Pickup Lessons (Awkward Arrangements Book 3) Page 8

  I look up at him with a frown. “Are you helping me up or asking for my dirty paper towels?”

  Dash grins at me. “Good point. Maybe neither.” He walks toward the kitchen to throw away his trash. Unsure if I should follow, I stay by the front door and listen to the sound of him washing his hands. When he returns, he shrugs on his jacket and covers that delicious button-down shirt.

  I feel my heart sink. “You’re going?”

  He nods. “Kitchen’s mostly cleaned up. I’d just run a mop to clean up the stickiness. Unless”—he leans closer—“you like living like a pirate.”

  “Arrr,” I reply weakly.

  He drops his eyes to my mouth. “We’re still going to get that drink, Eden. Just on a different day.”

  My skin tightens at the heat in his promise. Then, before I can stop him, Dash makes a move to slide on his shoes.

  “Don’t!” I yelp, horrified.

  Too late. Dash shoves his feet into his shoes and shrugs. “What are my choices? Wear shoes that smell like cat pee, or wear no shoes at all.”

  I grimace, but he’s right. “Sorry again about the mess,” I say, and some of the lightness returns to his face.

  “Happy to make messes with you, Ellis.”

  He opens the door, and I lean my hip against the doorframe to smile at him. I want to hug him to make up for the way things between us can’t be as simple as either of us want. I want to hug him to find out if his heart’s banging hard for me, too.

  “Goodnight, D,” I whisper.

  “Goodnight, E.”

  Then Dash slips into the night, and I feel my heart leave along with him. I don’t know if Diana just sabotaged me or saved me.

  I hate that it’s a question at all.

  12

  Dash

  Don’t be mad.

  Eden’s text message greets me the moment I wake up on Sunday morning, and my body goes instantly tense. I have a feeling whatever message comes next is going to make me very, very mad.

  Because of my shoes? I reply, already knowing it’s not about that.

  I have another date today. Same guy as last night.

  I drop my phone and absorb the news quietly, my hands fisted in my sheets and my muscles vibrating with tension. My skin still smells like her, and I can’t get the image of her on her kitchen counter out of my mind.

  She’s moved on to date two already, which either means last night went really well, or she’s just moving fast again. But either way, it doesn’t change that she hid this from me through our whole conversation last night.

  On one hand, I don’t blame her for not saying anything, because when would she have brought it up—somewhere between the bottle crashing to the ground and her cat pissing in my shoes? Or sometime after I put my hands on her thighs and felt her buttery warmth beneath me?

  Even Eden and her smart mouth couldn’t deny the way the air seemed to contract between us, shimmering with heat. She knew she had a second date, yet she didn’t push me away or warn that she was spoken for. If she had told me, would it have changed things? Would I have let my hands linger? Would I have touched her at all?

  I have a feeling I would have still done the same thing, just as greedy but twice as guilty.

  Still, her holding back the truth feels like it’s due to more than just inconvenient timing. Like maybe by ignoring her date, it wouldn’t be true. And that’s the silver lining I’m clinging to.

  The more time we spend together, the more my desire for her grows. I haven’t even tasted her yet, and her mouth is already my favorite flavor.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  A few weeks ago, Eden dragged me and Titus to the opening of her friend Molly’s yoga studio. When she dropped her coat from her shoulders to expose her curve-hugging Spandex outfit, down dog took on a new meaning—no longer just a yoga pose, but what I had to tell my cock. But that’s not the memory I’m searching for. Instead, I force myself to remember Molly’s voice as she encouraged the class to breathe deep and blow away our troubles like tiny gnats.

  Breathe in for three counts. Out for three counts.

  Get out of my head, Eden Ellis.

  The buzz of my phone interrupts. Eden must have interpreted my silence as the anger she warned against.

  You don’t have to come, she types like an apology. I’ll send you a picture, or whatever. Even just a plate of my food.

  It’s fine, I reply. I’m not mad.

