Taylor was going to be mad with him for a long time. Mad in a way that had her bring a suitcase and tell him she was staying, that it didn’t matter if her lease still had two months to run, she was moving in anyway. Moving in for all the wrong reasons, because she no longer trusted him.
He was so grateful Georgia was here, but he didn’t want to rush the moment where she’d tell him she’d had second thoughts, or worse, not tell him, and then he’d have no idea what damage he’d done.
So he lay there under the canopy in the shade with his thumping headache, his bruised body and his reluctant guilt and listened to them talk softly at the table on the deck.
Over birds and a lawnmower, two kids having a water-gun fight, he could hear enough to know they were talking about music. About Taylor’s singing, how she felt her career was never going to make it out of weddings and corporate gigs. About how Georgia had always wanted to work with bands and engineer live recordings and thought she’d missed out on that opportunity now because of her age and lack of experience.
They were so different and yet so similar. Taylor strutted around like she was The Hulk, mean, green and nobody’s fool, but she was a soft squish of insecurities and frustrations. Most people saw the angsty rock chick with the foul mouth, crabby temper, and the badass tats when they looked at Taylor, which was exactly what she wanted them to think. What she let Damon see was how most of that was scaly armour to cover the softest heart, consistent disappointment and enduring loneliness.
Something happened to make Taylor this way about three years ago. One of those times he was away more than he was home. When he got back she was different, harder, yet more brittle. She wouldn’t talk about it and neither would Angus. Whatever it was made Jamie angry and even Sam was uncharacteristically quiet. Damon had learned to leave it alone.
From what he could figure, Taylor loved someone and they didn’t love her and she hugged that unhappiness so close and wore it so often it’d leached out all the colours of her confidence, left her threadbare and covering up with snark.
It was time he got to the bottom of that. Unpacked the parts of Taylor that got annoyed with Angus, avoided Jamie and spent money she didn’t have on hideous new perfume to go out with someone new who dumped her.
If she’d let him.
She was angry enough to rearrange the furniture and his wardrobe and let him go out best dressed by haven’t got a clue.
And then there was Georgia. Taylor’s opposite, but her soul sister just the same. Georgia came at you fears and worries first, that prickly indecision, that cool shyness she had about her. But poke that awkward hesitant behaviour and you hit a core of resilience and strength that was so tempered by her circumstances, her inner strength shone from her.
She didn’t see that. She only saw where life had defeated her, made her a survivor and guilty because of it. He wanted to love that crap right out of her, make her feel so safe and comfortable she stopped hesitating and owned her choices, her life.
But he’d sold her a false idol in himself, the blind man who could see, and now he was scared she’d scratch him and uncover only pride and selfishness, flaky ego and pigheadedness. And she wouldn’t love that in him, though he’d love her no matter how she reacted.
It wasn’t a passing fad, this depth of feeling he had for her. It wasn’t about filling his time, or needing a distraction. Georgia was as fatal and as inevitable to him, as much a part of him already as his choroideremia, and yet he was such an expensive choice for her, a top of the line model that required intensive maintenance where a cheaper solution would do the job without the fuss.
He was a high tech submarine, where all anyone needed was a snorkel and mask.
He rolled over on his side and sat up, the pressure behind his eyes a constant thump. He wanted both of his girls to laugh more, to trust more, to believe in themselves and he wanted Taylor to let him love Georgia without thinking it meant he didn’t love her too.
He coughed, his throat sore. His whole head was a giant watermelon someone had taken to with a machete. “Georgia?”
Their conversation stopped. “I’m here.”
He’d expected her to be on the deck, but she was closer. “I’m so bloody sorry.”
“You give me heart failure.”
Give? His own heart was skipping too fast, pulsing in time with the headache. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know that now.” She did, her voice was steady. She wasn’t trying to convince herself.
“I’m going out. Be gone, oh, hours.” Taylor doing a disappearing act. She’d been hovering, would she do that if she thought Georgia was going to leave too?
