Stuntman Mike Quotes

A cell phone rang from the end table to my right and Kristen bolted up straight. She put her beer on the coffee table and dove across my lap for her phone, sprawling over me. My eyes flew wide. I’d never been that close to her before. I’d only ever touched her hand. If I pushed her down across my knees, I could spank her ass. She grabbed her phone and whirled off my lap. “It’s Sloan. I’ve been waiting for this call all day.” She put a finger to her lips for me to be quiet, hit the Talk button, and put her on speaker. “Hey, Sloan, what’s up?” “Did you send me a potato?” Kristen covered her mouth with her hand and I had to stifle a snort. “Why? Did you get an anonymous potato in the mail?” “Something is seriously wrong with you,” Sloan said. “Congratulations, he put a ring on it. PotatoParcel.com.” She seemed to be reading a message. “You found a company that mails potatoes with messages on them? Where do you find this stuff?” Kristen’s eyes danced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you have the other thing though?” “Yeeeess. The note says to call you before I open it. Why am I afraid?” Kristen giggled. “Open it now. Is Brandon with you?” “Yes, he’s with me. He’s shaking his head.” I could picture his face, that easy smile on his lips. “Okay, I’m opening it. It looks like a paper towel tube. There’s tape on the—AHHHHHH! Are you kidding me, Kristen?! What the hell!” Kristen rolled forward, putting her forehead to my shoulder in laughter. “I’m covered in glitter! You sent me a glitter bomb? Brandon has it all over him! It’s all over the sofa!” Now I was dying. I covered my mouth, trying to keep quiet, and I leaned into Kristen, who was howling, our bodies shaking with laughter. I must not have been quiet enough though. “Wait, who’s with you?” Sloan asked. Kristen wiped at her eyes. “Josh is here.” “Didn’t he have a date tonight? Brandon told me he had a date.” “He did, but he came back over after.” “He came back over?” Her voice changed instantly. “And what are you two doing? Remember what we talked about, Kristen…” Her tone was taunting. Kristen glanced at me. Sloan didn’t seem to realize she was on speaker. Kristen hit the Talk button and pressed the phone to her ear. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you!” She hung up on her and set her phone down on the coffee table, still tittering. “And what did you two talk about?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. I liked that she’d talked about me. Liked it a lot. “Just sexually objectifying you. The usual,” she said, shrugging. “Nothing a hot fireman like you can’t handle.” A hot fireman like you.I did my best to hide my smirk. “So do you do this to Sloan a lot?” I asked. “All the time. I love messing with her. She’s so easily worked up.” She reached for her beer. I chuckled. “How do you sleep at night knowing she’ll be finding glitter in her couch for the next month?” She took a swig of her beer. “With the fan on medium.” My laugh came so hard Stuntman Mike looked up and cocked his head at me. She changed the channel and stopped on HBO. Some show. There was a scene with rose petals down a hallway into a bedroom full of candles. She shook her head at the TV. “See, I just don’t get why that’s romantic. You want flower petals stuck to your ass? And who’s gonna clean all that shit up? Me? Like, thanks for the flower sex, let’s spend the next half an hour sweeping?” “Those candles are a huge fire hazard.” I tipped my beer toward the screen. “Right? And try getting wax out of the carpet. Good luck with that.” I looked at the side of her face. “So what do you think is romantic?” “Common sense,” she answered without thinking about it. “My wedding wouldn’t be romantic. It would be entertaining. You know what I want at my wedding?” she said, looking at me. “I want the priest from The Princess Bride. The mawage guy.

Stuntman Mike jumped up suddenly from the couch and started barking frantically at nothing. He startled the shit out of me, but she didn’t even flinch, like this was a daily occurrence. He stared at nothing, seemed satisfied that whatever it was was gone, and then he spun a few times and lay back down. His shirt today read I MISS MY BALLS.

She looked at me, dead serious, and put a hand on Stuntman Mike’s head. “He’s a hunting dog.” “I’m pretty sure that’s an insult to hunting dogs everywhere.” I dug for my cell and pulled up a picture of my buddy’s Lab with a duck in his mouth. “This is a hunting dog.

I sat in one of the six brown leather recliners parked in front of the TV. My Yorkie, Stuntman Mike, stood in my lap, growling.

The little thing had sat on her lap all through breakfast. Occasionally his head popped up over the table to look at her plate, the tip of his tongue out. He looked like a fluffy Ewok. “His name is Stuntman Mike.

