Chapter 6 Carissa #2
Wilder’s eyes widen. He shucks the glasses, and his eyes get unbelievably soft. He peels away the beard, gathering it up in his hand, then uses the other to shed the wig. Then he slips the jacket off, toes off the boots, and makes a pile right there on the floor.
I gulp, swallow, and wrap my arms around myself in one last-ditch effort to ward him off.
He shouldn’t be here. Our association was strictly professional.
I have a whole smattering of printed-out job applications on my kitchen counter that I was poring over.
We no longer have a working relationship.
Bonus, baby! You’re free to do what you want. Let your hair down. Whip those panties off. It’s go time.
Even if the whole boss thing is no longer a thing, Wilder is still Wilder. Still famous. Still beloved by the world. Still five years younger than me.
Cougars are the new twenty.
I maintain he’s still wildly famous and will be for the rest of his life.
Maybe he’s here to tell you that he’s ready to give it all up, grow his hair and beard out for real, and live out his hot lumberjack dreams in an off-grid cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
Is that his dream or your dream?
Wilder rakes his hand through his real hair, freeing it from the sweaty hair skull mass the wig had pressed it into.
He does this thing, not intentionally, but it’s key to why the world loves him.
I call it his I’m going to cry without crying and wear my heart on my sleeve, and it’s all heart all the time with me look.
His eyes get huge and a little wet, very luminous, incredibly fathomless, and ultra bottomless.
They’re like forest pine or ivy crawling up the side of a house, dark green and so innocent and guileless that it makes a person want to hug him.
Hard.
My heart squeezes, and I nearly let out a frustrated whimper.
Sensing my inner turmoil, Woof Woof Dog whines for me. Then sneezes. And farts again. My mom has taken this dog to the vet no less than six times for suspected gastric issues, but he’s all good. Just farty.
I get another set of soulful eyes on me, velvet-soft brown ones this time.
A small whimper tears loose.
Wilder’s voice comes out hoarse. “I’m sorry.
I’m so, so sorry, Carissa. I never meant to hurt you.
But I did, though. And I get that.” He slides his hand down his pants, curses when he misses the front pocket, tries again, misses again, curses again, then finally gets a finger in.
With some work, he wedges in another and then, miracle of miracles, he exhumes a folded piece of paper.
“I couldn’t let this be the last thing you remembered. ”
My heart doesn’t just clench. After all these years of telling myself that this man can’t be mine in any world and under any circumstances, it’s more than waves of longing.
It’s sheer frustration at the world for having me fall in love with the exact wrong man, who is so damn right, all at the wrong time.
Always, always the wrong time. Loving from a distance, in secret, is such a hard thing to do.
You’d think my heart would grow a thick skin after the first while, but it hasn’t. Sadly, no reptilian scale shield for me.
“If you wanted to apologize, you could have just called.” I have to resort to protection methods like making myself appear completely indifferent.
It’s the only way I’m going to get through this.
I’d set myself against never seeing Wilder again except for the way the rest of the world sees him.
On stage. From a distance. In the periphery.
When his songs come on the radio faster than I can change the station.
Or when he pops up on my social media feeds the odd time I go on there, just because he’s so thoroughly implanted in my algorithm that I can’t dig him out.
He’s like a weed in my life.
Okay, he’s more like a surprise plant that pops up with surprising medicinal benefits and shockingly gorgeous flowers. Just with deep, deep roots.
Damn it.
It’s been almost long enough that I got my brain on board with my heartsick, aching, mopey body, but now it’s immediately back online in full brain mode, braining away, and I. Am. Spiraling.
“I couldn’t have,” he reasons.
He’s right. This isn’t the kind of thing you call about. If he had, I wouldn’t have answered. I would rather have thrown my phone off a cliff. Or just changed my number like a rational, logical person.
I make a croaking sound that has Woof Woof Dog tilting his head before he scampers off into the living room at the sound of something crashing.
We don’t keep many breakable things around here anymore, mostly because they’ve all been destroyed by the furry feline menaces, so it’s probably one of the TV remotes.
“Do you want something to drink?” It’s a benign question, plus, it’s hot out. “Water? Iced tea? Iced coffee?”
