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“Okay, let’s do this slowly.” He reached behind me, pulling my upper body to rest in his lap. I winced in pain and he mimicked my wince. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I wanted to surprise you.”
“So you decided to break my ass!”
“I just got done mopping in here. I was in the bathroom when I heard you come in.”
“Great, then you know you’re an asshole!” I was angry about my wipeout, but more furious that all I wanted to do after days of him shutting me out was throw my arms around him and beg him never to do it again. I knew I was head over heels, but needy was not my style.
“I know,” he said, rubbing my face gently with his hand that reeked of Pine-Sol. Or maybe I did, or maybe my ass did. I felt the cold seeping through my back and shivered.
“Help me up, I’m good.” He helped me to my feet and we both slipped momentarily. He picked me up and put me on the carpet before he started to clean up my mess of groceries while I stared after him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Gerri let me in,” he said, avoiding my bitch face and my question.
“Fine, let yourself out.” I walked into my room and shut the door, tearing off my clothes and throwing them in a heap on the floor before freezing when I noticed all the candles lit around my room. His iPod was on my dock as The Beatles serenaded me with If I Fell. I instantly felt guilty, but had to remind myself that I was pissed and I had a right to be. I walked into my bathroom and gasped. It was lit with even more candles and on the side of the tub sat two tins, one filled with white rose petals, the other with a lavender bath perfume. He was going to make me a bath. I started the water and did his bidding, filling my nose with what turned out to be vanilla and lavender tonic—a smell I’d mentioned I was addicted to during one of our first conversations. Sitting on the toilet seat was a new, long, white silk negligee and a fluffy robe.
“I figured I’d be practical with the robe. You’d want it comfy.” I turned to look at him and saw he was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, attempting to read my mood, which had continually shifted in the last ten minutes.
“I feel like I’m going crazy,” I said with tears in my eyes. “I can’t decide whether to love you or hate you from one minute to the next.”
“I told you loving me wasn’t easy, Hil,” he said hoarsely, his eyes begging for forgiveness.
“It’s so easy to love you, Jayden. Too easy. It’s only hard when you won’t let me.” In two strides he was in front of me, cupping my face.
“You are it for me. You need to know that. I won’t be the perfect man, ever. I won’t even come close, but for you I’ll fight hard to be. I have all this shit going on in my head twenty-four/seven. It never ends. It’s incessant and can turn me into a ticking time bomb, and I won’t let you be a casualty.”
“I don’t need anything more than what you’ve given me already, Jayden. You don’t have to be anything but yourself. I’ve never felt like this, ever. It’s so strong what I feel for you. You can’t shut me out like that. It hurt so much.” He wiped twin tears away from my cheeks. “Please don’t shut me out again.”
“I’ll try, baby. I will, I swear. I’m just not me when I get like that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He reached down and turned off the water. “Get in the tub. You smell like a pinecone. I’ll go clean up then get in with you.”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said, turning back to me. “Are you in pain?”
“Kind of,” I said truthfully. My ass did feel broken.
“I’ll get you some Tylenol.” I nodded, sinking into the hot bath.
Minutes later, he returned, handing me two aspirin and some water. I felt more relaxed than I had in days as he slid off his clothes and I watched, unashamed. He looked so damn beautiful bared before me. I appreciated every inch of his naked ass as he turned off the bathroom light so only the candles lit the room. He joined me, slipping in on the opposite side of the tub then pulled my feet into his lap. I winced again and he saw it.
“Should we take you to the ER and get you seen?”
“It’s not that bad,” I said quietly, leaning further into the back of the tub to take the pressure off my behind.
“I’ll go get you another bottle of that wine,” he said apologetically.
“It’s fine. I don’t need it.” Jayden took a single white petal with his fingertip and swirled it around in the water. I had to admit, the atmosphere he’d created was completely intoxicating. Being surrounded by a scented bath with white rose petals in a room full of candlelight was surreal.
After a few minutes of silence, he looked up at me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me what happened,” I pleaded, hoping for some insight into what had caused him to push me away.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said, cupping some water in his hands and rinsing his face. “Man, that smells amazing. I get why you like it.”
“Jayden,” I said in warning.
“Okay.” He let out a long breath. “It’s like a tidal wave that’s impossible to stop. I just get sad and a little scared. It’s not clinical, but it’s rough. I feel like everything’s wrong. Nothing will get better. You know, hopeless.”
I nodded as I felt the discomfort he was feeling from telling me.
“It doesn’t happen a lot, once or twice a year, and it doesn’t last long. It’s not even really a symptom of ADHD. I don’t know. I guess my racing brain just gets tired and I shut down. It’s all about the chemicals in my brain. You know what ADHD is, right?”
“I’m begi
“My mom called?”
“Yes, we are going to a barbeque Saturday.”
“No shit,” he said, smiling. “What did she say?”
“Nothing, really. I’m the one that did most of the blabbing. I was nervous.”
Jayden picked up a sponge from the side of the tub and poured some liquid soap on it to suds it up then began rubbing my leg with it. “She’s going to love you, Hilary.”
“Oh yeah, how do you know that?”
“I know her.” He gri
“Thank you for all this. It’s nice. You didn’t have to.”
“I was going to make it so much better. I didn’t think you would be home so early.”
“Our last client was at four, so Marcy let me off early,” I explained as Jayden’s sponge drifted over my stomach as he crept closer to me. Still working his sponge, he managed to lift me by my arms, pulling me into his seated lap. I felt his growing hardness as I wrapped my legs around him. His muscled arms firmly around me, he used the sponge on my back as he stared into my eyes.
“I missed you.”
“You didn’t have to,” I protested, looking away. I didn’t want to cry again. I didn’t want him to think of me as weak. I wanted him to be able to trust that I could handle it.
“Look at me,” he ordered gently, gripping me tighter as he continued to bathe me. “I wasn’t there.”
I nodded. “I’ll live. I...You didn’t tell me about that part.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to the person you are falling for that they might not want to reciprocate your affection because you may on occasion have an uncontrollable, explosive temper tantrum? Or that you may pop off with inappropriate comments at any point in time that could alienate them? Oh, and don’t forget the controlling, OCD tendencies with a small, short-lived side of anxiety and depression. Or better yet, how to explain you weren’t listening to something important they were trying to convey because you were too busy figuring out the difference between jelly and jam.”
“Just like that,” I answered, knowing it wasn’t that simple.
“How likely would you have been to return my calls?”
“I don’t think anything could’ve stopped us,” I said quickly. “And I don’t care if you drink blood once a month from a one legged whore. I love you.”