Wild Love: Chapter 18

Tonight is a night I would have chosen to spend away from Rosie. I need to create a little distance. My train of thought constantly reorients to her, my eyes constantly search for her, my body turns in her direction without me even thinking about it.

It seems I’m attuned to her no matter what I do.

So it tracks that I was both thrilled and devastated when I walked in to Cora announcing she and Rosie were playing a game of Monopoly. I tried to leave them to it, but participation wasn’t optional. Now I’m stuck spending my downtime trying not to stare at Rosalie Belmont.

My body doesn’t seem to recognize that she is now my employee in an official capacity. But my brain does. My brain is painfully aware that not only is Rosalie Belmont my best friend’s little sister, but she’s also someone I can’t cross professional boundaries with.

“Oh my god! Another one?”

At the kitchen table, Rosie rubs her hands together with an evil grin as she places yet another hotel on the Boardwalk. “Listen, little storm cloud, I told you I was good at this game. I always have been. Ask Ford. I kicked his ass at this game as a teenager.”

My lips flatten. “No, you didn’t.”

“Ha! Yes, I did. It’s actually incredible that you became as successful as you are with how truly terrible you are at Monopoly.”

“I’m not terrible. I just have different priorities.”

Rosie leans back with a smug look on her face, reminding me that when we’re not at work together, it would appear all professional pretenses evaporate.

“Well”—she leans back in her seat while thumbing through the colorful play money in her hands—“from where I’m sitting, it appears your priority is losing.”

I scoff and watch Cora’s amused gaze bounce between us.

“It’s a board game, not real life. I don’t care if I lose fake money as much as you do.”

Rosie stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As if she senses the shift in our interaction, Cora tries to run interference. “Well, I’m having a lot of fun watching Rosie clean you out.”

I shrug and offer Cora a wink. “Me too. She’s good at it.”

Rosie’s eyes narrow at that and she sets her stack of cash down. “Is that some sort of reference to what happened today?”

My brow furrows as I try to follow.

Cora stands. “I’m getting a snack. Who wants a snack?”

“I’ll give it back if you’re going to lord it over me, you know.”

“What?” I whisper to Rosie, hearing Cora rifling through the pantry noisily.

Rosie matches my dropped voice, but there’s anger in her whisper. “The advance. I’m not going to keep it just so you can lord it over me with snide, underhanded comments about me being good at cleaning you out. I have more dignity than that.”

Shit. I hadn’t given that money a second thought.

“That is not at all what I⁠—”

“Hey, Rosie!” Cora calls, cutting me off. “Can you come reach this for me?”

With a shake of her head, Rosie pushes to stand and pads over to the pantry, shoulders taut and her head held high. She’s miffed, but it doesn’t prevent me from acknowledging how satisfying it is having her here in my house, walking around in bare feet like she’s at home.

“I don’t know what that even⁠—”

“Ford?” Cora pops out of the pantry, innocent eyes meeting mine. “Rosie can’t reach it either. Can you help?”

I sigh heavily and slide my chair out to help. I round the island and see Rosie up on her tiptoes, reaching for the very top shelf. A sliver of her bare stomach peeks out from where her T-shirt has ridden up. My eyes take in her narrow waist, the curve of her ass in tight acid-wash Wranglers.

“Here. Let me,” I bite out more harshly than intended and step up behind her. As I reach above her, I will myself not to press too close.

I feel the rush of air before I hear the door click as it shuts. The small lock handle turning makes a soft clicking noise.

My body freezes, sprawled over Rosie’s back in the darkened closet. The only source of light is what peeks in from around the door.

“Cora?” I ask firmly before Rosie’s soft breasts brush my arm and my chest as she turns to face me.

“Cora, you did not just lock us in here!”

I grip the shelf above Rosie’s head to keep myself from gripping her.

“I’ll let you two out when you quit bickering about dumb shit. Listening to you two is exhausting. You both like each other. Start acting like it.”

Rosie steadies herself with one hand on the center of my chest as Cora’s footsteps recede.

“Cora! Get back here right now and let us out!” I shout. Rosie giggles almost maniacally. The heat of her breath fans against my throat. She smells sweet, like Coca-Cola and the Fuzzy Peach candies she’s been grazing on all night.

It makes me want to kiss her. Taste her. Here in the dark where no one would know.

A heavy silence descends between us. All I can feel is the awkward tension emanating from the woman pressed up against me… until she finally comes up with something to say.

“This giving you a serious case of déjà vu, Junior? Or just me?”

