Chapter 15 Haven
Haven
Ilie in bed and listen to the rain.
On one hand, I’d like it to stop so I can go to sleep, but on the other, it’s so loud that it’s drowning out the sound of my thoughts.
Thoughts that sound a lot like—you kissed Alex, you dumbass. Because now what?
Oh my God, I kissed Alex.
All the tension massaged out of me yesterday has returned ten times over. It’s coiling up my spine, digging into my thighs and wrapping around my chest so hard it’s difficult to breathe.
Nothing has helped.
Not counting sheep. Not making myself come to memories of Alex’s tongue in my mouth, and what else he can do with it. Not smothering my face with a pillow and screaming into it until I’m hoarse.
Nothing.
Admitting defeat, I toss back the covers, and as quietly as I can, I open my bedroom door. I stare for too long at Alex’s room, wondering whether he’s sleeping soundly next to Everly or lying awake thinking about me.
I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
In the end, I dart downstairs because I have a crazy temptation to turn his doorknob and find out for myself.
Doing my best to avoid the floorboards that creak, I make my way to the kitchen. The lights are far too bright for the middle of the night, so I stick to the soft downlighters underneath the cabinets and switch on the kettle.
Rain lashes against the window. It’s hypnotizing and calming almost. But it doesn’t make me feel sleepy, and it doesn’t help me stop thinking about Alex.
So I stare into the inky darkness of a cold, wet backyard and think, nonetheless.
Because I have fucked up. There’s no other way to put it.
After I returned from changing Everly’s diaper, Alex barely spoke to me, which was fine because I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, and by the time I’d plucked up the courage, I was hit with the full weight of his glower.
Boy, was he pissed.
After that, every time my eyes found him, there he was glowering. I wasn’t even doing it on purpose, but it’s like I could sense where he was and still had to check for myself.
He became nothing more than a walking Danger, High Voltage sign that I desperately wanted to reach out and touch.
For the rest of the evening.
Not that anyone else noticed, because he joked along with all of them, while I just got the death stare. Even when we sang “Happy Birthday” to Everly, he stood apart from us, using Max as a human shield, holding him over the cake to blow out the candles while everyone cheered him on.
A grown man using a five-year-old for protection. It would be funny if I hadn’t been doing the same with Everly, until he took her up for a bath and stayed up there.
What kind of mother doesn’t kiss her child good night because she’s avoiding a guy she has the hots for?
Me, that’s who.
And now I have to hide from him until Christmas, because he asked us to stay. Although maybe he’ll change his mind and send us packing back to Aspen as planned. The thought triggers a whirl of anxiety behind my belly button.
Yep, I’ve really fucked up.
Instead of letting it take hold, I practice the breathing exercises my OB/GYN taught me during labor, though they’re as helpful now as they were then. Which is to say they’re useless because I’m no calmer or less tense.
The second option is to make pancakes.
It takes me no time to whip up the batter, pour it onto a hot skillet and wait for it to bubble. It’s when I go to flip it that I catch a movement in the corner of my eye.
Sweet baby Jesus.
I’m so distracted I don’t think about what I’m doing until I’ve bitten down on the spatula with a half-cooked pancake, and the scalding batter sticks to my tongue.
“Holy . . . argh . . . fuck.” I spit out along with the dough, and what I assume is most of the skin from the roof of my mouth.
I stick my tongue out, wafting my hand over it as quickly as I can. But it’s fucking useless. Ice. I need ice.
It’s not ice that comes to my rescue, however. One big hand grips my shoulder, the other grips my chin to hold me still, and cool, minty breath blows into my mouth.
Now it’s not just my tongue burning up.
Alex and his naked chest and his low-slung fucking plaid pajama pants are less than six inches from me, so close I can feel the heat of him. I can see the crystal-clear blue of his eyes boring into mine. He’s hot, but my whole body may as well be on fire.
Because Alex blowing into my mouth is far sexier than it has any right to be. In fact, it doesn’t have any right to be sexy, at all. It shouldn’t be.
But it is. It so is.
And based on the solid nudging of his growing erection against my hip, Alex thinks so too. Which I guess is why he jumps back.
“Sorry. That was . . .” His eyes trace over me, taking in my old threadbare Wylder Ranch tee that used to belong to my dad, while all I do is gawp with my mouth hanging open.
Alex is so fucking delicious. There’s literally no other way to put it.
