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

Elliott

ELLIOTT

By some miracle, Ry lets me drive to the first house in silence. Probably because I’ve just given her the Kalua Hawaiian haystacks she loves with her whole heart, all of her taste buds, and every fiber of her soul.

Her words, not mine.

But her question plagues me—and it has internally for a while now.

I pull up to the first house on the list provided by Cider Cove for light shows, and I kill the lights, put the car in park, and reach to set the radio to the right channel.

Carol of the Bells streams through the car, and Ry says, “I love this song.”

I give her a closed-mouth smile and move my seat back to give myself room to eat my own dinner. Just Give It a Poke does all kinds of food, and I love sushi so much. Maybe with one of my favorites at the end of my chopsticks, I can talk to Ryanne. Really talk to her.

“I’ve thought about you more than anyone or anything else since I broke up with Millie,” I say. “Our friendship is the main reason I haven’t asked you out or said anything about how I feel.”

Ry doesn’t answer right away, and I decide I’m not going to have another one-sided confessional. I stuff a California roll into my mouth, determined to wait until she says something before I go on.

A few chews in, and she looks over to me. “It would kill me if we weren’t friends.”

I nod, because I feel the same.

“And you can’t quit either,” she says. “I would die at Paper Trail without you.”

Not true, but I still have too much fish and rice in my mouth to argue. I’m not looking for another job anyway.

“I guess this is just me worrying.” She sighs, and I look over to her. Everything about her is soft, and lush, and wonderful.

I quickly finish and swallow. “It’s okay to worry about this. I have been too.”

She looks out the passenger window at the light show on the lawn. “They’ve got cute polar bears here.”

I chopstick up another bite of sushi. “I’m going to do my very best, Ry. No matter what, you can rest assured that I will never, ever do anything to hurt you on purpose.”

I can’t promise her more than that. Relationships are messy at the best of times, and Ry and I are trying to obliterate previously established lines between us. Make new rules. Be friends and lovers.

Again, I’m using vocabulary someone my age so shouldn’t, and I’m glad I know how to keep my thoughts from exploding out of my mouth.

“Okay, Ell.” She reaches over and squeezes my forearm. “I promise the same thing.”

“What’s that?” I pop the sushi into my mouth, hoping she’ll spell out what I just promised her.

“I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose. So if you get hurt, you have to tell me. Then we can talk about it, and I’ll tell you if you’re doing something that’s hurting me.”

I nod again, because that sounds like a good deal. That done, we settle into watching red, green, blue, white, and gold lights, and I drive her to four more places before I look at her fully again.

“Home now?”

She gives me a sweet, soft smile that makes my heart pitter-patter in a way only my granny would say, and nods. “Home now, please.”

I take her back to the Big House, the evening dark and quiet between us. The house has a triple-wide paved driveway, with more parking on gravel beside that. The front lawn has been cut back to accommodate for the extra parking, and it’s all marked by decorative rocks.

Other cars, including Ry’s, are parked in the driveway now, and I inch down to take the last one in the graveled area.

“Watch out,” Ry says just before I hit one of the rocks with the front bumper of my SUV. She yelps and throws her hand up to hold onto the bar.

I swear and blink, trying to get my eyes to focus. They don’t. I’m so tired, and my first instinct is to panic. If I can’t see, how will I get home safely?

I’ve agreed to call my mother if I can’t drive, but so much foolishness streams through me that I’m not sure I can do it. I mean, I’m thirty-three. What thirty-three-year-old needs their mommy to come pick them up after a date?

“Did you not see that?” Ry gasps. “Is this car drivable?”

Before I can stop her, she’s out of the vehicle and rounding the hood. My pulse fires through my body like someone has depressed a button to set off rapid-fire machine gun shots. It pings and blitzes through my body, and I unbuckle as Ry meets my eyes through the windshield.

She looks scared and worried at the same time, and she says, “I don’t know if you can drive the home, Ell.”

“I can call my mom,” I say. “She’ll come get me.”

Ry’s expression settles, and she looks down at the bumper and wheel well again. I join her, and yep, things look a little skiwampus.

“Your mom?”

“She lives close enough,” I hedge, already pulling out my phone.

Ry covers the screen with her hand. “I can take you home.”

Our eyes meet, and since she’s so close, I can see everything clearly. Those pretty, curled eyelashes. The depths of her starry eyes. How she feels.

“Okay,” I murmur. “I’ll call someone in the morning to help with the car.” I tear my gaze from hers. “Will it be okay parked here?”

She grinds her voice through her throat before she says, “Yes.”

