Summer Romance Boxset - Weightless, Revelry, On the Way to You

by Steiner, Kandi

  “I didn’t even know I had one of those,” she said when I returned.

  I kept my eyes on my hands, taking the seat near where her feet rested. One of the neighborhood cats I’d seen around Momma Von’s sat perched on the arm next to me, and he croaked out a meow as the cushion dipped, scampering away to the porch and leaving the two of us alone.

  I chanced a glance at her as I popped the lid on the kit, and her cheeks flamed.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said meekly as I pulled out a roll of gauze and medical tape. “I’m fine, really.”

  “It’s not that deep,” I answered. I felt the need to comfort her, to ease her embarrassment and make sure she was okay, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to talk to her. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t need stitches. You don’t, but it’s going to be tender for a while.” My eyes slipped to where a pair of red-bottomed heels lay sprawled on the floor, and I quirked a brow. “Won’t be wearing those for a while.”

  My eyes caught hers, and though I was trying to tease her, I wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cower away. She was just staring at me, specifically at my eyes, and so I looked at hers, too. They were evergreen.

  She swallowed when my hands moved to her ankle. I cradled it in my lap, fingers brushing the soft skin stretched over her delicate bones as I cleaned the cut with a cloth I’d soaked in hot water before wrapping it in gauze and taping it securely, not too tight.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, wiggling her toes.

  I lifted myself from the couch with the first aid kit in hand. I sniffed, replacing the kit in the kitchen. I didn’t know what else to say, so instead of stopping at the couch again, I walked straight past her and back out onto the patio.

  “Wait!” Her voice squeaked as she hopped up from the couch, limping over to the doorframe with the towel still wrapped around her. I bent to retrieve the flashlight and turned, waiting. “What’s your name?”

  She was beautiful.

  I don’t know why I chose that moment to notice it, when she was waiting for me to answer her. I stood like an idiot, scowling because that was how my face rested, not that I could help it. It’d been stuck like that for more than six years.

  “Anderson,” I finally answered.

  “Anderson,” she repeated on a breath. I loved the way my name sounded when it rolled off her tongue. “I’m Wren.”

  I watched her for a moment longer, willing myself to say something—anything. But instead I cleared my throat and nodded, clicking on the flashlight and trailing down the stairs of her back porch without looking back until I was out of her yard and back in the Morrisons’. I could see the faint outline of her through the trees where she still stood in the doorway, eyes on where I’d disappeared through them. She smiled, mouthing something that looked like Nice to meet you, too. Then she turned and limped back inside.

  BILLET-DOUX

  bil·let–doux

  Noun

  A love letter

  The sun warmed the bedroom too early the next morning, and I grumbled, kicking the covers off to plant my feet hard on the floor. I winced against the pain from my forgotten injury, rotating my ankle a few times before testing how much pressure I could put on the wound. It was tender alright, but nothing too severe.

  Rev opened one eye from his corner of the bed as I padded over to click off the small heater and opened the back door to let in the fresh morning air.

  “Morning, Rev,” I croaked, throat raw, but he just closed his eye again and went back to sleep.

  I massaged my temples with my fingertips and groaned again, stopping in front of the dresser mirror.

  I couldn’t have been more of a hot mess.

  My hair was a ratted nest from the hot tub, tied up high on my head, screaming for a bird or two to find a new home. I’d stripped out of my new leggings and sweater at some point in the night and standing in just my lacy boy shorts, it was easy to see I’d taken more of a beating than I realized in what was quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life.

  There were spots of dried blood dotted on the shin of the leg opposite my injury, probably from when Anderson carried me inside, and bruises had already formed on my thighs, hips, and forearms from the fall. I wiped at the dark circles under my eyes with a pathetic laugh, head throbbing as I scratched behind Rev’s ear on my way into the bathroom.

  I felt marginally better after I’d showered, applied a full face of makeup, and popped two ibuprofen. I settled in on the back porch with a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll, eyes on the broken board that had led to my demise the night before. I’d have to fix it like I’d promised Abdiel, but I had no idea how, so I just stared at it instead.

