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He scoots toward me and I ball myself up tighter. “Claire.” Just the way he says my name makes me bristle. I know he’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear. I close my eyes as he says, “I know what it’s like to feel like the guilt will destroy you. Those plans you found the other day, the day we left to my uncle’s house, those plans are a manifestation of my guilt.”
I open my eyes and he’s staring at the drafting table in the corner of the room with a distant look in his eyes. He rises from the sofa and wanders toward the corner where he lifts a few sets of plans off the top of the stack and slides the house plans out from the bottom. He comes back to the sofa and lays the plans on the coffee table in front of us.
“Myles’ family never had a lot of money. His dad was always too busy getting on with his new family, he never really supported Myles or his mom and two sisters.” He flips the top sheet and a floor plan of the house is laid out before us. “I’ve been designing this house for the past three years with the idea that one day I’ll be able to build it for them. Maybe then I won’t feel like I took away the one shot they had at a decent future.” He lets out a low laugh as he shakes his head. “My dad found these plans and now he’s holding my trust fund until I turn thirty so I can’t build it. He thinks it would be like admitting my guilt. He doesn’t understand that that’s exactly what this house is. It’s an apology and an admission. I can’t live with this anymore.”
He finally turns to me and I can see the agony he’s carrying. I draw in a shaky breath as he looks me in the eye, his eyes searching for a sliver of understanding. I want to tell him everything. He’s shared so much of himself with me. He needs to know the kind of person I am. He deserves to know the kind of person he fell in love with.
But I can’t.
I cover my face with my hands; afraid he’ll see the razors of shame shredding my insides. These jagged lies I’ve told myself for the past year have rested comfortably beneath the delicate skin of truth. I can’t allow them to pierce through to the surface. I can’t allow myself to become a bloody mess again.
I need to meditate.
I stand quickly from the sofa and his eyes follow me as I walk quickly toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go.”
He darts toward the front door and blocks it off as I reach for the doorknob. “You can’t keep pushing this down or it’s going to burn you from the inside out. Forget the fucking bet. I don’t care about that. Just please talk to me.”
I stare at the buttons on his shirt. I rarely see him wearing his work clothes in his apartment. He usually changes before I make it upstairs. He actually wrangled Linda into giving me today, tomorrow, and Saturday off for my birthday. I’ve never had three days off from the café. Adam can convince just about anyone to do just about anything, but he can’t convince himself that he’s not to blame for Myles’ death and he can’t convince me to spill my guts to him.
“Fucking shit, Claire!” he groans as I remain silent. “You’re self-medicating with that meditation shit. You might as well be shooting heroin in your veins. You’re numb and you can’t even see it.”
“I can’t believe you would even say that.”
“Yes, your mother died of a drug overdose and it’s tragic and I wish I could take your pain and make it my own, but I can’t. And you have to understand that your mother loved you. She wouldn’t have been so careful about keeping you safe if she didn’t love you. She made a mistake, but that’s because she was sick. You’re not sick, Claire. You’re just heartbroken.”
I reach for the door and he pushes my hand away. “Please get out of my way.”
My whole body is trembling with all the horrible things I want to shout at him, but I can’t let myself lose control. His face is twisted with pity, but he doesn’t move.
“I’m not moving until you talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk. Please get out of my way.”
“No.”
I push him hard in the chest and he grabs my wrist. “Get out of my fucking way!” I try to wrench my arms free, but he pulls me against him so I can’t get any leverage. “Let go.”
“Is that what you want? You want me to let this go? You want me to watch you suffer like this? Because I can’t do it anymore.”
He lets go of my wrists and I’m stunned into silence. The one thing he wants is the one thing I can’t give.
“You think I can’t see it? You think I can’t see that I’m sinking like a stone and no one, not even you, can rescue me,” I whisper as I clutch my fists to my chest. “This was inevitable. You don’t want to know what I did. Trust me when I say that. If I tell you what I did you will never trust me again… and I don’t think I could handle that. So I guess it’s best if we just stop before we’re in too deep.”
“It’s too late for that,” he says, his voice sounding too thick. “I can’t believe you’re willing to throw this all away because you think I’m going to judge you or stop trusting you—especially after everything you’ve learned about me.” He reaches for my face and I swallow hard as I try to hold back my tears. “Look at this face.” He strokes my cheekbones with his thumbs and the first tear falls over the rim of my eyelid and races down my cheek. “How could
I ever not trust this face? Or these eyes.” He kisses both my eyelids and my throat aches with all the words I wish I could say. “And these lips…. How could I ever curse a single word that comes out of these lips?”
