Unexpectedly You (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

Nate

Days turn into weeks, and I wonder if Brooke made a “to do” note about me
—
Forget I ever kissed Nate
, and checked it off.

We’re back to friends.
Back to teasing. She won the stupid bet over the restaurant reservations, and I won a bet about the latest “planned elopement.”

Brooke
’s Mr. Perfect law student didn’t last. She didn’t make it to date three with Mr. Wannabe high school English teacher, but she’s done four dates with Mr. Soon-to-be-Dentist, just not a sex-date yet, and I try to tease her and try to let it be okay, but it’s not okay. It twists up my insides every time I think about another guy’s hands on her.

Every day we work together I wonder why I can’t just say
—
Brooke. I need us to be friends for a little while longer. Can you wait? I know that’s pathetic, but I need the time. I like you. Is how I’m feeling one-sided?

I hate that it’s never felt like something I could ask. And I know my brother’s solution would be for me to date as many girls as I could. To sleep around and make an idiot of myself, but I’m not that guy.

The problem is that if I don’t find the guts to tell her how I feel, I’m going to lose her.

***

I’m proud of these pictures, even though wedding photos aren’t my thing. I’m in my office, which Brooke re-vamped a couple weeks ago by blowing up some of her favorite shots and putting them on the walls. I have to admit that I actually look legit in here now.

The bride is scrolling through the pictures on my huge screen and her smile splits her face.

“Nate,” she breathes out. “These are breathtaking. I mean,
gorgeous
.”

“Posed,” I say before I can stop myself from letting the words come out.

She pauses, her eyes finding mine and I swear she’s trying to get a read on me. “Maybe, but that doesn’t change how I felt in those moments.”

Everything in me tenses a bit, wanting to know what she’ll say next. “What do you mean?”

“Just because our ceremony was staged and planned, and my dress was planned, and our photos were posed, doesn’t mean I didn’t love every second of it. These are real moments in the happiest parts of people’s lives, and you’ve captured it perfectly.”

“Thanks.” I’m sort of blown over by her words. “It’s always felt like I was trying to show something that wasn’t there.”

“You’re enhancing it,” she says with a smirk. “And anyway, we always remember things better than they actually were, so really, in hindsight, your photos will be spot on.”

“Huh.” I scratch my head. “Well, thanks.”

“Hmm.” She goes back to her photos.

Brooke flashes through my mind again and again. “How’s the new husband?”

“Fantastic. He’s so bummed he’s not here, but he travels a lot for work.”

I nod, my throat drying out. “And you’re happy?”

“Very.” She sits back in her chair. “Got a girl?”

Got a girl, got a girl
… Yeah. If I wasn’t an idiot.

“
I don’t know,” I sidestep.

She rests her chin on her palm. “
You don’t know?”

“Pictures?” I ask.

“Well now you have me all curious about a girl you don’t know if you have or not,” she teases.

“I fell for her hard when I didn’t expect it and when I wasn’t ready for it. Then I pushed her away.” I stop for a moment. “It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff.”

“Yep,” she agrees.

I take my head in my hands, still not fully realizing I’m talking to a stranger. “And I know how bad it can hurt at the bottom.”

“Yep.”

I stare at her. “You agreeing with me shouldn’t make me want to move forward.”

“But it does?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“It does.”
Before I lose her.

“Good.”

If anyone’s worth it, it’s Brooke. Only maybe I’ve messed up too bad. Waited too long. My heart starts hammering in my chest. I’m going to have to do something. And soon. Like now.

The second the bride leaves, I call Brooke.

“What is it?” she asks. “Do we have to re-schedule? I can. I mean, if the dinner meeting doesn’t happen tonight, I could probably do—”

“I thought I’d pick you up for our dinner meeting. Does that work?” My blood’s pumping so hard I’m not sure if I’ll hear her.

“Oh.” I can picture her perfectly, re-organizing her night because I’ll be driving her. “Yeah. Sure. I can… I mean, that’s totally fine.”

“Did you get it re-typed in your phone?” I ask.

“Almost.” She laughs a little, and I love that she doesn’t even try to hide her ridiculous tendencies from me anymore.

“Good. You type that in, and then you can check it off, and don’t you dare remind me to be there early because I
know
.”

“Yes. I can’t be late, tonight.
Can’t
be. So, if you could be stupid early, I’d feel so much better.”

I chuckle but it sounds strangled. “No problem.”

