by Ace Gray
“Then why did you leave the other day?”
“Because I’m not sure that’s enough,” he snaps. “Why did you leave?”
“What? When?”
“Six days ago. I came by, Mina, to talk, to figure all this out. Later that night, when I figure you were at Courtney’s, then again the next day, when you were just gone. You can’t just leave when things get hard.”
“You’re a fucking hypocrite.” My defensiveness flares. “I, at least, had a wedding out of town to go to.”
“You could have texted me.”
“You could have texted me!”
“For all I knew you were skipping town.”
“This isn’t some bullshit romantic comedy where I get to up and leave when things get hard. I own a business here. I have a life. You should have known.”
“You couldn’t even tell me that?”
“I want to tell you everything!” I rub my face in frustration. “It still seems like there are rules on our…our…whatever this is. Things I can say, things I can’t. Times I can say them and times I can’t.”
“You know me. You know that I need to process. You know that I need time sometimes.”
And I do. I do but…
“You know that I bleed when you cut me.” I don’t mean for my voice to break but it does. “And walking out after being with me, that one cut deep.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I love you.” I throw my hands up. “Aren’t you listening?”
“To your words, of course. Every single one of them. Over and over and over again.” He rolls his eyes. “When are you going to back it up, Meen.” My nickname feels a little more pointed today.
“When are you?”
“I have!”
The world falls silent after his deep, dark rumble echoes off the aluminum siding of the brewery. We stand, breathing heavy in the wake.
I start going back over each moment since he got here. The ones that would back up that claim. Then I stop myself. If he believes it, it happened. Just like he didn’t mean to break my heart, but he did. I can’t control that he feels that way, I simply get to choose deal or don’t deal. Move forward from here or don’t.
“Look, I’m sorry, James.” I’m the one that finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry for my part in all of this. I’m sorry that I was a wrecking ball before in everyone’s lives and I’m sorry that I started out that way here. I’m sorry that I screamed and walked away. I’m sorry that I left.” I rub down my face in frustration again. “But I’m not sorry that I fell for you. Not then, not now.”
“You mean that?” He narrows his eyes when he asks.
“Ye—”
I don’t even get the word out before his ditches the bike, takes two long steps, and his lips crash into mine.
His hands come to my elbows; his body presses close enough that warmth spreads across my skin like the sun.
His lips… God they’re almost as hard to describe as him. The way they feel against mine, the way they move. The way he kisses me makes me weak and voraciously hungry all at once. I ball his shirt in my fists, low between his hips.
I’m lost to the tumble of our lips. This dance that speaks to something so deeply rooted in me that I can convince myself our bodies have always known the other. That they knew we’d end up here somehow, even when we didn’t.
My world revolves around that kiss and crumbles when he pulls away.
“All I ever wanted was for you to mean it. To fight for me, Mina.” He’s breathy, smiling so wide, so crooked, as he leans his forehead to mine. The brim of his hat slides over my head.
“Why does any of it have to be a fight? Why is that the notion we take from fairy tales? Why can’t we just work at it?” I use my grip on his shirt to push against him, an exclamation point on the end of my question.
“That sounds so logical.” He laughs, low and rich like honey.
“Aren’t you the one that likes logic?”
“I do,” he says as he slides his hands into my back pockets. “I like that you defy it too.” He gives my butt a squeeze. “What’s that?”
James pulls a hand free of my back pocket and produces a small napkin littered in thick black words.
“What’s this?” His other hand leaves the safety of my back pocket and smooths it.
“No.” I drop his shirt and reach for it, only for him to spin out of the way. “James, don’t. Please.”
His eyes dart across the first few lines, but they stop when I say please, instead finding me over top of the thin paper rustling in the warm breeze.
“What is this, Mina?”
“One of my letters.”
“About me?” His smile spreads and I watch as the small side of his upper lip thins further into the smile that’s so specifically him. Mine answers his exactly.
“Yes.” I swallow thickly.
“But I can’t read it?”
“I’m scared.” I bite my lip.
“Why?” He comes back to me and gently pulls my lip from between my teeth.
“That it’s too much. Specially on top of everything else today.” I turn into his palm.
“It’s not,” he counters. “But I’ll be patient.” He folds it nicely and slides it back into my pocket. “I’m buying tacos. Come on.” He collects his bike from the ground and wheels it so he can walk close to me.
So close I can still feel the impending burn.
“I told you tostadas aren’t worth it. You’re a mess.” James laughs as he reaches for a piece of lettuce clinging to my cleavage. I watch his long fingers move against my skin, slow and deliberate.
“Maybe I was saving that for later,” I say with an arched eyebrow Courtney would be proud of.
“Later,” he muses and lets his gaze travel from my chest back to my lips and down again. He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t need to. I know what he means. A blush blooms across my chest and up my neck. “I don’t remember you blushing before,” he says as he picks up a taco.
