CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tune Me
SERENITY
Lake and I haven’t spoken since last night. I couldn’t force myself to sleep after Lake stomped up to his room. I thought about my sister. Lake doesn’t know how she died. He doesn’t know that I’ve been through this before. Maybe her death, and the constant struggle leading up to it, is why I cussed him out last night. Maybe I was too harsh, but so was he.
He acted like we had zero relationship. As if he hadn’t been cooking my meals and taking me to his rehab meetings. We’re friends, at the very least, but friends doesn’t explain the hollow dent in my chest. Since I watched him disappear upstairs, it’s like my heart stopped beating.
The sun is just pushing through the sky. I watch two squirrels chase each other right outside my window. The lighter one with a beige belly and gray spikey fur rounds the tree. It goes after the dark brown squirrel. They scratch their paws off the bark, and switch roles in sync. The darker one goes after the light. They scurry out of sight and appear again, zooming around the tree like they’re cars on a racetrack.
I’d love to stay here with my fleeting hope of napping and watch the squirrels all day, but I need to pee. I roll away from the dancing squirrels and squint my eyes at the dark room, just making out the shape of my crowded laundry basket. My arm escapes the cozy, warm blanket, and I tuck the fabric under my chin to make sure only my arm braces the cold. I pull open my dresser drawers, all of them are empty but my scrubs drawer.
The only chore I have around the house is my laundry. My scrubs are done, but with work and everything else happening, that’s it. I’m regretting the decision to not let Lake do my laundry for me.
I’m in nothing but cheap white underwear and a lace bralette.
Without preparing myself for the cold, I tear off my blankets and stand. The chilly air pokes at me as I dig through my laundry basket for a t-shirt. A yawn flushes tears into my eyes, and a second yawn almost knocks me off my feet. It’s impossible to find anything in this mountain, and I’m too exhausted to keep trying.
The sun is barely rising. Lake won’t be awake. I shake my shoulders and march to my door. I keep a hand on the wood body, opening it as quietly as possible. It creaks and I pause, cursing it under my breath.
I side-step into the hallway, and the moment I walk toward the bathroom, the door flies open. My eyes squeeze shut at the bright light shooting at me, and my feet stumble backwards until my back hits the wall. I try to open my eyes, but the light stunts me.
I smell something. What is that?
My heart revives in my chest, pumping a straight path to my throat. Teakwood. Cedar.
I peel open my eyes. Lake is standing in the doorway, a hand clenching the frame. He’s glued to the floor like a statue. Beads of water fall from his hair and splash on his shoulders. His other hand is gripping the towel on his hips.
Low on his hips.
All of his sculpted muscles are on full display. His abs are extending, then contracting and collapsing with each breath he takes, and of course, he has that V-shaped carved into his flesh, disappearing under the black fabric.
My ogling trails upward, each beat of my heart thudding harsher and heavier. My vision fully adjusts to the light, and feeling like a scared deer in the middle of a dark road, I freeze when I find Lake’s eyes flowing in a way I’ve never seen. Soft and somehow erratic. The tenseness hits me like a hurricane. He’s staring at me, but his vision is darting in every direction possible.
I drop my head and my cheeks set ablaze, because if I took the two extra minutes to find a t-shirt to cover up with, I wouldn’t have crossed paths with Lake at all, and he wouldn’t be catching me in stringy lingerie.
I bring my arms around myself, attempting to cover up. “Sorry,” I choke. “I didn’t think you’d be up.”
He doesn’t move, and neither do I. He tries to look me in the face, but my embarrassment cuts too deep to muster up the courage for eye contact. I glance beyond him into the bathroom. The mirror above the sink is free of steam—was he having a cold shower?
“Serenity.” Lake takes a step closer, and he tucks the fabric tight, keeping both his hands free. I tear my attention from his low, low abdomen when his hand brushes on my cheek. “Serenity.”
What is this? The way he’s looking at me. It feels raw. Pure.
“I’m sorry.” He licks his bottom lip. “Shouldn’t ‘of spoken to you that way.”
I soften. “Lake—”
“Visiting Ma isn’t easy, but I can’t take that out on you.” His finger taps on my cheek. He can’t stay still. He’s antsy, agitated, but this apology carries more importance to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t text and left you to worry about me.”
