Compromise Me: Chapter 11

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Chapter 11

The pants were a little snug, but they covered all the right parts.  Travis towel-dried his hair and padded barefoot to her kitchen.  “I don’t suppose you have a t-shirt from your frumpy stage, do you?”

She straightened from bending over the stove as she slid a frozen pizza onto the rack, and she licked her lips as her gaze landed on his chest.  “That one’s new,” she said, pointing to the tattoo over his left pectoral.  It was a copy of his son’s baby footprint.  Hurt like hell.

“That’s for Tristan,” he said, tracing the tiny lines with a fingertip.  “Got it right after he was born.”

She smiled softly.  “He’s a cute kid.”

“Yes, he is,” Travis agreed.  “Smart as a whip, and likes red stickers.  Been collecting the darn things for months now.  I’m having trouble finding some he doesn’t already have.”

“But you keep looking, don’t you?”

He gazed into her eyes, seeing the sweetness inside her.  It had always been there, that sweetness, but somewhere along the way, the child inside her moved aside, and now he could see that refined grace shining out from a woman’s eyes.  Being friends with a woman like her…?  Dangerous and tempting.  

“Yes, I do,” he said, and she nodded, sliding past him...her motions mindful of not touching him at all.

“I’m sure I have a shirt you can wear,” she said.  When she came back, she handed him a plain white shirt and he pulled over his head.

“So, did Arielle and them get to St. Louis okay?” she asked, sitting down at her kitchen table.

“You know about that?”

“Sure.  She calls me almost every night.”

Travis nodded and sat across from her.  “I'm not surprised.  Arielle tends to latch onto people like velcro.”

Josie laughed.  “Yeah, I’m expecting my half of a best-friend charm any day now.  You know she asked me to be a bridesmaid the other night.”

He blinked.  “She did?  You barely know each other."

“She said Sam keeps adding groomsmen and she’s running out of bridesmaids.  I'm her only hope.”

"She badgered you until you caved, didn't she?"

Josie laughed.  "She played me like a cheap violin.  I'm getting fitted for my dress next weekend.”

“Who is she pairing you with?  Not David, I hope.”

“David?” she said, frowning.  “She mentioned him.  Sam’s younger brother?”

“Yeah,” Travis said.  “A real mess, that one.  Just got out of jail for contributing to a minor and trying to pick up a decoy prostitute at a casino last year.”

“The same person?  The minor and the decoy?”

“Yup.”

"Interesting."  Josie leaned on her palm with her elbow on the table.  “She’s pairing me with you.”

“Oh.”

“That okay?”

“Sure.  Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just thought I’d ask, since she didn’t.”

Arielle was up to her schemes again, he thought.  Funny...how it didn’t bother him when she did them, but Josie…?  I guess I should give her more credit, he thought secondly.  At least, with Josie, she was honest and in-your-face with her tricks.  Sometimes, Travis never saw Arielle’s coming.  And he was starting to miss Josie’s tricks.

I’m friends with Arielle...why not with Josie, too?  Except he never felt that old desire stirring whenever he was around Arielle.  Friends with Josie would be weird.  Uncomfortable.

Like now.  

He looked around her kitchen.  “Don’t suppose you have a beer lying around here, do you?”

She thumbed to the refrigerator.  “Help yourself.”

He got up and took two cans from the refrigerator door and handed one to her.  She popped hers, drank deeply and stood up to go to the living room.  “So...you never told me why you decided to go swimming with the rats tonight.”

He trailed after her, realizing she was making an effort to be friendly.  “Livie asked me to pick up Steve Cropper’s guitar--”

Josie whirled around.  “What?”  She looked back at the case by the door.  “You took a Peavey Cropper Classic out in this weather?!  Are you crazy?”

She put her beer on a side table and rushed over to the case, unzipping it swiftly and gingerly removing the single cutaway body with the rosewood frets, holding it like she would a newborn child.  She ran her fingers and eyes over it...then sighed.  “It’s okay.  It’s not wet.”

Travis leaned against the wall, sipping his beer.  “Got a thing for guitars?”

