Page 35 of Catching Sparkles

It was hot out, and we’d turned off the car and rolled the windows down. A fat drop of condensation slid down the side of his cup and over his slender fingers where he held it. For some reason, that simple imagery alone had my dick swelling up to twitch against my zipper.

“Yeah. This kind of thing is, um…” I cleared my throat, hoping my next words wouldn’t sound as stupid coming out of my mouth as they sounded in my head. “It’s very you, Sparkles. I like it.”

An adorable grin spread across his face, his eyes widening in a way that made it obvious that he was really pleased with what I’d said. That definitely wasn’t making my dick any softer.

“I guess I’m broadening your horizons,” he teased, and I couldn’t help but let out one bark of dry laughter.

“Understatement of the fucking century,” I muttered, and he laughed.

“But it’s a good thing, right?” He asked, and for just a brief moment all that coy, playful glimmer was gone from his lovely green eyes while a shadow passed over them. The weight of the question felt massive and crushing between us.

It was jarring and uncomfortable, having all these unfamiliar feelings boiling up inside me all the time. Especially when I’d never felt anything like it in the almost three decades I’d been alive. But I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t want relief or space. I needed… more. More of him. More of us. I was sort of terrified of what more might mean. I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t conceptualize it. I just wanted it, on some primal, impossible-to-decipher level. I wanted him.

I could relax around him, despite all the sexual tension and general identity-related panic that tended to plague me in his presence. Even with all that, there was an ease that came with being near him that I’d never experienced with anyone else.

I didn’t have to think about looking silly or sounding stupid when it was just us. I didn’t have to worry about being judged for my feelings or being told I was acting like a little bitch for complaining about all the shit going on in my life. I didn’t have to overcompensate for my bad moods by pretending to be a stoic, unfeeling example of dominant masculinity. It was exhausting.

And I needed to tell him that, to make him understand how necessary his presence had become for my happiness, and how if I wasn’t with him then I was thinking about him. But the words stuck in my throat like glue, threatening to strangle me.

“Yeah,” I finally said. “It’s a good thing. Some days it feels like you’re the only one who treats me like a real person.”

His manicured brows furrowed together as he tilted his head. The shirt he was wearing was oversized, and one side of the collar had slipped down off his shoulder to expose his perfectly smooth skin and just a hint of his collarbone. I wanted to yank it down even more and suck him there until he had a big stupid red mark for everyone to see. And they’d know there was a guy he was with. Even if they didn’t know it was me.

“What do you mean by that?” He asked.

“Everybody’s been walking on eggshells around me since I came back,” I said. “No one brings it up or asks about it. You’re the only one.”

He took in a deep, slow breath, rattling the ice around in his cup for a moment before letting out a light sigh. “They just don’t want to upset you. Everybody knows how much you’re going through. But if you wanted to talk about it, I’m sure they’d be happy to listen.”

“Nah, it’s not that,” I argued, even though I could already hear how whiny and bitter I sounded in my head. “They don’t know what to say because it’s awkward. Everybody knows I fucked up my life. I fucked up going pro, I fucked up my marriage. I couldn’t even keep the stupid fucking job I hated.”

“Rhys.” He said my name sweetly, but firmly. It felt vaguely like a reprimand, snapping me to attention as he shifted in his seat so he could lean forward over the center console and rest his hand on my thigh. The pressure of his fingers, even through the denim of my jeans, felt so good. Why did every little touch from him feel so damn good? “No one feels that way.”

“They should,” I said flatly. “It’s true.”

“No, it’s not,” he snapped. The tiny flare of temper surprised me, and sent my pulse tumbling. He was protective. Of me. Had anyone ever been protective of me before? “You made mistakes. Everyone does. And bad things happened to you. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is. We both know that.”

I sighed, dragging my palms over my eyes. “I made some really fucking dumb mistakes, Sparkles. Really, really dumb.”

“So what?” He insisted. “You… picked the wrong person to marry. A lot of people do that. It’s done. You’re out of it.”

“Done,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes up to the roof of his car. “Doesn’t feel done when basically everything I own is locked in a prison I can’t even access. I don’t even have my own fucking car.”

He stared at me sympathetically, squeezing my thigh once before stroking it in a ridiculously comforting little back-and-forth motion. I was starting to feel like a dog, like if he lifted his hand away I’d start panting and whining to get him to pet me again.

“Your lawyer’s taking care of all that, right?” He asked. The sight of his thick fringe of dark lashes sweeping down over his eyes as he blinked, waiting for my answer, forced me to take another huge sip of my drink to hydrate my parched throat. “It’ll be finished soon?”

“Yeah. I guess. I think she’s dragging it out, hoping I’ll just give up and let her keep everything,” I said, resisting the urge to press my fingers into my temples. “Sometimes I want to, but… Then it’s like I’m rewarding her for cheating on me.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I know it sucks, but just… Hang in there. You have a support system. Everyone’s here for you.”

The intensity in his eyes and all that barely repressed anger in his voice made it impossible not to notice how much my happiness meant to him. The idea of that, that my feelings meant so much to this cute, sparkly little person who everyone seemed to love and want around all the time… It was sort of surreal.

I wished it could be easier with him. Part of me wanted to just give in and let these foreign feelings drag me under like crashing ocean waves. But I just couldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Kendall, or that I thought he’d do something to hurt me.

It was me I didn’t trust.

How could I be sure what I was feeling was real, and not just that I was pathetically seeking something soft and pretty and comforting to distract me and take care of me? I’d already fucked up one major relationship in my life. But being with him didn’t feel like it had with Hailey at all, even in the beginning before we’d realized we weren’t compatible as a couple. Being with him didn’t feel like it had ever felt with anyone.