Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ionce knew this girl.
Pretty. So pretty it hurt sometimes.
Smart. Whip smart and clever. She always kept me on my banter toes.
Shy with the world, but bold with me.
It wasn’t that long ago that I met her, only a month or so, but long enough to know. This is not that same girl before me.
I close the gap and wrap my arms around her as tight as I can. Her jaw is chattering and she’s freezing cold. Her body is wracked with sobs as if she’s held in a lifetime of pain. “We need to get you inside.”
When I start to turn, she frantically grabs for my arms. “Hardy, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
Holding in my own lifetime of chaotic emotions that’s built up since the day I met her, I run my thumbs over her cheeks, wanting the black gone from her sweet face.
Then I reach into my pocket and pull out her gloves.
I thought she’d be happy to have them but she bursts into tears again.
“Why are you so nice?” she asks, her tone tingeing on anger. “I don’t deserve it.”
She slips the gloves on and I take my beanie off and pull it down on top of her head, making sure to cover her ears. “Let’s talk about that when we’re inside. You’ll be sick if we stay out here much longer.” She concedes with a nod. I wrap my arm around her and we walk back to her building.
We’re greeted with a mile wide drunken smile. “Merry Christmas Eve, Ms. Ryan. Hardy, good to see you found what you were looking for.”
“It took a while and I made a few detours, but it’s good to finally reach my destination.”
He rushes behind the counter to get something. When he reaches us at the elevator, he hands them to us. “Here’s a tissue for you, Ms. Ry—”
“Virginia. Please call me Virginia.
With a smile that borders on permanent, he hands me the treat bag from the coffee shop. “You can give it to her yourself now.”
“Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. May I suggest both of you stay indoors and ride this storm out.”
This is where I’m going to need a whole helluva lot of credit. I couldn’t have asked for a better setup. But even I know there’s a time and place and this isn’t the time or the place.
Virginia’s eyes meet mine, and she asks me, “Will you stay, through the storm?”
Taking her hand in mine, I lean down and kiss her cheek. “We can weather the storm together.” The doors to the elevator open, and we step on. “Good night, Barry.”
“Good night.”
She moves closer and leans her head on my arm, our hands clasped together. We both stare at the counter as the floors tick by. Every swallow is thick and loud and I know she can feel my heart beating unsteady, unsure of where we are, and what’s to come for us.
On her floor we still hold hands until we’re inside her warm apartment.
The door is locked and we strip off the heavier layers.
No one is breaking the quiet moments that weave between us, both of our nerves showing in our unease.
She turns, but I take possession of her hand again, and stop her. “Hey?”
Her eyes fixate on me, the questions there.
“You’re cold,” I add. “Come with me.”
Like me, she’s either too tired or too cold to fight, and she follows without argument.
Turning on the shower, I make sure to turn on the hot water.
She stands behind and if I didn’t know better, I could swear her gaze smacked my ass a few times as she ogled it.
Catching her in the act, I say, “See something you like?”
She laughs until a dark guilt settles into the sound and with a sigh, she says, “I don’t deserve you or your forgiveness.”
“Sure you do. I’m a very forgiving person.
” I lean against the wall close to her and I hate that I need to know, but I need to know the full story for when I’m taken into interrogation over the murder of the asshole for hurting her.
“I don’t like holding grudges. I like to move on, so let’s move on together.
Get in the shower. It will warm you up and then tell me what I need to forgive you for? ”
When she doesn’t move, I turn my back. “I won’t peek.”
I can’t hear her clothes coming off. Two weeks ago I would have never given her this courtesy. I’m a fucking perv sometimes. But now, with all that’s happened, I’m willing to give her the space she needs if it means we can write a different ending to our story.
The shower door is closed, the frosted glass protecting her from peeping Hardy eyes. A moan is heard, and then she says, “This feels amazing. God, I thought I would freeze out there.”
Flipping the toilet lid down, I sit. “I’ll make you something to eat when you get out.”
“You know what would make this even more amazing?”
“What?” The door cracks open and I’m starting to recognize the girl I know, the one that smiles at me like she’s doing now, making each heartbeat feel heavy with the insta-love the hipster told me about.
