“No, it’s not.” I warmed to my topic, my voice getting firmer. “You made some bad decisions maybe. Trusted the wrong guy. But it’s his fault for sending the pictures. And your dad’s for how he reacted. You can’t keep blaming yourself for other people’s bad actions.”
The room stayed quiet save for the hum of the air conditioner, but I swore I could feel him over there thinking.
“It’s hard,” he said softly, pain cutting into a tender place I hadn’t realized I possessed.
“I…I get it now. Why you want to win.” It was a clumsy way of saying that I understood him better after today, got why he’d needed to escape into Odyssey. I’d let myself be blinded by his looks and popularity and hadn’t seen the complex guy underneath. I understood now why he wanted to prove himself at this tournament so badly.
“Using a game as an f-you to my father probably isn’t the healthiest.” His laugh was rough.
“There are many worse possible coping mechanisms.”
“True.” He was quiet another long moment, then rolled again, this time his torso coming across the pillow so that he could press a quick kiss to my forehead. Every one of my muscles froze, tensing as my pulse pounded. I licked my lips, anticipating…
But then he retreated, only whispering, “Alden?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not convenient.”
For a second I thought he meant it as a put-down, an acknowledgment that I was a difficult person. Which I’d agree with. But then I realized that he was referring to what I’d said earlier about not wanting to be a convenient physical interlude for him, and my heart stuttered, my throat tightening around an unfamiliar surge of emotion.
“Thanks.” It was possibly the nicest—and weirdest—thing anyone had ever said to me. I kind of expected him to try to kiss me again. Okay, I wanted him to try to kiss me again. But he didn’t, instead settling back on his side of the bed, grabbing my hand as he made himself comfortable on his back again, this time with our linked hands resting on his chest. Very faintly, I could feel the thrum of his pulse. I wanted to hear his heartbeat, to press my ear against his skin and really listen. I needed to learn its steady pace and to absorb some of his undefinable energy.
“This okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I whispered, trying not to break whatever spell this was. It was more than okay. It was great. Possibly the most thrilling moment of my adult life, lying in the dark with Conrad, holding hands, listening as his breathing finally slowed and knowing that he was falling asleep clinging to a part of me. That impulse I’d had earlier—the one where I’d wanted to be Conrad’s convenient thing, even if only for the night—softened, changed. I realized I wanted to be the thing that gave him comfort for real. Wanted to be a safe place for him. I couldn’t give him back his family, and I’d be the first to admit I wasn’t exactly best-friend material, but he made me want to try, made me want to be someone he could count on. Someone who took care of him, not simply because it was the right thing to do, but because it felt so good to do it. Strange and confusing, but good.
And I wanted more.
Chapter Twenty-One
Conrad
We woke up at the appropriate time, everyone in their appropriate sleeping spots, with no unexpected morning snuggles. Which I was not nearly as relieved about as I might have expected. The only part of me touching Alden was my big toe, resting on his leg, and I took my sweet time removing it as he stretched himself awake, instead using it to trace the curve of his calf. He was more muscled than he looked, with runner’s legs, strong and lean.
“Hey, we survived, right?” I grinned over at him, hoping my eyes didn’t give away how much I wanted to run my fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair, find out if it was as soft as it looked. I’d ended up with most of the covers, and as he stretched, his faded blue T-shirt rode up on his stomach, revealing smooth muscle and a line of crinkly hair. Warmth pooled low in my gut.
“Yeah.” He moved his leg—not away, but almost as though he was playing back, foot rubbing against mine, flannel pant leg dragging against my bare skin. Then he gave me the sweetest, most tentative smile, and my chest pinched. This was why I couldn’t give in to the urge to pull him closer. Beyond the über-competitive, sometimes prickly exterior, he was one of the good guys. He cared. He’d taken care of me last night in a way that I hadn’t been taken care of and listened to in a very long time.
And I knew myself, knew how I usually acted with hookups. Alden wasn’t that kind of guy. He deserved better, probably better than I could give him.
