Better Than You: part 9

 

9.

 

Mike lived in a townhouse: an end unit done in antique white brick with black shutters and door, a crabapple tree anchoring the complex-provided landscaping at the front corner. Parked cars went up the narrow drive and around the front curb. Delta nosed her Volvo up behind a black 4Runner and took a deep, rattled breath.

 

By choosing Mike, she’d put an undue amount of pressure on him. Greg had proved a disappointment to the last moment – he didn’t even care enough to have a true argument with her – but walking away from him tonight meant she’d sided with Mike, and she wasn’t so proud of that choice.

 

With one last check of her lipstick, she braced herself to deal with the consequences of her actions and climbed out of the car.

 

Mike must have been watching for her because he opened the door as she was lifting her hand to knock. She started, hand suspended in front of her as the fast, inward snatch of the door ruffled her hair. He was in an old sweatshirt with fraying cuffs, jeans and socks – she was thankful she’d dressed down – and his grin was ear-to-ear. “Hey.”

 

Her nerves had built on the drive over, champagne bubbling behind a cork. But his smile diffused them, and left her with nothing but the after-champagne warmth that was so desperately lacking in her life. Regina’s words came back to her now: “when was the last time you did anything just for the fun of it?” So Mike wasn’t the picture of upper crust stability she’d always seen herself with – so what? He left her nervous and doubting and frustrated the hell out of her – and those emotions were better than no emotions. And it wasn’t like she was marrying the guy – she was just having fun. She’d almost forgotten how, but his smile made the relearning curve bearable.

 

“Hey,” she stepped into a foyer full of men’s shoes and hanging jackets; there was a black leather biker number next to Mike’s bomber and she almost grinned. A thick stew of deep voices was churning somewhere deeper into the house and her nerves tightened again. “Am I late?”

 

“Nope.” He shut the door behind her and caught her coat as it slipped back off her shoulders. “Pizza’s on the way. We’re having beer but I think I might have some wine somewhere.”

 

“Beer’s fine,” she assured as she smoothed the front of her sweater and turned to face him.

 

He was staring at his coat rack and all its taken pegs like it was a Rubik’s cube. Delta bit back a smile when he finally pulled someone’s windbreaker off, dropped it across the shoes on the floor, and hung her wool military coat up in its place. “Jordie can get over it,” he said with a shrug, and then both of them were standing awkwardly in his foyer.

 

Scratch that, she was standing awkwardly, the night before and her argument with Greg battling for supremacy in her mind. But Mike put a hand on her hip and leaned in to press a fast kiss to her lips. “Come on,” he said as he stepped away, “I’ll introduce you to the idiots.”

 

The foyer continued on into a narrow hall: staircase and formal dining room to the right, sitting room with black marble fireplace to the left. It emptied into a galley kitchen done in black and white and red, a half wall giving her a glimpse into a surprisingly large living room full of black sofas and glass-and-chrome tables, a big picture window and a round dining table. Mike stopped at the fridge to fish out a Bud Light. The bottle was cold when he pressed it into her hands and it only made the nervous tremors running beneath her skin worse, but she took a swig hoping it might help.

 

“Guys,” Mike had a megaphone voice and he turned the volume of it all the way up as he stepped around the corner into the living room with a big hand hovering at the small of her back. “This is Delta.” Feeling like she should take a bow under the eyes the swept her way, she managed a tight smile. “Babe,” he called her and it didn’t sting too badly, “you know my shithead brother Jordan -,” he was sitting in what (horrifically) looked like a bean bag chair, “ – and that’s Tam -,” he pointed to the guy with the black hair who’d knocked over perfume with him, “- Lance, Mitch, and Ryan -,” who were lined up on the couch: beefy and bald, tall and awkward, square-jawed and smiling too wide.

 

“You guys mind your damn manners,” Mike warned, and propelled her toward the couch where sullen and black-haired Tam was sitting. Delta let Mike tuck her in against the arm as he took the middle seat.

 

And then she realized where she was: that horrible moment pre-relationship in which a guy let his friends give her the final seal of approval. She hated that moment.

 

“So, Delta, huh?” Ryan asked across the glass coffee table. He had a face that belonged on a Calvin Klein billboard somewhere. “As in the airline?”

 

It was going to be one of those evenings.

 

**

 

“Are you miserable?”

 

Surprisingly, she wasn’t. She couldn’t understand why three of his friends were normal while his brother and Tam so obviously weren’t, and she wasn’t interested in the football game up on the big screen. But it was fun to watch the guys squirm when she gave an arch answer to one of their questions. And she kept listing to the side until she was resting against Mike’s big shoulder, and the beer was slowly relaxing her head to toe.

