Chapter 24 #2
“You should read those books you bought and figure it out.” She winks, stepping off my bed and sauntering out of the room.
“I’ll be starting right away,” I say, following her into the kitchen. “How about I get you fed, showered, and then you can tab your favorite chapters for me like you promised before we go to sleep?”
She opens the fridge, raising a brow at me over the door. “Asking me to spend the night, Wes?”
“Unashamedly so.” I grin.
“We’ll see how good this meal is first.” She bends down, rummaging through the shelves despite having no idea what I plan on making.
“Great. Grab the heavy cream, bone broth, cheddar cheese, and bread in there while you’re at it,” I say as I gather the tomatoes, onion, basil, and olive oil from the counter. Opening the spice cupboard, I take out oregano, salt, pepper, and red chili flakes.
She spins a moment later, hands full of the items I requested. “Who the hell keeps bread in the fridge?”
“People who don’t like mold.” I wink. “Now sit that ass on the counter and look pretty for me while I make you dinner.”
“Yes, sir.” She mock-salutes as she drops the ingredients on the counter. “What are you making?”
“I told you—comfort food. Tomato soup and grilled cheese.”
“From scratch?”
“Yes, baby.” I laugh. “From scratch.”
“Wow,” she breathes, unwrapping the cheese and nibbling straight from the block. “I’m a lucky gal. Your mom taught you to cook, right?”
“Yeah.” I smile to myself, pulling out a baking sheet before cutting the tomatoes into cubes.
“She worked for a cancer treatment center and ran the onsite restaurant for patient housing.” Willow tilts her head, brows softening in perplexity.
“It’s where the families of the patients live during treatment.
It’s a nonprofit, so the families don’t pay anything.
Meals are included, and they deliver to the housing units, but also have a restaurant to maintain a sense of normalcy for the families. ”
“That’s incredible,” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I nod, swallowing. “My mom ran operations, but she started as a line cook when she was a teenager. She worked there for fifteen years—until she passed.” I clear the burn of emotion from my throat.
“Anyway, we didn’t have a lot of money, so she had to get creative at home.
Using simple ingredients to make good meals.
She taught me to cook. She thought it was an important skill for me to have. ”
“She sounds amazing, Wes. I mean . . . she must’ve been. Look at you.”
I raise my head, meeting her gaze. “I just don’t want it to have been for nothing, you know?
Losing her, I mean. I want to be someone she would’ve been proud to have raised, because I think that would have helped her feel like her life, though short, wasn’t wasted.
I failed those first few years, but . . .
” I want to say I’m doing better now, but sometimes I’m not sure.
“You didn’t fail her. I don’t think she would’ve ever seen you as a failure,” Willow whispers.
“I have a criminal record and spent almost two years in a cell.”
“I’m not saying she would’ve encouraged your actions, but I have no doubt she would’ve understood them. You were fighting for her.”
I drop my head in shame. While Willow may be right—I was fighting for my mother—she doesn’t know the full range of my intentions.
The initial impact may have been without premeditation and driven on emotion, but it only took seconds for the realization of what I was doing to set in, and only I know how far I would’ve gone had I not been pulled off him.
“And her life wasn’t wasted, Wes,” Willow continues, reaching across the counter and grasping my shirt.
I drop my knife to the cutting board, allowing her to drag me between her legs.
“She made you, and you are wonderful.” She kisses my nose, and I brace my arms against the counter on either side of her hips, leaning into her warmth.
“But beside being a mother, raising the most tender and kind man I’ve ever known, she sounds like she was wonderful too.
Talented and driven and doing amazing things in her community.
She lived a life to be proud of, and I’m sorry it was robbed from her the way it was, but it wasn’t wasted. ”
“You speak of her as if you know her,” I whisper, voice cracking.
“I know you. Makes me feel like I know her a little too, I guess.”
My nose stings, throat heavy, breath shallow as I rasp, “It’s nice to have someone else in the world who knows her. Someone I can share her with.”
Willow’s eyes are misty, and she blinks hard, clearing emotion of her own. “I’d be honored if you shared her with me.”
She kisses me softly, and I want so badly to disclose all my truths to Willow Graham.