  It’s exactly what someone who’s mad would say.

  I groan and pull myself from my bed, trying to stop myself from obsessing over Eden’s second date. I don’t want to think about the guy she saw last night discovering how special she is. I don’t want to think about him falling for her unique blend of dorky, smart, and adventurous. All I want to do is plant my flag and claim her, but I know it can never happen.

  Even if by some miracle we both give in to the pull between us, there’s always going to be Titus, there in the middle, too important to both of us to risk.

  Sitting here thinking about it is only going to make my stomach hurt. At this point, there’s no more denying that I want her. There’s just living with how I can’t have her.

  Instead of wallowing in my own self-pity, I send Titus a text message asking if he wants to meet for a working lunch. He loves his job enough to work odd hours and weekends, so I’m hoping today will be no exception.

  Titus’s reply comes as I’m stepping out of the shower. I’m in. What time?

  I smile for the first time today. I may not be able to have Eden, but at least her brother’s on my side.

  Titus pinches the bridge of his nose and levels a disappointed stare at me over the edge of his laptop, his mouth a flat line. “Did you ask me here to sit in the corner and glower? Or did you ask me here to actually work?”

  I jab my finger at my laptop, tucked between a half-eaten plate of Huevos Rancheros and the dregs of a cup of coffee. “I am working,” I say.

  Our table is littered with the trappings of productivity—my messenger bag with my sketchbooks on the table, and a yellow legal pad and Sharpie for Titus—but the truth is we’ve been sitting in the tiny restaurant long enough for the waitress to eye our seats like she’s counting down the minutes until we clear out, and we’ve barely made progress on the Dark Horse website. Since we’re working on a Sunday, I’m not too worried about it, but Titus hates to waste time.

  “You’re brooding,” he says.

  Titus and I rarely disagree over business practices, but after years of our partnership, we’re also excellent at calling each other out on our bullshit so we can push each other harder. Normally, I appreciate his intense focus, but today his scrutiny makes my skin prickle.

  Titus sighs and closes his laptop screen. “Let’s pick this back up after you tell me what’s going on.”

  Fuck. Me.

  I quickly calculate how much I can risk telling him. Hey, bro, I think I’m catching feelings for your sister even though that might make you want to murder me with an ice pick? No. That would be bad for business.

  Instead, I risk something close enough to the truth to sound honest, hoping he’ll think I’m worried about the bet and not his sister’s love life. “Eden has another date.” I try to say it calmly, but it comes out as practically a growl.

  Titus looks unimpressed. “So? You have a date on Tuesday.”

  “Yeah, but why didn’t you warn me? You were there, right?” I can’t even tell him I saw him hunched over the counter of the restaurant because he’d ask why I didn’t come inside and have a drink. And then it might slip out that I saw Eden anyway. That she’d ended up in my arms and now I can’t shake the feeling of her from my hands.

  Lying is hard. Omission is easier.

  Titus nods like I’ve lost my mind. “Yeah.” My frustration must show on my face because he tips back his head and holds out his hands in a placating gesture. “Is that what you’re pissed about? She literally put money in my bank account to buy me drinks. I
t would have been a waste not to show.”

  I feel my jaw go tight, and I know none of my frustration’s really Titus’s fault. Yet somehow it still feels like he’s the thing between me and his sister. It’s a shitty move to ask him to pick sides, but I do, anyway. “I thought you were with me on this one.”

  For all his cool, a small flash of hurt streaks through his eyes. “I told you both at the start that I’m not interested in watching you play this game. Free drinks, sure. But this is between the two of you.” Titus narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t get it. Isn’t the whole point that you’ve already found someone you like?”

  Goddammit.

  I don’t know how to answer that honestly, so I just nod.

  “Good. Then don’t get to fixated on things. Stay in your own lane. Focus. That’s what built us this thriving little business of ours. That’s what’s gonna help you with this girl.” He gives me a long look. “Megan’s nice, right?”

