“Damn right.” I did grab him then. Both hands clenching his shoulders, but I dropped them instantly. I wasn’t going to touch him until he asked me to. I was not going to force this. “You have met me, Harrison. You know how I operate. I don’t do a damn thing unless I want to. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how many people go through this life and do whatever the fuck they’re told? You’re not doing that. You looked into Will’s eyes, and you couldn’t breathe. You felt trapped. And you didn’t care that the whole world was watching. You said no. And you freed yourself.” Even before I said the next words, I tried to pull them back, knowing that I was dooming myself, but they were the truth. And I loved him, and I would not lie to him. “And when you looked at me that day, you couldn’t breathe. You felt trapped. You said no. You did what you had to do. That is brave.”
Tears were streaming down his face. “You knew I felt trapped?”
Again, I wanted to lie. “No. I didn’t. Not until it was too late.”
He laughed again, though this one held less darkness, and he unclenched one of his fists to wipe the back of his hand over his eyes. “That makes two of us.”
He was breaking my heart. Again. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize in time.”
“How could you know something that I didn’t know about myself?” Harrison sniffed, gave a little smile, then fell silent.
We stared at each other, eyes searching the depths of eyes.
Again, I saw desire. Longing. But I had pushed enough. Any more and I would hurt him. I’d already hurt him before, but I hadn’t known it. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it intentionally. “Well, I’m glad you’re here, surrounded by flowers. That seems right somehow.”
He smiled again, a small one, then nodded. I waited for him to say something, throw me a lifeline, anything.
He didn’t.
It was time for me to go. “I didn’t know you were here, but I’m glad you were. And I’m glad I got to tell you those things in person. I needed you to know them. And they’re true. They always will be.” I wanted to tell him I loved him. Wanted to tell him I’d built him a fucking shrine. Wanted to take him in my arms and wipe away every ounce of hurt I saw his eyes. But it was time for me to go. “Bye, Harrison.”
When he spoke, I’d already started to walk away again. “Adrian?”
Once more I turned back to face him. “Yeah?”
He blinked rapidly several times, then took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Want to go to dinner? Sometime?”
And at that, I knew the shrine wasn’t going to have a solitary iris after all. Though I wasn’t exactly sure what came next, the details didn’t matter. “I would love to.”
“Really?” How the hell could he sound that unsure?
“Really.” I gave myself a second, simply to command my body to not go to him, to not push any harder. To simply trust. “Shoot me a message, let me know when and where, and I’ll be there. Any time, any day. Always.”
That time, when I walked away, he didn’t call out, and I didn’t turn back. I looked ahead, and I saw a spot of brightness on the horizon.
Twenty-Seven
Harrison
Feeling like I was stepping out onto the football field for the very first time, I walked across the apartment to answer Adrian’s knock. I was sweating. I was in my own home, getting ready to have a date with someone I’d practically lived with for weeks, a man I loved, and I was sweating because I was so nervous. I paused with my hand on the doorknob, just for a heartbeat.
Was this how I’d felt before? At the altar with Will? Outside the farm with Adrian?
Did I want to run?
The sweating and the pounding of my heart would suggest that yes, I did.
That was an option. I could open the door, tell Adrian I’d made a mistake. I didn’t have to see this through.
The instant sense of loss clarified things for me. I was nervous. I was sweating. But I was excited. Hopeful. I did not want to run.
Someday I wouldn’t have to overthink things before opening a door. I hoped that day would come swiftly.
Once that tiny, yet expansive bridge had been crossed, Adrian stood before me, a light glimmer of sweat on his brow, and just the tiniest strain around his eyes. Eyes that gleamed with excitement and hope.
Looked like we were on the same page, in every way.
“Hey.” Adrian shifted where he stood, and the narrow stairway at his back erupted in a rainbow of lights.
“You’re wearing your shoes.” I laughed happily and then stomped my right foot.
