Perfectly Played: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (Love & Alliteration Book 1) Read online

  “It’s a little less with the exchange rate.”

  “Ha!” Flora’s face transforms when she smiles, but when she laughs, she looks like a different person—someone full of fun, full of life. Someone I want to know.

  The laughter stops and she turns serious. “I could say it hit me like a bolt of lightning and I just knew I couldn’t marry him, but that’s not what you want to hear, do you?” She narrows her eyes. “You want to know why she didn’t show up.”

  It’s like she read my mind. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I would, which makes me think I should tell Thomas, but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter to him. I don’t think he really wanted to marry me. I think he did it for me, and it’s a pisser when I’m the one to call it off…” She trails off, fighting her smile. “It’s not funny though. Is it?”

  “Maybe if I knew Thomas, it’d be funny. Or not.”

  Flora cocks her head, appraising me. “I don’t think you’d like him.”

  “Because of something about me or him?”

  “Obviously I don’t know you very well, but I don’t think you’d have much in common. But mainly because the more I think about him, I don’t think I like him. We’d been together for eight years. We met just after he got divorced and I don’t think his daughter even knew about me, which made me feel kind of bad. Like, am I so insignificant that an eight-year relationship goes unnoticed?”

  Luckily, the food arrives at that moment so I don’t have to respond.

  Flora pours a generous flow of syrup over her cupcake pancakes. “Well, that’s my dirty secret. At least, I let myself be Thomas’ dirty secret. Do you hate me?”

  “No.” I stare at the puddle of syrup that keeps growing. “But I think I might if you use all the syrup. You must have a sweet tooth.”

  The lid of the syrup snaps back as she sets it on the table with a guilty expression. “A little bit. It’s one thing that Thomas wouldn’t stand for. He always said eating sugar and crappy foods made me bounce off the walls.”

  “Does it?”

  “No more than anything else. I’m a naturally excitable person.” She takes a small pill container from her purse, and swallows one with a mouthful of coffee. “I’m also lactose intolerant.”

  “Good to know.” We smile at each other, and then something goes pow in my heart. “What do we do now?”

  “That’s what M.K. always says.”

  I can tell she’s not getting what I’m asking; What do we do now about us?

  “I don’t know,” she adds. “Eat pancakes?”

  Chapter Six

  Flora

  After all that syrup, I feel sick to my stomach.

  Maybe Thomas is right about the sugar clogging the natural enzymes of my circulatory system, or whatever nonsense he spouts. When it came to Thomas and healthy eating, I only listened with half an ear and hid the evidence of my sweet tooth as best I could.

  Eating the stack of pancakes, the fluffy insides dotted with sprinkles, is somehow freeing. And Dean doesn’t make the clucking noise with his teeth that signaled Thomas was disappointed in me.

  He was always disappointed, always correcting something about me.

  “So what about you?” I ask as Dean sops up the last puddle of syrup on his plate with a strip of bacon. I’ve never seen food disappear so fast. “Did you have any idea she was going to do a runner?”

  “I’m not sure it can be called a runner, since she didn’t even set foot in the chapel,” Dean muses setting his knife and fork carefully on his plate.

  I notice a drop of syrup clinging to his beard. Without a thought, I reach and flick it with my finger, then bring my finger to my mouth. “Sorry!” I gasp when I taste the sweetness. “That was gross, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe a little?” A smile curves behind his beard, the glare of the overhead light making his hair glow even redder. His eyes are so blue and less shuttered than before. When they were at the bar earlier, it was like Dean had pulled a hard, invisible shell around him, keeping his emotions contained.

  The shell disappeared like his pancakes, sausages and extra bacon.

  “I have a thing about your beard,” I confess. “I don’t do that to just anyone.”

  “I feel very special.”

  “Plus, I kind of feel like I know you.”

  He holds my gaze for a long moment before he smiles, clearly not offended by my beard fetish. “I know.” He signals the waiter and asks for more coffee. “Is this okay? Do you need to get back?”

  “I don’t need to get anywhere. M.K. changed the flight to eleven o’clock in the morning. This morning,” I add, checking my Fitbit. With the lights of the street, it’s hard to tell the sun is about to rise.

  It’s after five. In less than twelve hours, I’ll be back in Toronto, ready to begin life without Thomas.

  Maybe that’s what’s making me feel sick.

  “So tell me your story before I start licking the syrup from your plate.” Instead of responding, Dean scrapes his fork along the plate and when it’s covered in the sticky syrup, passes it across the table.

  Of course I take it. I can never resist a dare, especially when it involves maple syrup.

  “I met Evelyn just before I busted my arm,” Dean says without any preamble. “In a bar in Buffalo, when I was with the Triple-A team. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. She was the only woman I couldn’t have. You can figure out what happened then.”

  “You were like a dog with a bone.” I drop the fork onto my plate. “All men like the hunt.”

  “She went out with me once before I got called up.”

  “What was that like?” I can’t keep the awe out of my voice. “Getting called up, not the date.”

  “The date was good.”

