by Eliza Freer
I laugh loudly. “So far so good. Even considering it’s the most sarcastic date I’ve ever been on.
I sit down and Wilder puts his arm around me looking confused. “What do you mean sarcastic date?”
I take a sip of the water on the table. “Well, let’s see. I told you I don’t like nature, but will do it if I can conquer it. So, the two places we’ve been so far are both nature related. A greenhouse, which is plants and nature, but indoors, so you get a pass on that one. The second place is literally entirely nature and outdoors, but you were able to use the loophole about besting the bastard that is mother nature, so that worked in your favor too. And now, even though I’ve probably told you I hate surprises, you surprise me with dinner with our friends, so there’s no way I can hate that surprise and get mad at you. So this is potentially the most sarcastic, sweetly passive aggressive date I’ve been on.”
I kiss him quickly on the lips. “And it’s been perfect. So shut up now and let’s order.”
Wilder kisses me under my ear and whispers. “And it’s not even done yet.”
I giggle and Tassie rolls her eyes. “Pizza, Yankee. Pizza, now, kissing later.”
I get myself together. “You’re right. Pizza’s better anyway.”
Wilder pinches my shoulder and drags me closer to him. “Ow!”
He looks at me with hunger in his eyes. “I feel like that was a challenge. Challenge accepted.”
Kyle sighs. “East, he finds a challenge in everything. There’s nothing you can say that he can’t turn into a bet or a challenge, so forewarning, you’re in for a long ride. Or, well, as long as you tolerate him, which might be just for the rest of the night, who knows.”
Wilder kicks Kyle under the table and they both laugh. Kyle rubs his shin. “Dude, just saying. She and I have agreed. Once you mess up, it’s Kyle’s turn.” He winks at me.
Wilder looks between the two of us. “Okay, wait. Seriously? Did this conversation really happen?”
I sigh and put down my menu, not really needing it anyway. “You’ve been there every time we’ve had this discussion. Oh boy. Beauty but not brains.” I rub the side of his head. “Well, one will do for now.”
He pulls my hand down and bites the side of it, then kisses where he just bit. It gives me the shivers, and I really need to pull myself together. Luckily the waitress comes over and Tassie takes over ordering. She gets our standard, a large pepperoni and sausage, and a large white pizza that has pesto and ricotta and amazingness.
The four of us fall into a comfortable conversation when I notice the three guys from the coffee shop yesterday watching us from the register where they’re paying their bill. One of the guys notices me watching and licks his lips at me. I start breathing quickly and kick Tassie under the table. She sees the panic in my eyes and looks at the guys. They start to move towards our table and one of them has the audacity to speak.
“Hey, baby.” He brushes his hand against mine on the table. I quickly jerk it back. Wilder wraps his arm tighter around me. “Is it my turn yet?”
Tassie grabs his hand and twists his fingers back. “Get off my friend unless you want your balls in your throat.”
The douchebag starts to laugh but sees the expressions on Wilder and Kyle’s faces. Kyle stands and Tassie maneuvers out of the booth. “Are we gonna have another problem here? Didn’t I throw you out of the coffee shop yesterday?” He takes a menacing step forward.
Wilder starts to move but I grab his arm willing him to stay with me. He gets the message and pulls me as close to him as he can, guarding me protectively.
Kyle puts his hand on the guy’s shoulder and leans in. “I suggest you get the hell out of here. I don’t do the whole non-violent throw out thing more than once, so you will not walk out of here with all your bones unbroken if you don’t turn around now and get out.”
The employees working the front counter come around backing up Kyle. The three guys shake their heads, flip them off and walk out of the restaurant. On his way out he yells, “I’ll be seeing you.”
I put my head in my hands once Kyle and the workers make sure they’re out of the restaurant. Wilder puts his hand on my head and starts to stroke my hair. I feel a hand cover my own and look up to see Tassie looking at me intently. I raise my head to look into her eyes. At some point Kyle made it back to the booth sitting across from Wilder again.
