Текст книги "Slow Twitch"
Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
“You got stuck in our perfect triangle of freakiness because you belong,” Evan corrected with a gleeful smile, making her fingers into a triangle to better illustrate. “Now make our truth oath complete. Spill your dirt.”
When he spoke, the words were so rushed, I don’t think he took a breath the entire time. “When I was at my aunt’s, just before I got the call to come here, her friend stopped by while she was picking us up lunch. We started talking, and he kissed me. We wound up making out, and I think my aunt would seriously blow a gasket if she knew, because he’s older. Not like old.He’s in college.” Devon blindly pushed his glass to the middle of the table and we clinked and sipped.
“We have now solidified our trifecta of eternal bonding. We’re going to be friends for-eva,” Evan said with perfect solemnity.
Devon snorted and rolled his eyes, but he raised his glass and we drained our beers. He took Evan’s outstretched hand and mine when we were done.
“All joking aside, I feel like this is the land of magic and pots of gold and all that gorgeous bullshit.” Evan closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the damp, yeasty pub air. “We’re free here. We don’t have to be the people we are at home. We don’t have to live with anyone else’s expectations. Isn’t that amazing?” Her eyes flashed open and she squeezed our hands. “Doesn’t that just…put things in perspective? I wish I could be half as honest back home as I am right here with y’all.”
“It’s not always that easy.” Devon pulled his hands away and tipped his chair back. “We act the way we do back home because people aren’t safe. I know I complained about you two, and I’m right. You’re crazy idiots half the time. But you guys accept who I am, and the people back home don’t. I don’t think I have the energy to put up with people hating me for a whole bunch of new reasons back home. It’s hard enough dealing with what they hate now.”
I ran my fingers over the smooth polish on Evan’s nails. “And I screwed up big time with Jake. I broke his heart, and it was a shitty thing to do. I can’t risk doing that again just because I decided to listen to his brother’s weird sexy phone call or because I sometimes feel like Saxon and I have this connection. The way Jake loves isn’t easy, and if I’m going to learn to love like him, I have to stop letting myself get pulled in a million directions, even if the tradeoff is that I’m not so honest.”
“Y’all, I’m going back to a crazy scenario. I have to dump Rabin, and he’s gonna lose his shit big time. My best friend is a lying whore. I doubt my daddy can foot the bill for the private school I’ve been going to and I’m flunking anyway, so I might get kicked into public. My mama is all but moved in with her boyfriend, some lowlife shitbag who wants to move to Mexico with her or some bullshit. This is the last little bit of happiness I have before I go back, and I just want you to know…” Her voice cracked.
Devon and I both scrambled to find a napkin or tissue, anything to blot the eighteen coats of mascara. We’d seen the havoc they created when they ran down her face, and it wasn’t pretty.
“C’mon, no crying.” Devon pulled a crumpled tissue of questionable sanitation out of his pocket and mopped under her eyes with clumsy swipes. His voice got fuzzy around the consonants from the emotion he was attempting to strangle. “We love you, too, okay? You know I just bust on you. And you can call us or text whenever. Dry up, now. It’s our last night of freedom. Let’s go.” He pulled her up.
“Where?” She hiccupped and looked over at me for a hint, but I had no clue what insane thoughts had temporarily rewired Devon’s brain.
“We’re young, we’re hot, we have all these deviant secrets. We’re all a pint down. Let’s go dance or something.” He hooked an arm around her waist and bumped her hip with his. “C’mon. It kills me to see you so upset. Fuck what we have to go back to. Who knows? Maybe it will wind up being the best year of our whole lives, right? But there’s no point worrying. Okay?”
She nodded with a damp laugh and we all ran out of the pub and into the twilight. It was too early for any dance clubs, but Devon was a man on a mission. He marched us in and out of pubs until he found a place with a jukebox. He got quarters, stuffed the shiny machine, and proceeded to the center of the tiny dance-floor. Every single bleary eye in the bar was on him, but Devon danced like he was in the middle of the hottest club in Dublin.
Evan, never one to be outdone, shimmied right over to him, and they both pulled me in. We danced, shaking our butts and throwing our arms in the air, until we were sweaty and out of quarters and the bar was full with its evening crowd.
“Let’s roam, kids!” Devon shouted, high off of endorphins and the insanity of our last night together.
We followed him like he was our Pied Piper into the cool night air. Evan nuzzled against my arm as we made our way to another, cooler dance place.