  I can’t read the expression that flits across Dean’s face and it vanishes before I can be sure it was really there. “When I got the diagnosis from the doctor, I was surprised Evelyn stuck around. She’d said that she didn’t want to date a ballplayer, but it was okay if I wasn’t playing. She said it was a joke, but looking back, I don’t think so.”

  I wince. “Ouch.”

  “She never had much of a sense of humour. But she was good to me because my life was pretty much over.”

  “I’ll bet.” I can relate, more than Dean realizes. But I’m not going to bring it up. I had my turn to talk, and now it’s Dean’s.

  I wait patiently as the waiter refills our cups.

  “My sister thinks she tried to cut baseball out of my life,” Dean muses, cupping his big hands around his mug. “I never saw it at the time, but I think she’s right. I think Evelyn tried to make me into some no-ball-playing guy.”

  “That wasn’t fair,” I say softly.

  “She wanted to get married,” Dean continues, staring unseeingly at the window. “I had thought about proposing, but it wasn’t time. We’d only been together two years. I guess I should have looked at why I wanted to wait. She said I was in a rut.”

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The melancholy in his voice is eye-opening and leads me to wonder what Thomas is thinking, how upset he must be.

  “But I don’t have to figure it out now,” he adds. “I’ll go home, see what happens.”

  “With you and Evelyn?”

  “I don’t think there’s a me and Evelyn anymore.” He smiles ruefully, and I’m caught captive in his gaze. How can I be thinking of Thomas one second and then be thinking how cute Dean is? Because he really is. The beard is a bigger turn-on then I ever expected and his eyes—

  They pull away from my gaze. “Hey, over here,” he calls.

  I turn to see a woman carrying a bucket of single red roses wrapped in Cellophane. “What are you doing?” I demand as the woman comes over to our table.

  “I want to buy you a flower. As a thank you for tonight. I know it’s no Gerbera daisy,
but it’s seems to be all she has.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I protest as Dean pays for the rose. I’m blown away by the gesture, how a man I don’t even know can be so sweet and Thomas…

  My eyes fill with tears as he hands the flower to me. The bud is still closed, the thorns removed. I can’t tear my gaze away from it.

  “Are you crying?” Dean asks in bewilderment. Without warning, I burst into tears. “Hey…hey…no…” He slides out from the table, and pushes in beside me. “Don’t do that.” He wraps strong arms around me, and I lean against him, unwanted sobs bursting up like a pop bottle exploding after you shake it.

  He smells good, like a pine forest mixed with a beach. Fresh air and…syrup.

  I choke back the worst of the sobs. “I’m…sorry,” I stammer, trying to pull away from his chest. “I don’t cry. I never…cry.” I hiccup loudly.

  He doesn’t let me go. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know, I just—” My face is wet with tears. “The flower…”

  He couldn’t have known. I would have never known how the sweet gesture would affect me.

  Dean brushes his thumb across the wetness on my chin. His eyes are so blue, and kind and gentle…and what?

  He cups my cheek.

  His scent surrounds me, calms me as much as it excites me. His lips are framed by his beard and his neatly clipped mustache, and they look soft…inviting…

  Oh no.

  No. Not…

  I lean in as Dean leans down, our mouths coming together with a mash of lips and teeth and wetness.

  The kiss is unexpected and urgent and fierce and…

  …bad.

  Very bad.

  Dean must feel it too, because he pulls away almost immediately, leaving me clinging to him, open-mouthed.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, hopping back to his side of the booth as quick as he can. I take that opportunity to escape, stunned by the sheer badness of the kiss.

  “I need to go.” I fumble with my purse. Where is my wallet? There, under my sunglasses and notebook and a million other things that make up the mess. “Here.” I throw a handful of bills across the table at him. “I’m sorry.”

  I take the rose and slide out of the booth, the ripped seat scraping my leg through my jeans.

  “Flora!” Dean calls as I race through the restaurant, making my second escape of the night.

  Dean

  Flora runs out of the restaurant, almost toppling over the waiter. She really has issues with running into people.

  I wish I could take back the last five minutes.

  Why did I kiss her? And why was it so bad? The kiss I gave Emily Price in third grade had been a better kiss.

  I gather the bills Flora threw on the table as the waiter hands me the cheque. “Your friend left?”

  “She needed some air. I’ll take care of that.” Folding Flora’s money, I tuck it into my wallet as I pull out my own. I’m not letting her pay after that. Not that I’ll ever see her again to give her back her money.

  I’ll never see her again.

  The realization is unexpected, like a turnstile catching you in the gut.

  I push the money towards the waiter and thank him. And then with a last glance at the tired booth, where everything was going so right until it went so wrong, I head back to the hotel.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her.

  I shouldn’t have been with her.

  What kind of loyalty does that show to Evelyn if I can replace her only hours after a disagreement?

  It wasn’t a disagreement—she dumped me. At the altar. This isn’t going to be resolved by a nicely worded apology. It’s over.

  I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  I do know that I don’t need to show Evelyn any loyalty.

  With my internal monologue bouncing side to side in my head, I make it back to the hotel in record time. I bypass the bar and the casino, only to be faced with the problem of where to sleep once again as I step into the elevator.

