Chapter 33
THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF YOU
CORBIN
“I messed up your hair,” I say as I tug her up from the court, then grab my T-shirt from beneath her knees.
“I’m sensing a theme,” she remarks, smoothing her skirt.
“And that is?” I tug my T-shirt back on.
“One: you like to strip in front of me. Two: you like to make a mess of me.”
Damn, that’s a little spot on. A little scary too, for a guy who’s a neat freak. “I do.”
“Or maybe you like it when I’m messy, so you can fix me,” she counters.
Immediately, I shake my head. “You don’t need fixing,” I say, taking her hand and walking her to the bench at the edge of the court where we left our phones.
“I’m not sure about that,” she says, shrugging in acceptance.
I tilt my head. “Is that how you see yourself? As somebody who needs fixing?”
“Maybe a little bit, but my track record also suggests that,” she says, though it sounds like she’s okay with who she is.
“Does it though?”
She gives me a look that says c’mon. “I’ve been trying for years to get my business off the ground. I do need a little fixing.”
“I don’t really see it that way. I see it like the way I see hockey. There are ups and downs, but you just have to keep on practicing every day. It’s not always a straight line. There are a lot of different ways through a career.”
She seems to contemplate that for a bit, then nods. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I am right. But also, I don’t need to fix you. I do, however, like to do nice things for you. Like braid your hair. So sit down and give me that damn scrunchie,” I order.
“So, so bossy.”
“Yes. Yes, I am,” I say and sit her on the bench, gently pushing her shoulders down.
“You have a thing for braiding my hair.”
I move around to stand behind her. “Guilty as charged,” I say, taking the offered scrunchie and setting it on top of the bench, then finger-combing her hair once again. I lean closer, whisper against her cheek, “Or maybe I just like your hair.”
And you.
And touching you.
And being with you.
With a contented shiver, she leans her head back. “Play with it then.”
Slowly, I drag my fingers through the strands. “Your coffee with cream hair,” I murmur feeling a little vulnerable saying that since it both reinforces that I’ll never really see what color it is but also that I pay attention to every damn thing she utters.
But when she tips her head back and smiles warmly at me, I don’t have any regrets for opening up. “I like teaching you about color,” she says.
My heart jumps. “Why’s that?”
“It makes me think about color in different ways but I also like that you want to know.”
“I do. I really do.”
I want to know all the colors of her. I want to feel what she sees. I want to experience her world. And those aren’t thoughts that usually come post-blow job.
I’m not really sure what the hell is happening in my brain or my chest, so I focus on the task at hand. Separating her hair into sections and contemplating where the two of us stand. The age-old question—what’s next?
“Mabel?”
“Yes?”
I loop the first strand in. “You said you were taking a break from romance. That you wanted to just focus on the business. But is it also because of Dax?”
“Yes, but,” she says, pausing as she seems to consider the question, “I was with him for a year. And in the end, I feel like I lost a lot of time, and a little bit of myself. He took up so much energy in the room. Also? I’ve been trying to open the bakery for years, it seems,” she says, with some clear regret in her tone.
“When I was with Dax, I got distracted. I didn’t give it my all.
Seems like being all in with this new business is how I need to approach it. ”
She’s not wrong, even if that answer somehow stings the slightest bit.
“That’s true of things you love,” I say as I weave in another strand.
“I don’t want to look back and ask, did I do enough?” She gazes up at me again, and I see something in her gaze. Reassurance? “You know what I mean?”
My heart winces. “I do. I felt that way about my mom, honestly. I never wanted to wonder if I did enough—if I helped out enough. If I was there for her. So much was hard for her in the last few years, even measuring a cup of flour without spilling it, but especially in the end. I wanted to do everything I could when I was home, and to make sure she had help when I wasn’t. ”
“And you did all that,” she says.
“Back then, I wondered a few times if I should have taken a year off, but I also knew that wasn’t realistic.
I’m so glad she didn’t argue when I wanted her to move onto my property, so I could look out for her.
I know I’ve said it was tough, everything she went through, but it was also a privilege, you know?
To spend that time with her—to take care of her when she needed it.
But also, just to see her. To have her nearby.
For me, and for Charlotte, and for Mom.”
Mabel’s eyes shine. “A lot of people don’t do what you did.”
