“Okay. That’s good.”
“He…” His throat tightened. “I think he hates me.”
“Oh,” she said, and then her expression shifted. “Oh.” She offered a thin smile. “Did you guys have a fight?”
“I guess that’s what it was.”
“Are you guys…together?” She hesitated. “Like Roman and I are together?”
He thought of that last night, after Stephanie had lied down. When Tenny had kissed him, so wet and desperate, had bitten his lips and breathed wounded sounds into his mouth. Thought about every breakfast and lunch and dinner together, the runs, the ops. They were rarely ever separated. Theywerefriends. Reese had never experienced anything like companionship before; had never had anyone elbow him in the ribs and laugh, and expect him to laugh back. And he’d never known that inner burn of desire before. There had been girls, always, but Reese had looked at them less and less. It was Tenny, over and over, that captured his attention, in the throes. Tenny’s hands on him that left him shivering.
He didn’t know if there was a word for all of that.
He wasn’t sure he knew anything anymore.
He watched sympathy bloom on his sister’s face; once upon a time, he hadn’t been able to read that expression for what it was. He’d learned so much.
And yet he felt like he’d lost something, too.
“Reese,” she said. “I know you – like him. Obviously. But maybe it’s time to start making other friends. Maybe you’d like to date someone.”
He blinked at her, surprised. “Date someone?”
“Yeah,” she said, smile widening, warming to her topic. “If Tenny doesn’t feel the same way as you, then you ought to find someone who does care about you.”
He leaned back in his chair, stunned yet again.
“Just something to think about.”
~*~
As he left, a few minutes later, he heard Roman’s voice behind him. “You didn’t really encourage him to start dating, did you?”
“I did. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Babe, he’sterrifying. I don’t think eHarmony has an Assassin option when you set up your profile.”
The rest of their conversation was lost behind the closing front door, but that wasn’t what Reese was thinking of as he walked to his bike and clipped on his helmet. Kristin had brought him coffee, and that, plus his newly racing thoughts, burned the last of the wine-fog from his senses and left him tingling faintly.
Date? He understood the concept only in the loosest terms, from what he’d gleaned from movies and TV. Meals were involved, tables for two. Talking, and talking about the sorts of things that left both parties laughing and blushing in turn, leaning ever-closer together.
The idea held no appeal, as a superficial exercise.
But.
If Tenny didn’t want anything to do with him…he wasn’t sure he could go back to his former robotic indifference. He felt random stirrings of lust; he didn’t want to be alone, sometimes. He liked the elbow in the ribs and the laugh in his ear.
He’d started working toward personhood, and he didn’t want to go backward, he realized. Wasn’t even sure he could, if pressed.
He had to ride past the under-construction shops on Main Street on his way back to the clubhouse, and cast a glance toward the boarded-up lower windows at Bell Bar: no new graffiti.
It was a quiet night, relatively speaking. Light traffic, the promise of rain on the humid air. As he made the last turn onto the long, riverside road that led to Dartmoor, he saw lightning flare muted and distant along the cloud bellies ahead.
And he saw lights out on the water.
He slowed, taking stock. It was a boat. A small, but fast ski boat with a tow bar arching overtop. He could hear the loud drone of its engine even over the rumble of his own – at least until he hit the throttle and continued on.
He thought to catch up to it, an instinctual urge, accompanied by an uptick of concern in the back of his mind – but it was too far ahead.
