One More Time (17 page)

“Do you feel any better?” he asked when the kiss was over. He didn’t pull away, though, and I didn’t let him go.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say in that moment. Normally I didn’t have to say anything. It was enough that I’d come, that he’d come, that we’d had sex at all. I wasn’t good at the after parts.

He gave me a little smile. “Good. I’m glad. So… a shower comes next, then?” Caleb moved away, and I followed him into the shower, still feeling completely out of my element. “How does this normally work with the guys you’re with?” he asked lightly. I could hear the pain there, the hurt in his voice, and I shook my head.

“Don’t do that. You’re not one of them. And this wasn’t like that.” I turned on the hot water, as hot as it would go, then remembered I wasn’t just going in for me, and I didn’t need to scrub someone else off my skin. So I turned it down and checked the temperature before stepping under the spray.

“Then what was it like?” Caleb asked as he followed me in.

I shrugged, because I didn’t have a good answer for him. What we’d done had been more intimate, more loving, than anything I’d done with anyone else in the five years since Simon’s accident. I was hurting, and a bit scared, because I didn’t know what to do next. I couldn’t kick him out, and I didn’t lie down next to the people I was with. But I was pretty sure that’s what would be happening after the shower, and I realized I wasn’t as against that idea as I might have thought.

“Thank you for not going out,” Caleb said as he unwrapped the paper from a tiny bar of soap and handed it to me. He had one for himself too and together we began cleaning ourselves off under the hot spray.

“You don’t have to thank me for that,” I mumbled.

“What was this like if it wasn’t how you are with them?” Caleb asked again once he’d moved on to washing his short blond hair.

If he wasn’t going to let it drop, I supposed I had to come up with a decent answer for him. Only I didn’t have one. “More like making love, or what I remember of it at least.” I didn’t know if he’d heard me over the spray of the shower since I wasn’t talking very loudly, and he might have had shampoo in his ears, but maybe, since he stopped washing his hair and just looked at me, maybe he did hear me.

“Did that still work for you, then? Or do you have to go out?”

I hated that he asked that. “I’m staying in.” I washed myself as quickly as I could and wasn’t even sure if I had all the shampoo out of my hair before I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to wrap around myself. Once I was dry, I lay back on the bed, completely naked and not caring one bit. There wasn’t a reason to hide myself, not now that we’d had sex.

Caleb came out a few minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair still dripping wet. He lay down next to me, on his stomach so that he was looking at me while I lay on my back, and I looked at him.

“You don’t seem okay.”

I shook my head. I really wasn’t. “I forgot what it was like to care about someone I was with,” I whispered to him. I reached out and touched his arm with my knuckles. “It hurts in a way that being with random people doesn’t.”

He looked confused by that. “Why?”

I licked my lips and hoped he didn’t hate my answer. “Because it reminds me of what I lost.”

Nodding, Caleb sighed softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I wished I could have given him everything he seemed to want from me. For whatever reason, this sweet, nice person actually wanted me to be with him. And I couldn’t stop thinking about someone I’d lost five years before. I rolled over onto my side, put my arms around him, and then laid my head on the back of his shoulder.

I’m not sure how long I lay like that with him, but I must have fallen asleep. He was asleep too, with his soft snores coming against my arm in front of his face. As quietly as I could, so that I didn’t disturb him, I got off the bed and went to the window. I didn’t hide myself as I pulled the curtain a bit aside and looked up at the sky. I wanted to see the stars, the moon, the tall aspens around my townhouse. But all I saw were buildings and so much light that it seemed as if there were no stars anywhere in the sky above me. I shook my head and turned out the lights in the hotel room. Sitting in the darkness felt better.

Talking to my dad might have helped, but I dismissed that idea. I wanted to talk to Simon, but that was impossible. What I needed to do was get my head on straight and stop hurting Caleb, because it was pretty obvious to me that I was. Having random guys be mine for an hour or two was one thing, but I’d used Caleb for not only a stand-in for one of them, but also for Simon. As much of an asshole as I knew I could be, I was positive that treating him like that had been wrong.