Tassie holds my hand and says “It’s not the same, East. It’s not the same. You know that. You, me, ice cream and pizza talked it out last night. It’s not the same.”
I choke on a sob and hold onto her hand tighter. I feel Wilder lean down and put his forehead above my ear and rest his head there. “Truth.”
I look at him confused. “Huh?”
“You picked truth. We had a time out. Now is the time. I need you to tell me what’s going on. What was that about? Does this have to do with your half answer about not dating football players?”
I close my eyes and he sees my hesitation. Kyle speaks up.
“Hey, East, you can trust me too, ya know. But, if you’re not comfortable going over this with all of us here, I can take off, it’s no sweat.”
I look up into his concerned earnest eyes and know he’s sincere. It’s probably better if he knows anyway, since he’s Wilder’s best friend and they might come across more of this when they’re with me. I nod my head and Wilder squeezes my shoulder and kisses my temple.
Tassie gives my hand a squeeze. “Whenever you’re ready, Yankee. If it gets too much, we leave. If it gets too much I can fill in details, but they’re right. It’s probably time for them to know since this has happened before with them around.”
I nod again and turn slightly so I’m looking right into Wilder’s eyes. “I need to tell you about Ohio.”
Chapter 14
Watching Wilder and Kyle’s faces go through the onslaught of emotions this story usually brings out is both touching and disconcerting. There’s a power and a violence behind their eyes as I go through the most traumatic experience of my life. I can feel the anger emanating off of them, and am actually glad for the assholes who touched me being far away from this place. These two beautiful men, who I believe would only come to blows out of protection or defense of someone they love, would most assuredly throw a punch or two. Cade should be mighty glad he didn’t play college football, or choose to attend Hamilton. He wouldn’t make it out.
When I’m finished there’s a pall over the table. Tassie never let go of my hand and Wilder never let go of my shoulder. During certain parts of the story his other hand would travel to my knee and give it a squeeze, or draw a reassuring circle above my knee. Kyle seemed to be employing deep breathing and absolutely destroyed all the coasters on the table, which are now sitting in front of him ripped to shreds.
Kyle is the first to speak. “God, Easton. I know this is what everyone says, because I guess what do you say, but I’m so sorry. Shit.” He runs his hands through his hair and pounds his fist on the table. “Can I bring those guys back in here just to beat them up, please?”
I snicker. "That's the thing though Ky, they’re awful, for sure, but Tass is right, this isn’t the same as Ohio. That was Cade. That was blackmail and disappointment and immaturity. This is mean girl behavior trying to make me look bad, feel bad about myself and ashamed. It’s jealousy. It’s different.” I reach across the table and cover his hand with mine. “But thank you. If we ever cross them again, please kick their asses.”
Wilder has been suspiciously quiet. Even after our pizza arrived and we’d all chowed down on a few slices, Wilder hadn’t really moved outside of his touches to me to make me feel comfortable. I put my hand on his chest. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
Wilder looks down and meets my gaze. “I’d like you to say something. Even one of your idiotic statements where you talk about how gorgeous you are. Just…something, please.”
He sees the plea in my face and he wraps me up in his arms and kisses the top of my head, then my forehea
d, then tilts my face up with his nose and kisses me softly on the lips. He pulls his head down into the crook of my neck and whispers softly, “Baby, I’m sorry. I wish I could take it away. I wish I could make it better.” He pulls back and looks into my eyes, cupping my face with his hands.
“You’re so brave you know that? I say, what you try and remember from that, is no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t break you. They couldn’t ruin you, and you, kitten, are the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. All of you. You did that. They didn’t take that because you didn’t let them have it. You are so strong, love. I’m so proud of you.”
I choke up because outside of my dad, no man has ever expressed those sentiments to me. On my darkest days after it all happened, I was sure I was broken. I was sure I was ruined and beaten. My dad was my saving grace, always propping me up and hugging me and telling me I’m strong and beautiful and full of steel and spunk and can’t be broken. I can’t be beaten and don’t give them that power. It took awhile, but I’m there now. I’m me again.