 

“No,” she said as she lined up the pizza boxes along his kitchen counter. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had pizza and the smell was heavenly. And that was before she started lifting lids and checking for toppings.

 

Mike stepped up beside her; he’d pegged the rest of them with the kind of alpha male look that had left her rolling her eyes, but secretly, she was grateful to have a few stolen moments alone in the kitchen. “One of these is supposed to be whole wheat crust and veggies,” he said, because he’d said nothing that wasn’t completely innocent all evening so far.

 

“You didn’t order that just for me, did you?” she asked with a quick check from the corner of her eye.

 

He was watching her and trying to look casual. “Nah. Lance counts calories worse than a chick.”

 

She grinned and pulled a slice of pepperoni up onto her plate.

 

“Okay, so, if you’re not miserable,” he took two slices, “does that mean you’re not gonna sneak out early on me?”

 

She licked a spot of grease off her thumb and gave him a carefully bland look. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

 

He grinned. “Well don’t change your mind about that, ‘cause I’m gonna get rid of these guys in a little while.” And then it’s just the two of us, she read the unspoken. The thought sent a thrill up her spine.

 

“Don’t give me a reason to,” she shot back, and damn if he didn’t look like he enjoyed the bickering as much as she did as he got a fresh beer from the fridge and went back to the living room.

 

Delta shook her head, smiling inwardly, and snapped a paper towel off the roll by the sink to use as a napkin. Mike’s friend Tam stepped around the half wall and into the kitchen, and even if she saw him coming, something about the dark, closed-off expression he flashed to her before he picked up a plate startled her. He wasn’t her type – his hair and the way his too-tight jeans looked soft like the rips in the knees were from wear and tear and hadn’t been purchased that way – but the stunning blue of his eyes would have been pretty if he hadn’t been glaring at her. Delta didn’t react, rooted in place while he gathered his food and left, too surprised to shoot him a nasty look of her own. She was used to men smiling at her, giving her the up/down inspection, coming onto her and leering at her, but not giving her the evil eye.

 

She was still standing there, stupidly, when Jordan entered. “Couch would be back that way,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder without giving her so much as a glance.

 

Mike was right: he was a little shithead.

 

It didn’t matter, though, once she was tucked back in the corner of the sofa, fielding more questions from the three normal friends about Mike’s clumsiness on the day they’d met. And it really didn’t matter when the three normals called it a night and Jordan followed them out. Then there were three; Delta’s ankle boots were under the coffee table and Mike had pulled her stocking feet up into his lap, and the tight, welcome knot of positive tension in the pit of her stomach would have been all the more enjoyable if Tam hadn’t been slouched in a chair across from them. No amount of meaningful glances from Mike nor the way he was massaging the arches of her feet, could override the mood killer that was his friend.

 

Mike found a spot that made her toes wiggle and pressed with his thumb. “You wanna go upstairs?” he asked in a lame attempt at an underdone, his blonde brows jumping. He was a doofus and it was kind of sweet – he wasn’t suave, but excited about getting her naked again.

 

Sweet – at some point she’d gone from hating him to finding him sweet.

 

“Well…” she tipped her head in Tam’s direction and he shrugged.

 

“It’s cool.”

 

“I…”

 

Tam’s empty beer bottle hit the coffee table with a clink. “I’m turning in,” he said as he got to his feet. “Can I still crash?”

 

“Yeah,” Mike told him and they exchanged guy-nods that meant she-didn’t-know-what.

 

Delta watched him leave the room, heard the stairs shift under the soles of his bare feet, and she waited, silent, Mike squeezing her foot, until she heard the soft click of a door closing upstairs. “Is he your roommate?” she asked as she turned back to Mike, and watched something uncertain skitter across his face.

 

“No. But I’ve got a guest room, so he sleeps over sometimes.”

 

“Why?” came out more harshly than she’d intended, the memory of the cold way his eyes had passed over her in the kitchen before the only opinion she had of the guy.

 

Mike shrugged again, his sideways smile faltering. “He gets into the beer too hard and no way does he need to drive all the way back to Kennesaw like that.”

 

“But -,”

 

“We’ve been friends forever,” he cut her off, smile returning as his hand slid over the top of her foot and up her leg, settling on her knee as he leaned in closer, “don’t worry about it.”

 

Delta pulled herself upright against the arm of the sofa. “You’re telling me what to do?”

 

“You don’t have a problem telling me what to do,” he said, still smiling.

 

She wanted to be miffed, especially when he hooked his hands behind her knees, pulled her legs all the way across his lap until she was right up close to him and leaned in to kiss her. But instead she opened her lips under his and speared her fingers through his hair. She had, after all, picked Mike; it was time she admitted that to herself and quit being obstinate.