His hand cupped my cheek, and his thumb strayed to my lips to stroke them tenderly. My lips puckered and kissed it without a conscious thought from me. He smiled and then spoke. “I’m just a scared sixteen-year-old boy finding out he’s going to be a father in a scared thirty-four-year-old man’s body, wondering if I did a good enough job. Now, that scared thirty-four-year-old wonders if he’s doing right by the woman he would die for in the blink of an eye. He failed tonight, and fear spoke rather than love.”
I tipped my head into his hand. “What do you mean you failed tonight?”
“I let the worry and fear I have about your leg make me stick my nose in where it didn’t belong.”
I let out a breath, and my chest collapsed on itself. “This is what I’m talking about, Bishop. You said what you said out of concern for me. My reaction to that was what didn’t belong. I knew it as soon as you walked away. Brady shot me a look of total disappointment before he followed you. Hay-Hay told me I had better be careful, or I was going to push you away. She said she could see how much you love me every time you look at me.”
His smile was soft, and when I gazed into his eyes, I realized she was right. The love was there, shining in those globes of green. “I try to hide it, but it never works. Maybe that’s what gives this marriage validity to the rest of the town.”
“That could be,” I agreed, nodding. “It’s possible I’m contributing as well. Hay-Hay also told me she could see how much I love you, even if I haven’t come to accept that yet.”
His eyes widened, and he coughed, clearing his throat. “She must think herself clairvoyant then,” he said jokingly. “She’s making all kinds of prophecies.”
“She does think she’s an expert on love now,” I said, rolling my eyes playfully. “You get married once, and suddenly you know it all.”
He winked, but shrugged his shoulder slightly. “Brady was equally as prophetic while we covered the boat. He said sometimes you have to dig in for the long haul when it comes to love.”
I laughed and rolled to my back, staring at the ceiling. “And Brady would know about the long haul. It took a lot of years for him to convince Hay-Hay she could trust him.”
“But he did, and now he’s got the girl. I asked you for thirty days to prove that I want this marriage to be real. After talking to Brady, I realized I’d wait thirty years if that’s what it takes to convince you that you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I love you, Amber Halla.”
Tears sprung to my eyes instantly, and I swallowed, my lips shaking at the idea that he was that dedicated. That he was in love with me. As broken as I was, he was in love with me.
“Bishop, there’s so much unknown about me. You shouldn’t have to suffer those consequences, too. You deserve better than that.”
He rolled me to him and grasped my face, his eyes boring into mine. “No. Stop. I told you I never wanted to hear you say that again, remember?”
“Sorry, teacher,” I said jokingly, but he wasn’t joking. I sighed when he didn’t even crack a smile.
“Everything from this second to the next is unknown, tart. I could walk up those stairs and have a stroke at the top. I could wake up tomorrow morning and be injured mowing the lawn. We can’t live our lives worrying about the consequences of living. Does that make sense?”
“I get that, Bishop, I do, but this situation speaks to a different place. While there is unknown, what we already know isn’t good.”
He held his finger to my lips. “This is what I know already. You’re incredible. You’re funny, kind, smart, beautiful, loving, devoted, and a million other adjectives that would test my English teacher skills.” I smiled, and he moved his finger after I kissed it. “I know that you’re a little tart in bed. When I think about sinking into you, my dick goes instantly hard, and when I do take you completely, there is this blooming, overwhelming, breath-stealing sensation in my chest that tells me you are the person I waited for all these years. Up until last night, I had never had sex without a condom because I didn’t trust anyone enough not to lie to me about birth control. Once burned, twice shy, as they say. Last night, when you told me I didn’t need to wear one, I just trusted you. That’s what tells me what I already know is good. We are good, Amber. Love at first sight is real, and my love for you is good.”
I wiped my eye on my shoulder and cleared my throat, grabbing his wrist, where he still held my face. “Is that what that feeling is in my chest when you do something incredibly sweet for me, and I’m overwhelmed? Or when you teach me how to come from pleasure rather than determination? Or how every time you sink into me, you pause with this look of total and utter spirituality on your face for a moment?”
“Is that what feeling?” he asked, his thumb stroking away the tears from my cheeks. “Love?” I nodded quickly, his lips tugging up into a smile. “It sounds like love to me, but I suppose it could also be gratitude.”
“I asked Hay-Hay tonight if she thought love at first sight was real.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she calls it souls at first sight. Your soul knows it just met the one person they’re supposed to be with, even if we don’t recognize it at the moment. Sometimes love at first sight is just our souls calling out for each other. Like Haylee, you might deny it because it’s the wrong place, wrong time, or because we don’t think we deserve it. Sometimes we deny it because we’re scared. If that person keeps stepping back into our path, then we should stop and think about that first meeting in a different light.”
“She’s scary sometimes. Has she always been like this?” he asked, his thumb grasping my chin.
“No. Haylee used to be the exact opposite. That changed after someone tried to kill her. It was like the knock to her head turned her into an empath.”
“Or she always was one, and the near-death experience gave her a way to tap into it.”
