Make You Miss Me by B. Celeste

CHAPTER TWENTY

Itry not to think about the hug, but I fail on many occasions. When I’m left alone to my thoughts, I think about how one of those big hands had moved to cup the back of my head and thread those long fingers through my hair. He’d brushed the strands with gentle strokes, never pulling, never rushing, as he held me into his body. His other hand, still holding the leash, had made circular motions on my lower back.

My low, lower back. At one point, his knuckles had grazed the top of my butt.

Those thoughts are what have me sitting at Bex’s kitchen table with a cup of warm tea in my hand as she sits down across from me with another small cup for her.

“I think I like Fletcher,” I tell her.

My neighbor blinks her soft, maternal eyes once, twice, a third time. The way she watches me makes me squirm, my fingers wrapping a little tighter around the teacup.

Then, she says, “Well, of course, you do, sweetheart.” Her laugh comes next. “He’s a good man. It’s hard not to like him. And anyone at that party could see how he looked at you. I’m surprised he even let you leave his side. I swear that man gave every male in the room a warning look the second you walked over to me.”

Why do people keep saying that?

Bex lowers her cup to the table. “Why does that make you look like you want to puke? Is it because of your ex? Are you still not ready? Because there’s nothing wrong with that, Stevie. Fletcher is the last person who would pressure you into anything, I’m sure of it. My husband would always say he had an iron will. I think it actually frustrated poor Billy whenever he would suggest Fletcher get out and date. Fletcher would never agree, no matter how nice the woman was that Bill found for him.”

Heaviness fills my chest over the thought of him with another woman. I have no right to be jealous, especially because of what I’ve done over the past few months. “It’s not that. I mean, yeah, it’s part of the reason why I’m not sure how to feel. Fletcher was one of Hunter’s commanding officers. Once, I remember him telling me that he admired Fletcher. And it makes me feel…” I make a face. “Dirty.”

Bex’s shoulders loosen as she leans back in her seat. “I don’t think you should feel that way at all. There are people in our lives for every phase of it. Those who remain, no matter in what form, are the ones meant to be in it. A lot of people admire Fletcher, and you can too. Your husband, ex-husband, doesn’t have a claim on him. Or anyone, for that matter.”

I know she’s right, but the feeling in my gut tells me I should still feel bad about liking the man who was in my ex’s life for so long. “I saw him right after Christmas. Hunter came to the restaurant I was at with one of my friends.” After telling her about how I stood my ground, she got a prideful look on her face, and I admitted it felt nice to tell him no. “Our entire marriage, I did whatever he wanted, and telling him I didn’t want to talk at that moment was…is it lame if I said empowering?”

She smiles. “It’d only be lame if you called it lame.”

I blush. “I’m new to all of this.”

“Oh, honey. Aren’t we all?”

We finish our tea and talk about her and the Sexy Santa who called her a couple weeks ago to ask her out. When she told me that she had a date this weekend, I squealed and made her tell me all about what she was wearing and where they were going. When we were gossiped out, I found myself walking back over to my house, but bee-lining last minute to one across the street where the man I want to see is squatting down in his driveway tinkering on something with his truck.

He stands when I approach him, giving me a smile as he wipes his hands off on a red rag stained with something black before stuffing it into his back pocket. “Peaches.” One of his arms reaches out, tugging me into his side in a one-armed hug. “I was going to drop by later,” he tells me, keeping an arm wrapped around my shoulder as I hook mine around his trimmed waist.

“Oh yeah?”

He hums. “You mentioned you wanted to take your decorations down. Thought I’d be able to help.”

I know Nicki is with his mom because I’d watched Fletcher and his son leave last night, and when the truck pulled back in, it was just the man currently keeping a solid hold of me. “I did say that,” I agree.

“Thought maybe I could cook us something,” he adds quietly, hesitantly.

When I look up at him, he’s already watching me with a tentative expression. “You want to cook for me?”

His lips curl. “I was hoping maybe you’d share it, but yeah.”

I press my lips together for a second. “I’m kind of greedy when it comes to good food just so you know.”

He chuckles, rubbing my arm with slow, steady strokes to create warm friction. “Then I guess I’ll just have to convince you.”

And that low-spoken promise paired with the way his eyes stay on my face does way more than his laugh did to me.

“Seven,” he murmurs.

I almost miss it.

Clearing my throat, I nod. “Seven.”

 

 

I don’t realize it’s sort of a date until I find myself changing my outfit three times until I’m basically in the same thing I started with. A nice pair of jeans that hug my hips and butt, and a sweater that’s warm and emphasizes all the right curves while hiding all the ones created by Bex’s daughter’s baking.

