18. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Lucy
I lock eyes with Stella as we circle each other in lithe squats with our arms at the ready. Her husband pulled me aside earlier and informed me that her tell was when she slightly rocked back onto her heels, so I break eye contact occasionally to sneak a glance at her feet.
It may be her birthday, but I’ll be danged if I don’t fight to the finish to beat her in this wrestling match. My competitive streak knows no boundaries.
She rocks back, and I prepare to shift to the left side like Stone taught me when he told me Stella’s birthday celebration would most likely end up in a wrestling match. Fresh memories of us rolling across the center's matted floors as Stone taught me to wrestle days ago superimpose with the lingering remnants of wicked memories of what happened after, gluing me in place and allowing Stella to pounce and easily swipe my feet out from under me. I fall onto the black mats of the makeshift rink in their house. “Oof. ”
I go ahead and tap out, knowing it’s a lost cause with the NR movie starring me and Stone playing in my head right now. Looks like my competitive streak’s boundary is a mere memory of a breathless and sweaty Stone Harper rolling on the floor with me.
The small crowd consisting of Stone’s family and a few close friends erupts in applause for the birthday girl. I bow out gracefully, meet Stone’s heated gaze, and feel my soul tremble when he licks his lips.
Lord, help me…
“Excuse me. I’m going to sneak off to the restroom,” I mention to Stella after I give her a victory hug. She has quickly become a good friend, and whenever Stone decides he’s had enough of me, I think she might be as heartbroken as I will be.
The Harper family holds a special place in my heart.
Would I really have to lose them?
My heart whispers yes.
Fear over Stone leaving me grows louder every day. Even in the dead of night when he brings my body to life and makes me forget I was ever dead inside, I’m scared he’ll leave when the morning comes. It’s like I’m preparing for his eventual departure while simultaneously clawing at the walls inside my glass cage to keep his attention on me.
Walking through Stella and Lucas’s house, I make my way to the guest bathroom and am met with a certified wild woman staring back at me in the mirror. My hair, which was up in a high ponytail, now frizzes and sticks out in every direction. Black smudges coat the underneath of my eyes and the sage green halter top I’m wearing looks boxy and baggy on me now instead of fitted like it was at the start of this day.
How could I have been thinking of Stone like that when I’m looking like this?
As if he’s having any thoughts of me. Pft. That heated gaze from earlier is my brain short-circuiting, thinking I’m starring in my own rom-com. It was probably an examinatorial look that meant, huh, maybe I should call things off with her. She’s a mess.
I sit down on the lid of the toilet and pull out my phone to distract myself from thinking. At least thinking about my oh so attractive and hot and flirty-but-kind boyfriend that I fear is on a countdown to letting me go.
We’ve been dating for real for almost two months. I think his longest fling lasted right at three months. I feel like a ticking time bomb is stationed above my head.
Opening social media, I check messages from readers and then click on a post I was tagged in. My heart rate quickens when I notice it’s a review for the last rom-com release I published to close out my second series. A smile spreads across my face, however, as I read the caption. Pride swells as I bask in the glowing, positive review. The reader said I was now an auto-buy author for her, complimented my author’s voice, and mentioned how she loved that I wrote clean romance from a Christian perspective.
But think of those dirty, dirty thoughts you were having moments ago. Think of those dreams that keep happening. Think of all those nights you’ve tangled up with Stone …
“Gah!” I shout as I rocket to my feet, clenching my phone in one hand and slapping the tiled bathroom wall with my other. In a breathless whisper, I bite, “What a hypocritical phony I am.”
My readers think of me as this pristine, polished, put-together Christian girl who writes squeaky clean romance that their upper-teen could read without issue. Attraction fully exists in my stories, but it’s not the soul of my stories. The emotional bonding is. Attraction is countered with characters who try to capture their thoughts. The author persona I’ve carefully curated with each book published, each post shared, each email sent, each video created, and each interaction with my readers is who I wish I was.
I wish I was the girl who waited until marriage like my characters do.
