penance. a love story (The Böhme Series) (29 page)

I sat there for a few moments repeating what he said. At first I thought he meant he hadn’t dated long-term, but realization as to what he meant struck me. He was a virgin. I had no response. I didn’t need to tell him that it was fine or that I didn’t care. It was and I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to voice it to him.

I rolled over so we were facing each other. The streetlights streaming into my room accentuated his eyes as he lowered his chin to look at me. The lights contrasted with his eyes and it was as if they held an ethereal glow. This man was my perfect and he had no idea the effect he had on me. I could use every word to describe the desire he instilled in me and he will still cut himself short and not believe me.

I put my hand on his cheek and brought our lips together, giving him a chaste kiss. I turned away from him and toward the window. I curled my arms in and put my hands under my chin and moved into a semi-fetal position, trying to get every part of my body enclosed by his arms. Without hesitation he tightened his arms around me. As I started to drift into a peaceful sleep, the last thing I heard him say in a hushed tone was, "So this is spooning."

I awoke the next morning to an empty bed. I still faced my window and took in the beautiful blue hue of the morning sky. I heard footsteps in the hallway that were different from Maggie’s or Toby’s and smiled at Wynn's easy movements around my home. I rolled over and looked at the door as the steps drew closer and saw Wynn pause in the doorway to smile at me. This smile was different than those given at earlier times. He was lighter today and
surer of himself. I assumed this was the Wynn he always hid away.

In his smile I saw the
yets
we had waiting. I smiled in return as the possibilities played out in my mind. Wynn was awakening a part of me that was different. Reflected in his eyes and his smile, I saw the girl from years ago who ran through fields. I saw the girl that dreamed of magical places and stories. I saw the girl I once was, not the teenager who thought she should experiment and that was her freedom. I saw the pure freedom that comes from being sure of your path.

As children we are free. The world is magical, but life happens and we forget. In Wynn's eyes I believed that freedom was possible once more and in that moment my smile reached my eyes as the twitch to write filled me again. He was inspiring.

But the ever faithful noose of guilt tightened as those thoughts of childhood brought Lily with them. Thoughts of childhood also reminded me of her child and all of the yets neither of them could experience. I couldn't look at Wynn any longer. The emotions of yesterday attacked me and I tried to regain control of them. I did want to change, but habits are hard to break. When you have worn the noose for so long it becomes embedded in your skin, you have to chisel away at it one moment at a time.

“I wish I could make it so you never held that expression again
,” Wynn said without coming near me. I watched as his eyes walked across my face, searching for the off button on my guilt. "You deserve to live, Hannah."

Not wanting to disappoint, I made my mouth form into a smile that
lacked sincerity, “There you go it’s gone.”

He gave a half-hearted smile himself and nodded at me before turning to leave. I could tell he didn’t believe the smile, but he didn’t comment on my lack of sincerity. “Come into the kitchen, I have
a surprise for you,” he said instead.

I stood from my bed and stretched my arms above my head. When I stepped from my room, the smell of sausage cooking surrounded me. I wondered where it came from because we never buy the stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. It’s our budgets that don’t.

Turning the corner into my kitchen I found Wynn standing with a huge smile next to my kitchen table. “Have a seat. I made biscuits and gravy,” he said as he waved his hand over my chair like a foreign chef in an expensive restaurant.

I stepped towar
d the chair and in his continued chivalry he helped me push my chair toward the table. I never had anyone push my chair in and it didn't feel odd with Wynn, it was the most natural interaction because he wasn't doing it to impress. He was playful, holding the purity of a child, but held the strength and sincerity of a child as well.

“Oh man, that’s my favorite
,” I said with a half smile, looking at the meal he prepared. “We lived on a pig farm you know. I used to dream of saving a pig like Wilbur in
Charlotte’s Web
. I tried to save one, once. But I wasn’t as lucky as Fern.” I looked at my plate and quickly began to eat.

“My d
ad said there was no use trying to help something that would struggle in life. He said it was best to let it go and move on.” Wynn took the seat across from me and watched me with a listening ear. “I think my dad held that philosophy on more than pigs. Though he said he was a god-fearing man, which was true when he sat in the pew on Sunday. Come Monday, he’d toss his own kids to the street if they pissed him off for not minding him.” I sighed. “But moving onto lighter topics, when did you get all of this?”

Wynn looked at me with understanding eyes and allowed the conversation to shift without question, “I went this morning. I woke up when I
heard Maggie start to leave.” He looked down with a coy grin. “I asked her what your favorite breakfast was. I surprised her and I scared the crap out of her.”

I smiled back at him and laughed as I thought of Maggie waking to a man other than Toby being here, “I wondered if you were just a good guesser. Biscuits and gravy isn’t the usual breakfast
.” I smiled. “Thanks for this by the way, they’re fantastic.”

“You are most welcome, Hannah,
” he said with that grin of his. “So you're off today?”

“Yep
.” I smiled back, through a mouthful of biscuit.

“I have an appointment and I need to talk to Blake about something, but after that I
want to spend the day with you,” he said and at the sound of Blake’s name I became uncomfortable. Wynn knew what I tried to do with his best friend, but it was surreal that he was okay with me. I pushed food around on my plate and guilt filled me for what I tried to do last night.
Guilt
. I couldn't decide which was worse—guilt or hope. They traveled hand in hand through me these days, but their hand holding was far from polite.

“I have to ask you something
,” I said and he nodded for me to continue. “Why are you doing this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”
he asked as he leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “I want to see the real you, Hannah. I want to see the real you in every one of your expressions, in every moment. I want to see more of what I saw now in your room. I want to experience the living truth found in your passion.”