I stayed up the rest of the night looking out the window and watching over Caleb as I thought things over. I was sure I shouldn’t see him again, not like this. Being with him had been wonderful, and reminded me of what I’d been missing, but it had been a mistake. I was sure of it. Thornwood was too small to really avoid him, but I’d do my best. I’d be friendly, I decided, but being friends wasn’t going to be possible. Not after the night we’d shared. He wanted more from me and maybe I did from him as well. But I wasn’t ready for that and asking him to hang around and wait for me wasn’t going to work either. I couldn’t do that to him.

“Hey. Good morning,” Caleb said as he sat up and stretched in bed. “You’re already up?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.”

“And you got dressed.”

“You’re very observant at eight in the morning,” I joked. I’d been dressed since four, hoping he’d wake up early. I wasn’t a morning person, but I supposed that changed when I hadn’t really been to sleep.

He got out of bed and gave me a kiss. I let his mouth linger over mine and savored him for as long as I could before he straightened up again and headed toward the sink. “Want to go out for breakfast?” he asked before he started brushing his teeth.

“Sounds good. There’s a diner not far from here.”

“Give me ten minutes to shower and get dressed.”

He sounded so excited, and I didn’t want to discourage him. So I nodded, plastered on a smile, and waited for him to get out. I got another kiss on his way out of the shower and before he got dressed. He ran his tongue over the seam of my lips and fisted my shirt in his hand. If he wanted more, I didn’t let him have it.

“Hurry up. I’m hungry.”

He groaned and I smiled at him, a real one this time, because it would be so easy to just give in to him. He wanted me again, and I was ready to have him. But one mistake was enough for both of us. Caleb smiled, then quickly threw on some clothes from his bag that I’d brought over during the night. I checked us out of the hotel while he brought his SUV around the front.

We had breakfast at the diner down the street. It felt like a date, with him finding excuses to touch my hand and offering me bites of his omelet off his fork. We left and drove back to Thornwood, and I still hadn’t said much to him.

“You okay?” he asked when we were back at his house.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I gave him a little smile and hoped he thought I was only upset over losing Simon. That was a big part of it, but not really the full story.

We got out of his SUV, and I walked over to my patrol car. “So I’ll see you later?” he asked. There was something there, hiding in his voice, and in the way he kept looking at me, like he could tell just how much I really was pulling away from him.

I wanted to joke with him, to tell him that of course he would see me since we lived in the same small town, but I could only manage a little nod. He stepped up to me, and I took him into my arms. I didn’t kiss him, but I did hold on to him as tightly as I could before I got into my car. He was still standing in the driveway watching me when I drove to the main road.

Caleb

I DIDN’T
hear from Trent the next day, or even the next week. I saw him once, at the grocery store, but when I waved he didn’t wave back. I’d left a few messages, probably a dozen texts, and two weeks after Simon’s death, I was no longer just hurt and confused, I was angry at him. Luckily Dean, Nat, and Sam had come to stay with me and we had a fat, happy draft horse to foster.

“Dude, there you are!” Sam called as he ran up to me while I stood against the fence watching the gelding, Magic, graze. He was a lazy horse that was nearly as round as he was tall as far as I could tell. I was fostering him, but only for as long as Sam and his family were here, and only for as long as Sam was taking care of him. Luckily the kid and the horse had seemed to hit it off.

“Dude? No one says ‘dude’ anymore,” I teased.

Dean and Nat were up at the house, doing what, though, I wasn’t sure, but Nat was definitely in love with my house, though mostly my kitchen, I thought. She’d already made three of her pecan pies that I could never get enough of.

Sam bumped my shoulder and started to climb over the fence to sit on top of it. I stayed where I was. “He’s an awesome horse. How long are you gonna keep him?”

“Long as you’re here,” I answered. He might have wanted to keep Magic beyond that time, but that wasn’t happening. I looked back at the house to see if Dean or Nat were watching before nodding toward the horse. “Go get some lead ropes and his halter, and you can go riding.” They’d been given to me by the rescue.

