BREXLEY
Rough palm melded against mine, Rhyett took a long step forward to pull open the door of The Cracked Corset. No matter how present or distant my mind was, he always beat me to them. Some sort of ancient chivalry still alive and well within Mr. Rhodes. Royal pranced right on in, as though the gesture had been intended for her. She happily sat for pets from Holland and accepted her treats before trotting away for the office.
“Good morning, ladies! How’s it going?” There were morning people, and then there was Rhyett Rhodes. I loved the silence of the city before it was bustling, but the man had some intensely bizarre intrinsic love of starting a new day, and that enthusiasm bled into his voice.
Holland and Wren exchanged long glances across the coffee bar, knowing amusement written all over their expressions as they both looked at our dangling joined hands.
“You tell me,” Wren quipped, grinning at Rhyett.
“Fantastic, thanks very much.” He leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “You’re looking particularly beautiful today, Wren.”
If blushes could light fires, Wrenley would have ignited right then and there. It was an effort not to chuckle as she dropped her eyes to the espresso machine before thanking him and asking, “The usual, Rhyett?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, returning Wren’s unabashed smile. “To go, please, Wren.”
“You got it.”
“Hey Hotshot! How’ve you been?” The sound of Noel’s voice was a balm to my bleeding heart. The big dummy was balancing a laptop on her good arm, the other still stuck in the sling tight to her stomach.
“Noel! What are you doing here?” Reproach laced my tone, but I moved for her with a disproportionate level of enthusiasm. It gave me away, dammit.
“So help me God, if I have to stay in that room for one more minute.”
Rhyett, having retained more sense than me through the relentless wave of orgasms we’d delivered each other, rushed to her, scooping the computer away and pulling her to his side for a gentle hug.
“Come on, Red. You have to behave so you can be back out here working your magic.”
“Did you tell her the cast ofTwilightwandered in here?” Wren asked tauntingly.
“What?!” Noel balked, turning my way.
“Well, not literally. We were just blessed with above-average genetics painting the canvas this week.”
“Dammit,” she muttered, following Rhyett’s lead to the cushioned corner booth.
“Rhy, drink’s up.”
Something about the familiar tune to Wren’s voice around his nickname sent a jolt through my system, head snapping up as Rhyett—blessedly oblivious—sauntered over to scoop his paper cup off the pickup station. The girls had refreshed the flowers this morning. Books were beautifully lined up on the wall, the counter clear, and mugs in perfect formation behind them. The noise from the kitchen told me the morning had been busy enough to generate an Everest-sized pile of dishes for Manny and Ben in the back. The shop was perfect. And my not-boyfriend, more mutually exclusive lover, had been in enough times to have a regular order and a nickname with my staff.
Like seas colliding, warmth and terror clashed in my belly, refusing to mix in equal measures of stubbornness. Warmth grappled for victory as he leaned over the counter, complimenting my lead barista’s new thigh tattoo of a floral-wreathed lion. Terror was quick to suck the sensation into the undertow the moment she grinned back at him, leaning on her forearms to tell him the story behind the ink and the artist.
“He fits, Brex.” Noel’s voice was soft enough that it was just for me, but my stomach squirmed just the same. He didn’t need to inflate the ideas already expanding in his perfect, big, fat, idealistic head. But she wasn’t wrong. He did fit. And he made me smile, laugh, relax, and come.A lot. It was like his own personal mission to see me satisfied both day and night. When the man had pulled me up to dance in his arms in his little, tiny house on wheels, I thought my heart would implode. And the little cynic who lived–proudly displayed on the mantle in my brain–informed me it wouldn’t last.Couldn’tlast. The honeymoon phase never did.
A quieter voice…the one I’d stashed behind the potted plants gathering dust in the corner, said that sometimes people just fit. They stick. And keep on sticking. I’d never intended to find a man that stuck. Letting him into my life and climbing into his bed might have been a colossal mistake. However, if Rhyett Rhodes was a mistake…he was my best one to date.
* * *
“It was good; it was fun,”Josie said with a shrug. Her dark curls had been swept back into a braid down the length of her spine. Perfect, frizzy ringlets framed either side of her face as she reached for another book and slid it into the corresponding sleeve. The first waves of the season’s signature Florida heat were challenging even our most practiced techniques and most expensive selections of curl creams and hair sprays.
“I hear a ‘but’ somewhere in there,” Noel commented, rotating her mug in little circles with her finger. Josie squirmed, wrinkling her nose as she sealed another bubble envelope.
“But…he has no lips.”
“What?” I balked, barking a laugh.
“Skinny little white guy lips,” she snickered. “Like. He’s cute, funny, and so smart. I find him super sexy despite being blonde and my freaking height.” The repeated shrug of her left shoulder revealed her hesitance on the last part of that statement. “We have so much fun laughing and playing, and for a hot minute on Saturday, I even entertained introducing him to the kids. But when he kisses, I just…I can’t find his lips.” When we all burst out laughing, a tinge of pink climbed into her terra-cotta complexion. Contrary to her cute, funny, lipless date, Josie had been blessed with the full lips bestowed on little girl’s fashion dolls. She bit down on the lower one before throwing her head back on a groan. “Why’s it gotta be so damn hard to find it all? Like, I just want the whole package again, you know?”
Josie and Blaze shared a romance novel-worthy love that made my eyes burn if I thought about it. Childhood best friends who danced around their feelings until they shared a comical first kiss playingSeven Minutes In Heaven. Blaze was the cool kid in love with the theater girl, but he didn't hesitate to pick Josie over his brainless jock buddies. We blamed him for her obsessive love of football. When Blaze returned from his first deployment as a hometown hero, he and Josie rekindled their love, married a year later, and welcomed Gemma not long after that. Tragically, Blaze died in the line of duty when their son was just a newborn, leaving Jos with a framed, folded flag where a husband should be. Two years later, we were all glad she was dating, but there was no way to avoid comparing her prospects to the man who still held her heart.