At some point we realize we’ve wandered so far down the beach that we have no idea how far we’ve gone, and that it’s deep in the night.
We stop, turn around, and keep talking.
He tells me hysterical stories of the various hijinks he and the other guys got into over the years, and I tell him some of the wild and weird trouble I’d get Imogen and myself into, which she would then have to sweet-talk us out of. We talk about the future—how he wants to eventually make furniture full-time, but that he loves working with the guys too much to ever quit. I tell him about my dream of eventually owning my own gym.
The stars twinkle and blink overhead, and the moon is huge and bright. We’re alone on the beach, except for the occasional couple passing by on their own late-night wander.
You hear about “long walks on the beach,” but the reality? It’s more magical than you’d believe.
I know this man.
He knows me.
I know that he cried when his grandfather died. He knows I got my first period at thirteen, and that I cried out of fear because my mom hadn’t prepared me for it, and I thought I was going to bleed to death. I know that he was scared stupid when he moved into that shitty basement apartment in Chicago, terrified that he’d get shot just for living there as a white man. He knows I chose the shot for birth control in defiance of my own needle phobia, which I force myself to face every few months when I get a new shot.
He even knows things Imogen doesn’t—that I’ve always been low-key jealous of her body, the extra layer of softness and curve she has that I don’t, but that my addiction to exercise is greater than my jealousy, so I stay lean and shredded.
Finally, as we start to get back to the area of beach that’s familiar to me, with the condo building approaching in the distance, we seem to run out of things to talk about. Except for a few topics, which somehow seem fragile and delicate, and we whisper to one another about things past, present, and future.
Franco stops, toes dragging through the wet sand, his eyes going to mine, to the sand, and then back to mine. “I know I may not have any right to ask you this, and I may regret it, but…has there been anyone else?”
“If there’s a now-what with us,” I tell him, “then I think you do have a right to ask.”
He nods. “I guess that makes sense. I think I’m just nervous to hear the answer.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. Chews on his lip, and then meets my eyes. “Because I don’t want there to have been anyone else. Honestly, the thought of you with anyone else makes me queasy. That’s part of what got me to admit that I want this with you, and that I needed to do whatever I had to, to get to you.”
“No.” And in that moment, I’m pathetically relieved I can say that with honesty. “There’s been no one since you. Not since that first time we were together.”
“Really?”
I nod. “I couldn’t.” I laugh awkwardly, nervously. “I tried, actually. Quite a few times. Went out and tried all the usual tricks to pick up a guy, and succeeded at that part. But when it came time to start doing anything, I just…couldn’t.”
“Why not?” he asks.
I shake my head and shrug. “None of them were you.” I meet his eyes. “That’s all I can really say. They weren’t you, and I knew they’d never be…enough. They’d never be you, and there never would be another you. And I just couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t either,” he murmurs; he looks away for a moment, and then back down at me. “I know it might sound shitty, but…I didn’t want this.”
I laugh, a quiet huff. “I thought I didn’t either.”
“That night at my house…” He licks his lips. “I ran to the garage because what happened—the sex, I mean…being bare inside you. It was…too much. It was…” he trails off, swallowing hard. “It was the most perfect thing I’ve ever felt in my entire fucking life, and it felt so right it scared the absolute bejesus out of me.”
I’m having trouble breathing, catching my breath, swallowing, seeing anything but his eyes, his lips. “Me too,” I whisper.
Franco stares down at me, and I can’t pierce his expression, can’t fathom what he’s thinking.
And I desperately need to know.
“Franco…” I step closer; the sea is behind him, the condo behind me; stars and moon bathe us in silver, the surf crashes quietly, and my heartbeat is the loudest sound around. “Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. Sometimes I look at you and I just know what you’re thinking and feeling, and other times I can’t read you at all.”
“I’ve got a hell of a poker face,” he says. “I’m thinking…I’m super conflicted right now.”
“About what?”
“I want you. I need you.” He rests a hand on my waist, and his touch is gentle and warm and soothing and arousing. “I need to kiss you, I need to feel you…I need to be inside you. I need to connect with you like we did that night in my bedroom.” He swallows hard again. “But I’m also just so fucking exhausted and overwhelmed and emotionally just…” He shakes his head, words failing him. “And I also just want to lay down with you and…and hold you. And just sleep.”
“Franco,” I interrupt.
He stops short. “Yeah?”
“That honestly sounds like the most amazing plan I’ve ever heard.”
“It does?”
I trail my fingers through his hair, let my hands caress his shoulders in a possessive sort of affectionate way that I’ve never allowed myself to show anyone before. “You, holding me. Just sleeping together.” He starts to talk, and I touch his lips to quiet him. “There will be all the time in the world for other stuff, Franco. You know as well as I do that you and I have the most ridiculously combustible chemistry on the planet, and I know you want me, and you know I want you, and I think it’s fine for us to explore other areas of a physical relationship.”
“I actually think it’s important, you know? Neither of us are familiar or comfortable with this whole emotional component thing, and…we need to explore that together, not just get caught up in sex all the time.”
“We agree, then,” I say.
