Page 60 of Slow Burn

When I look up at Beck, he’s in a similar state. His jeans are soaked from his knees down, and mud splatters across his creased forehead. His dark eyes are nearly black, and I think he doesn’t even need a shovel. The intensity in his gaze could bore a hole through the ground.

After what feels like a lifetime, the water level at the door of the barn starts to recede, the two trenches Beck and I have been making in the dirt redirecting it down the hill.

But it’s not enough. We’re getting there, but it’s not enough.

“You don’t need to stay out here!” Beck half shouts at me across the trench in order to be heard over the rushing of the rain, the pounding of it on the metal barn roof. “I can take it from here!”

“We aren’t done yet!” I shout back, and I’m not sure if I mean with this job, or with the conversation we were having earlier.

Either way, Beck stops shovelling and leans his arm on the handle, pausing to look up at me. My hood blows back off my head and I don’t bother fixing it, because Beck’s gaze is pinning me.

“Let’s finish it, then,” Beck says, and somehow I know what he means. The dam has burst, and there’s no holding it in any longer.

“I know you don’t have a lot of respect for me. You think I’m too emotional, too idealistic, too much, just like everyone else. But don’t play games with me. Don’t tell me you want it, that you like me. Don’t kiss me like that and then barely have the decency to speak to me.”

“The last three days I have been doing everything I could to not think about that kiss. I’ve been desperately trying to convince myself I didn’t feel anything,”

“And did you? Not feel anything?” I ask, trying to hide the wobble in my voice.

Here Beck has been trying not to think about me, meanwhile he is the only thing on my mind.

“No… Lyla… It was everything,” Beck shouts, emotion overtaking him and his voice cracking under it. “It was proof this is real. Every time I tried to tell myself anything else it felt wrong, it felt like a lie. And I won’t live a lie anymore.”

“So then why did you pull away? I know I can let myself fly off the handle, and maybe that’s just a Morgan gene, but if that can be passed down in a family then you got the Hollis gene of shit communication. Like me or hate me, Beck I’d rather you just pick a lane. Just commit to the part. It’ll be easier for both of us.”

Somehow, Beck’s night-dark eyes go even darker, and he takes a step toward me. Lightning flashes and makes everything bright, and for a moment I can clearly see his expression. But that second was long enough to see that the blackness in his eyes isn’t anger. It’s pain, sadness, hurt.

“Hate you?” He shouts over a rumble of thunder. “You think I could ever hate you?”

I throw my arms in the air. “What am I supposed to think, Beck? You’ve barely wanted anything to do with me since I got here. Just when I think we’re making progress, you shut down again.”

“Fuck Lyla…” He scrubs a hand through his hair, pushing the wet strands off his forehead. “I hate a lot of things. I hate the fact that you’re Austin’s little sister and it makes you off-limits. I hate that I couldn’t stop thinking about you when you left Sage Valley. I hate that the moment I started to move on, you came back and I fell for you harder and faster than ever. But Lyla Morgan, I could never hate you. You light me on fire, and I fucking burn for you. I’ve burned for you since the day I met you.”

My chest swells, tears stinging my eyes, but when I blink, I can’t tell if I’m blinking away tears or rain. Beck’s admission sucks all the air out of my lungs.

All these years?

I stand here dumbfounded, my mouth opening and closing a few times, before only a squeak manages to escape my throat. Beck’s mouth slides into a smile, and he shakes his head, looking down at the soggy ground.

“I’ve never seen you this speechless, Trouble.”

He looks up at me, and my gaze locks on his. His hair is wet and sticking to his forehead–I can’t imagine mine looks any different–and it’s dark, but I see him now. The vulnerability in his features, the way he’s cracked his chest open to show me his heart.

Everything makes a little bit more sense now. The distance he’s put between us, him pushing me away, keeping me at arm’s length. It has never been because of me. It’s been because of Austin. And the nickname? I have to wonder if the only reason he’s ever called me Trouble is because that’s what I am to him. A risk. A threat to one of the most important relationships he has.

But I don’t want to think about what’s at stake. All I want is to feel Beck’s lips on mine again, damn the consequences.

“I’m waiting for you to kiss me,” I say, and before I’ve finished the sentence, Beck has closed the space between us, his hands grip the sides of my face, and he crashes into me.

Our mouths tangle together, and after the last few days of not having him, it feels like relief. My body melts into his, and his hands find my waist, pulling me into him.

Despite the rain and the cold and the wind, Beck is solid warmth. He’s a strong, immovable presence and somehow in the last few weeks, I’ve started seeking him out when I need to feel grounded. With the storm still howling around us, the space between us feels calm, like we’re in the eye of it.

My hands find his face, the firm line of his jaw, the stubble he keeps neatly groomed. Beck kisses me softly, tenderly, showing me a side of him I think he keeps reserved only for me. The gentle, kind man beneath a steely surface. The teenager who came to pick me up–literally, and figuratively–with no questions asked. The boy who sat next to me while I cried over a scraped knee.

Little glimpses. That’s all he gave me. In hindsight, they all make perfect sense. They all add up to this man who has spent years of his life waiting for me.

Now he’s finally giving me more. Beck is giving me everything I never knew I needed. I pull back out of our kiss, and he leans his forehead against mine.