by Cathryn Fox
I take a breath and swallow it. With my heart drowning in the pit of my stomach, I turn around and walk away from the only girl I wanted to give the world to, and instead, gave her every reason in the world to hate me. Could I have fucked this up anymore?
With my head down, I walk outside, and instead of going back to the pub, I make my way home on foot, needing the air to help clear my head. By the time I make it back, Scotty is in bed, and Quinn is flicking through the stations.
“You guys are back early,” she says.
“It’s just me.”
She turns her head, takes one look at my sorry ass, and flicks off the television.
“Oh, no,” she says and climbs to her feet. “Alek…what happened?”
“It didn’t go so well.”
I plunk down onto the sofa and bury my face in my hands. “I totally fucked it up, Quinn. I love her and now I’ve lost her. I should have just told her right from the start.”
She sits on the coffee table facing me, her blue eyes big and worried. “There has to be a way to fix this. Alyssa is a smart girl. She’ll understand why you did what you did. I’m sure she’s going to give you a second chance.”
I shake my head, doubting that. My God, the hurt in her eyes, hurt I put there, feels like a fist to the gut. “I lied to her. She hates liars.”
“But she loves you, Alek, and while you hurt her, deep inside she knows your heart is in the right place.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so. She might just need a little time.”
“I love her, Quinn,” I say, as tears pound behind my eyes. “I fucking love her and I’ve never loved any woman before.”
“I saw you two together. I could see the love on her face, and on yours. You two belong together. Of that I have no doubt. You can’t leave here, Alek, not without making this right between you two.”
“Her whole life, people have walked out on her, left her behind, and let her down. I never wanted to be one of those people. I want to be the guy she can count on, the one that’s going to stick around for the long haul.” I grab a fistful of my hair. “But now…”
“Now you have to figure out how to make this right?”
“As much as she hates people leaving, she told me to leave and never come back.”
She puts one hand on my knee and gives it a squeeze. “So what are you going to do about that?”
“I don’t know. She won’t even listen to me.”
“Then you need to do something, something big that will give her no choice but to listen.”
“How…what?”
“Maybe you need to show her you’re not like those other people. Maybe you need to show her you’re sorry, and no matter what, you’re not going to leave, even if she’s pushing you away.”
My throat is so tight, it hurts, making it hard to talk. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’re a smart guy, Alek,” she says softly. “I bet you can figure it out.”
18
Alyssa
It’s been two long days since I’ve set eyes on Alek, and even though I’m hurt and angry, I’m still mourning his absence. After I kicked him out of the nursing home, I went home and ate a tub of ice cream and wallowed in self-pity until I fell asleep crying. Ridiculous, I know, but I thought we had more, thought we had a closeness, an intimacy that went beyond a summer fling. Thought there was something blossoming between us, but the only thing blossoming were the flowers I planted in Mrs. Henderson’s yard.
I should have known better. I let down my guard and let him in, and I want to say he’s no better than anyone else in my life, but I can’t say that. He never once led me to believe we were going to have more, or that he might want to stay. No, I made that all up in my head. But I still don’t get why he kept his identity a secret. What was the point in that?
I walk through the nursing home and sign in. I lift my head, catching movement in the corner of my eye. My heart lurches when I glance at the exit door banging shut. Alek? I blink, sure I’m seeing things, and when I walk to the door to look out, he’s not there. Damn, I must be hallucinating. Flowers in hand, I head to Grandma’s room and she’s sitting up, a smile on her face as she talks to Vivian.
“Darling, how are you?” Vivian asks. Grandma holds her hand out to me.
I close the gap between us, take her frail hand in mine, and my heart pinches tight as I give her a comforting squeeze.
“I’m great,” I lie, but I fear they can easily see through it. Heck, my eyes are still puffy and red from all the tears, and I look like I haven’t combed my hair in days. “How are you both doing?”
“Oh, we’re just fine,” Vivian says.
Grandma looks at me. “Have you talked to Alek?”
“No,” I say and turn from her to fix the flowers. Fresh tears threaten. I don’t want her to see that I’m still shaken up. She worries enough about me as it is.
“That’s a good thing,” she says. “He was a horrible person.”
“Well, he wasn’t horrible, Grandma.” I recall the first day he hit my car and insisted on helping. Even after I snuck out the next day, he’d showed up at Greenleaf, wanting to do all the heavy lifting because he was worried about me. “I mean, he helped me for weeks, and was really…sweet.”
“Too much sweet can give you a toothache,” Vivian says. “No one needs that in their life.”
“The Puck Charmer,” Grandma says. “He was probably stringing you along and hitting on all the women in town.”
“Actually, he wasn’t doing that,” I say. When he was with me, which was all the time—he never wanted me out of his sight—I was his sole focus. My God, no man had ever looked at me the way he did, making me feel like I was the most important woman in the world. Could that be faked?
“He’s no good,” Vivian says. “Tricking you into falling for him.” Vivian eyes me and lowers her voice to add, “Tricking you into his bed.” She makes a tsking sound. “Men these days.”
