33-REAGAN #2
Tate: If you’re at your mom’s, I can come by. I don’t need to come inside. Just five minutes. I’ll keep my distance.
Reagan: No, Tate. I can’t see you, and you’re supposed to stay away from me.
The familiar creak of the back door catches my attention, and out of habit, I look up. Vincent watches the door hit the frame slowly and catches me staring at him as his boots thud against the floor.
His hand caresses the small of my back. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Tate’s just trying to see me face to face.”
“Reagan!” Miles shouts. I look over at him, and he has his hands circling his mouth, making sure his voice is carried to me. “Bring him over here.”
I don’t have to ask or take control of Vincent because he is already guiding me over to my brother, who plopped back onto the couch between friends.
“This is Vincent.” His speech is almost slurred, and his eyes are glazed. “Reagan’s new beau. They met during The Forewarning, that masked man event.”
Bailey listens, and the expression across her face says she still has a chance.
“Miles!” I cut in with furrowed brows, “You’re not supposed to tell people that.”
“Why? He’s already all over social media.”
Vincent’s hand moves up and down my back in an attempt to comfort me. “It’s fine.” He whispers.
Miles continued speaking, “Vincent, am I stepping over boundaries?”
“No.” His voice rises so the room can hear him over the music. “Reagan and I did meet at the fantasy event, The Forewarning. I was lucky enough to catch her. Part of me wants to believe she let me.”
“Ah-ha.” Miles enviously squeaks out.
“I think I need a minute.” I stop my feet as they turn to run down the hall and look back at Vincent. “You can join me if you want.” He didn’t need another word. The thud of his feet against the hardwood floor trailed behind me.
The hallway swallowed me. Instantly quieter.
I passed Miles’ room and the bathroom and went into my room.
The room where the ghost of what my family used to be hid.
It was across the hall from my former parents’ room, now just my mother’s.
The comforter on my bed was laid perfectly and clean.
The same floral bedspread that straight Miles teased me for wanting.
The muffled music gnawed at the wood between the party and us.
At the moment I’m twenty-two again. The woman I was before Tate circles me.
“By the end of the year I’ll be back here, back to square one.
” I feel Vincent behind me. He’s not pushing me to feel better, or telling me everything will be alright.
He’s letting me feel human, and that’s what I need to process it all.
I can hear his boots against the rug, shuffling like he is thinking of what to say. “It’s okay.” I spin to face him. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“It might be the restart you need.” He’s looking everywhere but at me. His eyes are on the artwork I picked out from my teenage years, my old dresser with my heirloom jewelry box centered on the top, and even the stack of blank journals on my nightstand. Then they find me.
Vincent reads my body language and mood, searching for the emotion I might throw at him next. He doesn’t deserve the weight of my mistakes, though.
He grips his hat and sets it on the bed before making his way to me. His heavy gaze doesn’t leave me. Even when he’s looked away or separated from me, I could still feel his eyes on me, like fingers grazing down your spine in an intimate moment.
“I don’t know what I need, besides getting away from him.”
Guiding his hands to my bare shoulders, he knocked his belt, rattling the plastic guns holstered on his sides. “Well, take it day by day. What’s the rush to figure it out?”
“I’m just not looking forward to moving back in.
My mom doesn’t feel like the same person.
She’s more careless and wild. Part of me thinks my father suppressed that part of her.
The other part makes me think this is her way of grieving what she had.
And Miles is obviously too damn nosy. He seriously needs a job or a hobby.
” My fishnets tightened around the apex of my thighs as I dropped to my bed.
“Places for rent right now are a chunk of my income. I can afford it. I just don’t want to struggle when business is slower. ”
“I get it.” He settled in next to me. “I’d offer you a place to stay, but it might be weird not knowing each other very long and considering the circumstance we met—”
“Yeah,” I looked up, finding some truth in his eyes that the offer was real.
“Might be weird.” Would it? I dropped into his ranch, family, and life like they had been waiting for me this whole time.
But maybe I was looking too hard, without realizing I was trying to find someone to fix my problems again. Just like last week.
Vincent didn’t say another word. I didn’t want him to. He knew he was welcome to kiss me. And he did. If things weren’t so messy with Tate, I’d be all his. But the guilt constantly tugged at me when things felt right.
Who knew how long this was going to drag out? I didn’t want to entangle another person in my problem. Somehow I knew Vincent would tell me I didn’t have to ride out the shit storm alone.