  And then I thought of Anderson.

  He must have lived close by, being that he made it to my cabin and up my back porch stairs in about twenty seconds flat, and I wondered why Momma Von hadn’t showed me where he lived yesterday or talked about him at all. Still, I remembered Sarah mentioning him, and that only piqued my curiosity more. I wondered if she was his girlfriend, and then I kicked myself for wondering about his relationship status at all. I came to this cabin to be alone, to spend time with myself, to get space and find clarity.

  Yet when I replayed last night, the hardness of his blue eyes on my body, the grip of his hands on my ankle, the baritone of his voice when he’d told me his name, a foreign tingle shot between my thighs and I squeezed them together, shifting on the couch. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt need, want. I hadn’t felt it with Keith in years, and the one man I’d slept with since him was a drunken one-night stand orchestrated by Adrian to make me feel better.

  It hadn’t.

  But when there was only a thin towel between my wet body and Anderson’s hard chest, when his strong arms cradled me like I was the only thing in the world he cared to protect, all those sexual molecules in my body that had been asleep for years woke in a frenzy.

  Shaking him from my mind, I reached for my phone and dialed Adrian. It was Sunday, which used to mean he’d be three mimosas deep by now. But ever since he and Oscar had adopted Naomi, Sundays had changed to early-morning diaper changes and bottle feedings.

  “Well, good morning, sunshine,” Adrian sang into the phone after four rings. He whispered something to Oscar as Naomi cooed in the background, and then a door shut, silencing the noise. “How’s my little cabin girl this morning?”

  “Hungover,” I groaned. “And bleeding.”

  “Bleeding?” The panic rose in his voice instantly. “What happened? Are you okay? Do I need to come get you?”

  I laughed, tucking my legs under me just as Rev trotted out onto the porch. He stretched his front legs out and arched his back, claws scratching the wood before he hopped up onto the couch. “Relax, I’m fine. I thought there was a snake or a bug or something in the hot tub and I wigged out, dropped my wine glass, stepped on the broken glass and fell through a broken board on the porch. I cut my foot, but nothing seriously injured. Well,” I added, running my nails down Rev’s back. “Unless you count my pride, which is practically in a body cast after just one weekend here.”

  Adrian let out a long breath of relief and then chuckled. “Only you. So you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, just nursing a hangover and trying to laugh at myself.”

  “At least no one was around to see your moment of shining brilliance,” he said, but when I didn’t respond or laugh, he paused. “Wait. You were alone, right?”

  “Well, at first. But then I screamed bloody murder at the strand of moss attacking me in the hot tub and one of the neighbors ran over.”

  “Oh my God,” he snickered.

  “It was a guy, too.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did I mention I was naked?”

  “OH MY GOD!”

  We both laughed hysterically, Rev jumping at the noise and scampering off down the stairs. I wiped at a tear, not even caring that every new laugh made my head throb. “Ugh, I miss yo
u.”

  “Miss you, too, sunshine,” he said, his voice a soothing connection to home. “You sure you’re doing okay out there?”

  I paused, gripping the handle on my coffee cup a little tighter as I looked out over the river. The sun was slowly creeping its way up the mountains, warming the morning air and bringing in a promising summer day. And even though I had nothing figured out, even though I was alone, I answered his question with what I thought was the truth.

  “I am.”

  “Good. Well, let me know when you want company. You’re only an hour away and you know I’d pay just about anything for ten minutes of peace and quiet right now,” he said. As if on cue, Naomi’s cries broke through the speaker on my phone. “And on that note, I have to run. Love you, baby girl.”

  “Love you, too. Tell Oscar I said hi and give my niece kisses. And please call me if you and the team need anything. Seriously.”

  “I will, I promise. Try not to think about us right now. I’ve got everything here covered, okay?”