I cringe. I do not want to be talking about my sex life with these two, but I can’t let them think what happened was all on him. “He never tricked me,” I say, and think back. I was the one who wanted him, who decided to seduce him. He straight up told me he didn’t want to sleep with me and ruin things between us because he liked being with me. God, I loved being with him.
“Wearing that hat all the time so no one recognized him,” Grandma says with a shake of her head. “Here I thought that boy loved all the attention. Must have been hiding for other reasons.”
My mind goes back to his friend Tyler. What was it Alek said that first day?
“I guess all the media attention got to him and he just wants to fly under the radar. That’s understandable, don’t you think?”
I agreed with him. Who wants to go around all the time with a camera shoved in their face, never able to have a normal conversation with anyone without someone bothering you, or wanting something from you?
“Maybe he just wanted to fly under the radar,” I say.
Is that why he never told me? He just liked what we had between us, like me not knowing who he was.
“Doesn’t matter.” Vivian waves her finger in a scolding manner. “He should have told you.”
“You’re right,” I say. “He should have told me.” But there’s a small part of me that’s beginning to understand why he didn’t. I drop down into the chair and feel two sets of eyes on me as I lean forward and press my palms to my eyes as my mind goes back to my conversation with Quinn.
“His heart is in a good place, but sometimes he doesn’t always make the best decisions. I want you to remember that.”
“No one deserves a second chance, Alyssa,” Grandma says, and that’s when I get what they’re doing.
Sneaky old ladies!
I lift my head. “Was Alek just here?” Need gathers in a knot in my stomach simply from mentioning his name. They both look away and avoid my question. “Was he here?” I ask again.
“Mig
ht have been,” Vivian says and points to her head. “My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“Why was he here?” I demand, and jump from my seat. “What did he want?”
“Can’t remember,” Grandma says. “You might have to ask him that yourself.”
“Maybe I will,” I say when my cell phone rings. I grab my purse, my heart leaping. Could it be Alek? My stomach sinks when I see it’s a call from the realtor. Maybe that young couple I spotted admiring the place decided to put in an offer. A mixed bag of emotions hit like a brick. On one hand, I’m relieved that I’m selling to help pay the bills, but on the other, there’s sadness that the one place I felt loved and wanted is no longer going to be a part of my world. It guts me.
I slide my finger across the phone, and catch the strange way Grandma is eyeing me. What does she know that I don’t? My realtor, Mr. Marshall lets me know we have an offer and I nod, fighting back the tears pounding behind my eyes. I hang up and try for my brightest smile.
“Good news, Grandma. We have an offer on the house. That was Mr. Marshall asking me to meet him to sign the papers.”
Grandma claps her hands together in joy, and Vivian says, “I do love it when a plan comes together.”
“I better go,” I say and give Grandma a kiss before heading out the door. Even though it’s only a short distance, I hop into Moxie and drive her to Grandma’s old homestead. I swallow hard and struggle to keep myself together when I pull into the driveway. I don’t see Mr. Marshall’s vehicle, but it’s possible he walked here.
I hop from Moxie and head up the driveway. The door is unlocked, so I enter and call out, “Hello?” At first my voice is met with silence, but when I hear footsteps, I shut the door behind me and head down the hall and toward the kitchen. Warm memories flood me as I breathe in the familiar scents in the house, take in the furniture that’s been left to give it a warm, cozy feeling for viewings.
“Hello, Mr. Marshall?” I call out in the kitchen, and spin around, coming face to face with none other than Alek Matthews, aka, The Puck Charmer. “What…what are you doing here?” I ask, the mere sight of him fraying the tattered edges of my heart just a little more. I take a few fast breaths, working to keep it together.
“Hi,” he says softly, his gaze carefully moving over my face, like he’s worried I’m going to bolt.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Alek, what is going on? Why were you at the nursing home?”
“Oh, you know about that?”
He comes a bit closer, and his warmth and familiarity curl around me. I hug myself, when what I really want is for him to pull me into his arms and tell me everything is going to be all right.
“So you were there.” I shake my head as my brain rattles around inside my skull, trying to make sense of all this.
“Do you remember when I said I’d never purposely hurt you?”
“Yes,” I say and reach out to grip the counter.
“I meant it, Aly. I’d never purposely do anything to hurt you. I’m sorry. So fucking sorry I never told you who I really was.” He grabs a fistful of hair and tugs. “The thing is, I really like you. I liked the way you were with me when we first met. Natural. Yourself. You never tried to impress me, never wanted anything from me,” he grins and adds, other than my body. I shouldn’t smile. I don’t want to smile, but my lips quirk at his cuteness, my heart spilling over with the love I have for him. “I didn’t even want to sleep with you.”
I arch my brows.
“Okay, well that’s not true,” he says and puts his hands into his jean pockets. “ I totally wanted to sleep with you, but I’d never met a woman like you. In my entire life. I just wanted to be with you and I was afraid sex would mess it up. I told you that, remember?”
“I remember,” I say softly.
“I wanted to tell you who I was so many times, but I was afraid.”
I blink up at him. “What were you afraid of?”
“Of exactly what happened. That you’d think I was being an asshole, or slumming.”
