Twice Upon a Blue Moon (17 page)

Even sloppy drunk, he should’ve been easy to ignore.

“It’s a Facebook update,” Hazel shot back. She negotiated the complicated mechanics of couch and unbound hair carefully, folding her bare feet under her lotus-style. “Ooh, college reunion! I guess she forgot I didn’t graduate…”

“Maybe that’s why she invited you.”

Hazel fished one of her boots off the floor and lobbed it in Ward’s general direction. As projectiles went, it didn’t have much spin. Her aim left a lot to be desired. The boot flew past the Eames chair and landed with a dull thump on the hardwood floor.

“Shut up. I like Rhonda.”

“Cool name,” Ward gushed, unruffled. The way he held up his hand made Hazel think of an airplane. One that crashed on his knee, fingers warped into a fist. “Very middle America.”

For want of better ammo, Hazel brandished the phone at him in a loose circle. “You calling my sister
average
?”

“Please. There’s nothing wrong with average! Average is pancakes and string cheese, and those little crackers shaped like animals,” he said and ended with a hiccup.

“Like
Ward
is any better…”

“I’ll have you know it’s my father’s name,” he slurred. “Which I suppose only proves the point.”

Hazel didn’t try very hard to conceal a smirk. “And here I thought
I
had a tough relationship with my folks.”

“How many siblings have you got?”

She held up two fingers, the back of her hand turned toward him.

Ward smirked. “See, that’s what I mean.” He tapped his thumb against his chest. “Only child.”

“
Millionaire
only child.” The distinction was worth making.

He brushed her off. “The millions are tied up in more lawsuits than I can count… Most of which we’ll probably lose.” His tumbler was the target of a particularly dark glare before Ward tipped it against his lips. He downed the last of his whiskey with a single bob of the throat. “Sometimes I reckon Dylan’s right. I
should
cut and run. Start over… I could open a rival fast food chain, give you a run for your money.” His smile was ugly and mean, but Hazel had a hard time mustering the appropriate dread.

“You know Dylan a lot better than I do… Is he usually right?”

“Usually.” Ward held her gaze. “But he’s also idealistic. Suppose it comes from being adopted by hippies. Did you know his mother runs a community center? If you ever have a burning desire to take up hip-hop with a gaggle of octogenarians, ask Dylan to put you in touch.”

Hazel scoffed, dismissing the suggestion out of hand. “Yeah, because I’m sure Dylan’ll want to introduce me to his folks.” She tried not to wonder why it was so easy to say as much to Ward, whom she didn’t even like, when Dylan still left her tongue-tied. Was there no middle ground between eggshells and hot coals?

“Why not?”

“How many submissives has he paraded around to friends and family?”

She could see the calculation in Ward’s eyes before he shook his head. “You’re selling him short,” he protested, sounding fractionally more sober than before. “He’s a good guy.” The bottle of Glenfiddich was tipped against the lip of the tumbler, amber liquor once again harnessing the diffuse mood lighting in the loft and reflecting it back onto Ward’s fingers like leopard spots.

“You don’t have to convince me.”

Ward’s scowl deepened the dimples on either side of his mouth. “What’s this, then? Fishing for compliments?”

“From you? God help me!” Hazel shook her head. “I’m just making conversation… Least I can do, after you nearly broke your hand trying to defend my honor.”

He looked down at his bruised knuckles, gritting his teeth when the purpling thumb shook instead of flexing obediently. “Lucky I was there, huh?”

“Lucky the
other
guy was alone.”

The spat could’ve led to a very different outcome if Ward had had to take on Lothario
and
Lothario’s buddies. He conceded the point with a rueful grin, two spots of color blooming high on the apples of his cheeks. “You don’t think I could’ve taken him on with my kung-fu? I’m pretty badass when provoked. It’s like poking one of them grizzlies.”

“You,” Hazel said pointedly, “are a drunk.”

Ward burst out laughing, whiskey splashing onto his black slacks. “
A
drunk? Fine, then
you’re
a
liar.”

It might have been the booze, but disbelief curdled in her belly.

“How am I a liar?”

“You hate Rhonda.” Ward fanned his fingers and twirled his hand around as though to encapsulate her person. “It’s written on your face. Is it ’cause she’s all smarty pants?”

