Dirty Deeds (Mechanics of Love #3)(35)

“My sister!” Alex hissed back and Spencer groaned. Ivy had tolerated him for a while when he’d been in town, but he never did seem to get on her good side.

“Yo, open the door!” said a male voice.

Alex sighed loudly. “Great, Brent is here too.”

Oh, and wasn’t that bloody lovely. Spencer tugged on his pants too. But the room smelled like sex and he straightened the couch cushions as best he could while Alex ran to the bathroom, then to her front door.

Her hair was falling out of her knot, hanging in damp tendrils around her face. There was a hickey on her neck, and this might be comical if he wasn’t trying to impress her family into accepting him back into the fold. He stood awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. “This is a cock-up now, isn’t it?”

Alex blew out a breath, grinned, then flung the door open.

Ivy stood with her fist up, about to knock again, with Brent behind her. Thankfully, no small children were present because that would have made things even more awkward. But Ivy was staring at her sister like she had two heads, and Brent had already spotted Spencer. He didn’t seem too happy either. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Ivy’s gaze shifted to him and she gasped. “Holy shit, the Brit is back.”

Well, that was one way to put it. “Um, hello, Ivy. Hello, Brent.”

Ivy shoved a shirt into Alex’s arms as she walked past her sister into the apartment, never taking her gaze off Spencer. She stopped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. He gazed down at the small woman and waited for her razor-sharp tongue to cut into him. He didn’t even care. He was too blissed out, too happy to care, because Alex was smiling at him from behind Ivy, clearly amused at the situation. Even Brent’s glare wasn’t dulling his buzz.

“Alex has been doing fantastic since you’ve been gone, just so you know,” Ivy was saying. “I don’t really appreciate you coming back to drudge up old feelings again then . . . flit back to New York whenever you feel like it.”

“I take offense to the fact that you think I flit,” he said.

“Oh, shut up,” Ivy growled.

He wanted to smile but didn’t want to antagonize her. Frankly, he was glad Alex had family who loved her, who had her back.

Brent stepped forward. “Yeah, Alex even told off ol’ Robby when he showed up out of the blue. Just about the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Spencer jerked his head to Alex at that. “What?”

She sawed her bottom lip and looked at him with her big blue eyes. “Uh, because of the whole land thing, Payton Auto was in the newspaper. My name was in it, so he found me.”

“Motherfucker—”

“But it’s okay.” Alex nudged her sister out of the way so she could stand in front of Spencer, one hand on his chest. “It was good, actually. I finally got the closure I never had. I found out I was a lot stronger than I thought. He doesn’t have power over me anymore, and it was amazing to look into his eyes when he realized it too.”

Spencer gripped her bicep and squeezed. “That makes me so happy for you.”

She beamed at him. “You helped me get there, don’t you know that?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You showed me . . . I could be loved by a good man. And that I deserved it. I told you that you gave me my life back, and I meant it.”

“We did that for each other then,” he said softly.

She puckered her mouth, and he leaned down to press a kiss to her for-once naked lips.

A throat cleared, but he didn’t pull out of the kiss until he was good and ready. When he looked up, Brent and Ivy were watching them, his arm over her shoulders. They both looked puzzled.

Alex turned to face them and Spencer wrapped his arms around her, pressing his front to her back.

“So here’s the deal,” she said. “Spencer is taking a new job as the manager of the new hotel. So he’ll be living here in Tory. And we’re together. Again.”

Ivy’s mouth dropped open.

“And don’t tell me it’s too fast,” Alex said. “Because you and Brent got together in record time too. But Spencer and I want to make this work. He’s changing jobs for me. For me.” She jabbed her finger into her chest as her voice cracked on the last word. “The only other people who have done anything like that for me are you guys. So Spencer and I deserve this chance to be happy.”

Ivy’s eyes were wet as she blinked rapidly. “Of course you deserve it. You deserve it so much, and I can’t handle all these emotions right now.” She flapped her hands in front of her eyes and widened them.

