I have no patience for the way he’s blaming himself for things that were totally out of his control. Plus I’m ready to kiss him some more. To shut up the noise in both our heads. Life rolls by in a tangled, crazy tumbleweed of emotions, and I want to press Pause on the pain and focus on the pleasure right now. I want something I can control. We can control.
I can control kissing him. He can kiss me back. We can own this moment.
“I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you right now.”
He snorts and turns his face. “I never wanted to be some rebound guy. But I never figured my alternative was gonna be a pity make-out session.”
He’s primed to say more, but I don’t give him the chance. I cover his mouth with mine and kiss him softly, brushing my lips over his and breathing deep to catch the familiar smell of his skin under the metallic tang of blood. His hands tighten on my hips and inch me closer. When he groans softly in the back of his throat, the vibration rolls through my body.
God, it’s so good. The taste of him, the way his arms wind around me like he’s claiming me as his. Like he wants to protect me. I love how his mouth is quick and hot, but slow and savoring all at once. This? This is a kiss worth waiting for.
“Does it hurt?” I close my eyes and murmur the question before I pull away.
“Nah. Feels freakin’ amazin’. Don’t stop, Nes, please.”
His mouth claims my waiting lips, and his kisses come harder and faster. My breath catches as something low in my gut knots tight and I go slick between my legs. I slide my tongue out delicately, lick his sore lips, aware that he’s taken a beating in a place that’s already so sensitive.
“Are you sure this is okay?” I whisper.
“Okay?” The slow grin he dry runs is only, at best, a shadow of his usual smile. “How come you like me so much when I’m in pain? First you’re hugging up on me after the dentist, now you can’t keep your hands off me after my daddy—”
“Stop.” I brush his hair back with clumsy fingers. “You don’t have to make it a joke, okay? It’s not a joke.”
The light he worked so hard to stoke extinguishes. “Jokin’ ’bout it’s the only way it don’t become a tragedy.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to brush it off. Or pretend it never happened.”
“No worries ’bout that.” Where there were flames in his eyes, there’s only charred debris and acrid smoke. “What you jest witnessed—or some ugly version of it—runs in the back of my mind every day of my life. I make sure it does, so there ain’t no chance I’ll forget what’s in my blood. The day I forget is the day I risk lettin’ that become my future.”
“That could never happen.”
“My daddy wasn’t always a shamble of a man. He had good and bad in ’im, same as me, but his bad strangled out everythin’ else. I hope I’m stronger ’an that, but I ain’t taking chances. But I don’t wanna talk about him. What I want is to kiss you again,” he says, his voice gravelly and raw. “And again. And then I wanna do a whole lot more than kiss you, Nes.”
“What if I hurt you?”
“Oh, no worries. I ain’t a virgin.” He waggles his eyebrows when I sigh.
My fingers execute a gentle exploration over his ribs and up along his shoulders. “This? Does this hurt?”
“Are you giving me a medical exam or trying to get into my pants?” he jokes, even though I see him wince through the laugh.
“A little of both,” I admit. “Do you need to go to the doctor?”
“Hell no.” He fits those big hands on my waist and makes me feel petite, wanted, sweet. Things I am only irregularly, and most often with Doyle. “No doctor will see me without needin’ to know what happened, and this is a tiny town. Before you know it, I’ll have DFCS knocking at my door, all ready to investigate and make my gramma’s ulcers worse. I know you think I’m off my damn rocker, but my dad can’t wind up in jail. He’s got a big mouth and nothing to back it up with. I might hate his guts, but he’s still my daddy. I can’t live with him getting beat to death in prison. Plus if he lays off the bottle for any more than two days, he gets the shakes so bad he cracked a crown once.”
He nuzzles his face against my collarbone, and I press his cap off his head and run my fingers through his hair, loving his low moan in response to my touch.
“Did he try to stop before?”
