Loving the White Liar (15 page)

Great, within a two minute phone call I had confessed my love regarding her son, lied to her, and then ratted him out.

Way to go, Hil!

Something in the way she hesitated didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to go to him, but decided to text instead.

Me: Let me know you’re alive or I’m coming over to have a long and torturous conversation about our relationship. You’ve got two minutes to answer me.

A minute later, I got a reply.

Jayden: I love you too.

Tears burst from my eyes as I sighed in relief.

Me: I miss you.

Jayden: I’ll call you.

Me: Let me be there for you. I can handle it.

He didn’t reply. I resigned myself to give him the space he asked for. I knew it was so he could avoid showing me the ugly side of him.

In bed, I wrapped myself in my blanket, dipping pretzels in peanut butter and watching
The Brady Bunch
until sleep claimed me.

Two days later, I still had not received a phone call. I’d stopped texting him the day before. The understanding girlfriend was now bitterly pissed. He’d replied to two of my texts, but still insisted he’d call me later. Deciding that when he did come around we were going to have a serious talk, I left him alone. My worry for my relationship was still brewing in the background as my pride and self-respect took the forefront. I wasn’t going to beg to see him. It was beneath me. But the fact that he didn’t want me around hurt the most.

I busied myself with work and spent my nights cooking, something I’d missed with all my time with Jayden. I would make it a point to let him know I wanted to do it more often. I walked into my apartment, determined to make the best mushroom risotto in the history of the world, followed by a homemade tiramisu and chocolate wine. I heard music coming out of the bathroom and greeted Gerri.

“Hey, woman! I bought a ton of good food to make tonight. My asshole boyfriend still hasn’t called so it looks like I’ll be using my vibrator for the first time in almost four mon—” My sentence was cut short when I reached the kitchen. Still holding my grocery bags I slid halfway across the floor before I landed flat on my back. I blinked and then realized I was staring at the ceiling when the pain shot up through my hips and burst in a shockwave right above my ass. The burning from the wind being knocked out of me reminded me I was alive as I began to bitch at the pain. “Ow! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!” In one moment I saw ceiling and the next I saw Jay’s face pop into view.

“Oh my God, baby, are you okay? Fuck, I was trying to catch you before you walked in here!”

Mentally assessing the damage to my screaming body, and completely confused, I realized there was liquid pooling between my legs. “Am I bleeding?”

“No, it’s your wine.” He picked up the leaking bottle, setting it aside, as well as one of the grocery bags I was still hugging to me as he hovered over me. I tried to get up, but he stopped me.

“Stay still. Did you hit your head?” I took in his violet-blue eyes looking down at me, his perfect full lips, the sweet divot in his chin, and had to remind myself I was mad at him.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, let’s do this slowly.” He reached behind me, pulling my upper body to rest in his lap. I winced in pain and he mimicked my wince. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I wanted to surprise you.”

“So you decided to break my ass!”

“I just got done mopping in here. I was in the bathroom when I heard you come in.”

“Great, then you know you’re an asshole!” I was angry about my wipeout, but more furious that all I wanted to do after days of him shutting me out was throw my arms around him and beg him never to do it again. I knew I was head over heels, but needy was not my style.

“I know,” he said, rubbing my face gently with his hand that reeked of Pine-Sol. Or maybe I did, or maybe my ass did. I felt the cold seeping through my back and shivered.

“Help me up, I’m good.” He helped me to my feet and we both slipped momentarily. He picked me up and put me on the carpet before he started to clean up my mess of groceries while I stared after him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Gerri let me in,” he said, avoiding my bitch face and my question.

“Fine, let yourself out.” I walked into my room and shut the door, tearing off my clothes and throwing them in a heap on the floor before freezing when I noticed all the candles lit around my room. His iPod was on my dock as
The Beatles
serenaded me with
If I Fell
. I instantly felt guilty, but had to remind myself that I was pissed and I had a right to be. I walked into my bathroom and gasped. It was lit with even more candles and on the side of the tub sat two tins, one filled with white rose petals, the other with a lavender bath perfume. He was going to make me a bath. I started the water and did his bidding, filling my nose with what turned out to be vanilla and lavender tonic—a smell I’d mentioned I was addicted to during one of our first conversations. Sitting on the toilet seat was a new, long, white silk negligee and a fluffy robe.

“I figured I’d be practical with the robe. You’d want it comfy.” I turned to look at him and saw he was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, attempting to read my mood, which had continually shifted in the last ten minutes.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” I said with tears in my eyes. “I can’t decide whether to love you or hate you from one minute to the next.”

“I told you loving me wasn’t easy, Hil,” he said hoarsely, his eyes begging for forgiveness.

“It’s so easy to love you, Jayden. Too easy. It’s only hard when you won’t let me.” In two strides he was in front of me, cupping my face.

“You are it for me. You need to know that. I won’t be the perfect man, ever. I won’t even come close, but for you I’ll fight hard to be. I have all this shit going on in my head twenty-four/seven. It never ends. It’s incessant and can turn me into a ticking time bomb, and I won’t let you be a casualty.”

“I don’t need anything more than what you’ve given me already, Jayden. You don’t
have to be
anything but yourself. I’ve never felt like this, ever. It’s so strong what I feel for you. You can’t shut me out like that. It hurt so much.” He wiped twin tears away from my cheeks. “Please don’t shut me out again.”

