by Sara Whitney
“Of course not. You? Quiet?”
“Exactly!” They shared a smile, but hers immediately slipped off her face. “Anyway, today she spelled out for me again how much I embarrass her. My disappointing job, my lack of a college degree, my ‘middling’ talent. Just… all of it.”
He tilted his head to look at her. “You know she’s wrong about you.”
“Is she though?” Josie rubbed a hand over her tired eyes, which were probably still pink and puffy from all the tears she’d cried. She pushed the worst part out. “Thing is, I’m still desperate for her to tell me she’s proud of me. My whole life, she’s made it clear how inadequate I am, but every time she snaps her fingers, I come running, begging for scraps of affection. I fight about everything in my life, but when it comes to my mom, I roll over and show her my belly. It’s pathetic.”
“It’s natural.”
Although he didn’t say more, Josie knew he was thinking about the story he’d shared in the van. “I suppose it is.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, huddling into herself. If only she’d reached the healthy place with her disappointing mother that he seemed to have found with his.
He drained his beer and set it aside. “As a smart woman once told me, fuck your mom. She doesn’t know what she’s missing with you.”
His voice was as vehement as she’d ever heard it, and she let a little truth spill out.
“What’s she missing, exactly? Jokes and temper and too many expensive shoes? Basically nobody in my life has the patience to put up with me. Did you know I almost broke up Finn and Tom right after they got together? I’m a life-ruiner.” She tried to laugh at the weak attempt at self-deprecation, but the sound died in her throat. Sharing this much with Erik was terrifying, yet the weight on her chest felt lighter with every confession. “Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve been able to spend so much time with… all this.”
She gestured down at herself, hoping he understood everything she was referring to: her obsession with the outward appearance of success, her undying quest for validation, her unmet need for love. She couldn’t joke her way through this, and what’s more, she didn’t want to. After a lifetime of rejection, her defense system was finally shutting down, leaving her weak and unprotected.
Then again, perhaps for the first time ever, she had a champion. Erik plucked the wineglass from her hand and set it on the coffee table, then swept his thumbs over her cheekbones, blotting up a stray tear that had escaped during her brutal self-assessment.
“Hey, look at me.” He didn’t speak again until she’d met his kind, steady eyes. “You are spectacular. Shoes and temper and all. I love every minute I spend with you.”
The sincerity rolling off him was too much for her. Too earnest, too honest, and too misguided. She cut her glance away, but he wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and drew her close enough that he could gently bite her left earlobe to recapture her attention. Her eyes flew back to his, but even his proprietary touch couldn’t chase away all the negativity inside of her.
“I’m angry, and I’m bossy.”
He batted her breathless words away. “You’re assertive and brave. And you’re smart as hell. You helped me see that all this was possible.”
He inclined his head toward the stairs that led to his bakery, and yes, true, she did feel a certain sense of pride at being part of the huge strides he’d taken over the past few months.
“You are spectacular,” he said again. “Tell me you believe that.”
He tightened his grip on her neck, and she just… she dropped her walls. She let his faith in her wash in like a tide, and it filled her up where she was parched.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I believe you.”
His thumb stroked down the column of her neck. “Say it.”
When she hesitated, he delivered another ear nip that she felt all the way down to her core.
“Okay, I-I’m spectacular.”
“Once more.”
“I’m spectacular!” she shouted.
“Damn right. And you’re going to tell your mom that the next time you see her.” He kissed her hard and fast, then he shocked the hell out of her by asking casually, “Do you want to go out tonight?”
She brushed away the last of her excess-emotion tears and looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean, out?”
Now he was the one turning pink. “Out. Like… dancing? Or dinner? What do you usually do on Saturday night?” He shifted on the couch, looking nervous, and oh. Ooooh. He was asking her out out, and he was so damn cute she might actually die.
And of course she had to mess with him a little. How would he know it was her if she didn’t throw in a little snark? “Dancing would be amazing. You own a pair of leather pants, right? Or something really shiny and mesh? That’s the dress code of the club I’m thinking of.”
She let him blink in utter speechlessness for a good fifteen seconds before she dissolved into laughter. “You should see your face! God, no, I’m kidding. On Saturday nights when I don’t have to work, I put on my stretchiest clothes, order in, and watch Netflix. It’s the secret Josie Ryan that nobody gets to see.”
He slumped against the couch in relief. “Can we do that one?”
“You want the secret Josie?” She was really asking, and she wanted a real answer.
He didn’t disappoint. “I do.”
The simple words, simply spoken, had her stomach performing a loop. Her emotions surged and threatened to consume her, so she groped for her sass. “Okay, but I still say you’d look great in leather pants.”
“You’re killing me,” he said fondly. “Where are we ordering from?”
Four hours later, they were in danger of forming actual, physical bonds with the couch, they’d moved so little. Empty take-out cartons littered the table in front of them, and Josie was tucked into Erik’s side, wearing one of his old T-shirts since her fancy lunch dress wasn’t great for lounging.
