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“Put me down.”
My lips hit her jaw. “Why were you hyperventilating when I found you?”
“Put me down.”
I touched my mouth to the spot just in front of her ear. “Why did our kiss make you cry?”
Her eyes closed. “Put me down.”
A flick of my tongue. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
Tension in her shoulders, her frame. “Put me down.”
“Why do you work so hard for every single person in this town, but not yourself?”
A tremor ran through her body. “Put me down.”
I kept going. “Why were your eyes dead when I first came over?”
That did it.
Her lids flew open, and she went so,sostill. “Don’t say that,” she whispered.
“Say what, sweetheart?”
Silence.
Long enough for me to hear the wind rustling through the leaves on the slender branches of the baby trees.
Long enough to hear cars in the distance.
Long enough to hear her breathing hitch and speed up and then slow again, matching the resolution that crept into her frame.
“Dead,” she whispered.
I frowned. “What’s that?”
“Don’t saydead.”
I froze, understanding that this was important, this was us teetering on the crux of something. This could mean something more, something big.
I wanted to ask what she meant.
But I had the sense that if I pushed now, I’d crash and burn and this teetering close to something big would go end in disaster.
So, I waited.
And, after a long moment, she gave it to me.
“It’s Billy’s birthday.”
I blinked. “It’s your birthday?”
A shake of her head, her shoulders lifting and falling on a breath. “No. Not Billie like me,” she whispered. “Noie.Just…Billy with ay.” A beat. “My brother.”
I froze.
Because Iknew.This wasn’t going to be good.