He nods, leaving it up to me to awkwardly lead the way to the kitchen. It’s just down the hall and around the corner.
I’ve been to Wilder’s house. It’s not the kind of place most celebrities would own, but it is lovely.
It’s mid-century with sloped ceilings, original kitchens, and a big pit sunk into the floor in the living room area for entertaining—I think?
He also has an impressive studio, but that’s the only part of the house that’s been touched. The rest is just well-preserved.
This place?
It’s a bit of everything. It’s an older split-level house, and my mom and I have slowly been hiring contractors to renovate, but slow is the keyword.
She doesn’t like people in the house when one of us isn’t here, and given that she works just about every day, there’s zero work being done here when I’m away.
The house is functional, just outdated. But it has a brand new kitchen and bathrooms, because those were must-haves.
The yard is also spectacular as my mom blows off steam by gardening.
Wilder’s house is also a gazillion square feet, but I refuse to be anything but proud of our country-style kitchen.
It’s small, but not that small. We went with sage green custom cabinets with glass inserts, copper ceiling tiles, a matching copper sink, and butcherblock countertops.
We picked light oak hardwood flooring. We wanted to add character to the house, even if it’s not a castle or brick, stone, or stucco like so much of the architecture here.
It feels incredibly crowded with Wilder in here. He stops on the other side of the island, while I pretty much race directly to the coffee maker and get a pot brewing.
My hands are shaking, so I spill grounds all over the counter.
I can feel his eyes burning into my back.
I spill water all over the place too, and nearly drop the glasses straight out of the cupboard.
Then I fumble with the cream and milk from the fridge.
I swear it’s ten thousand degrees in here, even though the central air is pumping.
“My mom gets off work in an hour and a half,” I whisper-yell over the burbling coffee maker. “I told her I’d make dinner. I was going to put a roast in, peel the potatoes, and bake buns. Uh… I…”
“You like cooking.”
I have to turn around, but it’s a mistake because I get another eyeful of Wilder’s tight red pants. It’s not like he could have changed them in the past four minutes, but I’m still mentally unprepared for the hotness level.
I quickly get my eyes back up to his face.
I’m also mentally unprepared to go there, but alas, it’s better than staring at the danger zone of his pants, where his package is clearly defined, compliments of them being that tight.
That was a statement, not a question.
“I do like cooking,” I mutter-parrot.
“I didn’t know that.”
“No.”
“Does anyone?”
I shrug. “Not really. I like to make things less about me and more about my job. More about everyone else.”
Woof Woof Dog lumbers into the kitchen, his tongue lolling out.
His food and water dishes are under the island overhang.
He’s followed in by Pumpkin, who comes in at the speed of orange cat light, hits the counter, scatters all the papers I had on there all over the place, skids, tries to catch himself, hangs off the island like he’s grasping the edge of a cliff, and then lets go.
He lands right on his rump instead of his feet, gets up, gives me a scathing look as though I’m somehow responsible for his embarrassment, and races back off.
Wilder stares at me, and I stare back at him.
“You need to be gone before my mom gets home.” Wow. Classy. I whip around and snatch the coffee pot off the maker long before the drip has stopped. Droplets sizzle down onto the hot plate. I pour it into two mugs to let it sit and shove the pot back under the stream.
“Can I… help you with anything?” Wilder asks.
I whirl and duck down, gathering all the scattered papers and turning them face down so Wilder can’t see what I was doing earlier.
Not that looking for a job is shameful or a secret.
I straighten slowly, my face flaming, my heart pounding, my chest feeling like a cage, and my whole body slick with sweat caused by finally giving in to the realization that it’s utterly unfair that a man like Wilder exists.
He’s not perfect, but he’s great in so many ways.
He’s a total freaking ten in my books, and I’ve had years to subliminally register all the ways he’d be my perfect match.
He’s still always going to be untouchable.
“Can I help you with dinner?” he clarifies politely when I’m clearly not tracking.
“Err…” I bite down on my bottom lip, mentally calculating how long it takes coffee to cool down so I can busy myself by putting ice in the cups. “I don’t do much with the roast. I just slick it up, spice it, and stuff it in the oven.”
“Can I do that? Slick, spice, and stuff it in the oven?”