“Are you positive you want to stay in New Jersey, sweetie? I’ve gone to the beach in November in Georgia. Not to swim, of course, but can’t you picture it? You and me, tiny bikinis, all that sun?” She purred against my neck.
I felt my eyes prick with tears. “I can’t even tell you how awesome that sounds. I’m going to miss you so much, Evan. I feel like we just met, and it’s already all over.”
“Don’t get all emotional on me now. Devon barely saved me back there with that gross-ass tissue I don’t even wanna think about.” We both laughed and quickened our steps to keep up with Devon’s frantic pace. “What I was saying before? At the pub? I just want you to know that I never had a friend like you. I know that sounds so stupid, ‘cause it’s like we just met and all–”
I stopped in the street, in the middle of some shady section in Dublin I didn’t know and hugged her hard. “Shut up, right now. It’s not stupid. I love you, too.”
She crushed me so tight, the air couldn’t clamp back into my lungs.
The rest of the night was a crazed explosion of dancing madness, and Devon led us all with unbridled, insane enthusiasm. He danced like it was our last night of freedom, our last chance at happiness. Evan clung tight to us all night, and we drank in her flowery smell and her honey-thick laugh.
By the time we trudged back to the dorms, it was closer to morning than night.
“Ugh. You two better get some sleep. I have an essay to write.” Her lavender suede stilettos were hanging on her two fingers, slung over her shoulder.
“Sleep,” Devon snorted, leading the way to my door. “I can’t hand in that stupid essay about the fucking birds and ocean. Ladies?”
I yanked Evan into my room and the three of us set up our laptops and got typing. There wasn’t a sound except the steady clack of our fingers on the keys. I glanced up now and then to watch Evan, her eyes flying back and forth across the screen, and Devon, his entire face pinched and absolutely serious.
It felt like my heart, every crazy thump, every joyous jump, had a direct line to my fingers, and every single word that splattered out on the page reflected this burning, desperate feeling, this honesty in me that was completely raw and true.
“Evan?” I whispered after the last, final, agonizing reread.
She looked up, so tired her eyes were slightly crossed, a sleepy, dreamy smile on her lips. “What’s up, sweetie?”
“I wrote the truth. It’s so true it’s scary.” I licked my lips nervously.
“That’s the only way to do it, sweets.” She tapped a finger along the top edge of her laptop. “And this…this is so true, it’s burning a hole in my gut just imagining it out there. And I can’t decide if it’s jibberish or Joyce-inspired.”
“I bet it’s Joyce-surpassed.” Devon yawned, smiled, and snapped his laptop shut. “I sent mine to the drop box, so say a couple Hail Marys for me. I’ll leave you girls to finish. The sun is up, and I bet I can find us some coffee.” He stalked out of the room.
Evan pushed her laptop off her legs, and I crawled over and hugged her tight. “I wish we had more time together, Bren. Maybe you can come down to Georgia?”
“If I can, you know I will. Same to you. I want you to meet Jake. He would love you, and I know you’d be crazy about him.” I laid my head on her shoulder.
She ducked her head and looked into my eyes, and her smile stretched soft and sweet, like taffy. “I can tell. You know, my sixth sense is strong with you. I can see so much love in your face when you talk about him. I really hope I get to meet your man. And I hope I can find that kind of love for myself. I’m going home to horrible times. I swear to you, I’m no cry-ass, but I’m feeling teary thinking about it.”
I sat up straight, threw my arms around her shoulders, and shook her back and forth gently. “You don’t know that. You have no idea.” I took her hands in mind, ran my thumbs over the delicate ridges of her knuckles. “I have a feeling about you. This year, when you think you’re going to lose everything? This is going to be the most amazing year for you. You’re going to meet the right person. The polar opposite of that fucking douchebag Rabin. You’re going to have the most incredibly, awesome, blow-all-the-other-years-away year. Ever. I promise. Epic year.” I put every ounce of my confidence behind my words, praying she believed me.
Tears pooled in her eyes, and this time she waved away my attempt to give her a tissue. “It’s okay. Let it all run off. I just wanna a good cry with you.” She leaned hard on my shoulder and I could feel warm tears and goopy mascara run down my arm. She cried and I cried and we both laughed at how ridiculous it all was. “We’re seriously gonna look a hot mess.”
“I don’t care.” I wiped my tears away with my fingers and grabbed some napkins I’d stuffed in my purse after our last visit to Evan’s favorite coffee place. I rubbed as much of the blackish goop off of her face as I could, but her skin wound up having a weird, undead, grey tinge.
