Chapter Fifteen
Josie hadn’t been to this particular library in a few months, but it was the garden that drew her in. Underneath an ivy-covered pergola, surrounded by overgrown Rose of Sharon bushes, every flower was in full bloom, and it felt like a little womb of blossoms. What she needed most right now was a sense of wonder and a place where no one else would disturb her. The library was closed; the garden was open.
Nestling herself on a bench, she took the clutched paperback and stared at the cover. Willing herself to open it, she found page one and began the slow process of unfuckupping herself.
It was a dark and stormy night, the book began, and she groaned. How ridiculously silly. And then…she just became the book.
Within a short time she discovered that Meg, the main character, had a missing father. Josie’s chest seized, a shocked sob stuck in it. Oh, shit. Had Daddy, just days before he died, given her a book about a pre-teen girl who loses her father?
Awkward, bookish Meg—like Josie. Annoying twin siblings and a curious, genius little brother—nope. Darla was the closest thing she had to a sibling, and while she’d call Darla clever, “genius” was a stretch.
An absentminded but loving scientist mother who cooked dinner on Bunsen burners?
Hell no.
Meg’s father was a scientist, too, and he’d gone missing. The town believed he’d abandoned his family, but Meg and her little brother, Charles Wallace, came to learn he’d been exploring time travel. She gasped at the concept of a tesseract—folding time to travel to new planets. The battle between good and evil sucked her in, and soon she found herself so consumed with the story that everything around her faded.
Tears ran down her face when Meg worked to pull her brother from the clutches of a giant, soul-sucking brain called IT that sought conformity and mind control at all costs (a.k.a. Evil). Meg’s friend, Calvin, a popular but poor kid came to her rescue repeatedly, and the hint of a love interest tapped into a memory of a Josie who would have adored the storyline at eleven.
Oh, Daddy, she thought. You were so right. I wish I’d read this. I wish I could talk to you about this.
I just wish.
And then…Meg found her father. Saved him and her brother, with some help from Calvin.
If only finding fathers were so easy.
And then they were reunited with her mother, and…Meg, young Meg, had turned out to be stronger and more beautiful than she’d ever imagined.
Everyone around her saw it. Knew it, deep in their bones. Her secret weapon that allowed her to defeat IT was so simple: love.
Love conquered all.
Closing the cover, she heard the first raindrop before she saw it, for her eyes were shut. At first Josie thought it was a tear, for she was crying. Then she heard another, and another, and opened her eyes. The air had taken on a steamy quality, and in this little green sanctuary she felt cared for, loved like the furry creatures of the planet Ixchel in the book, the beings who showered Meg with unconditional love and caring. If only she’d had that.
Willing herself to stop being negative, she visualized all the people who had stepped in and shown love. Her mother (before the accident). Her dad. Aunt Cathy. Uncle Mike. Darla. Mrs. Humboldt. Teachers and professors and bosses and friends. Laura. Mike. Even Dylan.
And, of course—Alex.
So many people, when she thought it through, who had shown some caring for her. Isolated and alone all those years at home, as her mom paraded men through the house, using Josie as a servant, or kicking her out to go to Aunt Cathy’s. Narrow misses; gratitude flooded her for the times she’d been perilously close to danger with some of her mother’s bedmates, but had escaped unscathed. The coke powder on the coffee table, empty beer bottles ringing the house, and $5 cans of crabmeat for their cats—but no food for her.
For the past eight years since she’d escaped she had focused on all the wrongs. Where had it gotten her? Safe. Out of danger.
But alone.
Never before had she thought to focus on the people in her life who helped. Were there for her. Acted as role models or friends or just…gave her acts of kindness that sustained her soul.
Who had, collectively, helped her to reach this place of empowerment and love so that she could face an eighteen-year-old piece of baggage the size of a small paperback book.
She had done it.
Wasn’t this the part where she was supposed to feel changed? Altered? Free and relieved of all the crap she’d been carrying around all these years? Instead, she felt a touch of guilt for how she’d acted with Marlene, a much larger feeling of relief for finally telling her how she felt, and an inner stillness.
Focusing on that, she closed her eyes, letting the occasional raindrop fall on her shoulders and back as she pulled her knees to her chest and just listened. Her own breathing filled her ears. Just her. That was all she needed.
Just her.
That was enough. Had always been enough.
Hot tears filled her eyes and throat, but this time through an enormous smile. For so long she’d felt unfinished. Damaged. The girl whose father died and whose mother…might as well have. The woman who came home to her after the car crash wasn’t her mother. Not her real mother. Josie had fantasized that somehow there had been a mix-up at the hospital and Marlene had really died and this woman, this thing that came home and called itself “Mom” was actually a spy who had plastic surgery and was infiltrating… Peters, Ohio?
That had been the part that even her eleven-year-old mind couldn’t grasp.
She laughed at her memory of it, simultaneously crying for her eleven-year-old self.
And yet…there was that stillness now inside. She could find it and be centered.
It had replaced the hole in her.
