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Okay, so he was right; I had thorns. That didn't mean that he understood me. I hadn't exactly been friendly to him. It wasn't intuition on his part, it was an impression. The fact that he guessed that I wasn't that hard and sharp underneath the surface meant nothing. Most women were soft somewhere inside, no matter what kind of armor they wore on the outside. And given his reputation, it went without saying that he spent a lot of time with women. He just picked up on that fact.
"What is wrong with me?" I asked my empty apartment, moving down the hall toward the bathroom, deciding I needed a cold shower. The heat was getting to me, muddling my brain or something.
I stripped out of my clothes and climbed under the cool spray, cringing away from it for a second before settling in. Fact of the matter was, I was grieving. I didn't have a lot of people in my life. I was standoffish. In this small town, I was an outsider. Granted, I had been around for years, but I never quite felt like I fit in. Maybe it was because I didn't know everyone's histories like every one else did. It didn't help that I didn't go out of my way to learn all those stories either. Maybe it was just another form of self-preservation. I was worried that if I tried, they wouldn't accept me; so I didn't even bother. I had a few people I kept professional interest in, but Ben had been the only person around that I had a sort-of friendship with. He was all I had 'round these parts and he was gone. I might have put on a brave face, but I was hurting.
The fact that I had a strange urge to slap his son and then throw myself into his arms, well, I guessed that was just my unusual way of grieving. It had nothing to do with actual interest or attraction. And chances were, after the funeral, I would never see Johnnie Walker Allen ever again.
Why that realization gave me a strange sinking feeling inside was completely beyond me.
I climbed out of the shower and slipped into a pale yellow, lightweight cotton sundress. I brewed water and poured it into a giant jug with a box of teabags. Opening my sliding glass door, I went to place it on the balcony to steep in the sunlight.
"Fancy seeing you here."
Holy heck.
I couldn't escape him.
"Are you going to offer me some of that when it's done?"
My head snapped over, my eyes wide. He could not be serious! My eyes landed on Ben's balcony to see Johnnie lounging back in Ben's Adirondack chair, his feet propped up on the railing, Millie laying contentedly on his chest.
"No."
"Aw come on. Now that isn't very neighborly, is it?" he asked, pushing a button he knew would depress in a small town: hospitality.
Unluckily for him, I wasn't raised in the South. "You're not my neighbor."
"Baby, I'm right here next door."
"You don't live there."
"No, but I am staying here."
"Why? The AC is broken," I pointed out.
"Yeah. I'm gonna have to fix that. Or maybe I will just walk around naked," he added with a teasing smirk. I did not picture him naked. Nope. I didn't even have a passing thought about whether or not those tattoos on his arms snaked across his chest or back. The one across his throat, an eagle with his wings spread outward toward his ears, was not positively distracting me every time he swallowed or anything. "The motel doesn't allow cats, honey," he clarified when I forgot to speak.
My eyes snapped up guiltily. "I'll take Millie then," I said automatically, shrugging.
"Careful, Amelia, you might just bruise my fragile ego," he chuckled, the sound low and deep.
"The last thing your ego is, is fragile," I said, rolling my eyes.
"You know what I think, sweetheart?"
"No. And I don't care to know what you think either."
He uncurled slowly from his seat, Millie jumping down with a loud, offended meow, and he moved toward the side of the balcony where it almost butted against mine. "I think you have the wrong idea about me."
"Hardly," I scoffed, refusing to move back from my position, despite him completely invading my space. If I leaned forward slightly, I would feel his breath on my face.
"Wanna know something else?" he asked, his eyes dropping down in another leisurely inspection that made it feel like my dress melted off.
"No."
"Look at me," he said, holding his arms out to show me, presumably, his tattoos. "I'm pretty accustomed to being stabbed with sharp objects. Honey, those thorns of yours practically tickle."
I sucked in a breath. Those words... they meant something to me. It was silly, but after spending your life noticing your sharp edges driving people away, it was really powerful to find someone who wasn't phased by them. Unfortunately for me, that person was someone I wanted nothing to do with. My awful karma strikes again!
"It's no surprise that someone so heartless would feel no pain," I said, finally taking the much needed step back.
The jocular lightness seemed to drain from his face, leaving his eyes looking almost haunted. He shook his head as he watched me retreat toward my apartment door. "What the fuck poison was that bastard slipping you?" he asked, but it was more toward himself than me and I took it as a cue to leave.
I closed the door and pulled the curtain but stood there staring at the outline of Johnnie as he stayed leaning on the railing of the balcony, staring off into the distance. I couldn't shake those words. I couldn't get over the way in which he said them, like they hurt, like they were honest. But they couldn't have been. Ben had been nothing but good to me. One time, when the doohickey on my shower broke off and water was spraying everywhere and I didn't know what to do, he had come rushing over, drunk as a skunk, and fixed it for me. And once, when I had broken two fingers falling on a run in the woods, he had insisted on coming over for dinner and cutting up my food for me.