“Really? We’re gonna talk about my old man’s alcoholism right now?” He wraps an arm around me too fast and tight, and sucks breath through his teeth in a sharp snatch. I’m seriously worried he broke a rib. Or four. “He only ever tried to stop whenever his disability check got delayed and he ran outta shit to drink. And by ‘shit to drink,’ I mean he ran outta mouthwash, rubbing alcohol, all the cough syrup… He even drank some of his own aftershave. For days, anytime the bastard coughed, it smelled like Old Spice. Still makes my skin crawl to this day if I catch a whiff.”
We both make rusty noises that are getting closer to actual laughter.
“That’s good, because Old Spice freaks me out too,” I admit. “I had a creepy science teacher who wore it in middle school, and he used to rub up against the lab tables while he asked the girls to recite rows from the periodic table. Then he’d lean close and sniff our hair.” The memory of the panic Mr. Ling inspired during my tween years loosens a hysterical laugh from my throat.
“Not funny.” He kisses my neck so softly, and I’m not sure whether or not I feel the tip of his tongue. “That pervert shoulda been run outta town. You gettin’ molested by him ain’t a joke.”
“None of this is.” I wrap my arms around his neck and hope he’s okay enough to let me hold him tightly for a moment. If he’s not, he doesn’t buckle under my touch.
The wide-open, star-speckled jigsaw pieces of sky and land brighten behind his silhouette. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear I can smell ocean salt mixed with larger amounts of gardenia. The trill of cicadas cloaks us in humming, wishful peace. The world’s never been more beautiful than it is tonight in his arms.
“What the hell are we gonna do?” He cuddles closer to me, like he’s trying to ball up and fit in my arms.
“About what?” I twirl small pieces of his hair around my fingers and lift, looking at the stars through the strands.
“You and me. And them.” His chin tilts up, and I settle my hands on his cheeks, running my thumbs very softly over the angle of his cheekbones.
“Us? Them?” Then I repeat the old refrain that’s more habit than truth. “Doyle, you know I’m leaving.”
It’s probably the most hateful thing I could’ve said to him of all people, right now of all times. My regret is instant.
He coughs, and presses a hand to his side as he grimaces. “Lemme getcha back home.” He drags his legs forward in the seat.
“Doyle, I didn’t mean—”
“Get in the truck.” The cutoff is the icy slap to the face I deserve. Actually, I deserve way worse. He starts to close the door before I have a chance to jump off the running board. I land with a thud in the boots that belong to his brother.
“I don’t mean to say I don’t care about you or that I—”
“Stop.” It’s a dull whisper. His violet eyes, ringed in a crueler purple, study the torn flesh of his knuckles on the steering wheel. “You got good instincts. That’s what kept you from goin’ back to your ex. Use ’em. Trust ’em. Stay away from me and all my chaos.”
“C’mon, stop, Doyle. I don’t want that.” The window is rolled down, but there’s the metal of the door between us and a wall Doyle’s erected for his own protection. I can’t blame him… “I want you.”
“And my ill-bred, racist, ignorant kin?” A mean chuckle skids out of his mouth. “I ain’t about to put you through any more trials by fire. Every single problem you knocked up against since you came here can be traced back to me somehow. Think on it for a second. Every single one. I’m sure as hell not gonna stand by while that keeps happenin’.”
“So thi
s is it?” I demand.
His shoulders rise up, then fold with the collapse of his sigh. “Jest get in the truck.”
“No.” I punt a clump of dirt and grass so hard, my boot half flies off. “You know what? This? Us? Whatever the hell it is we’re doing…it isn’t remotely a big deal in some places. If you and I met in Brooklyn, no one would bat an eyelash if we showed up anywhere together.”
He’s silent for a few long beats. “In this fantasy of yours, is my daddy some fancy professor too? And my mama never hightailed it outta my life? You forget if you pick me up and drop me in Brooklyn, I’m the dumb hick you dragged outta some backwater hellhole. I stick out just like you do, but I don’t get to go back to better when I’ve had enough.”
He should be furious, but his words drag and plod like bootsteps in the heavy mud.
