The Acorn Tattoo: The Neverland Series Part 1 Anniversary Edition

by Miller, Alyse

  “If it would please you.”

  “It would please me, very much.” Davie smiled, a rarely seen, genuinely happy smile. “I’ve made some dinner reservations for us. And I believe there are a few nice theaters we could select from for the evening, if you wish.”

  Remembering her promise to Jake, Claire tried to find the right words to convince Davie. “Actually, I know the perfect after-dinner show for us,” she ventured, biting her lip nervously. Davie’s eyes narrowed and released in a movement almost impossible to see, but she caught it, knowing too well the manners of Davie’s eyes. It was a sign that he already knew he wouldn’t like what she proposed, though he probably wouldn’t tell her no, either. “Jake is playing tonight at a local pub, and I promised I’d come. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to meet you, too,” she added. “What a great surprise!”

  Davie’s smile faltered at the edges, but stayed, its warmth cooled back to his practiced mask. “Whatever you wish, Ms. Baker.” His eyes wandered over Claire’s messy hair and yesterday’s clothing, details he hadn’t missed but now chose to let her know he noticed. “Let’s get you cleaned up then. I’m sure your Jake would not be happy if I returned you to him still disheveled from last night.”

  Chapter 10

  When Claire had washed away the last echoes of Jake’s warm hands with soapy bubbles, the sun had begun its descent, smearing the sky in the cool colors of dusk. She dressed slowly in the wonderful new dress Davie had brought her, taking care to fasten securely each of the pearl buttons that marched down her back so that the dress folded in soft creases around her. Even with its flowing fabric, the dress was deceptively sensual. It truly fit her as if it had been made only for her. Pale colors teased in whispers over low cuts, clinging to the curve of her waist and her hourglass swells of her hips and breasts. The faint creamy colors of the fabric drew pale rose-tinted undertones from Claire’s skin, making her flesh look almost porcelain against the dress.

  Claire let her curls fall untamed around her shoulders and down her back, twisting naturally, the way Davie liked it best. To complement her natural coloring, she dusted only the barest trace of makeup onto her eyes and lips.

  Jake’s crystal acorn pendant sparkled where it lay framed on her throat. Claire twisted it between her fingers and gazed out of her window at the leaf-strewn spot he’d called to her from last night. Here, standing in front of her dressing mirror, in a room miles away from their secret place, Claire was a vision carved in blushing ivory. For the first time in her life, she thought she might be truly beautiful, like she had walked straight out of some wonderful dream she’d had once, though she couldn’t remember when.

  “You’re stunning, Ms. Baker.”

  Davie’s voice slid over her shoulders, his reflection appearing behind her in the mirror as he strolled into her bedroom. One of his hands was working at a cufflink on the opposite wrist. Behind her now, Davie smirked in the mirror, looking devilishly handsome as he slipped his fingers into his suit pockets and sauntered toward her, preening just a little. He had always had a flair for dapper clothing, but tonight he was immaculate in a sleek, Italian cut jet-black suit the same glossy shade as his hair, which was slicked back in a smooth wave. His pointed-collar shirt was stark white and cut tight against his body, the thick cotton straining over the muscles underneath. A thin black tie snaked down his stomach, barely visible underneath the gray cashmere scarf he’d tied loosely around his throat and left to hang almost to the edge of this belt. He'd left his face unshaven, so that a thin shadow spread over the lower half of his face. The faint beard was uncharacteristic, but to Claire it seemed an intentional juxtaposition, hinting at things darker, more primal, hidden just beneath his carefully polished surface. It gave him an almost sinister air, something dangerous and forbidden.

  Claire knew distantly that she was gawking at him, but she didn’t even try to fool herself into thinking that wasn’t his intention. He was way too calculated not to have wanted it so. But it was almost as if she didn’t even recognize the man standing in front of her. It wasn’t just the clothes, or the very grownup way his body moved, or even the bizarre stirring in her body. Here Davie stood in front of her, no longer a boy pretending to be a man, but all grown up, changed somehow when she wasn’t looking.

