Page 63 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“You’re quiet. Have been since we came home. You okay?”
Like that’s not a loaded question when it comes to the two of us. I meet his eyes briefly in the reflection of the glass before looking back toward the lights. It takes me a moment to answer him. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
He chuckles softly and I know he’s thinking of the last time our conversation involved this phrasing. When he rests his hands upon my shoulders, it takes everything I have not to sag into him. His touch ignites something within me and it’s like I can’t think straight when he does it.
But I’m not sure if I want him to move his hands, because I’m so sick of thinking and worrying that I welcome the lack of thought. And if his hands on my shoulders can mess up my head, I wonder what the weight of his body on mine could do.
It’s a fleeting thought as his chuckle fades and the silence descends around us once again. The draw of his breath and a car driving by outside are the only sounds.
“It’s okay to feel a little all over the place after baring your secrets to someone.” I want to believe him that this is normal, but I’m so far from recognizing normal anymore I don’t know what to think. When I don’t respond, he continues. “I know I do.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel—”
“I told you no more apologies, Getty.” His voice is stern, implacable. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He squeezes my shoulders gently and my eyes flash up to meet his in the reflection again. Our gazes hold through the darkness, a mixture of concern and understanding in his. “Talk to me. Turn around and tell me what’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours.”
Hesitation is my friend tonight. And so is the glass in front of me that allows me to look at Zander without really looking at him. Call it feeling exposed or vulnerable, but for some reason right now I can’t look him directly in the eyes.
“I don’t know.” I pause, take a deep breath, and try to find the words to express how I’m feeling. “It’s like I’m so sure that I did the right thing in leaving, so positive that I didn’t make up how I was being treated in my head or overreact, like Ethan used to tell me I was doing. Regardless, I can’t help the doubt from creeping in. And I hate it. Am so ashamed of it because I’m stronger than that now. A different person than that weak woman I used to be. But after all of those years being controlled and criticized and told I was wrong . . . I loathe that I feel so strong one minute and the next fall apart. It makes me question my sanity.” My chest constricts as I lay the contradictions that rule my life out on the proverbial table and hope he understands what I’m trying to say. That he doesn’t judge me as weak for the admission.
“That’s okay. So very normal.” The heat of his breath hits my neck as he leans his forehead against the crown of my head. Such an intimate action when all I want to do is pull away, because I don’t deserve this from him. What I deserve is for him to give my shoulders a good hard shake to knock some sense in me and tell me I need to buck up. But he doesn’t. He gives me patience, understanding, and compassion, when I least expect them. “You can’t undo something in a few months when it?
??s been hammered into your head year after year after year.”
“I don’t want to be that person anymore, Zander. I don’t want to be Gertrude Caster-Adams.” My voice is soft but conveys my inner turmoil.
His hands on my shoulders pressure me to turn around so that I come face-to-face with him, my back now to the sliding glass door. His blue eyes are full of determination when they meet mine. “You’re not her anymore. You’re Getty Caster, from PineRidge, who likes messy silverware drawers, thinks a mini-blind wand is a formidable weapon, and is the only woman I know who can rock a pair of mismatched knee-high socks and make them look sexy as hell.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and try to step to the side. His words hit my ears but fail to sink in.
“No. Let me finish.” He steps closer, and I can’t deny the powerful feel of the heat of his body against mine. Next his hands are framing my jaw and directing my face up to his. “You’re Getty Caster. A fighter in every sense of the word. A person who is ten times better than any man who puts her down. A woman who knows it’s okay to be afraid sometimes so long as she also realizes it takes a helluva lot more bravery to be scared and succeed than to fear and give in.”
Tears well in my eyes. Even with his hands on my cheeks, I subtly disagree with a shake of my head, because words aren’t possible right now. What he’s telling me is so much harder to accept than the lies and the doubt.
“You’re Getty Caster,” he continues, “first-time beer drinker and apprentice deck carpenter, who has a wicked imagination when it comes to making up other people’s life stories like in the restaurant. Now you just need to finish figuring out what you want your story to be.”
“No.” It comes out without any conviction and with a sob lodged in my throat. Because his words are causing all my hopes and wants and desires to surface when they’ve been pushed down for so very long.
“Yes.” His voice is soft yet definitive. When I lower my eyes, he just lifts my head higher so I have no choice other than to look at him. “You’re Getty Caster. Artist extraordinaire, painter of sunsets instead of stormy seas.”
“Or of white squalls.” My words are barely audible. The moment feels at once too real, too raw, and yet poignantly perfect.
“Or of white squalls,” he repeats just as quietly.
His smile is genuine. His gaze is steadfast on mine. And there’s something in the way he says the words that tells me he really means them. He doesn’t see that other woman I used to be when he looks at me. He sees the new me.
Getty Caster.
We stand in that suspended state of anticipation for what feels like forever. His hands are still on my face and his breath feathers over my lips as my heart pounds in a new rhythm. One filled with expectation, hope, and a fear so very different from what I’m used to. It’s the kind that makes your palms sweat and stomach drop because the man standing before you is so incredible inside and out that you’re afraid he isn’t real.
“Zander.” It’s not a question—rather it’s an admission of wanting and telling him yes and I don’t know at the same time.
“Getty.”
He closes the distance at such an achingly slow pace that by the time his lips brush ever so slightly against mine in a kiss that hints at things to come, I feel like I’ve waited years for it to happen.
Our lips meet, once, twice, a third time before he leans back, eyes searching, demanding, wanting, and yet we are completely motionless and utterly silent. Desire flows like a raging river through me while nerves, doubts, and insecurities fight their way upstream.
“I’m nervous.”