I sigh, part annoyed but part relieved I don’t have to drive home.

“I’ll go get my keys,” Ry says, and she turns toward the Big House and strides across the lawn.

I move down the row of cars to hers and wait, and when she pulls up to my house, I know my momma isn’t awake. Of course, Ry doesn’t know she lives with me, so it’s a good thing my house looks like no one else lives there.

“Thanks, Ry.” I smile at her. “You wanna walk me to the door and kiss me good-night?”

She looks like she might just as soon eat squirrel stew, but she nods. I get out on the passenger side and meet her at the front corner of her sedan. I take her hand and squeeze it. “Feeling nervous?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Yep.”

I laugh, because that’s what I say when I’m nervous. “Now you know how men feel when they walk you to the door.”

“It’s terrifying,” she says.

“We’ve kissed before,” I say.

“Not here.” Ry goes up my front steps ahead of me, and I stick close to her side. Once I’m on the porch with her, I pull her into my arms and touch my forehead to hers, praying with everything I have that my momma took her melatonin that night. Sometimes the alarm system buzzes her awake, though I’ve told her a thousand times to turn off the camera notifications at night.

“Thank you for talking with me tonight,” I say, and then I touch my lips to hers. I’ve kissed plenty of women, but none of those kisses are anything like kissing Ryanne.

She has full lips, and she’s no amateur when it comes to making me feel important and valued—and now wanted.

“See you tomorrow,” I say.

“Will you?” She tucks herself into my arms and presses her cheek to my chest.

“I mean, I want to.”

“The store is closed,” she says. “Normally, I wouldn’t see you until Wednesday after a Saturday.” She tilts her head back and smiles up to me. “And I never heard you ask me out on another date.”

“Maybe you should ask me.”

“Absolutely not.” She tries to step out of my arms, but I tighten my grip on her.

“I’m kidding,” I say. “But I would like to see you tomorrow.” It’s Sunday, so Ry will sleep late. She calls her mom in the evenings—every Sunday evening—but anytime from ten in the morning until six at night should be available.

“Lunch?” I ask. “Matinee? Christmas market? Living Bethlehem?”

“Yes,” she says, not specifying which things she’d like to do.

I grin at her and ask, “Eleven?”

“I can be presentable by eleven.”

“You’re always presentable, Ry.” I kiss her again, because I can. It is a little odd to be doing this on my own doorstep, but I kinda-really like it too.

“You should go,” I say as I dip my mouth to the tender skin along her neck.

She pulls in a breath and holds onto my shoulders. “I should, yes.”

Normally, I’m the one to leave, but tonight, Ry’s going to have to do it. She doesn’t, and I keep kissing her, wondering if my momma will check the overnight footage and see me making out with my best friend.

That thought gets me to pull back, and I breathe in deep and exhale out, “Okay. Eleven tomorrow.”

Ry looks at me, but her eyes seem unfocused, and boy do I know how that feels. I squeeze her hand and step back, finally putting distance between us. “See you tomorrow.”

I reach to open the door while she stands there, and I say, “You have to go back to your car now, Ry.” I grin at her, knowing she’s in her head right now, imagining and reliving kissing me. “Can you get yourself home?”

That snaps her back to herself, and she gives me a semi-glare. Her kitty-cat diva glare. “Yes,” she says as she lifts her chin. “I can get myself home.” She mutters something as she goes down my front steps, and I ease into the house with a sigh.

I’ve never been dropped off by a woman before, and I have to admit—I like it. “You like Ry,” I mutter as I lock the door behind me and go through my nightly procedure of securing the house and turning off lights. “You like Ry too much.”

And I know I do, even though she kisses me back like she likes me a whole lot too.

Be careful, Ell , I tell myself, and for the first time since I got my degenerative vision diagnosis, I’m reminding myself that I need to be careful with my heart, and not merely careful that I won’t trip over something.

Because falling in love is as scary as not being able to see.

“There you are,” Momma says the next morning. She’s made coffee, scrambled eggs, and lifts a few pieces of bacon from the frying pan as I sweep into the kitchen beside her.

That only means one thing. “Brandon’s coming?” I ask.

“Should be here any second.” She beams up at me. “What time did you get in last night?”

“Not too late,” I hedge as I pull down a mug for my morning coffee. Before Momma can do what all good Southern mommas do—pepper me with questions—my brother walks in the garage door with, “Good morning! I have doughnuts!”

Brandon yells everything he says, and I swear he has a hearing impairment. He doesn’t; he’s just loud.

“Indoor voices,” I say to him as my cat streaks down the hall to my bedroom.

