Andrew sounded like a man well beyond twenty something. “How old are you?”
“If I told you I was seventy five, would you believe me?”
“Yes. However….” My eyes racked over his body with obvious approval. “You don’t appear to be a day over twenty-six.”
He tipped an imaginary hat and bowed deeply. A bad fake southern accent tainted his words. “Why thank you, Ms. Haven. I do appreciate your generosity.”
The veil shrouding my happiness lifted and lightness shined through. Andrew had a gift for making me temporarily forget about the ugliness.
Smiling, I slapped him playfully. “You are ridiculous.”
Andrew gripped my hand where it landed below his sleeve. His bare skin was warm underneath my touch. The joking atmosphere dissipated as his gaze turned earnest. “I am really glad you are ok, Haven. When Mallory told me she had no idea where you went, I almost had a heart attack. You’re more important to me than you realize.” He examined my expression and whatever he saw caused him to let out a short laugh. “I know you don’t believe me especially after last night but I ran not because of an ex, but because I don’t want to ruin this.”
The blood rushed to my ears. I wanted to hear him say it. “Ruin what?”
Andrew linked together our fingers and brought them up between us like a barrier. “Ruin this.” He glanced at our hands. “Whenever anybody talked about an instant connection, I thought it was bullshit until I met you. We have something rare that shouldn’t be rushed. I want to get to know you. The real Haven….” He scrunched up his eyebrows when he realized he didn’t know my last name.
“McClain.” I supplied.
“Haven McClain.” He repeated it softly, testing my full name on his tongue. “Pretty.”
When Andrew said it, it did sound pretty. Beautiful even. “What’s yours?”
“Foster.” A low chuckle softened his face. “I can’t believe we are now just finding out each other’s last name’s. Then again our courtship has been anything but slow.”
Andrew, a rare romantic, believed in the power of the written word and used words like courtship. While I loved that side of him, he had wooed me enough. I was ready to get naked with him. Nonetheless, for better or worse, Andrew stood by his convictions. A trait both admirable and incredibly frustrating rolled into a neat package. After that steamy preview of what I was in for this morning, I could practically taste him on my lips and feel his hard thickness between my thighs, pushing me to the edge of nirvana.
Worry lined his mouth. “Shit, did I say too much? Sometimes, I get overly passionate and scare girls off.”
If only Andrew knew where my mind had wandered. “Not at all. I like how passionate you are.”
He beamed, capturing another piece of my heart. Andrew broke the chain of our linked hands and dropped his arms to his sides. “Come on, I have a piece of cake with your name on it.”
“Why do you have cake?”
“I bake when I’m stressed.”
Another trait to add to his growing list of skills. At this rate, I would be shocked if he wasn’t talented at something. In all likelihood, Andrew spoke French and read textbook-sized novels straight out of the womb. I felt smarter just being in his presence.
He held open his apartment door. “Did I mention there is thick fudge frosting as well?”
I sat at Andrew’s marble slab kitchen island, drinking a cold glass of almond milk. The cake had put me into a glorious sugar coma. Andrew was on his second slice. It was unfair how much he ate without compromising his godlike physique.
He licked frosting off the fork. “My mom was given this recipe from her grandmother. It has been in my family for generations.”
“Wow. I don’t have anything that resembles an heirloom in my family.”
“Really?”
“My mom wasn’t the sentimental type.”
“How ‘bout your grandmother?”
My mom had left home when she was sixteen and never looked back. I had no idea where my extended family lived or if they knew I existed. Whenever I asked, my mom had told me they weren’t worth my breath. Picking up our dirty dishes off the island, his question went un-answered.
I could feel his weighty stare through the thin cotton of my t-shirt. “When did your mom marry Sumiko’s dad the first time?”
Wincing, her name was like a paper cut. Nonetheless, their wedding was one of my greatest memories. I had finally gotten the sister I’d always wanted. “They married when I was five. It lasted for about six years.”
“And the second time?”
“The second time was when I was twelve. That lasted for three but by then Sumiko and I were blood sisters. On our eighteenth birthdays we got matching tattoos.”
Andrew appeared beside me and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. “What did you two get?”
“The symbol for forever.”
My hand instinctively moved to the side of my rib cage, where the two interlocking circles with three swallows were inked. Sumiko had drawn the design herself.
His eyes followed my hand. “Is that where it is?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can I see it?”
I hesitated. Underneath my clothes was a map of my childhood scars. Whenever, a guy and I had sex, there were three rules they had to abide by: lights off, no touching, and shirt stays on. They were usually more than happy to oblige. While cold and meaningless, it worked until it didn’t anymore. Andrew glanced away and turned on the dishwasher. I could tell he perceived my silence as mistrust. Upset, his shoulders tensed. If anybody could cut away the barbed wire fence around my heart, it would be Andrew. Might as well start now.
I lifted my t-shirt, exposing the bottom half of my chest. “Sumiko and I wanted to add beauty and hope to an otherwise ugly reminder.”
Andrew’s gaze landed on my rib cage. I turned my head away unable to witness his reaction. Light as a butterfly’s kiss, his fingers brushed over the puckered red scar that the tattoo was inked over and I jolted.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“When I was four, I got in the middle of a fight between my mom and her boyfriend at the time.”
“It looks like it was done by a knife.”
“Yeah.”
Murderous rage raided off of Andrew. “Where is he? I’ll chop his balls off.”
Titling my chin, his gaze pinned me to the wall. There was no doubt in my mind if Andrew saw Doug on the street, he would have cut his balls off.
“He’s dead,” I said. “Hit by a truck on his motorcycle.”
“Good.”
“I don’t blame him.” When he tilted his head as if to question me, I explained. “My mom brought out the worst in people. Her favorite past time was pushing buttons until she got the reaction she sought. I don’t remember much of the fight but I do remember Doug’s remorse and my mother’s indifference.” His attention on the story, I let go of my shirt and obscured the rest of my scars.
“How can a mother act indifferent to her child getting slashed by a knife?”
It was a question I’d turned over in my head for the last nineteen years. I shrugged. “I have no idea but she is the reason I have this scar. My mom didn’t want to go to the hospital. Doug was a nurse so he patched me up the best he could.”
“I’m sorry but from what you told me, your mother sounds like a horrible person.”
Up until eight hours ago, I would have argued with Andrew, throwing out excuses for her behavior like toilet paper. Now though, Big Ted had shattered the illusion my mother loved me. Her one true love was drugs and dying was her own selfish way of getting out of the mess she created.