18. Connor

After cake, Jessamine seemed unusually tired and excused herself to go to bed. Peanut trotted after Jessamine to the private part of the inn. I liked the idea of him curled up on the bed by her feet, looking after her. Getting a dog made so much sense, so long as Mattias was there to help take care of him.

Fuck, I wanted a dog.

Maybe I just wanted my life to be different, and that was one way to do it. Still, it seemed nice to have somebody at your side who was happy with you even if you were a complete mess.

"Everything okay?" Mattias asked.

I shook myself. "Yes. Mostly." I laughed. "Cake helps."

"Cake always helps."

I looked down at my plate, the spare crumb left on its surface. It'd been delicious. I liked a good carrot cake, but hummingbird might... take the cake?

Oh god.

Mattias's smile grew, and for a horrifying moment, I worried that Mattias could see into my head.

"You sure you're okay?"

I nodded. "Just being cringey. Silently. Pinky swear that, if it were clever or funny, I'd say it out loud."

Mattias held up his hand, pinky stuck high in the air.

What could I do but loop mine around it?

Once we did the dishes, I hesitated there in the kitchen. I wasn't tired, but I'd taken up most of his day already. I could keep reading. The only problem was that Matttias wouldn't be there too, which was probably not a thought I should be having. "I... guess I should go to bed?"

He nodded, but he was quiet, watching me for something. "I'll walk out with you."

The foyer of the inn was silent, only a single lamp throwing dim light across the space.

We came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, Mattias not ready to go to bed or sit behind the desk, me not ready to leave him.

"Thanks," I whispered, "for today. I don't know what the fuck happened out there, but I'm sure, if you hadn't been there, I'd be questioning my sanity."

Mattias let out a soft chuckle. "I mean, I might still be."

"I think I'll go out again tomorrow. Just to see if I can find that girl again."

Mattias's nose scrunched up. "We're scheduled to get our food delivery tomorrow afternoon, so it'd be hard for me to leave the inn."

That brought me up short. "You'd... come again?"

It wasn't like we had any real hope of finding Jessie, and I was going searching for a girl I'd be pretty damn sure was my own twisted illusion if Mattias hadn't seen her too.

Nobody ever went along for this kind of thing—the efforts with no hope of success, where I was just indulging some desperate part of me that needed to keep trying.

Mattias bit his lip. "Well, yeah. If you want company any?—"

I didn't let him finish before my arm slipped around his waist. My hand pressed into the small of his back, nestled into the arch of it as he fell into me. My other hand, I let slip around the nape of his neck, beneath his soft curls.

And then his mouth on mine—all sweetness and pineapple and?—

Fuck, my breath caught, and I made a needy sound before deepening our kiss, nibbling his soft bottom lip to taste it for myself, slipping my tongue inside when his mouth parted for me. So fucking gorgeous.

He was clinging to me too, one hand fisted in the front of my shirt with the other gripping my shoulder. He pushed himself into me, into the kiss, his eyes closed and his cheeks bright pink.

It was the perfect first kiss—like that flying feeling after a first date when you were a teenager who barely even knew how to do the thing. It was risky and fun and necessary, and yes, it was a little bit wrong.

Wrong? I ran that word through my mind and came up short.

Mattias wasn't wrong. He was fucking amazing—so supportive and kind and patient. Fucking cute, too. Sweet, with a quick smile. Just my type.

It wasn't Trevor, either. We weren't together anymore, and it'd been months since the separation.

But—ah, there it was.

The only problem in this equation was me. Mattias was great, Trevor was living his own life, Jessie was—well, there was nothing I could do for Jessie right then but keep trying to find them.

It was just me. I was a twisted-up mess. Stuck, like everyone said.

Mattias wasn't the sort of person I wanted to make stuck. He was incredible—caring and considerate. He'd been there for me even when he didn't have to be, when it would've been all too easy to be awkward and withholding and make it abundantly clear that he wanted to move past having to deal with my issues.

