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Malcolm’s sigh drifted over her hair. He hesitated, but picked her up like he had that morning.
Her reaction to him was so strange. She didn’t mind at all, and was actually disappointed when he set her on the couch and left her side to flick on some lights.
“No, I’m the one who should apologize.” Malcolm moved into the nearby kitchen. The sound of a cupboard opening and closing drifted to her. “I’m sorry to come in the middle of the night like this,” he called.
Jami stared down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers. He’d likely stopped by with the food he’d promised her, even though it was late. She’d picked up on some guilt in his text messages earlier in the day. When his footsteps approached, she looked up, surprised to find him handing her a glass of water.
He sat across from her after she’d taken it. “It’s good you’re up. We should talk.”
She took a sip, her mouth suddenly dry. She cleared her throat, her hands tightening on the glass. “I understand. I’ll find somewhere else to go in the morning.”
“What?” Malcolm blinked at her before shaking his head. “That’s not it, Jami. I’m not kicking you out.”
“Oh.” Jami wasn’t able to meet his gaze for long, moving hers to the bookshelf past his shoulder instead.
He sighed again. “You don’t know me well. Once I decide to do something, there’s no halfway. I’m in this now.”
Jami wasn’t sure what the swirling in her gut indicated, and distracted herself by scanning book titles.
“Look at me, Jami,” he said.
But a title had caught her eye. This one faced out from where it leaned against the others. The older paperback hadn’t held up well, with a creased spine and a rip on the front cover, but she recognized it. Of course she did. It had been the last smutty novel she’d read before her world had blown apart. Well, mostly read. She’d lost her copy the night of the accident. One with that same exact rip in the cover.
Her eyes flew to Malcolm’s face. It was different from the teenage one that flashed in her memory. It was more filled out, and he hadn’t had that shadow of facial hair. Her gaze traced over scars that hadn’t been there either, one at the edge of his jaw and another near his eyebrow. And he definitely hadn’t had long hair. No, her hands had run through something much shorter when she’d given her virginity to him.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed, her eyes squeezing shut. “You’re him.”
“Jami?” Confusion filled his voice, and the couch cushion beside her jostled. His hand touched her forehead. “Are you all right?”
Over the years, she’d convinced herself that the incident at the high school dance had been one of her rampant fantasies. There was no way good little Jami had given herself to the first boy who showed interest in her. Only he’d been exactly like all the romance novels she’d read, with muscles and a sweet but sexy smile and the perfect touch, somewhere between gentle and demanding. It had to have been a fantasy. Reaching a climax her first time, when she’d never found the same feeling again, was pure fiction. Three of them, actually.
The first time with Andrew had hurt, cementing the idea that she’d still been a virgin. Of course, it had always hurt with Andrew. She frowned at the reminder. Sex in books had been so different from reality. All except for that one experience, which she’d obviously made up. Her eyes opened, but the paperback was still on the shelf, so familiar.
Jami couldn’t meet Malcolm’s eyes. “Do I look familiar to you?” she asked.
His hand froze against her forehead, drawing her gaze up. Something shifted inside his eyes when they flicked to the bookshelf before latching onto hers. His hand, which had been checking her bump or her temperature or something, slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head. “So you remember,” he murmured, and then he kissed her.
Jami’s thoughts fled. His lips were warm and gentle and familiar. They slanted over hers, causing tingles to follow. She gasped against his mouth, but he didn’t take advantage with his tongue. Instead he ended the kiss, pushing up from the couch.
“No. This is the last thing you need right now.” His hands clenched as he began to pace.
“It’s not that I forgot.” She didn’t expect him to believe that, not when it was so obvious she’d just put it together. Her lips tingled. No, she’d always remembered. It had really felt like a dream more than a memory, though.
His pacing stopped, and he smiled, though it looked forced. “I don’t blame you, Jami. That was a lifetime ago.” He leaned against the wall, his arms crossing over his chest. “And I never did call.”
Her gaze dropped to the glass in her hands. “It doesn’t matter. That was the night of my father’s accident.” She bit her lip after the admission. There was no reason to confess to being the driver the night of the car wreck. Her father had been tired, and her mother had never learned to drive. Wired after the amazing night she’d had, Jami had offered to drive home, only she’d been distracted. Too distracted to notice the car driving the wrong way on the interstate before they’d collided.
“The next day was when I went to see Celia,” Malcolm said, his tone pulling her from her own thoughts.
Jami remembered the details of Celia’s story from when she’d shared it in group. “You mean, when her mother—” She couldn’t quite say the next words.
Malcolm nodded. “I pulled her mother off of her and my phone got smashed while I struggled to lock her in a room.” His expression turned grim. “Celia was in bad shape after the fall from the roof and the multiple stab wounds. I stayed with her at the hospital.”
“She mentioned that,” Jami said. She remembered the carefree voice of a teenaged Malcolm, telling the girl she had been that he’d promised his mother he’d stop by his cousin’s, but that he’d call her after.
It was strange to think they’d been in the hospital at the same time.
“I’m glad you were there for her.” That was the honest truth. Jami’s fingers tightened on the glass. There was no way they’d been meant to meet up again, not after what she’d done.
