Then there is Porter, who I’ve seen in passing, but we haven’t been able to truly do anything alone. I’m kind of glad about that, because I’ve needed a minute to sort out my feelings. Him apologizing and admitting his desire to be something more has me more messed up than I was. Porter saying those words are what I always wanted to hear, but now that I know his true intentions, I’m scared.

  As I told Gigi, I’m not ready for anything yet. It would be the same if I met a completely new man. I’m freshly divorced, a rejected wife who feels too old and yet too young to retire herself to singledom. Being that this is Porter? That brings a whole other set of complications into the mix.

  “God, that was awful.” I take the last sip of my vodka soda and jiggle my glass.

  “Let’s go to the bar?” Gigi asks.

  “Definitely.” If Dad is paying, I’m drinking.

  We pass Porter on the way, and I can’t escape his gaze. Our eyes connect and everything south of my waist goes fuzzy and warm. Just because I’m convincing myself I can’t take on a relationship doesn’t mean we can’t spend time together? Right? We were great at that back in the day, the no-strings-attached approach. And this time, I know exactly what I’m getting into.

  “You’re thinking about fucking him, aren’t you?” Gigi slams me out of my thought process.

  “Oh my God, keep it down!” I hiss as we near the bar.

  She orders us two vodka sodas and turns to me. “Will you please just stop thinking with your brain and use your vagina instead? She’s lonely, she hasn’t been fed.”

  My cheeks are for sure bright red. “I’ve never even said that.”

  Gigi stink-eyes me. “You’ve been divorced for six months. You’re really going to tell me you’ve had sex with someone in that time?”

  “Okay, so it’s been a while,” I relent, feeling a throb in my core.

  Not only because it’s been so long since I’ve been touched, but also because the guy I want to touch me the most is just feet away from us, giving me the fuck-me eyes.

  “And he apologized. And said he wants you. What’s the problem?” She rolls her eyes.

  “There are so many and you know it,” I say pointedly.

  “You’re single, your divorce papers are signed, you’re over that asshole.” She ticks them off on her fingers.

  Am I? When I think about William, I feel hurt and dejection. But I don’t feel heartbreak anymore. I know that I’m not still in love. I’ve mourned that marriage at least.

  “No, I’m not in love with another man. But I fear if I ever love again, especially the guy over there, I’ll never recover if it doesn’t end well.”

  Gigi circles her arms around me. “You can’t live your life like that, though. You’re the one who wants the picket fence and the babies. You have to be willing to put yourself out there to get it.”

  I lean my cheek against her shoulder, loving the comfort. “Says the woman who swears she’ll be a fifty-year-old cougar.”

  “That’s right.” She smacks my butt. “I’m going to stay single, mingle, and then date the young bucks when the time comes.”

  I’m too busy drinking from my new glass, snorting at Gigi being her usual idiotic self, when I hear him start to sing.

  “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart.”

  There is no cheesy machine melody behind him, or lyrics pasting across a rainbow screen. No, when I turn, Porter is sitting front and center on stage, guitar in those big rough hands.

  The whole room goes up in wolf-whistles and cheers, everyone in here knew this would be the main event. There was no way Porter wasn’t going to be convinced to sing, but we were all just waiting for it. He’s already blown everyone out of the water, not that Gigi and my duet of “Let It Snow” was anything to write home about.

  “But the very next day, you gave it away,” he croons in that raspy, breathy voice.

  My God, it’s like he’s trying to get all the women in here pregnant. This isn’t a Christmas song, it’s porn in lyrical form.

  “Oof, if you don’t hop on that, someone else definitely will.” Gigi fans her face.

  He strums, and I imagine him running his hands over my body. Finding every part of my skin that makes me sing. Using them to …

  It’s official; I’m wet standing just feet from my parents and brother, openly panting over the hot guy who works for them. Porter serenades the crowd, but he’s only looking at me, and I have no idea if it’s obvious.