“Probably that. Either way, what she said made sense to me more than anything else anyone has ever said. You kept stepping back into my path, and I had to look back at our first meeting in a new light. All I could picture was how kind your green eyes were when you immediately picked up on how afraid of the storms I was. I replayed opening my eyes in the van to see you reaching your hands out to me. That was the first time anyone reached out to me when I was vulnerable out of empathy and not obligation. Then you showed up in the bakery, and I agreed to meet you that night for dinner. I don’t do that. I don’t trust men. I’ve fought against it all this time, but the truth was there all along. I still fight against it because I’m not sure if my limited experience gives me enough knowledge to say what I’m feeling is love. The thing is, I don’t have limited experience with myself, if that makes sense?” He nodded, and I smiled, letting out a sigh of frustration. “What I’m trying to say, while jacking it up royally, is that I love you, Bishop Halla. That screws with this whole fake marriage thing we’ve got going on, but pretending it isn’t true is doing nothing but hurting the both of us.”
He froze in place, other than the slight tremble of his hand on my chin. “You love me?” he asked as if he was clarifying what he heard.
Suddenly, I was unsure again. “I mean, I think it’s love. I’ve never felt like this before, but when you got up and walked away tonight, I wanted to run after you. I wanted to beg you to forgive me. There was this feeling in my chest that my heart was being crushed. Even worse than when I fight with Haylee, and we’re mad at each other. I always want to make it right with her because I love her. Tonight, the feeling in my chest was like ten times that.”
He finally sucked in a deep breath of air, his lips coming down on mine in a hot, frenzied tangling of tongues. “God, I love you so much. Your words just tipped my world on its axis and then set it right again. Right for the first time in eighteen years.” He pressed his palm to his chest and sucked in more air while I ran my fingers through his hair and across his soft beard.
“Are you okay?�
�� I asked, worried when he kept his hand on his chest.
“I’m better than okay. I finally feel like I’m not going to be left carrying a heavy heart around forever when the woman I love leaves me. You’re not going to leave me, right?” he asked, pulling me into him and kissing me again before I could answer. By the time he released me, I had to pant several times to get the oxygen in to form words.
“As I said, feelings complicate this fake marriage, but I don’t plan on leaving you, Bishop Halla.”
He balanced his forehead on mine and kissed my nose. “It’s only a fake marriage if you keep referring to it that way, Mrs. Halla. If you stop calling it that, then we can make it a marriage from this day forward.”
“To have and to hold?” I asked, teasing him a little by licking my lips.
“To have. To hold. To do lots of other naughty things until you can barely walk the next day.”
“Well, that won’t take much. I can barely walk on any given day.”
He dropped his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t be. I was teasing you. I know what you meant. You meant you were going to use this beard between my legs until my thighs were chapped from your whisker rubs,” I said, stroking the hair on his face.
“True, but I also meant I was going to bury my yardstick in you over and over until you came with my name on your lips.”
“Over and over,” I said, rolling on top of him.
“Promises, promises,” he whispered before he captured my lips again.
I HELPED HER INTO THE house, and she lowered herself to the couch, sighing heavily and with resignation. I went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water and, at the last second, grabbed a wine cooler, too. She might need something more substantial than water. When I got back to the couch, she was texting on her phone.
“Water or wine?” I asked, holding them up.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Am I supposed to call you Jesus now?”
I snorted and handed her the wine, setting the water on the table for later. “No, but you can cry on my shoulder if you need to.”
She held up her phone. “I was just texting Haylee that I’d be over later to see her. I haven’t even seen their new house yet. I mean, sure, I’m familiar with it since old Mrs. Daniels lived there forever. Did I tell you that we once picked her petunias? I convinced Hay-Hay it would be okay, but man, did we get in trouble. I called her petunia ever si—”
I put my finger to her lips and gazed at her under my brow. “Amber, it’s okay to be upset.”
Her head swung back and forth while she screwed the cap off the wine cooler. I moved my hand, and she took a long drink of it before lowering it to her lap. “I’m not upset.”
“You’re not upset that the nerves in your leg don’t work at all.”
“Some work,” she said defensively.
I held up my hand. “I stand corrected. You’re not upset that the nerves from your knee down don’t work?”
“It’s more like I’m resigned,” she sighed, leaning her head back. “Let’s face facts. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. I can only make it bend at my hip, and even when I do that, the rest of it just flops around. I was hoping there were more treatment options than there are, but all I can do is keep moving forward. Being upset or pissy won’t change anything.”
I tipped my head in acknowledgment of that. “I get what you’re saying, but it’s okay to grieve the loss for a moment. I hope you aren’t just saying this because you think I don’t want to deal with it.”
“I don’t want to deal with it!” she exclaimed before her shoulders sank. “Sorry, you know what I mean. I’ve been doing this so long that I know how to internalize it. Nobody likes a complainer or a Debbie Downer. I just have to move forward like I’ve done all the other times I got a shitty hand. That’s life. Either you live it, or you don’t, but you can’t make other people miserable at the same time.”