How long has it been since I’ve been on a date that I’ve actually wanted to be on? I don’t count Miles and definitely don’t let myself think about the man I met at the bar. In fact, I got rid of my sheets and bought new ones because I could barely stand to look at the bed for days.

He’d definitely helped me forget.

Because all I can think about is the guilt from our one-night stand instead.

Tonight may not even be a date. Fletcher is probably just being nice by offering to help me. He’s definitely seen the number of baked goods Bex has given me. If it’s not her, it’s his ex-wife’s treats that I accept through Nicki and Fletcher’s visits to my house with Admiral to drop them off. For all I know, he thinks that’s what I’m living on and need something with more sustenance.

It’s easier to think that because if I believe that he considers this more than a casual dinner between neighbors, then I’ll sweat through this sweater and need to change into a different one. And I’ll go back on a cleaning binge until my house is even more spotless than it is now, even though Fletcher has seen it in all its various stages of untidiness.

Walking downstairs, I do one more glance around each room before blowing out a breath. Then, a few minutes before seven, there’s a knock at the door, jumpstarting my heart and making my hands clam up as I turn the knob and greet the man behind it.

And I swear I stop breathing for a second.

The man whose wardrobe consists of mostly T-shirts, plaid button-downs, and probably an old dress uniform or two stored away, is in dark denim and a dark green sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows that hugs his fit body beautiful. He doesn’t look that different than any other day, but there’s still something that makes him look ten times more attractive, and that’s…dangerous.

“Come in,” I say, smiling and stepping aside so he can pass me. It’s only after checking him out that I see the bag hanging from his hand.

He lifts it. “I brought over some things to make seafood pesto, but I brought alternatives if you don’t like shrimp.”

I quickly shake my head. “That sounds fine to me. What can I do to help?”

Fletcher pulls out a bottle of wine. Red. An expensive brand that I occasionally treat myself to when I have the extra money. “Open this and relax. I’ll handle dinner.”

Even though I want to fight him, to offer some sort of help, I don’t. I highly doubt I’d get far with a man like Fletcher Miller anyway.

After pouring two glasses of wine, passing him his, and settling onto a chair, I watch the taut muscles of his back flex as he empties the bag and organizes the ingredients.

“Cutting board?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at me.

I point. “Bottom left cabinet.”

He grabs it, then a knife from the rack next to the sink. “How was the rest of your day?”

His casual demeanor as he chops up garlic makes me try to ease my tense muscles as I sip my drink. I don’t tell him that I spent the day tearing apart my house and cleaning it or that I sent my best friend three different outfit options for tonight and didn’t go with any of them after an hour of back-and-forth. He probably grabbed his outfit ten minutes before he left, and…

Did I smell cologne on him?

Date. It’s got to be a date.

I clear my throat. “It was good.” Why does my voice sound like that?

As if he knows where my head is at, he looks over his shoulder again with a smug grin on his face. “Good, huh?”

“Mmhmm.”

Giving me his back to finish chopping the garlic clove, I hear a quiet chuckle. Staring at my wine, I roll my shoulders and return the question, hoping he’ll be better at keeping up the conversation than I am when I’m so in my head.

“I fixed a few things on my truck, talked to a few people I work with about repairs on some of their vehicles in the next few weeks.” Like I thought, there’s no waver to his tone, simply contentment. “When I retired from the military, I couldn’t just stand around. I like staying busy. Still help out with some things old colleagues ask of me back on base but have experience with automotive that keeps my hands busy the rest of the time.”

My eyes trail down to the hands in question, fixated on how he holds the knife handle and slices with exact precision. “What got you into fixing up cars?”

One of his shoulders lifts as he wipes off his hands and grabs one of the frying pans and a saucepan that’s hanging on the sidewall. “I’ve always liked fixing up cars. Trucks, mostly. Older model restorations. My dad and I used to bond over that before I enlisted.”

“How old were you when you enlisted?”

“Eighteen.”

Just like Hunter.

My lips twitch at the thought. “Were there other military members in your family that made you want to join?” Hunter’s three uncles were all in the air force, and his grandfather was in the Navy. He talked about enlisting ever since he knew what that was, according to his mother.

“No, just me.” His voice is low as he focuses on what he’s doing, filling the saucepan with water and setting it on one of the burners to heat. “I didn’t come from a well-off family. They always struggled to pay the bills every month, and I knew I’d be no different unless I did something about it. Thought about going to college but didn’t want to take out loans that I’d regret later in life when I had to repay them.”

I nod slowly. “So you joined the Army.”

He hums in confirmation.

“Did you ever go to college?”

Slowly, he turns and props a hip on the edge of the counter. “Would it bother you if I said no?”

I sit straighter. “Of course not.”

He stares for a second. Two. Three. Then, slowly, his chin dips. “Had some people in my past who felt strongly about that.”

