Make You Miss Me by B. Celeste
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Want to go for a walk?” The question has me looking up from the pathway I just finished shoveling. I see the furry paws first, then the work boots next, eyes raking up the jeans and jacket I’ve seen plenty of times before at this point.
I smile. “Hi.” Glancing at my work, I lift a shoulder. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind a walk.”
Putting my shovel away, I pull my zipper a little higher up, make sure my door is locked, and my keys are safely in my coat pocket and meet Fletcher and Admiral at the end of the driveway.
He gestures toward the driveway I spent the last twenty minutes clearing. “I was planning on taking care of that for you after I walked Admiral.”
I shove my hands into my pockets and smile at him thoughtfully. “That’s why I have a shovel. I knew I’d have to take care of it when I moved. No big deal.”
He looks forward as we walk down the sidewalk, letting Admiral guide us as he sniffs around and stops every so often to mark his territory.
It’s a few comfortably quiet minutes of only our boots crunching against the salted pavement, and the sound of a gentle breeze rattling the snow-covered tree branches before the man beside me decides to speak. “You said something a little while ago that stuck with me. That when you’re in love, you feel invincible.”
His eyes remain forward while mine sneak a peek at his profile, curious about why he’s bringing this up now. I barely even remember saying it, but it’s obvious he’s thought about it for almost a solid month by now.
“I never felt invincible.”
I blink. He never…?
Looking down at me, he scans over my face. “Trace and I were never that serious. Hate to be one of those guys who admits that I found someone to have fun with, but that’s what it was, and that’s the kind of guy I’d been. I was looking for casual. Whatever you want to call it.” His eyes go back to Admiral again before glancing around us. I notice his shoulders tightening as they square off. “When she found out she was pregnant, I’d wanted to make it more serious than it was. Settle down. Have a family since it was going to happen either way. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
He got married to her because she was pregnant. That’s…I don’t know quite what to think. It isn’t uncommon. It’s even a little admirable in a way.
“Can’t say we were miserable, but I can’t say either of us were completely happy either. Jacob, the man she’s with now, he makes her smile more than I ever could. I’m not an easy man to get along with sometimes. I like routine and don’t take change well. Doesn’t mean I won’t give it a shot. I’m just…”
“Stubborn,” I supply.
He cracks a smile. “Stuck in my ways.”
“Same thing.”
We share an amused look before he lifts a shoulder in reluctance. “She met Jake when we were still together. Dominic was about three. I could have been angry, should have been furious, to find out she’d been talking to somebody behind my back. I believe her when she said nothing happened between them. Traci’s a good woman. Always has been. She was just thrown into trying to make something work that we should have never bothered with, same as me.”
I wait for a few long heartbeats before I ask him, “Are you sad about it not working out?”
He shakes his head without hesitation. “I think when I realized I wasn’t upset that she met someone else, I knew. In fact, I was relieved that she found Jake.”
My brows go up.
“Pretty fucked up, isn’t it?”
“No,” I reply quickly. “No, I mean, as long as there’s no big heartbreak. I don’t know much about her or you two, but it seems like you get along well enough. If there’s one thing vital in any co-parenting relationship, it’s that type of civility. I’ve seen a lot since starting at Stanton. Heard even worse during my college years when I did teacher observations and student teaching in different school districts. If you get along with Traci, if you’re happy for her, then I don’t think that’s messed up at all.”
We stop when Admiral starts sniffing at the base of a tree on the curb. Fletcher looks at me, head cocked, those impressive, intense, dark eyes narrowed slightly. Half of his lips quirk up like something I said is funny to him. “You don’t swear much, do you?”
I snort unattractively before I can stop myself. “I do, actually, but I try to be good about it. The last thing I need to do is drop an f-bomb in the middle of my classroom with a bunch of fifth graders there to witness it. And I’ve come close.”
I almost miss the snicker. Almost. “Hard to imagine you dropping the f-bomb, honey. I kind of like that about you.”
The back of my shoulders tingle, sending the sensation all the way up my neck and down to my fingertips as I replay what he called me.
Honey.
He said it in such a soft tone that I have to do my best not to make a face or become too confused with the flutters filling my stomach—a feeling I haven’t had in a long, long time.
