Chapter Eleven
Raff
On the third day, we trekked around Big Bend in West Texas.
Then we ate enough tacos to make it impossible to move for nearly an hour before heading to another luxury resort, where we spent the late afternoon guilt-swimming to work off the tacos.
Only to decide to go out for more of them for dinner.
“You again?” she teased, answering the door in her robe and a silk bonnet, her skin still dewy from the shower.
And I felt a sinking sensation at the idea of missing out on hearing her in there, her hand between her thighs, working herself until she came hard and long like she had the night before.
I hadn’t meant to overhear that, of course.
But, fuck, I didn’t regret it either.
“What did you bring now?” she asked, eyeing the bags in my hand.
I stepped inside her suite and made my way toward the desk.
“We’re having a craft night.”
“We’re what now?”
“Well, I thought it would be weird to buy Barbies and play pretend at our ages. So, a craft night it is. And we are going to finish them.”
Her smile was playful even as she crossed her arms. “What kind of crafts? I don’t have time to learn knitting tonight.”
“That would be a pretty useless hobby since we live in a hot climate,” I said, shrugging. “My first thought was clay. We could make and paint magnets or some shit. But you just got your nails done. Don’t want all that gunk under them. So… we’re making bracelets.”
“Seriously? You want to make jewelry?”
“Why not? Fair warning, I’m gonna wipe the floor with you on this,” I told her as I laid out all the different beads.
“Why’s that?”
“A couple of the club kids love making jewelry. I have a necklace made entirely of little rubber ducky beads and lime beads.”
“That’s sweet. Okay. We can try. Give me one second to get dressed.”
“That is entirely unnecessary,” I told her, getting that little laugh out of her as she moved into the bathroom.
She came back in a pajama set that might have been more distracting than knowing she was naked under the robe.
I didn’t know what the hell kind of material was buttery soft-looking like that, but the shorts were, well, short, and the tank top skimmed over her breasts. The big problem was the air was set to arctic, and her nipples had quickly gotten that memo.
My cock was not unaffected.
Especially as she leaned forward to reach for one of the paint plates I bought to separate beads into, and her tank dipped a bit in the front.
I didn’t know if I made a noise or what, but her gaze cut to mine, putting the pieces together, and in a blink, her lips parted, her lids went heavy, and her breath caught.
The moment felt like it went on for ages, like seasons changed, like the world went on without us as we stayed stuck in that second.
Yet, too soon, Lula sat back.
“No rubber ducky beads, huh?”
I shook my head, forcing myself to tamp down the thoughts of slipping those straps off her shoulders and leaning down to suck one of her nipples into my mouth as my hand slipped between her thighs from my mind.
“Bead store seriously lacked imagination,” I said, gathering several types of beads and the elastic stretch cord.
With that, we put a movie on the TV and half-watched, half-crafted for the next hour and a half. Before we knew it, we both had several bracelets sitting on the table, and we were having a lively debate about the end of the mystery we’d just watched.
“I dunno. I think the bait-and-switch can work,” I told her as I picked up a bracelet I’d made out of muted pinks and creams. “Shutter Island comes to mind.”
“So does Atonement and I hated that one with my whole being.”
“Okay. Fair,” I agreed, sliding the bracelet up her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Made this one for you,” I told her.
“You did?” she asked as my gaze flicked up, finding hers all soft and sweet.
“Thought these beads fit your aesthetic.”
“They do,” she agreed, smiling a little at her wrist.
“I made this one for you,” she admitted, making my stomach flip. “There was nothing crazy to work with, but I thought the chaos of colors suited you.”
She’d chosen some of the smallest beads and did it in more masculine colors: stop sign red, grass green, sun yellow, brown, black, and pile-on orange. She was right. There was absolutely no order to it. It was chaotic. And she’d made it thinking of me.
“You don’t have to wear it,” she said, a slice of insecurity slipping into her voice.