I take his hand in mine and we walk up to the condo together. It’s dark in the condo, lit only by the stars and moon, and the green glow of the digital clock on the microwave. I close and lock the door behind us, set my purse down on the counter, and we just stand there in the silence for a moment.
I can feel the sexual tension rippling and crackling between us.
Franco groans, pivoting to hold me against him, my breasts crushed against his chest, my head against his breastbone, his hands on my waist. “You’re killing me in that fucking bikini, Audra.”
I murmur a laugh. “Glad you like it. I have a few others that are way sexier.”
“Holy fuck. Well, don’t show me those right now.”
“No, why?” I say, laughing.
“Because I really do just want to hold you. I need to sleep—I’ve been up for almost forty-eight hours at this point. But you’re so fucking sexy I’m not sure I’ll be able to help myself if you don’t cover up somehow.”
“You’re so weak-willed,” I tease.
“You’re telling me if I took off my board shorts right and showed you a monster fucking hard-on, that you’d be totally cool, tell me, nah, let’s just chill?”
I sucked in a harsh breath. “No,” I whisper. “I’m just as weak-willed as you are.”
“Exactly.” He laughs. “So put a shirt on, at least.”
I pull away and go to my suitcase, find one of the T-shirts I brought to sleep in, and shrug into it. “There, is that better?”
He sighs. “Better enough that I can think straight without the urge to throw you onto the floor and fuck you senseless.”
I moan in frustration. “You can’t say shit like that, Franco.” I suck in a deep, steadying breath. “You talk like that, you’ll find yourself on your back, balls deep in my mouth.”
“Fucking hell, Aud
ra.”
I laugh. “You started it.”
“Truce,” he grumbles, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. “I surrender. I’m not strong enough to resist temptation.”
I laugh, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Fine, truce.” I pull back, eying him. “Did you bring any luggage?”
He chuckles. “Nope. I have the clothes on my back and that’s it. Showing up here was…somewhat last minute.”
“What happened?” I ask.
He juts his chin at the bedroom door. “Let’s lay down. I’m seriously bushed beyond all comprehension right now.”
“Lead the way,” I tell him.
He precedes me into the bedroom, his hand tangled in mine. My heart is thrumming madly in my chest, nerves singing in my veins, an aviary fluttering in my belly. Why am I so nervous? We’re just going to sleep.
But it’s more than that.
So much more.
Talking is easy—even as hard as it was to admit I wanted something with Franco, talk is easy. Crossing the line into action—allowing affection and touch that is nonsexual and emotionally intimate…that’s taking this now-what scenario into reality. And that’s scary.
I’m actually shaking all over. My hands are quaking, my breath is coming in short pulses, and part of me wants to run as far away as fast as I can. I’m tempted to call on my old friends sarcasm and vitriol, and to redirect everything into what I know so well—the distraction of sex. But my heart, and that tender little seedling of hope deep down is begging me to let this happen. Be brave. See it through. Let him in.
He seems just as unsure. His palm in mine is clammy, and his hands are usually dry and warm. He moves slowly toward the bed, tugging the blanket and sheet back, letting go of my hand to rub his palms on the front his board shorts.
He laughs, a nervous huff. “It’s stupid and embarrassing to admit this, but I’m actually kind of—”
“I’m scared out of my mind right now,” I tell him. “Or, not scared, just…”
“Nervous?”
I nod, laughing. “It’s stupid, because nothing is happening—”
“But that’s what’s scary about it,” he finishes.
“Exactly.”
A tense, silent moment, and then he slides into the bed, moves to the far side, and glances at me. “Come here, Audra.”
I swallow, let out a breath, and then shakily crawl into the bed. My instinct, once again, is to flop on my back as far from him as possible and lie there like a stiff log. Instead, I push through the nerves—I recall what it felt like in that brief moment of comfort in his arms, in the afterglow, that night in his bedroom.
His warmth envelops me as I slowly, gingerly settle into the cradle of his outstretched arm. I rest my head on his arm, where bicep, shoulder, and chest all meet—it feels like a nook created specifically for me, meant solely for my comfort. I find myself holding my breath as I shift this way and that, getting comfortable. I settle my hand on his chest, as far from the danger zone as possible, and end up with my palm over his heart, and I feel his heart beating, something that is so damned intimate that I feel like I’m going to cry. He curls his arm around me, his hand coming to rest on my hip.
Now that I’m within the shelter of his arms, I let out the breath I’ve been holding. This feels amazing.
I have to swallow hard against the onslaught of emotions I feel, a bizarre and overwhelming welter of things: comfort, fear, doubt, need, security, insecurity, arousal, exhaustion.
I blink and swallow, but the bite of emotion in my throat is too hot and thick and too insistent. I find tears in my eyes, inexplicable and stupid.
“Franco, I—” My voice is thick. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this. I just feel overwhelmed…in a good way.”
His voice is so close, low and quiet. “Audra, don’t apologize. Feel what you feel. Let yourself feel it. Let it out, all of it, whatever it is.”
“I’m not usually emotional like this—” I shake my head, tears trickling. “I feel silly.”
His hold on me tightens. “I know. Me too.”
