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As Caleb and Rhys began dissecting some detail about Mal Omin’s songwriting process, Theo scooted closer to me.
“How’d the birthday dinner go?”
“Don’t ask,” I said, wincing all over again at the previous night’s mishap. We sat in silence for a little while before I realized I was doing the thing that made Theo think I hated him. “I thought I did it right, but the food just tasted like salt. I don’t even know what happened.”
“Oh. Wow. Well.” His eyeliner-smeared eyes were wide, and his perfect mouth screwed up into a grimace. “At least next year will probably be better?” he offered.
Next year, next year, next year.
* * *
—
Sunday dawned warm and clear, and I felt a moment of rightness before I realized Rhys was leaving that night and the stone in my stomach became a boulder. I burrowed under Rhys’s arm and went back to sleep.
This time I woke to Rhys pulling me on top of him and lazily stroking my back. I breathed deeply, relishing the closeness and tried to stay relaxed, but my heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
“Hey, Matty,” Rhys said, voice a low rumble from his chest against my ear. He hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“Mhmm,” I said into his chest. “’S nice.”
“I mean . . . you’ve just seemed . . . since I got back, you’ve seemed like you’re a bit on edge. A little down.”
I shoved my face into the crook of his neck.
“I know it sucks to be apart,” he went on. Then, voice softening, “I miss you so much when I’m not here. I just want to make sure you’re okay, and that we stay connected when I’m gone.”
I nodded, wanting to reassure him that he hadn’t messed things up by going on tour.
“And you know you can call me anytime, right? I always want to hear from you.”
He’d said it every time he called me or I texted before I called to make sure he was free. He’d said I could just call and if he wasn’t free, he wouldn’t answer. But I liked to check first. Calling and not getting an answer felt worse.
“Is something else wrong? Stuff at work? Grin okay?”
His hand on my back was so perfect. It belonged in a wholly different world than the world of shadows the house became when he wasn’t there.
When you leave, the ghosts come and the branches scratch and claw to get in. When you’re not here, the shadows swell and leak inside and drain out all the air.
I shook my head hard to get rid of the intrusive thought. No. I’m not Grim; I’m Matt now, I insisted, and I kissed his throat.
“I just missed you,” I murmured, and Rhys’s arms came around me instantly. “It’s . . . lonely without you.”
“I missed you too, baby. So much. I hate going to bed without you.”
I nodded into his neck and held on tighter as Rhys rolled us so we lay on our sides facing each other. He looked at me, traced my features with his finger, and I felt like he was cracking me open and seeing inside. Seeing everything.
And as had happened so many times before, I wondered why I didn’t just tell him everything. Why did I keep things to myself when it felt so good to tell him?
“There’s this guy at work,” I said. “A new client. He . . . he reminds me so much of me and Grin. How angry we were. Scared.” Rhys’s hand moved to my neck, a warm, reassuring weight, and my words came out in a rush. “We never thought things would work out because all we’d ever seen was stuff falling apart. We didn’t have anything, and we wouldn’t trust anything we got anyway because it would just get taken away.”
The expression on Rhys’s face was the one he always got when I talked about my shitty childhood. And that, right there, I reminded myself, was why I didn’t tell him things. He looked so desperately sad for me. So offended at the world. He looked like it was his responsibility to make sure my life was perfect now, to balance out the seesaw of before and after. I could see it in his eyes every time. Not on my watch, he’d tell himself. Not my husband.
I cleared my throat and changed directions. “Um, anyway, my client, he wants to take pictures but he doesn’t have a camera. He can’t get a job. I was thinking of maybe getting him one. A camera. Well, and a job, hopefully. But he can’t know it came from me or he’ll never take it. So I thought . . . maybe I could start some kind of fundraiser. Like a . . . drive to get stuff like that. Cameras and art supplies and like . . . I don’t know, other stuff that we could lend out to our clients. Maybe.”
