Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
STELLA
“Um,” I started as I cut into my chicken fried steak that was smothered in sawmill gravy. “I think I should probably clear something up. West and I, we aren’t together. I mean like, together, together. You know?” I rambled. “We aren’t dating. We’re just friends.”
She regarded me with confusion over the rim of her glass of iced tea. “Really? I just thought—because you were holding hands and everything—you just seemed like you were together. You looked like you were really into each other.”
I lowered my face to try and hide the fact I was blushing beet red, and cut into my food, popping the bite into my mouth. Ralph had been right, this was the best damn chicken fried steak I’d ever eaten.
I swallowed and cleared my throat awkwardly. “Um. It’s kind of . . . complicated.” That as the only word I could think to best describe my current situation.
“I get that,” she said, leaning back into the bench seat. “Believe me. When I first met Xander, we absolutely hated each other.”
I remembered that affectionate kiss he’d given her earlier at their office. It was hard to believe there was ever anything but love between the two of them. “Really? But you guys looked so happy together.”
“Oh, we are,” she confirmed brightly. “I mean, we still fight like crazy, but mainly just because that leads to something much more fun. If you know what I mean,” she added with a waggle of her eyebrows, making me laugh.
“When I first got to Hope Valley, I was looking to start fresh. I had all these grand plans of a whole new life. I’d just gotten out of a really bad marriage to a cruel man, and the last thing I wanted was another relationship.
But how’s that saying go? When you make plans, God laughs. And that’s basically what happened.”
Her eyelids narrowed ever so slightly, like she was trying to see inside my head to understand all the thoughts swirling around. “Something tells me you know where I’m coming from.”
There wasn’t much point in denying it, and I realized in that moment I didn’t want to.
“I think I do.” Pulling the straw of my lemonade between my lips, I sipped the tart liquid before continuing.
“West is a great guy.” Boy, was that an understatement.
“I just . . .” I let out a sardonic laugh.
“My life is a disaster right now,” I admitted.
“No one’s life is perfect. We’re all messed up in our own ways. What might look like a fairy tale on the surface is a shitshow underneath most of the time. I mean, I left my husband after I caught him screwing my mother.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re kidding!”
She shook her head. “Wish I was. Then, to make matters worse, when Xander and I were first starting out, my ex actually tracked me down and beat the hell out of me.”
“Oh God,” I breathed. “Sage, I’m so sorry.”
She waved my concern away. “It’s fine. I got past it, mainly with Xander’s help. And he had some darkness of his own he was dealing with when we first met that I had to help him through. Point is, there’s no good time to meet someone special. If it’s supposed to happen, there’s no way to stop it.”
“We only just met,” I argued.
“It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known each other. All that really matters is how he makes you feel.”
“He makes me feel crazy,” I admitted on a groan. “I forget everything going on whenever I’m around him. It’s like he’s all I can think about.”
She let out a laugh, slapping her hand down on the tabletop. “Oh my God! I know exactly what you mean.”
Leaning in, I whispered conspiratorially, “I feel like I’m losing my mind. That can’t be normal, right?”
Sage’s expression was a mixture of sympathy and understanding. “Oh, honey, I don’t think there’s anything normal about the men in this town. Swear to God, there’s something in the water.”
I snorted and took another sip of my lemonade. She wasn’t wrong about that. Hope Valley had some sort of hot guy magic fountain, where, instead of giving you eternal youth, it made the men gorgeous. It was almost unnatural. Serenity would be in heaven.
“My suggestion? Just stop fighting it,” she said.
“In my experience, it only prolongs the inevitable.” She leaned in, mimicking my position, and lowered her voice like she was sharing state secrets.
“And it delays all the fun you could be having right now.” She threw me a wink across the table. “Trust me, the fun’s so worth it.”
I sat back and let out a laugh, feeling lighter than I had since West told me we were leaving the safety of our personal little bubble.
I still hadn’t gotten a solid feel for the rest of the guys, but Sage was cool as hell, and something told me that if I stuck around long enough, I might just end up with a friend.
Having eaten every single bite of my lunch and having to stop myself from licking the plate clean, I was bordering on uncomfortably full by the time we left the diner and started back toward Alpha Omega.
I wasn’t sure how much longer West was going to be, but I hoped we could head back to his place soon, because I was in serious need of a food nap.
When we made it to the building that housed the Alpha Omega offices and turned the corner, I noticed something that hadn’t been there earlier. “Gertrude!” I cried at the sight of my beat-up car parked in front of the huge plate glass windows that made up the front of the building.
“Who?” Sage asked, looking around in confusion.
“My car. Gertrude. How did she get here?” I skip-walked over to her and spread my arms wide, leaning down to splay my upper body across the roof in a hug. “I’ve missed you, baby,” I whispered to the inanimate object like it could hear me.
“You named your car?” Sage asked, still looking just as confused as she had a second ago.
“Well, yeah. A lot of people do. It’s not that uncommon.”
“Oh, I know. I have a baby of my own.” She pointed to the classic Mustang parked two spots from Gertrude. The thing was Fine with a capital F. “But usually, people name their cars when those cars are”—she hesitated, taking in my lemon and failing to suppress the curl in her top lip—“nice.”
