Together.
HONEY
“So what was it like this morning when you woke up in his arms?” Autumn asked.
We were climbing the stairs to my apartment. I was carrying two bags of groceries while Autumn was breaking into the box of pepperoni pizza she was holding.
“I didn’t hang around long enough to find out,” I said, ashamed.
“You mean you didn’t stay?”
“I had an appointment. I had to leave early.”
She stopped on the step in front of me, the slice of pizza in her hand paused halfway to her mouth. “What are you talking about? We’ve been at the mall all day.”
“It felt weird, okay. I had to get out of there.”
“Weird?” Her eyes searched my face and I could see the moment she realized the truth. “Are you in love with him?”
I swallowed thickly. Yes, I was in love with him.
I sighed and walked past her, ignoring her look of disbelief as I made my way to the front door. I shoved the key in, hating the hot prickle of shame creeping up my spine and flushing across the nape of my neck, as I pushed the door open.
“So you told him you had an appointment and bailed on him?” she said, following me inside.
I dumped the groceries on the counter. “Please don’t, Autumn, I already feel bad enough.”
And I did. It felt like I had abandoned him.
She sighed. “So, you’re not together. But do you want to be?”
She put the open box of pizza on the table and moved to the kitchen to get some plates.
“No.” I glanced away, afraid she would see the uncertainty on my face, as I put the cold groceries in the refrigerator.
Autumn sounded surprise. “No?”
“Caleb is amazing.” Amazing? Hell, my heart craved him. “But we’re complete opposites. I don’t fit into his world.”
I thought about my first night at the clubhouse and the girl passed out at the base of the stripper pole, and the larger lady bent over the pool table as an older biker slapped into her from behind. I thought about Caleb’s father and how his fourteen-year old son had watched his murder unfold before him. I thought of going to the bathroom at the clubhouse and walking in on a yellow-haired girl giving a biker a blowjob. I thought about Tiffani and the string of other scantily dressed women who were eager to warm the bed of a King.
And then I thought of Caleb and my chest squeezed with longing because I wished our worlds were somehow compatible.
“His world?” Autumn raised her eyebrow.
I shook my head and grabbed two plates, taking them to the dining table and sitting down. “The club life. The parties. The women.”
“But from what you’ve told me, he hasn’t been with any women since . . . well, you know . . . since you guys made a baby.”
“Yeah, but what about afterwards? When our baby is here and life settles into boring, domesticated routines of baby naps, feeding times, and diapers. What happens when my boobs spring a leak and I’m exhausted from sleep and I don’t feel like making love? Have you seen those girls who hang around the clubhouse? They’re eager. They’re willing. They’re a temptation. And after Charlie . . . ” I shook my head. “I don’t want it, Autumn. I don’t want that life for me or the baby.”
I put a piece of pizza on my plate but left it there. Autumn was making me feel even more guilty about the night before in the cabin and my appetite was gone.
Since leaving the cabin I’d been consumed with guilt. I’d broken my own rule. The sex had been great. I mean, the sex had been really great. And after I’d fallen asleep in his arms, he’d woken me up with the most tender of caresses in the middle of the night. Moonlight had streamed into the room, casting an ethereal light into the room where we made love without words, our bodies speaking the only language we needed. He had taken everything from me, and I had given it to him willingly, lost in the sensation of his body and what it did to me. But the spell had been broken with the harsh morning light. Already feeling the onset of guilt and regret, I’d fled the cabin, lying about an appointment.
Like a coward.
Why? Because we’d crossed the line.
One I’d been too terrified to cross by myself.
And I needed to process what I’d done and what it meant.
Oh, I knew I was in love with him. That was probably the only thing I did know.
But what I was going to do about it was a complete fucking mystery.
“What’s the point in starting something with someone I don’t see a future with?” I said sadly.
“The way I see it, you’ve already started something. You just can’t see it.”