Most of all, I had wanted to tell him. So bad it hurt.
But instead I’d forced myself to pretend to be asleep.
Now I scooted farther back against the headboard to make room for him.
He sat down on the edge of my bed.
“So you couldn’t sleep?” I asked.
Those bare feet were flat on my carpet, his forearms resting on his knees. He cocked his head up, this pensive twist to his full lips as he drew his eyes into tight slits, studying me. I got the distinct feeling a decision was being made. Finally he spoke, honesty laced in his words. “No, I can sleep, Aly. I’d just rather not.”
As simple as it was, somehow I knew he was sharing a sliver of the secrets he kept. This was Jared’s way of opening up to me.
I brought my sketch pad back to my lap as some sort of security blanket, and tucked my knees up higher to my chest so I could open it to my last drawing and still keep it hidden. Keeping my eyes on the page, I took a chance. “Why?”
My attention flicked to his face, shot back to the pad just as fast. Instinctively my hands went to work, and the sound of my soft strokes covered the mild discomfort between us.
Jared sighed, shifted, threaded his fingers together between his knees. He stared at the floor. “Because when I close my eyes, I see things I don’t want to see.” Low, humorless laughter escaped his mouth. “They are always there, Aly, but when I close my eyes” – he released a ragged breath – “the images I see are, like… vivid.” He frowned deeply, as if shielding himself from them now. “Real. So fucking real… like it’s happening right then and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
My spirit thrashed as if I was somehow sharing in his pain. I swallowed, refusing to allow myself to speak because I knew right then what Jared really needed was someone to listen.
Lifting his chin in my direction, Jared seemed to contemplate my pencil, his head gently bobbing as if absorbing the movement of the strokes of my hand. I licked my lips and carried on as if I weren’t nailed to the bed by his penetrating gaze.
“I bet what I see is just as real to me as whatever the pictures you keep hidden in the pages of those books are to you.”
Shock stilled my hand, and my eyes snapped up to him.
Pain wrapped around his features and deepened the lines that seemed to be permanently etched between his eyebrows. I was caught in it, and couldn’t look away.
My voice was soft. “I draw and you wish you could erase.”
His lids dropped closed, stayed that way for a moment, his jaw clenching and unclenching, before he opened them to me. “You create and I destroy.”
I slowly shook my head, my words hoarse. “That’s not what I meant.”
Sighing, he turned his attention back to his feet. “It doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.”
Silence settled over us for a few minutes, and I could feel the shift, the way he’d tucked our words somewhere inside himself, as if maybe I’d earned a token of his trust.
Then he looked at me with an amused smile, gesturing to my sketch pad with his chin. “Can I see?”
Shaking my head, I buried a smile by biting my lip. “You should know better than that, Jared.”
A throaty chuckle filled my room, and he lay back on my bed. My toes were pressed into the covers just at his side. And I loved it, loved that he wanted to be here with me, loved that what I saw in him was kind.
Even if he couldn’t see it himself.
He wove his fingers together and rested them on his chest, the incongruous numbers tattooed across his knuckles meshed. He sat very still, and seemed to drift away in his thoughts.
I kept my attention on my page, until I felt the gravity of his stare burning into my forehead, like I could sense a pull. Drawn to him. I always had been.
When I turned to him, the grin on his face was something I almost didn’t recognize because it’d been so long since I’d seen it. But I had, so many times before. I’d witnessed it in the carefree boy who had meant everything to me.
His blue eyes danced as they flitted from my sketch pad to my face. “It used to drive me fucking crazy that you wouldn’t let me see what you kept hidden inside those books.”
I gasped when he suddenly moved. He twisted onto his knees in almost a crouch, his chin tucked and his gaze peeking at me from just above the top margin of my book. Predatory. As if at any second he was going to pounce and wrestle it from me. My breath caught. Tingles sped under the surface of my skin, and he hadn’t even touched me.
My hands tightened around the edges of my sketch pad like a vise.
“And you know what, Aly?” His eyes darted everywhere, absorbing, taking in the lines of my face, my mouth, my hands, the pad I clutched to my chest, before they fixed firmly on my own. “It still drives me fucking crazy.”
Strength bunched in the muscles rippling along his shoulders, but in his movements there was this playfulness, so much like I remembered. An echo of our childhood sounded in my ear, the way he’d pestered and begged me to let him see, but never forced me into anything I didn’t want to do.
At that time it was because I was embarrassed and afraid he might make fun of me. I didn’t want him to see the inexperience in my drawings. Now it was because it’d be like slicing my heart open and exposing everything I wasn’t ready for him to see.
It’d scare him as much as it scared me.
