Chapter 34 #2
I fold my arms across my chest but don’t move.
Mike sighs. He straightens until he’s standing right in front of me. Towering over me. “You make everything ten times harder than it has to be.”
I watch his chest rise and fall. I can almost hear my pulse hammering, competing with the thud of the surf outside. His hands close around my waist. I feel my stomach turn over and my insides glow, until he unceremoniously picks me up and moves me out of his way.
And then goes back to the baseboard.
“Don’t call a locksmith. You can crash here.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here.”
“But…”
“You let me crash at your place when my AC went out. Turnabout is fair play.”
“That’s not what it means.”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
“But…where will I sleep?”
“It’s a two-bedroom house, Beatrice. Go find the unclaimed bed. We can go to the bank to get my spare key in the morning.”
I wander back to the hallway and slide open a door, flick on the light. Last time I saw this room, it looked more like a woodshop. Now it’s a tidy, if minimal, spare bedroom with a ceiling fan and queen-size bed. I shut the door quietly and open Mike’s bedroom door.
I suck in a breath. The books are still here, and there’s a flat-screen TV on top of the dresser. I run back to the other bedroom and check—no TV.
So I head back to Mike’s room. I slide open the top dresser drawer and pull out a pair of Mike’s socks and the TV remote.
I grab his copy of Northanger Abbey, plop on his bed, turn on Starship Cruiser, and wiggle under his duvet.
Oh heaven. Never in a million years would I have pegged Mike for being a thread-count snob.
I fall asleep reading Mike’s notes, brushing my finger against the pages where his blue ink and my purple ink swirl together, inhaling the smell of thyme and eucalyptus, with Starship Cruiser on in the background.
I wake up in Mike’s arms.
No, not like that, unfortunately.
He’s carrying me across the hall to the other bedroom. “Ten times harder than it has to be,” he mumbles.
“You could have just left me there.”
“No. I really couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“One, you were taking up the entire bed. Two, you were drooling.”
“I was not.”
“Three…” He slides me into the queen bed. I roll into the fetal position and nuzzle into the feather pillow. “It’s bad enough you’re in my favorite sweats.” He smooths the hair out of my face.
I huff. “This bed doesn’t have a TV or books.”
“Which won’t matter now that you’re sleeping.”
“And it’s smaller.”
“Same size as your bed in the cottage.”
“It doesn’t smell like you.”
“A silver lining.”
“No. You smell nice.”
“Yeah? You like fresh paint and sawdust?”
“No, but I like you.”
“Ten times harder.” I swear his hand glides gently down my head, across my cheek, to my shoulder.
Sunshine streams into the room along with the steady rhythm of the waves. I don’t have my phone, so I don’t know what time it is. I do know that I slept well, better than I have in ages.
I pad in my socks—well, Mike’s socks—down the hall to the kitchen.
And that’s when I start to take in the rest of the renovation.
This place is incredible. The views of the ocean are breathtaking.
The vibes are modern but with cozy vintage touches, like the hutch in the hall and the painted wood paneling, without being gimmicky.
Bright whites and neutrals. Warm wood and textures.
I search the cupboards for a kettle but turn up short.
“Looking for something?” Mike says from the hall. His hair is a work of art—disheveled and tousled to perfection. His face is warmed over by sleep. If he had an imprint of his pillow on his cheek, my knees might buckle and give out. Instead, he has some very pronounced stubble on his jaw.
“Teakettle.”
“I don’t have one. I’ll add it to the list of everything this place is still lacking.”
“Mike, this house is beyond amazing. To get a piece of home back that you thought was lost forever is…” I shrug. “I’m guessing it must feel really special.”
“Special?” Mike fills a coffee mug with water and places it in the microwave. “It’s everything. You don’t realize that part of your heart was walled off and aching offstage for ages. You don’t realize that you were holding your breath, fighting against that ache, until you get it back.”
I trace the intricate vintage pulls on the kitchen cabinets. Mike must have salvaged them from the old kitchen, because they’re more decorative and pretty than pulls have any right to be. Charming. This entire place is charming.