Adrian glanced down, then grinned. “You are too.” When he looked back up, the strain around his eyes was gone.
I hesitated again, trying to figure out what to do, and then quit trying, threw my arms around Adrian and pulled him into a hug. “Thanks for coming over.” What should’ve probably been a brief welcoming embrace brought such a wave of relief that I clung on for an awkwardly long time, just breathing.
After a while, I realized Adrian was holding on as well. “Thank you for asking me over for dinner.”
Though my body stirred and heated in an entirely different way than what had prompted the sweat, I suppressed the desire. More than anything, I just wanted to be in his presence. I’d missed him so much, so, so much. I’d already known that but seeing him so abruptly at Lavender Petals a few days before had clarified how true that really was.
When we finally pulled apart, he held out a slightly squashed bouquet of roses. “I know they’re not irises, and maybe even a little cliché, but red roses seemed to say exactly what I wanted them to say.”
“Thank you. Sorry that I squished them in the hug.”
He shrugged and gave a flirtatious grin. “You’re not going to find me complaining about you touching me.”
I took the roses, touched by the thought and also grateful to have something to do to break my nerves. I headed to the kitchen to get a vase, with Adrian following. “Sounds like you’ve been talking to Sapphire.”
“True. I might have stopped at Lavender Petals on the way here.” He chuckled. “And I might have stood there debating so long between Japanese irises and the bearded kind that it required Sapphire to come over and ask if I was in the middle of one of those invisible seizures.”
My hands moved of their own accord as I sliced the ends off the roses and put them in a vase. I bent for a second to breathe them deep. He’d chosen right, though it wasn’t what I would’ve predicted. The iris wasn’t the story of Adrian and me. But these roses could be.
When I finished with the flowers, I saw Adrian inspecting the table. “We’re eating here?”
And that had been another decision that had taken far too long to settle on. I’d scheduled an extra session with Donovan before deciding to call Adrian and ask for a date. I was terrified of moving too soon. The consensus we’d come to was to make sure I was being authentic the entire time. That I wasn’t simply being whatever I thought Adrian wanted me to be. Turned out, after asking Adrian to dinner, trying to decide where to eat had been a three-hour ordeal of inner debate. If I designed the dates around Adrian, we would’ve gone to Mabel’s. But where would Harrison Getty choose? Lavender Slices, Charley’s, the Charcuterie Board—each one could indicate a billion different things. Pizza, I was easy and casual. Mexican, I was fun and not afraid to spice it up. Pâté and cheese and wine, I was cultured and sophisticated.
By the time I’d started to dread the date from all the stress of planning, I realized being authentically Harrison didn’t mean figuring out the perfect moment of every day. It just meant breathing, it just meant being enough, even if it wasn’t perfect.
“Yeah, Jasper’s cleared out for the evening. Lamont is having a book release party in San Francisco, so he’s tagging along. With an entire wagon-worth of books to get signed by other authors at the event. You know Jasper.” I chuckled and then met Adrian’s eyes, needing to see how he’d respond. “He’ll be back around ten or so. I thought… we’d take things slow
, at least for the first dinner. Or two….”
There was obvious disappointment in his eyes, but no more than matched my own feelings. If I was being honest, I wanted to knock aside the place settings I’d arranged on the table and shove Adrian on top of it and ride him right there.
“We’ll go at your pace, Harrison. I want to be with you, and I’m just glad you’ve already mentioned a second dinner.” He winked. “Plus, a hot man cooking for me? Oh yeah. Although I do wish you were wearing that purple apron from Lavender Petals. It really accentuates the width of your shoulders.”
“Oh, yes, that thing is dripping with sex appeal.”
“It is when you’re wearing it.” He narrowed his eyes as if considering. “Although, now that I think about it, Sapphire did look pretty sexy when she was helping me pick out flowers a little bit ago. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with you at all. Maybe we can add apron next to pizza on my kink list.”
