California Dreamin' Read online

  God.

  God. He makes me so mad.

  “You know what? Get out of my room.”

  “Happily.” He straightens up. “I want you out there, at the table. In five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  Fifteen years ago, a girl asked me to marry her.

  I was seventeen and she was three. It was a joke. A story you tell over Christmas dinners or at family gatherings. A story you laugh over for some time and move on. I’m very well aware of that.

  I’ve always been aware of that.

  But for some strange reason, I haven’t been able to forget it. I haven’t been able to forget the hope shining in her eyes or the way her face crumpled when I told her she’d feel differently when she grew up. We bet on it, by hooking our pinkies together. And then she ran away because someone called her name and waved a gift wrapped in pink glitter paper. It was her birthday and Fallon loves pink.

  For some strange reason, I don’t tell this story to anyone. I don’t share it over a meal or laugh at it like I thought I would. Or I should.

  I keep it close to my chest like it means something. Like it was real. A three-year-old girl proposing to a seventeen-year-old boy.

  I’m sick; I’m aware of that as well.

  I call myself that every day. Every minute of every day, in fact. Especially when I hear her voice over the phone and heat grips every part of my body. It wraps itself around my limbs and doesn’t let go. Thoughts—wrong thoughts—and longings surface in my brain, my gut. My fucking heart.

  Avoidance and throwing myself into my work are the only keys when it comes to Fallon and the things I feel for her.

  It started as a strange protective instinct. I couldn’t see her sad. I couldn’t see her battle the bad days. It hurt something inside my chest when she’d come home from school crying. Saying she didn’t want to go. Saying she had no friends because it was so hard to keep up with them.

  As she grew up, that protective instinct grew with her. But along the way, it took on an edgier turn. It became possessiveness. It became the need to hide her from the world and keep her for myself. Keep her smiles, her laughter, her heart for myself.

  Nobody has made me feel even close to how Fallon does. Nobody has inspired my heart to beat or my soul to fucking sing, for lack of a better word.

  She’s the one. An eighteen-year-old slip of a girl with silver hair and gray eyes.

  And I can’t stop staring at her.

  We’ve stopped for the night at a hotel. Tomorrow we’ll reach New York and that’s for the best. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take us traveling together.

  The moment she came up with the idea of a road trip, I knew it was going to be a disaster on my sanity. I imagined her in the seat beside me, the leather sticking to her soft, pale thighs. Her shifting, adjusting herself. Her sighs, her smell.

  I imagined the long, torturous hours of her being close enough to touch but not being able to.

  What I didn’t imagine were her glares. Her silent treatment after what happened between us in Des Moines. I didn’t imagine forgetting all the reasons I’ve accumulated over the years for us to not be together.

  I didn’t imagine her saying those words to me.

  I love you, Dean. I’m in love with you. Don’t you know that? I’ve been in love with you all my life.

  Fallon’s across the room, at a different table than the one I picked for us. She’s too pissed to sit with me at dinner. I know I should apologize, but again I think it’s for the best.

  Or it would’ve been if not for the douchebag talking to her.

  Fury explodes in my gut when I see him leaning toward her. She arches her neck to listen to what he has to say. He looks like an asshole, with low-slung jeans and spiked hair with too much gel.

  I’ve got no idea why she’s talking to this fuckface. Can’t she tell he’s an asshole?

  Jesus. She always needs to be looked after, doesn’t she?

  But then I remind myself that technically, Fallon’s an adult. She can do whatever she wants.

  It’s none of my business. Just as it’s none of her business who I talk to. I know after my shitty response, I have no right to feel this absurd jealousy.

  But I do feel it.

  And when he leans in further and reaches out to touch her, I spring up from my seat. This isn’t happening. Not on my watch. Not ever.

  She loves me, you fucking asshole.

  I stride across the room, grab hold of his collar and yank him away from her. Fallon gasps but I pay her no attention. Looking into the startled face of the guy, I grit out the words, “Take a hike.”

  He looks like he wants to protest but the look in my eyes—probably something similar to murder—scares him away. As soon as I turn around to face Fallon, I’m met with a tiny firecracker, glaring and almost spitting.

  Sometimes I can’t believe Fallon is all grown up. Fierce and beautiful. Fucking breathtaking.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she snaps, and the heat that blankets me every time I talk to her, look at her, even think of her, grabs hold of me now.

  I hide it with anger. “Saving you.”

  “What?”

  “He was talking to your chest.”

  She looks down at her chest and despite cursing myself in my head, my gaze follows hers. She’s wearing a tank top with a quote from her favorite book series, Harry Potter. But like a pervert, I’m more interested in the soft-looking, smooth slope of her cleavage.

  I grit my teeth angrily.

  “Yes. Because I spilled something.”

  That’s when I look at a mustard-colored stain on her top. Even though it should calm my agitation, it doesn’t.

  “Well, it’s none of his business if you spilled something,” I grumble.

  Frowning, she purses her lips. “Not everyone is a jerk like you, okay? Some people like to help.”

  “He was only helping you because he wanted something from you.”

