A Very Merry Mess (Cider Cove Sweet Southern RomComs #3)

Elliott

ELLIOTT

It’s not exactly warm standing on the front porch of the Big House, a place I’ve been many times before. Tonight, it’s totally different, because I don’t just walk in and announce myself, and it takes far too long for someone to come to the door.

With plenty of self-consciousness streaming through me, I tuck my hands into my pockets and wait. That’s what boyfriends do. They don’t just walk into their girlfriends’ houses.

“…to wait,” one of Ry’s roommates says as the door to the Big House opens. Lizzie, a pretty blonde brushes her bangs out of her eyes and looks a little flushed as she looks at me.

Claudia, a brunette bombshell gazes at me in today’s full makeup, her eyes appraising. She’s starting her new job for the city of Cider Cove in only a few weeks, when the New Year arrives. I hope Ryanne and I are still talking and sharing every part of our lives with each other when that happens.

Our trip to New York will be over by then, and while my mother raised me to be prayerful and religion played a deep part of my Southern boy upbringing, God hasn’t healed me of my impairment, so I’ve kind of stopped talking to him.

Until this morning, when I swear I’ve been praying for everything to go well between me and Ry every other minute. Even now, grinning at all of her current roommates, I think, Please before I say, “Hey, ladies.”

Tahlia smiles at me and pulls the door back even more. “Come in, .”

The last roommate—Emma—matches Claudia’s look of skepticism, no smile in sight. “Yes,” she says, though it sounds like she’s inviting me inside to meet my demise. “Come in, .”

I have no idea what Ry told her roommates, but she did have a confession party or something tonight, and I scan all the women again.

There’s no scent of pizza, no garlicky goodness hanging in the air, and I feel like I’ve been blasted off to Mars, the way the rovers have been .

I am enjoying my time on Mars , runs through my mind in the cute robot rover voice, and I tell myself to absolutely not say it in front of Ry’s roommates. Yes, the Perseverance rover said it—a new round of communications were released today—and I definitely feel like I’m exploring a foreign planet, hoping for a place I can thrive. But I don’t need to speak literal robot-language.

I reach up and push my glasses further up onto my nose, the frames tonight the lightest pair I own. They’re almost rimless, with the lenses practically disappearing on my face. Silver goes across the corners of them, and back to my ears, and they’re driving glasses, suitable for evening, as well as far-sight assistance.

It’s December, and I’m not overly into the holidays, so I’ve chosen a pair of navy blue shorts and a button down shirt in pale blue. It somehow feels all wrong as the four women continue to stare at me.

“Is, uh, Ry here?” I glance toward the living room, but I don’t see her.

“She was right behind me,” Lizzie says.

“I bet she’s getting something to drink,” Claudia says. “She gets a little dry-mouth before a date.”

“Claudia,” Tahlia says, nudging the taller woman. “Go check in the kitchen.”

Claudia wears a hint of a flush as she goes to do that, leaving the three blondes to blink at me.

A bit of a commotion comes from the kitchen, and we all look that way. “How’s the store?” Tahlia asks, but Ry has just come through the doorway and into the living room, a glass of orange juice in her hand.

She’s glaring at Claudia, her face turned toward her as they argue a bit back and forth.

I can’t breathe, because Ry’s wearing a pair of jeans that make her look absolutely incredible. It’s like the waistband of them has tightened around my lungs, and I suck in a breath in a horribly loud way.

I step toward her, my only goal to touch that soft denim, feel what that sweater will do as I bump my fingers over the knitted cables of yarn.

I’m so going to miss my ability to see, but if I can burn this image of Ry into my memory, I’ll happily die blind.

I’m very touchy-feely, as it helps me form a sight memory that I’m hoping to call on later. My therapist told me to do that, and I’ve taken her seriously.

“Hey,” I say, and Ry finally faces me. In the next moment, she stumbles, and I lunge toward her to catch her before she spills to the floor.

Unfortunately, something is going to spill—either her, me, both of us, or that orange juice.

She seems to make the decision that it has to be the OJ, because she splashes it into my chest, the glass flying out of her hand, and landing with a terrible breaking sound as it hits the floor.

My momentum propels me forward, and I wrap her in my arms, pressing my OJ’ed chest to hers as I say, “Okay, I got you.”

Everything slows down then, as neither of us are going to skin our knees on the rug bunched at Ryanne’s feet.

My heart pounds behind my ribs, like it’s been caged there and feels like it’s been held hostage. My face is only inches from hers, and it takes every ounce of pride and self-control I possess not to kiss her right there.

Roommates blares through my head like the alarms on the Mars rovers, and I step back. In that moment, the scent of oranges overwhelms me, and the entire front of my body feels too cold now that I’ve realized it’s wet.

I hold my hands out to the side and look down at myself.

“I’m so sorry,” Ry gushes, moving forward again, brushing at the fabric of my shirt. A literal drop of OJ goes flying, but I lose it somewhere outside the range of my vision.