God, he wanted Georgia to touch him, didn’t matter if it hurt. He wanted to touch her, but it felt like he needed permission. “I screwed up.”
“Little bit.”
He scoffed and the sound morphed into a sigh when her hands went to his shoulders. “Thank you for scraping me off the road. I’m appalled I let that happen. Let you see me like that. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“Shhh.” Her fingers on his lips, her fresh scent in his nose. “Don’t worry about any of that. Tell me about your eyes.” She moved her hand.
“I lost—”
“I know. Angus told me. I want to know when it happened, how it makes you feel.”
He frowned; and that felt like being smacked on the bridge of his nose by lightning. It was the question he’d hoped no one asked, and they hadn’t so far because they were still furious with him. He’d had his whole adult life to get ready for this moment and his failure to deal with it was a stupendous cock-up.
Georgia’s hand lightly, fleetingly, on his knee. “You lost a part of yourself. I know a little about how that goes. It’s not an easy thing.”
Shit, he was somehow robbed of air. Yeah, his ribs hurt, and his throat was tight, but he’d not had any trouble breathing before now. “Do I still have a chance with you?”
“You’re going to have to really be roadkill before you shake me off.”
“Oh fuck.” He took a deeper breath and got rid of it quick as if she might change her mind if he didn’t finish the thought. “I figured I’d become your nightmare and you’re telling me you’re going to stick around for more bad dreams.”
“I’ve got worse news for you.” She stopped and so did his lungs. “I’m kind of crazy about you.” He swallowed ozone. “And since you know I’m seeing a therapist that might be a nightmare for you.”
“I give you heart failure.”
“In the best possible way.”
“I want to touch you, but I don’t deserve to.”
“I want to touch you, but I’m worried about it hurting. Tell me where you don’t hurt.”
He wanted her on his lips, the taste of her to take all the stings and remorse away, but if she started there she might give him a coronary. His heart was so full of gratitude it might crack his chest open and end him here in the Balinese pavilion in his own yard with the woman he loved not quite in his arms.
He held up his hand and she took it and pressed her lips to his palm, flipped it and kissed his knuckles. “Georgia.”
She kept his hand in hers and kissed his wrist, then his forearm, a flick of her tongue, then she moved on, the inside of his elbow, his upper arm where she found a bruise Taylor found earlier, just under his sleeve.
“Oh, that’s black.” Her hands to the bottom of his t-shirt. “Take this off. Let me see.” He winced when she pulled the shirt over his head. He had to be bruised on his ribs, they were so tender to touch. “Oh, Damon.” She put her whole hand lightly across his side, and it was cool, comforting.
She kissed his shoulder, “Don’t ever do that again,” then his collarbone, “you need to be more careful.” She lingered at the side of his neck, not quite sucking; the kiss wet and strong. “I don’t like to see you hurt.”
She dragged her lips to the hollow at the base of his throat and he tipped his head back and groaned—not pain, he was so
turned on by her slow exploration, her sweet tenderness when he’d thought he might’ve lost this. When she climbed onto the daybed, he drew her down so he was lying on the pillow and she was draped over his unbruised side.
He closed his eyes and pointed to his ear and she nuzzled it, teeth gently scraping his lobe, a nibble, a bite. Ah, this was better than drugs, better than sleep and rest. He pointed to his jaw and she moved her lips along the bone to his chin and rested her lips there. She was healing him kiss by kiss. He was breathing quickly, one hand to the back of her head, the other directing her affection to his cheek, to his eyelid, to his forehead. Nothing hurt anymore, she’d taken all the pain away. His head was full of images of her naked and loving him. He pointed to his lips and she didn’t go there, breaking him out of the vision of her loveliness. He pursed and tapped his lips again and she replaced his finger with hers.
“When did it happen, gradually or all at once?”
