Second Chance for Romance

Chapter 29

Christy didn’t need my help to make the mold once the box was complete, so I worked on my own project most of Saturday. I finished the basic structure of the museum model and began adding watercolors for the landscaping. I also sketched out where I wanted to add physical landscape features like trees and bushes. The campus art supply store had a few basic modeling supplies, but I’d found a local model train store that had everything I needed.

Most of the work didn’t require intense concentration, so I spent a lot of time thinking about Gina too. I needed to tell her how I felt. I loved her and always would, but I didn’t think we could make a long-distance relationship work. I also thought we were trying to rekindle the past instead of moving forward. And while I didn’t want to tell her about Christy, I owed her the truth for a change. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I told myself.

I was distracted at dinner that evening, but Christy was too tired to notice.

She finished her dessert, kissed me goodnight, and went upstairs to bed.

Wren noticed my mood and gave me a hard look. I returned it calmly and then shifted my gaze to Trip.

“I need to talk to Wren,” I said. “You wanna stick around for moral support? Or leave us to work it out?”

“Gonna be fireworks?” he asked.

“Depends on her. Probably not, though. Look at it this way… I have a bone to pick with her, but I don’t think it’ll involve bloodshed.”

He glanced at her.

“I’ll be okay,” she said. Then she kissed him. “You go work on your management paper.”

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said to both of us. “But if I hear any shouting, I’m gonna knock your heads together.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Wren tried to stare me down when he’d gone.

“Sorry, not gonna work,” I told her. “You’re in the wrong this time and you know it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Gina.”

The name landed with a silent thud between us.

After a moment Wren said, “What about her?”

“Last night. She called and left several messages.”

“When?”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I must’ve forgotten to give them to you,” she said with an air of indifference.

“Did you even write them down?”

“I don’t remember.”

I sat back in my chair and studied her coolly. “You know why I don’t like your matchmaking?” I said at last. “You don’t play fair. You lie and cheat.” I held up a hand to forestall her objections. “I don’t mind a fair fight. Let the best man—or woman—win. But it’s never a fair fight with you, is it?”

“I like to win.”

“I do too. And I really don’t mind losing sometimes, especially when my… opponent… is so good.”

She narrowed her eyes but nodded warily at the compliment.

“I do mind losing if I think I was cheated. You might get what you want

—me and Christy in a relationship—only to lose it when I feel like I’ve been manipulated. Okay?”

She brushed away invisible crumbs and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly an admission, but as close as I was going to get.

“You know I’m falling for Christy. She told you, I’m sure.”

She nodded.

“So fighting dirty by not giving me Gina’s messages makes you look desperate. And it annoys me. I get pigheaded when I’m annoyed.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“So learn to win gracefully. An inch is as good as a mile. You’re winning with Christy and me. Who cares if it’s a shutout or a close score? For that matter, we shouldn’t even be keeping score. These are people’s lives we’re talking about here.” I stared her down until she nodded agreement.

Then I continued, “Now, meddling with Gina and me is only gonna make me do things to spite you. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. It makes me feel petty and childish.”

“Fine! All right.” She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you Gina’s messages.”

“And you’re sorry you made it sound like I was on a date with Christy?”

“But you were! ”

“Wren, we weren’t.” I let that sink in. “We were working on her project.

A date is a lot more fun. Trust me, I know the difference.” I paused to add emphasis to my next words. “You wanted to make Gina doubt me. You did it deliberately to hurt her. That’s not a nice thing to do, no matter what your motives.”

I leaned forward and put my hands flat on the table. “And let’s get one thing straight… I’m very protective of my friends. I don’t like it when someone tries to hurt one of them. Do you understand?”

She avoided my gaze.

My palm hit the table with a sharp crack!

“Everything okay out there?” Trip called from his office.

I looked a question at Wren.

“We’re fine,” she said to him. “Paul was just… making a point.”

He stuck his head out anyway. He surveyed the tableau and waited.

Wren sat back and still wouldn’t meet my eyes. She looked at Trip instead. “It’s fine. I… did something mean. It was dumb, and I wasn’t thinking.” She met my gaze. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

I nodded.

“Well,” Trip said, his voice deliberately light, “I’m glad I could help.”

Wren looked at him and forced a smile. “Thank you.” Then her expression relaxed and she smiled for real. “We’ll be done in a minute. And maybe afterward we can have a drink together. All of us. I think I’m going to need it.”

“You good with that?” he asked me.

“Absolutely.”

He laughed at the relief in my voice. Then he disappeared into his office

and told us to call him when we were ready.

Wren smoothed the tablecloth and stared at her hands for a long time. “I know I don’t fight fair,” she said at last, “and I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.

I… just get caught up sometimes.”

“I know,” I said gently. “It’s what makes you good at anything you do. I admire that. And like I said, I don’t mind losing to a better opponent.”

She smiled without lifting her eyes.

“But you have to make me think I lost fair and square, not that I was cheated.”

