“You’re pretty preoccupied lately, Stella. If you ask me, you have too much on your mind and his name is Brian,” she winks on the last word. “That man is just ... too much.”
I can hear the sigh in her words, that thing girls do when they get all dreamy about a guy. I don’t like Steph acting that way. I don’t like the fact Steph has obviously noticed Brian.
“Whoa killer. Easy with the death glare,” she snaps.
“What? What do you mean?” Caryn is the oblivious one, not me; I’m lost. I still have to get the lasagna put together and I have some serious calming down to do before they get here. And now I definitely have to kick my sister out before Brian and Britt arrive.
“You looked like you might leap across the room and gouge my eyes out. You’ve known this guy, what, a week?”
“Twenty-eight years, four months,” I rattle off with ease, like I’ve been counting the days on my desk blotter. I haven’t, but ... well, I may as well have been. “They moved into their house next door to us in May the year I turned five. Brian was already five when they came to Brockport.”
I laugh at the memory of him calling across the way to me from his bedroom.
I am four and he just turned five.
His name is Brian and he has blonde hair and blue eyes.
My mommy says his parents are nice and I’ll really like their little boy. They just moved in next door and I can see Brian’s bedroom from my window. He’s in there playing with his blocks and it looks like fun, so I turn to leave my room to go downstairs and find my blocks, too.
“Hey, want to play?”
I hear the little voice somewhere behind me coming in through the open window. He sounds nice just like Mommy said he was, like he could be my friend, but that’s a lot of trust to put into four words.
I turn back around and walk to the window, coming face to face with the boy behind the voice.
“Earth to Stella?” Steph is standing in front of me, snapping her fingers in my face. “Where’d you go, sis?”
I blink at her. I’ve been zoning out a lot lately. Maybe I should look into taking a vacation.
“Before you were born I didn’t have friends. When Brian moved in next door, I had this idea he wouldn’t want to be my friend because he already had his built-in best friend — Tommy was almost three and the boys were inseparable.” I look out the window as the sun dips lower in the sky, muting the fall colors on the trees along the side of the house. “But he wanted to play with me. The first day they lived next door, Brian and I sat on our front porch playing with Legos for hours while his parents unloaded and unpacked. We were practically joined at the hip from that day until they moved to Tennessee.”
Her eyes soften, and I hope that look is her finally understanding without me having to come right out and say it, admit to someone other than myself that Brian was my first love.
From the first words he spoke to me.
The first time I saw his face.
I fell so hard.
I haven’t told her much, but the little bit of information I’ve given Caryn has been enough to satisfy her curiosity — we grew up together, he moved, we lost touch, now he’s back — but even with my best friend I’ve held back the new details ... where I feel myself falling hard for him all over again, but this time I have grown up feelings.
I leave out the details because I’m newly divorced and the last thing I need anyone in this little town to think is the local reporter is slipping into bed with the first guy to turn her head since the ink dried on her divorce decree. I just ... can’t. I don’t want to have to defend my life and my choices to anyone right now, so my mouth stays shut.
I just hope Steph can read between all those blurred lines.
I look at her and pray she can read my mind.
“So, this Brian guy. He seems like a rock star in the male species category. Successful businessman, seems to be a fabulous dad, his kid is great ... he’s fucking gorgeous.” Stephanie eyes me timidly. “Single.”
“Single. He brought me coffee yesterday. Well, not just me. It was more like the entire volunteer fire department, but I think he was there for me,” I say almost in a whisper, recalling the feelings he made me feel before he left me standing there practically panting from a simple kiss on the forehead. “And then when I stopped by the coffee shop, he’d made me my regular order with a double shot of espresso and wrapped up a scone for me.”
“He’s got it bad for you. Baked goods and coffee for you are like a normal woman’s version of wine and dine and jewelry.”
