by J. Lynn
* * *
Grady was holding my hand as we walked out of the exhibit hall and into the rapidly cooling evening air of early October. It was later than I had thought I’d be out. We ended up grabbing a light dinner from one of the restaurants on German Street and then we’d stopped to get coffee before heading to the Center for Contemporary Arts.
It had been a nice night, really nice.
The conversation had been easy and it seemed like we never ran out of things to talk about. He told me about growing up in western Maryland and spending his summers helping his grandfather on their family farm and how he still went back there quite often. I explained what it was like to grow up in the Lima household. Even though he knew nothing about mixed martial arts or anything remotely like that, he was genuinely interested in what I had to say.
And now as we were walking to where we’d parked, my head was in a weird place. It was strange being back on the campus since I’d dropped out with three semesters left to graduate. Looking around now, with the students milling about between the dorms, I remembered what it was like before the weekend I came home and after I’d finally returned to college.
I found myself thinking about the time I learned that Brock was engaged to Kristen. Since I’d avoided keeping tabs on him, I was usually successful in zoning out my family whenever they talked about him. This time I hadn’t been so successful.
It had been right after I’d made the decision to leave college. After nearly dying, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. I’d seriously almost died, like dead, dead. I had the scars to prove it. I couldn’t bring myself to waste away hours sitting in the classroom and studying, learning things I’d never apply in life. Looking back now, removed from the intensity of everything, I knew it wasn’t really a thirst to live life that drove me to withdraw from classes.
I’d been depressed.
It was common, I’d discovered later, that after a traumatic event, people became depressed, oftentimes years after the event. I’d been restless, with no desire to go to class, to be around people, and even unable to read for any long period of time. Nothing had interested me.
I’d dropped out of college, returned home, a bittersweet homecoming for my parents since I knew they wanted me there but not under those circumstances.
Mom had pulled me aside one evening, after dinner, to tell me that Brock had proposed to Kristen and she had accepted. It had been two years after that night.
Two years and . . . Brock was on Pay-Per-View. He was engaged to the girl he’d flirted with that night, and it finally hit me then that there had been nothing that Brock had to get over, because he hadn’t had those kind of feelings for me. None. He was moving on, because nothing was holding him back.
His life was exploding in all the best ways while mine . . . mine had imploded, and everything I’d ever wanted—a degree, working for my family, traveling, being happy, and being in love—had felt like it was out of my grasp.
So I stayed home for six more months, found the job at the insurance firm, and moved back to Martinsburg.
And now I was starting to get back those things I once wanted. I was happy. I was working for my family and I . . . Drawing in a shallow breath, I peeked up at Grady.
We stopped by my car, and we stood facing one another.
He was not little.
Grady was at least an inch or two taller than me, so I could still wear normal heels, but yeah, he was short compared to Brock. He had to be close to six foot three. Obviously not Godzilla-sized, but—
Oh my God, I was not thinking about him while I was on a date with Grady.
“So, I was wondering,” Grady said, and the centers of his cheeks pinked. Adorable. “If you’d like to grab dinner sometime this week?”
I started to smile, and ducked my chin a little. “That . . . that would be nice.”
“So that’s a yes?”
I nodded.
“I’m glad you said yes.” He squeezed my hand. “I was prepared to grovel to get another date.”
Another date? That sounded . . . really nice. “Groveling not necessary.”
“Well, it’s . . . it’s getting late,” he said, his gaze finding and holding mine.
“It is.”
He stepped in to me, and his hand coasted away from mine, running up to my elbow. The breath he let out was shaky. Grady tilted his head to the side, lining up his mouth with mine, and I knew then he was going to kiss me.
He was really going to do it!
It had been so long since I’d been kissed, even been in the position to be kissed, and this was going to happen. His pale lashes had lowered. His eyes were closed. His mouth was coming right at mine.
Grady leaned in, slightly lowering his head, and I closed my eyes.
At the last second, without thinking, I turned my head, and Grady’s lips brushed across my cheek. Warmth hit me, a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment. Why had I done that? He wanted to kiss me. I wanted him to do that.
Didn’t I?
Yes, I told myself as I opened my eyes and met his questioning ones. I was just gun shy. I forced a shaky half-smile, one that probably looked more like a grimace. “I had a really good time today.”
“Truly?” he asked.
I nodded. “I did.”
His gaze searched mine and then he smiled a boyish, charming smile. “Then it’s dinner next week? Wednesday?”
“Wednesday,” I confirmed.
This time when Grady leaned in, I didn’t pull away, but it was because he was giving me a hug. I returned it, telling myself that if he tried to kiss me again, I wouldn’t turn away.
I wouldn’t.
Chapter 10
The massive omelet was steaming hot and full of nearly every meat possible—sausage, Italian sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon, and ham. Of course, I squeezed some veggies in there. It had peppers and mushrooms.
And cheese.
Lots of cheese, and I didn’t care that cheese wasn’t a veggie.
I’d never been more excited about anything in my life.
