"It's irrationally hot in here," I tell the back of Lauren's head as I plop both bottles down on her kitchen table, knocking the bowl of Tostitos ever so slightly.
"Wine! My hero," Lauren drags the "o" way too long as she gives me a hug without wrapping her arms around me because she's got a Solo cup in each of her hands.
"You started without me," I jokingly scold her and slip off my jacket as someone comes into the kitchen from behind me.
"Pre-gaming was like hours ago girl. You and that bakery," she's back to filling the cups as soon as I let her go.
"I'll be in that bakery every day until I die," I respond and my words are full of pride. It's my family's bakery and I'm the one who inherited it from my grandmother. My mother's a nurse and my father married into the family with a career in law. So the bakery – and all the memories that come with it – are all mine. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Lauren rolls her eyes at me but then winks and gives me a nudge to look behind.
Shit. I almost say the word out loud; I wasn't ready for this. I should be or maybe I should know I never would be. But dammit, I thought I'd at least have one minute... to down whatever is in that Solo cup in Lauren's left hand.
Michael is standing right there behind me, telling something to James that makes him laugh as the two of them open the caps of their beer and toss them in the trash can next to the counter. As Michael lifts his beer to take a swig, his eyes catch mine.
My heart pounds in my chest.
The second he lowers his beer; he smiles at me. Charming, sweet but he fails to hear whatever James said. My floosy of a heart picks up her pace.
"Are you listening?" James questions Michael, clinking the bottom of his beer against Michael's.
"What?" Michael's attention is stolen by James and it's only then that I let my own smile show. Even though I know the blush will stay right where it is and I won't be able to hide that.
"Dude," James shakes his head in disapproval until Michael nods slightly my way. I see him do it and stupidly, I stay put, a hand on each bottle of wine as if they'll save me from this awkward moment.
The movement doesn't go unnoticed and Michael lets out a soft chuckle before pulling his bottom lip into his mouth and biting down on it slightly, shaking his head at me.
Instantly, those butterflies move lower, so does every bit of heat in me. It's his broad shoulders, I think, that does it. Lauren and I narrowed it down based on my celebrity crushes. The way he hovers over me, dominating my space and closing me in. I am a helpless victim to it.
And that lip that's trapped in between his teeth right now, I'd like to bite it too. In fact, I have. On multiple occasions.
"Carla!" James is the first to speak. He and Michael roomed together at college. He knows every sordid detail of what Michael and I have done, and unbeknownst to Michael, he also kept me up to date when I wasn't there, filling me in on any and every detail of any girl Michael could have gone after. He never did date anyone else though, even when I broke it off, admitting that the distance was too much. He had school. I had the bakery. It wasn't going to work.
But James and his wealth of information are the reason I always fell into Michael's bed whenever Lauren went to see James, her brother, and she needed a travel companion, or whenever Michael came back here, to this small town. James is the one who told me I was all Michael ever talked about and said he didn't want anyone else.
I didn't want anyone else either. But when we hooked up that first time after the break up, I didn't want to put a name on what we were. So it was on-gain, off-again, whenever we were around each other, or miles away. Just hooking up, but I didn't want to hook up with anyone else.
"Hey, I heard you were coming back," I say off handily, peeking up at Lauren to save me, but she's busy gathering a bag of chips from the cabinet.
"So that's how you're going to play it?" Michael's question catches me off guard.
"What do you mean," I play innocent and peek at James just as Lauren bails on me, practically running out of the kitchen with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes and the widest smile I've ever seen. Michael asks James to leave us for a minute and before I can even turn around, we're alone.
"So you don't want them to know?" Michael asks and I stumble on my answer.
"Know what?" Adrenaline races through me. We've never talked about what we do and I sure as hell don't spread the gospels about how I still spread my legs for Michael.
It only takes three foreboding steps from Michael. One. Two. Three. Until he's standing over me, invading my space and making me crane my neck to look up at him. I can smell him, feel the heat radiating from him. I could taste him and that lip of his if I wanted to right now.
"That I fucked you last week on my sofa... and then my desk. And that you already know I'm coming home because I mentioned it before you left."
"They don't know." I answer him with a shake of my head. Michael's facial expression gives no hint of what he thinks about the fact that I kept it a secret. Whether he likes that I've kept it a secret or otherwise. His statement is simply matter of fact ... and dripping in sex appeal. Until he clarifies with another question.
"So you haven't told anyone?" His eyes flash with something. It's gone as quickly as it came, and too soon for me to place it. Maybe guilt? I feel it too. Everyone in here knows what we used to be and I don't want them coming between what we have now simply because I'm happy with the way it's been. Even if we don't have a title.
Or I was... until he decided to come home. Still, we don't need the opinions of the peanut gallery.
If my nerves would calm the hell down, if I could breathe whenever Michael gets close to me, I'd be a better fighter in this battle of flirtation. But as it is, Michael dominates every piece of me the second I smell his woodsy scent, or see that dark stubble that lines his sharp jaw all the way down his neck.
"You're staring at my lips, Carla," Michael's voice is deep and husky, and the way he speaks sends a heat straight to my core. "You want something?"
I only nod, and let my fingers reach up to the last button on his long sleeved Henley. The deep groan that slips from him is accompanied by a roar of laughter from just on the other side of the wall in the living room. Lauren's house is small, it's all her own, but this is a tight space to hide something like what I want to do with him.
"You want to go upstairs?" Michael asks me, glancing behind him and I follow his gaze. No one's there but the shadows of people are coming.
The second I nod, his hand is on mine and I creep up the stairs of Lauren's two-bedroom townhouse as quietly as I can. "We won't have long," I whisper and wish I'd had at least one glass of wine so I can blame this on that, but the way Michael looks when he pulls me in closer to him at the top of the stairs has me drunk on lust already.
"We can be quick here," he leans down to nip my bottom lip before adding, "And then we have all night."
