Page 41 of Home Brewed (The Perfect Cup #1)

Hazel

O nce we’ve paid the bill and said our goodbyes, we walk to the car hand in hand.

When Beck finally gets me inside the front door, he’s on me, his hands on my waist, in my hair, gripping my ass, his tongue brushing mine languidly as he kisses me deeply.

I’m pressed between him and the door, feeling the hard plane of his chest against mine, the thick ridge in his jeans pressing against me in the best way.

It’s like my very blood is calling out to him. All I need is more, more, more .

He pauses to catch his breath, leaning his head against mine, still trapping me against the door.

“I had a lot of fun tonight, pretty girl.” Fire licks its way up my spine when he calls me that, building in my core.

He presses hot, wet kisses to my jaw as I sigh.

“We should keep having fun,” he growls against my neck, his hands hiking up the bottom of my skirt, grazing the tops of my thighs.

The only thing keeping me standing is Beck and the door.

“Oh yeah? What kind of fun, babe?” He groans, capturing my lips again in a bruising kiss, plundering my mouth.

He carries me up to his room, divesting us of our clothes, allowing for no preamble as he flips me onto my hands and knees.

My hips rock back towards him as he runs his hand up my spine, slowly pushing into me from behind.

The gentle ache as he stretches me is pure bliss.

It’s a desperate joining, the need between us driving us to push into each other, chasing our own orgasms as much as we push the other towards theirs.

His hands reach for my breasts, pulling me up to rest my back onto his chest as he continues his rapid pace.

The grip he establishes on my hair keeps me in place until we’re both careening over the edge, grasping each other greedily as relief washes over us together.

We’re both sticky and gasping when we come down, a tangle of limbs in his bed as he runs his hands down my sides, murmuring sweet affirmations into my skin. Hell, into my soul.

He leans back, taking me with him so my head is against his chest, hearing his steady heartbeat and playing with my hair. Peace fills me as I lay there in his arms. I take a breath and tell myself that bad bitches are brave.

“Can I move back in here?” I ask quietly. Beck’s grip cages me in as he rolls over to be on top of me.

“Into my room?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay?” I search his eyes for confirmation, but he seems to be waiting for something.

I shudder out a breath as I admit, “I miss you.” I’ve barely gotten the words out when he’s covering them with a possessive kiss, smothering any other explanation I may have.

I give into it, allowing him access to my mouth as he maneuvers my body as he pleases.

“Yes, pretty girl, that’s all I want.”

“You realize you’re asking the wrong person what a healthy relationship looks like, right?” Nessa scoffs at me around her eggs Benedict. We both needed a morning of girl time, so we were meeting at Ovo’s , a small local place that serves any form of egg you can think of.

“Oh, come on, it’s not that hard!” I moan.

“If it’s not that hard, you do it.”

“Yeah, that kind of defeats the purpose of asking, don’t you think?”

“Ugh, thinking is for losers.” Nessa sucks back her iced coffee contemplatively. “If you really want to know, I believe relationships are healthy when both parties are honest with one another, and when that person makes you want to be the most “yourself” you can be.”

“I’m sorry, is your actual advice to ‘be myself’?”

“Look, I’m not a therapist, okay?” Nessa rolls her eyes dramatically, “However, I will say that cliches are cliches for a reason. And yeah, being yourself is important. And it can be really, really hard. I tried to be myself and I lost family over it, but I have really great love in my life now.” She’s trying to brush it off.

I cover her hand with mine on the table.

I hadn’t thought about it that way, that she was so outwardly herself that she lost people over it.

It’s their loss, in my humble opinion.

“I get that, I’m sorry.”

“Not a sorry, don’t worry, seriously.” Her overly cheery smile isn’t as sincere as it usually is.

I’m not about to call her out on it when I already kind of feel like a dick.

“Every good relationship looks different. It totally depends on the needs of the two people involved and whether or not their partner can meet those needs. If their partner can’t, is there something in their life that can? ”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Nessa is apparently not about to let some deep conversation interrupt her meal and is talking around mouthfuls of food, “No one can be everything for someone, that’s a huge freaking job!

Not to mention an unfair amount of pressure to put on a person.

So, like, for me, I need someone to geek out over food with, but if my partner is into like, Paleo or something, and sees food as fuel, do I at least have friends to talk about it with?

Do I have an outlet for that which won’t take away from the relationship? ”

“Should I be taking notes?” I had thought I was in a healthy relationship.

Looking back, maybe I had made Justin my everything.

Maybe I put so much into it that I couldn’t see the situation unfolding around me until it was too late.

I didn’t divert my attention to other people.

I didn’t feel allowed to, whereas Beck encourages me to.

“Why? Is everything okay with Beck?”

I fight the urge to smack my head against the table.

“Well, kind of, but it’s scary to think about being with anyone right now.

Cause that went so well the last time, right?

” I snort into my orange juice. I’ve lost my appetite for Belgian waffles, but at the rate Nessa’s going, I don’t think I have to worry about them going to waste.

“I don’t want to do it wrong this time.”

“Do it wrong?” Her head tips, spilling her curls out of the topknot she had tried to put her hair into. “How the fuck can you do a relationship wrong?”

“I don’t know! I have all this… baggage, and I don’t want to screw up a good thing. I want to make sure I do everything I can to be… good at this.” Nessa’s face pinches.

“Let me ask you this.” She takes a big breath, winding up for something, “Do you think you’re good enough for Beck?”

That takes me aback. I have to take a moment to think about it, and Nessa doesn’t push me, only continues to pick away at her food while she waits. When I take too long, she moves onto the food on my plate, and I just push the whole thing towards her.

