Much more.
As we step outside, a mournful sax wails down the street. Kelsey shivers. My hand slides up her back to cup her shoulder. “What is it?”
“The soul of this city just hits me here.” She presses her hand into her stomach. “Whether it’s through tragedy or beauty, they come together as one. It’s a special kind of bond that I’ve never witnessed before.”
Even as I tighten my arm around her to tuck her against my side, my breathing starts to quicken. I need to kiss her again.
We haven’t been just us without hiding anything since the last time we were in Professor Wiley’s classroom alone. Not even when our bodies were entwined so intimately with the hotel sheets have I felt this connection. I need to taste her as we learn each other for who we are with our secrets unraveling a little at a time. I need to see the gray eyes I knew then in the woman I’m holding now. I didn’t lie to Kelsey when I told her I thought she was amazing and beautiful over fifteen years ago. I need her to believe that. And there were reasons for the pain we suffered. Because, yes, damnit, I was hurt too. But will the reasons why matter? I think jadedly. It’s a primal urge clawing at my insides, the need to lay claim to her lips once, just once, here in my city—our city—where we’re just us without any bad memories between us.
Yet.
Just as she’s handed the valet her ticket, I drag her around the corner of the building. Sputtering, she asks, “What the hell, Ry?”
“This.” My head lowers. I capture her lips with mine as I press her body back against the turquoise clapboard.
I was going to give her a gentle kiss at her car. I intended to take us back in time to the kiss I almost gave her as I hugged the breath out of her in the classroom and murmured, “You are so incredibly amazing and beautiful. And I’m going to miss you so damn much.” I’d just put her down after spinning her around in jubilant glee, and for a heartbeat, a second, an eternity, a feminine awareness lit her face. In her eyes, there was a knowledge I was feeling something more than gratitude. And if Professor Wiley hadn’t flung open the door, I would have kissed her.
The kiss I’m giving her now isn’t that. It’s reverent but wholly sexual. I brush my lips across hers once, twice, willing them to part. On a gasp they do, and my tongue accepts the invitation immediately. I taste the creamy coffee she had in place of dessert on her lips. Aligning our bodies so our hearts touch, I cage her head between my arms as I deepen the kiss further, ravaging her mouth like I did just a few nights ago as I lay atop of her glorious body. Her arms wrap around my neck, pulling me closer. A moan escapes her lips, hidden to all but me by the sax playing nearby. Need swirls up between us, merging with the heat and hunger in the warm summer air. It prompts me to want to drive the kiss higher even as it makes me want to treasure her.
Tearing my mouth away, I trail kisses behind her ear and whisper, “Kelsey.” I’m burning up for her again.
In contrast, she freezes. Pressing a hand against my chest, she pushes me back slightly. “I know where we took things the other night, but I’m not ready to go there.”
“This isn’t going away between us,” I point out, breathless.
“No, but it doesn’t mean that I want to rush this either.”
“We also have a hell of a history,” I manage to get out when there’s nothing more that I’d like to do than hitch her skirt over her hip and feel the smooth length of her thigh wrapped around my waist. Again.
And after the words are out of my mouth, I could slap myself for saying them. “Yes, we do have that between us still, don’t we?” Leaning up, she presses her lips on my cheek, coolly, before backing away. “Good night, Rierson. Thank you for a lovely evening.” And I stand stock-still as she dashes around the corner to escape.
Damn, how do women move so fast in heels that high?
Unfreezing, I race after her. She’s hugging herself before sliding into a BMW waiting at the curb.
Pulling out my phone, I immediately begin to text her, but I wait to send it. I don’t want to upset her while she’s driving. I know I won’t forget to send this one.
Instead, I hand my ticket to the valet and wait for my vehicle to be pulled around. About fifteen minutes later, as I’m waiting for my garage door to open, I finally hit Send.
The first time I thought about kissing you, you were wearing a pair of black leggings and a purple tunic. I’ll never apologize for our “first date” kiss. Maybe it should have happened fifteen years ago. But even if I won’t apologize for that, you should know I tried to do it back then—apologize, that is.
I lower the garage door and walk out the side entrance before making my way into the back of the house. Lisa looks up from where she’s studying on the couch. “Hey! How was your date with Kelsey?”
My phone chooses that moment to ping. “Give me a second, and I’ll let you know.” I read the message.
When was that? she writes back.
The day after graduation but you were already gone. Damnit, this shouldn’t be over text.
There’s a long pause before she says, I agree. I deserve better than to discuss this in text. I thought we were going to do that tonight.
We were. But then I got lost in the moment, I write back.
That doesn’t bode well.
Leaning against the counter, I silently agree. A large part of me knows I should just meet her and let her go. I’m no good for whatever beauty her future holds. I’m more tainted by my past than she could be by hers. Kelsey’s had the ability to transform herself into someone different, but how do you transform something so ugly, you’d do anything…
An incoming text pulls me from traveling down a bleak road. When I read it, I’m floored. And the dark part of me that’s trying to pull me away loses its grip when I’m lassoed in by her words.