“It’s not fair.” She gave a tiny smile and sighed. “The first people I ever meet who really care about me, and I have to give you guys up after a few weeks. I hate it. Are y’all gonna head home and laugh about the crazy Southern girl who was off her damn rocker?”
“Nope.” I tugged at her hair. “I’m gonna go home and miss you like crazy.”
We sat that way until Devon brought back coffee so hot it scorched the roofs of our mouths and so strong it propped our eyes open for the rest of the long morning of class, most of which I spent texting back and forth with Evan while Devon ricocheted disapproving looks between the two of us.
When class was dismissed, we had almost no time before our bags had to be loaded onto the transport buses we climbed on and rode to the airport in a shocked, silent huddle. What would we do without each other? Evan got desperate at the last minute.
“I want to give you something.” She started digging through her purse, but I put my hand on her wrist.
“Stop.” She didn’t look up at me. “I don’t need anything to remind me of you. Stop worrying.”
“We should have become blood sisters,” she said, choking around a second set of tears that bubbled up in her throat.
I thought about Jake and Saxon’s identical scars from their ceremony so many years before. “We don’t need that, sweetie. You and are connected deeper than blood. And we’ll swear an oath over the perfect shoes or a really good bagel, which I’m taking you to my favorite bagel place to get. Because we’re going to see each other. Soon.”
The bus pulled up at the airport, and the tour leader announced that Southern Air passengers had to hurry because their flight was boarding in ten minutes. Evan’s lips trembled. “This isn’t enough time,” she pleaded.
“It’s notgoodbye. It’s not. Okay? I’m not saying it. I love you, though.” I would have been a bawling sack of sad if it wasn’t for Evan’s frantic look. I had to remain calm for her.
Devon was standing by our seats. “Evan? I need a hug. And I’ll be okay if you want to kiss me.”
Her laugh was too loud for the somber bus full of tired, anxious students, but that was exactly why we loved it. We collided in a flurry of missed kisses and too tight hugs and awkward attempts to avoid using the words ‘good-bye,’ and then she was gone.
I’d held it all together until I looked out the window and saw her, long hair up in a high ponytail, dragging her bag behind her with one pale hand, her other hand over her eyes, her head bent down. She was crying.
It was like I’d been on an emotional brown-out, and now the power surged on all at once. I collapsed into a sobbing, pissed-off mess, soaking the arm of Devon’s shirt while he patted my shoulder a little too hard and told me it would be okay.
Devon managed to scoot me on the plane, helped me tuck my carryon in the overhead, and got my blanket out.
“She’ll be alright,” he assured me with a confidence so certain, I was positive it was an act.
“I know,” I warbled, trying to remember the sweet floral smell of Evan that was already wearing dim in my memory.
“We should sleep. We’ll be home soon…”
I think he said that. Or maybe not. The next thing I knew, he was shaking my shoulder because we had landed. We were home.
It all felt so surreal. We were back home. I could see my parents again. Soon I might be able to see Jake!
I was anxious to talk to him without the time difference. I wanted to tell him the details about my time with Evan that I couldn’t get into when she was folding all my notebook paper into origami chickens or trying on my shoes, hoping one of the nines would magically turn eight, in the tiny dorm rooms. I’d been so completely happy with her and Devon that I’d been able to blanket some of my homesickness for Jake, but now that we were back in the states, it came back with a delicious, anticipatory edge.
Plus, even though Jake and I had talked when we could, I had a feeling there was a lot about his stay with his family that he wasn’t being open about. I knew he was probably going through a ton of new feelings and experiences all at once, exactly the way I had, so I tried to be patient with him, but I was beyond ready to be close again.
I was ready to see him, but I also forced myself to acknowledge that it might be a while before we were together again.
So, it was a complete, wonderful shock when I came off the plane and there he was! He was standing near my mother, who looked particularly glowing, and, though a piece of me was happy about the little portrait, something about it also raised a red flag of suspicion. I gave Devon a quick hug and kiss, and we promised to call soon, then he rushed to his parents and brother, and I ran to Jake and Mom.
“Mom! Jake!” I called.
Mom was the one who rushed to meet me, and I got crushed in her hug and breathed in her good, flowery-sweet, mom smell. While we were hugging and squealing, I looked over her shoulder at Jake. He was definitely smiling, but it was kind of a subdued smile, like he was happy to see me, but weighed down by something else, something that was heavy on his mind.