“Well, sorry to say that I’m known to indulge in more than that. On occasion, I’ll drop other classics like ‘ass’ and ‘damn’ or the big one.” His eyebrows raise in amused inquiry. “H-E-L-L. Or, as the kids like to say, h-e-double hockey sticks.”
The loud, boisterous laugh coming from him shakes his entire torso, and the sound…it does something to me. I’ve never known a laugh could be so attractive because I’ve never reacted to one the way I am with his rumbling. But the way he tosses his head back unapologetically makes me stare in awe, feeling my heart quicken a few beats faster than normal as I watch those broad shoulders shake.
The man who usually looks like the weight of the world is stacked on his shoulders, the soldier who’s always plotting the next move, figuring every way out of a scenario while weighing his options, looks carefree for once. Not one time have I ever seen him like this. Certainly not when I visited Hunter on base or lived there briefly with him and would cross paths with the man in civilian clothes beside me, and rarely since moving here.
His new decorum—looser, eased—is sexy.
There’s no denying it.
No pretending that I don’t find him attractive. Not just in this state, as he chuckles to himself and shakes his head, but in every state he’s shown me. The stoic, stone-faced one, the version that’s closed off, and everything in between.
I don’t know what to do with that realization. That acknowledgment. Because there’s got to be some sort of rule book that says you can’t find your ex-husband’s old boss sexy, much less like him in a capacity more than platonic.
And I do.
God, I do.
Because Fletcher Miller has so many layers to him that I doubt many people see, but I do. He’s let me see them, experience them. He’s shown me kindness and respect, treated me with warmth, helped me when he could have looked the other way. And, sure, there are times his bluntness irritates me, but it shows that he’s been looking out for me from the start.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice calmer now, level again as he studies my face.
I have no idea what my expression must look like, so I quickly collect my thoughts and file them away for now. “Nothing. Just…it’s nice to hear you laugh, is all. You don’t do it very often.”
Whether he believes that’s all I’m thinking or not, he chooses not to call me out on it. “I’m like you with swearing. I do it, but it depends on the situation. Nicki makes me laugh all the time.”
My heart warms even more for this man.
It’s not until we’re walking back toward my house a solid fifteen or twenty minutes later, our arms practically touching because we inched ourselves closer to one another at some point when I decide to ask him something I’ve never let myself think about for too long before.
“When Traci told you that nothing happened between her and Jacob when you two were married, and you said you believed her, did you have any doubt at all?” My voice is quiet, hesitant, knowing I shouldn’t be poking this bear.
“Trace was a lot of things, but she was never a cheater,” he answers simply, firmly.
I nod, my head bobbing up and down slowly as I think about that.
“Fletcher?”
We stop at the end of my driveway, his eyes on my face, mine struggling to stay on his when I want to look away. “I was wondering if…maybe you knew if…” Not able to say the words, I drop my gaze and let hair cascade over my face like a waterfall shielding the emotions building in my expression.
Warm fingers brush my cheekbones, combing the hair gently behind my ear before they tip my chin up to meet his eyes. Tingles linger from the ghost of his touch. He studies me, first one eye, then the other, then my face in its entire frailty over my inquiry.
He knows what I’m asking. “I wish I could tell you the answer, honey, but the truth is, I told my men that what they do is on them. I made it clear that I wasn’t responsible for any of the poor decisions they made, as long as it didn’t impact the team as a whole.”
I swallow, not able to look away because his fingers still have my chin held in a gentle lock. “He told me he never cheated, and I want to believe him. I do. But…”
He waits patiently for me to finish my thought, the pad of his thumb brushing my jaw and raising tiny goosebumps over my skin in the process.
“Sometimes I wish he did,” I admit weakly, teeth grinding and shame taking over where the butterflies had resided only minutes ago. “Because then I could hate him. I would have been able to move on long before now because I had nothing to hold onto.”
Fletcher does what I least expect.
He steps into me, wraps those thick, hard-earned muscular arms around me, and pulls me into his warm body.
A hug.
He’s hugging me.
And even though I tell myself not to, I melt into his hold anyway.