He slams the box of doughnuts on the counter like he’s trying to flatten them, and smiles at me. “You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?”

“I dunno, but your car isn’t out front, so I thought you were somewhere else.”

“Why isn’t your car out front?” Momma asks, and I press my eyes closed as I stir in a spoonful of sugar for my coffee.

“Uh, I?—”

“How did you get home?” she asks next, and I look over to Brandon. He wears a look of sympathy and lifts one shoulder as if to say, Sorry, bro. I didn’t know she didn’t know.

And how would he?

“Were you drinking?” she asks, and I roll my eyes now. I lean against the countertop and raise my coffee mug to my lips. I’m not wearing glasses, because sometimes it’s nice to just be…yeah, just be.

No, I can’t see well, but good enough to pour coffee and put a few pieces of bacon on a maple long john and sit with my family for a minute.

But Momma’s gone into question mode, and she fires off, “Was it too late for you?” She cocks her hip and puts the hand holding the tongs on it, the utensil sticking out to the side. “You couldn’t see, could you?”

“Momma.”

“You promised me you’d call if you needed a ride.”

“I’m home, aren’t I?” I take another sip of my coffee.

“, you?—”

“Momma,” Brandon shouts. “You ask so many questions at once and don’t even wait for an answer.”

I gesture my mug toward him as my eyebrows go up, silently agreeing with him.

“You’re just spiraling out of control,” Brandon says. “Since when does drink?” He shakes his head and edges in next to me to pour his own cup of coffee. “Mylanta. No wonder Shirley skipped out on this today.”

She pivots to him, and the fact that he’s thrown himself to Momma Shark isn’t lost on me. “Shirley was going to come?”

“I told her we might have breakfast this morning, and that you guys are fun.” He stirs in some sugar and reaches for the cream. “That she’d like you and you’d like her.”

“Of course I’m going to like her,” Momma says indignantly.

I grin at my brother, who grins back.

“It must be getting serious for you to suggest she come meet us.” Momma tosses the tongs into the sink and starts to wash up. When she’s nervous she can’t keep her hands still, and I fully expect the kitchen to be spotless before she sits down to breakfast with me and Brandon.

“We’ve been dating for eight months,” Brandon says. “It’s been serious for a while.”

“And I haven’t met her yet?” Momma swats at Brandon’s shoulder as he turns to face her. “I want to meet her.”

“And I want you to not fire questions at her so fast that she can’t even answer one.”

“And I want to have breakfast in my own house without…this.” But I grin at the pair of them as they look at me, both of them wearing different expressions, ranging from shock—Momma—to disbelief—Brandon.

I laugh and set aside my coffee so I won’t dump it down their backs. Then I move in to hug them simultaneously, and we sigh together as a family as they embrace me back.

I step back, my feelings so swirly lately, like big, billowing clouds that bubble and bulge and boil though the sky.

“Can we eat now?” I ask. “With quiet voices and one question at a time?”

“Yes,” Momma says crisply. “And I want to know how you got home last night.”

“Ry drove me,” I say, clearing my throat and ducking away from them to get my coffee. “It would be great if you didn’t check the security cameras, okay, Momma?”

Simply me saying that has thrown gasoline on an already raging fire, and Momma gasps. “Are you dating Ryanne? Did she kiss you? Oh, this is so exciting. Why did she have to drive you here, though? That’s the real question.”

She puts the plate of bacon on the table while Brandon brings over the doughnuts. I sit down, saying nothing, as Brandon starts to laugh. Momma doesn’t even seem to notice—and how can she? Brandon’s chortles are so loud, I can barely hear myself think.

“Will we have to go get your car somewhere?” Momma asks as she sits down, and I can’t decide if I’d rather talk about my new relationship with Ry or admit that I hit a giant rock with my car because I couldn’t see it.

Neither sound all that fun, and I accept the maple-frosted doughnut as Brandon hands it to me.

“Yeah, yep,” I say. “I’ll call a tow truck, though. I think the car needs to be taken to a mechanic shop.”

“ Alexander,” Momma says, and she’s the one shouting now. “Did you get in an accident last night? Why didn’t you call the police? Where is your car?”

I meet Brandon’s eyes, and we burst out laughing together. Our poor mother. She really needs some girls to gab with, as Brandon and I don’t usually have it in us. I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. “Momma,” I say. “Breathe. I’m a grown man, and I can take care of my business.”

Now, if I can just figure out how to make sure I don’t hurt Ryanne, I might be able to simply go back to worrying about my eyesight instead of losing everything in my life that I hold dear.

Oh, and the eighty-year-old vocabulary strikes again.