Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
She was all he could think about.
It had been over a month now since she’d moved into his place and he was enjoying having her with him – not something he’d ever thought he’d feel.
But it was nice to have someone to cook for, to talk to. Someone to take a shower with. A body that was becoming as familiar as his own – but never boring because of it. Only sweeter, richer, more fulfilling each and every time they came together.
She bought groceries. She brought vegetables he’d never think of, wine he wouldn’t choose to drink and he teased her about never drinking too much.
I can’t be drunk, Walker, I might lose control.
He’d known that. Even back during her bachelorette party when Marlowe had mistakenly said she was wine-drunk, Walker knew that.
But he got her silly one night and showed her losing control was only ever a good thing when they were together.
They watched movies together sometimes, sat out on the deck and talked about nothing sometimes. And they made love on every surface in the house.
Then when they were finished he left her sleeping in his bed and he crashed on the couch. But he was alive with the intensity of it. The intensity of her.
It made him feel like he was in high school again. Which was a damned weird thing. Even weirder, he didn’t hate it.
He did hate Cody remarking on his change of mood, though.
He was about to get into his truck to drive back to the house to ask Addison if she wanted to go out for dinner tonight—on the excuse that it was good that people see them together, but in reality, he just wanted to be with her, and Cody intercepted him.
“Hey. Everything going good with Addison?”
“What?”
“Hey, if we’re going to have her fundraiser at the ranch I need you to stay good with her, or be chill if you aren’t because I can’t be dealing with a whole other aborted event.”
“For God’s sake, Cody. You know me better than that.”
“Relationships can be volatile. Especially new ones.”
He gritted his teeth, practically snarled. “I mean, yeah. But it’s not a relationship thing. It’s a having good sex thing.”
“Really? Because you have a lot of sex, as far as I know, and I’ve never seen you practically whistling while you work.”
“Yeah. Well. That’s just... sex. There’s nothing more to say.”
“You took her out to see the mustangs?”
Just remembering that made his blood run hot. “Yeah. I did take her out to see the Mustangs. And she enjoyed it.”
“I think you did too.”
“Why are you so invested in my mood?”
“Because I care about you, you bonehead.”
“Yeah, well, I’m doing great. All that aside. Our business is booming in ways that I never imagined it would be this early on, and we are reaping big benefits from everything that’s happened in the last month. So yeah, I’m in a good mood.”
“I don’t think it’s money, Walker. We’ve had money. This is the one thing you haven’t had.”
“This is nothing,” he said. “Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s just that I’m finally fucking the girl that I used to fantasize about in high school. Getting what you want does feel pretty sweet.”
Guilt clawed at his stomach for saying that. Because he just couldn’t find a sincere bone in his body, even now. Because he didn’t want to get down to sincerity, honestly.
“Really? That’s what you’re going with?”
“It’s the truth. Listen, I know that you desperately want there to be more to me, but there’s just not. And she knows that. I’m not using her, she’s well aware.”
She probably wasn’t well aware that he was saying things like this to anyone, much less his brother.
And he had already said some pretty vile shit last time they had talked about this, because whenever Cody started digging, he just felt defensive.
Felt like pushing back against it, because what else could he possibly be getting at?
That he had feelings for her? It wouldn’t matter if he did.
It wouldn’t matter if he did. That was the beginning and end of it.
There was nothing more to say, there was nothing more to even consider.
“Don’t go romanticizing this. You’re making this about you, Cody, and the fact that you won’t feel like you’ve accomplished your job if the rest of us don’t have what you have, because suddenly you decided that falling in love was this big, great thing.
But it’s not what I want, it’s not that big of a thing to me. ”
“All right, I get it. You’re Walker Grayson, you don’t care about shit, you just like to have nice things.
Except that’s not you. It’s not. I grew up with you.
Don’t forget that. I know who you are. You were a sensitive kid, and you had a lot of feelings, and everybody made you feel like you couldn’t show them or you would get run over.
So that’s why you are the way you are. But there has to be more than that, Walker.
When you grow up, there has to be more than just protecting yourself. ”
He started to get into his truck. “No, there doesn’t.”
