Chapter 15

It was so little, and so late. Today was Wednesday and she was leaving Saturday, and there was no way—no way—she would change her plans—and Phoebe’s—because of a scrap, a wisp, not even a declaration.

It was so little. So very little. Not a promise at all.

“I’m leaving. Saturday.”

He nodded. “I have no right to ask anything of you.”

“I can’t change my plans. Phoebe—”

She couldn’t even finish the sentence. She wouldn’t put Phoebe through another upheaval, not for anything.

“I know.”

In some ways, it was the fact that he was asking nothing and promising nothing that shifted things for her. Because plans and promises—

Well, she’d had about enough of them.

But she recognized the truth in his voice. He wanted to try.

And she wanted to let him.

As bruised as she felt, as battered, there was still a tight knot of hope somewhere deep down inside her.

Memory was a bitch in this case. Because she remembered that last year, it had been a little like this. He’d been scheduled to leave and they’d been sliding down a slope together, the descent gathering speed, pebbles tumbling, rocks gathering the ground up with them as they rolled, and she’d had a feeling that the mountain couldn’t hold, that there was a landslide under them. And then that very last night, a night that might have turned out to be nothing more than goodbye, had turned out to be new firm ground.

Memory wouldn’t let her give up hope that that could happen again. Treacherous, tempting memory.

To tell him more about what had happened between them, she would have to relive moment after moment the sense of suspension, weightlessness, falling.

All the firsts, not just with him, but in her life.

She’d have to make herself completely vulnerable yet again, unfurl her longings, dark as the middle of the night, and hope that his would grow to match hers.

And yet: if there was a chance that remembering for him could help him get there, didn’t she need to give him that?

Even more: if there was a chance she could have him back, didn’t she have to take it? Because under all the fear was how much she missed him. Missed them.

There really was no choice here for her. There was only what had to be done, and whatever she could do to protect herself from it.

She took a deep breath. “It started when Clara told Phoebe what was going on with your mom and Ray. That your mom was going to move to California and couldn’t take Clara with her.”

The gratitude she saw on his face—it shamed her. That she’d considered holding this back from him, when it was his. Not hers to keep.

“Did I get mad at my mom when she did that?”

Trina hesitated a moment, wondering if she had any responsibility to try to keep this recounting from going down like Groundhog Day. “Do you want me to tell you what you did? Or what I think you wish you did?”

He laughed, so many white teeth in his naturally tan face. “Good point. Okay. So, I flipped out, huh?”

“Well, understandably—you were three months from deployment and she was completely upending your childcare plans. Or so you told me afterward. I wasn’t actually around for the mushroom cloud. You showed up to grab Clara from a playdate with Phoebs and you looked like you were going to vibrate out of your skin, so I asked what was wrong, and you told me.”

“And you just, what—just offered to take her?”

“No. My first thought was actually, holy shit, I hope he’s not hinting that I should take her. But you weren’t. At least I don’t think you were. You were just venting. And it was kind of nice—it was the first time we’d ever really had much of a conversation. You’d always seemed very—remote—”

“Oh, that’s flattering.” He made a face at her, and she felt herself smiling, almost against her will.

“I don’t mean it in a bad way. Soldierly. Self-possessed, self-contained—”

“I’m still not getting the warm fuzzies.”

She smirked. “Well, sorry. But you’re not the easiest guy to get to know. I’m not going to lie about that. After that day, we were kind of friends. But it was actually Clara who hinted that I should take her.”

“She what?”

“Yeah, you were mad at her the first time, too.” She laughed. “At least you’re consistent.”

“So, what, she invited herself?”

The expression on his face matched exactly the one he’d worn the last time he’d uttered those words to her. A weird, not unpleasant, sense of déjà vu settled over her.

“She was nervous. You were considering sending her to stay with her aunt and uncle and cousin Peter. And apparently cousin Peter is sort of like cousin Dudley in the Harry Potter books? But maybe with some strange adolescent lusting thrown in for good measure?”

He looked like he’d been struck. “I didn’t—”

“You didn’t know until Clara told me. And then I told you. Which put a temporary end to our conversation because you had to go have a heart-to-heart with your sister and brother-in-law.”

“Well, thank you for saving me from doing that all over again,” he said.

This time, they smiled at each other at the same moment, then looked away.

“The next time I saw you, I said, ‘You know, it wouldn’t be such a big deal for Clara to stay with us. The girls go to the same school; they’re in most of the same activities; and Clara’s not exactly high maintenance. Dee’s left her with me for a week at a time, and Linda for several days at a time, so Clara will be comfortable, and you can trust that I know what I’m doing.’ ”

“And I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t ask you to do that.’ ”

“You used literally those exact words.”

“And you said—” He screwed up his face as if trying to remember. “ ‘No, really, it’s not a big deal. I think it would be fun.’ ”

She had. Almost to the word. “Do you re—”

“No. Or, not consciously. I just, I don’t know, kind of let my mind go blank, and based on what I know of you, thought about what I imagined you’d say.”

