A soft chuckle left my mouth, riding on the back of my breath. “Have I mentioned that I’m very grateful she’s theheryou were referring to?” I asked, my eyes blinking before dropping from his gaze.
He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting it until our eyes met once again. “I haven’t been with a single woman since the accident. I promised myself I was done with all the bullshit, the random hookups, and the meaningless sex that was nothing but a quick fix and a way for me to continue to numb myself. I wanted the next time I was with someone to mean something, to be significant, something I was proud of. And then you strolled into my life,” he said, repositioning my face again so our eyes locked. “That night at Booker’s party, I remember looking up and thanking my lucky stars that it was you.”
His lips fell to mine, gentler than they had been earlier.
“And just so we’re clear, when I left you on Christmas Eve, I was flying back to Nashville so that I could spend Christmas with Ruby. It was her first one without her parents, and I wouldn’t miss that for anything. I couldn’t. Even though it felt hard to leave you too, I knew you’d understand.”
“Of course I would’ve understood. Your commitment to her is…” I shook my head because I wasn’t quite sure how to explain what I was feeling. This man was so much more than I’d ever given him credit for, and he continued to prove me wrong over and over again. “It’s admirable. She’s lucky to have someone like you,” I said.
The emotion of it all had tears forming behind my eyelids, pooling in the corners of my eyes. I swallowed, forcing them back. “But wait, how did you get back to Nashville that day? My parents said all the flights had been cancelled.”
His chuckle forewarned me that some smart-ass comment was coming.
“Remember that plane you rode on today? Private planes have far less restrictions than commercial flights,” he noted.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you were going to Nashville to be with Ruby instead of jumping up and walking out?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’d just told me that your parents weren’t going to be able to make it Quincey Falls for Christmas because their flight had been cancelled. You were clearly upset, so for me to then turn around and rub it in your face that my flight was still able to make it, well, that didn’t really seem very considerate. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings even more than I already had by leaving.”
The tiny wrinkles between my eyebrows appeared. “That’s fair.”
“Not to mention, that was still very early on in our situation, and I had no idea where you stood with anything, so runnin’ my mouth about all my personal shit seemed like a lot.”
“I would’ve listened,” I stressed.
“I know you would’ve. That’s something I love about you. You have the ability to make me want to share every nitty gritty detail, even the shitty ones, because I know, no matter what, you’ll always be listening.”
Had he just said that was something helovedabout me?
This time I couldn’t stop myself from pulling his face closer to mine, the scruff on his jawline poking my palms. “You might just end up proving me wrong after all.” A flash of want decorated his expression as I planted a much less gentle kiss on his lips, letting myself into his mouth.
“Stetson, you’ve got five minutes until you’re on stage,” a voice huffed from behind him.
Startled, I ripped my mouth away.
A very official-looking woman with a headset stood with her arms crossed firmly over her body. “Here,” she said, handing him two tiny black earpieces and a matching square box that he shoved in his back pocket. “I’ll be right there, Linda. Give us a second.”
She walked away, her feet carrying annoyance with each step.
“She doesn’t seem very happy with you.”
“She’ll be fine,” he insisted, resting his hands on my hips before guiding me toward him. “In fairness to her, she’s had to deal with a lot of shit from me, so she errs on the side of caution when it comes to shows especially because there’s been more than once that I’ve ended up MIA.”
I pushed my hands against his chest and knew the feeling of his strong upper body under my hands would never not be comforting. “Well, no wonder she’s annoyed. I would be too,” I joked.
“Ha. Yeah, tell me about it,” he agreed. “You know how you’re a little wary of who I am? Well, so is everyone else. Just like I have to prove to you I’m not the person you think I am, it’s my responsibility to do that for everyone else too, especially the people who have stuck by my side through all of it.”
“Was,” I corrected him. “How Iwasa little wary.”
His famous smirk that I’d come to love trotted across his face just as he put his hands in my hair and tugged me closer. He drew our mouths together, and with a push of his tongue, worked his way inside of mine.
The music in the background, the taste of him in my mouth, and the compression of our bodies together was unlike any adrenaline rush I’d ever felt.
“Go get ’em.”
He planted one more kiss on my lips before fitting his earpieces into each ear and jogging onto the stage. Just before the spotlight hit him, he stopped, turning back to face me, and shot me a wink and a smile that I would’ve bottled up forever if I could’ve.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
