Chapter 27. He Thinks About Her All the Time
He Thinks About Her All the Time
“Thanks again for staying with me at the hospital the entire night.”
“Stop thanking me. I’m glad Thomas is okay.”
We sat in silence for the next few minutes, the only sounds inside the car were our breathing and the increasingly loud drumbeats of my heart.
“It’s late. You should go inside. Get some rest.” I stifled a yawn. The adrenaline I was running on the entire night was finally depleted, and exhaustion ruthlessly seeped into my bones.
“I should.” But he didn’t make a move. “You shouldn’t be driving. You look like you’re about to fall asleep right now.”
“I’m fine. I’m going to crank up the music really loud so I don’t fall asleep at the wheel.” At his horrified look, I quickly added, “I’m kidding! Jeez, no one has a sense of humor anymore these days.”
Rob considered me for a few beats before nodding decisively, as if confirming his thoughts. “You know what? It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” He reached across the console and pulled the car key out of the ignition. “You’re staying. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“What? No. Give it back.” I tried to grab the keys from his hand, but he was quicker and was already out of the car.
He opened my door, gently tugged me out, then locked the car as he guided me toward his house.
“Rob! I have to get some sleep and a shower and open the store in the morning and then go back to the hospital. I need to go home.”
“You can shower and sleep here. I’ll ask Ellie to text Nicole to open tomorrow morning.
” He ushered me into his house, before closing the door and turning to me, looking serious.
“Please, Kim? I’ll feel better knowing that you’re okay.
You can take my room like last time. I’ve got T-shirts and shorts you can use and yes, fresh supplies of spare toothbrushes. ”
If I wanted to be totally honest, the idea of crashing at his house sounded wonderful.
I was bone-tired, and the immediate possibility of snuggling in a comfortable bed was so incredibly appealing.
I knew I should say no, because I should be getting some rest in my own bed, instead of in his house, this guy I was not supposed to be falling for.
I suppressed another yawn. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Do you want something to drink? Eat?” He flicked on the lights in his kitchen. “I can make you a grilled cheese sandwich. Or a cheese omelet. French toast?”
“Probably not a good idea. I’ll be snoring by the first bite.”
“Right.” He led me to his bedroom, found a spare T-shirt and shorts, then handed me a new toothbrush. “Yell out if you need anything else. Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
But as I watched him starting to walk away, everything that had happened in the past few hours caught up with me.
The realization of what Opa had just gone through was a harsh eye-opener of how short and fleeting life could be.
How fragile everything was. How things could be fine one minute, and how quickly it could all change.
It was scary and daunting and overwhelming, and a blunt reminder to cherish everything—and everyone—important in your life.
To hold on tight to them, because you didn’t know how long you had with them.
Your time together might be limited, and you wouldn’t even know what you had lost until it was too late.
I blinked once, twice, trying to keep those pesky tears that were threatening to burst at bay. “Wait.” The small, uncertain voice didn’t sound like my own. “Can you stay?”
He froze, and it took him a few beats before he turned around. When he saw my watery eyes, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Hey. What’s wrong?” He covered the distance between us in two strides and wrapped me in a tight hug. “It’s okay. Thomas is fine. You’re fine. It will all be okay.”
“But things aren’t fine. He’s not well, and I was so scared for him, and nothing else is going right.
I don’t know if our street festival plan is even going to work, and for all I know, we’re going to flop in the most spectacular way, and then Goodwin will buy all of us out, and I’m going to lose the store.
And I was so pissed at my dad, because I thought he was going to do the right thing at least once in his life, but he didn’t, he fucking bailed on us again, and I’m just so sick of everything… ”
And as if those weren’t enough, I was falling hard for this man, when I wasn’t even supposed to have any feelings for anyone, at all, and I didn’t know how to stop myself from falling for him.
Or maybe I didn’t want to stop myself from falling for him.
“I’m sorry about your dad.” Rob tightened his arms around me. “Things will be okay. Everything will work out.”
I rested my face on his shoulders, as tears quietly rolled down my face. He didn’t say anything as he held me, his hands making soothing motions on my back.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he said. “You’ve had a long day, and you need to rest.”