“Those two go together pretty well, actually.” I smiled at him, already feeling more at ease and sensing us falling back into our comfortable banter from before. “Sure would make cleanup a breeze.”
“Not if you do it right.” He waggled his eyebrows and then rubbed his hands together. “All right, what’s for dinner, and how can I help?”
Dinner was chicken scampi over zucchini noodles. And a side dish of roasted beets and fennel topped with goat cheese and candied pecans. “I’ve come to realize that while the diet I was living on during my underwear modeling days was a little extreme, I really like how I feel eating healthy. Plus, I’m a good cook, and this meal kicks ass.” I felt my cheeks flush at my claim.
“You’ve been holding out. I didn’t know you could cook.” Adrian patted his flat stomach. “Watch out, you get me eating healthier and I might just become an underwear model myself.”
“Your eating habits always did amaze me. You own an organic farm, for crying out loud. A person would think you would have the normal California diet. You eat like someone from the Midwest most of the time.”
Another stomach pat. “You can fry organic vegetables just as easily as any other kind. But the closer I get to forty, the more I’m aware my metabolism is going to start betraying me at some point. Probably a good time to expand my horizons.”
What tension remained fell away as we cooked. I turned on my playlist consisting of Chet Baker, the Mills Brothers, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and Jane Monheit, while Adrian and I worked comfortably side by side. The little comments here and there, stolen glances that contained both lust and contentment, simply the feel of being near him again, made me glad I’d gone with my gut to cook at home.
Nothing spectacular happened. But somewhere between spiralizing the zucchini for the noodles and broiling the beets and fennel so they were crispy, a sweet happiness built in me and confirmed what I hoped—what part of me had known before, even if it had terrified me. Though I wasn’t sure of the path or what exactly it would look like, I was certain I’d lose count of the times Adrian Rivera and I prepared dinner.
“Okay, this is good.” Adrian paused, and finished chewing up the beet he’d just popped into his mouth, so he would stop speaking with his mouth full. “Really, really good. You sure you want to work in the flower shop? This is delicious enough that Seth and Heather might hire you at the Blue Blossom Bed-and-Breakfast. This is five-star all the way.”
“Roasted beets and goat cheese aren’t exactly revolutionary.” Though I played off the compliment, I was pleased.
“Neither are light-up shoes, but they’re fucking awesome.” Adrian smacked the ground lightly and then kicked his foot up beside the table to prove a point, then he pointed at his plate again with his fork. “I have to say, the zucchini pasta is tasty, but I’m not fooled. Even if my metabolism abandons me for some twenty-year-old at some point, this boy needs his carbs.”
“It’s not about never having carbs; it’s just about limiting them to when you want them the most.” I actually did like the zucchini noodles, but I didn’t try to compare them to actual pasta. They were just a different thing.
“My handsome Harrison, there will never be a time when I don’t want carbs the most.” He swirled his fork around, making his zucchini strips really look like spaghetti before he secured a hunk of chicken on the end. “But delicious, nonetheless. Definitely good enough for the Blue Blossom.”
“Cooking is good, a little healing, but I don’t think it would be that way if I had to cook for a restaurant.” I raised my eyebrows at him, wondering if there was more to his comment. “You think my days at Lavender Petals are numbered?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could pull them back. I was afraid I didn’t want to know the answer to that.
“No. Not at all.” Adrian shook his head instantly. Natural enough that he clearly meant it. “Obviously, I have no problem working at a shop downtown, since Micah and I own one.” He studied me for a second. “I was just wondering if you’re enjoying it?”
His question caught me off guard. I started to say yes, then realized I needed a moment.
Adrian lowered his fork and reached for my hand. He hesitated for a second, and then apparently shoved the concern aside as he finished the motion and placed his hand over mine.
Like the hug before, his touch was instantly soothing. And also a bit of fire, as well. How strange something could be both.
“Are you okay? Sorry if I asked the wrong question… or if I’m pushing.”