“That’s a little—freaky.”

“Not as freaky as—” He hesitated. “In the dark—”

Her body was shot through with anticipatory tingles.

“—I know you.”

His words—the way they rippled under her skin—forced a low, small sound from her, and his eyes darkened.

“It’s like a dream or something. Like returning to a dream I’ve had before, and starting up in the same place again. But if I wake up all the way…”

He wouldn’t quite meet her eyes, and disappointment settled on her like a cloak. This—this was what she’d feared. “You wake up and wish you hadn’t done it.”

He looked up at her, startled.

“I didn’t say that, did I?” he asked.

“No.”

“Because I don’t. Wish I hadn’t done it, I mean.”

He watched her, quietly for a moment, and she could almost feel the weight of his gaze on her skin. And then he said, “Come here.”

In the lamplight she was even more beautiful than she’d been by day, and he drew her close slowly, not wanting to rush the moment. For a long time he just hovered his mouth over hers, feeling her breath, smelling her skin, glorying in the way she reached for him without even moving. He kissed her lower lip first, then the upper, then her whole mouth, but gently, not asking her to open yet, even though he’d just had so much more. Because this was different—the lights were on, he was wide awake, and the rules he’d been following moments earlier no longer held.

And if she’d responded to the wild passion of their middle-of-the-night encounter, this was even better. She shivered and shifted at the light touch, and a sweet little whimper broke free from her and rattled around in his chest.

But then she stopped the kiss and frowned at him.

“What?”

“That wasn’t how you kissed me the other first time.”

The other first time. Funny that this felt like a first kiss to both of them, despite everything that had already passed between them.

“No? How did I do it?”

“You held my face. Like this.”

She reached for his hands and laid them against her skin, creamy and warm.

“And you looked at me for a long time. Your eyes were really dark and you kept staring, and I just looked back at you, and it was the hottest thing ever.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes were a bright blue that possibly didn’t exist anywhere else in nature, some gray in them, some purple. He could imagine he’d wanted to stare into them for a good long time, but it wasn’t really her eyes that had his attention right now. It was all the other details of her face—the fine pale arch of her eyebrows, the bright blush of her cheeks, the way her lips parted as he stared, the lower one begging to be bitten.

“And then what did I do?”

“You kissed the shit out of me.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.

“It had been a long time coming. We’d already had a few We can’t, we shouldn’t conversations. The tension was—insane.”

“Yeah?” Because the tension was pretty insane for him right now. Like something strung tight and set to vibrate, just behind his breastbone.

She nodded and bit her lower lip. Oh, hey. He wanted to be the one biting that lip.

“You want me to do it that way again? Just like the first time?”

He was expecting her to say yes, and he would have obliged her, but surprisingly, she shook her head no. “No. I want you to do it the way you were doing it just now. Light like that. You’ve never done that before, and—”

Her face was still in his hands, and he did want to kiss the shit out of her, but she was telling him something. Something important.

“—I like that it’s new for both of us.”

She said it shyly. Like she wasn’t sure, despite that kiss, if they were really doing this.

And they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t be doing this. Every line he crossed, every line he tugged her over, he risked hurting her.

But oh my God the way she was looking at him. Expectantly. Eagerly. And oddly fearlessly. As if she’d passed beyond all her reservations.

This must have been what it was like. Last time.

And he had the quickest flash—memory? Fantasy?—of her upturned face and her eyes locked on his and the feel of her mouth opening, yielding, under his, and his body thrummed, hard, and he knew he was going to kiss her again, no matter how bad an idea it was.

He leaned close and touched her mouth lightly with his again, and her mouth and the air around them and his fingertips and his whole fucking body buzzed with the power of it. She was trembling and electric, and one part of him wanted to wrap her up and hold her tight, strap her down, even, to control the high-tension-wire sizzle. The other part of him wanted to spend all night doing exactly what he was doing right now, brushing his mouth back and forth across hers, hearing her breath catch and lurch and sigh out of her, feeling that same breath like a touch on his skin.

How long could they do this? Sit here half-kissing, a touch so light it woke up every baby hair and sleepy nerve ending, a touch that without pressure or tickle or purposefulness felt like it had traveled across the whole surface of his skin? He was impatient for more; at the same time he never wanted it to stop.

She tilted her head up so his mouth slid down her jaw, down her throat, and—when she didn’t stop him—to where the curve of her breasts flared.

“It’s all backwards,” she said breathlessly. “A year ago, you had sex with me. Last week, you made me come.”

Hearing her say it, the frankness of it, got him the rest of the way to stupidly hard.

“And now you’re—”

His lips brushed back and forth just above the lace edge of her nightgown, silencing her.

He didn’t know what they were doing. There were so many things he didn’t know—who he was, who she was, what had happened, what would happen. But there were things he did know, too. The scent of her skin, here, where lace teased curves. The satin feel of it. The hitch in her breath. And so much more he wanted to know.

“Now,” he said, “I’m getting to know you.”