Elle peeked at him from the corner of her eye but then jerked her gaze back to the television set propped up on the small table in the living room. She was…confused. Conflicted. Something had changed that night, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. And that made her nervous. Because it was never good to be in the dark about anything when it came to the man currently sitting next to her.
The plates had been cleared and washed from the surprisingly good meal that Honey had made her. A simple pasta dish made from things that she had in her pantry, but it had still surprised her. Just another layer of mystery to the already confounding man.
Now they were both sitting on the couch in the living room, watching one of her favorite movies. It was old, a black and white film called The Westward Wind. A classic tale of love, and loss. She’d loved it ever since she was a kid, watching it over and over again with her parents. And oddly enough, Honey seemed to be watching raptly from his seat next to her. It was infuriating. Because all she could focus on, was him.
His scent, sexy and spicy and all him, wrapped around her, distracting her and even though he wasn’t quite touching her he was sitting so close that she could feel his body heat, reaching out, sending waves of sweet warmth through her entire right side.
The night was growing dark around them, and as the movie played un unheeded, the tension between them grew and grew to unbearable heights. It was almost to the part where the heroine discovers that the man she’s fallen in love with is actually the scoundrel that had stolen her pearl necklace, and Elle couldn’t take another minute of it.
“I’m sorry!” the words burst out of her, falling out of her mouth before she could stop them. Not that she wanted to. She knew as soon as she’d spoken them that it was true. She really was sorry. Honey looked at her questioningly, waiting for her to continue, not saying a word or interrupting. For some reason, the absence of judgement in his warm, dark gaze made it that much harder to open her mouth again.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” Elle went on in a more moderate tone, picking each word carefully as she went, “I’m sorry that I said that us…being together was a mistake. It wasn’t.”
He looked at her for a long moment, just looking, before turning back to the movie as if it was the most important thing in the world. “I know.”
“You…know?”
“I know it wasn’t a mistake. I just wondered why you had to say it was.” He didn’t look over at her again as he spoke, just kept watching the black and white dance sequence flow across the T.V. screen.
He was completely silent as she gathered her thoughts, searching for what to say, for how to explain without tearing a piece of her past wide open. It was impossible, she finally decided. But guilt had her trying anyways.
“My parents were wonderful people. They were loving and supportive. When I told them that I wanted to learn how to play the piano they took me to lessons, signed me up for concerts and recitals. They were there for every single one. They bought me my first piano.” Elle’s gaze automatically went towards the back of the house, where the music room was. Where her most prized possession had pride of place, right in the middle.
“They died when I was ten. Just a little girl, a child with no clue at all–” she cut off, shaking her head as memories flooded her. Painful memories. Memories that broke her heart over and over again.
“It was a car crash. A drunk driver who walked away with little more than bruises but, not my parents. They didn’t walk away at all. When the social worker came for me I ran away and hid in the crawl space of our old house. I didn’t have any other family, there was nowhere else for me to go,” Elle paused, staring straight ahead of her, and Honey’s gaze was fixed on her now, “I got trapped. The door stuck and I couldn’t get out. I screamed and screamed for someone to help me but…no one heard.”
If she let herself dwell on it she could still remember the awful grief, the terrible pressure of those hours she had been locked in the dark, the feeling of not being able to breath, like she was drowning even though there was no water.
“It took them almost a whole day to find me. They thought I was just upset and had been hiding. They were out of patience with the kid who was backing everything up. Since then I can’t…I haven’t been…Well, I’ll just say that I don’t love being confined in small spaces,” Elle forced out a weak laugh but it had a hollow ring to it. Then, she did one of the hardest things she’d ever had to. She forced herself to look over at Honey and she was instantly trapped by the intensity in his dark gaze. There was sadness, anger, and sympathy in them, all wrapped up with something else. Something soft and tender that she didn’t want to look too closely at.
“I just wanted you to know why…It’s no excuse though, for what I said. I didn’t mean it, not really. I just panicked. And I hope you can accept my apology.”
***
Honey stared at her, deep into her mysterious eyes, trying to read the emotions that he saw there but it was so tangled up that he couldn’t begin to puzzle it out. Except for the sincerity. That he could see written all over her face, he could hear it in the soft tremble of her voice. He couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to tell him that, and he especially couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to have to live through it.
Some of the puzzle pieces of her clicked into place. Why she liked everything so neat and in its place. It was the hallmark of anyone who had been in the system. Prison, military school, juvenile facility. Foster care.