  This song invades my soul; last Christmas I was sitting in the wing of my marital home, crying into my pillow because I wasn’t sure if my husband was going to file for divorce in the next few days. This year, I’m in a healthier place, and dare say, I’m beginning to get happy.

  “Tell me baby, do you recognize me?” That line and he’s staring directly at me.

  A few heads turn, and now I know it’s definitely obvious to everyone else that he’s singing to me. When they say show me with actions instead of telling me you’re sorry or that you’ll do better, this is what they mean.

  Everyone starts clapping or singing along, but I’m standing by the bar trying to keep my heart from flying across the room. Damn, we haven’t even spent alone time together and already he’s invading every part of me.

  When that last gave you my heart comes, Porter hits a high note, throwing his head back and holding it like he’s anguished and love-stricken. It’s so hot and does something funky to my stomach and chest.

  “You better freaking give him your heart and all your other private parts.” Gigi raises an eyebrow at me as everyone bursts into applause.

  Porter takes his bows on stage, smiling goofily and freely. That alone makes me want to throw my arms around him.

  Too soon, everyone is saying goodbye, kissing and hugging in half-drunk merriment. I tell several people that it was so nice hanging out, because it genuinely was. For a while now, I’ve been keeping to myself because I thought it was what I deserved, and because I also didn’t want to have to explain the turn my life took. But like most things, it was a bigger demon in my head than it ever was in real life. Because tonight, not a single person mentioned or asked about my divorce.

  I make my way to the parking lot, fully intending to get in the back seat of my parent’s car like a teenager who has had one drink too many. I’m not drunk, but toasty.

  “Madison,” I hear that gruff, sexy strum of a voice to my right.

  When I look, Porter is leaning against the driver’s side of his car. I can’t help it, I smile, and before I know what I’m doing, I walk to him.

  He fiddles with his keys, almost nervously, and with the way he’s drinking me in, it feels like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Porter is a man of few words, which means when he lets you see his expressions openly, they say all you need to hear.

  “That was some song in there, cowboy.” I giggle, more nervous than tipsy as I near him.

  Why does my head always feel like it’s spinning when I’m in his vicinity?

  “Meant every word.” He grins like a child.

  “So did WHAM. Not sure they ended up with a better Christmas that year, though. Just a very monotone hit every December.”

  “Hey, are you calling my singing monotone?” He puts his hand to his chest like I’ve wounded him.

  Shaking my head, I chuckle. “That was incredible. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear it on the radio tomorrow.”

  “Can I take you home?” Porter stares straight into my eyes, and I think my lungs stop working.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I breathe, just as snow starts to fall.

  A sign, isn’t that what the Gilmore girls say? The snowfall right before Christmas has to mean something special. Or maybe I’m romanticizing this moment, but it does feel truly magical as Porter brushes a flake off my cheek.

  “Let me take you to my house?” he tries again.

  Alone with him in his home. No chance of interruptions or parents or siblings. I wonder, suddenly, what his house is like. What does his bedroom look like? Will I unearth even more of Porter Kelly if I go there?

  “Porter, if I go there, things will get …”

  “Good. Things will be good. Great. Incredible.” He smirks, his lips inches from mine. “Come on, Madison, trust me.”

  Now that douses me like ice water on this snowy night. It puts a damper on everything. The fun flirtation, the way he sang to me.

  “I have trusted you, in the past. I used to wait night after night, dance after school dance. I hoped you’d walk up the bleachers in high school and claim me. God, that sounds so misogynistic and demoralizing, but it’s true. After everything I’ve gone through, both with you and now with my divorce, my trust level is six feet under. I don’t know if I could take it if I went home with you and then …”

  “And then what?” He’s patiently listening, blue eyes searching mine.

  I’m surprised Porter isn’t getting defensive, but maybe he really is trying to be better, like he admitted to me that night on the train.

