Chapter 58
JEREMIAH
Stephanie was curled up in my lap. Having her there made me feel lighter than I had over the last couple of days. Contrary to my expectations, she hadn’t cut and run as soon as she saw me or the mess my apartment was in.
When she first got here, I saw her surveying it all. Me. I waited for her to turn around and run away, but then she surprised me by walking over and making herself comfortable on my couch.
It surprised me even more when she talked to me like I was a person instead of a fuck-up and tricked me into the bathroom to take care of my wound. A wound I forgot was even there.
When I thought she was propositioning me for real, my heart sank, but my body reacted in all the right ways. Just like it was conditioned to from years of shoving whatever I felt aside and burying myself in physical sensations for as long as I could.
It was so easy to slip back into that persona. I would’ve gone through with it too if she hadn’t called me out. It was starting to become a bit of a habit between us, her calling me on my shit.
Her chest expanded against mine as she took deep breaths. I could tell her admission about having to find other people to look to and that I was one of them, that she cared about me had touched her as deeply as it did me.
Several of her first few breaths after the words came spilling out were a little shaky, then she got lost in thought. The vulnerability she allowed me to see startled me. No one had ever been so honest with me before.
Holding her soft body in my arms and feeling her hanging onto me for strength after opening herself up like that felt good. In the past, a woman doing exactly what Stephanie was would’ve freaked me the fuck out.
I would’ve sprinted for the hills the second she asked about my dad. With Stephanie, it triggered that urge in me to protect her. To be the person she trusted enough to be completely honest with felt good.
So good, it prompted me to do the same with her. Just as it had when I told her about Jack. It felt natural to talk to her about things that would usually make me so uncomfortable I would’ve thrown my shields all the way up.
With her, I felt the walls I built around myself coming down instead of getting higher. She was tearing them down one brick at a time in a way that felt so right, I didn’t mind watching them crumbling to the ground.
The conversation I had with Tanner the night before Jannie took me played in my head. Stephanie made me happy. I wasn’t being foolish, and I wasn’t making a mistake. I still wanted the same thing I wanted that night. My timeline had just shifted a little. Being kidnapped would do that to a guy.
“I care about you too,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. It felt like speaking any louder would shatter the moment passing between us.
Steph lifted her head from my shoulder again, wonder dancing in her eyes. “You do?”
I brought my head forward to rub my nose against hers, all the while keeping my eyes on her bright blues until they blended into one for being so close to her. “I do.”
She cuddled deeper into me, pulling her head back to press a kiss to the tip of my nose. “It’s always good to know I’m not in this alone.”
“You’re not.” At all. The woman made me feel things I’d long since written off as myth, legend, or simply not designed for me. “In fact, I had a question for you before Jannie so rudely interrupted my morning on Tuesday.”
She sat up in the circle of my arms, tilting her head curiously. The light caught her long chestnut hair, causing it to shine like a halo around her. Like the universe was allowing me to see she was an angel, my angel. Christ. When did you start thinking like a bad philosopher?
“Well?” she asked, drawing me out of the melodramatic descriptive brain I seemed to have grown somewhere along the line since meeting her. I would have to cash in a lifetime supply of man cards if anyone ever heard that thought. “What’s the question?”
Her soft hair brushed my hands where they rested on her lower back. I wound the ends around my fingers, not sure if it was to hold her still if she tried to bolt when I asked. Why was I so nervous about this?
It was worse than asking out the first girl I ever dated, prom night, and losing my virginity all at once. Actually, I hadn’t been nervous at all about any of those.
My tongue darted out, and I wet my lips. Steph’s gaze dropped to my mouth, then she frowned. “You’re not getting out of it, Williams. Don’t try to distract me with your wicked tongue.”
I laughed at her pouty expression, feeling the random bout of nervousness melt away like mist underneath a blazing hot sun. This was Stephanie I was talking to, my Stephanie—at least I hoped she would be soon.
“I happen to know that you love my wicked tongue. Shelving that for now, I was going to ask you to go steady with me that morning,” I said. A myriad of emotions played in her eyes. Surprise, disbelief, some I couldn’t name if I tried, and then finally, the one I wanted to see most of all: joy.
An uncharacteristically girly giggle that warmed my insides fell from her lips. “You were really going to ask me that?”
I nodded.
Steph smiled, though I could see she was trying to hold it back. “Ask me now.”
I lifted a brow, unable to contain my own grin. “Really? What if the accident was a sign from the universe that I shouldn’t?”