The Worst Wedding Date, page 34
He nods and disappears.
Mom watches his retreating backside.
I close my eyes and lean back on the couch, six kittens all over me, and belatedly realize I have a kitten on my head, but there aren’t any pinpricks.
Theo trimmed their claws.
He’s a good kitten dad.
I pet Widget. I stroke Jellybean while she licks my chin, and then pull Snaggleclaw off my shoulder when she licks my neck and tickles me. Blinky and Panini attack each other on the blanket, spilling over my lap. Cream Puff’s giving me a scalp massage, but he abandons me right before Theo walks back into the room.
“Nice form,” he says to something over my head, “but wrong rocks. We’ll work on that.”
I look up as he pulls Cream Puff off of my curtains and sets him back on my lap.
Our eyes meet again, and if I didn’t have to grab my crutches to get off this couch, I’d be tackling him in a hug.
The last time I saw that much grief and regret shining in a person’s face was his mom’s funeral.
I’ve lost grandparents. An uncle. A friend or two over the years in tragedies.
But the look of complete hopelessness and helplessness on Theo’s face at his mom’s funeral was something that quietly haunted me for years until I managed to make myself forget in high school because he was such a complete dick.
The memory’s roaring back today though.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, dropping his gaze to the cast sticking out from under my blanket.
I shake my head. “Not much. Good drugs.”
“The you’ll forget all of this by morning kind of drugs?”
I shake my head again.
He nods once, and then he’s gone again.
Tucking his hands into his pockets while he strolls back outside.
“He likes you,” my mom says.
She sounds surprised. Like she didn’t think he was capable of liking someone.
Or maybe like she didn’t think he could like someone like me.
“He’s a really good guy,” I say quietly, “and I’m very, very mad at him.”
She eyes me like she’s afraid to ask the question.
The question. The only question.
Are you mad because he’s a porn star?
I’m not, surprisingly enough. I want to know why. I want to know how. But I deeply believe that he has a good reason.
A guy doesn’t get famous for having the internet’s most inspirational penis without having a story.
And I want to hear it. From him.
With an open mind.
No matter where he’s planning to go with his career from here.
“I’m mad at him because he didn’t have enough faith in himself or in me to fight for me,” I whisper to my mom.
She glances at the door as it opens again.
That’s Theo again. Carrying another bag of supplies.
Quietly belonging everywhere he goes, whether he’s causing chaos or setting up kittens with food and toys and litter.
Except I don’t think he realizes how right he looks no matter where he is. Especially here.
Is that why he’s quiet? I wouldn’t think he’d do anything quietly.
But he does.
And right now, he’s quietly hurting too.
I can feel it.
He disappears into my kitchen, and I hear the sounds of food bowls being laid out.
So do the cats.
All six of them perk up their ears and swivel their heads toward the kitchen.
“You are all so adorable,” I whisper to them.
Cream Puff leaps off the couch first with a long jump that took an extra big butt wiggle for confidence, sniffing as he heads cautiously toward the kitchen, slinking like he knows me and the bubble around me is okay, but the rest of this house is suspicious.
Jellybean follows, then Widget, and then the other three all together as a group, tumbling over each other.
Theo pops his head out of his kitchen, spots the kittens, nods, and disappears again.
“He’s odder than I thought,” Mom murmurs.
He’s nervous.
She makes him nervous.
He should be smiling. Cracking a joke. Relaxed.
He doesn’t hide in the kitchen long. And when he returns after running the water in the sink a few times, he’s holding a small brown lunch sack and a hair dryer.
He shoots a look at my mom, then crosses the room and helps himself to the seat next to me, sitting close enough that I can feel his warmth but not close enough for our thighs to touch.
Without a word, he hands me the bag.
I smell what’s inside before I open it. “You’re cheating,” I whisper.
“Expect any different?”
“No.”
My mouth waters.
I want the cookies.
I want them so badly.
But I make myself set the bag aside.
He eyes me like he’s waiting for the yelling to start.
I don’t want to yell.
I just want him to tell me why. Why he’s here. What he wants. What he’s willing to do to get what he wants.
Not tricks. Not kittens and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
Me.
I want to know what he wants with me.
He looks down at the hair dryer. “They’ll tell you not to scratch down your cast. This one has a super low setting. Blow it down the cast if you itch. It’ll help.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah. Least I can—anyway. If I break one of my bones again, I might ask for it back.”
“Again?”
He flexes his left arm. “Climbing accident. You were all in college.”
We both fall silent.
It’s the most comfortable awkward I’ve ever experienced.
Or maybe the most awkward comfortable.
I miss him.
I had three days of realizing I knew nothing about who Theo truly is but enjoying every minute with him more and more and more.
I want to go on adventures. I want to see new places. Try new things.
Laugh.
Press boundaries.
Realize life goes on even when it’s not perfect.