He drove away from the barn and didn’t dwell on that exchange.
Because it didn’t matter. He was on his way back to Addison, and he couldn’t wait to kiss her, touch her.
Taste her. It was like air that he needed to breathe.
It was some kind of intensity that he couldn’t readily comprehend or explain.
Only that she had been under his skin for years, and now that he had been inside of her, it was even more profound. But it didn’t make it anything other than sex, that was for damn sure.
He was thinking about that, not the drive, so he was somewhat surprised when he was pulling up to the house. He had lost track of all that, because he had been busy thinking about her.
And when he walked inside, he was even more surprised, because he could smell food cooking.
Food that he hadn’t made.
“Addison?”
She popped out of his kitchen wearing an apron, an apron, goddamn.
For some reason that was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
Her standing there with her blonde hair piled up into a bun, a pink, frilly apron covering the T-shirt and shorts she was wearing.
She was barefoot. Her toes were painted bright pink.
And everything inside of him growled.
“I hope you’re ready for dinner.”
“I’m ready for dessert,” he said, moving toward her and gripping her hips, pulling her in for a kiss.
He had the strangest out-of-body experience as their lips met.
Like he was looking at a timeline that he didn’t actually live in. An existence that might have been his, maybe, but wasn’t. A world where he came home, and his house wasn’t empty. A world where he could have a wife. A family.
He shut that down quickly, took a step away from her. “What did you make?”
“My specialty.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I guess not. I learned how to make pot roast exactly how my mom made it. So that when she left, it didn’t hurt quite so badly.”
“Oh? Did that work?”
“No. It didn’t. But I didn’t have a mom, so I might as well get pot roast on Sunday. And I figure you might want pot roast on a Sunday, too.”
He laughed. “It’s not Sunday.”
“I know. But it’s just philosophically Sunday dinner, I guess.”
“I’m game for it either way.”
That moment from before clung to him. It created a kind of heaviness that he preferred to ignore.
“What did you do today?”
“The usual,” he said. “Just checking in on things at the ranch, I did some of my phone work out in my truck.”
“That’s right, you basically can have a whole mobile office set up in there if you want to.”
“That I can,” he said.
The dining area was set out all pleasant, plates on the table, a big roasting pan at the center.
There was a bowl of green salad, and a bowl of rolls.
“I did not bake those,” she said. “Brown and serve is as intense as I get.”
“Looks great to me.” He sat down at the table, and she presented him with a bottle of beer.
“Seriously,” he said. “This is a bit much.”
“I don’t think it is. I think it’s about right. You’ve been taking care of me here, cooking for me...”
“To be fair, you had a giant trauma.”
“I don’t choose to see it that way,” she said. “Not at this point. I choose to think of it as divine intervention that really needed to happen.”
“Well, fair enough. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t traumatizing, though.”
She laughed. “Maybe.”
It was funny, to sit across from her at the dinner table. They had done it many times now over the last few weeks. But it was fascinating to be doing it now all the same. This woman who had been a stranger to him, basically, in spite of knowing her most of his life.
He had thought that he’d known her. But he hadn’t. She had thought she’d known him, but nobody really did. Nobody ever really had.
That was by design, but something about this, this little window into something like intimacy made him feel like he was missing something. And he had never felt that before in his life. And he hadn’t.
“Anything new with the campaign?”
“I had lunch with Anna today and we were talking about raffles. I know it’s close now, but I think we can get some donations from local businesses and we can use that for fundraising.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Do you have a plan for the evening?”
“I’d really like it if you could introduce me before I make my speech.”
That jolted him like a punch in the gut. “Do you really want me to do that? You have Anna. Or your dad, I mean, he’s the former mayor.”
She nodded. “I’ve thought of all that. You have been a big part of this campaign at this point, and it would be meaningful if you did it.”
Something felt unsettled in his gut. “Yeah. True. But you know I can’t be... It can’t go on forever.”
“No, I know.”
She looked away, and the wounded look in her eyes made him feel bruised. He reached out and took hold of her chin, tilted her face upward so that her eyes met his. “Sorry. You’ve got me until you don’t need me anymore.”