“That was probably just my permanent color. Being around you was only nerve wracking in the beginning when I couldn’t trust whether we were friends or not. After that it was always a rush.”
“Why didn’t you believe me when I told you we were friends in the beginning?” he asks as he finishes his taco and shakes his hands before reaching for a napkin.
I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was to sit and watch him do every day mere mortal stuff. I end up bewitched each and every time because each and every movement is so uniquely him. I smile when I think of the catalog of things that make up James, the things I compare everyone else too.
“What?” he asks when he notices me smiling like an idiot.
“Nothing.” I hide my shy smile away.
“It was something.”
“Yeah, but if I say it out loud, I sound stupid.”
“Not to me you don’t.” He fixes me with that look. The one that is so earnest and true that I can’t doubt him.
“I was just thinking about you, about how sitting across from you is a certain kind of home for me.” I can’t look him in the face when I say it, but I make myself say it. “The way you do things is unique, and watching you is a type of thrill for me.”
He doesn’t say anything. Long enough that I look up to find that intense stare still burning into me.
“I said it was stupid.” I shrug.
“No.” He silences me while moving his hand just enough to let his pinky brush against mine. “I was thinking that is the single most seductive thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Liar.”
“I mean it, Mina. Someone noticing, loving the tiny things that make me, me. That’s a different kind of eroticism.”
I grab a couple of the tomatoes left on my plate and nibble in lieu of a response.
“You never answered me?” he prompts when I stay quiet.
“About?”
“Not feeling worthy.” He puts it so succinctly.
&
nbsp; “Why would anyone like you find something worthwhile in someone like me?”
His brow crinkles up beneath the brim of his hat. “Why would I want an earnest, genuine, patient friend who can talk about anything with anyone for hours? Who cares so completely about other people but can be snarky too? Someone who challenges me and cheers for me? Someone who spends all her time building others up, so much so that she forgets to see her own worth?” He pauses like he’s waiting for me to actually answer, then his full smile, complete with its wonderfully twisted shapes, spreads across his face. “I can’t imagine why…” His words trail off only to turn into his full, rumbling laughter.
“Don’t mock me,” I scold.
“If I do nothing else with my entire life, showing you your worth will be my great success.”
It’s my turn to stare up at him. And swallow the hard lump in my throat.
“That’s…”
“The truth, Mina.” He runs his pinky up the length of mine where it rests on the table.
“I…”
“Cannot fight with me.”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” I finally manage.
“To hear how you look through my eyes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then I should add that I’ve always been a huge fan of your tits and make you really uncomfortable.”
I can’t help but burst out laughing.
“And that I actually like how steadfast you are in your dislike of German beers.” He’s laughing along now.
“How about your insistence on just duct taping that same rust and orange down jacket rather than replacing it.”
“You know I like to invest if I have spare cash.” He shoots me a look.
“Since you were ten years old.”
“I will thank ten year old me for investing in Apple every single chance I get.” He leans back and gestures down the street in front of the taco shop. “That birthday present, all those years ago, let me move here.”
“I’ve never been real clear on why you did that anyway.” I reach for my margarita and take a sip.
“You,” he says; I down the last third of my margarita.
“Bullshit. You don’t make decisions like that. You never have. You’re headstrong and independent to a fault.”
“You told me about this place. About the rivers, the skiing, the beer. You painted a picture that I wanted hung on my wall. Honestly, I didn’t know you were here. I hoped, but I didn’t know.”
“The other day you said you moved here for me. To get me back or something like that.” I arch my eyebrow as I try to recall the exact wording.
He sighs but it’s not exasperated, it’s like the warm, relaxed breeze rolling up and down the street. “You light up when you’re passionate about something Mina. And I’m not talking about IPAs or Outkast or something like that, but when you talk about something more. Talking about Pyramid Peak was one of the times I saw that spark behind your eyes. I knew I’d find some happiness here and hoped that eventually I’d find you.” It’s his turn to smile shyly.
I study his profile. His plump bottom lip and strong nose. His long neck arched just the way it is. His hair in a low messy bun beneath his hat. All lit from the back with the late afternoon sun. He’s never been more beautiful. And for the first time it’s not the way he looks. It’s all the things I hoped were underneath, shining out.
“James?”
He looks up, his eyes burning into me despite their clear glass icy coolness. My breath catches in my throat, but I still manage, “Will you come home with me tonight?”
There’s an energy between James and I as we walk down the street. One of my favorite things about him has always been that there’s something living—breathing—between us. It doesn’t take touch or PDA, just presence.
And it vibrates almost as much as my bones.
As we walk toward my house.
Where my bed is.
“I’ll help you get your truck later,” James says in between the tick, tick, tick of his bike spokes.
“In the morning maybe.”
“Yeah?” he asks.
“I mean…ya know…if you…We could go back now. And get it. I mean, I have pajamas in there so…”
“Mina.” James reaches for my hand and his fingers thread in. “Leave it there forever for all I care.” He bends his arm behind his back and sets my hand on his hip.
