Chapter 26
Taysom
Her pink shirt and light blue denim pants have green ink all over them.
“Uh, Charlotte.” I point to her clothes. “I hate to tell you this but—”
She looks down and screams. “No! How did that happen?” She searches her arms and pulls on the hem of her shirt. Bending at the waist, she stares at her green smudged pants. “These pants were new!”
“I am so sorry.” I walk to her and grab her elbow, rotating her arm around. “But you’d fit right in with your clients. I saw a couple of them with green on their arms and faces as they were exiting the building.”
“We try so hard not to make a mess.” She intakes a breath sharply.
“Oh no. I bet the ink pad was open in my lap. I know it was at the bottom of the stack of things I was holding. I thought it was closed!” She slaps her forehead.
“Where are your keys? I need to make sure it’s not imprinted on your leather seats. ”
“No, I’ll go get it, Charlotte. Why don’t you wash up? There’s a bathroom just right around—”
She blanches before taking in a calming breath. “This can’t be washed up, Taysom. I mean, the ink is washable, but I should soak them in a bucket of soapy water for a day first.”
“Right.” I have plenty of ideas of things we could do with her hanging out at my place waiting for her clothes to come clean. I groan internally.
Do not go there, Taysom.
“Here, let me grab you some clothes of mine that you can borrow.”
“No, that’s not necessary.” Her voice is strained, but I’m already heading to the primary suite on the main floor.
“Do it for me? I don’t want that ink all over my furniture!”
“Well, fine,” she retorts. I turn to glance back to see her arms covering her middle, as if she’s trying…and failing…to cover up the splotches of green all over her.
I bite back a chuckle and head to my room. Throwing open my drawers with reckless abandon, I pull out various items she could change into. All of them are huge.
Finally, I grab a couple of options for shorts and t-shirts and make my way back to the great room, where she’s trying to wash her arms. “I bet this ink soaked through my clothes and is staining my skin. I should issue a formal apology to all of the parents of my clients. So sorry for any inconveniences that this wet ink may or may not have caused!”
I’m tripped up on the thought of green ink on her skin, so it takes me a minute to respond. “Here, why don’t you take a shower in my bathroom? There are towels and soap in that main closet there as you walk in. And then you can choose from this stuff?” I hold out the pile of things.
She hesitates. “I don’t need to do that. It’s probably all dry now.”
I step up to her and use my thumb on her chin to wipe away a green smudge. I can’t curb my smile.
“Ugh, I’ve got it on my face now?” She asks, blinking rapidly. A red spiral of hair pokes out of her bun and it dances as she shakes her head in frustration.
“I kind of like the green,” I say quietly.
She balks. “Why? Because I’m red—” She gestures to her hair and to the flush of her cheeks.
“And green now? Like Christmas?” She smiles and I can see it all, her frustration with the ink and with the Center closing, and yet, there’s a playfulness between us I crave.
Every minute I feel it with her, I want more and more and more.
“No.” My gaze skates over her. “I like the green because it shows how dedicated you are to those kids and to your job. I wish all your prospective employers could see this. It just shows how passionate you are about your work.” I take her in again. “And I love it.”
She flicks her tongue out to moisten her lips. “If you say so,” she says faintly. It’s like she’s lost in thought for a moment, but then, more loudly, “I guess I’ll take you up on the offer for a shower.”
“Good.” I take a step back.
“You don’t happen to have a shower cap, do you?”
“Uh, probably not?”
“It’s no big deal. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to wash my hair.”
“Use whatever you need and I’ll be here with some ice cream waiting for you for
when you’re done.”
“Ice cream?” She cups my cheek. “You’re perfection, Taysom Reed.”
And the look she gives me, before turning away, is pure sweetness.
Her shower is brief, which is helpful. I had to open my freezer and cool my face off twice because I couldn’t stop thinking of her in my shower. Also, I’m glad the cleaners came this morning. She deserves a clean bathroom.
She walks out a few minutes later, wearing the outfit combo I was hoping she would choose: a replica of my college jersey in size youth XL (don’t ask me how I got it, but probably from some event in college) and the smallest shorts I could find, but even with the drawstring tied tightly, they still kind of drown her.
Still, her strong, white legs and her beautiful hair, darker since it’s wet, do funny things to my insides.
“You clean up nice.” I step to her, wrapped up in her scent. I know she used my body wash and shampoo; there weren’t any other options for her. But it smells different on her.
“I think I got it all off.” She rotates her arm to look at her elbow. “Do you see any places I might have missed?”
I tug her to me, my thoughts darkening. “No, but I’d be honored to look.
” Heat sears through me to her and back to me and I grasp her wrist and hold her arm out to the side, softly caressing it.
