by BJ Harvey
I close my eyes and rest my head on his shoulder, turning to press my lips against his neck. “I know. I don’t mean to,” I whisper.
“Then tell me who the guy is who walked into the gym and freaked you the fuck out.”
I freeze. Time and time again Bruno has proven when it comes to me, he’s sharp as a tack.
I turn in his arms to face him. “We should probably sit down. It’s a bit of a story.”
He leads me over to a set of table and chairs we use for break. I take a seat, and he sits beside me, stretching his legs out. I let out a huge breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and lay it all out there, something that I should’ve done well before now.
“Luke Williams. I thought the sun rose and set around him. He was the cocky freshman who slapped my ass in the corridor, then asked me out by way of an apology. He was the boy everyone wanted or wanted to be. He had an air about him—you just knew he was going places,” I say, settling into my story. “He was my first everything. Every teenage girl milestone I had comes tied with memories of him.”
Bruno watches me, not once looking away. As always, he’s giving me his full attention and it pushes me to keep going. As vulnerable as I’m feeling right now, his arms cocooning me and his body heat cloaking me give me everything I need.
“He got a scholarship after high school and I followed him to college, thinking I knew what our future would hold. We were that couple. High school sweethearts who everyone thought would be together till the day we died.” I paused. “He was also my first heartbreak. A devastating, blindsiding one that I should’ve seen coming. Instead, I was finalizing last-minute wedding details and didn’t see everything that was going wrong.”
Bruno’s jaw clenches, his fingers tensing in mine.
“He’d been drafted by the San Francisco Giants—their next big star in the making—until he injured his shoulder halfway through his rookie year. He did everything right. He followed the doctor’s instructions to the letter of the law, did all the physical therapy, and we thought he’d made a miraculous recovery. Turns out he had some help in that recovery and once he’d started, he was hooked.” I look up and all I see are soft eyes and understanding. There’s no way Bruno can’t see where this story is going. He glides his thumb gently across my knuckles.
“He was still the boy I fell in love with. To everyone else it was as if my life was perfect. We’d set a date, and in the spring we’d be walking down the aisle.” Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath because this is where the story gets hard. The embarrassment and humiliation comes back to me whenever I remember Luke.
“The next bit I found out from a reporter who knocked on my door two days before my wedding to ask me for a comment on Luke’s drug addiction. That just happened to be the same time Luke’s parents drove into the driveway to deliver the news.”
“Shit,” Bruno says under his breath.
“Luke failed a random drug test. Turned out he’d gone from painkillers to steroids, and had cheated on two previous tests by paying someone to provide samples for him.”
Bruno slowly closes his eyes and shakes his head before giving me his full attention when I continue.
“He was hauled into the team owner’s office and ordered to go straight to rehab or else he’d be cut from the team. Here I was, finalizing our wedding. My dress was hanging in my parents’ wardrobe, the rehearsal dinner was to be held the next night, and my fiancé didn’t have the balls to face me himself. He took off for the airport and sent his parents to tell me everything. “I take a deep breath and look up at the sky, needing a small respite from the story.
“I didn’t know what to do so I shut myself in my bathroom and called Kenzie.” My chest aches at the memory of how devastated I was. I threw up. I didn’t get up off the bathroom floor until Kenzie came in, sitting on the ground next to me, not saying anything, just wrapping her arms around me and holding on.
Bruno moves then, his arms shifting to my waist. He lifts me into his lap. My eyes sting with tears and I bury my face into his neck, hoping he’s not reading anything more than he should into my breakdown.
I pull myself together and sit up straight, linking our hands again and drawing the strength I need to finish the story. “I closed down after that. I tried calling him for weeks, but he’d disconnected his phone. He’d signed over power of attorney to his parents so that I could sell the house and make a clean break.” My voice breaks but I power through. “There was no talk of him coming back, no message he’d asked to be passed on to me. He left me to be the one to cancel the wedding and cope with the fallout with the media and everything else. So my parents and brother persuaded me to spend the next week drunk off my ass with Kenzie in Cabo on what should have been my honeymoon. When we came back, Dad and Hamish had finished all the half-done renovations on our house and a month later, it was sold. The last part of Luke and I was gone with my signature on a dotted line.” I swallow down the hard lump in my throat. “After that, I ran away to Colorado to live with Hamish and his husband, licked my wounds, and found myself again, something I hadn’t realized I’d lost.”
“When I came back to Davis, I was determined to only look forward. I was happy being by myself and shut myself off to anything even remotely resembling a relationship or a commitment, other than using my share of the house sale proceeds to buy my condo. It was mine, something that no one—except the bank—could ever take away from me. My sanctuary, my hideaway when I couldn’t face the world with a smile and smartass retorts.”
Bruno watches me closely. His soft eyes bore into me with such feeling it makes me wanna cry all over again. “So he left without a word. No apology, no explanation—he just left without saying anything?”
I nod and his eyes narrow, his jaw twitching as he looks over my shoulder, his entire body tensing beneath mine.
“And did he ever come back?” he asks quietly, his voice laced with an edge I’ve only heard once before from Bruno.