“I bought my first guitar when I was thirteen,” she said, admiring the gold hardware and fingerboard.  “Save up for it myself.  Daddy was furious.”

“He didn’t want you to have one?”

“He thought singing was stupid.”

Travis frowned over his beer can.  “But you’re so good at it.”

She laughed and set the guitar aside.  Pivoting on the balls of her feet, she smiled up at him.  “Thank you, Travis.  And Daddy thinks that now.  He thought my guinea pig was stupid, too, but after a while, he got attached to that little furball.”  Josie blinked and looked down.  “I sure do miss Lady...she was the greatest.”

“Lady?”

“My guinea pig,” she said and stood up.  She picked up her beer and sat down in her giant recliner.  “She died just before I left for college, which I guess was for the best, since I couldn’t take her with me.”

“Couldn’t you just get another one?”

A quick laugh answered him first, and then she said, “After Lady died, I could barely look at a puppy, I was so heartbroken.  I thought about getting another one, since I can have caged animals in the apartment, and it gets kind of lonely up here by myself, but honestly, I just haven’t had the time.”

“Who gave you Lady?” he asked, not picturing her dad as the pet-giving kind.  

“Hannah,” Josie said.  “Hers had babies and she let me keep one.  Again...Daddy was furious.”

He smirked.  “I like Hannah.”

“I do, too.  She's the best mom any girl could ask for.  She had my back more times than I can count when it came to Daddy’s thoughts about me growing up.”

“Sounds like you had a good childhood,” he commented.

“The last half was great.  The first part...not so much.”  

“Why not so much?” he asked, moving to sit on a side table so he could see her better.

She pursed her lips.  “Travis, you can sit in the chair with me.  I’ll behave, you know.”

“I know,” he said, but he didn’t move.  She raised an eyebrow, and he sighed and joined her in the recliner.  She curled up her legs and shifted so that she sat sideways, looking at him.

“My first mom -- my real mom, Beth -- was a bitch,” she began, and she saw his face and added, “She really was.  That’s the mature adult talking, Travis.  Not a child who hated her mother because she didn’t buy me a pony on my fifth birthday.  Beth was awful.  Daddy always knew it, too, but he thought that if he stayed with her, I would have a better life growing up with two parents instead of one.”

Travis snorted.  

She snorted with him.  “Right?  Daddy eventually saw the light and they divorced, but it still wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  I hated both of them.  I was young and stupid, and I felt like I was mistreated because my parents couldn’t stand each other.”

“What changed all that?”

“Hannah,” she said, smiling softly.  “She didn’t take any of his crap.  He tried being mean to her, because he felt like all the women in the world were petty and selfish.  But it didn’t stick.  Hannah is anything but petty and selfish.  She managed to love him enough that he got it through his thick skull that there was only one Beth in the world, and he started to see Hannah as a good, loving woman, and me as me.  I had a real family for the first time in my life.”  She laughed again.  “Then he started seeing all the men of the world as jackasses and wanted to keep me locked away from their lecherous ways.”

“Ah,” Travis said, grinning at her.  “Now I see how it was.  You were rebellious.  That’s why you kept trying to get me to kiss you again.  To piss off Daddy Dearest.”

Josie socked him in the arm.  “No!  Well...not the only reason.”

“Right,” he said, draining the last of his beer.  “You loved me, too, right?”

She smiled...a hint of her former seduction.  “Right.”

Travis smiled back, drowning into her green eyes, and he had half a thought to piss off Daddy Dearest right then and there, but he cleared his throat and said, “What kind of guitar did you get?  That first one?”

“Just a plain wooden box, nothing special,” she said, a soft, remembering smile on her lips.  “I’ve had a few others since then, but it’s my favorite.”

“Do you still play?”

She gave her shoulder half a hitch.  “A little.”

“You have it with you, don’t you?  I’d love to hear you,” he said, glad they were back on safer ground.  Josie got up from the chair to get her old guitar, and Travis closed his eyes for being stupid enough to think about kissing her again.

