No Weddings (14 page)

“Warm enough?”

She glanced up and smiled. “Yeah.”

“Room for me on that dock?”

Although there was plenty of space, she scooted over, as if she’d been reserving a spot just for me.

I crouched down, planting my ass on the aged wood. “Nice. You warmed my seat.” I shivered. I’d left my jacket inside Kristen’s house.

Hannah began to unzip her coat.

I furrowed my brows. “What are you doing? It’s freezing out.”

“Sharing my warmth.”

Shocked by her offer, and a bit confused as to what she planned to do with that tiny coat of hers, I sat there, waiting.

She fully unzipped, then turned her upper body toward me, wrapping the open sides over part of my front and back as she pressed into me. “There. Now you don’t have to be cold.”

I looked down at the light blue knit material on the top of her head as she turned her face toward the pond again. Simple as that: I needed warmth; she provided.

Unthinking, I wrapped an arm around her. Didn’t mean anything deep or committal. It was more comfortable that way—the two of us leaning into one another on the edge of a dock.

So many thoughts jumbled into my head, yet none came into focus with everything happening on this one night. A night that had once been a bull’s-eye on a calendar had become something altogether different.

And that had everything to do with the person who had opened her coat and offered me warmth when I needed it most.

She didn’t pry. Neither did I.

We each had scars on that battlefield. I knew that now, after tonight. Evident, and yet hidden behind beauty, it took someone who’d been there to recognize it.

Instead of asking about her scars, I offered up mine. “It happened two years ago. On this fucking holiday. I opened my heart and offered her the world. Like a dumbass, on bended knee, with the perfect ring in hand, I promised to love her for the rest of my life. Turned out, I wasn’t enough for her.”

I stopped, a cramp locking up my throat as I shared what I’d told no other soul. But I couldn’t tell her everything. Some would have to do for now.

Strong arms squeezed me beneath the coat. “I got that promise. And accepted it from the man of my dreams. Standing there in a gown of white, before friends and family, mine and his, he decided not to show up for the rest of our lives. He decided he didn’t want me.”

My heart lurched at words so lacking in emotion, they sounded dead. I turned more toward her, wrapping my other arm around her, holding her tight. I dropped my cheek onto her hat-covered head. “He was an idiot, Hannah.”

“Yeah, he was.” She snorted.

I chuckled. I got it. Trashing them helped us deal. I’d done plenty of dealing.

“So explain the cake, then.” A dramatic picture, revealing heartache and destruction, there was more under the icing. I saw it, but tonight, I needed to hear it from a survivor.

She shrugged a little. “When you gave me the hilarious inspiration, a dead part inside me flickered to life. I don’t even know how to explain it, but a fresh viewpoint helped me make that cake. Love is a complete and utter disaster. But even with all the heartache, we have to believe there is joy. I need to believe there is one person somewhere out there, meant for us, who will bring us some kind of happiness.

“Of course, I also think it’s not all pretty ponies and fairy tales. Real love is messy. It’s fights, but more about the making up. It’s pulling apart to find our own paths, but running together and holding on tight, refusing to let go. Love is the calm in the middle of the storm.”

Hannah painted the world beautiful in a way I hadn’t expected. In a way I related to. Casting a jumble of pieces into complete disarray, she reassembled it into a whole new perspective. Life didn’t have to be good or bad. We didn’t have only one predestined road to follow. Life existed not in the black and white, but in the gray.

The realist in me knew that. My business mind had embraced the notion without ever giving it a second thought. Failure in business was not an option, it was only a learning point—a means to succeed, part of living in the gray.

Why was I so black and white when it came to my heart?

As I sat there, held by someone who had been there and survived, I remembered why. And accepted it. I’d buried my emotions behind a wall of steel because I hadn’t been ready. I didn’t want to trust that it would never happen again.

And…it had hurt like a motherfucking bitch.

D
inner at my place had turned into something
more
than just dinner at my place.

Ever dance with someone without touching?

Neither had I.

Until Hannah.

Nothing more of any emotional importance had been said on the dock that night. We’d been tapped out and retreated to our separate mental corners.

Our dinner and business-study arrangement had continued at my house the next few times, a comfortable routine that I’d begun to look forward to. I liked having her in my house, in my kitchen that she seemed to come alive in, that she commanded with expert grace.

The guys grilled me for the dinner schedule, rearranging plans if anything conflicted. They wanted to make sure they were present for any meal she cooked. And it wasn’t only about the food. Her clever wit and jibes kept us on our toes. What I’d once thought was her ice-queen demeanor seemed to be transforming, in part, into a wicked sense of humor.

“I don’t know, Mase. What’s wrong with your hair?” She peered over her glass of the chardonnay she’d brought to pair with the fish, an entrée she’d prepared and we’d decimated.

I glanced at Mase. His mop had grown to a whole new level of ragged, hanging past his brows, spiked ends shadowing his eyes. Laura hated it and kept harping at him about it.

Which made the defiant guy only want to grow it longer. “Laura seems to like it just fine when fisting her hands into it.” He smirked.

“That why you’re growing it out? Giving her handlebars to hold on to for the ride?” Hannah arched a brow, fighting a smile.

Mase blinked and his focus fuzzed out, like he imagined Laura riding him in pornographic detail. I tossed a dinner roll at him, and we all busted up, laughing.