“I’ll be buried in it,” I told her, handing it to her to slide on my wrist.
“You’re so dramatic,” she said, but the insecurity was gone and a smile split her gorgeous face. “This was fun.”
“New hobby unlocked?”
“Maybe.”
“They sell fancier beads. You can get just about anything. Or you can work with metal too. Matter of fact, hold up, let me imagine you with a blowtorch and one of those welding masks… and nothing else.”
“So in this scenario of yours, I want to protect my face but not my boobs?”
“Don’t ruin my fantasy with your logic.”
She smiled as she sat back and stretched, making those boobs she mentioned stretch the material of her tank top.
“I’m still annoyed about that movie.”
“Want to watch another one to overwrite it? Perhaps with some coffee and Texas peach cobbler?”
“I’m going to return to Shady Valley twenty pounds heavier because of you.”
“That’s a yes.”
“It’s a yes. With the caveat that we have to take a walk or something tomorrow.”
“Luckily for you, it’s already in the itinerary,” I said as she cleaned up the beads and I ordered dessert.
“Do I get to know, or is it a secret?”
“We should be hitting San Antonio tomorrow. We can do the River Walk. Though I doubt we will do the whole thing.”
“Why not?”
“It’s fifteen miles. But we can walk the part that runs through downtown. That’s only maybe an hour and a half if we meander.”
“If we get there early enough, I have faith that we could do the whole thing,” she said, making her way toward the bed and bringing up the menu of movies.
“That would be, what, four hours? Five, maybe? Then we should still have time to hit the hotel, shower, and check out the shops and have dinner.”
I toed out of my shoes and climbed up on the other side of the bed. “Starting to like this whole road trip thing, huh?”
“It’s not like I’m likely to be in the area again. Might as well enjoy the whole walk. Especially when we are spending so much time sitting in the car. Don’t you try to stay active on stops?”
“I accidentally joined a marathon once. Ran that shit in jeans and old sneakers. Came in second-to-last. The only person behind me was an eighty-year-old woman.”
“But you finished. That’s what counts. How does one accidentally join a race?”
“The woman at the sign-up table—”
“Enough said.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Did you order the coffee already?”
“Don’t worry. I made yours decaf.” At her pinched brows, I said, “You mentioned that coffee too close to bed gives you restless sleep.”
“Is there anything I’ve said that you haven’t committed to memory?”
“Won’t lie. I zoned out a little bit when you started to explain how to cook books. Math has never been my strong suit.”
“No? What’d you like in school?”
“The cheerleaders, mostly. The drama club girls. Band geeks. The intense goth girls…”
“An equal opportunity manwhore even back in the day.”
“I know my strengths.”
“Do you ever think about settling down now that your brother has? And a lot of the other guys in the club?”
“Yeah, I think about it.” But mostly only when I linked her to that future.
I’d tried with other women—placing them in the spot I usually reserved for Lula.
I could never get past that part. No houses together.
No babies. No growing old, sitting on rocking chairs on the front porch, dating ourselves by saying shit like, ‘I remember when all this used to be empty desert.’
“And?”
“And… I think that shit happens on its own.”
“Like… fate?”
“Oh, pretty thing, I hear that snark. You don’t believe in fate?”
“I believe in… hard work. And results.”
“You think you can hard work yourself to a happy marriage?”
“A marriage is hard work.”
“Building a life and a family might be difficult, but I think the love part should be easy, don’t you?”
That got a shrug out of her.
“You do believe in love, don’t you?”
“Love? Yes. Maybe not so much romantic love.”
“Wait… what? You’re serious?”
“I mean, I think you can love someone you’re in a relationship with. But I don’t think it’s the stuff you hear about in songs or see in books and movies.”
“So, you’ve never been in love with someone you’ve dated?”
“No. Have you?”
“No. But to be fair, I haven’t really dated anyone since freshman year in high school. But I do believe in it. I see it every day when I’m in Shady Valley.”
To that, she shrugged.
