My American Angel (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 6)

by Brooke St. James

  "You have a sucker in your mouth," Theo said, stating the obvious as he watched me walk.

  "I was looking for gum, but I couldn't find any."

  "Thank you for letting me pull you into the water," he said. "I'm glad you did it just because I like that as a fact about you, but also if you hadn't, I would have never got to see you in my clothes."

  "I'd let you pull me into just about anything," I said casually.

  "How about New York?" he asked. "Would you let me pull you all the way to New York?"

  I smiled at him and shrugged, doing my best to seem easy and noncommittal. Theo gave me a sly grin and motioned with his hand for me to come closer. I took a step toward his chair, but he kept on opening and closing his fingers, telling me he wanted me to continue walking forward.

  I took a tentative step and then another, but Theo just continued the motion, so I kept walking toward him. He watched with approval as I moved all the way over to the area where he was sitting. He stayed in the same position, with his head reclined on the back of the chair wearing a satisfied smile on his face, and before I knew it my legs were touching his chair, and I was staring down at him. My heart was pounding. He opened and closed his hand again, and I smiled at him. "I can't get any closer," I said with wide eyes.

  He gave me a playful narrow-eyed glance. "Yes you can."

  I leaned over, putting my face a few inches closer to his and wearing a curious expression as if to ask him if that's what he intended. He nodded, and I leaned in again, getting closer even still. I still had the sucker in my mouth, but I smiled around it. Our faces were only a few inches apart, but neither of us moved. He relaxed his head on the back of the chair and I just hovered over him, staring at his flawless face—the one I fell so desperately in love with all those years ago.

  He reached up, and touched the lollipop stick. "I'll have one of those," he said.

  I reached out, using one hand to brace my weight on the back of the chair. With the other hand, I took the lollipop out of my mouth. I held it in front of him with a questioning expression as if to ask if he wanted mine. I was half joking, so it shocked me somewhat when his head came off of the back of the chair so that he could take the candy into his mouth. The quickness of his movement made me jump, and I giggled and pulled my hand away. Theo kept the lollipop in his mouth and caught my hand, placing it on his own chest. He had on a T-shirt, but I could still feel the hardness of his muscular chest underneath. Touching Theo was so wonderful and distracting that, for a second, I totally forgot to notice he was chomping away at my sucker.

  I scowled when I heard him unabashedly chowing down on it, and I watched as his expression shifted to one of silly dismay to match mine.

  "You ate my sucker," I said, pretending to be really upset even though we both knew I wasn't.

  He shrugged at me, looking a little offended as he finished chewing. "I told you I wanted one, and you stuck it out there. I thought you were giving it to me."

  I grinned at him, shaking my head. "I'm lucky I bit a little piece off of it before I put it out there," I said. I actually had a tiny sliver of it still left in my mouth; I could still taste it giving off sweetness on my tongue.

  "I'm sorry I ate your lollipop," he said.

  He held up the stick guiltily, and I took it from him. I don't know why in the world I did what I did next. It wasn't planned, nor was it anything I had ever thought of doing before. There was a little of the lollipop left on that stick, and I used it like it was lip-gloss. I didn't make a big deal of it. I just stuck in my mouth and then quickly applied it like it was the most logical thing I could possibly do when someone handed me a mostly empty sucker stick.

  "I'm going to kiss that mouth," he said, staring at it the whole time he spoke.

  "I know you are," I whispered. I bit my lip just because he was looking at it.

  "Caroline," he whispered.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I always thought you lived in Carolina," he said.

  I knew he was putting off our inevitable kiss just to torture both of us. "You told me that. Because my name's Caroline."

  He nodded.

  "But I live in Florida," I whispered.

  "Do you?" he asked.

  I had been hovering dangerously close to him, but he tugged at the front of my shirt, causing me to finally make contact. He kissed me quickly but softly, and afterward he pulled back and licked his own lips as if testing for the flavor of the lollipop. He smiled and reached up to kiss me again. "You taste good," he said.

  "You taste better than me because you (kiss) ate my whole lollipop."

  The feel of his mouth made my insides warm and tingly. He kept a loose hold on the front of my shirt as insurance that I wouldn't go too far, and I smiled at the sheer joy that came along with the knowledge that he was doing that. He must have liked the sight of my smile because he smiled back at me and in one swift motion, he reached out and captured me, pulling me onto his lap.

  I giggled and pretended to resist, but I easily went into his arms, adjusting so I could sit comfortably on his legs. I felt safe and comfortable. His hair was still damp from swimming. He smelled good, and I had the taste of his kiss mixed with cream soda Dum-Dum on my mouth. It was basically a perfect moment.

  "Theo," I said.

  "Yes?"

  "I was just saying… you're Theo."

  He grinned. "Yep."

  I was sitting up a little higher than him on account of me being on his lap. He was so handsome that I couldn't resist touching him—it was like my fingertips were being drawn to him and they were going to make contact with or without my permission. I traced the side of his eyebrow before moving to his cheek and jaw. I leaned in to kiss him gently, and he smiled as we connected. Our touch was tortuously gentle, and both of us smiled because of it. Then I felt his lips relax as he leaned in to kiss me with a little more intention.

