Perfect Kiss (23 page)

She’s leaving.

“Shelby, don’t. I’m sorry you saw that. That’s not me. I would never hurt you. Don’t leave,” he pleaded, his voice cracking.

Slowly, she’d turned around and Levi saw her face for the first time since he’d asked her to stay with him in the bar. That’s when his heart shattered into a million pieces. Not because she was leaving, although that was killing him. No, his heart was broken because of the pain—which was so clearly etched in her beautiful features—his actions had caused her.

Her irises were strikingly blue because of the redness that surrounded them. And tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m
so
sorry that I scared you. I know that doesn’t mean anything, and there’s no excuse for it,” Levi spoke softly. As much as he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, kiss her, and make sure she knew she was safe, he knew he couldn’t do that because
he
was the reason she was this upset. “He just showed up…and there’s a lot of history there.”

Shelby nodded, but he wasn’t sure what that meant. Was she saying that she understood? Accepting his apology? Saying that she wouldn’t leave?

It was tearing him apart that he didn’t know.

“Talk to me, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

As she looked down at the bag in her hands, confusion and misery swept over her face. “I don’t…I don’t know,” she whispered.

“What can I do?” he asked, hearing the desperation in his own voice. “Just tell me what to do.”

When she looked back up at him, he saw a little light already back in her eyes. “Nothing.”

“Shelby, please don’t leave.” He stepped forward, but she held her hand up. He stopped on a dime.

“I’m not leaving. Not right now. But I want you to go. I just… I need time to think.”

“Please, let me explain.”

“I know that wasn’t like you. It wasn’t your fault. I just… I need some time.”

Levi was torn between respecting Shelby’s wishes and not wanting to leave her alone like this. “Can I at least call someone? Your brother or Amy?”

“No!” she snapped. “I’m fine. Really. Don’t bother them.” Then, putting on a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, one he was sure was solely for his benefit, she said, “I’ll be in tonight for my shift. I just need some time alone.”

“Shelby…”

“Please,” she pleaded.

Not knowing what else to do, Levi did what she’d asked. A soul-deep sense of helplessness washed over him as he walked out of the cabin. The cabin that he dreamed of owning and was now his. The cabin where he’d made love to Shelby. The cabin where he’d fallen in love with Shelby. The cabin he wasn’t welcome in because he’d scared the only woman he’d ever loved.

How had his life gotten so fucked up so fast? Oh, that’s right. His father.

Levi might not have known what to do about Shelby, but he definitely knew what to do about his old man. He had a phone call to make.

Chapter 20

‡

“C
an I get you boys another round?” Shelby asked two of the firefighters who, over the past month, had become her regulars. They came in three to five times a week, drank, played pool, and flirted shamelessly. They also tipped really well.

“Yep. Put it on my tab,” Eli, who she mentally referred to as “TDH” (tall, dark, and handsome), nodded as he tipped his almost-empty pint glass towards her.

“Next one’s on me,” Casey, who she’d nicknamed “surfer boy” because of his laid back, easy going personality and because he had dirty blonde hair, tan skin, and eyes that matched the ocean, insisted.

“You got it.” She grinned as she poured them two more lagers.

“I’m gonna hit the head,” Casey announced loudly as he stood.

Eli lifted his glass to him. “Thanks for the update, C-dog.”

My nickname is better
, Shelby thought to herself.

When she set Eli’s beer down, he placed his hand over hers and lowered his voice. With genuine concern shining through his inky-black eyes, he asked, “Hey, is everything okay? You don’t seem like yourself tonight.”

Shelby grinned as she pulled her hand back and waved it dismissively. “Everything’s fine. I’m just tired.”

“Okay,” he said, not sounding convinced. “I know we tease and joke around a lot, but if you need to talk, I’m here.”

“Thanks,” she said with a genuine smile. “I appreciate that.”

She really did. The entire town had kind of adopted her as their own, and it was pretty nice.

“And if you need me to kick anyone’s ass,” Eli announced loudly and pointedly towards Levi, who was at the other end of the bar, “just say the word.”

