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Not fucking dimples. Those should be illegal. Or at least require some sort of warning before flashing them at people. Warning: Dimples may appear and cause panty-dropping.
“Sorry about him.” His voice was close to me now. My fluffy companion wagged his tail as his owner’s footsteps approached. “He’s got a thing for beautiful women.”
Some days I wasn’t very proud to be me, but I was always proud to be my dad’s son.
But depression wasn’t a logical disease. It was an unexpected cold front in the middle of July. It was impossible to predict, which meant that I spent much of my time worrying about when the other shoe was going to drop. Not if, but when I would sink into another dark hole and have to decide to claw my way out of it. Even when I was happy, I was thinking about when I wouldn’t be.
I turned toward Wes, who was looking at me. He was always looking at me, and I was always looking at him. It was a problem. A big fucking problem.
I decided to look at Gus instead, but he was already looking at his brother with one eyebrow raised, and his brother was looking at me, so we were just in a big weird lookfest, and I needed it to stop.
Even though all I wanted was to be near her. I wanted to figure out what else made her laugh the way she did that night at the bar. I wanted to know what songs she listened to when she was having a bad day, or a good one, and what her favorite food was. I wanted to know if her body reacted to mine the same way mine did to hers. I wanted a chance.
“I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but a beautiful woman is always going to get stares. No matter what she’s driving.”
Derail my day? I’d drive my truck off a cliff if it meant that I got a few moments alone with her, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Remind me to check the weather in hell,” I muttered to myself as I shut the door. “I heard that,” Ada said. “Good,” I retorted.
“I really can teach you how to drive stick, Ada, if you’ll let me. You don’t have to feel trapped like that again.”
My eyes tracked back up Weston’s frame, and I was met with a smirk. I’d just been caught, and as if getting caught openly ogling my boss wasn’t enough, he chose that moment to wink at me.
I knew that face. My whole life, I’ve been described as icy, bitchy, and rude. I know I’m not super warm or overly kind, but the truth is, I’m just shy. I don’t think I’m a people person, certainly not in the way this entire family seems to be.
It didn’t take long for me to conclude that he actually should not be allowed to wear shirts. He should just always walk around like this—shirtless and glistening. In that moment, I felt like a teenager with a crush. An intense and inescapable crush.
“I see you, Ada. I always see you, even when you won’t look at me.”
I thought back to that night at the bar, how he made me smile, and how he’d made me smile every day since—even when I wasn’t kind to him. He was like the sun. No matter what, he would keep coming up.
I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I especially didn’t have a lot of friends who were women. I never felt like I knew how to connect, or speak the right language, always just to the left of the right social cue. My mom never seemed to have that problem; she had only sisters and a group of girlfriends she was close to with whom she’d go to dinners or events. But she was beautiful and vivacious. I’d never seen myself as being like my mom. So I’d built walls around myself. I didn’t prioritize cultivating female friendships. I employed a severe brand of “I’m not like other girls” and decided that
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“How does everyone feel about a little Taylor Swift this evening?” Both Teddy and Cam nodded enthusiastically. “Ada?” she said, waiting for me to answer. “Sure,” I said. In my “not like other girls” phase, I’d actively disliked Taylor Swift. Now I was just indifferent. After telling people that I didn’t like her for so long, I never really got into her music after that point in my life had passed. Emmy looked at me for a second before she said, “Even if you don’t like her now, you will before you leave Rebel Blue.” “We’ll crush that internalized misogyny,
screaming to a Taylor Swift song about begging someone not to be in love with someone else;
Enchanted will forever be that song
“You look good, Ash.” Then he was gone. I looked at Cam. “Ash?” She swallowed and shrugged. “Old nickname. My last name is Ashwood.”
“I think the turning point was when I took her to my secret place,” Brooks said. “Maybe you could do something like that?” “Wait,” Gus interrupted. “You have a secret place? What secret place?” “Well, if I told you about it, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it!” Brooks countered.
“You are earnest and talented, tenacious and funny.” I couldn’t have looked away from him if I’d tried. His green eyes gripped me and wouldn’t let go. “I would never insult you by calling you something as generic as nice.”
It wasn’t his words that got me—it was his eyes. From the first time he looked at me until now, I felt Weston Ryder saw me, no matter how hard I tried to hide.