He’s a walking, talking fucking sex dream. He was the first time I saw him, he is now.
The soft downlighters cast a shadow across the hard plane of his chest, and the abs upon abs upon abs stacked below. It’s like he’s been chiseled out of marble, bare and golden.
It’s obscene.
I swear I don’t remember him being quite this impressive last year, or maybe the brain fog has wiped more memories than I thought, because I don’t know how I would have forgotten it.
I want to reach out and touch him, check he’s real. But I don’t because he’s still glaring at me, or maybe it’s a snarl.
Without a word, he disappears into the laundry while I’m still in the spot he found me in, because my legs seem too heavy to move. Something to do with the throbbing that’s squeezing my thighs together.
He returns thirty seconds later, stops in the doorway and tosses me a pair of sweatpants, which I only catch at the last minute.
“Put them on.”
“What?”
“I can’t talk to you when you’re half naked. Put them on.”
I don’t see why I have to get dressed when he isn’t, but I pull them on one leg at a time. I’m this close to cracking a joke about double standards, but I’m clever enough to know he’s not in the joking mood.
The joke’s in these sweatpants because they’re Alex’s, so they’re way too long, and frankly, I look ridiculous.
But I don’t wisecrack on them either. Instead, I wait for him to say something.
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
Okay, that’s not what I was expecting. “What?”
The way Alex steps forward reminds me of one of those nature shows in that it’s less of a walk and more of a prowl.
When he perches on the edge of the kitchen table, it’s with a hard-set jaw and arms crossed over his chest. His lips purse tight, and the way his eyes are narrowed gives the impression he wants to kill me, but from the obvious semi in his pajamas, he’s undecided.
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
I swallow. His tone is different from the first time he asked me weeks ago. Then the hurt in his voice was palpable. Now he almost spits it out, abrupt and stern, and I’m slightly taken aback. Also, here I was thinking he was mad I’d kissed him.
But I don’t want to go down that path right now, so I do the mature thing and pretend I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“When?”
“Last year, Haven. You know when.”
“I told you why.” I roll the pajama waistband over to stop them from falling down.
“No, you didn’t. Not really. Distance isn’t a good enough excuse, especially now.”
My neck jerks back. “What does that mean, ‘especially now’?”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know, Alex. I’m not sure what any of this means.
” I wave a hand between us, ignoring the stinging on the roof of my mouth and the slight lisp it’s giving me.
Because it’s hard to sound mad with a lisp, and I am mad.
Alex has brought me over to the dark side.
“It’s the middle of the night, and you’re pissed about something that didn’t happen nearly a year ago? ”
His eyes narrow, and I can almost hear his teeth grinding together. “Answer my question, Haven. And I want the truth.”
We’re in a staring contest. Narrowed eye to narrowed eye. I’m tempted to see how long we can go without one of us breaking, and who will break.
My money’s on me, because I’m too distracted by Alex’s nakedness and surprised I’m not already wiping drool from my chin. I know it’s the exact reason he’s not bothered to put a sweater on. I couldn’t have been any more obvious checking him out.
Calculating asshole.
In the end, I throw my hands in the air and snap, “Fine. I was scared. Happy now?”
From the way his eyes widen and his thick dark brows shoot up, I guess it wasn’t the answer he was expecting.
“Scared? Of what?”
My mind goes back to that day eleven months ago, when Alex left to return to England. We’d spent a week together, an uninhibited week of fucking. We couldn’t get enough. It was all-consuming when it should have been a Christmas fling, but between all the sex, something happened.
We talked and shared and laughed and commiserated. My life up to meeting Alex had been spent caring for my sick parents and managing their business. I hadn’t had time for much fun in between. Alex showed me how to find it again.
When he left, I cried for a week. I grieved.
Not just for Alex, but for everything I knew I’d been missing out on. When I first heard his voicemail, it made me so insanely happy that it scared the shit out of me. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew that if I called him back, it would only lead to more heartbreak for me.
Then Saylor showed me his picture in People magazine, and I used it as confirmation.
“Of you,” I snap, finally. Though I can’t quite meet his eye, I know he wants more.
A surge of emotion has my voice cracking, but it’s no less angry.
“Of us. That week we had last year was incredible. You swept me away. I was scared of falling in love with you, only to get my heart broken when it had barely mended. Look at your life. Look at mine. We’re so different—”
“Haven—”