Текст книги "For All You Have Left"

Автор книги: Laura Miller

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

“Do you need any help there, Ace?”

I’d rather just watch him and his sexy self, but I also feel a little guilty not helping.

He glances back at me. “Nah, I’ve got it all under control. You just sit back and relax, baby.”

I smile and then prop my elbows up onto the counter and rest my chin in my hands.

“Where’d you learn to do all this?”

He keeps doing what he’s doing, but he does find a moment in between flipping and placing some scrambled eggs onto a plate to look back at me.

“This?” he asks, eyeing the stove.

I nod my head.

“My grandma,” he says. “She’s one hell of a cook.”

“What about your mom?”

He laughs. “She’s one hell of a woman, but she’s no cook.”

I laugh to myself as he sets a plate and a tall glass in front of me.

“Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice,” he says, smiling proudly.

I look down at the plate and breathe in the aroma of breakfast. It’s a foreign smell. Breakfast for me is usually just a strawberry cereal bar from a generic, cardboard box.

“Jorgen, this smells and looks so good.”

He turns back to the stove, and after another minute, sets another plate and another glass of orange juice onto the counter next to mine. Then, he picks up my old sweatshirt and boxers from the stool and places them on the couch behind us. He’s careful with the clothes – almost as if he knows what they mean – meant – to me. The simple gesture makes me feel better somehow.

I wait for him to take a seat in the barstool next to me before I dig into the bacon.

“Mmm,” I say, chewing. “I think I’ll keep you.”

I swallow, and Jorgen finds my big, cheesy grin. I take another bite of the bacon and flash him a quick wink. And just like that, he seems to freeze. I start chewing slower and slower and then finally force myself to swallow. His eyes are serious now.

“I love you, Ada.”

I lower my head and feel my heart start to race. I don’t even think. I just say what I want to say in this very moment.

“I love you too,” I say, lifting my eyes to his.

A grin slowly crawls across his rugged morning face, and then, I watch as he picks up a piece of bacon and takes a big bite.

“You know, this really isn’t so bad,” he mumbles to himself as he eyes the bacon.

I’m still staring at him when his wide-eyed gaze finally falls onto mine again.

“What?” he asks. “I’ve loved you since the moment you showed up at my door naked.”

Without warning, a soft laugh escapes me. I swear I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. I go back to my plate and stick my fork into some scrambled eggs, but I keep an eye on him. And all the while, I can’t stop smiling. The three little words I thought I would never be happy to hear again from a man just melted my heart. And he had said them over eggs and bacon, as if it were just another day – as if I should have known all along how he felt about me – as if I should have known all along that he loved me. And I had said them too, and I hadn’t shattered; I didn’t break. I’m still fully intact. I mean, I had every reason to, but I never gave up on love, not even after… I stop and push the memories back.

I still believe in love. And now, in one morning, I had woken up with my first love, crawled into bed with my new love, shed a layer of my old life, had grown a new one and had said I love you—all before finishing my eggs, bacon and toast.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Love

“Well, what do you want to do today, Ada Bear?”

Jorgen picks up my plate and sets it into the sink, while I take in a deep breath and breathe out a smile.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

He nods his head. “Absolutely nothing sounds pretty good to me.”

He comes up behind me and kisses me softly on my neck, sending goose bumps down my arms and legs. Then, all of a sudden, he scoops me into his arms.

I laugh out loud and tighten my arms around his neck. He carries me to the couch and lays me gently down, then lies next to me and rests his forehead on mine.

“I do love you,” he says.

I let go of a wide grin. “So I’ve heard.”

“You know, I pictured it being more romantic when I said it – like maybe there were fireworks in the background or rose petals on the floor or there was this plane writing it in big cloud letters in the sky. But you just looked so darn cute in my sweatshirt, and you said you liked my bacon; I just had to say it.”

I laugh. “I did like your bacon. And I liked that you said it over breakfast.”

