Fall for Me (Ladder Company #1)

I’m so excited thinking about it that I have to squeeze my legs together to stop the embarrassing reaction I have to just the thought of having sex with Jameson. How on earth am I going to actually have sex with him if this is how I react? I’ll be done before we even really start.

The elevator doors open, and I turn down the hall and head for my apartment. We moved into this building about a month after Daddy bought the beach house. The apartment is a comfortable four bedrooms with four and a half baths and a lovely garden balcony that gives us a decent view of Central Park in the distance. It’s not the best view of the park, but it’s ours, and it cost a small fortune, so I keep that particular observation to myself. On our floor, we only have three other neighbors, whereas the higher floors have as few as one or two apartments, depending on how far up you go, and the closer you get to the lobby, the more apartments are packed in each floor. I may not care for the snooty-tooties that Daddy’s money brings, but I can’t lie and say I don’t like the perks of the apartment and the beach house and not having to worry about how I’m going to afford my rent let alone my next meal.

Next to our front door, my dress hangs on the delivery hook in a black plastic bag. I’m half-dying to know what color Mom picked out, but I refrain and toss the bag over my shoulder and let myself in. Within seconds of being in the foyer, I’m hit by the potent smell of gasoline. The entire space smells like it’s been doused in the stuff.

“Mom!” I move through the foyer and into the open great room—a large, open living/kitchen combo—where I leave my suitcase and kick off my flats before I hit the carpet. What the hell is she doing with gas? That stuff is toxic.

“Well?” Mom says, appearing at the edge of the hall on the other side of the kitchen. She has a hand towel around her neck and one of her many yoga-specific exercise outfits on. This one is a light blue, and she’s barefoot. Monica Kincaid is dedicated to many things in life—her husband, Christian, her daughters (the youngest, especially), and her charity projects—but yoga is the one thing I don’t understand. It puts her at peace, she says.

“Well?” I drape the dress bag over the island countertop in the kitchen and move around to prop myself up on one of the bar stools. God, that gasoline smell is driving me mad.

“Are we planning a spring wedding yet or what?” Mom says with a grin. Her nose wrinkles, catching the scent of the gasoline, I’m sure. “Janet and I have been taking bets.”

“God, Mom,” I say and place my head in my hands.

“No really,” she says. “Tell me.”

“Nothing happened.” Verbalizing it is even more disappointing than it probably should be. Apparently Mom and Dad were also in on Jameson and Royal’s surprise trip. It took all of an hour after they landed for Janet Hayes to text me that she wishes she could have been there. It was sweet, but then she suggested she needed to leave me alone so I could spend as much time as possible with Jameson. And that we shouldn’t be disturbed. While the level of investment our mothers have in our has-yet-to-happen relationship is borderline creepy, the support is pretty awesome. It’s a rarity to find a woman as kind and loving as Janet Hayes. Even if she doesn’t really know appropriate boundaries and likes to talk about when her sons were starting puberty . . . in all the gory details. I know more about Jameson’s solo activities when he was a kid than I care to.

“You must be joking,” she says and heads to the fridge where she pulls out a single-serve cup of yogurt. “That man flew down to that god-awful place—”

“Mom,” I protest. New Orleans never did grow on her in the four years I was there.

“Well, he did. He flew in to see you graduate, and you two were alone for a few days. You can’t tell me you two stayed in your apartment and nothing happened.”

“Well,” I say, mimicking her, “I can and I am. We went on walking tours, a swamp tour, and ate at some of the best restaurants in the city. We walked a lot, drank a little, and almost didn’t talk at all. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and trust me, I’m not happy about it.”

“It should have been perfect,” she says. I am, for sure, my mother’s daughter. At heart, we’re both romantics and a bit dramatic. If anyone understands my disappointment, it’s my mother.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda,” I say and prop my chin in my hand. “Are you doing something weird with gas up in here?”

“No, I thought you brought the smell in,” she says.