33. Michelle
Chapter 33
Michelle
I don’t knock on the door. I haven’t knocked on Cliff’s back door in over a month, and I’m not starting now.
Cliff isn’t in the kitchen, so I stride past the dining room and into the dark living room, where only a dim lamp illuminates Cliff reading on the couch. He twists around, eyes wide as he takes me in.
I stand there like a statue. Air whirs through vents. The house settles with a low creak. The couch cushions whine as he leans forward and sets his book down on the coffee table.
He checks his watch. That beautiful leather watch on his irritatingly gorgeous wrist.
“Why are you here already, Michelle?”
“I’m talking to you. Like we normally do. Like friends do.”
He blinks. “Okay, and what are we talking about?”
“I’m irritated.” I close my eyes. “I’m so irritated.”
His head jerks back. “Irritated?”
“Yes.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because you’re frustrating.”
His eyebrows furrow, and guilt rolls through me.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He scoffs out a disbelieving laugh. “Last I checked, you’re the one here, picking a fight.”
I pinch my eyes closed. “I wouldn’t if you weren’t so infuriating.”
“You keep saying that, but you’re not clarifying,” he answers through a tense jaw.
“And now, you’re angry with me.”
Cliff slowly stands from the couch, running his tongue over his teeth and shaking his head.
“Yeah,” he confirms, blinking through thoughts again, as if trying to center himself in this new argument. “I guess I am now.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why ?”
“I’m mad at you. Why are you mad at me?”
He slaps his palms on his thighs and looks off to the side, toward nothing on the wall before swiveling his eyes back to me. They’re like two sharp points, locked on me.
“Because you come over with no introductions. No agenda, except to tell me my flaws.” He huffs another laugh.
“Well”—I lick my lips—“you’re irritating.”
“I know I’m an irritating guy. You think I don’t know that?” Now, he is getting frustrated. “I was told that for fourteen years. And, listen, I’m not changing anytime soon.”
I don’t want you to.
I fold my arms over my chest, and he squints at me.
“You’re not saying something. What are you thinking?”
“Why did you go on a date with Sara?”
His mouth drops open, and he tongues his cheek. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He pauses, then breathlessly says, “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t like it.”
“You … you … God, well, you know what? I didn’t like it either. It was actually kinda shitty.”
“Shitty?”
“Yeah, Michelle. It was really shitty. I felt like shit.”
“You said you needed to get back out there.”
“No,” he counters, pointing a finger at me. “ You said I needed to.”
I grit my teeth. “And you agreed.”
He blinks at me repeatedly. His mouth opens, then slams closed. His frustration is picking up now. He’s adding fuel to my fire, and I’m thrumming with energy. I want to raise my voice. I want to argue with him. I have so many emotions; I’m boiling over with them.
“Seriously?” An arrogant grin pulls onto half his face. “What? Am I gonna argue with you? Do you know how impossible that is? It’s impossible now , and I don’t even know what we’re arguing about.” He exhales and holds up his palms, as if trying to calm himself down. “I shouldn’t have said yes. That’s my fault. Not yours.”
No , I think. It’s me. I’m the one with problems.
I keep circling it over and over. I did this to us. We were doing just fine until this. He was doing fine until I came along.
Cliff pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “God, stop thinking for half a second, Michelle. I can never tell?—”
“You don’t need to. I don’t owe you or anyone anything.”
His eyes snap to mine, and he’s speechless for a moment. “Fine.”
“Fine,” I answer.
But I don’t move. I don’t want to be done. I’m far from it.
“Well, then where do we go from here?” I ask.
“What do you want to happen now?” he asks me.
“No,” I drawl. “No, stop being so accommodating. Stop asking me what I want. You’re so?—”
“What am I?—”
“You’re always?—”
“Do you even?—”
“This is so complicated!” I raise my voice above the jumble of a nothing argument I’ve created. “I want you to be happy and?—”
His next words almost come out in a whisper. “Have you ever thought I might be happy with you?”
I tense, taking in a shaky breath. “You can’t mean that.”
“I almost wish I didn’t.”
“But you said?—”
“I say so many things that I don’t know what comes out of my mouth half the time,” he says. “But you do … you make me happy. So, there. I’m stuck in my own damn head with thoughts of you that I can’t get rid of. So, what do I do? Huh? What do I do?”
Suddenly, our fight is too real. I pushed him too far.
He lets out a slow exhale. His hands fall by his sides, defeated. “Come on, Michelle. Talk to me. Please.” He sounds so desperate.
His head tilts to the side. His eyebrows turn in.
It’s too much. It’s all so much. I’ve done too much damage.
I deserve to be alone.
I turn on my heel to leave.
But in a stern crack of words, Cliff says, “Don’t you dare walk away.”
I freeze in place and turn around.