“I wish…” He holds on to that word like he’s considering its taste before proceeding. “I wish it was done.” The microwave beeps, and Mike takes the mug out and adds a bag of tea to it before handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I should say something in response to what he just said. I should reassure him that it was all worth it. That I’ve caught his vision for this place. That I’m not just charmed, but impressed. “You can’t be that far from the finish line.”
Mike adds a second mug of water to the microwave. “It’s all the hundreds of little things at the end. Grout the shower, get some patio furniture, buy a lamp, install the blinds, add a TV and nightstand in the spare bedroom.” At the beep, he pulls the mug out and adds a bag of tea.
“You could knock that out in a weekend.”
“I’d need the funds to do it first.” He rubs his thumbnail across a spot on his backsplash. “Go on, say it.”
“What?”
“That pithy line you’re biting back. The one that’s equal parts wit and insult.” He opens the fridge and pulls out blackberries and a tub of yogurt.
“Raise my rent. Ask me to pay for the next quarter upfront.”
“That’s illegal, and even if I had the money now, I don’t have the time.” He grabs a box of granola from a cupboard.
I forget he’s still a student. “You know, I’ve never cared much for blackberries.”
“Are you serious? You inhaled the blackberries off my lemon-curd pancakes when I got takeaway from Sugar and Scribe the other week.” He ticks the memories off on his fingers.
“You pick them out of my salads and eat them exclusively. You ended any hope I had of sampling the blackberry gelato at the Art and Wine festival. You have made trips down to my fridge and absconded with fistfuls of my berries.”
“Can I help it if you have acquired tastes?”
“If you keep this up, I’m going to start making inferences about our friendship.”
Maybe that’s the point, dummy. “Careful, Mike. Those multisyllabic words can be tricky.” I take a berry from his bowl and eat it.
“If you gave yourself even half a second to figure out who you are and what you like, I wouldn’t need to keep you in blackberries.”
“Maybe I only like them because you buy them for me.”
“Maybe I only buy them because I don’t know how else to invite you over.”
“I knew it. You don’t actually like blackberries.
No one likes blackberries besides me.” Mom would never buy them.
How many times did I make her and Dad waffles, and not once were there any blackberries anywhere?
Strawberries for Dad, blueberries for Mom, raspberries if Julie was headed over, peaches if Adam was dropping in, oranges for Portia. Never blackberries.
“I love blackberries.” Mike adds them, along with yogurt and granola, to a second bowl.
“Too tart. Too bitter. Obnoxious, strange little pit inside.”
“A lingering complex flavor that’s worth savoring.”
“They stain your teeth.”
“Blackberries make everything better. Even irredeemable salads and cupcakes that have no right claiming the cup or the cake identity.”
I grab Mike’s arm. It’s not pretty. I’m not smooth. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I do know that if I don’t touch him, I’ll lose my nerve.
“What?”
I have to say something. “You can hear the surf from your kitchen. Even with the windows closed.”
He scoffs but hands me a bowl before wandering out to the new couch in his living room, but not before he opens the top half of the Dutch door.
Now the sound of the surf is unmistakable.
“There’s a poem about the ocean and white horses.
The waves are their hooves pounding. My grandmother would read it to me when I was little. ‘Do you hear the horses?’ she’d ask.”
I reach into Mike’s pantry and pull out a pack of red licorice. I stashed it here after a long afternoon of dog walking. I hoped he’d find it, but it remains unopened. I bring it to the living room with me and toss it on the coffee table.
“You know you want to,” I say before taking a seat on the couch next to him.
“That’s not a good enough reason.” He swallows a single blackberry. “I know I want to do quite a few things right now.”
There’s such intensity to his words I think I might spontaneously combust. I should back away. I should create distance, but instead I inch closer.
“Doesn’t mean I should.” His gaze is melting me. My insides are molten right now.
I know a lot about shoulds. And right now I should change the subject. I should give the man some space. I definitely should not steal a blackberry.
“Tell me more about your grandma and the poem.” I lean in and scoop out a blackberry with my spoon before Mike can stop me. Yes, I brush against his chest in the process, but I changed the subject. One out of three shoulds isn’t bad.
“We’d eat licorice in her kitchen and read. She’d always hold the books because my hands were sticky.”
