Even as tears streamed unhindered, she knew. If he followed her, she’d let him in. If he sought forgiveness, she’d give it. If he wanted her, he could have her. If he showed her that she mattered.
Get out of the truck. Get out of the truck. Get out of the truck.
She saw the plume of warm exhaust as he started the engine, and she watched him pull out of the parking lot and drive away.
~ 9 ~
He did not understand women.
Well, that wasn’t a new revelation, was it? It was why he was staring at his fortieth birthday and still living like some twenty-something moron. Katrynn had called him a ‘dudebro’ the other day. That shoe fucking fit.
It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a family of his own. But he had never been able to get square with a woman who wanted the same thing, and with him. He was less than two months from forty—fucking middle age!—and he’d not yet managed to have a relationship that lasted much longer than two years.
Maybe if the issues in those relationships had formed a pattern, he would have been able to see how he could adjust his course. But they’d all ended for different reasons. He’d ended some, the women had ended some, some had simply died without anyone truly ending them.
Or maybe they’d all
seemed
to end for different reasons, because he couldn’t see the pattern. Because he did not understand women.
He hadn’t hurt her.
God, the things that had been going through his head these past couple of weeks. But he’d been
good
to her. All this time, he’d thought he’d turned into some kind of drunken monster, and the truth was that he’d been…himself.
She hadn’t said what it was he’d said to her, but now he guessed that maybe he’d simply been freer with his feelings than he would have been sober. Drunk man’s words and all of that. He liked her. He’d liked her for a while. Maybe he’d said more of that than he would have otherwise.
He hadn’t hurt her, and she’d been treating him like a pariah.
He did not understand women.
But she clearly didn’t want him here. So he started up his truck and pulled out of her parking lot.
~oOo~
Once home, he got himself a beer, dropped onto his sofa, and turned on the TV. He scrolled aimlessly through the menu until he realized that he wasn’t even looking for something to watch. He was still thinking about Katrynn.
He
had
hurt her. That much was unavoidably true. She’d been treating him like a pariah because he had hurt her.
Because he’d been good to her.
He’d expected her to be hurt that he’d left in such a shitty way that morning, but that wasn’t the worst of what he’d done. What he didn’t remember was the worst of what he’d done. Which was that he’d been good to her.
Fuck! He didn’t understand.
No, wait. She’d said it, right? He’d given her the best night she’d ever had with a man—John couldn’t help feeling some pride in that, even in the midst of his current confused frustration—and then she’d woken up alone, because he’d run out on her.
And then he’d told her he didn’t remember the night. Which was her best night ever with a man.
Ah.
Okay. Fuck.
He
had
hurt her.
Understanding brought on a powerful need to apologize, and John stared at his phone, sitting on the cushion at his side. Would she even pick up?
Probably not. Women seemed to have a lot of passive-aggressive rules regarding phone calls from men. But she might answer her door. Maybe.
He sighed and looked out the window. Even with the lights on inside, the snow was heavy enough that he could see it falling. It was piling up quickly. The news channel he’d left the television tuned to had a weather update scrolling on the bottom of the screen—they’d adjusted their prediction for accumulation to eighteen to twenty-four inches. Winter was going to dump all of its snow on them in one storm.
It looked like they’d all be snowed in by morning, at least until the plows could get around to the lesser streets. He didn’t really want to be stuck alone in his little house all day.
He’d be better off going to the house on Caravel Road instead, getting snowed in with Carlo and Sabina and the boys, with Pop and Adele next door.
Besides, he’d told Katrynn that he’d wait for her to tell him when she knew if she wanted to date him. That felt like he’d let her put him on a hook, but he certainly owed her some space.
He finished his beer, turned off the television, and went up to the loft to throw a change of clothes and a toothbrush into his backpack. Hanging out with family was always a great way to spend a snow day.
~oOo~
He’d had to pass the turn for her street on the way to Caravel Road. He hadn’t passed it. He’d turned, at the last minute, his truck fishtailing on the snowy street, and headed down Derrick Avenue. If she answered her door, he’d apologize, and then he’d leave her alone and head to the house.
For the brief minutes until he was standing before her door, he figured out what his apology should be. A real apology, not a defense, not some lame attempt to explain. How could he explain?
Then she answered the door.
She’d changed and washed her face; it was clear of makeup, and she was wearing her glasses. Her eyes had the subtle puffiness that came from crying. Fuck. She stood there wearing flannel pajamas with the Peanuts characters all over them. Her hair was in pigtails, and those puffy eyes were wide with surprise or shock—or maybe fear. She looked innocent and young, and John felt like an absolute bastard for hurting her.
He smiled and opened his mouth to say the apology he’d decided on, but the words weren’t there. Only two words found their way to his tongue.
“You matter.”
She stared, without any noticeable response at all, and then took a long, deep breath. When she opened her mouth to let it out, the breath became a sigh. He heard it shake.
“Do you want to come in?”
She stepped back as she asked, and he came forward, into her apartment. She closed the door, and he turned to face her again.