People… “Family?” It’s a poor way to fish for answers, and based on the small curl to his lips, he knows as well as I do that it isn’t family he’s referring to.

“Exes. Girlfriends.”

I’m proud of myself for not reacting in a way that would give away my thoughts. That cement feeling settles into my stomach, and I don’t want to acknowledge it. So what if he’s had girlfriends? An ex-wife? He’s ten years older than me, which means more experience than I have. His split with his wife was mutual, unlike mine, so I’m sure he was able to move on far easier than I have been.

“Well, it’s your life. College isn’t for everyone anyway. My best friend didn’t go, and she’s happy. You seem happy too.” I lift my shoulders and play with the stem of my wine glass as he studies me.

Eventually, he agrees. “I am. And it’s not. When I was younger, I thought I’d want to go to school and learn more, but nothing really captured my interest enough to study it that closely.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher.”

My lips form into an easy smile at the memories of Christmases where my parents would feed the fantasy. Stickers, a white board, a chalk board, colorful chalk, and even a small desk that looked like the one’s schools supply their teaching staff would be given to me. Every day after school, I pretended to teach my parents the same lessons I learned, and they’d always play along even if they knew how to do basic addition and subtraction already.

Meeting his eyes, my smile grows. “I was in high school when one of my guidance counselors told me she thought it was a perfect fit for my personality. I went back and forth on what grades to teach but decided I’d prefer working with children. Older students are too…” I can’t find the right word. “Challenging, I guess. Not that I couldn’t handle it, I’m sure.”

“You would have found a way,” he agrees simply, turning back to the food and grabbing pasta noodles. “Is this your first teaching position? Or have you had others?”

The topic sours any good feelings I was having, and my long-winded hesitation has him looking over at me with an arched brow.

“Ah. Forbidden topic?” he guesses, his voice low but understanding.

My gaze lowers. Ever since I told Bex about my past with Hunter, a weight was lifted off my chest. Of course, some of it is still there from time to time, but I realize it’s only when I choose not to address my past. “Can we forget about what I asked you that first time I came over?”

He stops what he’s doing and turns around to face me.

I sit back, pulling my hands into my laps and fidgeting with my fingers. “I thought not talking about it would help, but it just makes me feel worse. Bex knows, my best friend knows, and one of my coworkers knows some stuff, but it feels like I’m living some sort of lie or double life by not addressing why I came here. Fresh starts can still have old memories attached, right?”

Silent, he nods once. My tongue slowly wets my lips, the movement caught by Fletcher’s eyes as he follows the pattern I set before his gaze moves back to my eyes.

I pull my shoulders back. “We lived on base,” I say quietly, a fact he knows because he was there too toward the end. Somewhere, maybe not far, but more than likely in a private area because of his rank compared to Hunter’s. “When I was with Hunter, I wasn’t Stevie Foster. I wasn’t a teacher or the independent woman who’s too stubborn for her own good sometimes.”

His lips waver into a small smile for a second before going back to neutral.

“I was just Hunter’s wife. The one who cooked, and cleaned, and sometimes went out with the other women around, but I didn’t have a job outside of that. I had the degree and the knowledge, but…” It sounds pathetic the more I say it, especially with Fletcher watching me, absorbing every word, and observing every little movement I make—the shift of my weight, the twitch of my hands, the bouncing of my leg on the stool. “The truth is, I settled.”

Once the words are out, I let them sink in.

Really sink in.

Because they’re true.

I may have loved Hunter, but looking back now, after getting a taste of the freedom I never had before, I settled for the comfort he’d given me. The affection he handed me. And while I adored him and those moments, the memories we shared together, I also have to accept that he’d only give me what he could when it was convenient for him.

He’s the one who started everything between us. Talking to me in the hall at school, showing up to my locker and offering to drive me home, asking me out on a date. He gave me his number and told me there was no pressure to use it, which made me want to use it more. He was the one who leaned in to kiss me the first time, and the first one who’d suggested we take things farther as our relationship progressed.

Hunter proposed.

Hunter suggested I take time off work.

And, inevitably, Hunter is the one who decided to end it.

Every part of our relationship was controlled by him. I never thought twice about it because I was happy—content with the life we lived. The attention he’d given me.

And I let him break me.

Take it away.

Move on like it was never him who wanted what we’d had in the first place.

My heart thumps, thumps, thumps heavily in my chest until I feel the sadness flow throughout my body and weigh down my limbs.

“Hey,” Fletcher says softly, suddenly in front of me. He’s eye level, one hand cupping my upper arm, and the other tipping my chin up to meet his eyes like he did the day when we’d taken a walk together. “Whatever is going through your head is not worth letting it consume you. Our pasts are pasts for a reason. They’re meant to be lessons we learn from. Maybe you did settle for him, but you know better than to settle for anybody now. Right?”

