Page 100 of Seven Year Itch
Calder’s eyes darken, and his nostrils flare as he takes a step back. “I’d be shocked if the guy you’re marrying actually loves you. You’re too much of a nightmare to love.”
My chest contracts at his cutting words as tears burn my eyes. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
Calder
Shame blankets me as I look over at Dakota sitting in my hot tub looking completely at ease. Throughout the years, our hatred foreach other has turned lighter and more playful, as time has healed some of those wounds. But if I actually replay the awful things we said to each other, there’s nothing funny about it.
“Not that this is any excuse, but things between Wyatt, Luke, and me were kind of rough back then,” I offer, scrubbing steam off my face as I shoot an apologetic look toward Dakota. “It was in the post-Robyn phase, and I wasn’t even nursing a broken heart from her. That would have been easy. I was repairing what was broken between us three brothers. It was hard. We all broke each other’s trust, and our dad was angry at us for bringing such a mess to the workplace. Max was pissed at us for being so careless. It was brutal.”
I sigh as I think back to how ashamed our father and Max were for all of that. Max wouldn’t let us see Everly until we all got along again. It weighed on me so much, I could hardly get my ass to work most days. It’s why we created our Dark Night–bonding tradition. It’s weird, but it’s important. It helps us remember why family is so important.
I shrug my shoulders in the water. “I’m a player and didn’t even know I was getting played. And it was reinforcing some hard truths that I wasn’t ready to admit about myself. I really shouldn’t have taken that job to work for you. I was in no position to be responsible for myself, let alone your renovation. The broken pipe was an accident, but what came afterward, well, that was just me being an asshole.”
Dakota’s brows knit together, and I see a brief flash of nerves flit across her face. “She must have really done a number on you.”
“Honestly, Robyn doesn’t bother me. It’s the family stuff that nearly killed me.” I pause as I think about the dynamic in my family. I love them. Fiercely. I genuinely appreciate living next door to Luke and Wyatt, even when I bitch about it. Being a package deal with them is a part of my identity, but we’re not without problems.
“When the Robyn thing blew up in all our faces, we were all in pretty rough shape and not talking to each other for obviousreasons. My mom was all over Wyatt because he’s so closed-off she can’t help but smother him. And she was there for Luke because he’s the baby and has always been a little smothered. My dad was pissed at all of us for being nightmares to work with. And I just kind of... existed. My family has a tendency to assume I’m always okay.Oh, it’s just goofy Calder. Nothing gets him down.That’s kind of the story of my life. It’s assumed I’m always okay to pick up the lumber or stay late to finish drywall or share the room on a family trip with a woman who hates me.”
Dakota makes a noise of understanding, her hand reaching out to touch my leg in a small sign of empathy.
“I hate sayingmiddle child syndromebecause I’m obviously a grown-ass man, but since we’re all still so close, that birth order stuff is still really present. I just get sick of the expectation that I’ll be fine with whatever the others don’t want to do. Or can’t do. There’s just never a choice for me.”
She nods, her eyes sweeping over my face filled with sympathy. “That would be extremely frustrating.”
I hold her ankle, feeling lighter already after unleashing a decade’s worth of family bullshit on her, and then another thought hits me. “Hey, now that we’re hashing all this out, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” Dakota smiles sweetly at me, and my chest tightens as I steel myself to get this question asked because it’s always bugged me.
“When my dad died, you left food at my house.”
Her smiles falters as her brows twitch. “Yeah, so?”
“You drove all the way up here to leave it and didn’t make any for my brothers. Just me. Why did you do that when you hated me?”
“I still cared,” she replies with an indignant huff. “I can have issues with someone and still want to show that I care.”
I frown, my eyes searching her face for more because it feels like there must be more to it than that. She was married at the time. We weren’t speaking. It had been years since her home reno disaster.I could see her showing up for Max and her best friend... but not me. Not after everything we’d been through.
“Seeing you at your dad’s funeral killed me,” she adds, her voice catching in her throat. “You were just sitting in the back of the funeral home by yourself, and I wanted to walk over and hug you so bad, but I knew you wouldn’t want that from me.”
Dakota’s eyes are red-rimmed and shining in a way that I feel in my gut. Warmth spreads through my chest. Even with all our bullshit, all our bickering, our huge blowout... she still cared about the shit that mattered. It makes me feel seen in a way I haven’t ever felt seen.
“I’ll take that hug now, if you’re still offering.”
Her brows pop up, and a grateful smile lifts her cheeks as she moves across the water and wraps her arms around my neck, shifting so she’s sitting on my lap with her legs around my waist.
I squeeze her waist, burying my face in her neck and breathing in the scent of her, the feel of her, the essence of her. I spent so many years hating Dakota Schaefer and her hating me, and it all feels so fucking petty now. We had real life shit happen the past seven years—the death of a parent, a divorce, heartbreak on both sides. Why did we waste so much of our energy being assholes when we could have been friends?
She pulls away and holds my face in her hands, her fingers raking over my beard before she leans in and kisses me. It’s a gentle kiss, different than any other we’ve had before. It’s not lustful or dirty or exploratory or angry.
It’s comforting.
It feels like the sweetest, most sincere form of connection I’ve ever experienced with a woman, and my throat stings with the importance of it. Our tongues caress each other, my hands mapping her back before gripping her neck to deepen the kiss, siphoning every bit of goodness out of her that I can get. We’ve kissed hundreds of times by now in all our hooking up, but somehow this one feels like our first.
When we finally pull apart, we press our foreheads together, our breaths heavy, chests rising and falling as steam billows up between us. She runs her fingers through my hair, her lips quivering as she says, “I don’t think I ever really hated you, Calder. I think I just hated that you pieced something together about my marriage before I did, and that was humiliating. How did I not see how wrong Randal was? How did I not know it was a mistake?”
My muscles tighten as I squeeze her to me, trying hard to take that pain away from her. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
