by Aven Ellis
“Just do it!” I command.
“Bossy,” Brody says, grinning at me.
I laugh. “Call me bossy all you want, but lie back on the blanket.”
He gives me a weird look, as if I’m the craziest girl he’s ever encountered, but does as he’s told. Then I lie down beside him, and we gaze up at the cherry blossom branches on this chilly spring night.
“It’s not a Christmas tree,” I say softly, “because I can’t give that to you now, but at least you can say you’ve gazed up at the cherry blossoms in bloom.”
Silence falls between us as we lie side-by-side on the blanket, looking up at the historic blossoms above us.
“Hayley?”
I turn my head and find Brody staring at me. My breath catches in my throat as I see the intense look in his gorgeous pale-blue eyes.
“When I first came to DC,” he says, his voice soft, “I had no desire to date. Being a starting catcher has been my dream since I was fourteen. Girls have come in and out of my life, but none were serious. I didn’t want to know their stories. I didn’t care. I always had some suspicion about them. Did they like me? Or the guy who was behind the plate? I never knew. More to the point, it didn’t matter to me.”
My heart is racing. I search his eyes, feeling like I’ve known them forever and that I can say anything to this man and be safe.
“And now?” I whisper to him.
To my surprise, Brody reaches for my hand and entwines his fingers with mine. The second I feel the roughness of his calloused hands, the warmth of his golden tanned skin, pure electricity jolts through me.
“I’ve met this girl,” Brody says, dragging his thumb gently over the top of my hand, “and she gave me the gift of cherry blossoms on our first date.”
Ooh!
“What do you want from this girl?” I ask over the pounding of my heart.
“I want to know her. If she’ll let me.”
After telling me he never cared about getting to know girls, Brody is asking to know me.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Everything,” he whispers. “I want to know everything about you. Starting tonight.”
Chapter Ten
Elation soars within me from Brody’s sweet words.
He wants to know me.
And I want nothing more than to share my stories with him underneath the cherry blossoms on this spring night.
“Everything could take a long time,” I say.
“I don’t care. If you get tired, we can continue in the morning.”
My pulse skyrockets from that suggestion.
“I will tell you everything on one condition,” I say.
“You name it.”
“I get to know everything about you, too.”
Brody smiles, revealing the dimple in his cheek. “I need to give you fair warning before I comply with that request: I’m strange.”
I’m so crushing on this boy it’s not even funny.
“Perfect, because you already know I’m strange.”
Brody looks thoughtful for a moment. “Good point.”
“Hey!” I say, laughing, and Brody laughs with me.
“That’s a compliment. I hate normal.”
“Good,” I say.
Brody continues to drag his thumb across the back of my hand, and the butterflies are dancing from the fact that his hand is still entwined with mine.
I turn my head and look up at the blossoms, noticing the moon peeking through the branches, and smile happily.
“I’m going to give you a random order of facts about me because that’s how my brain works,” I say. “I love the moon. My mom used to read Goodnight Moon to me over and over as a little girl, and I’ve been fascinated with it ever since. I love gazing at the stars. I can point out constellations.” I turn and look back at him, and Brody’s eyes haven’t left my face. “If you ever need to find them, I’m your girl. Unless you know them. Then you don’t need me.”
Brody’s eyes shine brightly at me. “I’ll need your skill set on that one.”
I look back up at the branches, loving how I can feel him studying my profile in the darkness.
“My parents live in Maryland. I was born and raised in the DC area. I have an older brother, Ethan, and he lives in Baltimore. He’s a furniture designer. My dad is a divorce attorney in DC, and my mom is a researcher for an economic policy think tank.”
Brody is silent for a moment, so I look back at him. His brow is furrowed in thought.
“What?” I ask.
“Your family is very intelligent.”
I nod. “Education is important. Ethan has a master’s from the Rhode Island School of Design. I’m the only one who doesn’t have a master’s or Ph.D., but I wanted to start working for a non-profit right away.”
“Where did you go to school?” Brody asks.
“Georgetown. I graduated last winter.”
Brody turns so he’s looking overhead now.
I get a feeling I’ve said something that bothers him.
“My twin, Brady—he’s the smart one,” Brody says, finally breaking the silence. “He graduated from Stanford. Now he’s in the minor leagues down in Louisiana, trying to play baseball. People always said I got the athletic ability. I’m the dumb jock. Brady got all the brains.”
I stare back at Brody, surprised by his words. Is this how Brody views himself? Does he think he isn’t as smart as other people because he didn’t go to college?
“Why do you talk about yourself like this?” I ask.
Brody looks back at me, surprise etched on his handsome face.
“What?”
“You’re extremely smart, Brody.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I do. You’re sharp, both in your conversation and emails. Quick thinking. People were wrong to compare you to Brady.”
“Hayley, I barely finished high school,” he says. “People aren’t wrong about me.”