She laughed as Levi stared Eli down even though they were good friends. Then she shook her head. “No ass-kicking necessary, but thanks for the offer.”

“All right.” Eli winked at her as Casey returned, and they started debating an umpire’s call on a baseball game that happened twenty years ago.

Men and sports.
As long as she lived, she didn’t think she’d ever get it.

“Hey. You doin’ okay?” Levi asked as he reached behind her to get the strainer.

His voice caused that good ol’ faithful Levi-tingle to run from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Well, his voice
or
the warmth of his breath on her neck.
Or
it could be the hard muscle of his forearm that lightly brushed against her lower back as he’d grabbed what he needed. It was one of those things. She could take her pick.

“Yep.” She nodded as she continued working, unable to look up at him. She could feel his eyes on her, just like she had the entire night. As normal as she was trying to act, she knew he could see right through it, and apparently, so could Eli.

Still, as much as she wanted to glance up at the coffee-colored eyes she could easily drown in, she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not because she was mad at him—she honestly wasn’t. She just wasn’t sure how to process everything that was going on with her, and she knew she needed to do it on her own. Levi had given her herself back, and she had to figure this out without the distraction and temptation that looking into his eyes would bring.

All afternoon, she’d tried to figure out what everything that had happened meant for the two of them. Not that there was even a “two of them.” They’d talked about a lot of things after she’d seduced him into her bed last night—about their dreams, their plans, their futures. Just not “their” future. As optimistic as she’d felt eight hours ago when she’d come into open the bar, the incident this afternoon had tipped the scales towards the opposite end of the spectrum.

When Levi moved back down the bar, talking to Sue Ann and Renata, Shelby couldn’t help but sneak a peek. As he shook the ladies’ drinks and poured them all while being his laughing, teasing, charming self, it was hard for her to see the man who had lost control this afternoon.

Clearing the empty glasses from the bar, she thought back to the first time Kevin had hit her. The act itself had shocked her. Embarrassed her. Confused her. Made her feel ashamed. But, looking back, she realized that his behavior hadn’t really
surprised
her. Even when he was apologizing, making excuses, telling her that it would never happen again, she could still see the same man who had hit her, and she realized he’d always been there, a monster lurking in the shadows.

Even though months passed before the next time Kevin used her as his personal punching bag, it was like once she’d seen him in that light, that was the only way she could ever see him. Kind of how you look at those pictures that have words hidden in them—once your eyes find the hidden text, you know that it’s there. You can’t
un
-see it. That was exactly what had happened with Kevin.

When Levi had followed her into the cabin this afternoon, Shelby hadn’t wanted to look at him because she was afraid, even if only on a subconscious level, that it would be the same with Levi. That from that day forward all she’d be able to see was the cold, detached, angry man that he’d transformed into before her eyes. But when she’d turned around from the closet, ready to face her biggest fear, it hadn’t been the case. She’d just seen Levi. The same Levi she always saw. Her Levi.

So she’d tried to shut down all the panic and fear the altercation had brought to the surface, to ignore the ugly feelings, to push them aside. But then she realized that that was the exact pattern she’d been in with Kevin. Whenever there would be an episode, she would suppress, ignore, and deny anything that she felt about it. The similarities brought up so many confusing emotions that it had overwhelmed her. It had been too much, too confusing, so she’d told Levi that she’d needed time.

At first, when Levi hadn’t wanted to leave, Shelby had figured that it was because he’d wanted to say what he’d wanted to say, for her to tell him that everything was okay, that she wasn’t upset. Then he’d offered to call Matt or Amy and she’d freaked out a little—or maybe a lot. Her brother had no idea what had happened to her, and she planned on keeping it that way. After that, she made him leave.

During the hours she’d spent alone trying to figure out what her next move was going to be—if she was going to keep working for Levi, live at his cabin, even stay in Hope Falls—something had dawned on her. The reason Levi hadn’t wanted to leave her this afternoon had nothing to do with him wanting his say or her accepting his apology and giving him absolution—it had to do with her. He had been worried about
her,
not himself. That’s why he looked like he wanted to puke when she’d told him to go. Because he was worried about
her
.