“You aren’t making me miserable because you’re upset that your leg is paralyzed, tart. In my opinion, that’s a legitimate reason to let someone comfort you for five minutes without feeling weak.”
She tipped her head to her shoulder and shrugged. “Thanks for going with me today. I know it was boring for you just sitting there.”
I shook my head, and grasped her hand in mine. “I wasn’t bored. I was focused on being there to support you. I know you normally do these things alone, but you don’t have to anymore. You’re not putting me out by asking me to be there to support you, okay?”
She set the bottle down and nodded, rubbing her face with her hands. “Okay.”
I gathered her into me and held her, the resignation in her shoulder blades heartbreaking to me. She was trying so hard to be strong, but the news like she got today would change a person no matter how positive they tried to remain.
“I should go to Hay-Hay’s,” she whispered, grasping my shirt in her hand tightly. “I promised her.”
My hand rubbed her shoulder, and I nodded against the top of her head. “Take some time first. Take some time to accept what happened before you have to tell someone else about it. I love you,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head. “I know you’re a strong woman, but even strong women need a little extra TLC sometimes.”
“I’m angry,” she whispered, the weight of her words pushing hard against me. “I’m angry that everyone else in my family walked away from that night uninjured. They all carry scars, but none of them were physically hurt the way I was. Then I get angry at myself because I lived while other families lost their loved ones. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t survived—”
“No!” I grasped her shoulders and pushed her out away from me, finding her gaze and holding it. “God, sweetart, don’t ever say that again.”
“It’s not untrue, Bishop. I’ve been a burden since the day it happened. First to my family, and now you. That’s not fair!”
I loosened my hands on her shoulders but didn’t move them. “No, none of this is fair, tart. But none of it is your fault, either. You aren’t a burden.”
Her sarcastic laughter filled the living room. “Shows what you know. I can’t wait to tell my parents this one. There will be much sighing and moaning about how much it will impact their life again.”
I grasped her chin and held it gently. “You are mine now. I told you that before, and you told me you understood. Since you clearly don’t understand, you’re going to have to repeat that assignment.”
“Bishop...”
“Don’t Bishop me. I will have to teach you that lesson again later, but for right now, let me tell you this. I don’t care what your parents think about the news you got today. They’re inconsequential to your health now that you have me. They don’t get to act put out about it anymore, and if they do, I will set them straight.”
“Not a good idea,” she whispered, dropping her eyes. “I might have to live with them again someday.”
I tipped her chin up until she made eye contact again. “Not unless it’s your choice. I have already made you my beneficiary, and you will always have a place in this house, whether I’m alive or dead. That said, I am not giving up on you, Amber Halla. I don’t care if your leg doesn’t work the same way mine does. Take notes, because this is important. Fuck everything your parents ever made you think about yourself except this one thing. You have enough determination to make the life that you want for yourself, even if you have to work around a few things to do it.”
“I thought you were going to say I was strong,” she said on a fake laugh.
“You are,” I said, stealing a kiss from her sweet lips. “But you don’t have to be strong all the time. Sometimes, you get to feel weak and not feel bad about it. Your parents pushed you to be strong, but instead, they just pushed you into feeling like you could never be weak. That you could never just take an hour to let out a breath and grieve for what you lost that day, and they just added insult to injury by doing that. I’m not judging them
. I can imagine the guilt they deal with as parents seeing their daughter so broken by the decisions they made. They’re not here right now, though. We’re here at this moment, right?” I asked, and her head nodded. “Then we’re the only two who matter. It is okay to feel the loss you suffered today, tart. You can let it roll over you here where it’s safe, and you don’t have to respect my feelings. I’m here for you and your feelings.”
“I don’t know how to feel,” she admitted, her eyes dropping to the buttons on my shirt. “I just want to go see Hay-Hay and forget about it for a little bit.”
I stood up and took her hand, and she looked up at me in surprise. “Let me drive you down there, though. I’m sure your leg is sore from all the prodding they did.”
She stood up and finally made eye contact. “You’re not upset with me?”
My hand stroked her cheek, and I leaned in, kissing her softly. “No, sweetart, why would I be? Not knowing how to feel about this news is okay. When you do know how to feel, and if you do need comfort, then I’m here, and I’m ready to hold you. Okay?”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around me, allowing me to pick her up and cradle her against me while I carried her to the car. She was going to crash later, and I’d be there for her when it happened, but for now, I’d let her guide me through this journey.
Sixteen
“Hay-Hay, the house is beautiful,” I whispered, standing in the sunroom of her new house.
“Thanks, Amber. I knew you’d appreciate the changes we made while keeping it honest to the century it was built in.” She pointed at the club chair by the window. “Sit. I’ll get us a drink.”
Brady and Bishop were doing their own thing out in the garage. What do men do in garages? Drink beer? Probably.
I lowered myself to the seat and set my new crutches to the side on the floor. They had become lifesavers, and I was grateful to Bishop for ordering them. My arm didn’t hurt anymore, which made moving around less arduous and fatiguing. When she reappeared, she had two glasses filled with iced tea.
Tart (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 2) Page 21