“Wrong. They’re one-hundred percent wrong, and more than that, anyone who compared you to Brady is an ass. Intelligence is not measured by degrees,” I say, my words coming out faster. “Ethan has dyslexia. Before he was diagnosed, he was labeled as lazy, unfocused, and slow. He’s none of those things. It broke my heart to see him struggle under the weight of those perceptions. He’s brilliant. Ethan has a learning disorder. He needed to find a whole different way to learn, but it had absolutely nothing to do with his intelligence. That is why I was desperate to work for Expanded World. I wanted to help people with dyslexia and give them what Ethan didn’t get right away.”
I stop and take a breath before continuing. “I’m sorry, I know I’m ranting, but this is a hot-button for me. Brody, please don’t ever doubt you aren’t intelligent because you are. A college degree or grade point average or perfect SAT score aren’t the only measures of that. They just aren’t. You are quick and bright and have an amazing mind that I want to continue to get to know.”
Brody is silent as he takes in my words. I wonder if I’ve blown it with him by telling him what to feel and what to think on our first date. I bite my lip, regretting my outburst. I’m about to apologize when Brody speaks.
“My parents,” Brody says, rolling onto his side so he’s facing me while I do the same, “are very anti-establishment. When I got awful grades, they consoled me by telling me they were numbers on a paper that didn’t matter in the scope of living on earth, but they never told me I was smart.”
My heart catches on his words. Brody has been praised and rewarded for his smarts on the baseball field, but never off it.
It’s obviously left a scar on him.
“You’re the first person who has told me you think I’m smart,” he continues.
I force down the lump in my throat. I vow that I am going to help him see the intelligent man that I see.
“You are,” I whisper.
He squeezes my hand in his, and I squeeze it back.
“Hayley?”
“Yes?”
/>
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.”
“Me too,” I say, smiling at him.
We continue to talk long into the night, discovering each other underneath the cherry blossoms. Neither of us has our phones out, and we haven’t bothered to check the time. I don’t want to know how late it’s getting because I don’t want to say goodnight.
I have learned so much about him. Brody was born and raised in San Diego, by New Age parents. His mom is a certified crystal healer; his father is a surfing instructor. They lived in a small house near the beach, and Brody himself is an avid surfer. He loves the outdoors, whether it’s the mountains or the ocean, but the baseball field is by far his favorite place to be. When he’s on the road, he binge watches TV shows, and right now he’s obsessed with Game of Thrones. His favorite meal of the day is breakfast, and he can eat it morning, noon or night. He tries to eat healthy for baseball but won’t turn down his favorite cereal or donuts.
In turn, I share how I love old sitcoms and explain why I’m obsessed with Mary Tyler Moore. I tell him I love bread and pasta, but I’m trying to break-up with them. I admit that I was picked last for every sports team in school and preferred to go to the library instead of PE class. I share that I spent summers at Bethany Beach in Delaware and how I’ve always had my focus be on school and work, but how that changed the second I met him.
“I always thought I knew what I wanted,” I say, “but then I met you. You turned everything I thought upside down.”
“How so?” He asks, studying me quizzically.
I smile sheepishly at him. “I didn’t want to go on a date with anyone. I told myself I needed an older man because they’re more mature.”
Brody flashes me a mischievous grin. “Good thing I’m two years older than you.”
“I know,” I tease. “You definitely check that box, so we’re good to proceed.”
Brody lifts his free hand, and once again, I see the tattoo of pages wrapped in vine. With a jolt, I wonder if it’s related to how he felt about school, how he felt constricted by his perceived lack of intelligence. Maybe it symbolizes that school left him feeling tied up an—
He releases my hand, interrupting my thoughts, and pushes his sweater sleeve back farther. “Oh, shit, Hayley! It’s two o’clock. You have to go to work tomorrow.”
He sits up, and with despair, I realize our evening is coming to a quick end.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure him, sitting up. “You have to go to work, too.”
“Yeah, but not until one o’clock in the afternoon. I’m sorry. I should have kept track of the time.”
“Brody, I’m a grown-ass woman. If I wanted to keep track of the time, I would have done so myself.”
Brody stops and stares at me. “Do you know what is attractive about you? Besides the fact that you are beautiful?”
My heart flutters from his words. “What?”
“You’re assertive. You say what you think. I like that.”
Ooh!
Another chilly breeze sweeps over us, and a few blossoms drop from overhead, cascading down on us.
I feel one land in my hair, but before I can pluck it out, Brody lifts his fingers to my hair, and oh-so-gently brushes the petal aside.
I stop breathing. His fingers go back to my hair, slowly moving through my blonde locks.
“I’m not easy to go out with. I play almost every day,” Brody says as he continues to stroke my hair. “I travel. I play every weekend. Sometimes I have day games, which means I can go out at night, but it’s insane and not normal for dating. But as soon as I saw you in the coffeehouse, this beautiful blonde with gorgeous honey-brown eyes and thoughts coming out of her head as fast as she could say them, I knew I wanted to try. But only for you.”
“I want that,” I say, speaking from my heart. “I knew the second you started teasing me, this handsome guy with a quick wit and a raspy voice, I wanted the same thing. But only with you.”
Nothing is said for another moment. Brody continues caressing my hair with his hand, and my eyes are nowhere but on his.
“You gave me the cherry blossoms tonight,” he whispers, moving his hand to my face and cupping it protectively. “Now I want to give you this: I want to kiss you under the cherry blossoms.”
