We pull into the parking lot at home. Hayden turns off the ignition and shifts in his seat. The unexpected cracking of the sumptuous leather startles me.
Facing his beautiful and unperturbed profile, he brings his left hand up, tucks my hair behind my ear then places it on the side of my face. The warmth and gentleness of this gorgeous man, who has had to deal with such degradation at the actions of his past lover knots my stomach and clenches at my heart.
I am held by his dark, sincere stare.
“Thank you, Sam.”
“…For what?” I scoff, shaking my head. Why is he thanking me? He is the one that has jumped the hurdle; I am still terrified and battling with myself to repay him with the same level of respect and courtesy that he deserves.
With a tightlipped grin, Hayden snorts once, “For accepting me…all of me.” My heart swells as my sympathy grows. What did he think I would do? Leave him because he was a man who suffered by that of a woman? No one deserves that. “I was scared I was going to lose you, if you ever found out.”
Hayden hangs his head for a moment, focusing on my lap and then lifts his head again. His expression is softer, as he gazes at me with intense reflection.
“But, the thought of losing you before snatching the opportunity to fill in the blanks of my past, which could have consequentially avoided that hurt…that is something that I would have regretted until my dying day.”
I secretly gasp at the words he has spoken; expressive, profound, and eloquent words that boil my blood and forms tears of unconditional love in my eyes.
I look down, vacantly studying the gearshift as I ponder the motive behind his heartrending admission. How I managed to keep myself together and not breakdown when he shared this dark part of his life with me, I will never know. But I thank God that I managed to stay strong for him. Hayden Wentworth would not appreciate even an inclination that someone pitied him––although, I did come close to breaking my barrage once or twice.
Hayden traces his thumb over my mouth and I peek up at him timidly.
“Come on, I promised Jessie that I would get you home safely.” His eyes glisten as his mouth curls into a wide smile, a liberated smile. A smile of a man who has had the weight of the world removed from his shoulders, like a man who has shown and allowed his deepest, darkest part of his adulthood to be trusted with his partner…like a man, who has found hope in his life shared with his companion.
I attempt to faintly mirror his exuberance and follow him out of the Aston Martin.
“Jessie is severely pissed at me right now,” I whine like a petulant teenager, feeling my anticipation and guilt levels soar as we make our way inside the elevator.
A recollection of words I had spat out in haste deafens me. How could I make my best friend cry? The person who is the closest thing to family I have, the one person that even through her annoying brashness, made me take the leap and make the change to my life that I so desperately needed, but didn’t fully accept.
I shake my head sullenly. She didn’t deserve that.
Kitting my fingers together and allowing them to hang in front of my lower abdomen, I lean into my hip.
“Hey,” Hayden twists his body to face mine.
I peer up at his towering physique, his hair all glossy and floppy, the left side of his mouth curving into a knowing smirk that makes my insides liquefy. I have to suppress the urge to push myself up onto the balls of my feet, and pin him into the corner of the moderate sized elevator. To grant my hands passage to freely fondle his God-like body concealed by his expensive charcoal suit, while caressing his tongue with mine, tasting him as I work down to his neck.
I am pulled back from my vivid reverie as a familiar touch scoops at my hand. Hayden’s one-sided smirk widens to a full on, panty-dropping, ovary-bursting smile.
“Was it good?”
“Hmm…?” I feel the blush spread through my body. Smiling through sheer embarrassment, I sink my teeth into my lip to halt the unconscious, repetitive jaw-dropping motions that betrays my assertiveness.
Arching his eyebrow, he sniffles once before glaring at me in the boldest and most seductive fashion, which has me panting and my eyes glazing in hunger and desperation. My body tingles as I stare at his ‘come-and-get-it’ expression. Jeez, I swear this man can read minds.
Forcing myself to swallow, I roll my tongue across my withering lips. The elevator pings and halts, sending my stomach into orbit as the jerking motion ends our ascent.
“There we go…saved by the bell,” I gasp feeling as giddy as a schoolgirl and point up to the number over the door revealing my fifteenth floor in a daze. “And not a minute too soon,” I pant taking a step closer to the opening, while attempting to recover what little semblance of self-restraint I have left…which is trifling to say the least.
