Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Stella’s been quiet since Fran’s kissing game. She sits next to me, staring out the windshield of my car, silent.
I keep my eyes on the road. “Was that too much?” I stop myself from mentioning that it was her idea. I didn’t ask to go out tonight.
“Too much?” she says, and she sounds annoyed.
“Yeah. Like too much peopling?” That’s a thing, right? I swear I read that in one of Willow’s books.
Stella snorts.
Okay, wrong answer. But something isn’t right. I can tell.
“Too much time away from home?” I ask.
“I’m fine, Roman,” she deadpans.
“Only you aren’t. I thought we were going to be honest with one another,” I say.
And it’s possible those are the wrong words. I’m driving, but I still see her head swivel until she’s staring at me.
“Are you serious?” she says, and while I don’t scare easily, that tone is frightening.
I clear my throat and keep both my eyes on the road. It just feels safer. “Well, yeah. I thought we had this breakthrough and now—”
“Geez, Roman!” she yells. “We did have a breakthrough. I’m trying not to send us backward.”
“Then just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
I glance at her to see her eyes shut, jaw clenching.
“Okay, something,” she says. “But it’s dumb and childish, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Stell. Talk. Right now.”
She rolls her neck to the side and opens her eyes. “It’s just that—I have never seen a man so intent on not kissing his wife. That’s all.” She shrugs. “See? Dumb.”
“Wait—what?”
Pulling in a breath through her nose, she swallows.
“The thought of kissing me is just so awful to you. You gave your kiss to Zev. You asked the judge to skip that part of our ceremony. Mistletoe, and you can only bear to touch just the corner of my lips. You work really hard to avoid any kind of intimacy, and while I understand this relationship isn’t exactly real, you are my husband—and it’s starting to make me feel less than desirable. ”
My head is blown. You know that emoji where the little guy’s brain is exploding from his head? That’s me. Literally. “Are you messing with me?”
“No.” She wiggles in her chair, attempting to inch away from me in her buckled seat. It doesn’t work. “I said it was dumb. I know what this is. Can we just drop it?”
“Stell, you’ve looked in a mirror, right?
You have talent and skill and,” I huff, “plenty of sass. You are the kind of woman that gets into a guy’s head and refuses to leave.
” I squeeze the steering wheel, my knuckles turning bright white.
“You take over a man’s sanity and build a fire there.
” I take one more glance her way. Because I can’t believe we need to have this conversation.
“There isn’t anything you could do to yourself that would make you unattractive.
Not even a hit from a family of skunks could do the job.
I would never in a million years call you—” I hold to the wheel with one hand and rake my other through my hair.
“Geez, Stella, are you serious? That’s what you thought? ”
Her voice is small, but she sits tall in her seat. “What was I supposed to think?”
“That I was respecting you. That I was keeping the boundaries of real and fake to keep you comfortable. That I didn’t want to take advantage of you in any way.” Believe me, keeping those boundaries has been the greatest trial of my life.
“Right.” She slumps in her seat, turning her head away from me.
“Stella,” I say, calling for her attention. “Are you—” I groan. Crap, tell me she isn’t crying again. My heart can’t take anymore tears.
“I’m sorry,” she barks, but she still won’t look at me. “I feel pretty childish.”
“Holy—” I brake, jerking my Bronco onto the shoulder and shifting into park.
Stepping out of the car, I ignore the cold breeze coming down from the mountain and storm around to Stella’s side.
I yank open her door, lean in, and unbuckle the woman.
Then I manhandle that woman right out of her seat, shutting the door behind her.
“What are you—”
“Do you want me to kiss you, Stella?”
“Me?” She blinks up at me in the dim light of the night sky. Her honey-blonde hair rushes in the wind, and I brush a stray hair from her eyes. “I mean, you don’t want to kiss me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I don’t want to be kissed by someone who doesn’t want to kiss me, Roman. I was simply pointing out that your efforts to avoid it are becoming—”
“Stella,” I growl. “It’s a simple question. Do you want me to kiss you?”
Her head tilts up, more loose strands sweeping across her cheeks. Her eyes lock on mine while her back hits the door of the car. I lean in a little closer, resting my palm on the passenger window.