“Jake and I thought we’d surprise you!” Mom gushed. “And we have one bigger for you. Why don’t you tell her Jake?”
Whoa. This was super weird, beyond any explainable general weirdness. Mom looked so happy, Jake looked so contested, and Mom was giving him the chance to explain.
“My grandmother,” Jake said carefully, as if he were reciting a speech, “really wants to meet your mother. Her house is huge. And she sent me to pick you two up so you could visit. At her house. Now.” Jake’s eyes were so bright they looked like newly minted nickels, but I couldn’t read what was making them that intense. Was he happy about this whole thing? Did he like the idea?
I kind of hoped he did. It sounded great to me. A few weeks at his grandmother’s famous mansion on the lake? My mother flushed and happy? Jake and I able to relax, no Zinga’s, no Saxon, no Atlantic Ocean between us. It sounded a lot like heaven. So why did Jake look like he was about to be sucked into the fiery pits of his own personal hell?
Mom released her iron hold on me, said something about grabbing bottled waters for the ride, and left me and Jake alone.
I bit my lip and held my breath as he stepped closer, then crushed me hard in his arms. I rubbed my face against his chest, wrapped my arms tight around him and took long, deep breaths, filling up on his smell. I felt like I couldn’t smell him and hold him and be near him enough.
Then we were kissing, frantic and hungry, one eye opened to check for my mother’s return. It was only after I had temporarily satiated myself physically – as much as I could with respect to the crowds and my overbearing parent – that I ventured to ask Jake what was bothering him.
“It’s just been…weird. At my grandmother’s house. With my, um, family.” Jake shrugged. “It’s like, you know those pathetic shows about rich teenagers being crazy?”
“Yeah.” I threaded my fingers through his and wrapped our hands together, thrilling at the rough brush of his palm like it was the first time I’d felt his hand in mine all over again.
“It’s like they all feel like they’re on one of those shows. Lots and lots of drama. At first I kept wishing you could be there.” He took his cap off and pulled it back on, extra low over his eyes.
Some of the good, new, happy shine of seeing him again washed away. “At first? Like now you wish I wasn’t coming?” I bristled a little.
“That’s pretty much it.” Jake clenched his jaw, and the muscles went tight right down to his neck. “Remember how I told you that I wouldn’t change?”
“Yes.” The word came out on a breath, because I was still reeling from the fact that one of the first things he’d uttered to my face in weeks was the fact that he didn’t really want me around.
“Well, I don’t really think I kept that promise, and I hate that. I really hate it, Bren.” He pulled his hand away from mine, crossed his arms over his chest, and scowled.
“Can you talk to me about it?” I clenched my hands together, trying hard to keep my cool. Trying really hard.
He opened his mouth, then twisted it into a wry smile. “Hey Mrs. Blixen. All ready?”
“Brenna, do you need to use the bathroom or anything?” Mom put a hand on my shoulder.
“No. I mean, it’s only an hour and a half to home, right?”
“Oh, baby, I thought we’d go straight to Mama D’s!” my mother said. In response to my blank look she explained. “Mama D is what Jake’s grandmother likes to be called. And I thought that since you were already all packed, we could just go right there. That will cut an entire hour off the drive.”
“My clothes are dirty,” I said lamely. And my boyfriend doesn’t want me around.
Mom rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll have a chance to do your laundry there, Brenna! Now come on! This is exciting, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Jake’s voice was sober, and his grey eyes went completely flat.
I smiled wide for Mom’s sake. “Yes! It is, Mom.” I grinned at her, then I raised my eyebrows slightly at Jake in an attempt to encourage him to fake more happiness than he felt.
It didn’t seem to work. Jake just looked kind of defeated. It was hard to see him look so upset but not be able to really ask him about it. Mom chatted happily the entire way to ‘Mama D’s’ house, and Jake and I sat few inches from each other on the bench seat of a truck; not his truck, but one I assumed he had borrowed from a relative at his grandmother’s place. We were so close to each other I was almost sitting right on his lap, but we couldn’t say a single word that meant anything.
Finally we pulled onto a long, twisting driveway. Jake had rolled the windows down, and there was the thick, spicy smell of pine trees on either side of us. The air was cool and pleasant. We drove through this tree tunnel for a long time, then finally popped out in a clearer place. There was a huge, shimmering lake, and, dotting the surrounding sand, four of the biggest houses I had ever seen.
“Wow.” I craned my neck to try to look at everything as we passed. “Your dad’s family is seriously rich!”
He nodded, eyes on the windshield, hands fisted around the steering wheel. “Yeah.”
