Chapter 6 #2
Nate interrupts. “—and then he found us.”
My head is on a swivel, my attention ping ponging between the three of them. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re here?”
Butterflies erupt in my stomach at the sound of his voice, rich and full, a sense of ease immediately coming over me even while my insides flutter.
I turn towards it, and standing at the front of the fire truck, having just rounded the corner, is Wyatt.
Looking completely different than he did the other night.
Gone is the cowboy hat. Instead, curly light brown locks of hair sit atop his head, while the sides are cropped closer, not leaving any curls sitting there.
The cowboy boots have been replaced with boots fit for a firefighter.
As have the clothes. He’s dressed in a blue Santa Rosé Fire t-shirt that clings to his broad shoulders and muscular chest, and blue pants that are looser than his jeans the other night, but I’m positive fit his ass almost as well.
Not that I can see from my vantage point.
His ass was just really nice. Wyatt is not the type of man to miss glute day.
“What the hell?” I ask, dumbfounded, blinking rapidly, positive my eyes are deceiving me.
There’s no way he’s here. No way he’s dressed like a freaking firefighter. No way he is a firefighter. And there’s absolutely zero chance he’s a firefighter in my friends’ house.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the face I made when I walked in and saw Quinn and Hailey this morning,” he replies, a grin spreading across his lips. It’s the same one from the other night. The one that painted him as someone full of life.
So she did kind of find him. And then never replied to me because she knew I’d be here today. Damn her.
“Surprise,” Liam says, slinging an arm over my shoulder.
I knock him in the stomach with the back of my hand and hear the satisfying sound of air billowing out of him. I whisper-yell at him, “You could have texted me.”
“And miss the look on your face?” he says, rubbing his stomach where I hit him. “No way.”
“Liam,” Nate says, and we both glance in his direction. “Why don’t you come help Luke with that hose? I think it needs washing.”
“That’s for Wy—”
“Wash the hose, Liam,” Nate commands, leaving no room for argument.
I recognize it for what it is. A way to give Wyatt and me a moment alone.
With grateful eyes, I give Nate a subtle nod of my head, smoothing out a wrinkle in my black t-shirt.
The three of them disappear, Liam muttering something or other to Nate.
Brody is long gone, having disappeared after Liam interrupted our conversation.
Turning my attention back to Wyatt, I take in a deep breath, not knowing how to feel. I thought I would have time to figure things out once I spoke to Quinn. This is not what I expected when I got her text this morning.
“I was kickin’ my own ass for not getting your number the other night,” he says, taking a few steps in my direction.
It’s so different seeing him in the light of day. He’s even more handsome than he was in the club with his hat on. I didn’t know what was beneath, but the curls suit him more than anything I would have pictured, giving him a boyish look that contrasts with the man before me.
“I’m sorry I left the way I did,” I say, playing with the hem of my shirt.
He shakes his head. “Hailey and Quinn told me. I get it.”
“I could have stayed.”
“No.” The word has finality to it. Authority that makes me suck in a breath because of the shivers it sends down my spine. It’s not angry or aggressive. Just firm. “You did the right thing.”
You’re walking wrong, Brynleigh.
Brynleigh, your shoulders are wrong, your posture is wrong.
Again, Brynleigh. Why must you always get it wrong in these shoes?
I close my eyes against the words spiraling in my mind. The ones I try to lock out, but seem to always squeeze through the cracks. Hopelessly wrong. All the time. Never doing right, only wrong. Never, ever good enough. It never mattered what I did. It was never good—
“Hey,” his voice reaches my ears, soft, gentle, and close.
Half a second later, I feel the warmth of his hand on my forearm.
The touch is featherlike, as though he doesn’t want to scare me.
Without realizing it, I’d gone completely rigid as the questions plagued my mind, and at his contact, my body reacts, relaxing.
My shoulders come down from my ears, my neck immediately loses tension, and my jaw slackens.
Opening my eyes, I blink against the brightness of the day and open bay door at his back. Swallowing down the embarrassment of being caught in that kind of moment, I force a smile, my eyes sweeping over the wolf on his forearm. The haunted one, much like how I often feel.
I never let anyone see it. My mind wanders so often that it never seems out of the ordinary when I’m crashing through my own thoughts.
No one notices, which is another reason I keep my distance and only go out on more special occasions.
It keeps them at arm’s length, so they don’t know.
So they won’t pick up on the moments like this.
The moments Wyatt has caught twice.
“I need to go get set up,” I tell him abruptly, color warming my cheeks. Grabbing the strap of the massage table, I hoist it up on my shoulder, forcing Wyatt to take a step back. “I give massages on my off days here. Brody is up first, but if you want one and there’s no call, I’m free after.”
Immediate regret slams into me. That was dumb. I shouldn’t have invited him for a massage. What was I thinking?
Wyatt blinks at me, taking in the table at my side for the first time. “O-okay,” he stammers, the quiet confidence he’s radiated since I met him slipping away.
I get it.
A massage means touching him. For him to unclothe parts of himself.
And I’m not sure I’m ready for that.