Free So Close by Emma McLaughlin Page B

sending Pax leaping in beside me.  “Why are we hiding?” he breathed into my ear.
    I shook my head.  The door opened and closed again.  “All clear.”  He pointed out to where Cricket took a seat on the veranda and opened the magazine on her lap.  He pivoted in the alcove to face me, blocking my view.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
    “I’m not here for yours.”
    “And here I was hoping it was my turn to hide.”
    He was too good at this.  “The Davises sent me.  I’m working on the campaign and I was just collecting Mrs. Davis’ things from the event.”
    “Did she leave a Lladro?”  He nodded to the figurines behind me.  “We have a few to spare.”
    “Cricket doesn’t seem like the type.”
    “They were the first Mrs. Westerbrook’s.  Pym insists we keep them right here, but really she thinks they’re God-awful—she just does it to torture Cricket.  So what are you looking for?”
    I lifted the program as if it proved something.  “I didn’t want to disturb your parents.”
    “A hurricane couldn’t disturb my parents.”  He looked at me a beat too long.
    “Do you often sleep in your mother’s sitting room?”
    “Is it endearing if I say yes?” 
    “No.”
    He grinned.  “I’m not a fan of the speeches.  It would have been impolite to go to my room.”
    “Your people’s rules don’t make any sense.”
    “But stuffing one kind of bird into another, then deep frying it, does?”
    “Only someone who’s never tried a turducken would ask that.”  I tapped his chest with the edge of the program.  Against my better judgment.
    He grabbed it.  “Wait, so you’re working for Davis?” 
    “Yes.”  We both held on to the paper.  “Volunteering, actually.  At the moment.  So . . .”
    “At the moment,” he repeated.  His skin was still flush from sleep, his eyes a little heavy.  His hair called out for smoothing.  We hadn’t been this close, for this long.  I wanted to lean in and take his lower lip between my teeth.  Which was irrelevant.  “Look,” he said.  “I’m sorry about last time.  It was crass.”
    “It was.”  Dammit.  I didn’t expect an apology.  “You weren’t surprised to wake up and see me standing in this glorified doll closet?”
    He shook his head.
    “Why?” I pressed.
    His cheeks suddenly matched the decor.  “Didn’t know I’d woken up, I guess.” He let out a laugh and then released the program to rub at the back of his neck, effectively averting my eyes.
    “Oh,” I said.  O h .  Despite knowing better, the Delilah part of me that had always sought out impossibly happy endings, only in the Dewey Decimal System, wondered if maybe there wasn’t some kind of potential here. 
    And I hadn’t touched anyone, hadn’t been touched, in months.  I’d been so good, avoiding the come-ons from the law students, keeping my head down.  I just wanted to slip my tongue between his lips.  I wanted to touch his stomach.  I wanted to take what he had to offer.  Even if that’s all it was—especially if that’s all it was.  I tilted my chin and gave him the glance, an invitation. 
    A look flickered across his face that sent mortification flooding me like a syringe had been emptied into my neck.  “Mandy.”
    “I should get going.”  I went to step around, but he caught my arm.
    “No—I didn’t mean—”
    “Pax?”   It was a girl’s voice.  I stepped back into the alcove.
    “Coming,” he called, walking quickly out to head her off.
    “What are you doing in here?” she asked like she’d found him trying on his mother’s clothes.
    “You know I’m not up for all that.”
    “You’re just like my father,” she scolded with familiarity—flirtatiousness.  I couldn’t not peek.  A shiny brown ponytail, a dress in the vein of Cricket’s.  She straightened his couch-ruffled bangs and then reached up on her pumps to give him a kiss. 
    He swerved awkwardly and then coughed to cover.  “Are you