  I rake my hands through my hair. “Yeah, Megan’s nice.” It’s one thing that doesn’t feel like a lie.

  “Good. Then it doesn’t matter if you get to three dates first.”

  My stomach churns. It doesn’t matter if I get to three dates first, but it matters that they’re not with Eden. Every moment I don’t claim Eden, someone else gets a chance. And I know I can’t have her, that I shouldn’t want her, and that everything would get too complicated and messy, but—god—it’s killing me to not go after her. I want Titus to at least make me feel justified in holding back.

  “Focus,” I repeat.

  “That’s the trick.” Titus reopens his laptop, apparently satisfied that I’ve quit bitching enough to get to work.

  Maybe he’s on to something. If I can convert the energy I spend thinking about Eden into energy I spend on the Dark Horse project, the payout in money and opportunity can be huge. I shove aside my plate of food and turn my attention to my computer.

  “Take a look at this,” I tell Titus, pulling up the website designs I’d been playing with last week side by side with the current website. I’ve given the Dark Horse website a modern facelift that has a nod to the comic format, updating both the outdated feel and the site navigation.

  Titus leans closer as I point between the two home pages, highlighting the improvements. “Looks good,” he says.

  I grin. Of course it looks good. “If we can replace every link to an outside bookseller with a universal link, we can cut down on a ton of visual clutter and let the comics themselves stand out.” I move my finger down the page, showing Titus how I’ve improved the purchase flow to make it easier and more intuitive to actually buy the comics. “Of course, I’m counting on you to do an overhaul of the back end so they can manage their catalog on their own.”

  My friend claps his hand on my shoulder, admiration back on his face. “See, D? Look how brilliant you are.” He grins at me with a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Speaking of which, have you figured out what you’re going to pitch to them?”

  I lean back in my chair and pretend I don’t know he’s talking about my art. “I literally just showed you.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” he says. He reaches for the corner of my sketchbook and pulls it out of my messenger bag.

  My sketchbook with pictures of his sister inside.

  If Titus opens it, he’ll see the images my scribbling, itchy hands drew last night when they couldn’t have the satisfaction of touching her. Eden at the bar when we first made our bet. Eden on her couch, legs kicked up underneath her. Eden on her kitchen counter, in the shower, on the street in heart-piercing stilettos.

  So, yeah, I might have taken my inspiration past the bounds of reality. That’s called using your imagination.

  Panic buzzes through me, and I wrench the notebook from his grasp. “Don’t!” It comes out harsh, all edges and blades, and I instantly feel like shit.

  “Sorry,” Titus mutters. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I know, I just…I’m not ready to share.”

  “Sure.” Titus gives me a long look and picks up his Sharpie instead, spinning it in his hands as he speaks. “Whatever you decide to do, don’t wait too long,” he says. “Destiny practically crawled into your lap. Don’t push her away.”

  Old insecurities die hard, and sometimes I’m slow to act. I know Titus is talking about my art, but I can’t help applying his wisdom to me and Eden and this weird little slice of my life that began the moment she sat me down in a bar and said, “You’re doing this wrong.”

  For a second, I think about all the things that might slip through my hands if I’m not careful. Wondering whether or not I should reach out. But then I remind myself of my best friend’s advice to focus.

  I’m gonna focus on work and Megan and winning this goddamn bet so it can be over with and I can be released from the torture of thinking about Eden with men who aren’t me. Focus on my date on Tuesday and moving on to whatever comes next.

  It’ll be fine.

  This shouldn’t hurt at all.

  13

  Eden

  A wall of noise greets me as I push through the doors to the Hole on Tuesday night, half the patrons on their way to a solid buzz. The air smells like beer and sweat and too much perfume, the crowd thicker than normal thanks to the draw of St. Patrick’s Day. After all, on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone’s Irish. And everyone’s drunk.

  A sweaty panic grips my body at the idea of wearing a toga in front of a crowd like this. I may have dodged that bullet tonight, but if Dash’s date tonight works out and he beats me to date number three, I could be standing in Matt’s spot in just two weeks.

