15. Worst. Pep. Talk. Ever #2
I rubbed the back of my neck. Shit, I hated this.
But for some reason, I found myself telling her my life story.
“My mom had plans. Dreams. Things she wanted before life became bills and cattle and wondering if the bank was going to take everything we had.” I stared at the floor because looking at her seemed like a spectacularly bad idea.
“The ranch was always one bad year away from being gone. One drought. One bad investment. One horrible Yelp review.” My jaw tightened.
“So I stepped up when I was still in high school. I learned every aspect of the business, especially the finances. I don’t think since I’ve done that, I have had a day I’m not worried. ”
She didn’t say anything. Just sat quietly, giving me the time to say what I needed to say.
“I got into grad school after Princeton, but I didn’t go.
During the years I was in college, my mom made a lot of improvements in the ranch, and I knew if I didn’t come back and get a handle on the finances, the ranch would have gone under.
I never told anyone that.” I blew out a breath.
“I thought I’d be able to go back to school later, that there’d be time later, but there wasn’t. ”
“I’m sorry,” Her voice was so quiet I barely heard her.
“Nothing to be sorry about. There’s always something that needs fixing around here.
A fence. A tractor. A busted pipe. Somebody’s problem.
” I finally looked at her. “Turns out, if you make yourself useful enough, nobody notices you’ve built your entire life around making sure you’re never the one who needs anything. ”
Her expression softened.
“Don’t.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
Her brow furrowed. “Like what?”
“Like you understand me.”
Her mouth twitched. “Maybe I do.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “That’s the fucking problem.”
Silence stretched between us.
“I’m not good at this,” I admitted.
“At what?” she asked, her words breathless.
“Needing people.” The words came out rough.
I looked back down at the ground and told myself this conversation needed to stop.
I wasn’t sure what sort of truth serum I’d taken or spell I was under, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to keep one thought in my head, unspoken.
Every word was spilled from my mouth without any filter.
“I don’t know how to hand someone the parts of my life that matter and trust they won’t drop them.
Every time I’ve tried, sooner or later, they left.
Or I pushed them away before they got the chance. ”
Silence filled the space between us at my admission. The only sound was the wind outside and our labored breaths. I dragged a hand down my face.
“So, yeah. I control things. I make plans. I have backup plans for my backup plans. I fix things nobody asked me to fix, and apparently…” I lifted my hands in mock surrender. “I’m a pain in the ass.”
Her eyes widened as she said sarcastically, “Apparently?”
My lips twitched as I almost smiled.
Almost.
“Yes, because if I’m the one holding everything together, then when it falls apart, at least I know who to blame,” I defended myself.
Her amusement disappeared at the weight of my statement.
“And then you came along,” I rasped.
Fuck.
There it was.
The part I really didn’t want to say.
“You walked into my life with your kid and your independence and your complete inability to accept help without turning it into a hostage negotiation.”
“Hey—” she cut in.
“And somehow,” I spoke over her, “you made me want things.”
She went still. I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.
“Things I stopped letting myself want a long time ago.”
My heart was pounding hard enough to piss me off.
“Things like what?” she questioned.
“I want to know what you’re thinking. I want to know if you made it home safe. I want to fix your fucking porch even though you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself.”
“Actually, I wasn’t doing that well with that.”
“And I want to be the person you call when something goes wrong.”
I forced myself to hold her gaze.
“But worse than that?”
My voice dropped.
“I want to be the person you call when nothing’s wrong.”
Her breath caught.
“And I have no fucking idea what to do with that.”
I shook my head.
“Because wanting you means trusting you.”
I swallowed hard.
“I’ve spent my whole life making sure nobody had that kind of power.”
A beat passed.
“Then you showed up.”
My eyes stayed locked on hers.
“And now I’m standing here handing it to you anyway.”
She looked at me like she was expected the world to crack open, like I’d just dropped a meteor of truth into her lap.
There was no clever comeback, no smile or deflection.
Just the absolute, unguarded honesty of a woman who had been burned, but who still showed up for the possibility that something new could grow out of the wreckage.
I knew that this wasn’t the right thing to do.
I could analyze a situation six ways from Sunday before committing to a single course of action, but in that moment, every part of me ached to close the distance.
Maybe it was the suffocating hush of the building, a sliver of moonlight from the skylight, or the raw way she was looking at me, like she could see every unlabeled box in my heart. Whatever the reason, I leaned in.
Our lips collided too fast, too eager, then we pulled back a fraction, almost laughing at ourselves, then met again, slower this time.
Her hands slipped up to the sides of my face, like she was afraid I might pull away, and I finally let myself touch her—really touch her—threading my fingers through her hair and drawing her so close our foreheads bumped.
The kiss was gentle at first, an exploration, a question neither of us dared to ask out loud. Then her lips parted, and suddenly years—decades—of practiced restraint, of “I’m fine” and “I don’t need anyone,” snapped, and everything spilled out at once.
It was a delicious mixture of sweetness and sorrow, a forbidden blend of indulgence and pain. My heart hammered in my chest as though it could punch right through and into her hands if she asked for it.