Page 1 of Only His

Chapter 1

It sounded crazy, but I started falling for David the very first time I met him.

It happened during our annual Christmas party when I was only fourteen. We’d only been living in Bellwood since that summer and the few guests who showed up at the party were evidence that my parents hadn’t fared much better than I had at making new friends. Most of the attendees were family members—the main reason for our move in the first place.

Being the only teenager at the party meant I was nearly bored to tears and looking for any and every excuse to disappear up to my bedroom for the night. The excuse of not feeling well was on the tip of my tongue when the doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” Mom asked as she glanced around. “Everyone’s already here.”

Dad rushed to the door as he called, “That must be David from work! I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it.”

He opened the front door and it was like being struck by lightning. To this day, IsworeI heard harps playing as little cupids flew around David’s head, their little arrows pointed directly at me.

David was tall with short brown hair that was perfectly mussed. His jaw and killer cheekbones were covered with a few days’ worth of stubble and the smile on his lips was warm and charming. When his penetrating blue eyes landed on me, my breath caught in my throat. He looked like he should have been on the cover of a magazine or starring in a movie—not working at a construction company and palling around with my dad in his free time.

As if going through puberty wasn’t an awkward enough time. Might as well throw in a crush on my dad’s only friend in town.

In my defense, David was a decade younger than my dad. The age gap between them was still less than the fifteen years that separated us, but that kind of logic wasn’t welcome in my adolescent mind upon seeing him.

And, boy, I saw him alot.

David was right at home with my entire family. He not only became a regular visitor at our house but also at my Uncle Mike’s. One evening just before school let out for summer vacation, my parents went out of town and forced me to stay with my grandmother. I got off the bus only to find David mowing the lawn—his soaking wet t-shirt hanging over one shoulder.

That was a memory I’d cherish for the rest of my life. Not the blushing and stammering that happened when he tried to greet me—no, that was horribly embarrassing—but the glorious sight of him was forever embedded in my memory. I wasn’t even ashamed to admit that I watched him for the next hour from between the cracks of the blinds of the bathroom.

My obsession with him didn’t stop there.

As my high school years went on and David grew closer to our family, something changed. Significantly.

I was terrified my body had stopped growing when I was fourteen, so words couldn’t explain how grateful I was when I realized I needed a bigger cup size. As the years progressed and my body changed and filled in, the boys at school started to notice me and my confidence soared.

Eventually, I started running to ‘keep in shape.’ I jogged around my block for weeks, waiting until I was absolutely certain I could make it down David’s street without looking like an exhausted wreck.

Soon, I was jogging past his house as often as possible. I knew his schedule well enough to know when the best opportunities were to catch him, but the friendly waves and occasional chit-chat by his mailbox weren’t enough for me. I applied for a part-time job when I was sixteen, and with my paychecks, I bought more running clothes.

Skimpyrunning clothes. Tiny shorts and the tightest tops I could find. When it was hot, and my parents weren’t around to see me leaving the house, I’d pull out the crop-tops to show evenmoreskin. Without fully realizing what I was doing, I became a glorified tease.

But it worked. At least partially.

David’s eyes would linger just a tad bit longer on my body before he managed to meet my eyes and give me a friendly smile. On his visits to the house, I’d catch him subtly looking my way while he listened to whatever my dad was rambling on about. I fell harder for him every time we spoke, and I could practicallyfeelhim warming up to me in a way that had to be more than just lust. Everything was progressing perfectly.

Until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

Not long before my high school graduation, my parents dragged me to dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in town. When we arrived, I was stunned to find everyone from my father’s work gathered in the largest dining area. As far as I knew, there hadn’t been a company dinner thrown in years.

Within ten minutes, I realized it wasn’t a company dinner. It was a going away party.

ForDavid.

I went numb the instant I heard the news, and it continued long after David’s house was empty. He left with little fanfare—that dinner being the only event to mark his departure—and moved to Uniontown, which was over two hours away. It was practically impossible for me to see him anymore.

While I was devastated by the loss, I still continued to run. My heart broke a little more every time I passed his vacant house, until the day I saw a moving truck parked outside. I stopped in the street and watched the new family moving in their furniture, the reality finally sinking in.

David was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. It felt like I lost a vital part of me.

Numbness gave way to depression for a while. I tried to silence my thoughts by focusing on school and my part-time job. My parents were pleased with my grades and the work ethic I developed, though I doubted they would have approved as much if they knew the reason for my newfound focus. It wasn’t until the time to apply to colleges came around that I poked my head up for air and tried to make a real plan for my future.

Aside from becoming a mother, the only other thing I wanted to do with my life was to help people, even in the smallest kind of way. After giving my options a lot of thought, I decided to look into getting a degree for nursing at one of the local colleges. Thankfully, the ones close by all offered terrific nursing programs.

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