Page 94 of A Class of Her Own

He was still holding his wrapped sandwich in one hand and drink in the other. “Mer, we aren’t children. We’ve both had relationships. We do not need to set up a governing body of bylaws for this. We simply need to communicate and care about each other’s needs and feelings. All of your rules fall under those simple parameters, which is simply how people should treat each other.”

I kept chewing, and he unwrapped his sandwich and joined me. We watched each other as we ate, and I knew that he knew that I was thinking over what he’d said. It’s just, I wasn’t sure he fully understood where I was coming from. I was going to have to be brave here. I sat my sandwich on my lap and took a swig of my sweet drink before clearing my throat and diving in.

“Okay, so you know my childhood was a little unstable.”

“I got a general feel for that, yes,” he replied kindly.

“Rules helped me feel like I had control in a life that felt very out of control for my entire childhood. Rules still help me. In this case, they help me know that you’ll behave a certain way, and that helps me relax enough to give this a try. If I have to totally rely on blind trust, well, I’m really bad at blind trust.” My hands had started shaking, so I took another bite of sandwich to distract me.

“You must trust me a little bit, or you wouldn’t be here having this conversation,” he said.

I nodded. “I do. And I, um, actually like you enough to want to be having this conversation.”

At that he smiled and bumped my knee with his. “Look, those rules you listed, I can understand why they give you boundaries and safety. So, I can agree to the ones about being where we said we’d be and not borrowing money or calling each other at work too often because they make good sense. But I’m not going to agree to never keep you out past your bedtime or to never push into your space. You have to leave room for spontaneity, too. And frankly, I think if I let you totally run the show, you’d lose all respect for me, and I’d become a resentful doormat.”

“Yeah. That’s happened before.”

“So, how about we keep it this simple. Meredith Atwood, I want to spend every waking moment with you until I know you inside and out. Someday, when you realize you can trust me with your entire heart, I will feel like I’ve won the biggest prize in the universe. Until then, I plan to generally irritate you, laugh with you, tease you, and kiss you every single day.” As he spoke heat curled in my belly and swirled up into my chest until my entire body felt like I was on fire. “Can you accept that?” he asked.

Honestly, that’s all I’d ever wanted from someone. I swallowed, unable to speak over the lump in my throat, so I simply nodded.

He sat his food aside and then gently took mine out of my hands. “Come here.”

I crawled across the couch and into his lap where he tucked me against his chest, and I proceeded to peel away several layers of my protective shell as I shared some of the dark places in my heart. He stroked my back and arm as I spoke, running his fingers lightly through my hair and murmuring words of comfort when I shivered over some particularly painful memory.

When I was done, he returned the favor, telling me about the loneliness he’d felt as the child of busy parents who spared little time for him. How he wasn’t close with his brother but was trying to build a relationship with his brother’s children. He talked about how devastated he’d been when his fiancée left and the harsh reality of moving to Logan and not knowing a soul. We found comfort in understanding the feeling of being outsiders and both desperately seeking a safe place to land.

I pressed my hand to his heart as he spoke, feeling each heartbeat as though it was my own.

After a long time, sandwiches cold and forgotten, he bundled me up and walked me to my car. We paused with my car door open, and I realized how much lighter I felt standing there in the moonlight.

“These first days of our official relationship have been pretty intense,” he said. “I’ve never started out with a good old-fashioned soul baring like that.”

I liked that he didn’t skate around issues and was finding that casting light on things scared away shadows. “I warned you that I’d be a lot to take on.”

“A little thing like you?” he laughed, putting a hand around the back of my head. “Nah.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow after work?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make dinner here. Six o’clock okay?”

“I hope you realize you might make an unfair amount of meals because I’m not a good cook.” I turned and sat in my car, and he leaned down.

“Consider it me bribing you to spend time with me.”

I smiled. “I think I’d do that for free.”

He held up his hands. “Pardon me for saying it, but with you I’m not taking any chances.”

I rolled my eyes as he closed the door and waved at me as I pulled away with a smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The next week was the most wonderful week of my life. Brooks and I had dinner every night, and during the days he totally broke the no contact rule by repeatedly texting me things all day long. Of course, my phone was off during the school day, but at lunch and after school I’d discover multiple texts with funny sayings or jokes. I was all but ignoring my friends at lunch time, but they handled it with good grace and supportive smiles.

Monday’s texts were pick-up lines, like, “I’m no photographer, but I can picture us together,” and “Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?”

Tuesday was all about fun facts: “Apparently, it’s only supposed to take four minutes to decide if you’ll like someone. We were slow on the uptake.”

---