Anything but Minor (29 page)

Rafe: I miss your face. I need to look into those beautiful brown eyes.

Alice: I’m sorry about your game.

Rafe: Fuck the game. I want you here. I want to be inside you. Two more to play and the weather is shit.

Alice: Then I’ll come to you.

Rafe: Really?

Alice: I’m on my way.

Rafe: Seriously, you’re coming? It’s a four hour drive and it’s late.

Alice: Text me the address.

Rafe: Baby, it’s raining too hard.

Alice: Do you want me to text Andy for it?

Alice: I just flew for three hours and almost cried when I touched down. I miss it. Can you talk? I feel like I’m about to crack.

Alice: I know you’re busy with pre-meetings. Two more days and you’ll be home. This really sucks sometimes.

Rafe: Baby, I’m sorry, are you there?

Alice: Rafe! I just played golf and it was sooo boring. Seriously, it was the beer that got me through it. I’m thinking men drink beer to get through boring rituals they create, thus making said ritual far more entertaining rather than to admit it was just a bad idea. I mean, couldn’t they’ve just said, “Nah...it was good in theory but far too boring to execute.” Golf...no.

Rafe: Alice, I’m pretty sure you need to Google the origin of the game of golf.

Alice: I still say they were drunk when they came up with it.

Rafe: Spoken like a new alcoholic. Take up knitting instead?

Alice: Har har.

Rafe: You’re Googling knitting now, aren’t you?

Alice: I just got finished with Dutch’s yard.

Rafe: You are something else, Alice. That had to take you all day!

Alice: Two actually. I really stink at yardwork. I can hardly move.

Rafe: I’ve got two hands ready to take the sting out.

Alice: I was hoping you would say that.

Rafe: Are you alone?

Alice: Why?

Rafe: Because I want you to pull down your panties.

Alice: Thank you for the roses. I love them.

Rafe: You deserve them. I’ve got to go warm up.

Alice: Go get ’em, Bullet. XO

Rafe: Did you just hang up on me?

Alice: You are being paranoid. I’m not dealing with it.

Rafe: I’m four hundred fucking miles away and you send me a screenshot of you and some guy hanging out.

Alice: I was bored. He’s married and he was just helping me with my painting. I was showing you my painting! You want me to sit at home two or three weeks out the month? Not happening.

Rafe: I can’t fucking deal with this right now.

Alice: Then don’t.

Alice: Fighting with you hurts so much, Rafe. Please don’t ignore me. I miss you every day. I can’t sit at home thinking about you. Nothing helps. My movies don’t help. I think of you and only you. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Rafe: I just don’t think you know what that did to me. I know I handled that wrong, but I just can’t see that shit, Alice.

Alice: You won’t.

Rafe: I love you.

Alice: I love you, too.

Rafe: We okay?

Alice: Always.

Rafe: Hours ago, you were in my bed. You were telling me some usual random shit and all I could think about was sitting on this bus again and how badly I would want to be back in that bed hearing you go on about Michael Jackson’s pet giraffe and all the other exotic animals owned by celebrities. To answer your question from earlier, no, I will not be buying a monkey or an albino snake. You make me laugh, Alice. You keep me going. You are the best thing that has happened to me in a very long time. If you keep waiting, baby, I’ll keep coming home.

Alice: I’ve got you.

Rafe: I fucking love you.

I was in my office as I waited on Rafe to get back from a four-day stint in Myrtle. He’d pitched an amazing game, and I couldn’t wait to celebrate with him. He’d called minutes after he got into town and insisted on picking me up. I was in no mood to argue, desperate to see him. It was an immeasurable high to belong to someone so talented, so insanely sexy, and so completely in tune with me. Our time together, though short in measure, filled me so completely. The sadness of my former life, which I’d now labeled the gray, had completely dissipated. It was a distant memory in my new life filled with color, adventure, and love. I daydreamed constantly about my new reality, which was actually better than the thoughts that swirled constantly in my head. I could replay them a thousand times and they would never be better than the real thing.

“You look hot, baby...God, you are so beautiful,” Rafe said from the door as I looked up to him with a widening smile. The look on his face was almost one of pain, and I took it as a compliment. I’d worn a warm red, form fitting dress to work today, knowing it was his favorite color on me. I’d fixed my hair and lined my lips with the red lipstick he loved so much. I stood and quickly made my way over to him as he took a steady step toward me and pulled me into his arms before his mouth claimed mine with an urgent kiss. When I began to pull away, he gripped me tighter, his lips soft, and his warm tongue frantic and thorough. I moaned into his mouth and kissed him back with all of me. Rafe finally pulled away with soft whispers of ‘I love you’ and peppered kisses on my neck and chin. Both of our mouths were now scarlet red, and I giggled as I wiped the lipstick smear from his lips and the corner of his mouth. His eyes were gentle as he ducked in again and claimed my lips with a slow kiss. I sensed it then, in his grip, his desperation, and took a step back to look up at him.