Caleb did as he was told and stepped into the bathroom, distracted with visions of pulling that nightshirt up and tasting between her thighs with his tongue.
Trish hoped Ashley had a damn good reason for pounding on her door on a Saturday morning.
“What?” she said as she opened the door, running her fingers through her hair. “Is the building on fire?”
Ashley and Violet gaped back at her. They were both wearing dresses, Violet pushing up her glasses, while Ashley twisted her engagement ring around and around her finger.
Why did Trish have the feeling she was forgetting something here?
“You’re not even dressed! We’re supposed to be at the restaurant an hour early to set out the party favors.”
That’s what it was. “Damn it! I forgot all about the shower.” Trish craned her neck to see her platinum clock.
“How could you forget?” Ashley pushed past her and looked around the room, obviously seeking an explanation for Trish’s sudden amnesia. “We spent all afternoon yesterday shooting e-mails back and forth with Kindra until I thought I would scream. Kindra has totally entered the frantic-bride phase.”
“She’s just nervous,” Violet protested. “She wants everything to be perfect.”
“You can say that because she left you alone since you were puking your guts out with morning sickness for four weeks straight. I work with Kindra, have no excuses, and trust me, this has been a painful process.”
All the more reason not to be late and aggravate Kindra, aka Bridezilla. Trish stood there with her arms crossed, mentally ripping through her closet to find something to wear. “What time do we have to be there?”
“In fifteen minutes.”
“Well, hell, go ahead without me. I’ve got to take a shower. It’s only five minutes from here. I’ll drive myself.” Then she slapped her head. “Except that I left my car at Ryan’s last night. Shit!”
She was already moving ahead to plan B, figuring she could take the bus or ask Caleb to drop her off, when Ashley flipped back her blond hair and narrowed her eyes. “Late night?”
Trish nodded.
“Is your shower running?” Violet asked, peering down the hall.
Ashley laughed, glee evident in her expression. “You have aguy here, don’t you? We’ll wait for ten minutes for you to get ready if you tell us who he is.”
Since Ashley had parked her little floral-dress-covered butt on Trish’s couch, she figured she might as well tell her. “He’s one of Joe’s friends-I met him at Ryan’s last night.”
“You just met him?” Violet sounded shocked, which irritated Trish.
“Ryan’s known him for fifteen years, he wasn’t just some freak on the street.” She loved Violet, but she really wasn’t one to talk. “And if memory serves, Dylan had you pregnant like ten minutes after you met.”
Violet’s face turned a guilty red. Good.
Ashley just laughed. “But this is cool, Trish. We’re all part of a couple now. We can take vacations together and stuff. And go out to eat and to Cedar Point amusement park…”
As charming as that sounded, she needed to stop Ashley’s couple train before it rolled any further. “Except that Caleb and I aren’t a couple. His ex-wife is getting remarried today and he was just looking for a distraction. I provided one. I’m not his type.”
Saying it made her feel like complete and utter dog crap, even though she knew it was true. Yet she wanted it not to be true.
Annoyed at her weakness, she stood there, leg out in defiance, and said firmly, “I’m the transitional woman. That’s it. Nothing more.” Only it had felt like a heck of a lot more to her last night when they had talked for hours. And this morning, just minutes ago, when he had been holding her, their bodies joined intimately.
Dammit. She should have just stuck to unconscious orgasms-they were a lot safer, though not nearly as satisfying.
Ashley’s eyes darted past her, then went wide. “Hello.”
Violet put her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, my.”
Trish turned and saw Caleb in the doorway, wearing only his jeans, water still running down his chest, hair sticking up like toothbrush bristles.
“So you felt sorry for me? The sex was your contribution to the Poor Caleb Fund?”
Her mouth worked, but nothing came out.
Ashley said, “That’s one big, angry guy.”
Which pretty much summed things up.
“Of course not! I’m not nice enough to run around having pity sex with guys. Iwanted to have sex with you.”
“But that’s it?” His voice was quiet, tight, tense.
Shoot, shoot, he was hurt. She had hurt his feelings. This was why she couldn’t make a relationship work. She was selfish and too blunt.
