Excerpt from Easy, copyright 2012 by Meg Harris.
Wilfred Gabriel sat on the porch, long legs stretched out in front of him, and stared into the moonlit darkness. The door opened behind him, and he heard the sound of footsteps on the wooden planks of the porch, but he didn’t turn around.
“Are you okay, Wil?”
He sighed.
“I’m fine,” he answered curtly, although he wasn’t, not quite. It had been something of an emotional evening for him, but he didn’t really want to talk about it right now. He just wanted to be left alone to brood in peace.
“Your mom and Wayne shouldn’t have done that to you.”
He looked away from the darkness, over his shoulder, and saw his best friend Jaclyn Harrison standing just behind him, watching him. “They just wanted to give me a surprise party,” he answered simply. “It was a nice thought.”
“They should have realized it would be a downer,” Jac said. She stood there in the light from the house, her blonde hair a halo around her head. He tried not to stare. “Not that the party wasn’t already a downer. I know you hate birthday parties, Wil.”
He heaved another sigh and looked away. It was May, and the scent of honeysuckle hung heavy in the air. All his friends and co-workers had already gone, and there was no one left here except his mom and brother—and Jac. “I know you guys were just trying to cheer me up.”
“Well, your mom and Wayne were. I was just going to ignore your birthday totally.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s been six months since my divorce was final. I ought to be over it by now.”
“But you’re not.” Her voice was filled with understanding. “Anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo could see you’re not.”
He laughed, a little grimly. “It’s been a great year,” he said. “My wife dumped me for another man, and I moved back in with my mother. I’m twenty-eight, and I’m living in my mom’s basement. How pitiful is that?”
“You’re taking care of your mom,” she said gently. “Ever since the cancer diagnosis, she needs someone to help her out. No one thinks that’s pitiful in the least. In fact I think you’re pretty awesome.”
He snorted. He knew his mom needed him right now, but he still didn’t like living in her basement. It was like he’d turned into a bad cliché. He might as well open a comics store and complete his transformation into the stereotypical geek. “And I got this great party. Might as well have been a funeral.”
“Hey,” she said, a little more sharply. “Don’t be like that. Your mom and Wayne were trying to be nice to you, Wil. Everyone who came did their best to be cheerful. And Wayne worked hard on that cake.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked back over his shoulder and lifted an eyebrow, and she broke out laughing. “Okay,” she admitted. “It was a totally pathetic cake. Wayne can’t boil water, let alone bake a cake. But he really did spend hours on it.”
“It was nice of him,” Wil admitted grudgingly. Ordinarily he and his brother didn’t get along too well, but even Wayne, dense as he was, had an inkling of how miserable Wil was right now, and was trying in his clumsy, awkward way to make him feel better.
But the cake had really sucked.
He looked away, back into the darkness, because he really wanted to be alone right now, to lick his wounds in private, and Jac was usually pretty good about taking hints. But not, apparently, tonight. He heard the boards of the old porch creak as she took a step closer to him.
“The truth is, Wil, I had something I wanted to give you,” she said, and her voice sounded a little shy, which wasn’t like Jac at all. She was the most self-confident person he knew.
He was so surprised he forgot about sulking, and turned to look at her. “What? Jac, you know I don’t give a damn about my birthday, especially this year. You didn't have to get me a present.”
“Well… it’s not a present. Not exactly, anyway.”
Intrigued despite himself, he cocked his head. “Not exactly a present. Okay, then. What are we talking about here?”
“I wanted to give you something special,” she said, taking another step toward him.
She was only a foot away from him now, and her eyes looked huge in the darkness. She was gorgeous, her long golden hair cascading down over her shoulders, a green t-shirt and faded jeans clinging to her abundant curves, but he tried to ignore how lovely she was. He didn’t quite succeed. Lately he’d been noticing how pretty she was more and more frequently, and it was starting to freak him out a little.
Jac Harrison was just his friend. They’d gone to high school together. She’d been there at his wedding. She’d stood by him through his divorce. But the problem was that he’d been spending a lot of time with her lately. She was the one person who seemed to understand him, the one person in the world he could really talk to about everything and anything. He wasn’t sure how he would have gotten through this past year without her. In fact, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have.
So maybe it wasn’t surprising he was looking at her a little more carefully lately.
But she was just a friend. He reminded himself of that firmly, because the last thing he needed was to mess up the one decent relationship in his life by doing something stupid, like grabbing her and copping a feel. No matter how much he might like to.
“Something special,” he said carefully. “Okay. That sounds nice.”
“I hope so,” she answered. “I know you’ve been lonely lately, Wil. And I thought maybe…”
She trailed off, and he waited, figuring she was going to suggest they go take in a Tides game, the way they used to before he got married, or go to the Chrysler Museum, or maybe go see a movie together. The sad truth was that he’d hardly left the house since his divorce, except for work. He’d like to see a Tides game, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take her along, really. Might be kind of fun.
But her next words made it clear she wasn’t thinking about baseball. Not at all.
“I thought maybe you’d like a night of no-strings-attached sex,” she finished in a breathless rush.
His cheeks immediately flamed red, and he felt his mouth drop open. All his language skills deserted him, and he stared at her, wordless.
“Well.” Her hands fluttered nervously—and that was entirely unlike her. Ordinarily nothing could fluster her. “You know. It was just an idea. If you don’t like it—”
It was, he thought, the best damn idea he’d ever heard. He was stunned right down to his toes by how much he liked the idea. He hadn’t had sex in months, and what with his ex-wife’s betrayal, and their subsequent divorce, he’d been so damned depressed he hardly cared. But recently he’d begun to sense that his soul was stirring within him and he was coming back to life a bit.
The truth was that he was... well, a little horny.
But that wasn’t why he liked the idea so much. It was a terrific idea because Jac was gorgeous and sexy and one of the most important people in his life, and all of a sudden he wanted to make love to her so badly he couldn’t bear to let another moment go by without her.
He almost reached for her, grabbed her, and showed her what a great idea he thought it was, but hesitated as a more responsible part of his brain asserted itself.
“I don’t want anything to mess up our friendship, Jac.”
“No strings attached,” she repeated firmly. “In the morning, we forget it ever happened. Okay?”
He wasn’t so sure that was going to work, but his body overruled his brain, and before he knew what was happening he’d grabbed her by the waist and yanked her against him, hard.
Apparently he was easy, because saying no to an offer like this one just wasn’t something he was capable of.