Shock stunned me when he abruptly grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me down, forcing me flat on the bed. The sketch pad slid off my lap, facedown on the sheets.
Suddenly I was staring up at Jared’s gorgeous face as he hovered over me. He straddled my waist, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only feel the blood coursing through my veins and pounding in my ears.
His nose was an inch from mine, his hands resting on both sides of my head, but he was everywhere – everywhere – sinking into my consciousness and my spirit.
Then he smirked, all cute and smug, and my eyes went wide when the realization hit me. “Oh my God, Jared Holt, don’t you even think about it. Don’t you dare,” I begged in a whisper, my voice strained with need and a little bit of old childhood fear.
He knew exactly how to get me.
“What?” he asked with feigned innocence, before his fingers began to tap at the center of my chest on my breastbone with his index fingers. His legs cinched around my sides to keep my arms pinned to the bed. This had been Christopher and Jared’s favorite form of torture.
I bucked up, trying to throw him from my body, or maybe I was trying to bring him closer; I couldn’t tell. “Jared… stop… Oh my God, you’re such an ass.”
I made an attempt at flailing my arms. His thighs held them down. Held me down.
Oh my God.
He laughed, quiet and low. “You’ve tortured me for years. Don’t you think it’s only fair I pay you back a little?”
The taps came harder, faster, his touch no longer that of a boy’s fingers, but now heavy and strong. But somehow it felt the same.
How intensely had I missed this?
The push and pull. The tease and the taunt.
I’d missed my friend.
Furiously, I squirmed. Tears gathered, streaking down the sides of my face, and dripping into my hair before I knew it. A low whine rose from deep within my throat and mixed with the quiet laughter I couldn’t hold back.
A hushed chuckle tumbled from Jared’s mouth, so thick it was almost a pant, his expression so soft, like just maybe he was seeing the exact same thing as I was.
And I could feel this change in the air. As if every cell in his body shifted, Jared slowed, then stilled. Mesmerized, I watched as his tongue flicked out to wet his full lips. I was hyperaware of every inch of his body that touched mine, the fire that lit under my skin, how our chests rose and fell in sync. He raised a cautious hand, his attention pitching between my eyes and his intent. A dense hesitation weighted his movements before he seemed to give in and gently ran the back of his fingers along the
trail of tears that had slipped down my temple.
A fragmented sigh stuttered from my lips as they parted. Never had I felt anything better than what I found in Jared’s touch.
His gaze captured mine before his fingertips traced down my cheek, swept along my jaw, and barely glanced over my lips. “You grew up on me, Aly,” he murmured, the words rough, almost in awe.
“You were gone for a long time,” I whispered against the fingers he fluttered along my bottom lip.
“For too long.” He seemed to blink away the thought, as if he didn’t want to believe the truth that had just fallen from his mouth. He rolled to his side. Intuition made me follow, and I turned to lie face-to-face with him. In silence, I stared at the boy who had held me hostage in my heart and mind for so long. My secret.
Could anything be more surreal than the fact that he now lay in my bed?
Thankfulness swept through me in a torrent of joy.
Smiling softly, he reached out and pressed the pad of his thumb to my chin. The notion was sweet, but it did things to me that I didn’t quite understand. I mean, I did. I understood desire, the overwhelming need that built in the pit of my stomach and longed for more. But this was so much greater than that.
“I bet whatever you keep hidden in the pages of those books is absolutely beautiful, Aly.” He swallowed, diverting his gaze to the far wall before he dropped it to meet mine. A tender palm came to rest on the side of my face. He caressed his thumb over the apple of my cheek. “How could it not be? Look at you… you have to be the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”
Pain reverberated in his words. Still they wrapped around me like the warmest embrace.
My fingers ventured to his chest, twisting in his shirt. The strong throb of his pulse thundered under them. “Everything I love is in the pages of those books, Jared.”
The admission sounded like a confession of my heart. I realized that was exactly what it was. On some level I wanted him to know what he wasn’t ready to hear.
Stark sunlight blinded my eyes. I squinted and adjusted my sunglasses as I settled back in my chair and lifted my face to the intensity of the summer sun. Stretching my legs out in front of me, I bathed in the comfort seeping into my skin.
Megan slurped from her iced coffee beside me. “I’m sweating like a dog over here, Aly.”
I tossed her a grin. Her blond hair was all mussed and piled in a mess on the top of her head as she fanned at the back of her neck. “You are such a wimp.” I lifted my face back to the sky. “Are you ever going to get used to the heat or am I destined to hear you complain about it for the rest of our lives?”
