Chapter 21 Imported Muffins #2
My heart clenched as I looked at her. She was so strong, to go through what she did and stand here telling me about these boys like it was perfectly normal, she’d fled with babies and raised them to men secure enough to be sure of what they wanted.
I wanted to hold her in my arms. And burn whoever dared hurt her, past and present.
“They’re united in some ways, of course,” Winona said, either not noticing my intense gaze or maybe used to it by now.
She showed me the back of the door where an array of women in swimsuits covered the entire panel. “Foolish kids. Just because I didn’t read them bedtime stories in high school, they thought I wouldn’t see these.”
I laughed, relieved at the glimpse of normalcy. Though I coughed when she narrowed her eyes at me.
I brushed my hand over hers, my attention now only on her, on us here together. “Show me your room, Winona,” I said. “I want to see where you sleep.”
“You know that’s worse than wanting to jump my bones, right? Or not wanting to.”
I didn’t care. I needed to know where she lay her head at night. What made her feel safe and comfortable.
When she opened the door, I stood for a moment, unmoving.
The room was her in every way: timeless, like the antique wrought-iron bed frame and delicate wooden furniture. Unapologetically feminine with the frilly bedspread and floral wallpaper, but tough, too, with scuffed wooden floors and well-loved bookshelves.
But on those shelves… I pulled off a book with an entwined couple on the front. Another with a shirtless man. Very interesting. I moved to the nightstand, where a stack of dog-eared black-spiked books sat, little colored tabs sticking out of all of them.
“Oh, you don’t need to look at those,” she said, flustered.
“Her Wicked Sins,” I read aloud.
She snatched the book from my hands, cheeks flushed. “They’re not for everyone.”
“But I think they’re for me,” I said, my tone letting her know I wasn’t mocking her. Au fucking contraire, I would be studying her with these. I filed away the author’s name, mentally adding it to my next shopping list for Sal.
“You read romance?” she asked skeptically, shoving the book back into the pile.
“Not normally. I will now. My mom loves them.” Loved them.
An image of Mom when I’d gone to say goodbye flickered in my mind.
She’d been holding a book on her lap in her chair by the window.
It was the same book she’d been holding for months.
I swallowed away the guilt at not being home in Seattle.
It had been creeping in more and more, that need to return.
This was my last window, the doctors had said, before the rapid decline was more likely to set in.
“Right,” Winona said. “Only distinguished literary fiction for you, right?”
“No.” I slanted a look at her. “Well, a little lately. Because that’s what I’m trying to write.” It was the only type of book that would matter to my father. “But that’s not my first choice.”
“What is?”
As always with Winona, I considered lying. At least making up something more respectable. But I could only ever be all cards on the table with her. It’s like the way we met—everything dialed up to a hundred. We’d set the bar at full throttle.
“My favorite book is called Felled by a Scaled Wing. My second favorite is the Ark-3 Dilemma. The sequel to that one is also fantastic. It’s over a thousand pages, though.”
“Mr. Harrington.” Winona clapped her hands over her chest. “Those sound like genre books.”
My lips lifted. “Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The deepest, dorkiest kind. I fucking love them. Always have.” I loved her delighted little smile. “You could sell that information to certain tabloids for a good amount of money, Winona. Just tell me if you’re going to do that so I can buy you out first.”
Her laughter was bright, and between that and the brilliant sparkle in her eyes, I came apart almost more than in that moment downstairs last night.
This was so fucking dangerous. I wanted nothing more than to drop down onto the plush bed next to us.
To lie back next to Winona, my feet up, arm around her.
I wanted to read together, or maybe out loud to each other.
The image held the kind of bliss that felt…
impossible. Like it would burn you if you thought about it too hard.
Funny that last night I’d wanted her naked, and now there was this.
I still wanted her naked. But I guessed, with Winona, I wanted it all.
I stayed at Winona's place all morning. We talked about our shared interests, and everywhere they diverged. We shared funny stories about our mother and siblings, skirting carefully around the bad ones, at least for now. We sat on the couch, our knees and feet brushing as we changed position, each time the sensation of touching her burned into my cells like a permanent record. I wanted to spend all day with her. And all night. But it finally occurred to me she probably had other things to do on a Saturday morning—afternoon, now that I checked the time. She looked half relieved, and half disappointed when I told her I needed to get back. If she’d asked me to stay, I would have in a heartbeat.