Instead, he acted like I was never an inconvenience, that he was always happy to see me, even if I was showing up to be a disaster, hefting my literal baggage around his home and business.

He read the books I talked about, shared his thoughts, cooked the best damned steak I'd ever had. He was the kind of person I wanted to grow with.

I just... couldn't. After losing Jessie, I'd stopped growing. Stopped living.

With a shaky breath, I pulled back from the kiss.

"Shit," I whispered, my lips barely a finger's breadth from Mattias's.

"Shit?"

I swallowed, opening my eyes to look down into his warm brown ones, so dark and open and lovely.

"I think we should've talked before I did that."

He smiled, and I wanted nothing so much as to dive back into that smile, that sultry mouth, and lose myself in him. "Talking can be overrated."

I chuckled. "Yeah. Still." I cupped his cheek, brushing the pad of my thumb across his cheekbone. "I really like you."

He bit the tip of his tongue to keep from smiling, but his eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I feel like there's a pretty big ‘but' coming after that."

I shook my head fast. "Nope. No. No ‘but's. I really like you," I promised, because that much was true. It'd come up on me fast and unexpected, but—well, how could I have avoided it? Mattias put chocolate chips in his oatmeal. "I really like you, and I'm a fucking mess."

He frowned. "You're not. You're not anywhere near as messy as you think you are."

I wanted to laugh. He was so nice, so generous. And on this front, maybe he was a little off.

"I'm still pretty messy though. Can I tell you where I am with—with all this?"

Mattias sucked in his cheeks, but he nodded. He didn't jerk away from me or look down, so while he was still giving me a chance, I needed to try and get all this out.

"So, you can absolutely tell me if this isn't something you're interested in. Like I said, I'm a mess. If all my baggage is too much, I get it. Really, I do. It's just—you're amazing, Mattias. You've been so kind to me, you take care of your grandmother and look after this business and—fuck, you put chocolate chips in your oatmeal, and that's just a total revelation."

He laughed, so I grinned back at him. This wasn't bad. It—it couldn't be bad.

"You are the kind of guy," I said, swiping my thumb across his cheek again, "that I'd have a really hard time not getting serious about. I'd—I could see, maybe, if you'd like that, something more with you. But I'm not ready. I don't know how to have a life without Jessie, much less build a new one. There's a lot of work I'll have to do before—before I'll be the kind of man I'd want to be in a, well, if we were dating. Seriously dating."

He was staring at me, and my head felt like it was on fire. "But if that's not something you're interested in," I hastened to say, "it's all—well, you can ignore—we could?—"

Mattias's grin spread slowly. He pressed one finger against my lips and shook his head. "I get it. Sort of. I get you're not ready, at least, and that's okay. I'm still—I like you too."

He looked up at me, no barbed expectations behind his eyes, no wish that I was someone else, and my heart skipped in my chest, bouncing around with—god, I'd forgotten what hope felt like, to want something for tomorrow other than healing from today.

"Really?" I had to ask. Couldn't help myself. How could he look at the disaster I was and not pull away, say he just wasn't sure about all this, escape while he had the chance?

Mattias nodded. "Really. So we could... go slow. Talk some more. Work on the stuff we have to work on?"

"Okay."

"And if I get to make demands?—"

"You do."

"Don't go out to the woods tomorrow. Wait an extra day. I'll go with you. That girl gave me the creeps, and I'd—I'll feel better if you don't go out there alone."

He was worried about my safety. Even the fact that it was just a little girl or that the trails were well marked or that I'd been out there dozens of times for hundreds of hours didn't matter, because Mattias Hall cared about my well-being and didn't want me to go alone.

Hell, he wasn't even saying not to go at all, just to wait for him.

"That sounds completely reasonable. I'd love if you wanted to go with me again, and I can wait."

I could wait for as long as it took for my head to straighten out, for it not to feel wrong to hope for something even though Jessie was still gone.

I just hoped Mattias could too.