Illicit Read online

“Can’t say I have,” he said, still chuckling. “Though I did accidentally slice off the tip of my thumb a while ago.” He held out his right hand, showing me the blunt edge of his thumb. It was then I noticed the rest of his large, manly hand and the strong forearm connected to it, dusted with hair.

  “All right,” I said, shaking off the strange feeling that had come over me. “What do you want me to hand you next?”

  That night, Mom cornered me in the hallway, glancing in the living room to make sure Jake was staying put. “Are you really okay with him moving in?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Sure.” What I really wanted to tell her was that it was a little too late for that question when the guy’s stuff was already all over the house. But I knew this meant a lot to her and I wanted to make the transition as painless as possible.

  “I’m glad.” She kissed the side of my head. “I think it’ll be good, having him here. At the very least there’s someone else in the house whenever I leave town.”

  “Mom, I told you I was fine. I can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t keep me from worrying whenever I leave you. I’m your mom, it’s my job to worry.”

  I studied her, seeing a happier reflection of myself. “You think you’re going to marry him?”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said with a nervous laugh. “One step at a time.”

  “You know some people get married first before moving in together.”

  She gave me a withering look. “Are you sure you’re not the mother in this relationship?”

  “Sometimes I really wonder.”

  She laughed and pinched my nose. “I love you, you little brat.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  * * *

  The first night with Jake was not as uncomfortable as I’d expected. Still, eating together at the dinner table like a regular family might take some getting used to.

  “You don’t have to work tonight?” I asked Mom.

  She shook her head, her mouth too full of spaghetti to speak.

  Jake drank from his glass of water, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “How many hours a day do you work, Amanda?”

  “During tax season? Twelve to fifteen.”

  He frowned. “That seems like a lot.”

  “Thank you! That’s what I’ve been telling her,” I said. I leaned forward conspiratorially. “Maybe between the two of us, we can convince her to slow down and take on fewer accounts.”

  He grinned. “Deal.” He turned to my mom. “I hope you know Joss and I are going to come down hard on you. We won’t relent until you slow down.”

  Mom flashed a tight-lipped smile at the two of us. “Okay. Okay.”

  “To my new daddy,” I joked, lifting my glass for a toast. “Already laying down the law.”

  Mom choked on her garlic bread while Jake just chuckled. “Call me daddy again and you’ll be grounded for a month,” he said with a mock stern face.

  It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”

  Afterward, Jake insisted on washing the dishes even though it was my chore.

  “I got it,” he said, shooing me away with the flower-shaped scrubber, his hands encased in bright pink rubber gloves.

  Mom and I backed off, biting back our smiles as we watched him scrub food off the plates. “Alpha male tendencies indeed,” I whispered.

  “You ladies can stop giggling now,” he growled with his back to us.

  Mom sidled up to Jake and hugged him, pressing her cheek to his back. She let out a long, contented sigh. “We’re just glad to have you around.”

  He picked up her hand and dropped a kiss on her knuckles. “Happy to be here.”

  I stood there, watching the exchange, feeling like I was intruding on an intimate moment. I edged out of the room to give them their privacy.

  “Jocelyn,” Jake called before I could turn the corner.

  “Yeah?”

  Mom was still wrapped around his back when he said, “I left some books out on the coffee table. You’re welcome to borrow them.”

  I brightened. “Thanks.” I hurried to the living room and found five books, each with a beautiful embossed-leather cover. I gave each one due attention, skimming the pads of my fingers along the aged covers, opening each book and holding my nose between its pages. They smelled old, musty. Divine.

  When I looked up I found Jake sitting on the arm of the couch, watching me with a smile tugging at his lips. “I love it too. The smell.” He sank down beside me and took a book, opening it to the inside flap to show me the handwritten name inside: John Jacob Mitchell. “These belonged to my grandfather.”

  “So the nerd runs in the family?”

  “That it definitely does.” He shut the book gently and handed it back to me.

  “I’ll take good care of them,” I said, feeling a little like a child who’d been trusted with something important.

  He nodded, making a noise of approval from the back of his throat. “I’m sure you will.” He pushed up off his knees and stood. “Well, goodnight.”

  “Night.” I watched him walk away with a light, buoyant feeling in my chest. “Hey, Jake?”

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Welcome home.” After he left the room, I hugged the books to my chest and let out a happy sigh.

  3

  After a long shift at work I came home one day and found Jake rearranging his tools in the garage. I meant to go straight inside the house and veg in front of the T.V., but found myself stopping in the middle of the garage to watch him instead.

  “How was work?” he asked, muscles straining as he pulled a large metal drill press across the concrete floor.

  “Oh, you know, customers trying to return books they’d obviously already read, people spilling their macchiatos on shelves. The usual. I swear, if I didn’t have to deal with customers, it’d be the perfect job.”

  He dusted his hands on his shorts and grinned. “You mean if you could just be alone in that entire place, surrounded by coffee and books?”

  “Exactly,” I said with an unexpected laugh. The guy definitely understood me. “So what’s going on here?”