Stuntman Mike bounced off my shins. I reached down to pet him, and she stopped me. “Don’t. He bites.” “We’ve already met. He let me hold him at the station,” I reminded her. “He’s got a misplaced sense of ownership over me and his memory is stored in a brain the size of a peanut,” she mumbled. “Wait a few minutes until he calms down. Then it’ll be safer.

I cleared my throat, forcing myself to look away from her. “So doglets, huh?” I nodded at Stuntman Mike. He had his head on her lap. The tip of his tongue was out. He didn’t even look real. Like a stuffed animal.

Today she’d taken off for a hair appointment at 10:00 in the morning and hadn’t been home all day. We had Sloan and Brandon’s wedding invitation thing later tonight. It was boring without her here. She’d left Stuntman Mike, wearing his DOGFATHER shirt, and he’d become my work buddy. He mostly slept, but once in a while he’d jump up barking at phantom sounds. It kept things interesting. At 5:00, Kristen still wasn’t home when I got in the shower in the guest bathroom to start getting ready for the party. But when I came out, dressed and ready to go, my breath caught the second I rounded the corner. She sat at the kitchen counter, looking at her phone. She was a fucking knockout. She’d been pretty before, even under her baggy T-shirts and sweatpants. But now? Dressed up? My God, she was sexy as hell. She wore a black fitted cocktail dress and red heels. Her hair was down and curled and she had her makeup on. Bright-red lipstick. When she glanced up, I tried to act like I hadn’t been frozen in the doorway. “Oh, hey. Will you zip me up?” she asked, sliding off the stool still texting. She didn’t even give me a second look. I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” She turned and gave me her back, still looking at her screen. The zipper to her dress was all the way down and the lacy top of a light-blue G-string peeked out. Her perfume reached my nose, and I could almost taste the tart apples on my tongue. Fuck. This is torture. I pulled the zipper up, my eyes trailing the line of her spine. No bra. She was small on top. Perky. She didn’t need one. I stopped to move her hair and my fingers touched her neck as I gathered it to one side. I had the most incredible urge to put my lips to the spot behind her ear, slip my hands into the sides of her dress, around her waist, peeling it off her. She has a boyfriend. She’s not interested. I finished the job, dragging the zipper to the top. She’d looked at her phone the whole time, totally unaffected. Kristen wasn’t shy or conservative. That much I’d seen over the last few weeks. She probably didn’t even think twice about any of this. But I practically panted. I was getting a hard-on just standing there. I hoped she didn’t look down.

My heart pounded so hard I thought she might be able to see it through my shirt. The tips of my fingers buzzed with the memory of touching her skin. Stuntman Mike strutted over to me and plopped at my feet. I reached down and scooped him up, happy to have something to distract me. “Hey, little guy.” Kristen beamed, dazzling bright-red lips over perfect, straight teeth. “God, he really likes you. I just can’t get over it.” “Yeah, we hung out all day today.” I kissed the top of his head. I liked him, but this was for her. I loved the way her eyes always sparkled when I was affectionate with her dog. I pressed him to my cheek, and she melted. She sighed. “He doesn’t like anyone. He hates Tyler.” Yeah. I get that. Because I’m starting to hate Tyler a little myself.

I looked up at Josh. His chest rose and fell a little too fast. He had this look on his handsome face—a touch of anxiety, worry, and anticipation around his brow, like he was afraid at any minute all this would be taken from him, like I might suddenly change my mind. I deserved that. This was a shotgun wedding. Josh was the one holding the shotgun. This whole thing was some flash-bang-chaos campaign to hustle me into marriage before I got my bearings. He wanted to lock me down before I freaked out on him and ran. That’s why he’d rushed this. Only, the joke was on him—I wanted to be locked down, and I’d never change my mind. I’d never leave him again. If he wanted this rust bucket of a body so badly, he could have it, and I’d just have to spend the rest of my life making sure he felt secure and loved. I looked at him, my eyes steady, and I took a deep breath. “Joshua, I vow to text you back.” Everyone in the room laughed, my fiancé included, and his face relaxed. I continued. “I will answer every call you make to me for the rest of my life. You’ll never chase me again.” His eyes filled with tears, and he seemed to let go of a breath he’d been holding. “I promise to always go to family day at the station so you know that you’re loved. I vow to support you and follow you anywhere until you’ve found the place that makes you happy. I’ll be your best friend and try and fill that hole in your heart. I’m going to take care of you and cherish you, always and no matter what.” I smiled at him. “I’ll orbit around you and be your universe, because you’ve always been my sun.” He wiped at his eyes, and he had to take a moment before he read his own vows. While I waited, I let his face anchor me. I soaked him in, let his love remind me again and again that I was worth it. He looked at his paper and then seemed to decide he didn’t need it, setting it down on the desk. He gathered up my hands. “Kristen, I vow that no matter what health issues lie ahead, I will love and take care of you. I will show you every day of your life that you’re worth everything. I will carry your worries. All I ask is that you carry your own dog purse.” The room chuckled again. “I promise to love Stuntman Mike and slay your spiders, and keep you from getting hangry.” Now I was laughing through tears. “I will always defend you. I’ll always be on your side.” Then he turned to Sloan. “And I vow to protect and care for you, Sloan, like you’re my sister, for the rest of my life.” This did it. The tears ran down my face, and I was in his arms and weeping before I knew I’d closed the distance. We were both crying. We were all crying, even the witnesses who had no idea how hard the journey had been to get here, the sacrifices that were made for this union. Or who we’d lost along the way.

