I shake my head and gently push his hair out of his face. “It’s not. And you know what? That’s what I want to do when the time’s right. I don’t want a wedding.”
“What about all those wedding magazines with the color-coded Post-Its on your favorite stuff?”
“Eh. That just felt like what I should be doing. I’d much rather just elope with you and Lyric.”
The silver specks in his eyes light up like tiny holiday lights. “Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
He cups my chin in his palm and kisses me feather-soft, lingering near my lips.
“Thank you for always waiting for me,” he whispers. “Want to know a secret?”
“Okay….” I say nervously.
“I knew I wanted to be with you forever right from the start. That’s why I told you the ladybug myth. I wanted you to want me, too. And when you did, it scared the ever-lovin’ shit out of me.” He kisses me again. “Now that I know you’re not going to abandon me like everyone else, I’m not scared anymore.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
I like to watch Piper when she’s completely unaware. Like now, when she’s sleeping next to me, dwarfed under the beige comforter with just her head poking out with her blond hair loose and messy on the pillow. I stare at all the parts of her that captivate me. Her lashes—like tiny feathers resting on her cheeks. Her lips—the color of bubblegum. Her fingers—curled up in a fist under her chin like babies do. I was relieved to see the engagement ring still on her hand when she came into the room.
Watching her is an old favorite habit of mine. A guilty pleasure. I watched her for a long time before we ended up in that gazebo talking. She’s the very reason I picked that park to play at every day—so I could watch her up close.
So I could be close.
She already knows about the time I saw her when Acorn and I were walking down the sidewalk past her office. She dropped her things on her way to her car and I turned to catch her kneeling on the pavement with her skirt riding up just enough to give me a tantalizing glimpse of her thighs. Her black sunglasses fell from the top of her head as she bent forward and I watched her wrestle to untangle them from her hair. Although she was dressed in office attire, the outfit contradicted the fact that she didn’t look more than sixteen years old. She had tiny, faery-like features and was so short I doubted she could see over the steering wheel of her car. She cursed at herself under her breath and I thought she was the most awkwardly adorable chick I’d ever laid eyes on.
The second time I saw her she was in her car at a red light downtown. She was singing badly along with the radio and looked so incredibly free and lost in her own world that I literally would have sold my soul to crawl into that world with her. To feel so unbound and oblivious. As I stared at her, lusting for her free spirit and wanting very badly to run my hands through her hair, she suddenly decided to turn on red and came close to running me over where I stood at the edge of the crosswalk.
She never saw me, but that only added to her appeal.
The next time was when I was scouting the park and stumbled upon her reading on a bench. It was a delightful surprise. By then, I didn’t give a shit if I’d make a dollar or a thousand playing guitar there every day. I just wanted to be in the same space as her. My body ached looking at her—the way her legs were tucked under her, her small bare feet poking out. She was entirely engrossed in the book, her tongue sliding seductively across her lips as she read, her eyes widening at the words on the page. I lit up a cigarette and watched her from my perch on the hill. Close enough to see her, but far enough where she didn’t notice me. I squinted at her paperback, filled with curiosity over what my little magical faery would be reading. I grinned when I saw the embracing couple on the cover.
A romance.
She believed in love, or at least wanted to.
I didn’t.
At least not yet.
She changed that. She made me believe in it, she made me want it, and she made it so I couldn’t live without it. I fell hard and fast for her. She haunted me; lived in the fabric of my soul and inspired all the emotions and words that had always eluded me. Without ever even knowing it, she vaulted me to the top of my career.
I was going to leave that rainy night years ago. Once that fucking headache stopped, I was going to make myself gone. Get far away from her shy glances and childlike laugh and blushing cheeks. But I couldn’t, because I couldn’t let her go. I wanted her to be mine.
Does that make me fucked up? That her innocence made me hard as a fucking rock; made me want to corrupt her, ruin her for everyone else? To set the bar so high that anyone else would fail miserably?
But then she came, creeping through the fog on petite feet in high heels with a little bag of goodies and a smile that could knock me on my knees and a head of lemon-blond hair and big innocent eyes and those perfect pink lips and a sugary sweet voice. Then there was the skirt and the way the wind skimmed it across her pale thighs.
All that, I could have just ignored if I really wanted to. It was her breathing that did me in, the way her breath caught in her throat as I stepped closer to her, how she held me in her lungs and got high on me before exhaling over her quivering lips. She was scared, but not of me, of wanting me.
She was a rabbit hopping straight into the talons of a vulture.
I knew I was going to devour her. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted her too much, needed her too much... and when she didn’t push me away, when she gave herself to me—that was it.
She made me want to stay, when all I ever wanted to do was run. She made me want more, and she made me want things I couldn’t have. And worse, I knew she wanted things I couldn’t give, and it created yet another battle inside me.
She wasn’t made for flings, my little ladybug. She was the kind of girl you took home, if you had one. She was the kind of girl you kept. She was forever. My forever.
“You’re awake early.” Her soft voice pulls me from my trip down memory lane.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to wake up every day at the same time. For consistency and stability.” The times of taking sleeping pills to force myself to sleep after taking speed to stay awake for days are over.
She kisses my shoulder, then rolls over onto her back, stretching her arms over her head. The comforter slips down her body, exposing her perfect naked breasts and I want to roll over on top of her and ravish every inch of her, sink myself deep into her until she whimpers and drags her nails down my back.
I don’t.
I can’t use sex with her to fill the vacancies of my addictions anymore. I wonder if she’ll notice and I’m afraid she’ll think I don’t want her as much as I used to. The jump created fear and doubt where there wasn’t before. My fault. Mine to fix.
Balance is a bitch.
“How about breakfast in bed?” I suggest, grabbing the room-service menu from the bedside table.
She sits up with a drowsy smile on her face. “That sounds amazing.”
Half an hour later we’ve got two trays of waffles, bacon, fresh fruit, and toast spread out on the bed between us.
“This is good, but I really miss your breakfasts.”
“I do, too. I haven’t cooked in forever.”
She tilts her head and sips her orange juice. “I just realized I haven’t seen you smoke one cigarette since I got here.”
“I don’t smoke anymore.”
Her lips part in surprise. “Wow! That’s great.”
“It’s kind of fucked up, actually. When I woke up in the hospital, I had zero desire to smoke. It never came back. It wasn’t even hard.” I shrug. “I just...stopped.”
“That is strange. Did you lose interest in anything else like that?”
“I no longer feel the need to walk to the ends of the earth.”
Relief flashes in her eyes. “That’s really good, too.”
I nod. “It is. Different, but good.”