I take a bite of my blackberry parfait. It’s delicious—everything Mike makes is delicious—but it’d be better with more blackberries, and I just ate my last. “Would you read it to me?” I attempt to steal another of Mike’s blackberries, but he’s wise to my plan. He holds the bowl far out of my reach.
“I don’t know if I have that one,” he says dryly.
“Then something else.” I try again. I make several ungraceful attempts that have me lunging over Mike. He moves the bowl out of my reach each time. Oh, to have the wingspan of a tall human right now.
“Like what, Beatrice?”
My thigh is pressed against his. I set my blackberry-less parfait down ages ago, but how we haven’t spilled Mike’s all over his new couch is beyond me. “I don’t know.” I lunge again and grab Mike’s arm, but he pulls it free with a cocky smile.
“Your favorite passage from Wuthering Heights.” I rest my hand on Mike’s knee for leverage and try again without any luck. “A poem of Lord Byron’s.” I’m all over this man, trying to get a blackberry.
Mike laughs. “Is that the best you can do? Emily Bronte and Byron?”
I lunge again and practically fall across him in the process. I’m ridiculous, but I’m also having too much fun to stop. Mike, too, if his amused smile is any indication. He lifts the bowl directly above his head, taunting me.
“How ’bout the last chapter of Northanger Abbey?” I climb into his lap and enjoy the moment I catch him off guard. I grab the bowl before he drops it and pop a blackberry into my mouth.
“Maybe.” Mike takes the bowl from me and sets it on the coffee table. “If you ask nicely.”
His hand grazes across my arm, and I’m a puppet.
He’s found the strings to the corners of my lips.
One tug, and they’re up. A second tug, and I’m closer, my hands skirting the collar of his shirt.
I’m breathless. I could blame it on trying to get the blackberries, but I’m a grown woman.
It was never about the blackberries. “Please.”
“You mean it?”
I could do any number of things. So, naturally, I lean in and wrap my arms around his neck. The surf is loud, filling the room. If we were on the shore, conversations would need to be shouted, unless words were spoken directly onto skin. My lips graze Mike’s neck as I ask again. “Please.”
His hands trace a slow, gentle glide up the lengths of my arms.
“Read to me,” I say before pressing a kiss to Mike’s neck.
His hands have found the bare skin of my back. Warm, strong hands press me closer. “Anything you want.” His lips brush against my ear.
I pull away, my lips twist in a triumphant grin. “You mean I get to pick.” I jump off the couch and pull Mike with me down the hall to his bedroom.
So many books. Obviously, they are, like their owner, a curious eclectic jumble of hardbacks and paperbacks. Some of the shelves are arranged thoughtfully. Others have been stacked and piled hastily. I slide a finger down the length of them. “This is quite the collection.”
My hands are shaking. I don’t think they’ll stop until they’re on Mike again. In his hair, on his skin.
“They were my grandmother’s,” he says almost shyly.
“Your grandmother’s?” Air rushes out of my chest. “These were her books?”
“Yes,” Mike says, grabbing a volume. “She loved to read.” An almost imperceptible sigh escapes him. “I told you about how she walked me through that Poe short story, marking it up until it was so filled with notes you could barely read the text.”
The room goes hazy. I’m a deflated sad balloon, like all those yellow ones that littered the lawn after Eaton’s birthday party.
The notes I’ve been obsessing over, all of them, aren’t Mike’s. They are his grandmother’s.
Like so many women before, I fell hard for a fictional man.
I imagined that those notes and scribbles across a collection of books that was as enviable as it was impressive was the work of Mike’s hand and intellect.
His soul. But my crush and everything that came after was the product of Mike’s grandma and my overactive and lonely imagination.
“I’m such an idiot.”
Mike frowns. “Come again?”
Oh my gosh. I fell in love with Mike because I thought his grandma’s notes were sexy. “The time.” I grab the phone on his nightstand. “I just saw the time. I have to go. Dogs to walk.”
“But…”
“If you get the spare key, would you make a copy for me? Stick it under my bunny ear cactus?”
“Beatrice.”
“Thanks for letting me crash.” I grab my sneakers and sports bra and dart out the door.