Chapter 26
26
OPHELIA
I thought he was a nerd. A nerd who reads anything and everything and plays Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. But the person I saw in the ring was anything but that.
He was strong and fierce. Powerful and focused.
And also hot as fuck.
When I arrived outside the dirty garage, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. He’d only sent me an address, nothing more, so I had no idea it was some sort of boxing gym. Not once has he mentioned that he boxes so when I walked in and saw him sparring in the ring, I was surprised to say the least. And turned on something crazy. Then he had to go and kiss me on the cheek and now I’m left feeling like I’m sitting on top of an oversized suitcase of emotions I try not to feel for people, struggling to zip it shut again.
“So, how do you and Malcolm know each other?” his sponsor asks.
“Mutual friends. His friend Hank is married to my best friend,” I explain.
“I know Hank, good guy.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“Malcolm is also a good guy,” he starts, looking at me with raised brows and a half smirk.
I laugh, and I’m mildly uncomfortable because I get the sense that this man wants more out of this relationship than I do. “Yeah, he is. He took care of me when I was sick before the holidays.”
“Did he now?” Marshall asks, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, I had food poisoning. It was awful but he was really great about it.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” I look at the elderly man and wonder how old he is. The wrinkles along his eyes are like the rings you find in the center of an old oak tree. He looks tired, but strong.
“It’s just, Malcolm has affliction towards sickness. Puking especially, he hates it. Don’t ever ask him to visit a hospital, it freaks the poor kid out more than commitment does,” he says with a laugh followed up by a few deep breaths as if his laughter took everything out of him.
I feel my brows pull into the center of my face and my mouth forms a small O as I take in what he just told me. Malcolm never said anything about being weird around sick people and didn’t seem bothered in the slightest about my inability to stop barfing all weekend. My mind flashes to when I asked him if he was only taking care of me because he liked having sex with me and he told me that he was taking care of me because he actually liked me. Maybe he wasn’t lying after all.
“You ready?” I hear his voice behind me and turn to find him with damp hair and wearing his glasses. Fuck these glasses and what they do to my insides. Something on his wrist catches my eyesight and I squint at it.
“Is that my scrunchie? Did you steal that from my place?” I scoff, holding his wrist up, staring at it.
He chuckles a few times before replying. “I may have swiped it after my shower. It’s nice to pull my hair back when I’m training.”
“You little klepto! I’ve been looking for that everywhere.” He smiles at me, finding humor in my annoyance. I don’t hate when he drapes his arm around my shoulder. Marshall looks at the two of us with a smug expression, like he knows something we don’t.
“You two have a good day now. Malcolm, don’t forget to place the liquor order tomorrow for Butcher and Block.”
“Do I ever forget?” he asks in a haughty tone.
“No, but it seems like you have a pretty good reason to be distracted. Just thought I’d remind you.” The old man winks and walks away after waving a hand at us.
Malcolm starts to walk towards the door and I follow since I’m still tucked under his arm. I hold his hand draped over my shoulder and wrap my other arm around his waist, and for a moment I allow my heart to live in a world where this could be our Saturday ritual.
“I missed you,” he mumbles into my ear and the heat of his breath warms my insides.
“You just missed the sex,” I reply flatly.
“I’d be lying if I said no,” he pauses, “but I also missed you. It’s been a month since I’ve seen you, and I missed seeing those pretty eyes of yours looking back at me.” My eyes, which have been focused on the sidewalk, flash to him. Before speaking, I take a breath and try to control my heart but I’m starting to feel like I’m losing that battle.
“How many girls have you used that line on?” I chide.
“None,” he says simply as we reach his truck and I can feel the heat in my cheeks giving me away. “Now hop in, I’m taking us to one of my favorite places.”
“The last time you did that we ended up having sex on your tailgate,” I jab with a smirk. “Plus, what about my car?”
“Reese knows it’s yours, I’ll bring you back here to grab it before the day is over. Besides”—he wraps his arm around me tighter and presses his lips to my temple—“I’m going to make you wait until tonight to be reminded of just how good I can make you feel.”
I shove him off of me playfully and give him a smirk. If only his words weren’t so true, I wouldn’t find him so annoying. He reaches across where I stand to open the passenger door and waves an arm to signal me to get in. When I’m safely inside and buckled, he leans in where I’m sitting and kisses me. It’s soft and short, but somehow still impactful on my heart. Like a stamp with his name written all over it claiming me as his.
“Let’s go, princess, your kingdom awaits.”
