Bent not Broken (203 page)

“I slept at a shelter downtown one night but an old man tried to crawl into my cot with me in the middle of the night and someone stole the pair of shoes I had left at the end of my bed before I went to sleep. I couldn’t risk someone stealing the money I had saved for an apartment, which I was carrying all in cash. I would have been right back where I started, and that was unthinkable.”

I glance at Jake, and there is a hard look on his face, his jaw clenching. I go on anyway. I don’t feel like I can stop myself now.

“At the end of that month, I had enough money for a security deposit at any one of the apartments I had looked at. I called around and found the one that I could move into that day. I slept on the floor using my backpack as a pillow and a ratty, pink blanket I had had since I was a kid, until I could afford some used furniture. I got my GED that next year since I had moved out and started working before I graduated.”

He is still listening intently to me, and he takes my hand and squeezes it, giving me a small reassuring smile, although his face remains tense under it, and there’s something behind his eyes that looks like heartbreak.

I take a huge sip of wine. While I’ve been talking, Jake has slowly been working, and now two seasoned steaks are in a pan on the stove and he’s cutting several red potatoes into quarters that he’s just rinsed in the sink on the counter in front of him.

“Want me to do that?” I ask, nodding toward the potatoes.

“No, I want you to sit there and relax and sip your wine and talk to me.” He smiles now, his face relaxing.

“You’ve been through so much, Evie,” he says, glancing up at me with sad eyes.

“Yeah, but the thing is, in some ways I’m lucky for it.”

He frowns. “How so?”

“Well, how many people do you think walk into their apartment at the end of the day, small and simple as it may be, and look around and feel like one of the luckiest people in the world? How many people truly appreciate what they have because they know what it feels like to have absolutely nothing? I went through a lot to get where I am and I don’t take anything I have for granted, ever. That’s my reward.”

He’s looking at me intensely, a fire in his eyes that almost looks like pride. I don’t exactly understand it, but I appreciate it. Finally, he says quietly, “I never would have thought to look at it that way.”

We’re both silent for several minutes as he puts the potatoes in a bowl and pours in some olive oil and then opens a drawer and starts pulling out spices and tossing those in the bowl as well. Then he mixes it all with a spoon and pours the mixture on a baking sheet.

He turns to the stove, and as he’s turning the dials and putting the baking sheet in the oven, I watch his back muscles flex under his t-shirt and check out his amazing ass and wonder what it is about a man in jeans and bare feet that is just so damn sexy.

I take another huge gulp of wine.

He takes a bagged Caesar salad out of the fridge and brings it back to the counter, winking and saying, “Not everything home made. Don’t hold it against me.”

I laugh. “Please. I’m already completely impressed.”

“Reserve that until you’ve tasted everything.” He grins and the mood seems to have lightened.

He turns the steaks over, and as he’s mixing the salad in a bowl, he says, “Evie, the eulogy you gave for your friend, Willow. Tell me about that.” He looks up at me and his eyes are sharp, focused.

“I’m talking too much about myself, again. How does that happen every time I’m with you?”

“Indulge me, you’re fascinating to me.”

I roll my eyes. That’s me –
fascinating
. But I answer him anyway. “I used to tell Willow stories when we were kids and lived together in foster care. She loved them, and even after we were adults and I would go over and clean her up from whatever mess she had gotten herself into; drug hangover, shit kicked out of her by a boyfriend, whatever.” I wave my hand, trying to banish the images that immediately assault my brain. “Even as an adult she would ask me to tell her one of
her
stories. She would ask for them by name, even in a completely inebriated state sometimes.”

“Sounds like she felt special in the ownership of them. She probably didn’t have ownership of a lot. That’s beautiful, Evie,” Jake says gently.

I stare at him silently for a minute because that
is
beautiful when he puts it that way.

But I say, “In the beginning, it was just stupid kid stuff. I had a vivid imagination.” I laugh but it sounds hollow even to my own ears.

“It came in handy. Just a kid trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, you know?”