Kissing Wes was the closest thing I’d ever had to a religious experience. It felt like the sky opened up and stars started falling around us, like lightning struck every place where our skin touched and like my heartbeat had turned into a thunderstorm.
When was the last time I’d felt anything near what I was feeling right now? Never. I knew that for sure.
I was a capable guy, and I was going to do this—maybe not well, but I was going to do it.
That's the mind set!
“What the fuck are you doing?” Gus asked when he came into the kitchen. His eyes widened at the sight of me and all of the flour. “I’m baking, obviously.” “You sure as fuck are not baking.”
“You need to stop checking our locations all the time. It’s creepy,” I said. Gus was already dialing Emmy. As he brought his phone up to his ear, he said, “I don’t have to check yours anymore. You’re always following Ada around.” Asshole.
“What am I smelling?” Teddy asked, looking around the kitchen. Once she saw Gus, she said, “Shit. That’s what I’m smelling.”
“You are literally so stupid. C’mon, Top Gun, let’s go shave off that mustache.” “Oh, fuck off,” Gus snapped.
“I would bet my life savings that something has happened or will happen between those two.”
“Did you do this for me?” Her voice was quieter now. “Yeah,” I said. She bit the inside of her lip. “Why?” That felt like a loaded question. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about her, because I wanted her to be happy at Rebel Blue, because I wanted her to think about me the way I thought about her. “Because you told me it was your favorite food” is the answer I settled on, which was also true.
When I saw him through the rain, I imagined that this is how some people might feel when they saw a man carrying a baby.
I was halfway in love with Ada Hart, and I had no clue what to do about it.
Gus: I’m sure he’s fine. Wes, tell our baby sister your fine. Teddy: *you’re* Gus: WHY ARE YOU IN HERE
Ada wasn’t a giggly woman, but she giggled for me, and it made me feel like I could run through a wall. In a good way.
Ada laid her head on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything—she didn’t have to. For years, I had desperately wanted someone to just…be…with me. To sit next to me while the power was out and weather the storm together.
Teddy gave us a wave and said, “Have fun, kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Good thing for Wes and me, that left things pretty open.
At his core, Weston Ryder was gentle, and I thought that was the best thing that a man could be.
When she saw me, she hit me with the quiet smile that had become my favorite. When she smiled at me that way, it was like sharing a secret that only the two of us knew.
For the past year, I’d been so focused on being strong. That’s what everyone told me I needed to be. “Be strong and you’ll get through this,” they said. It wasn’t until I came to Rebel Blue and spent time with other women that I realized that softness was a strength too—one
I’ve realized that I’m not the type of person everyone likes. I’m the type of person everyone tolerates.”
“If you like who you are, why is it so hard to believe that other people do too?”
At this point, I was pretty sure I’d been waiting for her my whole life, so an hour was easy.
He said I was a part of Rebel Blue, but I felt like Rebel Blue was a part of me. It was weird. I’d spent my entire life feeling like I didn’t belong—not because I didn’t fit in or because I was lonely, but because I felt like I just belonged elsewhere. But I hadn’t known where. I think I might have been homesick for Rebel Blue before I knew it existed.
Teddy reached her hand out and squeezed Gus’s arm. Gus looked at her, but by the time I’d blinked, Teddy’s hand was back at her side and Gus was looking away. I could’ve imagined the whole thing.
Those are all little things. Tiny things.” “The little things are the big things, Ada. They’re the things all the big things are made of. I might not know you all the way, but I want to, and I’m just asking you to give me a chance to do that.”
“You say you’re not nice, or warm, or bright, or any of these other stupid fucking words that people use to describe the sun, but I never asked you to be the sun.” I rolled my eyes, trying to move them in a way that would stop the tears from falling. “I would rather have the moon anyway.” I scoffed at him then. Acting like he was being ridiculous was my only defense mechanism. “I’m the moon?” I asked sarcastically. “You’re the moon,” he said. “And I’m the tides. You pull me in without even trying, and I come to you willingly. I always will.”
Wes once said to me that I was the moon, and I’d scoffed at him. But he was right. I was the moon, and the moon couldn’t glow without the sun. And my sun was in Meadowlark, Wyoming. This was a mistake.
I could feel Wes’s eyes on me. I took a deep breath before I raised mine to meet them. I was worried he would look angry or sad. He didn’t. He was smiling. Dimples on full display.
