The Life That Mattered (Life Duet 1)
He tried to steal my fight.
“You can’t just apologize for everything.”
He blew out a forced breath. “Well, I am.”
“No …” I rubbed my temples. “Th-this isn’t over. You can’t make this right when I’m on tequila.”
The ground started to move, or at least that’s what my legs thought, so they stumbled two steps to the side.
“Okay, Evie.” Ronin caught me and carried me to a taxi. “You can finish being mad at me in the morning.”
“Put me down! You smell like her. And her makeup is on your face and shirt! Yuck! Put me down.”
He didn’t. Instead, he tucked me next to him in the back of the taxi, and that’s all I remembered.
The next morning, I woke to an empty bed in my home—a three-bedroom, A-framed log cabin that my grandma gave me. I also woke to a throbbing head and a guilty conscience. Sadly, I remembered the worst parts from the previous night, or the previous day in general.
The covers were pulled back on the other side of my bed, so Ronin must have stayed with me. Lucky him.
I smelled coffee but couldn’t bring myself to make the walk of shame quite yet. He had the day off, as did I, so there was no need to rush anything. Instead, I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and wrapped up in my plush hot pink bathrobe before padding down the hardwood floor hallway to the kitchen. A fire crackled in my wood-burning stove.
“Hey,” I said, twisting my face into a cringe.
Ronin glanced up from the sofa and his book. He read all the time. Actual paperback books on everything from history to autobiographies to fictional suspense. “Good morning.”
His shirtless body engulfed the length of my sofa, which wasn’t fair. The urge to be mad at him clung to my ego. But there he was, shirtless, in a pair of black lounge pants sitting inappropriately low on his waist. Inappropriate because he knew those fancy carved abs and happy trail temptation were my kryptonite, which sent my thoughts into some pretty inappropriate territory—just like the tattooed symbols down the right side of his torso. He said they represented life and second chances. I felt pretty sure it was the name of an old girlfriend in a language I couldn’t read.
The teapot was already hot. I tossed a tea bag into a mug and filled it with water. Warm oatmeal waited for me in a sauce pan, so I dished up a small bowl of it as well.
“You can sit by me. I took a shower last night and scrubbed all the makeup and Vanessa smell from my body,” he said as I started to sit in the recliner across from the sofa.
“You should put on a shirt.”
He smirked. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” I chose the recliner over the sofa.
He scratched his chest, then lower … then just under the waistband of his pants.
Jerk!
I sipped my tea and ate my oatmeal while Ronin resumed reading his book.
“You make me want to stay,” he said without looking up from his book. If I hadn’t been the only other person in the room, I’m not sure I would have known he was talking to me.
Setting my tea and oatmeal on the coffee table, I hugged my arms to my chest. There had been this gradual shift between us over the previous weeks.
A slipping.
A falling …
I’d watch TV and stroke his hair while he rested his head on my lap, reading a book. He hummed and whispered, “I love that.”
I knew he loved more than that.
Whenever his schedule allowed, he dusted the snow from my car and started it for me, waiting by the driver’s door with a hot thermos after I closed up shop. A grin stole my face as I took the thermos and brushed my lips over his. “I love this,” I whispered.
He knew I loved more than that.
Ronin eyed me as my thoughts drifted to all the things we loved about each other. I was supposed to go see my mom and grandma that day, but … it was early. Ronin said something that couldn’t go unexplained. I made him want to stay. What did that mean? Before I asked him to elaborate, I had some explaining to do too.
“I’ve never been jealous before,” I said to nothing in particular, focusing over the sofa to the front window like he spoke to his book.
Ronin slid a ripped strip of paper—his makeshift bookmark—between the pages of his book.
“I’ve had other boyfriends, but I’ve never felt like I did yesterday. Here’s the ugly truth, and I’m not one bit proud of it or even trying to defend my actions—they are on all accounts unjustified and without any defenses. A simple case of this human behaving badly. Yesterday, I hit a low point after I lost my ski. Then this pretty woman brought a sled so you could haul your terrible-skier girlfriend down the mountain. And she ruffled your hair.”