“I’m not letting you leave this discussion like that. Let’s talk through this. Stop overthinking what it is you have to say and say it.” He’s trying to stay collected, but the flush on his cheeks is betraying him.
“I’m done.”
His blue eyes dart between mine. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d forgotten where he was.
“You’re done,” he echoes.
“Yes.”
He shakes his head. I start to turn again, but then he says in the most matter-of-fact way that it punches through my soul, “No, you’re scared.”
“Scared?” I ask with a sardonic laugh. “Of what?”
“You’re lashing out at me because you’re scared. That’s why you came over. You’re scared of being happy for one single second.” He inhales, swallowing and staring at me with a pointed look. “And maybe you’re even scared of … of falling in love again.”
“Love?” I ask with wide eyes, but my heart is hammering. Because maybe he knows. He knows . And what do I do with that? What will happen if he knows? “You’re one to talk.”
“What?”
“You, Mr. Copper Run, with your relentless charm and selflessly helping with town events and making stupid, perfect turkeys. You want to be the dad who has it all together. But you’re scared.”
“Michelle—”
It’s a warning. I don’t heed it.
I stalk toward him. “Look at you. Some innocent baker who offers to help out the new innkeeper next door?—”
His teeth grit together. “What are you doing?”
“The guy who invites her to dinner on her first day here and makes her spend time with him and … and … you think you’re hilarious and”—my words start to choke out now—“you don’t understand …”
“Michelle!”
“Sometimes, you’re so irritating, and you make me crazy, and I can’t believe I even came over here to tell you that maybe you don’t even make me all that crazy at all.”
It’s silent. Eerily silent. The ticking clock on the wall. The whirring of the fridge from the kitchen. The house settling all around us.
“What the hell?” he finally breathes out, blinking at my finished outburst.
He looks at me like I’m damn near crazy. My fists are clenched, and the place behind my eyes burn, and I can feel my chin starting to shake.
“Tell me like it is, Cliff,” I whisper out. “I’m a mess. I deserve to be alone.”
“I’m not going to tell you?—”
“Tell me I deserve to be alone,” I snap, the words louder than I intended, bouncing off the walls of his serene house with photos of his daughters and this town and everything that shouldn’t be tainted by me and my curses. “I know you think it. I know that’s what’s been going through your mind for weeks now. I know?—”
His fists clench. “Stop saying that.”
“But it’s true.”
“No,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s not.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Tell me I deserve to?—”
“Fine! You want me to?” He storms forward.
I take a step backward, my heart pounding.
“You really want me to, Michelle?”
A chill runs over the room. My yells that once permeated the air are lost to his closeness. To the intensity of his gaze. The way he flexes his hand beside him.
“Yes,” I say, breathing heavy.
He’s so close. His chest is almost touching mine.
“Please.”
He grits his teeth. “Really?”
“Yes,” I whisper, but it’s more like a desperate whine. My whole body shakes.
I love him.
I love him so much.
Cliff takes another step. I suck in a breath. He exhales sharply through his nose.
And slowly, he clutches my jaw, traces a thumb over my lips, and murmurs, “God, you’re so stubborn.”
And then he presses his lips against mine.
It hurts, like I deserve. It’s painful, like I need. And I’m melting into it faster than either of us can breathe.
Our mouths move in heady, rushed kisses. I clutch the fabric of his sweater, curling it into a fist and jerking him closer. He walks me back against the wall. His hand stops my head from bouncing against the picture frame before threading through my hair, bunching it up to my ears and tangling it around his palm.
I try to catch a breath, but it barely slips between our lips as I push against him and he pulls, as if we’re fighting for something.
Then, finally, he murmurs against my lips, “I would never say you deserve to be alone. Because you don’t. And I never want to hear you say that again.”
I groan into his mouth, rising taller on my toes, gripping strands of his hair in my fists as I press my lips closer, harder.
“Do you hear me?” Another muffled kiss. “Never.” He crowds me closer to the wall, pushing his hips against mine, gripping my waist. He kisses against my lips so hard that they might bruise.
Then, he suddenly pulls away.
We both gasp, inhaling and exhaling, our chests heaving, desperate for air or each other—I can’t tell. Our eyes search each other’s. I can smell the cologne beneath him—the Cliff behind the mask he puts out for the world. My Cliff. All mine.
He leans his forehead on mine and stares directly into my eyes as he says, “God, I like you so much. I like you when you lash out. I like you when you come up with a thousand reasons to hate me.” He cocks his head to the side. “And when you run to my house to tell me all those reasons. And even when you put up so many walls that even God can’t break them down.” He grabs my chin between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes razing me to the spot, blown out and wide and seeing me—always seeing me—right through to my core.
I open my mouth to speak. To say, I love you. You can break my walls down.
But then Cliff traces his thumb over my bottom lip and says, “I like you because you’re Michelle. And that’s enough.”