“She’s a housewife,” Hazel snapped. Her face fell as soon as the words were past her lips. “Fuck, I didn’t mean that.”

Ward’s grin made it hard to retract the careless charge.

“I didn’t mean it. She’s going to be a mom. She made her choice…”

“And you don’t think much of it. That’s okay. Would have to turn in your feminist card if you didn’t have
strong opinions
about motherhood.”

Glare aside, Hazel couldn’t totally dismiss the kernel of truth. She stared her cell down, the invite still flashing merry in blue and white. “Truth is I’d probably be doing the same thing in her shoes.”

“Waiting tables isn’t your dream job, huh?”

We can’t all be CEOs
. Hazel scowled. “Thanks for rubbing it in, asshole.” Liquor made it easier to run her mouth.

“Hey, running a virtually bankrupt company isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either, you know…”

“Talk to me when your tits are splattered all over the Internet,” Hazel shot back, seeing red. She snatched the whiskey bottle out of Ward’s hands and replenished her glass. “I can’t go to an interview without wondering if the guy sitting across the table spent last night jerking off to my naked ass.”

Ward arched his eyebrows, something unsympathetic and curious in his gaze. “And the lesson here is that next time you should think more carefully before making a sex tape.”

There will never be a next time
. Not that the first had been her doing, either.

Hazel doused the memory in single malt. She could barely taste the oak casks anymore.

“How come you dropped out?” Ward asked, seemingly out of the blue. Hazel doubted the thought had only just come to him. She was beginning to understand how his mind worked. Even hammered, he wasn’t stupid. He’d saved up the question, waiting until she’d finished railing against the world to back her into a corner.

“I packed up all my shit and left campus. That’s how.”

“Yes, but… Why?” Ward inclined his head against the backrest of the lounge chair. “Was it because of the sex tape?”

Completely.

When Hazel didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand, he frowned. “I know you Americans are fiendishly puritanical about these things, but it’s not like coeds don’t get up to worse. All those campus parties…”

“It’s not so simple. I had a scholarship.”
A reputation. A family.

A boyfriend.

“With a morality clause?” Ward shifted his weight, elbows balanced on his knees. Was this what he was like in board meetings? Liquor buzzing in her veins, Hazel tried to picture him focusing those dark eyes on dull financial reports. Yet the mental image that rose behind her closed lids was that of Ward peering at Dylan when he thought his friend wasn’t looking. She could well believe he was capable of taking what he wanted, but there was a weird sort of tenderness to him, as well.

Hazel made a mental note to watch her step. Hidden depths abounded here.

She licked her lips. “There was a GPA requirement. I had to keep a B plus average.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to play it off. This was all ancient history, rendered meaningless by the passage of time and the choices she’d made since. “I didn’t perform.”

“I thought you said it was because of the tape.”

“
You
said that,” she corrected, never happier for holding her tongue than she was then.

Ward held her gaze. “You didn’t protest… And you protest
everything
I say.”

“I’m drunk. Cut me some slack, Columbo.” It would’ve been a passable excuse, were it not for the whiskey sharpening instead of dulling the bite of memory. She downed the dregs and reached for the bottle again. Ward was faster.

He caught her hand, fingers feverish around her wrist. His gaze zipped across her features as though he was searching for the Rosetta Stone that would help him decipher the inner workings of her brain. “What am I missing here?”

“Oh, honey,” Hazel drawled, laughing mirthlessly. “How long have you got?”

Ward let her have the bottle.

* * * *

Tracts on the noticeboards of college campuses across the country laid out very good reasons for not drinking with strange men. Hazel wondered if any of those lists featured ‘waking up in bed with your maybe-boyfriend’s significant other’.

If so, those rape-prevention tacticians really thought of everything.

If not, it was something they should look into. Because it was fucking awkward.

The bedroom resolved around her in fragments—first a sliver of the floor-to-ceiling windows reluctantly letting light in through their many panes and splashing it across the unvarnished hardwood floors, then the mahogany dresser. The self-standing mirror in the corner caught her eye when she rolled over. It reflected a slice of the bed beneath the sleeve of a discarded black shirt.