I give him a kiss on the lips. “Thank you. I don’t know how it happened, but you kinda see me. You see ME, you got me?”
Wilder smiles against my mouth. “Yeah, I got you.”
Tassie clears her throat. “So East and I think it’s this crazy jersey chaser who is obsessed with the football team. She saw Blake and East at a party and kinda went berserk, we think, and she’s spreading this garbage around to make East look bad. It doesn’t serve a greater plan or purpose. If the team knew they’d never let her within a hundred yards of them or East, and it doesn’t make anyone like her more, just think less of East. Classic mean girl bully shaming behavior.” Tassie picks a pepperoni off her pizza. “Maybe I should be a psych major.”
We all laugh, and are grateful for the moment of levity.
Kyle wipes his mouth after devouring two more slices of pizza. “We got you too. I know you’ve got the team, and all those boys and your dad are backing you up and will totally take your lead, but me and Wy, we got you too. You let us know, okay?”
I smile at Kyle. It sure happened quick but these two men are now ingrained in my life. Sure didn’t see that coming. “Thanks, Ky. I will. I mean. We need evidence against her. The guys think her name is Marie or something like that, but they try to not get too close to her since she’s a little off-balance. They laughed about getting a restraining order, but when you don’t know enough about a person to file one, that makes that complicated. There aren’t any parties until after the start of the year, since I seriously doubt she’ll be hanging out at the start of school dance seeing as she’s not a freshman, and only wants to bone a footballer. So right now, we’re trying to figure it all out and get some evidence.”
Tassie nods. “Riley’s nervous, thinking she might do something crazy if she knows we’re onto her. If it is her. It just…it has to be. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
Wilder plays with my hair. “Well, you heard Kyle. We’re with you. You got us.” He leans down and whispers in my ear. “And you sure as hell got all of me.”
********************
We all finish our pizza, and Kyle and Tassie head back to their cars after we were finally able to break the depressing and angry cloud that had descended over dinner. Wilder and I are holding hands ready to leave the restaurant when he stops me and turns in the other direction heading towards the back.
“Wilder, what are we doing?”
“Babe, this night is not over yet. I got one last surprise, and it isn’t that way.” He pulls my arm to match his pace and soon we’re at a fire escape and he’s herding me up the stairs onto the roof of the pizza place. As soon as I step onto the roof I let out a gasp as I take in my surroundings.
The whole roof has been transformed. There is a projector screen ready to project a movie onto the side of the store next door. Luckily, it was pained white and is a story taller than the restaurant. However, Wilder meticulously planned out this date, so I’m sure luck had nothing to do with it. There are soft faux fur blankets on the roof to sit on, and a ton of brightly colored pillows to cushion our heads. There’s a basket filled with what looks like cupcakes beside the blankets and a bottle of wine and a bottle of water along with two glasses on a small table. The edge of the roof along the back has been lined with twinkly lights to give us a beautiful backlit glow, soft enough to see, but not overwhelming to interrupt the movie.
I feel Wilder’s hand on my back as he wraps his arms around my waist. He dips his chin to my shoulder. “You like it?”
In response I turn around and give him a fiery kiss that quickly gets heated. He picks me up, so I wrap my legs around his waist and he leads me over to the blankets and pillows. He lays me down and positions himself on top of me. He pulls away reluctantly and strokes my face. “Now, now, Ms. Collins. While I am all for this kind of sexy behavior, I put a lot of work into being romantic.” He sits up and rubs his hand over his face. I sit up too since it seems like someone has broken the spell.
He wraps his fingers in mine and looks into my eyes. “And after what you just told me downstairs, I really, really want to give you the romance side. I want you to see that even if we never kissed tonight, even if all we did was talk and spend time together, that’d be enough for me. I want you to know I’m not like him.”
