21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Mia
I’m trying not to read into why he wants me to go with him to dinner at his parents. It’s probably just because he feels bad that I’d be all alone here. There is no reason to pretend like it’s something more than it is.
But it sure does feel like it.
No, I’m not going to do this to myself. We are just two adults having some fun and getting to know each other while he helps me through this crisis in my life.
Even so, I take extra time getting ready. I choose a caramel-colored cashmere sweater with black jeans and brown boots. The caramel brings out the natural caramel highlights from the summer in my long brown hair. I tease the top to bring a little body to my hair and put on some subtle looking makeup.
Then I spray myself with my favorite perfume.
When we walk into his parents house, his warm hand rests on my lower back the entire time like he’s telling me he’s got me. It’s comforting and confusing as hell.
“I’m so glad he brought you,” Layla bounces up and down. “Come on, Brie and I are playing store.”
That instantly makes me feel at home. I love playing with my niece Sienna. I walk into the room off the kitchen which has random items from around the house displayed all over it, and a small pink toy register.
“I invited my friend Mia to play with us,” Layla says to Brie.
Brie smiles at me. “You can be the register worker.”
“Wow,” I say as I join her. “That’s a pretty big honor. Thank you.”
I’ve played this with my niece, so I know how coveted the clerk position is to kids. Layla and I play several rounds of store with her until Layla manages to get Liam and Josh in the room. Brie convinces them to play, and we sneak away for a drink.
“So, how have you been? Any word about Don and his whereabouts?” she asks as she pours us a glass of wine.
I take my glass. “Thanks. Actually, the police have confirmed he’s back in Cleveland. My brothers just want to give it another couple of weeks to settle down and have him followed before I go back home.”
A hint of sadness crosses her face. “That soon?”
I smile. “It’ll be a little over a month by then.”
She sighs. “I know. It just feels like you got here yesterday. I’ve really liked having you here. And I think Eric has too.”
Before I can ask her what that means, Josh comes in and grabs her hand. “You don’t get to escape that easily. Brie has insisted that Auntie Laylay and Uncle Josh shop as a family.”
They both walk away laughing together hand in hand. I watch them in envy, wishing I had someone that loved me that way.
“They’re annoyingly cute, aren’t they?” Eric startles me.
I turn around and lose my breath again just like I did when he walked downstairs tonight before we left. He looks so damn handsome with his cream sweater which has a zipper that goes down about a fourth of the way, paired with dark jeans and brown shoes.
“I don’t know that I’d say annoyingly,” I say standing beside him.
“Trust me, it’s annoying. They make it look easy.”
I look up at him and once again want to know more about him. I want to know about his past relationships. Was he ever in love? Did she hurt him like I suspect?
“Maybe it’s easy when you find the right person,” I whisper as I watch him.
He doesn’t respond, just looks deep in thought. I don’t know if he’s going down a dark path of memories or not, but I suddenly feel the urge to change the topic.
“Your parents’ home is beautiful. It’s what I would have pictured a large southern home to look like, but it's somehow even more beautiful in person.”
When he looks back at me this time, he appears more laid back. Like whatever was on his mind is now a distant memory. He smiles. “Care for a tour?”
I smile in return. “I’d love one.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me away from the kitchen. “I think you’ve seen most of the first floor, but we can do a general recap.”
He never lets my hand go all through the tour of the basement, backyard, and first floor. As he leads me up the stairs, I start to wonder what his family must think if they spot us holding hands.
“Is this the house you grew up in?” I ask once we make it to the top of the steps.
“I guess you could say that. We moved into this house when I was eleven. Before that, we didn’t have much money. It was a bit of a culture shock for me.”
“Sometimes money makes things complicated.”
He doesn’t respond to me but opens the first door on the left. “This was my room. Not much to look at.”
“Wait,” I stop him before he can close the door. “It looks like your parents haven’t done much with the room. Is this all of your stuff?” I ask as I walk into the room.
“They haven’t changed much in all of our rooms. A fresh coat of paint and some new bedding, but other than that it’s all the same.”
The colors are just what I would have guessed for a teenage boys room with blues and greys. There’s dark wooden furniture that shows its age, but is still expensive looking. There’s some Green Day and New Found Glory posters hanging on the walls above the desk.
“You listened to punk rock?” I turn and smile.
He chuckles. “Yeah, I still find myself listening to that music in the car.”
“Does it feel weird when you come in here?” I ask him, opening a drawer in his desk.
He takes a seat on his bed then lies back. “Not really. I don’t really think about it. I’m usually in here just to crash for the night. I don’t really look at anything.”
