Page 55 of His Secret Obsession

My hand cups her chin, tilting it back towards me so I can press a tender kiss to her mouth. Her lips are soft against my own as I take my time, leaving the taste of salty tears on my tongue. Warmth consumes me like it always does when I kiss her. I pull away slowly, my hand still cradling her head.

“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to forget?” I ask her. She stares up at me for a beat, indecision flicking across her features.

“I was eighteen, and I thought I was all grown up.” She laughs quietly, her smile quickly fading. “Losing them made me realize I was a kid who still needed her parents.”

Fuck.My chest constricts. If I could go back in time and find a way to save them, I would stop at nothing to bring them back to her.

She nods toward the sign, still in the beginning stages of its restoration. “They are the reason why I used to love creating things.”

I frown. “Used to?”

“As soon as I turned sixteen, they had me in the backyard helping them. Like I said before, if you name it, Dad could probably make it: chairs, desks, coffee tables. He taught me quite a bit, but what I really loved was refurbishing old furniture. Mom and I used to pick up junk that no one else would look at twice.” She gives me a wistful smile, and I find myself mesmerized. “One time, we saw a broken office desk that was missing two legs, and the painting was chipped all to hell. Someone had dumped it on the side of the road, but we loaded itin the truck together and brought it home. It was the first piece I completely refurbished all by myself.”

I smile. “Yeah? How did that go?”

“At the time, I whined because it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.” She swallows, her eyes staring off into the distance. “But then when it was finished, and Mom let me move it into my bedroom instead of selling it, I felt so accomplished. She told me she was proud of my dedication, and I remembered how that made me feel every time I sat at that desk to do my homework. It was painted a light blue, with a white floral pattern sketched onto the top. I loved that thing.”

“What happened to it? Do you still have it somewhere?”

Her eyes dim, and I feel some of my joy fading. Dread crawls up my throat. “When my parents died, my aunt took me in. She made me sell everything.”

That mother—

A raspy growl slips free as a simmering fury ignites in my chest. It heats my blood, my veins thrumming with it. I clench my jaw. “Why would she do that?”

Maddie nibbles on her bottom lip, looking down at her feet. She looks so forlorn, I wonder if I should change the subject. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about this. Maybe I’m an asshole for asking.

“She never understood them. The fact that they lived a simple lifestyle and that they loved it. They thought handcrafted furniture and décor pieces in a home showed character. My aunt thought it looked…cheap.”

“Well, she’s fuckin’ wrong, and that’s a shitty thing to do. She’s a real piece of—”

Her lips part slightly, her mouth gaping at the vehemence that I can’t conceal from my tone. Spinning in my arms, she places a gentle hand over my mouth. “Jax, it’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I gently nip at her palm, and she moves it away. “I don’t care. You were still practically a kid, and she took away things that were sentimental to you.”

Her hands loop around the back of my neck, and I roll my shoulders, trying to push down some of my irrational anger. “I said my piece to her, and got everything off my chest a long time ago. A few months after I moved in with her, I went to college. At first, I spent my summer and holiday breaks at her house. But we never really got along.” She shrugs. “Eventually, I got my own apartment on campus. I haven’t talked to her in years.”

“So, after they died…it was too hard to create things?” I ask.

She nods, blowing out a heavy exhale. “I know that probably makes me a coward, but the idea of creating those things without them was always too much to bear.” Her eyes fill with unshed tears.

“And now?” I ask.

Her eyes dart over to the sign, various pieces of wood and painting scattered around her worktable. I wait patiently while she ponders my question, not feeling a need to bridge the silence. When she looks back at me, a hint of a smile plays on her lips. “It’s actually kind of cathartic. And I think I could enjoy it again.”

“Good.” Unable to help myself, I run my fingers through her brown strands. They feel silky soft against my rough fingers, the overhead lights shining on her locks. I hum thoughtfully. “I lost both of my parents at a fairly young age, too. It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. My mother died from childbirth complications after having Luke. I was ten years old, and I didn’t understand why she wasn’t with him when my old man brought my baby brother home. Then, when I was twenty-one, he had a heart attack. Luke was eleven. It’s been just us ever since.”

“I’m so sorry, Jax.”

I shrug, letting her hair fall back to her shoulders as I wrap an arm around her waist. “Don’t be. I just wanted to tell you that it’s normal. No matter how many years go by, there will always be days when you wonder what could have been. You’ll wonder what they would think of your life now, and if they would be proud. There’ll be days when you want to forget them and days when you want to remember.” I cup the back of her neck, my thumb brushing over her pulse point. “Whenever you feel like that, Maddie, come find me. And we can remember them together, okay?”

She nods, her eyes brimming with tears again. “Okay,” she agrees. “And you’ll do the same.” Her fingers play with the hairs on the nape of my neck, and I repress a shiver. “You come to me whenever you need to remember or forget.”

I suck in a breath, my heart flipping over in my chest. I’m caught off guard by the surprising amount of yearning. “I think—” I clear my throat. “I think I would like that. Maybe one day I can tell you all about them.”

She nods, and God, there’s that feeling again. That all-consuming warmth filling the empty spaces of my heart. Every moment I spend with her, she’s shining light in places I didn’t know were dark.

Overhead, the slow tunes of a love song are playing. It’s about a man watching a woman walk into a bar, and when she sits next to him, he realizes what’s been missing in his life.

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