  Jake wiped at his forehead with the hem of his shirt, allowing me a quick peek at his abs. Apparently he works out. “I need to get this space sorted out so I can get back to work.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a furniture maker.” He leaned against the table saw. “I work mostly by commission, but I also have a few stores that display and sell my work for me.” He flashed a rueful smile. “I used to have a huge detached shed to work in, but the owner of the house I was renting decided to sell.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I want to make it clear your mom asked me to move in long before I even knew I was getting kicked out.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking it.”

  “I know. I just want to clear any misconceptions before they arise.”

  “Okay. I’m going to go change then I’ll come out and help you,” I said to change the subject because, yes, I actually had been thinking it.

  After an hour of moving things around, he was finally satisfied with the layout. “I think this will work.” He swiped at his forehead. “Damn, it’s humid out today.”

  “Hang on, I’ll be right back,” I said and disappeared inside the house. A few minutes later I came out with a tray with two glasses and a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade.

  His face brightened. “Oh, perfect.” He took the tray and carried it to the open bed of his truck. “Did you make this?” he asked, pouring out two glasses.

  “Mom made it last night.” I jumped into the truck and sat down, my legs dangling over the edge of the open gate. I took a long pull of the lemonade and sighed in relief. He wasn’t kidding—it was as hot as Satan’s balls out here.

  He followed suit and we sat for a few moments in comfortable silence.

  “So what’s your story, Jake?” I asked afte
r some time.

  He turned those blue eyes on me. “Well, I was born and raised in Boston. Studied industrial design and furniture design in college.”

  “What brings you to South Florida?”

  “Employment, mainly. After college I moved to Orlando to work at an amusement park.”

  I sucked in my cheeks to keep from smiling. “Please tell me you played a prince at Disney World. That would make my day.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “Actually, I worked behind the scenes. Building and maintaining sets, that kind of thing.”

  I sagged, sticking out my lower lip. “That’s nowhere near as fun.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not as embarrassing either.”

  “So is your family back in Boston?”

  “Mostly, but my brother’s living it up in Miami. He came for spring break one year and never left,” he said. “Tristan’s a big fan of women, the lifestyle, and the weather, in that order.”

  “What about you?”

  He shrugged. “Not really my scene.”

  We were quiet for a time. A question burned on my tongue, but after some thought I realized I already knew the answer: Relationships with older women was clearly his scene.

  To fill up the silence I pointed to the house directly across the street. “The Lombarts live there. Two kids, one handicapped. To the right is a young couple, Pepper and Mark. He’s a firefighter and their garage is fixed up like a fancy gym. Next door is a family from India. Their daughter is thirteen and apparently loves Taylor Swift and One Direction, based on what I hear blasting from her bedroom.”

  I pointed to the elderly man a few doors down who was busy watering his flowers with a leaky hose. His dog yapped around his feet, chasing around the wayward streams of water from the hose. “That’s Mr. Jackson. Those are his wife’s flowers. She used to be out there everyday, gardening.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She died. Heart attack,” I said, remembering the night last year when Mom and I had awoken to the sirens and had peeked through the curtains to find flashing lights across the street. “Since then he’s been coming out here every day, making sure her garden is still as beautiful as the day she died.”

  Jake took in the story quietly, his eyebrows drawn as he gazed across the street. Without warning he jumped from the truck and ran inside the garage to rummage through his boxes. A few seconds later, he jogged across the street with a hose looped around his arm and a brand new nozzle in his hand. He approached Mr. Jackson and introduced himself before offering the hose. The older man nodded and pointed to the faucet, watching as Jake attached the new hose and nozzle.

  After testing the hose, the two men shook hands, and Jake bent down to scratch the dog behind his ears before making his way back to our driveway.

  “That was nice of you.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t using it.”

  “You always such a boy scout?”

  He flashed me a playful grin. “Not always.” He took a drink of his lemonade, completely emptying the glass before pouring another. “So tell me about yourself, Jocelyn.”

  I lifted my hair away from my neck to keep cool. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  “Okay… I’ve lived in this house my whole life. My parents divorced when I was thirteen and Dad moved up to Tampa.” I chewed on my lip. “That’s about it. There’s nothing remarkable about me or my life.”

  “I doubt that,” he said. “So what about boys? Should I expect any gentlemen callers coming around to woo you?”

  “What am I? Seventy-five?” I laughed, leaning back on my hands and swinging my feet until my flip-flops fell off. “But no.”

  “No?”

  I turned and looked at him. “Nope. Nobody coming around, breaking down my door.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  It was my turn to shrug. “There is this one guy in my Econ class—Eli—who sits next to me. He’s asked me a few times if I wanted to ‘hang out,’” I said, making air quotes.

  “And, what, you’re not into him?”

  “I don’t know. He’s cute and he’s fun to talk to. But I don’t know. I’d rather stay home and hang out with my book boyfriends. At least they keep me satisfied.” My face flamed when I realized what I’d inferred. “Not in that way.”