She was content. No, she was ecstatic. He’d have to serve her an eviction notice when their time together was done because this was her new happy place.
The Netflix movie they’d agreed on chattered away in the background, and her eyes drifted lower and lower until Erik’s voice called her back from the brink of sleep.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Mmm?” she said drowsily.
“This building is two blocks from a grade school and four from a high school.”
“So many kids,” she said, not clear where he was headed with this.
“So much foot traffic,” he said. “And I have that big customer area in front.”
“You do.” She burrowed in closer, loving the rumble of his voice when she pressed her ear to his chest.
“So maybe I make some cupcakes. For the foot traffic.”
The idea hit her like a thunderclap, and she straightened, sleepy brain revving. “Foot traffic. Cupcakes! Yes.” She reached forward and paused the movie. “Get the moms after they drop their kiddies off. Serve coffee, let them hang out and chat. Maybe buy a premade birthday cake while they’re there. This could be huge for you. Huge.”
Her brain was off at a gallop, racing toward a future where she’d helped build this place into the most in-demand bakery in Chicago.
“Already got a few quotes on a fancy coffee maker.”
His interjection pulled her back, and she laughed in delight. “My marketing genius! You don’t need me anymore.”
“Yes I do.” The lightness fell from his tone, and she smiled gratefully at him.
“Okay, then I won’t go anywhere.” Rather than tie herself in knots looking for deeper meaning in his words, she focused on what a foot-traffic business model would do for her advertising strategy. “Did you lock in any more vendors this week?”
“Yep. I’ve got the suppliers all lined up to start ingredient delivery on Monday. And I took two more orders for wedding cakes.”
“That’s fantastic!” She rubbed her hands together and c
ackled. She’d never get tired of seeing her plans come to fruition. “So what do you say to a grand-opening event? Do a little advertising, invite our friends, lure the neighbors in to sample your wares?”
“Yes. Smart. And I may need to hire some help soon.”
“Oh! Already?”
He nodded. “I’ve had a couple of inquiries, one from a current Dora employee.”
“Let’s definitely poach that bitch’s staff.” She could juggle a little revenge along with her business launch. “So how close are we to doing this?”
“Very close. Like two weeks from now close.”
“I’ll start making the arrangements,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Erik, it’s really happening.”
His lips winged upward, and she lost her breath at how gorgeous he was and how frequently he smiled these days. Hadn’t that expression been rare once upon a time?
“Are you ready for bed?” he asked.
“Only if you’re coming too.”
He hugged her close. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
They raced through the meal cleanup, and once they made it to bed, he showed her that it wasn’t just that indoor sex was more dignified than clawing at each other like animals against the wall of a van. He showed her how he could soothe her busy mind with sweet, drugging kisses and quiet her needy skin with the slow pass of his fingers across her arms, her breasts, her back, her everywhere. He showed her what it felt like to entrust your heart to someone worthy, and when he twined his fingers around hers and pushed into her so slowly that she could feel the fullness and the weight of him, he showed her what forever could feel like.
Twenty-Seven
Erik woke the next morning to Josie’s fingers walking across his chest.
“Tell me your secrets.”
He grunted. “I told you my secrets yesterday.”
“Not just the sad ones. I want the fun ones too. I want to know you.”
As his brain slowly came online, it raised an alert: this wasn’t a jokey request.
He pulled his eyes open to find her looking down at him with an unusually serious expression on her clean-scrubbed face.
“Sure,” he yawned. “Uh, what do you want to know?” He delighted in these moments when she let her guard down, but he’d never dealt with one of them pre-coffee.
“How about these shoulder freckles?” Her fingers brushed his bare skin there, only to be replaced briefly by her teeth and then the soft press of her lips. That woke him up. He shifted to face her, and she took the opportunity to prop her chin on her laced fingers, using his bicep as a pillow. “My mom was always paranoid I’d be one of those freckled redheads, so she slathered me in sunblock every time I got near the front door. To this day, I loathe the smell of her expensive SPF stuff.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to compliment her skin, which glowed in the bright July sunlight streaming through the windows. But that wasn’t what she was after this morning. She wanted truth, and he could give her that.
“Hours on the riding mower without a shirt as a kid. Pops didn’t worry much about sunblock.”
Another kiss to his shoulder, then she snaked her arm across his chest. “Okay, how about the scar?” She ran her palm over the crooked pink line cutting across his torso, and he shifted to let her small hand trace the length of it.
“Cattle hoof.”
She winced and looked at him expectantly, so he offered her the least gruesome version of the story. “Loading a heifer into the chute for insemination. She objected.”
Her brows arched upward on a smirk, alerting him that a dirty thought had floated through her mind, but she surprised him again by keeping the comment to herself. Instead, she held up her left hand and pointed to a scar that cut along the outside toward her wrist, so thin and pale that he’d never noticed it before.
