Just My Type(44)

“I wish I could tune it out. God, it’s so quiet back home you can hear your heart beating,” Ember muses, resting her elbows on her knees as she starts peeling the label off the bottle in her hand.

“Tell me about it. Home, that is,” I encourage.

She looks back over her shoulder at me with almost as much joy all over here face as she had when she saw Lincoln when he got home from school.

“It’s so beautiful. My brother took over my family’s pumpkin farm, in the house we grew up in. It sits on fifty acres,” she tells me, a dreamy look in her eyes. “Being outside at night under the stars… there’s nothing else like it. It’s pitch-black as far as the eye can see, and there’s nothing but the sound of crickets and bullfrogs. It’s peaceful, and calming, and safe, and I hate that I’m not raising my son there.”

Her eyes start to well up with tears and she quickly looks away from me and out at the street, blinking a few times to push the sadness away.

I’ve always thought people sounded like pussies when they said they would move mountains for someone. I want to tear down every mile that separates Ember from Montana, and yank everything she loves closer to her so she never has to feel like this again. If that makes me a pussy, so fucking be it.

“Uuugghh,” Ember suddenly groans in complaint, pushing her elbows off her knees to sit up straight next to me. “We’re supposed to be talking about you, and once again, it somehow gets turned around so I’m the one oversharing. Stop using your voodoo magic on me.”

“I like it when you overshare.” I smile at her.

“Of course you do. Because for some reason, you bring out the word-vomit in me. Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”

Setting my beer bottle down on the other side of me, I lean closer to Ember, putting my fingers under her chin and lifting her face up so our eyes meet.

“Never fucking apologize for who you are,” I tell her, watching her eyes slightly widen at the seriousness of my voice. “I’m sorry that dipshit you married wouldn’t let you be you. I bring out the word-vomit in you? Good. I like knowing you’re comfortable enough around me to speak every word in your head without analyzing the shit out of it.”

I want to wrap my hand around the back of her neck and yank her mouth to mine, so she can feel the proof of the words I’m saying, but I can’t.

“We’re supposed to be talking about you. Can we get back to business now?”

And that’s why.

For some reason, she won’t let herself cross any lines with me while we’re doing this interview, and she’s doing a shit job of pretending she doesn’t want to. But I’m a fucking gentleman, as much as it sometimes pains me. Like right now. It’s paining me right in the dick. She can keep thinking this is nothing but business between us, when we both know it’s not. It will be fun when she realizes what’s been happening this entire time.

“Fine.” I smile, dropping my hand from under her chin. “Ask me a question.”

“How were you able to start your very first business, and have it become such a success?” she immediately responds, pretending like she’s all business and she wasn’t just staring at my goddamn mouth through my entire spiel.

“By not fucking apologizing for who I am,” I deadpan.

“Cute.” She smirks.

“I’m completely serious.” I shrug. “When I came home from overseas wounded, I was a fucking wreck. I felt guilty that I was thankful I hadn’t been hurt worse. I felt guilty that I had to leave my brothers behind and come home. I felt guilty that I couldn’t do anything on my own and Blake had to take care of me. My uncle on my mom’s side came to visit, made me pull my head out of my ass and not apologize for anything, including what I wanted to do with The Barracks. I didn’t want it to be a regular gym, open to the public, and Uncle Butch made damn sure I never apologized to anyone for what I wanted it to be.”

“And is it everything you wanted it to be?” Ember asks.

Moving my arms behind me, I lean back on my hands.

“It is. When I was in rehab, I was miserable. I was tired of being in a hospital setting, tired of people in hospital scrubs standing there trying to make awkward small talk while I was grunting, and sweating, and feeling like absolute horse shit,” I tell her. “Uncle Butch got tired of listening to me bitch about it. He took me to a boxing gym about an hour away that one of his military buddies owned, so I could get in my physical therapy in a more relaxed environment. Walking in there with a leg brace that goes from your hip to your ankle, all eyes in the place were on me. And for the rest of my time there, everyone either made it blatantly obvious they were doing everything they could to avoid looking at me, or stopped me a hundred times to ask me what happened to my leg.”

Like the goddamn thing knows I’m talking about it, my knee starts to twinge with pain. I don’t even realize I’ve winced and Ember saw it, until her hand is suddenly resting on top of my knee. I hold my breath and don’t make any sudden movements, especially when she starts absentmindedly massaging my knee with a gentle pressure that makes me want to purr like a fucking cat. Her face is scrunched up in the most adorable way while she tries to think of another question for me.

“So, you opened a gym just for wounded veterans, where people couldn’t stare,” she states in a quiet voice instead of asking me a question.