Don’t freak out, Kellee. Don’t freak out.
My hands are slightly shaking as I unlock the door to my apartment. I push it open and turn to Tanner, the ghosts still dancing in his eyes. I know he needs me right now, he needs someone there. What I can’t figure out is what the hell I’m going to have to offer him.
The door is open, but my feet feel like cement. Tanner offers a sideways smile that’s probably ten times sexier than he intended and grabs my hand, pulling me through.
My apartment is small, like all other New York City apartments, but it’s been my home since last year when I earned a scholarship on top of working and could finally afford it. I toss my keys on the kitchen counter and grab one of Trista’s beers and a water from the fridge. When I turn around, Tanner is slowly running his thumb along the bottom of one of our shelves lined with different pictures. One is of me, Dad, Seth, and Mee Ma posing in front of the Grand Canyon. We took a family trip there a few summers ago. The other, which seems to be the one that’s caught his eye, is of me and my mom. It was taken less than a week before she left.
I wonder if she knew she was leaving already. Maybe that’s why she insisted on the picture.
“You look just like her,” he says softly, turning to face me. I try offering him the water first, but he shakes his head, so I pull the beer out from behind my back and offer it instead. I know I shouldn’t be feeding him any more alcohol, but as long as he’s in my place, I know he can’t do anything to hurt himself. He takes it, offering me a slight smile as he turns back to the frame.
“Thanks. She’s a lot prettier than I am, though. She has perfect skin and the thickest hair,” I bite the inside of my cheek and shift on my feet. Jesus, even a practical stranger thinks I’m like her.
Tanner reaches out and brushes the back of his hand against my cheek, “I’ve never seen a girl look as pretty as you do right now.”
I blush, even though it’s a ridiculous line and he’s three drinks past drunk. “Yeah yeah, you’re not getting in my pants tonight so cut the crap.”
I finally get a legitimate smile out of him and he follows me to the couch. “Are you close with her? Your mom, I mean.”
I twist the top off my water and take a few swigs, thankful for the wetness to wash out the cigarette smoke caked in my throat. “I was.”
“Was?”
I nod, “Yeah. She left us about nine years ago. I was thirteen.” I take another swig and pretend it doesn’t bother me, like we’re just talking about the weather or how work was tonight, but the heaviness of each word I just said is weighing down on my chest and making my heart beat slower and slower.
Tanner curses under his breath and reaches his hand out for mine. Funny, he seemed so shaken when I took his hand outside of The Box, but now he’s taking it like he owns it. Like my hand has never belonged anywhere else but right there inside of his.
“I’m so sorry. Shit, I don’t even know what to say,” I see worry spread over his forehead and I shake my head and set my water down on the coffee table.
“Don’t be. It’s been a long time and I’m pretty much over it,” I lie. “Besides, I didn’t bring you to my apartment to talk about my mom.”
“Oh?” Tanner asks, leaning in closer. His face is just inches from mine and even through the scent of whiskey I can smell the minty sweetness on his breath, “What did you bring me here for?”
“To take me to my bedroom and ravage my body,” I say as seriously as I can, licking my lower lip. Tanner’s eyes grow wide and for a second I think he’s lost the ability to speak for the first time in his life. I smile and push on his chest to put some space between us, “To talk, Mr. Smooth. Tell me about the girl.”
Tanner’s smile fades and he leans back against the cushions, taking a swig of his beer. “How do you know it’s a girl?”
“Oh please,” I say, crossing my arms. “Like every single person at The Box doesn’t know about the girl from Florida. Stop playing dumb and spill.”
I can tell he’s frustrated, and I’m worried he might bail and walk out the door, but he takes another sip and then sets his beer down. His eyes meet mine and I can feel my heart breaking inside. I’ve never felt so much sadness from one look. Without even hearing a word out of his mouth, I know this girl broke him.
“Her name is Paisley. She’s my best friend, but I fucked up and fell in love with her.”
I know it shouldn’t, but it stings to hear him say he loves another girl. “And you can’t tell her?”
“I did tell her,” he laughs softly, shaking his head. “I told her. But I waited too long, and she’s in love with someone else.”
I want to reach out for him, to touch him and have him touch me. I just want to take away the pain I can feel radiating from him. But something tells me he’s had the “I’m sorry” treatment, and obviously it isn’t helping. “Ouch,” I offer instead, trying to keep up the casual banter between us. “Have you contacted Lifetime yet?”
Tanner looks up at me, his mouth slightly open in shock. He appraises me for a moment before a smile breaks out on his gorgeous face and he tosses one of my pillows at me, “Wow, don’t cry or anything. I can see you’re really torn up about this.”