And I want to do it with him.
He lifts his gaze to mine again. Takes a deep breath.
And looks away.
I could ask my mom to leave.
But something Claire said is sticking with me. I don’t want to be easy. I want to know I’m worth fighting for.
I love my parents. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but I love them.
And I am head over heels for Theo. I don’t want to be.
Unfortunately, I can’t help myself.
He’s everything I’ve been missing in my life and so much more.
But I don’t want to be easy. I don’t want to bend over backward to make everyone else comfortable. I want to know I’m worth fighting for.
I want to know if he’s willing to fight.
Will I fight for him?
Completely. Absolutely. Without hesitation.
But he walked away.
He walked away without giving me a chance to prove it to him.
If this is nothing more than neighborly guilt or neighborly kindness bringing him by, if he’s not all in, then what’s the point of fighting for him?
No matter how much it hurts?
You can’t make someone love you.
“I started on a dare.” His words come out so quietly that they almost don’t register at first. “It—it was dumb. The dare. The dare was dumb. And it got dumber the drunker I got. But I said I’d do it, so I signed up and posted a video of me knitting a heart, naked, while ripping off something I’d heard some radio deejay say about the double standard of having to be nice to extended family at the holidays while they insult your clothes and your car and your job.”
I saw that video.
It made me mad.
Mostly because I grew up going to those family holiday dinners and hating them, and I felt like he was talking about me. About what my parents used to deal with anytime we’d see my mom’s side of the family down in Denver.
“I didn’t think I’d get five followers, but people started talking about it in some corners of the internet, and next thing I knew, I had two hundred. So I posted another video. Same setup. Knitting a heart, dick hanging out, talking about finding where you fit after years of being a perpetual disappointment.”
My heart hurts.
I saw that video too.
Last night, actually.
I should’ve called anyone other than Sabrina to sit with me at the hospital.
She made me watch more of them.
I was just high enough on the painkillers to not fight her and just sober enough to remember.
“Then the comments started coming,” he continues. “You see me. Thank you. I needed to hear that today. And for the first time in my life, I was doing something that mattered. Something good. There were women who told me they were leaving their husbands after years of abuse and neglect because I convinced them they deserved love. There were women who told me they were taking the leap and going back to school. Starting a new job. Setting boundaries with bosses and kids and parents. There were dudes who told me I’d inspired them to come out to their families and live their truth. And it kept growing. And growing. And then the money came, and then the paranoia came, and everything kept growing. I kept working construction so nobody would ask why I didn’t have a job and Emma wouldn’t worry about how I was supporting myself until I asked her to do my taxes and had to tell her. I quit knowing who to trust and how to act and if the women who hit on me in bars saw the real me and liked it, or if they somehow secretly knew about my GrippaPeen channel. If they recognized my tattoos or my voice. I was so fucking glad I didn’t put my face on the screen and still paranoid that—”
“That they’d only like you for your money,” my mom interjects.
Theo and I both jolt.
He eyes her.
I gape at her.
She’s blinking quickly, like she’s trying not to cry too.
“That,” he says quietly. “Exactly that.”
She nods.
Then she nods again.
Like she knows she is exactly who he didn’t want to know.
He didn’t want her approval because she suddenly found out he had a big bank account.
“I—I apologize if it seems that I’m one of those people,” she says quietly. “I’ll try to only think of you as a porn star.”
I choke on a noise that might be a laugh, or it might be a sob.
I’m not entirely sure which.
“I’m not a porn star,” he replies. “I’m a naked motivational knitter.”
“Of course. I’ll make sure to tell Charles.”
“Are you two serious right now?” I ask them.
They both ignore me.
“I thought you’d take this worse,” Theo says to her. “You don’t need my money.”
She glances at me but still leaves my question hanging. “It’s quite the wake-up call to rewatch a video of your daughter yelling at you to shut up over your reactions to her, ah, favorite naked motivational knitter, and then to realize everything you’ve done to protect her has backfired the same way everything your own parents did to try to prepare you for the world made you resent them too.”
Mom’s face is going a mottled red.
Theo studies her for a minute, then nods. “I could probably get you a sound clip of some of my advice on the subject of parents respecting their kids’ choices.”
“That won’t be necessary. But thank you.”
“Offer stands.”
“What’s happening?” I point between them. “What’s happening here?”
“I’m realizing I’m late to get dinner in the oven at home,” Mom replies. “Laney, sweetheart, if you need anything, you know your father or I can be here in five minutes. Day or night. Anything. Theo, it was…lovely to see you again.”
“Is this reverse psychology?” I ask her.
She shakes her head as she reaches the foyer. “Love you, sweetheart.”
And then she’s pulling the door open before she’s even put on her coat and boots.
And it’s just me and Theo.
Me, Theo, and three kittens who are peeking back in at us from the kitchen.
