Текст книги "The Beauty of Lies"

Автор книги: Brinda Berry

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

A left turn and I accept her answer of ‘terrific’ and drop the topic.

A right turn and she gives me more. The truth.

I ball my fist and rub my knuckles across my mouth, wondering how hard to push. I shouldn’t have pushed for the kiss. She seems more vulnerable than I’ve seen her. But last night was spectacular as far as kisses go. There’s no misinterpreting that she wanted it.

I’m selfish and don’t want to see a possibility of us fizzle away because she’s afraid. “You’re bullshitting me. I thought we were friends.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth. Tell me you hate waking up every day or that you miss him or that you don’t understand why people leave us. Anything.”

“I said I was fine.” Harper looks across the sofa and at my bookshelves.

“Say you don’t want to talk about it. Don’t lie.”

Color rises in her cheeks. “Oh, as if you’re such an open book.”

“What do you want to know? More about Tori? That topic’s not my favorite.”

She narrows her eyes. “What are you writing all day?”

Not a question I expected. It sounds like a desperate plea to change the subject away from our kiss, her husband, my ex-girlfriend. “You know the answer.” My answer comes out in a patient sigh.

“I don’t know anything. Be specific.”

“Thriller. Political thriller. The story takes place following a presidential candidate who discovers a plot to take over the American government.”

“And that’s all you’re writing.”

“I write a few freelance things.”

“So much for specifics.”

“Babe, I’d bore you to tears with the details.”

“I need to tell you something,” she says, sitting straighter and looking nervous.

“You can tell me anything.”

“It’s about your writing.” She takes a deep breath and pauses. “I…”

“Yeah?”

Harper opens her mouth to continue, only to be interrupted by an insistent knocking on my door.

“Hold that thought,” I say. “It’s probably Josie.”

I get to my feet and glance at the clock. It’s half-past one. Josie must be taking a late lunch. She has a knack for interrupting me when least convenient, so this figures.

The instant I open the door, the artillery of everything that is Tori rains down on me. She stands there with her tear-stained face and her expression that screams victim.

All so calculated and cunning.

She steps into the apartment without invitation and glances from Harper to me. “We need to talk. I wouldn’t have come, but it’s a matter of life and death.”

10

Resting Bitch Face

Harper

The pop culture phrase “resting bitch face” hasn’t meant much to me until today. Leo’s ex-girlfriend has the expression down pat. As soon as she realizes he’s not alone, her face takes on this mannequin quality, molded from rigid material and meant for display purposes only.

“I was just leaving,” I say and rise from the sofa. I stoop to pick up the blanket that falls from my lap and fold it into a square. My hair is mussed and my lips swollen. I know what it must look like to the outsider.

A small and shallow part of me is glad of it. He’s been kissing me, me, me!

“You can stay.” Leo all but blocks me from moving to the door.

But Tori doesn’t change her expression. She glances at Leo. “Do you want to discuss our relationship in front of her?”

She says the pronoun ‘her’ with a curl to her lip. It’s the only change of expression she gives. For someone who has clearly been crying, she doesn’t show much emotion.

“Want me to stay?” I ask, placing a hand on Leo’s arm. His features give away everything. He doesn’t want me to leave. Is he stressed over being alone with her? What has she done to him? I have the urge to pummel her, MMA style, even though I haven’t actually been in a fight before. I never really had violent thoughts until everything came crashing down with Wesley.

His lips tighten and he exhales through his nose. “No, it’s all right. I’ll only be a minute.”

“I’m Tori,” Leo’s ex interrupts.

I turn to acknowledge her. “Harper,” I reply.

“He won’t be long. I’ll be finished with him in a while,” she says to me with a queer jab in her voice. Oh yeah. I would really like to wait for her outside and trip her down the stairs. Perhaps I should look into anger management.

“It’s not a problem,” I say, the lie falling from my lips. I step around her and make for the door.

“Harper,” Leo says to my back. I turn with my hand on the doorknob.

“Hmm?”

“I’ll see you later,” he says.

Not two minutes later, I’m inside my apartment and sitting at the island bar when I hear yelling. It’s them. I’m shocked and curious at the way sound travels. I shouldn’t be. I’m able to hear the bakery customers, so it makes sense that I can also hear across the hall.

Still, Leo is always so quiet as a neighbor that I never hear a thing from his apartment.

I make out his voice. “Get. Out.” His yell is harsh and final. “You can’t be honest now. It’s too late.” Pain weaves through the fabric of each word.