I laugh and grab my water, but Tanner grabs it from my hand and steals a swig before I get the chance. I smile, glad that he’s sobering up. “I’m sorry, I just know that I get tired of hearing everyone tell me how sorry they are about my mom. People being sorry or offering me a sympathetic look doesn’t change the facts of my life.”
He tilts his head to the side for a minute, like he’s thinking hard about what I just said. “God, you are so right. I think I just realized how much I hate when people tell me they’re sorry about my situation.”
“Well, I promise to not give you any sympathy,” I say, holding up my two fingers like I think the Girl Scouts do. “On one condition.”
“And that is?”
“Stop using your lines that you use on every other girl on me. If I have to deny your pathetic attempt to get me into bed one more time, I might not be able to fight the need to feel sorry for you.”
This time Tanner laughs. I mean he legitimately laughs, and I see his bright teeth light up his face for the first time. “I can’t make any promises that I won’t try again, but I promise I won’t actually take you to bed until you ask me to.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Oh yeah? And what makes you so confident that I’ll ask?”
He shrugs, that cute sexy half smile taking its usual place. “I guess that’s my sixth sense.”
We sit there for a moment, both of us just staring at each other and listening to the soft buzz of New York City outside my windows. Suddenly, Tanner leans forward and his forehead scrunches in concentration as he studies me. I want to look away, afraid I might have something on my face, but finally he whispers, “Gray.”
“What?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper itself. What is it with me losing my voice around this guy?
“Gray,” he says a little louder, brushing my hair back from my face and tucking it behind my ear. “I’ve been trying to figure out the color of your eyes since the first night I met you. They’re gray.”
I inhale deeply and I know Tanner can feel my nerves. His eyes flicker back and forth between mine and he leans in, his lips just fucking centimeters from touching mine and releasing all this tension tied up in my muscles.
But I can’t do this. I can’t kiss him when his brain was just so focused on some other girl that he couldn’t think straight.
I jump up, grabbing my empty water bottle and walking to the kitchen. “I told you not to use those corny lines on me. And don’t tuck my hair behind my ear like you did with that girl you were with earlier. Maybe I like it hanging in front of my face sometimes.”
Tanner smiles and stretches his arms across the couch, his muscles flexing and moving under his shirt.
Good God.
“I can’t figure you out, Freckles,” he says, still studying me from across the room. “I can’t decide if I like that or hate that about you.”
I smile and grab a pillow and blanket from our linen closet, tossing them both in his direction. “You should probably hate me, it’d be easier that way.” I think about my mom and how everyone says I’m so much like her. I can’t let myself get into anything with this guy. His heart is already broken enough without me fucking it up.
“Are you going to bed?” he asks, surveying my apartment as I shut off lights.
“Yes, and you’re not invited. Sleep out here and in the morning I’ll make us breakfast and you can tell me about Paisley.”
Tanner’s face falls a little again, but he nods. “Are you sure you want to know?”
I sigh, “No, I just brought you here to squat on my couch for shits and giggles.” I cock a brow in his direction and then realize I actually have a guy in my apartment.
“Why do you look like you just forgot to feed your pet rock?” he asks. I laugh and turn on the small lamp on the table beside the couch before shutting off the last light. A soft glow illuminates the living area now, and Tanner looks like a model. No, like a classic painting.
Now if only he was naked with a little leaf on.
I shake my head, “Nothing. I just realized, you’re the first guy I’ve had on my couch.”
Tanner stands, a hint of amusement in his eyes. He tugs on the top back of his shirt and pulls it over his head. I swallow hard and try to act cool, but seriously how the hell am I supposed to maintain composure with a fucking masterpiece standing a few feet in front of me? “Good,” he says decidedly, laying down on the couch.
“Good?” I question, tilting my head.
“Yeah,” he pulls the covers half way up, leaving the edge just under his glorious abs. “I told you, the first of many firsts.”
The next morning, I make a feast for breakfast. Bacon, eggs, cheesy hashbrown casserole, toast, and pancakes. I also mix up my dad’s famous hangover cure, which I think gets me more points than the breakfast with both Tanner and Trista. Trista snuck in early in the morning and jumped in my bed, squealing about a half-naked man being on our couch. You would think since we’re seniors now she would be used to it, but since I never bring guys home, she probably thought someone had abducted her roommate and replaced her with a normal college girl. Needless to say, she skipped out on breakfast after an awkward introduction to shirtless Tanner and just took her hangover cure mixture to her room.
“That was delicious,” Tanner says, pushing back from the table. “And now I need to go run eight miles.”
“Yeah right. I’m pretty sure you could eat your whole breakfast and mine and still have muscles on top of your muscles.” I want to clamp my hand over my mouth.
Shit. Did I really just say that?