“When I turned seventeen, Mom didn’t bother celebrating my birthday. Didn’t even mention it. So I got drunk that night. Not with friends or anything, just alone at home on vodka and Diet Coke. I passed out in the bathroom and woke up covered in blood from where I’d dropped the glass on the tile.”
“Jesus.” He ran his thumb along the long, silvery line, his heart aching for that long-ago lonely girl.
She laced the fingers of her once-injured hand through his.
“I cleaned it all up the next morning between bouts of puking and then took myself to urgent care for stitches. She didn’t even notice.” Her smile was sad as she looked at their joined hands. “I told anybody who asked that it was a kitchen accident, and I’ve been careful about how much I drink ever since. Not even Richard knows the real story.”
He was wrong. That lonely girl wasn’t gone; she’d just grown into an adult who hid her insecurities behind a wall. And he was the person she’d let inside.
“Thank you for telling me.” The words were insufficient for the gratitude he felt at her trust, but she smiled anyway, a little more brightly this time.
“Thanks for listening.” Then she dropped a kiss on his chest and asked, “Okay, how about the tattoo?”
She rubbed a thumb over the lion’s head on his left pec, and he swallowed a groan. No way was he getting out of this with his dignity intact.
“From high school. It’s part of a matched set.” His flare of hope that it was enough information to satisfy her was short-lived when she bared her teeth.
“Look, I think I’ve been a pretty good sport about things, but if Gina has a matching lion on her boob, I will have to kill her.”
Ah, there were those walls again. But he spotted the insecurity lurking under her words and quickly punctured it. “Not Gina. It’s a guy. Actually, it’s ten other guys.”
A beat, and then her pointy little finger jabbed at his armpit. “Explain.”
He rolled over and pressed his face into the mattress to avoid looking at her as he answered. It was almost enough to make him wish he’d kept his shirt on when she was around—almost. In actuality, he relished the hunger in her eyes when she looked at his bare chest, enough that he was willing to confess the truth.
“It was, ah, a senior varsity football team decision. We were the Liberty Valley Lions.”
“We?”
At her delighted tone, he pressed his face deeper into the mattress. So much for the intimate moment they’d just shared.
“Erik,” she said. “Maker of cakes. Guy who banged me senseless last night. Have you been holding out on me? Were you a high school football player?” She punctuated her last question by draping herself over his back and rolling around on top of him in a fit of laughter. As she was still naked, the squealing and writhing at his expense was an extra special form of torture.
“Yes,” he grumped.
She rolled off him to flop weakly on the mattress. “What position did you play?” she asked through her giggles.
Goddammit. “Tight end.”
His reluctant answer sent her into the throes of a silent laughing fit before she finally hooted, “That’s no secret! I already knew that!” She reached down to slap his ass, bare under the sheet.
He huffed and waited for her convulsions to die down enough to explain, “It’s not a big deal. High school basketball was much bigger in my town.”
“Oh, it’s a big deal.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “So do you still have your jersey? Oh my God, can I wear it? Will you take me to brunch today and let me tell everybody we meet that my boyfriend’s a jock?”
Her laughter choked to a halt as the word boyfriend hung in the air above the bed, vibrating like a struck bell.
This time she was the one to flip over and try to burrow through the mattress. “Oh my God, forget I said that. I got carried away. In my defense, I was picturing you in those tight, shiny pants.”
The words emerged muffled from where she’d pressed her face into the sheets, and he rolled over to run a hand down the length of her spine.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. I don’t mind,” he said soothingly.
; She peeked at him warily. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. It’s flattering. I love getting invited to brunch.” He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling as embarrassed outrage flooded her face.
“Oh my God! I like it so much better when I’m the one teasing you,” she wailed into his mattress.
“Boyfriend.” He said the word out loud, and she froze but didn’t roll over to face him.
Enough of that. He wanted this out in the open.
“You’re better with words,” he said, addressing her back, “so you tell me. Is that what you want?” Because fuck, he needed to know. He’d used his body to show her how he felt in every way that he could, and he’d even used his words to try to ease the hurt caused by her mother. But he still had no idea if she was just a tourist here or if she was experiencing the heady, confusing, overwhelming things he was.
Real things. Long-term things.
She rolled over but didn’t meet his eyes, busying herself collecting her wild morning hair and twisting it into a tail that hung over one shoulder. “Can’t you… can’t you give me some perfect sign? Steal my house keys? Hand me your class ring? Give me a clue so it’s not just me out here alone?”
He was helpless when she hit him with those big brown eyes, so he attempted to fumble his thoughts into words. “The day I met you, I risked a fight on the train, and I’ve been doing things that scare the shit out of me ever since.” He leaned against the headboard with a soft laugh. “Let’s see. I started my own bakery. I put my face on a business card. I sold my family farm. I bought a suit. I told you about Leo the Liberty Valley lion. I’ve spoken more words to you than I have to any other human being. I trusted you with my whole future. How many more clues do you need?”