I tried to ignore Jake’s dour mood. Mom and I squeezed each other’s hands and giggled. If I managed to ignore Jakes’s crappy attitude, this was like a dream vacation! The lake, the forest, the massive, old houses…it all reminded me of Evan’s stories about long weeks at her family’s colossal beach house, nestled on a private stretch of beach in Georgia. This was a kind of luxury I’d only heard about, but had never seen firsthand.
“Look at all of the character in this architecture. And no one in the country has a private early American folk collection that can hold a candle to Mama D’s.” My mom sighed. I should have realized that her happiness had something to do with paintings. It usually did.
We got out of the truck, and Jake gently tugged my mother’s bags from her hands. He led us to the door of the huge brick mansion sullenly, like he was an executioner leading us to the gallows.
I wanted to know what was wrong, why he felt so dejected, why he wanted to keep me away, but there was no time at all to ask.
Jake walked into the huge foyer, and said, “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll ask which rooms you’re in.”
Mom was exclaiming about how the chandelier was done by the man who designed all the crystal in the Vanderbilt house and how the rugs were definitely Aubusson, wasn’t it obvious? When Jake came back down the stairs, he was followed by a lady with silver hair and his pretty gray eyes.
“Welcome! Suzanne, welcome! Brenna, we’ve been waiting to meet you. Jake talks about you incessantly.” She had the kind of stiff manners that were also supposed to be fun and cute, and I smiled while Mom gushed.
The Jake comment made me a little nervous, and I glanced at my mom to gauge her reaction. I knew my mother tended to think Jake and I were too wrapped around each other, but apparently, those words from the mouth of Mama D were completely fine. Mom even beamed a little.
It was all weirdly offset by Jake’s silence. It was almost sullenness, and it was so unlike Jake I just couldn’t make any sense out of it at all. I knew he was unhappy about things, but Jake was a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy. He didn’t usually let things get him so down.
Mama D led Mom away to her room, and Jake took my hand and practically dragged me to mine. When we got to the big, cheerful guest room (with my own bathroom!), Jake closed the door, dropped my bags and wrapped his arms around me and just held me, still and tight. My heart thumped like a puppy’s tail, all new, exuberant excitement. Jake, my Jake, was right here, right in front of me, and I just wanted to sink into his embrace and never let go
Like an eruption, our hands were suddenly everywhere, our faces brushed, and I tilted my head towards his so we could fall into sweet, melting kisses that burst into something harder and faster with every sweep of our lips. He was moving fast, his mouth hard and sweet as a peppermint candy, and he walked me backward to the bed, our mouths still attached.
I knew Mom was somewhere, maybe right next door, and his grandmother or anyone else could walk in at any second, but the intoxication of the weight of his body over mine more than outweighed any fear of getting caught.
There was this whole frantic rush of actions ebbing and fighting for dominance. I sighed into his open mouth, nipped at his bottom lip, tugged at his t-shirt, moaned at the soft suck of my bottom lip into his mouth. His hands pressed up under my hair like he had a direct line to my brain and knew exactly what would turn my body into a warm, swirling whirlpool of drowning need.
Jake’s mouth opened and pressured mine to do the same. I parted my lips and tasted him, pressed into him when he ran his hands over me because it felt like all the stress and sadness I’d bottled over the last few weeks got ripped off, like pulling the husks off summer corn. Whatever he couldn’t tell me with his words, he was sending a message loud and clear with the frenzied, sweet press of his body: he had missed me just as much as I missed him. That was a relief. I could work through whatever was wrong with him as long as I was sure it didn’t have to do with us.
Like us ending.
We were lying on the bed, his body nicely heavy on mine, and I squirmed under him so we met at every logical locking place. He was breathing hard, his forehead pressed to mine.
“What’s wrong, Jake?” I moved my fingers along the curve of his ear and the nape of his neck, then back up into his hair.
He shook his head and smiled, his crooked eyetooth deliciously familiar, and I popped a quick kiss on it. “Nothing. Not now. Not with you here.”
I moved my hand down between his shoulder blades, where his back was bunched with muscles. That was one of my favorite parts of him, one of the parts of his body that made my breath hitch in my throat every time I saw him. I never would have imagined the few inches between someone’s shoulder blades would have made me feel so much, but there it was.
I looked at his face, his gray eyes darting to avoid my gaze, his mouth too flat and twisted down. I knew Jake enough to know something was wrong, and I wanted to know how to unravel this knot of a problem. “You don’t seem like yourself,” I said softly, coaxing him to tell me.
