Ten

TEN

O f course it had crossed my mind that Damien might want to talk to me. It would make sense that he would have questions about my appearance at a family event. And if he did, we could chat. But if he hadn't approached me, I certainly wouldn't have sought him out. Still, I was surprised to find him barring my path.

"Hi," was all I could think of to say, but then I remembered he'd done something both spiteful and stupid that needed clearing up. "By the way, I would appreciate it if you didn't talk any more staff members into slipping you Ash's room key so you can give it to hustlers."

"What? He didn't think that was funny?"

Remembering Ash's reaction, I shook my head. "No. Not at all," I said, meeting his gaze and holding it. After a moment, he glanced away.

"Whatever, it was a joke. You two can't take it, that's fine. Won't happen again."

It couldn't happen again, Owen had seen to that, but he didn't need to know that. "You're a lawyer, you knew there were privacy issues with your little stunt, safety issues too, especially for a world-famous actor. You could have put his life in jeopardy."

"But you were there, the fixer, the bodyguard, the ex-cop," he said snidely. "How could he have gotten hurt?"

"That's not really the point, is it?"

After a moment, he shrugged. "Fine, I get it. Again. I wasn't thinking, that's all."

"Okay, great. But really, if you think about it, you wouldn't have wanted a man in your room either, and Sienna might have had questions."

He recoiled. "Fuck you, Coop."

"Nice comeback," I muttered, ready to slip around him and return to my table.

"Wait." He barred my path again.

"Why? Is there something else?"

He crossed his arms and stared at me. "What are you even doing here?"

"I was invited to a wedding."

"Did you know I would be here?"

"How would I have known that? I actually knew very little about you, and even after the year we spent together, nothing about your family, friends, or anyone. Our lives were completely separate."

He nodded.

"May I go?" I asked irritably.

"What have you said to Sienna?"

"In regard to what?"

He shot me a look. "You know what."

The knee-jerk reaction was to say something really crass, graphic, and filthy. If I had come here and seen him, and Ash and I had not connected, I might have lashed out at him, the residual anger making me bitter and mean.

Or not. I hadn't ever been angry about our ending. I'd been hurt and sad, but that was all. The fact that he couldn't be himself seemed like a stupid reason not to have me in his life. I was disappointed that I wasn't enough for him to come out for. But it was actually Benji who had given me clarity. He told me that my ex had to come out for himself, not anyone else. The choice was his alone and solely on his timeline.

"I'm sure you were important to him," Benji told me as we sat at our desks in the office, the two of us the only ones there. "But not everyone sees the world exactly like you. We all have different support, different friends, families, and so on, and all that colors our perception. What you see as easy for you, expected, is not for him. His experiences are different."

Which made sense. And now, knowing the most I ever had about his family, I could see that my choices, with the safety net I'd grown up with and always counted on, were not in any way his. All of it, collectively, swirled through my brain.

"It's not my place to say anything to Sienna. Does she know you're bisexual?"

He was studying my face, and I realized he'd expected an attack. We were in new territory now. "No."

I nodded. "Well, hopefully, someday, you'll be able to tell her."

"And the movie star? What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. The same goes for him. You get to tell people about you. No one else has the right."

His gaze held mine. "I should have handled everything better."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean with you. I should have handled things better with you and your desire for more. You just wanted to be a bigger part of my life, and I reacted poorly."

"As I think back on it now," I said softly, "maybe that's all you could do."

"So you're saying what?" His temper flared, and his voice sharpened to a knife. "I'm just not capable of?—"

"No. I'm saying that at that time, and perhaps even now, dating men doesn't work for you. You're fortunate to have found such a wonderful partner in Sienna. She's really lovely, other than her aversion to small, sticky children."

His breath caught.

I grinned at him. "C'mon, she sounded like she was being attacked by ninjas."

His slow smile was a surprise. "In her defense, the dress was white."

"Those were my very same thoughts last night," I told him.

As he held my gaze, his smile fell away.

"Are we good?" I asked him.

He took a step closer. "I thought you'd be easy to replace."

It was a horrible thing to say, but no good could come of me defending myself, or even responding to his comment.

"See, I was certain I stuck around because it was easy, because you didn't ask much of me, and when we were alone together, I was content."

I grimaced.

"No? Is content not a good word?"

I shook my head. "Content is comfortable, complacent, convenient, which…is exactly what our thing was. Nothing was happening, there was no movement with us, no growth, no change. And that's on me. I was stupid to let it go on, but unlike you, who thought it was easy, I thought I could make you fall in love with me. I thought I felt enough for you that I could will it into being."

"Will what into being?" he asked, sounding annoyed.