Nothing but old school notebooks and pens. I open the next drawer.
“You being a little snoop over there?” he asks.
“I’m curious to know more about teenage Eric. You’re not much of a talker. That means I have to resort to snooping to figure you out. Plus, is it really considered snooping if you’re sitting right there watching me?”
Another smile from him. I feel like I’ve won the lottery tonight. He’s starting to loosen up around me, and my heart explodes with joy every time he does.
“Oh, jackpot,” I exclaim as I pull out the contents of the last drawer. “Yearbooks.”
I grab a stack of them and run over to the bed to join him. We both sit up and lean our backs against the headboard.
“Is this high school?” I ask as I open the top one.
He nods. “Looks like my senior year.”
I flip through the pages until I find the senior photos then skim the names until I find him. “Dang, you were sexy even at eighteen. I bet you got any woman you wanted back then.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I did okay.”
“When did you lose your virginity?” I ask curiously.
“Fifteen.”
“Someone in this yearbook?” I ask, feeling jealous all of a sudden of someone that got to have that special moment with him.
“Leah Pearce,” he says. “She was in my grade.”
I scan the pictures until I find her. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones. Why am I not surprised? She’s in a cheer uniform. The picture is only from the shoulders up, but I see the uniform.
“She’s pretty.” My words are sullen and bitter, even I can hear it.
I see his chest reverberate as he laughs. “Are you jealous of a high school girlfriend of mine?”
My jaw drops. I don’t know if it’s from shock that he would accuse me of that or if it’s seeing him so playful. “I am not jealous of someone you were with twenty years ago. That would be humiliating.”
His fingers brush against my cheeks. “I guess that’s why you’re blushing.”
“Maybe we should talk about the men that have touched my body and see how you like it.”
His smile fades. His jaw clenches as his eyes burn with a cold, dangerous intensity. “I don’t fucking want to hear a word about anyone else touching you.”
My body burns with desire. Watching this man rage with jealousy over me makes me feel like this thing between us is something—like we’re more—like I’m his. The moment is too tense, I have to look away.
I find a yearbook that looks much older, faded edges and paperback versus a hardback cover. I reach for it, and it opens perfectly to a worn-out page. At first glance, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about the page. It’s a collage of photos scattered about both sides. The kids in the picture look young, like eleven or so.
Then I notice a picture of two kids smiling at a camera. A boy and a girl. Only the girl is scratched out with a pen, her face barely visible.
“What happened here?” I ask as my finger traces over the pen mark. It’s thick, like whoever did it was pressing hard against the paper.
“That is Becca.”
I wait for more to come, but he doesn’t offer anything. “And why is Becca’s face scratched out?”
He sighs. “We were twelve at the time. I didn’t handle things in life very gracefully back then.”
Is it rude to say I’ve only known him for a couple weeks, but I don’t think he handles things very gracefully today? Probably. I’m just going to keep my mouth shut. I look over at him with raised eyebrows.
He rolls his eyes but continues. “I was in love with her. At least I thought I was,” he looks down at the comforter, picking a piece of fabric off of it.
“That was right before my dad’s business hit it big, and we were struggling financially. I only wore hand -me -down clothes. I never had the new shoes or hats like the other boys in my class. But Becca and I hung out a lot. I thought there was something there. So, one day I got the nerve to ask her out. While I was asking her out, my friend came up to us and started laughing.”
His face looks down, like retelling the story still hurts. I want to tell him he can stop, but I also want to know what happened. This feels like a big moment in his childhood. Something that really left an impact.
“He threw his arm around her. He told her she can do better than a kid like me who couldn’t even afford to go to the movies with her. She smiled softly and walked away with him.”
I’m filled with anger. Anger for the man sitting in front of me, for the injustice of someone being treated that way at such a young age with no repercussions. For the twelve-year-old Eric who found out how shallow and cold the world can be.
I grab his hand and thread my fingers through his. We both look down where our fingers are laced together. It makes me feel something that I can’t describe. Like I’ve been searching for something my entire life and I’ve finally found it.
A small tear drips down my cheek. I look up at him. “I’m sorry. I wish I could go back in time and be there. I would punch your friend and tell off the girl for not only letting him get away with it, but for walking away with him.”
He smiles. “I can see you doing that, even at a young age. You definitely have this ability to move through life without anybody getting you down.”
I wish that were the case. “It may seem that way. I put on a brave face a lot, but I have my own demons. We all do.”
He rests his head back against the headboard, still looking at me. “What are your demons?” he asks softly.
I know it hasn’t been easy for him to open up to me. As much as I don’t want to say any of this out loud, I want him to know me. I trust him despite every action of his telling me that I shouldn’t.