*
Alex remembered that Josie had mentioned a little garden spot behind an area library, and he felt a sense of kismet, a larger sense of pride, as he found her, curled up on a bench under a beautiful pergola, a flowering sanctuary like something from a 19th-century novel. A light, misty rain was beginning, the kind where raindrops seem coy, and flirt with dropping, but don’t quite commit. Josie had pulled her knees to her chest and appeared to be smiling as he approached her from the side and sat down next to her.
His presence seemed not to startle her, nor surprise her. It was as if his appearance were the most natural thing in the world.
“Hi,” he said gently. As she tipped her face up to look at him, he saw red eyes and tears pouring down her cheeks, dotting her blouse. Or perhaps that was rain. It was hard to tell.
“Dr. Perfect,” she whispered. In her hand she held a small paperback. He looked at it, then gasped.
“A Wrinkle in Time! Tesseracts and IT. I remember reading that in—what? Fourth grade?” He chuckled to himself. “I remember wondering if that was where my dad really was. On another planet, desperately trying to find his way back to me.”
Her eyes filled with tears and he regretted his words. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I should have—”
“No. Of course you should share.” Her chin shook and her voice wavered. “We should share. I’ve spent most of my adult life hiding from everyone and everything important, trying to pretend I didn’t have a huge hole inside me, Alex. I’ve turned men away—nice men. Good men. I’ve avoided the respectful and sweet guys because I didn’t think I was worth it. Crafting a life that doesn’t make you vulnerable leaves you with a facsimile of one.” Her voice hitched, a sob catching her. “I didn’t realize that until now.”
The fact that she was being vulnerable with him, opening up and talking about her inner truth made him fall a little more in love. Stretching his arm around her, he pulled her into an embrace, the feel of her body against his like their own little world.
“We’re not so different,” he murmured in her ear, the rain now beating steadily down on them, dewy but persistent. “I have a hard time trusting people, too. You’re the first woman I’ve cared about enough to publicly humiliate myself in front of, well—ever.”
She laughed through her tears, her body shaking against his, the feel of her in his arms so right. His neck was damp, and now the rain came down steadily. Josie didn’t seem to care, and neither did he. It transported them to a secret garden, a lush, bountiful place where they could just breathe and be.
“When you smacked into that post—”
“I was trying to be manly and run fast and powerfully to outdo the guy on the porch you were touching, Josie. I was jealous. I don’t get jealous. Being jealous means being attached and I don’t do that. You made me do that.”
“It’s my fault you smashed up your face?”
“No. I own that. It’s your fault I ran by in the first place.” Their eyes met and hers explored his face searching and confirming what they both seemed to feel.
“What is this, Alex?” she asked, eyes wide and intense.
“It’s something.”
She laughed, a small, wistful sound. “That night we were in the park, while we were making love, I started to say ‘I love you.’”
“I know.”
“I didn’t cover it up well, did I?” Her hand brushed his wet hair away from his forehead. At the moment her fingertips touched him, he felt a wall inside crumble, a wellspring of love for her pouring out from behind it. “It’s not something I generally blurt out.”
“Josie, I love you, too,” he said, the words so natural it was as if he were saying them for the thousandth time, something inside him expanding, taking her in and mingling their souls together to create something greater than both of them.
The rain made her hair cling to her cheekbones in thin strands, drops forming on her nose and eyelids, mingling with her tears. Those brown eyes, warm and loving, connected with his and said more now than ever before.
But her lips spoke exactly what he needed to know. “And I love you, Alex. I’ve never said that to any man before.”
“If I have any say, you’ll never say it to another man, either,” he replied, pulling her closer, his lips brushing hers, her hands sliding under his arms and palms wrapping around his shoulders, their bodies unfolding to match their revealed hearts. The faded wooden bench, ivy wrapped around its feet, pressed into his back as Josie stretched to climb into his lap, straddling him, her hands on either side of his face, their mouths welcoming and exploring each other.
“Deal,” she whispered against his mouth.
The heavens parted and rain poured down in large raindrops, soon soaking their shirts. Josie pulled away from the kisses and tipped her head up, smiling. Alex did the same, watching the sky pour its approval onto them, nature’s baptism, as if washing clean all the awkwardness, missteps, regrets, and fears.
A wave of desire roared within, hands sliding under her wet shirt, cupping her breasts as she looked down at him, fire in her eyes, the power of her next kiss slamming into him, going straight to his core, making him hard in seconds. What had been tender yielded to something visceral and breathtaking, accessed only through love. No more questions, no more uncertainties—this was their authentic selves meeting naked and fully ready for one another, to see what passion they could unleash on a new plane of existence.
Pure love. Pure lust. Pure acceptance.
And, most of all, the full admittance that they were imperfect and could be imperfect together.
Josie broke the kiss, climbing off him and standing before him, chest rising and falling with deep, feverish breaths, her hand outstretched. Take me, it said.
And so Alex did.
*
I
Love
You.