She’s right. They are. And as strange as it is to admit, Keith never figured that out. I have more necklaces than I would ever wear from years of him not figuring out some really good cupcakes or a new coffee maker would get a bigger reaction out of me. Somehow, Brian got it right from the beginning, when I showed up on his doorstep in the rain.
I let out the breath I’m holding.
“Shit! They’re going to be here in an hour and the pasta isn’t even put together, and I look like hell. Help me,” I say, grabbing Steph’s hand and dragging her to the counter space where the ingredients are laid out.
Like clockwork, she layers noodles, I add sauce, more noodles, cheese, and in record time the pan is in the oven, a bottle of wine uncorked and she’s got me sitting in a chair while she does something with my hair. I take the first sip of a perfectly chilled crisp vidal blanc and give myself permission to relax.
“You know, if you wanted me to, I could always come back later this evening after you and the boys eat and steal Britt away. Take him for ice cream or something? It would give you and Brian some more time to catch up.”
Her tone is mildly suggestive, but innocent somehow. I stop mid-sip. “That’s not a bad idea. But I kind of want to get to know Britt, too. Plus, I’m new to this whole single thing. Maybe a tiny chaperone isn’t such a bad idea.”
“True. You can’t get into too much trouble with the kid here. Hair’s done. I’m going to head out. Mom’s convinced me to come do yoga with her, because, you know, we do yoga now,” Steph says, rolling her eyes as I snort out a laugh.
“Good luck with that! Are you coming over tomorrow for our usual?”
“Maybe. Call me in the afternoon and see how sore I am from all this yogatastic stuff with Mom. If I’m moderately sore, it’s a yes. If I feel paralyzed from the shoulders down, drink my portion.”
Steph gives me a kiss on the cheek and walks out the front door. I turn and head up the stairs to change out of my dress clothes and into a pair of worn jeans, a white men’s tank and one of my dad’s old flannel shirts. Comfort comes first. Brian’s seen me practically at my worst. Compared to that, I look like a model in this outfit.
I head back downstairs to set the table ... and wait.
***
“After we lost touch, I never thought I’d see you again. I think I always held out hope that I’d run across you at some point, but stopped trying to look for you in every crowd,” I say to Brian, handing him a plate to dry. Britt took his coloring books and crayons into the living room when we finished dinner, giving me and Brian a chance to talk more, the conversation coming easily after spending a meal talking about our childhood and all we’ve done since Brian moved to Tennessee — our educations and careers, our families. “I couldn’t handle the heartache of never finding your face. It didn’t help I was supposed to be loving Keith, and I did, but he wasn’t you. Even when we were kids, Keith was never able to replace you.”
I let the last sentence slip from my lips quietly, coming to audible terms that Brian has forever been irreplaceable. While Steph could see it in my eyes and hear it when she read between the lines earlier, I’ve just unwittingly outted myself. My heart may as well lay beating on the kitchen floor because it feels like every emotion I’ve ever had for this man just leaped from my body and, even though it’s the last thing I should do, I want to say to him, “Here. Take this. Maybe you can fix it, put it back together and make it whole ag
ain.”
I don’t say it though. I’ve already said so much more than I had planned, more than I thought I’d be able to put into words.
The movement beside me comes to a stop. Before I can get my hands out of the soapy dishwater and turn in his direction, he’s set the plate and towel on the counter and snatched me up, pulling me firmly to his chest. No words are spoken, but they don’t need to be. Everything he wants to say is in his touch, the gentle strength with which he holds me, and I breathe him in deeply so I can make a new memory of us.
My suds covered hands rest at his elbows for another brief moment before I glide them up his arms, over his biceps to his broad shoulders and, standing on my tiptoes, I lean into him more. I need more of Brian — in my arms, in my life, in my heart — and my hands find one another, clasping at the nape of his neck as I rest my forehead against the side of his face, close my eyes and let him hold me a little longer.
This isn’t a friendly hug. This is a touch that could consume me. There’s a hunger in the way he grips my waist as though he’s waited a lifetime for a moment like this one.
