Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (13 page)

I
only waited
about two minutes after he’d stormed out to push away from the table. My whole body was covered in flames, and they licked away at my clothes until I could practically feel them on my skin. The cold November air didn’t even touch me on my walk back to my car, and more than once, I got strange looks when I knocked shoulders with someone going in the opposite direction.

“Watch it, asshole,” some guy called out when I all but mowed him over when I got to my car.

The churning anger inside of me, coupled with the freedom of knowing that I was on the campus as just a man, made it very easy for me to turn around and nail him with a glare.

“Go fuck yourself, frat boy,” I yelled back.

But I didn’t wait to see if heard me, or if it pissed him off. It felt so damn good to take the leash off and just say what I was thinking in that kind of situation.

And it hit me. The reason it felt so good is because I’d lost my safe place to do that.

Adele.

Adele had been my safe place. The person who always listened when I had something to say, and the person that I never had to filter myself around. What was painfully clear now was that she probably would have listened to me if I’d come to her with what I’d been feeling.

We could have mourned together.

I slammed the car door shut and breathed heavily. “Fuck,” I yelled and punched the console. Ooh, and my fucking father. I didn’t give a rat’s ass if he wasn’t proud of me. I was well past the point of living my life for his approval. But he could still make trouble for us, and for her.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I barely looked at the screen before I snarled a hello.

“Okay,” Max drawled on the other end of the line. “Maybe I’ll call back.”

I dropped my head back and sighed. “No, it’s fine. I just ran into my father, and while that never goes particularly well, this was a doozy even by our standards.”

On the other end of the line, he made a sympathetic noise. “Daddy issues.”

In the breath of silence after he said it, we both paused and then started laughing.

God, that felt good too.

“They’re the worst,” I replied easily.

“Have you got plans tonight?”

I started my car and glanced behind me before pulling out of the spot. Suddenly, I wanted to be very far away from this place. “Just grading some papers, why?”

“Push those off for a day. I’ll bring over some bourbon and cigars. We can act like we’re not too old for this.”

My fight with Adele rang through my head again and I let out a deep breath. “The wife won’t care?”

“No,” he said good-naturedly. “She hates when I smoke, so it’s easier if I go somewhere else when I do it.”

The skies had started to darken, which meant I’d been driving around before landing at Northern for much longer than I’d thought. But I didn’t expect Adele home until well after midnight. She’d probably close down the bar just to spite me, and I couldn’t really even blame her.

“All right. You’ve got my address?”

“Not at home. Text it to me, and I’ll head right over.”

The fire that had coated me not that long ago had ebbed completely during our phone call, and as I drove home, it wasn’t lost on me that having a sixty-eight-year-old colleague over to my house to drink bourbon and smoke cigars was the closest thing I’d had to a night with friends in years.

I hung up with Max and rolled my eyes. Pathetic.

But it didn’t dampen my ridiculous excitement at him coming over. Adele was the only person I hung out with. It never bothered me when she spent time with Leo, or at least it didn’t
always
bother me.

The fact that they only had a platonic relationship was evident, and not just because Leo had a serious girlfriend. I’d only had to be around them once to see their interaction was akin to a brother and sister. It didn’t bother me that she had a friend she could spend time with outside of us, but every once in a while, it bothered me because I didn’t have that.

So by the time Max’s car pulled into the driveway, I was practically bouncing off the walls. Maybe it was good that Adele had gone out. We’d talk the next day and I’d apologize for my part in our distance.

We would be fine.

Max knocked on the front door and when I pulled it open, he already had a lit cigar out the side of his mouth.

“While I’m happy you’re here,” I said, turning around to grab my coat, “you cannot smoke that in the house.”

He laughed and took a seat in one of the chairs off to the side of the front porch. Once I was settled next to him, I cupped a hand around the tip of my cigar to help it light. I sank back in my chair and took my first large puff, holding it in my mouth before letting it back out.

“It’s good,” I told him while he took another large draw, making the end glow a bright orange. “What is it?”

“Nub Cameroon,” he said on the exhale, a thin line of smoke fading into the cold air. “Nicaraguan. My son-in-law likes to prove his love to me by stocking me up with all the good ones.”

“Good man.”

Max propped one foot on the opposite knee. “I guess. As much as he can be, considering no one is good enough for my daughters.”

I smiled, shaking my head a little trying to imagine what it would be like if either Adele or I had parents who’d had that kind of outlook. That we were a prize that could never be earned.

“Did I tell you that Marjorie finally settled on a thesis?” One of his master’s students had struggled all year figuring out what to do her thesis on, something that Max bemoaned constantly. I shook my head. He rolled his eyes. “Domestic myth-making in the novels of Elizabeth Bowen.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Four months of discussion and that’s what she decides on? I liked her TS Eliot one a lot better.”

“Didn’t we all,” he grumbled and lifted the cigar to his lips again.

The sky around us got darker and darker, the air colder. But we never left our spot. I was on my second cigar and second bourbon in so many hours, and I’d laughed more in those hundred and twenty minutes than in the entire month prior.

My ears were almost frozen off, and I was fairly certain that my balls had shrunk up into my stomach due to the cold, but neither of us felt like going indoors.

Max was wiping tears when I told him about one of my sophomores who started crying in class when she was arguing about the social constructs in the world of the Bronte sisters when a rumbling truck pulled up the driveway.

Well, shit. With a glance at my watch, I was more than a little shocked that Leo was already bringing her home, given that it was barely ten.