Brent didn’t even try to act macho, which Spencer appreciated. He wrapped Ivy in a hug, shuffled them forward until he could pull Alex into his arms, then jerked his chin at Spencer since his arms were full of crying Dawn women. “Come here and get in on this hug, English.”

Spencer wondered if he’d ever get used to the open affection, but he figured he’d better start practicing.

So he held out his arms and enclosed them around the sniffling group and laid his cheek on top of Alex’s head.

Yeah, he was home. Interestingly enough, it was the last place he ever thought he’d be.

IT WAS ANOTHER half hour before the sisters were done chatting and Brent was able to hustle Ivy out the door, telling her he was sure Spencer and Alex had things to talk about. “Call your sister tonight, okay?” he asked Alex. “Or else she’ll drive me crazy wondering how you are.”

“Yes, I’ll call,” Alex assured them.

When she shut the door behind them, Spencer let out a breath and collapsed onto the couch. “I feel like I could sleep for a decade.”

Alex glanced at the clock. “Well, it’s five o’clock on a Friday and I don’t work tomorrow. So let’s get pizza, have a beer, and then sleep until . . . at least noon.”

He rolled his head to face her and curled a loose piece of hair around her ear. “Okay.”

Alex kneeled on the sofa beside him. “When do you have to go back?”

“About that . . . ” he muttered.

Her eyes widened a little in alarm. “What?”

“Well, I’m actually on a holiday.”

“What holiday?”

“No, a holiday. Errr . . . sabbatical.”

Alex still stared at him.

“Basically, my boss is giving me some extended vacation time. I haven’t taken vacation in, well, ever. I wanted to come here and visit you. And I wanted to”—he swallowed—“go back to visit my father.”

Her face didn’t change for a minute and then her lips parted. “You want to go to England?”

“For a visit.”

“Oh—”

“With you.”

She shut her mouth so fast, her teeth clacked.

“I wasn’t lying about what I said before. I want my father to meet you. I want him to see that moving here and doing what I’ve been doing for all these years has been worth it, because it made me a man who’s loved by you.”

Her lips trembled. “Shit, will you please stop saying things like that?” She made a fist and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “I’m tired of crying, you asshole!”

He grabbed his arm. “Hey!”

“Well, then stop!” She wiped her eyes. “Dammit. You’re lucky I didn’t put makeup on yet or I’d be really pissed.”

“Alex.”

She stared down at her knees, then up at him. “What?”

“Will you go to England with me before we come back here and start our lives together?”

She swallowed. “I’m a really awful traveler.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, like, I get grumpy and I am bad at packing and I get motion sickness in vehicles and I can barely understand southern United States accents let alone another country’s.”

He laughed. “You’re really selling yourself as a companion.”

“I’m worried you’ll get so tired of me that you’ll dump me in the Thames. Or whatever that river is in England.”

“Well, we have a couple of rivers.”

“Oh.” She looked confused for a minute and it was adorable. “Okay, well, will you promise not to push me overboard into water with the intention of drowning me to get rid of me?”

“Alex, for God’s sake.”

“Just promise me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I won’t try to bloody drown you, Sprite.”

She took a deep breath and held his gaze. “Yes, Spencer. I’ll go to England with you.”

He smiled, and kissed her until she squealed.





Chapter Nineteen


Two months later . . .

ALEX HADN’T BEEN lying. She was probably the worst traveler Spencer had ever seen in his life. He also sort of understood why. Nothing was made for her. She couldn’t reach the overhead bin on the airplane. Her feet didn’t touch the floor during their flight so she spent most of the time uncomfortably shifting in her seat. Then they hit turbulence over the Atlantic and she spent the rest of the time with her head in the puke bag.

No one saw her in the airport. She was probably a head shorter than most people, and even with him beside her, people bumped into her constantly.

The train from London to Manchester was slightly better, but she still couldn’t reach the overhead bin. He tried to lighten the mood by suggesting she carry around her own step stool, but that had earned him a death glare, so he didn’t speak up much after that. She fell asleep on his shoulder on the train, and he figured that was good because she’d had a hell of a time on this trip so far.