“At last,” he sighs into my hair as he starts swaying us to some imaginary tune, one that I’m sure is saying everything our mouths can’t right now.
We’re in the midst of our music-less dance when I hear the refrigerator open behind me and Britt giggle. I’m not even sure how long Brian and I have stood like this, while he’s been in the other room coloring and the dishwater has turned tepid. It feels like fate’s pushed us together and reminded us we’re allowed to feel despite heartache and past lovers no longer loving us, that regardless of how broken we may be as individuals we’re each a half and together that makes us whole.
Color rises to my cheeks when I think about everything my body is doing to betray the exterior armor I try so hard to keep in place.
“Shhh ... go color,” Brian says softly to Britt, and I feel a smile form on his lips as his cheek moves against my face.
“I have never seen my daddy look at someone the way he does when he looks at Stella,” Britt says to ... someone? Maybe he has an imaginary friend. What kid hasn’t had one of those?
“Yeah, well, Stella tends to look like that when she talks about your daddy, so I think the feeling is mutual,” I hear Stephanie say. She must have snuck in when Brian and I weren’t paying attention, which has been most of the hour since we finished dinner.
I lift my head and pull back to look at Brian. The air had a crackle in it when he showed up at my table in the coffeehouse last week; tonight it’s an electrical firestorm.
“I haven’t even been officially divorced a week, Bri,” I say, not able to get my voice much louder than a whisper, as we stare at each other. “I have a feeling that doesn’t matter much to you.”
“No, it doesn’t. But I won’t push for more than you’re willing to give me,” he says as his focus dances between my eyes and lips as they part ever so slightly beneath his gaze.
“I’m willing to give you my entire world,” I say, as his head dips dangerously close to my mouth, “but you’re going to have to work for it.”
Brian
Chapter Fifteen
“Work for it?” I lift my head slightly, my eyes falling on her mouth, a mouth so perfect da Vinci could have painted it on her himself, and I consider what working for it might entail. “I’ll work for it Stell. I came back for you, I prayed every night for you, I wished on every shooting star I saw ... I wished for you.”
Her breath comes out in a rush, caressing my lips like the kiss I’m anticipating — like I’ve been waiting for since I saw her for the second first time of my life — and it undoes me. My resolve to make her wait a little longer to feel my lips and teeth and tongue dissolves in an instant.
I won’t let fate take all the credit for this, I think, catching Stella’s full bottom lip between mine and feeling it quiver against my teeth as I deepen our first real kiss. Her breath hitches and a smile spreads across her face beneath my lips as she unhooks her hands from my neck and slowly, ever so slowly, slides them over my shoulders to rest on my chest and settles her feet flat on the floor.
She’s nestled her body closer to mine and I can feel her heart beating against me, a steady and quick boom-boom boom-boom at my ribcage, like it’s knocking, begging to break down any remaining walls to get to my heart.
Joke’s on Stella.
Those walls came tumbling down the moment I saw her in my café. She may not know it yet, but seeing Stella again was the breath that brought me back to life.
I break the kiss just long enough to make sure she’s real, reaching up to touch her face, her eyes dropping closed as she leans into my palm, her breathing heavy.
She’s just as affected by me as I am by her and I can’t keep my mouth off her another second. She breathes out a sigh, opening enough for the tip of my tongue to glide along her bottom lip, tasting of remnants of the fresh garlic bread I’d made just for tonight.
Dropping her head to the side, she gives me room to deepen our connection and I taste her, my tongue sliding along hers in a war of the senses, before pulling her top lip into my mouth and fisting my hand in her chestnut brown hair.
I kiss her like she means everything to me, because she does. And I kiss her with a passion strong enough to try to waylay my fears from seeing her at that fire, because no matter how safe she might have been or what good hands she was in, I couldn’t function until I saw she was okay. I kiss her like it’s the last time I may ever feel her lips against mine.
