Dirty Thoughts - Megan Erickson Page 0,42
of vintage motorcycle prints along the wall in the living room. Cal explained to her that upstairs was his bedroom, a bathroom, and a spare bedroom.
When he was finished telling her about the house, he held out his arms. “I wanted you to see it.”
“I wanted to see it,” she said.
“You want a drink?”
“Water would be nice.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
He rummaged in the fridge, and she heard the clinking of beer bottles before he pulled out two bottles of water. He gestured toward the back door. “We can sit on the deck unless you want to enjoy the air conditioning.”
“Deck’s fine,” she said, accepting the bottle he handed to her. On the deck, she sank down on a glider and took in Cal’s backyard. It was well kept, leading to a tree line that surrounded Cal’s property. “How big is your property?”
“About an acre,” he said, sitting beside her. He stretched out his legs and gently rocked the glider. His arm curled around her shoulders, and she rested her head against him.
She watched two squirrels chase each other, their tails fluttering wildly.
“You don’t have to say it,” he said quietly.
“Don’t have to say what?”
“You know, ‘Hey Cal, this could be us if you’d stop being stubborn.’ ”
She straightened. “That’s what you think I want to say?”
He squinted at her. “Isn’t it?”
“Maybe I’m thinking it, but I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to have to convince you to be with me. To want a family. I’m not going to pressure you into doing something you don’t want and then have you resent me for it.”
He was silent for a while as he mulled over her words. “You’re probably right about that.”
“But I do think you’re stubborn. I think today was one of the best days either of us has had for a while.” And if today proved anything to Jenna, it was that while she’d fallen hard for the eighteen-year-old Cal, if she let herself do the same thing for the thirty-year-old Cal, she’d never recover from it. The Cal of today was dangerous for her heart.
She glanced at her watch, saw it was close to dinnertime, and prepared to do what she’d been avoiding thinking about all day. “You should probably take me home now.”
He whipped his head toward her. “But the day isn’t over.”
She sighed. “I know, but it’s close, and . . . I’m thinking maybe we should end this now. Before something triggers one of us, and we fight or get angry. I don’t want to get angry, Cal. I want to leave here happy.”
His face was stricken, every emotion clear as day. He wasn’t even bothering to try to hide it. “But—”
She stood up. “I’ll meet you in the house.”
Five minutes later, she was standing by the front door when he joined her. He smelled like smoke. “Those’ll kill you, you know.”
His jaw tensed, his eyes flashed, and she wondered how she thought they’d ever be able to leave this whole situation intact. “I’m not your responsibility to worry about.”
“Well, I’m sorry for caring.”
He rubbed his hands over his face vigorously, like he was trying to scrub off his emotions, and then he lashed out an arm, curling it around her shoulders so she crashed into his body. She wrapped her arms around him, nestling her head against the soft fabric of his T-shirt, feeling the hard muscles underneath, as he buried his face in her neck.
“Sunshine?” His voice was muffled against her skin.
“Yeah?”
His fist tightened in her hair, his lips opened up on her neck, and he said everything with his body that he couldn’t say in words. This was an embrace that wasn’t meant to lead to anything else; this was meant to tell her something, that they’d always have this. It would never go away, and somehow, someway, they’d move on.
They’d get through it.
Even if they were breaking the same hearts, ripping open those same wounds that they’d worked so hard to heal for ten years.
And it hurt; it hurt like a knife to her chest.
She opened her mouth to do what she promised herself she wouldn’t do, to beg for more time, to ask him to reconsider. But before any words came out, the doorbell rang.
And they both froze.
Locked in the embrace with Cal, Jenna worked on breathing steadily, because she was sure it wouldn’t be anyone other than Brent.
And that was really the last thing they needed, because both of them were raw, flayed, and Brent would