“I don’t mean to be harsh, but I just want to be honest with you.” Haley touches my arm gingerly, and I realize I have spaced out.
I nod to her and smile softly. “No, it’s fine. You’re right. I like when you’re honest with me.”
We finish up and lock the shop. It’s almost dark at 6:00 p.m., but I know the time is going to start to change soon. I used to like the holiday season and feeling fall in the air. But it just reminds me that I’m different now, and nothing excites me anymore besides my plants and flowers.
“See you. Remember what I said.” Haley hugs me and then turns down the street.
I laugh softly, but once I’m alone in my car, I go back to my usual somber mood since Alec. I kept thinking of how things would be in a perfect world if maybe we didn’t have shit to deal with and could let ourselves be. But it isn’t. It’s real life, and it seems like we have real-life problems.
I get home, and his car is in the driveway. The familiar skip of my heartbeat is back thinking of him. I walk inside, and his scent is in the air, so I know he must have been walking around. Or he just heard me coming and ran off thinking I didn’t know that he did that.
But I hear him this time. In the kitchen. My feet move faster, and it’s like they’re following an invisible draw to him.
When I find him, it’s like shit aligns itself? He is completely ordinary in jeans and an old gray t-shirt and his boyish, disheveled hair, but nothing about this feels ordinary—the churning inside of me just to be around him, near him, with him…
“You didn’t run off,” I announce myself.
He turns from the stove, and I smell something cooking, but I’m not sure what. And his gaze finds mine right away, it doesn’t leave. The counter stands between us where I left some pots out from an early morning planting session. I was running late and didn’t have time to move them, but he didn’t touch them at all even though they are taking up the whole countertop.
“I didn’t. I’m making something to eat.” He casually sets the spoon down and leans on the counter.
My eyes catch his forearms, strong and lined with thick veins wrapping up to around his bicep peeking from the short sleeve. I can’t read the expression on his face, just that it’s a beautiful face, tainted only by the strands of hair hanging over his brow.
“Right.” I cross my arms, and the motion reminds me of the bracelet. I wear it because it’s pretty, and he gave it to me. Regardless of him kissing me and then disappearing yet again, he gave it to me, and I want to wear it.
“It looks nice on you.” Alec talks about the bracelet.
“Thank you.”
I move around the counter as he leans away from it, and I move to face him. I’m close enough to see the frown on his lips, to smell him, but not close enough to see his heat like I want to.
“Will you stop avoiding me?” I say outright. His brows twitch in shock, but he recovers and keeps his poker face on. He obviously doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, but they seem like they’re nowhere to be found all the time.
“I’m not avoiding you, Mia,” he gruffs out my name like it did him wrong yet he doesn’t mind.
“You’re a horrible liar. You might be good at other stuff, like avoiding me, but you’re shit at lying, and I don’t appreciate you doing it to me.” I come closer to him, and my fingertips brush his abdomen softly. He tenses at me, but then he visibly relaxes. Our sighs match, and it’s like we both have let down some of our walls. “I don’t appreciate you treating me like you don’t care, then deciding to play with my emotions when you want. I get it. We live together, and it can get complicated, but that isn’t enough of an excuse for you to keep pulling away from me. To keep pretending like I don’t exist because it hurts me. Do you want to hurt me, Alec?” I whisper.
“No. Of course not.” He takes my hands in his, so small in comparison wrapped up by his heat, and when he presses my fingers to his lips, I nearly melt.
“Well, you are. So… tell me what this is. Tell me what you want, or this just all has to stop. I can’t keep doing this.” I’m pulled closer to him, and my body brushes his as his heated gaze pours into mine.
He searches me for something, and I guess he finds it because I literally see dams breaking behind his eyes when he does reply.
“It is something, but I can’t. I have shit to work through, Mia. Shit that I don’t want you getting wrapped up in.” He ticks his jaw, and I’m momentarily distracted by his strong jaw.
