E. Blair - Falling

She finally stops bouncing and stands up, still holding the ball in her hands. She continues to giggle while telling me, “Totally worth the wait.”

“Must have been a good ride,” I say. “I think the whole store heard you laughing.”

She tosses the ball into the cart, and as I cock my head in question, she clarifies, “You have to buy that for the kids.”

She takes her tea out of my hand, and I’m lost in her. Everything about her. I follow her lead as we continue to make our way through the rest of the store, thankful that she doesn’t skip a single aisle because I need all the time I can get with her.

“Michael here?” I ask Mel when I walk into the bar.

“Yeah,” she hollers over to me. “Upstairs.”

The place is busy tonight as I head up to Michael’s office. It’s been a good day, although dropping Candace off at her house to come up here was the last thing I wanted to do, but I need to sit down with Michael. He’s been dropping the ball on a few things, and shit needs to get back on track.

His door is open, so I go ahead and walk in.

“Ryan, hey, man,” he says from behind his desk, which is a mess of papers.

I cut to the chase and say, “Talk to me.”

While he sorts and stacks a few files, he asks, “About what?”

“Not showing up. Supply orders going in late. Schedules not getting out on time.”

He drops the files onto his desk and leans back in his chair. “Fuck, man,” he sighs.

“You know I can’t have this, so either we figure it out or I’m gonna have to let you go,” I tell him honestly. No need to bullshit when it comes to my business.

“No, I’m getting everything in order. Things have been a little crazy at home, and I let it filter into work,” he explains.

“Kids okay?”

“It’s not the kids,” he says and takes a pause before revealing, “I found out that Amber’s been fucking around on me.”

Seems Mel’s eavesdropping skills don’t suck.

“Shit, man.”

“Yeah. It’s fucked up,” he tells me. “Don’t worry about things up here though. I’ve got it under control.”

Not too comfortable with chatting about this guy’s issues, I leave it as is and let him get back to work, trusting that he’s gonna get his crap together.

I make my way back down to check in with Mel, and as I pass along the edge of the bar, someone grabs on to my arm. Turning around, I’m face to face with my past.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, and when her hand lingers on me, I take a step back and out of her grip.

“Having a drink. Waiting for a friend, but he’s running late.”

“You should pick a different bar next time,” I tell her, turning to leave and spot Gavin walking in.

“M.I.A.,” he calls out to me while shaking his head.

I’ve found myself drifting from Gavin as well as most of my bad habits, so seeing him is a little awkward, but not as awkward as him walking past me and straight to Gina, kissing her.

Irritation causes my shoulders to tighten, and when Mel appears from behind the bar, I snap, “Back room.”

She follows behind me as I head into the back stockroom, closing the door behind her.

“What the fuck did I just see?”

“He brought her in here the other day,” she tells me. “Said he’s been hooking up with her for a couple months now.”

The door opens, and Gavin walks in, thankfully alone.

“You mad?”

“Mad? No. Disturbed? Kinda,” I respond. “Dude, weren’t you screwing her roommate?”

He gives me an almost proud smirk and boasts, “Yeah, man.”

“Have fun with that one,” I tell him.

“So we’re cool?”

“I don’t care who you’re hooking up with, but that girl seems like trouble,” I tell him.

“Maybe so, but she’s good in bed, you know?” He laughs and then adds, “Yeah, you know.”

Regretfully, I do know. I wanna forget, but that isn’t gonna happen. It’s my past, and unfortunately, you can’t escape your past. I’ve dealt with that little piece of knowledge my whole life. But I do what I can to shut it out and tell him, “Don’t bring her back up here again.”

When he turns to walk out, not responding to me, I face Mel and say, “I’m serious. You see her in here, I want her out.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she says. “You okay?”

Switching the subject, not wanting to discuss it any further, I tell her, “Let me know if anything starts to fall through the cracks up here.”

“Did you talk to Michael?”

Being irritated as shit, I don’t want to go into this with her, so I leave it with, “Just let me know,” before walking out and calling it a night.

Can you help me run an errand?