No other girls were allowed at these sacred dinners. We hadn’t outright discussed the subject, but in unwritten guy code, we wanted Hannah all to ourselves. She’d become one of us with her raunchy banter and fearlessness. She was ours. And we didn’t want to share.

When dinner wound down, Ben and Mase happily cleaned up the mess. We went back to my room, which had slowly gotten cleaner as her visits continued. Each time, her attention strayed to the new details, but she never said anything. And although I hadn’t felt the need to become a total neat freak (my OCD tendencies didn’t go
that
far), a little tidying seemed the least I could do for her caving and coming to my place all the time.

And just like the first time, and the handful of nights since then, I took the chair by the desk, giving her space on my bed. It had become her territory.

The bedding had also been completely redone. I never wanted her to hesitate with touching my pillow, or anything else of mine, again.

A complete one-eighty from the stark black sheets and comforter that had once covered the bed, I’d had the sales girl pick something less “sex god” and more “safe study zone” while emphasizing no flowers or patterns of any kind. I had no idea how people relaxed with all that blaring visual noise surrounding them, eyes closed or not.

Hannah threw her body into the center of the organic, beige duvet cover (the sales girl had raked me over the coals, insisting it was the safest fabric to cover my new down duvet). Yep, I now own something called a duvet. Four new organic pillows rested against the headboard, covered in pillowcases that were a pale green—“celery,” if I remembered the sales girl correctly.

None of the sales pitch had made any difference to me, though. All that mattered was Hannah had made herself comfortable there. Sure, upon discovering the bedding makeover on her second visit, she’d cocked a questioning brow at me. But I’d simply shrugged and cited a long overdue need to replace threadbare sheets, which had been true, even if not the sole reason.

She glanced up at me, waiting, with a huge smile on a face that had grown more beautiful every time I saw it.

Since that night on the dock, we’d gone back to our old routine: my teasing her from her front lobby, her catching me off guard with a heated stare, even if she was speckled with bits of frosting. She’d stopped going through the effort of wearing high heels and skirts, which was fine with me, because it didn’t matter what she wore—the girl beneath the clothing made my pulse catch fire.

“What?” She cocked her head, gazing at me from the bed.

We’d been holding back around each other, not quite breaching the distance to get closer. No further serious talks had occurred, only an occasional contemplative glance, like we kept gauging the probability of success if we finally connected on a deeper level.

Well acquainted with the risk-versus-reward model, I understood the wise hesitation on both our parts. The reward didn’t hold us back; in fact, it beckoned me in a way nothing else had in the last two years. We both knew we risked a great deal in going for more.

In my twenty-four years of life, I’d never once had a platonic female friend outside of my sisters. No woman had ever had the depth or capacity to want a friendship with me.

Until now.

In the company of the guys and privately on a dock on a cold, bitter night, a girl I’d never seen coming, one I’d never thought existed beneath her ice-queen mask, had breached my outer defenses. Unaware of the danger, I’d let someone unexpected into my heart. And it scared the fuck out of me to lose the ground we’d gained, but the temptation of an even greater possibility kept gnawing at me.

“Let’s do your place tomorrow.” I leaned forward, holding my breath.

I didn’t know where it came from. Probably, I knew something had to change, and maybe throwing the ball into her territory would shake things up, but I could no longer remain Switzerland here. I knew she might hesitate. The heaviness of privacy would shift everything for us.

No longer on neutral ground at her cupcake shop, and no longer in the mixed company of the guys, our dance would finally escalate.

“Okay.” Her voice was quiet, but sure.

“Yeah?”

Her smile appeared. “Yeah. You can do my place tomorrow...”

I swallowed hard.

Her tone had gone soft, sultry. I didn’t need my phone and the text box to know three little dots were there. I’d heard them, as if she’d typed them oh so slowly:
dot, dot, dot.

“Fuck, yeah!” I launched from the chair and jumped on the bed beside her, causing her body to bounce high before settling.

She burst out laughing.

No, I’d been wrong.

Before, we hadn’t been dancing with one another without touching; we’d been circling, hesitating, not quite flowing into the same rhythm.

I leaned over, brushing the hair off her face, noticing that the gold flecks in her hazel eyes sparkled more brilliantly. “I have something very serious to ask you.”

She stared up at me, implicitly trusting.

I waited a beat. “What’s your business forecast?”

With a shove, she pushed me over, laughing. I shifted the conversation to true business, planning to strategize a personal plan later.

In deciding to take the next step and spend more intimate time together,
now
we danced
with
each other. And my partner deserved my undivided attention.

W
hen you watch the glassy surface of a lake, pay closer attention. Much more happens beneath that calm than meets the eye. Having buried secrets deep beneath a collected exterior myself, I should’ve known the phenomenon better than anyone, and yet, I’d been blindsided by the depth of Hannah’s.

Although it was still early to understand all that made her tick, knowing she was a fellow casualty on love’s battlefield with deep wounds under her scars, I understood enough. The details of her trauma weren’t important at this stage.

Hannah lived on a manicured street in an older part of town. Pride of ownership from people who’d lived there for decades showed in personal touches, like potted plants lining brick walkways and park benches beneath oak trees. But many also lived behind stone walls and down long driveways, which lent the neighborhood a feel that was, at once, both welcoming and private.