I swallow, thinking back to that night.

Seven minutes in heaven. A dumb teenaged game. And of course, as some sort of cruel cosmic joke, I got shoved into a dark closet with Rosalie Belmont.

My laugh is a low rumble. It feels like the surrounding shelves vibrate with it as I drop my head in defeat. “It’s not just you, Rosalie.”

Rosalie. Because I cannot call her Rosie right now. This pantry is too fucking small, and she’s too fucking close.

“I really had to work the next day to convince West nothing happened in that closet.” She laughs, quieter this time, as she recalls the story.

I swallow. “Nothing did happen. I recognized you right away.” It was her scent, that heady perfume she wore back then—borderline overpowering—sweet like black licorice.

Her fingers thrum on my chest. She taps them like keys on a piano. “I know, but we did a good job of convincing everyone it did. Didn’t we?”

I nod, even though I’m pretty sure she can’t see me. “I messed up my own hair,” she says.

It’s clear as day in my head. Rosie hushing me and dragging her fingers through her hair.

I start when the tips of her pointer and middle fingers touch my lips. My hand shoots up and I grab her wrist, but she doesn’t back down. She dusts the pads of them over the top dip of my lip and whispers, “Wiped my cheap, sparkly lip gloss all over your mouth.”

“I remember,” I reply roughly, fingers wrapped tight around her wrist.

“I can’t remember the flavor. I was constantly applying that garbage,” she muses, fingers tracing again as a shiver races down my spine.

I don’t even need to think about it. I know. I will never forget.

“Watermelon.”

She sucks in a breath at my instant reply, and the tip of her nose grazes mine as her face tips up to mine.

Then my stomach burns, because I know I can’t be doing this. I quickly drop her wrist and step back, feeling the metal rack behind me pressing into my shoulder blades.

She says nothing, but her breathing sounds heavier than before. More ragged.

“You let everyone think we made out in that closet,” I say in a raspy voice. “You told them it was good.”

I can faintly see the outline of her head nodding in agreement.

“Why?”

“Because people treating you like you couldn’t land a girl bothered me. And that’s exactly what I told West. How I got him off my ass about the whole thing.”

“I couldn’t land a girl.”

The closet falls silent, and then, “You could. You were just too good for all the ones who were interested.”

Interested? I’m not sure I even noticed them. All I saw was Rosie back then.

Still.

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do. I watched.”

“Paying pretty close attention for someone who professed to hate me.”

She hums thoughtfully. “What’s that saying about keeping your enemies closer?”

“We’re not enemies, Rosalie.”

“Things might be a lot simpler if we were.”

Her words hang in the air between us. I’m not sure what to make of them. I wish I could see her face right now.

“I wasn’t making a reference to the signing bonus.”

Her head moves in a brisk nodding motion again. “Okay.”

“I wouldn’t mock you about that.”

“Only other things?” Her voice sounds almost hopeful as she asks the question.

I swallow. I only mock Rosie to cover for other things. But I also never tell her no. “Only other things.”

“Okay.”

“You’re qualified for this job, you know? It’s not a handout.”

She scoffs. “Please, Ford. I practically begged you.”

I shrug. “Be that as it may, I could pay you and not entrust any part of my business to you. But I haven’t done that. You’re an asset. Your work has value. And you’d be a fool not to take an opportunity like this. Let no one make you feel otherwise. Especially not me.”

Silence descends between us. Perhaps I took it too far, but I hate seeing her second-guess herself like this. I hate how someone made her feel like her value was wrapped up in the way she looks.

“You confuse me,” she blurts.

I chuckle dryly and scrub a hand over my jaw. “The feeling is very mutual.”

“Do you think…” She trails off and I wait for her words, leaning her way to hear what she might say next. “Do you think under different circumstances you and I might have been⁠—”

A click and a flood of light cuts Rosie off as Cora yanks the door open. “So? Did we work out our differences?”

I can’t believe I’m being scolded by a twelve-year-old. I can’t believe I’m wishing she’d lock us back in a dark closet together.

When I turn my attention back to Rosie, I’m struck by her wide eyes and her perfect cherry lips popped open. God, I so desperately want to know what was at the tip of her tongue.

More. Might we have been more? I wonder if that was her question.

It’s one I’ve asked myself many times over the years. But it’s never the right time to ask. There’s always too much at stake.

And this moment is no different.

I don’t look back at Cora when I respond with, “Yeah, we called a truce.”

Then I leave the pantry before I can spend too long analyzing the confusion painted on Rosie’s face.