Her voice is quieter and I can’t hear her words even though I’ve wandered to stand beside my door. I imagine them though.

There’s a shriek and something hits a hard surface and shatters. Even though I cannot see through walls, I know she’s thrown something. Her mannequin mask has slipped.

Leo is always sweet to me, yet there’s some disagreement between them that has splintered their relationship. What drove them apart?

Maybe it’s the way he keeps his secrets guarded so close to the chest.

His words to Tori echo in my head. You can’t be honest now. It’s too late.

I was five seconds away from confessing everything to Leo—about sending the postcard and following him. Lying to him this entire time.

What have I done? A disturbing darkness colors my emotions as I imagine how he’ll react if I tell him about the postcard. I won’t have to say anymore. He’ll connect the dots and know the rest.

Maybe, he’ll hate me so much he won’t speak to me again. And he’ll tell Josie. Josie won’t forgive me either. Why should she? I lay my head on the cool tile of the bar and attempt to stay calm.

What was I thinking? Do I simply throw away the best things in my life? For the first time, I’m with a guy who makes me happy. A guy who cares about what I think. Who wants to spend time with me. And Josie’s a bonus. I need her.

True affection from real, honest people. Wesley took all that away from me.

I deserve a little happiness, don’t I?

I go to my refrigerator and search for a cool drink. My body temperature has risen to boiling in the past minutes, listening to their voices, and then imagining how that fight could’ve been me and Leo.

You broke into my apartment? You went through my things?

Maybe if he gets to know me a little better, if we allow this attraction to evolve, he’ll understand when I tell him everything. I’m such a coward, and I’ve lost so much this year. My entire identity dissolved with the disclosure of one police report when Wesley died. I can’t risk it. I take a gulp of cool water.

The yelling next door stops abruptly and there’s a final door slam.

My lungs burn with an effort to stay calm. I take another gulp of water and wait in silence. I wait for hours with the expectation that he’ll knock at my door and tell me what happened. That he’ll pour his heart out to me and share whatever has turned him inside out.

I want him to be okay.

It’s late afternoon before I give up on Leo. The afternoon sun is filtering in my windows, and I’m silly stupid for still waiting on him. We are not even a couple.

I decide that I can’t sit in my apartment any longer. It’s time for me to break free of the chains I’ve put upon myself and act like a grownup. A sane grownup.

The hallway is hot since the air-conditioning doesn’t cool this space. I fan myself and knock softly on Leo’s door. “It’s Harper.” The last thing I want is for Leo to suspect Tori is back for more.

He doesn’t answer and I press my ear to the door. Then I quickly pull back in case he’s looking at me through the peephole discovering that I am a psycho after all. A strand of my loose hair catches on something from the door and I struggle to loosen it.

So much appearing sane.

After he doesn’t answer his door, I return to my apartment. One glance out my window tells me his vehicle is in the lot and he’s at home.

I grab my purse and keys. I’ll go and talk to Josie. I have to get out.

There’s a doorway leading to metal stairs on the outside of the building. It tends to stick, so I’m surprised when I shove and hit something solid.

“Hey. Careful.” Leo’s husky voice reaches me as I get halfway through the door.

I’m so surprised to find him out on the landing that I don’t know what to say at first. It seems silly to say I’ve been wondering where he is. He owes me no explanation. We’ve edged into that no-man’s land between friendship and more. Still, I hurt because he hurts. Even more, I want to make her pay for whatever she’s done to him.

Leo sits on the landing, before the first metal step that leads down to the parking lot. He’s leaned back against the brick of the building with one knee cocked up. “Going somewhere?”

“Oh,” I answer and look down at my purse. “I thought I’d get out for a while.”

He narrows his eyes at me and takes a swig from his beer. “I wish you wouldn’t. Can I convince you to stay?”

I give him a small smile. “Of course.”

“Good,” he says. He holds up the beer. “Can I get you a drink?”

I groan. “Really? I think I’ve had enough for one weekend.”

He pats the space beside him. “You have a few minutes?”

“Sure,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. I want to yell that I’ve been waiting inside for hours on the chance that he’ll let me in on what happened earlier. The space on the landing is small and I have no choice but to sit near him. It’s all I can do not to lean in and allow our bodies to touch, but I’m too unsure of where he’s coming from in his current mood.

Leo switches his beer to his other hand and takes my hand in his. “Sorry about today.”

