighs.
“So . . . tell me about yourself, Wesley. Are you single?” she asks bluntly, catching me off guard.
I laugh.
“Katie . . .” Aiden sighs while she looks at him with mock innocence.
“What? I’m just curious.”
“You’re never just curious.” He shakes his head at her.
“Well, this time I am just curious,” she states before looking at me again. “So? Are you single, Wesley?”
I answer immediately in the affirmative, and her hands rub together like a villain who’s plotting her next move to take over the world.
“Do you like baseball?” she continues, eyes twinkling.
“Yeah, I like baseball. But I’m more of a football man.”
“Our daughter Mackenzie loves baseball.”
“Does she?” I ask, tucking that tidbit of information away.
“Oh yeah. She has season tickets for the Mets. She never misses a game,” she says. She looks past my shoulder and shouts across the room, “Mac! Come over here, honey!”
Turning my head, I watch a wide-eyed Mackenzie walk our way, looking like she wants the ground to open up and swallow her.
“Mom . . . ?” Mackenzie says once she’s close.
I notice the drink in her hand and wonder if it’s got alcohol in it. Then I move my eyes to her flat stomach. I’ve never once in my thirty-three years not worn a condom, but with her I didn’t even think about it. My only thought was to get inside her as quickly as possible. Now this woman whom I barely know, whom I can’t get off my mind, could be carrying my child. That idea fills me with something I don’t understand . . . all I know is it isn’t a bad something.
“I was just telling Wesley here that you have season tickets to the Mets. Maybe you can take him to a game sometime?” Katie suggests.
Mackenzie’s body jolts at her mother’s statement.
“I . . .” Mackenzie skates her eyes past me, and she quickly shakes her head. “It’s not baseball season, Mom.”
“Oh.” Katie frowns, apparently unhappy with her plan being shot down. “Well, when does it start back up?”
“Not until April.”
“Right. Then you will just have to take him to a game in April.” She smiles at Mackenzie, then tips her head to the side. She looks at me as I roll my shoulder subconsciously. “Are you okay?”
“Old wound. It acts up from time to time,” I say.
Her eyes soften before she looks up at her daughter with pride.
“Mac is a massage therapist. Maybe you can go see her at her office sometime. People say she has magic hands,” Katie says.
Mac coughs and Aiden sighs.
I feel my lips twitch. Of course it’s on the tip of my tongue to say that I know exactly how magical her hands are—from experience—but I hold the comment in.
“I might just do that.” I take another pull from my beer as Mackenzie’s eyes bore a hole into the side of my head.
I tip my head back and watch her swallow as heat flares between us.
“Where’s your office?”
Seeing her lick her bottom lip, I wonder if she’s even going to tell me. I feel myself relax when she gives me the address. Tucking that information away in a box marked with her name in my head, a plan starts to formulate in my mind. There is obviously some serious chemistry between us. I know that from the looks she’s been giving me. She feels it, too, so why the hell is she fighting it?
“That’s great.” Katie stands up, having no idea that she’s just given me another chance with her daughter.
I promise myself then and there that if she runs the next time, I’ll let her go. I know I’m lying to myself.
“Mom . . . ,” Mackenzie says, but Katie ignores her while wrapping an arm through hers.
“Come on, honey. Let’s go finish putting everything out on the table so we can feed these guys.” She leads Mackenzie away, talking quietly.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see Mackenzie’s shoulders tense as her mom leads her to the door—and out of Levi’s apartment. Probably to her sister’s, across the hall.
“My wife is a nut. She means well, but she’s a nut.” Aiden shakes his head. Grinning at his comment, I take another pull from my beer. “I’m going to head on over to Fawn’s place and see if they need any help.” He stands, and I stand along with him.
“I’ll join you.”
Smiling, he pats my shoulder before leading the way across the hall. Most everyone has already gathered around the table when we get there, so I take a seat next to Levi—and directly across from Mackenzie, who is doing her best to avoid looking at me. While I study her, my hand clenches into a fist. I have to work to keep myself from touching her. To keep myself from forcing her to look at me. To make her acknowledge that there is something between us.
“You good, man?” Levi questions.
I pull my eyes from Mackenzie to look at him. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
He nudges my shoulder with his before leaning over to Fawn, who is sitting next to him. He whispers something in her ear that makes her smile. Pulling my eyes from them, I look at Mackenzie and find her eyes already on me. There are a million emotions playing behind her gaze. The moment is broken when her little sister takes a seat next to her and says something that makes her laugh. Seeing her smile, I know I want to see that smile again—only directed at me.
Parking down the block from Mackenzie’s office four days later, I get out and pay the meter before heading toward the building. When I looked up Soothe Your Soul, the name of her practice, I found out that it was actually in an apartment building with a few other small businesses—all located on the first floor.
The rest of Thanksgiving dinner was interesting, to say the least. Levi’s sister-in-law kept bringing up his ex, which in turn pissed everyone off. Fawn, who I could tell was hurt by the conversation, got up in the middle of dinner. She took her sisters with her, and they didn’t come back for a long time. So long that I wondered if they’d come back at all. When they did return, Fawn wasn’t with them, so Levi left in search of her. After he left, I decided that I would head home, too.
I swear I saw disappointment in Mackenzie’s eyes when I told her and her family goodbye, but I knew not to get my hopes up. That doesn’t mean they weren’t. The need to see her again has been clawing at my gut since then.
I press the button next to the nameplate for her office, and the door buzzes. The lock clicks. I pull the door open and look around to see if there is a camera that will announce to her who has arrived. I don’t see one—and that bothers me more than it probably should. The idea of her being alone and just letting anyone inside causes the caveman who’s taken residence in me since meeting her to rear his ugly head.
Until I met her, I had never experienced possessiveness before. I had never understood the need to claim someone, to mark or brand them. Yet that is exactly what I want to do with her.