“I should go find the food.” I didn’t want to break this cozy little wake-up, but I was about thirty seconds away from saying fuck it to my reservations and kissing him silly.
“Yeah. If you want to put the bags in the car, I’ll shower and meet you there.” He sat up, yanking his shirt back down.
“Sounds good.”
As he made his way to the bathroom with a change of clothes in his arms, I couldn’t help but noticing that he was—
Stop it, Conrad. I had to force myself to study the bland painting on the wall, not wanting to be caught perving on him. Happened to all of us in the morning. No big deal. Didn’t mean anything. Didn’t mean that he’d been as affected by our feet tangling as me, didn’t mean that he’d wanted to kiss as much as me, and it still didn’t mean that he needed what little I had to offer.
Dressing fast, I carried everything down to the car, then made my way to the small motel office where a pot of coffee, some doughnuts, and a few other sparse offerings waited. Some other guests were already there—a retired couple sitting by the window and a young family closer to the food. I had just helped myself to two doughnuts and a little carton of milk and snagged the last table when Alden came in.
When his eyes landed on me, he gave another of those hesitant smiles that made my stomach wobble. Then he made a face at the doughnuts, and I seized the chance to tease him a little, to try to bring back whatever passed as normal between us.
“Don’t mock my breakfast, Mr. Healthy. And they were all out of twigs for you, but there are little packets of oatmeal and hot water.” I pointed to the counter. My plan didn’t work though, my body still insisting on noticing the droplets of water on his neck, the ripple of fabric across his shoulders as he turned.
“That’ll do.” He mixed two oatmeals with hot water and milk before coming to sit across from me, sliding me a sad-looking banana. “Here. Have some vitamins.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“He’s not your mom.” Next to us, one of the kids, a boy with glasses, turned around in his chair.
“Nope.” I offered him what I hoped was a friendly smile.
“Brother?” he persisted.
Hmm. What was Alden anyway? Three days ago, I would have said he was a pain in the neck. My fiercest rival. But not a friend. And now… I simply wasn’t sure. And apparently, my indecision showed on my face because Alden released a long-suffering sigh.
“We’re traveling together to an Odyssey convention,” he explained, literal to a fault, but the kid accepted this answer with a solemn nod.
Across the table, the kid’s older brother tilted his head, eyes going wide with surprise and recognition. “Hey! I know you! You guys are on YouTube! You’re famous!”
“Well, maybe not famous.” My face heated, but Alden merely gave the kid an indulgent smile.
“You play?” he asked. As at the arcade, the kid responded to him instantly, smile broadening as he leaned forward.
“Yeah. On here.” He held up a tablet. “But I keep losing. It’s like I can’t play my cards fast enough before the other side kills me.”
“Tim. Don’t bug people while they’re trying to eat,” the mom broke in.
“It’s okay.” Alden waved her concern off. “If you’re falling behind, play smaller cards more strategically. Don’t wait for your
big stuff. What sort of deck are you playing?”
With that invitation, the older kid moved to the empty chair at our table, showing Alden his tablet, and they spent the next several minutes deep in strategy conversation. Alden was ridiculously good at patiently explaining little details to the kid, pointers that I wouldn’t have thought to mention because some stuff had become second-nature to me. And I stayed amazed that someone as competitive as Alden could have any sort of tolerance for newbies, but he was surprisingly gentle with the kid, cheering when the kid got a few moves right with his advice.
“Wow.” The mom laughed. “I haven’t seen him so focused in ages. You’re good. Is your day job teaching?”
Alden flushed. “No. I’m…still in graduate school. Trying to figure out my next steps.”
“Well, you’re great with kids.” She offered him an encouraging smile.
“You do love explaining stuff,” I teased him. “And you’ve got all those teacher heroes. I’m telling you. You should teach.”
“Professors have to publish. Frequently. Writing is hardly my favorite use of my time.”