He’s quiet for a moment, but he keeps his eyes in mine. I wish sometimes I could tell what he was thinking.

“I don’t know what it is about you, Ada, but I want to be around you all the time. I mean, I know it’s only been a few months, but I just know, you know?”

My eyes drop from his. I can feel the heat rushing to my face.

“You’re just so dang beautiful,” he goes on, brushing a strand of my hair out of my face with the back of his hand, “with your green eyes and your pretty lips and your little nose.” He presses his lips to my nose, then pulls away. “But it’s not just that. Ada, you make me laugh. And you’re grounded. And you really see people, you know?”

My eyes venture back to his. I’m still blushing, but now my eyebrows are also knitting together a little. I’m not sure what he means.

“In your stories – every day – you see more in people,” he explains. “You see more than just an old man owning a bunch of old tractors or an eccentric woman who might or might not harbor strange illusions about cats. You can appreciate that some things are strange and you can laugh about them, but you can see past it all too. You see a soul, a life, a heart that beats.”

He lowers his eyes. “That sounds really corny.”

“No,” I say. “It doesn’t.”

Now, he’s blushing. It looks cute on him.

“Well,” I say, “if you had my job, you’d learn to do that too.”

I watch him slowly shake his head.

“You didn’t learn that, Ada. People don’t learn that sort of thing. That’s a heart thing. You either got it or you don’t. That’s what my dad always said, anyway.”

My gaze gets stuck on the leather in the couch.

“Well,” I say, “I might be able to see well enough to tell someone’s story, but you actually put your hands to people. I admire that.”

I find his blue eyes.

“I really admire what you do – more than you know,” I continue. “I can’t imagine how much courage it takes to see what you see every day and to still put a smile on your face at the end of it and to still want to get up the next day and do it all over again.”

I stop and look away. I don’t want him to see my emotions betraying me.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Why are you thanking me?”

The words are on my tongue. I want to tell him that someone like him once rescued me, but I let the moment pass instead. I’m afraid I’ll fall into a billion, tiny pieces, and I won’t be able to put myself back together again.

“Because you probably don’t hear it enough,” I say instead.

I lock onto his eyes again and fall deep into their shade of blue. Then, all of a sudden, I feel his strong arms tighten around me.

“I had a crush on you even before I saw you naked outside my apartment that first day, Ada Cross,” he whispers into my ear.

He loosens his grip on me, and I pull away a little.

“Before?” I question.

“Yeah,” he admits, nodding his head. “From afar – from the other side of a magazine article.”

He stops and laughs to himself.

“No you didn’t,” I say, shaking my head.

“Oh, but I did,” he confesses. “I fell in love with a writer who saw the good in strange people.”

His sexy, crooked grin makes me smile.

“Jorgen.” My voice is almost a whisper. “I love you.”

He meets my longing gaze and then leans in and kisses my lips. I wish he knew how much those words mean to me and how hard it is for me to say them – not because I don’t love him but because I love someone else too – someone who I know will never say the words back to me.

“I love you too, Ada Bear,” I hear him whisper into my ear as he pulls me into his arms again. “I love you too, my Ada Bear.”

Chapter Twenty-Six
Marriage

“You ever think about marriage?”

I almost drop the glass pitcher to the floor when his words hit my ears.

“Uh, what do you mean?” I try my best to quietly clear my throat.

“Like what it’ll be like,” Jorgen says. “I think about it sometimes.”

His eyes wander over to me. His face is scrunched up in thought. “Is that weird?”

I rest the pitcher safely onto the counter.

“No,” I say, simply.

I watch him smile softly, seemingly vindicated.

“I think it would be the coolest thing, you know?” he goes on. “Coming home to someone every night and taking trips together and getting to say, ‘my wife.’”

My breath hitches as I open the refrigerator door and slide the pitcher onto the top shelf. And when I turn around, I catch him in the living room flipping through my coffee table book full of awkward family photos and smiling to himself.