She came back with, yes, a beat-up wooden box of an acoustic guitar, lovingly holding it between her fingers, and she sat on the floor, cross-legged, and asked, “What would you like to hear?”

“What’s the first thing you learned to play?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Duh...’Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.”

He grinned.  That was the first song he learned, too.  “Then let’s hear it.”

“Okay.”  She flexed her fingers, got her positioning, and started plucking.  Travis blinked.  That was not the “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” he learned.  It was flowing and accompanied with amazing background melodies, and the song evolved into “Hush, Little Baby” and then Brahm’s “Lullaby.”

He watched her fingers fly over the strings, turning out a sound which that wooden box could not accomplish in amateur hands.  Jesus, did she ever do anything terribly?

“Holy shit,” he said when she finished playing.  “What the hell was that?”

She looked up at him, confused and rubbing her knuckles.  “‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’,” she said.

“Like hell it was,” he said.

An angry look came across her features, and she thrust the guitar at him.  “Then you play it.”

Travis shook his head, laughing.  “Josie girl...I’m not following that with a three mile train.  Hannah taught you to play?  She doesn’t play like that.”

“Hannah taught me the basics,” she said, standing up stiffly.  “I learned classic guitar through instructors.”

“Where?  At Juilliard?”

“I went to Berkeley College in Manhattan, you know this,” she said.

“Talent like that does not happen in college,” he said.  “That starts at birth.”

She peeked at him from under her lashes, finally catching onto the compliment.  It took long enough...or maybe he didn’t phrase it right the first time.  "Thank you," she said cautiously.  

He stood up next to her, gently took the instrument in his hands and studied it.  “You sing like the Devil’s siren, and you play like an angel,” he told her softly.  “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Lots of things,” she replied, in the same soft tone.  

"Name one," he challenged, and she rolled back her shoulders, getting a defiant glint in her eyes.

"I'm looking at one," she said, and Travis looked back and said, "I never said we can't be friends."

"I do friends with you terribly," she said and took her guitar back to her room.

She had a point.  This friendship thing...it wasn't going so great.

For the next couple of hours, they ate, watched a movie, and he told her about his abandoned truck.  They were back to being "friendly" -- but not open -- with each other.  She said, “Want me to drive you home?”

“If I couldn’t get my truck through these flooded streets, I’d hate for both of us to get stuck,” he replied.  

“So, you want to stay here tonight?”

“I’ll get a hotel room,” he said, standing up and stretching.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.  “You can sleep on this chair.  I’ll get you some blankets.”

“Josie, that might not be a good idea,” he said.

She stood up and faced him.  “Travis...we are friends, as terrible as we both are at it.  It'll be fine.”  And she walked away to get his blankets.

Later that night, he stared up at the ceiling, hearing her in her bedroom, getting ready for bed.  He sighed.  When Arielle told him to sleep with Josie, he didn’t think this was what she had in mind, but it was for the best.  Sleeping with Josie would be stupid.  An end to their "terrible friendship."  But neither of them would come out of a sexual encounter unscathed.

And of course, with thoughts of sex now in his head, he couldn't go asleep.  Three years of abstinence did some strange things to a guy's head, to his late-night imagination, especially when that guy usually went into a relationship thinking about the sex first.  Then he received Tristan in his life, and that mentality changed.  He hadn't thought casually about sex since then...until Josie showed up once again in his peripherals.

But when her phone rang, and she talked for ten minutes with her caller, ending the conversation with, "I love you, too, Daddy,"...Travis pictured them in the midst of some serious foreplay while her dad called, and that was enough to put a stop to any idea of having sex with Josie tonight.

If he had considered it.  Which he absolutely did not.

Finally, he fell asleep...only to awake early the next morning to monk music and her in the living room, doing her yoga.  He peered out from under his blanket.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Yoga,” she said, standing on one leg like a cracker-jacked flamingo and focusing on the far wall.  “Shh.  I’m concentrating.”

“Can’t you do that in your bedroom?”

“No.  Now hush.”

