Falling for Ezra Thomas (Life With the Thomas Brothers #4)

6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Ezra

Glancing over Lorelai’s shoulder, I spy a suitcase overflowing with clothes and a pile of books. “Are you going somewhere?” I ask, panic filling my chest. I know I need to end this, put a period so neither of us is stuck in misery while I’m gone. But now that she’s in front of me, melting in my arms, I don’t think I can. How can I walk away from something that feels this right?

She looks behind us and shrugs, releasing herself from my embrace. “I already told you that I am. Vivien insists I take a weekend getaway and unwind. I guess she’s going to ask your parents if I can borrow the cabin.” She swipes a few stray tears and clears her throat. She did tell me, but my brain is so scrambled, I can’t even remember to breathe.

“I think you deserve a retreat. Beck said you were attacked by a squirrel?”

Lorelai looks up at me with watery eyes and nods. “Yeah. Um, Mr. Nuts is a psychotic squirrel that always escapes. Anyway, he bit me and it was the final straw. I quit my job.”

The uncontrollable urge to kiss her takes my mind to places it shouldn’t, so I clench my jaw and try not to be the idiot who acts on his impulses again. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I think you deserve a much better job. That place is insane, and you’re always working.”

Lorelai licks her lips and sighs. She’s barely holding it together, but I can’t tell if it’s losing her job, the pain from the squirrel bite, or me who’s causing her discomfort the most right now. I don’t want to be the cause, but I have undoubtedly made her life more difficult.

“I guess I’ll reset over the weekend and try to figure out something next week. Viv says she’s got rent covered while I find another job, but it isn’t like she’s going to be living here for much longer.” Her eyes go wide and she jerks her head up. “Are you going to miss the wedding?”

“No, I don’t think so. Based on the schedule, I should be back in time unless something changes. I swear, I had no idea my best friend and twin would date, fall in love, get engaged, and get married within a few months. I enlisted long before that.”

“Right,” she says matter-of-factly. “Yeah. Of course.” She furrows her brow and tilts her head. “Wait, is that why you set them up? Because you knew you’d be leaving?”

I shake my head. “No, I set them up because I knew he liked her and they would be the perfect couple if they ever got out of their own way. The fact that it worked out so well is a bonus, but I’m not going to lie, it does make me feel better about leaving them both even if that wasn’t my initial reason for doing it.”

Storm clouds roll in and those pretty eyes of hers cloud over. I can’t help or change the sudden need to be more than friends with this woman. She’s always been around, always been a sounding board for all of us. She knows us all as well as Vivien does, and she’s gotten into her fair share of trouble around Coldstone Creek with us…just like Viv. We’re friends. We’re close. And I want more. And I’m beginning to think she should have a say in this before I put a definitive nail in the coffin, ending any chance that we might actually make a relationship work.

I tip her chin up and go for broke. “I just didn’t see you coming. You and the feelings I have for you kind of threw a wrench in my plans.”

She swallows hard and her lips part, eyes roaming my face as if she can read what I mean without asking. “What…what do you mean?” Her breathy response warms my face and kicks my urge to kiss her into overdrive.

“Lorelai,” I whisper but my brain glitches. I’m supposed to explain why it would be difficult for us to be together. I don’t know where they’ll send me after basic, and even if I did, it’s not easy to be the significant other of someone in the military. It’s a sacrifice, and this woman has already worked too hard to achieve her goals for me to swoop in and upend everything.

I sigh and close my eyes, but I can’t seem to pull my hand from her face. There’s so much to say, but words stick in my throat. If it weren’t for me having to leave, we could take our time. Figure out what this means. Go on a few dates and find out if we’re truly as compatible as I think we are. But it won’t work that way, not for us.

Ideas spin through my mind as we stand this way, frozen in time.

Until she shifts a fraction and the next thing I know, her soft lips press against mine. I lose the battle with my own self control and scoop her up. She’s in my arms, her lips gently peppering my face while I carry her down the hallway and to the sofa. It’s where it all began. One popcorn fight and a moment of eye contact turned into a storm of emotions I haven’t stopped thinking about.

I sit and pull her close before claiming her lips. Kissing Lorelai is nothing like I would have expected. The woman puts her whole heart into everything she does, always has, and whatever this is between us isn’t different. She has mastered the art of reading my mind—at least where kissing is concerned—and it’s as close to perfection as anything can be.

But I can’t shake the feeling that Beck and Vivien might barge in at any moment despite having just left for dinner, and I tense. Lorelai pulls back and gasps as if she can’t believe we’ve done it again. Her fingers trail over her lips but she doesn’t break eye contact with me. Her eyes search mine with so much worry, so much innocent and pure hope that I can’t let her think this was a mistake. Who cares if my best friend and brother return and catch us? Again?

I swallow over the dryness in my throat and pull her closer. She lets me tuck her against my chest, but that shock on her face remains. I slide my hand up her back and into her hair, pulling her still closer. She lets me kiss her, hold her, keep her next to me until I have to pull away for breath. I gasp and release her.

“Lorelai, I…” I groan and kiss the top of her head. After another breath, I try again. “I have feelings for you. I know it’s sudden and probably insane, but I can’t really control how I feel about you. I didn’t see it coming, and the timing is horrible. We can’t date like normal people would. I won’t get to see you, it’ll stress you even more, and—”

“Ez, shh. Calm down and take a breath.”

