Chapter 23
Kevin
There are worse things that can happen to a man than have this lovely woman fling herself at him.
I wrap my arms around her and smile into her hair, breathing her in, savoring the feel of her warm full curves against me, fighting the weird urge to both laugh and sob right along with her. What is this feeling? She’s just… She’s… appreciating me. I feel appreciated .
I’ve made her happy.
Me.
Vanilla Kev.
Before I can puzzle that out, she’s letting go. Stepping back, leaving my arms empty. Wiping away tears and saying, “How did you make the little eyes? And the beaks?”
“Sharpie. There was one in your trunk with the paint stuff.” I stole office supplies from your trunk is kind of an embarrassing admission, but she just nods.
“They’re adorable, Kevin. Thank you. I love them.” She takes my hand and tugs me to the door. “Wash up. Dinner’s ready when you are.”
And criminy, dinner is spectacular. Autumn Soup, she calls it, hearty and amazing-smelling, with beef and corn and tomatoes and red wine and I forget what else she listed. It disappears from my bowl too fast for me to inventory. And the crispy cheese sticks she serves on the side? I’ve never had anything so addictive. I think I probably wolf down half of what she baked. And then more of those brownies we’d all nearly come to blows over at the pool party.
“You have made me a happy, happy man,” I tell her, finally coming up for air and patting my full belly. “Two new items to go at the top of my Likes list.”
She laughs. “Just two?”
“Your brownies were already on there.”
She pushes aside her soup bowl and leans her elbows on the table, chin in her hands. “I tried to think of what you might like. I’m glad I guessed right. Tell me more about this list.”
Well, hell. I had to go and bring it up, didn’t I? I sigh out a breath. “It’s…something I started in January.”
Andi just watches me, eyes bright. Expectant.
I push on. “After Cheryl and I broke up.” I wipe my fingers on my napkin and take my time placing it on the table. “She’d said something that got to me. And I started thinking maybe I needed to…start a list. Not for her. For myself.”
Andi doesn’t move, but her voice is as soft as a touch. “What’d she say?”
I shrug, not quite meeting her eye. “She said, ‘Don’t you have any likes or dislikes or personality of your own , Kevin?’”
Andi’s expression, when I get the guts to look at her, is thunderous. “I don’t think I like that woman,” is all she says, through gritted teeth.
That’s…surprisingly comforting. “Well. I hadn’t…exactly ever insisted on…having things my way in the relationship. She probably…really didn’t know what I liked and didn’t like.”
“And what, she didn’t care enough to pay attention? That stinks, Kevin. I’m sorry she said that to you.” She shoves away from the table, picks up our bowls—that only moments ago had contained food Andi had known me well enough to figure I’d like—and carries them to the kitchen. Huh. Okay. She’s got a point.
I follow with the other dishes, still eager to change the subject. “You going to show me the furniture you were looking at, after we clean this up?”
“Yeah! I was torn between a couple of different styles. Wanna hear your thoughts on it.”
Don’t know whether she’s consciously stating her belief that I do have my own valid opinions, but her words warm me.
We do the dishes, put away leftovers—after I grab two more cheese sticks and another brownie, god help me—and wipe up all our crumbs and smears. Andi goes around closing her blinds and switching on lights and then we settle back at the table with her laptop.
One of her favorite baby bedroom sets has all straight edges. One has curves. “And I also have to decide what color to go with. White? Natural wood? Some other color? Now that I’ve seen how cute the room looks the way you painted it, I’m wondering—”
And before she can finish her thought, all the lights go out and the music cuts off. We’re in darkness except for the laptop screen and a faint glow from the security panel by the door.
Andi reaches for her phone. “I didn’t hear it storming, did you?” Outside there’s only an intermittent smattering of rain now, no wind or thunder.
I shake my head. “Maybe somebody hit a pole.”
“Sometimes it comes right back on. I’ll wait a few minutes and then call the shelter. See if they’ve still got power in town.”
We talk more about baby furniture and then she calls work.
I can tell from her side of the conversation that their power’s still on.
“Okay, great. Holler if y’all need to.” She ends the call and looks at me, her face eerie in the glow from the laptop screen. “They’re fine.”
“I don’t want to leave you up here with no power. Okay if I stick around for a little while? Or you could come spend the night at my place.” Her eyes widen, brighten, and I hear a second too late how that sounds. “You can have my room. I’ll take the couch.”
She drops her gaze to her hands. “That’s okay. Gram and I spent plenty of nights without power. I’ve got candles, and I can use the fireplace if it gets cold. You should probably head out, though. Shelter staff is saying the roads are terrible.”
“Is there flooding or something?”
She shrugs. “Don’t know. Want me to call back and ask?”
“No, that’s fine.”
Her mood has shifted somehow and I think she wants me gone now.
I can’t leave her though. “Let me stick around for a while, okay? I’ll be quiet, stay out of your way.”
She shakes her head. “No, really there’s no need. I’ll be fine.”
“What if I sit out in my car for a while, in case you need help with something?”
Huh. First time I’ve ever seen her roll her eyes. “ Kevin. No. Get out of here. Go be grateful for your ability to watch TV or something.”
I try a few more arguments, but then it’s pretty obvious I’m starting to piss her off. I’ve stalled as long as I can. So I scoop my hoodie off the back of the little love seat and head reluctantly to the door, Andi trailing behind me, probably fighting the urge to give me a good hard shove.
She leans in the doorway watching as I reach the two wet steps down to the sidewalk. It’s a lot colder out here than it was earlier, and I go to pull my hoodie over my head, twisting at the same time to say, “Or hey, I could—” and then my feet shoot out from under me and I land hard on the edge of the first step and then bounce/slide/spin right on down onto the sidewalk on my ass, my head landing in the wet grass. Which is not so much wet as…crackly?
