by Kat Catesby
“Yes, you should have.”
“You aren’t going to go easy on me, are you?” he teases mildly as his hands rub circles across my back.
“Not if she knows what’s good for her,” a female voice interjects.
I go to pull away, more out of habit than anything else; we spent months making sure no one saw us being publicly affectionate or romantic.
Mason arches a brow at me and reads me in an instant.
“Habits are hard to break. For the record, me looking over my shoulder to see if Helen is about to torture us is as much a habit as you trying to leap out of my arms the moment another person sees us. It’s going to take some time to adjust, but this isn’t Aspen, we’re not hiding anymore.”
“Glad to hear you aren’t completely fucking it up, boss. I grabbed your bag, shift’s over.”
The woman with the jet-black hair drops a duffel at Mason’s feet and grins at me, making it obvious that she knows more about me than just my name. She was nice enough when I first got here and asked her if she could get Mason for me. It never occurred to me that she might know details about who I am and what my relationship with Mason was like. Part of me is relieved that he’s been talking about me, another small part of me is jealous that he’s gotten to know another woman well enough to share our drama with her.
“Thanks. Kelsey, this is one of my Lieutenants, Alana Sanchez. Alana, this is Kelsey, my girlfriend.”
I blink a few times as Alana laughs out loud.
“You think if you throw that label at her, she’ll forgive and forget your bullshit. Wishful thinking, boss. Good luck with that,” she teases before turning her attention to me. “I like you,” she says bluntly. “I’ve not seen anything unsettle the boss-man, except you. Don’t let him off the hook too easily,” she winks at me and walks away to her car.
“You’re pretty quick to call me your girlfriend; I haven’t said I forgive you yet.”
“True. But you’re here and if you hadn’t made the trip, I would’ve come back to Aspen this weekend. We’re inevitable, Kelsey. You can be hurt and angry with me, but as you said, it doesn’t mean you don’t love me and contrary to what you’ve come to believe, I love you too. The rest is all stuff we can work out together, as a couple. That makes you my girlfriend.”
I try to suppress my smile but fail. I do manage to throw an eye roll into the mix though, just so he knows there’s still a shit load of groveling to be done.
“You know, you’re a little too old to be called a ‘boyfriend’,” I tease as I extricate myself from his arms, wary of any revenge in the form of tickling. Mason knows all the spots that get me and I hate it. As soon as anyone tickles me, my lungs stop working. I can’t breathe through the laughter and torture to the point that it’s not funny anymore and I really shouldn’t be laughing, or running out of air. Tickling is Mason’s usual response to my teasing and he gives me a wry smile as I take a big step away from him.
“You think that would save you if I were motivated enough?”
“Not in the slightest, but a girl can hope.”
“The girl should know better because this man doesn’t do mercy. And for the record; age has nothing to do with why you can’t call me your boyfriend, it’s because I’m not a boy…I’m all man.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh, and I do…loudly. It’s not that he isn’t all man, because fuck knows he is, it’s the way he said it: the goofball way he has when he’s trying to cheer me up.
“Fine. Be my forty-year-old boyfriend.”
“Gladly. And as your boyfriend, I’d like to know where you’re staying?”
That stops my laughter and makes me blush a little. At first, I thought it was foolish to come out here without having anywhere to stay, especially for the few moments I thought that Mason didn’t want me here. Now it just seems presumptuous that the original plan was for me to stay with him if we sorted our shit out.
Mason is calling me his girlfriend, so when I tell him that I don’t have anywhere to stay he’s going to make sure I go home with him, which is fine, I just don’t want it to look like that was my expectation all along.
“Coming out here was a little last minute and rushed, so I don’t have anywhere to stay. But I’m sure I can find a convenient motel or something.”
Mason gives me the wry, arched eyebrow look again. The expression that says don’t be so fucking stupid.
“You’re coming home with me.” I’m happy to not argue this point.
Mason takes my suitcase in one hand and holds the other out for me to take. I entwine my fingers with his, feeling the warmth of his skin as he leads me toward his truck.
“It’s just a temporary apartment but you’ll love it, Kels. You can even see the ocean from one of the windows.”
My smile is wide and genuine; I honestly can’t wait.
Chapter Ten
Mason
The drive back to my place takes around fifteen minutes and Kelsey is quiet for pretty much all of them. I’d be concerned about underlying tension and awkwardness but I can see her face and that tells me everything I need to know.
Kelsey wears her emotions all over her face, which made our relationship a million times easier to navigate than when I was with Helen. That woman has an ice-queen poker face of champions. She could tell you everything was fine and you had a fifty/fifty chance of it being the truth or the proverbial ‘fine’ that spells disaster for your balls. Helen was impossible and would never say what she meant, demanding instead that you become psychic.
Kelsey isn’t like that in the slightest. Even when she’s pissed off enough that she doesn’t want to talk to you and tell you what the problem is, her face gives her away entirely.
Right now, Kelsey is happy. More than that, she’s excited. She’s staring out the window, eyes alight with every passing palm tree, straining now and then to catch a glimpse of the ocean. Her silence isn’t because she’s pissed at me (although I don’t doubt that there’s still an unresolved part of her that is), it’s because she’s taking everything in, exactly the way I imagined she would.
