Page 34 of His to Cherish
His Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed. So freaking sexy.
Going back to his standard action of staring at my yard, he was quiet for a beat.
“This last week was hard.”
He shook his head, clearing something from his mind, and stopped speaking.
I always allowed his silence, but today I wanted more than that. I wanted to know why.
I had so many questions. Why had he pushed me away? Why had he seemed so angry when he saw me? What was the point of the overindulgent breakfast?
“You’ll probably have a lot of hard weeks.” I almost bit my tongue, but between him and Shane, I didn’t think I had the time to be quiet anymore. Too much healing needed to begin. Perhaps enough time hadn’t passed; it’s not like I knew the full extent of what either of them was going through, but I also figured it couldn’t hurt anything further by trying.
Except for potentially my heart.
His eyes narrowed on me, and that glacial look he’d mastered so well began to freeze the space between us.
I pushed forward. “I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing pushing away the people who care about you will only make those hard weeks harder.” I took a sip of my coffee, which was quickly becoming lukewarm. “Like Shane.”
My lips twisted.And like me.The words were on the tip of my tongue, but based on the expression he gave me with a quick nod and glance away to his own frosted pink creation, I figured he understood what I left unsaid.
His jaw tightened as he stared at a row of tulip bulbs planted along the border of a pathway. Due to the hotter than normal March and April temperatures, they’d blossomed earlier this year. Soon I’d be able to experience the short season of bright colors lining one side of my yard. They were my favorite.
He was staring at them like he wanted to rip every single bulb out.
“I don’t blame Shane.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Not really. I’m just pissed…at everything.” He bit out the words like they tasted like dirt. I knew I was going to cross a line, but I couldn’t help myself.
The sugar rush was making me stupid.
“Don’t you? It was Shane who loved to skateboard, wasn’t it?”
His gaze snapped to mine. The arctic burst of air in his eyes was thick and suffocating. “Why are you doing this?”
I shrugged and reached for a bagel. “Maybe because I think you’ve already been asking yourself these same questions and now you have someone to yell at, someone to unload on instead of keeping it all inside.”
“You read some psychology books on your lunch breaks?”
My shoulders flinched at the insult. I bit back the smart retort I wanted to say and leaned back in my chair.
He examined me with penetrating eyes. Eyes that seemed dark and bright at the same time, and I didn’t know how it was possible.
They stirred something inside of me as he tilted his head toward his right shoulder. Something I shouldn’t be feeling, not with a wounded man in front of me.
When he ran his hand through his thick, dark locks, I longed to reach out and follow his movements.
I wanted it to be my fingers…my hands taking away his stress and his sorrow.
Slowly, he sighed and shook his head. Clearing it of the anger.
“I’m being an asshole. And I don’t mean to be. I really am sorry about the other night.” He turned away, back to talking to my evergreen shrubs and tulips. “You help, you know. I took advantage of that…last week.”
When he kissed me.
My lips tingled at the memory, even if he still sounded upset that it had happened.
I was, too. It had changed something. I didn’t know if whatever we were maybe, probably not, but potentially building before then could be repaired.
His gesture this morning was over the top and yet necessary. I had needed to know that at least our time together hadn’t been just about me wanting to help him, but him wanting to be with me—in some way. There was nothing else that could go wrong with a dose of honesty.
