All the Feels, page 24
Wren’s smile and murmur of thanks were as soft as she was.
A few more pleasantries, and the conversation was over.
At least, that conversation. There was no avoiding further discussion with Wren, given how he’d lost his entire fucking mind at the sight of his mother’s black eye.
Her arm around his waist guided him inside and to the couch, and he collapsed onto the cushions beside her. She gently removed the phone from his hand, setting it on the coffee table.
Without his conscious volition, his head fell to her shoulder, and when she began carding her fingers through his hair, he closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He was so fucking tired suddenly, all that fight-or-flight adrenaline abruptly gone. “I just . . .”
Her voice was quiet. “You don’t have to tell me. You have a right to your privacy.”
“I want to.” He sighed. “It’s just hard, because I—I fucked up, Wren. Big-time.”
A quiet little hum, and she nestled closer.
He allowed himself a minute to get his shit together, to bask in her silent support, and then forced himself to start talking.
“My dad left when I was a baby, so Mom and I were a team from almost the beginning. She looked after me, and when I got older, I looked after her too. She . . .” God, why were the words so difficult to find? “She’s an amazing woman. Smart, funny, kind. She worked so fucking hard to give me everything I needed, even though her pay at all those customer service jobs was absolute shit. She had no time for dating. Hell, she barely had time for friends.”
He huffed out a tired laugh. “She says I took all her energy, which I’m certain is a complete exaggeration. Slander, really.”
“Oh, don’t pretend. We both know the truth.” Wren lightly tugged at his hair. “You’re an orchid, Woodroe. Gorgeous but high-maintenance.”
An orchid?
Yeah. He liked that. Almost as much as he liked her fingers in his hair. “Gorgeous, huh?”
She snorted. “Holy crackers, Alex. Shut up and keep talking.”
“Just FYI, that’s a contradiction in—”
“You know what I mean.”
He did, so he continued the story, even though remembering hurt. “In high school, I mowed lawns for cash during the summer. One of my regulars, Jimmy, seemed like a good guy. Owned an antique store. Paid well. Always friendly. Sometimes my mom would track me down to say hi and bring me lunch before her shift, and I—”
His voice cracked, so he swallowed and tried again.
“I introduced them,” he finally managed to say. “She was in a hurry and didn’t want to bother, but I pushed her to meet him, because I knew I was leaving right after graduation. Heading to L.A. to be an actor. My mom and I were going to be apart for the first time, and I wanted her to have someone steady to lean on while I was gone. I didn’t want her to be lonely.”
“You were trying to look out for her.” Her voice was gentle. So gentle.
He nodded. “They hit it off right away, but she wasn’t sure. After a few months, when she said she might break up with him, I told her she was too used to being alone. That he was a decent man, and she should give him more of a chance.” His breath shuddered in his lungs. “And then I left for L.A. I started working at a café and going to auditions and making friends, and I didn’t check in with her as often as I should have.”
“You were a teenager, in other words.” Her fingers in his hair, sifting, stroking, didn’t pause. “A normal teenager out on his own and trying to make a life for himself.”
His spine was melting under her touch, when he should be tensing instead. Should be vibrating with self-hatred, instead of pleasure.
Still, he couldn’t seem to pull away. “They kept dating, then eventually got engaged. I drove back to Florida for their wedding. I walked my mom down the aisle to that man.”
“I see,” Wren said quietly.
She probably did. At the ER, she’d undoubtedly heard some version of this same story countless times, and he suspected each iteration had broken her heart anew.
“I started landing more parts, better parts, and I got really busy. A lot of times, I just didn’t answer her calls, and I never visited. We’d go a week without talking. Two weeks. Eventually, we hardly talked at all, and I barely noticed.” Because he was a terrible son, which he’d only realized once it was much too late. “Now, when I think back to the few conversations we did have, I realize she stopped mentioning friends at some point. She stopped talking about Jimmy, except in this careful fucking voice, and even then, she only said he was fine. They were fine. When she told me he’d persuaded her to quit her job, because he could support them both, I thought that was great. A goddamn blessing.”
