Chapter 17
Vivian
There's a beautiful, little, sticky face sleeping in my lap right now. Rachel. She's four and from what I've seen tonight, she is way too familiar with Justin Bieber lyrics, she's really good at drawing and she eats chocolate cupcakes like a champ.
Clinton bends over and scoops her out of my lap. "Be right back," he mouths to me without making a sound. My ovaries do something funny when he leans down and drops a kiss on the little girl's forehead. I smile as I watch him go.
This evening, I showed up here not knowing what to expect. It was pure instinct that led me here. And throughout the drive over, I was thinking I was crazy. But the night turned out to be beautiful. Watching Clinton take care of those children, watching the way they respond to him and laugh with him. That's love. And it's so amazing to witness it.
I may have been wrong about him. Wrong to judge him based on his tattoos and his scars and the anger on his face. Under all that rough stuff on the outside, there's something warm and kind inside of him and it's calling out to me. I’m so drawn to him and it finally feels safe to admit it to myself. There’s an excited tickle in the core of my stomach to find out what happens next.
He comes stomping down the stairs with a crooked smile on his face. "Okay, so the rugrats are in bed."
“You were supposed to brush her teeth,” I remind him with a laugh.
“Shit!” He crinkles his nose as he plops down onto the squeaky pull-out sofa right next to me and spreads his legs wide. I shiver when our knees touch. "So, where were we?” He throws an arm around the back of the cushions. “You came here to beg and grovel for my forgiveness?" I flush with embarrassment and he smirks.
His tone tells me that he's only joking. Still, I wince. “I’m really sorry for the way I've been toward you, Clinton.” My voice is small and ashamed.
“Well, you’re gonna have to stop jumping to nasty conclusions about me.” He has every right to be angry but instead, all I see in his expression is amusement.
That just only makes me feel worse about myself. God, he actually is a good guy.
“And thanks for coming to the rescue yesterday…You saved me from myself when I was being a babbling, anesthetized fool.” Add that to the list of ways I’ve been less than charming. He's seen the not-so-flattering parts of me and he still seems to want me around.
He drops his head back against the pillow behind him. “Yesterday, you were a bit of a hot mess.” He chuckles deep in his chest. “Highly entertaining. But still a hot mess.”
Biting on the corner of my mouth, I dare to ask, “What exactly did I do while I was a ‘hot mess’?”
“Well, for one, you tried to head-butt me,” he deadpans.
“Oh god.” I slap a hand over my mouth and mutter through my fingers. “For the record, that’s completely out of character for me. I don’t think I’ve ever head-butted anyone before.”
“Makes me feel special, then.” He reaches across and plays with a lock of my hair.
Because I'm all grace and sophistication tonight, I snort through my nose. “What else did I do?”
“At one point, you went on this long diatribe about Japanese hot spoon massages and anti-aging creams…”
Hunching forward, I bury my face in my knees and groan.
“You were completely uncensored. I enjoyed seeing you let loose.” I feel his hand on my shoulder, massaging the tense muscles. "Don't feel bad about it, Vivian. You're human. You're allowed to be less than perfect every now and then. You're allowed to have weak moments."
My chest tightens in disagreement. Flaws aren't things you accept. They're things that you work tirelessly to correct. So that you can achieve perfection. At least that’s how I’ve always looked at it. The notion of just resigning to one's flawed nature is totally alien to me.
“Why did you save me?” I ask. “You could have just left me there at the dentist’s office to fend for myself. You would have had every right to. I’ve been mean to you.”
He twists my hair around his finger. “Because that was the first time your armor slipped away. I got to see the real you. Without your defenses up, I got to see that you’re just a woman. Afraid, lonely, trying to keep your world from falling apart. I could relate to that.” He corrects himself quickly. “Not the being-a-woman part. The other part.”
Laughing, I lift my head and look at him. “I think I’ve got it all figured out, but I’m really just a mess, huh?”
He throws a cursory glance at my boobs. “Well, you’ve got nice tits so at least you’ve got that going for you!”
