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Chapter Twenty-Three
Nate
Vivian comes in from the backyard and I turn down the music. She looks different. More relaxed and on edge at the same time. That wall she hides behind had been crumbling, but since she’s been staying here “officially” she’s been rebuilding. I wonder if she’s aware she’s doing it.
Dating her keeps me on my toes, that’s for damn sure.
The girls I went out with as a punk teenager deserved better. They had the same idea in mind as I did, I guess. Make out. Have sex sometimes. We’d park and sit in the car and listen to the radio and smoke or drink or both. Thank God I wasn’t busted for any of it or Will and Lainey would have strangled me.
When I was an adult, and learned how to tie a tie, I connected with women the only way I knew how—although the make-out sessions happened in a much nicer car. When we were bored, we’d shop rather than park, or eat at an expensive restaurant or fundraiser.
Until Deborah. The older woman who pulled me off her ex-husband’s job site and paid me to build hers. She and I connected, or at the time I thought we did. I suspect she used me to fill the lonely hours in her day. Meanwhile, I was hacking my way through the overgrowth hiding an unused heart. I wasn’t familiar with love until the Owens accepted me as I came. Not that their love had prepared me for romantic love. That’s a whole other ballgame—with a dynamic set of rules.
Vivian sits on the couch next to me with a whump. I take the wineglass from her hand and set my drink next to it on the coffee table.
She needed a moment after dinner to decompress. I get it. I maintained my cool for her sake. I noticed Walt challenging her at every turn. I saw in his eyes how much he enjoyed dropping the marriage bomb on his big sister. Had one of my brothers used me in that way, I’d have been upset too.
I wrap my arms around her waist and her hands lift automatically to encircle my neck. She tilts her head to the side like she’s deciding whether or not she still likes me. She does. She has to. I’m a catch.
“Kiss me,” I beg.
She indulges me, tentatively at first but I take that kiss to the brink. After a deep, long, wet meeting of the mouths, she pulls away and swipes her bottom lip with her index finger.
“I’m addicted to your flavor.” I spike my fingers through her shiny, thick hair. I haven’t nearly had enough of her tonight.
She hums, her mind elsewhere. Maybe on how to further fortify the fortress she’s rebuilding around herself.
Evidently she needs another moment. I release her and sit back on the couch, taking my drink with me. “When you came to my job site, you were a hot ball of fire in a hardhat. You challenged my authority, which I did not like.”
“Yeah, the sledgehammer move sort of gave away your emotions.”
I ignore her sarcasm and keep talking. “Soon after, you challenged a belief I’d held for a long, long time.”
Her eyes hit mine. I have her attention.
“Which was?”
“I believed I didn’t need a relationship with a woman lasting more than a few casual nights.” I shrug. “My life is busy. I’m committed to excellence. I have a family I can’t let down. Women are too much work.”
She nods, accepting what I said at face value. “And I’m proving your theory right.”
“You’re sure as hell trying to.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows, but some of her guard drops. It’s no longer a steel wall. It’s a sheer veil.
“The jig is up, Viv.”
Her eyebrows lower in confusion. She doesn’t know what I mean, which is exactly what I intended.
“We connected in Chicago,” I tell her, realizing this conversation might send her running for the hills. But I refuse to live life walking on eggshells. We’re two incredibly strong people and that means we fight it out in the arena, not from the stands. “And at your mother’s gravesite.”
She reaches for her wineglass.
I set my glass aside and fold my hands, remembering that afternoon. “I felt a camaraderie there, standing over her tombstone. You understand what it’s like to lose someone you love. And you felt it too. That bond between two orphaned kids.” Even though she’s living, I can’t count my birth mother as a parent, which Vivian now understands. “We’ve lost a lot. But we have a lot to gain.”
She grunts.
“Say it,” I tell her.