Who knew those words could be spoken so easily when meant so fully? All that she had wanted, dreamt of, imagined, and conjured now appeared before her as Alex stood up, the rain pouring down him in rivers, his hand clasping hers as she led him to a soft spot of grass under the canopied pergola. The greenery interwoven into the wood redirected the water, long streams pouring at uneven intervals. Slowly, with movement that felt timeless, she reached for him, her arms around his waist, his hands in her soaked hair, their lips bruising each other’s, tongues intertwined as tremors ran through her, not from cold but from the sheer force of emotion her body contained.
She needed to unleash it.
He knew how.
Bending her down, they rested on their knees, unable to unravel from the embrace, his hands peeling off her shirt, her hands happy to do the same to him. With a rushed excitement Josie found her legs muddy, the grass a wet mattress of nature, Alex’s torso the only heat she needed. Her fingers nimbly undid his pants as he reached in his back pocket for the condom.
She stopped him. “I’m on the pill.”
Trust. “I didn’t know that,” he rasped in her ear.
“I never told you. I just…it’s okay now.” She took a deep sigh and confessed, “I’ve never made love with someone without a condom.”
“Never?” His voice was so tantalizing, making her throb, wanting him in her. The rain poured down, her body soaked through, whatever clothing she had left now a second skin.
“You’re the first.”
“And last,” he said, guiding himself and entering her, their bodies wet and slippery as he towered over her, arms on either side of her, eyes steady and burning with love for her.
“Oh, Alex,” she moaned, the heat and fullness of him, the skin-on-skin contact so different. So vibrant and hot. Her insides grew and melted, shimmering and shaking as a wave built within her, something greater than all her prior climaxes combined. This one would be infused with love, a deep, flowing emotion between them that was perpetual and eternal.
“Oh,” he sighed, then began to move, her legs wrapping around him. Then she remembered.
“Your hip! Your shoulder!” she called out, the rain now so loud it drowned out everything but her own pleasure and the touch of him, the push of his body into hers, the sheer wall of man over her. “Are you sure you can—”
“Josie, the day I’m too injured to do this, with you, outside in our own little garden of lust, is the day you can bury me.”
Instead of laughter, a keen sense of something loving filled her. “Then I’m sad we only have seventy more years of this.”
“Better enjoy every minute,” he said in a low, smoky voice, water dripping off his body, drops clinging to his taut, sculpted muscles as he thrust into her, making the words disappear. The giant wave rose great within, her heart expanding with it, and Alex’s body tensed just as her own froze, the exquisite joy of his heat, mouth, body grinding into hers the perfect complement to the words they’d shared.
“Oh, Alex, I—” And then she tipped over, walls tight around him, the core of her touched by his flesh, each stroke like a prayer of love, driving deep into her center, taking up residence permanently.
“Let go,” he urged, his own body going taut, jaw tight and mouth crushing into hers as her calves felt his ass become granite, his hips slowed to smaller thrusts, and he let out a sound of ecstasy that matched her own cries of release, the vibration blending with the rush of rain, an ending to a perfect beginning.
With Dr. Perfect.
As her body tremored, then slowed, finally warm and glowing from the aftermath of joining so thoroughly with Alex, Josie wrinkled her nose, then wiped water off her face. Drenched. Inside and out, half naked with Alex still inside her, in a little garden behind a public library.
Reality sank in and she began to laugh. His warm eyes, covered in pelting drops, rivulets of water streaming down the planes of his face, studied her.
Thunder rumbled and two seconds later a crack from the sky made her tighten involuntarily, the shattering glass sound a little too close. “We need to get out of here,” she said, memorizing this moment, their bare skin touching, bodies on the grass, mud-soaked and all-too primal.
Alex kissed the tip of her nose and pulled out, then peeled away, searching in the grass for his clothes. “I think these are yours,” he said, flinging a mud-covered pair of shorts at her. The thwack against her chest made them both laugh.
“Here’s your underwear!” she shouted above another rumble of thunder, aiming for his head. Direct hit. Both were now streaked with mud, their backs covered, faces smeared.
Their clothes were about as easy to put on as threading cooked spaghetti through a straw, but Alex and Josie managed to cover enough important parts to avoid breaking any local nudity ordinances.
“You look like you just ran a Tough Mudder,” she said, pointing and laughing.
“I’d say the same of you, but you don’t run.”
Throwing herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, she kissed him with complete abandon and joy, the rain washing some of the mud off, until the sky crackled and Mother Nature poured what felt like buckets over them. Sliding down, she finished the kiss standing, the taste of him divine.
“We gotta go!” he bellowed, pulling her toward their cars.
“So—what’s next? Where do we go from here?” she shouted. It wasn’t so much an operational question, as in what to do next, but more metaphysical. Where did they go from here? What do you do when you find your true love? How do you go from being profoundly changed back to your life?
What, literally, comes next?
“How about a cup of coffee? I know this really cool diner…”
Josie groaned.
Jeddy’s it was.
But no more table for one.
;)
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The next book in this series is Completely Complicated. So many readers emailed me to ask for more of Josie, Alex, Mike, Laura and Dylan that kept the story going!
Read here!
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