“The military. Always gotta learn the symptoms of certain things and how to handle them at any given situation.”
A soft smile curled onto the corners of her mouth. She glanced down at their hands still holding one another. Then Evie lifted her left hand and softly glided her fingertips across the muscled and veined top of his left hand. They were tanned and looked dry.I can’t imagine how a man who could do such kind things…could be bad.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Their voices were delicate and deep with one another. “Oh, I’m fine. You’re the one with the trauma and the panic right now.”
She held that hand a bit tighter and leaned forward to look up into his eyes more. “Don’t all military people still have trauma and panic?”
He laughed. “Nah. I’m good. We learn to take it one day at a time and live with it.”
She shook her head. “Why would you want to live with it?”
“Well,” he said as he stood to close the front door. Before he did, he swatted out a few bugs that had flown in. Then he came back, sat down, and leaned against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “It’s not that Iwantto live with it. I don’t have a choice. What you went through, I can guarantee it’ll happen again. And it’s scary at first, but then you start to accept that it’s a part of life now.”
Evie stood up immediately and went to her bedroom. He watched her leave, and then he placed his arm across the top of his head in a slouched, relaxed position. He called to her in a brief chuckle, “Where are you going?” Then he sarcastically joked in a voice too low for her to hear, “Did I scare you off?”
Caleb examined the living room. The carpet was stained and old, but it smelled and felt like it was freshly cleaned. The walls were painted with a petal-pink tone with white trim and crown molding. Either she tried to add the crown molding and did a terrible job, or it needed to be replaced. Right across from him was a beat-up looking antique coffee table that was doubling as an entertainment stand and a bookshelf. There was an old TV, a DVD player, and numerous classic books by authors like Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and even Stephen King. Apparently, she was a Stephen King fan most of all.
How in the hell does a girl who’s so obsessed with flowers and pink love Stephen King? he thought to himself.
A few watercolor paintings of flowers were framed on the walls, and they complemented charming photos of her with a gray furry cat and another one with a fat orange cat. He knew from her Facebook posts that the furry gray cat was her old cat named Phil that had passed away. Then there were photos of her family, her and her pawpaw, photos of her on Hollywood Boulevard wearing a stylish bodycon dress and sunglasses. He smiled.
Out came the thundering fat ginger cat. He beamed, leaning over to pet the kitty, who sniffed his hand and then flopped on his foot. “I can tell youseemuseless, like a big fat paperweight, but she probably spoilsyou rotten. I bet you’re the infamous Teddy she’s always posting pictures of.” He found the collar tag. “Yep. You look like a Teddy.”
Her voice rang from the bedroom in the back, “You did something nice for me.” She came back in and wiggled a bottle of shea butter in her hand. “Now I’m going to do something for you.” A perky smile and confidence flashed her face.
“Oh God.” He laughed. Caleb sat up straight and rested his elbows on his knees to offer his hands to hers. His back rounded, those handsome muscles showing subtly through his shirt. It was attractive to her, those shadowy arcs on his back.
She stood before him and asked, “It’s not too cold outside for you? Where’s your sweater?”
He looked down. “I didn’t want to bother with it. I wanted to get here as quickly as possible. It ain’t too bad outside.”
To his surprise, she didn’t sit next to him.
She knelt on her knees right in front of him on the floor.
His face changed. As she opened the bottle and squirted the shea butter on her palm, one shoulder cocked playfully, and she smirked at him. It wasn’t meant to be sexual, rather endearing and affectionate. His eyes wandered to see how her light-brown hair cascaded down her full breasts that were kept snuggly lifted by a gray lounge bra, and her pink tank top allowed him to see the beauty of her collarbone and the curvature of her narrow shoulders. Even though her belly had a few rolls and hung over her lap, the silhouette of her pear-shaped hips complimented it perfectly.
His ex-wife was a lot thinner than Evie was, and he had never found bigger girls attractive before, but there was something divine and welcoming about her fuller figure. That belly would be an amazing pillow to rest his head on. Her hips would be amazing to hold.
No. Tograb. Caleb’s skin flushed as his pelvis felt hot. Her feminine face was caring with those large, expressive, and deep-brown eyes. There was no hint of aggression or anything. His ex in the recent years had been a notorious monster with being bossy, quick-paced, and cold. If only he could muster up the bravery to kiss her. He would take her down to the floor and completely ravage her. Though it wasn’t the time to do it, considering what she just went through.
The skin of his shaft grew tighter, and the head became sensitive. She needed to stop looking at him with those bedroom eyes.
Little did he know she wasn’t trying to. That was how Evie always looked when she was trying to be kind. To most people it looked sweet and endearing, but to him it looked seductive.
But Evie was a frequent flyer at the Songbird Café in town, as well as a monthly visitor at the nail salon. He knew those places sang with gossip, all ready to be used as cannon fodder against him. So, he shuffled on his butt and tried to contain the feeling.
Evie began massaging the butter onto his cracked and calloused hands. “I know how you feel. My hands get ridiculous in the fall and winter.”
“My hands are ridiculous all the time.” The massage wasn’t helping his situation.
And the heavy sigh he let escape his lips wasn’t helping hers.
