Page 33 of Fearlessly Us

“Since the night I won a Super Bowl and met a gorgeous lawyer with pretty purple toes and eyes that look like a storm and entire worlds hidden beneath her surface just waiting to be discovered. There may have been a lot of women before, but there aren’t anymore because none of them are you.” Drew looks down at our joined hands and back up at me. “I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now, but it’s like you’re dug inside me, Catie, in a way no one else ever has been before. I don’t know what it means, and I think I’m probably no good for anyone, but I can’t make myself forget about you and I don’t want to stay away. I know I fucked up before and I have no idea where to start, but I think maybe we can start right here, because here, with you, is the only place I want to be.”

Drew’s words hit me in the chest. Burrow there. Become a part of me. Because even though I tell myself I prefer to be alone, I think maybe here is the only place I want to be too.

With him.

I don’t know what to do about that, and I don’t have the brain space to figure it out right now, so I reach for a little levity.

I’m not avoiding the heavy stuff. I’m saving it for later.

Probably.

“Well, you do make a killer omelet, and you’re not terrible to look at either. You nailed the proper soda-to-ice ratio in my drink, and you figured out two heating pads are better than one when my cramps try and kill me from the inside out. Also, I read through the estate planning questionnaire you sent back to me, and you list yourself as owner of six random and unrelated businesses and a host of other weird and hard-to-value assets you haven’t planned for at all, so maybe we can start there, too, because I think you need me pretty badly.”

A shadow crosses Drew’s face, but it’s gone too fast for me to clock it, his lips turning up in his signature smirk. Pushing up from the coffee table, he slides onto the couch and slots himself behind me, his body pressed to mine. It’s ridiculous how much I like it, and before I realize what’s happening, he drags my hairbrush through my hair, and it feels so good I very nearly purr like a fucking cat.

I resist my kneejerk urge to tell him I can do this by myself. That I’ve been brushing my own hair since I was five and saw how overwhelmed my mom was with twins and a newborn baby, so I figured out how to do it on my own to take something off her plate. And for the first time in my entire adult life, I admit to myself two things I’ve never let myself think before. Sometimes I’m really not fine, and it feels better when I don’t have to do everything all alone.

Drew leans forward until his lips are close to my ear, his warm breath fluttering deliciously over my skin when he speaks. “I’m not sure I know how to need anyone,” he says quietly, continuing to work the brush through my tangled strands. “But I think I would like to learn how to need you.”

We’re not so different, I realize, as I settle back against him, soaking in this little act of care that for me feels so very huge. And I think maybe I would like to learn how to need him too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DREW

“Are you…braiding my hair?” Caitlin asks, turning her head as if to try to see what I’m doing.

“Eyes forward, Catie, unless you want a crooked braid.” Reaching around, I tug off the hair tie she seems always to be wearing on her wrist, holding the braid together with my free hand.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Even with her back to me, I can practically see the eye roll. “Why are you braiding my hair? As a matter of fact, why were you even brushing my hair?”

Leaning forward, I press a kiss to the back of her head, loving the way she jolts just slightly, before seeming to settle farther back against me. She smells like lavender shampoo, and somehow I know I’ll never be around that scent again without thinking of her. She owns it now. “You came down here with the brush in your hand, which tells me you either didn’t feel like doing it yourself or you were too tired, both of which would make perfect sense after what your body has been through today. I can brush. I can braid. I’m aces at braiding as a matter of fact.” I inject some levity into my voice despite the fact that working my hands in the familiar rhythm has an old ache forming in my chest. “And I really like to do things for you.”

“Why?” she asks again, this time sounding so baffled at the thought that someone would want to help her that I can’t help but smile.

Fuck, I like her. A lot.

Twisting the hair tie around the end of her braid, I put my hands on her shoulders and turn her around gently so she’s facing me. “I really don’t know. I haven’t taken care of anyone since Av—” I stop myself before I say Avery’s name, not wanting to make this night about me when I want so badly to learn more about her. Also, because talking about myself still makes me uncomfortable enough to want to get up and run.

But then I look up into Caitlin’s eyes and see her watching me with that steady gaze, and I think maybe, when it’s her I’m talking to, I can be a little bit brave. When this time she’s the one to reach out, to lay her hand over mine, I think maybe I can do the hard things if I get to do them with her.

“That’s how you learned to braid, isn’t it?” she asks gently, winding her fingers around mine. “When Avery was little.”

Turning my head, I stare into the flickering flame of the moody-scented candle I lit while Caitlin was in the shower. The sun has long since set, the living room lights still on low, and I realize the ease between us sitting here in her pretty space makes me want to do the opposite of run. It makes me want to settle in and stay a while. As long as she’ll have me, I think.

Maybe forever.

Forever.

That word flits through my mind, one I’ve never thought before about anyone or anything. I shouldn’t even be thinking it now. I’m not sure I’m built for forever, or whether I would know what to do with it if I was. But there’s something undeniably comforting about this. This night. This girl. Settling in a way that’s new for me. That makes me want to grab onto this moment and hold it for as long as I can.

With a nod, I squeeze her hand just a little and open up a piece of myself that has been closed for so, so long. “I used to braid her hair,” I say quietly, my mind sinking back into those late high school days. “When she was little. Her hair was always hanging in her face, and sometimes her mom was too out of it to care, so I watched a million videos and taught myself how to braid.” I look down at our joined hands, trying to collect my thoughts. “I guess some things you don’t forget.”

Even if some things I wish I could.