He looked over my shoulder to the door, then down the stairs. “I shouldn’t, but yes.”
Yes. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered as I let him go to step inside. But the moment I crossed the threshold, I froze. The butterflies dropped dead.
My laundry was piled up on my couch. Clean panties were folded and stacked on the coffee table. There were five bras air-drying in the kitchen.
I spun back around and shoved my hands into his pecs, stopping him from coming in any farther. “Can I, um . . . can you cover your eyes for a sec?”
“Huh?”
“Can you just cover your eyes?” I took one of his meaty paws and lifted it toward his face. “Just for a second.”
He chuckled but kept his hand over his eyes.
“Don’t move.” I turned him away from my couch and kitchen, just in case he peeked. “And don’t look.”
“Are you hiding a dead body?”
“Of course not.” I ran over to the couch and swiped all of my laundry into a single pile. All of the shirts and pants and panties I’d folded earlier—that I’d refold tomorrow—got tossed into a basket. Then I hustled to the kitchen, triple-checking that the bras I’d hand-washed this morning were no longer hanging on cupboard doors.
With it all cleared away, I shoved the laundry basket behind the small bar in the kitchen. “Okay. You can take your hand away now.”
He did, turning around to face me. In my haste, I hadn’t even turned on a light. He reached for the switches by the door and flicked them on. Then he nodded to himself as he assessed the room. “Cool place.”
“Thanks.” I came out of the kitchen, toying with the hem of my tank top. It was nerve-racking to have him in my space. No one but my parents and some girlfriends had ever been in here.
Jackson walked right down the center of the room toward my now-clean couch. The slanted ceilings were too short for him at the edges, and as he got closer to the exterior walls, he began to crouch, bending lower and lower until he collapsed into the sofa.
“This probably feels like a dollhouse for you.”
He grinned and kept looking around. “Kind of. But I bet I’ll only whack my head on the ceiling a couple of times before I get used to it.”
A couple of times. I shouldn’t have liked the thought of him hitting his head, but I did. Because that meant he was coming back.
I walked over to the couch, maneuvering around the coffee table and feeling more self-conscious than I’d been on the stairs. It was easier to be adventurous and brave in the night. Now that we were inside, I was worried Jackson would pick up on all the little things I’d been able to hide in the dark.
Jackson was sitting in the middle of the couch, leaving me exactly half a cushion of free space between him and the plethora of throw pillows by the armrest. The moment my butt hit the cream upholstery, he tossed an arm across the back of the couch.
He sat there so comfortably, claiming my couch. It was almost as if he’d been the one to haul it up the stairs and squeeze it through the door.
“Did your parents build this for you?” he asked, inspecting my bed at the other end of the open room.
“No, they had it built a while back for my grandma. My dad’s mom. She lived here for a year but then started to show signs of Alzheimer’s. It broke my dad’s heart to move her into a home in Kalispell.”
“Sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. She’s happy.”
Grandma didn’t remember any of us now, but that hadn’t stopped us from visiting her often. A lot of my things were actually hers. I’d kept them here as a tribute to her beautiful taste.
The loft was divided in half by the front door. On the left was my bedroom area. On the right was my kitchen and living room.
The pitch of the roof was at the tallest by the door so you could walk in comfortably, but in other areas, the walls tapered at the edges to only about five feet.
My kitchen was my favorite part, even though it was small. But with bright-white cabinets and a large window over the sink, it felt bigger than it actually was. The butcher-block counters were Grandma’s request. She’d loved to bake her own bread and had insisted on wooden counters rather than granite because she swore it made the bread taste better. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but her dinner rolls were legendary.
On the other end of the room, situated outside the single bathroom, was my bed. It was covered in Grandma’s favorite white quilt, one she’d bought from a church bazaar. It was simple and understated, much like Grandma herself. But it was stunning too, with intricate white flowers stitched on the soft white cotton.
The entire place was full of muted colors and warm woods. The floors were a chocolate brown that matched the wooden beams in the ceiling.
The only thing I didn’t like about it was how warm it got in the summer. Without an air conditioner, it was miserable in the afternoon and evenings until the night air cooled my room down.
I should have opened the kitchen window, but now that I was settled into Jackson’s side, I didn’t want to get up.
Neither of us spoke as he finished his inspection of my place. When his eyes stopped roaming, he focused on the opposite wall and sat there, just breathing in and out.
Was this awkward? Or was this normal? I didn’t know how to act after a midnight confession and three amazing kisses. I hadn’t invited him inside for a specific reason, more just because I hadn’t wanted to see him go.
So if he was waiting for me to make the next move, we were going to be here forever. I’d used up all my courage on the stairs.
“Willa . . .” Jackson trailed off and sighed.
My body strung tight at the warning in his tone. Was he about to give me a long apology about how he was sorry he’d kissed me? Maybe he needed someone with more experience, and now that he knew that woman wasn’t me, was he going to bolt?
I braced, waiting for him to continue as he shifted in his seat to look at me.
“I know I’ve been coming on strong,” he said. “But that was before I knew about everything else.”
Definitely not going to like this. “Okay,” I drawled.
“You shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of shit from a man. I’m a mess. If you want me to stop so you can find someone better, just say the word. I’ll walk away.”
Better? I snorted a laugh.
There wasn’t better than Jackson Page. In my book—literally in my diaries—he was as good as it got. I didn’t know a lot about Jackson’s history, but it was likely he’d come from rough beginnings.
None of that mattered to me. What did matter was that he seemed down on himself. It left an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Maybe he wasn’t as confident as he liked people to believe.
“Don’t walk away,” I told him. “And you’re not a mess.”
He scoffed. “I kissed you when I was drunk and high, then forgot. That’s the definition of a fucking mess. You deserve better than that.”
“Better is up for interpretation.” I settled into the couch, scooting closer to his side to tell him a story. “My mom dated this rich guy when she was younger. Obviously, that was before she met my dad. She grew up in Kalispell and he was her high school boyfriend. His family had a lot of money.”
Jackson relaxed a bit, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as I continued.
“They dated for a couple of years in college, but Mom says neither of them were really into it at that point. They’d grown apart, so she broke up with him. A few weeks later, she met my dad. One look at him and she knew she’d made the right choice.”
I’d been a preteen when Mom had told me about how she and Dad had met, but it was a tale I never forgot. Mom and Dad were a classic example of love at first sight.
They were the reason that, as a younger me, I’d never felt my crush on Jackson was ridiculous or silly or pathetic.
“So Mom came home on spring break not long after she met Dad and ran into her ex. I guess he wasn’t so happy he’d been replaced in such a short amount of time. He claimed to be ‘better’ than Dad and asked her to get back together with him. You can guess how that conversation ended.”