Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (29 page)

Since then, we hadn’t talked about who gets to pay for groceries. Our argument at the grocery store had turned into a challenge and I was looking forward to see what each of us could come up with to test each other’s strength of will. I smiled and threw down the gauntlet.

“That was fun and I’m glad you’re bringing it up. I get that you’re a man and I don’t mind you paying when we’re out to eat or when we’re at your house. But when we’re at my house I’m paying for the groceries.” Cal took my bait as I knew he would.

“No. You’re not. We’re eating together means I’m paying. No matter we’re out or eating in. You eat by yourself, you pay. Since we’re going to eat dinner together every night from now on and we’ve met up almost every day for lunch this week, that point is moot.” There was a lot there. I started with the most confusing.

“We’re going to eat dinner together every night from now on?”

“Yeah, baby.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Cause I want you with me and you want to be with me. Thought we were clear on that.” Well, I hadn’t known that being in a relationship with him meant that we would be together every night, especially since he had a son who he needed to spend time with. I thought it had only been like that this week, because we were new and were using every possible moment to get to know each other better. I didn’t want to encroach on quality time between the two.

“But, you have Tommy.”

“And?” Cal sounded impatient now so I tried to explain.

“And you two like spending quality time together and it’s important you keep doing that. I don’t want to be the reason you can’t do that anymore.”

“Baby, don’t worry about that. Spending quality time with my son doesn’t mean we need to be alone to do it. Tommy loves you and wants you around. We’ll make time for just him and me, but those times will not be during dinner. Dinners, just like Sundays, are family time.” That melted my heart. I loved it that he thought Tommy loved me. And I loved it that he included me in their family time, making me feel I was already a part of their family.

“I like that,” I whispered, overwhelmed by how beautiful that felt.

“Good, baby,” Cal whispered back. That was beautiful, too.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that he was totally going macho man on me about paying for the groceries. I opened my mouth to get back to that when, as if he knew I was going back to arguing and trying to prevent me from doing that, he murmured,

“Miss you, baby.” That made my heart stutter and forget all about what I had wanted to say. That night was the first night we were not spending together since we had made love that first time. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I missed my house and thought some alone time would do us good. We had only been together a few days and were getting attached to each other quickly. I was trying to maintain some independence I guess, trying to reassure myself that I was still good by on my own. Since it was a school night, Cal had needed to stay at his house. He hadn’t been happy and had made that clear, but I hadn’t backed down. In the end, he gave me that space and kissed me goodnight when he walked me to my truck, pressing my body up against its side with his as he made out with me. Now I was kicking my own ass. I missed him, too, proven by the fact that our goodnight phone call had turned into an hour-long conversation.

“Me, too,” I told him.

“Sucks not having you lying next to me.”

“Baby,” I whispered.

“Sucks more not being able to eat you out in the morning and getting a blowjob in return.” That gave me a spasm between my legs.

Damn it! I hadn’t thought this through. Now I was seriously kicking my own ass. Thinking about him making me come before I had even fully woken up and starting my day on a good note and then going down on him making the morning even better, made my breathing accelerate. Cal heard it.

“Hear she’s getting I was right,” he growled. Then he shocked me by telling me, “Get naked and in bed baby. Want you to touch yourself while I jerk myself off. Wanna hear those noises when you make yourself come, thinking of me jerking myself off.”

Oh good God! That sounded great!

“Okay, baby,” I told him and immediately followed his order. Already wet from just imagining him jerking himself off I gasped when I touched myself and heard Cal growl again. We listened to each other’s noises and whispered encouragement while each of us made ourselves come.

It was hot. I had never had phone sex before and hadn’t thought I would like it, but it was definitely hot.

“Tomorrow night you’re in my bed again.” Cal growled when we were done.

“Okay,” I answered.

“And the night after that.”

“Okay.”

“And the night after that.” I giggled.

“All right, I get it, honey.”

“Good. Now go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at
Lola’s
.” Seriously, that man could be bossy. Still, all I said was, “Okay. Night.”

“Night, baby,” he said softly before he hung up.

So I lost the argument about sleeping over, though you couldn’t really call it a loss since I got just as much out of it as Cal. But I won on the groceries. Or at least I saw it that way. We hadn’t agreed, but I didn’t intend to back down. I knew he wouldn’t either, so the challenge was still on.

Yes, this was fun. Most definitely.

Since then we had spent every night together. On school nights, we were at Cal’s house, on Fridays and Saturdays, we were at my house with Tommy either in the guest room or at his grandparents’.

I checked the clock again. They had been gone for over three hours now.
Serendipity
was closing in less than two hours. I wondered what they were doing.

It was silly really.

Here I was, a woman who had been on her own for most of her life, didn’t depend on anyone for anything, had shut herself off from feeling too much for the past ten years. Now that I had found the man that made me happy, or rather that man had found me, I was getting antsy and impatient about seeing him and his son again after three short hours.

It was almost pathetic.

They were doing father/son stuff. Spending quality alone time. That was important. I, myself, had pointed that out to Cal when he had told me we would be eating every night together at the dinner table, so it wasn’t that. I wasn’t jealous of the time Cal spent with his son. That would never even occur to me. What it was, however, was that I missed them. Both of them. Especially because today was Sunday, and we had had such a great Sunday last week. Scary at the time and maybe a little overwhelming, but great nonetheless. I wanted my Sundays with the boys and for the first time since I opened its doors, I didn’t want to be at my store.

