Chapter 8: Callie
The clock by my bed says nine-thirty when I make up my mind. We've been back from the Rusty Anchor since early afternoon, and the house has been quiet for hours. Kane is in his chair by the stove, working a piece of pine with the folding knife he uses every night, and the small steady sounds of it come through the wall to my room. I've been on the bed with a textbook open on my lap and I haven't read a word on the page.
I'm going to him tonight.
I get off the bed. I'm still in the jeans and long-sleeve shirt I wore to the Rusty Anchor, no makeup, my hair down on my shoulders. I don't change. He's already seen me wet in a short robe. He doesn't need bait. What he needs is for somebody else to make the choice he keeps telling himself he can't make.
I open the door. The hall is dark. The lamp by his chair throws yellow into the living room and out into the mouth of the hall. I walk barefoot, one hand brushing the wall.
He looks up the second he hears me. The knife stops.
"You should be in bed."
"I'm not in bed."
"I can see that."
I cross the living room. I don't stop at the distance I've been keeping for days. I close it, six inches at a time, until I'm standing between his knees.
He doesn't get up. Both hands stay on the wood and the knife. His face is the careful one he's been wearing for a week.
"What do you want, Callie."
"You."
The two syllables go into the room and stay there. He doesn't move.
"Callie."
"Don't. Don't tell me I'm too young. Don't tell me I'm Danny's sister. I know both of those things. I've thought about them every minute of every day since I got here, and I still want you."
He sets the wood down on the table beside the chair, the knife beside it. He puts both hands on the arms of the chair. For a second I think he's going to stand up, walk past me into his room, shut the door behind him. I'm ready for that. I've been ready for that since the night he made the rules.
But he doesn't.
He looks up at me, and his face is open. I haven't seen it open before.
"Tell me again."
"I want you, Kane."
"Tell me you know what you're asking for."
"I know."
"You haven't done this before."
"I haven't. That doesn't make me a child. I've been twenty-two for a while. I know what I'm asking for."
His hands tighten on the arms of the chair until the knuckles go white.
"Come here."
When I take the last half step he pushes out of the chair and stands to his full height. He's a full head taller than me, broader through the shoulders than the routine of a week has let me see. I tip my head back to keep his eyes.
He puts one hand at the base of my neck, fingers buried in my hair, and the other at the small of my back, pulling me hard against him. I feel the heat of him through every layer between us.
Then, finally, he kisses me.
