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So, I reach for his free hand.
He startles, eyes flying open, locking with mine, his cell still an inch away from his ear, the voice going on and on, a laCharlie Brown.
But he allows me to gently unfurl his fist, to lace my fingers through his.
Relief in my belly, settling the butterflies when he doesn’t pull away.
“I’m going to need you to listen to me,” he finally says several minutes later. “Nope. Not to yell at me. But to take a breath and reallylisten.”
He waits again, almost an interminable amount of time before he’s able to speak. “Right. There was a snowstorm. I never lost power or was in any danger. I stayed home, ate and drank and slept. It was like a vacation—”
He breaks off again, the voice on the other end of the call going a mile a minute.
“But tonight,” he says loudly, after waiting less time. “I just got home from practice and I’m tired. I’m going to hang up—”
The voice increases in volume.
“I’m going to hang up, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
A wail that almost hurts my ears.
I wince, clutch at his hand.
“Goodbye, Mom.”
He jabs at the screen with his free hand, drops it to the floor, sending it skittering along the hardwood.
After the noise on the other end of the line—and his mom not even on speaker phone—the quiet that falls between us seems exceptionally…quiet.
I nibble at my lip again, still holding tightly to his hand.
“Well,” I eventually say. “Um…that happened.”
His big chest rises and falls on an exhale before he rotates his head to the side, gold and green and brown eyes locking with mine.
Not warm.
Not soft.
Not…Lake.
He pulls his hand from mine.
Looks away.
My nostrils flare, but I manage to rest my palm on my thigh, to not clutch it to my chest, to not reach out to him and cling to him.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask, long moments later, the silence getting to me.
“No,” he mutters, rotating his head back so our gazes meet. A sigh as he pushes to his feet. “You should go to bed.”
My stomach convulses, but it’s not from the butterflies this time.
It’s…
Wrong. This is wrong.
“Lake,” I begin.