“No one would think that way about you.” I wring my hands because this night is like a paper town catching fire, more houses and roads and bridges exploding into flames around me every nanosecond. “Even if you didn’t fit in, you’d never be abused.”
“So there’d be nothing for me to fight?” He turns his eyes my way accusingly. “Nothing left to stand up for?”
“Don’t.” I jerk my head from side to side. “Don’t do that whole noble martyr thing.” The mosquitoes have set up a blood-bar feast on my legs, and I slap at them with all the force of my frustration.
“Things need to change here, now. I don’t feel like runnin’. I feel like fightin’.” His fierce look is a dare I can hardly see around the salty burn of my tears.
“Coño! That’s easy to say when you don’t have to watch your back every second because of the color of your skin!” I snarl. I whirl away as he reaches out to grab my arm. “No! I’ve stood by and fought a dozen tiny battles every damn day because I don’t fit anyone’s idea of who I should be. I’ve never, ever had to walk around afraid I’d be harassed because of the color of my skin before! What do I do with that, Doyle?”
“Nes.” Doyle’s voice pleads, and that tugs at my heart. But the second he swings the truck door open, I bolt.
Usually I can’t outrun Doyle to save my life, but he just got his ass handed to him, so he’s limping along way slower than usual. He yells my name every few steps but it’s barely recognizable because of how hard he’s panting.
I have no idea where I’m going or how to get home from here. Every step takes me farther away from the truck and my only sure way out of this unfamiliar wild. Plus I’m scared Doyle’s lungs are filling with blood or something. I don’t want him to hurt any more than he already does.
I’ve never wanted to cause him any pain, even though I know I haven’t been able to avoid doing exactly that.
So I stop, but he has too much momentum and accidentally tackles me. The thick grass cushions our fall. Doyle wraps his arms around my body, kisses my neck and ears, my hair, and my face like crazy. For one claustrophobic second I struggle to push him away with my hands and twist my body out of his embrace.
But then he blurts out words that shock me silent.
“I love you. Nes, I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. And I’ll run as far and fast as you need me to, to keep you safe. You hear me? I love you.”
The hoarse rasp of his words hangs in the air between us. I go still. We’re pressed so close, the thump of his heart against my ribs is as strong as the pounding of my heart inside my chest. Our hearts answer each other, beat for beat, without fail—like my heart knows better than my brain that love always answers love.
“No. Please, no.” When I didn’t answer immediately, he pushed up and away with his arms, but I tug him back down on me. His weight helps ground the wild feeling that whips through me so fast, I swear it could carry me away. “Don’t let me go.”
He collects me to him with a rough pull and buries his face against my neck. “Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m outta my mind tonight.”
My fingers waterfall over his face, his neck, his shoulders. I rain kisses all over him, only slowing down when he flinches because my passion is a little rough. I try to slow down so I don’t hurt him, but it’s hard. I’m tired of being scared, being cautious. Wasting time. I want to live, and I’ve never felt more alive than I do in Doyle Rahn’s arms.
“I…love you, Doyle. I love you.”
I sink under the weight of those words. Before I drown, I kiss Doyle again, hard and desperate, like he’s my lifesaver. That kiss drags me up from the sucking depths of my uncertainty.
When I kiss him, I can breathe again.
I’ve said those words to so few people—to my family, to Ollie, to Lincoln when I thought he loved me back. But I’ve never meant them the way I do right now.
I feel like I can’t press close enough to Doyle, even though there’s no space left between us. We’re rolling in a field full of scratchy grasses and nipping bugs, but that doesn’t stop us from lying back and kissing hard and hot, as long and as much as we can. He licks along the edge of my jaw, around the whorl of my ear, back against the seam of my lips.
I thrust my hands up under his shirt and run my fingers up over the long, sweet length of his back and down into his waistband, where his boxer briefs hug tight to his hips.
“Dammit.” He gathers me up and brushes my back and hair off with quick, strong sweeps of his hands. “We’re goin’ at it on an anthill.”
“I hate these ants,” I grumble, slapping at my legs and ass.
“Come to the truck with me?”
