Beyond Repair (12 page)

And he leaned back and pulled out his phone.

I blinked, dazed. “What the
hell
? Are you updating your Facebook status or something?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m setting an alarm for ten minutes.”

“Are you serious? Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because, Brooke, if I don’t, then I won’t stop kissing you.” He looked up from his phone, eyes pleading. “We talked about this outside.”

I didn’t know whether to be happy that he was following through on what he said or disappointed that our time was limited. “Can you set it for fifteen instead?”

He grinned. “Yeah, fifteen is better.”

* * *

After Chris’s alarm had gone off and he reset it three more times for five minutes each, we agreed it was time for him to leave. He looked guiltily at the broken pieces of glass on the floor. “I’m really sorry about your lamp.”

“Don’t be. I hated that thing. My Aunt Nancy gave it to me for Christmas when I was in high school because she thought it would look nice with Zoey’s flower painting. I kept it out of guilt because Zoey didn’t like it either and wouldn’t take it.”

“Okay, in that case, I’m not sorry.” He pushed my hair out of my face and sighed. “If I kiss you again, then I’m going to have to set another alarm, so I’m just going to say good night.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

We reached the door and Chris hesitated with his hand on the knob for a few seconds, and then turned to me. His low voice had a tinge of hopefulness in it. “Do you want to come over tomorrow? Mia can play with the basketball hoop.”

Oh, God. I loved that he wanted to get together again so soon. “She’d love that.”

He gave me one of his heart-melting smiles. “Me, too.”

Me, three.
 “Good night.”

“Good night.” He kept our eyes locked for another moment, then sighed and turned to leave.

The door shut quietly behind him. I put the palms of my hands over my eyes, focusing only on the thump of his footsteps going down the stairs and toward his place. When I was sure he was gone, I locked the door.

The house was too quiet without Mia. She had slept over at Zoey’s in the past, but that was when they lived next door. A car ride away was much different. For the first time in almost four years, I was truly alone.

My body was amped up and memories of Chris made my head spin like a frigging cyclone. Deciding I needed a drink to relax, I pulled the wine out of the fridge.

After making sure that my hair tied around the bottle was in place, I poured a glass and flopped down on the couch where Chris had been sitting earlier. I pushed my nose against the headrest to see if I could smell him. When I couldn’t, I sulked and took a few sips of wine.

I put the glass down and took off the bracelet, held it in front of me and brushed my fingers over the rhinestones. My eyes closed as I remembered the feeling of Chris’s warm lips on mine. I wondered what it would be like to do more with him. To touch all of him, feel him touch me, ultimately give to him what Pierce took.

Reason crept into the back of my mind. We might not ever have that moment. He deserved to know what Pierce did to me, sooner than later. Everything Kyle told me about Chris was right. I could see in his face whenever the subject came up that he didn’t have it in him to get hurt again.

I was terrified—not of telling him what happened but of his reaction. Would he see me as some gross, used woman who could have easily avoided what happened if she’d thought rationally before following a total stranger? Even if he could see past that, he’d be disgusted when he heard what I did after I woke up. The way I’d handled everything was disgraceful.

The scariest thing of all was what would he think about Mia? When I decided to keep her, I embraced that she was mine, just mine. Pierce might have been the reason why she was conceived, but that was where it ended. There was nothing evil or terrible about her; she was perfect. Chris seemed to like her, but would his opinion change?

This
was why I needed to keep my feelings in check. Why let everything grow when it might be for nothing? If he decided he didn’t want anything to do with me after he found out, then I wouldn’t be able to bottle it up like everything else.

I downed the rest of my wine, but it wasn’t enough. Pressing down on the pump of the hand sanitizer, calmness ran through me as I rubbed my hands together. Finally, I stood up. It was time to clean up that broken lamp.

* * *

“Hey!” I caught Mia as she jumped on me and picked her up. “Did you have fun?”

“Yes. We went swimming!”

“You did? Lucky duck.” I pushed her hair back and noticed some bug bites on her neck. “You must have been outside a lot. Do they itch?”

Zoey had walked over when she heard me come in and looked at Mia’s neck. “Huh. Guess we need to start wearing bug spray.”

