Something Unexpected by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 19
Nora
I BLEW OUT six smoke rings in a row. “Did you see that?”
Beck’s eyes were locked on my lips. He groaned. “You’re fucking killing me, woman.”
“Maybe if you thought about something other than sex, you might be able to see that I have some true cigar-smoking talent.”
“You got talents alright…”
I laughed and looked around. “Your apartment is amazing. This balcony is bigger than my entire place.”
“Do you have a different layout than Gram has? Her place isn’t that small.”
“Oh. Yeah, she has a two bedroom, and I have a studio.”
He nodded.
“I bet the sunset is incredible from up here.”
“It is. You should stay and watch it.”
The whiskey had loosened my shoulders, and I was enjoying the breeze. I felt more relaxed than I had in days. I puffed on my cigar again and blew out more smoke rings. “Maybe I will.”
“Sunrise is even better. You should stay for both.”
I chuckled. “Smooth, Cross. Smooth.”
“I try.”
Beck drew a puff on his cigar, and my eyes lasered in on the way his lips wrapped around the end. I forced myself to look away before he could notice.
“So is that why you’re leaving New York?” he asked. “Because it costs a small fortune to rent a three-hundred-square-foot place?”
“No. Actually the tiny space doesn’t bother me. I just want to be closer to my dad.”
“You said you’re leaving when your lease is up? When is that?”
“The end of the summer.”
We enjoyed a few minutes of quiet. It was rare that I felt comfortable in silence. It was nice.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked eventually.
“Hmmm?”
“When you asked me to stay, you said you wanted to discuss something with me.”
“Oh.” He looked down at my near-empty whiskey glass. “You want another one?”
“Uh-oh. You’re trying to get me liquored up before you start a conversation. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Not trying to get you liquored up. Just trying to be a good host.”
I was skeptical, but curious. “What’s on your mind?” I tilted my head back and took a big, long drag on the cigar, blowing out smoke rings again.
“I was hoping for a better lead-in to this discussion. But since it doesn’t look like I’m getting one, I’ll just toss it out there.”
Now I was intrigued. “Okay…”
“I really need to fuck you again.”
I was forming my fourth smoke ring and sucked in instead of blowing out. I immediately started to choke. Cigar smoke was not meant to be inhaled.
Beck leaned over and put his hand on my back. “Are you okay? You want some water?”
I shook my head. After a minute, my throat still burned, and my eyes were filled with tears, but I was able to squeak out a few words. “Why would you say that?”
He looked confused. “Because it’s true?”
I shook my head. “First of all, there’s a nicer way to ask a girl to sleep with you, and second of all, how about a little notice when you’re going to say something like that?”
“I told you I was hoping for a better lead-in. You forced me to tell you.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault that you’re a pig and say inappropriate things?”
Beck’s eyes zeroed in on my mouth, and he leaned closer. “Fuck. Yeah, let’s argue.”
I nudged him to sit back into his chair, putting a little space between us. “We’ve had this discussion. I told you, it’s not the right time for me to have a relationship.”
“It’s not for me either.”
“So you don’t want to date me, you only want to…what, fuck me?”
He shrugged. “Exactly.”
“Beck…”
“Hear me out. I have some bullet points for this. I knew it wouldn’t be a simple discussion.”
“You have bullet points?”
“Yep. It’s what you do at two in the morning when you can’t sleep because you can’t stop thinking about the sound a woman makes when she comes on your hand in a restaurant.” Beck picked up his phone from the table and scrolled. “Okay, number one: Neither of us wants a relationship. Number two: You’re moving across the country at the end of the summer. There’s a pretty definitive lifespan to this arrangement I’m proposing. Number three: I’m attracted to you. Very attracted. And I think you feel the same. Number four: We’ve test driven the car, so we already know it’s a nice ride. No disappointments. Number five…” Beck paused and held my eyes. “I really want you. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since the restaurant—too busy thinking about that little mewl sound you make when you come.”
He set his phone back on the table. I leaned forward and checked his screen. He really did have a numbered list. Though it looked like there were more things listed than five. “What else is on that list?”
“Nothing.”
I held out my hand. “Let me see then?”
Beck held my eyes for a few heartbeats. Then I did a quick grab and took it.
“Number six: Best head ever.” I raised my eyes to his. “You seem to have forgotten a few.”
“You just told me I was a pig, so I was trying to accommodate your request to be polite.”
I chuckled and kept reading. “Number seven: Phenomenal tits. Need her to ride me so I can watch them go up and down.”
