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I want to. God, I want to so badly, but it doesn't make sense.
“Then why did I walk in to find her giving you a private strip show?”
“That ain't what happened.” He shakes his head, groaning quietly to himself. “She let herself in with a key I gave her while we were dating. I was just sitting there on the couch, waiting for you to come back andfuck,I heard the door open and I thought she was you. But then I looked up and there she was in just her fucking underwear, and for a second, I was too damn surprised to do anything. That's when you walked in.”
Stroking a finger down the bridge of my nose the way he does sometimes, he lowers his lips so they're hovering just a breath away from mine. “Tell me you believe me, princess, so I can kiss your sadness away.”
He waits in the silence, refusing to close the distance until I've given him what he needs. Confirmation that I believe what he's telling me. And I do. I trust him, even if the shock of the situation hasn't totally worn off yet. Jealousy still courses through me like a slow-killing poison, one that blisters inside my veins and turns my stomach.
But it's brought me a kind of epiphany.
I don't know how we'll make it happen with my life in LA and his here in Tupelo, but I'll never forgive myself if I leave in a few days without trying to find a way to make us work.
“I believe you.” It's a whispered statement, barely audible, but not lacking in truth.
And when he sighs in relief and his mouth stretches into an uncontained smile, it's impossible not to smile too.
Holding my face in his hands, he brushes his thumbs reverently over my cheeks. No one has ever looked at me the way he is in this moment. Like I'm precious. Like he's never seen anything like me before and now that he has, he never wants to look away. He's looking at me like he loves me and I'm certain I'm looking at him the very same way.
Neither of us say the words, but we don't need to.
We say with it our lips and our tongues and our hands as we fall into each other. He picks me up around my waist and carries me into the bedroom where he tears the clothes off my body and worships me with his own.
We don’t say the words.
Because we both already know.
“Can I ask you something?”Thea says, sitting across from me in the bathtub. She takes a fistful of bubbles, then claps her hands together to make it fall like snow around us. She giggles like a child, then does it again.
“Always.”
“How is it for you with Clay being in the hospital?” she asks almost hesitantly. “That’s got to be really hard for you, no? I guess I just haven’t really heard you guys talk about it much.”
My heart sinks the way it always does when I think about my brother. Imagining him in that bed with all the wires attached to him and shit…it makes me so fucking mad—at him, at the driver he crashed into, at the universe for being so damn cruel for trying to take him away from us.
“Yeah, we try not to talk about it too much in front of Mama.”
“I get that.” Thea nods. “But you can talk about it with me.”
Realizing that she’s not going to let me get away without giving her something, I sigh and shift myself into a more comfortable position.
“It fucking sucks. I can’t lie about that. Everything feels weird without him, like our weekly family dinners. We all go because it would crush Mama if we didn’t, but it doesn’t feel right without him there.” I fall quiet for a moment, watching the ripples of water as I think. “Guess the way I deal with it is to concentrate on the fact that he’s not dead. Maybe that sounds dumb—I don’t know—but I just don’t want to grieve the death of my brother until I’m actually forced to. Until then, he’s just taking a really long nap, ya know?”
With her eyes bright with empathy and a soft smile on her face that makes me want to kiss her, she says, “Yeah, I get that. I don’t think it sounds dumb at all. I think it makes perfect sense.”
“You do?”
She nods.
“What about the rumors that he cheated on Sadie?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, unable to give her a better answer. Because the Clay I know, who has worshipped the fucking ground Sadie walks on since they were in kindergarten, would never do that to his wife. But there’s never any smoke without fire and who knows what goes on behind closed doors?
“Okay, I have another question,” she says.
“Anotherone?” I roll my eyes playfully and she sticks her tongue out at me with a laugh.
“I haven't seen you smoke a cigarette since I started staying here.” She directs her pointed gaze to mine and scowls when I don't say anything in return. “Why aren't you answering me?”
