CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
All that day, I found things to keep me busy. I looked at Gabi’s plan, played with some ideas, knocked around some names, made myself laugh on a few, paced the laundry room, and stalked the clock. At around four, I got antsy. And by five, I was dressed and ready to go and texting Gabi. If Thatcher had been around, he would have been proud. Or not really, considering he’d been there for around twelve hours already.
I had nowhere to go, actually, except the mayoral announcement at the Charmed pavilion, which Gabi told me started at six. So…if I were to go, then this would be the time. Theoretically.
I stared at my keys and told them to be strong. Stronger than me.
An hour later, I pulled into the park’s parking lot and gazed upon the crowd mingling around the pavilion. If Leo was here, great. If he wasn’t, well, I knew what was next but I wasn’t going there yet. The last time I was there, I bought a man, went home, and got felt up on the balcony.
“Fight or flight,” I said softly.
Once I got out and started walking, however, I knew something was off. People were dispersing. Several groups still hung out, talking and laughing, but some were passing me on the way to their cars.
“Micah!” Carmen called, waving at me from her little group.
My stomach came up in my throat as I scanned through Sully, Lanie, Bash, Allie, Nick, and a couple of other people for Leo, but he wasn’t among them. I smiled anyway, hoping my disappointment wouldn’t show.
“Don’t you look adorable?” Lanie said. “I love that dress.”
“Thank you,” I said, doing a mock little curtsy. “It makes me feel pretty. And ordinary.”
I hadn’t dressed sexy. I wasn’t going for that. I was comfortable in a soft blue sundress made of T-shirt material, and flip-flops. The one that had been in my honeymoon backpack. No diving cleavage, no bare back, just simple. My hair fell down around my shoulders, and I wore minimal makeup. I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want to make a show. I’d done enough of that.
“Oh, Micah,” Carmen said. “You could never be ordinary.”
“No, I’m really needing ordinary tonight,” I said, to which she nodded.
“I hardly even notice you’re here,” she amended.
“Why, thank you,” I said on a chuckle. “Did I miss it? Gabi said six.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gabi said, rushing up behind me with a quick hug. “They started early because it’s supposed to rain. I’m so sorry! I should have called you.”
I looked around, feeling my buoyancy fall and all my insecurities come pouring back in. “No, it’s okay,” I said. “Congratulations, Bash!”
“Thank you,” he said, beaming. “I mean, I was the only one running, so the win was kind of a token thing, but now I have to get my butt in gear.”
I gave Nick a second glance, wishing I could just go back to my car and not be standing in front of these people I’d taken so much from. “How is everything?”
He looked down at me, eerily familiar dark eyes smiling. “Everything as in work? Or everything as in my brother?”
I felt my skin go warm as I smiled back. “Just everything.”
“We’re rebuilding the diner,” Lanie said, eyes happy as she linked arms with a tired-looking but smiling Allie. “Insurance covered most of it, and I think a certain somebody in the woods is fronting the rest.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That guy sure gets around for someone who hides in the woods.”
“You have no idea,” Sully said, rubbing at his eyes.
“I’m thinking of calling it the New Blue,” Allie said. “The original name was a thing between my parents, and that would give it a modern twist.”
“Allie, I’m so—”
“Don’t,” she said, laying a hand on my arm. Her eyes misted over, but there was warmth there. “It’s not on you.”
I swallowed hard and choked back the emotion that wanted to sink me. I blew out a slow breath instead.
“It’s so good to see you,” Lanie said, putting a hand on my arm next to Allie’s. “We’ve missed you, Micah.”
“I’ve missed y’all too,” I said. “I didn’t realize just how much till right now.”
“Funny how one little week can get somebody all under your skin, isn’t it?” Gabi said, widening her eyes to be cute.
“You’re just not right,” I said.
I know, she mouthed.
“But guess what?” I said. “My brother said yes to the proposal.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh, my God.”
“Yep.”
“We’re doing this?” she breathed.
I laughed, realizing this was kind of like when I first got to town, committing to days. It was that moment.
“I think we are.”
“What?” Lanie asked. “What are you doing?”
“Holy shit,” Gabi gasped, fanning her face. “I’ll tell you at Rojo’s.”
“We’re gonna go get some dinner before the sky falls,” Allie said. “Want to come?”
The thought of Rojo’s made my skin flush all the way to my scalp, but Gabi laid a hand on my arm.
“Or since I heard one of the bartenders there mention that he’s not working tonight because he took the night off to finish moving into his new rental house,” she said, leaving the sentence hanging.
“At 1111 Erna Lane,” Carmen added.
“You might not want to bother going to Rojo’s,” Gabi finished with a casual shrug. “I mean, I’ll be there gushing about wildflowers and shit, but he’ll be—moving heavy things around and flexing. Just saying.”
* * * *
I pulled onto his street and slowed down, thinking maybe that would force my heart to do the same. Not even a little bit.