  Not good for my reputation. Not good at all.

  “You made it,” Greer calls, parting the crowd to wrap me in a hug. She drapes a string of green Mardis Gras beads around my neck, and I shiver as the cool plastic touches my skin.

  “I heard there’d be booze.”

  I heard there’d be Dash.

  I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse, so I shove the thought aside and smile in relief as Locke and Molly make their way toward us. Maybe my friends can serve as an emotional buffer from the date I’m here to witness.

  Why am I here to witness this?

  Matt and Titus planned to be here anyway, so I didn’t need to come see this through. Didn’t need to watch Dash laugh with someone else. But it’s like a train wreck about to happen, and I can’t look away. Although, quite possibly, it’s my future lying prone on the tracks.

  “Parker’s holding a table for us,” Molly says, nodding toward the back of the room.

  Her fiancé, Parker Atwood, sits in one of the dilapidated booths with a pint of green beer on the table in front of him. He aims a smile at us as we thread through the crowd and spill into the benches beside him.

  Parker’s the lead singer and guitarist for Matter More, a band whose popularity has only increased since Parker wrote a song about Molly that hit the top of the charts. Die-hard music fans love the song’s beat, and the romantics love a guy singing about the woman he loves. It’s a win-win.

  I know if I mentioned my friendship with Parker to John, it would be the ace in my pocket to secure that coveted third date. I could have invited John here tonight, could have pushed it and won the bet by now. And yet, the thought makes my stomach hurt.

  “You need a drink,” Parker declares, gesturing at my empty hands.

  “A truer statement has never been said.” I look around at my friends. “Anyone need a refill?”

  They shake their heads, so I shrug and make my way to the bar. My brother isn’t here yet, but Matt hustles behind the counter, slinging beers to all the patrons wearing green.

  A speck of gold glitter winks from beneath his eye. “You’ve got something.” I gesture at his face.

  Matt rubs at the offending glitter to no avail, and I reach across the counter to wipe it away. “All better,” I declare.

  “I don’t know, Matt, I think you’re getting special treatment.”


  Dash’s words hit me first, followed by his smell—clean and edible. I picture him with stubble on his jaw, with his green eyes winking with mischief, and feel my body tighten with anticipation. The same feeling I get every time I’m near him now overtakes me—a tangled rush of nerves and desire.

  I want to lean into him. I want to feel the hard, clean lines of his body wrap around mine, making me feel small and safe. Instead, his voice curls in my ear, and his breath causes shivers to run down my spine.

  I turn to face him, and my stomach drops, a hot wave of jealousy replacing my earlier clammy-palmed anxiety.

  Beside Dash, the veterinarian holds out her hand. “Eden? I’m Megan. I’m a huge fan of your work.”

  There’s no way to glare at him without her seeing, so I force a smile. “Hey.” I take her hand with reluctance as she flutters in front of me like a tiny, frazzled moth.

  The fact that he’s using me as the celebrity when I specifically avoided doing that with Parker? It’s a backhanded move.

  “So, what’ll it be?” Matt asks, interrupting my murderous thoughts.

  “Rosé,” Dash answers for me.

  This time I do glare, my face going hot. My skin feels tight and stretched, and Megan’s gaze skims down my face, taking a closer look.

  How is it that he’s pegged me with a single word?

  I want to protest, but I also want that wine. No—I need that wine, and then I need to escape.

  “Rosé,” I mutter.

  Dash nods like I’ve just answered some question. “Beers for me and Megan,” he calls to Matt.

  I lean against the bar to wait for my drink, and despite the crowd filling the room, the air stretches empty between us. “So, how’d you two meet?” I ask to be polite.

  I don’t really want to know.

  Megan offers a dreamy smile. “We met here, actually.” She looks at Dash like they already have a story. I hate that she thinks they already have a story, like it’s something she’ll recount to their future children. “I picked him up at the bar.”