“So don’t be a professor.” I shrugged. Didn’t seem that complicated to me, but he frowned. “Remember your whole Miss Betsey thing? No reason why you couldn’t teach whatever age you wanted to.”
“You don’t understand. There are certain…expectations.”
I rolled my eyes because I was pretty sure those expectations were as much his own as whatever his moms heaped on him. His little-kid dream of teaching was damn adorable, and I hated that his moms had never encouraged it. But I didn’t have a chance to push him on that because the kid had another question, and then it was time for us to hit the road. I took the first shift, in large part because I was eager to see the ass-end of Kansas in the rearview and because the distraction of driving would keep the memory beasts at bay.
At least I hoped. My chest kept the weird tightness of the night before—too much dry air, too much emotion, too much awareness of Alden. Mainly that last one. Despite its size, the car was too small. I could smell his soap and whatever he’d used to shave with, something spicy that made him seem even more lickable.
Bad, Conrad. No licking. I made myself focus on the road, not my increasingly inconvenient reaction to Alden.
The familiar ads for Wizard of Oz and dinosaur-themed attractions sped by, but luckily, Alden seemed more focused on getting to Denver by noon than on stopping and exploring. We mainly talked the game—a nice, safe topic that got us through Kansas. My shoulders unkinked a little at the border even as my chest stayed fluttery, but as the terrain started to shift in Colorado, I relaxed a little more. By the time we needed to stop outside Denver, at a sleepy little truck stop, I was able to appreciate the pristine blue skies and arid, high-desert air. Not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. I took a big breath of memory-free air, still trying to shake the cobwebs or whatever from my chest.
Alden wanted a picture of me goofing off with a funny sign decorated with mountains and hearts at the edge of the parking lot, behind the main buildings, so I obliged him before pointing out the mountains in the distance. From our vantage point, countryside extending to the start of the hazy, gray range, it felt as if we were two pioneers on a great trek, us against the world. I smiled at my fancifulness.
“See? You can tell we’re out of Kansas. Finally.” My chest felt tight and crackly, but I couldn’t tell whether it was altitude or pent-up emotion.
“You know, on the way back, we could—”
“No more talk about my family.” I tried to get a deep breath and failed. “I just meant that we’ll make Las Vegas in time. Promise.”
“Are you okay?” Studying my face, Alden touched my arm.
I tried again to breathe, but a cough came out instead.
“Damn it. Altitude. Forgot how that always affects me,” I explained between coughs, lungs tightening further. Hell. All the weird chest feels suddenly made more sense, and familiar dread filled my stomach. “Took morning med. But…”
“Where’s your inhaler?” Alden sprang into action, pushing me to sit on a flat rock, concern evident in his dark eyes, but as with Jasper’s emergency, he was firm and decisive, not freaking out. Funny how it was often the little things that seemed to make him more anxious. Right then, however, I was more grateful for not being alone than for his cool head in a crisis.
“Car. Backpack. Front pocket.” More coughing as Alden sprinted away. The asthma attack that had threatened the night before was nothing compared to this full-on constriction, each breath a shallow cough. It hadn’t been this bad since…
Wait. This place was not memory-free after all. My last trip west, right after high school graduation. The never-ending dust and high elevations had turned what was supposed to be a fun family camping trip into an exercise in frustration—me battling the asthma and Dad not understanding. But there had been good moments too, like him telling me he was proud of me for graduating, and family pictures with the mountains as a backdrop. Hell. Asthma and all, I wished I could go back to my past self, tell him to slow down and enjoy it, to not be so eager to race ahead to Gracehaven.
Alden returned far faster than I expected, running back, barely winded. And I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t appreciate how fine he looked jogging—long strides, confident motions, striking features.