His warm hand reassures me that we have a real bond. We’re linked.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” I act as though it’s not a big deal that I realized today how much I’ve relied on his company and voice and him. My throat tightens.

“I let her barge in and that was wrong. She has no place in my life whatsoever. It doesn’t matter what she had to say, I shouldn’t have let her—”“

“She said it was a matter of life or death!” Of course, I’ve been wondering all day long if this was an exaggeration on her part, but it seemed petty to doubt.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Everything about Tori is urgent in her mind. No, it wasn’t life or death. You and I need to talk. I have things to tell you.”

“That’s what we’re doing.” I glance away from the intensity in his eyes.

“You should’ve stayed earlier. She was the intruder. You belonged.”

“I didn’t want to get in the way,” I say, my throat cinching like tiny strings being pulled. An inexplicable surge of gratitude overcomes me that for once, I’m not the outsider. I turn my face away toward the building opposite our parking lot and pretend to study it.

He touches my shoulder. “Have I told you all the things about you that I like so very much?”

I shake my head and turn back to meet his eyes. This is my mistake. He’s so open with everything. The strings wrapped around my throat pull tighter and I have to look away quickly so he won’t see my eyes water. So he won’t sense how much he means to me. Does he even know what his words do to me? His affection has trickled in like water touching the edge of paper, saturating my life. It feels as though I’ve known him only a few days and an eternity at the same time.

“Hey, no tears,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine. He threads fingers through hair that he pushes back from my cheeks.

I enjoy the feel of his hands framing my face as he forces me to continue eye contact.

“It’s all right.” Leo smiles. “It’s OK to feel things, you know.”

“I know.” I give a self-derisive laugh. The sound is hollow and unnatural—like a ball bouncing against the walls of an empty room.

Maybe the room is my heart, waiting to be filled with something and Leo is the ball bouncing into me, bringing me joy I haven’t known in a long, long time.

He pulls back and caresses the base of my neck with one hand. “We were interrupted earlier.” He licks his lips.

My heart is pounding like a kettledrum. I study my freckled knees so I can stay calm. I’m not good with conversations like this.

Leo’s fingers grasp my chin and turn my head to look at him. “You feel the same way about me, don’t you?”

The kettle drumbeat quickens in my chest. I nod since my mouth is so dry I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.

“Tori and I are over. I promise you that. But it took a while to get past everything. And I guess that’s okay because what we had mattered. People shouldn’t get over something quickly if it does, right? You know what though? I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt today that Tori and I are over. Sometimes you say the words to convince yourself. That if you say them enough you’ll feel them. Months ago, that would’ve been the case. But today…I said them because they are the truth.”

“I need to tell you about Wesley.”

“Your husband mattered to you. I get that it takes time. But you need to know that I’m a very patient guy when it comes to the things I want.”

“You don’t understand. There are things I have to tell you.” My voice is small and unsure. Where do I begin? What do I say? How much do I tell before he wonders if I’m a freak? What kind of idiot doesn’t realize her own husband had another wife? An entire family hidden away in a different city.

Crapola. I detest liars since my life with Wesley was one huge lie. I have to tell him about the postcard and breaking into his apartment to find it. I have to ask that he give that postcard to me. I have to stop him from printing the blog post.

He moves in and kisses me hard on the mouth. It’s sudden and purposeful. His lips devour me whole as they demand a response I’m only too willing to give. When he pulls back from the kiss, he grins at me like a kid who’s found money on the street.

“I love the way you say ‘Crapola,’ instead of real cursing.” He touches the end of my nose with his index finger.

“Huh?”

“You’re so funny. The way you don’t actually curse is one of the cutest things about you.”

I must’ve said the word aloud. “There are bad things about me.” Should I tell him? Say, I’m sorry I’ve deceived you, but I only did so in the beginning.

“I find that very hard to believe.” He leans toward me and kisses the corner of my mouth. “I’m crazy about the way you lick your lips when you’re nervous. It just makes me want to kiss them.”

Leo leans in and I wait for him to kiss me again. Instead, he swoops over to my left ear and places his lips against it. The tip of his tongue flicks my ear lobe and he laughs, the sound all husky and male. “I like the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching. I hope you’re imagining all the naughty things you want to do with me.”

I gulp and heat rushes, a divining rod straight to the core of me. My body trembles in response.

He’s right. I have fantasized about him. Last night, I begged for a kiss. In my dreams, I’ve kissed him over and over again.

I rest my cheek against his and relish the feel of his afternoon scruff on my skin. “Want to go inside? Watch a movie or something?”