“Hello there, Spunky!” Uncle Henry bellowed as he stepped up and pulled out a barstool.

She’d been so distracted that she hadn’t even heard him come in. When she looked up and saw him, she leaned over the bar and threw her arms around him.

“Oh boy. What’s wrong?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her.

As tears started filling her eyes, she sniffed, stood up, and tried as ninja-like as possible to wipe them before her uncle saw them.

“Nothing. I just missed you.” She smiled as brightly as she could as she enthused, “I’m glad you’re back.”

Henry had just returned that afternoon from a two-week business trip. So the timing of her mini breakdown could not have been better if she’d orchestrated it herself. Still, when she saw the look on her uncle’s face, it was clear that he was looking at her like she had ocean-front property in Arizona and he was not buying it.

Thankfully, just as he was about to ask what had to be a follow-up question about her well-being, mental and otherwise, the bar got slammed and she was barely able to say two words to him the rest of the night. He sat at a table with a few people who served on the city council. When they were all leaving, he asked if she was free for lunch the next day. Shelby agreed. She knew he’d probably ask her a lot of questions she didn’t want to answer, but after her mini breakdown this afternoon, even though, logically, she knew that Levi was nothing like Kevin, she decided that maybe it was time to talk.

Chapter 21

‡

“L
ast call!” Levi yelled.

There were only about a half dozen stragglers hanging out, and it had taken serious willpower not to close an hour ago so he could have some time with Shelby.

All night, he’d been asking her if she was okay. He’d sounded like a broken record. At least twenty times he’d asked the same question, and each time, he’d received the same reply. She was fine. But he knew better; she wasn’t fine.

The real question he needed to be asking himself was what he was going to do about it.

“Do you need me to call you ladies a cab?” he asked two girls who had just graduated college and were up in Hope Falls for vacation. He’d cut them off about an hour ago, refilling their waters constantly. They seemed to have sobered up a little, but they’d both been pretty tipsy. He wanted to make sure they weren’t driving.

“Actually…” The brunette, whose name was Leah, Lisa, or something with an L, ran her finger across the back of his hand he had resting on the bar. “We were wondering if you’d like to come home. With
us
.”

Levi was no stranger to threesome invitations. He’d accepted more than his fair share. And, in his experience, if you are a lucky enough bastard to have the choice, two really was better than one. Any guy who said different was either a liar or, as was the case with him, in love with some
one
. In that case, one wasn’t just better than two. It wasn’t even the right choice—
one
was his only choice.

He wasn’t delusional. Levi was painfully aware of the fact that he and Shelby weren’t together. Hell, they were barely even speaking at this point. But considering the fact that she’d all but killed his sex life before he’d even
been
with her, now that he had, it was obliterated.

“Sorry, ladies. I’m not available.”

If Levi couldn’t be with Shelby, then his sex life was going to have a threesome all right. It would consist of he, himself, and him.

Both girls pushed their bottom lips out in pouts. A pouty lip used to be cute to him; now, it read as kind of desperate.

“Please? We promise you’ll have a good time,” the brunette purred while the blonde seductively assured him, “And it will be our little secret. Our lips are sealed.” To demonstrate her point, she wrapped her lips around the straw that was sticking out of her water and sucked so hard that her cheeks hollowed.

Just as he was about to continue letting them down as gently as possible, Shelby took care of it for him when she walked up and introduced herself to the girls…as his
girlfriend
. He was shocked as hell, but not complaining.

She was friendly and thanked them for stopping by, even told them a “town secret” that JT’s was the local hangout for the firefighters who had their own best-selling yearly calendar. Levi watched her moves and was, as always, impressed as hell. The girls left feeling like Shelby was now their friend, and they were excited to come back tomorrow night to meet the Firefighter Calendar Hotties of Hope Falls.