I wince as I think about the things I said to him. He might have been withholding information, but my words were cruel and meant to hurt, because I was hurting. I’m not really the kind of person to hurt anyone on purpose.
“I don’t really think that,” I say. The man had been nothing but sweet to me.
“You said it because you were shocked and I’d hurt you. I understand that. But I need you to understand, I was afraid of ruining what we had.”
“What did we have?”
“We had something that was really good, Aly. Something that’s totally worth fighting for. Something that only comes around once in a lifetime, and I pray to fucking God I didn’t fuck it up. That you’ll give me a second chance.”
“Your life,” I say and glance out the window. “It’s not here. It’s in Seattle and Boston.”
He shakes his head, the frown on his face wrecking my fragile heart. “You’re trying to push me away,” he says and I realize he’s right. I am. “You’re afraid. Afraid that eventually I’ll leave. Right from the beginning, you told me this was just sex, because even then you were afraid.” His eyes lock on mine. “I will leave, Aly,” he says and I falter a bit as my stomach lurches at that truth. He reaches out, puts his warm palm on my face. “But I’ll always be back. Always. I promise.”
“You do?” I ask, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. Alek wants more. He wants what I want. Can I forgive him for lying? Does he deserve a second chance?
“You trusted me once, and I hope you can trust me again and trust that I stand by my promise.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as he stands there, pouring his heart out to me and asking for forgiveness and trust. “I trust you,” I say, warmth, love, forgiveness and understanding invading my heart.
His face relaxes and he steps closer, invading my personal space. With his body flush against mine, he says, “I realize you can’t come with me when I’m on the road, and I’d never ask that from you. You need to be here with your grandmother, but maybe you can travel with me sometimes. Let me show you the world that you’ve always wanted to see.”
“Alek…” I say, and sniff as tears fall from my eyes.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He holds it out to me.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my bucket list,” he says. “Will you read it?”
“Okay,” I say, not knowing where he’s going with this. I unfold the paper, scan the list. “Alek, this is my list.”
“That’s because I want all the same things you want. I want to pick avocados in Mexico, I want to pick olives in Tuscany, I want to have sex in a limo.”
“We kind of already did that.”
“Then let’s do it again.” His smile falls. “I love you, Aly. With all my heart. Nothing matters without you. I want to be a good man, the man you need.”
My heart crashes into my chest and my knees wobble. “You are, Alek,” I say through a tight throat. “You are all those things.”
“I want to live in this house with you, raise kids here,” he says, and I glance at his list again, to see those things listed there.
My throat tightens even more. “We can’t. There’s an offer in on it. That’s why I’m here. To sign the papers.
“You mean these papers?” he asks and pulls something from his back pocket. My legs nearly give.
“You…want to buy it?”
“For us, yes. If this is where you want to stay and raise our family, that’s what I want too. But I do have a house in Seattle that I need you to do some landscaping on. A lot of the guys do. And there is something missing from my list, babe.”
“I know.”
“Remember, I added to yours. I want you to add to mine, Aly. I need to know you want the same things as I do.” He holds a pen out and I take it from him. I drop into a chair and scribble on his list.
A smile splits his face when I hand it back, and he reads it o
ut loud. “Honeymoon in Jamaica.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he drops to his knees. “I would have come to you sooner, Aly. But I had to make a trip home, and then I had to make things right with your grandmother,” he says and pulls a small velvet box from his back pocket. I gasp when he drops to his knees and opens it. “It’s my grandmother’s ring. It’s tradition in our family. But if you want some—”
“No,” I say as a big hiccupping sob rises from my throat.
His face falls, worry and fear invading his dark eyes. His hand shakes as he scrubs his face. “No? You don’t want to marry me?”
“Of course I do,” I blurt out. “I mean no, I don’t want a different ring. This one is absolutely perfect.”
He exhales and wipes his brow. “You scared me for a second there. Maybe I deserved it, though.” He takes my hands and slides the ring on my finger. We both look at it for a second, then he climbs to his feet and pulls me to him.
“I love you, Aly. You have made me the happiest man on the planet.”
“I love you too, Alek,” I say, and bask in his love, the smile on his face, knowing this is the happiest day of my life, and it’s only going to get better.
He picks me up and I squeal as he spins me around. My heart soars with all the love I have for this man, and his kindness, sweetness, his willingness to work around what I need in life. A noise on the front steps reaches my ears.
“What’s going on?”
He laughs and sets me down. “Come on, let’s go say hello to my family.”
My jaw drops open. “Your family is here?”
“Some of them.” He opens the door and I glance out to see Quinn, Jonah, Scotty, and Cason. “They’re your family now too, and I’ll introduce you to my folks, the rest of the team, and Tyler and his sisters when you’re ready. Your family is going to be huge, Aly.” Tears flood my eyes, and he puts a comforting arm around me and holds me tight. I soak in his warmth, his love. “But I have to say, you might regret it. They’re all kind of annoying. Especially Quinn.”
“Hey,” Quinn says and whacks his stomach. As he lets out a loud oomph, Quinn pulls me in for a hug. “Welcome to the family, Alyssa. It’s going to be a hell of a wild ride.”