Tanner smiles, clearly amused. “Are you noticing my muscles, Frecks?”
“No,” I say defensively, grabbing his plate and retreating to the kitchen. “Stop procrastinating and start talking. We’ve got a lot to cover and not much time to do it.”
“What do you mean? Are you setting a timer for me to tell you about how my heart got broken?” He cocks a brow and takes another sip of his hangover cure juice.
“Kind of,” I say guiltily. “I work in a few hours.”
“The Box doesn’t open until like five.”
“Yeah, but I work at Sal’s pizza place down the street at eleven.”
“You have two jobs?” he asks, sounding more worried than impressed. I refill his cup and sit back down, anxious to talk more about him and less about me.
“Yes. Now, again, stop procrastinating. You’re down to two hours and fifty-eight minutes now.”
Tanner smiles, “You know, I really want to brush that strand of hair out of your face, but I’m not one to go back on my promises.”
I blush and tuck the strand back myself, “Talk.”
He sighs and finally starts telling the story. He tells me about how he met Paisley their freshman year of college and how he wasn’t even interested in her at first. But one night, he was pissed off over a fight he had with his roommate and she followed him out to his car. They got in and he just drove until he found a small lake. It became their spot, and that was the first night he felt something for her.
From there, they became best friends and were pretty much inseparable, but neither of them crossed into foreign territory. Paisley’s dad screwed her over their senior year and after that she started only dating military men because it was easy for her. She could date them for a few weeks and then move on without any possibility of getting hurt.
She might be a genius, actually.
Turns out, the guy she’s in love with was in the Army but recently got out and is opening his own gym while Paisley works on her bakery. What’s worse is that Tanner tried to sabotage them and told this military guy that he and Paisley were in love and that he had kissed her, and also told him that Paisley was a tag chaser, which apparently is not an attractive term to the military world. He said he felt like he lost Paisley the night that he told her what he’d done, but that after her and Corbin fixed everything, things slowly went back to normal for them.
Or as close to normal as they could get.
By the time he finishes telling me about how miserable he’s been the past year since all of this went down, my head feels like it’s going to roll off my shoulders.
“Wow,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.
He sighs, “I know. I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”
I offer a soft smile and reach out for his hand. He doesn’t flinch this time, and I can’t help but feel a charge of electricity when our skin touches. “You’re not pathetic. Well, except for when you use those godawful lines of yours, but that’s beside the point.”
Tanner laughs softly, but I can tell my sass isn’t going to make his real smile come back again this morning. “So yeah, that’s the story. Well, the basis of it anyway. Are you sorry you asked?”
“Look at me,” I lean my head down and press my forehead to his, my breath catching in my chest again as I breathe in his scent. His eyes meet mine, and I swear I could go swimming in those honey pools. “I’m not sorry I asked, and I’m not done asking. I don’t know how to get you over her, but I want to help. I want to make that goofy smile of yours stay put and chase those ghosts in your eyes away.”
“Go on a date with me.”
I sigh, pulling back and standing to start getting ready for work. “No.”
He laughs, following me to my room. “Seriously, let me take you out. One date.”
I go to my closet and take out the apron from Sal’s and pick out a black v-neck t-shirt to wear with my black work pants. “Seriously, no.”
“Why not?”
I sigh, turning to face him. “Tanner, I come from a long line of fucked up. It’s in my genes to hurt people, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
He shakes his head and grabs my arms, pulling me closer. “You’re not going to hurt me. I don’t know everything about you, but I know enough to know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt a fucking insect, let alone me.”
“I don’t know, I’ve been known to stomp a few cockroaches.”
He laughs, “See? You can’t be that fucking adorable and then not let me take you out. Come on, just one night. Let’s make it another first for you, something you’ve never done in the city.”
I sigh again, leaning against my closet door. “I really hate you right now.”
“Is that a yes?” he flashes his sexy smile and tries pulling me closer, but I roll my eyes and duck under his arm to retrieve socks from my dresser. “It’s a ‘fine I’ll go out with you so you’ll shut up about it.’”
“I’ll take it.” He walks over to me and grabs my face in his hands before pulling my forehead to his lips. “Call me later with a night that works best for you, Ms. I Work Two Jobs And Have No Life.”
I shove him back, “Just get out before I change my mind.”
He smiles his sexy smile again before turning toward the front door. “Later, Frecks.”
Once the door closes behind him, I collapse on my bed, pulling a pillow over my face. I debate smothering myself but opt for a loud half sigh, half scream instead. I throw the pillow off and lean up again, kicking myself for being so dumb. How could I agree to go on a date with him? Nothing good can come of this. Nothing.
Suddenly, it hits me.
That’s the first time a guy has ever kissed me on my forehead.