Wren’s hand stilled. “Because she’d worked so hard while you were growing up, and you wanted her to have time to herself.”
Her defense of him was kind but ill-conceived, and he didn’t bother responding.
“They were married for nine years. Nine goddamn years. They visited me twice in all that time, and I never visited them at all, and I didn’t even think about it, Wren. I didn’t even wonder if something was wrong.” His throat was thick, and he swallowed hard. “Jimmy died of a heart attack when I was twenty-eight, and I finally came home. For his funeral.”
It was a typical Florida afternoon in August, steamy and scorching, the clouds roiling overhead as the thunderstorms began to roll in. He’d looked down at his mother and finally seen her. Finally noticed, there at his stepfather’s graveside.
In the tropical heat, she was wearing long sleeves. A blouse that buttoned to the neck. A thick layer of makeup on one cheek, heavy enough to call attention to itself if anyone studied her carefully. Which he hadn’t, until that moment.
Years later, he’d recognize the way she moved that day. Gingerly. Slowly. The same way Marcus had moved when he’d fallen from his Friesian on set and cracked a couple of ribs.
She looked decades older than her actual age, and maybe a casual observer would think that was grief. But those weren’t temporary creases on her face. Her gaunt, sunken cheeks weren’t the result of a single week of mourning.
“She said she was fine, just sad, but I didn’t believe her. That time, I didn’t believe her, and I begged her to roll up her sleeves and unbutton the first three buttons of her blouse, and—” His breath was hitching, and his cheeks were wet, and Wren was wiping away his tears with a clean tissue, and he hadn’t earned her kindness. Not at all, but he was so fucking hungry for it. “Then I drove her to the hospital, because that motherfucker died of a heart attack in the middle of beating the living shit out of my mother, and not for the first time.”
“Oh, Alex.” She stroked his neck. “I’m so sorry. For her, and for you.”
When he eased away and stood to pace, she didn’t try to hold on. “I don’t fucking deserve your sympathy, Wren. I introduced my own goddamn mother to her abuser, convinced her to stay with him when she wanted to leave, and couldn’t be bothered to notice when he isolated and beat her. For years, Lauren. I didn’t notice for fucking years.”
“But . . .” Her brow was furrowed, her expression pained and soft. For him.
What wasn’t she getting here? What hadn’t he explained clearly?
Ten steps up, ten steps back, as his heart thundered anew. When he passed the couch, he whirled to face her, hands spread in an appeal for her to understand. To finally, finally get just how unfit he was to be her lover, and how selfish he was to pursue her anyway.
“I couldn’t be bothered,” he repeated, his voice ragged. “I couldn’t be bothered to ask how she was really doing and press her for more details, or wonder why all her friends seemed to vanish, or check that she wanted to quit instead of being pressured into it by her asshole husband so she’d be as isolated and dependent on him as possible.”
Lauren shook her head, her mouth firm with determination. “You weren’t trained to recognize signs of domestic violence, Alex. You were a normal twenty-something kid who lived across the country and had his own life and concerns, and your mother didn’t tell you what was happening. Your stepfather’s abuse was not your fault. Not. Your. Fault.”
What she considered exoneration, he knew was nothing of the sort. If anything, it was further damnation.
“You’re right. She didn’t tell me.” His eyes were blurry, and he squeezed them shut. “Maybe she thought I’d tell her to stay, the same way I did before. Or maybe she thought her self-absorbed asshole of a son just wouldn’t care.”
“I am entirely certain that is not true.” She was standing now, arms extended high so she could cradle his face in her warm, tender palms, and he didn’t have the strength to move away a second time. “People in abusive relationships are often too ashamed to tell anyone, and scared of what might happen if they do tell someone.”