But she didn’t. She needed time, and I wouldn’t push her.
At the door, I could have said goodbye with a hug.
But as we stood there, all the barely-there touches combined with the memory of what we'd done yesterday in this very spot came crashing down on me. I think it did her, too, because she brushed a hand along her collarbone, her cheeks suddenly flushing.
“I forgot to bring you your bra,” I said.
She closed her eyes, clearly embarrassed. “That’s okay.”
“Would you say that if I told you I was lying?”
Her eyes flew open.
“I’m holding onto it so you’ll see me again.”
Winona's lips twitched upward, and I think right then was the moment I knew I was well and truly fucked. It was definitely the moment I forgot I wasn’t going to let her feel any pressure to do anything with me if she didn’t want to, because I reached my hands out and took her gently by the hips, pulling her toward me.
“I wasn’t going to kiss you,” I said, bringing my fingers to her chin to tilt it up toward me. “But then I thought you might think I didn’t want to kiss you, and I really fucking do."
“Well, good,” Winona said softly. “Because I was wondering when you were going to get around to it.”
I grinned. Then I bent down and took her mouth with mine.
It was soft, this kiss. But it flooded me with feelings more intense than the need constantly simmering underneath around her. It made something spread like warm honey through me, curling into every part of my body. It was soft and intense and rapid and all-consuming.
And it scared the fuck out of me.
But so did the intensity of my desire for her. It was like nothing I’d ever known, and it grew the longer I stood there. As the kiss turned less innocent, I coaxed her lips open, tasting her. She was so sweet. Achingly sweet.
I remembered my vow from my way over here to let her do this her way.
With superhuman strength, I broke the kiss.
Winona’s lashes dipped. She swallowed hard. “I can’t think when you kiss me, Mitchell. I can’t even think very well when you’re around me in any capacity. And you were right, I need to think about what’s best for me.”
I got it. Completely.
“I understand if you want your hookups to be less complicated. Hell, I’d run if I were you.”
I frowned. “Winona. Do you think I’m actively looking for hookups? I came here to write a book. You kind of… burst on the scene.”
She laughed, her hand over her face.
I pulled it gently away. “I want you, Winona. And if you just want to be friends, I want that too.
“Do you even have friends, Mitchell?”
She meant it as a joke, but the question felt a little like pressing on a bruise.
I had my brothers. My mom, who rarely knew who I was.
But everyone else was on my payroll. I brushed a thumb over the scar on my lip, then dropped my hand again.
“I’ve always been a little too… intense, for friends.
” I gave a dry laugh, even though it wasn’t funny.
“You’re not too intense for me, Mitchell. I like your intensity.”
My stomach looped around like it had forgotten where it was supposed to be attached.
“I love this town,” she said. “But it took a long time for some people to want me to be at home here. I was a lot for people for a long time. No one my age wanted to hang out with the weird teen parent who worked instead of going to school.”
She’d told me she didn’t graduate until going back to get her GED when the boys were old enough to go to school. That she started out doing secretarial work for Miller’s while the neighbors watched her brothers. I don’t imagine she had much occasion to even meet other kids her age.
“Even when some kids felt sorry for me, their parents didn’t want them anywhere near me.
Lots of people didn’t believe the boys weren’t mine.
They made assumptions based on the way I looked and how I wouldn’t talk about my past. Cher and her mom were the first people who genuinely didn’t care about anything but me. ”
My chest ached even harder for that young girl than it had earlier.
“So yeah,” Winona said. “I’ll be your friend.”
I swallowed down the grit coating the inside of my throat, then reached over and clasped my hand to the back of her neck, kissing her forehead. “You’re an amazing person, Winona.” I said.
It was all I could manage.
When she closed the door, I headed down the stairs, hand rubbing the back of my neck. I knew that might be the last time I saw her. That I’d left the door wide open for her to look at me like a dodged bullet and nothing more, despite the time we’d spent together today, and her kind words.
But I didn’t want to be a mistake for Winona. I wanted to be good for her. I wanted her to never question why she was with me, even if it was just a… whatever this was. Fling felt ludicrous, considering the way I was reeling.
I guess I had thinking to do of my own.