by Laura Miller
When he gets close enough to touch me, he wraps his strong arms around my body and lifts me off the floor.
“Now, that outfit I love.” He trails a soft, deep whisper into my ear.
A shiver runs down my spine, and I almost gasp when he presses his lips to mine and gives me a long, hard, slow kiss. I take it all in—as much as I can—until our lips part, and he gently sets me down again. A strand of my hair has come to rest over my left eye; he takes it and tucks it behind my ear before flashing me a crooked grin and leaving me for the kitchen again.
I have to catch my breath. Sometimes, without warning, he just takes the air right out of me. He’s always surprising me somehow—there’s always a new, softer or funnier or sexier side of him—as if each day, I’m discovering him all over again. I’ve really never met anyone like him. He really is an interesting—and beautiful—creature.
I take a moment just to stare at him. A white, sleeveless undershirt stretches across his broad chest now, making his tan biceps look huge. And with his dark, messy hair and scruffy five-o’clock shadow darkening his jaw, he looks as if he just stepped out of an ad for men’s cologne or something. Sometimes I wonder if he’s even real.
I eventually peel my eyes away from him just long enough to situate the sweatshirt and boxers I had been holding on one stool, and I take a seat on the other.
I don’t say anything. I just go back to watching him as he puts two pieces of bread into the toaster and then moves to the stove, adjusts the flame and then turns the bacon over in the skillet with a pair of tongs. He’s done this before. Every movement is like clockwork.
“Do you need any help there, Ace?”
I’d rather just watch him and his sexy self, but I also feel a little guilty not helping.
He glances back at me. “Nah, I’ve got it all under control. You just sit back and relax, baby.”
I smile and then prop my elbows up onto the counter and rest my chin in my hands.
“Where’d you learn to do all this?”
He keeps doing what he’s doing, but he does find a moment in between flipping and placing some scrambled eggs onto a plate to look back at me.
“This?” he asks, eyeing the stove.
I nod my head.
“My grandma,” he says. “She’s one hell of a cook.”
“What about your mom?”
He laughs. “She’s one hell of a woman, but she’s no cook.”
I laugh to myself as he sets a plate and a tall glass in front of me.
“Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice,” he says, smiling proudly.
I look down at the plate and breathe in the aroma of breakfast. It’s a foreign smell. Breakfast for me is usually just a strawberry cereal bar from a generic, cardboard box.
“Jorgen, this smells and looks so good.”
He turns back to the stove, and after another minute, sets another plate and another glass of orange juice onto the counter next to mine. Then, he picks up my old sweatshirt and boxers from the stool and places them on the couch behind us. He’s careful with the clothes—almost as if he knows what they mean—meant—to me. The simple gesture makes me feel better somehow.
I wait for him to take a seat in the barstool next to me before I dig into the bacon.
“Mmm,” I say, chewing. “I think I’ll keep you.”
I swallow, and Jorgen finds my big, cheesy grin. I take another bite of the bacon and flash him a quick wink. And just like that, he seems to freeze. I start chewing slower and slower and then finally force myself to swallow. His eyes are serious now.
“I love you, Ada.”
I lower my head and feel my heart start to race. I don’t even think. I just say what I want to say in this very moment.
“I love you too,” I say, lifting my eyes to his.
A grin slowly crawls across his rugged morning face, and then, I watch as he picks up a piece of bacon and takes a big bite.
“You know, this really isn’t so bad,” he mumbles to himself as he eyes the bacon.
I’m still staring at him when his wide-eyed gaze finally falls onto mine again.
“What?” he asks. “I’ve loved you since the moment you showed up at my door naked.”
Without warning, a soft laugh escapes me. I swear I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. I go back to my plate and stick my fork into some scrambled eggs, but I keep an eye on him. And all the while, I can’t stop smiling. The three little words I thought I would never be happy to hear again from a man just melted my heart. And he had said them over eggs and bacon, as if it were just another day—as if I should have known all along how he felt about me—as if I should have known all along that he loved me. And I had said them too, and I hadn’t shattered; I didn’t break. I’m still fully intact. I mean, I had every reason to, but I never gave up on love, not even after... I stop and push the memories back.
I still believe in love. And now, in one morning, I had woken up with my first love, crawled into bed with my new love, shed a layer of my old life, had grown a new one and had said I love you–all before finishing my eggs, bacon and toast.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Love
“Well, what do you want to do today, Ada Bear?”
Jorgen picks up my plate and sets it into the sink, while I take in a deep breath and breathe out a smile.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
He nods his head. “Absolutely nothing sounds pretty good to me.”
He comes up behind me and kisses me softly on my neck, sending goose bumps down my arms and legs. Then, all of a sudden, he scoops me into his arms.
I laugh out loud and tighten my arms around his neck. He carries me to the couch and lays me gently down, then lies next to me and rests his forehead on mine.
“I do love you,” he says.
I let go of a wide grin. “So I’ve heard.”