“Ry,” I say.

“Ry,” Claudia says.

She keeps brushing at my clothes—my abdomen —like she can erase the sticky juice that’s seeped into the cloth.

“Ry,” I try again.

“It’s fine,” she says, and I recognize her babbling tone. “It’s just juice, and it’s?—”

“Ryanne,” I bark, and Claudia physically grabs her hands and pulls them away from my body.

She finally slows, her face turning a glorious shade of pink, and I grin at her. “What were you trying to do?”

Ryanne looks helplessly at Claudia as her other roommates gather around us.

“We’re just going to be sitting in my car,” I say. “It’s just orange juice.”

Salty Ry returns, and she cocks one gorgeous hip and folds her arms. “You’re not spending the next couple of hours wearing sticky orange juice.”

“So we’ll just go back to my place, and I’ll change. Again.”

“Again?” Claudia and Tahlia ask at the same time.

Ry drops her chin to her chest, a slow sigh seeping from between her lips. When she looks up at me, her expression is all vulnerability with a rim of hope in those pretty eyes. “Can we start over?”

“Is this date one or two?” I ask, and I’m really shooting myself in the foot by having this conversation in front of everyone.

Ryanne’s eyes sparkle now, and I want to dive into them and fly through space, bumping from twinkle to twinkle inside those mysterious, midnight-dark depths. Star to star, until she lets me orbit her and stay with her and cherish her.

“It’s our first,” she said. “You said you didn’t want last night…” She trails off and glances over to Lizzie. Then Emma.

“Last night what?” Claudia asks.

“I think the Christmas light shows will be running in a half-hour as easily as they are now,” I say. “I’ll run home and change and come pick you up again.”

“Ell,” she says. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll just come with you.”

I hold up one hand and give her my best co-manager glare. That usually gets her to calm enough to quiet. This time, she either misses it or ignores me, because she turns to Claudia.

“I just need my purse.”

I move into Ry and curl my fingers around the back of her neck. “Ry,” I say quietly. “I’ll be back in a half-hour.”

The whole house has come to a standstill. No one seems to be moving, not even me. My lungs continue to breathe, and that gives my brain something to grab onto.

“Thirty minutes,” I say, and then I drop my hand and back up a step. I very nearly trample Emma as I turn, and I thankfully dodge well enough to avoid her. “Sorry,” I murmur.

Then I get out of there before I kiss my best friend and fake girlfriend in front of all of her roommates.

Thirty-four minutes later, I re-arrive at the Big House only to find Ryanne sitting on the front steps with Lizzie, who takes one look at me through the windshield, gets up, and heads inside.

I get out of the car and walk toward Ry, who’s also traded out her sweater for a pretty black blouse with colorful ribbons snaking across it. “Hey,” I say as I approach.

“Hey.” She looks up at me, all the stars still there.

I settle next to her and look out into the night. No one lives across the street from the Big House, so it’s darker there, leaving plenty of silence to consume us both.

“Okay, well, I can’t stand this,” I say. “I’m just going to start.”

Ry leans forward and turns toward me, resting her head in her hands as if she can’t hold it up herself.

“You’re my best friend in the whole world,” I say to the darkness across the street, the universe. It’s always been big enough to hold all my thoughts, all my words, all my feelings and confessions.

“But I’ve been feeling things for you that go beyond friendship, and my offers to be your fake boyfriend haven’t been entirely altruistic.”

She says nothing, which is Ry’s default when she’s got a lot on her mind. She needs time to sort through things, and I’m ruining our second first date by sitting here talking instead of just escorting her to the passenger seat and taking her to get pulled pork deliciousness before we go watch Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer while Christmas tunes blast through my car.

“I think you’re absolutely stunning, you’re my favorite person to talk to, and you’re so smart. If I didn’t…” I suck in a breath, because while I have plenty streaming out of my mouth, I don’t know how to say everything.

“I don’t want to pretend to be anything with you,” I say next, and this should open enough doors to buy me some time to find a way to confess the other things.

“I want to be your real boyfriend. I don’t want any hand-holding or kissing between us to be for practice purposes.” I reach over and take her hand in mine. “I know you want something serious, not something casual, and I guess this is me saying—trying to say—telling you that, in the words of Curiosity , I’m willing to try.”

I finally tear my eyes away from the darkness, glad they can still see the lights from the Big House spilling onto Ry’s completely shocked face.

“For you, Ryanne, I’m willing to try.” I search her face, trying to find some inkling that she’s heard me. Really heard me.

She gives nothing away, in true Ryanne fashion.

So I lean closer, take her face in the palm of my hand, and do what I’ve been dying to do for months now.

I match my mouth to hers and kiss her. When she doesn’t immediately push me away, slap me, or verbally protest, a growl starts somewhere in my stomach and surges upward.

Kissing her in real life is better than anything my imagination has come up with. She’s pure female—soft and supple and sweet—and her lips become oxygen to me.

I’ll never, ever, ever get enough.