I lowered the phone. “You are seriously a thirteen-year-old boy.”
After the last two, I probably should’ve stopped reading. But I didn’t. And it was the last one that got me.
Number eight: She makes me forget.
I sighed and sucked in my bottom lip as I thought it over. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since the night in the restaurant either. Hell, maybe since that first kiss we’d shared in the middle of an argument. “I can’t get attached to you…”
“We’ll keep it to sex. No romantic walks on the beach.”
Why was I considering this? Bottom line, each day was getting harder and harder. And when I was with Beck, whether we were having sex or just hanging out, there was no room to remember the rest of my life—he knew how to make me forget. “I need to think about it.”
“Okay…”
“But if we decide to do this, I don’t think I want Louise to know. I feel like we’d be getting her hopes up.”
“I don’t often discuss sex with my grandmother anyway.”
I shook my head with a smile. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”
Beck leaned forward and put his hand on my knee. His thumb caressed the inside of my leg and sent shockwaves through my body. “How about a do-over of the restaurant?” His hand inched up higher. “You know, to help you decide.”
I slapped a hand over his, stopping his ascent. “I think I’d like to decide this one on my own.”
He pouted. “Shame.”
“In fact, I should get going. I told Louise I’d do some travel planning. I’m not sure if she mentioned it to you yet, but she’s planning on getting back on the road on the fifteenth, the day after her doctor’s appointment, as long as he gives her the green light.”
Beck frowned. “I know she’s doing well, but I don’t think she’s strong enough yet. That’s only a little more than a week away.”
“I agree. So I suggested we start slow and maybe hit one of her bucket-list items that isn’t so adventurous.”
“What’s that? Climbing the Sears Tower?”
“No. Going to visit Charles Tote.”
“Who’s Charles Tote?”
“Her first love.”
“She married my grandfather at twenty-two.”
“So?”
“You’re saying she was in love with someone else before that?”
“Yep.”
“And after sixty years, forty of which she was married to my grandfather, she’s still thinking about this guy enough to need to visit him as part of her bucket list?”
I shrugged. “I think she has a lot of guilt surrounding him.”
“Why does she have guilt?”
“Well, they met when they were thirteen and were apparently totally smitten right from the start. But it was the fifties, and things were a lot different back then. You had to court a girl, and he had to get her parents’ permission. The two of them had planned to start dating at sixteen, but a week before Charles’s birthday, he contracted polio. The vaccine was new and not yet widely available.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Apparently it left him in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. Louise didn’t care, but her father forbade her from dating a man he didn’t think could provide for her. She snuck out to visit him, but like Louise’s father, Charles didn’t think it was a good idea for them to be together anymore. Louise was crushed and told him she was going to wait for him to change his mind. They stayed close, good friends, but a year later, he told her he’d met someone else at physical therapy and had fallen in love. It broke her heart.”
“And she wants to go see this guy?”
“She found out years later, after she met your grandfather, that Charles hadn’t met anyone at physical therapy. He just knew she would never leave him unless he did something, so he made up the relationship. In hindsight, Louise said she sort of suspected that might be the case, though she allowed herself to accept it and put the blame for their demise on him. And part of her had been relieved when their relationship came to an end after she’d realized how much work it would be to take care of him.”
“Damn. That’s heavy.”
“Yeah. Your grandfather was the love of her life, so it all worked out in the end. But she and Charles reconnected on Facebook a dozen years ago. He eventually married and had a nice life, but they’d like to see each other again. His wife passed almost as long ago as your grandfather. He’s in a retirement community, and it’s pretty hard for him to get around much now, so she’d like to go visit.”
Beck shook his head. “I can’t believe I never heard that story.”
“I don’t think it’s something she’s thought about on a daily basis. But when you start to ponder your own mortality, it dredges up a lot of things from the past.”
He stared at me for a long time. “I’m glad she has you. And I’m glad I do, too—for reasons other than you give great head.” He winked. “I needed a reminder of how little time she likely has left. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I don’t think I accepted it until recently.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous. We all accept things in our own time.”
“Where does Charles live?”
“Utah. We had talked about hitting Bryce Canyon, too. That was something from my list. But we’ll see how she feels.”
Beck nodded.
I put out my cigar in the ashtray. “I’m going to go. I’m sorry for wasting this.”
“I’m not. I’ll light it up later when I’m thinking about you and put my mouth right where yours was.”
I smiled. “Pig.”
“Give some thought to what we talked about. I’d rather have my mouth on the real thing.”
