“Tell me about your day, Swayz,” he whispers in my ear.
I laugh past the sob that wants to escape. If I wanted a guy who got down on his knees—hands folded at his chest—to apologize, I wouldn’t be engaged to Griffin Calloway. This is his apology. It’s slow and easy, but I have no doubt that he will own every piece of me again by the time he’s done.
“Shitty. This guy I love … he’s been ignoring me. And tonight he kinda broke my heart. He let another woman sit on my bucket. And he let her touch him.”
His grip on me tightens as he kisses the back of my head. There he goes, gathering up the pieces of me and tucking them away next to his heart. I let him because that’s where they belong.
“I should take him out back and beat him a breath from his life for hurting you.”
“No. I love him too much. Even if he’s falling out of love with me.” The last few words break as they fall from my lips.
“Swayz …” He turns me in his arms.
CHAPTER NINE
Griffin
I wasn’t looking for someone who shared my love of motorcycles, NASCAR, tattoos, or working out. Honestly, I wasn’t looking for anyone at all. My life was good.
Good job.
Good family.
Good friends.
I worked hard and purchased a house just after my twenty-third birthday. It’s not huge, but I don’t need much.
Then one day I got behind this blonde in line at the grocery store. Her hair was tangled in a pile on top of her head, falling out of her hairband in all directions. She riffled through her beach-sized handbag in a frantic search for her wallet as the lady at the register frowned in annoyance.
She was a chaotic mess to my diligent organization. I know she struggles with her averageness, but I think of her as not too anything; Swayze is my just right. My own tale of Goldilocks.
I didn’t find her. She didn’t find me. We found each other. It was effortless. It was perfect.
It still is.
The good. The bad. The sea of ugly in between—as long as it’s us, it will always be perfect.
“I’m sorry for breaking you today.” I hug her to me as silent sobs rack her body, hands covering her face. I embrace her vulnerability because she doesn’t show it to everyone. She trusts me to protect her, yet I let her down. Tonight I should have guarded her heart.
Her bucket. I let someone sit on her bucket and that mattered to her. I hate that I hurt her, but there’s an odd pride that it gives me to know that something as simplistic as an overturned bucket in my garage means so much to her.
I pull her hands away from her face, exposing her tear-stained cheeks and quivering chin. “You’re it for me. Do you know this? There’s no one else. I asked one girl to marry me, and I will never ask another. I want to marry you. I want to hold you. I want to have a family with you. I want your hands to fondle my old gray balls.”
She chokes out a laugh.
I frame her face, waiting for the perfect shade of blue to look at me. And when those eyes meet mine, I grin. “I want every smile. Every giggle. All the tears. I want to fight with you just to make up with you.”
Her mouth pulls into a smile. I take it because I want every single one.
“Did you wash your left cheek really good?”
I chuckle. “Yes. I’m pretty sure I removed at least three layers of skin.”
“You’re not riding with Apple or any other fruity-named girl to California as long as I’m still alive.”
I fight my impending grin and nod.
“And if you ever let another woman sit on my bucket—”
I kiss her until her body relaxes, surrendering to me. “Yeah, yeah…” I mumble over her lips “…such a tough girl. I’m sure we’re not done duking it out. You’re going to piss me off and I’m going to piss you off.” I grab the hem of her nightshirt and pull it up her body and over her head.
And for a few seconds I let her take my breath away. Every day I think this could be the day Swayze doesn’t render me speechless, but every day she does. I’m not even sure how she does it. She just … does.
“But at the end of the good days and the bad days, let’s promise to meet back here, under the covers, in the dark, to lick each other’s battle wounds. Deal?”
Her lips press to my chest. “Can it be that simple? Can we come back to our cocoon—inside these four walls—and shut out the pain? The anger? New psychiatrists? Stolen buckets? Forgotten birthdays?”
I want the answer to be yes. Reality is a buzzkill.
“We can try.” I slide my leg between hers.
She ghosts her fingers along my naked ass and up my back. Looks like today isn’t the day that her touch stops driving me insane with need. Maybe tomorrow. But I doubt it.
“Why do we keep hurting each other?” she whispers.
“Because we’re fucking terrified of losing this.” I slip my hand down the back of her panties.
When her lips find mine, I squeeze her sexy ass a little harder until she moans into my mouth.
She nips at my lower lip while rubbing herself against my leg that’s threaded between hers. “I wanted to kill her.” Her playful nips turn into bites like a dog that’s no longer playing.
My head jerks back before she draws blood, narrowing my eyes.
“Thanks for loaning me your guy.” Her mocking tone rings with very little sarcasm.
She’s jealous.
And pissed off.
I may have underestimated the situation.
“And that gum-sharing, toe-nudging, eyelash-batting bullshit made me want to pull her perfect black hair out of her head and rip off your testicles for letting her sit on my bucket!”
I one hundred percent underestimated the situation.
“Your bucket …” I say with the ease of coaxing her away from the ledge.
“My bucket.” She pushes my chest.
I roll to my back, letting her have control, in spite of my testicles questioning what could happen next.
Swayze straddles me like a queen perched on her throne. “My guy.” Her hair brushes my face as she leans forward, jaw locked, hands pressed to the pillow on either side of my head. Who is this woman? And where the hell has she been?
“Yours.” I grin.
“Mine.”
I chuckle. “So what are you going to do with me?”
Her lips part and something dark passes over her face, a cloud forming over my view of the sun. And in a blink, all her feistiness and anger vanishes, leaving behind the expressionless face of a ghost.
CHAPTER TEN
Swayze
“So what are you going to do with me?” Nate’s voice. Nate’s boyish grin.
Long blond hair from above tickling his face as excitement flashes in his blue eyes.
“Swayz?”
“So what are you going to do with me?” That grin … Like he’s always on the verge of snickering about something or like whatever he’s looking at makes him happier than anything else in the world.
“Swayz, are you okay?”
I blink.
It’s not Nate. Not his face. Not his voice.
The eyes are whisky and the lips are turned down into a frown.