raw vulnerability caused all sorts of inappropriate thoughts and feelings to well up inside of me. I wanted to pounce on him, just like I had at the wedding. I wanted to kiss away all of his pain. I wanted to make us both forget the world around us.
“Sorry, I don’t talk about this ever. Apparently, I had a lot to say.”
I couldn’t help but feel special that he didn’t talk to people about her and yet, he was talking to me. Maybe I was his truth serum just like he was mine. That thought made me a heck of a lot happier than it probably should have.
Chapter 18
Beau
“Life is like a bikini wax. Ya can’t get the result ya want without pain.”
~ Barbara-Jean Nelson
I stepped out of the shower and heard my phone vibrating on my countertop. My first thought was that it was Sasha canceling coming over tonight. When I’d dropped her off a few hours ago after fishing and invited her to come to my house for dinner, I’d seen the surprise in her eyes.
She wasn’t the only one who was shocked by my invitation. There was something about Sasha that made me say and do things I wasn’t planning on. When we were in my dad’s study, I hadn’t planned on asking her to go fishing, but that’s what I’d done. And when I dropped her off at her grandma’s house, I hadn’t planned on asking her to come over for dinner tonight, but that’s what I’d done.
I had no idea what I was doing. If anything, I should stay the hell away from her. She had a lot of shit going on in her life and I wanted nothing to do with it. The problem with that was when I was with her, I didn’t think about any outside issues. I didn’t think about her ex, or the media attention that our kiss had caused. All I thought about was wanting to be around her more. I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted to spend every waking, and sleeping for that matter, moment with her which explained why these invitations kept flying out of my mouth.
After wrapping a towel around my waist, I picked up my phone and saw that it was a missed call from an unknown number. A few seconds later I got a notification of a voicemail. I pressed play and hit the speaker icon.
I was drying off when I heard Rachel’s voice. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind me calling. I got your number from a friend. I just…I feel like I didn’t get to say what I wanted to at the firehouse. It was just a lot for me, seeing you again after all these years. I know that I don’t have the right to ask you this, but I’d really love it if we could have coffee. If you say yes, I promise I’ll be more prepared and have my thoughts together.” I could hear her nerves from the tone of her pitch. “Anyway, think about it and let me know. Thanks.”
The message ended and I could honestly say it wasn’t bad hearing her voice. Before today, hearing her, seeing her, or even talking about her had felt like getting kicked in the balls. But after talking to Sasha, opening up to her about everything, I didn’t feel anything hearing her voice.
Maybe I should’ve talked about what happened a long time ago. I could hear my mom in the back of my head saying, ya think? Sarcastically, of course. If I had, it might have saved me years of resentment and anger. Or maybe not. Maybe the magic of what I was feeling was about the person that I’d opened up to.
There was something so captivating, so enthralling, and at the same time so safe. That’s what I felt when I was with her, I felt safe. It wasn’t until I felt what I felt with her that I even realized I’d felt unsafe.
Every self-protective instinct that I’d relied on since my breakup with Rachel was screaming that this was a bad idea. Getting to know Sasha better could only end in pain. She was going to leave, go back to her life in California, and I was going to be left missing a person I hadn’t even known existed last week. It wasn’t the smartest move, but it was the one I was making.
When I saw the time, I knew that I had to hurry.