“Oh my god, Kevin, are you okay?” Andi starts out toward me.
“ No !” I’ve never spoken so sharply to anyone in my life. “Stop! It’s not safe—It’s solid ice out here.” At least a quarter inch on the sidewalk, my worm’s eye view tells me.
“Are you okay, though?” She does stop, thank heavens, and shivers in the cold night air, rubbing her arms. “You can’t drive in this, Kev. Can you get up?”
I do, slowly, after maneuvering my feet into the grass. I feel about twenty years older, and I’m going to have some great bruises, but I manage to hobble back to the porch, my pride in tatters.
Andi holds out a hand to me. Nods at the thick coating of ice on every visible surface. “That must be why staff said the roads are bad. The temperature must’ve dropped by at least twenty degrees.”
Now I feel silly for not paying more attention to the weather. Yeah, I’d seen the heavy clouds when I drove up. Heard the rain off and on over the music while I was painting. And I know how fast weather can turn nasty in Nebraska, but shoot, this is North Carolina!
Andi slides her arm around me and we step back into the house, me doing my best not to limp. She leads me through the dark room to the love seat. “I’m going to get you a couple of ice packs. You can shower with whatever warm water’s left before bed.”
Oh, hell.
I got a glimpse of that bed—that little double bed—when she gave me the tour. No room for impenetrable pillow walls there. And any virtue I have is already teetering on the edge of a cliff with this woman that close.
I call after her as she locks up and heads to the refrigerator. “Does this love seat fold out into a bed?”
“No.” She’s back in a flash with her hands full. Two ice packs, which she wraps in plastic bags and then in kitchen towels before handing them to me.
No graceful way to do this, but it’s dark anyway. I raise up, put one pack on the seat, and gingerly lower my butt onto it, tucking the other pack between my lower back and the love seat cushion, barely keeping from groaning. “Do you have a sleeping bag? Or does one of these chairs recline?”
“Nope.” She’s moving around at the fireplace now, fiddling with a lever for the flue, then striking a match and touching it to the paper and kindling. Smart lady had a fire already laid. It crackles to life now, the flames gilding Andi’s beautiful profile.
I could gaze at her all night in firelight, if she’d hold still. But she’s up moving around, using her phone flashlight to collect candles, lighting them and placing them on the end tables and the dining table and in the bathroom.
Because what this situation and my virtue needed was an even more romantic setting.
She’s back in a minute with her arms full of pillows. “Here, help me tuck these around you to make you as comfortable as you can be till we go to bed. At least till you’re done with the ice, okay?”
I take gentle hold of her wrist and she freezes. “You keep saying that, Andi, but I can’t spend the night with you here.” My voice cracks on the last words. Does the woman think I’m made of stone?
She gazes back at me, her eyes dark and fathomless in the flickering light of the fire. “Now you’re just being insulting. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I don’t know whether it’s just me or pregnant women in general you’re not attracted to, but I get it. No need to rub it in.”
Oh my lord in heaven. Is she daft?
And is that—Does she look wounded ?
I give her wrist a tug and she lands on my lap, pillows and all. My ice-bagged butt isn’t pleased, but every other part of me is. And I’ve got more important concerns than my butt right now. I wrap my arms around her and tip back my head to see her face. “Is that what you think?”
She narrows her eyes. “You’ve made it pretty clear. I mean, sometimes I wish you felt different, but I’m not gonna seduce somebody who’s uninterested. I’m the one who said no first anyway, so it’s ridiculous of me to want more now.”
“Andi.” I cup her cheek.
She’s pressing her lips together, avoiding my gaze.
“Andi, look at me, please?”
She raises her chin and looks me in the eye, and I pour every ounce of truth in me into my words. “Andi, I have wanted you every second of every day since the first minute I laid eyes on you.” Starting when you were up onstage in that impossibly sexy red fringe. “You make my mouth water and my eyes sweat and all my other parts twitch. Yeah, I was disappointed when you didn’t want to get together that way again after our hookup. I respect that though. And it thrills me to think you might change your mind at some point. But my current problem is, I want you too much. Too fast. I’m trying not to mess up with you the way I’ve always done in relationships. I’m trying to give us a good foundation.”
Her expression softens but she stays quiet, so I keep talking. “I know I scared you with my dumbass out-of-the-blue proposal. I’m sorry. That was ridiculous and I know it. But I really do care about you and I really don’t want to screw this up. I’m trying so hard to go slow. I’ve gotta be careful, because where my”—I wince—“dick goes, my heart goes.”
“Oh. Whoa. I misread that.” She tilts her head, searching my face, laughing a little sheepishly. “I could take good care of it. Of them. I’ll take good care of both of them.”
I bark out a laugh, but god help me, her words have me melting and twitching all over again.
“But…you’re right. I’m trying to figure out my feelings too. Trying not to make a mistake. So if you’re not comfortable having sex right now, that’s okay.” She tips her head and rolls her eyes again. “I mean, I can’t promise not to think about it. A lot. But I won’t push. You’re safe with me. Best friends don’t take advantage of each other.”
She wraps one arm around my shoulders and hugs me, then climbs off my lap, fussing and tucking the pillows in around me. “So was your freak-out because of your extensive knowledge of romance tropes? What’s this one called…forced proximity?”
I sigh. “Worse. Only one bed.”
She laughs and the sound warms me up more than the cozy, crackling fire. “You know I’m telling July and Rose about this, right?”
This time I make my sigh extra theatrical, hoping she’ll laugh again. “I would expect nothing else.”
And when my efforts are rewarded with not just a laugh but also a fragrant hug, even my sore, frosty, ice-bagged butt is happy.