Page 44 of Almost Perfect
Damn, the man had some mesmerizing eyes, and I didn’t want to look away. But we were too close. This felt too much like real connection and amoment. I didn’t need to be having feelings for yet another person who’d judge me, even if he’d apologized for his initial assumptions. He’d done it again minutes ago over the mess, and while he didn’t seem all that bothered, I didn’t need that in my life.
When your business is based on putting your art into the world, you can’t be surprised when some people don’t like it. That’s the nature of the beast. But when you spend half your life doing just that, there comes a time when you stop being willing to accept censure from others. The judgment, the critique, becomes something that people who don’t know you feel free to offer up. And it blurs the lines between the art you’ve put out there—the music, the image, the ad campaign, the performance—and the human being behind them.
At some point, people forget you are a person underneath it all. And enough interactions like that, the armor thickens. Maybe it wasn’t the same for everyone. In fact, Jenna wasn’t like that at all. I knew others in the industry and Hollywood who seemed to have escaped that way of thinking, but I’d embraced it. I wrapped myself in limit-pushing extravagance and edge—the Miss Mayhem persona let it all hang out, sometimes quite literally.
What I didn’t want was this very thing—feeling that pull toward someone, that spark, and wanting them to like me. Wanting them to approve. Hadn’t I worked all my life for approval in one way or another?
I couldn’t do that anymore.
And more than anything, I simply didn’t need towantanything else. I’d been so scrappy and hungry for years, and it’d turned to ashes. The thought of Wyatt becoming some sick consequence of my thirst made my stomach ache.
The realization that I did want things from Wyatt—wanted him to see past all the Mayhem and seemehad me breaking eye contact and taking a giant step away. “Sure is. On to waffles?”
He nodded, and we set off.
And I promised myself I’d cut the crap. I wouldn’t look to him for approval, wouldn’t use him to satisfy the needy, pathetic part of me I’d started indulging once I arrived in town. And the other part, the one that’d softened and warmed to Wyatt like a cat in the sun? She couldn’t have her way either.
So as we trudged through the snow, I began my mantra.
I will not want Wyatt Saint.
I will not want Wyatt Saint.
I will not want Wyatt Saint.
EIGHTEEN
Wyatt
Never in my wildest imagination would I have been sitting across from this woman, watching her eyes roll back in her head as she chewed a bite of waffle.
And never in that same rather uncreative mind would I have thought I’d enjoy it so damn much.
Calla should be the antithesis of everything I had in mind for myself. Messy versus my orderly. Daring and envelope-pushing opposite my staid existence. Insanely out there in the public to my quiet and private.
But the pleasure I found in this moment could hardly be matched by anything in recent memory—feeding this woman brought me no small amount of joy. She was this megastar maven of beauty and sex appeal, and yet here she sat, devouring the steaming waffle I’d just set on her plate with a gusto to match Warrick’s. And she looked way better doing it, I should add.
“Thheez ah zho good,” she said with a mouthful of waffle shoved into one cheek.
I finished chewing my own bite before responding, apparently all calm and cool and not a bit affected by this. “I’m glad you enjoy them.”
She nodded, swallowed, and gulped some coffee before saying, “Can I hire you to make these every day for the rest of my life? I’ll retire today and just get fat and happy on waffles and waffles and oh, yes, please, more waffles.”
Chuckling, I shook my head, ignoring the newest rush of glee her enthusiasm brought me. I hadn’t realized just how pathetic my dating life had become, but if someone exclaiming over my waffles like this had me this happy, I probably did need to take a closer look at my life.
Probablyrang false, even as I mentally attempted to make light of the truth. I’d been making it through my days, not really living them. And though Calla talked about being burnt out and tired, and I could see evidence of that, she’d also been changing. Even the last few days, I’d noticed her looking farther outside herself, into the snow, the mountains, the sky. She was seeing the beauty around her, and it only made her all the more lovely.
And witnessing it devastated me. Her ability to look past the pain and grief she’d been buried under and enjoy things. Even small things like these stupid waffles. It both called to me and convicted me.
What simple pleasures had I taken in the last few months? In the last fewyears?
“Seriously though, you’re a really good cook. I know we’ve discussed this, but it bears repeating.”
“Thanks. Mom and Grandma Tilda were pretty insistent I learn so my wife didn’t have to do all the cooking.”
Aaaaaaand,crap. No doubt I came across as a traditional bumpkin to her already, but here I went talking about my non-existent wife.
She hummed and enjoyed another bite before speaking again. “So it’s all for the ladies, then, huh?”