I stared at our hands pressed together for a moment longer before looking up at him. “You didn’t ask the wrong question. It just hit me that—” I had to clear my throat. “I’ve never been asked that before. Ever. It was never a question if I enjoyed football, modeling, the show, any of it. I don’t think I even stopped to wonder.” I’d promised myself that I was not only going to keep sex off the table, but to keep things as nonphysical as possible. Well, what-the-fuck-ever. I shifted, leaned over, and kissed him. It was nothing much more than soft pressure, but we simultaneously sighed at the contact, and the kiss ended with both of us chuckling.
I kissed him again, then met his eyes. “Thank you for asking. It’s something I’m not even used to asking myself.” Then I decided to break another rule I’d set. “You said at the flower shop the other day that you could see I felt trapped, that I couldn’t breathe.” His words had played through my mind endless times since then. They were a marvel. And just like him asking if I enjoyed working at the flower shop, maybe it was something that shouldn’t seem so large, but it did. In a world where everyone viewed basically each second of my life, he’d been the only one to really see me. “I can’t tell you how much that means.”
Clear regret slashed across his face and was audible in his voice. “I didn’t see it soon enough. Not till you were gone. I didn’t recognize it for what it was.” His hand tightened over mine. “I’m sorry. I think I added to that for you. We had two minutes together and then I had you on the farm with me, moving into my house, making every aspect of my life yours. I didn’t even realize I was doing that. I can’t say I’m sorry enough.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. How could you have realized it when I didn’t myself? You didn’t make me work on the farm, you didn’t make me move in. You never pressured me.”
“I didn’t pause to make sure you were okay with things, either.” He held my gaze, those brown eyes making promises as surely as his lips. “Going forward, I’ll go slower, and I’ll check.”
Going forward. “I will too.”
Maybe he saw and heard promises from me. His smile brightened as a peaceful look came over him. “So? Are you enjoying working at Lavender Petals?”
I leaned back in my chair with a laugh, but our hands stayed clasped. “I am. Part of it is reliving some of the best memories of my life, and I’m enjoying working with Sapphire.” I shrugged. “It’s nice that it’s so much different than what my life has been like during the past twenty years.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed, and I could see
he was debating his next word. “But…?”
I chuckled and marveled about the peace that one word brought. “You heard a but?”
“I think so.” He didn’t quit studying me. “Doesn’t mean I’m right, though.”
“I think you are. I think there is a but. I’m not sure what it is, and Lavender Petals is good for now. I think I need it. Might need it for a while.” I debated if I wanted to share the thought I’d been having. It had only been a few days, and it seemed like a betrayal of my mother to already feel the way I did, but even if that was the case, if I was going to give this a go with Adrian without running, or anything else for that matter, I needed to quit censoring. “I think the flower shop was Mom’s life, not exactly mine. I’m not sure what that looks like, and part of it feels close. A hell of a lot closer than football, underwear, and getting followed around by a camera crew, but not quite right, either.”
He squeezed my hand again. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah. I will.” There was a lot I was going to figure out. But there was one thing I already knew. I’d known it before our date, I’d known it before I ran. I twisted in my chair again, so that I could look Adrian full in the face. “I love you. I’m sorry the first time I said it to you was in a panic, and I was running away, but I meant it. Somehow, you saw me before I was able to see myself. But I want you to know that I see you. And I love you.”
Adrian beamed. He nearly glowed. “I love you too. Everything else is details. Everything else is negotiable. But that part, my love for you, that’s here to stay.”
We finished dinner, cleaned up the dishes, and then walked down to Lavender Scoops on the corner. Just because we’d had zucchini noodles didn’t mean we couldn’t have waffle cones.
We strolled around Lavender Shores for a little while, walking hand in hand as we ate our ice cream cones, looking in all the windows without really caring what we saw. There were glances, people noticed. We were on display, but not uncomfortably so. And through it all, breathing came easy.
The Glasshouse (Lavender Shores Book 6) Page 27