  “If I go home with you and we sleep together, then wake up the next morning and you pull your old crap? I’ll be devastated. I don’t even want commitment but if you did that, it would trigger the wounds that already exist.”

  “That’s not going to happen. And I know in order for you to see that, you have to trust me. But, I’m telling you, I want to be better. Let me show you. Let me prove it.”

  His words rattle around my chest, both comforting and stirring up old insecurities. I have to laugh at this situation, because the roles are so reversed from what they used to be.

  “You know, there was a time where I would have fallen at your feet from you saying that. But then again, you never would have asked me to seriously start something back then.”

  Porter holds my face in his hands, and I’m almost sure he’s going to lay his mouth on mine before he speaks.

  “Wanting you wasn’t the problem. Deep down, I wanted more. I almost told you I loved you.”

  19

  Porter

  “Wanting you wasn’t the problem. Deep down, I wanted more. I almost told you I loved you.”

  I never, in a million years, thought I’d be sharing this with her. I swore to keep it locked away, take it to my grave. I talked myself out of happiness, and it was possibly one of the worst decisions I ever made.

  “It was after senior prom, you remember, at that house in the Poconos.” I was too much of a coward to ask her to be my date, but had no problem fucking her the entire weekend after.

  “Of course I remember. I wanted you to ask me to the prom so badly I ached,” she whispers, her eyes both sad and reminiscent in the dim glow of the parking lot lights.

  “I’m sorry about that. I was a gutless coward.” Because I didn’t want her to get attached, and confirming something in public would have given her ideas.

  “You were.” She nods, smirking.

  “Anyway, on the second day, after a marathon of drinking and then you in my room all night, we woke up in bed together. It was the first time we’d really done that. Usually it was one of us sneaking out of the other’s house or leaving from a party. You were sleeping in my arms, so peaceful, and at that moment, I realized there was no one in the world I knew better than you. I’d been keeping you at arm’s length, treating you like crap and not committing. But we really did know each other. I knew you were always too cold, even in the summer. I knew that you loved Adele before she got mega-popular—you had her poster on your bedroom wall. I knew that you preferred cheap beer to sugary wine coolers, couldn’t stand when people bragged about money, loved when it would thunder and lightning so loud it lit up the whole room, and loved your family in subtle ways. You picked up your brother from football practice almost every day in the fall so your mom didn’t have to. You were the kind of person who volunteered to help teachers set up their classrooms, or babysit their little kids, so they had time to do that. I may not have given you the respect of a relationship you deserved, but I knew you so well in those stolen moments over the years.”

  Tears shine in Madison’s eyes, and she’s shaking her head like she can’t believe I noticed any of it.

  “At that moment, this overwhelming tightness squeezed my chest. It felt like I was looking at the entire solar system, right there in your peaceful face. I wanted to wake you up and tell you that I loved you. To admit I’d been a fool, that you were the most spectacular human I’d ever met. And then someone came clattering back into the house, yelling about the Jell-O shots being ready in the kitchen, and I chickened out. Fuck, I really was a coward back then. I broke things off, acting like they didn’t mean a thing, because I knew you had this whole life in front of you. I saw it even before you did. So I took the coward’s way out. I still am. Because instead of just admitting this, instead of comforting you the first minute I saw you back in Rutlend, I’ve been pushing you away. My defenses are always so high, but I’m taking them down now. I mean it, I’m open. Do your worst. I want that, and I hope you will also give me your best.”

  Snow is falling faster now, sticking to her eyelashes, and I reach out to brush it away. Madison closes her eye and the pad of my thumb sweeps over the thick black hairs, clearing her vision. I don’t move my hand from her cheek when she blinks them back open, and she tilts so that her head leans into my palm.

  “Take me home?” She breathes, setting her shoulders like she’s made a decision.

  “Yeah, I can drop you there.” I nod, happy that she’s at least letting me spend an extra couple of minutes with her.