I slap him on the shoulder. “I’m serious, Clinton. I’ve been so harsh and so unkind and so judgmental. I’m embarrassed. And I’m sorry.” A tear streaks down my face and my fingers rush across my cheek to wipe it away.
He grabs my trembling hand and kisses my knuckles. “Hey, no need to cry. I had my notions about you, too. Not all of them were nice…From here on out, just be nice. Let's just be nice to each other. Okay?"
"I can do that," I say with a smile. "Thank you for being there in my moment of weakness," I tell him. "I'm glad I didn't have to go through it alone."
He cradles my hand in his and our fingers get all tied up together. "You feel alone a lot of the time, don't you?" He looks at me and it's like he can see right through me, all the way to my darkest places.
My gut instinct is to lie. To pretend that I'm not scared of how much I don't have it all figured out. I should throw up my walls, hide behind my defenses. But I don't want to. I want him to see me. I want him to see that I’m afraid, that I've been broken. I want to let him in. Maybe I'm still high off of those drugs they pumped into my system yesterday. Maybe I'm just tired of hiding behind the veneer of perfection. I'm ready to show my faults. “Yes…” I admit. “A lot of the time, I feel alone.”
His teeth sink into his bottom lip and he stares at me. "I just find it so hard to believe that you don't have some guy following you around, sniffing at your feet, begging you for a little attention."
I look down at our hands intertwined together, at the tattoos coloring his knuckles and the soft pink lacquer on my fingernails. My stomach tightens. Why does this feel so right? “I was with this guy a long time ago. We were planning to get married. It didn’t work out.”
He hikes a brow. The dark shadows of the dim room enhance the sharpness of his nose and cheekbones, making him dangerously beautiful. “Talk to me. Tell me why it didn’t work out.”
“He was running around behind my back. With some girl he met when he went away to school. They’re married now and she carries his balls around in her purse.” Clinton lets go of his grave expression just long enough to laugh. “They come into the shop every now and then to order lukewarm bottled water.” I feel a sense of relief flooding my chest. I hadn’t realized that I’d been holding onto that piece of information. Now, that it’s been chiseled from of my heart, I feel a little bit lighter, looser.
Clinton's eyebrows furrow harshly. “Seems like that decision worked out really well for him.”
A bitter laugh comes out of my mouth. “Seems like it.”
He kisses the back of my hand again. “What a dipshit.”
“I wasted so much time waiting for him. We were together in high school and then I waited for him while he was in college. But when he came home, he’d made different plans. With a different woman. And there I was, broken, afraid, alone. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with…And he left me…” I hate how weak I sound. I hate the pity in Clinton’s eyes.
He yanks on my wrist and pulls me into his arms. “He’s an idiot…Lucky for me. That means I get to enjoy you.” He presses his lips to the edge of my mouth and I already feel my hunger for him stirring.
And while I love the way it feels—playing with him, getting lost in his body—I’m not the kind of girl who does casual flings. I don’t have the stomach for it. I need the security of knowing that the person I care about, cares about me. Right now, I don’t voice those concerns, though, because although being with Clinton leaves me so confused, I don’t want him to pull away. Without even trying, this man challenges all the things I’ve always thought were a given. I finally feel brave enough to explore that.
“Vivian, I know what it’s like to be alone, to feel like you don’t belong to anybody. I know that aching feeling deep in your belly when you just want someone in your corner but there’s no one there…I understand how it feels.”
Now, I find myself wondering about the dark shadows in his chestnut eyes. What’s the story behind his pain? I’m afraid to ask so I drop my gaze to my lap. "I hate being this confused," I whisper softly. "Usually, I'm in control. Usually I know what I want..."
With a finger under my chin, he lifts my face toward him. He stares into the depths of my eyes. "You do know what you want. You just can't admit it to yourself."
As his body inches closer to mine, I hear myself whisper. “I don’t want to be alone anymore, Clinton.”
His gaze is hooked on my mouth. “So maybe we should stick together…”
My heart is pounding so hard. “Yeah, maybe we should stick together…”