Sweet

Chapter Eighteen

In the middle of my Sunday night shift at work, my hair slipping from its bun, I rushed to the table that had just been seated. “Hi, my name is Jess—”

I cut off when I saw that it was Riley sitting at the table by himself, giving me a sheepish smile.

“Hey,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked uneasily, glancing around the restaurant. No one was looking at us.

“Eating?” He shrugged. “You won’t answer my texts or my calls. I needed to talk to you.”

I should have known that he wouldn’t accept my silence. Truthfully, I knew I couldn’t keep ignoring him, but I needed more than a few hours to get my head on straight. The plan had been to talk to him on Monday, after he got off work. “This isn’t the place.”

“What was I supposed to do? Look, I’m really, really sorry about last night. I talk before I think and shit comes out that shouldn’t. I was half asleep, it just slipped out.”

He wasn’t getting it. That wasn’t really the problem. “Except that you obviously were really bothered by the idea of how many guys I’ve been with, so I needed to hear that, to know that. You obviously don’t respect me.”

“No, it’s not that.” His hand came out, like he was going to take mine, but he stopped himself. “It’s pure jealousy, which is totally different from judgment. I know being jealous is wrong, I know that, and I want to get ahold of it, but the thing is, Jess, I’ve never felt the way about a girl the way I feel about you. I love you.”

Oh, God. I took a deep breath, my heart squeezing. It was so hard to think when he was looking at me like that, his brown eyes so big and sincere and pleading.

“I want to be important to you. Special.” He shook his head and gave a soft laugh. “Do you know how stupid I feel saying that? I think my balls just dropped to the floor.”

My fingertips were shaking, and I wanted desperately to kiss him, to lean forward and feel his mouth on mine. He loved me, and I believed him. “It takes a real man to be honest. And you are important to me. The most special guy I’ve ever met. The guy. But last night I needed you to be there for me, and you put that jealousy on me.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry. Please come home tonight. Please. I’ll pick you up after work.”

“It’s not my home,” I said, though I wasn’t even sure why I said that. It wasn’t the time or the place to get into it.

“Yes, it is. And I owe you a true apology in it.”

“Jessica!” One of the other servers went rushing past me, giving me an exasperated look, her tray filled with drinks. “Table thirty-seven.”

Shit. “Give me five.” I rushed off to the bar to put in orders from the table I had greeted before Riley and I ordered a beer for him.

“Who is the hottie you were talking to?” Mandy the bartender asked, with a speculative look over at Riley.

“That’s my boyfriend,” I told her because I already knew I was going to go home with Riley and I was going to listen to what he had to say. I was going to give him the ear that I never got with my family, the right to explain himself without having already made my decision.

“Oh, wow, lucky you.”

She had a point, because how many other guys did I know who would have come to a restaurant by himself to beg me for forgiveness? None. Tyler was right—Riley had put himself out there for me.

So I walked carefully in the shoes I had borrowed from Robin, which were a half size too small, since I’d run out without clothes, and went back to Riley’s table. “Okay, you can pick me up tonight. I’ll come home with you.”

“Really?” He looked so ridiculously pleased that my heart swelled. “Cool. Awesome.” He picked up the bottle of beer a server over twenty-one had brought him. “Thanks for the beer, by the way.”

“Well, I had to order you something or people were going to think it was really weird that you were sitting here by yourself not eating or drinking anything.”

“Yeah, but you knew the right brand. That was sweet.”

Or observant. But I smiled, because he was just so gorgeous, and he understood me. He saw in me something more than anyone else did and that was an amazing feeling. “Sweet, that’s me. Jessica Sweet. Now you have to order some food or I’m going to get fired.”

He grinned. “Can I have some hot wings? And mozzarella sticks? And maybe some potato skins. Suddenly I’m hungry.”

“Oh my God. I hate you,” I told him with an exasperated laugh. “Fine. But when you die of a heart attack, I’m going to say I told you so.”

“As long as you do a shot of whiskey over my casket, it’s all good.”

“Don’t die,” I said, suddenly serious. “Don’t leave me.”

His expression changed, too, and he shook his head solemnly. “I won’t leave you. Trust me, that is the last thing in the world I want.”

After getting yelled at by my boss at the end of my shift, I had to promise that my boyfriend would never show up at the restaurant again. Then I went into the parking lot, Riley’s car idling as he waited for me.

“I got bitched out,” I told him as a greeting. “Apparently other customers don’t think they should have to wait for their dinner while you and I work out our personal shit.”

“Selfish bastards,” he said, before leaning over and giving me a soft kiss. “Sorry. I really am. For everything.”

“I know.” I did.

“I want to show you something before we go home,” he said. “Do you mind?”

Suspicious, I eyed him. “Is it perverted?”

“No. It’s fucking romantic, that’s what it is.”

I pressed my lips together, wanting to laugh. “Well, in that case, absolutely.”

