Until December (Until Her 5)

“Did you want something?” I ask, fighting back a shiver as his attention moves to my bookshelf and his fingers skim down the spine of one of my books.

“You read a lot.” His eyes meet mine. “Do you read anything besides romance?”

“I read a lot of different genres. My favorite books usually have a little romance mixed into the stories, but I read a lot of mysteries and I love paranormal. The series I’m reading right now is actually fantasy, and it’s amazing. It’s about a girl who’s grown up as a servant, and she doesn’t know she carries royal blood that has magic in it…” My words taper off when I notice he’s smiling.

“And what happens with her?” he asks, and I can’t tell if he’s really curious or just messing with me. Either way, I need to get this done and get him out of here. I don’t like that he seems to have some kind of power over me, even after experiencing his dismissal a couple of times.

“Can you just tell me why you’re here?”

“You know why I’m here.”

Yeah, I do. Unfortunately, the chemistry we have is something I’ve only read about in books and he’d have to be a dunce not to recognize it for what it was. That said, I don’t want to play the game he seems to be interested in playing. “In that case, you can go.” I wave my hand toward the door. “Because like you once said, I don’t have time for games or high school bull manure, so we have nothing to talk about and you have no reason to be here.”

“Bull manure?”

My cheeks warm with embarrassment. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, and it’s adorable that you can’t say the word shit.”

“I’m glad you think so. Now please go,” I say once more, wondering how many times I’m going to have to ask him to leave before he actually does.

“I think you know I’m not going anywhere.” He takes a seat on my sofa making himself comfortable with his long legs spread wide and his arms engulfing the back of it, making my couch that’s much too large for my apartment look minuscule.

I stare at him in disbelief, wondering exactly how unhappy my neighbors will be if I start screaming at the top of my lungs.

“We need to talk.”

“We don’t need to talk,” I deny, shaking my head, feeling like an idiot standing in my own damn house wearing a jacket over my nightgown with him sitting a few feet away like he has the right to be here. “You need to leave.”

“I’ve been single a long fucking time.”

“I’d like to say that’s shocking, but it isn’t,” I say, expecting him to react, but instead he continues speaking.

“There aren’t many women I’d trust around my boys, or trust to stick with me if shit got hard, but I swear to God the moment I saw you I thought, She’s the type of woman you should take a chance on.”

Why the hell is he telling me this, and why is my stomach all of a sudden starting to hurt?

“Then I spoke to you and got a dose of your funny and sweet, and I thought for sure I was right about taking that chance. But then I watched you sneak out of my room and out of my house without a word,” he tells me, and I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to control the pain there as he continues. “I know it was unfair of me to paint you with the same brush as my ex, but I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I watched her sneak out. I can’t count how many times I watched her walk away from my boys, or how I had to try to explain to them why their mom took off after she was there for a few days then suddenly gone.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” I say, thinking I might get sick.

“I do. I fucked up. I’ve fucked up a couple of times since we met, and I hate that you’ve been the one who’s taken the brunt of that shit. I hate that my reservations about starting something up with a gorgeous, smart woman have nothing to do with her but with my own personal baggage.”

“Gareth,” I whisper, fighting back tears.

“I want to get to know you, Ember,” he says solemnly. “I want to spend time with you. I want to take you out to dinner and listen to you talk about weird scientific facts and the books you’re reading. I want to kiss you, and fuck you, and understand that tattoo you now carry around, after you tell me your reason for getting it.”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” I confess, because I don’t.