And then she hangs up because for her, me picking her up is maybe an odd request, but not totally weird. For
her
, this night is like any other. As I get ready for our dinner meeting, and know I’m not going to be at Brooke’s fifteen minutes early, but an hour and a half early because we need to talk, this is definitely not a normal night for me.

It’s just Brooke
, I remind myself over and over as I drive to her house. Just Brooke.

The girl I’m falling for.

It rushes through me and makes me drive faster and loosen my tie, which I immediately tighten back up again because I know she likes it snug, and then I loosen it because she likes to tighten my ties.

Holy shit
, I’m losing my brain.

I stop in front of her
apartment and pull in a deep, determined breath. I can do this.

When I knock on her door, I’m so strung up I’m wondering if I can find words. Maybe she’s really into Mr. Soon-to-be-Dentist. Maybe whatever was between us is over for her.

“Oh. Hey.” She gives me her Brooke smile and I step past her into her apartment. “You are way early. You know that right?”

“Yeah. I know.” I stop and look at her and all the stress and buildup that’s been tying my stomach in knots disappears. It’s me. It’s Brooke. This is good. I slide my jacket off and toss it to the floor.

She immediately walks over to it. “Oh. Brooke. I dare you. Leave it.”

“Come on, Nate. This is just practical. We have a meeting in less than two hours. It’ll get wrinkled.”

I gently grab her arm. “It’ll be fine.” I lean closer. “It’s a dare, Brooke.”

She rolls her eyes and shrugs out of my grasp because again, she doesn’t realize how much changed for us today, or maybe just for me. “Whatever. I’m finishing a quick snack before I get ready because the restaurant your mom picked has crap
py appetizers and I know I’ll be hungry.”

I lean against her kitchen counter with a smile. I’m crazy, madly, insane about this girl. “Smart.”

And then she picks up her phone to scroll through her calendar and I start to laugh because she probably looks at that damn thing every three minutes. The thing is, that quirk goes on a list of quirks, all of which made me fall for her.

Chapter Twenty-five

Brooke

I plop on my couch, fixing my skirt so I don’t flash Nate too much thigh. The night is stocked so full, I have to scroll a few times to make sure I’ve got it all. When Nate takes a spot next to me, I push my plate of veggies over to him, making sure the celery is on his end so he eats his greens. But his hand goes straight for the carrots, and I smack it before he snags one.

He laughs and makes a show of eating the celery, even though I’m only watching him out of my peripheral.

I double and triple check everything for tonight… alerts all set and I’ve made the night work calculating in Nate’s driving habits.

My stomach gives a little groan, and Nate laughs as I put my phone screen down on the coffee table and grab a snap pea. I’m a good girl who eats my greens before my oranges.

“Do you mind?” he asks, gesturing to my Galaxy. I stop chewing to think about it. No one touches my phone, but it’s Nate. For some reason, I feel like it’s okay if he wants to look. That he’s already seen so many parts of me there’s nothing in there I’d be afraid of him seeing.

Plus, it m
ay keep him on schedule tonight.

“Go for it.”

We finish off my veggie plate, eating more ranch than vegetable, while he scrolls through my schedule, a light smile on his face. I like watching him, even though I know he wants friendship and nothing more, I still can’t help but admire his features, get bubbly over that wrinkle by his eye when he smiles, and really wish I could reach out and touch his hair. Sometimes I pretend to fix it though, when really… it doesn’t need to be fixed.

“What is this?” he asks, pulling me out of hair gazing.

I scoot over on the couch to glance over his shoulder. He smells like his aftershave. “It’s my itinerary for tomorrow’s date.”

He raises an eyebrow and points at the 9:15 task.
Have sex!

“It’s
a date three,” I simply say, then grab our empty plate. I originally had it under “goals” but maybe if I put it on the actual calendar, things will fall into place. It’s been dud after dud after dud lately. It’s probably because I’m not doing things the way I used to. Before Nate messed me up. I shove that thought away before I smack him and he doesn’t know why.

His lips twitch as he flicks through the rest of my schedule. “I knew you had a ‘plan’ for all this, but I didn’t know you had an alarm for when it would happen.”

“I have an alarm for everything,” I say, getting up and setting his dish neatly in my dishwasher. “Even my stomach, remember?”

“So, 9:00 tomorrow, you’re having sex no matter what happens on this date?”

That’s the plan. I force a smile at him. “9:15.”

He shakes his head, staring at my phone with a pale look on his face. I want to tell him I’m joking, but I don’t know if I am. If things go well, I probably will be having sex at 9:15 tomorrow night. We’ve gotten through our levels. Next step is to see if we’re physically compatible, because we’re compatible on paper.