“Thanks for watching her.”

“No problem. Hey Mia, why don’t you go get that picture you made so you can show your mom? I think it’s in Beth’s room.”

Mia skipped off and Zoey turned to me. “So?”

“It went well.”

“Did any … situations happen that you weren’t ready for?”

“No, we’re taking it slow.”

Kyle walked into the room and heard what I said. “I’m glad. The way you guys were looking at each other the other day had me worried.”

I frowned. “You really think I’d sleep with someone after one date? Even before … everything happened? Shit, Kyle. Is that the kind of guy Chris used to be?”

He put his hands up. “No, no. Not at all. And I know you wouldn’t do that so soon. But I’ve seen girls throw themselves at him and he barely gives them a glance. You come in and he almost falls off a ladder.”

Zoey smirked at me. “He must have a thing for stupid t-shirts and hand sanitizer.”

“Smartass.” I stuck my tongue out at her, but my stomach dropped as if I was on a roller coaster. I loved that Chris liked me, but I also didn’t get it. There was nothing special about me. I didn’t understand why a guy like him would even give me the time of day.

I bit my lip. Kyle and Chris went to middle school together, so I’d heard stories about when they were kids, but I didn’t know how much Kyle knew about what happened with Chris’s ex. I felt guilty as hell for prying, but maybe that would give me some insight. “Chris moved right before he started high school, right? Did you guys talk a lot after that?”

“Yeah, he only lived about an hour away, so sometimes we’d meet up, especially after we started driving.”

“Do you know why he moved back here?”

“Yeah …” His eyebrows pinched together, and I could tell he was debating whether he should tell me. “He was really fucked up about whatever happened with his ex, and then Brian, his brother, died. He moved back here a few months later and rented an apartment for a while before he bought our place.”

I nodded. “He told me a little about his brother. Nothing about his ex.”

“He doesn’t talk about it, and I never met her.”

I considered asking Kyle what he thought Chris’s reaction would be to what I did, but I didn’t. I was too scared to hear his answer.

* * *

Mia got excited the second I told her that Chris asked us to come over so she could play basketball. When we climbed out of the car, she didn’t even want to go inside the house; she wanted to go right over to his place. I could see him in his backyard doing something, and Mia sprinted ahead of me. He smiled as he saw her, and she waved her arms excitedly as they talked.

They started walking toward the driveway. Mia reached out and took his hand.

Wow.

When I reached them, Chris smiled at me, and Mia yelled, “Mom! Chris is going to teach me how to pass!”

“Sounds fun.” I looked up. “It looks like it might rain though, so if it does we’re going to need to go in, okay?”

“Okay.”

We played for a while, bouncing the ball to one another. After Mia had gotten the hang of passing, Chris and I backed off and let her shoot at the basket.

I couldn’t help gazing up at him, and he looked down at my hand. He raised an eyebrow as his eyes met mine again.

I nodded, appreciating that he understood I had to be aware of showing Mia what was forming between us. His fingers laced through mine, and I resisted the urge to lean into him.

Mia stopped playing and looked at us. “I want to hold hands, too,” she said, taking my other hand and pulling me. “Come on! I’m the pirate captain and you and Chris are just pirates because I’m the captain.” She led us into our yard, picking up a bucket from her sandbox. “This is our treasure chest. I get to hold it because I’m the captain.”

“What’s the treasure?” Chris asked.

Mia picked up a small rock from the ground. “This. We need lots of these.”

I was disappointed to let go of Chris’s hand, so I made the best of it by checking out his ass as we spread out and started searching. Unfortunately, there weren’t many rocks in our yard. After few minutes, Chris left for a minute and came back with a handful of the river rocks that lined the front of his condo and tossed them around the yard when Mia’s back was turned.

“Oooh, here’s one! And here!” Mia jumped up and down. “I’m finding lots of them!” She spun around in circles, holding the bucket in one hand and a rock in the other.

The second she dropped one of the rocks in her bucket, ribbons of rain hammered out of the sky. I hurried over to Mia as she looked up in wonder. “Did I make it rain?”

“No, silly girl. People can’t make it rain.”