Yeah. What do you need?

I want to go pick up some firewood but I want enough to last and it won’t fit in my trunk. Can you take me since you have the space in your jeep?

At gym now. Will you be ready in a couple of hours?

Yes. THANKS!!!

After I finish my workout with Max, I head home to grab a quick shower and a bite to eat before I leave to pick up Candace.

The night is colder than usual as I walk out to my jeep. I make the short drive through the neighborhood, and when I get to Candace’s house, I run up to her door to get her. She’s shrugging on her grey, wool coat when she answers.

“Hey,” she says with a smile when she sees me.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.” I watch her slip on her black gloves as we walk out.

As I pull away from her house, she tells me, “There’s a tree lot on Holman, up from eighty-fifth street.”

“How much are we getting?”

“I dunno. Probably just a fourth of a cord,” she answers as she adjusts the vent on the dash.

“You cold?”

“Yeah,” she says, and when I laugh, she turns and asks, “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. You just have no meat on you to keep you warm,” I say teasingly. She’s lean with defined muscles, but nothing that takes away from her femininity.

“Yeah, well, I can’t do much about that,” she shoots back at me.

When we get to the tree lot, Candace places her order with one of the attendants. After paying for the firewood, we find ourselves strolling the lot, looking at the Christmas trees as the guys load up the wood.

She stops in front of one of the trees and looks up at it, shivering. Reaching down, I take her hands and rub mine over hers, trying to warm her up. She seems a little apprehensive as she looks up at me, but she doesn’t back away. When she starts to drop her arms, I reach down and hold her hand. It isn’t the first time I’ve made a subtle move like this, and I hate the uncertainty of it all. Not knowing how she’s feeling about this—about us.

“I miss Jase,” she quietly says out of nowhere as she looks at the tree. She turns to me, and with an almost apologetic look, she explains with a shrug of her shoulders, “I’m not used to him being gone.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“This morning,” she says and then turns back to the tree. “We should buy this.”

I look down at her, and even though she didn’t mean it literally, I like that she said ‘we.’

As she helps me unload the firewood and stack it in her garage, I ask, “What are you going to do for the next few weeks?”

“I don’t know. This is the first year that Jase isn’t here with me. We normally spend most of the break together when I’m not at my parents’.”

“How’s that going?” I ask, knowing that the last time she saw them it ended badly.

“It’s not, really,” she tells me. “I spoke with my father for the first time since Thanksgiving a few days ago, and he wants me to come over for dinner Christmas Eve.”

“You haven’t spoken with them for all this time?”

“No,” she says as we walk back out to grab some more logs.

“So, you’re going over to see them then?” I ask, already feeling like I want to keep her from going. I know I have no right to say anything, but I can’t stand the thought of her being here alone if she winds up in another fight with them.

“Well, yeah, I don’t really want to, but it’s Christmas and all. I’m just a little scared about how it will all go. The last time I saw them, we said some pretty nasty things to each other, and I have never gone this long without talking to them.”

“What are they so upset about?” I ask, confused by what this girl could possibly be doing that they don’t approve of.

“Everything,” she says as we walk into her house and into the kitchen. She grabs a bottle of wine that has already been opened and starts pouring a glass, adding, “Turns out I’ve been nothing but an embarrassing disappointment to them all along.”

Taking a beer out of the fridge, I can’t help the sigh of irritation that comes out of me. I follow her into the living room, and when we sit down on the couch, I wrap my arm around her, just wanting her to be close to me any way I can get it.

“I’m sorry, babe,” I say softly and immediately catch the slip and hope she isn’t freaked out by what I just said. But when she continues talking, I wonder if she even noticed that I called her ‘babe’ or if she did notice and is okay with it. Shit, I really hate this grey area.

“Honestly, it’s nothing that I didn’t already know deep down, but it was the first time that it actually hit me that these were their true feelings toward me.”

I feel it. It’s strong and causes a reaction I can’t control, and I act on it, demanding, “I don’t want you going over there.” She looks up at me, and there isn’t a hint on my face that I’m anything less than serious about what I just said.