“I don’t care about that. We all have our baggage, Alec. But what I’m asking is if you want me because I want you.”
13
Alec
Mia reminded me of just how dark things were. I heard her coming and didn’t run off, didn’t try to ignore her like always. I think I was tired of it, but I didn’t expect this.
I didn’t expect her to say she wants me despite everything. Despite all my shit. She wants me. Mia… I don’t deserve her. It was obvious in the beginning, but it’s even clearer now. Her intelligence and kindness and… everything with her is just what I’ve been missing. Forget what is going on with my family, forget everything. She puts my pieces together.
“Mia…” I let go of her hands only to grasp her soft face and kiss her.
The softness of her lips is a hallucinating drug that I’m already addicted to. She opens right up to me and kisses me back. I hold her so close, there is no open space between us, and I just kiss her. Coaxing her lips open to make way for my tongue to dive into her mouth and taste her. She tastes so good, feels so good. My knees buckle as I hover over her and move my hands to the nape of her neck, twirling in her hair before I trail down her back. Her small waist is trapped between my hands, and I grip her tightly. The kiss goes on, but she pulls away, and I am reluctant even to let her go. I press my forehead to hers as I inhale sharply.
“You can’t keep answering me with kisses, Alec.” She breathes, her breaths coming in pants. I grin slightly but shake my head.
“It’s an answer enough.” I turn her, so she is pressed between me and the counter, and I look into her eyes again. “Yes, I want you, Mia. So, fucking badly. I didn’t plan for it, and I don’t know what the hell to do about it, but I can’t stop thinking about you.” I kiss her before she can question me silencing her by pressing my lips to hers.
She moans softly, and it goes right to my aching cock. I could have her right here on this counter, but she deserves more than my half-assed confession. But I do lift her up and place her on the counter, and she widens her legs in response to wrap them around my waist. Her heat sears against me, and I kiss her deeper like I’m trying to climb inside her, and she does the same. Her fingers comb through my hair, scratching my scalp until I groan, and she wraps her arms around my neck. I lean over her, and she lays down until I climb on top of her over whatever it is she has all over the counter.
Her dress makes it easy to settle between her legs, and I fight like hell to keep from grinding against her sex. She grasps me at my shoulders, cinches her fingers around my muscles, and explores my body as I do the same to her. I let myself feel the soft skin of her thigh up to her hips before gripping her ass over the fabric of her shift dress. It’s all too much, too fast, and I need to breathe, but I need her more. My lips leave hers but find her neck instead, finding the spot behind her ear where her scent lies, and the softness of her skin is at its highest.
“Alec…” Mia breathes, and it drives me closer to losing it.
But I hold it in. I give myself as much of her body as I think I deserve before I kiss her one more time. Soft enough for our lips to pull each other, slow enough to feel every inch of each other before I release her. It’s a struggle to get off her and back on the floor, but I do. She sits up with a dazed expression as she gets off the counter and starts picking at the soil that stained the back of her dress. I can’t help but laugh, and she smiles at me.
Such a beautiful smile and a beautiful woman. I don’t know how I’ll manage not to mess
it up, but I at least know I’ll try not to.
Getting back into a routine is boring because it feels the same as before. For the next few days, I go to work and do my job well. But I come home, and things get flipped upside down because Mia is a new part of this routine. Sometimes I’m home first, other times she is. But we eat dinner together, watch something on television, and talk before we start dozing off.
I learn things about her that make other things make more sense. Being an only child, I don’t see her understanding the stuff I go through with my brothers, but she pretends she does. I don’t give her every detail, I don’t even give her a little bit because that part of my identity is still a little lost to me, but she doesn’t pry. She trusts me, and I value that more than anything at the moment.
The only relationships I had been in before were short and surface deep. I knew it going in but never did anything to try to change it.
Mia is different.