He captured her hand and held it. How did he say he’d been losing his residual vision since he met her, that it closed out permanently at her place, sometime after they’d first come together, when he was sated and happy, when he’d closed his eyes not knowing it would be the last time he’d see the ghost shape of her. It seemed a bitter thing to tell her. But he didn’t have the energy to lie.
“That first morning I woke with you.” She gasped. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, Damon.”
“I’ve always known it would come. It was dumb to be surprised by it.”
Her hands either side of his face; she’d be looking at him intently. “It’s a huge thing. Don’t brush it off like it’s nothing.”
He cleared his throat. Emotion was like phlegm, a thick plug, hard to talk past. The huge thing was he’d found this woman and fallen in love with her and she wasn’t scared to take him on, despite everything in her past that taught her the stress of living with someone else’s disability.
“I woke up, it was gone. I didn’t know if your bedroom was particularly dark, or what time it was. I told you I was in the bathroom. I was, I tried the light, couldn’t tell if it came on, then I went out on the landing where I knew the sun was.”
“You wanted to talk about the weather, because you didn’t know if it was a sunny day.”
He heard sadness in her voice, but not pity. It acted like a snort of helium, made his voice tight. “I was looking for a loophole.” He coughed it out. “I wanted the day to be grey and dark so the black didn’t have to be in me.”
“Parasailing, on the day you lose your light, oh Damon. And I got stroppy with you.”
“You thought I didn’t want to be with you. But I had to do something to prove I was still the same person. I’m The idiot Voice but I didn’t know how to use it. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to think me losing my light and making love to you were connected. They’re not, it could’ve happened at any time, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it, with anyone.” But he was talking about it now, and the sun was still going to rise tomorrow without him seeing its light, and he was going to be okay.
She kissed him. The softest press on his lips and then again, delicate, barely there. He lifted his head to chase after her, needing more, and she crashed into him, knocking a grunt of pain iced with delight out of him as she pelting him with kisses, until their lips locked, sealed with sorrow and forgiveness, slick with promise.
Damon folded his arms around her. The word lucky pulsed through the carved out cave in his watermelon head, echoing in his limbs, surely strong enough to clear the colour out of his bruises, the soreness from his limbs, the regret from his soul. He owed some god on a benign astral plane for the luck of having the life he did: the talent, the family, friends, the hope that, despite his loss of vision, he’d continue to build the life he wanted to live, with the woman he wanted tucked inside it.
When Georgia settled against his shoulder he knew he had to use his voice, give her the new score. “I don’t want to specialise in freaking you out, but I love you, Georgia and that is a little crazy quick, but I walked into a truck and I’m concussed so if you need an out, it’s that I’m not right in the head.”
“And if I don’t want an out?”
He laughed and didn’t care that it felt all kinds of unhealthy. He rolled a length of her hair around his finger and tugged it and she lifted her head. He brought her face close so he could whisper in her ear. “Then we’re both fucked, and that sounds perfect to me.”
22: Vulnerable
Georgia was late and Moon Blink was rocking. Loud, crowded, with a make a big night of it vibe going down. They were three deep at the bar. Angus would be pleased. Damon was on stage belting out Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls. She could hear him but not see him. It was standing room only.
She eased her way through to the one spot she knew she could stand and watch him and not be jostled or hassled. Jammed in the corner by the kitchen servery hutch, she got a whiff of bleach that made her blink and her first unobstructed view of the stage. Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
Burn in hell. Damon was some kind of dirty magic tonight. He wasn’t wearing his usual smooth, cool; he was all hot and ruffled. He’d ditched his suit and gone with blue jeans and a white button-up shirt—untucked, unbuttoned. All the way off would’ve been less provocative. He had a beer bottle and a cigarette in his hand.
He had to be illegal; cigarette aside, he was electric. The song, the voice, honey-cured and smoking; the look, the moves he was making, all fluid hip and knee, flash of rippling abs and head flick. He was wet, sweat on his chest, his hair shining in the light, counting them into the next song. He was positively prowling around that stage, saved from walking off it by a new kick plate that replaced the white paint. He no longer wore his sunglasses up there because the footlights didn’t bother him anymore, so she could read the expression around his eyes—sin.
