Love Felt Like This

Chapter Twenty-Seven Just Say the Word

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Just Say the Word

Griffin

Working together professionally feels untenable at this point. I watch Beverly too much. Notes soar from my fingers, but every chord is B. B minor. B sharp.

B, B, B.

There’s a knock on the garage apartment’s door.

I rest my guitar on my knee. “Seriously? Another?”

Beverly laughs, setting aside her laptop. She rises from her place on the couch before I can stand to answer the door first.

She waves her hand. “Sit. You’ve answered the last four knocks.”

I slowly do as she asks, watching her walk to the door instead. My hand tenses around the neck of the guitar. She’s wearing those corduroy pants today. The yellow high-waisted ones that hug her hips.

But it’s not just the pants; it’s the way Beverly beams when she swings open the door.

It’s how she laughs when she’s greeted by a rush of biting wind, like she can’t believe it’s still snowing.

It’s how she cheerily says, “Hi!” to Daisy, cloaked in her Carhartt jacket, her gloved hands thrusting out an orange casserole dish.

“Hey, Griffin,” she says, peering at me over Beverly’s shoulder. “This is for Ava. It’s strawberry cobbler. Greg said she loves strawberries.”

“She does,” I say, blinking away from Beverly for a single goddamned moment of my pathetic life. “Thank you.”

Daisy gives a definitive nod, says nothing else, then turns around to walk back to her puttering, faded truck in the driveway.

She’s an odd bird.

Beverly shuts the door and drops off the cobbler at the folding card table, right next to the four other arrivals today: a homemade apple pie, a tin of cookies, a large thermos of butternut squash soup, and lasagna.

A Post-it note sticks on top of the aluminum foil covering Daisy’s dish.

Her beautiful looped handwriting is similar to all the others. happy you’re feeling better.

“Five,” Beverly announces. “Five people dropped off food for Ava.”

Elk Grove residents have that way about them. I try not to think about the sheer kindness of it all. If I consider how much I like this town…well…

“I didn’t ask them to,” I say, and it sounds too grumpy even for me.

“You didn’t have to,” she says with a smile, leaning back to peer out the window. “It should be the last one, though. It’s getting late and another big snow is blowing in again.”

It’s dark outside. I went to the diner earlier to get us dinner, and by the time I returned with eggs and bacon from Beverly’s parents, who insisted I take more than I needed, flurries floated onto my SUV.

Now, looking through the curtains, thick powdery snow falls in front of our yellowed porch light.

The driveway is sticky with it, only the tire marks of Daisy’s truck indenting the perfect layer of white.

Ava sits on the couch with her wooden bird, Tom, blinking one eye at a time like a tired baby doll. Beverly falls onto the seat next to her, and Ava immediately flops onto her lap.

I strum a final chord as Beverly runs a palm over Ava’s wispy bangs. I eye the clock. It’s almost eight. No wonder Ava is sleepy.

I stand, set aside the guitar, and pat my knees.

“Ready for bed?” I ask her.

Ava shakes her head no. I smile, sweeping down and snatching her off the couch anyway. She giggles, but it’s barely audible through her exhaustion. She tucks her head into the crook of my neck. I kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back, B.”

“I’ll be eating all the cobbler.”

I chuckle. “Leave some for me?”

“We’ll see.”

I carry Ava to the bedroom, then slowly lower her into bed. Her eyes struggle to stay open.

“Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

“B stay?”

My heart catches in my throat. I stiffly nod. “She’ll be back in the morning.”

“B stay,” she repeats.

“She’s gotta sleep in her own bed.”

Beverly sleeping in my bed?

I wouldn’t even know where to start with that.

Ava curls closer to Tom—I can’t imagine a wooden bird is comfortable, but I’m not questioning it—and I start to sing.

They’re quiet croons as I sweep bangs back from her face.

By the time I transfer to hums, she’s lightly snoring through an open mouth.

I almost want to keep singing so that I can stay in this room.

Leaving her side means having to go back out there with Beverly.

Alone.

Alone with our lingering stares.

To a woman who I know is attracted to me but won’t say it. Who I am wildly attracted to in turn.

I recognize that same longing in Beverly’s deep inhales and the way her lips part at the sight of me.

She’s always worn her expressions loudly.

But just because she gets speechless doesn’t mean she likes me.

She might be attracted to me, but she may not want me.

Not how I want her. She stitches puppets, while I dedicate songs to her.

She laughs, while I search for excuses to hold her hand. She stares; I ache.

I finally stand and make my way back to the main room.

