by Tawna Fenske
“Ow.” The universe is conspiring to maim me.
“Don’t be a smart aleck,” she says. “I’m trying to tell you there’s a difference.”
“A difference between what?” I fold my bare legs under me crisscross style and pick at a string on my cutoffs.
“Between what it feels like to split up with a guy who doesn’t matter and one who’s on the same level as ice cream and orgasms,” she says. “One of them hurts like hell.”
I’ve learned a lot about hurting this week. Not just my own pain, but James’s and the rest of his family. Such a big, lousy, tender mess, and it tore my heart to pieces watching it all go down.
It ached more knowing there was nothing I could do. That when the shit hit the fan, he wanted me gone instead of there by his side.
“Hey.” My grandma’s voice is softer now, almost a normal gentle grandma voice. I look up and there’s sympathy in her eyes. “I know you can’t share everything that happened yesterday, and I understand. But from what you told me, it doesn’t sound like a breakup.”
I frown down into my margarita. I still haven’t taken a sip. “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t a marriage proposal.”
“Would you want that?”
The glass nearly slips from my hand. “I was kidding. Being sarcastic.”
A smart aleck, as Grandma would say.
But my grandmother stares at me—just stares, not saying a word— and her question burrows under my skin and wiggles around there. What would that be like? A relationship, a proposal, a marriage?
Not now—God, no—but someday?
I know it’s dumb, but I’ve never considered it before. Not really, not after a lifetime of convincing myself it wasn’t in the cards for me. My grandmother doesn’t need a man, my mother didn’t need a man, and I sure as hell don’t need one.
But wanting…is that different somehow?
“I can see those wheels turning,” my grandma says. “You’ve always had a knack for thinking for yourself.”
Have I? Or have I been clinging hard to family history and calling it my own?
Not so different from James.
“I don’t know what I want.” The words come out low and soft, like I’m afraid to speak them out loud.
“That’s a first for you,” Grams says. “And it shows just how much he’s shaken up your world.”
I don’t have to ask who she means by he. She knows damn well that the cause of my distraction is James fucking Bracelyn.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I look into her warm blue eyes, meaning my words as a statement. Instead, they sound more like a question. “If he were going to call me, he’d have done it by now. Pretty sure we’re over.”
“Men are idiots who sometimes need time to process.” She offers this sage wisdom between sips of margarita. “That’s beside the point anyway. Just the fact that you’re willing to open yourself up to the possibility of something long-term means you’ve grown as a person.”
“Hmph.” I stick my thumb back in my drink, not willing to concede the point.
“Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?”
I look up again, annoyed to discover tears in my eyes. “All the time,” I whisper. “But it’s still nice to hear.”
“Well, I am proud of you,” she says. “How you handled your mother’s passing and worked hard to put yourself through school and build a career. I’m proud of the fact that you’ve never settled. That you’ve never let friends or strangers or anyone else define how you’re supposed to be.”
A thick lump wedges itself in my throat, and I struggle to swallow it back. I can’t even manage a thank you, which is okay, since she’s not done.
“I’m proud of the woman you’ve become,” she says. “But I’m even more proud of the woman you’re becoming. The woman you’re allowing yourself to be in spite of—or maybe because of—all you’ve been through.”
A tear rolls down my cheek, and I turn away, swiping it on the shoulder of my T-shirt. “Thank you,” I mumble, struggling to hold it together. “I love you, Grams.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
My grandma stands up, her pool of grandmotherly affection drained for now. “Hurry up and finish that shelf,” she says. “I’ve got a new client coming in ten minutes with a truckload of stuff I want out on the floor right away.”
I grumble something unintelligible and go back to piecing the shelf together. A couple of screws are stripped, and it takes me a while to find replacements. Before I know it, I’ve lost myself in the rhythm of screwing and hammering. I almost don’t hear the far-off chime at the front of the store.
My Grandma’s voice rings out, chipper and friendly as always. “Good afternoon! Welcome to Laminaxes.”
“Thank you.”
James’s smooth baritone rattles through my body, and I drop the fucking hammer on my knee. I struggle to my feet, straining to make out the conversation. They’re speaking in low tones, and I can’t hear all the words.
“There comes a point when it’s just time to let go,” he’s saying.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
My heart rattles in my chest as I jam my feet into my flip-flops and creep toward the door. Us? Is he talking about us?
I wipe my hands on my cutoffs, almost to the door that separates the back room from the rest of the store.
“There’s no shame in letting go of the past,” my grandmother is saying. “Recognizing that it’s time to release things that are weighing you down more than lifting you up.”
I don’t know if they’re talking about people or possessions or just having a mini therapy session, but I can’t figure out why they’re acting like old friends. I want to keep eavesdropping. I want to hear what the hell he’s doing here and whether he even knows this is my grandmother. Surely he recalls the name of the store?
“Is Lily here?”
That answers that. I lick my lips, heart pounding with the thought that he’s here. He’s really here.
But has he come to end things for good? That would be just like James, not one to leave loose ends fluttering in the breeze.