He nods as if he understands, which of course he doesn’t but it’s nice anyway. It’s so hard to explain growing up in foster care to someone who has no concept of that type of childhood. Of course, Jake hasn’t told me anything about his own childhood so I don’t know what his upbringing was like. Obviously his family has money though so it was eons apart from mine, at least in that respect.

“Will you tell me about Leo?” he says.

I take a sip of my wine. “Jake, I’ve shared a lot tonight, and it felt good and that surprises me because I don’t make it a habit of bringing up my past very often, but can we save Leo for another time? Is that okay?”

I don’t tell him that I’m struggling a little bit with the feeling that I’m betraying Leo somehow, even though rationally I know that’s ridiculous. He threw me away a long time ago, and he’s not even of this earth anymore. I cringe inwardly with the thought.

He stares at me for a few seconds, and I start squirming at his intense gaze so I ask him what he’s thinking.

He comes around the bar and sits on the stool next to me, and I turn toward him and he takes my hand and says, “I was just thinking about how much I appreciate you sharing with me tonight. And I was also thinking that from where I’m standing, you’ve done a pretty remarkable job of not letting your past make you hard. There’s not a harsh or bitter thing about you, not a single thing, not your attitude, not the way you hold yourself, not your eyes, not your smile, not the way you treat people, always taking care of the people who are lucky enough to have your love, and that’s just you. Life obviously took a lot from you, and I know you’ve been cut deep, but the fact that you relied on yourself to make it through and that you didn’t let it make you cynical or cold, that is all you. Own that. That’s what I was thinking.”

A tear slips out of my eye, I can’t help it. He’s making slow circles with his thumb on my hand and staring at me with those soulful brown eyes and that’s when I fall in love with him, just sitting in his kitchen, I fall head over heels.

He smiles at me and gestures to the small glass table in the eating area next to the bar, and I stand up and walk there as he pulls two placemats out of a drawer and puts them down on the table and then places napkins and silverware for each of us.

I sit down, and he returns to the kitchen to dish up two plates and returns with them, and the bottle of wine.

He refills our glasses, and we dig into the food, which is completely delicious.

“Okay, truly impressed,” I say. “This is amazing.” And it is. The steak is tender and succulent and the potatoes are spiced perfectly with crispy skin on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. The salad is crisp and even though it’s from a bag, it’s the perfect compliment to the dinner Jake’s made from scratch.

When we’ve eaten in silence for a few minutes, I say, “Will you tell me about your parents? How did your dad pass?” I glance at him, nervous that I’ve brought up a painful subject, but he answers quickly.

“Heart attack. It was sudden. He lingered for a week afterwards but got a blood clot. That’s what actually killed him.”

“I’m sorry, Jake.” I pause because his face seems like it’s gotten hard. “You must miss him.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I do. I wasted a lot of years with my dad that I can’t ever get back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. Really. It wasn’t ok for a long time but I’ve come to a place where I’m getting there.” He pauses for a minute before he continues. “I realize now that there are a lot of paths in life. Some we choose and some are chosen for us. I was dealt some shit, just like a lot of us are, and I made a lot of poor choices too. I have to take responsibility for those. But the only thing we’ll get from trying to figure out where another path would have taken us are questions there are no answers to, and heartbreak that can’t be healed. Regardless of how we got there, all any of us can do is move forward from where we are.”

He pauses and then says, “I’ll tell you all about it, Evie. You’ve already given me so much of you, and I want to give you me, but not tonight. Tonight, I want to enjoy dinner and enjoy you and not bring up a bunch of shit that’s going to put me in a bad mood. Okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper, because it is. I feel like I know everything and nothing about Jake both at the same time and how can this be? I know how hard it is to share painful things with people, and that you have to feel ready to do that, no one should ever push you. I also know for sure that the man sitting in front of me is a
good
man. The rest will come. Everyone has a past, right?

He grabs my hand and squeezes it, and we finish our meal and then I help him clear the table. I rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher as he drops the pans in the sink to soak.