I find Beverly perched on the piano seat.

My cramped notebooks are nearly falling off the music rack.

Scraps of paper and Post-its stick out of their sides.

My handwriting is barely legible scribbles.

But Beverly hums as she reads an open notebook.

She’s cute when she’s alone. She murmurs thoughts to herself, sometimes in voices that feel a lot like Bernie’s or that of some other familiar character I can’t place. It’s like she lives in her imagination. I wish I could crawl in there with her.

I lean against the wall, folding my arms as I watch. And, as each page turns, my chest tightens.

I know what’s in that notebook. Yes, there are Birds on the Block songs about saying please and thank you, but then there are other songs too. Please adore me. Thank you for making me laugh. Scribblings about mountain breezes and syrup and grapefruit. The smell of her hair. Her lips. Her smile.

She leans closer, analyzing my words.

I swallow as my jaw tics with anxiety.

“See anything interesting?” I ask.

Beverly startles and rests her fingers against the back of the small pleather cushion.

“Oh. Yes. Your original songs,” she says. “They’re pretty.” Her cheeks flush. “You say a lot of pretty things about Ava.”

I pull in an unsteady breath and tongue my cheek.

What game are we playing here?

We’re tiptoeing around the inevitable.

I exhale. “Those aren’t…” I tighten my arms over my chest, take one last breath, and click my tongue. “Right. Uh, Beverly?”

“Hmm?”

“They’re about you. The songs. They’re about you.”

I don’t know why I said it twice.

Beverly freezes, though. That string in my chest feels plucked again. A discordant sound that travels up my throat and to my head, now swimming—no, drowning.

“What?” she says on a breath.

“A lot of them,” I respond, tentatively stepping forward.

Her knee starts to bounce under the piano.

“What’s a lot?” she asks.

I keep walking until I’m beside her. Like a scared animal, she quickly stands, causing her chest to bump against mine. She sucks in a breath and slides out from where she’s stuck between me and the bench. She paces to the center of the room.

“But we’re friends,” she says.

Friends.

I tilt my head to the side—a pitying look I can’t stop—as she whispers, “Aren’t we?”

Slowly, with my eyebrows tugged in the middle, I shake my head, signaling an unspoken but very definitive No.

“I think I feel a little different than that,” I say.

My lips are in a straight line, slowly turning down at the edges. My heart is pounding.

“I like you,” I announce. Saying it out loud for the first time is like an exhale of relief. A phrase that should be repeated many times. “I like you.”

She blinks. “I know.” It comes out in a whisper, like it’s a secret kept between just us. Maybe even a lie.

“I like you.” It feels even better the third time.

“You wouldn’t go for me, though.”

I let out a chuckle, something bubbling out of my throat, reaching for relief as well.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m going for you right now.”

She shakes her head.

I sigh. “So I guess the question is…what do you want, B?”

I don’t move, but my chest is starting to rise and fall. I’m getting out of breath just standing here.

Her lips part, like closing them might choke her own breaths, which leave desperately in unsure exhales.

And then it hits me that maybe I’ve overestimated us. I’ve been the one pursuing her. But has she wanted the same? Maybe I’m just another Beau. A musician with a big head who thinks he can get anyone.

“If you don’t feel the same way,” I say slowly. “If this is too much—I understand. I do. Just say the word, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

She opens her mouth, but no words come. Then, just as I silently shook my head no earlier, Beverly slowly nods yes.

Yes.

Yes, I feel the same way.

I choke out a small noise, a little precursor to my words. A breathless tone of disbelief.

“Beverly, I—”

In the middle of my thought, Beverly strides forward like a bullet from a gun and swings her arms around my neck. I don’t second-guess anymore. I dip my palms into her hair and bring her lips up to mine.

Sparks skitter through my chest, building and bursting like fireworks behind my eyes as I kiss Beverly Lark for the first time.

I’m wild with wonder, burying my hands in her thick hair, finally—finally—running fingers through her soft strands.

It’s everything I imagined, yet nothing like it at all.

It’s infinitely better. When I place my other palm on her lower back, she sighs against my lips, soft and sweet and perfect.

Everything yet nothing. Much, much better.

Our mouths move like they’ve practiced this a thousand times before. It’s easy. It’s natural. Soft lips turn to little nips. We’re consuming and helpless in each other’s arms. Her hands no longer feel cold as they stroke over my neck. God, I’m desperate. I want more.

Our kisses grow more and more heated as we push, pull, and claw closer before the other can.

It’s almost like we’re arguing—the only time we truly ever could.