And this is me. I follow schedules. I organize my clothes by color. I have a different perfume for “work Brooke” and “play Brooke.” That’s what I do. I
have
to do things perfectly if I’m ever going to get married and have a family before I’m twenty-seven. That’s what Mom expects. What I expect for myself.

“Do you ever go with the flow?” he asks, setting my phone on the coffee table.

“You know I don’t.” I fold my arms and lean against my counter, watching him play with his tie. It’s hanging too loose again. “I like to plan. It’s fun. It’s sort of satisfying.” I wonder if he notices the “sort of” part.

“You know what else is satisfying?” His eyes snap to mine. “Spontaneity.”

“You’re lying,” I joke, and he laughs, getting up to meet me in the kitchen. He settles against the counter next to me. Why he suddenly feels the need to be standing with me, I don’t know. Does he know how much I
like
having him this close? Prickles zip up my side when his arm slightly brushes mine. Happens every time. Can’t seem to make that go away no matter how many times I tell my brain he’s only going to be a friend and coworker.

He gulps, runs a hand through his hair, and scratches the back of his neck. I raise my eyebrows.

“Will you try something for me?”

“No.” I laugh and he lightly chuckles with me, but it comes out funky.

“I mean it. You’ve left my jacket sitting on the floor so far. I think you can do this too.”

That’s true. I actually haven’t thought about his jacket piled up by my door since we sat down and worked. But now he brings it up and it’s suddenly driving me crazy.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to turn your phone off tomorrow.”

Oh no. “That’s not happening.”

“Why not? You’re not working. You don’t need it.”

“You just saw my schedule.”

“You don’t need that.”

“Yes I do.”

“No… you don’t.”

I want to pop him one, but he’s making me smile and laugh, and he’s inched his way closer to me. My prickles intensify, and I’m wondering if he can read it on my face. He’s good at reading me.

“Chemistry isn’t something you can plan, Brooke. It’s something that just happens, then you decide what to do about it
in the moment
.”

“I can plan chemistry.” Well, I’m determined to. It hasn’t really worked that well for me, but maybe I haven’t found my niche yet. Which is why I rearranged the schedule for tomorrow. Sex was previously scheduled at 9:30.

“Did you plan on us?”

I jolt back. “What?”

He waves his finger between our bodies, and my stomach flips a pancake. “This. Did you ever think we’d be friends? Did you plan on it? Or did it just happen?”

Oh. Friends.

“That’s different.”

“How so?”

“Oh, who the hell knows? I just like to argue with you.”

He laughs, and it makes me laugh. Like always. Damn him. “You know why?”

“Why what?”

“Why you like to argue with me.” He leans in, and my eyes drop to his lips. “Because it’s spontaneous.”

“Oh, little do you know,” I say, but it comes out quiet because I can’t seem to concentrate. The familiar heat Nate seems to cause rushes through my chest and stomach. “I schedule all our arguments.”

“I didn’t see this one in there.”

“You were looking in the wrong spot.”

He smiles, and I blink up to his eyes. I thought he was close, because my whole body feels his warmth, but he’s actually not that close at all. He’s suddenly way too far away. Not close enough.

My gaze drops to that tie, and partly because I want to be closer, partly because it drives me bonkers, I take a step toward him and slide my hands up to tighten his knot. My fingers linger at the top, and I fix his collar, which doesn’t need it, but now that my hands are on him, I’m having a hard time taking them off.

He leans toward me, and I refuse to meet his eyes.

“Did you also plan what happened in Tahoe?”

He’s finally
saying something about that kiss. In a roundabout way, but it’s out there now. And even the most efficient planner couldn’t have seen that coming. I don’t answer, because what the hell do I say? No, I didn’t plan for that one. And yes, because I didn’t plan it I let it go. Then I never planned on talking about it because I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so we haven’t.

B
ut here we are, talking about the kiss. Our kiss. And my throat has gone dry. I drop my hands and take a step back so I don’t lose all control.

“Brooke,” he says, taking me out of my brain. He pokes me playfully in the forehead. “Chill. I’m only trying to prove a point.”

“What point?”

“That it’s okay to not live by the book. Sometimes, you even do it.” He drops his eyes to my perfectly scrubbed floor. “And it’s cute as hell.”

I lick my lips, which is a total third date move, but I don’t give a shit. I want to make a third date move… and it’s not even a third date. I have no idea what time it is. His jacket is still piled on my floor. My computer is open on the coffee table. My phone dings next to it. But all I want to do is ignore all of that.