"The relationship I wanted," I said with a sigh. "You know, the guy, my guy, the one I'd take to meet my parents, who would babysit my nieces and nephews with me, who would meet my friends and make plans for a future. I thought at any second, you'd look at me and think, how lucky am I?"

He huffed out a breath. "Well, I'm sorry I disa?—"

"Don't be sorry. It wasn't meant to be. More importantly, it wasn't supposed to be. I get it now. You're not my guy, and I'm certainly not yours."

His brows furrowed, and he took another step forward, which would have been too close, too intimate, so I took one back.

"You still smell like your soap and that oil you put all over your?—"

"Which you hated," I reminded him, "along with this sweater and my jeans and?—"

"Do you—does a huge movie star like my uncle like bottoming for you?"

It was like being punched in the stomach, and that fast, I was furious. He saw his mistake when my eyes flicked to his.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Really."

I nodded. "I think we're done, aren't we? There can't be anything left to say."

He sucked in a breath. "You were not, are not, easy to replace."

"Okay," I said, and turned away.

The grip on my bicep was a surprise, as was the way he turned me back around to face him. "There was nothing to be done. You wanted more, and I needed it to only be what it was."

"I get it. I hope you and Sienna will be very happy."

His jaw clenched, and I felt him tighten his grip on my arm. "I feel very judged right now, and I don't feel that you have that right."

"There is no judgment, I promise you." I felt so very light suddenly, and it hit me that even though I said I wasn't worried about having a long-distance relationship with Ash, I was. I needed to own that without letting it eat me alive. I needed to tell him the truth. "My mother always says you gotta follow your bliss. Whatever that is for you, I wish you nothing but the best. And really, I have no regrets."

Because I didn't. Sometimes you had to experience something to know what you didn't want so you could figure out what it was that you did.

"That's good," he rasped, his voice going out on him. "I'm glad."

I smiled at him, and he lifted his hand like he was going to touch my face, but dropped it at the last moment before releasing my arm.

"Okay," I murmured before I turned and saw Ash walking toward me.

"Hey," I said. "I have news. We need to talk."

He looked from Damien to me. "That's good, because I came to collect you for a walk around town."

"Great," I said, and when I reached him, he wrapped an arm around my neck, pulling me in tight against him.

"Don't wander off, all right?"

"I didn't wander. I was on the phone."

"But then you weren't, and you didn't come right back."

He was keeping tabs on me. "I got waylaid."

"I saw and didn't like it," he confessed gruffly. "I didn't enjoy the way he was looking at you either."

"Which was how?" I asked, admiring the glint in his eyes, the furrow of his brows, and the very possessive way I was being held. "With homicidal intent?"

"Like maybe he had once been something more to you than a stranger."

I nodded.

"Tell me."

"It's not my place to?—"

"No, of course not," he agreed. "Just tell me why it ended."

"Because with his career, he can't have a man in his life."

"Or thinks he can't."

"I dunno," I said hoarsely, the emotion clogging my voice. Him questioning me because he'd noticed the intimacy between me and Damien meant something. He was vigilant because he liked me, and I loved that. "I'm not him, so I can't say what's true or not. But for now, a woman suits him."

"And yet, Sienna has no ring."

"But that doesn't mean he's hesitating because he wants a man in his life."

"Then why does it seem like he's coveting mine?"

"Yours?"

"Don't be coy."

"I don't think I can be coy. I think only Victorian ingenues can be coy."

"Fine. It's you. You're mine, and I don't want him coveting you," he made clear, walking me back to the table, where we said our goodbyes and promised to see everyone later.

"You have to come out dancing with us tonight," Bitsy begged him. "Please."

"Who planned the boat ride tomorrow morning after the bachelorette party?" I asked her. "Because that is just vicious."

"What now?" She sounded alarmed.

Sienna was cackling, and got up and kissed my cheek. "Please come out tonight. You can put your gorgeous movie-star boyfriend in a disguise."

"Is that me?" Ash teased, kissing behind my ear. "Am I the boyfriend?"

I shook my head at him. "How much did you drink?"

"He's just smitten with you, kitten," Sienna apprised me.

"She knows what's up," Ash agreed, then raised his voice and wished everyone a wonderful rest of their afternoon.

He waved, then led me to the door of the gastropub, where Tori stopped us. She tried to give Ash back the two hundred-dollar bills he'd left her as a tip.

"This is too much, Mr. Lennox."

"Absolutely not. You were so kind to us, and we appreciate it."

She gave him a hug then, he gave her a squeeze back, and we were off.

Halfway down a cobblestone alley that was only for pedestrians, I asked him where we were going. It was still cold, but the hard rain had become a light drizzle.

"I don't care," he mumbled, sounding strange.