“She’s in back,” my grandma says. “Hang on, I’ll go get—”
“I’m here.” I step through the doorway, shoving my hands in the pockets of my shorts so he can’t see they’re shaking. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He’s dressed down. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen him wearing anything other than a suit and tie or boxer briefs. The jeans look good on him, worn at the knees and fitted just right around the curve of his ass. His black T-shirt is probably some expensive designer thing, but it looks damn good on him.
He looks damn good in here.
Why is he here again?
“I came to deliver a few things.” He answers my unasked question with this nonsensical bit of information, then folds his hands and lowers his head for a second like he’s summoning words or courage or maybe a demon.
When he lifts his gaze to mine again, his voice is achingly soft. “Lily, I’m sorry. I reacted badly, and I spoke to you sharply, and you didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s okay.” I try to smile, but it feels sorta shaky.
“No, it’s not okay.” He shakes his head and comes closer, close enough to touch me now if he wanted. “It’s not even remotely okay. You were trying to help, and I behaved like an asshole.”
He’s not wrong, but it’s probably shitty to say that. “You were in a difficult position,” I acknowledge. “The stress of a moment like that would get to anyone.”
“It’s no excuse,” he says. “The pressure got to me, and I panicked and started thinking you shouldn’t be there. That you shouldn’t have to suffer through the bullshit that was about to go down in that office.”
“Oh.” Well that’s a very James thing to do. To push someone away thinking he’s protecting them, when he’s the one who needs protection. “I thought you didn’t want me there with you.” I hate how small my voice sounds. �
��That when things got hard, you wanted me out of your life.”
“No.” His voice is hoarse. “Not at all.” He takes another step closer, embarrassment tinging his cheeks. “I suppose part of me wanted to hide the mess. To keep the worst parts of my family—of myself—under wraps. But I realized something.”
“What’s that?” My words are barely a whisper.
“That I don’t need to do that with you.”
Something stirs deep in my soul, and I shake my head slowly. “No,” I whisper. “You don’t need to do that with me.”
He steps closer, tentative, like he’s afraid I might bite. “Can you forgive me?”
“Of course.” I’m surprised to realize I mean it. His words, his sincerity, have dissolved my resentment like a sugar cube in warm water.
This is what makes the guy such a damn good lawyer. A good leader.
Maybe he has a ways to go in the vulnerability department before he’d make a good boyfriend or husband, but that’s not what I want anyway.
Is it?
My heart hammers in my ears. That’s the moment I’m sure. I want James. I want it all, the whole shebang, the whole enchilada.
I want a goddamn relationship. With him.
“Why are you here?” I shake my head, dismissing the idiocy of my own question. “I don’t mean—like—are you here because you want to work things out, or—”
“Come with me, please.”
I blink at him. “What?”
He holds out his hand and I take it without thinking. “I’d like to show you something.”
My grandmother smiles as James starts to lead me to the front door.
“Where are we going?” I dig my heels in, not won so easily.
He looks back at me, and the emotion in those green eyes pins me to the wall like a pair of thumbtacks. “Lily, I love you.” He stops walking, turning to fully face me as he takes both my hands in his. “I love you.”
I blink, pretty sure I’ve heard wrong. “You—love me?”
I thought we weren’t going there. I thought we weren’t getting involved, weren’t taking this seriously.
This makes two of us who’ve smashed that plan to smithereens. A tiny smile tugs at the corner of my heart. “You love me,” I repeat, still processing the words.
“I love you,” he says again, louder this time. “I didn’t think I was capable of that. I didn’t think I was capable of a lot of things until you walked into my life with your big brain and smart mouth and short skirts, and you rocked my entire fucking world.” He squeezes my hands, and I realize his are shaking. “You make me a better person, Lily. A person I respect a helluva lot more than the guy I was before I met you.”
I’m blinking back tears, trying to hold it together and failing miserably. “I love you, too.”
I choke out an awkward laugh. It’s the first time I’ve ever said that to a guy, and I expected the words to tear through my throat like a ball of razor wire. Instead, it feels—nice?
“Jesus, how the hell did this happen?” I laugh, self-conscious in spite of everything. “I still don’t know how the fuck this happened, but here we are.”
“Here we are.” He squeezes my hands, then drops one and uses the other to pull me toward the door. “Come on. I need you to see something.”
This time, I don’t ask questions. This time, I’m sure I’d follow this man off the end of a pier if he asked me to.
He leads me out onto the sunbaked sidewalk and into the parking lot filled with warm summer air. The smack of my flip-flops echoes the pounding of my heart as my brain struggles to catch up to what he said.
What we said.
I love you.
Oh my God.
I know that’s not a big deal to some people. But to someone like me—someone like James—it’s monumental. It’s…it’s…
“A moving truck.” I stare at the back of the blue and yellow vehicle he’s led me to, then look at him in confusion. “Is this some sort of grand gesture where you’re asking me to move in with you? Because I’m not sure I’m ready for—”
“No,” he says quickly, holding up his hands to halt that line of thought. “Not where I was going with that.”
