Chapter 34
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
WILDER
I could blame it on the fact that I’m delirious, sicker than I’ve ever been in my entire damn life. I could blame it on the cough medicine that I asked Maisie to stay.
Deep down, buried beneath all the denial, I know it’s bullshit.
I asked her to stay because for the first time in my entire life, someone gives a fuck. And maybe right now, I don’t know, I don’t want to be alone.
Maisie’s just so fucking… good. All the time.
To everyone she meets. Random people at the grocery store, the kids in the program, the guys on my team, her friends.
So full of sunshine every damn second of the day that I just want to exist in her warmth without worrying about consequences or what it means that I do.
That’s it. There’s nothing complicated about it.
“Okay. Then I’ll stay,” she says simply, giving me a sweet smile that makes my stomach tighten. “But you have to eat this soup, or I’m going to be very offended. I made it from scratch.” She reaches for the bowl that’s sitting beside the bed and hands it to me.
It smells fucking divine. So good that my stomach growls loudly enough that even Maisie hears it.
Fuck, I can’t believe she made me soup. Took time out of her day to make me homemade soup, not pouring something out of a can, and came all the way over to my apartment, at my doorstep, and immediately jumped into caretaking mode.
She doesn’t seem to care about getting sick herself or giving up her evening to be here with me.
Who the hell is this girl, and of all people, why is she wasting time on me?
When I’m giving her orgasms, I get it. Hooking up is mutually beneficial. But there’s nothing I can give her right now. Nothing I can offer her. And yet, she’s… still here.
And I just don’t understand it. Nothing in my life has ever been given without conditions.
“Wilder,” she prods, and my gaze snaps to hers, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You were zoning out. Eat.”
I shove a swallow down my aching throat and take a bite.
Holy fucking hell.
She made this?
I groan, and Maisie’s pretty pink lips curl into a smile that makes her entire face light up. “You like it?”
“Fuck yeah. It’s delicious.”
“Thank you.” My lips twitch when her cheeks turn pink, a blush spreading down her neck. I’ve seen her body stripped down, had both my tongue and cock inside of her, and she’s been confident, brazen even, but a simple compliment like this makes her blush.
It’s cute.
“You said you have little brothers… you make this for them? That how you got so good at it?” I ask as I finish off the last few bites in the bowl. Thankfully, just before a cough creeps up my throat, and I nearly double over. Fuck, everything hurts.
Maisie’s eyes soften, and she nods. “Yeah. Uh… It’s my mom’s secret recipe.
” Her eyes roll, but she lets out a soft laugh.
“Growing up, she would make it for us anytime we got sick. It would be the first thing she did, and we always said that somehow, it had some sprinkle of magic in it because it always made us feel better. She taught me how to make it, and I’d make it for my brothers if she and Daddy were busy with church things.
When I wasn’t expected to attend, of course. ”
“That happen a lot?”
Ever since she told me that her father was a preacher, I’ve wondered how all of it tied in with Maisie, but it wasn’t something I was going to bring up. If I ask questions, she might ask questions back.
Ones that I’m not going to answer.
She exhales as she reaches for the empty bowl in my hands and sets it onto the cardboard box moonlighting as a nightstand beside the bed.
“Yes. There are a lot of… expectations when it comes to being the preacher’s daughter.
There’s always a fundraiser to attend, a Bible study to put together, service work the church is part of.
Always a Sunday morning sermon that I was expected to be present for, dutifully listening in the front pew.
Not just by my parents, but by the entire congregation.
Most of my free time was delegated by my parents for church activities, and sometimes, I don’t know, I just felt kind of suffocated by all of it.
Their love, and expectations, kind of fel—” Suddenly, she snaps her lips closed mid-sentence like she only then realized what she was saying and offers me a tight smile.
“Uh, sorry. Anyway, yeah. I didn’t mean to ramble on about it. ”
I guess I never really considered the way being a preacher’s daughter might affect her life until she said all this. I had her pinned as a college girl who didn’t take anything seriously, but I knew even before now how fucking wrong I was.
But learning all these things about her, about her family, how she has brothers, how she has pressure from not only her parents but an entire church full of people who rely on her and have expectations of her, it makes me feel…
I don’t know, like an asshole who shouldn’t have judged her based on the little shit that I knew of her.
It makes me feel… guilty. An emotion that I’m not familiar with.
“Don’t fucking apologize for talking about your life, Maisie,” I murmur, swallowing roughly. “Come here.”
I jerk my chin toward the empty space beside me.
Maisie toes off her shoes, letting them fall to the floor, and crawls across the mattress, settling back against the wall next to me, shoulder to shoulder. A shiver suddenly sprints down my spine, probably from the damn fever, and I exhale slowly.
We’re both quiet, silence hanging in the air between us as we sit side by side. But it’s not strained or uncomfortable; it’s just calm.