I wish I was the confident lady who didn’t cave to desires, who could easily put a stop to things before they went too far. Who didn’t freely let her thoughts wander sometimes because it felt good to do so.
I wish I didn’t feel like pie with all the gooey middle filling removed only to have a crusty shell remaining.
And I can’t share this struggle with anyone. Sure, maybe Hadley, but I can’t admit to her that I haven’t beaten this yet. When she asks how I’m managing, I tell her I’m fine and thank her for checking before changing the subject. Church burn is real, and I’ve been scorched way too many times by Christian women who shut me down and tell me to try harder to be better when I attempted to confide in them over my sexual inclinations as a teenager. We as women aren’t allowed to talk about our sexual temptations because it’s a “man’s struggle.”
I set my phone down on the marbled counter and lean back against the white wall, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths. Being with Stone—touching him, kissing him, catching little glimpses behind the man who is scared of commitment but is trying, learning his heart—has done a number on me.
And the fun of our encounters has begun to wear off. Don’t get me wrong, we bring the chemistry. The heat. The passion. The spice. I’m completely lost to him when it’s happening. But after, as he falls asleep with his hand on my hip and leg swung over my body, guilt drowns me much like when I was five.
Like when I was knocked into the pool at the wedding.
Except this time there’s no one around to save me.
The one who once saved me is becoming the rock tied to my feet as I sink further and further into the dark depths of the ocean.
After smoothing down my hair, wiping underneath my eyes, and making the most out of my frazzled appearance, I exit the restroom with my head tucked down and run straight into a man’s very firm chest.
“Easy there, Little Lion,” Stone says, hooking his finger under my chin and tilting my head up. All thoughts of him leaving me soon or my guilty premonitions vanish into thin smoke as he moves his hand to cup my cheek and presses his lips softly against mine. He controls the kiss, gently pushing my mouth open and pulling it closed as he slowly coaxes us deeper into each other. It’s a dance I know all the steps to but still surprises me as I move.
He tastes like the sweetness of the vanilla cake we consumed earlier. My brain short circuits as my hands roam up his chest until I eventually snake my arms around his neck and tug him closer. He moves his hand from my cheek and works his fingers into my hair, completely messing up what I had just fixed. A sigh escapes my lips, and that signals him to push me back through the bathroom door and up against the cool, tiled wall.
I’m a goner to him in this small, darkened space.
My thoughts are repeating his name over and over. He’s a broken record loop, and I never want to fix it.
Stone frees his hands from my hair, opting to travel down my neck, shoulders, sides, and landing on my hips. He grips me like he’s never letting go, and I think I might die if he did. In fact, I do die a little when his lips rip from mine.
“You are a—” curse “—forbidden sin to me, Lucy May.” Stone’s voice is husky as his lips travel down my neck.
Warning bells sound in the back of my head, but they’re muffled by fabric layers of Want and boxed in by Need.
I don’t know how much time passes by as we get lost in one another against that bathroom wall, every touch and taste reminding me I have a reason to live.
A knock sounds at the door, causing both of us to jump in surprise. His presence departs from me, and as I’m trying to catch my breath, the lights flick on.
Stone stares at me, crazed and hungry.
I turn my gaze to the mirror as he cracks open the door, and I notice my expression mimics his.
And then a tsunami of guilt and sadness floods my demeanor as I take in my messy hair, swollen lips, and red splotches on my neck. With trembling hands, I rip the ponytail holder from my hair, not bothering to wince at the pain as hairs are yanked from my head .
I deserve the pain.
I watch as I visibly shrink into the smallest woman who has ever lived. Someone is talking, and then I hear Stone, but I’ve tuned it out. All I can feel is overwhelming shame.
It’s too much to stand under.
So I reach for a little string in my brain labeled “numb” and pull it, forcing myself to stop feeling .
“Lucy? Everything okay?”
Stone’s grip on my upper arm drags me back to the here and now.
I paste a plastic smile on my face. “Oh, um. Yeah, I’m good.”
He smirks, and I realize he probably thinks my silence and fearful expression is because someone interrupted.