“Something,” he mutters. He rises and holds out a hand. I take it, my limbs unsteady. My heart pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it.

The hallway between the outer door and Leo’s apartment extends on thirty feet or so in reality. Still, it seems an eternity until he leads me inside his apartment and pushes me against the door.

I gasp as his mouth drags kisses along my jaw and neck. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

He hesitates and smiles against my neck. “I think I do.” His words are warm as summer sunshine.

My hands glide over his shoulders and along his biceps. “I love your arms.”

“Really…” he says and laughs into my throat. “That’s too bad. I love your mouth.”

He kisses me softly. “And your neck.” He nibbles down to my collarbone. “And this spot.” He moves my shirt aside and places his lips in the hollow of my throat.

“Ah. Yeah.” I close my eyes. “I think I like those spots on you, too.”

Leo steps back and takes my hand. He guides me through his living area and to his bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed. I don’t protest, but my eyes widen. I’ve only ever been with Wesley and have no real experience as a lover. Wesley was a lights out, missionary style, five-minute man. It was a disappointment I previously blamed on myself and my tortured self-esteem.

But I knew there could be more from the movies I’d seen on the pay cable channels. I probably learned more from HBO than I ever did in sex ed class. There appeared to be a lot more passion going on than I’d experienced.

And honestly, I want Leo to know how much I feel for him. No room for half-truths or lies in this physical space between us.

He scoots back on the pillows and opens one arm to indicate that I’m to join him. “We can lie in here and watch television. Or we can nap or we can talk about all the other places I want to kiss you. It’s your choice.”

There’s beauty in the way Leo’s eyes go hooded when I crawl my way toward him and pause near his hips.

I rise to my knees. “There are places I want to kiss.”

His eyes close briefly and his nostrils flare as if he’s trying to maintain self-control. He opens his eyes. “Show me.”

“Take off your shirt.” I lick my lips.

There’s the beautiful look again. The one where his eyes tell me he could devour me. He sits up and tugs his T-shirt over his head and hands it to me. I take it, wishing I could commandeer the shirt for my own to sleep in. It’s such a juvenile thought, but I still may do it. I carefully place the shirt on the end of the bed.

“Now what?” he asks. His voice is deep and low.

Good question. I allow myself to soak up the visual. Shirtless Leo, leaning up on his elbows, eager for me to do whatever I please. I move my left leg over the top of him and straddle his hips. I’m still on my knees, but I slowly lower myself to sit squarely on him. The ridge of his hard erection pushes against me. It takes all my willpower not to rub myself against him.

He drops back on the pillows, but never takes his eyes from mine.

“I’d like to kiss here.” I bend my head to kiss his shoulder. The muscles tense beneath my lips. “And here,” I say, moving to tease my lips across one pec.

I sit up and grin at him. “I love your muscles.”

He tilts his hips up, pressing his hard-on into me. “You should take your shirt off.”

I sigh playfully. “If you insist.”

“I insist.”

I pull my shirt off and toss it on the floor. His hips move against the apex of my thighs in almost an involuntary movement. Leo makes a low, guttural sound deep in his throat. One small mix of low notes and tones representing surprise, pleasure, and desire.

I’ll do anything to hear it again.

11

Playing By Heart

Leo

“Babe. You are everything right in the world.” It’s all I can come up with and it’s downright embarrassing. I’m not sure I can call myself a writer after that cheeseball line. I want to say something beautiful and timeless. Something worthy of being printed on a page.

I revel in the perfect lines of her body. My greedy hands want to take and take, but I keep them still.

Harper leans down and kisses the center of my chest. The feel of her mouth on my skin ignites an urgency in me. She sits back and dips her head, looking down at herself. Her hair falls forward and hides her face.

What is she thinking about?

My mouth goes dry when she unfastens her bra with one flick of the wrist. The lacy cups fall away and she shrugs out of it.

“I’m trying to be bold,” she whispers.

There’s something about the way she then lifts her chin, high and challenging, as if daring me to stop her. She gives a shaky laugh. And then she looks away and I can tell she’s nervous.

“You don’t have to be anything but yourself with me. We don’t have to do this. You can put your shirt back on. Baby, do whatever feels comfortable. We can go into the living room and watch television. This doesn’t have to go further.” I sit up slowly and put my hands on the sides of her face. I’m pushing her. She’s not some one-night stand I’ve brought home for a hook-up. I am a moron in the first degree.

