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“It was better than telling them the truth.”
“Was it?” She hugged herself, dragging my gaze down her pink beach-towel wrapped body. The strings of her silver bikini snaked around her elegant neck. “If we were just honest with them, we wouldn’t have to sneak around. I wouldn’t have to make up excuses about why I’m in the garden at nine p.m. visiting you. I wouldn’t have to bite my tongue at the dinner table when I want to tell you how much I adore you. I wouldn’t have to wonder that you’re hiding us from them because you keep thinking it will end eventually, and if they don’t know what happened right beneath their very noses, then you’ll be able to continue working for them and living in their garden, even if you decide to break up with me.”
“Fuck, Nerida.” Leaping off my bed, I shot across the small space and yanked her into my embrace. “That’s what keeps you up at night?” I chuckled, thinking of how different our thoughts were. I feared trapping her with all my instability. And she feared me breaking up with her...
I stiffened as the whisper that’d broken my heart came again.
You should leave.
You should break up with her.
To keep her safe.
My arms banded excruciatingly hard around her.
Never.
That was as impossible as suddenly breathing seawater.
And yet...
The entire reason I didn’t want to be with her was because I didn’t want the bone-deep knowledge that no matter how much I cherished her, I was the one person on this planet that could hurt her the most.
I could tear out the heart she’d so freely given me.
I could snuff out her life all because we were now one.
I would never do that intentionally but my situation...
I hugged her so hard, my biceps twitched with pressure.
Burying my nose into her hair, I breathed every salty, frangipani scent of her into my lungs.
She moaned and shimmied closer, feeling my anxiousness but not asking what caused it. She knew. She could read me so easily, with or without her knowing little nudges that always seemed to guide her right.
“Come swim with me?” she whispered.
I moaned into her hair. “I don’t think I should be around you at the moment, especially when you’re half naked.”
“Please?” She pulled away, her ice-blue eyes welling with tears.
“Hey...don’t cry.”
“Sorry, I—” Stepping out of my arms, she sniffed and rubbed at her eyelashes. “I’m just tired.” Her voice was sharp enough to make me wince.
“Are you angry with me about today?”
She went to shake her head but then nodded slightly. “I know I shouldn’t be. I have no right to be. You did the only thing you could by shoving me in the bathroom but...”
“You’re still unsatisfied.”
She gritted her teeth and nodded. “I feel as if my bones are glass and my blood is on fire. I can’t stop thinking about how you felt inside me. How the barest part of you felt more intense than anything I’ve ever known.”
I wanted to ask if that was how Joel had felt when she fucked him. Out of the two of us, she was the one who’d been there, done that. But I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want her to have to lie to me and say I was different.
“We almost went too far today,” I whispered. “We can’t do that again.”
Her eyes shot to mine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean...” What do I mean? “We got carried away.”
“We’re moving to the next step, Aslan. We’re in a relationship. That’s what happens in a relationship. Hearts get entwined. Minds get knotted. Bodies want to become tangled and—”
“We’re not in a relationship, Neri.”
She froze. “What on earth do you call this, then?”
I glanced through my hazy plastic windows at the house across the lawn. Jack and Anna were inside the lounge, the faint glow of the side lamp and TV revealing a relaxing Saturday evening. The windows were open, catching the faint muggy breeze.
They could hear...
“Keep your voice down.” I pointed behind her to the door. “Let’s go to the pool after all. I’ll help time your breath hold and—”
“No. I think we should talk about this. Actually, properly talk. We’ve done everything else but that lately.” Crossing her arms, she raised her chin. “So...talk, Aslan. If we’re not in a relationship, what the hell are we?”
I braced myself against her rapidly building anger. “I don’t think there are words for what we are.”
“Bullshit.”
“Neri...I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Then agree that this has grown into something we can’t hide anymore. We need to tell my mum and dad and then we’re free, Aslan.”
“Free?” I laughed coldly, my own temper sparking. “How the hell are we free? Do you think I can magically conjure a visa to stay here? I’m not free, Neri. I haven’t been free since my father boarded us on that godforsaken boat.”