Her hand is firmly encased in mine, the breeze from the open window blows through her mousy blond hair and her smile gets wider every time it blows completely into her face. I’d say it reminds me of an adorable puppy leaning its head out of the car window for the first time, but that might earn me a slap around the face instead of the compliment I mean it to be.
“What?” she asks as I smirk to myself.
“Nothing, just enjoying your enthusiasm.”
“We’ve had this conversation before,” she smiles, “I’m not your boring ex; I appreciate my adventures and this,” she gestures wildly at the passing scenery, “this is an adventure. I’ve been landlocked and surrounded by mountains my whole life. Now I’m surrounded by sunshine, palm trees, and the ocean. I’m allowed to be as excited as a kid at Christmas.”
“I was thinking less kid at Christmas, more puppy dog with its head hanging out the window,” I laugh.
Predictably, it earns me a slap to my shoulder. It was a playful jab, which is good because it was a pitiful excuse for assault. I could slap myself harder.
It does make me wonder about her self-defense skills. Kelsey is about average height, perhaps shorter, which makes her tiny next to me. Her upper body strength isn’t amazing; I distinctly remember how easy it is to pin her down in the bedroom…bathroom…kitchen…hallway…anywhere I wanted to fuck her. If I wanted her pinned between me and a hard surface, that’s where she ended up, not that she ever objected.
But combined with what Max told me about Helen grabbing her and bruising her arm, the fact that L.A. is a huge city for people used to cities (and Kelsey is a small-town country girl) and I’m thinking I need to make sure she knows how to defend herself. Just in case.
Maybe it’s the paranoid firefighter in me, but these past few weeks, I’ve been called out to all sorts of emergencies and seen some pretty horrible things that make me a little nervous abou
t Kelsey’s safety. Aspen was a much smaller town and as a firefighter there, we responded to emergencies from all across the county. Only a fraction of those call-outs were for issues in Aspen itself, and a great number of them were mountain rescue related.
Kelsey didn’t venture into the mountains much, so combined with small-town living, I never had to worry about her safety.
L.A. is a very new, very big place and I’ve only just got her back – and even that feels tenuous due to my fuck-ups – so I can feel myself getting nervous and protective.
“If that’s the best you got, I’m enrolling you into boxing classes.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” she says whimsically.
“Thought you said you weren’t going to make love to me?”
“I said not yet, not never. You have to earn your way back into my panties, Mr. Fox. And insulting my punching prowess isn’t the way to go.”
“Is that so?” I can’t help chuckling; Kelsey always brings out my humorous side. “But I promised no more lies or half-truths; from now on you get nothing but unadulterated honesty from me. And in the spirit of that promise, I feel obliged to tell you that you punch like a five-year-old.”
“Hey!” She attempts to sound affronted and hits my shoulder again, with little more force than she managed before.
I’m going to have to work on that with her.
“We’re here,” I say and draw her attention back to the apartment complex that we’ll both be calling home for a short while. A sudden urge to go house hunting with her flares intensely in my gut. I know it’s too much too soon, but I can’t wait for us to do that. Picking a place that we both love together is going to be fun.
“Nice,” Kelsey says as I park my truck in my designated spot.
“There’s a communal outside space, no pool though. But the beach is only a short walk so it’s not that big an issue.”
“What? No Pool?!” she mocks as she follows me up to my apartment.
It’s smaller than the place I had in Aspen but still bigger than the shoebox that Kelsey calls home.
Called home.
I keep forgetting that she had to move out of her place and when I remember, I feel guilty all over again.
Some part of me is grateful to my family and Helen for fucking with Kelsey’s life so much that she had nothing left but to come out here, giving us a second chance. But then I hate myself even more because she didn’t need to go through any of that; she was willing to move to L.A. before her life imploded. It took the nuclear fallout my family unleashed for me to realize that I need her, love her and that I’ve been a laser-focused idiot. I was so intent on trying to do the right thing that I made all the wrong decisions instead. Kelsey should never have had to suffer the way she has for me to realize she’s my priority and that she gets to decide how we live our life. That we are a team and that my desire to always protect her doesn’t get to override her autonomy. It’s wrong that Kelsey had to lose damn near everything for me to realize how much I need her in my life, but on her terms.
Hindsight is annoying as fuck.
Looking back now, I can see every wrong decision I’ve ever made with Kelsey playing out in slow motion. Most of them will haunt me for a long time, not least my arrogant decision to keep our relationship a secret. Every other shitty thing that’s happened in our relationship has stemmed from that one choice.
If I had just been brave enough to make our relationship public and deal with my family, we’d have survived. It would have been difficult and stressful but once my parents came around, which they would have because their overriding desire for grandkids trumps nearly everything else, Helen wouldn’t have been half as much of a problem.
Kelsey and I wouldn’t have broken up, she wouldn’t have lost her job and apartment and most of her savings on trying to survive whilst unemployed.
Had we stayed together, we’d have been living together by now, probably engaged.