His thumb bumps along my knuckles, and I can’t stop thinking about the box of condoms he keeps in his glove compartment, crammed in with the hot sauce packets. I’m still thinking about that black box when he opens the door for me, stopping on the running board to fold me back in his arms and kiss me so hard, he opens his cut lip. He flips the passenger seat forward, and I crawl into the back, lying down on the narrow bench seat with my breath held.
He climbs back and slams the door shut. The cab goes quiet, and the only light comes from the sliver of moon shining through the window. He tries to settle next to me, but there isn’t enough room, even if we both tilt sideways on one hip.
I find his hips and pull him on top of my body, flipping under him as I do. “It’s okay,” I assure him.
“I’m gonna crush you.” He’s holding himself rigid a few inches above me along the entire stretch of his body, wincing in pain.
I press my hands over his shoulders and down along the dip of his spine. I can see his eyes widen when I grab lower and squeeze twice. He laughs, and I lure him down, so our hips nest. “I like how you feel against me.”
“You sure now, Nes?” He whispers it, and I whisper back a yes that barely breaks from my mouth before we’re kissing again, our mouths everywhere and not enough places at the same time.
We tug up at fabric, sometimes too distracted by the kissing to get it all the way off. Doyle tries to be careful because he always is with me; I try to be careful because he’s bruised and barely held together right now. When he looks at me, I wish everyone could see me the way he does because it’s clear he’s looking at the best version of me there is.
We almost fall off the backseat more than a few times, and we laugh every time we have to rearrange our awkward limbs. It sucks that I make him wince and groan with pain twice as much as I make him moan with pleasure, but every time I ask if he wants to stop, he rolls his eyes and repeats one adamant word: no. When I’m so crazy-ready my head spins and I can’t wait anymore, he reaches up front and pops the glove compartment open, fishes past the hot sauce, and takes out a condom.
“You sure?” he repeats, and I repeat my yes, grabbing him to me greedily to prove that I mean it.
And then, in the safe, quiet back of his truck, with a dizzying curve of stars shining through the windows, Doyle Rahn and I tumble over every line we ever drew in the clumsiest, most beautiful way possible. And when it’s done, we just lie there, grabbing on to each other tight, happy together in this perfect moment we
stole from under fate’s nose and made our own.
TWENTY-TWO
I need a witness to the love that wants to geyser past the confines of my ribs, so I dial Ollie. The phone rings and rings. Ollie’s bassoon solo plays over my speakers.
It should be a fairly uncool instrument—in the symphony Peter and the Wolf, the bassoon represents Peter’s exasperated, scolding grandpa—but it becomes something else entirely when Ollie plays. She plays on the edge of a chasm, unafraid to throw preconceived ideas about the beauty of sound out the window. My best friend is utterly fearless with her music.
That’s the way she is as a friend too. It was Ollie who gave me hope that my heart would trust again after Lincoln’s betrayal. I’m ludicrously glad I trusted her now.
“Nes!” My ears are so consumed by her haunting music, I startle at the sound of her voice. “You’re calling to tell me you’ve fallen madly in love with your new Southern-belle best friend, probably named Peaches or Feather, who has the cutest drawl and asked you to be part of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and feeds you pralines—what are those anyway?—because your actual bestie is a monster who doesn’t return your calls, aren’t you?” She skids to a stop, half excited, half panicked.
“Blasphemy. You’re never getting rid of me, bestie. You should be ignoring my calls. I know this year has been a beast for you. But your solo… Olls, I’m holding up my arm and all the little hairs are sticking straight up. This is other level. This is amazing.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I have a confession.”
“Confess away.”
“It’s not just hours of practice.”
“Really? Spill.”
“There’s a muse. Nes, I think…I think I’m in love.”
It’s like after sludging through every kind of hell—parental, romantic, scholastic—life just decided to lift its magic wand and bibbidy bobbidy boo everything in my world. The pumpkins and mice and old rags have been transformed into carriages and horses and glittery dresses complete with coordinating glass slippers, all of it illuminated by showers of sparkling light.
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