Her eyebrows draw together and her eyes search mine.

“What? Tell me what’s wrong.” I rest my forehead against hers and breathe her in. The essence of her skin must be filled with brown sugar and oranges because she smells like Christmas to me. A beautiful package of what my heart desires.

“Don’t you want me?”

Her words are brutal because they tell me too much about her. She’s vulnerable and fragile.

“You don’t know, do you”?” I take a deep breath. Not only am I ready for us to open up physically, I want to bare my soul to her. “I have wanted you from the minute I first laid eyes on you.”

“Yeah?”

I stroke the side of her cheek with one hand. “Yeah. And then it kept getting worse. You’d come over in those tiny shorts and borrow a cup of sugar—”“

She laughs. “I never borrowed any sugar.”

I kiss the side of her neck, dragging the tip of my tongue along her skin and leaving goose bumps in my wake. “Ok. Books, then. Same thing. But the shorts. Killing. Me.” I nibble on her earlobe and press my cock into the soft spot between her legs. “Every. Single. Day. So if you think I don’t want you, you’d better think again. Do you want me?”

“I want you.” She states it as simply as someone walking up and saying they want an ice cream.

I move her from my lap, get to my knees, and slowly unzip her shorts. She reaches up and unzips my jeans. I lean in and kiss the corner of her mouth, starting out slow. Her hands grip the back of my neck and the simple touch sends one hundred degrees of heat straight to my cock. I try to slow down, but it’s too late. Try to pull back, but my mouth has an agenda and shifts to her breasts.

She’s perfection to me. Her slender frame thrums with electricity, muscles tense with each pass of my lips. I suck and bite and tease along her perky breasts down to the dip of her navel. My tongue flicks into the valley of her belly and she squirms.

I glance up through my lashes at her. I peel the shorts slowly down her hips and her panties with them. She helps me by sitting back so I can take them. The thin material of her panties is soaked and a thrill runs through me, zinging every cell as I discard them on the floor. I grin at the way she’s watching me, her cheeks so flushed and her nipples tight little peaks begging for my mouth.

I’m at the edge of the bed, so I stand and push my briefs and jeans to the floor. My body is so ready for hers. I swear I could come hands-free purely from the lusty look she’s giving me.

I take a couple of steps to my nightstand and retrieve a condom to place near us. She surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me onto the bed. If my body had its way, I’d push inside her in one stroke and then another and another until I found my release. My urgency for her would take over. Instead, I want her to set the pace.

It’s a tangle of sheets as I roll her on top of me. “Ride me,” I whisper, my voice scraping every vowel and consonant.

She has this expression of shock—only for an instant—and then it’s replaced with excitement. “Tell me if I’m doing it right.”

“You can’t do anything wrong.” I grab the condom and roll it on while she watches. My heart slams hard against my chest.

Harper moves her body over my hips and places her entrance over the head of my cock. My pulse—all the blood in my body—is focused on one thing. Filling her. Making her understand how much my body yearns to be inside hers.

I grab her hips and lift myself to slide inside. I shake with the effort to go slowly. Each centimeter inside her incites me to push harder, go faster. She’s so fucking tight.

“It’s been a while,” she says, squeezing her eyes tight.

I pull out and thrust in, one long stroke, unable to stop. “Does it feel good, baby?”

“Ahh…” She hangs her head and squeezes her eyelids shut. “Yes.”

“Move however it feels good. Up and down. Fast. Slow.” My last words sound guttural, restraint forcing me to resort to one-word, monosyllabic speech.

Harper sets a rhythm, her body sliding faster and faster until I’m gritting my teeth in an ecstatic pain. I forget about her fragility.

I dig my fingers into her hips, urging her to continue. We’re a streamlined instrument that demonstrates how two bodies become one.

In the quiet of my apartment, there’s only the labored sound of our breathing and the glorious music of skin hitting skin, rising to an ultimate crescendo. Although her eyes are closed and her eyebrows drawn, I can’t stop watching her. I reach down where our bodies meet and rub my thumb against her. Her lips smash together as if the pleasure is too much to bear. The moment I sense her orgasm coming, a tensing and pulsing of her body around my cock, I wish I could slow it down so I could memorize her face.

She groans, the sounds hitching as each wave of pleasure rolls through her.

My own release chases hers. My fingers dig into her hips as I quit fighting it and thrust long and hard. Giving everything of my body in the final seconds of claiming her.

Mine.