He kisses me so tenderly I sob softly into his mouth. He pulls away and I know I probably look like a mess.
“I just need to be alone for a little while,” I say in a strangled whisper.
He nods and kisses my forehead. “I’ll come by later to check on you.”
I nod as I reach for the doorknob again and he places his hand over mine. “Maybe you’ll get some answers when we go to Raleigh tomorrow. Maybe your heart will be a little less broken once we leave there.”
I don’t have it in me to tell him that this trust account has nothing to do with my broken heart so I just nod. He kisses my temple once more before I leave. As I descend the steps to my apartment, only one thought occupies my troubled mind: It’s time to call Jackie Knight.
Chapter Sixteen
Relentless Signs
I wake up to total darkness with my leg curled around Adam’s leg and my cheek plastered to his stomach. This humidity is becoming too much. The impending tropical storm set to hit the Carolinas tonight is not helping any. I peel my face off his belly and he reaches down to take my face in his hands. He pulls my lips to his and sucks gently on my bottom lip.
“Mmm….” He moans as I lay on top of him. “Happy birthday, babydoll.”
He kisses me hard and I feel him growing beneath me. He flips me onto my back and I come down so hard on the mattress that the two twin beds we pushed together in my bedroom nearly split apart underneath me. We both laugh as we scoot over so we’re not on the crack. He leans in to kiss my neck and I skim my fingers down his washboard abs and grab his hard length.
He moves my hand away as he slithers down and takes my nipple into his mouth, teasing my nipple with his tongue and giving it a soft tug. He moves to my other breast and I grab a fistfuls of his hair to pull him up. I kiss him hungrily as I wrap my legs around his waist.
“It’s your birthday,” he says between kisses. “I’ll do whatever you want.” His tongue slides into my mouth and I suck on it for a bit before he pulls back. “Let me eat you up. You’ll be my slice of birthday cake.”
“We don’t have much time. We have to go to the bank. Let’s multitask and do it in the shower.”
He grins at me as he kisses the tip of my nose. “So efficient. But we have plenty of time. The sun hasn’t even come up yet.”
I turn toward the window then back to him. “Why are we up so early?”
“I wanted to wake you up in time for your favorite time of day.”
He slides down my body and lays a soft kiss between my legs before he rises from the bed. A shiver travels over my thighs and I press my legs together to stop myself from pulling him back on top of me this instant.
We go outside and sit on the bottom of the steps that lead to his apartment as we wait for that golden moment just before the sun comes up.
That’s when he turns to me and whispers in my ear, “I promise today will be the best birthday you’ve ever had.”
When the water in the shower begins to run cold, we drag ourselves out of the shower and take our time drying each other off.
“Wear some comfortable shoes today. No heels.” He gently tugs the brush through my hair as we stand in front of the bathroom mirror. He always wants to brush my hair now that he knows it sends chills through my entire body. “I have a birthday surprise for you and I want you to be comfortable.”
“A surprise for me in Raleigh? You’re not taking me dancing or to a club are you? I hate clubs.”
The brush catches on a knot in my hair and I yelp. “Sorry! No, it’s not a club.” He kisses the top of my head and hands me the brush. “You finish making yourself pretty and I’ll finish making you breakfast.”
Adam considers himself a gourmet chef now that I’ve taught him how to make my favorite fruit and yogurt parfait for breakfast. He keeps both of our refrigerators stocked with yogurt and fruit and makes it for me, along with my favorite kind of coffee, every time we spend the night together. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m getting sick of it.
An hour later, I emerge from the bathroom fully primped and dressed in a thin, butter-yellow, off-the-shoulder shirt over a camisole and some white jean shorts. And, as Adam requested, I’m wearing some gladiator sandals with no heels. He looks me up and down as I step out of the bedroom while pulling on a silver bangle bracelet Senia gave me for President’s Day. She insists all holidays are an excuse to give gifts.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket to text her as Adam pushes a bowl of fruit and yogurt across the breakfast bar toward me. I smile at him as I punch in a message asking if she’s still meeting Adam and me for an early dinner at Bida Manda. I place my phone next to my bowl of yogurt and take the first bite of yogurt with a chunk of pineapple.
“Mmm….”
Adam smiles then plants a firm kiss on my temple before he heads for the door. “I’m going upstairs to get dressed. I’ll be back faster than you can say Bida Manda.”
“You read my text!” I shriek, and he cackles as he dashes out the front door.