  “You look…all grown up,” Claire managed to choke out. His smirk crept a little higher, pulling up to reveal the dazzling white of his teeth. Claire’s insides churned abruptly into a tight knot, making her stumble backward a bit in the crimson heels. Davie had her instantly, taking the balls of her elbows in his hands. Gently he drew her into him, steadying her with her palms resting flat on the firm surface of his forearm so that she could feel his muscles ripple beneath the smooth material of his suit jacket.

  Her body’s reaction to Davie was unexpected, and Claire was flooded with a torrent of contradicting emotions that she tried frantically to pick apart. She was deliriously happy to see him, but confused by the new way her heart and body seemed react to his presence. At the same time, she ached for Jake, for his long, lissome hands and his deep, ocean-rolling voice, his dazzling emerald eyes and Lost Boy grin. Davie was the man her heart knew, trusted to her very core, but Jake was the one her heart ached for and dreamed about. Somehow, that conflict made her unable to imagine a future with both of them in it, and it was a terrible, empty feeling. She felt irreparably torn, as if she would one day have to make a choice that would cost her dearly.

  Davie drew Claire nearer, their bodies closing in on each other like two continents crawling together. She could smell notes of basil enriched with tones of leather and spicy nutmeg, the familiar scent of Davie’s cologne as it pulsed inside the heat pushing off his body. With every inch, Davie’s lips thawed into something that threatened to spill warmth and sweetness over her. With his hands still on her elbows, Davie bent, resting his forehead heavily against hers.

  “Yes, Ms. Baker,” he agreed to something she hadn’t asked. “Can you see me now?”

  “Yes,” Claire whispered. She felt hypnotized under the weight of his words. Her eyelids slid closed. “I see you.”

  “Can you, Claire?” Davie asked again. The weight of his forehead lifted from her hair, and he peered at her with liquid eyes she could feel without seeing. His hands swept slowly up her arms, one finding her chin and angling her head upward, mirroring his. The shudder of their breaths hung heavy with unsaid words between them.

  Claire’s heart flip-flopped in her throat. She opened her mouth to answer again, but Davie’s second hand followed his first, circling against her neck. His thumb dragged lightly down the pulse in her throat, making her breath catch against the half-formed words on her tongue. She wanted him to close the distance between them, to feel his mouth against hers. Her body was on alert—pulse racing with sudden demand, a deep need pulling from the depths of her body like a sleeping caged animal springing to life.

  The air between them popped as he stepped into her, his body solid against hers. His thumb pushed under her chin, craning her head backward until her neck formed a straight line with her face bared to his. As he leaned down into her, his thumb caught inside the chain around her neck. Something about the pendant made him hesitate and he stopped, pulling his hands away and freeing her face. Claire’s eyes fluttered open. She stared at Davie as he backed away from her. He looked like a man pulled back from the brink of death, a strange mixture of fear and relief playing across his face. She knew that look. She had the same one on her face.

  “The car is here,” Davie’s voice cracked. “Whenever you are ready, Ms. Baker.” He swiveled on his heels and walked out of the room without looking back, closing the door softly behind him. Claire, left abruptly alone, felt like all the light in the world had been snuffed out around her. She reached for her bed beside her and sank down on top of it, eager to anchor herself to something solid before she fell off the Earth spinning out of control around her.

  Davie had almost kissed her, or at least she thought he had almost
kissed her, though that couldn’t possibly be true. Davie wouldn’t kiss her. She must have only imagined the boiling tension pushing between them because she was still teeming from last night’s romance and the sudden excitement of Davie’s surprise visit. No wonder he had run from her so quickly, she was like an addict coming down from a high, and he was probably trying to save them both from the embarrassment of it all. She had to calibrate her own emptions that’s all. It was an overwhelming assembly of unfamiliar emotions raining upon her, a mix of new feelings and changed ones, and she’d had barely any time to experience them all.

  But even as she denied it, in that strange, baffling moment with Davie’s lips lingering above hers and the way he’d exposed her before him, she had wanted him—needed him—to kiss her. Claire put her fingers to her lips, her heart spinning in her chest, and stared with wide eyes at the closed bedroom door.

