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Then, I woke up after surgery. My family was by my bedside, and Allison was sobbing, and suddenly, every promise I’d made to live came rushing back. Many of the choices I made after that were because of a bargain with God. It took me a while to realize I’d also promised I’d live my life to the fullest.
That was my life-or-death moment. It made me appreciate just how beautiful each breath you take was.
Then, Melissa kissed me.
A kiss should never constitute as a life-or-death moment, but in mere seconds, when Melissa Jones threw herself at me in the parking lot of Lone Tavern, I died and came back to life for the second time in the same year.
I’d never set to fall in love with her.
I remember the night we met, she was in the holding cell, and I was questioning her before her release. She was going wild child, a frantic mess. Pacing, rambling … and absolutely beautiful. It’s rare you find a woman with her icy-blue eyes, porcelain skin, and fierce demeanor, packed into this petite frame. She had fire in her and a zest that was addictive to watch.
I almost didn’t let her go home with her ex that night. I could see in her eyes that she was hurting. Hell, she was having a damn nervous breakdown after what he did to her. Yet she looked at me with conviction and pleaded her case: even though she was divorced, that man was still her family. There was something about the selflessness and honor of family that pulled me to her.
She walked out the door of the station, yet she never left my mind. I thought about what she had said all day. Hell, I thought about her damn lips and the way she had smiled this crooked grin when she was being humorously critical of herself and the way her teeth had grazed her bottom lip when she was lost in thought. It was cute as fuck.
I was so wrapped up in thinking about her that Kent suggested we go out for a drink to get my head together. I didn’t tell him why I was out of it. He just knew because that’s the kind of friends I have. We don’t have to share our feelings to know when one of us needs a few beers to decompress.
I still can’t believe the woman who was the reason I needed a drink was standing in front of me.
Melissa was there. I couldn’t decide if it was fate or the Devil tempting me to see if I was worthy of going to heaven. Like the curious son of a bitch I am, I had to talk to her, get to know her. I hoped she was crazy, so I could get her off my brain, but she was funny as hell. When we danced, she completely surrendered herself. It was so damn sexy, and I knew the night needed to end.
Then, she kissed me and …fuck.
She tasted like sin, and her lips were as soft as cotton candy.
She even let out this little moan that traveled from her lips straight to my groin.
My world went into a complete spiral after that kiss. Pushing her away was the greatest act of willpower I’ve ever shown.
By the time she drove out of the parking lot, I was gone for her.
I’d already known I couldn’t marry Allison, but after meeting Melissa, I couldn’t wait any longer. How could a man feel not just attracted to another woman, but also literally addicted to her. I felt like, in that moment, a lasso was tied around us, and we were bound to one another, whether I ever saw Melissa Jones again or not.
My shock the next day when I saw her at brunch only paled to the feeling of remorse I had for both her and Allison. I was about to break one woman’s heart, and I was pretty sure I’d shattered the other.
Breaking up with Allison was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. She’s a good woman. Too good for the likes of me. Still, I couldn’t marry her, and watching her fall into a puddle of tears was painful.
After that, I went from being the hero who everyone doted on to the scum who had destroyed everything. My phone didn’t stop ringing for three days. Friends, family—mine and hers—telling me how wrong I was to let a great girl like Allison go. I couldn’t disagree. I was cursed at, had doors slammed in my face, and pleaded with to “do the right thing.”
I didn’t fight it. They were right. A man who broke his vow was hardly a man. Men are the oath keepers, protectors, the ones who provide, and yet here I was, tearing down a family.
“I am beyond disappointed in you, William,” my mother said as she gripped the edge of her kitchen sink. “The Lalaynes are family to us. Allison is like a daughter now. How could you call off your wedding?”
“I don’t love her, Mom. Not the way she’s supposed to be loved. Not the way Dad loves you.”
She turned to face me and gave a disappointed look. “If you think marriage is all love and flowers, then you’re wrong. Maybe your father and I did a poor job of showing you the strife. There are plenty of hard times, and you just have to work through it.”
“Maybe in five, ten, twenty years down the road, but not before we’re even on our honeymoon. Allison and I never fight. It’s not about our compatibility. I don’t feel that rush when I’m with her.”
“What do you know about a rush? You sound like one of the vulgar novels your sister reads.”
“I know it because I’ve felt it with another woman.”
My mother kicked me out of the house after that. That was the hardest part of the situation. My mother, the person who I’d thought of when I was lying on a store floor, bleeding out and dying, was so disgusted by me that she didn’t talk to me for three weeks. It was the longest twenty-one days of my life.
When the whole world goes silent on you because they just can’t stand to hear your voice … it’s worse than the scolding.
That pain was only relieved by the two chance encounters I had with Melissa. I swear I wasn’t stalking her when I saw her at Target. I wasn’t prepared. No big speech or awesome declaration of my convictions was planned. It was just me, like a jerk, walking her bags to the car with her kids staring at me and thinking about how this was my one chance to talk to her. I botched the whole thing up. She stormed out of that parking lot and left me in parking row D, feeling like a complete ass, wondering if I’d ever see her again.