On the flip side. I’d have never left town and I like living in L.A. and judging from Kelsey’s reactions so far, she likes what she sees. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves in the months we’ve been apart so maybe, in the long run, everything that’s happened will make us stronger. Maybe it was something we both had to live through to realize what’s important and how best to work as a couple.
At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself so that I can reconcile all the heartache I’ve inflicted.
I open the door to my apartment and let Kelsey inside, while I carry her suitcase behind her.
Her reactions don’t disappoint and are almost exactly as I imagined they would be. She makes a beeline for the window overlooking the beach and squeaks with delight when she sees the dark blue of the ocean lapping against the golden sand. Determined sunbathers are sprawled across the sand to catch the last of the day’s rays.
Which reminds me…
“I’m sorry, Kels, but I have two more shifts before my days off. I don’t want to leave you alone in a new city but it’s either hang out at the firehouse with me or explore. And before you decide, you should know that there are a lot more call-outs here than in Aspen. If you come to the firehouse, I guarantee you’ll be alone for a few hours. I’m happy with whatever you choose.”
“Okay, I’ll think it over, but I’ll probably opt for exploring. There’s a beach right over there and I want a closer look,” she points out the window with a determined look in her eye.
“I also don’t have a lot of food here as most of my meals during my on-duty days are at the firehouse and I don’t want stuff perishing while I’m not here. We’ll have to get takeout tonight and I’ll grab some groceries on the way home tomorrow.”
“After a twelve-hour shift? Don’t be stupid, I’ll go grocery shopping while I’m off exploring.”
I give her a skeptical look – Kelsey isn’t known for being a great chef, so the idea of her being in charge of the groceries has me worried we’ll be living off cereal for the next week.
“Fine, but I’m giving you a list of essentials that we need. You can go mad and pick up whatever else you like, but the list items are non-negotiable.”
“How do you know my cooking skills haven’t improved?” she says knowingly, giving me a pointed but comical look.
“Have they?”
“No,” she sighs grudgingly.
“Exactly. I’m not a health freak but I do like some of my food to be cooked from scratch and not just sauces from a jar. And I’m happy to do the cooking if you’re happy to pick up the ingredients I need?”
“Sounds like a fair trade. It would be nice to eat something that isn’t a microwave meal for one or undercooked pasta.”
“How do you mess up cooking pasta? It’s just boiling water.”
“Apparently, it’s quite easy,” she says dryly. “Besides, I’m only interested in eating the food, not preparing it.”
“How on earth did you survive on your own?” I tease.
“Well, the fact that I had to move in with Lucy sort of suggests that I didn’t.”
I pause for a second. She wasn’t trying to be passive-aggressive; she’s still got a small and slightly sad smile on her face so I can tell Kelsey was trying to crack a joke about her misfortune.
Because I carry so much guilt and the fault for the situation sits with me and my family, it doesn’t feel right for me to joke about it.
“I am sorry, Kelsey. For everything. I need you to know that I understand how this mess is my doing. If I’d done what you’d asked at the very beginning and been public about our love, most of this drama could have been avoided. Not completely, because my ex is a psycho and my parents are, well, my parents. Somehow social standing has climbed higher on their list of priorities than the welfare of their son.”
“I think they genuinely believe they have your best interests at heart. Your mom certainly went all momma-bear on me when she thought I was the reason your marriage was destroyed. I don’t think it’s purely about how it reflects on
them – I think they are worried that I’ve ruined your life and caused you to run away to lick your wounds. That’s why they were so harsh toward me.”
“How can you be so understanding? They took your job and home from you and practically assaulted you in a parking lot.”
“Because there are always reasons for people’s behavior. I choose to believe that your parent’s actions partially come from a misguided place of good. It’s easier for me to deal with what happened if I think they have a shred of decency in them.”
“You always see the good in people. It’s one of the things I love about you. No matter what they do to you, including me. You look at things from their perspective, try to understand and if possible, forgive.”
“You’re not off the hook yet, Mr. I may understand your perspective and believe that you regret your decisions but we are a work in progress.”
“I know. I will always be working to make sure I earn my place in your life.”
“And I’ll do the same…but you still have some making up to do, Fox,” she grins her too-big-for-her-face smile and starts snooping around the rest of the apartment, much like Xan did, which makes me smile. I can see the two of them getting along really well.
I wheel Kelsey’s suitcase into the bedroom so that she can unpack her things. I’m grateful that I’m not an untidy person and don’t have to run around picking up unwashed clothes and used dishes. I didn’t even spread my belongings across the entire closet, so I don’t need to make space for Kelsey’s clothes, because one side is empty. It’s almost as if I’ve been waiting for her to come along and fill this apartment with her presence and belongings this whole time.
Maybe in the back of my head, I couldn’t stop hearing her plea to move out here with me, so when I unpacked, I made sure to save space for her.
“There’s plenty of room in here for you to unpack your clothes and there’s space in the bathroom for your toiletries. It’s only a one-bedroom apartment, so I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.”
“You don’t need to do that. It’ll be uncomfortable and you need a good night’s sleep before a twelve-hour shift. I’ll worry about you all day if I think you’re not well-rested. We’re perfectly capable of sharing a bed and not having sex; we’ve done it before.”