His eyes got really big as he jumped back off the fence and ran into the barn. His parents didn’t mind that he went riding, as long as someone was watching him, but I had looser restrictions than they did on what Sam could do with the horse. Magic would never be good for much more than pleasure riding; he was too old and too round, but he’d been a school horse, and according to Green Acres, he could handle anything. I’d been on him a bit, just to make sure he was safe, and I figured it was okay for Sam to get some time with him doing more than going around the pasture at a trot. Trotting was fine, but I grew up being a bit more wild on horses, and I remembered having fun with it, so I wanted to share that with Sam while Nat wasn’t around to yell at me.

“Put the halter on him and get the leads on him like your reins. The rescue said he’s fine bareback, and I’ve been on him like that, so that’s how you’ll ride too,” I told him as he climbed back over the fence. There was an actual gate on the pasture, which I went through, but Sam was twelve, so I got why he refused to use the gate most days. Though, honestly, they’d only been with me for three days, and I’d seen him use the gate just to bring Magic through.

“Like this?” Sam asked.

I nodded and helped him tie them together so they didn’t bounce against Magic’s sides. “Now, get on him, get comfortable, but stay at a walk. We’re going to do some fun stuff.”

“At a walk?” Sam didn’t sound convinced.

I smiled at him. “Yeah. Now get going before your mom sees us and we get in trouble for having fun.” Sam was a good distraction, one I desperately needed to keep me from thinking about Trent and how he was avoiding me.

I helped him onto Magic’s back, then took the lead rope reins from him while I led Magic around a bit. Sam looked disappointed in the pony ride, not that I blamed him, until I said, “Bring your legs up under you like you’re a jockey. When you’ve got that down and you feel comfortable, I want you to kneel on his back.”

“Won’t I fall off?”

He looked so worried. It was pretty funny actually to see him uncomfortable with something since this had been the kid who couldn’t wait to get into the water and go surfing the first time. This kid wanted to swim with great white sharks but was afraid of falling five feet off a horse. I had to laugh. “Maybe. But we’re going at a walk right now and everyone falls off sometimes. You want to ride, you’re going to fall off. Better you figure out how to fall correctly now than when you’re galloping,” I told him.

He didn’t look convinced, but he grabbed some courage from somewhere and brought up first one leg and then the other. I was close enough that if he started to fall I’d catch him, but I doubted that he’d slide off. I was there more to make sure he didn’t get hurt and that Nat wouldn’t have another reason to yell at me. She’d already laid into me just that morning for washing all of my clothes together instead of separating them by colors and temperatures. If I did that, I’d never make a full load of laundry.

“How’s this?” Sam asked when he’d gotten most of the way there.

I saw him clutching at Magic’s mane and hanging on for dear life and wanted to challenge him some more. “Pretty good. You comfortable right there?” He gave me a shaky nod. “When you’re ready, I want you to hold out your left arm. Straight out like an airplane.” It was the arm closest to me and as he tried I was able to grab his hand and give him a little support until he wasn’t so ready to topple.

“Now the other arm,” I told him.

He shook his head, and I smiled up at him. “Sam, you’re doing fine. Magic is the slowest horse I’ve ever seen, and you’ve got the balance you need from surfing. Put your other arm up. I’m right here.”

“And if I fall?”

I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t going to fall. I was right there, and I’d make sure he was fine. “Then I’ll take you out for pizza. Just put your arm up.”

Apparently that was a fair bargain because he brought his right arm up and after a minute I let go of his left one.

“I’m doing it!” he nearly shouted.

“I see that.”

“This is awesome!”

I was glad he was so happy. “Yeah it is.”

“Caleb!”

I cringed as I heard Natalie call me from the house. Sam quickly dropped his arms and went back to sitting on Magic with his legs down.

“I didn’t do it!” I yelled back to her. “It was Sam!”

“Hey!”

Sam knew I was joking, though, because he covered his mouth to hide his laugh.

“There is a cute cop up here looking for you, so it better not be for my son!” Natalie yelled back to us.

I turned around, nearly tripping over myself, and sure enough saw Trent and Natalie standing on my back deck looking down at us. I lifted my hand to wave to him, and he gave me a little wave back.