I’m struggling with this, Ry. Then there’s a part of me that wants to calmly walk away because I can’t, won’t, be hurt like that again.
I’m clutching the screen so tight I’m afraid it might crack. Again, Kelsey’s words undo me. I read them over and over until they’re memorized.
Lisa gets frustrated waiting for my answer. She shoves herself off the couch and gets to her feet. Standing in front of me, she waves her arms. “Hey, Ry? You in there?”
Quickly, without answering Lisa, I type back, Please, let me see you tomorrow. Let me give you the words you deserve in person. I’m desperately praying she says yes because I owe her a long-overdue apology and a reassurance that whatever this is, it isn’t because of what happened before. It’s because we’re here, we’re us. And my heart’s pounding just as hard as I hope hers is.
What are you thinking?
After trading a few texts back and forth, we decide on meeting at Audubon Park. I tell her I’ll meet her in the early afternoon. Then I get a text that causes a broad smile to break out across my face. I slip my phone into my pocket before I give my full attention to my sister.
Lisa’s impatiently waiting for me to finish. “Aren’t you supposed to make plans for your next date when you’re, say, on it?”
“Not when you almost screw it up at the end.”
“Oh, Ry.” She lays a hand on my arm sympathetically, right before she punches me. “Don’t screw up.”
“I can’t seem to not manage it around her,” I admit.
Lisa gapes at me before a wonky smile that used to cross her face before she would tattle on me to our mother appears. My balls draw up in fear. “What?” I demand.
“Nothing,” she demurs.
“Lisa,” I say, warningly.
“Just that watching you drown is going to be an extra form of entertainment I didn’t realize I’d get when I moved here.” She turns and laughs over her shoulder as she makes her way back to the couch. Picking up the textbook she was reading, she tunes me out.
Shaking my head, I make my way down the hall and head upstairs to my suite of rooms. Stripping out of my clothes, I crawl between the sheets thinking of the last thing Kelsey sent m
e over text.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Maybe our path in life isn’t predetermined by the things that happened to us or even by a single action. Perhaps it’s determined by our willingness to humble ourselves to correct the wrongs.
If so, maybe I have a chance at not only redemption but happiness.
Finally.
Chapter 16
Kelsey
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. What possessed me to agree to go out with Ry again? What is it he expects from me? It’s got to be something. After all, something that burned that hot couldn’t lead to something more.
Could it?
Agreeing to meet Ry at Gumbel Fountain in Audubon Park seemed like a good idea last night, but in the light of day, while yanking out everything in my dresser and closet trying to find something to wear that doesn’t make me resemble an exhibit at the zoo, I’m not so sure.
“Maybe I should text him and cancel,” I grumble aloud as I toss another pair of shorts on the bed.
“I’ll hide your phone if you even reach for it. You are going to go long enough to get your apology, Kelsey, so help me God,” Angel warns me from the now open doorway.
Startled, I spin around. She’s rubbing her hand over Lucy, who seems to be getting bigger inside her mama’s belly each day. “And stop worrying about what you’re going to wear. Who cares?”
“I do since I’m judged every time I walk out the door,” I return.
“The only person doing that to you anymore is you,” she retorts.
Startled, I drop the sixth pair of shorts I’d planned on trying on.
“Hold on to everything you’ve managed to accomplish, Kels, and stop berating yourself for the fact you’re not perfect. Hell, am I?”
“You always have been,” I tell her sincerely. Because in my eyes, Angel is everything: beautiful, loving, and smart.
“That’s because you love me. Don’t you see? If someone loves you, they forget about your imperfections and focus on all the beauty that comes from within.”
Walking over to my bed, I sit down on top of all the discarded clothes and pull my knees into my chest. “What am I doing, Angel?”
“Other than sitting on half your closet?”
“Cute. I’m not certain I can handle opening up myself to this—to him,” I admit. I’d shared the texts from last night with Angel this morning.
“Darlin’, who says you’re the one who has to? It seems to me like he’s the one who needs to speak up and say what’s on his mind.”
“Have you ever known a man to do that?” I demand.
“Just Dare when he…”
“Stop talking. Right now.”
Angel laughs, when I flop back groaning. Sobering, she asks, “Do you think there’s something there that’s worth exploring?”
“Maybe, but how do I not resent it’s happening now because of the way I look? I’m proud of who I’ve become, but sometimes I want to be loved because of being attractive inside.” I voice my frustration. My eyes finding hers, I smile ruefully. “You know, the same person I’ve always been.”
“Get it out in the open and you let him explain like the man he’s supposed to be. And as for your struggle about not being attractive on the inside, let me remind you, you were asked out plenty before you ever had the surgery.”
I snort derisively.
Angel hauls off and punches me in the arm. “Don’t give me that crap. I’m not talking about at school but after. That cute PA at the surgeon’s office asked you out constantly. What was his name again?”
I dismiss her words with a wave of my hand. “Rick? He was nice. I’m sure it was just as friends.”
“Right,” she drawls sarcastically. “Friends. That’s why he looked like he was sucker punched when you ran into him with an actual date.”