  He laughed, chucking me in the arm. “You get embarrassed easily. I knew what you meant.”

  “I just…” I took in a deep breath and decided to be blunt. The last thing we needed in this situation was a misunderstanding. “I don’t want you to think I’m flirting with you. We have an unusual situation here, so I want to make sure the lines are drawn and clear.”

  A smile tugged at his lips as he nodded. “Agreed.”

  “But don’t go acting like my dad either.”

  “Ha! I wouldn’t dream of it.” He held out a hand. “How about friends then?”

  I took his hand, surprised by its warmth as his fingers folded around mine. “I think that will work.”

  One corner of his mouth tipped up. “But if you need me to pull the dad card, just say so. I’ll do the whole cleaning my shotgun thing should you want a guy chased off.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “Why not?”

  “If they’re not put off by my big nose and butt chin, I’m sure my introvertedness will do it.”

  He let out an incredulous laugh. “First of all, your nose is not big. Not by a long shot. And second—” He reached out and pressed his thumb to the shallow cleft in my chin. “This gives you character. It makes you unique.”

  I snorted and pulled away, my chin still tingling from his touch.

  He gave me a reproachful look. “I know I’m not your dad, but if I had come into your life sooner I would have told you every day that you’re beautiful.”

  I stared at him, caught between admiration and adoration. I shook off the strange feelings before they took hold. “I’m more than my looks. That’s what having a mom taught me.”

  He nodded. “You certainly are.” Finally he cleared his throat and looked down at his watch. “When does Amanda get home today?”

  “In thirty minutes. I’d better go get ready,” I said, jumping off the truck and slipping back into my flip-flops.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “By yourself?”

  “With my friend, Ashley.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drinking?”

  I folded my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow. “These questions are seriously bordering on parental.”

  He grinned and held up his palms. “Okay. Got it. But if you need a ride home, just call.”

  I waved him away. “No need. I’m the DD.”

  It turned out I was a terrible designated driver. Buoyed by the fact that we made it inside the club without getting carded, Ashley managed to talk me into ordering a drink. “Surprise me,” I’d told the bartender and had received a tall glass of Long Island Ice Tea. Halfway into the drink, I realized I was not going to be getting behind the wheel anytime soon.

  I called my mom’s phone, not sure how she would take the news that her only daughter—underage, no less—was drunk. After a few rings, she picked up.

  “Mom?” I shouted into the phone as the music thumped all around me.

  “Joss?”

  “Can you come pick us up?” I asked, trying to temper my voice in hopes that my inebriation wouldn’t be as obvious.

  “You don’t have to shout, sweetheart.”

  I covered my mouth, giggling. “Sorry, I thought I was whispering.”

  “Are you drunk?” she asked with amusement in her voice.

  Filled with a mixture of guilt and giddiness, I said, “Not entirely drunk. Just… tipsy. I didn’t mean to even get this far. I think the bartender put too much alcohol in my drink.”

  “Don’t worry, Joss,” she said. “Y
ou’re an adult.”

  I let out a humorless laugh. “Right. An adult who needs her mom to come pick her up.”

  “Jake will come get you.”

  “Jake?” I asked, panicked by the idea that he would see me acting like some young, out-of-control kid. “Can’t you do it?”

  “I’m sorry, Joss, but I’ve had a few drinks myself. You’re not the only drunk Blake girl tonight,” she said with a chuckle. “So sit tight. He’ll be there in a bit.”

  I hung up and turned to Ashley, who still swayed to the music with her eyes closed and her hands waving in the air. I poked her stomach to get her attention. “Jake’s picking us up.”

  “Who?” she asked, her mouth shaped into an O while she kept swaying.

  “My mom’s boyfriend. And our new roommate.”

  That got Ashley’s attention; she stopped and gaped. “I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend, let alone one serious enough to move in!”

  “Neither did I.” I leaned against the wall, trying to keep from wobbling in my mom’s eight hundred dollar Jimmy Choos. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have borrowed the shoes, and I definitely shouldn’t have told Ashley about Jake. But alcohol, I found out, has a way of screwing with one’s decision-making. “You should see him, Ash. He’s so hot.”

  Her eyes got big. “Are you crushing on him?”

  “No!” I cried, slightly horrified that she was a little bit right. “Okay, maybe a little. But he’s off limits. To me, to you, to anybody but my mom.”

  She grabbed my hand and dragged me to the exit. “Okay, let’s go. I need to see this guy.”

  Jake’s truck pulled up to the curb ten minutes later. He jumped out to open the passenger door for us. “Ladies.” He smiled as he held the door open, looking so damn good in his jeans and a V-neck shirt that molded to his body.

  Ashley pinched my side and whispered, “Holy shit.”

  I turned to her with wide, agreeing eyes. “Right?” I mouthed then turned back to Jake. “Thanks for coming to get us.”

  He climbed back into the driver seat and started the truck.

  “Sorry to get you out of bed,” Ashley said, still eyeballing him.