The whole room belonged in a fancy hotel, but Hazel instinctively knew that wasn’t the case.

She scrubbed a hand over her face, envisioning the smudged makeup, the tangle of blonde hair doubtlessly shedding all over Ward’s pristine pillowcases. Her mouth was dry from too much whiskey and not enough water, but she didn’t feel sick. Her head was blissfully, traitorously free of migraines, and she needed to use the facilities.

She spent a moment contemplating a swift escape—possibly by way of fleeing naked into the street and getting herself arrested for indecent exposure—but there was no point. The other side of the mattress dipped as Ward turned onto his back. Between the crisscrossing lines the pillow had dented into his cheek and the flattened hair just above his right temple, his expression was open and tranquil. His lashes fluttered.

“Hey,” Hazel croaked out.
Remember me? Crazy woman you got drunk last night. How’s it going?

Ward smiled. “Hey.” That decidedly un-Ward-like lightness was short-lived. He pushed himself upright, covers rolling down his body as he propped himself against the pillows. “Shit, did we—?”

“I don’t think so.” Hazel peeled back the sheets and looked down at her body. She was still wearing her underwear and tank top. And Ward seemed to have pulled on pajama bottoms before they had crashed. Into the
same
bed.

Together.

“That whiskey’s killer,” Hazel mumbled as she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and gave Ward her back. She rubbed the grit from her eyes, but that didn’t help reality improve.

Behind her, Ward made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. He didn’t disagree. His silence stretched past the bounds of the question and into the murky gray of shared discomfort.

“Are you okay?” he asked at length.

“Did you fall and hit your head?”

“No, I’m just—”

Hazel couldn’t bear to let him finish. Non-asshole Ward was only palatable when she was chugging back big-ticket Scotch. “Worried I’ll press charges?”

The joke fell flat in light of last night’s heart-to-heart. She winced.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that… I’m fine, just—not much of a morning person.” She finger-combed her hair back, trying for some semblance of dignity. What was she thinking, getting into bed with Ward?

More importantly, what was
he
doing letting her?

She startled when she felt the bedsprings dip. The touch of a hand on her upper arm froze her in place. Ward knee-walked his way closer to brush her hair from her shoulder. Then he pressed his lips to the patch of skin just south of her tank strap.

“There,” he rasped. “Now you have something to press charges for.”

Hazel wanted to snort with laughter.
Of course,
you
would think of that
. But the attempt died in her throat. When Ward didn’t retreat, she turned fractionally and met his ink-black eyes. “How much do you remember about last night?”

She could see Ward weighing his answer, considering the face-saving benefits of a lie for both of them. “Everything,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Good whiskey’ll do that…”

He’d dropped his voice an octave, not unlike an invitation. Hazel unconsciously found herself leaning in—to hear him better, obviously—and stayed for the caress of his breaths on her lips. She didn’t wait for him to draw another before obliterating the gap between them.

A tiny voice at the back of her mind whispered that she was moving too fast in the wrong direction, that jeopardizing everything she could have with Dylan was a terrible move. She paid it no heed. Strategy games had never held her attention for long and Ward was warm and sturdy and
present
. Last night’s well-oiled chat had rattled her cage so badly.

She needed an anchor. She needed to figure out where she stood.
I’m so sorry, Dylan…

Her unspoken apology fell by the wayside as Ward cupped her cheek and brushed the tip of his tongue to her lips. It was a no-brainer. Hazel granted him passage, shifting forward to press herself into his arms in greedy offering.

Ward growled low in his throat, a menacing, heady sound that traveled straight to her cunt. Hazel had a brief moment of clear-headed doubt—
This is wrong, we shouldn’t be doing this
—before Ward stole her breath completely. His biceps clenched beneath her timid touch. At first she thought it was some kind of hair-trigger. She started to ask, but Ward made short work of the attempt as he flipped her under him.

The kisses grew steadier, less tentative.

When he palmed her breast, Hazel rocked her pelvis up to get friction where she needed it most. Ward moved like Dylan in so many ways—taking his time tasting her lips before he dipped his head to the curve of her neck, touching—memorizing the uncharted planes of her body without grabbing—that she wondered what he’d be like if they were to retire to Dylan’s playroom.