I slap my hands on either side of his face and pull him to me with so much force I nearly knock us on our asses. My lips slam with his, and I refuse to open my eyes because I’m sure his are wide open in the “What the hell?!” position.

Before he has a chance to kiss me back, I shove him back against the counter. His eyes
are
in the “What the hell” position, and that’s when it hits me. I just kissed a guy who’s rejected me. Have I become
that
girl? There’s no way I’m keeping my job after this. Or our friendship. Oh, shitty, shit, shit, shit. I throw my hands up to cover my face. “I’m sorry!”

Please tell me he wants to shrug this off. We’ll just play it cool like we did with the other “spontaneous” moment we shared. But the next thing I know, he’s prying my fingers from my face, and his lips meet mine, hard and hungry.

After one point five seconds of shock, I can’t help but throw myself into it. I mean, literally throw myself. We stumble against my sink, and if I hurt him, he doesn’t say anything. He pushes us back, keeping one hand on my cheek while the other catches us against the fridge. I love his hands there because I have free roam of his body. I fist my fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pull him closer, closer, closer.

My phone dings again, and I hear it, but I don’t hear it. I know exactly what alarm just went off, and my voice is muffled as I try to talk around his hot kisses. “Nate, there’s a venue that’s good for stargazing that the Johnston couple wanted to look at.” I just need to call his mom and let her know tonight will be a good time to head out there, but I’m swallowed up in Nate’s kisses again. He groans against my lips, and I shiver underneath him, wishing I wasn’t in my tight business skirt so I could leap up and wrap my legs around him.

His hands move down my neck and grasp my breasts. Tingles shoot through my body, and I kiss my way across his jaw to his ear. My phone dings again in the background.

“We can call the best man in the Albert wedding now.” I bite behind his ear and gasp when he pushes my top button open. “Um… He said he got off at 6:30.”

Nate dips his head, kissing the top of my breasts and pressing his hips into me. The fridge rocks, and I hear the condiments I keep in the door topple and fall with each thrust. I weave my fingers up the buttons on his shirt, searching for that tie I fixed so I can loosen it again.

His kisses move down, but I need his face up here so I can get this damn shirt off him. I grab the back of his collar and tug him up.

“Brooke,” he grunts, then bites my bottom lip. My fingers aren’t working fast enough. I need these buttons open. I need this tie out of the freaking way. “I have a confession.”

He reaches up, cradling my face, breathing hard and looking me straight on.

“This isn’t really…
spontaneous
.” His mouth twitches, and I’m thinking, shit, maybe I’m not capable of spontaneity. I try to pull back, but he sees my hesitation and it’s like he automatically knows what’s going through my head. “No, Brooke, I meant that I’ve thought about this. I’ve thought about you. I’m sorry it took me so long to say this, but you’re in every damn thought I have. You talk about those levels you have, and I have those too. And I’m there with you.”

His thumbs stroke my cheeks, and I realize as I look in his eyes that those levels,
the plan
, the schedule I’m so determined to live by happened without me knowing about it.

Like The Big Bang Theory.

“I don’t want you going out with that guy tomorrow. I don’t want you going out with anyone but me. I want level four or whatever the hell level it is that makes you mine… and me yours.”

We pause against each other. His tie dangles from his collar, my hair has somehow come undone from its bun, and I watch his eyes. Of course that’s what I want, too. If I had my phone in my hand, I’d mark it on my calendar with mini hearts and a permanent smile on my face. But right now, I don’t want to take my hands off him. I don’t want him to take his hands off me.

“Are you saying you’re ready, then?”
Please don’t tell me I’m a fling.
“For me? For everything?”

“I’m ready.” He reaches up to tuck my hair back, and his fingers slide down my earring. “Level me up, Brooke.”

I laugh, then lick my lips again and say, “Okay.”

His smile before he kisses me is so damn sexy I want to rip the buttons off his shirt just to get it open. But that’s not like me to ruin a beautiful dress shirt, so I frantically push them through while his hands bunch up the skirt around my
hips.

“Wait!” I say, but I’m not really following my own advice, because I’ve finally gotten his shirt open revealing his damn fine stomach, sprinkled with just the right amount of hair. “We can’t do this yet.”

I say it, but I’m still trying to rip his shirt the rest of the way off. I’m pulling his face up to mine. I want him so bad. Every freaking part of him. I’ve never been so hungry to make love in all my life. But… “I don’t…I can’t…I’m not wearing my…sex panties.”