  Theo Duval kissed me like he had never kissed me before. I had never experienced anything like the gut-wrenching waves of desire that hit me as he went from kissing me deeply to kissing me softly and back again several times. He would smile and whisper to me between kisses. He was the man of my dreams and he was sitting there, telling me he needed me as badly as I wanted him.

  We stayed there for a long time. He held me tightly, and I shamelessly cuddled up to him, feeling so thankful for the way twenty years seemed to mean nothing. The gap between us had just dissipated, and I felt like there was never a time when I didn't know him.

  "Why'd this take so long?" he asked.

  "I was just thinking about how amazing it was that we were able to pick up where we left off," I said.

  Theo grinned as he made a short statement in French. I didn't understand it, obviously, but he seemed sincere, and I loved the way it sounded.

  "Je t'aime," he said.

  "Je t'aime," I repeated with a nod, having no idea what I was saying.

  "Do you know what that means?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "No. Je t'aime," I repeated slowly, trying my best to match his accent. "Am I saying it right?"

  He nodded. "Say it again, and then say my name at the end."

  "Je t'aime, Theo." I said, smiling and pronouncing it deliberately. I enjoyed the way the words affected him.

  He stared at me, and his chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath. "Je t'aime aussi, Caroline."

  Chapter 12

  I stayed at Theo's place until 2am, and even then, I had to force myself to leave. We talked a lot, but for part of the time, we just sat there next to each other and watched television. It was far and away the most comfortable first date I could have ever imagined. In fact, it didn't feel like a first date at all. It felt as though Theo and I had known each other our whole lives.

  We met up again the next day at noon.

  Theo came over to my house, and I took him to the Coastal Center to feed the stingrays. Theo had seen a stingray up close, and had even touched one, but he had never fed one before. I had been doing
it for years, and always thought it was such a cool experience, so I made time for it even though my brother had plans to drag Theo fishing all afternoon and would probably wear him out.

  There was a tour guide at the nature center who explained the process of feeding the stingrays to a whole group of us. It was something that happened twice a day. She gave us a whole speech, and then each of us got a little plastic tray that had some combination of baitfish or shrimp tails. My little tray had four fish and a shrimp and Theo's had all fish. I grabbed the fish-heavy containers on purpose since the fish were longer and easier to handle.

  Theo and I got to the edge of the tank with our containers. The stingrays were so hungry that they swam right up to the edge, vying for a spot near the humans who they knew now had food. The tour guide had instructed us to lay our hand palm-up and completely flat on the bottom of the ledge. She told us to position the fish between our fingers pointing upward so that the stingray could swim by and take it.

  Their mouths were in the center of the bottom of their body, so they had to swim up to your hand and position themselves properly in order to take the food. This resulted in half of their soft, slippery body skimming against your arm, which was a funny sensation. The next thing that happened was their mouth finding the piece of fish that was in your hand and proceeding to suck it up like a vacuum cleaner.

  Instead of sharp teeth, a stingray had two bony plates in its mouth that would come together the way two rolling pins would. In other words, stingrays chewed their food by crushing it between two blunt objects. This was why it was a good idea to keep your hand flat and the stingray's food perpendicular to it. The lady explained all that, and she went around, making sure everyone was doing okay but mostly helping the kids. Theo and I both took to it like pros, and we both went back for an extra tray since there were some leftovers. We laughed at the odd feeling of it every time one of them came over and took the fish from our hands.

  We walked on the nature trail for a little while before we went to my brother's place so Will could take Theo fishing. They used our dad's boat, and he ended up going with them. My mom said she would have everyone over for dinner afterward so that Katie didn't have to host us all two nights in a row.

  The guys caught a bunch of fish and brought them back to my parents' house to clean and cook. I was with my mom and Katie, waiting for them when they got there, and it was difficult not to get attached to the idea of seeing Theo with my family. My dad and brother were both excellent fishermen and skilled with a fillet knife, so Theo had a first class lesson in South Florida life. Theo didn't know much about fishing, but he asked a lot of good questions and seemed eager to learn. He wasn't half-bad at cleaning fish, and that was a skill that looked easier than it was.

  My family loved him.

  I can't say for sure if Theo would have had the same reception had he not turned out to be the guy from the television series, but he was that guy, and as it stood, my family brought their A-game. My dad and Will were cracking jokes and cleaning fish all over the place.

  It was 8pm and Theo and I were both tired by the time we left my parents' house. I drove his rental car, and we took the same path to his place in Stuart, stopping at the same grocery store just like we had done the evening before.

  My left hand was on the driver's wheel and my right hand was casually resting on the seat by my side. I felt Theo's hand reach out to touch me. He brought my palm to his chest, looking down at it. I loved his warmth. I loved the sensation of him touching me.

  "We're going to work something out," he said. He turned my hand over, bringing the backside of it to his mouth and kissing me softly. I knew he had a flight scheduled for the following afternoon, and I absolutely dreaded it. "I think we have to see each other again," he said.

  "Duh," I said, teasing him.

  "When?" he asked. "Come back to New York with me."