  “Okay,” I conceded, and I knew I could trust him, even if guilt swirled low in my stomach at the fact that I wasn’t there to help.

  I ended the call, and once again I was surrounded by quiet. The river rushed softly, and I watched a small blue warbler jump from branch to branch as I finished my coffee, Adrian’s question still ringing in my head.

  Am I okay out here?

  I wanted to be, I felt like eventually I would be. It had only been a few days, but I already felt the pressure on my chest receding.

  Anxiety hadn’t really been a part of my life until I decided to leave Keith. Of course, it was nothing compared to how I ‘d felt in the last few weeks I’d stayed. I think I knew in my heart that I was ready to go, that I couldn’t stay any longer.

  Every day that I’d gone home to him with that knowledge in my soul, I felt sick.

  I’d stopped eating, stopped sleeping, until the very moment I spoke the words that marked the end. I’d cried, he’d cried, and though my heart broke more every minute as I packed a bag for Adrian’s, it simultaneously sang as I drove away. It was as if it had been waiting for that moment, as if it were whispering, “Thank you for listening” after years of screaming so hard, it had lost its voice.

  I ate two full plates of dinner that first night at Adrian’s—dessert, too. And then I slept eleven hours straight.

  Funny, isn’t it, how often we fight what our hearts try to tell us. We argue with logic, digging our heels in, sure we know what’s best. This is right, we say, This is what I’m supposed to do. We stamp down the loudest voice, the one inside us, choosing to listen to the flurry of those around us, instead. But it’s not until that moment we truly listen and obey the very thing that pumps blood into our veins that we really find peace.

  After that, I’d stayed in a hotel for a week until Keith had urged me to go back home. He said he would stay with his parents so I could have the house. But it was a trap—he would show up unannounced, always looking for an explanation even though we’d talked it to death. We made it through the holidays, but by the time January came and the papers were signed, I knew I couldn’t stay in that house any longer. Neither could Keith.

  So we sold it, and I moved in with Adrian.

  I hadn’t seen Keith since.

  I took my time finishing my cinnamon roll and coffee, rinsing my mug afterward and laying it on the dish rack to dry. When I opened the top cabinet to put my dishes from yesterday away, the door swung off the bottom hinge, making me shriek as it dangled by the top one. I blew out a breath through flat lips as my heartbeat settled.

  This place needed work.

  I knew I should try to sketch, but before I even pulled out my sketchbook I knew I still wasn’t ready. I should have sat down and tried, but it wasn’t like I was crunching numbers or editing a paper. I needed to design a whole new line, and I felt the weight of those waiting for it. It didn’t matter that they were in the city and I was here. The pressure was there, and for the first time since I’d started designing at fifteen, I didn’t have a single ounce of inspiration.

  Checking the time on my phone, I sighed at how early the day was and how aimless I felt. But outside, the sun was rising higher, the air warming, and I chuckled when I saw Rev sunbathing on the front porch.

  It was a perfect day for a walk.

  Anderson was right about not being able to wear cute shoes any time soon.

  My Dior ankle boots wouldn’t fit over the gauze, neither would my lace up sandals, so I settled for a simple pair of flip flops I’d packed for the sole purpose of throwing on when I just needed to run outside for something fast, like taking out the trash or checking the mail. They looked a little silly with my vintage romper, the neck of it cutting into a deep V that ended right above my belly button and the sleeves long and flowy at the wrist. Though the sun was bright, the little cabin community was shaded by the surrounding mountains and trees, and I embraced my miserably mismatched ensemble as I limped without sunglasses on down to Momma Von’s.

  I found her sitting on the front porch with an older man when I reached her drive, and she waved one arm excitedly, beckoning me up.

  “Good God, girl,” she said when I reached the top of the stairs. “What in the world happened to you?” She appraised my injuries with wide eyes.

  “Got in a fight with my cabin. The hot tub started it.”

  She quirked a brow, brushing her bangs back from her eyes. “I’m afraid to even ask. You want a drink? I’ve got beer or lemonade, take your pick.”