And the claustrophobia, the anxiety that would bubble up inside her for seemingly no reason to him. But he knew she struggled with it. Struggled in social situations. It all made sense now, or most of it anyways. And his heart broke for the little ten year old Elle, the blonde haired dark eyed girl who had lost her entire world in the blink of an eye.
In that respect, he’d been lucky. He’d never known paradise, so it hadn’t hurt near as much when he’d lost it. He’d never know there was another way.
“Drugs,” he said softly, after an interminably long silence, both lost deep in their own thoughts, their own painful memories of the past.
“What?” Elle asked the question, just as soft.
“My parents. It was drugs,” he shrugged, falling back on the guise of uncaring casualness that he did whenever the rare moment arose that he talked about what little experience with family he’d had. And it wasn’t much.
“They were both addicts. My mom got pregnant with me. I was one of those, what are they called, methadone babies? Spent the first few months of my life getting clean,” Honey shook his head, “more than either of my parents did. I basically raised myself. Got through school okay. I was smart.” He grinned over at Elle, but it was a bitter grin, a grin full of cynicism and pain.
“I learned how to forge my mom’s signature for registration, for field trips, for anything, really. I learned how to steal food when my parents were too high to go to the grocery store. I made it through high school without failing any of my classes. I had dreams of going to college, even.” Honey barked out a rough laugh. The dreams he’d used to have were long gone, along with the boy he’d used to be. Hopeful, no matter how many times life had shit on him. He still kept believing that his break would come, that the answers would all fall into place.
“I had just graduated. It was one of the proudest days of my life. Because I’d done it on my own, despite everything. Despite the shithole family I’d had the misfortune of being born to.”
“What happened?” Elle asked after he went quiet, “did you go to college?”
“No,” Honey said on another rough laugh, “No. That summer me and a bunch of friends took off on a trip. A sort of last hurrah before going our separate ways.” He could remember that summer so clearly, the first part of it anyways. Staying out all night drinking and smoking, sneaking away with Sara Parker under the bridge.
“It had been magical, at first. Those first few weeks. No family to worry about, no school, no responsibility. Not a care in the world and the unshakable belief that we were invincible.”
“Then what?”
“One night, it was a Tuesday, we all went out to this house party. It was warm out, and everyone was either drunk or high. A buddy of mine dragged me upstairs to this bedroom where they were doing some drugs and asked if I wanted in. I shrugged and held out my arm. It was the first time I ever did heroine.” Honey couldn’t look over at Elle, couldn’t stand to see the look that he knew would be shining in her dark eyes.
“The first time, but not the last time. It sucked me in, killed me little by little until there was almost nothing left. That’s when Joel found me. He helped me get clean. He helped me become a member of the Dirty Cruisers. I’ll never forget that day,” Honey wasn’t aware of the sudden smile that tilted up his lips as he spoke, “I was born Cooper Delaney, but that was the day I became Honey, and that’s who I’ve been ever since.”
They were both silent then, as the movie played on unseen, both thinking about their past, and the paths that had led them to each other. Because Honey knew it had to be more than random happenstance that had dropped Elle Watson in the middle of his lap. He’d had plenty of women over the years, but there was something different about her. Something so pure and so clean that drew him like a moth to a flame.
Something so different from any other person that he’d ever known before. She was honest and brave, braver than he ever could have imagined now that he knew what she’d had to live through. That kind of pain shaped a person. He knew that from experience. It either made you hard and brittle, or it made you strong. Strong enough to face life head on, even knowing how terrible it can be. How painful. How merciless.
Honey looked over at her, tracing her profile. The delicate curve of her cheek, the way her nose tilted up at the end. She tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind one ear in an unconscious gesture and he watched her, entranced. Everything about her seemed so fragile, so small and delicate. Everything except for her spirit. That shone like a beacon, pulling him towards her, and he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t want to stop himself as he reached out one hand and slid it gently under her jaw.
Slowly, he pulled her face towards his until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. The force of it hit him like a ton of bricks straight to the solar plexus. He couldn’t look away from the sheen of moisture that caught the flickering light from the television and threw it back at him in watery black and white. It was like he could feel all of the emotions that swept through her, like in that one, single moment they were perfectly connected. Two people who had suffered, and had come out the other end alive, and better for it.
Without thought Honey leaned forward, at the same time sliding his fingers up to cup the silky soft skin of her cheek, placed his lips against hers and kissed her.