At that thought the door opened and Cal walked in, grinning wide. I grinned back at him, happy to see them both. Tommy was walking in after his dad, but I couldn’t see him. I heard Macy screech, “Yay! You’re here!” to my left and looked over to see her bouncing up and down, clapping her hands, completely excited, her eyes glued to my man and his son.

What the hell was that all about?

Confused, I looked back to Cal who was now only five feet from the counter, still grinning wide, his amused eyes on Macy.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I looked back and forth between the two. Cal’s eyes swung to me and they turned warm and soft before he stepped to the side and Tommy came into view.

“Surprise, baby,” he murmured.

I gasped and jumped in delight. Squirming in Tommy’s arms was the cutest little puppy I had ever seen.

“Oh my God! She is so cute!” Macy screeched.

My eyes flew back to Cal’s, gratitude and excitement shining out of them.

“You went and got my puppy?” I asked, completely overwhelmed by the fact that they would surprise me like that.

“Yeah, baby,” Cal answered softly, his eyes still warm on me. I rushed around the counter to Tommy, saying “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” over and over again on my way there, then took her out of Tommy’s arms and snuggled her into my neck, breathing in her sweet puppy scent and fell completely in love.

Not just with the puppy.

With Cal.

And with Tommy.

With
us
.

That realization brought tears to my eyes and I had trouble holding them back. Cal came closer to us, cupped the side of my neck with one hand and tipped my chin up with his thumb, so I had no choice but to look in his eyes. He saw the tears swimming in mine, and I am certain he also saw the love in them when he studied me. His eyes turned from warm and soft to ultra warm and super soft, and I saw love reflected back at me. Overwhelmed and relieved, I closed my eyes, which resulted in all my tears spilling over and rolling down my cheeks. When I felt a soft and raspy tongue licking them away, I giggled, then went back to snuggling with my new puppy.

“Have you decided on a name, yet?” Tommy asked me when I gave Macy her turn to snuggle my little fur baby a few minutes later. I had a few names actually. It was hard to decide since I loved them all. Stella was on the top of that list, but I also really liked Layla. They were both Rock ’n Roll names, and I couldn’t make up my mind about which one I preferred. I decided to let her decide for herself, so I leaned down to Stella/Layla in Macy’s arms to find out which one would be it.

“Hi, baby,” I crooned, “Are you a Layla or are you a Stella?” Stella/Layla just looked at me with big brown eyes. I tried again.

“Layla?” Nothing. Hm.

“Stella?” I tried. That got a reaction. She started wriggling so much that Macy had trouble holding onto her. I started laughing and nuzzling her with my nose.

“Stella it is,” I murmured.

“Cool! Stella. I like it!” Tommy said.

I looked at him and grinned wide. Cal was still close. He leaned in and kissed my temple while I was still grinning huge at Tommy and murmured there, “All right, let’s get you and Stella home.”

“We’re still open for almost two hours. You guys go ahead and I’ll be right behind you,” I told Cal.

“No, you won’t. I’ll close tonight. You go ahead and enjoy your puppy and the rest of the afternoon with your men. Larry is coming down with the kids in less than an hour to help me close.” Macy stated.

I looked at her, surprised.

“You sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” she answered.

“Okay. Thank you, Macy. You’re the best.” I gave her a hug, grabbed my purse, grabbed Stella and went home with my men and my puppy. Well, to Cal’s house since it was a school night, but close enough.

Chapter Twenty

Contentment

Ivey

One might say that never having experienced contentment, I wouldn’t be able to recognize it. That I wouldn’t be able to recognize the feeling of true happiness for what it really was.

And I have to admit it was hard. Not the recognizing part, but the wanting to hold onto that feeling of bliss. It’s a feeling that consumes you, takes over every inch of your body, fills every nook and cranny inside of you.

It’s also a feeling that terrified me.

Because what happens when, once you’ve experienced it, once you’ve become addicted to it, you lose it?

What happens when you have given in, have opened up every part of you to this amazing feeling and then from one second to the next it’s ripped away from you? Ripped away so viciously that you can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t talk, all you can do is feel?

And all you feel is utter and complete devastation. Because you know that you will never experience that feeling of bliss again. You have become addicted to feeling happy, have welcomed it into your heart, where it settled deep and heavy, and now that it is gone, it left a whole behind that nothing else will ever fill again.

You know this.

Deep in your gut you know that if you’ve had it and you lose it, no matter what happens after, you will never be the same.

Pieces of you will be gone. Not just broken, but gone.

Non-existent.

Never to be recovered.

You will always feel a hollowness that you won’t be able to shake.

Instead of contentment you feel emptiness.

Still, knowing what would happen if you lost hold of that extraordinary feeling, knowing from experience that life could and would throw you a curve ball, would you go for it? Would you still let yourself drown in that feeling, safe in the belief that it would never leave you?

Seeing as I am a cynic, you’d think that wouldn’t happen to me, that I would always, but always have one eye open, looking out for that next curve ball to hit me.

But I didn’t.

Both my eyes were closed so tight, relishing the contentment that this new relationship and everything that came with it gave me, that I fell, deep and hard.

I fell trusting that someone would be there to catch me, to make me safe. I fell not even considering that in the blink of an eye, everything could be coming crushing down around me.

Stupid me.

I should have known better.