“Stella?” I whisper, inching closer, still waiting for an answer.
“I wouldn’t hate it,” she says, her cheeks pink. One of her hands flattens on my chest.
She wouldn’t hate it.
And seeing how I’ve been pulling off miracles keeping away from her, it’s all the confirmation I need.
Cradling her face in my hands, I lean until the warmth of her body is palpable next to mine. Her green eyes sparkle like Tesoro Lake in the morning. “Do you have any idea how difficult you are not to kiss?”
Her hand on my chest snakes around to the back of my head, and I’m pretty sure she lifts up on her toes.
“Stella,” I whisper. “Silly Stella.” And finally, I give up the control I’ve been forcing onto myself and press my lips to hers.
Soft and warm, tender yet present—like watching the sunrise.
Stella’s lips move with mine, telling me she’s thought about this too.
She hugs herself against me, and every inch of my body is completely aware of hers and where she touches.
Heat spreads over my limbs, as if moving from her to me and back again.
I trail my fingers down the soft skin of her cheek and over her neck, relishing in each goosebump I feel rise on her skin.
Reluctantly, I break free, coming up for air, and press my head to hers.
“So, you weren’t avoiding this, then?” she says.
I scrub a hand down my face before wrapping it around the small of her back. With her body against mine, I tug her out of the way of the car. Then, opening her passenger door, I help her back inside. The woman is a popsicle. She’s not even in her coat.
“I’ve been trying to avoid Brice coming back to haunt me. Do you have any idea how much trouble I’m in right now?” I don’t wait for an answer. I shut her door, cross the car, and climb into the driver’s seat.
This woman—who is very much my wife—presses her lips together, her eyes downcast and guilty. “That might be my fault.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I sort of had this little crush on you in high school. Brice found out about it and threatened my life.” She wrinkles her nose.
“Huh,” I say, my arm stretched out to her headrest. “That explains a few things. No wonder he got so mad at me when I noticed you.”
“I always thought Brice was just so horrified by me and my obvious uncoolness. The thought of me thinking of you—popular, athletic, Roman—made him annoyed with me.”
“I don’t think that was it. I think he was protective of you. It’s possible today, if my best friend were here”—my throat tightens—“he’d be just fine with this.”
Her dark lashes flutter, and she peers over at me. “You think?”
And then I bare my soul to Stella Everly with two little words: “I hope.”
She blinks, licks her lips, and peers down at the console between us.
“Your brother loved you very much, Stella,” I say. “It was never that he thought you weren’t good enough for me. It was quite the opposite.”
Her brows knit. “I never realized.”
“I can see that.”
“And,” she adds, “I’ve been so mad at him, it never occurred to me.”
“You’ve been mad at him?” Believe me, I have become a professional in anger. I’m sort of mad at everyone, at everything, but never Brice.
“Well, yeah,” she says, as if it should be obvious. “He left me. I mean, I get going to college. But Brice left me for good. He left me to deal with our parents, to grow up alone. He left me in his great big shadow, trying to live up to him.”
“You took it out on Brice,” I say.
“I know it makes no sense.”
“It makes complete sense. Don’t get me wrong. None of this is his fault—”
“I know that,” Stella says. “But he’s still the one who left.”
I reach for her hand, understanding what she’s telling me and yet knowing I went the exact opposite direction.
“Then there’s me,” I say. “I took it out on everyone but Brice. I was angry at the sun for rising when Brice couldn’t.
I was angry at every person who walked down the street for having a best friend when mine was no longer on this earth.
I was afraid of ever seeing you, of ever seeing your parents.
I was certain it would hurt so much, and I’d end up angry at the three of you too. ”
“That’s why you never came around?” she says—it’s a day of reckoning for both of us.
“That’s why. I was so busy being angry.”
Stella blows out a tired breath. “What if we stopped being pissed off and scared, Roman? What then?”
I study her face, her eyes, her lips, the way her hair waves down past her shoulders. Leaning closer, I peck my wife’s beckoning lips one more time. “I’m honestly not sure.”