Avery went the steak and eggs route with a side order of extra crispy bacon. And it was a huge T-bone steak. Across from us was a very pregnant Teresa who had a stack of pancakes, a side bowl of fruit, and an order of sausage links.
I loved that these women ate as much as me.
Sunday breakfast was a tradition that had started back in Pennsylvania and had carried over to the West Virginia girls. I’d been invited to join them the moment I showed up at Shepherd all those years ago, because I’d met them through mutual friends. I’d bailed on them more than I joined them, but that was something I was actively changing.
I dug into my omelet as Avery’s phone lit up. She placed her knife down and picked up the phone, laughing softly. “Oh man.”
Avery extended the phone to the center of the table and there was a picture of Jack, Jase’s son from a previous relationship, who was currently giving a very happy Ava a piggyback ride.
Jack was somewhere in his double digits of life. I was terrible at figuring out how old kids were. I guessed it was something that came along with producing them. He looked so much like Jase it made you do a double take. Rich russet-colored hair and beautiful gray eyes, he was a baby heartbreaker in the making. Next to them were two leashed tortoises. It looked like Jack had been trying to walk them when Ava climbed on his back.
“Oh, Ava is in heaven.” Teresa popped a piece of watermelon into her mouth and then looked down as a bit of juice plopped on her swollen stomach. She sighed.
“Ava’s in love with Jack,” Avery explained to me and then grinned at Teresa. “Whenever Jack comes over, Ava is literally one step behind him, like his little shadow. It’s so adorable.”
“It is,” Teresa agreed, stabbing a sausage link with a fork. “Which I’m sure Cam will be thrilled with once Ava gets older.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “He’s going to be one of those dads. You know? The kind that cleans a shotgun in front of the boys A
va dates.”
Teresa arched a brow. “Does Cam even own a gun?”
“No, but I bet he will once Ava hits sixteen.”
I laughed as I cut another large section of the omelet.
“Thank you again for watching Ava and Alex for us,” Avery said for the hundredth time. “You have no idea how hard it is to get out on time when you have kids.” She pointed her fork at Teresa. “At least with Jack, he’s always been old enough to not need constant attention. Just wait until the baby comes. Getting laid becomes an Olympic sport. Thanks to Jillian, we were finally able to hopefully not make baby number three.”
Chalk that up to things I never needed to know happened when I watched their kids.
“Yeah, but we have built-in babysitting,” Teresa replied. “Jack.”
“True,” Avery said.
Teresa giggled as she rubbed her swollen belly. “Either way, if there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said, dipping the sausage link in a pool of syrup. “By the way, Jillian, don’t think we didn’t notice how you skimmed the details on your date.”
“Mmm?” I mumbled around a mouthful of egg and cheese.
Avery raised her brows. “So, you said you had a good time and that you guys were getting dinner on Wednesday, but did you guys, you know . . .” She elbowed me in the side. “Did you kiss? Did you do more?”
“Did you have sex?” Teresa asked.
I coughed, nearly choking on a piece of diced bacon. “No. No sex. Not that there is anything wrong with sex on the first date,” I hastily advised, because seriously, I saw nothing wrong with that. It just wasn’t how I moved since that seemed fast and I was like a three-legged turtle when it came to relationships. “He did try to kiss me.”
“Try?” Teresa’s brow creased.
Reaching for my glass of Coke, I shrugged a shoulder. “I turned my head when he leaned down. I didn’t mean to. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“Oh,” Avery said, sounding disappointed.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She cut off a piece of steak.
I took a drink and then placed the cup down. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”
“I think it was more of a ‘if you want to be kissed by someone you don’t turn your head from them’ kind of thing,” Teresa explained.
“I want to be kissed by him!” I exclaimed, and then flushed when the snowy-haired woman across from us looked over at me. “I do. It’s just . . . I don’t have a lot of experience.”
Teresa’s eyes widened like blue saucers. “Are you—?”
“No. I’m not a virgin,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. “I’ve only been in one relationship.”
“That guy was a dick,” Avery said.
“Yeah, I know that, but there wasn’t anyone before that? After him?” Teresa asked.
I shook my head. “It’s not easy for me . . .” I trailed off as I scooped up a huge piece of omelet. What was I about to say to them? That it wasn’t easy because I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the way I looked?
God, that sounded lame when you said it out loud. Hell, I hadn’t been exactly comfortable before everything. Would they truly understand that? Teresa and Avery were very pretty women, beautiful in their own ways.
“I just suck at the whole dating thing,” I continued. “I have really bad taste in guys. I mean, I’m not saying Grady is bad. It’s just that . . . I don’t know what I’m saying. Please ignore me.”
Teresa glanced over at Avery and then leaned forward as far as her belly would allow, which wasn’t far at all. “We all sucked at dating. Especially Avery.”
“True,” she said happily, slicing off another section of meat. “There are times when I look back, I’m still shocked that Cam and I got together. I was . . . well, I was totally closed off to the idea of dating anyone. He was just determined to change that.”
