Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
WREN
I think if I knew we were taking some more purposeful steps (figuratively) toward a reconciliation, I might be able to relax and quit overanalyzing or flinching at every feeling that clangs through my brain. As we climb the concrete stairs from the beach and step (literally) into the park, an idea hits me.
“Two things,” I blurt before I lose my nerve. I’ve got to be the one to tip myself off the ledge, I think. “What if we share two bad, or petty, or hard, or annoying things a day while we’re here? And then we’re free to do what we want with the rest?” I turn to face him, body lifting with glee, like bells are chiming and baby angels are singing hallelujah from the perfect cotton clouds.
I love making deals with myself like this, from the mundane down to the big goals. Bargains that keep me moving toward something I want . If I put spinach in my eggs, I can also enjoy the cheese danish. If I get the menu for the week laid out now, I can slug away the entire following day and alternate between the couch and my bed and watch nothing but mindless reality TV.
“Let me get this straight,” he says, crossing his arms at his broad chest. “I’m supposed to tell you stuff I did not like about you, or things you did that I didn’t like, and that is somehow supposed to work toward my ultimate goal of getting you back?”
At this bold, blunt phrasing (and with exquisite timing), something rockets upward in my stomach in synchrony with the plummeting Drop Zone ride to my right. Screaming rings through the air like a background track in a horror flick. “Yes,” I say, rattled. “But you already promised you wouldn’t shy away from the hard stuff, and look what happened when—”
“Done.”
“—you told me about the mystery showers, it ended up being a good thing, and honestly, that’s what’s already happened whenever I journal.” His confirmation doesn’t register until I’ve finished my pitch. I swallow. “Some stuff won’t be as… harmless.”
“Done,” he repeats anyway. “I gave you one, now you give one to me,” he commands. And I might be a little hypnotized by it because I’m already drawing closer to him.
If I can tell him that I hated the way he used to shuffle his bare feet on the hardwood, I can also let myself touch him and have a blast with him on this trip. If I can tell him how I hated his inability to relax on days off, I can also let myself kiss him. Maybe even… No. No, I’m flushing and sweating before that particular thought can fully form. My heart is whirring in my chest like the Tilt-A-Whirl at the other end of the boardwalk.
If I can tell him all the ways he broke my heart by holding back with his, maybe I can have my husband back.
I start with something in between. “I wish you’d… uh. I wish you’d maybe been better with compliments.” Ope, it’s harder than I thought with him standing there, handsome and determined in his Spring Break Ken getup. It’s pathetic how much it’s working for me. His shoulders rise on a deep inhale. “I mean I didn’t need you to pen letters dedicated to my hair or worshipping at my feet at all hours, and you definitely showed me that you appreciated me, at times,” I add. “You were great at showing me you appreciated… parts of me… physically.” Jesus. I feel a bead of sweat drip down the back of my neck. “Sometimes it just would’ve been nice to be told things more often. I’d like to have known what you saw and what was in your head, more often.”
“Byrd, you don’t—” He reaches out and circles my wrist to pull me out of someone’s path. The movement brings us unbearably close again. “You don’t have to qualify it. Telling me what you wanted from me. Tell me so I know.”
The warmth is doing something to his scent here, amplifying it like an oven would a treat, and my mouth waters just the same. His salt and smoke surrounds me, a vein of something cool running through it that must cling to him from home. His hand is still looped around my wrist. How many bad things was I supposed to tell him before I could kiss him?
“I hated how you’d skid your feet along the floors,” I say huskily. It sounds more like I’d love to run my tongue along your chest. I wonder if he can see me staring at his mouth through my glasses. The mouth that’s pulling slowly into a crooked grin.
“I just wanted you to know I was coming,” Mouth says. “Didn’t want to sneak up on you and scare you.”
I laugh through my nose. “Oh, I could hear you, all right. Through two doors and up a whole set of stairs I could hear you skittering around.” His laughter rumbles through him, and my eyes finally break free, drifting up to his. I feel my smile fade. “It was too quiet when I moved, at first,” I tell him. I missed it after all.
His smile turns sad. “I didn’t play music at the house for two years after you left.”
The dull, constant ache sharpens into a knife-twisting pain. I shut my eyes against the force of it, the image of him alone in the house where we dreamed. No music. Only the sounds of his feet on cold, bare floors.
He tugs gently at my wrist. “Hey, no. Shit. Let’s not… let’s not do that.” The not yet hangs in the air. “The time’s past, Byrd. We’re here now. I don’t want to waste more of it being something that makes you sad.”
My free hand hooks his wrist, enclosing it as much as I can, like I can let him know I’m holding on, too. “I don’t want to be something that makes you sad, either.” We had so much happiness. It’d be a shame not to honor it alongside the tough shit. “I do… want to kick your ass at balloon darts, though.”
His face is inscrutable. I think it’s relief, or maybe gratitude? “All right. Don’t go easy on me,” he says.
“Never.”
He halts me when I move to turn away, dipping his chin close to my ear. “You were made for someplace like this,” he says. My body erupts in chills. “With that pile of golden hair and all your golden skin in the sun. I thought I missed your baking… That was nothing. I was starving to be near you again.”
With that, he slips past me and starts off toward the games, smirking at my stunned expression over his shoulder. “Game face, Byrd. You let a compliment throw you off your game, and I might get excessive with them.”