Violet tapped Ashley on the shoulder. “It’s time for us to go. We’ll meet you there, okay, Trish?”
Trish waved her hand in agreement.
Ashley looked disappointed to miss the show, but she followed Violet with one more peek back at Caleb’s chest.
A Lake Erie-sized wave of jealousy flooded over Trish.
“I saw that, Ashley Andrews! Watch it or I’ll tell Lucas.” God, she sounded like she was twelve. And she knew darn well Ashley was head over heels for Lucas, which made her own reaction seem even stupider.
“What?” Ashley blinked innocent green eyes. “I was checking the clock.”
“We’ll see you at the shower,” Violet said, and dragged Ashley out the door.
When it clicked in place, Trish turned to face Caleb.
But he was gone.
She found him in the bedroom, pulling on his T-shirt. “Caleb…I have to go to this bridal shower, but we need to talk first.”
“About what?” He sat on the bed to pull on his socks.
“Us.” She stood there feeling like a humongous jerk, somehow devastated by the idea that he was going to just leave and she’d never see him again.
“There is no us.”
“Yes, there is,” she snapped.
“No, you’re just the transitional woman, remember?” He tossed her own words back at her calmly as he laced his gym shoes.
And her heart broke for the first time in her twenty-eight years of life.
Six
Caleb wanted to eat his words the minute they left his mouth. Trish froze, her hand dangling over her chest, her eyes huge.
He swore. Just because she had hurt him didn’t mean he was justified in turning around and doing the same thing. And she hadn’t said anything that was surprising. They hadn’t discussed dating at all. They had just fallen into bed together.
Because it had felt so right, so perfect.
“I’m sorry, Angel, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
Her hand came up in a defensive gesture. “No, no, you’re right. I said it first. It’s not like we could actually date or anything.”
Jesus, there were tears in her eyes. He leaped off the bed, reached for her, hesitated.
“We don’t have anything in common or, or, anything,” she finished, turning away and blinking hard. “God, I’m just as annoying as your ex-wife must have been.”
That’s when he knew she felt the same as he did, and that they could get past this little blip, and be together. Because for some reason she had sat down on that stool next to him the night before, and he knew what that reason was. They were supposed to be together.
“We have a lot in common. We like bowling, lizards, and Harleys, and we believe the bad guy should pay for his crimes. We like the same books and movies and we’ve both been lonely. We like each other.” He touched her chin, forcing her to look at him. “At least, I like you. A lot.”
“You make it sound like it’s easy.”
“It can be easy, if we make it easy.”
She snorted. “The only thing easy is me. I was about as subtle as a hooker this morning.”
Caleb was momentarily distracted by the memory of her straddling him. “Did I look like I minded?”
“Caleb.” She gave a sigh, all hint of tears gone. “Let’s be practical. Maybe I wasn’t tactful in what I said to Ashley, but it was the truth. I’ve confused you with great sex, but I’m not an easy person to get along with. And you still have feelings for your ex-wife.”
The only thing confused was her logic. “Honestly, Trish, I do not.” They needed to get that cleared right up. “What drove me to that bar last night was the fear that I was never going to find someone to share my life with. A woman confident in who she is, intelligent, passionate. And then there you were. All of those things, sitting down right next to me. That’s not dumb luck, Angel. That’s the universe telling us something.”
Trish turned and went to her closet, sorting through her clothes. She shot him a rueful expression over her shoulder. “Telling us what? I don’t feel illuminated. I feel confused as hell.”
Anything he was going to say was forgotten when she pulled that nightshirt off and stood in front of her closet completely naked.
Her fingers plucked an orange-colored dress off a hanger and she turned and threw it on the bed, clearly not noticing that his tongue was on the floor and his dick had shot forward like a pointer dog at attention.
“I’m going to be late to this shower, which makes me a sucky friend. I have to get ready, Caleb. Kindra’s important to me and I don’t want to let her down.”
He wasn’t even going to acknowledge she was standing there naked, looking good enough to lick from head to toe. Because if he did, he wasn’t going to be able to prevent his tongue from taking action.