  “I’m okay for now,” I said with a smile, taking the seat opposite her.

  She sat in an old rocking chair with a blue cushion strapped to the seat, though the rest of the porch set was made of a light brown wicker. The table between us was a rusted white metal of some sort, with Native American print coasters piled up and ready for use. Nothing matched, and I loved it.

  “Hi, I’m Wren,” I said to the man sitting with us.

  “Where are my manners,” Momma Von chimed in, one hand gesturing to the man who had the same brooding brow Anderson did. “This is old man Ron. Don’t be offended if he grunts at you a lot and never smiles. He’s as soft as a baby duck, but he doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

  Ron humphed and I giggled.

  “Ron served in the Navy for twenty-nine years,” Momma Von added.

  “Wow, thank you for your service.”

  He humphed again, reaching into his plaid shirt pocket for a cigarette.

  “So what are you up to today, Miss Wren?”

  It was me who humphed this time, earning me a sideways grin from old man Ron. “Maybe I should take that beer.”

  Momma Von chuckled and popped up from her chair, returning a moment later with a cold Bud Light. “You’re not too sure what you’re doing out here, are you, girl?”

  I shook my head, cracking the top on the beer and taking a drink in lieu of answering the question.

  “That’s alright,” she decided, rocking back. “Time spent lost and searching is time well wasted.”

  I offered a small smile, wondering if I was really spending my time lost and searching or just lost, period. She watched me for a beat as if she knew I was questioning, as if she already knew the answer.

  She opened her mouth to speak again but paused, her eyes catching behind me as a grin broke on her face. “Afternoon, Anderson!”

  My grip on the can tightened marginally and I turned, catching his eyes as soon as I did. He’d stopped just at the edge of her driveway, dressed in the same jeans as the day before with a white thermal this time, sleeves still pushed up to his elbows. Except I saw those arms differently now that I’d felt them wrapped around me.

  “Happy Sunday, Momma Von,” he called back, but his eyes stayed on mine long enough to light my skin on fire before he looked away.

  “What are you working on today?”

  “Morrisons’ shed. Planned on finishing it last night, but got a little distracted.” His eyes f
licked to mine and I blushed, taking a long drink from my beer to mask the embarrassment.

  “Not like you to get distracted,” she called back, and I swore I felt her eyes on my neck. “You met Wren yet? She’s renting out Abe’s cabin up the road.”

  He looked at me then, really looked at me, and my thin romper suddenly felt completely see-through, along with my skin. I waited for him to say we’d already met, to tell them about last night, to make a joke out of me.

  But instead, he adjusted the grip on his toolbox and said, “Nice to meet you.”

  Oh, sure, now he says it.

  “You too,” I squeaked, clearing my throat. Momma Von was definitely watching me now.

  He didn’t say another word, just offered a wave in our direction before clearing the view of the driveway. I turned back in my seat, aiming for calm and casual as I sipped from my can.

  “That’s Anderson Black,” Momma Von said, eyes still glued to my rosy cheeks.

  “Good man,” Ron said simply. He took the last drag of his cigarette and put it out in his empty beer can before standing.

  I looked up, waiting for him to tell us he’d be right back or that he’d see us later, but he did neither. Just walked heavy-booted down the stairs and the drive, cutting a left at the end.

  “The men talk too much around here,” I said, eyes on where he’d just disappeared.

  Momma Von barked out a laugh. “Come on, let me show you my cabin.”

  The afternoon passed in stories and laughter, Momma Von showing me every inch of her cabin and me asking questions about everything I found inside.

  The woman was hands down the most fascinating person I’d met.

  She had a closet full of high-end designer clothes from Paris circa 1983, an old hat box packed full with photos of her past lovers, letters from the only man she said she ever truly loved when he served in Vietnam, paintings of her with wealthy aristocrats as well as old Polaroids of her with underground band drummers, and a scar on her left hip from hitting a rock when she cliff jumped in Brazil.