I audibly gulp when I press up against the length of his body. Everything amplifies between us, all the sensation, all the feeling, as we walk in the pale moonlight barely lighting up the street.
My fists ball at my sides when they fall away from him as he parks his bike in front of my house. It’s the best kind of tension making my body go rigid, wound up with the anticipation. He watches me for a second, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders up to his ears.
“This is stupid.” He finally breaks the silence. “I mean, we’ve done this. Sort of.”
“Yeah.” I shove my hands in just like his. “Sort of.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he says lowly.
“Really?” I bite my lip.
“Really.” He leaves his bike and stands next to me, hands still pressed into his pockets. His elbow knocks against mine. “Come on.”
Just before we reach the door, he reaches back, his hand open and waiting for mine. I take it as we climb the last stair.
Wordlessly he guides me through my house, past the open kitchen, into the living room, then past the bookshelves—and the couch from last time—to my stairs. The ones that lead to my bedroom. My heart is hammering so hard it would stop me in my tracks if it weren’t for James’ steady hold.
When we reach the top of the stairs he turns, and grabs my other hand, walking backward toward my bed. His face is darkened by mischief, and his crooked smile has a devious tilt to it as well; it’s undeniably attractive. My face is probably the mix of shock and scared that I am. I didn’t know this side of him before and I find it equally arousing and paralyzing. His quiet confidence, his edge of dirty, the way he’s fully focused on me. I’m terrified of not being enough for this version of James—any version of James for that matter. And I know after this, there’s no turning back. Whatever hurt or happiness comes, just comes.
I think about breaking the silence. About telling him about the first time I imagined this—holy hell did I spend a lot of time thinking about this—but that only seems like more pressure.
“Mina.” James breaks the silence first, and his voice, the purr to it here in my bedroom, settles me as he sits facing me on the edge of my bed. “We can take it slow.”
“Do you want to?”
His smile shifts from sexy to simple. “Why do you always ask me? When it comes to anything else on the whole planet, you give your opinion pretty freely. When it comes to me…?”
“I don’t want to. Take it slow.”
“What do you want?”
“You. The answer has always been you.”
He uses his grip to pull me to him. I slide between his knees, then the momentum presses me to his chest. He shakes his hands free of mine and wraps them around me, using his shift to pull us both down to bed.
My arms shoot out and brace my body against the fall just like my brain has done over and over when it comes to James. He closes the distance between us just like he’s done in life, too. His lips press to the swell of my breast through the cotton of my t-shirt. Then he bites.
I call out.
He turns his nip into a trail of kisses, from my breasts up my neck to the sensitive spot just below my ear. I close my eyes, ball my hands into the comforter, and let him. His teeth nip at my neck, and I shudder. His hands notch behind my knees and tuck them up higher along his hips, his lips don’t leave my skin.
Until he sits up.
I sit back to move out of his way, and he uses my shift to slide out. For a second my heart stops, all my fears running through my head. This is a joke. This isn’t real. He couldn’t really want
me. But then he straddles me, and his hands come to the hem of my shirt.
“I plan on worshipping your tits. That’s okay with you, right?”
I nod, breathless.
“Good.”
He lifts my shirt over my head then carefully untangles my necklace when it gets caught in the neckline. The snowflake and the shell fall into the swell of my breasts, and James watches, transfixed. His long fingers reach for the charms, plucking them from their valley and lifting.
“The water and the snow, so close to your heart.”
“I love them both.”
“I know.” He presses his lips to the charms, then drops them, and his smile spreads. He follows them down to my skin, his lips tracing the seam of my bra where it lays against the swell of my breasts. For a moment, I wish I had on something sexier but then I realize this is real. This is us. It’s not some build up in a movie—though there is some serious build up—but this is how real people have great sex in real life.
By being honest.
By being us.
It doesn’t matter much anyway because as soon as James traces the length of the fabric, he reaches behind me and unhooks it.
As soon as my skin is bared, he buries his face in it. His kisses are everywhere, his nips following close behind. I can’t help but giggle and grip tighter on his shoulders.
When his hat gets in the way, he leans back just enough to whip it into the corner of the room. His gaze lingers on my chest, wicked and hungry. Just before he comes back to me, he reaches behind his neck and pulls his shirt over his head.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as my hands shoot to cover my face. It’s him. It’s James Larrabee shirtless in front of me.
I’d snuck a peek more than once at him when he lifted his shirt to wipe something or when it stuck to his ancient fleece that made regular appearances but never was the view so full. And all for me. It’s almost too much to handle. Particularly when he pulls my hands aside and makes me look at him.
He’s leaning over me, skin everywhere and eyes directly on me. His hair is slowly falling from the sloppy bun at the nape of his neck. This is the most intimate moment I’ve ever shared with another person. James and I aren’t even fully naked, but everything we are, everything we hide away from other people, is there between us.