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TWENTY
“A man’s kiss is his signature.”
~May West
PRESENT
I was striding across the cemetery, had nearly made it to the car when Dante caught up to me.
“Don’t,” I told him when he fell in beside me. “Don’t involve yourself in my issues. Just. Don’t. It’s not your job to defend me.”
“Since when?”
I shuddered. Hello, temper. “Since you dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you.” He sounded upset, which upset me.
“I didn’t dump you,” he repeated when I didn’t respond.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” I asked him pointedly. He had, after all, been the one to declare this a day of peace between the two of us.
He set his jaw and fell quiet. Good.
I thought and hoped that he’d just stay quiet, but about halfway back to the house he pulled the car over onto the shoulder suddenly, putting the car in park.
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and lay his forehead against it.
“God, I don’t want to do this,” he spoke quietly, not turning his head. “I don’t want to deal with those people being in her home, talking about her, pretending to care, most of them just waiting to see what she left them in the will.”
What he’d said didn’t need a response. He knew how I felt about those people.
“And if one of them says an insulting word to you, so help me, God—“
“Let’s just get home and get it over with,” I cut in, speaking to the window. “And besides, the sooner we get there the sooner I can have a drink.”
One plus for the day—liquor. It would be flowing freely for this ill-fated gathering, I had no doubt.
“Yeah, okay,” he said dejectedly. “Just give me a minute. I need to get a grip.”
I was fine with that, because I thought he meant to just leave him to his thoughts for a minute.
He didn’t mean that, it was quickly clear.
He started tugging on my arm, and I looked at him. He wasn’t leaning on the steering wheel anymore. Now he was leaning toward me.
“What are you doing?” I asked him warily.
His answer was to keep tugging me to him, not stopping until my resistant head was pressed to his faithless chest.
Still without speaking, he started stroking my hair.
“Stop it,” I demanded.
He kissed the top of my head and kept stroking, a soothing, familiar motion, his heavy hand moving with just the perfect amount of pressure from my temple to the ends of my long hair.
Perfect because he’d done it a thousand times. More. This used to be how he’d soothe me down from a temper.
“Stop it,” I repeated faintly.
