Chapter 34
Present Day
I choke back my surprise when Dr. B parks his truck on the side of the road and climbs out with a knowing smile as he looks at West’s sweater, which is once again swallowing my small frame. “I heard my star pupils need help?”
West nods, looking shockingly at ease as he helps our professor unload a tire from the bed of his truck and roll it into the ditch.
Words elude me as I watch them work silently side by side until Dr. B brushes his hands on his cargo shorts and hooks one end of a rope to the hitch on the back of West’s truck and the other end to his own.
Minutes later, the rescue mission is complete. Dr. B claps West on the shoulder and mutters something low that I can’t hear before giving me a hearty wave and a promise to see us soon at our event.
“What was that?” I ask when we’re back on the road.
West shrugs easily. “I spoke to his class a couple of months after moving back, and he sort of took me under his wing after that.”
“Why?”
“Is it so impossible that someone would want to spend time with me?” West asks dryly, but the spark in his eyes betrays his amusement.
After a beat of silence, he relents. “It didn’t escape his notice that every story I ever wrote included an absent or shitty father.
I assume he knew I was lacking in that area. ”
Impossibly, my fondness for both men grows.
“He’s going to call in that favor, isn’t he?”
West laughs and tugs on the sleeve of his sweater meaningfully. “He is after seeing you in this.”
We drive to the festival in our damp clothes, and the large auditorium is already jam-packed when we arrive.
The time for planning or brainstorming is gone.
We spend the hour chatting about writing, publishing, and our time as Wildcats, and for all my anxiety leading up to it, it might as well be any other event.
My fear was completely unfounded. No one says anything weird or rude.
No one brings up the past. The questions for the Q&A are pre-vetted, and when it’s over, I’m dizzy with relief.
All that worry was for nothing, and the panel was the least eventful part of my weekend.
West and I sneak out the back door, stopping only for Daphne to pull me into a tight hug and drag me away as she whispers “We will be talking about this” with a gleeful glance at West.
“How did you— When did you—?”
“I read his book the first night we were here. Enough of it, anyway. That man is hopelessly in love with you. Judging by the smile on your face, I’m guessing you two worked it out.”
My mouth dries as I look at him over my shoulder, leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets and a hungry expression.
“Go.” Daphne pushes me toward him.
“That went well, right?” I ask as West drives. My suitcase, which we rescued from the hotel, is in the back seat.
He throws me a quick smile before fixing his attention back on the road. “It was great.”
“I hope people liked it. I didn’t want to talk about my new book too much.”
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I just want to give readers what they want.”
I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I don’t.
I couldn’t go online for a year, my publishing team resented me, and the movie studio refused to green-light the third installment of the series without a different ending.
No one trusted me to write it, so Fox and Juniper’s theatrical fate is now in the hands of the producers and a scriptwriter I’ve never met.
“It’s your career. You shouldn’t feel obligated to talk about anything you don’t want to,” West says with a frown.
“I wouldn’t have a career if it weren’t for the success of those books. And without my success, no one would care about anything I have to say.”
“I would.”
“You know what I mean. Being an author is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
West’s frown deepens. “You know you’re worth more than your accomplishments, right? That the right people will love you even if you fail to live up to your own impossibly high standards?”
I’m on the cusp of agreeing with him when I reconsider, unsure if I actually do agree with him. “It’s normal to define yourself by success. You do it, too.”
He runs a tongue along the inside of his cheek before speaking. “I disagree. I defined myself by my failures.”
“Two sides of the same coin.”
He dips his chin in silent acknowledgment. “But I worked hard to stop, because it turned me into the worst possible version of myself.”
I survey his inscrutable profile before sweeping a hand to gesture from my head to my toes. “And is this a bad version of Mars Darling?”
West pulls the truck into his driveway and cuts the engine. “I’m afraid I’m too biased to answer that question.”
“Oh?”
He shifts in his seat so we’re facing each other.
His hair is mussed, the shadow on his cheeks darker every day.
The top two buttons of his white shirt undone.
He looks perfectly wrecked. “It’s true. I met you at the impressionable age of nineteen, when my frontal lobe was still developing, and you burned yourself into my synapses.