“Jorgen.”

His eyes find mine. I inhale deeply and then slowly force it out. “I have to tell you something.”

He hesitates, then sets the book down into his lap.

“What is it?”

He’s wearing a smile, and it looks as if he’s not the least bit prepared for what I’m about to say. It makes me nervous for him – and for me.

“I…,” I start and then stop.

I look down and grip the edge of the counter with both hands. I would swear that time had stopped if I couldn’t hear the clock on the wall noisily ticking out the seconds. I feel as if someone else has taken control of me. It’s as if someone else is about to say what I can’t. I squeeze the countertop and open my mouth just as my apartment door bursts open.

“Lada, I have coffee!”

Hannah’s cheerful song echoes through my little apartment, cutting straight through the silence, as she takes a step inside and stops when she notices Jorgen.

“Oh hey, Jorgen.”

She doesn’t seem as thrown off as she had been the first time she had barged into my apartment and had found Jorgen in my living room.

“I didn’t know you were off today,” Hannah continues. “Here, you can have my coffee.”

She tries to hand him her cup.

“No,” Jorgen says, smiling and gesturing for her to keep her coffee.

“I only took one sip,” Hannah tries to persuade him.

Jorgen smiles wider. “No, it’s really okay. I’m not a big coffee drinker anyway.”

Hannah flashes him a playful expression of disapproval. “Gotta watch those non-coffee drinkers,” she says, turning her attention to me. “They make me nervous – always awake and happy without reason.”

Hannah quickly turns back toward Jorgen and smiles. Jorgen returns her smile with his own. Then, Hannah takes a seat on one of the barstools facing me.

“I really should start knocking,” she whispers to me.

I nod. “Not a bad idea.”

She pushes her lips to one side and then dips her head in agreement. “Noted,” she whispers.

Hannah could have picked a better time to come barging in with coffee, but I’m glad she didn’t. I want so badly to tell Jorgen everything, but I also think that I just as badly don’t want to tell him anything. I wonder sometimes if I could just get by with never saying the words – ever. I wonder if it would even matter if he never knew. But then, I know that’s not really possible…or fair. He should know…soon, and I should be the one to tell him.

“So,” Hannah says. “We’re having a barbeque tomorrow evening.”

“We?” I ask.

“Yeah, Mom and I cooked it up. Just the family – and Jorgen, of course.”

Hannah sends me a quick, reassuring look that says: It’ll be okay. And then she dramatically spins around on the stool and faces Jorgen.

“Jorgen, you can come, right?” she asks.

Jorgen looks at me. I try to hide the utter fear I feel inside about a night with Jorgen surrounded by my family. I know Hannah probably doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but I have never brought anyone home before – not like this. And it is my family we’re talking about. I mean, if they didn’t feel the need to express their every opinion about certain aspects of my life at every turn, it wouldn’t be so bad, and I wouldn’t be so terrified – but that also wouldn’t be my family.

I force my lips into a faint smile that Jorgen seems to notice.

“I’d love to,” he says.

“Great,” Hannah exclaims before she glances at her watch and jumps up. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Just wanted to drop off the coffee and tell you about the barbeque. Lada, call me later. We can figure out a time for tomorrow.”

Hannah slips out the door then just as quickly as she had slipped in a few minutes ago, and instantly, my eyes fall on Jorgen. He looks happy and maybe a little nervous. I make my way to the living room and sit down next to him on the couch.

“They’ll love you,” I say and mean it.

I watch his sky-blue eyes slowly light up. “Well, I’m excited to meet them.” His happy gaze lowers and then quickly lifts again, grabbing my attention. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

I feel my face going blank until I remember there was something – something I don’t want to say anymore and risk losing that beautiful smile hanging on his lips.

“Uh, no,” I say, shaking my head.

He takes a wayward strand of my hair and secures it behind my ear.

“I love you, Ada.”

I lower my eyes and press my lips together.