“You know, I pictured it being more romantic when I said it—like maybe there were fireworks in the background or rose petals on the floor or there was this plane writing it in big cloud letters in the sky. But you just looked so darn cute in my sweatshirt, and you said you liked my bacon; I just had to say it.”
I laugh. “I did like your bacon. And I liked that you said it over breakfast.”
He’s quiet for a moment, but he keeps his eyes in mine. I wish sometimes I could tell what he was thinking.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Ada, but I want to be around you all the time. I mean, I know it’s only been a few months, but I just know, you know?”
My eyes drop from his. I can feel the heat rushing to my face.
“You’re just so dang beautiful,” he goes on, brushing a strand of my hair out of my face with the back of his hand, “with your green eyes and your pretty lips and your little nose.” He presses his lips to my nose, then pulls away. “But it’s not just that. Ada, you make me laugh. And you’re grounded. And you really see people, you know?”
My eyes venture back to his. I’m still blushing, but now my eyebrows are also knitting together a little. I’m not sure what he means.
“In your stories—every day—you see more in people,” he explains. “You see more than just an old man owning a bunch of old tractors or an eccentric woman who might or might not harbor strange illusions about cats. You can appreciate that some things are strange and you can laugh about them, but you can see past it all too. You see a soul, a life, a heart that beats.”
He lowers his eyes. “That sounds really corny.”
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t.”
Now, he’s blushing. It looks cute on him.
“Well,” I say, “if you had my job, you’d learn to do that too.”
I watch him slowly shake his head.
“You didn’t learn that, Ada. People don’t learn that sort of thing. That’s a heart thing. You either got it or you don’t. That’s what my dad always said, anyway.”
My gaze gets stuck on the leather in the couch.
I find his blue eyes.
“I really admire what you do—more than you know,” I continue. “I can’t imagine how much courage it takes to see what you see every day and to still put a smile on your face at the end of it and to still want to get up the next day and do it all over again.”
I stop and look away. I don’t want him to see my emotions betraying me.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Why are you thanking me?”
The words are on my tongue. I want to tell him that someone like him once rescued me, but I let the moment pass instead. I’m afraid I’ll fall into a billion, tiny pieces, and I won’t be able to put myself back together again.
“Because you probably don’t hear it enough,” I say instead.
I lock onto his eyes again and fall deep into their shade of blue. Then, all of a sudden, I feel his strong arms tighten around me.
“I had a crush on you even before I saw you naked outside my apartment that first day, Ada Cross,” he whispers into my ear.
He loosens his grip on me, and I pull away a little.
“Before?” I question.
“Yeah,” he admits, nodding his head. “From afar—from the other side of a magazine article.”
He stops and laughs to himself.
“No you didn’t,” I say, shaking my head.
“Oh, but I did,” he confesses. “I fell in love with a writer who saw the good in strange people.”
His sexy, crooked grin makes me smile.
“Jorgen.” My voice is almost a whisper. “I love you.”
He meets my longing gaze and then leans in and kisses my lips. I wish he knew how much those words mean to me and how hard it is for me to say them—not because I don’t love him but because I love someone else too—someone who I know will never say the words back to me.
“I love you too, Ada Bear,” I hear him whisper into my ear as he pulls me into his arms again. “I love you too, my Ada Bear.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marriage
“You ever think about marriage?”
I almost drop the glass pitcher to the floor when his words hit my ears.
“Uh, what do you mean?” I try my best to quietly clear my throat.
“Like what it’ll be like,” Jorgen says. “I think about it sometimes.”
His eyes wander over to me. His face is scrunched up in thought. “Is that weird?”
I rest the pitcher safely onto the counter.
“No,” I say, simply.
I watch him smile softly, seemingly vindicated.
“I think it would be the coolest thing, you know?” he goes on. “Coming home to someone every night and taking trips together and getting to say, ‘my wife.’”
My breath hitches as I open the refrigerator door and slide the pitcher onto the top shelf. And when I turn around, I catch him in the living room flipping through my coffee table book full of awkward family photos and smiling to himself.
“Jorgen.”
His eyes find mine. I inhale deeply and then slowly force it out. “I have to tell you something.”
He hesitates, then sets the book down into his lap.
“What is it?”
He’s wearing a smile, and it looks as if he’s not the least bit prepared for what I’m about to say. It makes me nervous for him—and for me.
“I...,” I start and then stop.
I look down and grip the edge of the counter with both hands. I would swear that time had stopped if I couldn’t hear the clock on the wall noisily ticking out the seconds. I feel as if someone else has taken control of me. It’s as if someone else is about to say what I can’t. I squeeze the countertop and open my mouth just as my apartment door bursts open.
“Lada, I have coffee!”
Hannah’s cheerful song echoes through my little apartment, cutting straight through the silence, as she takes a step inside and stops when she notices Jorgen.
“Oh hey, Jorgen.”
