Page 34 of 4 Weddings and a Feud
She directed him where to park the limo, dropped the keys into the box, and walked beside him to where he’d parked his flashy silver Ferrari. He opened the passenger door for her and watched as she slid in. He tugged on the seat belt and handed her the buckle, then waited for her to click it.
He took his seat, started the car, and pulled to the gate. As it slid open, Mary chose her words carefully. “So, while I was away at college, you were…”
Alex’s shoulders tensed before he said, “Dealing with the mess my father had left and working days at one hotel and nights at another. Driving a taxi on the weekends. Dad had it easy. He was in jail, awaiting trial.” He pulled through the gate and turned onto the street toward her neighborhood.
“But if you lost your house,” she asked, “where did you stay?”
“Mama had a cousin who put her up, but there was no room for me. I couch surfed,” he said. “Luckily for me, I had a few friends whose parents my father hadn’t defrauded. A few nights, I slept in my car.”
“You got to keep the BMW?”
“No, I had to sell that, too. Bought a janky old Ford Escort. I was grateful for the car repair basics your dad taught me. That car leaked oil like a mother. Never could plug it.”
Something tight and prickly settled in her chest. Alex hadn’t told her because he thought she’d judge him. Sure, she was upset when he stood her up, but she’d have understood if he’d only explained what happened. Except…
“My brothers told you to stay away from me, didn’t they?”
“I’d have done it anyway, but yes. They didn’t want me to distract you from your studies.”
“We were friends. It would’ve been okay if you’d distracted me. I’d have wanted to know.”
“How does the song go? ‘You can’t always get what you want.’” He flashed her a grim smile that made her wonder.
“Did you really want to take me to prom? As more than friends?”
He stopped at a stop sign, then reached for her hand. “Of course I did. I was an entitled ass, but I wasn’t cruel enough to ask you as a joke.”
“But you let me believe it. All those years.”
He released her hand and stepped off the brake. “I was a coward. Letting you hate me for something I didn’t do was easier than letting you hate me for who I was.”
She blinked hard, willing the tears to stay puddled at her eyelids and not run down her cheeks. Fortunately, they’d reached her house, and she used the cover of unbuckling her seatbelt to dab at her eyes.
Alex got out and held the door for her. Silently, they walked side by side up her front walk and ascended to her front porch. She dug in her purse for her key but paused before she slipped it into the lock.
Looking up into his eyes, shadowed in the dim porch light, she shivered, and not because of the cool desert air. He’d smashed everything she thought she’d understood for the past twenty years, and the newly exposed edges of the truth were as sensitive as a paper cut.
“I forgave you a long time ago. You know that, right?”
“I don’t know why. I wouldn’t have forgiven me,” he said.
She smiled. “You do hold a good grudge.”
Alex glanced out at her quiet street, then he pulled her into a hug. Into her ear, he murmured, “Never against you.”
He loosened his grip on her like he’d step back, but she clung to him. “I liked our dance tonight. Thanks for that. And for, you know, doing my job.”
“It was my pleasure.”
Suddenly, Mary was aware of how the stiff fabric of their shirts rubbed together. Of their mingled breath. Of the fact that nothing but a few inches of air separated her from his plush lips. She trembled.
His eyes went soft, and he lifted a hand to cradle her jaw. “I’m going to kiss you now. The way I wish I could’ve kissed you on prom night.” But he paused for a second, then another, as he gazed into her eyes.
Realizing that, despite his words, he was waiting for her to make the next move, she stretched her neck, savoring the friction as she rubbed up his chest and landed her lips on his.
It was a closed-mouth kiss, but their lips softened against each other the same way they’d melted their barriers tonight. She understood him at last. All the guilt, pain, and humiliation that drove him to remake that shitty motel into La Villa and thumb his nose at the big players at the heart of the strip. That made him swagger into Forza Elite Motors and pick a fight with her brothers. That kept him silent for four years while she was in college, clueless about his situation and thinking herself the one who’d been hurt. When he’d been hurting all along.
Alex pulled away, leaning his forehead against hers, his breathing unsteady as hers.
