21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
“L ast Night” by Morgan Wallen was blasting through my phone speakers as I hustled through my shower. Grey was going to be here at noon, and while that was a long way off, I knew I was going to need all the time I could get to mentally prepare.
Thankfully, I’d already planned out my outfit in my head while I was in the shower.
My navy bikini was slung over the towel hook in my bathroom. The top was a simple spaghetti strap that tied in the center with a bow. The bottoms were high-waisted and slightly cheeky. Looking in the reflection, I fiddled with the straps, turning to look at my backside.
“Shit,” I said as I looked down, noticing I needed to shave.
Leaving my swimsuit on, I quickly hopped back into the shower. It was a real bitch being a woman sometimes.
Drying myself off for the second time, I rifled through my dresser drawers until I came across my favorite pair of Levi shorts. They were light-washed with a frayed hem and a few strategically tattered rips. I yanked them over my swimsuit before pulling my oversized linen button-up off the hanger.
Perusing my makeup bag, Liv’s voice frolicked through my head. The prettiest girls aren’t the ones with a lot of makeup, but rather the girls who know how to use the littlest makeup in the most flattering way .
I applied a tinted sunscreen, some blush, a little mascara, and a light lip gloss. Finishing, I tapped my phone to check the time. Perfect—now to grab a quick breakfast, a cup of coffee, and maybe even stare at my computer screen in an attempt to get some words out.
When I heard a knock at the door, I jumped and checked the clock, wondering how he could already be here, but my eyes landed on my word count.
“Holy shit, that’s a lot of words,” I said.
I didn’t remember the last time I wrote that much in one sitting. Sitting a little straighter in my chair, a smile appeared.
“Coming,” I shouted.
I clutched my mesh beach bag that was resting on the barstool and slipped into my navy waterproof Birkenstocks. Another knock came just before I opened the door.
“Impatient much?” I asked.
His scent came bursting through the doorway, a mix of citrus and masculine leather. With his smell came an immediate effect on the rest of my body. A shiver started at my nose and shimmied its way to my toes. His right arm rested on the side of the door frame just above his head, making his strong stature all the more evident.
“Just a little.” He smirked. “Did you bring a swimsuit?”
My shirt was closed by only one button, so I pulled it open wide enough for him to see the swimsuit underneath. His eyes flashed to my chest before looking back up at me with a raised eyebrow. “Mhm. That answers that question.”
“Uh huh,” I stated. “Now, where are we going?” I asked, pulling the door shut and locking it.
“That would ruin the surprise, now wouldn’t it?”
“I told you, there is no surprise. I’ve literally seen every inch of this town.”
“We’ll see,” he said, stepping to the side and signaling for me to go ahead of him. “It’s the light blue Bronco parked right up front.”
Blue Bronco? How many cars did this man have? Taking the last stair, I peered through the building doorway, expecting a brand-new souped-up Bronco, but instead, what I saw was the most perfect car I’d ever laid my eyes on.
There, parked in front of me, was a 1976 Ford Bronco in mint condition. The light blue paint was similar to that of the sky and paired perfectly with the brown leather interior and white removable top. The top was strapped with two surfboards, one yellow and one pink.
While I hadn’t particularly been a fan of cars for a while now, I could always appreciate one, especially one as perfect as this. Dad and I used to share a love of cars, old ones in particular, but after the accident, my love for them was never the same.
I pulled my sunglasses to the bridge of my nose and peered out from just above them. “Damn.”
“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” His voice was close behind me. I turned, expecting his eyes to be on the car, but instead they were locked on me. I froze.
He was talking about the car… wasn’t he? Because for some reason, the way his eyes were eating me up made me unsure.
“The car, I mean. It’s perfect,” he stuttered, fiddling with the keys that rested in his hand.
“More than,” I responded. “What is it, a seventy-six?
His eyes widened. “Shit. You’re good. I wouldn’t have picked you for a car girl.”
“I wouldn’t have picked you for a guy who drove anything that wasn’t foreign.” I grinned as I moved toward the passenger seat.
“Ouch.” His voice was overflowing with sarcasm as he hopped in.
I sat in the passenger seat, pushing my sunglasses up my face and pulling my bag close to my chest. My body had already been on a rollercoaster of emotions since Grey showed up on my doorstep, but now instead of enjoying the ride, I was a little queasy. It never got easier. My heartbeat got louder and my cheeks got hotter. The rush of warmth flushed my face, and I took a deep breath.
“You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I responded, trying to focus on the road ahead of us.
His key slipped into the ignition and the engine purred underneath my feet, vibrating through my seat. The sound around me seemed to dull the chaos inside of me a little, but it still took me a few minutes to realize we weren’t moving. I looked over, his big brown eyes stared back.
“MJ, what’s wrong? You look like you’re going to be sick. Are you okay?”
Out of nowhere, I heard the words unexpectedly spilling from my mouth. “I was in an accident when I was younger… A car accident.”
“MJ…” His body abruptly shifted toward me, his empathetic eyes brimming with sympathy. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his hand reaching for mine. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—” He started to yank his hand back, but I clung on so he couldn’t.
Acknowledging my gesture, he squeezed tighter. “I didn’t notice when we rode together the other night. If I had, I would’ve never planned to drive us.”
The memory of us in the back of that black SUV reappeared in my head, bringing a smile along with it. “The anxiety around cars is always present, but sometimes it’s just more blatant than others. Other things were on my mind that night, not to mention I was a little tipsy. But it’s okay, I’ll be fine,” I said, wrapping my other hand around his arm that rested in my lap.
