CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Remy
I jolt awake, not by an alarm like I usually do, but by the smell of food and the feel of soft kisses on my neck. Memories of how Tatum and I’ve spent the last few hours tangled up in each other are at the forefront of my mind. This is the best way I can remember ever waking up.
Reaching behind me, I grab hold of the back of her head, pulling her mouth closer to mine. She leans over, her hair tickling my arm. “How long have I been out?” Judging by the fact I smell either food cooking or already done, it’s been a while.
“I’m not sure,” she admits. “All I know was I woke up starving, so I made us dinner. You slept the entire way through it, even when I made noises of frustration about not knowing where everything is. You must have been tired.” She rests her head on my chest as I turn over onto my back.
Lazily, I put my fingers through her hair, lightly scratching her scalp. I lick my dry lips and argue with what I want to say in my head. How do I tell her I haven’t slept well since we left things the way we did? How in most of my dreams I’ve replayed that night in the truck every way I can, and each time I do something to fuck it up. In some of those nightmares, she never speaks to me again. Here I am, with another chance, and I need to take it, grab hold of it and not let go. Instead of going into all my insecurities, I give her a kiss on the forehead. “I was tired, been working a lot.”
My stomach growls loudly, causing both of us to laugh.
“Come on.” She levers herself off the bed, standing and offering me a hand to help me up.
My eyes rake her body, taking in the hoodie she’s slipped into. It’s mine from when I was made a fully patched member of the MC. It’s got our logo on the front and my name on the back. Seeing her wear my last name? Does weird, fluttery shit to my heart.
“Hope you don’t mind…I was cold and found where you had some clothes,” she offers by way of explanation.
The fire I built earlier has died down slightly, leaving a little chill in the air. I reach over and stoke it, already feeling some warmth as it reignites in places.
“Anything I have is yours. True story though, looks better on you than it ever did me.”
I put on a pair of sweatpants and grab her around the waist, pulling her back to my front. She giggles as we walk together to the small kitchen, stumbling as our legs entwine with one another. I feel a real smile spread across my face, one I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s a smile without strings, one that’s pure joy. This girl in my arms gave it to me with a simple giggle and just by being who she is.
“Did you know you only have one plate and one bowl? What the hell, Rem?” She looks behind her, quirking her eyebrow at me. Obviously she’s judging me about the contents of my cabinets.
“I told you it’s only been me out here. I’ve never invited anyone else. I’ll be sure to get you the things you need.” I pick her up by the waist, setting her on the counter.
For a long moment, I stare at her, not able to believe she’s here with me. I’m not sure when it’s going to sink in that she’s not going anywhere. Eventually I’ll believe it, I know I will, but right now I feel like I gotta pinch myself every few hours. Pushing her hair back from her face, I step in between her thighs. “That’ll be the first thing I do when I can get to a store. Buy you your own set of dishware.”
“Be sure you do that.” She pushes my hair back the same way I did to her, giving me attitude. That attitude is something I’ve missed horribly.
I know it’ll be the first thing I do when I have a free morning.
“This is ready to eat, right?” I question glancing over to the pot holding spaghetti that’s already been mixed with sauce.
“Yeah, that was kinda difficult too because you only have one pan,” she says as she rolls her eyes, pinching my stomach. “Next time you wanna impress me Sawyer, maybe you should think it through a little better.”
My smile spreads wider. This mouth of hers is one of my favorite parts. “Yes, ma’am.”
Reaching over into the pan, with one of the two forks I have, I twine some of the pasta between the tines and blow on it, before I lift it up to her mouth. She opens, her teeth making a noise as she closes her lips on the utensil, and chews the bite she’s taken. Eventually she swallows, sighing happily. The moan she lets escape goes straight to my groin. “Good?”
“So good. You know it’s my favorite, and I don’t even care how it’s fixed. Sometimes I just eat plain noodles.”
Plain noodles have never been a favorite of mine. Back when I lived with my mom, it’s all Cash and I had to eat sometimes. But I don’t want to cloud this memory with the shitty ones. I take the memory that sucks and shove it into a box, locking that fucker away. Instead, I focus on the present and what’s going on between us.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“You knew I’d love it. I don’t even care I had to fix it.”