Fuck on a diamond-back duck. Is there even such a thing? Why on earth does it sound so sexual when he says it? My vagina gives him two thumbs up, and my panties get two degrees past soaked.
“S-sure.”
I’m officially dead. Gone and combusted, turned to dust.
I somehow make it to the fridge, though it’s not graceful. I snatch the pork loin out and toss the huge hunk of meat straight onto the island. It’s in tight plastic packing, but it makes a cold and wet slapping noise that sounds suspiciously like a hard spanking.
There’s a small chance I might need to recalibrate my gray matter.
I’m a flurry of buzzing, sizzling energy as I grab spices, the bottle of oil, and the roasting pan.
“I’d love to watch you make buns,” Wilder says.
I barely make it to the island before everything slips out of my hands, but at least nothing breaks when they all come crashing down.
Well, besides my hormones.
They’ve officially reached a new pinnacle.
This morning, everything was so complicated and uncomplicated at the same time.
It was an uncomplicated complicated. I wish I could go back to just past eight.
I wish Wilder weren’t here. If I never saw him again, I could get on with my life, pick up the pieces of myself, get real, and get on with it.
Yup. Just keep thinking so…
I make flapping hand gestures at the roast, and Wilder gets the picture. He tackles that while I locate a few things from the pantry. Flour, yeast, sugar, and the bag of potatoes. I have to make a pit stop at the fridge and then snatch a few things out of the cupboards.
After that, I test the coffee, but it hasn’t cooled off at all.
I should have put it in the fridge.
Wilder doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry, so I leave it.
I sneak a peek at what he’s doing with the roast, which is a mistake.
Not only do I get a full side view of those red pants snugged around hard leg muscles and even harder…
erm… yeah, not going there, but I get a full view of his hands, slicked up with oil, as he massages it into that big old piece of meat.
Official round two. Dead round two.
I free-fall straight into round three when he turns to grab the salt and pepper shakers from the spot right by the stove, and I get a full view of just how low those pants are riding. It’s all ass crack from this vantage point, which means… zero underwear.
I probably shouldn’t know that’s a thing, but I do.
Wilder hates wearing gotch with leather.
He’s suffered very few ill effects, despite what people might think about that.
He shakes salt and pepper onto the roast, smearing the shakers in oil. I don’t wince or cringe. I’m too captivated by his hips swaying and more ass crack revealing itself. Dear. Lord. Red. Again. It gives new meaning to a woman in a shop full of breakables.
Fucking hell, my panties are beyond redemption, and my shorts are now getting wet from watching this dirty display of roast preparation glory.
Wilder suddenly stops and stares at the salt and pepper.
He realizes his mistake, but instead of getting me to fix it, he takes them straight to the sink and rinses them off.
He washes his hands after, scrubbing every finger with soap.
I still haven’t moved. I haven’t done anything other than stare like a creeper for the past few minutes.
I’m transfixed by the way he uses the towel on those strong, calloused hands.
I know what those hands are capable of.
In a good way. Musically.
Why am I like every other woman who falls for a rockstar? What is it about talent that makes a person so unbelievably attractive?
Was it that? Realistically, I know I’m being hard on myself.
I didn’t find Wilder hot at first. When I got the job, I was firmly rooted in the belief that he wasn’t my type.
But then I started to pay attention. I got to know him.
And then I realized he’s definitely my type because my type is kind, warm, soft-hearted, generous, dimpled, and rock hard assed.
God, not the last part.
What is going on with my brain?
Anyway, when I got to know him, that’s when it really started. The tingles. The crazy crush. The irrevocable falling harder and harder and further and deeper in love.
“Hey.”
I startle when I realize Wilder has turned around and is staring right at me, staring at him. Now we’re both staring at each other, staring at each other.
“Are you okay? You’re really pale. Do you need to sit down for a minute?”
That’s supposed to be my line. My role. I’m supposed to be the one taking care of him. Even if I’m not working for him anymore, I’m a natural caregiver. I always have been. I knew I wanted to be a nurse long before I was even in high school.
“I… I…” My brain glitches. It farts like Woof Woof Dog, blips, falls straight offline, goes into dark mode, and fucks me, my life, and the entire world. “I kind of love you.”