“I know.”

“Because I’m completely lost where Christy is concerned.”

Her smile peeked from behind the clouds.

“Yeah,” I said with a soft laugh, “I’m head-over-heels falling for her.”

“I told you so.”

My expression slowly fell at the thought of what I had to do next.

“What’s the matter?”

“Now I need to have a long talk with Gina.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t keep stringing her along. She’s a wonderful person and deserves a guy who’ll treat her right. I’m not doing that, so I need to be honest with her.”

“Yeah. Are you going to call her tonight?”

“I don’t think so. I want to sleep on it and figure out what I’m going to say.” I laughed at a sudden thought. “I’ll probably run ten miles tomorrow.”

“You’re always calmer after you do.”

“I know. It bugged the hell out of you until you figured that out, didn’t it?”

“It did. I hate not knowing what’s going on.”

“So… now you know what’s going on with Gina. Are you happy?”

She started to say yes but then thought better of it.

“Ah,” I said slowly. “The penny just dropped, didn’t it. For every win, someone loses. Real people with real lives, Wren. And someone loses. That hurts.”

“I… hadn’t thought of that.”

“I didn’t think you had.”

“I’m definitely gonna need that drink.”

I nodded. After a moment I stood and went to the kitchen, where I took

down three glasses and reached to the top shelf for a lozenge-shaped bottle, Rémy Martin XO.

“This okay?” I asked when I returned to the dining room.

Wren took one look and laughed. “You sure know how to drown your troubles.”

“Hey, when I do something, I do it right.”

“You do,” she said softly. “I’ll have to remember that.”

I set the glasses on the table and poured a healthy amount into each.

“You know that’s about fifty dollars of cognac, right?”

“We’re worth it.” I started to call to Trip, but she stopped me with a gesture.

She picked up two glasses and handed one to me. She lifted hers, and I did the same. “One day we’ll look back on this and laugh,” she said. “I hope so, at least.”

“I think we will.”

“You’re a nice guy, Paul. Thanks for reminding me. I…” She sighed. “I was so focused on winning that I forgot that.”

“Thanks.”

“And…” She couldn’t help grinning. “You and Christy are gonna owe me for the rest of your lives. But—!” She held up a hand. “I have to let it happen on its own. I will. I promise.”

I arched a skeptical eyebrow.

“Shut up! I’m really trying here,” she protested. “Let me have my illusions, all right?”

I laughed and touched my glass to hers.

We drank.

“Holy crap,” I said. “That’s smooth.”

“Told you. There’s a small fortune in these glasses. You don’t drink three fingers of this like the cheap stuff.” She smiled at me. “But we’re worth it, like you said. You and Christy definitely are.”

“You are too. You just need to act like it.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

“If I don’t, who will?”

“That’s Trip’s job.”

“Well,” he said from the doorway, “sometimes I know when to let the other guy do the heavy lifting.”

Wren smiled and gestured for him to join us.

“I decided to investigate when you two got quiet,” he explained.

She nodded and slipped her arm around his waist.

He picked up the third glass of cognac. “So, what’re we drinking to?”

“To Paul and Christy,” Wren said.

“How ’bout you and me too?” he suggested.

“To all four of us,” I said, and raised my glass.

We clinked them and drank.

“Oh, man,” Trip said. “That is good.”

“Feels kinda strange toasting without her,” I said. “Christy, I mean.”

“We knew who you meant, dude.”

“She’ll join us eventually,” Wren said.

“You really think so?” I asked.

Her eyes twinkled. “I don’t fight fair, remember?”

“So help me God, I do!”

I didn’t run ten miles the next morning.

More like twelve.

I wanted to be honest with Gina, but honesty was a sliding scale, with brutal on one end and gentle on the other.

Christy was sitting at the kitchen table when I returned from my run. She cradled her head in her arms, and she looked like she’d been there a while.

“I can’t do it,” she said without looking up.

I stripped off my sweatshirt and fanned my T-shirt to cool off. The house was thirty degrees warmer than outside.

“I can’t do it,” she moaned again.

“Nonsense. Have you eaten?”

She shook her head.

“Cereal and an apple?”

She shrugged.

“Wren bought more peanut butter,” I said in an effort to tempt her.

“Come on, where’s my sunshine girl?”

“Dead.”

I laughed. She sounded like a petulant five-year-old. I poured two bowls of cereal and sliced the apple in silence. She didn’t move when I set

everything in front of her, so I peeked in from the side.

“Leave me alone,” she grumped.

“Sit up and eat.” I slid into the seat next to her and took a bite of cereal.

“What do you have to do today?”

“Sleep.”

I clanked her bowl with my spoon. “Sit up,” I snapped. “Now. Eat.”

She jerked upright like a marionette. Her blue eyes were wide with surprise, but with dark smudges underneath.

“I mean it,” I said. “Eat.”

“Yes, sir.” She picked up her spoon.

