Bedwrecker(33)

Within minutes, Brooklyn is about three feet higher than me, the little shit is moving faster than me just to show me up.

The truth is with each movement my mind is wandering farther and farther away from the climb.

Have you ever heard the phrase “The eyes are the mirror to the soul”?

People usually say this when they can see pain, anger, or confusion in somebody else’s eyes.

But what if you see yourself in someone else’s stare?

From the moment I looked into Maggie May’s gaze on New Year’s Eve, I knew she was trouble.

That I was in trouble.

Like deep, deep trouble.

It wasn’t her name, the song, or her belief that it somehow reflects who she is, as if the song was written about her even though she hadn’t been born yet.

It wasn’t the fact that she is attractive as hell. Sure, I’m a guy, but attraction I can fight.

It was the look in her eyes—the one that matched mine.

A hunger that is never quite satisfied.

An itch incapable of being scratched.

A need so deep, no one can ever fill it.

Ignoring it, avoiding those eyes, would have been my best course of action considering the fuck-up that my life is right now. But no, I had to agree to come to California, to take on this job on a trial basis, and without knowing I had agreed to work with her. I can’t believe who she worked for never came up in conversation those three days we talked, but then again, it was all about the sex.

Now who’s screwed?

The whole ride over here today I tried to discourage Cam. Told him I was a big boy and could learn the ropes on my own.

Maggie is anything but ready to work with me—shit, she doesn’t even want to look at me. And I get it. But Cam and his brilliant ideas.

The stubborn fucker wouldn’t back down.

As soon as I suggested I do this on my own, I had to listen to how Maggie is the best person to introduce me to the company. How she loves her job, and how well she knows men’s fashion. How smart and dedicated she is. Blah, blah, blah.

Does he not see the very basic issue here? She’s a woman and I’m a man, and nothing but trouble can come from the two of us working together, especially since she hates me.

I mean, have you ever felt a lust so strong that it threatens to topple the wall you’ve very neatly built around yourself?

If the thought isn’t pretty, the reality can only be ten times worse.

Right?

Just then my foot slips and I start to fall.

Fanfuckingtastic.

Bouncing midair, I glare down at my belay partner.

“Hey Keen,” comes Cam’s smart mouth.

“Yeah,” I bark.

“Payback is a bitch,” he says, letting me hang like a wrecking ball in the middle of the gym.

“Fucker,” I mutter.

Brooklyn peers down at me from the top of the wall. “Losing your edge, big brother?”

My head snaps in his direction. “No, little brother, not at all—I’m just warming up.”

Not even close. My edge. “Yes, my edge is something I plan on keeping for a long time. A very long time, Maggie,” I mumble to myself.

And that’s something to hold onto.





Maggie

When apprehension hits you like a ton of bricks, the only way to combat it is with some good food for the soul. And nothing screams remedy like a wheatgrass shot or two, although looking at the face Makayla is making as she finishes hers, I think she begs to differ.

San Shi Go is a Japanese restaurant located in an avocado-green building not that far from where we live, which is why I insisted we walk, and that I meet her just beyond Ryan Gerhardt’s house. Ryan is the famous mystery novelist who lives in the large, ultramodern beach house next door to me with his wife and two Yorkies.

Even though Keen is staying with Makayla and Cam, who live on the other side of me, I didn’t want to chance her asking me to swing by and get her, or running into him outside. Or anywhere, for that matter.

It was the safest way. I just can’t see his face or that “Maggie, I’m right here” look without letting my wall down a little.

You know?

It seems so easy to say I hate him, but then I see him, and I don’t. I don’t hate him. I miss him. I want him. I just want him. And I shouldn’t. Not after what he did to me.

“I’m not really understanding the problem here,” Makayla says around a mouthful of the plain chicken and rice she special-ordered.

Yesterday she was gone all day. And this morning she and Cam took Keen out to breakfast, so tonight is the first chance I’ve gotten to talk with her, and even so, she can’t possibly understand because I have yet to speak the whole truth, which is why I take a moment to sidetrack the conversation. “And how could you when you look so cute with rice falling out of your mouth,” I tell her.