Chapter Thirty-One
H e smiled, and my heart fucking stopped.
Mary, Mother of God, he was gorgeous. He was inked all to hell, but for reasons I didn’t quite understand, it only made him more gorgeous. Except he was still a walking contradiction.
And this house? Fucking Christ, this house . It was unbelievable.
I had no other words.
Except mansion and mind-bogglingly expensive, and every square inch had more class than my entire life put together. Yet a poor kid who’d joined the Marines, had more tattoos than fifty people combined, didn’t own a car as far as I could tell, and who didn’t seem to have a steady job until he’d started working with my brother at André’s late last year—he owned this classy-as-shit waterfront McMansion on Hibiscus Island.
Preston Vos wasn’t just a contradiction. Everything about him was incongruent.
But he made it work.
Like he was making it work as he used some coffee machine thing built into the wall in the kitchen with quick and sure movements, as if he’d done this a hundred times this week alone.
And that was Preston.
Everything about him surprised me, but every action he took, every word he said, he made it seem like second nature. Everything, that is, except ASL. That, he kinda sucked at. Which, goddamn it, only made him endearing when he signed to Nash, spelling out full words he didn’t know the signs for.
I was smiling thinking about it as I stared out at the view when he silently came up next to me. Handing me the piping hot mug of coffee, his fingers brushed against mine, and I knew it wasn’t accidental.
It never was with him.
He was much too purposeful a man to make a simplistic mistake like touching someone he didn’t want to touch. The man made a religion out of avoiding eye contact.
He also made an incredible-smelling cup of coffee.
Fresh roasted beans, vanilla—I inhaled the latte and tested out smiling at him again. “Thank you.”
Back to staring, he didn’t return the smile.
I took a sip and practically groaned, it was so good. “Perfect,” I murmured.
His gaze dropped to my lips.
I licked them. On purpose. “Nothing’s better than that first sip of coffee in the morning.”
He looked back out at the view. “I can think of a few things.” No sexual innuendo in his response, no change in his tone of voice, he put the words out there in the same way as he said most things to me.
But he wasn’t just saying them. I’d never felt like he was merely talking to me. When Preston spoke, he was offering up his own brand of a gift.
I decided to test out giving him one back.
“If I’d known how good your coffee was, I would’ve come over sooner.” A compliment, in a roundabout way because I still had to be me, rolled off my tongue, and I peeked at him over the rim as I took another sip.
He stared straight ahead at his million-dollar view of Biscayne Bay. I knew he saw me looking at him, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he gave me one of his seemingly random subject-change statements.
“There’s a private school close by.”
A flurry of butterflies hit my stomach, and my mind jumped. Preston never said anything without purpose.
I fought to keep my tone even. “I’m sure there’s more than one.” Anyone who was anyone around here sent their kids to private schools, and Miami had no shortage of them.
He nodded. “Do you like being on the water?”
The butterflies had a fucking party.
Okay. I needed to calm the hell down. He wasn’t asking me to move in, he certainly wasn’t giving me his damn house, and no matter how much I cut corners, I wasn’t going to be able to afford private school. I told myself to let it go. This was just a casual conversation.
Casual. With Preston.
Christ .
Mentally shaking myself, I tried to focus. Water. Did I like being on the water? Fuck, I liked not being at work today.
“I wouldn’t know,” I answered honestly. Did a dollar store float and a biannual trip to the public beach count as being on the water ? “Are you inviting me on your boat?” My question came out sharper than I intended.
He turned to look at me. “I am not insulting you.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Trying to hide my discomfort, I took another sip. “But if you want to ask me to go on your boat, why don’t you just ask that… specifically?”
His chest rose and fell twice. “You think I’m not direct.”
“I think you’re very direct. Selectively.”
Nash came down the stairs, his eyes wide, his hands furiously signing. Mommy, Mommy, there’s an Xbox upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and I turned it on and guess what? It has lots of games!
“I…” Shit. I looked up at Preston. “Okay. I don’t even know what the hell to say right now. My kid’s curious, but I swear, he has manners occasionally. I’m sorry he snooped.”
Preston’s expression softened, and he smiled down at my son.
My heart swelled, and I joked, “Wait. I take it back. You did this. You said he could snoop, and he crashed your bedroom and found your secret stash, and now you might as well resign yourself to your new six-year-old roommate, because I’ll never get him out of here.” If I wasn’t holding coffee that was worth its weight in gold, I would’ve thrown my arms up for effect. But I was, so I didn’t. Instead, I eyed him hard and took another sip and thought about a damn boat ride.
Once again, he smiled. But this time it was at me.
I pointed. “Don’t you dare do that.”
He smiled wider. “Do what?”
“Smile like that.” And melt my fucking heart. Diverting, I made this about Nash and nodded at the mess of excitement dancing around me signing over and over, Can we go swimming? “You created this monster.”
Preston’s smile wiped clean off his face.
It was so instant, I had whiplash.
In less than a split second, his voice dropped, he leaned closer and he held my gaze. “I would have been honored to be the one to have helped create him.”
My eyes welled, my teeth bit into my cheek, and I fought tears, hard. “You can’t say things like that to me,” I whispered.
“There are many things I want to say to you.”
For too many years to count, I’d been holding on to the pieces of my heart that weren’t already gone to my mother, to my brother, to my son. I’d held them so close, my soul hurt with the strain. And since the moment the man standing next to me had walked into my life, I’d wanted to reach for him. I’d wanted to reach for that young Marine who was so proud and stoic. Then later I wanted to reach for the war-hardened, reserved Marine who averted his eyes and covered his skin with ink. I’d wanted to hand over everything I had left, but I’d fought it.
I’d fought so damn valiantly that I was proud of it.
Except I didn’t realize until this very second that I wasn’t fighting to hold on to something, I was fighting to keep something out . Someone out.
And in two sentences, that someone made a mockery of every single thing I thought I was made of and broke that hold.
Preston Vos broke me.
The last pieces of my tattered heart reached for him.