My designs had always been my children. I poured everything into each one of them, building them with pieces of myself. The day a new line launched and I saw customers walking out of our boutique with clothes I’d brought to life with my own hands was the closest experience I had to birthing a newborn.
I’d started my first “line” when I was only sixteen, but it had mostly been a project for me and my high school friends—including Keith. We had just started dating, and he loved to talk to me about my dreams back then. We talked about everything then—our families, our fears, our hopes for our own lives. We used to stay up every night on the phone until after midnight, and at seven in the morning, he’d pick me up to drive me to school.
But back then, my designs were juvenile and unrefined. I worked on them relentlessly, pouring over magazines and watching not just the live streaming of fashion shows, but the behind-the-scenes documentaries, too. I studied the art of sewing, played with pattern after pattern, bought dresses and shorts and blouses at my favorite stores just to take them home and deconstruct them. I wanted to know how they started, see how they had become that finished product, and ask myself what I would have done differently if it had been me starting with those scraps.
Still, I wasn’t sure if I had what it took. There were millions of girls who wanted to be fashion designers, and I was just one of them.
It wasn’t until my junior year of college that my professor convinced me I had a unique talent. She was the one who put the thought in my head that maybe, just maybe, I could really make fashion my career. And when Adrian showed his faith in me by offering to be my business partner, everything just clicked into place.
As soon as I graduated, I got to work on my designs and forming a business plan for the boutique while Keith started dental school. Those were actually some of the best times, both of us working toward our goals, making the most of what small time we did have together.
I remembered one night when I was buried in breaking down the finances of renting out retail space, Keith came into the bedroom and cleared all the paperwork off the bed. I’d objected at first, but when I’d looked up, he was wearing nothing but a bow tie, and he made a joke about being the mannequin in my store window before hilariously stripping it off.
We’d spent the rest of the night in the sheets, not doing anything we actually needed to get done, and it was one night that I’d never forget. Sometimes that was what hurt the most, that our love had started strong and burned bright through so many hard times. I wondered where it all went wrong, where it shifted. I wondered where I’d failed.
Going through a divorce wasn’t an overnight process. The emotions didn’t stop as soon as the papers were signed. My heart would always hold Keith inside, even if it was just a small or rarely visited part of it. And there was something kind of beautifully tragic about that, holding onto the best parts of our love even after living through the worst.
I groaned against the ache in both my muscles and my heart and shook thoughts of Keith from my head.
The day had been long.
I was surprisingly sore from an activity that sounded so relaxing. It turned out “floating down the river” involved a lot of exertion, and my limbs were heavy as I climbed the stairs with an oversized yawn. It wasn’t until I was halfway up that the motion-censored light flicked on and I saw him.
My heart thumped once in my chest at the sight of Anderson’s shadowed frame sitting there, his back propped up against my front door. I slowed, noting the hard edges of his jaw, the line of his nose pointed down at his boots. His knees were pulled up, elbows resting over top of them, hands locked tight and knuckles white as he bounced one leg softly.
“Anderson?”
He glanced up at me with red, swollen eyes, half of his face still hidden by the night. My throat closed in on itself as I looked down on him.
I’d never seen anyone so small.
He watched me for a moment, asking me for something—permission, maybe? Then he stood, slowly, moving away from the door without a word.
My hands shook as I unlocked it and stepped inside, dropping my towel near a few pairs of my shoes. I tossed my hat on top and turned just as Anderson closed the door behind us. His shoulders sagged with what seemed like the weight of the entire world, and he looked as if he’d aged ten years in the eight hours since I’d seen him last.
But through his anguish, there glimmered a hunger in his eyes, and it nailed me to the spot where I stood.
There was something familiar about Anderson in that moment, as if a part of me recognized him. If the eyes really were windows to our souls, then our souls had climbed through those windows and stood face to face in my kitchen, seeing each other for the first time without cloudy glass between them to skew the truth.
I cleared my throat, ripping my gaze from his to run a hand through my tangled hair.
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked as I moved to the fridge, reaching in for a bottle of water. I didn’t even wait for his answer before closing it again because I already knew.
That pull I’d felt between us in my bathroom last night and on the porch this morning had exploded, hot particles sparked with energy buzzing all around us. I couldn’t face him again—I could barely breathe—so I gripped the edge of the sink and lifted the bottle to my lips, drinking half of it in one desperate pull.
I’d just set it down, lips still wet and the cap not even in place, when I felt him behind me.
Heat radiated off him, warming my skin and setting off a parade of goosebumps all at once. Fingertips lightly brushed my hip just above the hem of my shorts, and I stilled, frozen in place as his other hand swept the hair from one side of my neck. Where my breaths were stunted, his came steady and sure as his fingers tightened, and his lips pressed against the skin just below my ear.
I closed my eyes, my body so tense that it hurt as he kissed his way down slowly. When his teeth nipped at my shoulder, I hummed, my breath rushing out as the tension between us snapped like a strained electric wire.
The whole world came back in a rush, all of my senses invaded at once.
Anderson’s hands gripped me hard, twisting me until I faced him. He crushed his mouth to mine with a need so urgent, so wild. He was cinnamon and pine, warm and earthy, his expert tongue running the length of my bottom lip before he pulled it between his teeth. My eyes flew open just in time to see him close his again and he groaned, pulling me closer, arms wrapping around me completely as he slid his hands down to cup my ass. They tightened, and my breath caught as he lifted me, propping me on the counter to settle between my thighs, the heat of us connecting.
Every part of him consumed me, his mouth on mine, arms wrapped tight, one hand splayed on the small of my back while the other cradled my neck, holding me to him. I wondered what he was thinking, but it was hard to really think at all. The feel of him overwhelmed me after so long without a man’s touch.