“Not until this morning when he walked into the gym.”
He licks his lips and lowers his head, brushing his mouth against mine tenderly, his anger vanishing with a poof the moment his tongue touches mine. It feels so overwhelming it brings tears to my eyes.
“My Gaby is a survivor,” he says quietly, wrapping his arms around me again. “Now I know why you hold me at arm’s length.” My breath catches but he doesn’t stop there. “And it seems we have a bit more in common than I thought,” he replies.
My head jerks back as my brows bunch together. “What do you mean?”
“That’s a story for another day. For now, I’m gonna take you home and hold you for the rest of the night because unlike him, I know exactly how precious my woman is. I already thought I could love you before. Now I realize I already do.”
My eyes go wide as I play back what he just said. Did he just . . .? “Bruno, I’m not . . . I mean, I can’t . . . I don’t ever wanna put myself in that position again. That’s why I freaked out and ran today.”
“When faced with fight or flight, you went with your first instinct.” He dips his head to my level. “That’s okay, baby, because without closure, I would’ve done the same. But you’ve got me now. I’ve got your side, your front, and your back. I’d break myself apart before I ever hurt you like that. If it takes me the rest of my life to prove that to you, I’ll gladly take the job on.”
Unable to say anything to his declaration, I do the only thing I can think of. I kiss him, I do it hard, and I do it deep. And for the next hour on that rooftop, sitting in Bruno’s arms, the very last person I think about is Luke Williams.
Chapter 16
“That’s the last of it,” Bruno says, closing my front door with his foot, a big box in his arms. Bending down, he places it on the floor and walks over to where I’m standing in the kitchen, sorting through a box he brought over in the last trip. It’s been two weeks since I asked him to move in, and Bruno didn’t waste any time in getting ou
t of his place and into mine. His letting agent was over the moon as they already had a new tenant ready to move in at a moment’s notice. The only low note was the sad news that Millen’s mom had passed away from cancer last week. We both attended her funeral on Friday, and I’ve been filling in for Kenzie all week so today—Sunday—is the first chance we’ve both had to move Bruno in.
I empty my hands and turn around. His hands go to my hips. He lifts me up and places my butt on the kitchen counter, fitting his body between my legs before dipping his head, his lips grazing mine.
“Welcome home,” I whisper, and the smile he gives me is one I memorize. It’s huge and beautiful, and I love that I’m the reason for it.
“All I have left is a final clean-up this afternoon and I can drop the keys off tomorrow.”
“Do you want some help? I was just going to see Mom and Dad for a bit, but I can see them during the week.”
“There’s not much to do. You go and see your parents, and I’ll see you when you get back home.”
Home. Something I hadn’t imagined hearing him say, but there’s a light in his eyes that’s shining brighter than I’ve ever seen before and I know it’s for me. I trust this man more than I ever thought I could trust a man again.
That’s not to say I’ve changed my opinion on marriage, but thanks to the way Bruno is with me and how he makes me feel when we’re together, I can’t imagine him not being in my life.
“Kenzie called while you were out.”
“Yeah?” he asks, quirking a brow.
“Her and Millen are shifting their engagement party forward by two weeks. It just means we’ll have to reschedule the birthday dinner with my parents,” I say.
“That explains why Kenzie has been like a flea in a fit all week.”
“It does. She said they don’t want to wait. With Millen’s mom passing away, it’s reminded them that life is short so they’re not going to waste a single minute of it. It’s not going to be huge though. Just close friends and family.”
“No doubt there will be lots of Millen’s business contacts there. It’s bound to be big.”
“Shit. Let’s not tell Kenzie about that,” I reply with a grimace, making him laugh.
“I think she’ll know the minute she walks in to a full bar.”
“Well let’s not ruin the surprise then.” I smile up at him, watching his eyes flare with heat and drop to my mouth.
“Do you have time for a pit stop before you go to your parents?” he asks, leaning in to me, his hands gliding up the sides of my chest. His thumbs reach out and brush the sides of my breasts as they go, making me squirm.
I loop my arms around his shoulder, closing the distance between us and shifting forward to bring my pelvis in line with his. “I always have time for that. Besides, isn’t it our duty to christen every room?”
He quirks a brow, his lips twitching. “Well, we’ve come close to doing that already, don’t you think?”
“That was before. Now it’s your place too so we have to start again.”
He chuckles and pulls me in closer. “It’s a hard job, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”
“Let’s split the work. You do the hard, I’ll do the job,” I say, shrieking when I find myself upside down over his shoulder as he stalks toward the bedroom.
“We’ll start with the shower and see where the mood takes us,” he announces.
“As long as it’s with you, I don’t care where you do me.”
That’s the last coherent thing out of my mouth for a good long while.
***
Later that day, I pull into my parents’ driveway, feeling more sated and relaxed than I was a few hours ago. When set with a challenge, Bruno is nothing but thorough, and I’m more than grateful for his dedication to the cause.
Expecting to find my Dad sitting in his chair watching whatever major league baseball game is on, I let myself in through the front door and make my way into the living room.
