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Maybe it’s because in seven long years, the only bare chest or half naked male I’ve dared to pay attention to have been those of my brother or friends.
“Can I ask you a question?” Lance asks, thankfully keeping his gaze forward as I walk at his side. He wouldn’t use the chair, and after feeling a little flustered leaving him in the shower, I wasn’t about to pick a fight.
“I guess.”
I sense his smile without needing to look up. “Where’s your library?”
Of course he’d want to know that. “I don’t have one currently,” I tell him honestly.
“But your books.”
No one has asked me about my books since I emptied the library and made way for the renovations. Even then it was a question of getting rid of them or storing them away. Mason seems to have little to no knowledge of the value in a book. “They’re in baskets stored under my bed.”
Lance doesn’t reply right away, but I know he’s frowning. “Why?”
We reach the bench that’s nestled between two of my mother’s trees. I wait for Lance to sit down, watching as he holds his thigh up, lowering his foot to the ground.
I take a seat beside him. “I didn’t have anywhere to put them when we redesigned downstairs. I wanted them to be kept safe and not just dumped in an empty room.”
“But you read still?”
I finally look up at him, finding him watching me. “Sometimes,” I lie.
His head tilts and I feel my pulse quicken.
“What?” I ask.
He darts his tongue out to wet his bottom lip, the pouty skin shining. “What was the last book you read?”
Shit.
Shit. What was the last book I read? It’s been years. “A classic of Mum’s.”
He gives me an upside-down smile and then turns to gaze around the meadow.
It’s been a long time since I picked up a book and read a story about someone falling in love. I did try. For months I’d grab book after book from the bookstore in the hopes something would pull me from the slump I was in. Nothing worked. And something tells me it’s more to do with me than the books I was picking.
The words are just that. Words. They don’t resonate or touch me or even penetrate my mind in a way that makes them mean anything.
“Why don’t you read anymore, Scarlet?”
I continue to stare ahead, wondering how and when I became so transparent. “You know, you once called me a presumptuous witch for asking such questions.”
He sniggers, and I catch the slight nod of his head as he lets it go. “Waverley reads,” he tells me.
I give him my attention, thankful for the change in direction. “Every day,” I say softly. “What else did she tell you?”
A smile spreads across his mouth as he repositions his leg on the ground. And seeing that smile, knowing it’s for her, after all the days, months, and years I spent telling her how much he’d love her, how much she’d make him happy, seeing that smile on his face at the mere mention of her name, it makes all those really shitty days worthwhile. “I’d say every thought that passed her mind left her mouth.”
I shake my head and match his smile. “She waited patiently to tell you those things. She’d write them down some days. Anything she didn’t want to forget.”
“She’s nothing like what I expected,” he mutters, rubbing at his chest. “I was terrified,” he admits, his eyes meeting mine and holding. “I’m not sure how I say thank you for raising—”
“You don’t need to thank me for raising our child, Lance.”
His dark brows gather. “You did it alone.”
“I had plenty of help. You know that.”
