by Jewel E. Ann
Everyone means the world to someone. Or at least they should.
When I collapsed onto my bed, I called Fisher. After multiple rings, it went to voicemail. So I called again … and again.
On the fourth call, he answered. “Hi,” he said in a neutral tone. “I’m eating dinner. What’s up?” He was eating dinner with his family. His whole family and Angie.
“I love you today,” I said.
Silence.
More silence.
“Say it. Say it back to me, Fisher. Like you mean it. Like it matters.”
“Can we chat about this later?”
“I said it. In front of my grandparents … after they unknowingly called me a slut. I said it. I’m tired of not saying it. I’m tired of feeling guilty. Just … say it and let everyone else fucking deal with it.”
He cleared his throat. “So you clogged the garbage disposal?”
I pressed End.
Throwing my arm over my face, I grumbled and growled, just like the old Fisher. I was angry with him and the rest of the world. And I know it wasn’t fair for me to ambush him like that—after all, he stood up to Rory and unapologetically told her that he loved me.
But I wanted him to make the gesture without getting caught first. Was that too much to ask?
Maybe.
“Stupid …” I whispered to myself. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” Just minutes earlier, I had given my family a long speech on being kind and not judging others. I just left the kitchen with the words everybody means the world to somebody in my head.
Was Angie someone’s world since her parents died and Fisher lost his memories of her? It was such a kind thing of me to ask Fisher to destroy her in front of his entire family on Thanksgiving. I was ashamed of myself.
And tired.
Getting a call that a baby was ready to come into the world was exactly what I needed. But that call never came.
“Hey.” Rory smiled at me when she opened my door a crack. “Pie is being served.”
“Okay,” I said, staring at the ceiling.
The door clicked shut, but it did so with Rory on my side of it. Then the bed dipped. She laid herself next to me, also staring at the ceiling, as she reached for my hand.
“I know he loves you,” she said. “I just want you to have it easier than I had it. I don’t want love to be this complicated and messy for you.”
“Messy …” I laughed a little. “That’s how we know it’s real.”
“I adore Fisher … or I did. And honestly, it’s just all been a lot. I was hit pretty hard, completely out of the blue. It would have been a lot to handle five years ago, but add in the accident, his memory loss, and Angie … well … it’s more than my heart and brain can reconcile at the moment. And I know … I know I have no right to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Seeing you and Fisher that day in that situation was not what any mom wants to see.”
I laughed and laughed some more. Rory started to giggle too. She definitely had no right to say anything to me. She saw Fisher enjoying my breasts. I saw Rose doing so much more to her.
Rolling toward her, I tucked my hands under my cheek. “I know it’s not the way you imagined … it’s not the way I imagined … but your little girl is in love. And it’s big. And all-consuming. It’s scary. It’s exhilarating. And real. So if you want to be the mom you didn’t get to be when I was going through my teenaged years, then I’m going to need a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on as I fight like hell to get my prince.”
“Your prince …” She gave me a sad smile and rested her hand on my cheek.
“I need you to want my happiness more than Angie’s. And I know that’s hard because Angie is a good person. And her love story with Fisher is pretty amazing. But it’s not forever. I just … I know it.”
Rory nodded slowly. “I’ve got you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After pie.
After an apology from my grandparents.
After playing six games of Hearts.
Fisher called me.
“I’m calling it a night.” I excused myself from the game when I saw his number on my phone’s screen. It was close to ten-thirty at night. “Hi,” I answered in a meek voice just as I reached my bedroom.
“I’m in your driveway.”
My heart sucked at staying in chill mode or staying mad at him very long.
“Want to go for a drive?”
“I suppose.” That was my version of chill, even though I was already grabbing a hoodie to wear over my leggings and heading down the hallway.
“Take your time.”
“Okay.” I ended the call while I pulled on my wool-lined boots.
“Going somewhere?” Rory asked as they picked up the cards and glasses from the table.
“I am.” I grinned.
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
Was she assuming I was coming home after they went to bed or not until morning? I was twenty-four. It didn’t matter. But what did matter was I knew she knew who I was leaving with and she didn’t give me anything but an honest smile.
“Goodnight.”
Everyone else told me goodnight as I went out the front door. A few snowflakes swirled in the cold air, and my lost fisherman was in his truck waiting for me.
When I climbed in, he gave me a reserved smile. I felt certain that was all he dared to give me after my unexpected call to him during Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
Fisher drove us to his house, and I wasn’t surprised. We didn’t speak on the short ride. When we arrived, he climbed out, but I didn’t. Stopping at the front of the truck, he looked at me expectantly for a few seconds before he made his way to my door and grabbed the handle. But he didn’t open it right away. He paused and that look spread across his face. The concentration. The wrinkled brow and narrowed eyes.
Then he lifted his gaze and kept it on me as he slowly opened my door.
“I opened your door for you, but I acted like I didn’t want to do it. I told you to pull the lever to make it open. I think I was an asshole to you.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if all his memory loss was physical from the accident or if some of it was psychological. Did he have emotional reasons for not wanting to remember his love for me? His love for Angie?