“Can you please stay? I don’t want to be alone.”
He nodded, calm and steady. “I’m here.”
Ten minutes later, I came out of the bathroom to find him sitting on the bed, freshly changed into a white T-shirt and a pair of blue shorts. I climbed onto the bed and got under the covers next to him.
“We’ll put a pillow in the middle,” he said. “I’m a considerate bed-sharer. I promise I won’t hog the covers or kick—”
But I was too tired, so before he could even finish his sentence, I curled my arm around his torso and closed my eyes.
And let sleep take me away.
I woke up with a start a couple of hours later, and my immediate thought was to go back to the hospital to check on my grandfather.
I groped for my phone on the bedside table and saw that it was only four in the morning.
There were no text messages, no phone calls from the hospital, and that meant he was okay, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I tossed my phone back on the bedside table, and that was when I became aware of where I was and who I was with.
So, so aware.
Rob had one arm around my stomach, the weight comforting, and his warm body was snuggled close behind me, his front to my back, our bodies fitting perfectly, and the rhythmical sound of his breathing filled the silence.
I shifted a little, trying to adjust my position, but that only alerted me to the fact that my bottom half was grazing a certain part of him.
Lifting his hand, I quietly shimmied out of his embrace, then slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom. Because my bladder was bursting and, ugh, morning breath, right?
When I returned, the bed—and the room—was empty, and a weird disappointment crashed into me.
Steeling myself, I squashed those feelings and reached for my phone to make a quick call to the hospital.
The nurse on duty assured me that Opa was still sleeping, and he was fine, and I would be the first to know if anything changed.
I hung up just as the door flung open, and Rob came in, looking sleepy and disheveled.
And so, so gorgeous, he took my breath away.
“Hey.” I was acutely aware of the deafening thuds of my heartbeat. “You’re awake.”
I was silently cringing inside. At myself. Well done for stating the obvious.
“Yeah.” He looked as unsure as I felt. “Bathroom trip. Did you sleep well?”
“I did. Uh, did you?”
“Like a baby.”
“I just called the hospital.” I waved my phone at him. “My grandfather’s okay. But I should probably go home and get changed. I haven’t told Nic—”
“She’s opening the store. Ellie texted.” He tilted his head at the bed. “It’s still early. You should get a couple more hours of rest.”
But something in the room had changed. He was staring at me, and the atmosphere in the room seemed to grow heavier, thicker, like there was something unspoken hanging in the air.
I sucked in a breath when Rob took a few steps closer, his eyes intent on mine. He stopped in front of me, his gaze dropping to my lips, before they went back to my eyes, and for a second, or maybe it was my imagination, he looked like he was about to lean down.
Like he was about to kiss me.
Instead, he lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “You really should go back to sleep,” he murmured. “Recharge your battery. How are you going to look after Thomas if you don’t have anything left to give?”
He might be right, but there was no way I could go back to sleep now, not with him standing there, or with the way he was looking at me.
You can trust him.
You’re safe with him.
So I threw all caution to hell, let the walls around my heart crumble to nothingness, and stood on tiptoe to press my lips to his.
It was a soft, tentative kiss, testing the waters.
Rob let out a low groan, and his hands went up to frame my face.
He pulled me closer, and gently deepened the kiss, his lips coaxing mine open, and I thought, Kissing him feels like an extension of my oxygen.
Like I would cease to breathe if we stopped.
Like the world would stop spinning on its axis if our lips were separated.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on mine.
“Do you know,” he said, his voice rough, “that I haven’t stopped thinking about that first kiss?
That I think about you all the time? You’re my first thought in the morning, and my last one at night.
And honestly, I don’t know what to do about that. ”
My breath stuttered at his words.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you kicked my ass at mini golf. And when you stood up for me to my dad, that was it for me. I knew I was gone for you. It was killing me having to find single guys for you to date.”
Was it possible for a heart to swell and multiply into a hundred times its size? “You never said anything.”
He brushed his lips against mine, a whisper of a kiss carrying the promise of a lot more. “I had to prove myself to you first. Make you realize that those guys aren’t right for you.”