When they were both seated inside, the silence caved in around them. After a long pause he cranked the truck and pulled out. Ten minutes later, he pulled into a seaside B&B and turned the car off. Was he having second thoughts? Was he thinking about his past, letting it slowly consume this moment? Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe she wasn’t ready. Her body was most definitely primed for him, ready to give herself over in the most intimate of ways, but maybe this was just all too much for him.
“Adrian.” When he finally tore his gaze from the ocean and stared at her with blue eyes that seemed to match the rolling waves, she knew at that moment that she had lost her heart to him. She loved him. So. Much. Fear slammed into her at the revelation. No matter how selfish she wanted to be, how much she wanted to stay wrapped in his arms and hold him tight, it was far too dangerous to tell him how she felt. She hoped he felt the same way, too.
His hand slid across the seat and took hers, intertwining their fingers together. “Come inside with me. Be with me, Brea.”
* * * *
Twenty minutes later Adrian pushed open the door to their room. It was a quaint little B&B that was next to the coast. He got a room with a view of the ocean because when the sun rose over the water it glistened like tiny jewels. He wanted to see her face when she saw the sight. When she had suggested being with him his heart had literally stopped. She hadn’t come right out and said it, but the look in her eyes and the way she led him back to his truck had told him what she wanted.
The door shut behind them with a soft click and then silence descended on them. Adrian stayed by the door, watching as she walked around the room, touching the dresser, the small table and chair, and then finally stopping in front of the sliding glass doors that led right out onto the beach. The urge to go to her, to touch her was so strong he had to clench his fists to stop from doing so. She needed time, needed her space. He could see it, feel it. It didn’t matter if all they did was talk and hold each other. He would sleep on top of the covers in a snowsuit if it put her at ease.
He had told her everything, and even when his pain had slammed into him with as much force as a tsunami, she had been right there. She hadn’t run from him, hadn’t told him what an awful person he was. The silent strength she had given him just by listening to him, by not judging him had opened his heart in more than one way.
“When I was younger, my dad used to take me down to this small fishing hole behind our house. I hated going down there because he’d make me bait the hooks and I’d have to take the worms and stab them through.” The smile that touched her lips was reflected in the glass of the window. “We would stay out there for hours, not saying one word because he said we would scare all the fish away.” Adrian moved the steps it took to get to her and stood behind her, not touching her but desperately wanting to. “We’d bring our catch home and I’d watch my mom scale the fish and gut them. The house would smell so bad from the fish guts, but I always looked forward to those nights because everyone was smiling and laughing.” She brought her hands up and stared at them, as if remembering that particular memory. Her once happy smile turned sad and distant.
Was this the past she kept so tightly guarded? He was afraid to touch her. Afraid she would close herself off.
“I was eighteen when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. By the time they found it the cancer had metastasized and they gave her six months to live. She only made it three.” The sadness in her voice was evident, but he could see in her reflection that she wasn’t crying. He didn’t speak because he knew she needed to get this out. “My dad completely shut down after that. He wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t do anything. He had become this depressed shell of a man that couldn’t wake up and take care of himself.” Adrian wrapped his arms around her and he sighed when she leaned back into him. “He died of a heart attack a year later, but I believe it was from a broken heart. He loved my mother so much that when she died he couldn’t live without her, not even for his only daughter.” Tears started making their way down her cheeks and he gripped her tighter. What could he even say to make her tears stop?
“I sold their house, moved out of the town I grew up in, and started going to college. I just wanted to start over, to forget my past, to forget that I didn’t have anyone in the world. That’s where I met Cameron. He was eight years older than me and working on his doctorate in psychology. He said all the right things, did all the right things.” Voice dropping lower, she practically whispered, “He made me feel not so alone. He loved me.”