“Hey, Dad. How’s it—” I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Luke Williams sitting on my parents’ couch with my Mom sitting in the chair beside him and my Dad in his recliner, not watching the game but switching his wide eyes between me and his almost son-in-law.
“Bub . . .” Dad looks like a deer caught in the headlights. He’s not guilty, but he’s conflicted, and that’s not a look I’ve ever seen on my father’s face.
“Gaby, Luke came around unannounced and wanted to talk to us,” my mother explains.
“Funny that,” I mutter, willing my legs to move—which they thankfully do—as I walk past the three of them and take a seat at the dining table, turning the chair to face them. Buoyed by my anger, I pin him in place with a glare. “Luke, this is twice in two weeks. That’s two times too many in six years.”
My mom gasps and snaps her head my way. “Gabrielle Grace Wallace,” she says in her best ‘mom’ voice. “He’s a guest.”
“No, he used to be family. But he fucked that up, didn’t he?” I cross my arms in front of my chest, trying to get a read on the guy, but his expression is blank. His eyes, though? Those blue eyes are piercing through my armor just like they always did.
When he opens his mouth, the sound of his voice affects me in a way I don’t expect; it brings back memories of our ten years together—the start, the middle, and even the last time I saw him. It hurts. Hearing the rough, deep tone of his that was well beyond his years as a teenager, the same voice he had to grow in to—and did very well—has me wanting to run away again just like I did at the gym. How is it possible for a man to still have power over me six years after he broke my heart?
“Bree—” he says, his old nickname for me cutting through me like a knife.
“I think Gaby is more appropriate, don’t you think?” I reply snarkily. I wasn’t raised to be this way and the glare my mother is sending my way makes me more than aware of that fact, but it comes naturally to me when Luke is involved. How else should I react?
God, I wish I had Bruno at my back right now.
I turn to Mom and try hard to be respectful but lose the battle. “And why did you even let him in your house?”
Mom’s eyes shift to Dad first, then Luke.
“Gaby,” Luke says, drawing my attention back to him. “I came to see your parents because I wanted to redeem myself for past mistakes.”
“He’s given us a check for the wedding expenses,” Mom announces, and my mouth drops open.
“You what?” I screech, my head threatening to explode. Jumping to my feet, I storm over to the couch and jab my finger in Luke’s direction. “You think . . .” I take a deep breath, trying—and failing—to calm myself down. I’m too far gone “You think you can come in here after six years, write a check, and poof,” I say, waving my hands in the air, “all will be forgiven?”
I laugh dryly and shake my head at the audacity of the man. “Of course you’d think that. Why would you be any different now? It’s not like you ever had the balls to apologize to someone’s face, right? Or say, I dunno, tell your fiancée that you can’t get married in two days’ time instead of jumping on a plane, flying across the country, and letting her find out from a reporter?”
Mom says, “Gaby, maybe you should—”
“I need a drink,” I say, spinning on my heels and leaving the room. I make a beeline for the fridge and thank the Lord that my dad has a six-pack ready and waiting. Grabbing a bottle of Corona, I quickly locate a bottle opener in the top drawer and drink in hand, walk outside onto the back patio for some much-needed fresh air.
When I hear the kitchen door open a few minutes later, I daren’t turn around because whoever it is, I know I don’t want to face them. My parents because of the way I acted, and Luke because the last thing I want to hear right now is how sorry he is for how he treated me. Just being in the same room as the guy reminded me of everything I thought I’d have and don’t.
Luke has aged well, but he’s one
of those guys who was always going to. His hair is still thick and wavy on top, a week or two past being due for a cut on top but short on the back and sides. It’s long enough for him to have to swipe his hand through it to clear his piercing blue eyes.
Those eyes used to fascinate me. We’d lie there in bed just staring at each other like lovesick fools, and I’d marvel at the different specks of blue scattered in his irises, while he’d take my distraction as an opportunity to grope me and talk about all the things we’d have, all the places we’d go, and how deliriously happy we’d be when he hit the major league.
What he eventually lost sight of was that I didn’t care what we didn’t have or the places we hadn’t seen, because I was already deliriously happy just being in love with him and knowing he loved me. I didn’t need anything else except his word, his loyalty, and his oath to love me till death do us part.
“Why are you here?” The anger has gone out of my voice, resignation that I can’t escape this man taking its place.
“I’m looking at coaching opportunities on the west coast so I’ve been in and out of town for a bit. I’ve been wanting to talk to your parents for a while now but had to build up the courage to show my face to them again.”
I snort; I can’t help it. How can he be so worried about fronting up to my parents without any thought about me? “You wanted to see my parents?”
His eyes darken, and he leans back against the post, his eyes pinned on me. “I wanted—no, I needed to redeem myself.” His statement is so matter-of-fact I don’t know what to do with it. He’s not the same confident, suave man who could have any girl he wanted but chose me. Don’t get me wrong—he could have any hot-blooded adult with a pulse if he wanted. But that cocky arrogance that gave him the bad boy edge combined with his boy-next-door reputation isn’t there anymore. Why does that unsettle me just as much as the fact he’s now standing in front of me after six years?