The cedar scent is hypnotic. I don’t answer him. All I do is take him in.
“You owe me nothing, Angel, and I’m not the biggest fan of you taking care of me.” He keeps his attention on my face. “Just not used to it.”
His eyes are hungry when they drop to my lips, and I brace myself to feel anew again, like I did on our sham-wedding day. But then Lake draws himself back, and I don’t know what comes over me, but that single step makes my arm shoot forward, and I haul him back into my space.
His eyes burn into passion, and I drop my shielded arm from my body, because there’s no point. There’s no point in covering what he can see in his mind.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I reach up to his neck, pulling him towards me. “I know.”
My hands delve into the skin on his neck, and a moan ripples out of my throat as Lake slams our mouths together. Closing the gap. Setting me alive. He pulls me by my waist until my chest touches his ribs. Pellets of water sink into my hands and fingers. The fabric on my hips sticks in place from his wet hands.
His tongue slips into my mouth, and a groan eludes him. I want to hear more. More noises from Lake—I’m supposed to be helping him stay sober. I break from our kiss, turning my head away. “We can’t.”
“Can’t what?” he asks.
“Anything. I’m supposed to be helping you. We can’t blur the lines we’ve drawn.” I sway my head. “You don’t want this, Lake.”
He doesn’t. He’s confused. I’m confused, and this was a mistake.
Lake grabs onto my jaw. “Serenity.” He smooths his thumb over my lips.
“You don’t like rom-coms, so you don’t like strings,” I repeat my rambling. “You don’t like me, Lake. Not like this.”
His thumb stops moving, and that stillness trails into Lake’s entire body as he freezes over. But then he brings his mouth right to my ear. “You don’t know how much I think about you, do you? I can’t get you out of my head.” He swallows. “You never leave my head.”
The heat between my legs dramatically increases, but I need to keep my thoughts clean. I’m supposed to be the level-headed one. The responsible one.
“What do you mean I never leave your head?”
He doesn’t even know about my sister, or about the trouble I’m in. So why is he looking at me like he knows me better than I know me? Like he wouldn’t be frayed if I lost a little control?
“Lake, I haven’t—” I struggle to formulate a sentence. He stays quiet, listening to my worried muttering. “You don’t want this Lake. You don’t want me, remember? And I need to be your support.”
The sexist laugh I’ve ever heard trickles right into my ear, and I can’t tell if I’m embarrassed, angry, or unfathomably needy for more of it. “Why are you laughing? Stop laughing.”
“Serenity.” His finger plays with the string on my hip. “I don’t want you, you’re right.”
I drop my shoulders and try to nudge away from him, but his hand flattens on my hip, keeping me still. “I need you. You are the only thing that keeps me clear.” He moves his hand up my skin, gentle, calm. “Ever since you brought me back to life, I’ve craved you more than I’ve craved anything.”
My pinky and middle finger squeeze around my wedding band. Is this what the ring means? A secret appreciation? Was the intimate moment in his hospital bathroom not a figment of my imagination? He feels this way too?
“You think I’d marry you and not think of your lips every damn minute?” he questions. “Struggling to not make you my vice?”
Vice. He just called me his vice. I lose any bit of motion I had, because I’ve never felt this way before—so sought from light touches and gentle words. I manage one last attempt. “You don’t crave me.”
“Who are you trying to convince, Angel?” He presses his lips into my neck. “Tell me you want me, Angel. Let me show you I’m sorry. Let me prove to you how much you’re on my damn mind.” He licks my collarbone, exploring it until a little gulp hitches my breathing.
He rests his lips on that spot, then grills his teeth across it. My nails dig into his muscular back. He brings his mouth off of my skin but leaves it to hover. He’s waiting. His fingers stroke on my skin like he’s tuning me. Like he knows I can sing the prettiest of melodies if I’d let him strum me in the right chord.
I breathe out. “Kiss me, Phoenix.”
He doesn’t take that lightly. His lips crash with mine and the ocean swallows me whole. I’m capsizing with the air he’s filtering into my lungs. And I’m clawing at his head, pushing it closer to me, so I can keep feeling my chest diffuse and burn.