Then they just stared at each other. John didn’t know what to say; that apology seemed wrong now, like the topic had changed between them, though they hadn’t exchanged even ten words.
Katrynn’s eyes hadn’t lost their wariness. What he wanted was to give her some ease. But when he took a step toward her, she pressed her back to the door.
“Katrynn. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her eyes lost some of that blunt defense, and she frowned. “What
do
you want?”
He answered with the truth, the thing he wanted most in that moment. “I want to kiss you.”
As he said it, he took another step, and this time, she didn’t shrink back. Rather, she took another deep breath and let it out as he put his hand on the door and bent his head toward hers.
“John…” she whispered just before their lips touched.
“Shhh.” He pushed her glasses to the top of her head and kissed her.
And that felt familiar, in a potent, enthralling way. Like a dream he’d had and didn’t remember had left a trace in his mind somewhere, and the taste of her had stirred it up. Which was pretty much exactly what had happened, wasn’t it?
He pressed his tongue to her lips until she opened for him, and then she hummed a quiet, hesitant little moan and set her hands on his chest. At first, he thought she meant to push him away, but her fingers curled into his coat and pulled.
On that encouragement, John let his mind loose, and his body, too. He grabbed her, pulling her body hard to his, wrapping his arms around her, sliding his hands under the back of her girlish pajama top so that he could feel the warm satin of her skin. He opened his mouth wider, making hers open with him, and tasted all of her, wanting that familiarity to become a memory.
He had missed something, forgetting that night. Holding her now, tasting her, he felt more than regret for hurting her. He felt loss.
She kissed him back with enthusiasm, humming those tiny moans into his mouth, making his tongue buzz. And then, without warning, she broke away and pushed him back.
“Wait. Wait,” she gasped. “Wait.”
He waited, his breath coming in heaves. He was so hard he ached.
She put her hand on his mouth, her fingers tracing over his lips. “You’re so good at that.”
He kissed her fingers and took her hand in his. “So are you. Why’d we stop?”
“I need…I need to slow down. I feel spun.”
He took a breath to gain some equilibrium and stood back, letting go of her hand. “Okay. Whatever you need. I should go, then.”
Wrong thing to say. Her brown eyes, nearly black with arousal, got somehow darker as she scowled at him. “So you just came over for another hump-n-dump?”
“Please? No!” He pointed to the window. “The snow. They’re saying maybe two feet by morning. If I don’t leave soon, then I might not be able to leave at all.”
She looked out the window. “Oh. Oh. Sorry. I just—okay.” When she turned back to him, her expression was sweet and shy. Almost, but not quite, a smile. “Would that be so bad?”
John felt pretty spun by the events of the night as well. He couldn’t keep up with her. “I thought you needed to slow down.”
“I do. I need to sort out where this night has landed. I was about to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for dinner. I could make it for two, and we could…I don’t know. Talk or hang out. Watch a movie.”
He grinned. “Dinner and a movie sounds like a date. Do you have an answer for me, then?”
She grinned back. “Yeah, I do. Okay. Come on in, and I’ll make us dinner.” Frowning down at her pajamas she added, “God. I’ll change.”
“Please don’t.” He took hold of her hands. “I love the way you look right now.”
Though she gave him a look that suggested she thought he was nuts, she nodded and walked away from the door.
As she led him farther into her apartment, he wanted what he saw to be familiar. It wasn’t. He could call up a good memory of her bathroom, and her bedroom might ring a bell, from the morning after, but he’d been caught that morning in a vertiginous loop of hangover, lingering drunkenness, and panic, and he barely remembered anything else but her front door.
Her place was cute, though. The building had been renovated, and whoever had done it—not Pagano & Sons—had done a good job of keeping the period details and upgrading the systems. Katrynn’s taste in furnishings and décor seemed a lot like her taste in clothes: girly without being fussy. A brown leather sofa against one wall had a pile of colorful small pillows on one corner. One of the cats he recognized was perched on the pile. The other cat was stretched across the back. A fluffy purple blanket was tossed over the other side of the sofa, like Katrynn had been wrapped up in it when he’d knocked.
Another wall was lined with three identical bookcases, the kind you assemble yourself. They were all stuffed full with books, more than they could neatly contain. On top of the one nearest the window was a plant with vines the trailed along the side. At the other side of the window, tucked between the window and a gas fireplace, was a puffy armchair with another fluffy blanket folded over its back. An old-fashioned rocking chair served as the rest of the seating in the room.
The sofa faced an armoire painted with yellow crackle paint. Its doors were open, showing a medium-sized television and a Blu-ray player. The television was on, the screen showing a paused picture. He recognized the movie she’d been watching.
“
Dirty Dancing
?”
She’d been walking toward a brightly-lit doorway that he assumed was her kitchen; now she stopped and picked up a remote of the coffee table. She turned off the television. “I had myself set up to have a night of self-indulgence. There’s also a pint of Chunky Monkey in the freezer, but I wasn’t that far along in the cliché yet. It’s your fault, so don’t judge.”