I pull Wilder down beside me and lean my cheek into his chest. I stroke the side of his face. “I know that. I know all of that. But, thank you.” I sit up and look in his eyes. “I don’t want you to spend all of your time trying to figure out how to make me realize you’re not the same, that you won’t do to me what he did. But you don’t need to do that. I already know that. I didn't tell you all that for pity or sympathy or as a warning for how badly I’ve been burned before, but I told you because I trust you. And trust isn’t easy for me, especially now. So the fact that I’ve known you not all that long, even though we’ve somehow spent a lot of time together, and I trust you already means something to me. And I want it to mean something to you. Do not compare yourself to Cade. I don’t.”
Wilder leans up and kisses me. “It means something. So do you.” Then he stands up and pops a movie into the DVD player attached to the projector. He pours us glasses of water and wine and hands me a vanilla cake and vanilla icing cupcake, my favorite.
“Well, well, Casanova, look at you. I am officially impressed.”
Wilder turns to me with his mouth open. “You’re telling me you weren’t impressed before? That it took until this moment when I hand you a cupcake for you to fully understand the gravity of this whole day I put together?”
“Well, cupcakes are the way to this girl’s heart. So, you ended on a high note.” I smile mischievously at him.
He sits back down next to me and hands me a glass of wine. He swipes some of the icing off the top of my cupcake and sticks it in his mouth. “Yeah, okay, I get that.”
I laugh and soon he joins in. We sip our wine and cuddle down into the pillows and blankets while the movie starts playing.
I sigh. “1984. Not exactly typically romantic…”
Wilder chimes in. “But sort of for us. It was part of our first real conversation and subsequent fight. It is ingrained in our romantic history. Is this not okay?”
I look at the worried look in his eyes. I kiss the tip of his nose, lean back into the pillows, and take another drink of wine. “No, this is perfect. Today was perfect. Thank you.”
********************
Wilder takes me home after the rooftop movie. I’m standing on my porch at a couple minutes past one, so I’m pretty happy at my punctuality. After our heavy conversation at Dominic’s the plans were derailed by a few minutes, but we made up the time with no traffic.
I turn and face Wilder who is still holding my hand. “Truth or dare?”
He laughs. “I thought this was over.”
“Nope, we each get three. We’ve done two. So, handsome, truth or dare?”
“Fine. Trut
h.”
“Was it worth it? All the planning? All the waiting? Was tonight what you’d hoped for?”
He tilts his head and pushes some hair behind my ear. “I’m going to feed you a line right now, so prepare yourself.”
I laugh and nod at him as his face takes on the biggest, sweetest smile. “So fucking worth it. Perfect. Honestly, if we’re talking hopes, I just hoped you’d actually open the door when I got here. I hoped you’d go along with my plans. I couldn’t have hoped for where this day landed us.”
I smile and he speaks up. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
He lifts one eyebrow and touches his forehead to mine. “Dare you to go out with me again.”
I pull him into a deep kiss and sigh. “You didn’t need to waste a dare on that. That was a given. But, since you did.” I kiss him deeply again and move towards my door. “Goodnight.”
I open my front door and hear him chuckling as I go inside. I lock up, and wait in the foyer until I hear his car start to drive away. I skip upstairs the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I notice a note on my door from my dad asking me to wake him up when I get home.
I knock on his door. “Dad?”
I hear him yawn. “Hey, kiddo. You have a good time?”
I poke my head into his room and rest my shoulder against the doorframe. “Yeah. It was pretty incredible actually. Thanks for being stretchy with the curfew.”
My dad nods. “You deserve someone good, East. If he’s that, then flexibility is the least I can do.” He winks at me. “Love you, heathen.”
I start to close his door again. “Love you, old man.”
Chapter 15
“No.” It was probably the tenth time I’d said as much to Izzy in the last five hours since I’d been at work. She had been hounding me about my date with Wilder all afternoon, even going as far as scheduling Cam for the afternoon shift as well so there’d be someone else to pay attention to the customers so she could focus on my story. It helped that we were busy this afternoon, thus justifying her scheduling to the owner, who paid attention sometimes.