When she bites my bottom lip, I almost choke on my disbelieving laughter.

I feel her smile back. This woman is pure energy. She’s bubbling over and into my soul.

I wrap my palms around her back, clutching the hem of her shirt in my fists before skimming down to her thighs.

I bend and grip them in my palms to pick her up.

She jumps and wraps her legs around my waist, coasting her chest over mine.

Soft against hard. She buries her hands into my long hair.

We blindly stumble through the room. I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t care.

I turn us around, walking Beverly backward until her spine bumps against a paneled wall. I cage her in, cupping the nape of her neck in my palm and tugging her closer, as if it’s even possible anymore. Her hands outline my jaw. Her fingers trace through my beard. I want her everywhere.

She pushes my chest, now directing me. She steps us backward toward the couch, but instead our bodies bump together, and I grunt as something shoves into me. The piano shrieks beside my hip.

Beverly giggles against my mouth. “Sorry, I—”

I don’t let her finish, catching her lips again in a hungry kiss. I can’t get enough of her. Her smile. Her laughter. Her excitement that matches mine. I rest back on the piano, gripping her hips in my palms and sliding her down to stand between my spread thighs.

Notes ring from the piano keys, discordant and erratic. She grips my shirt in her fist, pulling at the fabric to get us closer. She’s shivering now. I grasp her tighter. She hikes a leg up, and nerves spiral through my chest and down to my fingertips.

I push my knee between her thighs. She pulls in a sharp gasp. Her palms press down beside my legs to gain purchase, accidentally sending more piano notes echoing through the living room.

With my hands clutching her hips, I shift them forward, then back. Lifting my thigh, dropping it, moving it against her slowly and deliberately. She gasps, then moans.

God, she moans.

I want to hear that over and over. I want it to tattoo my soul.

I kiss a line from the corner of her lips to her jaw and then her ear. Goose bumps appear across her neck and down to her collarbone—that damn collarbone—and then—

“Daddy?”

We both jerk back.

I can’t catch my breath. Neither can Beverly.

“Daddy?” Ava calls again from the bedroom.

I swallow, tucking a strand of Beverly’s hair back behind her ear.

I croak out, “Did the piano wake you up, munchkin?”

Silence.

“Ava?” I add.

“Yes,” she calls back quietly.

I close my eyes and sigh. “Sorry, baby.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Sing?”

A bedtime song.

Beverly deflates in my arms, swallowing back her shaking breaths. She blinks up at me, and my finger tap, tap, taps on her hip. A song, a verse, a symphony to this woman who sheepishly smiles before burying her face into my neck.

I could stay here with my palms roaming her hips, but my heart pulls to Ava’s room.

“Go,” Beverly whispers, as if reading my mind. “I’m fine.”

I frown. “You’re sure?”

“Of course.”

I clear my throat and call out, “Hang tight! Be there soon.”

Beverly places a featherlight kiss against my beard. A hook snags against my gut, coaxing me closer to her.

“You’re a good dad,” she whispers.

“Beverly…”

“Let’s…um…” Beverly starts to say. “I was thinking that…”

“Yes?”

Beverly’s uneasy breaths stop, and her lips crook into a smile. Then she laughs like bubbling champagne, like the popping of suds in a warm bath after a long day. I grin back, palming her soft hair.

“I don’t know what to say,” she confesses.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“I should go.”

“No, stay.”

She laughs again. I’m glad she’s finding humor in my torment.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. “And we’ll…” Her words fade as I stroke my thumb over her cheek and dip my palms down her neck to trace my fingertips over her collarbone. I can’t help myself; I place a kiss right in the divot.

“Tomorrow?” I murmur against her skin, brushing my beard across her shoulder.

“Right. I was saying…tomorrow we’ll…figure this out.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Yes?”

“Right.”

We’re just mumbling nothings back and forth, too distracted by our hands ghosting over each other, tracing palms over arms and fingers across jaws. Lips across freckled skin.

“Daddy?” Ava calls.

“Coming!”

Beverly bites her bottom lip with that mischievous grin of hers that feels so rare and so perfect. I lean forward to kiss it off her mouth, but she turns her head before I can.

“I gotta go,” she says.

I bury my head in her neck. She laughs at me again.

I have no clue what any of this means. I wish I did.

Finally, I walk Beverly to the front door.

I watch as she trudges through the falling snow back to the main house.

Snowflakes cling to her furry purple coat.

Her boots leave little imprints in the snow.

In that moment, I realize I don’t care what tomorrow brings or what this means.

As long as she’s there in the morning, that’s all that matters.