“Nothing on this arm.” My fingers slide over her skin and rub, once, twice, before letting go of that wrist and grasping the other.
Her eyes soften and her lips part just a little.
My gaze drops to her other arm, so white against my own olive-toned skin.
“You’re in the clear here.” Except now my voice breaks and I’m finding it difficult to sound normal.
I rotate her around, and lift her wet hair, sliding my finger along the back of her neck. “No ink back here.” I swallow hard. I want to press a kiss to her skin, anywhere will do. Does she know how insane she makes me feel?
I spin her back around and this time her eyes widen, and then she glances down at my mouth. I ache to kiss her.
“What about your legs?” I ask, holding her knee and sliding it up gently. I take a step back, cradling her foot in my hand as I inspect the skin of one of her legs.
“Green would be better than this pastiness,” she says with a groan.
“What are you talking about? It’s like ivory.” I lift her other leg and do the same. I rub against the front of her knee with my thumb. “It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
I drop her foot and she goes on her tiptoes. Wrapping her arms around my neck, she brings her lips to mine. It’s soft, questioning. Gentle.
When she pulls away, there’s uncertainty in her eyes for one brief moment. And then…her face crumples.
“I—I shouldn’t have done that.” She presses the back of her hand to her lips. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you…mad at yourself for that? Because you shouldn’t be.”
I step to her and she backs up, so I put my hands up in surrender.
“I’m not…built like this,” she says.
“Like what? What do you mean?”
“A one and done situation. A fling.” She cringes. “I don’t know what to call it. And it’s not a big deal. It’s just a simple kiss.” She looks like she’s trying to convince herself.
“I don’t want a one and done, Charlotte.”
It’s like she doesn’t hear me. She starts to pace.
“Your eyes were all smoldering, you know? It was intense. And…I thought maybe you…I’m not like you.
I don’t date. Like, ever. Honestly, I probably went on three dates my whole time at SAU and then since then, only a handful. All first dates. No second dates.”
I feel my eyes widen. I knew she didn’t date much, but I didn’t expect that.
“And so, I don’t just kiss and forget about it.”
“I don’t either. I told you I don’t date, either. I haven’t for a few years.”
“Well, you have good reasons for that, with your busy football schedule. My reason? People don’t ask me out a second time, so there must be something wrong with me. I’ve been on a few dates where I couldn’t do the activity the guy had planned because of my hips.”
She shakes her hands, like she’s trying to ease some pain, to flick off something that hurts.
“That must have been hard.” I grab her hands in mine and squeeze them gently. “Can I ask you out a second time?” I press a kiss to her knuckles. “And a third and a fourth and a fifth?”
She gives a slight shiver. “Asking me out a second time implies we’ve gone on a date already.”
“Maybe we can say the taco night was our first date?”
“I thought we did that to get a little break from Miley.”
“It was a two-fer.”
She snickers. “Are you sure you want a second date?”
“Charlotte?” I kiss her cheek softly, near her mouth. “What if I’ve already started falling for you?”
She catches my gaze and it’s like she’s looking into my very soul. “You’re a famous football player.”
“So?”
“So, I’m just Charlotte. A soon-to-be-unemployed hot mess.”
I almost say, but you’re my hot mess, but thankfully, think better of it. Because the truth is, she’s not a mess at all. She’s just hot.
“You’re human. A very wonderful human. And I like that you’re ‘Just Charlotte.’ I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”
Her bottom lip trembles and again, I feel so protective of her. She doesn’t need that from me, and I don’t get why I feel it so strongly, but I feel it, nonetheless.
“I can’t let myself fall for you again.”
“Again?” My mind sorts through our past. Why is she saying “again?”
“It was stupid, but I liked you before, okay? When I was like thirteen and you were nice to me. That’s all. You were just nice and cute, and I fell hard.”
“I had no idea.”
She snorts. “Good. That was how it was supposed to be.” She shakes her head. “But you Twinkied me, and it took me a long time to get over it and I don’t know if I can go through that again—”
I burst out a laugh. “Twinkied you? Is that some kind of code for—?”
She squeezes her eyes shut tightly for a moment before reopening them. “I guess I can tell you the story.”
“Yeah. I feel like I should know what you’re talking about. Twinkying a person sounds sinister.”
“It wasn’t!” Charlotte laughs. “That’s the thing. It wasn’t, but it…sort of made me…untrusting and…anyway, I can’t do that again.”
“Come and sit.” I tug on her hand and walk her across the room. We sit on the sofa opposite the fireplace. “Will you tell me about it?”
She draws her legs up so she can rotate to face me.
She takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Okay, I guess I’ll tell you the Twinkie story.”