Chapter Eighteen
“Oh my
God,
are you okay and if you tell me there's no dirt this time I will positively die! Twenty-four hours of being snowbound with Mr. Goodwrench
had
to have yielded a little play! And, really, are you okay?”
On the Richter Scale According to Holly, Bellamy's adventure in snowland turned out to rank a lot higher than she'd anticipated.
“Wow. Hello just isn't in your repertoire, is it?” Bellamy asked on a lopsided grin. “And to answer your question, yes. I'm fine.” She hugged her friends before heading into the kitchenette with both of them hot on her heels.
Jenna fastened her with a wry smile. “Glad you're back in one piece. There's got to be at least a foot of snow on the ground out there.” She clucked her tongue and aimed her glance at the pretty-as-a-picture view from the main room of the suite.
“Fifteen inches, but that's the unofficial total.” At least, that's what Jackson had said just before they'd left the garage, with Bellamy following him at an embarrassing fifteen miles an hour. The roads were still pretty slick, but the longer trip back gave her plenty of time to think about all that had happened in the last couple of days.
Some of the images were a lot more appealing than others.
Bellamy pressed her glorious post-sex smile between her lips in an effort to conceal it. “Do we have any food left? I'm starving.” Her stomach chose that exact moment to chime in with a gurgle that would've made Sigourney Weaver's Alien look like a wallflower, and for the first time in twenty-four hours, she realized how hungry she really was.
“Oh, God, honey. Of course you should eat.” Holly rushed forward to yank on random cupboard doors. “And if you should feel some burning urge to, I don't know, tell us every gory detail of being stuck in a blizzard with the white-hot mechanic guy in between bites, we wouldn't shush you. Pretzels?” She shook a half-empty bag at Bellamy, eyebrows lifted.
“That'll work.” At this stage of the game, Bellamy wasn't above instant gratification to keep her stomach from imploding, although what she really needed was an actual meal. “But I'd give my left arm for a good omelet.”
Jenna snorted and slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “Then don't order one from room service.”
“Right. I've got to get back to Joe's. I think I can finagle flatbread pizzas out of that toaster oven if I play my cards right.” Bellamy canted her head at the oven where she'd successfully melted the Brie over thick slices of French bread a couple days earlier. The pretzels were kind of a disappointment after the thought of pizza, but she was too hungry to be picky. She started to crunch her way through the bag, much to the delight of her gastric system.
“Why would you go grocery shopping when we'll be back in the city by nightfall? Ooooh, we can hit up Pietro's for dinner if you want a pizza,” Holly said, leaning against the counter opposite Jenna, who chimed in with bright eyes.
“Oh, hell yes. Pietro's might make the fact that I have to get up at oh-dark-thirty for work tomorrow at least a
little
more bearable. We're already a day behind getting back, what with Mother Nature's arctic tantrum. Hey, speaking of which, did you get the thing with your car ironed out? I can run you back up here on Saturday if you want. For a nominal bribe, of course.” Jenna winked at her over the rim of her coffee mug before making a face at its contents.
Bellamy pressed her lips together for an altogether different reason than she had a moment before and shifted her weight back and forth in the door frame of the kitchen.
“Yeah. About that.” She hedged for just a second before realizing that it was better to just say what had tumbled around in her mind the whole way back from the garage. “I'm not going home with you guys today.”
“You're whaaaaa?” Holly was nothing if not eloquent. She pushed off from the counter to goggle at Bellamy.
But somewhere between mile marker 46 and the front gates of the resort, her mind had been made up, and backing down wasn't part of the deal. “I'm not going home with you guys today. I'm going to stay here for the rest of the week until my car is done.” Despite the fact that they scared the crap out of her, Bellamy's words felt deliciously good as they rolled off her tongue. Well, maybe deliciously good spiced with just a teensy hint of bat shit crazy, but still. At eighty-twenty, she'd take it.
Jenna's eyebrows lifted so high, they were in danger of merging with her hairline. “Are you serious?”