She feels so good in my arms, like she was made to fit against me, and I pull her as close as I can without crawling inside her soul to share the space.
Trailing my lips from Stella’s mouth down along her jaw, I try to memorize the way her skin feels beneath mine, and as those gentle kisses reach the spot where her ear and neck collide, I feel her knees shake and a soft moan escape her throat.
“Should I work a little harder?” I ask, teasing without moving my mouth from the newly discovered oasis of flesh. The vibration from my words releases another involuntary moan, deep in her throat, and I can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since she’s been touched like this, admired like this, as small a gesture as it is in this moment.
I can’t help but wonder if he loved her like I want to.
“You’re working?” Stella says quietly, dropping her forehead to my shoulder. “That didn’t feel like you were even trying.”
I hear the teasing in her voice, but my brain registers it as a challenge ... and I’m really good at winning.
I place another kiss to her neck and make quick work down to her collarbone, nudging her flannel shirt to the side with my nose to allow me access to the tender flesh hiding underneath. Walking her backward until we’re pressed up against the counter, I place my hands on either side of her, caging her in.
“Sorry, ma’am. I’ll try harder,” I say, humor tickling the edges of my voice as I lift my head and smile down at her before capturing her lips between mine again.
It hits me that we’re making out like teenagers in her kitchen ... right before I realize we’re making out in her kitchen while my son is sitting a couple rooms away hanging out with Stella’s sister. It’s nothing we’ve encountered in his short lifetime —me being intimate with anyone — and I’m not sure how to talk to him, or what to tell him about what’s going on between me and Stella.
I’ll deal with it, I tell myself, I’ll deal with it when the time comes.
Leaning my forehead against hers, I keep my eyes closed and try to reign in the emotion pulsing through me, attempt to calm the throbbing in my pelvis.
I breathe her in.
It doesn’t help either issue.
I want to carry her out of this kitchen and up the stairs to a bed. I want to prove to her she’s worthy of all the love I’ve secretly been storing away for her over the years. She’s worth all those tiny rooms in my chest I’ve closed off to anyone else. She’s worth every kiss I�
�ve missed exploring with her between ages nine and nineteen, every lust-filled glance I’ve reserved from fifteen to today.
But I can’t prove any of that to her tonight.
Not tonight.
She’s too fragile and I won’t be the one to break her, but, Lord, how I want to bend her just a little bit at a time until she’s ready for me. She’ll make me work for anything she has to offer — I know her heart isn’t going to be served to me on a silver platter.
And I don’t want it to be.
I want to prove that every time I kiss her it’s because I can’t wait to kiss her.
“Hey, cowboy, did I lose you?” she says, brushing her hand along the day’s growth on my face. “I feel like you drifted off into foreign territory. Come back to me.”
“I’ll always come back to you, Stella,” I say, keeping my eyes closed, fearful she’ll see everything I have to offer in a single glance. “I’ll never not find you.”
Even as kids she made me work for everything she gave me. I think that’s what made me fall in love with her back then.
This is my chance to fall all over again.
We’re still standing forehead-to-forehead against the counter when I hear the unmistakable sound of a throat clearing. I open my eyes and stare into the gold and green flecks in front of me, noting the way the skin at the corners of her eyes creases when she smiles, and she is smiling. She’s grinning like a fool, actually, and I let out a laugh before chastely kissing her one last time and turning around to face the music.
“Hey Steph, how are you?” I feel the heat creep up my neck when I catch the smug look on her face and wonder how long she’d stood in the doorway before getting our attention.
She waits to say anything just long enough to make me think she might kill me for touching her sister. Steph was feisty as a toddler; the gleam in her eyes tells me not much has changed.
“Britt’s got a sweet tooth so I was going to grab some ice cream to share with him,” she says. Maybe she didn’t see me kissing Stella after all. “I just didn’t want to startle the two of you while your tongue was down my sister’s throat.”
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