Own the Wind(39)

He kept talking, “Until about an hour ago, we were seein’ each other. Now we are not.”

“Shy—” I started and his hand at the side of my waist gave me a squeeze.

“Let me finish, baby.” When I shut my mouth, he went on, “It was unpleasant, for her it came outta the blue and she was not pissed. She was hurt. Pissed I can deal with, hurt’s a lot harder. It sucked. It’s over. She’s sweet, nice, pretty, she’ll find someone else.”

“Um…” I began hesitantly, “being honest, although it’s good to know you had that conversation with her before we, uh… officially started things, I have to admit I’m not real sure you being equipped to scrape her off at the drop of a hat fills me with joy.”

“I get that, Tab. What you don’t get is, she isn’t you,” he returned, and I blinked, then my belly warmed.

When I said nothing, he gave me another squeeze and went on.

“By the end of our conversation, she admitted she’d wondered about you and me. The time I spent with you. When I’d walk away from her to take calls from you. How you disappeared for a month and I was in a shitty mood that whole month. None of this I hid from her. I knew where my head was at about you but I had no clue your head would ever go there. Seein’ as I knew how I felt about you, bottom line, I dicked her over. It was uncool. I gotta live with that. You in my tee in my bed, I think will help.”

“That’s kinda cold, Shy.”

“It’s cold but it’s real, and it’s better that shit is done for her, for me, and for you so we can all move on, rather than me draggin’ it out in a pointless effort to cushion the blow for her that, in the end, would only make shit even shittier.”

“Yes, but you and I are moving on to something that’s good and, obviously, since it lasted a while for you two, when she started it with you, she thought she was moving onto something good too,” I pointed out.

“I saw you,” he replied, and my head tipped on the pillow as I felt my brows inch together.

“Pardon?”

“With that guy outside DCPA. You were wearin’ a red dress.”

My heart squeezed, I felt my eyes get big and I stared at him.

I remembered that night. That was the night Jason took me to see Les Mis.

“You saw me?” I asked.

“You were alone, looked beautiful but lost. You saw him, he got to you, you leaned into him, kissed him, made him laugh and then he kissed you. I saw it. All of it.”

Wow, he really did see this, and he remembered it better than I did until he just reminded me.

I didn’t know what to make of this or the reminder of Jason when I hadn’t thought of him once. Not once. Not once since Shy stormed into my apartment.

Before I could make anything of it, Shy kept talking.

“Didn’t like it,” he stated.

Not keeping up, I asked, “Didn’t like what?”

“Seein’ you with another guy. Didn’t like it.”

My hand slid up his arm at my waist and I whispered, “Shy, honey, I don’t—”

“I had the taste of you in my mouth, so sweet, for four years. Your grudge and you hatin’ me made that taste as bitter as it was sweet. Didn’t get it, what I was feelin’, not until I heard you were gettin’ hitched. Then I knew I was gone for you. Don’t know how it happened, just know it did. Seein’ you with another guy cut deep. Then you lost him, and I felt that for you. Even removed, I felt it. And when you called me, I realized if I didn’t get my shit together it would be empty * and parties for the rest of my life, and I’d never have a woman who was lost without me.” His hand moved from my waist to frame the side of my face, and his voice got quiet when he said, “Just to be clear, the point of findin’ that is not makin’ a woman be lost without me like Rosalie will be for a while until she moves on. The point of findin’ that is to have that feeling, be able to give that gift, to work at keepin’ it good so my woman never feels lost because she knows she’ll never be without me.”

I closed my eyes and my fingers curved spasmodically around his forearm.

That was beautiful, amazing, right, and the best part about it was, if I wasn’t mistaken, he wanted to give that to me.

I opened my eyes again when he kept talking.

“I’m sorry I had to bring him up but you gotta know that’s where I’m at. That’s why I stepped away from the empty * and parties and looked for somethin’ that meant somethin’. The problem was, I found you a month before Rosalie and I had the somethin’ that meant somethin’. I just didn’t think you wanted me that way and I liked spendin’ time with you enough, I was willin’ to take what you could give me.” His eyes warmed. “Now you’re willin’ to give me more and I’m gonna take that too.”

Suffice it to say, I was willing to give more to Shy, but he knew that and I had to go over some of the more important things he said.

So I commenced in doing that.

“You were gone for me?” I asked softly and got a grin in return as his face dipped closer.

“You and me may not have been tight since the day we first saw each other, but am I the kind of guy who hangs around listenin’ to bitches moan about work while ruining a dinner I gotta eat?” he asked.