And then Brody lowers his mouth to mine.
Chapter Eleven
Brody’s lips sweetly brush against mine in an innocent kiss, his large hand still protectively cupping my face as he does. His warm mouth slowly presses against mine over and over in gentle, teasing kisses that have me aching for him to take more from me.
He lifts his head, his pale-denim blue eyes soft as he gazes at me. He sweeps his fingertips all over my face, tracing it sexily as he moves from my eyebrows, down the bridge of my nose, and across my cheeks, his eyes drinking me in as he touches me for the first time. I’m shaking as he does. I’ve never had a man take the time to touch me like this, to view me as if he’s committing every freckle, every flaw, every feature to his memory.
Brody’s fingertips continue their dance of discovery, down to my chin and back up to my lips, where he draws his thumb slowly across my bottom lip, his eyes flickering with intensity as he deliberately moves it back and forth. Pure heat erupts in me. I swear I feel my lips swelling with desire, something I never knew could happen until Brody kissed me.
“I need to kiss you,” he says, his voice low with desire. “I have to kiss you. The way I want to. Right now.”
His lips part mine, his tongue exploring my mouth as he kisses me. My heart explodes against my ribs. My senses are alive with him, from the delicious warmth of his mouth to the cedar and citrus scent on his skin and the way his tongue is exploring me, tasting me, seeking more of me.
I want the same. I want more of him, of this kiss that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
I instinctively slide my hands up his suede jacket, to his neck, finding the curls at the back of his head. I thread my fingers through them as Brody’s tongue continues to discover me and mine does the same to him. I love the feel of his soft lips, the taste of him, and the way his stubble is sexily brushing against my skin.
Brody moves his fingers to my hair, running them through my layers to the base of my neck, sending shivers down my spine as his hand glides along it. He continues his sensual kissing of me, and I drink in every second of this hot, slow, sexy kiss.
Finally, he presses his lips against mine, and I feel him smiling against my mouth, and my heart flutters in happiness. I smile back, and Brody lifts his head.
“I already want to do that again,” he says, moving his palm to my face.
“You can,” I say hopefully.
“No, we need to go,” Brody says, brushing his lips sweetly against my forehead. “Because if I kiss you like that again, I won’t want to stop. And don’t say anything about being a grown-ass woman because I’m trying to be a grown-ass gentleman.”
Oh, I’m beyond smitten with this boy.
I’m about to speak when Brody does.
“And this grown-ass gentleman is already missing your kiss,” he murmurs, dropping another sweet kiss on my lips.
Mmm. I love the way he kisses.
As soon as he lifts his head, I stroke his hair, loving how thick his dirty-blond locks are and how soft his hair feels against my fingertips. He reaches for my hand and to my delight, brings it to his lips and places a kiss on it.
“Come on, let’s clean up,” Brody says, affectionately touching my face again. “You’re cold.”
“I’m getting hungry again,” I say, thinking aloud as I pick up my nearly untouched Fruity Pebbles. “But instead of soggy Fruity Pebbles, I would kill for a cherry blossom donut.”
“Do they put a cherry blossom on everything at this time of year?”
I laugh. “Pretty much. But these are stellar. Have you been to Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken yet?”
Brody is folding up the blanket. “Nope.”
“It’s amazi
ng,” I say, standing up. “They have phenomenal donuts in super creative flavors. The one I’m talking about only happens during the Cherry Blossom Festival. It’s a donut with a cherry filling and a cream cheese glaze. Each one has a cherry blossom piped on the top. It’s almost too beautiful to eat.”
“Almost,” Brody says, flashing me a smile. “But you can’t resist them, can you?”
“Confession: I have weak willpower when it comes to anything with bread and grains and sugar. If they weren’t closed, I would get one.”
“If they weren’t closed, I’d take you to get one.”
I know I’m beaming the second I see that dimple appear in his cheek.
We begin our walk along the Tidal Basin back to his Jeep, but this time we’re holding hands. I glance down at his tanned hand entwined around mine, and I have nothing but pure joy in my heart. Never in my life would I have dreamed I’d be here, walking along the Tidal Basin at two in the morning holding hands with a man like Brody.
I never wanted this before.
But as we walk, and Brody leans in to kiss my temple, nothing has ever felt more right.
I want this.
More than I have ever wanted anything.
“You’re going to be tired tomorrow,” Brody says, interrupting my thoughts.
“I’ll survive,” I say.
“You never told me what happened at work today,” Brody says.
I sigh. “I didn’t want to talk about it tonight, not when I wanted to get to know you.”
“Well, that’s part of who you are,” he says. “So, we should talk about it. Tomorrow?”
Zing! Every nerve I have jumps at the word “tomorrow.”
“We should,” I say as we walk along the path.
“Can you do another late night? I have the game, and then I have my stretching and treatments afterward. I cut those short to be with you tonight, but I have to do them to help protect my knees. Or we could do lunch.”
I glance down his legs, from the massive quads he has to his knees, thinking about how he is squatting every day for hours on end.
“Do your knees hurt? Do you worry about them?” I ask, realizing how much strain they must be under.