  “Yes. A thank you. But how dare he, right?”

  “Yeah, a thank you. But there’s a lot of ways to get that,” I growl, leaning toward her like that asshole was doing not a minute ago. Don’t know what that says about me.

  Actually, I do know what it says about me. I’m an asshole too. Because I can’t stop staring at her lips. I can’t stop thinking about how they’ll taste, how soft they will be.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” she snaps again, breaking my thoughts.

  “And you need to use yours. Because men only want one thing, Fallon. And it’s not just a verbal thank you.”

  Men like me. Men who belong in prison for harboring such thoughts about someone so young. Men I’ve prosecuted myself.

  How am I different from them?

  So far, we’ve been standing at a respectable distance from each other. But Fallon moves closer. She looks up at me with a mutinous expression.

  “Contrary to your belief, Dean, I do know what guys want. I’m not an idiot. And maybe I’ll go give it to him. At least he’ll know how to treat me like a grown-up.”

  She pushes me away, and I’m so startled that she’s successful in shoving me out of her way and storming out.

  I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm myself. Calm the jealousy inside me that she’s just flared to life. Once before I’ve felt this way, this out of control, and I hate it.

  But as I watch her walk away, I realize there’s no stopping it.

  I leave the restaurant in her wake and catch up to her just as she’s about to enter her room. Following her inside, I shut the door with a massive thud.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Language.”

  She shakes her head, sending her soft silver hair swaying around her shoulders. “If you don’t stop correcting my language, I’m gonna kill you. And I’m not kidding. Now get the fuck out of my room.”

  “If you don’t stop cursing, I’m going to wash your mouth out. And not with
soap.”

  As soon as I say it, I pinch the bridge of my nose.

  Fucking hell.

  I did not mean to say that. Now visions of things I could do to her pretty pink mouth won’t stop bombarding me.

  Fallon looks dumbstruck, as she should. I’ve never talked to her this way. I’ve always—even when it bordered on pain—tried to remember she’s young. Far younger than me.

  Not to mention, she’s the daughter of the man who saved me when I needed it the most. I probably owe Fallon’s father my entire life, my entire career. He took me in when my own dad didn’t care about me and Mia.

  “God, I never knew you were such an asshole, Dean,” Fallon says.

  Her face reflects heartbreak and despite all the promises I’ve made—I keep on making—I approach her. I try to find words to comfort her, to apologize for being such a jerk. I go so far as to circle her delicate wrist even though she protests.

  But as soon as I touch her, all I can think about is touching her even more. Touching her in places where I’m not allowed to, and that only fans my aggression.

  “Well, now you do,” I growl, smelling her sweet strawberry smell.

  Fallon loves strawberries. When she was little, she’d steal all my strawberries and give me oranges in return. I didn’t mind her stealing, but she’d say, My mommy says if I steal something from someone, I need to give them back something, too. It’s only fair.

  Your mom teaches you about stealing, Tiny?

  She’d grin, shaking her head and popping strawberries in her mouth. Nah, I made that up. I just don’t like oranges. You need to make them your favorite, okay? So I can steal from you.

  “Let go of me.”

  “No.”

  I tighten my grip and her fist connects with my chest, probably trying to push me away once again. But her effort is half-hearted.

  When she glares at me for not budging, I wind my other arm around her waist, uncaring of the consequences. Uncaring of the fact that somehow I’m betraying Simon, Fallon’s dad. Uncaring that maybe I’m similar to those men whom I put away for preying on the innocent. Uncaring that if a man like me, much older, jaded and more cynical, tried something like this with my sister, I’d kill him with my bare hands.

  Uncaring of everything but her.

  We’ve ended up in an embrace somehow, when that wasn’t my intention at all. Fallon’s glare has turned into a wide-eyed look and I know I won’t be able to let her go.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I rumble.

  “Like what?” she whispers, panting, her chest almost touching mine; her eyes darken, clouded with desire.

  Despite myself, I close that slice of a distance between us, until her soft body is touching mine. “I’m not going to kiss you, Fallon.”

  Her breaths escalate, and her eyes drop down to my mouth. “Good. Because I don’t want you to.”

  I study the curve of her parted lips. “Liar.”

  She pushes against me, but again, it’s half-hearted. “I don’t want you or your mouth anywhere near me. Okay?”

  My arm around her waist flexes. “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “I can’t stand you right now.”

  “I don’t think you mean that either.”

  She growls, fisting my shirt, shaking me. “I hate you, Dean.”

  “Good,” I grit out, still studying her lips before looking into her eyes. “Because you don’t fucking know what love is.”

  “You’re such an asshole. Just go away and leave me alone.”

  “I did.”

  “What?”

  “You want to know what love is, Fallon?” I growl. “Let me tell you what love is. It’s a burn. An explosion. It’s like I’m exploding every second of every day. With the need, this fucking urge to see you. To touch you. To kiss you. Even though I know I can’t. I can’t do it because it’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter because that burn, that ache? It never goes away. In fact, instead of going away, it only grows bigger and bigger. And fucking bigger. To the point where all I can think about is you. All I can think about is destroying every single thing, every single reason, every single person who’s trying to keep me apart from you. Love is watching you go to prom with your douchebag of a boyfriend and going so crazy, so fucking insane with jealousy, I cornered that sixteen-year-old boy and threatened him to stay away from you. That’s what love is, Fallon.”

