Perfect Chaos

I pull myself up and pad to my bathroom, listening for movement, but when I reach the doorway, it’s empty. I frown and back up, heading for the kitchen, thinking maybe she’s helping herself to coffee.

No Lainey.

No Lainey anywhere.

Well, fuck. She’s gone. Left before I woke, and I hate to admit it, but the notion is sticking in my throat like a huge fuck-off big stick. I reach to my neck and try to swallow it down. A woman has pulled a fuck-and-run on me. And not just any woman, but the only woman I didn’t want to.I PULL UP AT THE tennis club on Sunday and chuck my keys to the parking assistant as I get out. “Good morning, Mr. Christianson,” he says, opening my boot for me. “Long time no see.”

I grab my racket and bag and slip my shades on. “Nice day for it,” I say, taking the steps up to the club house. When I breach the threshold, I’m immediately hit with a sea of delighted eyes—all women—who break their various conversations to say hi as I pass through. I count a dozen who I’ve had in bed, but unlike any other day when I might be quietly contemplating who’ll get round two later, I’m sulking because none of them are Lainey. Damn that woman. I’ve thought of little else since I woke up yesterday morning and found her missing from my bed. I didn’t leave my apartment for the entire day, and seriously deliberated over canceling my tennis date with my mother. But then I would have spent another day holed up at home thinking about her. At one point, I was on my way to my front door to drive to my office so I could search the company files for her details. A telephone number. An address. Anything. After all, she’s clearly done the same to find my address. But I managed to talk myself back onto the couch, reminding myself that PAs seriously know everything, and CEOs virtually nothing. Within my own company. Besides, it would be stupid. And bordering stalker-ish. So instead, I drank my way through a whole crate of Bud and tussled with my annoying brain, which refused to let up on all things Lainey. I’ve had endless conversations with myself, asked myself questions and tried to answer them. Her double-meaning statements—statements that I have no clue what to make of. Be gentle with it. Even if you could, you shouldn’t. Then why the fuck did she let me? I feel like she’s talking in code, and I’m damned if I can fathom what the fuck it all means. But I always come back to one thing: is the mystery of her the attraction? Was I obsessing over her because I knew I couldn’t have her? But now I’ve had her. And I’m still fucking obsessing. I am literally going around in fucking circles. I’m dizzy. But—and it’s doing my head in—she’s embedded in my man brain, and I believe she might be turning it girlie. Men don’t obsess like this. I definitely don’t obsess like this. Great. Fucking great.

Wait for her, and it will happen, my boy.

Nooooo.

Totally wrong moment for Dad’s words to come back to me. Yes, I’m a little obsessed, but not feeling the dreaded L word. Fuck, no.

I break out of the clubhouse onto the patio and immediately spot my mother. And Ted. Fucking Ted. Tennis coach extraordinaire . . . about thirty years ago. He needs to accept defeat and hang up his racket, but I guess as long as he’s still got women like my mother swooning over his over-tanned arse, he’ll keep pounding that ball. As long as that’s all he pounds. I growl under my breath as I watch him reach over and wipe a smudge of cream from my mother’s lip. Get your fucking hands off. Mum giggles and I cough. Loudly.

“Tyler.” Mum’s up like a shot and coming at me, and the stupid kid inside me can’t help but feel smug that she’s ditched that douchebag for me. Her boy. The only man in her life since Dad was taken from us.

As she approaches, I keep my warning eyes trained on Ted, telling him who the alpha is here, and it isn’t him.

“Hey, you.” I catch her and hug her fiercely, while reluctantly admitting that it’s no wonder Ted is so attracted to her. At sixty-five, she’s still a looker. She takes care of herself, and it’s obvious today when she’s sporting a glowing white tennis dress. “You look hot, Mum.”

She laughs and kisses my cheek. “You always say that.”

“Because you always do.”

Mum breaks away and takes my hand. “Come say hi to Ted.” She tugs me a little, but I remain still. I’d rather take a racket over my head.