She doesn’t seem as thrown off as she had been the first time she had barged into my apartment and had found Jorgen in my living room.
“I didn’t know you were off today,” Hannah continues. “Here, you can have my coffee.”
She tries to hand him her cup.
“No,” Jorgen says, smiling and gesturing for her to keep her coffee.
“I only took one sip,” Hannah tries to persuade him.
Jorgen smiles wider. “No, it’s really okay. I’m not a big coffee drinker anyway.”
Hannah flashes him a playful expression of disapproval. “Gotta watch those non-coffee drinkers,” she says, turning her attention to me. “They make me nervous—always awake and happy without reason.”
Hannah quickly turns back toward Jorgen and smiles. Jorgen returns her smile with his own. Then, Hannah takes a seat on one of the barstools facing me.
“I really should start knocking,” she whispers to me.
I nod. “Not a bad idea.”
She pushes her lips to one side and then dips her head in agreement. “Noted,” she whispers.
Hannah could have picked a better time to come barging in with coffee, but I’m glad she didn’t. I want so badly to tell Jorgen everything, but I also think that I just as badly don’t want to tell him anything. I wonder sometimes if I could just get by with never saying the words—ever. I wonder if it would even matter if he never knew. But then, I know that’s not really possible...or fair. He should know...soon, and I should be the one to tell him.
“So,” Hannah says. “We’re having a barbeque tomorrow evening.”
“We?” I ask.
“Yeah, Mom and I cooked it up. Just the family—and Jorgen, of course.”
Hannah sends me a quick, reassuring look that says: It’ll be okay. And then she dramatically spins around on the stool and faces Jorgen.
“Jorgen, you can come, right?” she asks.
Jorgen looks at me. I try to hide the utter fear I feel inside about a night with Jorgen surrounded by my family. I know Hannah probably doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but I have never brought anyone home before—not like this. And it is my family we’re talking about. I mean, if they didn’t feel the need to express their every opinion about certain aspects of my life at every turn, it wouldn’t be so bad, and I wouldn’t be so terrified—but that also wouldn’t be my family.
I force my lips into a faint smile that Jorgen seems to notice.
“I’d love to,” he says.
“Great,” Hannah exclaims before she glances at her watch and jumps up. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Just wanted to drop off the coffee and tell you about the barbeque. Lada, call me later. We can figure out a time for tomorrow.”
Hannah slips out the door then just as quickly as she had slipped in a few minutes ago, and instantly, my eyes fall on Jorgen. He looks happy and maybe a little nervous. I make my way to the living room and sit down next to him on the couch.
“They’ll love you,” I say and mean it.
I watch his sky-blue eyes slowly light up. “Well, I’m excited to meet them.” His happy gaze lowers and then quickly lifts again, grabbing my attention. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?”
I feel my face going blank until I remember there was something—something I don’t want to say anymore and risk losing that beautiful smile hanging on his lips.
“Uh, no,” I say, shaking my head.
He takes a wayward strand of my hair and secures it behind my ear.
“I love you, Ada.”
I lower my eyes and press my lips together.
“I love you too,” I say, eventually leveling my gaze with his again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Tree
“What’s this?”
I turn and then sigh once I see what Jorgen’s eyes are planted on. We made it through the whole me
eting-the-family thing with not so much as a mention of my life before I was nineteen. Even Hannah kept her mouth shut, which is basically a small miracle. But now, it’s me who leads him straight into an old memory.
“Is the L for Logan?” he asks, eventually.
I slowly nod my head and push my lips to one side.
He glances at me and then turns his attention back to the big oak tree with the heart carved into its bark.
“The A—your tattoo?” he asks.
I nod my head again.
He keeps his eyes planted on the tree, but I know he can see me nodding my head. Meanwhile, I spot a rock on the ground near my feet, and I kick it gently around with my shoe.
“Did you ever have a high school sweetheart?” I ask.
A silent moment passes.
“No,” he says at last, shaking his head.
I feel my eyes grow wide. “I don’t believe you.”
“No, really,” he says. “I never really paid attention too much to girls in high school. My head was so deep into football—that, and I had eight girls in my class and two of them, that I knew of, were my cousins. And I wasn’t really sure about the rest of them either. I was pretty convinced that we were all related somehow or another.”
“Wait. But you dated a girl in high school—who wasn’t in your class, right?”
His forehead wrinkles, and he seems to think about it for a moment.
“In high school? No, not really,” he says. “It was all kind of the same thing. They were all just siblings or cousins of the girls in my class.”
I slowly push my lips into a pout. “That’s kind of sad.”
“What? Why?” he asks.
He’s smiling, but he looks completely puzzled.
“Because,” I say, “that means you never got to write notes back and forth during fourth hour, and you never got to wear someone’s name on the back of your tee shirt during a game or you never broke curfew because you fell asleep in some old hammock somewhere.”
He laughs to himself, and it snaps me out of my starry trance.
“What?” I ask.