She met his eyes, her gaze unwavering. “If you’d known what was happening, would you have helped her?”
“How—” His voice broke anew, and he was crying again. “How can you even ask me that, Wren?”
Her thumbs stroked his wet cheeks. “I’m asking because I know the answer.”
“Of course I’d have helped h-her.” His chest bucked in a lone sob. “I l-love her.”
For all the good it had done her when she’d needed him most.
Lauren was insistent. Inexorable. “Have you ever hit your mother? Kicked her? Thrown something at her? Lost control and injured her in any way, or deliberately hurt her?”
He recoiled, aghast, but she didn’t let go.
“No! I would never—” Desperately, he shook his head. “No.”
“Then the only person at fault here is the man who abused your mother. Not her. Not you. Him.” Wren’s eyes were wet too, but clear as the ocean, without a single eddy of doubt. “And if you have trouble believing that, you might want to see someone about it. A counselor.”
He swallowed over a sore throat. “Not you?”
“I’m happy to listen, but I can’t be your therapist. We’re too close.” She bit her lower lip. “No wonder you were so upset at this season’s scripts. Ron and R.J. had Cupid abandon Psyche and their healthy relationship to return to his abusive family, and you—”
“Acted the whole thing out to the best of my ability, even though I knew it was wrong.” His cheeks were tight with salt, his eyes sore. “Even though I knew it would hurt vulnerable viewers who might be struggling to leave violent relationships. I should have walked away from that fucking show, Wren. Walked away and not looked back.”
Again, he couldn’t spot a single shadow of condemnation in that extraordinary gaze. “So tell me, then. Why didn’t you?”
Selfishness, his brain immediately reiterated. Cowardice.
But that wasn’t the full story, was it?
“If I’d walked away—” He pressed his lips together. “My lawyer said it would be a clear violation of my contract, and I’d owe Ron and R.J. a shitload of money. And I was afraid I’d ruin my reputation in the industry. Which is ironic, given what happened at the convention, but . . .”
She nodded. “You didn’t want to bankrupt yourself or break something you’d been building for two decades. That’s understandable, Alex.”
“No. That’s not it. Not entirely.” Within the cup of her hands, he shook his head. “I think I’d have paid that price, if I would have been the only one paying it. But without savings, without a paycheck, how could I support my mom? How could I keep funding my charity? How could I afford to pay Dina?”
“Honey . . .” She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “Honey, that’s not self-absorbed. Not in the slightest.”
“I don’t . . .” Bending uncomfortably low, he rested his forehead on her soft shoulder again, and she resumed stroking his hair, and oh, fuck, the relief. “I don’t understand how you can say that, when all those people watching—”
She didn’t let him finish.
“You were in a situation with no good options, and you chose one. That’s all.” Her warm, moist breath puffed into his ear, and he shivered. “You said you trusted me. Is that true?”
He nodded against her neck.
“If that’s true,” she told him, “if you truly trust me, then you’re morally and legally obligated to believe me when I say you’re a good man. You have no choice. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.”
He didn’t believe her, of course. But Lauren was generally right about everything, and he did trust her. Totally and without reservation. So . . . he didn’t not believe her either.
“Come on.” She tugged his arm, and he followed her back onto the couch. “Let’s stretch out and rest for a minute. I think we could both use a nap.”
He eyed her consideringly. “Only if I get to be the little spoon.”
“Whatever,” she said with a sigh.
They sprawled sideways on the generous couch, and she obligingly squeezed herself behind him. Before dozing off, he blearily noted the absolute perfection of her soft belly against his back, her round arm circling his ribs, and her strong hand clasped in his.
And then, absolutely safe at last, he let go and slept.
24
ALEX WOKE HARD AND WANTING.
His mind had been wiped clean of grief and guilt, at least for the moment, and his rested body responded to Wren’s proximity the exact same way it had been doing for weeks now.