I excuse myself to use his restroom, and when I come back, he takes my hand and leads me to the couch. He pulls me down on his lap so that I’m straddling him and then his eyes get lazy, and
God, that’s beautiful.
I put my mouth on his because I can’t stop myself. I lick the seam of his lips and he opens for me, and I’m the one to moan this time as he takes the back of my head in his hand and tilts it so that he can plunge his tongue in deep, and then we’re kissing like we can’t get enough of each other, like if a herd of zebras trampled through his living room right now, we wouldn’t even come up for air.

A growl comes from deep in his throat, and a flood of wetness saturates the area between my legs and so I grind down on his lap and he tears his mouth from mine.

“
Fuck!”
he clips and his eyes are fiery. “God, Evie, you feel so fucking good.” He’s breathing hard.

“Jake,” I say, breathing hard too, “I’m not sleeping in the guest room tonight.”

“Thank fucking Christ.”

Then he stands up with me still in his arms, and I wrap my legs around his waist, and he carries me down the hall to his bedroom, kissing me the whole way.

CHAPTER 14

Jake nudges his half-closed bedroom door open with his shoulder. Although the room is dim, the only light coming from a door that is barely cracked leading to what I’m assuming is the master bath, I can see that it’s similarly decorated to the rest of the condo. There is a huge, and I mean
huge,
black four-poster bed against the far wall, two sleek, black dressers and a set of white bedside tables flanking the bed. On the floor is a white, fluffy rug that looks like it’s supposed to mimic an animal skin. The bedding looks like it’s dark gray and white, although because of the low lighting, I can’t be one completely sure.

Jake deposits me in the middle of his bed, and then stands up and removes his shirt. My mouth almost falls open at the sight of his bare, male beauty. I have a second to drink him in before he is back on the bed with me, and then his hands are up my sweater, my arms are forced up, and it’s being pulled over my head. I hear it lightly hit the floor, and then Jake pulls back and is looking down at me, and even in the dim light, I can see that his eyes are dark with something that looks hungry. My heart jumps in my chest at the power of it.

“Help me out, Evie, I want to feel your skin on mine.”

Yes, yes, I want to feel that too.

And so I sit up slightly, unhook my bra and pull the straps down my arms and drop it on the floor. This is the first time a man has seen me naked, and I feel self-conscious for a second, but then the look of appreciation on Jake’s face makes me relax.

He stares down at me for several long beats and then whispers, “Christ, even more beautiful than I imagined.”

Then his mouth is on mine, his tongue in my mouth and his warm, hard chest against my breasts, and my hands are gliding over his back and his hips are rolling against me and
God, that feels amazing,
and so I whimper into his mouth, to which he moans back into mine.

And maybe I should slow this down because I’m a virgin, and I don’t know if Jake figured that out after I told him about my nonexistent dating life or not. But I think I should probably make sure that he’s aware of that if this is going to go well.

He leans off me slightly as he kisses down my neck, and one of his hands comes up and cups my breast from underneath, and his thumb rubs over my nipple, and I whimper, my hips bucking up and pressing into Jake’s hardness. He growls low in his throat and then lowers his mouth to my nipple and sucks it into his mouth, and starts licking and sucking until I think I’m going to die with pleasure. He moves over to my other breast, and now my hands are in his hair and I’m moaning because I didn’t know anything could feel so good, and I never,
ever
want him to stop.

I move one hand down his back again, and my other hand moves down to explore the warm skin over the defined muscles of his stomach, and he sucks in a breath, his mouth coming off my breast as he gazes at me. At the look of blatant lust on his face, I blurt out, “I’m a virgin.”

He keeps gazing at me, and his eyes, impossibly, seem to warm even more. He’s looking at me so intensely, and I feel self conscious, and so I whisper, “Is that okay?”

“In the history of the world, nothing has ever been more okay,” he says, and his voice sounds deep and warm and slightly husky.

Then his mouth is back on mine, licking, sucking, nipping, and it feels greedy and demanding, and I
love
it. I feel his hand on the zipper of my jeans, and I lose his heat as he kneels up and takes my boots off and then pulls my jeans and panties down my legs. He tosses all of it on the floor and then he’s back over me, kissing me again, and I feel one of his hands slide down between my legs, and gently push them apart. I shiver, and he brings his head up and whispers, “Open for me,” and I do as he says.