Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
DREW
“Damn I’m good,” I mutter with a grin, whisking the bubbling cheese sauce on the stove.
With my free hand, I shake more pepper into the sauce before flicking off the burner and dumping the cooked pasta into the pot, folding it all together.
Blue boxed macaroni and cheese, I think with a snort as I pour the mixture into the casserole dish I have prepped on the counter and then slip it into the fridge to bake later, closer to dinner time.
As if I would let the most amazing woman on earth go to an important doctor’s appointment and not feed her the very best macaroni and cheese afterwards. Giving her a kind of comfort I suspect she’ll need after today.
Washing out the pots, I stick them in the dishwasher and wipe down the stovetop before taking my sourdough starter out of the fridge and grabbing a clean glass mason jar.
With careful, practiced movements, I add the starter, flour, and water to the empty jar, stirring the mixture and setting it aside to rest until I make the dough tomorrow and putting the discard back in the fridge for the brownies I have planned for later.
With that done, I lean against the counter and survey the clean kitchen, satisfaction humming in my veins.
Cooking and baking has always been a happy place for me, and it’s been a way to connect with the mom I lost when I was way too young to be able to process the enormity of that loss, especially without any kind of support system to help me through it.
And now, being able to cook for Caitlin—caring for someone I love in this way—adds another layer of complexity to the hobby that has saved me over and over again through the years.
And using my mom’s sourdough starter I found in the fridge all those years ago feels like a way to introduce Caitlin to her, even though they’ll never know each other.
A way to keep my mom’s memory alive for me and for the only other woman I’ve ever loved.
Another way to say to Caitlin in a way I’ve never said to anyone before, This is me.
And this is me, I think. Loving Caitlin with the whole of me.
Caring for her. Planning for a future I didn’t think I would get to have.
I was hiding myself, but I think maybe now I’m the most me I’ve ever been because one night I won a Super Bowl and ran into a girl at a club with purple toenails and a look in her eyes like she was hiding who she was too.
She gave me a second chance even though I really didn’t deserve it, and now we get to be ourselves together.
Almost ourselves, I think as I push off the countertop and suck in a breath at the sharp ache in my ribs from the hit I took during practice this morning.
The other aches and pains that have settled into my bones from years of running fields and catching footballs and pushing my body to its absolute limits.
But the thought of walking away from football and untangling my life from the sport that made me and saved me still makes my heart race and my palms sweat.
Never taking the field with Cam again and what that might mean is something my brain still won’t let me process completely.
So I don’t. Not today. Because today is for me and for my girl and for the future I want to have with her. The one that’s so real, it’s like I can reach out and touch it.
The buzz of my phone on the counter breaks me out of my thoughts, and when I click it open, I wish fervently I hadn’t, my hands clasping the phone so tightly it’s a wonder the screen doesn’t shatter into a million pieces as I read the words.
Dad
I wish you would talk to me, son.
I miss you. I’ve been missing you for years.
I know I haven’t always been the best father, but I would really like a chance to make it up to you. Just a conversation is all I’m asking.
I drop the phone to the counter with a loud clatter and clasp the edge of the granite in a white-knuckled grasp. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to shove air out of lungs that have forgotten how to work. Try to force good thoughts to cut through the terror trying to overtake my brain.
When my phone buzzes again, I shake my head, keeping my eyes tightly closed in an effort to ignore it, but my brain is a disloyal asshole.
A glutton for punishment. Because my eyes drift open and slide to the phone anyway.
But when they do, it’s not my dad at all.
Snatching it up, my eyes move over the screen, every thought of my dad falling straight out of my head.
Maya
Are you home? Caitlin’s appointment is over and if you’re there, I’m going to drop her off at your house.
Me
I’m here. I’ve been waiting to hear from her. Is she okay?
Maya
Physically she’s fine and there were no real surprises at her appointment, but she kind of shut down once the doctor explained everything.
Me
What does that mean, she shut down?