* * *
When we pull into the parking lot, I can’t believe where he’s taken me. I haven’t been to one since I was a little girl but walking into the old, lofted ceiling building, I feel my heart grow and feel more at home than it has in a long time. I practically grew up in libraries and collected books like people collect coins or playing cards. But as I got older, and busier with life and work, I had less and less time to read. Hell, Bailey spent more time with my book collection than I did when we were still living together. But being here, and the fact that he brought me here, meant a lot.
“Malcolm, I don’t have a library card,” I try to interject as we walk in.
“Well lucky for you, they give those out for free.” He winks at me. “And if they don’t give them out to people like you—you know, the really pretty kind—you can borrow mine.” He flashes me a worn out plastic card with the label nearly rubbed off.
He points me to the romance section, assuming that’s where I want to go first since that’s all I have on my shelves at home, and follows behind me like a guard dog. I study the spines of all the stories waiting to be read and wish more than anything that I had the time to read even one of them. When I glance over my shoulder to look at him, his eyes aren’t on the books, but on me. With his hands tucked behind his back, his head is tipped to one side and his lips are pulled back into a smirk that might just be recognized as a smile. The way he’s looking at me rivals that of someone studying fine art.
“You look happy,” he hushes, trying not to disturb the other people enjoying the space.
“I am happy, thank you for bringing me here. I don’t know why but I kind of forgot libraries existed. How did I forget libraries existed?” My words come out just as stunned as I feel. How did I forget libraries existed?
“The downside of getting older, I assume. I only started coming here when my need for more books became too expensive of a habit to keep up with. I only get my books second hand or here now.” He looks around the shelves like they are his old friends before looking back at me. “I’m going to wander and see where I end up. Meet at those tables in thirty?”
I look in the direction of his eyes and nod. Before he leaves me to the books, he leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “Have fun with the books. If you don’t come out at our agreed upon time, I’ll send in a search party.”
Forty-five minutes and one searching tattooed man later, I have a stack of books sitting on the table in front of me. Knowing I won’t be able to read them all before they have to be returned, I start to work my way through the stack to decide on which one I’m bringing home with me. Malcolm sits across from me in a chair, leaning back on two of its legs, and has a paperback folded in half in one hand, reading it while peering at me every so often.
“You know, you can just take them all home with you?” he reminds me, peering over his glasses which he placed on his strongly sculpted face at some point while we were apart. “They let you do that.”
“Shut up, I know they do.” I sigh, rolling my eyes at him. “But I can’t, I won’t have time to read them all before I have to bring them back. That’s why I normally just buy my books, there’s no deadline when you buy them. Just a never ending list of books you’ll probably never read.”
“Then pick your favorite and start reading it now while we’re here. If it catches your attention, keep it. If not, move on to the next one. Simple.”
Simple, unlike my feelings about whatever is going on between us. I want nothing more than to pretend like I don’t have deeper feelings for him than I do, but then he goes and does shit like take me to the library and let me sit and stare at books for as long as I want while he reads some book about how the telephone was invented. Who the fuck reads that kind of book anyway?
I do as he suggests and start at the top of my stack. Flipping to the first page, I begin to read. When I get a few pages in and find myself looking at my table mate more than the book itself, I close it and move on to the next one. When the same thing happens with the second book, and the third, I decide the books aren’t the problem.
“You’re distracting me,” I whisper, leaning across the table.
“How is that even possible, I’m just sitting here reading?” He leans forward, bringing his face closer to mine.
“I don’t know, it’s something about your face, it’s distracting.”
“That’s not distraction, that’s attraction ,” he teases with a cocky grin.
“Or annoyance,” I quip, sticking my tongue out at him like I’m five.
“I can give you a much better place to stick that tongue, princess.”
I roll my eyes at him again and take the first book in my hands. “This is the book I want. Do you want to stay here and read or go back to my place?”
“I am getting kind of hungry…” he whispers but the tone of his voice tells me he isn’t hungry for food.
We get up from the table and he walks me to the information desk where I proudly get myself a brand new library card at the ripe age of twenty-nine. Who knew a small plastic rectangle could make a person so happy? I have to stop myself from jumping up and down as I use it to check out the book that I hold carefully in my arms on the way back to his truck. When we make it back to my car, which is still parked in the parking lot of the training center, I jump out and head towards my place with him following behind me in his truck. Once upstairs and in my condo with the front door closed and locked, I hardly remember the title of the book or what it’s about as he pushes me against the wall and steals my breath away as his lips crash into mine.
And once again, I break my rule of one and done.