He pauses like he’s considering that for the first time. “I actually think living together would be amazing, but not until we’re both ready and we’ve discussed all the details of cohabitation and come up with a plan for—”
“James, why did you bring me out to look at a moving truck?” I stare at the back of the truck like the answers might be written there, but nope. Just the word Penske. “Seriously, what is this about?”
A tentative smile spreads over his face. He turns and flips the latch on the back of the truck. “I came to deliver a few things.”
“You said that already but—oh.” As the door swings open, my eyes adjust to the clutter inside and I take it all in. The 18th century Jacobean style hutch. The Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. The silver Tiffany demitasse spoons in their sparkling glass case.
I turn to him in utter bewilderment. “You’re getting rid of your family heirlooms?”
“Not all of them,” he says. “Not the ones that mean something to me. Just the ones that are weighing me down. The ones I’ve been keeping out of obligation instead of because they make me happy.”
There’s his uncle’s antique brass spittoon. The stupid Fabergé ashtray his father used for his cigars.
James glares at that one. “This stuff has been hanging over my head for a long time,” he says softly. “It’s time for a fresh start.”
I don’t think we’re talking about antiques anymore. I turn back to him, and the earnestness in his green eyes is willing me to hear that. “You deserve that,” I tell him. “You deserve to be happy.”
“It’s because of you, Lily.” He clutches my hand tighter. “You made me realize I want more in life than my family’s ghosts and secrets and baggage. For the first time, I’ve started thinking I could have it all. All the things I convinced myself were out of reach.”
Oh my God. He’s really saying these things, these perfect words, to me. I don’t know how to respond, so I peer into the back of the truck and blink back tears. “My grandma will find good homes for these things.” I drop my hands, hoping I haven’t misunderstood. “I mean—assuming that’s what you meant?”
“It is,” he says. “I spoke with her this morning about some of it. She’s got a client in Redmond who’s been looking for a Belgian Renaissance bar cabinet like that one for years. And the 19th century Victorian Eastlake accent table—she knows a guy in Portland who lost one just like it in a fire. She said she’d give him a good price.”
“She will. She’ll probably give it to him for free. That’s the kind of person she is.” I make a mental note to talk to my grandma about forgetting to mention she’d talked to James. She must have known he was coming here, that he was probably on his way when she handed me that margarita.
But I’m too happy to be irritated. Tears are stinging my eyes again, the third time in a day. “So, you coordinated this with my grandma.”
“I did,” he says. “I’m looking forward to getting to know her.” He takes my hands again, warm and steady and so much a part of me now. “If you’ll let me.”
“Of course I’ll let you.” I blink hard, trying to clear my vision. That’s when I notice his eyes are filled with something besides ice or heat or anything else I’ve seen there before. “Oh my God, are you crying?”
“Fuck me,” he mutters, such an echo of his father’s profanity that I have to laugh. “Yeah,” he says, hitching one shoulder up to swipe his eyes with it in true dude crying fashion. “I guess I am. I meant what I said, Lily—you bring out all this stuff in me that I’ve never felt before. But I love it. And I love you.”
“You mentioned that.” I stand on tiptoe to kiss him, chaste and sweet and so unlike many of our past kisses.
He kisses me back, solid and soft and the best damn thing I’ve ever felt.
> When I come back down and blink my eyes open, I survey the contents of the truck again. There’s something missing. “You kept the zebra?”
“No.” His voice is soft but firm.
“What?”
He glances down at our intertwined hands. “The engineer showed up a couple hours ago to take it away.”
“Take it away where?” I’m struggling to keep disappointment from my voice.
“Your place,” he says. “Right in the front window where you said you’d put it. You were right, to me it’s a symbol of my father’s business prowess, but you made it about whimsy and laughter and fun and—”
“And sex.” I laugh because it’s true, and also because I know he’s too polite to say it.
He laughs, too. “Yeah, sex,” he says. “But we’re more than that, aren’t we? I know we weren’t supposed to be, but here we are.”
“Here we are.” We’re in a parking lot in the hot summer sun, but I know what he means.
And I can’t believe we’ve arrived at this place after all. “I love you.” I can’t believe I’m finally saying it, meaning it with all my heart. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” He pulls me into his arms and kisses me.
There’s more heat in it this time, like we’ve crossed some barrier and we’re running like hell on the other side of it. Together, breathless and wild and dizzy with anticipation of what’s to come.
I melt into it, kissing him back with a fierceness I’ve never felt before.
When we break apart, I look deep into those green eyes. “Wait. You seriously sent someone to my house to install the zebra in my living room?”
He shakes his head, looking sheepish. “No. I thought about it, but that seemed like a creepy thing to do without asking you first.”
I laugh, impressed that even his grand gesture is thoughtful and pragmatic. “Good call,” I tell him. “For the record, I wouldn’t have minded. But I’m glad I’ll get to have a say in things.”
“I’ve already paid the fee for installation whenever you’re ready,” he says. “Just say the word, and I’ll make it happen.”
“How about this,” I tell him. “When we’re ready to move in together, we’ll find exactly the right spot for the zebra.”