“Shit, Micah, having a heart attack in his driveway isn’t sexy,” I said under my breath. “Pull in. Stop the car. Remember the key. Dear God, what am I doing?”
I’d never chased a man before. Or—I wasn’t chasing, was I? I was just—responding. To a conversation. With what? He said when I made up my mind. I hadn’t made up my mind about anything. I was just here. Because evidently the Earth’s magnetic force decided I needed to be, and Gabi mentioned flexing.
I was such a girl.
The little house was cute and it had a porch. I tried to focus on logistical things like that, but all my brain could see was Leo’s eyes on me early this morning, telling me the things he told me. Along with my own words that night as I held him up after the fire. What was I going to say? Hello? I still don’t know where I’m landing, or if I can trust my own judgment anymore, but I’m losing my damn mind over you?
My phone dinged with a text and I smiled when I read it.
I went by the house before Rojo’s, Gabi texted. Signed the divorce papers and dropped them at the post office. Chapter two begins. Thank you!!!
Exactly. Chapter friggin’ two.
So proud of you, I texted back. High-five to chapter two. And thank YOU.
I got out and shut the door and made it to the steps before Leo opened the door. My hands went on a full-out nervous flail, looking for somewhere to land or something to grasp, finally deciding to clasp themselves in front of me.
He had on a button-down white shirt and jeans, the sleeves rolled midway up his forearms, and I had to lick my lips to remind myself I had lips.
“Roman-off,” he said.
Fuck. How did he keep doing that to me, taking my knees out with the first sound of his voice?
“Hey,” I said, lifting my chin so I looked more confident than I felt.
He paused at the top of the stairs, the exact opposite of how we’d been this morning, and my words froze in my chest. Not that I had any. But what few there were—
“You want to come in?” he asked.
“No,” I said. Liar. “I just—I just wanted, or needed, to tell you something, and—well, you weren’t at the thing.” I pointed behind me like that nailed it down.
“I was,” he said. “But I left when Bash was done.”
“Really cool, them rebuilding,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “Makes things right again. What did you need to tell me?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Yes, you do.
“Yes.”
The pitter-patter of tiny raindrops hit the ground around me and pinged metallically against my car.
“Yes?” he said, stepping down a step. “Yes to what?”
Everything, I mouthed, the word not forming sound. “To you,” I breathed, backing up a step, feeling the rain on my face and not caring. “To us. To stepping outside the box, to tr—” I blew out a slow breath on that one and tried it again. “To trusting again. To—to—”
“Love?”
All the words fell out of my head. I swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
Leo came down one more step and I backed up again. He followed.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice thick.
I laughed nervously. “Of anything else in the world? Of my life? Of where I’m living tomorrow?” I said, my breath coming in puffs. “No. But of you?” I drew in a shaky breath as raindrops stuck on my lashes. “Completely.”
“That night,” he said, walking out into the rain as slowly as I backed up, “did you—I mean, I’ve been telling myself I imagined—”
“I did.”
My backside stopped against my car and he kept coming, until he was inches from my face.
“Please do it again.”
My hands ran up his chest as his ran up my bare arms, taking the beaded raindrops with them.
“Leo,” I whispered.
“Please.”
“I love you,” I said, as my eyes fluttered closed and I pulled his face to mine. “I love you.”
His lips landed on mine and stayed, as he held my head and kept us there. When he broke the kiss, his eyes were raw with emotion as he tried to dial it back. Everything slammed against my heart with that look.
“You—you undo me,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ve never loved anyone except my brother. Ever.” He took a ragged breath and blinked several times. “Until now.”
Hot tears fell from my eyes, mixing with the rain on my cheeks. We were a pair, the two of us. Afraid of love, afraid of trust, jumping in with both feet like a couple of lunatics.
“I love you, Micah,” he said. “You make me crazy, but—”
“I get it,” I said. “No one drives me crazier than you do.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing in the slightest,” he said. “I’m probably gonna mess up.”
I laughed and pulled his forehead to mine. “There’s no probably to me messing up. You can count on it.”
“But I’ll never lie to you,” he said, more seriously.
I looked in these eyes that turned my world upside down. That changed me in ways I never imagined were possible. Not to meld to him. To meld to myself.
“And I won’t run,” I said.
His hands smoothed back my wet hair and moved down my back to pull me tightly to him, as I wound mine into his hair so that our bodies fit.
“You’re about to be kissed in the rain,” Leo said against my lips. “Thoroughly and devilishly.”
I smiled into his kiss. “I like devilishly.”
“And there just might be something else in the rain to follow,” he said, his hands moving seductively on my body.
“Yes,” I purred, feeling like I’d never get enough of this man.
“Yes to that, too?” he asked, his mouth trailing down my neck.
“So, so, much yes to that,” I said.
“I don’t know my neighbors yet,” he said against my skin, coming back to my mouth.
I grinned. “Love, let’s give them something to talk about.”