It may be because of how reluctant I am to get involved with her, or how much I like her. The general term doesn’t even seem to fit what I do feel for her. There is a very obvious urge to know what she’s doing all the time, but not in a stalker-type way. Just a huge curiosity to know what she’s thinking while she’s thinking it.
Living with her should make it easier, but it leaves more to the mystery if anything. I always want to know what she’s doing behind her closed door and if she’s thinking about me just as much. I’m glad I get to talk to her more, see her every day, and share dinner with her. When she asks me about my day, she genuinely wants to know and doesn’t ask just for the sake of asking. When I do, it’s the same way. But I still feel bad when I can’t tell her everything that’s going on. I want to tell her why I came here in the first place. Why I distanced myself from my family and barely even talk to them now. She tells me most stuff about her parents, so it’s one-sided. But Mia is kind and patient, and I know I’m lucky that she is so patient with me.
After a long day of work, I come back and don’t see her car in the driveway. I thought about her all day—all through the meetings and follow-ups I had from yesterday’s meetings, so I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait to see her. I have her number, but I haven’t gotten around to texting her during the day. It would just make me want to see her more.
I check the mail and grab the stack of envelopes before I head inside and toss them on the mail counter. The way the condo smells is so familiar to me by now, but it still gets me all fuzzy inside because it reminds me of her—how warm and sweet she is, soft but firm, light, and airy. She is everywhere in this place, and I have no reason to try to change that.
The television gives me background noise before I go in the kitchen and pop open a Shiner. I figure I might try and make something nice for her since she’s always the one making dinner. But I don’t know what to do with half the ingredients in the fridge, so I just order Thai from down the street instead. The gesture is the same.
I’m on my second Shiner when the door rattles, and I feel Mia before I see her. When she does round the corner, and I actually lay eyes on her, it’s a completely different feeling that has felt the same for the two months since I’ve been here. Every time I lay eyes on her, they bug out like they’ve never seen something so pretty before, and they haven’t. She is so beautiful, I find it hard to breathe when I look at her, but at the same time, the calm of her presence makes it easier to.
“Hi, Alec,” she chimes my name like it’s her favorite thing to say. Her smile is bright, and I take her in as she crosses the space to get to me. She has on a striped dress, no buttons down the front, so it’s like a t-shirt. I like how she wears those cute little dresses all the time, the same way I like how she rarely wears jeans, but when she does, they wrap her pert little ass up in the tight fabric. But if I start talking about her body, I’ll never get through the night.
“Hey, Mia.” I stand in front of her, and she grins slightly before stepping up on her toes to kiss me. Another perk of living with her is getting to kiss her every time I get home. I don’t do much but press my lips to hers and softly pull away.
“Did you see the mail?” I ask her. She leans away with a sigh. I never usually get mail, so they were all for her.
“No, not yet.”
“I ordered dinner, should be here soon,” I tell her.
“Thanks.” Mia glances at her window flowers before disappearing behind the wall between the kitchen and foyer entrance.
At the same time, the food comes, and I pay before meeting her back in the kitchen. She picks through the letters, and I see her pause at one, a frown marring her round face.
“What’s up?” I ask her. I bring over two beers and sit next to her gently brushing her forearm with my fingertips.
“Nothing.” She shakes her head and sets the letter aside. “This looks good.” She fakes her happy voice, but I don’t buy it. I do, however, let her get through dinner and eat my own before I pry her again.
“Is it a student loan letter or something?” I try and joke with her. I know I hate when I get mine anyway.
“No.” She giggles once. “I just forgot about the wedding I did the flower arrangement for. Usually, the florist goes, but I don’t think I want to.” She finishes her second beer in one gulp.
“Why not? Don’t you know them?” I ask, remembering she said something about knowing the guy. I’ve never been a good listener, but I try to change that around her.
“Yeah, I do but… it’s weird to go to weddings alone. I don’t want to be the sad, glorified flower girl,” Mia scoffs and curls her legs up under her in the chair. I prompt her to face me, and she does.