“Just for that,” I said, snatching the phone out of her hand, “we are watching a romantic movie.”
“Oh, God, no.”
“Yep. You brought this upon yourself. Are you feeling summery? Or are you sick of the heat and want a cold-weather romance?”
“I want an action movie. But, I guess, cold.”
“Good. Now you’re going to watch a movie about a woman who acts like she’s engaged to a man in a coma while she falls in love with his brother. At Christmas.”
“What?”
“You’re going to love it.”
“Doubtful. Very doubtful.”
“You cold, hard cynic, you,” I said, climbing off the bed when my phone dinged with a notification. “Okay. I’m getting dessert. Then we are falling in love with Bill Pullman.”
“If you say so,” she called.
So we ate our cobbler and drank our coffee as we watched the movie. And despite her insistence that she didn’t like romantic movies, I could see how much the story pulled her in.
“What are you doing?” she asked when I paused the movie.
“Look at that look on the man’s face,” I said. “That’s love.”
“He’s acting.”
“Like a man in love. Though, to be fair, I don’t think anyone has to act like they’re in love with Sandy Bullock.”
“Are you done talking? I want to watch this blow up.”
I snorted at that but rewound a second and hit play. Then I watched her while she watched the movie.
I saw her eyes water at the big reveal.
Then go gooey at the proposal scene.
And I knew I had her.
Even if she would never admit it.
“Okay. That was a good movie,” she decided afterward. “But it is fiction.”
I turned my head on the pillow to look over at her. “What would it take to convince you it’s real?”
Her head turned as well, and I didn’t imagine the way her gaze slid to my lips, then quickly back up.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But maybe it’s a bad time to even talk about it with the whole… Drake thing.”
“Were you two more involved than you initially said?”
To that, she exhaled hard.
“No. But it was… floating there. It was a possibility. And we both kind of hinted at it. I was picturing building an empire with him.”
“Baby doll, you’re more than capable of building an empire without a man. You don’t need one for that.”
“Then what do I need one for?”
“To cheer you on. To share your successes with. To comfort you when things fall apart. To come home to…”
“To take care of me?”
“You hate that thought, don’t you?”
She pressed her lips together at that. “I think I hate the implication that I might need to be taken care of more than I hate the idea of being taken care of.”
“You don’t need it, no. But wouldn’t it be nice?”
Her gaze found mine again, and I could practically see her cataloging all the times I’d made sure to take care of her so far in both little and bigger ways: the nice motels and spa packages, the food, drinks, crafts.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I think it would be nice.”
I could have done it then.
Leaned in.
Pressed my lips to hers.
Kissed her until she was moaning and writhing.
Rolled her under me.
Got to touch, taste, and feel every inch of her.
I could have.
She would have let me.
With any other woman, I would have taken the opportunity.
The problem was, this wasn’t any woman; this was Lula.
And maybe she would have been ready for a kiss, a touch, an orgasm. But she wasn’t for anything more than that.
I knew Lula.
I had one shot at this.
I had to get it right.
What might feel right in the moment, though, wasn’t what would be right long-term.
So I didn’t lean in.
I didn’t take the opportunity I’d been waiting for for years.
The disappointment unfurled slowly, like smoke, as I rolled onto my back, then climbed off the bed.
“Well, I better get to bed. Some of us actually need our beauty rest,” I added, making my way to the door.
I saw the confusion on her face as she watched me.
“Bright and early breakfast, so we can get on the road to do your fifteen-mile walk.”
“Oh, right.” Her brows were still pinched, her lips gently parted.
“Feel free to dream about me. And if you screw up and dream of someone else, wake up and start over, okay?”
She rolled her eyes at that, but I saw the twitch in her lips. “Goodnight, Raff.”
“Rafe.”
“Hmm?”
“My name is Rafe.”
Her eyes widened at that.
“Oh. Well, goodnight, Rafe.”
“Goodnight, pretty girl.”