“Really?”
He nods, grunting an affirmative noise. “I feel…fuck. Overwhelmed. Confused by…by how comforting it is to just…be here. Like this. With you.”
Tears fall and I can’t stop them. “It’s like…” I untangle my fingers from his and wipe at my face, tasting salt. “Like I’m coming to a home I never had, and never knew I was missing, and now that I’m home, I’m missing it for all the years I never had it.”
“Exactly.”
I cry, and he doesn’t make me feel stupid or weak. I feel the emotion in him, and though he’s not crying, I can tell he’s just affected. I don’t even have to look at his face—I just…feel it radiating from him in palpable waves.
“What made you come here?” I ask, eventually. “Because the last thing that happened at your house…you asked about a now-what, and I lied. And I thought that was it…it was over.”
“I knew you were lying. I knew then that you were lying, and that I was a coward for letting you get away with it, for letting you go.”
“We both knew, then,” I admit.
“But we were both too fucking scared.” He sighs. “So what happened? I was a miserable jackass, and impossible to work with, and a pain in the ass to be around. Eventually, James all but kicked my door in, poured about six shots of Buffalo Trace down my throat, and then flat out asked me what the fuck was wrong with me.”
I laugh. “I’d hate to be on the receiving end of scary James.”
Franco snickers. “You don’t have the slightest clue. I don’t scare easily, and I’ve known James almost as long as Jesse has, but when he gets riled up like that, I don’t care who you are, you get scared.”
“So what’d you say?”
He sighs. “I asked him what he was talking about. Lame, I know. That really got him going and he threatened to knock my block off if I didn’t quit pussyfooting around and man up. So, I asked for clarification.” A pause. “He told me, and I quote, ‘that woman is stupid in love with you, and if you don’t grow a pair of balls and tell her you feel the same way, you’re the dumbest dumbshit that’s ever walked the earth.’”
“Wow, wasn’t holding back, was he?” I say, laughing.
“Not at all, no. But he wasn’t finished. He asked what my problem was, and if I didn’t tell him the goddamn truth the first time, he’d beat the truth out of me.”
“Do you think he would have?”
Franco shrugs. “Would you be willing to find out?”
I shake my head, eyes wide. “Hell no.”
“Exactly. So I told him flat out that I was scared of getting hurt, and that what Maria did had fucked me up, leaving me scarred and untrusting. I told him I didn’t know how to tell you what I was feeling, or if I was even capable of it.”
I re-twine our hands. “What’d he say?”
“He didn’t say anything for a long time.” Franco’s voice drops to almost a whisper. “I’ll never forget what he finally said.” A long, long pause. “‘Franco,” he said, ‘I had a once-in-a-lifetime love. Renée was my everything. The only woman I’ve ever loved. I’ve never, ever touched another woman. She was my first kiss and my last, my first fuck and my last. And I lost her. I watched her die.’”
“Jesus,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” Franco murmurs. “He wasn’t done, though. He said, ‘and you want to know something? I wouldn’t trade a single second of it for the world.’”
“Incredible. I guess that’s the definition of true love.”
Franco was silent a moment. “James said he held her hand as she died, and that Renée knew she was dying, and…nobody could stop it. It happened so fast, you know? The hospital staff tried to keep him from the OR, but he knew something was going wrong and he bulldozed his way in to see her. He grabbed her hand, and she looked up at him, and she told him…her last breath, her last words were to promise her he wouldn’t be alone forever.”
/>
My eyes stung again. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah. He promised her, and he told me that night that if the right woman ever comes along, he’d keep that promise. And if he can keep that promise, then I can get the fuck over a betrayal that happened twenty years ago.”
I think of Nova, and the intense conversation I’d witnessed in his kitchen the night of the barbecue, and I wonder if anything ever came of it.
Which leads me to thinking of Ryder and Laurel, and their date, and whether anything came of it…and all these wonderings led me to realize how self-absorbed and blind to the rest of the world and my own friends I’d been during the last few months.
I laugh, a bitter bark. “I’ve been a shitty friend.”
I don’t have to elaborate—Franco understands what I’m saying. “Yeah, me too.”
“You know if anything happened with Ryder and Laurel?”
He shakes his head. “No idea. I’ve been too much of a selfish bastard lately, too focused on my own miserable bullshit.”
“We suck,” I say, laughing. “We need to fix that.”
“Yeah, we do.”
I laugh again. “Why was I so nervous?” I say. “Being with you like this…it feels like…”
“Like we’ve always been together like this?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Exactly.”
Franco is silent a long time, and I feel his breathing slow. “Audra?” I hear him murmur, as I start to drift off myself.
“Hmmm?”
“You’ll still be here in the morning, right?”
“Yeah, I will.” A pause. “Will you?”
“Yeah. I will.”
And then, for the first time in my life, I fall asleep in the arms of a man.
Chapter 15
I wake up slowly, only vaguely aware of my surroundings, or myself. All I know is that I’m warm and comfortable, and deeply and wildly content. I feel sunshine on my face. Something solid and warm and protective surrounds me, and I’m so comfortable that sleep pulls me back under.
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