Page 34 of Slow Burn

From: [email protected]

Subject: Great

Sitting is sitting. You can’t be good or bad at sitting.

Not if I see you first,

Beck

P.S. Thanks for tonight, it was nice.

Beck Hollis makes my head spin. But tonight was nice. It was nice having someone to talk to, someone to just be with even if we weren’t talking. It was surprisingly comfortable, working alongside Beck tonight.

My hand absentmindedly rises to the corner of my mouth where his thumb brushed against my skin.

I shouldn’t want to kiss Beck. I shouldn’t want anything to do with Beck. He’s my boss. I’ve already fucked up one job because I couldn’t control my mouth, albeit for very different reasons. I can’t afford to screw this up, too.

Beck is my one chance at having a decent reference to take with me back to the city.

I’ve dealt with enough men in my life who don’t understand me, who want to keep me small. He said it himself, men who can’t handle emotions are not men. And Beck is the epitome of emotionally unavailable. Tonight was proof of that.

Sure, he’s started opening up, sharing things with me that I never knew about him. I can see him, as if the real Beck is there under the surface. Still, we got too close and the steel walls slammed down around him.

And I’m starting to think I might deserve more.

Chapter 14

Beck

Thanks for tonight? It was nice? Who the fuck am I?

I sound like a teenage boy, his mom looking over his shoulder and telling him what to write to a girl after a first date. But that’s what Lyla does to me. She makes me feel like a teenager again. Somehow, Lyla is the strongest tie back to who I used to be, before responsibility and the various let downs that come with being an adult took it all away.

When I’m around Lyla, I’m inspired to be better, I’m motivated to be the best version of myself. I think it’s because Lyla is so fully herself, or at least she was, that her gravity pulls everyone who comes near her into her orbit. She shows them how to shine.

Even lately, even when she’s making herself smaller–for what reason, I don’t know–she makes me want to be better for her.

I rub my hand across my left peck as I check and recheck my phone for another e-mail to come through. But it never does. And it drives me fucking wild.

Lyla drives me wild.

The way her eyes shone in the moonlight as she peered into mine and held my gaze while I swiped the coconut whipped cream off her mouth. Her long lashes fluttered for a split second, but I still caught it. I caught the way her eyelids became heavy at my touch, almost as if they were struggling against an invisible force. The invisible force of wanting.

Did Lyla want me to kiss her then? I’ve seen that look on her face before. It’s been branded into my mind for a decade. She gave me the same look the night we sat out on her roof.

I almost did it then. Back when I was eighteen and I felt invincible, like nothing could touch me. I was uninhibited except for the sense of loyalty that still guides my actions. Because the moment Austin stepped out of his window and joined us on the roof, I pulled back as if I had touched a hot element.

I came so close, though. My hand was reaching up to cup her jaw, to feel the peachy skin of her cheek, to pull her closer to me until we shared breath. I came within an inch of ruining the only friendship I had. Of betraying the only person who stood by me through it all.

Austin’s friendship has never faltered, and I made a promise to myself that day that mine would never falter either.

A week later, Austin and Lyla lost their parents in a tragic car accident. A white out snow storm overtook them on the road. Alberta winters can be harsh, unforgiving, cruel. They slid off the road and into a tree, killing them both on the scene.

My friendship with Austin never wavered. I know how it is to have people look at you with sympathy and pity, but no true support. I withstood those looks around town for years after Mom left us. So once again, I promised myself that I was there for Austin no matter what.

I was there for him when he was thrust into the role of being Lyla’s legal guardian, when he didn’t know how to handle it and he broke down.

I was there for him when he started partying more, and coping in unhealthy ways. I was there for him when Lyla left town, the only family member he had left. I was there for him when he called me from jail. I’ve given him a job, a place to live while he got his shit together, no questions asked.