“Shh,” I whispered, patting Gertrude lovingly. “She didn’t mean it, sweetheart. Ignore the mean lady. She just doesn’t understand.”
Sage shook her head on a laugh as I coddled my car.
“Gertrude’s a piece of shit—” I lowered my voice on those four words, speaking behind my hand, “no doubt about it. But we have history. She’s puttered along with me through some major life events.
She didn’t break down on me when I had to cart a box of my belongings home after a particularly nasty breakup.
She didn’t break down on me when my sister and I took her across the state for a music festival.
She didn’t break down on me when I let Billy Colfax feel me up in the back seat junior year. ”
She held up her hand in acquiescence. “I get it. I meant no offense, Gertrude.”
“I wonder how she got here.” I gave my car one last loving stroke before stepping back up on the sidewalk and continuing on inside.
“Oh, I’m sure West had a hand in it. It’s that voodoo I was talking about earlier,” she stated seriously.
We pushed through the doors that led into the front lobby, and my eyes immediately began searching for the man in question.
As soon as they landed on him, an unexpected warmth bloomed in my chest, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
However, before I could utter a word or clear the space between us, I was bum-rushed by a gaggle of women.
The one at the very front, a petite woman with curves for days and long, silky hair that fell somewhere between brown and blonde, but was an eye-catching combination of both, seemed to be the ring leader, and didn’t hesitate to grab me by the shoulders and yank me into a hug.
“It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Eden.” She quickly rattled off the names of the women standing around us, forming a half circle, but everything was happening so fast I couldn’t keep up.
The names went in one ear and out the other.
“We’ve been trying to set West up for ages, but he wasn’t having any of it.
Guess we know why now.” She shot me a wink on that bewildering proclamation. “And look at you. You’re gorgeous!”
“Um . . .”
“Don’t mind her,” a buxom redhead said as she came up and pushed Eden out of the way. “She gets a little too excited, and sometimes it bursts out of her like a glitter bomb of happiness and joy. You’ll get used to it. I’m Wynona, but please never ever call me that. It’s just Nona.”
“H-hi,” I stammered, my poor brain still trying to catch up with what was happening. “I’m—”
“Stella,” the exuberant Eden filled in before I could.
“We know. That’s why we’re here. Roxanne told us all about you.
” Well, that explained the ambush, I guess.
“There’s something I have to know,” Eden continued, but before she could get the question out, West was shoving through the crowd and stopping at my side, looping a protective arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side.
It felt nice. Too nice. Damn he smelled good.
“Eden,” he said in a low, warning tone, causing her to roll her eyes.
“Oh, will you relax? It’s not like I was going to ask her what your penis looks like.”
I choked on my tongue.
A blonde with legs for days held up her hand. “I was.” I thought I recalled her name being Gypsy.
“They aren’t to that part yet,” Sage announced. “She’s still in the denial phase.”
That was met with a bunch of head nods and murmurs of understanding.
At West’s grumbled curse, I twisted my neck to look up at him, whispering, “What’s happening right now?”
His only response was to shake his head and mutter, “I’m so sorry.”
“No, what I’m curious to know is if he’s a slob at home as well.”
Eden’s question threw me off balance for a second. I couldn’t think of a reason for her to know how messy West was. Unless . . . My stomach sank, but I did my best to keep my expression neutral as I asked, “Were you two together?”
Her face twisted up like she’d just smelled something gross. “Oh, God no.” I wasn’t about to examine why her denial made me feel so much relief. “No, I’m married to Linc. The big blond one.” She lifted her arm all the way above her to indicate her husband’s height.
“The one who looks like he should have been cast as the lead in Vikings,” I supplied.
“That’s the one.” She giggled. “I only ask because, a few years back, when my brother had stolen from some super bad guys, and they were after me to get to him, Linc put a security detail on me.”
“For fuck’s sake,” West grunted.
“And when it was West’s turn, he left my house looking like a pit.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” he argued.
I curled my lips between my teeth and bit down to hide my smile. There was so much to unpack from those few, short sentences, but I decided that was for another time, and focused only on the main topic at hand. “Ah, I see.”
“So is he as messy at home?”
I didn’t bother suppressing my giggle then. “He’s trying to be better,” I said, somewhat in defense of him. “He’s been picking up after himself the past few days, and I’ve almost got him trained on the dishwasher.”
The women gathered around us started to laugh as West rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
“But,” I continued, wanting these women to see him for the incredible, thoughtful, wonderful man he truly was, “he’s an excellent cook, so that makes up for it.”
One of the women in the back, I couldn’t recall her name, gave me a wide, awed look. “He cooks for you?”
“Every meal, and it’s all delicious.”
West leaned in just then, his breath whispering across my ear as he spoke in a quiet voice, “You know neither of us are going to live this down now, baby.”
I pulled in a sharp inhale. That was the first baby I’d gotten from him, and the pleasure at hearing that one simple word shot through me like a bolt of lightning.
But what nearly had my knees giving out was the gentle kiss he pressed to my temple right after.
It reminded me of the one I’d seen Sage’s husband give her.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if West wore an expression just as tender.
God, I hope so, I thought to myself, feeling those walls around my heart quake and buckle just a bit more.