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With him, I will absolutely be okay.
14
Rory
I make a mental note to thank Kate for driving Constance to the Wilhelm House tonight. Constance said it was because her hands were shaking too much and she was afraid to drive, but I’m grateful because that meansIget to be the one to drive her home.
And I don’t want her to be alone after that.
The beginning of our drive is silent. But after a couple minutes, I bring myself to say, “You did amazing.”
“Thank you,” she says in her plain way.
“I’m not joking.”
“I know you’re not.”
“You were…” Geez, what other words are there? I might not be an expert on the subject, but she kept us all rapt. I learned the ins and outs of that house, all the things it must have been trying to tell me on that first visit. It’s a special place. And it would be a darn shame for it to fall to rack and ruin. “Well, you were amazing.”
Constance blows a breath of laughter through her nose. “You already said that.”
“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make it abundantly clear.”
“Well, I apparently wasn’t amazing enough.”
I look askance at her. She’s looking out the window, watching the dark landscape pass by. The fields, the farmhouses, the bramble and bushes. “You don’t know that.”
Constance is quiet. “I just hoped for more, I guess. Stupid of me.”
“Don’t say that,” I say.
“It’s true. I was stupid to hope. Stupid to think I could change their minds.”
I swallow. I feel a little stupid tonight too. Stupid enough to kiss her unprompted.Shewasn’t stupid. Not at all. In that moment, her hyperventilating and rambling, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I went for it, hoping it could be passed off as a “pull yourself together” type of thing.
Instead, it pulled on a loose thread inside me. Now I’m unraveled for her.
“You’re never stupid for hoping, Chaplin,” I say.
“Thanks, McEvoy,” she replies. And I think she means it.
I drive. More silence. More country quiet. I know the general way to her place since I’ve been there before, and I’ve learned the streets of Horace like the back of my hand, for professional purposes of course. Constance doesn’t question how I know to take the sharp right instead of the soft one.
I wonder if I should kiss her again. Not to make her feel better. But to let her know I’m not full of it. It wasn’t a mistake. Or I don’t want it to be.
She already thinks I’m a bit of a womanizer. I don’t want her to think she’s just something I’m checking off my list. Far from it.
Constance Chaplin terrifies me. In the best way.
“Thank you for driving me,” she says as I turn onto her street.
“Of course. Least I could do.”
Constance chuckles. “Not the least. After, you know infiltrating a dinner party.”
“Eh, what are friends for?” Seriously, dude? Do you want to get friend-zoned?
Her eyebrow lifts. “About the mailbox?—”