  Chapter 11

  The ride to the restaurant was thick with quiet. Davie and Claire sat on opposite ends of the town car’s leather back seat, watching the streets of New York pass through their respective windows. As the driver wove through traffic, carrying them to the restaurant Davie had selected, Claire struggled to untangle the web of emotions warring inside her. Every time she thought she had found an answer, it slipped away like a dream that faded too fast. By the time the car pulled to the curb of the restaurant, she had come up with only one solution—if she made it through the evening, she would call Nikole. Nik would know exactly what to tell her. Hopefully.

  The driver pulled up to the curb of a large building anchored to the street by a spotted gold carpet that rolled out to the sidewalk like a long, wooden plank. The curbside attendant wore a three-piece black suit with a bright red tie tucked in the triangle of his vest. On the corner of his jacket were words embroidered with something loopy and French that Claire couldn’t quite read, but looked like it had too many accent marks to be even remotely pronounceable. Unlike Claire, Davie spoke French fluently. He had taken to it when they were kids and the melodic string of sounds in the language suited him. It was, like Davie, formal but melancholy. He insisted it was the most exquisite of the romantic languages, and he was keen to partake in fancy French dining whenever he could, eager to shower Claire in the sophisticated elegance of French cuisine. In fact, their dinners together were always vaguely formal, whether they dined at a fancy midtown restaurant or in their backyard tent as kids over homemade soufflés and slightly burnt crepes.

  When the attendant opened the door for Claire, Davie reached over and took her hand. Startled, she turned to him, trying not to show her surprise. It was not like Davie to end a silence first. He had always been the one to brood on for days until she finally came to him imploring forgiveness.

  “Je suis désolé, mon amour. Si seulement je savais te dire combien je t'aime.” He spoke in low, rapid French, squeezing her hand gently and knowing she wouldn’t understand his words. A tight, reticent smile stretched across his lips, making his jaw clench tightly on both sides of his face in strained knots. It looked like smiling was the last thing he wanted to do.

  In a badly translated apology, the only words Claire understood were that he was sorry and that he loved her. She hoped he was saying that he regretted his attitude and the unpleasantly tense car ride. Davie had always been complicated, but Claire felt like she was stuck in a tornado of emotions that she couldn’t keep up with. First, he appeared unexpectedly at her apartment and showered her with gifts when she expected him to be angry with her, then the confusing closeness in her bedroom, and both of those followed by the tense ride to the restaurant, and now a strange confession she couldn't understand and couldn’t react to. Claire gave him back her most polite smile and scooted out of the car.

  Dinner was only slightly less awkward than the car ride. Davie rattled off their orders for a five-course meal to the maître d in rolling French without so much as glancing at the menu or discussing his selections with her. Still mad at him, Claire tried not to stare at Davie’s mouth while they ate, striving not to watch the way the sharp angle of his jaw twisted as he tasted his carefully cut filet, or the way his tapered fingers cupped gingerly around the fine crystal bowl of his wine glass. Whatever confusion was hounding Claire, Davie showed no signs of sharing it. He kept his eyes steadily on her throughout the entire meal, his face an expressionless mask while he watched her. His examination made Claire nervous, and she fumbled with her food, so much so that by the time dessert came, Davie had to reminder her which spoon was appropriate for the crème brulee the waiter delivered.

  “Do you remember,” Claire ventured, dipping her spoon playfully in the custard, “when you tried to make me crème brulee once, back when you took that culinary class in school, and you nearly burned down the kitchen?” She smiled at the memory, remembering how embarrassed Davie had been when he finally let her taste the very burnt dessert.

  “Yes,” Davie said simply. He folded his hands on the table, still staring at her. Davie never ordered dessert for himself. He preferred to watch Claire’s face as she tasted the sweets he ordered for her, saying that the expressions she made when eating were the best treats of all.

  “And, you were so embarrassed,” she continued, trying not to notice that his eyes were almost the same color now as that burnt sugar long ago. She twirled her spoon in the thick cream, accidentally making it coat the side of the small glass dish in creamy goodness. “You were so embarrassed,” she said again, her voice picking up speed like it did when she was nervous, “but you brought it to me anyway on a little silver tray, and…”

  “Claire,” Davie interrupted, his voice barely a whisper was terse and verging on sad. “You shouldn’t play with your food.”