“I haven’t been.” He blew out a long, labored breath and shrugged, then closed his eyes. I pulled the very tip of my finger along the impossibly smooth line of his eyelashes, back and forth in a touch so light it was barely a touch. “There’s a lot I want to tell you, but I couldn’t while you were away. And now it’s really hard to start.”
“Start wherever you want.” I kissed his chin, first in the exact center, then right and left, and back to the middle. “Tell me.”
He opened his mouth and there was a knock at the door. I jumped completely off the bed and scurried over to the other side of the room, where I tried to look busy by nervously unzipping my suitcase.
Jake growled a little, then moved to the door. I was expecting my mom or his grandmother or father, but there was a girl there instead. One I knew, though I couldn’t place her for a minute.
Then it hit me.
Paris.
“Hi Caroline.” I blushed, feeling the stupid embarrassment of meeting a casual witness of my past idiocy. The last time she and I were in the same room, I was welcoming the New Year by making out with Saxon and slow dancing with him for hours. My entire face flushed hot just remembering it.
“Oh, hey, Brenda.” She smiled just meanly enough to let me know it wasn’t an unintentional thing.
I felt instantly exhausted, and missed Evan with an ache that swelled and pierced from my guts up into my throat. I wanted to channel my crazy, brave friend. Evan would have jumped into between me and this girl and eaten her like an hors d’oeuvre, without one backward glance.
“It’s Brenna.” Jake leapt to my immediate defense, his voice already impatiently annoyed. “What do you need Caroline?”
She came in and sat on my bed, which was a really aggressive move, but I had no idea how to deal with it. This wasn’t technically my house or my room. Was I supposed to throw her out? Make a snide comment? Act cool about it? I had no idea what to do. I closed my eyes and tried to channel Evan, but I could only imagine her picking Caroline up by her glossy, highlighted hair. Thinking about Evan’s sometimes-militant insanity made me smile, but it wasn’t my style at all.
“I was just coming to ask if you and her–” she began.
“Brenna,” Jake gritted through his teeth.
Her smile was sharp and as dangerously sweet as a jagged piece of rock candy stuck in your throat. “Sorry…if you and Brennawould like to come to the beach for a bonfire tonight. I promise, I won’t make you get naked this time, and I won’t be so stupid like last time. As nice as it was to have you as my hero.” Her giggle was as precise a weapon as a throwing knife, and I could see a light in her pretty eyes when she realized that I was a clueless, punctured target. She’d hit her bull’s-eye.
Jake naked? Jake a hero? What the hell was going on?
Fury shook Jake’s shoulders, made his large hands into knotty fists at his sides, pulled at his lips so his teeth were bared. I had never seen his eyes glow with such pure hate. Never. “Get the hell out, Caroline.” He tore each word off at the end with a ferocity that gave me goosebumps.
Her shrug rose and fell in a cute bob that barely disguised her total, buoyant happiness. “Well, the invitation is open Jake. Oh. And Brenna of course,” she sang out with cheer so mean it stung like a hard slap.
She left and the air in the room crackled and snapped like a summer thunderstorm was rolling in. The fury that made Jake so rigid and upset had melted away, and all I could see were his eyes, unblinking and begging me to forgive…what? I backed away, suddenly fresh out of breath and wishing I could rewind back to Ireland where things were simple, my boyfriend couldn’t wait to see me, and he didn’t have some terrible secret to confess.
He shadowed me footstep for footstep, only stopping when I’d been cornered against a side table. He was so close I could feel his heart whirring hard and fast like an engine about to overheat. His hands, usually so still and calm, shook, and there was a big knot on one side of his jaw because he was clenching his teeth so hard, I was sure he’d crack a few.
“What did she mean?” I lifted my hand to his face and touched the bulge on the side of his jaw. He unclenched his teeth and let out a shuddery breath, then turned his lips to my palm and pressed them to my skin in a long, sorry kiss.
He hung his head, closed his eyes, and said, “Sit down. There’s some stuff I want to tell you,” while chills crept up and down my spine.
Chapter Five
Saxon
I woke up and groaned because I felt like an old, crippled man. Work was doing things to my body that just weren’t cool. I’d been pretty in-shape before, but now I was completely cut from lifting thousand-pound bus-pans all day at the diner, and that was after I worked myself into a fucking frenzy doing the million things that needed to be done to Aunt Helene’s house just to make it livable.
