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I could want you enough.
My heart flips in my chest. Not cool. Could—he could want me enough. That doesn’t me he does. I down the juice before any more of Sonnie’s notions from last night can sneak their way into my head. He was sad. Needed someone—anyone to make him feel something. I get it. I totally get it.
He’d run a mile this morning if I told him I was staying in Clua for him. Hell, I’d probably run a mile too.
I tiptoe across the room to my flip flops. He’s tidied up already. The bottle is gone. The glasses upside down in the kitchenette’s mini sink.
I grip the breakfast bar for balance and slide one foot into my flip flop. Papers crumple under my fingers, before I get to the second. I’m not usually nosey. I don’t usually care enough. It’s not my fault my fingers defy my orders to leave the papers where they are. I should probably have ordered harder.
Clua Festival Concert Lineup.
That would be the concert Jo, the bartender in The Beach Hut, mentioned the other day. I pick up the glossy flyer and scan the list of acts. Sonnie is in there, right after the traditional Cluan dancers. It looks like he’s starting the “Street Party” portion of the night. I glance to the scribbled list still laying on the bar then around the empty room.
He wouldn’t have left it out if it were private. I mean—I run a music workshop. I live for this shit. Maybe I could help him pick songs. I grab the paper. Maybe I could help him sing the songs. I scan the mix of new and old rock songs.
The Dukes. He’s closing his set with LivingWild? I should have guessed. Everybody loves The Dukes and Living Wild was probably their biggest hit. I wonder if the world would still think it was as rock and roll if they knew that Dad and the guys wrote it while drinking hot chocolate and playing board games with a sick, ten-year-old me.
Singing drifts in through the slightly open door. I tilt my head and listen harder as the strings of a guitar are strummed. Sonnie—on the porch. I drop the papers back to where I found them and slip on my other flip flop.
When I open the front door, every single tiny hair on my arms lift. His voice is a low rasp. His tone uniquely his own as he sings about summertime and easy living and fish jumping. He leans into the sofa, head back against the cushions, eyes closed, picking at the strings with an ease you can’t learn. An ease you’re either born with, or you’re not. I shiver despite the heat of the morning sun, all thoughts of bailing forgotten.
His eyes open slowly, and he stares at the wood of the ceiling.
“You’re good,” I offer quietly when it becomes clear that he has no idea he’s no longer alone out here.
If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, he just rolls his head on the back of the sofa to look at me.
I lean my shoulder against the outside of the door frame. The awkwardness I expected doesn’t materialize. Just a sad sort of connection. My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek and I hold his stare. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
He watches me like I don’t think anyone’s ever watched me. Like he’s trying to read my thoughts through my eyes. Trying to look right inside my mind. He drags his hand over the stubble of his jaw. “She’d been sick for a while.” The corner of his mouth twitches up, but he doesn’t lift his head or even move the guitar from his lap.
“When did she...?” I push myself from my leaning place and take the two steps to perch on the corner of the sofa.
“The day after I saw you last. They warned me it was coming last week.”
I nod and lift one knee onto the soft cream cushion so I’m facing him, my elbow resting along the back cushion, my hand close enough to brush his damp hair from his forehead. My fingers twitch with the thought. I have a million questions. None of them I can ask. None of them I have the right to ask. The seconds tick by, the soft cresting of waves on the beach, and the low hum of a hidden cricket the only sounds breaking the silence. “We don’t have to talk about this if...” I don’t feel qualified. I don’t even have a mom.
I don’t finish though, I can’t. His eyes still scream his worries from last night, about ending up like her—dying with no one around to care.
“What about your dad? Does he know? Your friends?”
He blinks slowly but shakes his head and returns his gaze to the ceiling.
Ok. Done talking. A dull ache pulls in my chest. I can’t leave him. Not like this.
So, I do the only thing I’d want him to do if the tables were turned. I get to my feet and lift my chin to where his guitar is still resting in his lap.
His eyes narrow, but he picks it up and leans in against the partition that separates his porch from mine. Nerves tighten my tummy, but I keep going. I kick off my flip flops and straddle his lap, my knees on either side of his hips, his body warm beneath mine. I run my hands over his shoulders and cup his face.
His calloused hands smooth up the outside of my thighs and he lets out a long sigh.
“I care.” I finally allow myself to brush the hair from his forehead, fighting the terror those two words bring with them.
His eyelids flutter and he presses his cheek into my touch, his fingers flexing against the tops of my thighs, sad stare still fixed on mine.
I lean forward until his breath mingles with mine, our noses brushing. “I care.”