I stopped moving, and because he had the umbrella, he left me in the rain for a moment before he darted back to cover me again.

"What are you doing?" he snapped at me. "You want to catch pneumonia?"

I scowled at him. "You know, you don't actually get sick from getting wet; you get sick from these things called germs, and?—"

"Yeah, fine, that was dumb," he muttered, raking his fingers nervously through his hair. "I just—watching Damien talk to you, seeing his obvious interest, that was… I mean, I could feel that in my gut."

I nodded. "I was thinking about the long distance earlier," I confessed. "And not about anything like fidelity or monogamy, but just about that connection you were talking about. Making sure that's working will take real work."

"And you think what, that I'm not capable of that?"

"You already have so many balls in the air," I reminded him. "Maybe there's an easier option."

He shook his head. "This is sounding so familiar."

"Because that's always the suggestion when you meet and like someone who doesn't live anywhere near you."

After a moment, he nodded.

"We'll be living separate lives, so why not keep them that way until we can make time to see each other, and then it will be like this again."

"It won't, though," he husked, tipping his head to get me walking.

In silence, we made it to the end of the alley, and he pointed to a sign across the tree-lined street that said AVALON BOOKS AND Tea. We looked both ways, even though there were no cars in sight, then darted across the two-lane road. Standing in front of the window, it looked warm and inviting inside, with rows of bookcases, shelves of mismatched mugs, and hardwood floors covered in thick patterned rugs.

"Do you want some tea?" I asked him.

He turned to me. "You said you would try, and we shook on it with spit, which was disgusting," he reminded me. "Why're you walking that back?"

"Distance is hard."

"Only if you don't know what the other person is doing. I will share my calendar with you, and you could send me yours. That way you can ask questions, and so can I."

"That's a great idea."

There was a spark in his eyes, and I got a trace of a smile.

"And maybe," I continued, "you could call and tell me when you're going out, meeting friends for dinner, and I'll check in the next day and ask how it was."

"Or I could call you after dinner and tell you."

I shook my head. "We're on different coasts, in different time zones, and you don't want to have to call if you're in the middle of a great discussion about method acting."

It took a moment. "I'm sorry, what? Method acting? Is that what you said?"

"I just don't want the calls to ever be because you have to, but instead because you want to," I made clear. "Talking to me has to be the best part of your day, not a chore. Never a chore."

We were both silent, looking inside the store.

"I just—I can't imagine a time when I won't be as enchanted as I am now."

"Enchanted?" I smiled at him.

He groaned miserably. "I don't want us to be apart."

"But we will be, and that's okay. We just both have to be committed to making sure the other person knows, at all times, where we stand and what we want."

He reached out and put a hand on my cheek. "I promise if you get food poisoning, I will walk off my movie set to come take care of you while you're bazooka barfing."

I scowled at him.

"What? That's not romantic?"

"For starters, you'd be sued if you walked off a movie set, but why am I vomiting in this scenario? Why the food poisoning?"

"That's what I was last sick with, which is why I am no longer eating eggs at breakfast. Pancakes, French toast?—"

"Which are both made with eggs," I pointed out.

"I mean, like, scrambled and stuff like that."

"I see. How long has it been since you had eggs?"

"I'd rather not say." He let his hand slip off my cheek and took hold of my bicep. "Now let's go inside because you're freezing. That sweater isn't doing enough to keep you warm."

Leading me, holding the door so I could go in first, jingling bells announced our presence as we wiped our feet on the designated mat.

"Hello," a woman in a leather apron called out from behind the counter, giving us a wave. "Welcome to Avalon Books and Tea. I'm Kiyomi Robinson, and you two have excellent timing. My husband, Noel, has just brewed some hearty Earl Grey, and all the tables are open and ready for sitting and reading."

That sounded heavenly.

"How does it work?" Ash asked, smiling at her as we approached the ancient-looking counter, and I noticed locked cases of old books behind her.

She pointed to the right. "First you go pick a mug, then I'll fill it for you, then you walk over to the milk-lemon-sugar-and-honey station and doctor it up how you like it."

"Sounds good."

"You can read any book you like, just make sure to put it back when you're done or leave a dollar in the jar on the way out."

They made their own honey, as well as beeswax candles—lavender and unscented—and they also sold lavender in bundles or wreaths.

"Guess what kind of farm we have?" Kiyomi asked Ash.

"Lavender?"

She shook her head and turned to me. "Your guess?"

"Blueberry."

Her smile was wide. "Very good."

"Why is that a better guess than mine? There's not one blueberry in here."

"There's a blueberry cobbler in the oven. I will get you a piece as soon as it's done."

"That sounds amazing," Ash told her.

"And to answer your question, Maine is world famous for wild blueberries and potatoes, but your beau correctly assumed I am not a potato farmer."