He pulled out and started to drive out of Hyde Park, a neighborhood of families where the chain restaurant was, and up the winding streets of Mt. Adams, an artsy area of young professionals. My friends and I never went there because it was for the martini and Ann Taylor crowd, tapas bars and top-shelf liquor. I started to worry that Riley was trying to impress me with a nice dinner out or something, though I couldn’t imagine where we could eat at eleven at night. I was in no way dressed for public. I wasn’t even dressed to clean the house. I had on skinny jeans, a white T-shirt with a marinara stain on it, and the Converse that were pinching my feet.

“Where are we going?”

“Don’t sound so scared.” Riley glanced over at me. “We’re going somewhere private. I never told you about my grandmother, did I?” he asked, in a total change of subject.

“No.”

“My grandmother was this tiny Irish woman who was the toughest woman I ever met. She worked two jobs and she buried two alcoholic husbands.” He shot me a rueful glance. “I guess addiction runs in the family. But she was fair and loving and even though she died when I was seven, I think she taught me more about being a decent person in that short time than my mom did in my whole life.”

“That’s awesome. It’s good you had her in your life.”

“She was Catholic, even though I didn’t know what that meant exactly when I was a kid. I just thought it meant you had to wave your hand around your face when something bad happened. It also meant you got to drink wine at church. But anyway, she lived in the neighborhood we live in now, but before every Easter, on Good Friday, she would take me to the church here, in Mt. Adams, for what they call Praying the Steps. People climb the ninety-some steps to the church starting at midnight, praying the rosary or the stations of the cross. I didn’t know what any of that meant, and frankly, I still don’t.” Riley pulled the car over and pointed. “Those are the stairs. See how steep they are? Picture being five years old and seeing thousands of people winding up those steps, murmuring. It was how I first understood what it means to believe in something. Because that was faith.”

I nodded, my throat tight. “I know exactly what you mean. It must have been beautiful.”

“It was.” He turned off the car and studied me, his hand brushing my cheek. “I want you to know that what I believe in is us. You and me. Will you walk up the stairs with me? The view up there is amazing. The whole city.”

“Yes,” I said, understanding that he was asking more of me than that. He was asking if I was in, with him. “I would love to.” My throat was tight, my heart pounding. Riley had taken a risk, coming to work, bringing me here. He had believed deeply enough in his feelings to expose them to me, and I was overwhelmed by how amazing that was. I wanted to give him that back, to try to figure out how to crack open my heart and display it for him.

I wasn’t sure I knew how, but I was going to try.

He came over and held his hand out for me. I took it, and we strolled up the stairs, the night air blissfully lacking in humidity, a warm breeze rising off the river. My thighs started to burn by the twentieth or so step, but I didn’t care.

“This is such a cool view,” I said, hair blowing across my face. The air smelled like summer, like trees and a faint tinge of something sweet that I couldn’t identify.

“It’s even better at the top.”

It was. When we finally reached the last step, me panting a little from the effort, the lights of the city were spread out in front of us, reflecting off the river. “Wow, it’s amazing.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Riley took me onto the platform in front of the church and we leaned against the railings. “When I’m up here, it’s a whole different perspective on the world. Down there.” He pointed in the direction of his neighborhood. “It’s not a pretty place on the ground. Life gets a little ugly in the details, but up here, taken as a whole, you realize the world can be pretty awesome. When I need to remember that, I come here and climb these steps.”

“I can see that,” I said, my fingers gripping the railing, eyes following the curve of the river, the water shimmering and softly lapping against the shore.

“I’m not a deep guy,” he told me. “I have my GED and I’d rather talk about music than politics, and I have a temper that I try to control, but sometimes it gets the best of me. I’m not really a good catch for a girl like you, I know that. But . . .”

“No, don’t say that.” I put my hand over his mouth to stop those words, knowing they weren’t true, but Riley caught my hand in his and pulled it down.

His brow furrowed with the serious determination of his words. “I may not have a college degree or a six-figure income, but I will love and respect and cherish you with everything inside me, and when I fuck up, I will apologize. So what I’m saying is that I was wrong, and I have no right to be jealous. What happened before me is none of my business. I acknowledge that, I understand that.”

“Thank you. And for a guy who claims to not be very deep, you have an amazing way with words.” Something was happening in me. With each word he spoke, he removed a brick from the wall I’d built over my heart. I was breathing hard, sucking air in and out of my lungs almost like I was having a panic attack, but it wasn’t that.

I realized that I knew exactly what it was. I was in love. I had gone and fallen completely in love with Riley and the swelling inside me, the tidal wave of emotion that was overwhelming me, was the single most profound experience of my life. It felt . . . epic.

“Riley . . .” I took his face in my hands and I stared up at him, wanting to memorize this moment, to take in every tiny detail of his face, his mouth, his eyes. “I love you.”

I had never told anyone that. Sure, I said “love you!” to my besties and on very rare occasions to my parents. But never to a guy. Not once. It felt like I just delivered myself into his care with those words. Like I had given him everything of value that I owned.

“Jessica,” he breathed, taking my mouth in a soft kiss. “I love you, too. Will you marry me?”

