Wildflower (Colors #4) (22 page)

As promised, I had checked to see what night worked best for a date with Noah that could potentially last for several hours. After finding out that Ethan planned on staying the night at his friend Kyle’s house that following Friday, a date was set.

So it was Friday. The week had passed with hidden kisses in my classroom before school started, late night phone calls, and tons and tons of text messages. There were no more middle-of-the-night visits, seeing as I was the caretaker of an impressionable boy that was already too close to toying with the idea of sex for my liking.

When I got home from school that afternoon, I spent two hours going through my entire closet and coming up with nothing.

“I need new clothes,” I spoke into the phone pressed between my ear and shoulder.

“Girl,” Chloe drawled. “You do
not
need new clothes. Your closet should have its own room, for God’s sake!”

“But I can’t find anything to wear!” I whined, the ticking of the clock as it counted down the minutes to my and Noah’s date making me more and more nervous.

“Ohmigod,” Chloe huffed through the line. “You’re such a drama queen. You’d think this was your very first date.”

I refused to admit it out loud, but she was totally right. For some bizarre reason, it felt like my very first date. “You’ve got no room to talk! You can’t even form
words
when Derrick’s in the same room with you.”

Her sharp gasp rang in my ears. “That’s not fair. You know I’ve always been extremely shy around insanely hot men.”

“Only men you’re in
luuuuurve
with,” I teased.

“Shut your face! I’m not in love with him!”

“Are too.”

“Am not! I’m just… enamored.”

“You’re a smitten kitten,” I poked, enjoying giving my friend shit far too much to stop. “You’ve probably got notebooks filled with
Chloe loves Derrick for eva
.”

“I hate you,” she giggled.

“You love me,” I shot back. “Don’t bother denying it. Now help me decide what to wear!”

“Well, seeing as you two are probably gonna go at it like rabbits the moment you walk through the door, I’d say something with easy access.”

“You’re no help at all,” I grumbled. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Have fun,” she sing-songed, her tinkling laughter coming through the line just before I disconnected. I hated to admit it, but she was probably right. It had been days since Noah and I had any alone time. Easy access was most definitely the way to go.

I had no fucking idea how to cook.

Being a single guy living on my own, I’d gotten accustomed to take-out, fast food, and a select few staple dishes I could get myself by on. So I had no clue what possessed me to offer up a homemade dinner as a date to Harlow.

Yes, there wasn’t anything I could make that would come even
close
to the disaster that was Harlow’s cooking, but that didn’t mean I wanted to feed her boxed mac and cheese with cut up hotdogs—one of the few dishes I was able to make myself. I was trying to win her back, not scare the girl away.

Looking around my kitchen, I grabbed the last empty foil tin from the counter and stuffing it into the trashcan along with all the others. After wracking my brain for days, trying to decide what I was going to cook, brilliance hit.

Harlow didn’t know I couldn’t cook Italian food to save my life so she’d have no idea that the lasagna I’d slid into the oven came from Italiano’s and wasn’t homemade. Same went for the garlic bread, the Caesar salad, and the tiramisu.

I was trying to figure out if I had time to get the garbage bag out to the garage before Harlow arrived when the doorbell sounded through the house.

“
Shit
,” I whispered as I slammed the lid down on the trashcan, hoping my secret would remain safe.

One last quick scan of the kitchen told me I was safe.

“Hey,” Harlow smiled as soon as I opened the door.

“Hey yourself,” I grinned in return as I stepped out of the doorway to let her in. Closing the door on the chill seeping in, I reached out and helped her remove her coat, fighting my erection at the sight of her flowy little skirt.

“You look beautiful,” I told her, my voice sounding gravelly in my own ears.

Looking over her shoulder, she peered up at me from beneath those thick, full lashes, her unique hazel colored eyes shining more golden than brown or green as she offered a somewhat bashful, “Thanks.” It was one of those looks a woman gives a man that makes him hard enough to drive nails instantly. It was a look that exuded so much sexiness without the woman even being aware she was doing it.

“It smells fantastic in here,” she offered.

“Well I hope you’re hungry,” I answered as I led us into the kitchen, ignoring the insistent hard-on throbbing in my jeans.

“Starving. What are we having?”

Harlow rested her forearms on the island as I pulled the warmed up pan from the oven and carried it over to the table nestled in front of the big bay window in the dining area, placing it next to the basket of bread already set out. “Homemade lasagna, garlic bread, and salad. And for dessert, a tiramisu.”

“You did all that?” she asked, wide-eyed.

I threw a little wink over my shoulder as I spoke. “Had to make a good impression.”

“Wow. Well, I’m impressed. That’s for sure.”

I went to the fridge and pulled out the salad I’d already transferred to one of my own bowls and grabbed the open bottle of red wine from the counter.

“Let’s eat.” I pulled out her chair before taking the one directly next to her. I poured us both a glass of wine and we dug in. We ate in silence for a few minutes. It was as if neither of us really knew what to say.

“This is delicious,” Harlow finally remarked, breaking through some of the awkward tension hovering in the air around us.

“Thank you.” I smiled.

We had started off well, seemed to have fallen right back into the space where we wanted to start fresh, but the familiarity between us made it difficult to behave like normal people on their first date.

I looked over at Harlow to find her pushing her food around on her plate, uncertainty marring her beautiful face.