He hooks his fingers around my neck, pressing gently and angling back my head. His tongue dives deeper into my mouth, and that confidence pushes me to finally slide my nails down over his glorious muscles without shame. I can sense his mouth stretch into a smile.
He draws away to suck in a breath. A string of spit breaks between us, and he rests his forehead on mine. My mind whisks back to the night we had dinner with my parents and he did the same thing. I realize it now; he was trying not to kiss me.
Lake Phoenix was struggling to not kiss me.
All my sober thoughts leave the building. If he stayed here with me like this, my back against the wall and his fingers etching my jawline—if he stayed this way with me for years, I wouldn’t budge.
“I wanna make you sing symphonies, Angel.”
Before I can respond, he turns my head to my left and grazes the flesh on my ear. “How does that sound?”
My jaw unlatches, and a gasp blows through my lips. His eyes swirl, filling with another thing I don’t recognize. An emotion, a color, I have no clue.
“Perfect Lake,” I whisper. “That sounds perfect.”
He breaks away from our stare, hunching himself forward and sliding his teeth over the material on my chest. Then more kisses rest on all of me. My chest, my collarbone, back up to my neck and down again.
If I make a sound, he repeats, like the tiny moan I croak out when he sucks the flesh on my neck. If my hands fly to any spot on his body, he repeats, like now, as yet another oxygen-filling kiss leaves me digging at his shoulders. He’s studying me like I’m his kryptonite, and he has the key to break me down.
He’s tuning me.
As much as I want to wrack up this sudden desperation to it being a while since I’ve willingly gotten within five feet of a person, I know it’s not that. It’s the way Lake is. Easy eyes and broad shoulders. The way kisses, tongue, and desperate confessions are making me moan with no control. This is all his doing.
“Lake,” I plead. “More. I want more.”
He huffs. That’s all I get is a huff and a quick, confident nod. Then his hand leaves my face and latches onto the back of my thigh. His other hand does the same, and my feet leave the floor. My weak, desperate legs cling around his waist.
He’s carrying me, dropping kisses on my skin and hauling me away.
“Phoenix—”
“I’ll give you more where there’s light, Angel,” he rasps.
The sunlight trickles through my window as he lays me on my bed. He’s still wrapped in his towel, but the dark fabric has deformed its square shape. If I could yell at him to remove it, I would, but I’m stuck here gawking.
I don’t care that he’s gawking back at me. I don’t care that my entire body is on display to him. In fact, I want him to stare. I want him to witness what he’s done to me.
“I went my whole life just phasing through it.” His palms cling around my ankles. “But you make me slow down and think, and all that’s on my mind is your pretty face. You’ve been driving me crazy.” He yanks me closer.
He continues looking me dead in the eye as I reach forward and grab onto his towel, dragging him right over the top of me. “I’ve wanted you this whole time, Serenity,” he says, a confession that plays in my ears like music, but I can’t seem to believe.
My voice hitches. “You have?”
His cheeks puff as he exhales. He does a subtle nod, and his knees sink into the mattress. He crawls further up my body, taking his time to spread my legs further apart and sink closer between me. His movement softens when my jelly legs go finnicky at the sudden pull.
“Look at that pretty face.” He sinks a kiss into my collarbone. “You want this, Angel?”
“Yes, Phoenix.” I smooth my palm down his cheek. “I do.”
He grins. “Then lift those dancing hips.”
I bite on my bottom lip, containing my smile. I raise my hips, and the anticipation just about kills me. He plants kisses around me, making me squirm and flutter. I moan, twirling strands of his hair in between my fingers.
I’m thrilled he didn’t ask me to get on my knees and stare out the window while he screws me from behind. The heaviness of his body on top of me mixed with little kisses—I love it.
“Phoenix, I can’t take your teasing anymore,” I sulk. “I’m going to go insane.”
Lake laughs like tomorrow doesn’t exist, and I can’t help but feel I’ve torn away a few of his layers. I mean, sure, the intimacy between us is about to explode, but he smiled and laughed. Not because he’s faking it to manipulate my parents, or trying to trick a nurse into giving him drugs. He smiled and now he’s laughing because of me. Because he wants to. Because he’s happy.
He asks, “you’re sure, Angel?”
I hook my legs around his back. “Yes.”