  I’ll try not to wake Clay as I wait for enough time to pass so I can head to the airport.

  The elevator chimes at the twenty-seventh floor and I step out, trying to remember the times of the flights home. Evelyn gave me a list when she booked it, not that I had any say in what time Evelyn thought it best to head home. She always—

  I see the blonde fumbling for her room card as I turn the corner. My breath rushes out in a puff. I don’t say anything for a moment, just watch her swipe her card once, twice, jiggling the handle with frustration when it doesn’t work.

  I could walk away and maybe I should. I could turn around and head to Clay’s room and never see Flora again. The memory of the awful kiss will fade in time, as will her part in one of the worst days of my life.

  I don’t like the thought of that.

  The third time must work, but as the door opens, I finally speak. “Flora.”

  She looks up, and the expressions flash across her face—surprise, happiness, and then with a frown, annoyance. “Are you following me?”

  “I’m staying in the hotel.” I point the opposite way down the hall, as I walk towards her. “Down there.”

  “Of course you are,” she says resignedly. “Look, I’m sorry I ran out. It’s getting to be a habit today.” She slides the key card in and out of the lock, making the green light flash, like she can’t decide to go inside. She holds the rose in her other hand.

  She kept the rose.

  This realization is more of a warm flush that spreads through my body—less painful but by no means less startling.

  “Why did you run away?”

  She half faces me without meeting my gaze. “Dean…”

  “Is it because I kissed you?”

  “I think I kissed you.”

  “Is that why you left? Because we kissed?”

  “I think it was the way we kissed,” she says with reluctance.

  “I know. Maybe we should try again.”

  Surprise makes her eyes even bigger. She raises a hand and this time it falls on my chest, so gently that it’s barely a touch. “I’m never going to see you again.”

  I want to press her hand onto my chest so I can feel it. I’m tired of not feeling anything, of pretending to care when I really don’t. “Who says?”

  I don’t give her a chance to respond before I cover her hand with mine and press it into my chest. I tuck the other hand under her curls and draw her closer. Then I kiss her, not as gently as I meant to, but with hunger and urgency.

  Flora kisses me back, her hand closing to grab a fistful of my jacket.

  After a few moments, she opens the door and leads me inside.

  ~

  It’s a much better kiss.

  It’s a much better everything.

  I don’t mean to have sex with her, but once I kiss her, I don’t want to stop.

  Flora doesn’t either. “Don’t stop,” she whispers more than once.

  Being with her is a release, a revelation, and a relief to know I’m still wanted. And to know I’m still capable of wanting someone enough to make them cry out, again and again.

  I fall asleep after it’s over, but not for long. When I wake up, with Flora’s curly hair spread across my chest, the sheet tangled around our legs, I can’t describe the feeling. Her skin is smooth and soft and she fits perfectly in my arms, one of her legs thrown over mine.

  It’s nice.

  Careful not to wake her, I reach for my phone on the nightstand beside me but the movement is enough to rouse her. She blinks open her eyes and looks at me, and then smiles.

  “Hi,” I whisper.

  She closes her eyes and rolls over, pulling up the sheet as she goes. I can tell from her breathing that she instantly falls back to sleep. I drop a kiss on her exposed shoulder and check the time on my phone. It’s eight thirty, but more surprising is a text from Clay.

  Where r u? Evelyn came by looking for you.

  The text was sent twenty minutes a
go.

  I’m out of the bed and pull on my clothes in record time without giving Flora another thought until my hand is on the door handle.

  I can’t leave her like this but I don’t want to wake her up. That would get messy and take too long, because I’d have to explain why I’m running off.

  A quick look in the drawer provides a notebook and a pen and I quickly scribble a note to Flora, giving her Clay’s room number and my cell number. I put it on the pillow still imprinted from my head, along with the rose.

  Then I leave, not realizing the force of air from the door shutting blows the note off the pillow.

  Chapter Seven

  Flora

  Thomas had been slim and slight, but Dean—Dean is like a tree. A magnificent oak tree that I want to climb all the way to the top. His hands are on me, large, strong, cradling my head, pulling me towards him. I’m climbing, literally climbing into his lap right there in the IHOP…

  I wake with a gasp.

  I never like waking up in a strange bed.

  Maybe I’d get used to it if I was the type to bed hop, but I’m not. The few full nights Thomas and I spent together happened at my house, in my bed.

  So when I wake up from a dream of kissing Dean, I first do the bug-eyed gasp, searching to see anything in the darkness that looks familiar.

  And then; “Ah,” as I remember what really happened with Dean. That gasp is much more relaxed, almost satisfied.

  And then I remember everything from yesterday and why I’m in a strange bed.

  I give myself a moment to let it all sink in before I turn over, expecting to see Dean lying next to me.

  He’s gone.

  The bed is still warm and the sheets still smell like him, but he’s not there. “Dean?” Maybe in the bathroom, but no.

  He left the rose on the pillow.

  Is that supposed to mean something? Does he think it’s an apology for running out after what was arguably some of the best sex of my life?