I’m not sure who was more shocked—me or him. I gasped and he started. Riley Mann wanted to marry me. He wanted to be with me forever. He thought I was worthy of being his. It made me feel like everything in me was rising and swelling with pure joy.

“I didn’t actually know I was going to say that,” he said, with a little laugh.

I started laughing, too, my heart beating fast in a way that couldn’t be healthy. I was giddy, and I asked, “Are you taking it back?” It didn’t matter to me if he did. I was just glad that he’d said it. He loved me, that was totally obvious.

“No, absolutely not! We should get married. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, besides letting you stay in the house when the boys were gone.”

“That wasn’t your idea.”

“Shh.” He kissed the corners of my mouth. “Don’t ruin the romance.”

“Me? Please!”

Riley grinned at me. “Come here, sit down.” He dropped to the ground, dangling his feet over the edge, patting the spot next to him. “It’s a perfect night.”

“It is a perfect night.” I sank down beside him, awed by what was happening between us. “The best.” This was the night that was going to change my life. Because I already knew. “Riley, I will marry you.”

For someone who had never thought much about marriage and who had never been in love, the moment it was there in front of me, it was so obvious, there was no denying what had to happen.

The smile fell off his face. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

His response was to kiss me deeply, his tongue sliding across mine, his hand burying in the back of my hair. When he finally pulled back we were both breathing hard and my fingers were curled in the front of his T-shirt.

“Luckiest. Guy. Ever,” he said, then cocked his finger. “Write that down.”

I laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“Crazy in love. And I’m going to permanently ditch the princess nickname. It’s not you. A princess wouldn’t do the Warrior Dash or tear up carpet or give up everything in that big house your parents own on principle. I’m sorry I ever misjudged you.”

He was right. I wasn’t a princess. I never had been. “Thank you.”

He cleared his throat. “Hey, I have a confession to make.”

Needing to lighten the intensity of the moment, I couldn’t resist teasing him. “You’re really a woman?”

He laughed. “Kiss my ass, Jess. No, the thing is my number is actually slightly higher than yours.”

His number. He meant sex partners. I smacked him. “Are you kidding me? All that and your number is higher? I thought you’d been with like two girls and were madly in love with both.”

“Well. I didn’t mean to give that impression. I mean, that would be true for the last five years, you know, once I settled down a little.” I swear his ears were actually turning pink. “But I got an early start.”

“How early?”

“Thirteen.”

Holy crap. I tried not to show any sort of reaction.

“And you know, that number racks up quicker than you’d think.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “You are such a complete ass.”

“I accept that description in this particular instance. But for the record, the only girl I’ve been madly in love with is you.” He smiled at me. “Cross my heart.” And he did it. Just crossed his heart with those fingers that I knew so well, that had moved over my body with such tenderness and had held my hand when I needed strength.

“You’re the only guy I’ve been in love with, madly or otherwise.” I leaned against him. “I wish that I hadn’t done anything with Tyler,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for that. I am. I wish I could undo it.”

He was silent for a second and I waited anxiously for his response. “I know,” he said finally. “You couldn’t know the future. It’s not what I wanted either, but I trust him with my life, and you with my heart, so it’s all good.”

That meant more to me than just about anything. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised. “That’s the last thing I want.” I looked out at the river. “We should celebrate, you know? We’re getting married.” I felt insanely happy just thinking about it.

“I wish I had been more prepared. I could have really done something romantic here.”

“What, like serenade me with Justin Bieber’s ‘Boyfriend’?”

“Hell, no.”

“Take me to the bow of a cruise ship and tell me I’m flying, like in Titanic?”

“Uh, no.”

“Salsa dance with me to perfectly choreographed moves we magically know while a band suddenly appears behind us?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What could be any more romantic than those things?” I asked.

“I was thinking something simpler—like it would have been nice if I’d had a ring and some hooch.”

I laughed. “Hooch? Because the thought of marrying me makes you want to drink?”

“No, to toast with.”

“I think you’re supposed to do that with Champagne.”

He made a raspberry sound with his lips. “That stuff tastes like shit. It’s like asking for diabetes it’s so sweet, and besides, you pay fourteen bucks for a bottle and you only get four glasses out of it. A twenty-dollar bottle of whiskey will get you forty shots.”

“Classy,” I remarked, leaning on his shoulder in the dark, the lights of the city spread out like a blanket. I was feeling so in love, the night so delicious and perfect, it might as well have been Paris down there. It was just as romantic, in my eyes.

“The classiest thing about me is you,” he said.

That was a sweet thing to say, but I thought about it and wondered. “I don’t know how classy I really am. I think that was part of the ‘girl they wanted me to be.’ I think the real me is more the girl with bare feet in Zeke’s bar or chasing the vacuum thief around the yard. Jayden said I was a baller and I like to think there’s truth to that.”

“Damn straight. I wouldn’t want to mess with you, that’s for sure. So you’re a classy baller. You should form a bowling team with that name.”

I laughed so hard I started snorting, which made him laugh.

“I don’t know how to bowl,” I said, leaning backward.

“So learn. We got nothing but time.”

We did. The whole future, stretched out before us, just like downtown below.