“I love you too,” I say, eventually leveling my gaze with his again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Tree

“What’s this?”

I turn and then sigh once I see what Jorgen’s eyes are planted on. We made it through the whole meeting-the-family thing with not so much as a mention of my life before I was nineteen. Even Hannah kept her mouth shut, which is basically a small miracle. But now, it’s me who leads him straight into an old memory.

“Is the L for Logan?” he asks, eventually.

I slowly nod my head and push my lips to one side.

He glances at me and then turns his attention back to the big oak tree with the heart carved into its bark.

“The A—your tattoo?” he asks.

I nod my head again.

He keeps his eyes planted on the tree, but I know he can see me nodding my head. Meanwhile, I spot a rock on the ground near my feet, and I kick it gently around with my shoe.

“Did you ever have a high school sweetheart?” I ask.

A silent moment passes.

“No,” he says at last, shaking his head.

I feel my eyes grow wide. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, really,” he says. “I never really paid attention too much to girls in high school. My head was so deep into football – that, and I had eight girls in my class and two of them, that I knew of, were my cousins. And I wasn’t really sure about the rest of them either. I was pretty convinced that we were all related somehow or another.”

“Wait. But you dated a girl in high school – who wasn’t in your class, right?”

His forehead wrinkles, and he seems to think about it for a moment.

“In high school? No, not really,” he says. “It was all kind of the same thing. They were all just siblings or cousins of the girls in my class.”

I slowly push my lips into a pout. “That’s kind of sad.”

“What? Why?” he asks.

He’s smiling, but he looks completely puzzled.

“Because,” I say, “that means you never got to write notes back and forth during fourth hour, and you never got to wear someone’s name on the back of your tee shirt during a game or you never broke curfew because you fell asleep in some old hammock somewhere.”

He laughs to himself, and it snaps me out of my starry trance.

“What?” I ask.

“There were other ways to break curfew, Ada Bear.”

I look at him suspiciously.

“And they didn’t involve a hammock,” he adds.

“Well, what did they involve?” I’m curious now.

“I don’t know, usually a couple trucks, some four wheelers and a sandy river bottom.”

“Aah,” I say, starting to laugh.

But after a moment, Jorgen grows quiet, and then I notice him shaking his head. “But, yeah, I didn’t need a first love.”

My eyes instinctively narrow as I wait for him to continue.

But he doesn’t continue – not right away. He takes my hands in his, and his blue eyes seem to leave a thoughtful trail from my lips up to my eyes. And the way he looks at me as if he’s searching my soul forces my expression to soften.

“I’ve got my true love right here,” he says. “That’s all I need.”

He pulls me into him, and suddenly, I feel his warm breaths near my ear. “It’s all I ever needed,” he whispers.

I let myself fall into the muscles in his chest, and I breathe in the scent of his now familiar cologne, and I close my eyes until I feel as if I could just disappear inside his arms.

“And besides,” he whispers as he plants a soft kiss on my neck. “We’ve still got a lifetime of firsts in front of us.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight
Amsel

“Jeez, Ada, you really do smell like a garbage can,” Amsel says, following me into my apartment.

He fans the air and laughs as he does it.

“A ferret,” I correct him. “I smell like a ferret.”

“And they smell like that when they’re alive?” he asks.

I give him a sideways look. “Yes,” I confirm.

“And someone raises those things?”

“Believe it or not,” I say, throwing my computer bag onto a chair and making my way into my bedroom.

“Ada, honey, you’ve gotta get a new hobby,” he calls out after me.

I come out of my room a few seconds later with a bathrobe wrapped around me.

“But it’s the only hobby I have that pays, Amsel,” I say, sending him a wink.

He looks my way and laughs. “Well, do us both a favor and wash the stink off of ya all ready.”