“I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Mabel lifts a hand and squeezes my arm. “You did enough.”
I nod, keeping the emotions at bay. “I think so too. It’s a relief to feel that way,” I say, weaving in a few more strands. “And I’m glad we started the bakery. She would have wanted that.”
“She would have loved it, Corbin,” Mabel says, still a little choked up.
My throat tightens as I finish her braid while thinking about the past until I wrap the scrunchie around the end of her hair. I’d rather focus on the present. “Beautiful,” I murmur, then kiss the top of her head.
She sighs softly, and I want to capture that sound, listen to it again and again.
Instead, I let go of her, move around the bench, and sit next to her. “For what it’s worth I do think you give your all to Afternoon Delight, and I seriously appreciate it.”
“Thanks. Sometimes I feel like…like whatever I have to give isn’t the right amount.
” She meets my gaze and something deeply vulnerable passes in those lovely brown eyes of hers.
“Like I never have quite the right amount of whatever it is that I need to succeed. Whether it’s in business or romance.
But with Afternoon Delight, I finally feel like maybe I have the right amount of me for the recipe of the store.
” She laughs self-deprecatingly. “It’s ridiculous. ”
“It’s not in the least ridiculous.” I set a hand on her thigh, squeezing it. “It would sound really trite to say you’re enough. But I mean it. You are entirely the right amount of you.”
I want to add—for me. You’re the right amount of you for me. But that’s not what this moment is about.
“Thank you. But that’s also why I decided to take a break from romance. I’m not sure I can do all that and be in a relationship at the same time,” she says, with a wistful shrug, like she wishes it were different maybe.
A part of me wishes she wanted to date right now. That I could tell her how I’m feeling. That I could tell her brother too. That I could be the one to be good to her.
But I don’t want to get in the way of her dreams since I feel the same about the bakery too.
“It’s hard to balance it all,” I say, thinking back on my own romantic past with its lackluster colors.
“I dated this one woman on and off for a few years. It wasn’t serious, but I don’t know that I ever really gave all of myself to it either.
Maybe because I was so focused on hockey or my mom or Charlotte. ”
“You have a lot of demands in your life. It’s hard to know how much you can give to a romance, don’t you think?”
Maybe I held back with Eliza. But maybe she just wasn’t the right person for me. “It is,” I say, taking the easy way out of that question.
We’re silent for a beat or two as a cool breeze drifts by, a reminder that it’s December in California. “Was it hard to be in a relationship though because of your mom and your focus on her?”
Way to see right through me. My throat tightens but I swallow down some of my emotions so I can answer.
“Maybe it was. Parkinson’s is, well, to state the obvious, it’s rough.
Maybe I held back with Eliza because I didn’t know if I had anything left for her.
It wasn’t fair.” I scrub a hand across my neck, then blow out a breath as if letting something go.
I meet Mabel’s gaze. “I hope I’m contributing enough to the store. ”
“You are,” she says, then she reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “And I’m pretty sure you gave enough to your mom as well.”
I wasn’t looking for some sort of validation of the past, but maybe I needed it. “Thanks. I think so too.”
She looks around the courts, then back to me with an amused sigh. “We’re not really doing the one-time-only thing very well, are we?”
I laugh. “Oh, we are definitely not doing the one-time-only thing well at all.”
And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to let that rule go. Or, really, to break it.
Before I can get a word out, she taps my thigh. “Hey! What if we stop pretending it’s a one-time-only thing?”
Holy shit. Does that mean she wants more? My heart sprints. I hold my breath as she keeps talking.
“Maybe if we keep romance on the back burner, we can do this.” Ah, it’s clear this means sex, and I shouldn’t complain. “We’ve been able to navigate all these one-time-onlys without ruining the store or our business.”
There’s a part of me that wants so much more than just these moments. But I’d be a fool to turn her down, especially since that’s all we can have. “Mabel Llewelyn—are you asking to be my fuck buddy?”
She cracks up. “Business partners with benefits.”
There’s a lot riding on Afternoon Delight—so many moving parts and so many people who could be collateral damage if something went wrong. Even though I want more of Mabel—more than I’ve been willing to admit before, but I’m realizing now—I’ll take what I can get. “Sold.”
I’m about to seal it with a kiss when she holds up a hand and presses it to my chest. “But I want you to know something.”