“Thanks,” I wheezed as he sat next to me, holding out the inhaler. His eyes were still tight with concern, but his hand was soft and soothing as he rubbed circles on my back. A little self-conscious, I used the inhaler as he kept a hand on me. Him taking care of me felt a little too good, like icy lemonade on a hot day. And it brought back memories I didn’t want—my mom wrapping me in a winter scarf, my grandma’s towering cakes, my grandfather’s booming welcome. Alden’s gentle touch and concern felt like everything I’d been missing and hadn’t even realized, but it also felt like something I had no right to enjoy.
Oh, he’d said it wasn’t my fault, and part of me wanted to believe him, but guilt still clouded my thinking. And behind the guilt was frustration too. I’d handled my business all damn year. I didn’t suddenly need a caretaker, and letting myself get too used to his quiet sympathy was dangerous. Didn’t want to have to miss him along with everything else.
“Better now.” My voice came out defensive as I shrugged away from his touch.
His exhale was shaky, as if he needed to steady himself, and even more guilt flooded me. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. But before I could apologize, he spoke, voice deliberate, as though he was having to will himself to stay even. “Good. Let’s sit another minute, though, before walking back. Take our time.”
“You don’t have to baby me.” Snapping was far easier than giving voice to the part of me that wanted to beg for the return of his touch, that wanted to wallow in how nice it was to not be alone right then.
“I’m not.” He sounded pained, but I was too full of jumbled-up emotions to slow down, adrenaline, longing, embarrassment, fear, all of them competing for mental real estate.
I whirled on him, words tumbling out one after the other, fear winning the war in my brain and all my worries spewing to the surface. “Why the heck have you been so nice to me? You hated my guts for three years. Why the change? Is it because I told you about my family? It’s because you feel sorry for me, isn’t it?”
“You think I hated you?” His voice was small and faraway.
“Didn’t you?” I demanded, even as I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alden
“You think I hated you?” I sounded stricken even to my own ears. Silence stretched between us, whipping wind chilling me every bit as much as his lack of reply. He shrugged, which made me need to swallow hard before I could continue. “I always thought it was the opposite—all your teasing. You always seemed to barely tolerate me.”
His forehead crea
sed. “You mean my trash-talking? You thought I was serious all those times I dogged you?”
“Sometimes.” I shrugged, hating this. “It can be hard to tell.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think…” Conrad exhaled hard. “And okay, maybe I made things worse, but you never seemed to like me, even from the first. Come on, admit it. You hated me for a long time.”
In that instant, I wished more than anything that lying came easily to me. Especially around him. Because I could feel the truth welling up, and I wasn’t sure I trusted him with it, but a quick retort simply refused to come.
“No. I wish.” I looked away, studying the mountains.
“What do you mean?” His tone was less demanding now, more curious. My brain kept flashing back to the night before—to holding hands in the dark, to how close I’d felt to everything I’d never let myself want.
I couldn’t not say the words. “I wanted to hate you,” I admitted. “You came in as a freshman, and it was like… Everyone loved you. Every. One. The professors. The lovesick kids at the Safe Space Alliance who followed you around. The play group. You were…golden.”
“Ha. I’m not golden. Just look at my last year. More like tarnished brass or some crap. You mean you were jealous because I was popular?”
“A little.” More like I’d wanted a piece of him for myself, wanted to capture all that golden sunlight he didn’t seem to think he had, but I didn’t know how to articulate that. “It all seemed to come so easily to you. Friends. School. Dating. I was…bitter, maybe. Harsh. Rude, probably.”
“Not that rude.”
“Liar.” I managed a rusty laugh. “That’s what I mean though—social stuff, it’s never been easy for me. Getting hung up on rules, getting anxious about stupid things and then snapping, that’s easier. And I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be…difficult.”
“You’re not difficult.” His reply was a little too quick to be believed. “Really. Not everyone needs to be an extrovert. And sometimes, it’s a curse—like everyone expects me to be happy and fun to be around. And then this last year, I haven’t been much fun at all, and a lot of my crowd drifted away. Better to have a few good, loyal friends than a good-time crew that ghosts as soon as shit gets hard.”
Conventionally Yours (True Colors) Page 17