  "Now?" I asked, since that's what his tone implied.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "I can get you on the flight with me. I want you to meet everybody at the collective."

  "Theo," I said, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by how serious he sounded.

  "What?" he asked.

  "I can't just pick up and go to New York the next day."

  "Why not? People pack up and go places the next day all the time."

  He was still holding my hand close to his mouth, and I felt it moving next to my skin when he spoke. It stirred up all sorts of feelings.

  "I don't want to leave you," he said.

  "I don't want you too, either."

  "Come with me," he said.

  It crossed my mind to wonder what my family would think if I called them up and said I wasn't coming into work because I was hopping on a plane for New York. For a second, I contemplated what everyone would assume if I did something like that, but then I realized I didn't care. I honestly didn't care at all. I wanted to be with Theo, and I could tell he was being completely sincere with his invitation.

  "Yes," I said, smiling because of the adrenaline that began coursing through my body the moment I agreed.

  He squeezed my hand. "You will?"

  ***

  That was the last thing I said to him or he said to me.

  I had a very long dream after that.

  If I tried to write in words the content of my dream, it would probably take up ten pages worth of text, but the words would be sparse and put together in such a way that didn't make sense—written upside down and in different languages.

  It was a long dream, and I woke up, feeling as if I was still dreaming.

  I began to recognize some of the people I saw, but there was an indescribable communication barrier.

  It wasn't just that we spoke different languages; we were operating on different planes.

  I understood a few of their words, and recognized that I was in a medical environment, but the ability for me to match my understanding with theirs kept eluding me.

  I remember the time I woke up and things actually started to make some sense.

  I blinked, and my eyes burned numbly.

  "Hey baby," my mom said. She looked at me wearily.

  "Hey," I said sleepily.

  Her attention focused sharply on me, and she sat up, tilting her head and regarding me with great intensity. "Caroline, did you say 'hey'?" she asked in a shocked tone.

  "Yes ma'am," I said.

  She squeezed my hand. "Oh Lord, did you hear me, baby?"

  I nodded, and my mom's face completely crumpled as tears began rolling down her cheeks. She sobbed. "Oh, my God, thank you, Jesus, do you really hear me? Oh, Lord God in heaven."

  Her voice was a barely-there high-pitched squeal that sounded like she was a great distance away, and she just stared at me with her face contorted like she absolutely couldn't believe what she was seeing.

  "Do you know who I am, honey?"

  "Why are you saying that?" I asked.

  "Do you, Caroline? Do you know I'm your mama?"

  "Yes," I said staring at her.

  She began crying and moving around nervously, saying things like, I told them you were on the verge, and I knew you were coming around.

  There was a period of who knows how long where I went through dazed realizations that I had been sleeping for a really long time and half-awake for a while too. I don't know how long it took me to fully wake up, or how long the doctors and nurses were in my room.

  I remember being asked a lot of questions and answering them as best I could. They told me I had been in a car accident, and asked if I recalled anything from it, which I didn't.

  It was somewhere in that conversation that they revealed that I had been sleeping for over a year and in a half-responsive state for the last few days.

  Apparently, I must have been doing pretty good on the questions, because my mom cried with joy every time the doctor asked me something and I gave a satisfactory answer. I could tell just by the amazement on their faces that they thought everything was going to be okay, and that made m
e hopeful.

  My dad and brother came in, and I remember talking to them. They both cried and told me they loved me, but they didn't stay long and it seemed like the doctors were shooing them out. They promised they would come back later that evening, which they did. Katie came with Will the second time, and she cried just like the rest of them when I talked to her. I'm not really sure how much time had passed, but it seemed like later that night or maybe the following day when I looked at my bedside and saw my mom sitting there by herself.

  "Who's Theo?" I asked sleepily. "I heard you guys say a few times that I had been riding with someone named Theo."

  "You were, she said. "Do you not remember Theo?" She wore a worried expression, and that made me search my mind.

  "Are you talking about my Canadian boyfriend?" I asked. "That's the only other Theo I know besides Theo Huxtable."

  "Theo is the boy you knew from Canada, sweetheart, but you knew him as an adult, too. I just assumed you remembered that when we were talking about the accident earlier."

  I felt a hot rush of blood come over my face when I realized I didn't know what she was talking about. It was like my dreams and reality we're colliding and somehow. This boy I dreamed about all these years was being talked about in the present tense by people who shouldn't know him.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked.

  "Theo," my mom said. "Do you remember reconnecting with him as a adult?"

  "No, Mom, and you're tripping me out. Are you talking about the little boy from Canada?"

  "Yes," she said. "He's a man now, though."

  "And I knew him?"

  "The doctors said this might happen. You could get recollection of it later even if you don't remember it now. You only knew Theo for a short time before the accident," my mom said. "You had called him a week or so before the accident, and he came down to Florida to meet you. He was in the accident with you. It was over on A1A almost to Stuar—oh, baby, don’t cry. Don't cry, Caroline. He's fine. Theo's fine. He made it through the accident with minor stuff. It's all fine. You're awake, baby, that's all that matters. And you remember a lot."