She nodded with certainty. “Yeah. I have a lot to iron out in terms of my career. I need to figure out what I'm going to do, and making another error in judgment isn't something I can afford, literally or figuratively.” Bellamy winced, but continued. “Look, I know me. If I go back to the city to think it through, it's bound to cloud my judgment. I'll get maybe two floors up on my way to clean out my desk before the guilt kills me. Then I'll just end up in HR, groveling for my job back in less time than you can say
pretty please with sugar on top
.”
She held up a hand for emphasis. “I'm not saying it's out of the question for me to stay at the bank on another team, or to go somewhere else as an analyst. But I have a lot of options, and they're overwhelming as hell. I need to think about my next step in an impartial setting, that's all.” Bellamy felt the tension that had been triple-knotting her shoulders every time she thought about her job stand up and take note.
Good, because she was serving her stress its walking papers, come hell or high water. Or a life of eating Ramen noodles. Or moving into her parents' basement.
Bellamy shook her head. Nope. It wasn't going to come to that. She had a plan.
Please, God, let it work. Ramen noodles would send her over the edge.
“But we already checked out,” Holly said, pausing to chew her lip.
“I know, and I know you both need to go home.” The fact that they both had jobs to get back to wasn't lost on Bellamy, even if it did sting a little. “Don't worry, I'll be fine. It's four days, maybe five, depending on how long my transmission takes.” Bellamy wondered how long it would take before the word
transmission
didn't cause her neurons to automatically fire off the eye-roll signal to her optic nerve.
Of course, her car trouble
had
landed her in Shane's lap. Quite literally. On second thought . . .
“This decision wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a certain tall, dark, and handsome car mechanic, would it?” Jenna's smirk threatened to consume her face, and Bellamy blanked her brain waves as if Jenna had somehow honed in on them.
“Nope. Not at all.” She picked some imaginary lint off of her sweater and went across the room to dial down the thermostat. Spending twenty-four hours in that drafty garage must have thrown her system out of whack. The suite was hotter than hell.
“Not even a tiny bit?” Jenna waggled her dark blond brows.
Bellamy pursed her lips over a smile. “Not even a tiny bit.”
“Not one molecule of your being is staying in the hopes that you'll see Shane again?” Jenna crossed her arms over her chest, firm with teasing disbelief.
“I'm not staying here to be with him on a molecular level or any other level, no.” Her mind flitted back to the lurchy backflip thing her stomach did when he wrapped his arms around her and breathed good night into her hair. Okay, so maybe her molecules had had a weak moment. But it was just the one. And she sure as hell wasn't
staying
just so she could see him again. She had bigger fish to fry.
Even though the bigger fish didn't feel all warm and strong and downright damn perfect against her skin like Shane did.
Holly gave a pouty moue, breaking into Bellamy's thoughts. “That's it? Not one speck of dirtânot one
iota
of dishy goodness? Can you at least tell me if he's still a good kisser?”
Bellamy's mouth curved into a catlike grin. “I said I wasn't staying
because
of him. I didn't say I wasn't going to see him again.” She thought of Shane's promise to call her later and it sent her grin into overdrive.
“You tricky bitch!” Holly accused through a giggle, sliding down from her bar stool to wave a finger at Bellamy, who held up her hands in defeat.
“Yeah, yeah, so sue me. He's still a good kisser.”
“How good?” Holly pressed. Even Jenna gave a subtle lean in Bellamy's direction to hear the answer.
Bellamy's overdrive went into overdrive. “Good. Really, really good.” The breathy, sigh-y thing wasn't normally her gig, but her voice box and her chest were bound and determined to conspire against her in an epic coup against good sense.
Oh, screw it. Good sense went out the window days ago.
“I knew it! I knew you hooked up with him again!” Holly crowed, coming into the main room to plop down on the couch, motioning for Bellamy to do the same.
“Of course she hooked up with him again. You can't manufacture that look on her face.” Jenna abandoned her coffee cup on the counter to curl up in a chair across from Holly.
