Chapter 5
Wade glanced at his phone and quickly denied the call. He didn't feel good about it, but he did it all the same. Annabeth had been texting and calling off and on for three days now and each and every time, Wade had avoided talking to her. Maybe that was dumb, in fact, he knew very well that it was, not to mention childish and altogether mean, but Wade couldn't help it. He just didn't know what else to do.
It had been a few days since she asked him about all the other women he had slept with over the years. It was a fair question and he would've given her an honest answer, if he knew exactly what the number was. She didn't seem all that concerned by all the people who came before, only the ones he might be seeing alongside spending time with her. That number was easier to conjure, since it was a big fat zero. Now, that part had made her real happy, which was good, except a while later, when she had fallen asleep and he laid there, wide awake, with too much time on his hands to think about why that was.
Annabeth was happy to know she had Wade all to herself, which was something that any woman ought to be pleased over. What bothered Wade was how easily he had agreed that he was happy about the situation too. That he was more than okay with seeing only her and nobody else. That never happened before. Not even when he was married to Tansy, and that probably should've put paid to his wandering ways, at least for as long as the wife stuck around for. Nobody ever kept Wade monogamous before. Nobody ever held his interest for more than a week at most. Yet he and Annabeth had been together for a good six weeks now and he really hadn't even thought about going with any other woman at all.
Chattering voices took Wade's attention and he looked to the door as a new group of customers walked in together. He watched them go over and find themselves a couple of tables, then realised that a few steps behind them was one Annabeth Nass. It was pretty unmanly, the way he dived down behind the bar and then hightailed it out back, but Wade had his reasons. He considered them good ones too.
In the storeroom, he put his back against the door and let out a long breath. She had broken him. Made him feel like monogamy was something he wanted. That wasn't a good thing, at least, Wade was pretty sure that it wasn't. As he thought it over, he came to realise that it wasn't just that he hadn't just been actively pursuing other conquests, it was that even when girls were actively coming on to him, he was putting them off, turning them down, making a point of deflecting their attention elsewhere.
"What is happening to me?" he asked himself, rubbing a hand across his forehead and almost expecting to find he had some kind of fever.
Maybe he was sick, coming down with some dangerous disease that made the most prolific studs turn into whipped men. Wade gave that idea due consideration, but soon dismissed it, sure that such a thing didn't even exist in the first place. The truth was plain enough. He liked being with Annabeth. A lot. It wasn't just the sex either, although that was pretty damn good, truth be told. She was certainly up for trying new things and her enthusiasm was something to behold, but it was more than that. A lot more.
Sometimes, they got to talking. Usually after the main event, sometimes just at other times when she happened to come into the Rammer Jammer or they ran into each other someplace in town. She could make him laugh like nobody's business and she was smart too, smarter than Wade, that was for sure, but she never came off like she thought she was better, even though he knew damn well that she was.
Wade felt the goofy grin pulling at his lips and immediately removed it. He couldn't do this. He couldn't allow himself to become a one-woman man because... because... he just couldn't! He realised very quickly that that was far from a reasonable argument. Actually, there was nothing at all to keep him from deciding he wanted to be with Annabeth, except maybe for the fact that it wasn't what she wanted. After all, this whole thing was just supposed to be a fling for her, some way to get over her ex-husband and get some real self-confidence and experience or whatever. It was all it was ever supposed to be, and yet, it wasn't how things were panning out at all, not for Wade, anyway.
A loud rapping sound startled Wade into moving and the second his weight was off the door, he turned to see it opening. His eyes went wide at the sight of Annabeth, but before he could say a word, she stormed right in and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Well, here you are," she said, hands on her hips as she stared at him. "Wade Kinsella, what is going on?"
Wade looked as if he was actually confused by the question, though Annabeth couldn't understand why that would be. Surely, he had to know what she was talking about. Things had been strange for days now, with him clearly avoiding her, and now, she wanted to know why. She had quite decided they weren't leaving the storeroom until she got an explanation and ended up telling him as much.
"I mean it. I know you have been ignoring my texts and screening my calls, and just now, you absolutely ducked behind the bar when you saw me come in and ran back here like a cat with his tail on fire!"
"I... I did do that," Wade confessed, looking just about as awkward as she had ever seen him in his whole life. "I'm sorry, AB. Seriously now, I am," he told her, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just that, well, these past few days, I... I've been real busy and-"
"Do not give me any lame excuses," Annabeth warned him, shaking her finger at him. "Lord knows, I had enough of those with the last man that I... Well, what I mean is, you are startin' to sound a little too much like that hound dog Jake Nass who cheated on me and left me in the dust," she said bitterly. "Now, you don't owe me anything, we both agreed to a casual arrangement. Heck, the first time we slept together was supposed to be the only time, so like I said, you don't owe me anything, but I at least thought... well, I thought you respected me enough to tell me if you didn't want to see me anymore. Did I not ask you if that was what you wanted?"
