by the time I complete the movement and look down at her, she looks beyond sleepy, just skating the line between dreamland and reality.
She’s vibrantly comfortable and, perhaps, a touch vulnerable, and it might make me a monster, but I can’t help myself—now that I’ve had her like this, now that I know all the wonderful ways she is, I have to know where the pain in her eyes comes from.
“Holley,” I say softly, squeezing her at her hip just hard enough that she’ll reopen her eyes.
“Mm,” she hums.
“I have to know…where does your pain come from? Did someone hurt you?”
She shakes her head, but I’m only half convinced she even knows what I’m saying.
“Tell me what happened to you, and I swear, Holl, I’ll make sure it never happens again.”
She sighs, her eyes closed, but somehow manages to mumble. “Don’t worry, Jake. I hardly even think about my bastard ex-fiancé Raleigh, his wife Meghan, and their baby anymore.”
Her ex-fiancé? She was engaged to a man who is now married and has a baby?
Holy shit.
My heart lurches at the possibilities of what she could mean, but before I can get clarification, she’s asleep.
“Holley,” I whisper, watching the rise and fall of her chest to make sure I shouldn’t be concerned for her well-being. She curls into me then, throwing a leg over my thighs and smiling a little in her sleep. I pull her tighter into my body and sigh.
And then I chuckle. I swear to God, I’ve never met a weirder woman.
Softly, I brush a strand of fallen hair out of her face and wrap my arms around her.
I lean forward and place a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth. The same corner of her mouth I first touched with my lips the night of our first whole day spent together.
I watch her for a little while, letting my mind settle into the fact that we made a move we can’t go back from tonight—a move I don’t want to go back from—and then finally, fall into a peaceful sleep.
Holley
I almost didn’t show up today, to Jake’s fifth and final date. I almost packed a bag and headed for the Mexican border. It wouldn’t take me long—under an hour even in heavy traffic.
I could get drunk in Tijuana and get abducted by a cartel or thrown in a Mexican prison, and honestly, any of those options sound better than dealing with facing Jake after last night…and this morning.
I’m not exactly proud of myself, but I am what I am. And even if I don’t know how to do anything else, boy do I know how to panic.
In the end, however, even after I let my flight response take me to crazy heights this morning, I decided to show up for myself—for work—but to do it while avoiding my issues with expert dedication.
Every time the front door opens, slicing a ray of sunlight into the dark ambiance of the bowling alley, I jump, so when he finally does walk in, I’ve already given myself a case of the hiccups from all the sudden movements.
It’s okay, though. Jake scans the alley, a scowl in place, and the fear his intensity awakens in me scares those fuckers right out of me.
He walks toward me intently, and I back slowly into the wall behind the table I’ve placed between us as a protective barrier. It doesn’t stop him. Frankly, it doesn’t even slow him down.
Because in what seems like the breath between one moment and the next, he’s there, looking me in the eyes. His are turbulent—almost alarmingly so as he tosses his discarded sunglasses onto the top of the table and puts his hands to his hips.
“We need to talk about what happened last night.”
“No.” I shake my head manically. “We don’t. The last thing we need to do is give a voice to it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you serious? How many reasons do you need?”
“At least two,” he challenges, and I narrow my eyes.
“I’m an employee of the paper, and my behavior was completely unprofessional. Not to mention, you’re about to go on a date with another woman,” I hiss. “I hardly think this is the time to rehash…everything.”
“I disagree,” he counters with a sharp edge to his voice. “We need to talk about it. Now. Before my date. You left your own house while I was asleep so you wouldn’t have to face me, Holley,” he whispers, his words laced with accusation. “We need to talk.”