“There's no look on my face,” Bellamy said, losing the battle of wills with her smile.
“Hah! Give us a little credit, please. Your face is practically broadcasting
I just had a morning romp in the snow
!”
“It was last night, not this morning,” Bellamy said tartly, hand firm on her hip. Take that!
Jenna laughed. “You're so easy to corner, it's not even fair.”
Damn it.
Damn
it! Bellamy opened her mouth to flip some glib comment at her, but she couldn't. She was flat-out busted. “Shut up,” she replied, letting her smile have its way with her.
“Look, it's not my fault that fabulous sex shows on your face. That's on you and Mr. Goodwrench, okay? What I want to know is exactly how you two got funky in a garage. I mean, the place is logistically challenged, to say the least.” Jenna sealed her fishing expedition with a good-natured grin.
Bellamy sat on the couch and drew her knees to her chest with a laugh. “It's not
that
challenged. We just had to get a little creative, that's all. And no, I'm not drawing you a diagram. Use your imagination if you must.”
“How can you possibly get creative in a garage?” Jenna's face bent in concentration, but Holly beat her to the
a-ha!
punch.
“Oh, stop it! You did it in your car? I'm never riding shotgun in that thing again.”
“Your days of riding in the Miata are safe, sweetie. We didn't do it in my car.” Bellamy fielded their twin looks of disappointment with satisfaction.
Not so easy to corner after all, huh.
“Wait, you did sleep with him, didn't you?” Jenna measured Bellamy with careful regard, and Bellamy had to cave in. She'd toyed with them enough; plus, she was dying to say it.
“Of course I slept with him. We did it in
his
car.”
All three women burst into a chorus of giggles, and Bellamy doled out enough details to satisfy her friends yet still keep her dignity intact.
“So I assume you're going to see him again, since you're staying here all week?” Holly inquired in the gossip-girl's version of the full court press.
Bellamy nodded. “He's going to call me later, yeah. And I'll obviously have to see him at least one more time to get my car.” She skirted the issue out loud just as well as she did in her head. There really were more important things to consider, like finding a decent meal, making sure she had a place to stay for the rest of the week and trying to pick up the pieces of her career. In that order.
Jenna's eyes flicked over hers, and Bellamy was grateful when she didn't push it. “I wish we could stay here with you, although now I'm not quite as worried that you'll be all by your lonesome. Are you sure you'll be okay up here for the rest of the week?”
Bellamy nodded, squinching her toes into the couch cushions through her socks. “Yeah. It'll be good for me.”
“Well, call us if it's not. I'm not going to have you stuck here if you want to be at home.”
But what Bellamy wanted was about as far from the city as a girl could get.
She'd intentionally left out the weird backflip maneuver in her gut and the fact that she and Shane had fallen asleep in each other's arms. There was no need for her friends to go jumping the gun and getting all mushy on her, and definitely no need for themâor anybodyâto think she was doing something insane like falling for the guy.
Okay, fine, so she'd slept with him, which was a big deal, but it wasn't really her fault. Shane had surprised the hell out of her by being all tender and sweet about the stupid crying thing, and it threw her for a loop. Her defenses had been tongue-tied and twisted the minute he brushed the tears from her face, and they only got more turned around when he laid that kiss on her at the workbench, like some kind of sexual knock-out punch that would've brought a convent full of nuns to their knees.
She'd never been particularly quick about sleeping with anybody, but that kiss had been her undoing, like a loose strand of yarn on a sweater begging to be pulled. Bellamy hadn't planned on letting him unwind her until she was nothing more than a pile of soft thread on the ground, but that's exactly what had happened. And now she had to face facts.
The acrobatics going on between her chest and her hips every time she thought of Shane's deep, rumbling laugh or every time she caught a whiff of his scent from her sweater were just a by-product of his sweet sympathy for her crying jag and the multiple orgasms he'd given her. It didn't mean she was going to go all ga-ga for him or anything. Period. End of story.