I flush before averting my eyes. “This is the problem with having a best friend. They know too much.”
She smiles before her face gets serious. “I need you to make me a promise.”
“Okay.” And I agree because there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.
“Hold on to all you are and try to forget the negativity that’s been thrown at you. Most of the time, people have their own issues they’re taking out on someone they perceive is weaker than they are.” Shifting to the end of the bed, she looks at the mess I’ve made of my summer casual wear. “Now, if it were up to me, I’d wear your blue shorts with the berry camisole and espadrilles.”
I shift my hips to pull out most of what Angel suggested. “You think?”
“Bring a shirt in case you get too hot or you go inside,” she suggests. Remembering my blue and berry cotton striped button-down hanging in the closet, I realize it’s perfect. Casual yet cool. Making her way to the door, she turns. “Oh, Kels?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“One more thing?”
“Uh-huh.” I’m already starting to fold my clothes to put the explosion of my wardrobe away.
“You’re an adult now. You don’t have to stay anywhere. If you’re unhappy, then walk away. That’s allowed too.” With that sage advice, Angel leaves my room.
Tears burn my eyes when I realize I’ve never really done this. I’m thirty-three years old, and I’ve never really dated because of the locks I placed on the cages I guarded my heart with years ago.
My cousin Ava’s husband said eventually I’d find someone who’d be worth taking more than a superficial chance on. “Don’t feel like you need to conform to being anything, Kelsey. Take life, love, and relationships at your own pace. Just be you.”
“And what if that means being alone?”
Matt shrugged. “Look at how long it took me to find the other part of my soul. I’d say it’s worth the wait of not settling.” His all-knowing gaze met mine as I lifted a heavy white mug filled with coffee Ava had just topped off. “Don’t settle for anything. For far too long, you’ve had to give up on your dreams.” With those words, he shoved out of my booth and headed back into the kitchen at The Coffee Shop.
Shaking my head, I head toward the bathroom to get ready, wondering how I’m going to push the memories far enough away to live in today and enjoy the beautiful day outside with a man I’m intensely attracted to despite past concerns and present wariness.
* * *
“How are your grandparents?” Ry asks me in between popping grapes in his mouth.
“They’re wonderful,” I assure him. “Loving retirement in Florida.”
“Where’s home for them now?”
“A little town just north of St. Augustine. There’s a 55-and-over community they live in.” Thoughtfully, I reconsider my words before adding on, “It’s not a retirement community as much as it’s a perpetual cruise ship. The activities program printed is almost as thick as one of my books.”
Ry chuckles. “So, things like bridge, canasta?”
I rear back, horrified. “Hell no. Pop-pop would go insane. He’s already thrown out his back twice with the competition-level paddleball and bowling league. Nana swears if he pulls this crap with ping-pong, she’s going to sign him up for quilting.”
“And that’s a problem because…”
“Because he was a former tailor—it’s a form of torture for him to see some of the messes that happen. He comes back to their home ranting about how he could teach the class better,” I confide. “It’s Nana’s perfect revenge.”
By this point, Ry’s dropped the grapes to the blanket; he’s laughing so hard. “Has she done this often?”
“Twice that I know of. The first was after he didn’t listen to doctor’s orders and went back to paddleball too soon. The second was after…” I clamp my lips together.
“After?” Ry rolls to the side and raises his brow in question.
“Well…” I hesitate. “My cousin Ava and I gave them a present for their fiftieth anniversary. He threw a right fit over it, refusing to accept it, yelling and everything. Nana told him to get over it. Since he didn’t b
y the time we left, we each received beautiful quilts as thank-yous a few weeks later.”
“What was the gift?”
I shift uncomfortably. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, Ava helped.” I’m avoiding answering.
“Kelsey, did you get them a trip? A car?” At the negative shake of my head, he smirks. “A house?”
I studiously avoid his gaze as I reach for the bottle of water and take a drink.
“Wait.” He sits up. “You’re not kidding. You bought them a house?”
“No, what we did was pay off their mortgage. Pop-pop didn’t take kindly to it,” I reply defensively.
“I can imagine.”
I turn on him like I’ve just been transported back to Nana’s kitchen three years ago. “And why the hell shouldn’t I? I was clinging to life by my fingernails when I lived with them. They’re what kept me on this side of sane. So I paid off their mortgage—so what? I already owned my own home,” I argue hotly. Ry opens his mouth to speak, but I don’t let him. “Why shouldn’t they get a chance to live a life full of richness? Should I hoard it to myself, maybe buy some more shoes with it?”
“I was just going to say…”
“They taught me everything about the kind of person I should be and the love I deserve.”
“Then you should have bought them the house and a car.” When my head snaps around, his blue eyes are burning into mine. The hottest part of the flame is searing me as he continues to look at me without saying anything, but when he does, my heart backs up into my throat. “It’s hard for men to admit we’re not always doing the right thing. There’s something inside of us that makes us believe—sometimes stupidly—we’re responsible for the well-being of those we love. Sometimes, it takes a loved one to point out the error of our ways before we can let someone else help. And unfortunately, it’s often too late to make amends.”
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