“I’ll try, baby. I will, I swear. I’m just not me when I get like that. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He reached down and turned off the water. “Get in the tub. You smell like a pinecone. I’ll go clean up then get in with you.”

I nodded.

“Okay,” he said, turning back to me. “Are you in pain?”

“Kind of,” I said truthfully. My ass did feel broken.

“I’ll get you some Tylenol.” I nodded, sinking into the hot bath.

Minutes later, he returned, handing me two aspirin and some water. I felt more relaxed than I had in days as he slid off his clothes and I watched, unashamed. He looked so damn beautiful bared before me. I appreciated every inch of his naked ass as he turned off the bathroom light so only the candles lit the room. He joined me, slipping in on the opposite side of the tub then pulled my feet into his lap. I winced again and he saw it.

“Should we take you to the ER and get you seen?”

“It’s not that bad,” I said quietly, leaning further into the back of the tub to take the pressure off my behind.

“I’ll go get you another bottle of that wine,” he said apologetically.

“It’s fine. I don’t need it.” Jayden took a single white petal with his fingertip and swirled it around in the water. I had to admit, the atmosphere he’d created was completely intoxicating. Being surrounded by a scented bath with white rose petals in a room full of candlelight was surreal.

After a few minutes of silence, he looked up at me. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell me what happened,” I pleaded, hoping for some insight into what had caused him to push me away.

“It’s hard to explain,” he said, cupping some water in his hands and rinsing his face. “Man, that smells amazing. I get why you like it.”

“Jayden,” I said in warning.

“Okay.” He let out a long breath. “It’s like a tidal wave that’s impossible to stop. I just get sad and a little scared. It’s not clinical, but it’s rough. I feel like everything’s wrong. Nothing will get better. You know, hopeless.”

I nodded as I felt the discomfort he was feeling from telling me.

“It doesn’t happen a lot, once or twice a year, and it doesn’t last long. It’s not even really a symptom of ADHD. I don’t know. I guess my racing brain just gets tired and I shut down. It’s all about the chemicals in my brain. You know what ADHD is, right?”

“I’m beginning to think I don’t,” I said honestly. “I started to look it up the other night and then your mom called.”

“My mom called?”

“Yes, we are going to a barbeque Saturday.”

“No shit,” he said, smiling. “What did she say?”

“Nothing, really. I’m the one that did most of the blabbing. I was nervous.”

Jayden picked up a sponge from the side of the tub and poured some liquid soap on it to suds it up then began rubbing my leg with it. “She’s going to love you, Hilary.”

“Oh yeah, how do you know that?”

“I know her.” He grinned, working the sponge on my other leg.

“Thank you for all this. It’s nice. You didn’t have to.”

“I was going to make it so much better. I didn’t think you would be home so early.”

“Our last client was at four, so Marcy let me off early,” I explained as Jayden’s sponge drifted over my stomach as he crept closer to me. Still working his sponge, he managed to lift me by my arms, pulling me into his seated lap. I felt his growing hardness as I wrapped my legs around him. His muscled arms firmly around me, he used the sponge on my back as he stared into my eyes.

“I missed you.”

“You didn’t have to,” I protested, looking away. I didn’t want to cry again. I didn’t want him to think of me as weak. I wanted him to be able to trust that I could handle it.

“Look at me,” he ordered gently, gripping me tighter as he continued to bathe me. “I wasn’t there.”

I nodded. “I’ll live. I...You didn’t tell me about that part.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to the person you are falling for that they might not want to reciprocate your affection because you may on occasion have an uncontrollable, explosive temper tantrum? Or that you may pop off with inappropriate comments at any point in time that could alienate them? Oh, and don’t forget the controlling, OCD tendencies with a small, short-lived side of anxiety and depression. Or better yet, how to explain you weren’t listening to something important they were trying to convey because you were too busy figuring out the difference between jelly and jam.”

“Just like that,” I answered, knowing it wasn’t that simple.

“How likely would you have been to return my calls?”

“I don’t think anything could’ve stopped us,” I said quickly. “And I don’t care if you drink blood once a month from a one legged whore. I love you.”

He burst out laughing as he dropped the sponge then pulled me to his lips, kissing me deeply. Suddenly I was all too aware of the hardness between us.

“Did my mushrooms make it?” I asked between kisses.

“Yes, and everything else. Thank God that bottle didn’t break,” he said, biting my lip.

“Good, then tonight
I’m
cooking dinner.”

He pulled away and gave me a puzzled look. “I have no objection to that.”

“You never let me cook,” I bitched, making sure I brought up all the points I wanted to make before I let him ravage me.

“You never asked to,” he whispered before capturing my nipple in his mouth. I moaned and bucked my hips as he licked and sucked, circling my bud over and over. My sex pulsed as he moved up my chest to my neck. “Fuck, you look so sexy in candlelight.” He nuzzled my neck as I gripped his arms, moving myself along his hardness.

“What was that about replacing me with a vibrator?” I froze as he chuckled then pulled away to catch the fresh heat in my face.

“You deserved it,” I replied coyly.

“Maybe,” he whispered as his hand trailed down between us and his fingers began to taunt me. “Or maybe you just need to be reminded of who owns this.”