“What’s wrong?”

Placing her fork down, she pulled in a deep breath and looked at me. “This feels a little awkward, doesn’t it?”

“Harlow—” I started, my gut twisting into a knot at her words, but she waved me off.

“No, just let me say this. I think… I think we’re both trying to pretend that there aren’t almost six years of each other’s lives that we don’t know about. I think we both know that we’re different people now, but we’ve yet to acknowledge that we’ve been living our own lives for so long… without each other.”

Those last three words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Without each other
. I hated the reminder of that. But I couldn’t say she was wrong.

“I know,” I offered, lifting a hand to rub at the tightness in the back of my neck.

“We should probably talk about that time, huh?” she asked.

“Probably,” I agreed, while at the same time, wanting nothing less than to discuss what a joke my life had been for all those years.

My eyes focused on the food in front of me, unable to meet her gaze as she dove right in. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you in college.” Her voice was so soft, so full of sorrow for me that my lungs seized.

“It’s not your fault,” I told her once I was able to form words. “I was pissed at myself when it happened. I was kind of pissed at the whole world back then, if I’m being honest. But I moved passed it. Didn’t have much of a choice,” I laughed humorlessly.

Her hand came across the table and rested on top of mine. Turning my palm up, I wrapped my large fingers around her small, delicate ones, holding on tight.

“But you dreamed about going pro your whole life,” she said emphatically. “It’s hard to believe you’re okay with anything else when that was all you ever wanted.”

My fingers twitched, my grip tightening as I looked into her eyes and spoke with complete honesty. “There was something I wanted more than a career in football, wildflower.” Her eyes widened and her lips parted just slightly as I pushed on. “When I lost that, I stopped caring about anything else. Like I said, I’ve moved on from that, but the one thing I was never able to move past was you.”

“Noah,” she breathed, but I kept going.

“You wanted to talk about what these past several years have been like, well, I’ll tell you. They’ve been fucking miserable, Harlow. I’ve been living a goddamned shadow of a life from the moment you left. There hasn’t been one
single
woman that could even come close to comparing to you. I couldn’t have started a relationship with someone else even if I
wanted
to. And believe me, I didn’t. Everyone since you has been a nameless, faceless body to warm my bed. It was always
your
face I saw.
Your
voice panting my name. No one will ever be good enough. No one will ever be
you
.”

By the time I finished, her breathing had grown erratic. Her eyes had grown bloodshot and it looked like she was fighting to hold back tears. I didn’t understand her reaction to everything I’d just admitted. When she finally spoke, her words were weak and full of pain, each one flaying me open.

“You’ve… you’ve slept with other women?”

“What?” I asked, perplexed.

“How many?”

I suddenly got the distinct impression that I was missing something incredibly important. “Harlow—”

“How many, Noah?” she repeated, her voice growing hard. She tried to pull her hand from mine but I refused to let go.

“Three.”

At my answer, one loan tear broke free and slid down her cheek. “You’ve been with three other women?”

“No,” I replied adamantly. “I’ve
slept
with three other women. Being with someone implies there was more than just sex. That’s all it was with any of them. The only woman I’ve ever
been
with, would ever
want
to be with, is you.”

When she pulled at her hand again, trying to escape, it finally dawned on me. “Holy shit,” I said on an exhale. She tugged again, but I had other plans. I yanked hard, jerking Harlow from her chair and into my lap. My arms wrapped around her waist, holding her in place so tightly she had no choice but to remain there. “Baby, please tell me that what I’m thinking is true.”

“Let me go.” She struggled against me to get away, but it was useless. I wasn’t letting go.

“Harlow. Look at me.”

“Let. Go,” she gritted through her clenched jaw.

“That’s not gonna happen.”

Just as quickly as it appeared, the fight went out of her. Covering her face with her hands, she let out a low groan. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

I couldn’t help the huge grin that took over my face. “What makes you think that?”

Her head shot up at the elation in my voice, and she glared evilly. “Because it is! I haven’t slept with a single guy in almost six
years
. You are literally the only person I’ve ever been with. I might as well have been a spinster, for Christ’s sake. And all the while, you were out getting it on with any available girl who put it out there for you!”

“Three women, Harlow.
Three
. That’s hardly a harem. And the last one was over a year ago.”

“Whatever,” she grumbled.

There was no way to hold back the rumble of laughter that moved up my throat.

“Let me go,” she insisted. “I’m leaving.”

“Can’t do that, baby,” I answered, my chest expanding with pleasure at the realization that I was the only man on the face of the earth who’d ever been lucky enough to touch her. And if I had to die trying, I intended to keep it that way. Loosening my hold just enough to shift her so she was straddling my lap, I smiled up at her angry face. “You see, you just told me there’s been no one since me. And I gotta tell you, that makes me the fuckin’ happiest guy on the planet. No way in hell I’m letting you go now.”

“You don’t have a choice,” she bit out, pushing against my shoulders. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Watch me,” I practically growled. “I fucked up and lost you. I fucked up again and flushed my career down the toilet. Then I continued to fuck up by going to bed with women who weren’t you. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Harlow, and I’m so fucking sorry for all of them. But you see, the way I look at it, I’ve been living in purgatory for half a decade. I haven’t been happy, not truly fuckin’ happy since the day you walked away from me.”