His ‘right’ doesn’t offer me much room to tell him no, or that he’s wrong. It’s his delivery, soft yet firm, sure, and determined to make me see his way, that has me nodding. But even after I do that, I let out a small breath and admit, “I don’t want to be put through what I was with him.”

Fletcher’s eyes go black.

His right eye twitches.

He straightens to full height, maybe twice as tall as he normally stands. “He do something to you, Stevie?”

“No!” I quickly shake my head. “No, it was nothing like that. Hunter never laid a hand on me in any way that hurt me or anything like that.” I can tell that loosens his shoulders a little, but he doesn’t move from the taut stance. “I just meant that I was in a relationship with one man since I was fifteen, and he always made the choices. He was the one who decided what we did, what we didn’t, and I thought that was…normal. I never really cared if he called the shots. Even in our marriage, that’s what he did. He lived the life he wanted, and I lived the life he wanted me to.

“I never want to be controlled by another person, Fletcher, and I think that’s the biggest reason why moving on scares me so much. Because I don’t know how to be the one in control or share my time with someone and not be afraid that they’ll take over. I’m finally doing what I want, teaching, living on my own terms, and the thought of anyone walking into my life and changing that terrifies me.”

Squeezing my fists after my fears are spoken aloud for the very first time, I shake my head and stare at my lap. I’d never realized how long I’d bottled that up. I don’t even know when I realized it’s what I’ve been afraid of. Seeing Hunter, knowing he wants to talk, telling him I didn’t want to, fed something deep inside me that was starved for so long.

My independence.

My right to choose.

And now, the man standing in front of me, looming big and tough and confident and so many other things at once, is watching me in a way that makes me afraid I’ll fall back into something for the same reasons.

Comfort.

Attention.

Affection.

Attraction.

I swallow. “I’m terrified of you.”

His entire body goes rigid, and in a strained voice I’ve never heard from him before, he says, “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Another swallow, this one getting stuck in my throat thanks to the ball of emotion wedged in my windpipes. “I know,” I croak. “I’m not afraid of you like that. I’m afraid because you’re the type of man that any woman would be so lucky to have. You’re the man that women would kill to have all the attention from because you’re wonderful, kind, and caring. And I’m…”

Broken.

Healing.

Lost.

Searching.

“I’m still trying to figure it out,” I whisper, more to myself than him.

For the longest time, it’s quiet. Nothing but the water boiling on the stove and the sound of our breathing fills the room. Then, Fletcher lowers himself, so he’s right in front of me. Not touching me but showing me he’s here.

Giving me space while owning it too.

“I’m not here to take anything away from you, Stevie. The only thing I’m here for is dinner, then helping you take down your Christmas decorations, and maybe, if you’re willing, we can do it again. Dinner. Lunch. Breakfast. We can go on walks with Admiral and talk about anything or nothing at all.” His brown eyes pierce mine. “If we do this, we do it on your terms. We take our time. Because there may be other women who want my attention, but it’s not them I’m looking at.”

I suck in a small breath.

“Just dinner,” he repeats.

I manage to nod slowly.

“Decorations,” he adds.

Another nod.

“I want to be clear here, honey. I’m not stepping into your life to tell you what to do or how to do it. Your decisions are yours alone, including whether you’ll let me be a part of them in the future. Get me?”

I’m quiet, stunned speechless.

“Who you choose to be in your life,” he looks away, “what you decide to do with your body—” His jaw gets tight. “That’s only going to be my business if I’m the one invited to do something about it.”

When his eyes get dark, they’re dark in a whole different way than they were when he thought I was being hurt. This time, it’s lust fueling those dilated orbs. “And trust me, Stevie. If you give me a chance, I’ll make sure your body, your mind, and everything in between is handled right.”

We stare at each other, a stuttered breath escaping my lips, while he keeps an even expression on his face the whole time. When his eyes move, they trail over mine, then down to my nearly straight nose, and finally my parted lips.

He doesn’t make a move.

Doesn’t take what I can tell he wants.

He’s waiting.

For me.

“I’m too old for games,” he concludes, voice serious. “Too old to not be honest about what I want, and what I hope to get in return. Because that’s what a relationship is. Equal and mutual respect for the person you’re giving yourself to. It’s never letting one person become bigger than the other. So, I’m laying it down right here, right now. I like you, Stevie. I respect you. And I’ll wait until you’re ready because I have nowhere else to be. I’m in no rush.”

Fletcher stands again, giving me one last look, body looser than my shocked-still posture, before dipping his chin once and then going back to the food.

He cooks us dinner.

Pours me more wine.

And after we’re done, we wash the dishes together and start working on taking down all the holiday decorations in peaceful silence.