"My beau?"

She tipped her head as she regarded him. "I would say so, yes. You keep touching him. Are you aware that you're doing that?"

He sighed deeply. "I'm enchanted by him."

"Oh good," she said, smiling at me. "That's what you want. My husband is still enchanted with me, and it's been fifty-two years and counting."

"How wonderful," Ash mused.

"I know. You boys have to do the same once the rings go on."

I leaned on the counter. "We met yesterday."

She nodded. "I met my husband on a Tuesday morning in May in 1972 at Los Angeles City College. I had just started classes, and he was a groundskeeper."

"This sounds like a good story."

Kiyomi smiled at me. "We got married in June, and three months after that, he shipped off to Vietnam."

"How long was he there?"

"He did three tours while I worked and got my degree in history so I could teach school, and he returned home to me and we haven't been apart since, even though he'll tell you I drive him nuts."

"Bananas," an elderly Black man corrected her as he came from the back, walked up to the counter, and placed a large teapot on the warming stand beside his wife. "She drives me bananas. I'm not much for nuts."

"These young men met yesterday."

He nodded. "Well, you make a nice-looking couple."

"Thank you," I said softly. "May I ask you, sir, how did you deal with being apart for so long? How did you and Kiyomi keep the connection alive?"

"Well, it helps to be in love. Are you in love?"

"I'm in lust with a lot of like," I told him.

"That's an excellent start," he assured me, taking hold of my shoulder. "And you have to communicate. I wrote every day, and so did she."

"You wrote a letter to your wife every single day?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's quite the commitment."

Noel grinned. "Well, I wanted to keep her interest. That goes back to your lust with a side of like."

"Yes, it does."

"These days you have it easy. You just pick up the phone, call, use FaceTime, and see their beautiful face whenever you want, so there's no excuse now not to make sure you're always connected."

"Fifty-two years?" I teased him.

His laugh was warm. "When you know, you know." He smiled at his wife. "It was like lightning for me. She needed more convincing."

Kiyomi shook her head.

"It was because I drove a motorcycle and she didn't want to wear a helmet, and every time she tied a scarf in her hair, we'd look behind us and it was lying in the road."

"Was it hard for the two of you in 1972 in Los Angeles?" Ash asked.

"Of course," Noel told him. "But you don't give up just because something is hard, now do you?"

"No, sir."

"Good, now we'll start a tab for you because you're going to need cobbler. In the meantime," he directed us, "walk down those steps and all the way to the back. There's a fireplace near a table by the window overlooking the bay. Not a lot to see today, but that's all right."

The table was oak, the chairs teak, and the fact that they were mismatched only added to the charm. It was comfortable, the rain was lovely on the water, and once we were both sitting, I smiled at Ash.

"So, do you think that was the universe giving us a sign?"

"Of course that was the universe giving us a sign!" he shouted at me. "Are you kidding? I am calling every day when we're apart. And yes, I will probably call at bad times, wake you from a dead sleep, and generally make a nuisance of myself, but I don't care."

I was crazy about his adamant declarations, the besotted look in his eyes, his silky tone, and the way he got up from his chair and dropped down into the one beside me. I couldn't stop smiling.

"I'm already invested, Cooper, and I know I am because I'm over here riding a roller coaster of emotions, but I have no desire to get off."

"No? None?" I asked, grinning.

"And see, you're nasty, just like I am. You're made for me."

"I am," I said, and it came out lower and more growly than intended.

He sucked in a breath.

"I promise, Ash, no more second-guessing, only moving forward."

"We don't have to do the spitting again, do we?"

"No. It's still good from the last time," I murmured, standing up and then sitting right in his lap, straddling his thighs and taking his face in my hands. "But I do think this promise needs sealing."

His breath caught. "Yes. I—me too."

"And when we get back to the room, we'll seal it again more thoroughly."

Lots of nodding.

"I want you to take this bracelet back. It's not necessary," I said, tilting his head, lifting his lips to mine. "I have what I want," I said, and kissed him.

I sank into the kiss, and he opened and received me, and somehow, it was different from the others because we were on the same ground and it was solid. I wanted him. Not just in my bed, but in my life, with me, as a constant presence, the man who would stay and be mine. And yes, it was crazy and fast and all the things that were supposed to be wrong, but I'd actually had the wrong guy, and I could tell the difference.

His hands were clutching my thighs, holding so tight, not wanting me to move, wanting more of the kiss, more of my tongue, his whimpering moan making me smile against his mouth.

"Boys, it's almost cobbler time," Kiyomi called.

"Tell her," Ash whispered, "that we need to take it to go."

I kissed him again because he was a man after my own heart.