It was my journey and I intended to finish it. Did I want it to cost my relationship with Wes? No, not in a million years. However, he needed to cool his jets and understand that not everything was about him. About the way he sees things. It’s not as easy as just handing someone a cool half million and all the world’s problems were solved. We were still new. Learning one another. In that newness, somehow he’d staked his claim and moved my ass in. Worse was, I let him.
Without any real fight I’d packed my tiny shit-hole apartment up in Los Angeles, stored my boxes in one of his five car garage bays, and set a box in my old room yet to be unpacked, of my prized possessions. Really all the rest of my crap could disappear and the items in a small two foot by two foot box held all that ever mattered to me. Not wanting to waste the little time we’d had left with one another, I didn’t ask about adding my stuff to his home, making my mark the way a woman normally would. Maybe I too needed the time to realize that I’d technically just moved in with Weston yet planned to continue my job for the rest of the year. Not exactly something you wanted to tell your friends and family about your new girlfriend.
My thoughts were a jumbled mess. I walked hollowly out of the airport and along the sidewalk muttering to myself when a warm hand curled around my bicep and stopped me. I looked up, and up, and up until the rim of a Stetson cowboy hat blocked the sun and my eyesight adjusted. Pale green eyes came into view. So pale they were the color of a green amethyst, much like my own. Damn near exactly like my own. Weird. A smile slipped across a rugged square stubbled jaw. White teeth gleamed as he said something but I didn’t hear it. Too lost in my own thoughts. Golden blonde curls of hair could be seen at the back of his neck proving whatever was under that hat was unruly, likely curly, and needed to be cut.
“Mia? You’re Mia, right?” the man said but the rumble in his voice hit my heart and squeezed. Not with desire but a faint hint of something else. A familiarity stole across my senses, like a long lost dream that you had and remembered when you were awake, but couldn’t place the pieces appropriately. “Sugar, you okay?” Another large hand came to my other arm and held. I looked at both his huge hands. The nails clean, cut straight across the top as if he’d recently cut them.
I stepped back but he clasped my arm tight. “I’m uh, okay. Sorry.” I shook my head. “Do we know each other?”
His grin widened. “No, but over the next month I reckon’ we will know one another mighty well. I’m Maxwell Cunningham. Max for short.” He held out a beefy hand. The callus’s rubbed along my palm, scratching the tender flesh sharply. He wore a yellow polo shirt stretched tight over a broad muscled chest if the indents through the fabric were any indication. The trim around his bulging biceps could separate and tear at any moment. With the shirt, which incidentally looked really good on his frame, he’d paired dark Wranglers complete with a silver belt buckle that was at least three inches wide by two inches tall and had a gold star in the dead center. His feet were covered in a pair of dusty rust colored cowboy boots that matched his belt. My guess, he’d made an effort to match them. As I took in his attire he took in mine. Those green eyes so like my own scanned my simple sun dress and sandals. My hair was loose and black curls were flowing everywhere.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his voice coming out gritty as if he’d said the words but hadn’t meant to. His eyes were haunted, wounded in a way I wanted to reach out and give him a hug. Why I had that desire, especially after Aaron, I didn’t know.
I looked around at all the people passing by and gripped my sundress just to have something to do with my loose hand. The air between us was uncomfortable, thick, filled with things unsaid. “Um, thank you.” I returned, thinking he was probably waiting for me to say something. When you tell a woman she’s beautiful, and you tell her in a way that looking at her gutted you, a response of some kind was mandatory.
“Oh, uh, sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just your pretty, real pretty, and even though I seen your picture, I wasn’t prepared for the living, breathing thing. Hot damn, that didn’t come out right either.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his feet, a scowl marring his plump lips.
“Sir, this your truck?” An airport security type man wearing a fluorescent vest pointed at the Silver Ford F-150 interrupting our awkward conversation.
“Yeah, some kind of problem?” He asked.
The man nodded. “Yeah, if you don’t get a move on their will be. You’re clogging up traffic. Get going.” He gestured once more to the truck.