I’d have to reroute them to change the way I see you.
I’d have to tear down the very foundation of myself and rebuild, brick by brick of wishful thinking, for even the chance of ridding my psyche of you.
To my mind, there is no bad version of Mars Darling. ”
“Oh.” Breath rushes from my lungs. What a liar he is, to have spent so long bemoaning his way with words.
His eyes are sharp and focused on mine. “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”
A warm, contented feeling brushes against sensitive skin. West’s simple statement is the sincerest thing I’ve ever heard, which makes my next thought all the more worrisome. What if the only way I know how to be happy is through success?
I push the notion down, burying it deep enough to avoid, at least for tonight.
“Hey, West?” I lean close.
“Hmm?”
“You’re better at the whole talking thing than you give yourself credit for.”
His half-moon eyes drag down to my lips, and my mouth goes dry. He smirks. “Does my lexical prowess turn you on, Mars?”
I can only nod. The space inside his truck shrinks, and my limbs feel suddenly heavy. I shiver.
“Are you cold?”
“A little.” Unlike West’s, my long hair is still damp.
“Do you want to come inside?”
“Where else would I go?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.”
We get out of the truck, and West walks around to the passenger side to take my hand.
I glance down at our intertwined fingers as anarchy brews in my stomach.
I’ve written so many West-and-Mars scenes in my head.
The ones where we’re driven together by dramatic circumstance and the ones where I yell at him and the ones where we fall into his bed, but I imagined fewer of the in-between moments.
With his sweater on my body and my hand in his, this suddenly feels very real.
He unlocks the door and lets me in first, and now that it’s not dark and I’m not flustered into oblivion, I use the moment to move slowly through his home, taking it all in.
He has pictures hanging on the refrigerator and built-in shelves filled with books and succulents and knickknacks. The living room has a rug.
“You like living here, don’t you?”
West hangs his keys on a hook by the door. “I do.”
Those two words crack something open in my chest.
“Was that the wrong thing to say?” he asks.
I shake my head, even though it was. I wanted him to say that he hates the desert and he’s coming back to New York with me.
West sits on the small couch in his living room and pulls me down until I’m sitting next to him. “What are you thinking about?” I ask.
He shoots me a suggestive glance.
“Other than that,” I say.
“There’s very little room for anything other than that,” he says.
He shifts me until I’m sitting on his lap facing him, my knees straddling his waist. He grips my thighs in his hands, and his thumbs trace small circles over my dress that make it hard to focus on anything else. I inch closer, my fuse lit.
I drag my fingers through his hair, scraping my nails lightly against his scalp.
His head lolls back as his eyes fall shut.
His fingers are nearly bruising my thighs now, and it’s the best feeling of my life.
I run my hands over his chest and arms and trace his edges, resting a thumb in the notch between his collarbones.
I brush my nose against the line of his throat, feeling his heavy swallow.
He’s patient as my fingers and eyes rove over him, but the corded tension in his forearms betrays him.
“Either kill me or put me out of my misery, Darling.”
“I need a minute to get used to the idea that this is real,” I say.
I can hear the rush of blood in my ears and count the beats of my unsteady heart.
It’s hard not to wonder how many heartbeats I have left in this limbo before West and I fall into something that will change everything.
I shift my weight and feel him under me, and his eyes fly open.
His fingers tighten, searing through the fabric of my dress.
The burn of his eyes on mine tells me that, like it or not, everything has already changed.
I kiss him. Not a first kiss, but one that feels like a daybreak all the same.
When I realize this, I draw back, but he catches my chin in his hand and pulls me to him.
When our lips touch again, it’s like slow-dripping molasses, his tongue unhurried and exploring, licking promises against mine with every stroke.
His hand slides to the back of my neck and holds me there, and for the span of a few heartbeats, I think I could spend the rest of my life kissing West like we’re in a hazy, slow-motion daydream.
My hands slide down his arms. I brush my thumb across the skin where his tattoo used to be and pull my mouth away, resting my forehead against his as I inhale a shaky breath.