Page 47 of The Upside of Falling
Stepping away from the bowl, Colby, hands covered in meat, comes closer and rests his forearms on my shoulders, keeping his contaminated hands as far away from me as possible. Leaning forward, he presses a sweet kiss across my lips but pulls away quickly before I can even open my mouth and make it deeper.
“You’re fucking cute, you know that?”
I scrunch my nose. “You know, some girls take ‘cute’ as an insult.”
Smiling, his body shifting against mine, he replies, “Cute, as in the way you get nervous around me. If we’re talking about your physical appearance, I wouldn’t necessary call you cute, not when you parade around in these tight sweaters, showing off everything I wish I could see . . . and touch.” My stomach flips, my skin tingles, my sweater becoming heavy and cumbersome as my body begs for it to come off. “Cute is a far too tame way to describe you.” He shakes his head, bringing his lips closer to mine again. A breath away, he says, “If I had to describe you to anyone, I’d call you stunningly beautiful.” Lightly, he kisses my lips, sending off a wave of butterflies in my stomach.
When he pulls away, I blink a few times, catching my breath. “Um . . . thank you.”
Chuckling, he says, “You’re welcome, Rory.” He turns toward the bowl, leaving me in a state of shock from his compliment and my awkward “thank you.”
“So we just roll these up?” He takes a huge pile of meat and begins to put it into a ball shape, his demeanor casual, as if he hadn’t just rocked my world.
Shaking some sense into myself, I step forward and say, “That ball is way too big.” He gives me a knowing smile, sure of how much he affects me. I clear my throat. “You need to make them much smaller. Like this.”
I show him the proper size, make sure it has a good roll, and then set it on the baking sheet.
Hands in the bowl, paused, he smirks at me. “Kiss me.”
And just like that, he has me metaphorically falling at his feet, so enamored. And I’m so incredibly glad I took this leap of faith, because this man has me wanting to spend every moment I can with him.How can I not?
Kiss me.
I do just that.
* * *
“You really didn’t have to help with the dishes.”
“I wanted to.” He finishes rinsing the last plate and sets it in the dish rack, as I watch him from my perched position on the chair he brought over near the sink for me to sit in.
“The least I can do is dry.”
He shakes his head. “Just relax, Rory. Let me take care of you.”
It isn’t the first time he’s said that to me tonight. When the food was ready and I was going to serve our plates, he told me to take a seat and let him take care of me. It seems like a simple saying, but in my world, it’s worth its weight in gold. I by no means want to be waited on, but the simple fact that someone wants—is choosing—to be there for me, especially since I’ve put someone else before me for so long . . . it means a lot to me.
“You’re really sweet, you know that?”
“Don’t make that known to the world. My cadets would never let me live it down.”
I take a sip from my water glass. “Are you tough on them, yelling all the time?”
“Not all the time, but yeah, we’re tough, especially on the freshmen. They get roasted pretty much all year and have zero privileges.”
“Really, like what?”
From the stove, he snags my yellow dishtowel and starts drying off the wet dishes resting in the drain. “Well, they don’t really get any weekend passes, so they have to stay on campus all the time. They have to keep their dorm room doors open, things like that. The point is to break them down and then lift them up.”
I gnaw on that. I can’t imagine going through such rigorous training. I thought getting my massage therapy certificate was hard, but it’s probably candy compared to the basic military training Colby had to go through.
“Was it scary?” I ask. “Going through the basic military training at first?”
He shakes his head, shoving his large hand inside a cup to dry it off. “Nah, I enjoyed it. It was hard, quite the challenge, but I felt like I was a part of something for once.”
“Did they yell at you?”
He chuckles. “All the time. The first week you’re constantly being berated for every little thing you do. For not looking at an officer properly, not standing upright enough, not wearing your hat at the right angle. So much stupid shit that is now ingrained in me. I don’t even have to think about it, I just do it.”