  I want to keep going but I don’t think I can. I don’t think I should even be touching her after confessing how petty, how small I’ve become in her love. But I can’t seem to let her go, either.

  Seconds pass as she studies me and then in a soft voice, she asks, “Y—you told Brad to stay away from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that why he backed out of our date just an hour into prom? Because you threatened him?”

  Regret burns every inch of me. It was my lowest moment, threatening a sixteen-year-old boy because I was in love with his girlfriend. But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t see Fallon wearing a girly pink dress, all made up and stunning, going on a date with someone who didn’t deserve her. Not that I did, either. But I couldn’t… stop. I didn’t know how to stop.

  “Yes,” I repeat.

  “I—I didn’t know. I didn’t know you threatened him…” She swallows, looking at me with new eyes.

  She’ll probably hate me now. Probably regret her confession from last night.

  “I cried when he just left me there. I called you to come get me,” she continues, as if remembering that night. “I kept crying in your arms. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

  I want to hang my head, drop down to my knees and ask for her forgiveness. But I pull up whatever strength I have and keep holding onto her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” I tell her with as much love as I can muster, as much anger as I can muster on her behalf. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  No one deserves my Fallon, least of all me. When I said she inspires me, I wasn’t lying. I’ve seen her at her lowest and I’ve seen her pull herself out of it, too. Her strength, her will to fight keeps me going, gives me the will to fight, to be better.

  “What about you? Do you deserve me?”

  A short laugh bursts out of me at her question. “Fuck, no. That’s why I moved away. Because I’m so crazy in love with you that I threatened a high school boy just because he was your prom date.”

  She grips my shirt harder. “Y—you are in love with me?”

  My heart thuds loudly in my chest. “It doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.”

  So far I’ve been pushing my body over hers, trying to consume her like she consumes me. But now, she’s pushing back. She’s molding her body against mine. “What’s so wrong about it?”

  “I’m too old for you.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t have time for love. I have my job. My cases. I can’t ignore them.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “One day you’re going to find someone your own age, someone who isn’t jaded, isn’t a workaholic control freak like me and you’ll…”

  “I’ll what?”

  A pressure forms in the vicinity of my heart as I say, “You won’t love me anymore.”

  She lets go of my shirt and snakes her arms up and around my neck. Her fingers sink into my hair and I almost groan out loud. I don’t know where she learned to do that, play with my hair like that and rake her nails up and down my scalp, but Jesus Christ, it relaxes me and makes me hard at the same time.

  “Maybe,” she whispers. “And maybe one day, I’ll have a major depressive episode like my mom did. Maybe my meds won’t work for me anymore. Maybe I’ll try to… to end my life. And then, you’ll leave me because I have epic issues.”

  I bow my head, taking up all her personal space. “I’ll never leave you. Do you hear me, Fallon? Not a chance in this lifetime.”

  “That’s what I’m asking for, D
ean.” She smiles slightly.

  “What?”

  “A chance. To be together. To love each other. There are a million things that could go wrong but I don’t want them to stop us. I don’t want anything to stop us from trying to be together. Maybe we’re the exception, you know? Maybe we’re the miracle, you and me.”

  “You and me, huh?”

  Blinking her teary eyes, she nods. “Yes. Be my miracle, Dean. And let me be yours. Please?”

  Nothing matters when Fallon is looking at me with wide, almost silver eyes. When I’m breathing the same air as her. When all I want to do is cover her with my body and protect her from everything bad out there, even her own mind.

  It doesn’t matter how many ways this can go wrong and how different we are from each other. I’m too old for her and her dad will probably never agree to us being together.

  None of it matters because my love for her is stronger, unstoppable. I’ve tried purging it, but that hasn’t worked.

  Perhaps I should try embracing it and see where it goes. Maybe I should try to be her miracle and let her be mine. Because the alternative—a life without her—hasn’t worked for me.

  “Dean?”

  Swallowing, I whisper, “I love you,” before I cover her mouth with mine.

  Is this real?

  Is this really happening? Is Dean really kissing me?

  Oh God, please let this be real.

  His mouth is warm and wet. And thorough. I feel it everywhere. In each and every part of my body. In my toes, even.

  I’ve been kissed before. Brad, my high school boyfriend, kissed me a few times but that was nothing compared to this. This epic consuming of my mouth by another human being. It’s like his kiss is my entire world.

  If Dean stops kissing me, I’ll die. I’ll burn.

  It’s like he told me. Love is a burn. It’s an explosion, and with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, his taste—citrusy and masculine—the way he’s holding me, all tight and almost aggressively, he’s showing me that.

  I kiss him back with all the pent-up emotions of the past two years. I’ve been dreaming about this ever since he left me at the airport and said goodbye. I’ve pictured his lips over mine countless times.