Do I think I’m good enough for him? I’m terrified that he’s just using me.

That he doesn’t actually want me. I’m scared that once I’m no longer useful, I’ll get dropped like yesterday’s news.

I’m used to doing everything for a partner—hell, I practically ran Justin’s life!

And when I wasn’t enough for him in the bedroom, he went somewhere else .

And Beck just… doesn’t need that. He doesn’t need someone to take care of him.

He’s flipped the script and is doing all the taking care of for me .

Do I only think I’m good enough if I’m being useful?

Do I think I only deserve things that are hard to earn?

Beck is offering me his heart on a silver platter, presumably no strings attached, and I just have to… show up? And try?

“I’m taking your silence as a sign that I have a very good point, just by the way,” Nessa smirks, checking out the waitress who comes up to top off her coffee. I’m sticking with my juice. I have enough anxiety racing through me without the help of caffeine.

“Take a breath, babe, you’re looking pale over there.” Nessa says as soon as we’re alone again.

“I don’t know how to articulate it.” I try to find the words.

“Hazel, spit it out already!” I’m shocked more people don’t turn our way at her outburst.

“I don’t have anything to offer him!”

There’s a beat of silence, Nessa staring at me like I’ve spontaneously grown a second head.

“What do you mean you have nothing to offer him? You’re ridiculously smart, you’re helping his business—he hired you, actually, at a time when I know he can’t be hiring more people, because you’re worth it and he knows you’re good for the business.”

“I know I’m good for the business, but how do I know that’s not all I’m good for in his eyes?”

She pauses for a moment before she says, “You know, there’s a difference between using someone, and having someone help because their abilities are better than your own.

Have you ever thought about the fact that Beck admires what you can do, not what you can do for him ?

” That feels like a gut punch that I don’t want to dig deeper into right now.

I circle back to another point she made .

“When you say he can’t hire me but did anyway… are you referring to how the business is doing?” I would be more subtle about the interrogation if I wasn’t so desperate to know.

“What do you mean, ‘how the business is doing’? All I know he wasn’t going to replace Roger after he up and quit. Is there something else going on?” Shit. I need to learn to keep my nose in my own business and my damn mouth shut.

“It’s nothing, I promise.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” Nessa is scarily serious right now. I’ve never heard a stern tone from her and it’s giving me the heebie jeebies.

“I may have snooped…” I push some food around my plate so I don’t have to look at her, “and I may have seen an email from the bank about money issues.”

“Fuck!”

“You can’t tell him I know! I know I wasn’t supposed to see, and once I did… everything he’s done for me just became so suspicious. I know I can help his business, but what price is he willing to pay for that, you know?”

“I’m sorry.” Nessa puts her hand up to stop me. “Please tell me you are not accusing my best friend of sleeping with you for business success! You realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“Yeah, I do, and I feel crazy about it, too, so…”

“Okay, ‘cause I will fight you if you try to tell me that’s what you think Beck is like. He wouldn’t do that, and I’m not going to tell him about this because no good will come of it.

If it bugs you that much, you need to talk to him.

” The waitress comes by and places our bill on the table.

Nessa snatches it up. “This is my treat; I don’t make insane people pay on dates. ”

“Hey! I’m not insane.” Nessa slaps a pile of cash on the table and pops up.

“I had a good tip night last weekend!” She loops her arm in mine, and we leave the restaurant together, stepping into the brisk fall breeze.

“Hazel, if you’re that worried, talk to Beck.

I’m sure he’ll understand and then you can actually work through it.

Don’t fall into the miscommunication trope! ”

“I regret introducing you to romance novels. ”

“Love you, too!” Nessa waves as she ambles off to her subway stop and I keep walking down the street. I have a few errands to run. I may as well walk there to clear my head.

“This doesn’t get you out of helping with box packing day you know!” We are going to need all the help we can get, so we are making a huge to-do about it, closing the store, buying everyone lunch, Stella is in the process of making a killer playlist… it’s going to be fine.

In the meantime, I need to sort out my own head.

Maybe I do deserve Beck. Not that you can deserve a person, but maybe it’s not a matter of being enough or doing enough, maybe it’s just enough that he cares for me.

I still have to find a place to live, though, I think to myself, patting my pocket where the slips of paper from the pinboard advertising available suites are still safely tucked away.

I’m going to have to look at them, eventually.

Even if whatever is going on between me and Beck survives whatever is going on in my head, I can’t move in literally right after we’ve met.

That would be insanity. I can’t repeat old patterns.

Although, are they old patterns?

I’m so tired of looking out for red flags, not trusting people, and looking for the worst in things.

It’s overwhelming me and controlling me, consuming my thoughts.

It’s making me see things that I’m not sure are even there.

He’s been so careful with my heart up until now.

He’s been attentive, and taken care of me, and never asked for anything in return.

The attraction was just there, and we fed into it.

It was never expected. It was never something he thought he had earned.

I had gotten so used to the bare minimum that even when something good is right in front of me, I still have to question it.

The ringing of my phone in my pocket pulls me out of my own head, my gloved hands slipping over the smooth surface.

I’m waiting for a final quote from our courier service, and I can barely see the phone as I fumble it.

I rip one glove off with my teeth, quickly accepting the call before I can see the screen.

“Hello, this is Hazel Nucci,” I answer primly. These guys were giving me so much shit, and I was going to kill them with kindness until they gave into our demands.

“Well, hello, miss Hazel Nucci. So great to hear from you! What, did you think I was dead?”

“Hi, Mom.”