“Sometimes.” I nodded, but I grinned too. I had a love-hate relationship with Fisher’s asshole side.
I turned to get out, but I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist instead. “I’m sorry I was the asshole today when I called you. It was stupid. I don’t know what got into me.” I buried my face in his warm neck and kissed it.
Fisher shut the door and locked his truck before carrying me inside the house. “It’s all going to be over, settled, done. Soon. It just … has to be.”
I released him, easing to my feet. We took off our boots and he slipped off his fleece jacket as I pulled off my sweatshirt.
“Drink?” He curled my hair behind my ears.
“No,” I whispered, gazing up at him.
“Bed?” A hopeful grin stole his lips.
“No,” I whispered.
“Then what can I do for my beautiful girl?”
“Dance with me.”
Fisher’s eyebrows lifted a bit. “Dance?”
I nodded.
“I’m not sure I’m a dancer.”
I shrugged, retrieving my phone from my sweatshirt pocket. Taking his hand, I pulled him to the kitchen. “Dim the lights. I know you love ambient lighting.”
“How do you know that?” He turned on some accent lights and dimmed them while I tapped a song on my phone. Judah & The Lion’s “Only To Be With You.”
“Because I know you.”
“What if I want to know you like you know me?” He pulled me into his arms, and we swayed in a slow circle.
“You do, my lost fisherman … you do.”
“Did we dance? Are you trying to bring back more memories?”
“No.” I kissed h
is neck as his hands slid from my lower back to my butt. “Just making new ones.”
We danced and we kissed.
One song led to another song. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a dancer and neither was I. Our bodies molded and moved, perfectly together and in sync with each other’s own rhythm.
Fisher’s hands stayed on the outside of my clothes, yet touched me intimately.
The graze of his hand over my breast, my butt … the slide of his fingers up my inner thigh.
Open-mouthed kisses.
Soft moans.
More dancing.
We weren’t sneaking around. We weren’t rushed. It was just us, and we had the whole night.
I was exhausted with no desire to sleep.
I was turned on, but not wanting to take it any further yet.
I was perfectly content, but insanely eager.
We were messy and alive and living in the moment. Our love only mattered for a day.
A kiss.
A breath.
Eventually the songs ended, leaving us in silence dotted with the soft sounds of our kisses. Yet we kept swaying like we made our own music, like we had our own rhythm. I couldn’t help but imagine a life with Fisher. A real life where we’d enjoy dinner and talk about current events, work, or plan a trip.
After dinner we’d do the dishes and listen to music like tonight. It would lead to dancing and kissing, a seemingly unhurried passion, but we’d still leave our clothes in a trail down the hallway because we would forever be that couple. We’d make love in a frenzy before falling asleep in each other’s arms, only to wake in the morning and do it all over again, only slower and with the soft glow of the morning sun on us. We’d look into each other’s eyes the whole time, starting everyday perfectly connected.
Or … and I liked this dream the best … we’d eventually have to give up our morning sex because we’d wake to the pitter patter of tiny feet charging toward our bedroom to wake us up. And we’d steal long minutes every morning to tickle little bellies and kiss soft cheeks while a chorus of giggles and squeals filled the room.
And on mornings, if we were lucky, we’d distract them with a thirty-minute show on a television or a tablet while we jumped into the shower … together.
“What’s going through that beautiful head of yours?” Fisher asked before kissing the top of said beautiful head. My cheek had been resting on his chest, feeling his heartbeat, as we swayed in silence.
“I want this,” I murmured.
“Want what? More dancing?”
Lifting my head, I gazed up at him and smiled. “More … everything.”
Fisher blinked several times as his knuckles brushed my cheeks. He knew. He knew what more and everything meant. “Me too.” He kissed me while walking me backward out of the kitchen. And I begged for it to be like my dream.
It was.
He broke our kiss to remove my shirt. And we sneaked another kiss before we removed his shirt. More kisses.
My bra.
His back against the hallway wall while I kissed his chest and unbuttoned his jeans.
More kisses and more steps ensued as he inched my leggings south, but just barely past my butt. Fisher’s strong hands slid inside the back of my panties, gripping me, pulling me close, rubbing me against him.
The brush of his bare chest along my nipples while his tongue teased mine … it was intoxicating. Everything about us felt all-consuming. We were memories in the making, ignited by a past he couldn’t remember and fueled by a desire for a future that seemed painfully just out of reach.
“You’re so…” he kissed down my body, kneeling in front of me “…fucking beautiful.” His tongue teased my navel as his hands worked my leggings and panties the rest of the way down my legs. “And sexy … god you’re so sexy.” His mouth moved lower.
My hands found their place in his hair, and they curled into fists, forcing him to look up at me. “I had the biggest crush on you.” More heat found its way to my cheeks, taking me back to that eighteen-year-old girl, out of my mind infatuated with him.
A slow smile worked its way up Fisher’s face as his hands slid along the back of my legs, coming to a rest just below my butt. “Yeah?”
Why was I embarrassed? Why did my heart go wild in my chest making my tummy feel nervous? I wasn’t retelling our past to him. I wasn’t telling him how he felt about me. I wasn’t telling him anything he had to reach for to truly understand. They were my feelings.