“Um, yeah, you’re probably going to hear me complain about it for the rest of our lives. There will be no shaking Rhode Island from my bones just like there’s no shaking Phoenix from yours.”
“Touché.” I smirked, and she laughed before she leaned her elbows on the small bistro table between us.
“I feel like I haven’t hung out with you in forever. I miss you,” she said. She took another sip from her straw, and I went for mine. We sat outside a little coffee shop on Mill, watching people as they ambled down the busy street. This was the first day we’d had to ourselves since the night when my life had been tilted on its axis.
Thrown, really. I no longer knew where I stood.
Megan and I had shared a few texts, but our work schedules seemed to always conflict, and we hadn’t really connected in the three weeks that had passed.
“I know. It’s ridiculous I haven’t talked to you in so long.” My brow piqued in question as I turned in her direction. “So, how are things with Sam?”
She shrugged and busied herself with her straw. Sadness wove through her sigh. “I always promised myself I’d never be that girl… the needy one who’d do anything to win that little bit of attention that some guy is willing to give her.” She released a bitter laugh. It was a little angry and a lot disappointed. She offered me a telling smile. “I didn’t make him work for it, Aly.” She blew out a breath. “I should have listened to you. Now it’s like I’m sitting around waiting for… something… anything. Sometimes it seems like he’s totally into me, and the next it’s like he couldn’t care less that I exist.” She shook her head at herself. “So stupid.”
I swiveled toward her and leaned on the table. I couldn’t stand this coming from her. Guilt twisted in me, because I should have realized something was going on when I received her texts. I should have been there for her.
She chewed at her lip. “You know that’s not me, right?”
“Megan.” I frowned and edged in closer. “I’m not going to judge you. You know me better than that. We never know how things are going to turn out, and more important than that, we can’t help how we feel.”
She nodded, but the small jerks of her head resonated with shame. “But you’ve always been so strong. You’ve never allowed yourself to become vulnerable like that. I mean, sometimes it makes me worry about you and I get scared you’re never going to find someone to love because you won’t put yourself out there to be loved. But mostly, I’ve just admired you.”
Another stab of guilt. I’d always been vulnerable. I’d just never been honest enough to allow her to see it. “I guess I’ve been holding out for the right guy, Megan. We all find them at different times and in different ways.”
Only I found mine when I was fourteen. A flutter swam through my being, Jared’s youthful smile forever etched in my mind. Really, I’d known him my entire life. I found him in almost every memory I had.
Confusion creased Megan’s brow. “How will we ever know when it’s right?”
Pursing my lips, I took a chance at what I knew as my own truth. “I think we’ll just know.”
She groaned and dropped her forehead to the table. “But this feels so right… and so completely wrong.”
Quiet laughter spilled from my mouth. “You have it bad, Megan.”
She grinned up at me from her resting place on the table. “Pathetic, aren’t I?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “It isn’t worth it if it doesn’t hurt a little.”
She rose, nodding as if those were the most important words I’d ever said.
Or perhaps the most foolish.
“So, what about you? Have you been hanging out with Gabe?”
Pausing, I searched for what to say before I finally answered. “No. I’ve been busy at work and at home.”
Speculation lifted her brow, and I knew the questions were coming. “Busy at home, huh? Does this have anything to do with this mysterious visitor who showed up a couple of weeks ago? One I’ve never even heard of before? Hmm?” She drew this out in a suggestive prod. She struggled for a look of offense. I thought she might be too innocently beautiful for it ever to work.
“He’s just an old friend, Megan,” I said with the least amount of defensiveness I could inject in it. No need to raise more suspicion than I already had.
“And not important enough that you ever thought to mention him to me?”
No. It was completely the opposite. He’d been so important it seemed impossible to utter his name.
“It’s not that, Megan,” I admitted. “We were all really good friends when we were younger… We grew up together. Even though Christopher was his best friend, he was my best friend. You know?”
I searched her face, wondering if she could understand. Her expression told me maybe she did. Sadness clouded my tone. “In one day, he lost it all, Megan.”
“What happened?”
“There was this accident… ” I shook my head. “He could never see past what happened and he started making some really bad choices. We all watched him fall apart and we couldn’t do anything about it. He ended up getting arrested and sent away.” I lifted one shoulder in resignation. “That was the last time I saw him.”
“So he’s the one,” she mused.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just because you keep secrets, Aly, doesn’t mean I don�
��t know you have them.”
I couldn’t say anything. My throat was suddenly dry.
“You care about him a lot, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I have no idea how long he’s staying, so I’ve been spending as much time with him as I can.” I didn’t mention that I would be devastated when he left.
Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You) Page 9