Wren shuffled in. She grinned at our little scene of domesticity. Then she communed with Mr. Coffee and opened a Coke for herself.

“What’re y’all up to today?” she asked.

“Pep talk and then working on her project,” I said.

“What do you have left to do?”

“If I had to guess, take the mold apart, clean it up, and get ready to pour the final statue.”

Christy nodded glumly around a mouthful of cereal.

“Want us to bring you lunch?” Wren asked.

“And maybe dinner,” I said. “Just in case.”

She nodded and left with a wave.

Christy was almost human by the time she finished her apple.

“There’s my pretty girl,” I said cheerfully.

She smiled with genuine warmth, although I could still see the tiredness behind it.

“Another apple?”

“Yes, please.”

I returned a minute later and set the halves on her plate. Then I sat and grinned at her.

“What?”

I held up my finger with a dab of peanut butter on it. “Oops. How’d that happen?”

She rolled her eyes but still grinned.

“You want it?”

Her nostrils flared as she closed her eyes and parted her lips. She sucked my finger until the peanut butter was gone. Then she swirled her tongue around it. I let her keep going for almost a minute more, until the little head

threatened to tear through my sweatpants. I reluctantly withdrew my finger from her mouth.

She opened her eyes slowly, almost dreamily.

“I’ll let you do it for real when you’re ready.”

“I told you—”

“And I told you, it’s gonna happen long before then.”

She blushed and looked down.

“Now,” I said, all business, “finish your apple and let’s go shower.

Separately. For now.”

“Okay.”

I set our dishes in the sink and ushered her upstairs, where I left her and tramped up to the third floor bathroom. I didn’t get any hot water, big surprise, but I hadn’t really expected any. I dried off and idly planned an additional water heater in the attic. Add it to the list, I thought as I wrapped the towel around my waist and headed down.

Christy answered the door as soon as I knocked. She smiled and looked a lot more like herself.

I slid behind her and closed the door. “Just in case we get any wild ideas,”

I explained. “Besides, it’s warmer with the door closed. I have a little case of shrinkage to recover from.”

“I forgot again, didn’t I?”

“That’s okay. I have a solution.”

“Oh? What?”

“Shower together.”

She stiffened.

“Not any time soon,” I laughed, “but eventually. It’s more fun that way.

Saves water too. Or so they say.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to her routine. A few minutes later she reached for the bottle of lotion. She did her legs and then glanced at me.

“Of course. Any excuse to get my hands on you.”

“Are you being a horndog on purpose?”

“You tell me. We’re together in a small room with only a couple of layers of terrycloth between our naked bodies.”

She turned pink from the terrycloth up.

“So yeah, I’m being a horndog on purpose. Now turn around and drop your towel. As far as you want this time. I’m going to see it all eventually.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she did as I asked. She stopped the

towel at the top of her butt. I pushed it lower. She resisted at first, but finally gave in and lowered it until I could see her entire ass.

I squirted lotion in my palm and began rubbing her shoulders.

“I know you think you’re kinda scrawny,” I said quietly, “but you have a really nice body. You’re just petite. You have curves in all the right places.” I squirted more lotion. “And even if you didn’t, I don’t care. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?”

“Right.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m dying to find out what your insides are like.”

She tried unsuccessfully not to laugh.

“Are they soft and squishy?” I wondered aloud. “Or firm and springy? Or

—?”

“Hot and slippery,” she said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear.

“That was gonna be my next guess.” I squirted more lotion and began rubbing the top of her ass.

She sighed but didn’t pull away.

I covered each firm, small buttock, and made sure not to stray where I shouldn’t.

“I can do the rest,” she said.

I nodded and gently turned her around. She clutched the towel to her chest. I looked down at the tent in my own towel, and her eyes followed mine.

“Oh, look,” I said, “he likes you.”

“You can say that again.”

“Oh, look, he likes you.”

“You can say that again.”

“Oh, look, he likes you.”

She grinned. Her mood had improved a thousand percent, so I bent and kissed her. She returned it with a simmering intensity.

“Better?” I asked quietly.

“Much. Thank you.”

“Good. We should get a move on, though. We have a lot of work to do.”

She nodded and refastened her towel across her breasts.

“And I’m gonna need a few extra minutes to get dressed. I’ll be useless all day if I don’t, ahem, take care of things.”

Her eyes widened.

“Yeah. Sex on the brain. Drowns out all rational thought. It’s pretty

common among guys my age.”

“Oh, please.”

“Hey, it’s your fault. This never happens when I’m alone.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dubiously.

“I swear. I’m limp as a noodle most of the time. Then when I see you…

boing!”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m just sayin’. I might need to have it looked at by a penis expert.” I grinned as she returned to the sink. “You know anyone?”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“I’m sure you do.” I pulled her hair aside and kissed her ear. “’Cause it’s you.”

She smiled at me in the mirror. Then she dabbed moisturizer on her face and did her best to ignore me.

I did my best to make sure she couldn’t.