To split myself open and reveal every dark burden that haunts me in the middle of night.
Every detail of the day I almost killed my own father, and the turn my life took after.
I’ve never shared those deep pits of my mind with anyone, but for the first time, I feel I may have found the one who could understand.
See me past the darkness, shroud me in all her light.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I could be light for someone else too.
The oven chimes, indicating it’s pre-heated, breaking our moment.
I decide today isn’t the day, and now isn’t the time, because Willow is finally looking at me like she’d rather smile than cry—such a contrast to how hurt she appeared earlier.
I want to give her the comfort and calm she’s craving right now. My baggage can wait.
“I’ve got to roast these vegetables for about forty-five minutes,” I say, stepping back to the baking sheet I’ve laid the tomatoes, garlic cloves, and onion on. I drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle the spices over the sheet before popping them in the oven.
“Do you want to watch the sunset while we wait?” she asks. “It looks like a good one tonight.”
“I’d love that, Wills.” I smile.
I lift her off the counter, keeping her hand in mine as I lead her toward the door. When I step outside, I sink into one of the rocking chairs on the porch, and Willow lowers herself into my lap. Resting her head against my shoulder, I wrap my arm around her hip, gripping her thigh.
We watch the sun sink into the Pacific, a peaceful silence blanketing us. The sway of palms, the call of seagulls, and the distant crash of waves the soundtrack to our evening. It’s a quiet comfort I’m not used to, but wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life wrapped inside with her.
After the world fades from light to dark, we head back inside, and I finish making dinner.
We talk more about my mother—her favorite recipes and which of them I make best. Willow tells me about the schools she’s applied to, and my chest soars when I realize every single one of them is within an hour drive of here.
Even when the summer ends and I return to Santa Monica, she won’t be far from me.
Close enough for a weekend trip or a late-night drive.
After we clean the kitchen and take showers—separately, because both of us are garnering all of our strength to take this slowly, though the way she looks in nothing but one of my tees makes me weak in the legs—I crawl into bed beside her, asking, “Have you thought anymore about finding a therapist?”
She turns onto her side, raising a brow at me. “Have you?”
“Hey.” I nip her nose playfully. “Don’t snipe at me. I’m not judging you. Ever. Just asking . . . because yeah, I think I’m going to start searching again. I think it might be time for me to go back.”
“Really?”
I nod, settling in beside her. “I stopped going because I wasn’t seeing any hope for myself—I couldn’t see the point. Now, I think it could help us. Whatever future we may have together, I want to be the best version of myself for it—for you. So . . . I’m going to start looking again.”
Her bottom lip trembles as she takes it between her teeth.
“I want to be the best version of myself for you too, Wes. I don’t know if I’m ready to sort through .
. . everything yet.” She cups my face, smiling softly.
“But I can promise I’ll be open, and that I’ll keep doing my best for us, and whatever that future looks like. ”
I kiss her palm before snaking my arm over her shoulder and tugging her against me, tangling us together. I won’t push the conversation further—I know firsthand how important it is to go at your own pace when it comes to addressing trauma.
Admitting to the future I see with her was fucking terrifying, but the confirmation that she sees one too made my heart beat at a rhythm that should be studied by cardiologists, because this woman might be killing me slowly, and fuck, I’m going to enjoy every second of it.
If I thought I was falling for Willow Graham before, I was dead wrong. I never fell, I fucking leaped, and her body against mine right now feels like a soft landing among clouds.
We settle into bed, and I watch her with rapt allure as she sorts through the books I bought, speaking animatedly of her favorite moments as she sticks color-coded tabs on the pages.
Eventually, she falls asleep against my shoulder, and I reach over to flick off the lamp on her side of the bed. Her side of the bed.
The sound of her breathing lulls me to sleep.
Willow’s still asleep when my alarm chimes, faint daylight peeking through the window behind my bed. I silence it quickly, moving softly so as not to disturb her. I keep the lights off, stumbling through darkness into the bathroom and my closet as I get ready for training.
I take the notepad from my bedside table and scribble down a message for her before sneaking out of the house.
You snore like a chainsaw. Look real pretty when you do it, though. — Wes