I thrust a second time, although we’re both spent and it’s a half-hearted stroke to tell her I’d do it again if I had any strength left. She languorously bends to place her head on my shoulder and licks away the salt of my sweat.

“I’ve never…” she whispers and her lips tickle my collarbone.

“Never what,” I prompt. My eyes are closed, but I open them to peek down at the top of her head.

She’s breathing as hard as I am. “That. I’ve never. It’s the first. Orgasm.”

Harper lifts her hips and pulls away. It’s as if I’ve lost a part of me, a sanctuary I’ve never visited before.

She relaxes her body and rolls to lie beside me on her belly.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t like hearing it. I want to be better than her former husband. But then, I don’t want to compete with a dead man. There’s no honor in being jealous of a man six feet under.

“Hey,” I say into her mass of hair. It’s strewn across my chest and sticking to the warm skin of her back. I lift it and blow across her neck.

“Hmm?” She places her hand on my chest and one finger traces over my nipple.

“Don’t go anywhere.” I get out of bed, and walk to the bathroom so I can dispose of the condom. My apartment is small and it’s not a stone’s throw from one end to the other.

I make a quick trip into the kitchen and grab a couple of bottled waters. When I walk back in, she hasn’t moved. “You need to stay hydrated after last night.”

She lifts her head. “Thanks.”

I make a nest of pillows against the headboard and drag her to sit with me. Twisting the cap off, I offer a drink of mine. She lifts the bottle to her lips and it’s sinful that I get half-hard just watching her throat work as she drinks. “You’ve ruined me for other women,” I say. “I guess that was your plan.”

She chokes on her water. I pat her gently on the back.

“Stop doing that.” Harper laughs at my expression of mock confusion. She pokes me in the ribs. “Stop waiting until I take a drink to say something funny.”

“You think I’m kidding?” I take the bottle from her and guzzle it.

“Yeah. I do.”

I place the water on the nightstand and pull her to lie back in my arms. “No joke. I’ll never find another like you. You don’t take yourself seriously. You like to read as much as I do. You’re absolutely gorgeous. And most of all, you’re real. Real and honest.”

“Mmm…” she says.

“And I forgot about your ass. Oh my God, your ass.”

She giggles and I smile into her hair.

I like the sound too much, so I continue. “Your ass is the stuff men dream of.”

“So poetic,” she says.

“Yeah. Did I tell you I’m a writer?”

She gives an unladylike snort. “I think so.” She looks at the ceiling and then tilts her head back to make eye contact with me. Her expression is suddenly as somber as a storm cloud. “Do you want to know about my past?”

“If you want to tell me.” Tori kept too much from me, but Harper would never do that. It’s not in her nature. “Do you mind if I bring up something from last night?”

“Oh no. What else did I do?” She covers her face with both hands.

I laugh, trying to keep the conversation light. “No. It’s something from the game. You asked if anyone had ever been in love.”

“Oh.” Her hands drop. “Did I?”

“Um hm…” I wait a beat and wait to see if she remembers.

“I’m really fuzzy about that part of the night. I think I do remember it.”

“You didn’t drink which means ‘no’. So. I don’t know if that was the drunk part of your brain not keeping up with the game or the honest part of your brain knowing the right answer.”

“This is embarrassing. I got married when I was eighteen. I ran off with Wesley without my parents’ blessing. Didn’t tell my friends. Just left because I thought I knew him.”

I stroke her arm. “I doubt you’re the first or last teenager to do that.”

“I should’ve known better. I was raised better. And I was grown.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“I worked at a grocery store the summer after I graduated. Wesley came in one night and he was in line behind this lady and her two kids. She looked dirt poor and the kids were crying. She’s trying to pay and she’s short of the amount. Wesley reaches over and plunks a one hundred dollar bill on the counter and says for her to buy her groceries and keep the change.”

I nod. “That was a nice thing to do.”

Her mouth tightens and she smoothes the comforter over her legs. “He was. He was a nice guy. I remember thinking, ‘Wow. He’s one of the good ones.’”

All my muscles tense. I stare hard at the wall and take a deep breath. Do I really want to go here? Hear the dead man immortalized?

Something wet drops onto my arm. “Babe. Hey. Oh, please don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she lies.

I turn her toward me and wipe underneath her eyes with my thumbs. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a good liar. Just have a little something in my eye.” Her laugh is husky.

Then her resolve crumbles and fat tears stream down her cheeks. “He was nice when I met him. He was all the things a guy is supposed to be.”