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Twenty-Nine
“Is that what you really want?” The question fell from Dean without much thought, but the deep, gnawing ache in his gut said he hung on her answer. “You want to be alone?”
She shook her head, her silence drawing out.
Someone he didn’t recognize crossed the alley’s entrance, past the coffee shop’s large windows, their quick pace taking them farther down Main Street and out of earshot. “The scary part is, as much as I tell myself I’m unsure, I know how I feel about you, Dean.”
“And?”
“I like you.” Her gaze fell from him again, like she’d just spoken the most devastating words of her life. “I like you a lot.”
Her overwrought look had the corners of his lips twitching, but he held down any genuine smile, still too uncertain where this conversation was heading. “I can see why that would be a problem.”
She scowled at him, though the lopsided clench of her cheeks suggested humor. “The thing is, I like you way too much for this to be healthy. I’ve come to realize hiding you is becoming less about what people will say, and more that, just once, I want something that’s all mine.”
He took a hurried step forward, reaching to give in to his long-standing urge to touch her, but she stepped back, her hand held out in a gesture for him to stop. “Not yet. I’m not done. In realizing how I feel about you—that this is more than just friends with benefits and a fun trick to play on the local gossips—there’s something else that’s holding me back.”
Her attention worked over him, as if she appraised him and whether she should say more, the narrowing of her eyes confirming his theory. “As much as I consider you more than a friend, I know significantly less about you than any friend. You also know less about me than anyone else in this town. See how that could be a problem?”
“Sure.” He schooled his face, keeping his response minimal, despite his quickening pulse. She was about to ask him for the one thing he couldn’t give. “So, you want a heart-to-heart?”
She tucked her hands into her jeans pockets, the action an easing from her earlier defensive tact. “I guess. I can’t rightfully say I trust you if, when I get down to it, I don’t know much about you.”
“Right.” He nodded, more to himself than to her, his joy somehow fizzled to a dry and deathly reality.
Reality. Something he failed to escape, time and time again.
This was the bit where she asked questions he couldn’t answer. Not truthfully, anyway.
He didn’t want to lie. Didn’t want to lose her either.
Once more, a good thing teetered on the edge of disappearing from his life completely, all because his past didn’t make such a pretty picture. In fact, his past was downright hideous.
He turned toward the alley’s entrance and slowly but surely trudged out.
Gravel crunched behind him, Sarah’s hurried footsteps. “Dean? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t give you what you want.” He tossed his voice so she could hear but kept on walking all the same.
“So, you’re leaving?” She grabbed his bicep and turned him around. “Just like that?”
Her glare held him, out on the pavement and just outside the alley. Now he was the one peering about the street, concerned about what others might see or hear. “Not ‘just like that’. I… I need a minute to think.”
She stepped back a little, her narrowed stare taking him in anew. “Well, that’s a bad sign if ever there was one. You know about Blaine. I’ve told you a bit about my family. It’s not too much that I want to know a little about your history and problems.”
The angry heat blooming in his chest dimmed a little, and he found it in him to reply. “You’ve never asked.”
Her expression remained unmoved. “I’m asking now.”
He spun away and ran his fingertips through his hair, his greatest wish being that he’d never have to tell anyone, much less her, the truth. So now he stood with his mouth clamped shut, his reasons for secrecy as strong as ever.
If she knew the truth, she would leave. If he said nothing, she would leave.
“Exactly.” She stepped around him and shook her head, confirming the impossibility of his predicament, the drop of her shoulders a show of familiar disappointment.
Even then, even as he’d been the one to walk away—walking away from Sarah wasn’t straightforward—and just like the night they met, he searched for a way to prolong his time with her.
“Let me start with this, then.” He held a hushed tone and took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “When I look at you, I remember what it’s like to be human. You give me things I haven’t had in years—dreams, desires—the things that made me stay in this town to begin with.”