I grin softly at her as I meet her gaze. “You know, you care way too much about what people think.”
She frowns at me, and I laugh once. “I don’t mean it in a bad way. You like to please people, and that’s fine, it’s… one of the reasons why I like you so damned much. But you shouldn’t pay too much attention to what other people think. You’ll grow sick of it one day.”
I shrug my shoulders as her frown softens. She regards me with an expression I can’t quite place. Mia wears her emotions on her sleeve sometimes, but other times, I can’t really tell what she is thinking or feeling.
“Yeah. You’re right. But my parents will be there, and that’s another thing.” She rolls her eyes. “Dad will keep trying to give me money, and my mom will just ask me why I’m still single. It’s tiring.”
I almost laugh at the way she rolls her eyes and purses her lips. But she focuses back on me, and I smile. Her cheeks flush, and I absently swipe a strand of her hair between my fingers.
“I’ll go with you if you want.” I almost choke at the thought of going to a social event, but I’m starting to realize I would do anything to keep her happy.
“Really? My mom will be super invasive, assume you’re my boyfriend and expect us to be married within ninety days.”
I laugh. “I can do invasive. My mom used to be the same way.”
“So…” she sits up with a smile as she tucks hair behind her ear, “… will it be like a date?” she asks me.
“I guess I should take you out on one of those eventually, huh?” I scratch my jaw.
“That’d be nice. But… if you don’t mind going to a wedding—”
“You’ll be there. So, I’ll be fine.” I smirk, and she does the same with her reddened cheeks.
“Okay.” She perks up. “That sounds great.” She smiles and leans forward to kiss me. I don’t hesitate when I fill the gap and kiss her back. The way our lips move together—no resistance, no guessing—it makes it all the more perfect. If I could kiss her all day every day, I’d be perfectly happy.
Just seeing her, just being with her… I’m happier than I’ve ever been.
14
Mia
There is nothing I hate more than weddings. It isn’t because I’m jealous, or knew the groom before, or want to be the bride instead… I just never liked them. Maybe working at the fl
ower shop is what made it all so annoying, but I had seen so many, nothing was ever different.
Except this time, Alec is coming with me. I can’t lie and say I didn’t wish he had asked me on a date at least once. A real one, over dinner, all nice and dressed up. But I know Alec isn’t like that. That’s why it meant so much to me when he offered to go to the wedding with me.
Alec has a lot of good qualities that overshadow his reluctance to tell me anything about his family or past. Like his genuineness. He doesn’t pretend, most times he says what’s on his mind even if he knows it isn’t the best thing. He wants to keep things from me and sticks to it, but he does it so well I can’t even fight him on it. That, and he’s just sweet. It’s the little things he does. He waters my flowers sometimes, even though he almost killed one because there was too much water, but I didn’t care about that. He always makes sure I’ve had dinner even though I’m the one who cooks all the time. And it’s not the most important thing, but he is so good looking—hot, sexy, handsome. He meets all the criteria.
But in a suit? My goodness.
“What?” Alec asks me as we stand at the open bar. The hall is huge but not too full of people. I think they just wanted the allusion of a lot of people in this grand hall. I hadn’t even seen Chad or his bride since we only came to the reception.
It was mostly work at first because I had to make sure things were set up the way I asked. But then it was just sticking around for the compliments and leaving business cards at the check- in desk.
“Nothing.” I smooth my ponytail out. I slicked it up hard and tight, but the natural curls of my hair always fight the gel no matter how strong it is.
I didn’t have many dresses, but I managed to find one decent enough to wear. The straps are wide, the neckline is a V-shape and crosses diagonally with frilly ends, and the nude color blends with anything. It was an easy choice, but I still didn’t even feel well-dressed enough to be on Alec’s arm with him dressed in his sleek black suit, but here I am.
Wilde About Alec Page 8