  My confession may not have brought me more forgiveness or her trust, but slowly I hope I’m chipping away at the resentment I built in her.

  “No, I mean, take me to your home. Take me, Porter.” Madison’s gaze is so sincere as lust lingers just beneath the surface.

  I grab her hand so fast I nearly knock both of us off balance. We scramble into the car; the snow hitting the windshield in gusts as I navigate the streets of our hometown as quickly but carefully as possible. The whoosh of Madison’s mounting arousal is evident in her breathing, and I can’t help but reach over and suction my hand to her thigh. I massage the jean material covering it, my cock so hard that I almost ask her to relieve some of the pressure as I drive.

  But that would be cheap, and I’m trying to prove to her that she’s anything but. I want to worship her tonight, to show her exactly how much of an idiot I was back then for not admitting how I felt.

  We’re at my house in ten minutes instead of the fifteen minutes it should take. I round the car and help her out, lacing our fingers as I stride purposefully toward the door of my small, trendy ranch.

  “Your house is … cute.” Her voice holds amused wonder.

  “You thought I’d live in some rundown shack?” I chuckle, my hands shaking a little as I unlock the door.

  For as ready and sure as I am about bringing her here, it also has a lot of loaded meaning. Once we do this, we’re bringing our emotions and relationship into this decade. We’re going to have to unpack past mistakes, open up to each other about fears and insecurities and everything that is going on in our lives. I’m ready, but it’s only normal to be anxious.

  “No. But I didn’t expect something so charming.” Madison looks around in the dim light of the single lamp I have on a timer in my front hallway that leads directly to the open living room.

  “Jenny picked most of it out,” I joke, and then cup her face between my hands before crushing my lips to hers.

  I mean for the kiss to be soft, slow, but I just can’t help it. There are years of pent-up sexual frustration from missing her, promises I want to silently pour from me to her, and a gut punch of pleasure threatening to end this way before it starts because I’m way too geared up right now.

  Madison meets me with every stroke of my tongue over hers. This kiss is everything we’ve lost out on, and when I pick her up, her legs wind around my hips like they’re meant to stay there.

  We were always so good at this, even as fumbling teenagers. I took her virginity, and still remember that painstaking control I kept on myself not to hurt her. She put herself in my hands, and from then on, I knew her body like the back of my hand.

  Everything in me revs up to do it once again.

  Her hands thread through my hair, small moans vibrating down my throat as we explore each other’s mouths. I walk us blindly to my room, my hands massaging her perfect ass through her jeans. When I set her down to a sitting position on the bed, we shed our coats and shoes. Anything that keeps the other from touching bare skin.

  By the time I look down to where she’s sitting on the bed, I find her to be shirtless, going for her bra.

  “I want to do that.” I push her back, climbing over her until one of my knees parts her thighs and they fall to the side. We’re both in our jeans, my shirt and her bra the only thing standing between our bare chests.

  “So do it,” she challenges, and a zing of lust seizes my balls.

  The Madison I knew let me take charge, she had these breathy sighs and wide eyes whenever we were hooking up as teenagers. I know she’ll let me lead this time as well, I tend to do so in the bedroom, but this is a full-fledged woman. She just pushed me a little, something she’d never done before. Why does that make me so fucking horny, my cock is trying to punch through my zipper?

  Granting her wish, I reach under her, the smooth velvet of her skin making me grind my teeth she feels so fucking good. If I’m not careful, I’ll hurt her with how savage I want to be right now.

  The hooks of her bra are undone and then I’m pulling it off, sucking in a breath as I see her naked for the first time in eight years. Smooth skin, the color of coffee with a double helping of sweet vanilla cream. The dip her hips make as they melt into her jeans. Cornsilk hair spread over my comforter, and the perfect rosy pink peaks of her tits, ripe for my mouth.

  “You knew the song would get me.” She chuckles, then gasps as my teeth find her nipple.