“Why are you here?” I ask him.
He holds my gaze for an eternity. An eternity when I want to hug him and kiss him and tell him I love him and I don’t know if I can love him as big as he deserves to be loved, and an eternity when I want him to pull me into his arms and tell me that he wants me, only me, and that he’ll do anything to get me back.
Which is ridiculous.
I’m Plainy-Laney.
What in the world can I offer to him that he can’t find anywhere else?
He’s here because he heard I got hurt having an adventure and he feels bad.
“Never mind.” I twist in my seat, wishing I could get up.
“Because you’re my purpose,” he says quietly. “And even if you don’t want me anymore, you deserve to know how special you are and how sorry I am that I was an ass.”
My pulse goes on a breakaway. “If this is just a bunch of guilt—”
“My whole heart shattered into pieces when I heard you were hurt. Not because I wanted to be there keeping you safe. Because I missed out on being there to watch you fly. To watch you soar. To watch you do what I kept telling myself you wouldn’t do so that I could lie to myself and say it was a kindness to you to be a dick on Saturday night instead of fighting for you like I should’ve. I don’t want you to move on without me. I want you to move on with me. I lived in guilt for a lot of years before I found a way to accept myself for who I am, and it made me do a lot of shitty things. I don’t want to go back to living in guilt for pushing you away when you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted.”
“But why? Why me?”
He leans over and scoops up two kittens that he keeps for himself. “Because you know all of the darkest, ugliest, worst parts of me. You have a million reasons to hate me. To never want to see me again. But you spent last week believing in me as one of the good guys. You. Laney Kingston. Accepting me. Embracing me. Living with me. There’s nobody else in the world, Laney. No one else who could understand expectations and boxes and having to fight for the life you want to live. No one else who can challenge me the same. No one else who can make me feel like I’m on a bigger adventure than I am when I’m with you. I don’t want easy. I don’t want superficial. I meant it when I told you I don’t want some half-ass love. I want it all. And I want it with you.”
My heart is swelling outside of my chest. Tears drip down my nose. “For someone who’s spent our whole lives calling me Plainy-Laney, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”
He smiles softly and brushes a lock of hair out of my face. “Won’t get that from some boring-ass banker.”
“I don’t care what you do for work,” I whisper. “You’re doing good in the world.”
He shakes his head. “Time to move on.”
“Theo—”
“Posted my last video already today.”
“You’re quitting because of me.”
“Not quitting. Reconsidering my course. Penises are a dime a dozen. Got a pretty damn fine woody here, but they didn’t come back for my dick. They came back for what I had to say. And as someone very wise reminded me last week…I like to eat.”
My jaw won’t quite close. “Penises are a dime a dozen?”
He grins.
And then grins bigger.
And then the butthead giggles.
And it’s so cute that I drop my head to his shoulder and start laughing too.
“I was so mad at you ten minutes ago,” I wheeze into his shoulder.
He wraps an arm around me and kisses my temple, heat radiating out of his body. He needs to lose the jacket. He’s always too hot.
“I love making you laugh,” he says. “Favorite sound in the world.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is. I’ve waited forever for this. I don’t take it for granted.”
Three more kittens poke their heads out of the kitchen.
Theo kisses my hair again.
My laughter subsides into a deep, contented sigh. “Sabrina told you about my leg, didn’t she?”
“Yep.”
“Was she a pain about it?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
“She could’ve been a bigger pain. I deserved it.”
“You are so lucky I’m in a cast right now, or I’d be putting you in a headlock until you said three nice things about yourself.”
“Oh, look, the last kitten. Hey, did you see I brought you chocolate chip cookies?”
This man.
He’s a little bit of a mess. But so am I. And our fun together is just starting.
I lean back a bit so I can look up at him. “I’m going to demand proper dates.”
“Like the one with bacon?”
“Yes.”
He smiles at me, and then he’s kissing me.
Soft and slow and gentle, like he’s afraid all of me is as damaged as my leg is.
“I missed you,” I say against his lips.
“I’m still terrified this is a dream and you’ll never forgive me.”
“This isn’t a dream.”
“Are you sure?”
I kiss him again. “Nope. You’re right. Feels like a dream.”
He smiles at me. “A dream come true.”
“I’m your dream?”
“You’ve always been my dream, Laney. Always.”
“That must’ve been pretty awful.”
“Worth it.”
I smile back at him. The words slipped out so easily, but I fully believe him.
For all the years he annoyed me, I know exactly how he feels.
He starts chuckling again. “You’re thinking it was way worse for you, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. “Stay with me tonight?”
“Any night.”
“I don’t think I can make you pancakes for a few days.”
“I don’t want to stay for your pancakes.”
“Not even these pancakes?” I move his hand to my breast.
He squeezes.
My clit tingles.
And I officially regret my skiing decision yesterday.