They shaped me as a woman in ways he’d never know even if he did remember everything. And I wanted him to see me. All of me.
“Yeah.” I bit my lower lip for a second. “I had no idea sexy wore jeans, a faded tee, and work boots. I had no idea sexy drove a truck and mowed the lawn without a shirt. Well …” I giggled. “I should’ve known sexy mowed the lawn without a shirt. On mornings we rode to work together, I was so giddy. I practically sprinted to your truck, slowing at the last minute to act cool and controlled. Then I prayed you had music playing so you didn’t hear my heart so out of control. And I’d stare at your hands on the steering wheel, those veins up your arms, your full lips as you’d lick them after taking a sip of your coffee.” I slowly shook my head. “I was in deep, feeling things I’d never experienced before. And it felt so wrong, but I couldn’t stop. And you didn’t help … you and your effortless sex appeal just … every single day.”
He stood slowly, kissing my chest and neck on his way to my lips. And before he kissed me on the mouth, he paused, letting his gaze ghost along my face. “I didn’t think I could love you more.” He swept my hair away from my face before weaving his fingers through it. “I was so fucking wrong.”
We kissed.
Clothes vanished along with the rest of the world. And I knew we were an unstoppable storm. But … how much damage would we do in our pursuit to be together?
I died a little when he sank into me. It felt different. We felt different.
Fisher’s heavy breaths washed over my cheek as his lips found my ear. “You are my favorite place in the world.”
I gripped his backside as my legs wrapped around him.
That spoke to my soul, that place that defined us because we were everywhere our souls took us. And maybe that was Heaven. And maybe that was Hell. But in that moment, it was in a bed of messy sheets and tangled limbs.
It was a pretty fucking amazing place.
A little before four in the morning, I wormed my way out of his enveloped arms. I kinda loved that he held me so close, like he didn’t want to ever let me go. After peeing, I stole a hoodie from his closet and pulled it over my head. Closing his bedroom door behind me, I tiptoed to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Score.” I grinned at the plate of holiday leftovers he must have brought home from his parents’ house. Pulling off the plastic wrap, I swiped my finger through the cold mashed potatoes. “Oh my gosh, those are good.” I skipped the fork and made a second swipe through the mashed potatoes with my finger. They had a buttermilk taste to them.
“Are you really eating my lunch?”
I jumped and turned toward Fisher, licking the potatoes from the corner of my mouth.
He sauntered toward me in nothing but his charcoal gray briefs that hugged him in all the right places. “Stop eyeing my cock while licking your lips.”
My gaze snapped up to meet his as my tongue made a quick retreat back into my mouth. I grinned. “These are the best potatoes I’ve ever had. And if you tell Rory that, I’ll kill you.”
“Why are you eating cold potatoes?” He ducked and kissed me.
My hand pressed to his warm chest. “Because I love almost everything cold. After my dad died, I lived on leftovers. My grandma made huge batches of everything, and we’d essentially eat leftovers for a week. And I was either hanging out with friends or working, so I often grabbed cold leftovers and ate them on the go.” My fingers made a return trip to the potatoes, and I held it up to him.
Fisher wrinkled his nose. “I’m
not a fan of cold potatoes.”
“No?” I tilted my head to the side before slowly sucking my finger.
An unhurried grin curled his lips. “Was I snoring?”
I shook my head. “I had to pee. Then I decided I was hungry.”
“I like this on you.” He tugged the strings to his hoodie. “Not as much as I like me on you, but it’s nice.”
Popping a piece of cold turkey into my mouth, I teased the waistband of his briefs with my other hand. “How was Thanksgiving with your family?”
Fisher watched my fingers at his waistband for a few seconds before lifting his chin along with one slightly raised eyebrow. “It was okay. Lots of kids. Lots of everything. My mom gave a sappy toast that was more like a speech about how grateful she was that my life had been spared. It started a cry fest. I’m glad to be alive, but can we stop talking about it?”
I giggled. “How dare your mom express such gratitude for her child on Thanksgiving.”
“I’m just not a fan of being the center of attention. That’s Arnie’s thing. Not mine.”
“Try being an only child. There’s no escaping the center.”
He nodded slowly. “So … you told your grandparents about us?”
“I did.” I smiled. “It felt amazing, like we were real.” I covered the plate with the plastic wrap.
Fisher grabbed the plate and returned it to the fridge. “We are real.”
I reached across the island to grab an apple from his big bowl of them. “You know what I mean. Official.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oof …” I sucked in a sharp breath when he pinned me to the counter, my chest stretched over it with a shiny green apple in one hand.
“I don’t know what you mean, because I heard nothing after you bent over my counter.” His fingers teased my outer thighs. “And I discovered you’re not wearing anything under my sweatshirt.”
“Fisher …” I gulped. It was a compromising position I hadn’t been in before. He restrained me using his body and the counter instead of zip ties, but the effect was the same.
“You can’t be in this position…” he hiked the hoodie up, completely exposing my bare butt “…with callipygian tattooed on your very sexy and shapely ass…” his knee nudged my legs apart a little wider “…and not expect me to fuck you.”