“Glad to hear that I was able to provide that distraction for you.” He beamed. “But I’m happy to walk, if you want. It’s not too far from here, and I could totally go for some fresh air.”
“No. No, that’s okay.” Shaking my head, I kept going. “There’s no way I’m turning down a chance to ride in this car.”
Reluctantly releasing our hands, I fastened my seat belt.
Catching his movements in my periphery, I watched as he tugged at his chest. In the exact same place he had on the first day we met.
He slowly started backing out but stopped. “If at any point the anxiety becomes too much, just tell me. I’ll pull over wherever we are and we can walk from there.”
His sincerity was so pure, I could’ve melted right there in my seat.
“Okay,” I responded with a smile.
He took his right hand and placed it on my leg, immediately giving me goosebumps.
“MJ, I’m serious.”
“I will, I promise.”
He pulled his hand from my leg and casually returned it to the steering wheel. A breath escaped my lips as if he’d pulled it with him.
I tried to focus my thoughts as he pulled the Bronco out of the parking spot. There were others that understood my struggle with cars. My parents, of course, and Sam, but none of them ever mentioned it. They never brought it up, per my request. But now I was wondering if that’d been a mistake, because getting to express those anxieties out loud, to allow someone else to get a glimpse of what I harbored inside—and to have those feelings acknowledged—was more therapeutic than I’d ever imagined.
Although, if you’d told me a couple of weeks ago that I’d be sharing this with Grey, I’d have laughed in your face. But maybe he wasn’t as easy to read as I initially thought. While I’d seen quite a bit of him—or rather most of him—he was still managing to keep me on my toes. The mysterious, handsome city boy who knew his way around the bedroom was also emotional, aware, and not afraid of big scary feelings. This all felt a little risky, borderline treacherous.
And then before I could overthink it, I said, “Thank you.”
He glanced over with a slightly confused look on his face. “For what?”
“For listening. And for understanding,” I said, letting out a breath. “I don’t normally just come out and share that with people, especially people I have only known for a short amount of time.”
“It seems there is a lot you don’t share, MJ.” His eyes were on the road, but he kept talking. “I’m always here to listen. Sometimes the noise inside our heads is so loud that in order to quiet it, we have to let it out.”
“Anxiety takes up residence in your head too?”
“What gave it away?”
“No one could speak so clearly about it without having experienced it themselves,” I responded.
Now I was curious—what demons did he fight with, what struggles did he endure, what anxieties engulfed his mind? Because I couldn’t imagine someone like him struggling.
But that was the thing about anxiety. It didn’t discriminate. It didn’t care about your social status or what kind of family you had. It didn’t care about your house, your car, or the unlimited possibilities that awaited you. It didn’t matter who you were.
Keeping my eye on the road ahead, I spoke again, desperate to know more. “What finally made you come back to town this summer?”
“It’s a long story.”
I waited, assuming he’d say more, but he didn’t. “Well good thing I’ve got the whole day,” I said, seeing his smile grow.
“Does that mean you’re mine for the entire day?”
The way he said mine sent me quivering in my seat, so much so that I needed to readjust myself to make it less obvious.
“It means I don’t have any other plans, so I have plenty of time to hear your long story.”
A smug look spread across his face, admitting defeat. “Fine. I used to come here every summer, but then I had some health issues and things got a little muddy throughout my teenage years.” His strong hands gripped the steering wheel. “All of a sudden, I blinked and multiple years had passed. More things happened that made things even messier, and while I attempted to deal with them, it made more sense to do it in New York than here. Time passed, and it was easier to forget this place, and the chaotic life I live made it easier to stay away, so I did.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it. The tension in his grip visibly loosened on the steering wheel and he dropped his left hand to his lap. His answer was still extremely vague, but in a way, it seemed as though he’d been wanting to share even that with someone for a while now.
Surprising myself, I reached for his hand, lacing our fingers together. He looked down, then back to the road, then to me. Smiling. I wanted him to know that like him, I was listening.
“Time has a funny way of moving so quickly that in one blink you can basically be living a different life. You can’t dwell on it or you’ll just continue to lose more of it. You’re here. You came back. That’s all that matters,” I said. “What was it that brought you back here? Was it your grandfather?”
“Partially. My grandfather and I stayed in touch; I made sure of it. But there were other reasons for me to come back. Reasons that at the time, when I was younger, seemed hard and uncomfortable. For the last couple of years, every summer creeped up and then was over before I could commit. But then this summer was different.” He paused. “This summer… something drew me back. I can’t explain it, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but everything inside of me told me I had to.” His entire body relaxed against the back of the leather seat.
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous. Trust me,” I insisted. “How does it feel? To be back here, I mean. Are you glad you came?”
“It feels exactly how I remember, only better.”
A smile inched across my face. “And what about all the stuff that you were avoiding? It wasn’t as bad as you thought, was it?”
His relaxed body tensed up again, like I’d struck a nerve.
“To be honest, I haven’t dealt with it, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to when I first got here. But each day I’m here, I feel myself inching closer to facing the hard shit, the shit that I’ve avoided for too long.”
While I wanted to know what he was talking about, I didn’t want to press. Not yet, at least. Everyone had to open up on their own terms, and while things were flowing particularly easily between the two of us, it didn’t feel like the right time.
“You should.” I nodded my head.
“I will,” he agreed.
Getting antsy and ready to be out of the car, I asked, “Are we there yet?”
“Patience.”
“Oh.” I smirked. “You mean like the same kind of patience you had earlier at my door?” I said, reaching for my beach bag and grabbing my sunscreen.
“Exactly like that.” He chuckled, his mood lightening. “Oh, and MJ…”
“Yeah?” I looked up at him.
“We’re here.”