She leaned against the seat, her hand going back to her belly. “You know, I don’t think I ever told you this, but the guy I dated all the way back in high school was a real dickhead. He hit me.”
I nearly dropped my fork. She hadn’t told me that. “I didn’t know.”
“And let’s just say, when Cam found out, things went down shit creek with no paddle. But the point is, I’ve had crappy taste in guys too. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, especially not when you’ve recognized you had that issue—had as in past tense. And it’s okay if you turned your head when Grady was about to kiss you. Maybe you’re just not ready for the relationship to get to that level.”
Nodding slowly, I poked at what was left of my omelet. I wasn’t nineteen anymore. I was twenty-six, four years from thirty. So when in the holy hell would I be ready? At exactly what point would I be . . . be normal?
Thank God the conversation moved away from me, and they started talking about their desires to offer their own dance classes. I hated feeling this way—acknowledging that, at times, I had such little confidence in myself. Embarrassing wasn’t even the word for it. No one liked a woman who looked in a mirror and didn’t love what she saw.
Which was so damn ridiculous if you thought about it.
Pulling a mushroom out of the omelet with my fork, irritation pricked at me. I remembered when Abby had first reconnected with Colton and she’d been so uncomfortable with herself. The mere idea of becoming intimate with him terrified her and she’d been embarrassed to even admit she felt that way. What had I said to her? That not having the greatest confidence didn’t make her any less of a person or something to feel bad about?
It made her normal, average even, because the average woman out there didn’t look at herself every day and say “damn, I’m amazing.” Everyone had moments when they doubted themselves and had trouble looking at their reflections for reasons that went beyond the physical.
I’d always felt that being told you should be more confident was like getting slapped in the face. How was being told that supposed to help you feel better?
I needed to cut myself a break. Seriously.
Shoving the mushroom and another chunk of omelet in my mouth, my ears perked up when I heard Avery say, “We would just need the space for a studio. Honestly, at this point, we’d just need a large room, but every place I’d looked at in town needed a lot of work and the rents were ridiculous.”
“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.
Teresa was toying with a napkin, folding it into a tiny square as she said, “You know how Avery and I have been wanting to open up our own dance studio, starting small with just offering a few classes since I’m obviously out of commission for a while.” She patted her belly. “So we just need a space, but what’s available in town is ridiculous.”
“It’s either too big or too small,” Avery confirmed. “And almost always overpriced for the kind of work required to convert the room into an appropriate studio.”
An idea hit me, and I couldn’t believe I had never thought of it before, because I had heard them talk about fulfilling their dreams to start up their own dance company. Then again, I’d never been in this position until now.
“We have quite a bit of space available at the Academy, on the first and second floors, that we’re currently looking at renting out,” I explained, looking between the two. “Most of the space is completely empty. Would obviously need something work to make it ready for a studio, but I know my father wants to expand the kind of services we offer. I know you guys are looking at doing your own thing, but—”
“We’d eventually love to do our own thing, but we know we don’t have the type of capital or reputation right now,” Avery said, practically bouncing in her seat. “Partnering with an organization like the Lima Academy . . .”
“Would be beyond anything we’d expected.” Excitement filled Teresa’s eyes. “Do you have to get permission from your father?”
“Not yet. I just need to talk to . . .” My brows lifted. “I just need to talk to Brock and see what he thinks. If I can convince him, then we might have a sp
ace for you. We could have you guys come in, look around, talk about what would need to be done, and how much it would cost.”
“That sounds amazing,” Avery said, exchanging a delighted look with Teresa, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself smile without trying to hide it.
* * *
I was full of nervous excitement, waiting for Brock on Monday. The moment I saw him walk past my office, head down and attention focused on his cellphone, I all but flew from my chair. However, the fact that he didn’t pop his head in or wave as he walked by, like he’d done every day, was odd.
I sat back down, deciding I should wait for a bit.
Not to mention I should probably give him a few minutes to get settled in. It was Monday morning, after all.
Half an hour passed before I grabbed my cup of coffee and started toward his office and then pivoted around, heading to the break room. I totally saw nothing wrong with buttering him up with a fresh cup of coffee.
Knowing that he’d liked his coffee black, I grabbed one of the clean, Lima-branded coffee mugs from the cabinet overhead and poured him a cup. I topped mine off after adding another packet of sugar. Turning, I jerked back a step when I saw Paul standing a few feet behind me. Hot coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup, spilling along the top of my hand.
“Ouch,” I muttered, resisting the urge to flail my hand and spill more coffee.
Paul smirked as he stepped around me, walking to the fridge to grab a protein shake. No I’m sorry. No hello. Nothing. I watched him pivot around and walk back out of the break room with my mouth hanging open.
“What an asshole,” I muttered.
Pushing the run-in with Paul to back of my head, I made my way to Brock’s office. The door was open, so I called out, “You got a few minutes? I brought you coffee.”
Brock lifted his head and a faint smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. He had several days’ growth of a beard on his cheeks and there were smudges under his eyes, as if he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep this weekend.
