Page 116 of Tripped By Love
“Don’t even try to pull the ‘I’ve never had sex’ card on me, Violet Banner. I know you too well. All force of nature, demanding what she wants. I bet the first poor boy didn’t even know what hit him.”
I elbowed her. “Poor boy! Please.”
“What are you going to do about your thesis?”
“I’m not sure yet. Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to get my Ph.D. anymore.”
I waited for the disappointment to cover her face. Jersey had been convinced from the time I was a teen researching insects that I’d somehow save the world. She’d even created her superhero, Viola the Jewel, inspired by me and my love of bugs. A hero who could camouflage like the best of the metallic beetles.
“Violet, I need you to do something for me.” She made sure I was listening, making eye contact and holding it. “Stop doing things you think people want you to do, and do whatyouwant.”
Tears did hit my eyes then. Not because of Dad but because of my smart, beautiful sister who’d been mom and friend and confidant. The person who’d taken the hits intended for me and gone hungry so I could eat. I hugged her, and she hugged me back. Truck joined us, looking like he wanted to hug us both, but he didn’t.
We walked in silence to the car.
Change. Reactants blooming to life. I could feel them.
When we pulled up to Books and Beds by the Sea, I was overcome with a sense of homesickness that I’d never really felt before. This house had been the only one I’d ever truly called home. When Jersey and I had lived here with Mandy and Leena, they’d just started renovating it into the bed and breakfast it was now.
On the outside, the white Victorian looked posh and perfect with its bright-blue shutters and curling trim. But on the inside, it looked like Mandy and Leena. Its nineteenth-century antecedents—panels, crown molding, and chandeliers—were mixed with brightly colored patterns that blurred into solids, reflecting Leena’s artistic side, while the books piled onto almost every available space were all Mandy.
Coming into the entryway, I was hit with the same memory that always haunted me.
I bounded down the mahogany stairs, anxious to meet the man Mandy and Leena called their second son, even when he was no relation to them. Big, blond, and muscled, Truck wore his military status on him like a coat even when he wasn’t in uniform. As he hugged Leena with a wide smile and kind eyes, my gaze was drawn to the even taller, dark-haired guy standing behind him. He had on a white T-shirt with a black leather jacket and simmered with a broodiness that screamed tortured soul.
This unexpected guest raised his eyes and found me on the stairs. He did a double take before slowly taking in every part of me in a way no man ever had—or at least, none that I’d noticed. He landed on my small breasts in the sparkly tank I’d inherited from Jada and stalled. The look made my hormone-driven body melt.
Truck elbowed him in the gut, growling out a warning, “Dawson.”
Dawson’s eyes jerked back to my face, eyes widening, before saying, “You have purple eyes.”
It was ridiculous and should have made me laugh. Instead, I felt like my body was slowly burning into ash faster than I could even calculate the formula.
There was only one truth in that moment: I wanted him for my very own.
Laughter from the kitchen brought me away from the memory. A laugh that I knew but couldn’t believe was there. I followed my feet to the kitchen where Silas’s lanky frame was leaned up against the giant island. The memory of the dark-haired man I’d just been thinking about, leaning in that exact space, hit me hard in the chest. Back then, my feet had danced around Dawson, taunting him with the last pint of Ben and Jerry’s, trying desperately to get him to touch me, wanting that flash of energy to coast over me that came every time he did. He’d had his arms crossed, trying hard to keep the smile from his broody lips.
Today, my feet danced up to Silas as well, but they weren’t happy, teasing steps. They were stomps of anger and frustration.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, and the room went silent—even little Nell, who’d been explaining to Leena what exactly she was drawing.
The smile he’d had slipped. “I was worried about you.”
It was true. You could hear the concern in his voice, just like Jersey’s had been full of it at the cemetery. Twisting my ID bracelet around my wrist, I took in a deep breath, calming myself down. I went to the back door, opened it, and motioned for him to come with me.
The back deck was small, but the yard beyond it was as gloriously manicured as the front. Mandy’s second love was gardening, and it showed in the barrels of herbs and flowers and the little arbors with benches scattered throughout the winding shrubbery.
I found a seat at one, and Silas joined me.
“I should have told you I was coming,” he started.
“You shouldn’t have come at all,” I told him, trying not to feel bad when he winced.
“My dad said if I truly loved you?wanted you?that I should come and make a grand gesture,” he said with a wry smile.
“Your dad…” I said, amazed. But then Jersey’s words outside the mausoleum came back to me. “Si…seriously, what doyoureally want? From us? From this? Not what you think your family wants, but what doyouwant?”
He frowned. “They’re the same thing. I want to build a life with you.”