I shoot him a sarcastic glare, and then I disappear into the bathroom and close the door behind me. And the first thing I do is smell my hair. It does kind of stink. Dang ferret. I turn on the shower and shimmy out of my bathrobe. Then, I slip behind the shower curtain and wash off with my new body soap. It kind of smells like dryer sheets. Hannah bought it. She loves buying me things; I never complain. I lather shampoo into my hair next and then conditioner, and then I lather myself with the soap again – just to make sure there’s no leftover ferret perfume on me. And when I’m done, I step out of the shower, towel off, throw on my robe again and twist my hair into another towel.

“Amsel,” I call out to him as I open the door.

Steam pours out of the little room.

“Hmm?” he asks.

“I picked you up some soda. It’s in the fridge.”

“Oh, thanks, A,” he says.

I hear him get up, and then I hear the refrigerator door open.

I, meanwhile, wipe the mirror with my hand. My reflection is distorted and blurry. I stare at it for a second. I feel as if I look young, but sometimes, I don’t feel so young. I grab some lotion and massage it into my face before I scurry back to my room and throw on some old sweats.

On my way back to the living room, I drape the towel over the towel rack in the bathroom and run my fingers through my damp hair a couple times.

Amsel’s sitting on the couch taking a big swig out of the can of soda when I walk in. I notice the ring on his finger against the red aluminum, and instantly, I suck in a quick breath. It’s a gentle reminder that he’s moved on and I haven’t.

“You know that stuff’s not good for your teeth,” I say, plopping down onto the couch next to him.

He looks at the can in his hand.

“Then why do you always buy it for me?”

I narrow one eye at him and push my lips to one side. “I guess that does kind of make me your codependent.”

“My what?” He starts to laugh.

“Your crutch.”

“Well, crutch,” he says, raising his can. “You smell much better.”

I laugh and then shove his shoulder. He moves away from me but still manages to steady the soda and keep all the liquid inside the can. Then after he recovers, his dark brown eyes meet mine. And all of a sudden, there’s a sobering look on his face.

“I heard you brought someone home,” he says.

I don’t say anything until I see a faint smile lingering on his lips.

“Well, word still does travel fast around these parts, doesn’t it?” I ask.

He sits back and smiles liberally. “As fast as always,” he confirms.

I make sure to keep an eye on him. “It doesn’t bother you?” I ask, gingerly.

I wait for his eyes to find mine again. They do in the next second.

“Ada, what we had lasted but a moment and ended so long ago,” he says with a straight, slightly sad face.

I just stare at him with a vacant expression until he starts to crack another smile.

Then, I shove his shoulder again and press my back against the couch.

“I’m just kidding, Ada,” he says, laughing. “Well, sort of,” he adds.

I shoot him a sarcastic glare.

“Ada,” he says and then stops.

My sarcastic eyes quickly turn soft as I notice the change in his voice.

He takes a second and stares at the coffee table before he looks back up at me.

“Do you remember when we were kids and we used to play in that old barn on your grandpa’s farm?”

I start to smile. Only every other memory.

“Of course,” I say, simply, nodding my head.

“Remember that day when that big storm rolled through, and all of a sudden, it was lightning and thundering and pouring rain and we were stuck in that hayloft until it passed us?”

“Yeah,” I softly say.

He looks into my eyes. “I was scared, but you weren’t.”

“I remember.” My voice is almost a whisper as I lower my eyes. I remember the wind and how it howled through the alley below us. “But I really was scared,” I confess.

He smiles. “Well, you didn’t seem like it that day. You held my hand. That was the first time I ever fell in love.”

The sincerity in his voice makes my heart swell.

“You broke my heart, Logan.” His eyes falter and fall to the leather in the couch. “Ada,” he corrects, lifting his gentle gaze again.

He tries to smile, and I do too before I scoot closer to him and wrap my arms around him. And a moment later, I feel his hands come to rest on my back.

“I love you,” I whisper near his ear, holding him tight.

I feel his chest rise as he takes in a deep breath.

“I love you too, Logan,” he exhales, not even bothering to correct himself.