“But I danced. Maybe it was a rain dance.”

I didn’t have the heart to correct her. “You know what? I think you’re right. But let’s go inside before we get soaked.”

“Can I take my treasure?”

“Sure.” I looked across the yard at Chris, watching me as the rain dripped down his face and made dark splotches on his shirt. There was no way in hell I was ready to end our time together. I tilted my head toward the house, and he broke into a smile as he nodded and followed us in.

Chapter Twelve

M
IA STOOD ON HER TIPTOES
to look at the row of different colored rocks sitting on a sheet of newspaper on the counter. “Are they dry yet?”

When we came inside earlier, we painted the rocks so they would look more like pirate treasure. They sat on the counter, drying throughout several intense games of Candyland, four stories read by me, three stories read by Chris, Mia’s favorite TV show, and dinner.

And Chris was still here. He’d spent the entire day with us, doing kid stuff. Never once did he look bored or indicate that he wanted to leave.

I walked over and looked at them. “They sure are. Want to put them in your treasure chest?”

Mia dropped them into an old shoebox that we had painted to look like a treasure chest, leaving three on the counter. She looked at them for a moment, but then turned to Chris. “You can have these.”

He grinned at her. “I love them. Thanks, Mia.”

She ran over and hugged his leg. Before he could react, she let go and skipped over to the pile of mail on the kitchen table. “Mom, look! The doll book!” She held up a catalog from a designer doll company. I had no idea how we were on the mailing list; they must sniff out little girls who love dolls.

I laughed. “The doll book? Have you seen it before?”

“Yes! Sidney had one at school. I like the one with yellow hair like me.” She sat down at the table and flipped through the pages. “This one.” She held up the catalog. “Do you see? Maybe I can get her for my birthday?” Her voice had a hopeful tone as she looked at me.

I refrained from groaning. Those dolls cost so much frigging money. I guessed the days of me buying her a movie and few toy ponies were over. “Maybe. We can talk about it later.”

“Okay,” she said, picking up a pen. She looked at Chris. “When my mom says we’ll talk about something later, it means she’s going to say yes.”

Chris gave the most adorable half smile ever as his eyes traveled toward me. “That’s good to know.”

I was going to argue, but she was right. “What are you doing?” I asked Mia as she picked up a pen.

“Circling all of the stuff I want.”

Looking at the catalog, I saw she was marking almost everything on the page
.
“Nice try. You’re going to have to decide what you like the best.”

“Just the table. And the bed. And this dress.” She circled the last few items on the page and threw the pen down. Sprinting out of the room, she screamed, “I’m going to play with my dollhouse!”

Her thumps up the steps to her room echoed in the kitchen. I turned to Chris when they stopped. “Someone has big plans for her birthday.”

“She’s such a cool kid. You’re really lucky.”

“Yeah … I’m not going to feel very lucky when I get the bill for all this stuff she wants, though.”

He leaned down and kissed me. No tongue or anything, but it stole my breath. “I’m having a good time with you guys, but I didn’t realize we’d be together the whole day. Do you want me to leave?”

“Nope.” The word flew out of my mouth and my cheeks burned. I looked down, but Chris put his hand under my chin, tilting my face up to look at him. I whispered my question. “Do you?”

He shook his head. “I just don’t know if so much time together fits into taking things slow or not.” His thumb rested on my bottom lip. “But I don’t care.”

My feelings were beyond moving slow. Seeing him sitting with my daughter, reading in stupid voices, and helping her paint rocks just did something for me. It was different from when I saw him with her and Ryder because I knew he liked his nephew. But he seemed to really enjoy hanging out with Mia. “I’m a package deal, so you kind of need to see this side of me to know what you’re getting into. Mia is a huge part of my life.”

“Then it’s really important we spend more time together.” His voice was scorching, and every inch of me tingled. His thumb started trailing across my lip. “Brooke?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m happy you’re a package deal. I like both of you.”

Is he going to like both of us after he finds out what happened?

I was on sensory overload. The brushing of his thumb, his warm voice, the cinnamon Altoids and soap, the beautiful eyes. I had to put a stop to this.