My shoulders shook with the chill his words gave me. I felt them to my toes. God, he was amazing, but I couldn't believe I deserved that sincere of intimacy. I longed for it, but it was an abstract theory in my mind. It was never my reality. “I don’t see how that’s possible
,” I said with skepticism.

“Well,”
he said as he took my plate to put another biscuit and more gravy on it. “We’re both broken, Hannah. I know I can’t fix you and I know you can’t fix me. I appreciate that you haven’t tried to fix me.” He looked back to the pan as he dished out the gravy. “I’m not going to try and fix you either. Comfortable is not a word I use often to describe my interactions with others. But with you, I can. You make me forget about closed doors and counting. It isn’t fixing me, but being with you makes me feel like a normal person. I have never felt as free from my past as I do with you. It's still there and it haunts me, but with you it's like I have this memory of how life should be. We shouldn't live haunted by our pasts or in fear of the what ifs. With you the
what ifs
are replaced by yets. There is a definite with you.”

He returned my plate and sat across from me again. I set my fork down and reached across the table to pick up his hand. I put his palm on my cheek and leaned against it. I held his eyes as I did so and kissed his palm where his blood brother scar was. He gazed at me with the intense stare of his that ha
d become familiar to me and I smiled as I lowered his hand back to the table.

“You make me feel the same way
,” I said with a sigh.

He started to respond, but my phone ringing in the other room stopped him. I grabbed it from my nightstand and saw it was Petra. “Hello
,” I said as Wynn watched me return to the table.

“Oh, Hannah,
I don’t want to have to shut the store today, I fell last night and I bruised my tail bone. I have always been clumsy and I was trying to put something on a tall shelf and the rest is history,” she said with a laugh. “But do you mind coming into work today? I know it was your day off and I’m so sorry.”

“Not a problem, I can be there in an hour
,” I responded as I watched my fingers dance across the Salinger quote tattooed on Wynn’s forearm.

“Thank you dear
,” Petra said as she hung up the phone.

I set my phone on the table and eyed Wynn. He was still watching me as though examining the core that made me, me. I kept my hand on his arm and traced the hair on his wrist, “Have to work?”
he asked and I nodded. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times as if he were trying to start a sentence he was nervous to start.

“Hannah, I want y
ou to know something,” he said as he lifted my eyes to his by touching my chin. “I don’t know when,
yet...
" He lifted his eyebrow at my new favorite word. "But believe me when I say, it
will
happen. You will be my first. And in all cheesiness…" He gave a coy smile as he leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I know that together we will be each other’s last.” He laughed a goofy ass laugh as I shoved his shoulder.

Despite the cheesiness of the statement, my breath caught at the intensity of his gaze. He was using humor to mask the sincerity. It was a trademark of mine. But I was at a loss as to how to respond, so I resorted to saying, “Um, I need to get ready for work.”

I didn’t know what else to say and I wrinkled my forehead in my own befuddlement. I could tell by the smile on his face that he interpreted from my demure expression his affect on me. He wore a look of pleasure that I hadn’t seen form on his face yet. In that moment, we began our journey together. The tears had fallen and possibilities no longer scared me.

I wanted answers last night when I went to her apartment. When I found her, I found my answers, but I did not understand them fully until the middle of the night. They were in the steady breaths that came with the rise and fall of her chest. I found more answers as I counted every one of her breaths until I got to well over one hundred. It was then that I found the true answer. I couldn’t fix her, but I could do what no one had ever done for her. I could believe in her enough to see her grow. Our answer was simple—we were to just be.

From our talks, I realized that no one had encouraged her to be the person she could be. The wise and privileged could see the real her inside, and I was thankful to be one of those few. Too many men had taken from her and she needed to see she was worthy no matter what mistake she made.

If my friends asked me for help, I did help without question. But I never offered any help in my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I didn’t appreciate others sticking their nose into my business, so I never pushed myself into theirs either. So why did I go out of my way to make breakfast for Hannah when she tried to sleep with my friend the night before as punishment?

She punishes herself for living. How could I be angry with her? How could I not push myself into her business and show her the value she held? Her actions were not an attempt to hurt me. She didn’t believe she deserved someone caring for her. But I still did. It was freaking nuts and part of my mind taunted me for this need she created in me. It was the part that told me I was being my mother, romanticizing an emotion that could not be reciprocated.

But holy shit, I was falling in love with Hannah. It was the only explanation. I wanted to be near her, I wanted to see her grow and drop her walls. I wanted and needed to see her evolve into the person she intended to be.

I lay back on her bed as I waited for her to finish getting ready for work. She came into her bedroom a few minutes later and her hair was up in a towel after her shower. She wore just her tank top and jeans. Her obvious lack of a bra caused blood to rush and form a constricting pressure in my pants. I let out a long quiet breath, trying to keep my eyes diverted as I ringed my hands together. I focused on her face and she wore no makeup and it was breathtaking, there was no way around this pressure building inside me. She consumed me just being near her. I thought of telling her that, but as she looked at me, I wanted to show her. I smiled with hooded eyes as she lowered her hair from the towel and bent over and proceeded to rub the towel over her head while she pointed her ass toward me.
 
She's teasing me
.

“Wh
at’s that look for Wynn?” she asked with a coy smile and a hand on her hip as she turned to face me.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I lifted my brow as I watched her every movement. She ran her fingers through her wet hair and grabbed a comb and with every pass of it the smell of vanilla fanned the air.