Kristen Ashley - Wild Man

I nodded.

“Tomorrow, no plans with your girls. Tomorrow night is mine,” he declared.

My belly got warm and gushy and I nodded again.

He grinned and muttered again, “Right.”

Then he dropped his head more, touched his mouth to mine briefly and murmured,

“Shower,” against my lips.

A thrill slid up my spine.

Brock let me go and sauntered out of the room.

I stared at the coffeemaker and smiled when I heard the shower go on in the bathroom.

Then I made coffee.

* * * * *

An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my car staring at the side of my bakery, my phone in my hand, deliberating.

I had never played games with Brock. Never. Not from the very beginning.

I took one look at him, liked what I saw a whole lot and the minute he showed interest, I showed it back and never veered from that path.

I did this because, since I saw it and all the times I saw it since, the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Ian asked Toula out and she immediately answered yes, no games, no subterfuge, exposing straight out she was not only interested but the idea of spending time with him excited her, I thought that was the sweetest thing I ever saw.

And I also did this because I was me.

So I was sitting in my car with my phone in my hand thinking that what Brock said was right. What he and I had had been fucked and for three months it fucked with my head.

But seven months ago, when he brought me home after our first date and kissed me in his pickup and that kiss lasted half an hour (this is no joke) and he finally tore his mouth from mine, shoved his face in my neck and growled, “Fuck, ” against my skin with his strong arms tight around me, I knew what we had was real, it had started good and it was only going to get better.

Like Toula and Ian knew in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

That had been what Brock was talking about in my kitchen yesterday. That was what he meant when he said I knew the exact second I stopped being someone he was investigating and started being someone who might grow to mean something to him.

And I did know and that was the exact second I knew.

And last night he’d proved that what I felt in that second was no lie.

And playing games hadn’t got me that.

And playing games didn’t bring it back.

I got it and, being only who I was with him, I kept it.

So I touched the screen on my phone, went to favorites and my fingertip touched the word

“Slim” (I’d changed it, obviously).

Then I put the phone to my ear.

It rang twice before I heard, “Yeah, babe.”

“Hey,” I replied.

“Everything cool?” he asked.

“Um… I need to tell you something,” I told him.

Pause then, “I’m listening, Tess.”

I bit my lip.

Then I shared, “The reason I don’t really care about you drinking from the milk jug isn’t because it’s debatably ridiculous the reasons a woman doesn’t like a man drinking from a milk jug. It’s because I don’t much care what you do because I like you in my kitchen.”

This was met with silence.

I held my breath.

Then I got more silence.

That was when I considered maybe not letting it all hang out anymore.

Then I heard Brock ask, “Debatably ridiculous?”

The tightness forming in my chest released and I felt my lips form a smile as my eyes closed.

Then I opened them and said, “I will grant that just you drinking from it isn’t all that bad.

But we didn’t get into other options, say, should you be eating cookies or cake and you get backwash into the milk. That’s gross. No one wants to drink someone else’s backwash, even if it’s cookie or cake backwash. This is where it becomes a gray area.”

An attractive, low chuckle sounded in my ear through which I also heard, “Babe.”

“Just saying,” I said.

“Noted,” Brock replied.

“Okay, I have cakes to bake.”

“All right, darlin’, and I got the hint your girl is avoiding your cupcakes but your man is not so if you bring some home tonight, they will not go unappreciated.”

“Will you drink milk out of a glass when you eat them?”

Another attractive, low chuckle sounded through which I heard, “We’ll see how it goes.”

“Right,” I whispered.

“Go bake cakes.”

“Okay, later honey.”

“Later, babe.”

Then I disconnected.

Then I smiled

Then I exited my car, entered my bakery and commenced baking cakes.

I stood at my front door waiting.

Then it came. Martha stopped folding her body into the driver’s seat, her eyes came over the roof of her car, up the steep rise at the edge of my front yard, the four steps up my front stoop to me at my arched front door.

Then she pressed her fingers to her lips, stretched them my way and blew me a kiss.

My throat got clogged but I blew one back.

She folded her petite body behind the wheel, started up her car and rolled away.

I watched until I lost sight of her brake lights then I watched for longer.

Suffice it to say, my best friend Martha Shockley did not take the news very well that my ex-husband had hit me and raped me even if it happened over six years ago. She had not been mad at me; she’d been devastated for me. Upon the news, she crumbled instantly. She hated this for me and watching her absorb the burden of this information I was reminded why I didn’t tell her.

Then she enveloped me in her arms and forced me to promise never, and I mean never, to hold something like that to myself again.

“It’s always been you for me, Tess, and I can’t bear thinking it isn’t me for you,” she whispered. “I’m done backing off, hoping you’ll sort your head on your own, honey. You gotta let me be there for you and from now on, I sense something’s wrong, I’m gonna make you let me be there for you.”

I held her close and I gave her that promise.

Seriously, what else could I do?

Needless to say, salad did not really go with confessions of the soul so Martha ate four of the dozen cupcakes I brought home for Brock.

But learning this news had not put Martha off her game and when Brock showed, she watched him like a hawk waiting for him to fuck up in some way so she could pounce and she did this with eyes constantly narrowed so much I feared she’d give herself a migraine.

Brock, however, was who he always was (even when I called him Jake). He was Brock.

Sensing he was not going to fall at the first hurdle and expose the screaming dickhead he was hiding within, Martha finally gave up and left.

Which led me to now.

I closed the door, locked it and turned to my living room.

I lucked out. Four years ago, after the bakery caught on and life started to get a lot less scary, I went house hunting and the second house I looked at was this one.

The couple who bought it spent years fixing it up and getting it to exactly what they wanted it to be. Then the husband received the word he was being transferred just weeks before the finishing touches were put on the last of the loving care (and scads of cash) they’d put into their house – a brand new kitchen.

They were devastated at having to leave.

I was elated (though I didn’t share this).

The dark wood floors had all been redone. The walls had all been reskimmed. The bathrooms were updated and fabulous. The basement had been finished into a huge family room where I kept my TV. Also down there was a powder room, laundry room and a guest room that had its own bath. The furnace had been replaced. The roof reshingled. The yard landscaped. And a swamp cooler had been installed.

But it was the kitchen that did it for me. The kitchen was phenomenal. An abundance of white cabinets, the wall ones all glass fronted, quirky ones handcrafted to set in corners and spots that were tough to fill. Slate floors. Fabulous black and white tiled splashbacks. An enormous island in the middle. Shiny marble countertops. Restaurant quality, stainless steel appliances including narrow but fabulous wine fridge. Inlaid cookbook holder. Built-in microwave and double oven, one fan assisted.

A baker’s dream.

My dream.

It was fifty thousand dollars over budget but I bought it because I thought it was worth it.

Since then, even though the first year it was rough going, I never regretted it.

As I walked through the front living room off which were two bedrooms and a bath to the double doorway that led to the kitchen, I thought the same thing.

And when I hit the kitchen and saw Brock resting faded jeans-clad hips against the back counter, teeth sinking into a cupcake, half of a mountainous swirl of silver-dusted, pale lilac frosting, sprinkled with pastel, candy confetti disappearing behind his full lips, I made the instant decision I was going to go through my paperwork, find out the day I signed on the dotted line that made that house my home and celebrate it with a huge, honking party every fucking year.

“She’s gone,” I informed him, stopping on the other side of the island and putting my hands on it.

I watched with admittedly captivated attention as he licked frosting from his lips after he swallowed and then he asked, “How long’s it take her to get home?”

“Twenty minutes,” I answered.

His eyes locked with mine and he said quietly, “You need to call her in twenty-five minutes, babe.”