I’m ambushed the instant I step into the apartment. Jessie slips off the stool at the breakfast bar, and bounds toward me like an over excited puppy.
“Oh, Sammy, thank goodness you’re alright!” she booms with a tone of relief. I am momentarily stunned as she throws her arms around my neck. Acknowledging that even amidst the verbal abuse I targeted at her, she still cares, I loosen and sink into her embrace, returning her affection.
“Hayden, I need to talk to Jessie a moment. If you want you can go on into my bedroom.” I maintain eye contact with Jessie as I mutter my instruction.
“Okay,” he murmurs before heading to my room.
“Jessie, I am so sorry for everything that I said. I was scared and pissed off, and––”
“No, Sammy, I am the one who should be apologizing. You were right, I did keep pushing you and building your hopes up and I shouldn’t have.”
We squeeze one another with suffocating force while Jessie soothingly swaying us side-to-side.
“Forgive me?” we ask each other in unison.
Pulling back from one another, our arms slip to our sides, but the grasp on each other’s hands remain. Jessie winces and mutters, “Are we cool?” skepticism weighing heavily on her words.
“Yeah, we are.” My smile broadens as I encompass my friend once again. “Actually, I think you were right all along.”
Releasing me, she leads me to the breakfast bar, and I slip onto one of the stools. The cold surface beneath me makes me stiffen and shudder. I quickly make a mental memo: short skirts and cold surfaces do not mix.
“How do you mean, sweetie?” she sips at her glass of white wine, the glass frosted from the cold.
Propping my right elbow up onto the worktop, I look down and pick at the edge of my thumbnail. “Hayden has done something tonight. He um…” I inhale loudly through my nose, and peer up at a patiently waiting Jess. “He told me about his past. His cards are on the table. And he said something in the car before coming up.”
“Care to elaborate, Sammy, I am not a mind reader.”
I reiterate the heavy, expressive words that Hayden muttered, and the words are my guiding light, showing me the way forward, to advance in the relationship with the one person who I…who I have fallen for.
“He’s made a valid point, Sammy. A relationship has to have honesty, and I can understand why you didn’t want to mention anything about,
Him
…it was, too soon. How do you feel about it now?” she takes another sip of wine and the base of the stem makes and elegant tap against the counter.
Squaring my shoulders, and expanding my chest as I take a deep, concentrated breath, I mentally reevaluate the last twenty-four hours. I catch sight of the array of pink roses in a crystal vase in the corner of the kitchen: our anniversary dinner last night, wanting to tell him how much he means to me, the text message, and his secrecy; the last kiss, which lingered for an eternity when I said goodbye. Jessie acting as my voice of reason, the panic and dread that I drowned in when my calls were left unanswered. The anger, the sorrow, my longing, and familiar instincts reemerging in an attempt to overcome the regret of taking a leap of faith with yet another man. Nearly fucking it all up as Hayden watched the guy from Bimbo’s touch me and kiss me, and finally, Hayden’s redemption of the emotions that he had abandoned when he relived through it all again…to save what we have, to make way for an honest, unblemished future.
The small, subtle, mechanistic nodding of my head becomes more determined as I relive the ups and downs of such a sparse amount of time. “I’m ready, Jess,” I stare at her, absorbed by such feelings that are racing around at frantic speed through my mind and body. Her mouth curls with delight, and reprieve. “He deserves it. He’s made me stronger…I have made him stronger. Together…” pooling all of my enthusiasm into one motivational sphere in my heart and my gut, I grin, “we can do this. We can make it work…I hope,” I whisper my final two words under my breath.
“Will you tell him about the family as well or just about
Him
?”
I shake my head. “I have no ties with my family, Jess; those parts of my life are irrelevant to him, and trust me, I don’t think he will be willing to accept my entire luggage of shit luck.”
I roll my eyes as Jessie rests an encouraging, supportive hand on my knee.
“I had every faith in you that you would clear the ‘new relationship hurdle’ now, you have to clear this one, and forgo the control it has had on your life. I know you can do this, sweetie.”
I nod. “I better go in before he crashes out on my bed. He’s had a really long day,” I mutter, sliding myself off the stool and smoothing my skirt over my relatively numb behind.
“I’m proud of you, Sammy; so, so proud.” She clasps my hand in hers.
“Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it.” She shakes her head with a confidence I wish I possessed, and wrinkles the bridge of her nose.
Focusing on the ground, I count the steps from the bar, through the dining room, down the hall, to my room. The longest eighteen steps I have ever had to walk in my life. I sense myself walking towards my fate, it just depends which side of fate it will be…
“Hey, there you are. I thought you got lost,” Hayden teases as he pushes himself up from my side of the bed. He prowls towards me as I rest my back against the cold, painted door of my room. “Are you and Jessie okay?”
I offer an indistinct nod. “Yeah, we will be fine. In all of the years we have known each other…I have never been so ruthless and bitter towards her. I’m surprised she forgave me to be honest.” I hang my head feeling the strain and tension burning upon my shoulders and my neck.
“The people closest to us are always the ones that suffer from our expressions of anger and verbal outbursts.” Hayden traces the back of his fingertips down the side of my face. Towering over me, I lift my head to meet his gaze. “But once the dust settles, forgiveness is always at the end of it, because that is what good friends do…they forgive one another.”
Leaning down, his lips meet mine, and the tender pressure of his mouth ties my stomach into knots. I kiss him back at a measured pace, my mind focusing solely on what needs to be done––what needs to be said. Hayden coaxes my mouth open, his warm tongue glides across mine. I don’t want this to be the last time that we share this connection. Although the saddening voice in my mind tells me that that may be a possibility.
Pulling his lingering mouth away from me, Hayden bows his head and rests his forehead against me.
“Are we okay, Samantha? You seem miles away.”
My eyes are closed, but the doubt laced in his voice sends a spike through my chest. I can only imagine the wounded, dubious expression that lay on his profile.
“Can we um…lie down?” I push through the increasing mass in my throat that conjoins with the stinging, burning sensation of my tears. “Can you just…hold me…please?” My voice breaks, as I sense the burning and the sheer pressure of my repressed tears, traveling down into my sinuses.
“Of course I will, beautiful. I’ll always be here to hold you.”
Slipping his hand in mine, I relish the warmth and the pliancy of his touch as I lead him over to the bed, and crawl over to the right-side…Hayden’s designated side. If tonight is going to be the last night I have with him, I at least want to have his scent lingering on my own pillow.
Pressing his front into my back as he spoons me like two lovers, he snakes his left arm around my waist, pulling me closer, so there are no spaces or gaps between. Clutching at his hand, I lift his forearm so it lays snug at my cleavage. I cuddle up to his limb while breathing in his familiar, intoxicating scent. I feel him burying his nose into the crook of my neck, and he breathes me in, before placing a kiss on my surface. A tear escapes from its confinement, and trickles over the bridge of my nose, before splatting onto the white, linen pillowcase.
My stomach tenses as I struggle to stifle the sniveling that my body wants granted.
“Hey, it’s okay, beautiful. We will be okay, please…please don’t cry. I’m here.” Hayden’s soft, consoling tone makes my tears pursue their freedom faster. Yes, he is here, but all the trepidation that I’m now assembling in my mind and my heart, hints to me that this may be the last time.
I cling to his arm tighter. We lay, spooning together for minutes…? Hours…? I have no idea, time ceases when Hayden is holding me, it always does. My eyelids feel as though they are closing over razorblades as I blink, so I relent and keep them closed instead.
“Hayden?” I call quietly, oblivious as to whether he has succumbed to sleep.
“Yes, beautiful,” he whispers, his arm squeezing around me for a brief moment.
“I––” It takes me two attempts to swallow the lump in my throat. “I was in a relationship when I was seventeen. We were together for about two years. He was my first.
“Everything was amazing for about the first year, we were happy and having fun, going out…I was completely besotted. We were in love––well…I was.”
Hayden’s soothing motion of his thumb grazing over my collarbone supports me in my telling.
“He started to show controlling behavior. Little things at first, you know: how much makeup I wore, I wasn’t allowed to wear a skirt, every outfit had to have his approval first, and if it didn’t get his approval then I wasn’t to wear it. Once the crack in our relationship was set and he knew that I would cave to his demands, the level of his control escalated. I wasn’t allowed to go out with girlfriends. I was to walk with my head down so he knew I wasn’t looking at any other men. If he ever caught me looking or talking to another man…”