Page 34 of Due South

That’s the stab of guilt that gets me moving because I shouldn’t be lying here, mooning over my… Evans would never say fuck buddy, would probably turn bright red at even the suggestion. But lover has always sounded faintly ridiculous to me, like something someone in a soap opera should say, not actual real live people. I don’t know. Whatever he is to me, he’s a good one. My Evans. For a couple more days, at any rate.

I reach out, intending to shake him awake, but I can’t bring myself to be even that rough with him when I know he would wake me in the gentlest way he could. He may be bossy when we’re fooling around but not otherwise. So I slide my hand down his arm, rubbing the loose cotton of his shirt over his nicely muscled forearm. I don’t know when Evans finds the time to work out, but he must because he’s wonderfully made.

A slow smile creeps across his face, and I hope he’s remembering last night. Although he probably had a pretty frustrating night given that he finger-fucked me until I came and then basically passed out. I hope he got himself off afterward because I sure didn’t.

I keep rubbing his arm, and he blinks his eyes open, yawning and looking around like he too forgot where we were, that we’d slept out on the beach like vagrants with an exhibitionist streak. That’s when the freak-out happens.

“Crap.” He sits bolt upright, patting himself down until he locates his phone in his pocket, which is where the chirping’s been coming from. “Lucy, I’m so sorry. I set it for six and I didn’t want to use some horrible siren because that’s not fun to wake up to and I—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” I put my hand back on his arm, give him a gentle squeeze. “We’re all right. It’s maybe a bit of a later start than we’d planned, but I haven’t slept that well for a long time. So, thanks. That was nice.”

A goofy, lopsided smile slides onto his face, and he looks down, as if he can’t believe his good luck, as though maybe he’s used to getting crap thrown at him no matter what he does. And sure, I know India gives him a hard time, but when he does something right, she lets him know that too. Maybe someone else taught him no matter what he does, he should brace himself for a sucker punch or a kick to the teeth. No wonder the guy apologizes to thresholds he trips over.

“Cool. Yeah, me too. I’m glad you liked it. We should get going, though.”

He’s right. It would be awesome to huddle with Evans under the blanket and watch the sunrise, maybe while I returned the favor by sliding down his zipper, reaching into his pants, and drawing his thick hardness out to stroke until I’d worked him up so much he’d spill in my hand. And then he could watch me lick it off my fingers. He’d groan, probably cover his eyes and fall back on the blanket, muttering about how I was going to kill him. And I’d giggle and poke at him, maybe provoke him into rolling me over onto my back.

But no more beach antics for us; we’ve got to go. We get our stuff packed up with a minimum of discussion and hike back to the car. The trip back to the office is short since there’s not so much traffic this early in the morning, and I think it’s a Saturday? Maybe? No, wait, Saturday is wishful thinking. It’s Friday, but only three days before Christmas.

I try to put myself back together during our trip, get in the headspace of the office and get a handle on next steps. I’m guessing Evans must be doing the same thing because he’s silent too, but not in the steering-wheel clutching nervousness I might expect from him.

We pull into the empty—except for my car—parking garage and though we’re heading up together, we pause outside the door. Like once we step through, we’ll have to go back to being Lucy and Evans, the sweetly bumbling, red-headed office pets.

He looks at me, mouth open as if he might say something. I can almost see the words swirling around in his head, but they get blown away before he can form them into something meaningful. Instead, he opens the door and gestures me through to where the elevator is waiting for us.

I let us into the dark and empty office, everyone except us spending time with their families or in transit to somewhere that isn’t here. There’s a twinge in my stomach because I should be at home, in my mom’s kitchen, helping cook the mounds of holiday food. Chatting with my cousins and being interrogated by my aunts and uncles. But the thing is—the twinge is kind of dull and it’s colored by relief. That I won’t have to see the glances or the pinched faces when I say, yes, I’m still a secretary.

It makes sense to me that administrative work doesn’t appeal to my farm-bred family. They like the hard, physical work of farm life, and they wouldn’t enjoy the mental workouts I’ve had to practice since India started thinking of me as more than a means to a cup of really good coffee.

I don’t expect them to understand it necessarily, but I wouldn’t mind if they’d at least make an effort to try to understand what I enjoy about my job. But mostly they think I’ve failed.Lucy couldn’t hack it on the big screen and now she’s stuck fetching some bitch’s coffee.Which is true, but—it’s more than that now. I have a job I’m proud of.

And I don’t want to think about what my towering brothers would have to say about Evans. He’s not some withering wisp of a person, but his power doesn’t reside so much in his slim musculature as in his mind. That’s hot. I doubt my family would be impressed, but I am.

Speaking of, he follows close behind me, so close that, though we’re not touching, I feel him nonetheless. It’s comforting, and…something else. I should’ve had my fill at the beach this morning, what with the coma-inducing orgasm, but his proximity is making me think less-than-decent thoughts.

Thoughts I suspect he wouldn’t mind indulging.

Except we need to shower and get to work. But maybe there’s a way I could have everything I want. Because why the heck not? It’s Christmas, isn’t it, and that’s when wishes are supposed to come true.

I stop abruptly in the hall where Evans would go left and I’d go right to get to our respective desks, and he bumps into me, the apology rolling close behind.

“Sorry, Lucy, I didn’t mean to—”

“What are you doing right now, Evans?”

I turn on him and he’s standing there, all disheveled and bewildered, and I want to take him by the shirt collar and kiss him stupid. It probably wouldn’t take much, given that he looks dazed already.

“Now? I was going to, uh, take a shower…” His face pinks and it’s charming. I love it when he’s all bossy and in charge, but I love too how he still blushes when he’s not putting that front on. It’s adorable and it makes me feel safe, as though I’m not the only one who’s awkward and unsure, not the only one who’s uncool and still trying to figure my shit out. “And then I was going to get down to brass tacks.”

“I was wondering if maybe…” Some of my bluster has deserted me because I’m, well, me, but his eyes, wide and alert, urge me into spilling. “If you might like some company for the shower. And, you know, it’ll save water. For the drought.”

Yes, because you’re the height of environmentalism, Lucy.

He’s not going to argue with me, though. His gaze gets hot and he shifts his hips as if he might be getting hard at the suggestion.

“We could do that. For the planet.”

“For the planet,” I agree, and before he can talk himself out of it because we don’t have time for naked and wet antics, I take his hand and tug him toward India’s office. She’d said I should feel free to use her bathroom this week since I’d basically be living here. It was kind of her. Even though there are a couple of bathrooms down the hall near Evans’s office, hers is way nicer. She redid it when she took over Jack’s office with a cascade of blue tiles, glass, and chrome. It’s like a spa. But I suppose if a person spends half their life at the office as India does, they should at least have a pretty place to do it in.

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