He watched her for a few more minutes, her beautiful body flowing from stance to stance, and his body couldn’t take much more of it.  He got up to go to the bathroom, noticed that her clock said 7 a.m., and then eyed her bed with longing, said, "F*ck it," and curled up between her sheets to go back to sleep.

When light hit his eyes again, she’d flipped down the blanket over his face and said, “You’re in my bed.”

“You weren’t using it,” he said, and covered his eyes again.

“Not from want of trying,” she mumbled and he heard her walk away and the shower turned on.  The smell of coconuts filled the apartment.  So, that’s where the smell came from.  It wasn’t her perfume.  It was her soap.

The scent got stronger when she came out of the shower, wrapped in a big towel.  He peeked through an opening in the blanket as she stopped in front of her closet, removed some clothes, then turned her back to him and began to get dressed...first pulling a pair of blue lace panties up over her hips before dropping the towel and then putting on a pair of jeans.  She kept her body completely turned from him as she fastened a bra around her chest and pulled on a pink shirt.  But he saw a lot more than he should have.

There was a tattoo on her right shoulder blade...a spiralling line of tiny, black stars about as big around as his palm.  He didn’t know she had a tattoo.

“Friends don’t dress in front of each other,” he told her from under the covers.

“But we're terrible friends, and you did,” she said, not looking at him.  “In my kitchen.”

“I wasn’t naked.  I just put on a shirt,” he said.

“I didn’t see anything pertinent.  You didn’t see anything pertinent.  Our horrendous friendship is intact.”

“Couldn’t you do that in the bathroom?”

“No.  You’re in my bed, which is in my bedroom, which is where I happen to keep my clothes.  If you had stayed in the living room, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“So, it’s my fault,” he said.  “Wonderful.”

“It should teach you not to crawl into girls’ beds,” she shot back at him as she went back to her bathroom to brush out her wet hair and blow it dry.

When the hair dryer shut off and she began applying make-up, he sat up in the bed, saw that it was two hours later, and called, “Going somewhere?”

“I’m meeting my Babies to go shopping for a photo shoot later this week,” she said as she put on some lipstick.

“It’s Saturday,” he said, yawning.

“So?”

“So...what’s wrong with doing work stuff during work hours?”

She snorted at him.  “This is the only day all of them are free before the photo shoot.  And I want them to look like a solid group.  They each have such different styles, but they need to look like they belong to each other, too.  It’s important for their bonding.”

“Bonding.”

“Yes...bonding.”  She finished her morning rituals and exited the bathroom and bedroom.  Travis threw his legs over the side of the bed, staring down at his feet...next to a pair of fuzzy yellow slippers.  First time in a girl’s bed in over three years.  He’d forgotten how that felt.  

Weird.

Because this was Josie’s bed, and they didn’t share it.

Really weird.

The aroma of coffee mingled with the coconuts, and Travis scowled because he liked the combination.  It was one of those sensory things he experienced whenever he was around Josie.  Coffee and coconuts.  A pretty smile and coconuts.  A missing tiara...and those damn coconuts.

She came back to the bedroom, a purse slung over her shoulder and a travel mug in her hand.  She tossed something on the bed.  “I’ve gotta go.  Lock up when you leave.”

Then she was gone, and he picked up the silver key from the top of the quilted blanket.  He stared at it.  Damn it...did she just give me a key to her apartment?

What have I gotten myself into?

*****

Later that afternoon, Josie returned to her apartment after a successful, but stressful day of shopping with four very different young ladies.  She found it empty of Travis, but a note was left behind on the Cropper guitar.  It said, “Hang on to Stevie for me.  Don’t want it to get wet.  Trav.”

Josie smiled, dropped her things on a table and picked up the guitar reverently.  It was a beautiful instrument, and she laughed as she played a chord, thinking that Steve Cropper had once held it and played his soul-inspiring music on it.  She put it back in its case and headed toward the bathroom to wash the make-up off her face.  

Her bed was unmade.

Josie narrowed her eyes as she stopped.  Borrow my bed and don’t make it.

His borrowed clothes were on her bathroom

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