“Didn’t peg Adele for a truck owner,” Max said, shielding his eyes from the headlights.

“It’s one of her friends’.”

We sat there while the truck kept idling, and my stomach started churning uncomfortably. Partially because of the cigars, a little bit of the bourbon, and a whole lot that Max was still here when Adele got home. Maybe her earlier than expected arrival meant that she wouldn’t be drunk.

The cab of the truck lit up when Leo cracked open the driver’s side door. “A little help here, man.”

Or maybe not.

Cursing under my breath, I ignored whatever look might have been on Max’s face and jogged down the steps to the sidewalk that led to Leo’s truck.

When I pulled open the passenger door, she was singing. Not a good first sign of her sobriety.

“Hey, you’re a crazy bitch but you fuck so good, I’m on top of it,” Adele sang in an off-key voice, playing what might have been an air guitar but her hands were up by her shoulders. I gave Leo a look and he just held his hands up.

“Why do you think I’m bringing her home, dude?”

“I’m not a dude,
Leonardo
,” Adele slurred, drilling a finger into his bicep. Leo just rolled his eyes and flicked her hand away.

“She’s all yours,” he said with a mildly apologetic smile.

Adele whipped her head around, finally realizing that I was standing in the opening of the passenger door. “
You.
” The accusation among the drawn out, drunken word was completely unmistakable. She blinked slowly and then turned her head back to Leo. “He’s pissed at me.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “You’ve mentioned that a time or two now.”

I clenched my jaw, imagining them talking about our issues. “Okay, let’s go in, Adele. Can you walk?”

“Of course I can fucking walk,” she snapped, sounding remarkably sober.

If I’d only told Max to go home about ten minutes earlier. Searching deep,
deep
inside myself for any level of calm, I held a hand out to her in order to help her out of the truck. She curled a lip at it and stepped out, miraculously landing on two feet. In my anger earlier, I hadn’t paid attention to what she’d been wearing. The jeans were fine, but somehow on Adele, a simple white t-shirt managed to look downright indecent.

Probably because she was wearing a bright red bra underneath that shoved her cleavage up to miraculous levels. Normally, I’d salivate or dip my hand down in the front. But with Max on the front porch and God knows how much alcohol in her system, I wasn’t feeling particularly touchy.

“Did she lose her coat?” I asked Leo while Adele weaved in place next to me.

He turned to look behind his seat and shrugged. “She must have left it at the bar. I’ll call and see if they have it.”

With hurried movements, I unzipped my fleece jacket and laid it over her shoulders.

“Cold,” she whispered and jammed her arms through the sleeves. “I don’t even care that I’m still so fucking mad at you.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to steer her toward the house. I glanced at Leo over my shoulder. “Thanks for getting her home safely.”

Leo nodded. “I always will.”

“Awwwww,” Adele sang, leaning into me. “You’re the fucking
best
, Leonardo.”

“Lots of water, Morello,” he said, pointing a finger at her. I tipped my chin at him and closed the passenger side door.

“Who’s car is
that
? You cheatin’ on me, Easton?” Adele glared at Max’s sedate four-door sedan like it had personally injured her. “’Cause I’ll cut a bitch. I will cut her the hell up.”

“Trust me, you are more than enough woman, Adele. I couldn’t possibly handle anyone on top of you.”

She jerked to a stop right before we turned the corner to the front porch. Adele laid a hand on my chest and peered up at me. The vivid green of her eyes searched my face, and the way she was looking at me made my breath catch.

“Sometimes when you say shit like that, I forget how mad I am at you.”

I smiled sadly. “I’m sure you’ll remember in the morning.”

“Uh huh. Now who’s car is that?” And she slipped out from under my arm and charged around the corner. I held my breath when she stopped, a shocked expression covering her face. Then she smiled. Brilliantly.

“Maaaaaaaaaax!”

When I walked up the first step, Adele had flung herself at him to give him a giant hug.

“Hello, dear,” he said with more kindness than I probably would have in that moment. He cleared his throat when she didn’t let him go and with every passing second, I could feel my blood pressure rising.

“Adele,” I said gently, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Max might want to breathe at some point tonight.”

After disentangling herself from him, she swayed sideways and then righted herself. Max shifted his eyes to me, and I forced as much of a smile as I could manage.

“You were so nice to me at the party, Max,” Adele said, patting his cheek a couple times. “Nobody else was. You were so nice. You and Bonnie. My best friend Bonnie.”

“Okay,” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder again and attempted to steer her in the house. She shoved my arm off.

“I’m talkin’ to
Max
. Everyone else there acted like fucking dicks, including
you
, Easton.”

“Adele,” I ground out. “I think it’s time to go in.”

Max waved at me, embarrassment causing his eyes to flick away from me. “I’m just going to go. Thanks for letting me come over, Nathan.”

Hugging him one more time, Adele said something into his ear that I couldn’t hear, and thank fuck, it made Max laugh under his breath. “Of course, dear. You go get some sleep.”

By the time he was to his car, I was fuming. Adele didn’t give me a spare look before she stumbled into the house. For a few minutes, I stood on the dark porch. Dark, because she’d turned the light off on me after going inside.

At the rate I was going, if I waited until I was calm to go inside and help her get into bed, she might make it there by next week.

Because if I walked inside right now, after watching her completely embarrass herself and me in front of my mentor, the only friend I probably had right now, I just might kill her.