A blush works its way over my cheeks. “I’m sorry about that, I meant for us to do it together.” I can’t deny how well I slept with her.
“It’s okay.” She reaches in and grabs the fork, doing the same for me as I did for her. “I liked it actually, knowing I was fixing something for you. It warmed a spot in my secret wanna-be housewife-in-the-fifties heart. Not that I wanna do it all the time, but I liked doing it tonight.” She blows at the steam, before putting it up to my lips.
“Thank you.”
She hands me back the fork. “Totally my pleasure.”
And for the next hour, I stand there, in between her legs, while we share a damn pan of spaghetti. And I know nothing has ever been more perfect in my life, up to this point.
*
We’re lying in bed again, neither of us talking, both of us just enjoying our time together with one another. “I know that it’s four a.m.,” she says, propping her head on her hand, her long dark hair falling in front of her face, “but if I go back to sleep there’s no way in hell I’ll wake up in time to make it to work. Do you think you should take me home?”
I realize what she’s saying is the truth. We both have to work in a few hours, and out here, there’s a definite possibility we could oversleep and it’d be a cluster. A part of me wants us to both call in and not leave this bed, but she’s the only help my brother has at the front desk, and I wouldn’t do that to him. “We can go.” I sigh, not ready for our time together to end. “Not that I want to, but I know we have to.”
She sits up, crossing her legs underneath her. “Do I get to keep the hoodie?” She sticks her nose in the neck and takes a deep breath. “It smells like you.”
“It’s yours if you want it.”
I’ll give her whatever she wants to keep her happy and in my life.
“Thank you.” She gives me the best smile in return.
“C’mon, if we need to get back in time to get to work, we gotta leave now so I can shower.”
She groans as she gets up and we go about getting dressed and cleaning up the mess we made. “We can come back here, right?” she asks, as she folds the blanket.
“Anytime you want, we can come back here. I stay here a lot, I just don’t sleep here.”
“I’d like it.” She bites her lip. “Spending time here with you. That way nobody’s in our business. Do you have a TV and stuff?”
“No, but I bring my laptop out here if I wanna watch TV. I just stream and binge-watch a show.”
Her eyes brighten. “That’s my favorite rainy-day activity, and it’s supposed to be a rainy weekend.”
“Are you low-key telling me you want to spend the weekend with me out here?”
“Neither one of us have to work,” she blurts out. “And I want to spend time with you. I want to get to know you in the way I didn’t know you before.”
“I’ll pick you up Friday night after work. We’ll grocery shop, grab you some dishes, and come out here. Be sure to pack whatever you need for Monday morning, too. We’ll spend three nights here. Sound good to you?”
I realize this may be fast, it may be more than she anticipated, since we said we’d take it slow. I want to be around her – make up for all the time we lost.
“Sounds perfect.”
“Alright, so let’s get going. As soon as we get the day started, we’ll be that much closer to Friday.”
She leans into me, letting me wrap her in my arms. “Two sleeps,” she whispers against my chest.
“Now you sound like Maddie.”
She laughs, wrinkling her nose. “Since I was little, that’s how I counted down to days I had something important happening. Maybe now that I’m an adult I should change that.”
“You do what you want to do, don’t make feeling young make you change yourself, Tate. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“I’m working on being okay with myself.”
I tilt her chin up, catching her eyes. “Aren’t we all?”
*
When I finally drag ass into the shop, later than I intended to be perfectly honest, I see a black envelope with metallic pink writing on it. I know it’s from Tate, and the way my stomach flops would be embarrassing if anyone else knew.
You gave me a piece of you
I give you a piece of me
If we’re going to continue
I have to set the past free
Inside the envelope is a picture of her from the night we spent together last year. The night that sent us into a head-on crash that took us this long to overcome. She looked gorgeous that night in a way she never had before. I swallow against the tightness in my throat because I know what this means. We’re setting it all free, letting it all go, and being the Remy and Tatum we should have been from the beginning. Using my phone, I take a picture of the picture that changed our lives and set it as my lock screen. Regardless of what happened afterwards, that night is the night I fell in love with her, and I never, ever want to forget it.
Friday night can’t get here fucking fast enough for me. This girl holds a piece of my heart I’m never getting back, and I want a piece of hers, too.