“If you joined me.”
I’m not sure if she even finished the sentence before my pants hit the floor. Her eyes go wide. “Compression pants?”
“I wear them in the cold, under my real pants.”
“I totally get that. I’m just impressed that even when you’re compressed like a sausage in a casing that you’re so . . .” She points. “Well endowed.”
“You had me at well endowed, V. Move over. I’m coming.
” Mind. Gutter. Yup. It’s that easy for me to go there.
Climbing out is a whole other case though.
Standing next to her naked, if this is forgiveness, I’ll give it to her by the well-endowed loads.
Ew. That’s not what I meant. Forget about it. “In.”
The space in here is not as roomy as mine, another downfall of modern design—efficiency.
But I want to thank the architect personally right now.
It’s not awkward. She just takes my hand and pulls me close, and I like close with her.
While the water rains down on our bodies, she says, “You haven’t asked because you’re nice like that, but for the record, I’m still a virgin. ”
Angels voices are heralded from the heavens, “The Rifle Regiment” is trumpeted from the battlefields of my heart, and “Best Day of My Life” starts playing in the jukebox of my head.
Beyond Big Richard standing at full salute, wanting her those ways that I forgot to look up for legality purposes, I try to play off how happy I am. “Oh that’s a bummer.”
“What?” She leans back in surprise. “You’re not happy?”
“No, I meant . . . I’m thrilled, fucking thrilled, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to be happy without it coming off that I’m damn happy that I might still have a chance.”
The warmth of her gaze and the brightness of her smile melt me on the spot.
I recognize that look. I used to think she had hearts in her eyes, and that she was one good roll in the hay away from falling in love.
It’s not what I see, it’s the torch I carry for her reflecting back at me. “You want a chance with me?”
I run my hand over her shoulder and rest it on the curve of her neck.
This is it. This is my shot of owning that truth I’ve been living with since we met, the one that if she feels the same becomes the heavy weight champion for new best day of my life.
The day I closed on the bar has been my reigning best for years now.
It gave me the freedom to be who I wanted to be, to change the course of my life for the better, and lead me to standing in this shower stall with the most beautiful woman in the world, it deserves the title.
This is my shot to not just be honest with her, but with myself. “I’m in love with you, Virginia Ryan.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God, you are?”
Damn, I didn’t predict that reaction. Stepping away, my back hits the cold tile wall and I run my hands through my hair.
“Umm . . . yeah, I was hoping you felt the same.” Ugh.
This day just beat out when I was fourteen and my sister found out I had stolen my grandmother’s Suzy Chapstick fitness book.
She sold me out when she discovered some of the pages were stuck together.
My mom pretended it was normal to talk about masturbation at the dinner table.
My dad talked about hair on the hands and frostbite, or maybe it was how to handle blue balls.
I forget now. But I will never forget that no one ate the hotdogs we had for dinner and that it was the worst day of my life. Until now. “This is so embarr—”
“No,” she says, moving against me and teasing my dick with her incredibly slick and sinful body. “I do too.” I dig my gaze up from where I’d just buried my heart at her feet and look into her vibrant greens. “I’m in love with you too, Hardy.”
I drop another silver dollar into my mind’s jukebox and “Best Day of My Life” starts back up. I’ll be putting it on permanent rotation on my phone, changing my ringtone, and buying tickets to see American Authors as soon as I get home. “I thought you were in love with that asshole.”
“I had a stupid crush on him, but I fell in love with you.” That sweet pink is back and it’s not from the hot water, but from me.
Yep, this guy. I even pop the P. I’m owning that shit.
That sweet pink is mine. All mine, and I’ve never felt happier about being pussy whipped.
If it means I get to wake up next to Virginia every morning and go to bed with her each night, I’m in. I’m the whippiest of whipped.
I could say this is where I lifted her into my arms and carried her to bed, making sweet love to her on her birthday.
You know, me as her gift. I’ve been told I’m quite the catch, after all.
But that’s predictable. So I kiss her once, then again.
And then her fantastic tits, because holy Jack fucking Daniels I’m kissing Virginia Ryan’s tits.