Page 9 of Love… It's Wild
Message heard loud and clear.
I step away from him. Nay, I push him away. “I don’t need to be rescued. I’m okay with falling because I always get back up. If you weren’t here, I might have landed on the ground, but I know how to dust myself off.”
“Maybe you aren’t the damsel I thought you were. You’re better off,” he drawls. “People aren’t as good as they seem, and that happily ever after bullshit is overrated.”
“No way, Bronson. I might have just had a shitty encounter with some douche, a mishap with a tree, and too much bourbon, but I’m not changing. You can put on this crude facade to keep women away, but I’m not giving up.”
“You might not be desperate, but you’re determined. Too determined.”
I take a step toward him. “Well, I am most definitely not interested in you. I have standards. High ones. Now, will you stop being a dick and quit ignoring me? I don’t want a romance with you, I promise. You’re too damn moody for me.”
“And you’re too damn unpredictable for me.”
“Someday, I’m going to find my soulmate.”
“I never want to be married again.”
“Good,” I state with my chin held high.
“Good.” He closes the gap.
An uneasiness weaves through me as a conversation Melissa and I had a while ago pops into my head. Rob was married, but his wife left him. Makes sense why he’s so bitter. It’s most likely why he’s out here in the dark and not inside at his brother’s wedding.
Little does he know, we have more in common than he thinks.
Without my shoes on, I’m much shorter than he is, so I must look up to make eye contact with him. “Some romances end, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying for another chance at love. I’d rather have forty days of blissful happiness than spend the next forty years alone.”
His forehead creases as he looks down at the ground and absorbs my words. There’s a slight pinch to his lips and a heaviness in the scowl of his brow. When his eyes meet mine, I’m so seared by the intensity of his gaze that it makes me inhale deeply.
“Why are you so afraid to open yourself up to love again?” I ask.
“I don’t share my personal business with the rest of the world.” He shifts in an almost-uncomfortable manner. “While you can flit around life, looking for Prince Charming, I have kids to think about. They’re more than a handful to keep me from needing anything else in my life.”
“Funny, some kid earlier tried to pawn me off as his mom in order to get a beer. The bartender believed I could be his mother. I might be old enough to be one, but I do not look it.”
“Did the kid have brown hair that could have used a haircut about three months ago?”
“Yeah, and a cocky-ass attitude.”
“Fucking Jesse,” he bites.
The similarities between Rob and the teen I met at the bar are strong. I didn’t realize it until now. Same chestnut eyes and dark hair and an equally displeasing demeanor on a first impression.
“I take it, that was your kid?”
Just like that, Rob tenses, and that impenetrable steel wall of emotion is put back up.
“I have to make sure my idiot son isn’t up to no good.” Rob storms down the path and then stops a few yards away and turns around. “You should come inside too. I don’t want you outside alone.”
“What kind of trouble could I possibly get into out here?”
“You could try to climb that damn tree again.”
I lift my shoulder and bat my lashes. “Will you be back here to save me if I do?”
He looks like he’s about to say yes. Instead, he purses his mouth. “No.”
“Liar.” I scrunch my nose at him.