Who knows what else I was about to say, but she interrupts me by pressing her palm to my cheek and shifting to look up at me. This way, there’s a vulnerability to her I’ve never seen before. Lorelai is practical. She’s solid, trustworthy, and a leader. But now, it’s almost as if she’s showing me inside for the first time, letting me into the quietest, most hidden places of her heart that no one else gets to have. The parts that are fragile, delicate, and prone to destruction if one is not careful.

“Ezra, what is happening here? Tell me what you want and maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle. You have to talk to me. I’m the same Lorelai, even if the stakes are higher.” Her dark hair is tangled in my fingers, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

I’m comfortable with her. I don’t want to leave this sofa, and if I do, I want it to be because we’re going somewhere together. I want to date her, to spend all of my time getting to know this new and different side of her.

I offer a shrug. “If I didn’t have to leave—”

“Pretend you’re not,” she says, eyes focused on me. “Pretend we kissed and you don’t have to go anywhere. Then what?”

“Then I’d ask you on a date. I’d fill your calendar with as many of them as you’d let me have, and I’d spend all my free time learning the things about you that I don’t already know.” I can’t believe the words slipped out, but here they are, sitting between us out in the open. “But I am leaving. I can’t take you out like you deserve. I can’t treat you to dinner and shopping and all the other things Beck does for Viv. We wouldn’t see each other for months, maybe even years at a time.”

Lorelai shifts until she’s sitting upright beside me and her game face is on. This is the Lorelai I’m used to. The no holding back, all the cards on the table woman. Her brow furrows, and she bites the inside of her cheek. The way she’s moved from one emotion to another is whiplash inducing, but I like this. I like that she seems on a mission even though I have no way of knowing what is about to happen.

“I’m not Vivien. That’s the first thing we need to get clear. She’s my sister, sure, and we have a lot in common, but not everything. We’re different women, and you can’t expect me to behave like her.”

“Right, and I wouldn’t want you to. That doesn’t mean—”

She grins and leans over to kiss me. Well, a guy can get used to getting shut up like this. I’m just about to deepen the kiss and calculate how many years I’d have to spend in prison for going AWOL when she pulls back.

“Like I was saying, we’re sisters and have a lot in common, but we’re still different. I have a question,” she says. “Do I get a say in how this thing between us goes, or have you already decided for me?”

“What do you mean?” I shift forward, ready to hear what’s on her mind.

“Are you allowed to call or write letters or email while you’re at basic training?” she asks.

“It’s limited, but yes. I can write all I want, but phone calls are once a week. No electronics, so I can’t email. It really depends on the instructor, but there are some options.”

Lorelai bites her lip and gets a faraway look in her gorgeous eyes. Her hair cascades over her shoulders and her thick lashes brush the top of her cheeks with each blink. It isn’t like I never noticed how pretty the sisters are. I did have a crush on Vivien once upon a time, but it was nothing like this. Lorelai is suddenly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and her entire essence pulls me in. My mind is getting too hazy, slipping into that euphoria that tells me to throw everything out the window and just sit here kissing her all day.

“You know, we can date through letters,” she says. Her cheeks redden and she looks away.

Wait. What? My back stiffens and I shift sideways to face her. “You’d want to do that? Write letters and do some kind of long-distance thing?”

“Well, it isn’t like I don’t know you. I probably know more about you than I should. Our letters won’t be the superficial getting to know you stuff. They could be so much deeper than that, so yeah. I think we could do it. It might even be romantic, actually. If you’d want to, of course.”

I love the way her cheeks get redder and redder, but it proves she has feelings for me too. She wants this as much as I do no matter how surprising and out of the blue it is, and if we have to go about it in an untraditional way, then so be it.

“You know, it’s actually not that unusual. Men and woman used to write to each other all the time. My grandparents did it when my grandpa was drafted,” I say. Adrenaline courses through my body when she smiles. When did she turn into this exquisite woman sitting beside me? Weeks ago, she was Lorelai. My friend. Vivien’s sister. And now, I’m at a loss for words when she looks at me the way she is right now, smiling with eyes alight and cheeks aglow, ready to leap into a crazy new adventure with me.

“I actually know that. Your Grandma told me a few Christmases ago. So see, we aren’t starting from scratch here. We can dig deep and really connect while you’re gone. It’s easier to do that in written letters than face to face anyway, right? Or am I crazy?” she asks.

“Crazy? What do you mean by that?”

She lowers her gaze again and pulls her legs up. Closing herself off a little. “Crazy for wanting to do this? I mean, a few kisses can’t suddenly make a relationship out of nothing, but I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night, Ezra.”

I reach for her and pull her back against my chest. “It’s like you said though. It’s not really out of nothing. We’ve been friends for a long time, so if you’re crazy, then so am I. You’ve had me questioning my future since that night, and I definitely want to see where this leads.” And in my family, that means something. She knows that too. Diving into this long-distance, letter writing romance with me only confirms what I had hoped before. She’s in as deep as I am. She has feelings for me that go beyond friendship, and she’s looking for commitment. Long term.

Lorelai settles her head on my chest with a contented sigh. “I hate that you’re leaving, but I think we can figure this out. If that’s what you want.”

I take a deep breath and kiss the top of her head. “It is. Is it what you really want?”

She snuggles deeper and wraps her arms around my torso while I hug her tight. “Yeah, I think so. This is the most relaxed I’ve been in months. It feels right. I’m…at ease with you.”

“Me too,” I admit and hope the feeling only grows.

We’ll figure this out. Yeah. I trust her. I believe her. But now I have to tell the rest of my family, and that is going to be the first test of our stability.