"You did," Wade admitted, nodding his head.
"And did you not tell me that was absolutely not what you wanted?"
"I did."
"Then why, Wade? Why would you treat me this way?"
She felt stupid just saying it. After all, was Wade Kinsella not the most prolific love 'em and leave 'em man she had ever known? Of course, he was, and she just told him herself that he didn't owe her a single thing, but she almost meant what she said about him having some respect for her. They had known each other such a long time and she thought, sex aside, they had really become good friends lately. Maybe she was wrong. At least, she thought so, until he finally started talking.
"AB, what I said the other day, about you being amazing and all, that was not just talk," he promised her. "See, this whole thing... it has me turned about some. It's just, like you said, when we started this, it was a one-time deal, and then we decided we could stand to do it over again, and hell, I had no problem with that. I mean, come on, all the greatest performances deserve an encore, right?"
She didn't mean to smile at the way he phrased it, but Annabeth found it impossible to keep a straight face in the circumstances.
"The fact is, AB, this whole thing with me and you, it turned into something. I wasn't real clear on what that something was at first, not until you went ahead and asked me about it. All of a sudden, I'm realising that you are not just the only woman I have been seeing these past six weeks together, but that you're the only woman that I want to see. That has not happened to me since... Well, hell, that has never happened to me!"
It was freaking him out, Annabeth could see it written all over his face. Sweet and special as it was to think that Wade cared for her above all other women, that he would actually turn down offers from others just so he could be with her some more, it wasn't nice at all to him suffering with the strain of it.
"So, what you're telling me is that you like me, but that it'd make your life easier if you didn't?" she asked, hoping but not really believing that she managed to keep the crack out of her voice when she did so.
"No, sweetheart, that's not... I knew I was not explaining this well," Wade declared, literally face palming and pacing some in the small space in front of her.
Annabeth wished she understood, so she could put paid to his struggling and her own confusion both, but she hadn't a clue. Maybe there was a way to simple things up though.
"Wade, I asked you before if you wanted to end things and you said no. We just confirmed that, right here, a few minutes ago, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume you have no problem with carrying on as we were."
"No," he said, stopping in front of her and shaking his head very definitely in the negative. "No, I don't wanna carry on like we were doin', AB, because... because I am fast starting to realise that is not enough for me anymore."
Annabeth swallowed hard and still it was tough to get out the words that came next. "It's not?" she practically squeaked, hardly daring to hope this meant what she thought it might.
"No, it is not," Wade confirmed, his hand above her head on the door as he leaned into her. "Sweetheart, you are... you are just as amazing as I said you were three days ago, and so special too. Now, I don't have all the fancy words for you, 'cause I ain't no educated man like George Tucker or the Mayor or whoever. All I know is that this thing with us started out real simple, and now it is complicated as all get-out, because for the first time in my whole life, I actually want to be a one-woman man, and you, Annabeth Thibodaux, are that woman."
Looking up into the beautiful green of his eyes, Annabeth couldn't suspect him of spinning her a line or making a joke or anything like that. He was telling her the truth, she was so darn sure about that, and no, he wasn't telling her he loved her or anything, but that was okay. Wade Kinsella wanted to be with her alone and that was more than enough for now.
"You are just full of surprises," she said then, unsure whether she was about to laugh or cry, feeling she wouldn't be at all surprised if both things happened at once, if they could. "Honestly, when this all started, I was just looking for some fun, but as we've gone along, I have to admit, I have gone and gotten quite attached to you, Wade Kinsella. I really do like you an awful lot."
The grin on his face proved he was more than glad to hear it and Annabeth was sure her own expression was a perfect match for his own, at least until he leaned in further and she shifted forward to meet him in the middle, the two of them sharing a kiss to seal the deal between them.
"So, I guess that's it, huh?" he said as they parted. "We're all official and such?"
"I guess so," she agreed, nodding her head. "On a scale of one to ten, exactly how terrified are you right about now?"
"Honest answer?" he checked, tucking her hair back behind her ear as she nodded. "Maybe... two?" he told her with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean, what's to be afraid of, right? You put your reputation on the line, letting the whole damn town know what we was up to before. I figure maybe they'll be shocked all over again when they hear I gave up my wanderin' ways, but that's nothin' to be scared of. 'Specially not when I have you to hold onto."
"Good answer," Annabeth smiled, grabbing onto a handful of his shirt and pulling him to her for another searing kiss.
It seemed they had come full circle, making out in the Rammer Jammer storeroom, just like they had that first night, and yet Annabeth knew that wasn't entirely true. Their trajectory was decidedly forward in nature. She and Wade had come an awfully long way in the last month-and-a-half and, truth be told, she couldn't be happier with where they were right now.
There was no telling if their relationship would last forever, if they would get their happily ever after forever. It was a possibility, but more important was that, for now at least, they had found something good and real between them, and they were both going to enjoy it, for just as long as it lasted