Yeah, who needs an extra two hundred dollars for three hours of work?” Kristen said, flipping a hand dismissively. “Not Miguel apparently.” I froze. “Two hundred dollars?” Sloan sprayed the counter with lemon-scented all-purpose cleaner. “Sometimes it’s more—right, Kristen? It depends on the style?” Kristen stared at her best friend like she was telling her to shut up. Then she dragged her eyes back to me. “The stairs run four to five hundred dollars apiece, plus shipping. I split the profits fifty-fifty, minus the materials, with my carpenter. So yeah. Sometimes it’s more.” “Do you have a picture of the stairs?” I asked. Kristen unenthusiastically handed me her phone and I scrolled through a website gallery of ridiculous tiny steps with Stuntman Mike posed on them in different outfits. These were easy. Well within my ability. “You know, I think I do have time for this. I’ll do it if you don’t have anyone else.” A few of these and I could pay off my Lowe’s card. This was real money. Kristen shook her head. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the organ thieves.” Sloan gasped, and Brandon froze and looked at Kristen and me. “Is that right?” I said, eyeballing her. “How about we talk about this over coffee.” Kristen narrowed her eyes and I arched an eyebrow. “Fine,” she said like it was physically painful. “You can build the damn stairs. But only until I find a different guy. And I will be looking for a different guy.” Sloan looked back and forth between us. “Is there something you guys want to tell us?” “I caught him staring at my ass,” Kristen said without skipping a beat. I shrugged. “She did. I have no excuse. It’s a great ass.” Brandon chuckled and Sloan eyed her best friend. Kristen tried to look mad, but I could tell she took the compliment.

Stuntman Mike plopped on the floor between us. I leaned over, petting his head, and whispered to Kristen. “I hear this place has great food. Why don’t we eat here more often?” If I was here to cheer her up, I was going to do just that. Her face softened. “It’s hard to get a reservation,” she whispered. She glanced at my lips again before her eyes came up to meet mine. “I know a guy,” I said. “Although I heard they had to close for a few days after the place got vandalized a couple weeks back.” She raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah?” I nodded and looked over at Sloan before continuing, my voice low. “The worst TP’ing Canoga Park has ever seen. No leads. Probably an inside job.” She smiled, and I saw her mood lift before my eyes.

And now, without the book to read, sitting there with Brandon in the middle of the night, I had nothing to do but think. I checked my watch: 2:12 a.m. I pictured Kristen, sleeping on her side under her flower bedspread. Her hand tucked under her favorite pillow—the one with the beige flannel pillowcase. Stuntman Mike curled up on top of the blanket in the tangle of her legs. The clock on her nightstand giving me just enough light to see her long lashes across her smooth cheeks. I mentally pulled the blanket up to her chin and kissed her forehead and saw her eyes flutter open as she smiled at me. Fuck, I missed her. “I wish you could talk to me,” I said to Brandon. “Tell me what to do. I need you to wake up and straighten me out. Or even better, wake up and straighten her out.” I dragged a hand down my face. When I saw her today, it just confirmed what I already knew. I wasn’t ever going to get over her. I wasn’t ever going to not miss her. She was punishing me for a crime I didn’t even know I’d committed. For things I had said and things I wanted before I knew what they’d mean later. Every comment had been a nail in the board across the door she’d closed on me. “I don’t even know how to begin to convince her,” I said. “She won’t even speak to me.” I snorted. “Leave it to me to be in love with the world’s most stubborn woman.” I tried to think about what Brandon’s response to this would be. He was always so level-headed. He would know what to do. The more I tried to sway her, the further she distanced herself. The more I told her I loved her, the more she shut down. And I didn’t know how to stop it.