“The work they do is very important to so many people. You probably think I sound like a selfish brat right now, complaining about having parents who love me enough to care about what I’m doing and who pay attention to things about my life,” she finally whispers.
“Nah. I only think you’re a brat when you’re talking back to me,” I respond, and I feel her shoulders shake with laughter. I turn my head to look at her, and I find her turned to me.
Inches apart, her breath skating near my lips.
So close that I can see the faint dust of freckles on her nose, sprinkled over her cheeks.
And the ring of dark blue that reminds me of the deep ocean that rings her irises.
Her long, thick lashes that are a few shades darker than her hair.
The small, delicate dip of her cupid’s bow above her pink, full lips.
She’s beautiful.
So beautiful that it scares the living fuck out of me, because it’s not just on the outside… it’s on the inside too.
I’m starting to see that Maisie’s beauty isn’t just skin-deep; it’s threaded everywhere inside of her, in all the pieces that she so easily gifts to those around her.
Pieces that aren’t worthy of someone like me. Never someone like me.
“You’re not selfish, Maisie.” My throat feels like it’s lined with sandpaper as the words scrape out of me. “Take it from someone who’s never been anything other than a self-serving asshole. You’re the furthest thing from selfish.”
I watch as her throat works, and she exhales in a slow, calming breath.
“Sometimes it’s just a lot. I know I’m… I know I’m privileged to have the love and care that I do.
To have my family. That they trust me and want me to be so involved.
I don’t take it for granted. I just want to be who I am without the weight of everyone’s expectations.
People think just because my daddy’s the preacher that I’m supposed to be perfect.
All the time. Say the right things. Be a good example.
Fit into a box that they picked out for me before they ever even met me.
It’s like I can’t just be me. It’s just…
exhausting.” All of it rushes out of her, and the second it does, her shoulders sink slightly, like just saying it out loud has taken some type of weight off her.
“God, I just keep word vomiting, I’m sorry.
You’re sick, and the last thing you want to do is hear about my problems.” She laughs haughtily, scrunching her nose up adorably.
“I could listen to you talk for fucking hours, Maisie.” The words slip out, catching us both by surprise. But fuck it. It’s the truth. “Stop apologizing. To anyone. For anything. Especially not me.”
After a beat, she nods, the slight flush returning to her cheeks. “You know, I actually think I like you high on cough medicine.”
I roll my eyes. “Now you’re being a brat. And only because I’m too fucking sick to do shit about it right now.”
Her eyes sparkle with amusement.
There’s still this question hanging in the back of my head, the same one that I’ve been wondering about for weeks now.
The one I’ve wanted to ask her about since I discovered who she was, even before we started sneaking around, but couldn’t ask her.
“Is all of that why you chose to lose your virginity to me that night at the bar?”
I want to know why me, why she gave something away that’s supposed to be important and precious, especially to someone like Maisie, to a man like me.
Her breath stutters near my lips, and for a second, she just looks at me, gaze flashing between mine like she’s deciding whether or not she trusts me with the answer.
But then she lifts her chin and nods. “I wanted it to be my choice, on my terms. My decision and no one else’s.”
“And you thought that I was the perfect candidate for taking your virginity? Christ, Maisie, why me?”
She pins me with a look. “There was just… I don’t know, Wilder.
There was just some kind of chemistry, some type of pull to you that I’d never experienced before.
I can’t really explain it, but I just knew I wanted to do it.
And that night was the most powerful night of my life.
It was the night that I decided I wanted to take my life, my future, back into my own hands. I don’t regret any of it.”
Something tugs in my chest like there’s a cord somewhere beneath the skin and bones, and it’s being yanked as she confesses all this. But I push it away, bury it back where it belongs. Just the way I always have and the way I always will.
I simply hum, not trusting myself to respond to the honest piece of herself that she just gave me. I didn’t deserve it, but that’s who Maisie is. Constantly giving her trust and compassion to people, even when they haven’t earned it.
“Do you regret it?” she asks softly, and I force myself to look away, to let my eyes flutter shut, swallowing hard. “That night?”
I don’t know if I even truly know the answer to that question, if I can still tell the difference between the truth and the lies I tell myself… and her.
It’s complicated and messy, two things that I’ve never been good at.
Maisie getting tangled up in me, in all of the fucked-up that I am, even if it’s temporary, feels like I’m tainting her in some way.
That’s my regret, that somehow I’ll leave her fucked-up, broken the way that I am, when it’s all said and done between us.
Because that’s what I do. That’s who I am.
And this? Her?
It’s all temporary. A temporary feeling. A temporary arrangement.
Her fingers slip into my hair, and she slowly pulls me down into her lap, letting my head rest there. And suddenly, I can’t live with her thinking I regret any part of her. So against my better judgment, the kind a better man would use, I say, “No, I don’t regret it.”
And I think it’s actually the truth, no matter how broken I am.