Chapter Two #2
“Sorry.” She lowers her foot and twists towards me as I pull out of the driveway and away from her parents’ Cape Cod style house, making my way toward the main road.
“I know you’re probably doing your best, and if all this is really true, I’m sorry, but…
you’ve gotta admit, this is really weird.
I’m supposed to start a new job tomorrow and move into my new apartment.
This is a big day for me, and I imagined it going… differently.”
“I won’t be in your way. You should live your life as normally as possible.”
She laughs. “And how am I supposed to do that? I mean… you felt it too, right?”
Oh fuck. My chest tightens. How could this be going south already? We just got in the truck five minutes ago.
“Felt what?” I groan, my cock already pressing at my zipper.
“Really? You’re going to play dumb? Maybe if we just acknowledge it, we don’t have to feel weird all week.”
That’s fair, and there might be some truth in that. This stuff has a way of feeling bigger in the dark. That said, the light is a slippery slope to terrible decisions.
“Okay,” I swallow hard, “yeah. I felt something. Somehow you look better than ever,” I pause, my cock pulsing as my palms ache to pull over and make her mine, “and I missed you.”
“Missed me implies you still think about me.” She bites back a smile.
“I do.”
There’s a slow moment of silence as she twists her hair to the side. “I think about you too… sometimes. Not all the time, but… sometimes I think about you.”
“Have you dated?”
Fuck. Why did I ask her that?
I don’t glance toward her, but I hear the grin in her voice as she says, “Why does it matter if I’ve dated, Mr. Wilder?”
“It doesn’t. I’m sorry I asked, but… I’m just curious, filling in the timeline. So, have you dated?”
“I have dated, yeah.”
My stomach churns as I think about some little asshole with his grimy, little hands on her. “You still dating?”
She shakes her head as I pull past the ice cream shop on the outer edge of town. “Guys my age are all a pain in the ass. The last guy I was seeing took me for fast-food tacos and didn’t bother to walk me back to my car.” She shrugs. “I’m over it.”
I shouldn’t lean into this thought. We need to keep things professional, though my mouth moves before I convince it to shut up. “You deserve the best, angel.”
“You called me angel again.”
“Fuck, sorry. It’s habit.”
“That’s okay.” She brushes her hand down over her thick thighs. “I kind of like it.”
My cock does too. My cock really fucking likes that she likes it, which is why I need to change the subject.
“Okay then. You, ugh, excited about this new job?”
She laughs. “No, not at all. I have no idea what I was thinking, getting an accounting degree. I hate numbers, but my parents were pressuring me to do something responsible, and this seemed like the most responsible job to get.”
“What do you wish you’d done?”
She shakes her head and hides a pretty little smile. “It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you say is stupid.”
“Is that right?” She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m pretty sure this one is genuinely stupid.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“You remember that conversation we had at the ice cream shop,” she turns toward me, excitement in her tone as she says, “about the flower farm? How I could grow and sell to local vendors, maybe even have a stand by the road?”
I nod, my chest expanding at the sound of her excitement. “I remember that conversation very clearly. You loved the idea of working with your hands and making something real.”
She exhales softly. “Well, I told my parents I was thinking about dropping out of college and using the rest of my tuition money to pay for a farm, and they laughed.” There’s a pause as she stares out the front window and into the night.
“It wasn’t a chuckle. They laughed hard.
In the end, I listened, but… I regret it, and now I owe thirty-five grand to the fine people at the bank, and I start my long journey to pay it all back tomorrow. ”
“A degree will always be a good thing to have,” I resist the urge to comfort her with touch, “but if you want to make a change, I can help you if you’d like. There’s a whole world of possibilities, including flowers.”
“I can’t afford it, not with all these loans, but thanks anyway.” She sighs and turns away, her gaze set on the starry night sky. “You know what, though?”
“What?”
“You were always very kind to me.” She glances back in my direction as I pull off the old mill road by the cabin. “I remember once Adam was late for a date and you brought me french fries and kept me company while I waited.”
I remember that too, but for all the wrong reasons.
“Yeah, I didn’t like that he left you waiting.”
“I could tell.” She brushes her dark hair back and starts a braid as she says, “We talked about flowers again that day, too. You told me how well coneflowers would do up in the mountains.”
I nod. “You wanted daisies as well, so we looked up the best companion flower.”
“Lavender,” we say together, our eyes meeting for a long moment before I redirect back to the road.
There’s happiness in her voice as she says, “Yeah, and we talked about bees and how I could sell lavender honey.” She shrugs, her tone taking a downward turn as she mutters, “I didn’t tell you this at the time, but when Adam showed up for the date, I was sad.”
I nod, my hand desperate to reach over and squeeze her bare thigh, let her know I felt the same fucking way, I still do, but what does that prove? “I really enjoyed talking to you too, angel.”
“Yeah,” she manages a breathy sigh, “I just wanted you to know that I’ve always appreciated that conversation. It’s one I’ve used as a litmus for every other conversation I’ve had since.”
“How so?”
“You listened, you saw me, and you encouraged me to be myself.” She shrugs. “No one has done that since you.”
I downshift, the engine softly growling as she continues to gaze forward.
“It’s insane how many people try and change you to make themselves more comfortable. You didn’t.” She wipes something away from her eyes. “The second I saw you today, all the feelings I’ve been trying to shut off came flooding back, and it scares me.”
I make a sound in my throat, an attempt to swallow back every possessive urge roaring through me. “It scares me too,” I manage, my palms still itching to touch her.
This is going to be impossible. Every man with a fucking pulse would find this impossible. She’s perfect. Her curves, that face, the way she speaks her heart.
I’m fucked. Completely and totally fucked.