Maya
She barely said a word to the doctor and didn’t react to anything, and she hasn’t said much since. I wanted to take her back to my house, have a big girls’ night to say fuck the patriarchy and curse uteruses and bemoan the state of women’s healthcare and burn all the men in effigy.
As much as it pains me to say this, because I think a good man burning is always in order, that’s not what she needs right now.
She needs love and care and to be reminded by people who haven’t known her and loved her for her entire life that she’s perfect, just the way she is. I think what she needs is you.
Me
I have all of that for her. I swear I do. That and so much more.
Maya
I know you do. Take care of our girl, Drew.
Me
I will. Always.
Half an hour later, I’m wiping spotless countertops for the tenth time since I got Maya’s texts when I hear my front door open.
Tossing down the dish towel I’m holding, I stride into the living room, my arms itching to get around my girl.
To hold her and kiss her and tell her everything about her is my favorite thing.
But the second I lay eyes on Caitlin, I come to a screeching halt, my breath catching in my chest as I drink her in.
Because this is not the woman I left at my kitchen table this morning with an iced latte, a laptop, a notebook, and four different pens, mumbling about trust documents and asshole clients.
No.
This woman is fucking radiant. Ethereal.
Vibrating with a kind of burn it all down energy that makes my stomach swoop and my heart pound.
Caitlin’s hair is tousled, cheeks flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the cold November day, gray eyes glittering silver with something I can’t pinpoint but that takes my breath away.
She has a hand propped brazenly on her hip, her eyes narrowed in challenge as if she’s daring me to stop whatever is about to happen.
I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
My feet are frozen to the floor, my eyes glued to her. I would die if I looked away.
Caitlin doesn’t speak a single word, just watches me as she lets her jacket slide off her shoulders and drop to the floor along with the bag she’s carrying.
Curling her hands in the bottom of her shirt, she pulls it off and it joins her jacket on the floor, followed by the deep-purple satin bra I watched her put on earlier today, vowing to take it off later with my teeth.
Only I don’t. I can’t. All I can do is stand and watch as Caitlin reveals herself to me.
She kicks off her shoes hard enough that they hit the wall with a sharp thud and then slips open the button of her pants, her eyes never leaving mine.
The only outward manifestation of anything other than absolute utter confidence is the slight shake of her hand as she pushes her pants down, taking her underwear with them, then kicking all the fabric away.
I want to take that hand in mine, kiss her palm and her knuckles and every one of her fingers and tell her she doesn’t have to be nervous.
Not now and not ever and especially not with me.
But the words die in my throat as Caitlin rises to her full height, stripped bare before me.
In a deliberate gesture and with her eyes locked on mine, Caitlin drifts a hand over her stomach, touching each of her scars in turn and smoothing her palm over her belly, her chin wobbling slightly before she raises it defiantly, her mouth set in a stubborn line, and I can read her thoughts as if she’s speaking them out loud.
This is me.
This is who I am.
See me.
The space under my ribs aches, my heart cracking down the middle as I watch the woman I love more than my own life—the girl who is my moon and my stars and my whole entire sky—flay herself open, show me all of her and ask me to see her. To love her. To keep her safe.
And I will. God, I will.
I want to wrap her up in my arms and tell her with me, she never has to be afraid.
That every inch of her is a masterpiece I love with my whole being.
Every part of her is safe with me. But I don’t do that because that’s not what she needs.
I don’t know what happened at her appointment exactly, but I do know that standing before me is a woman who’s had her power taken away from her over and over again since she was too young to understand what that meant.
Who’s felt deep anger and immense pain and who’s literally bled as the body she should have been able to control controlled her instead.
This is Caitlin Parker taking her power back, and more than anything on earth, I want to give it to her.
“Strip.”
The first word Caitlin speaks since walking through the door of my house is low and sharp.
It reverberates around the room, an order I immediately obey.
Reaching behind my neck, I yank off my shirt and let it drop to the floor before shoving down my shorts and boxers in one move, kicking them away.
Caitlin rakes her eyes over me, lips curling up in a smirk when my cock thickens immediately under her gaze.