Good. Let him go on thinking that. He doesn’t need to know the truth.
“That was—” He blows out air and runs a hand through his disheveled blond hair, his beautiful blue eyes alight with passion.
“Something,” I finish for him. Because he isn’t wrong. I follow him out the door, thankful he sent off whoever it was. I don’t think I can face any of his family members or friends after that. “But why did you do that? Your family is around.” Not that that has stopped us before, but…
His expression dims as he clenches his jaw. “You’re right, and please forgive me. But as for the reasoning, which by no means justify my actions,” his eyes darken, “your post-wrestling messy appearance made you one of the most tempting creatures I’ve ever seen. ”
Here I was, thinking he was disgusted and thinking of ending things with me…
Silly, silly girl.
“Huh,” is all that comes out. I fiddle with my hair, hoping that it will cover my neck while still maintaining some semblance of style, but I know it’s no use. The frizzy mess is unfixable.
Stone removes my hands from my hair and holds them. “I truly am sorry, Lucy. I know I can get a one-track mind when it comes to you sometimes.”
“I know,” I whisper, then add, “me too. I could have stopped you. To be honest, I wanted—”
“You should never have to be in charge of stopping me. That’s not your job.”
Something inside me awakens, pushing against the numbness.
No, not that. I’ve put the Beast to bed right now through my process of numbing out.
Stone’s the first man to ever tell me I’m not in charge of stopping things. I vividly remember one of my college boyfriends telling me it was my fault he kept having sex with me. He said I should do a better job at stopping him before things went too far. I tried to explain to him that my drive wasn’t like other girls, but he said it didn’t matter.
He said it was my job to metaphorically pump the brakes, not his.
“Thank you for saying that.” I squeeze his hands before letting go. We walk in silence a short distance into the kitchen. He motions for me to sit, which I do, using the opportunity to try and relax my body. After a moment, he returns with drinks.
He hands me a glass of water before telling me to take my time calming down. Then he’s off to rejoin the group. I don’t have time to even begin to think over why I’m suddenly feeling so guilty before Stella walks in and joins me at the kitchen table.
“Do I need to fight my brother for you?”
Her question catches me off guard. “Why?”
“You look sad. Like really sad.”
I contemplate how I should answer for a moment, but she interrupts and moves to sit beside me instead of in front of me. “Let me be blunt for a moment. I know he’s my brother, but I also know he has a not-so-pretty streak in him when it comes to commitment. Trust me, we were all shocked when we found out about you. And to be honest, I’m surprised he’s still with you, so that’s saying something.”
“Oh, that?” I laugh nervously. “Yeah, I know about his past. But he’s been nothing but committed to me. I’m not sad because of him. It’s… personal.”
She tucks a strand of loose brown wavy hair behind her ear. When I meet her eyes, the steel-gray color acts as a knife slicing through to my inner core. I feel cut open and laid upon her husband’s biology classroom dissecting table. (Yes, he showed us today while we were galivanting around town).
I quickly avert my gaze.
“I understand,” she finally says. “But please know I’m here if you need me. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having a sister—even one who lives six hours away—over these past couple of months. For the record, I’m cheering you on. I’m praying the two of you are end-game. ”
Stella leans forward and wraps me in a surprise hug, and after a moment of pause, I hug her back. Normally, I would cry over a moment like this, but the string labeled “numb” is still pulled taut, and I have no idea when I’ll release it this time.
After she leaves, I remain in the kitchen long enough to finish my water. Once I rejoin the group, who have moved outside to a campfire, I fake smiles, answer questions when asked, and clutch Stone’s hand for dear life for the remainder of the night.
He doesn’t kiss me goodnight once we are back to his mom’s house. He allows me to hole myself up in Stella’s old room, not bothering me with intrusive questions I don’t have answers to.
My soul is numb. My brain is tired. My body is growing fragile.
So I take out my computer and I go to a place where happily-ever-afters always come, communication is always good, and the leading females are virgins and strong in their Christian walk.