Good Lord, he was gorgeous and dangerous and hers.
He was also, based on the new beer being passed to him, hand to hand over people’s heads, not entirely sober. She’d never known him to drink, other than a glass of wine with dinner and even then only when they were at his place or her flat. He said alcohol mucked with his balance, with his spatial orientation, worse than for a sighted person.
There was no evidence of that, he was totally in command up there and his whole orientation was sex. He could have any woman and a good percentage of the men he wanted with the cut of a dimple.
If there wasn’t a crowd, if he wasn’t mid-song and wrecking himself with enjoyment, she’d drag him off stage and improvise a lap dance worthy of a rock star, because waiting to get him home was too long to wait to have her hands on him. And she’d had her hands on him this morning before work. It was hard to tell which one of them was more insatiable. The only thing saving her from being a bona fide sex addict was her insistence on keeping her own place and spending at least two nights there alone every week.
Carmella approved in a nodding way. Taylor attempted to move out and sign a new lease and Georgia begged her not to. Damon grumped, in an I hate this, how can I persuade you to change your mind way. He said they’d spend enough time apart when he started working again and he didn’t see why they had to ration things now. She blamed Fluffy. A girl needs fish time. But those two nights were significant, even if they often included falling asleep with the phone at her ear and Damon’s voice in her dreams. They were a health check; they were not getting consumed to her cuticles by Damon’s world. They were a reminder he didn’t need her, except a in bone shaking, organs turned to liquid mush manner that was utterly appropriate and made her feel so brushed smart and shiny new she was thinking that lap dance idea was a good one.
That man, that sexy, swaggering musician with a voice that could inspire dystopian revolution or mass orgies, was in love with her and he’d never even know what she looked like in the traditional way and that didn’t matter. She had no idea what she’d done to deserve him.
A ha
nd on her elbow. “Hey.” Heather’s big smile. She untied her apron and shoved it through the servery hatch. She looked tired but not unhappy to be here.
She shrugged at Georgia’s what gives look. “What could I do, Angus called in a panic. We’re going to have to get you a responsible service of alcohol certificate, teach you to pull a beer, make a cocktail and take a dinner order.”
“Me?” She’d never waitressed or poured a beer. She’d worked retail before she qualified, like Taylor still did, but the idea she was enough part of this crew for Heather to suggest she pitch in was a little thrill. She’d learn to be the best beer puller in town if it would help out. Meanwhile, watching Damon wasn’t helping her sanity.
She inclined her head towards the stage and an eyebrow towards the ceiling.
Heather laughed. “He’s a fire hazard in more ways than one tonight.” She blew on her fingers as if they were burning. “Scorching.”
Georgia turned back to watch Damon and gagged on her happiness. She was too late with the lap dance. Another woman, young, blonde, attractive, was in the process of putting Damon’s fire out, or maybe turning it into an exploding star. She was gyrating on his hip, arms looped over his neck while several of her girlfriends at the edge of the stage catcalled and whistling.
“That’s Liz. She’s a regular. She’s always had a thing for Damon.”
Georgia didn’t need to be jealous, but Jesus. Damon had an arm around Liz’s waist. She choked out. “Have they?” He might’ve been trying to hold Liz upright, or stop her pushing him over. Liz might’ve been humping his leg.
“She’s a nice person, but she drinks too much. She never got past Taylor.”
“Past Taylor?”
“Best wingman a fella could have.”
That made sense. Georgia shook her head. She couldn’t take her eyes off Damon. “How did I get past Taylor?”
Heather elbowed her. What Georgia wouldn’t give for alien eyes in the side of her head so she could look at Heather and shoot daggers at Liz at the same time. She did a half turn double-take and felt a tendon ping in her neck—ow, it hurt. She put her hand to the electric shock. She was ridiculous.
Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) Page 21