When he twisted his neck just right, he caught a glimpse of the bedside clock. The two of them had only taken an hour’s nap, and he had plans for their second night together. Plans involving that spacious whirlpool tub on the balcony.
Now to find out if Wren still wanted him, even after his umpteenth emotional upheaval of their limited acquaintance.
Only—shit. As gently as possible, he slipped out of her arms and went to find his wallet. Because if he didn’t have a condom there . . .
“Alex?” Her voice was sleepy. “What are you doing?”
Better to know her intentions now, he supposed. “Checking for condoms. In case that’s something we might need.”
She rose up on one elbow. “I don’t have any. I’m sorry.”
The good news: Wren apparently didn’t find emotional breakdowns a turnoff. That should serve them both well in the future, because he was who he was.
The bad news: When he checked his wallet one last time, its contents hadn’t altered.
“I don’t have any either,” he told her. “Dammit.”
“We can ask the front desk for help, I suppose.” Her forehead creased as she considered the situation. “Or try to find a nearby convenience store that’s still open.”
Both valid options, but there was at least one other possibility. A good one.
“Or we can do things that don’t require a condom.” He arched a brow. “Fun things. Things involving that tub out on the balcony and its various jets.”
“Oh.” Her eyes went big. “I haven’t done . . . things . . . quite like that before.”
“Do you want to?”
Her legs pressed together as she shifted, and he knew her answer even before she spoke.
“Yes.” Pink-cheeked but proud, she tipped up her chin. “I do.”
“Whatever you want. Nothing more, nothing less,” he reminded her.
She inclined her head, solemn. “The same goes for you.”
Foolish woman. As if he didn’t want anything and everything she might be willing to give him.
He let out a slow breath, offering one final warning. “We’ll be outside, so you’ll have to stay quiet.”
She erupted in sudden laughter, covering her face and making those cute little snorty sounds as he stared at her in utter confusion.
“You’re worried about me keeping quiet?” She raised her head, still grinning. “Unless you’re asleep, you’re talking, Alex. Between the two of us, who do you think is more likely to get loud?”
Oh, that was a challenge, and he was more than happy to meet it.
“With what I plan to do?” He raked his gaze up and down her round, lush body. “You.”
All lingering amusement in her expression vanished. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s so.”
Reaching for the hem of his T-shirt, he stripped it off in one swift movement, then pushed down his jeans and kicked them aside. Neighbors might be able to hear them, but no one could see them on the balcony. He had no intention of wearing his swim trunks. Or anything else, for that matter.
Her face turned rosy, but she didn’t back down. She gave his body her own leisurely once-over, and his erection strained against the fabric of his boxer briefs.
She rose to her feet and stood toe to toe with him.
In the blink of an eye, her BHE tee whooshed to the floor. Underneath, she wore a thin, white cotton bra, one without apparent underwire. Given her modest breasts, she didn’t need more.
He didn’t need more either. She was enough. She was everything, exactly as she was.
The darker hue and pebbled tips of her nipples showed through the fabric.
“Cold?” he asked. “Uncomfortable?”
She smiled at him slowly. “Not at all.”
Her leggings clung to her thighs faithfully, and she peeled them down inch by inch, either because she was congenitally fucking slow or because she was taunting him. Probably the latter.
When she stood again, he kept his eyes on hers. “You don’t have to get completely naked, Wren.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, and then her bra was on the couch, and her cotton panties were on the floor, and she was standing there completely naked as he choked on his own tongue and began coughing.
She was the Venus of Willendorf, only with smaller, lovely breasts.
She was unabashedly round everywhere else. Her belly especially, but her arms and legs too, and her wonderful, flagrantly large ass. She was composed of curves. She was glorious.
And she was laughing at him. Loudly.
She didn’t bother hiding her face, and it was even better than her usual laugh, because he got to see her joy. Her pride in his reaction.
Her flush had spread down to her breasts, and although her hands twitched when his eyes ventured there, she didn’t cover herself.