“I’m afraid I’ll never find someone who will fight for me or love me the way my brothers have fought for their wives,” I start, hoping the tears that threaten to come can hold off. “I’m the youngest of the four, but I’ve always been the one who looks out for them. I’ve had to talk them through their hiccups in life, been around to make sure they don’t do anything stupid or help them pick up the pieces when they inevitably do.”
His fingers begin to slide along mine back and forth as I continue. “Whether it was every girl on the block or my own friends, I was always watching everyone around me do anything they could to get to my brothers. I guess I’ve always just felt—invisible.”
A single tear escapes despite me trying to blink it away. He takes his free hand and with the back of his finger, wipes it away. Then grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. His face is serious.
“You’re not invisible to me, Mia.”
But would you fight for me?
I don’t speak those words because I think I know deep down what the answer would be, and I don’t think I can handle it.
The sound of footsteps running up the stairs breaks the moment. We both jump off the bed just as Layla walks in.
Her eyebrows raise when she walks in. “There you guys are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Dinners ready.”
I walk quickly towards the door, leaving behind the yearbooks spread out on the bed. “I’m sorry. We were just looking at his yearbooks.”
“Oh, gosh. Did he show you his awkward years? He was such a dork,” she laughs as we all walk downstairs.
I look over at Eric. “No, I didn’t see any awkward years. But I’d love to see them after dinner.”
“Oh, please. Layla, you had plenty of your own awkward years. Should we pull out the old photo albums?” Eric pushes her shoulder just as we make it to the dining room.
“I’ve never seen any awkward pictures of Layla. I’ll bet that’s not possible,” Josh says as he gives her a kiss.
“Ha!” Liam laughs. “Trust me, it was possible.”
“Stop it,” Stella says. “All of my kids were exactly who they were supposed to be. No one was awkward.”
“You did dress them awfully odd when they were younger,” Dan, their father quips.
“It was the eighties. I dressed them the way every other parent dressed their children back then.”
“Aww, Ash has an old box of photos at our house. We went through them a couple months ago,” Charlotte says as she rubs her growing belly.
“Did you know that Daddy was a kid?” Brie announces to the table, like it is some huge secret that no one could possibly have been aware of.
Everyone at the table joins in laughter. Brie smiles but clearly doesn’t know what she said that was so funny.
“Yes, I remember when your dad was a kid,” Stella replies.
Brie’s eyes light up. “You do?”
She’s so sweet and innocent. I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have my own children one day. I’ve always dreamed of becoming a mother. I steal a glance at Eric and try to picture him as a father. Judging by the way he seems to adore his niece, he would be a great father.
After dinner is over and dishes are cleaned, Eric and I head back to his house.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I tell him in the silence of the car. “I had a great time.”
He smirks. “Thanks for coming. I’m glad you were there.”
Gosh, I’m so gone for this man. There’s nothing special in the words he said, but they make my heart flutter. Probably because him even admitting that he is happy to have me around his family is a big declaration for someone like him.
We both learned more about each other tonight. We are moving quickly past the line of friends who are sleeping together into dangerous territory.
When we climb into bed together, we both turn on our sides and face each other. A soft warmth fills the space between us as we gaze into each other's eyes. His eyes linger on me as a gentle smile plays at the corners of his lips.
I feel the depth of his affection in the way he is looking at me, as if I’m the only person that matters. Time slows down in the quiet of the moment.
His hand gently cups my cheek as his thumb grazes my lower lip. I close my eyes as he leans in, his lips barely brushing mine at first, a soft, teasing touch that sends shivers down my spine.
His mouth moves against mine with a slow, deliberate rhythm, deepening the kiss with a tender intensity. Every movement feels unhurried, each second drawn out, as if he’s savoring the taste of me.
The kiss ignites something deeper, more consuming in me.
He rests his warm hand on my thigh and slowly moves it under my t-shirt and onto my back then dips down to my ass. He squeezes lightly, and I moan into his mouth.
He rolls me over and cages me in while his body moves over mine. I feel the evidence of his arousal against my stomach. It only further sparks the intensity of my building desire.
My hand rests on his back then glides into his boxers, the only piece of clothing he has on, and grips his firm cheek. I push his boxers down until they move down to his feet.
His breath accelerates as he moves on top of me. “What are you doing to me?” he whispers. “I can’t control myself around you. I need you.”
I grab his length and move my panties aside.
“I’m on the pill and I’m clean,” I whisper.
With that, he pushes inside and we both gasp into each other’s mouths. Why does it feel like the first time every time?