Page 84 of Falling into Place
“It is.”
He leaned close, loving the way her breath hitched when their lips were barely an inch apart. He probably should have focused on all the other nice things she’d said, but ... “You want to keep getting naked with me?”
“Very much, yes.”
He kissed her softly. “I’m all for that, in case it wasn’t clear. But you keep beating me to the punch, just like when you said you liked me. I should have said it a long time ago, but there just seemed to be so many reasons why I shouldn’t.”
“I probably shouldn’t have, either. We still have to be careful.”
“I know. We will.” He wouldn’t risk all of Sasha’s hard work. In fact, he was fully content to just hide away with Carly in the privacy of his house until the coast was clear, and then maybe even longer just to make sure. “But I’m so fucking happy you did.”
She plucked at his sweatpants. “I was so nervous I sat in my car for fifteen minutes before I finally came to the door. And I still didn’t know if I’d tell you how I felt. Because my job matters and so does Sasha’s, and I know you care about keeping the magazine alive, too. But then you were just so cute about your cucumbers I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
“That’s what finally did it for you? My produce?”
“Obviously.”
“Weird, I kind of thought it was the jeans I wore when we first met.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “I do love a charity project.”
“Damn,” he said, clapping his free hand across his heart.
They both laughed, smiling at each other, but then her expression transformed into something serious, contemplative.
“It’s been a slow build for me,” she said. “Even from the start, I couldn’t help but notice you. The ways you’ve changed, the parts of you that remind me of the old Brooks. I wanted to keep things professional, so I worked really hard to keep any thoughts of you as more than a client at bay. But the more time we spent together, the more I liked you, and the harder that was to ignore. It wasn’t until you had the date with Kendall that I realized how into you I was. You’ve never been just a client to me, so it always felt different. The idea of you and one of my closest friends together made me miserable.”
“I’d never have agreed to go out with her if I’d thought I had a chance with you.” His steady gaze never left her face, and he reachedout to wrap a piece of her ponytail around his finger. “She’s a great person, and in another life I might have had a lot of fun with her. But all I wanted that night at trivia was to be next to you. I felt so obvious.”
“Same.” She slid her hand up his forearm. “This doesn’t have to be something scary and serious, okay? Honestly, I don’t do well with change, and I just made a huge one with my job that I’m glad I did but is still a little terrifying. I’m going to want to take this—us—slow, anyway, you know? See where it goes. Can we do that?”
“Yes.” Relief flooded him, cool and soothing. “Slow is good.” He slanted his mouth across hers again, because he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her.
“And speaking of change and your job, we need to celebrate. Sometime later when, you know, I can take you out and do it right.”
“I’d love that,” she said.
“Does the promotion mean you get to do more with the ideas you told me about a while back? Finding used clothes and helping people who have a tighter budget for shopping and stuff? Because I still think about that and how many people you could help.”
“I hope so,” Carly said. “I suggested it once to Mai, that we do some targeted marketing toward that part of our community. She wasn’t super excited about it, so I let it go. But maybe now I’ll revisit it with her.” She rubbed her thumb across his skin, lost in thought. “Thrift shopping is actually the whole reason I fell in love with fashion, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“The first time I remember getting excited about clothes was in sixth grade. We obviously didn’t have a lot of money, and I mainly wore hand-me-downs from neighbors or things my mom picked up at garage sales. They didn’t fit me well because we took what we could get, and when I hit middle school it became painfully obvious other kids were going to judge and tease me about it. One day I asked my mom if we could go to Goodwill together, because I wanted to see for myself what my options were. I found this flowy pink skirt and I fell in love.”
The only item of clothing he’d ever loved were those damned jeans. God, he missed them.
“The skirt was all worn,” she continued. “And in hindsight was more suited for a costume closet than something a preteen girl would wear to school, but it didn’t matter. I’d never owned anything like it, and I wore it around all weekend, feeling like a princess.
“For the first time in ... well, ever, I had confidence when I went to school on Monday. It was far from high fashion and didn’t have a brand name others would notice, but there was just something different about me that day.Inme, even. I had the courage to talk to a girl at school and made one of my first real friends. I wore that skirt as often as I could, and started going with my mom every time she went searching for clothing bargains. I developed a knack for finding things I loved in the most unusual places and found my own style. I discovered creativity and how to be bold. I learned how to express myself using what I had to work with.” She smiled, tugging at the fabric near his thigh again, almost like she needed something to do with her hands. “Anyway, I guess that’s why I love that kind of styling. It’s where I fell in love with it.”
“I can’t believe I’ve never heard that story,” he said. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“You think so?”
“I know so. You turned something tough into something beautiful, and you’re helping other people with it. What’s better than that?”
Her soft smile was everything.