  The tone of Davie’s voice, more so than his typical reprimand, made her look up at him. He looked forlorn, almost lost, even in his element, and yet looked impatient, frustrated. He reached up to fidget with his tie, almost knocking over his glass, and Claire saw what was wrong. He was nervous, maybe even scared, though she had absolutely no idea why. It wasn’t like Davie to be afraid of anything, least of all her. That would be unthinkable. She looked at him curiously, forgetting all about the spoon mid-twist in her fingers. The crème brulee slid back into the bowl.

  “I wonder if we shouldn’t talk so much about the past, Claire. Perhaps we should stay more in the present. Or, perhaps the future.”

  “The future?” Claire cocked her head to the side. The future had never been something she thought much about, a fact that had always irked Davie. She preferred to live in the moment, to take one day at a time and make every day a fresh adventure rather than living life on as a planned checklist of events. Besides, Claire thought, if she let each day be a surprise, the things that didn’t happen could never disappoint her, or memories she didn’t make.

  “Yes. I want to talk about the future…our future.” Davie rubbed his hand across his forehead, letting his thumb and pointer finger slide over his eyebrows. Claire hadn’t seen that anxious tick in years. It was a chink in his well-worn armor that meant there was more going on than he was saying. “I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time I…”

  “Time!”

  Claire groped for her watch. “It’s almost eight o’clock! We’ll miss Jake’s show!”

  Davie sighed heavily. With a frustrated flick of his wrist he tossed the napkin from his lap on top of the table and abandoned whatever he had been about to say. “Well by all mean, Ms. Baker, let us get the check then,” he snapped, eyes sparking like angry cannons. He signaled the maître d. Davie didn’t speak to Claire again as he paid the check and stalked outside to fetch their driver, leaving her to amble behind him to the car that waited at the curb like a hungry shark, ready to swallow her whole.

  Chapter 12

  The Jig was a shady, crumbling little pub where the waitresses wore short plaid kilts that barely covered their rumps, tank tops with The Jig scrawled across the front in glittery font, and way too much eyeliner smeared around their eye
s. Davie, again silent and brooding, held the pub door open for Claire with a handkerchief pointedly wrapped around the handle, squinting under the bright glow of the neon shamrock that drooped over the door.

  Inside the bar was littered with a bramble of mismatched tables and chairs that looked like they might have been procured from a hundred different yard sales. A scattering of characters smoking sweet-smelling cigarettes clung to every surface, loudly cheering at each other over pints of ale in unmatched mugs. There was a portly woman leaning forward on the scratched surface of the bar, her large breasts almost spilling onto the countertop as she handed a customer his drink. He was laughing so hard that half of it sloshed onto the floor.

  “Aye!” The woman yelled from behind the bar, seeing Claire and Davie walk into the pub, and sticking out like a pair of sore thumbs. Her hair was wild and coppery red and frizzy, and she spoke with a heavy Irish accent. “Luk at dat juicy lassy comin' in dis derdy auld boozer! An' waaat a 'andsum paddy wi' 'er! I’d lie down in the nettles with ‘im fer sure!”

  The last was met with a loud round of cheers from a bunch of less-than-sober-looking individuals near the bar, a few of whom made loud whistles in Claire and Davie’s general direction. One man with a ruddy face elbowed Davie in the side and gave him a winking thumbs up. Claire gave wild, fearful eyes to Davie, alarmed at the vulgarity in the pub that she understood, loosely, had something to do with them.

  Davie returned narrowed eyes as he straightened his tie smoothly and put his arm possessively around Claire’s waist. He seemed amused at her obvious discomfort, but mostly appalled at the rank crudeness of the pub. Either way, he was obviously ready to leave, and he motioned toward the door behind him, but Claire looked around wildly, scanning the crowd for Jake. She couldn’t see the tiny stage at the back of the bar, hidden behind a writhing mess of inebriated men and a few scantily clad women. A light skirmish had broken up in the back of the bar, and one man was hollering at the crowd, pummeling his chest victoriously.