Chapter 37
BECKETT
Rain has taken over the square by the time we leave. Not the violent summer shit the city likes to dump without warning, but a warm late-September storm that has soaked the brick almost black and dragged the courthouse lights into gold streaks over the pavement.
We stop under the restaurant awning, shoulder to shoulder, the clean jasmine scent of Laurel’s perfume threading through every gust of cool, damp air.
“You brought an umbrella, right?”
I glance at the car half a block away. “Of course.”
“Where is it?”
“In the car.”
She laughs, full and bright, and walks straight into the rain.
“Laurel.”
She turns in the middle of the sidewalk and keeps moving backward, face tipped up as water soaks her hair and sends a strand sticking to her cheek. Dark patches are already spreading over her dress.
“What?” she calls. “You afraid of water, Vale?”
I’ve built an entire life around keeping my head.
I go after her.
The moment she realizes I mean it, she takes off, gathering one side of her dress in her hand as her laughter trails behind her over the wet pavement.
“Oh, now you run?” I call.
“You’re old!”
“I’m going to make you regret that.”
“Catch me first.”
She almost makes it, but I catch her beside the passenger door, hook an arm around her waist and pull her back into me. She laughs on a breath as she twists in my hold, palms coming flat to my chest, and just like that, neither of us moves.
My other hand has found the bare skin at the small of her back.
Fuck.
Rain slips through her hair and trails along her cheek. Her lipstick has faded at the center of her mouth, her chest rising against mine, and every filthy thought I’ve spent the evening keeping on a leash comes roaring back at once.
Her laughter frays into silence, blue eyes luminous in the rain, catching the courthouse lights until flecks of gold seem to move through them. They dip to my mouth, and mine follow to hers.
I could close the distance without trying, but her boundary comes back in her own voice. Not yet. Not until the divorce is finished. Not until her name belongs to her again.
My fingers ease at her waist, though every selfish part of me hates the decision. “I remember.”
Her expression softens, and her fingers bunch once in the front of my shirt. “I know.”
Neither of us steps away.
We stay there in the rain, soaked through and breathing too hard, grinning at each other like neither of us quite knows what to do with all this want and nowhere to put it.
And Christ, I’d stay right here until morning if she let me.
∞∞∞
We get into the car dripping all over the leather, and Laurel is laughing again before I even start the engine. I pull the spare handkerchief from the console and hand it to her. She unfolds it, glances at me and pauses.
“You carry a handkerchief?”
“I wear suits.”
“You are ninety.”
“You just lost a footrace to ninety.”
“You cheated. Your legs are longer.”
She dabs carefully under her eyes, and I turn the heat on low. For a few minutes we stay parked with the storm drumming softly over the roof and downtown Columbia blurred into amber through the wet windshield.
Neither of us makes a move to leave.
Laurel turns slightly in her seat. “So.”
I glance over. “So?”
“Was that your idea of dinner?”
“No.” I rest one hand on the wheel. “That was my idea of a date.”
Her lips press together, doing a terrible job of hiding how pleased she is. “Very confident.”
“I’ve got evidence.”
“You have pasta and rain.”
“You wore that dress.”
She gives me an affronted little stare. “I can wear a dress without consenting to a date.”
“You can. You also held my hand, stole my dessert and made me chase you through the rain.” I pause. “I’d take those facts to a jury.”
Her head shakes as she folds the damp handkerchief over her fingers. “For the record, I knew it was a date when you picked me up.”
I turn fully toward her. “You let me spend three hours wondering?”
“You looked very pleased with yourself. I didn’t want to interfere.”
“You’re mean.”
“And you’re blushing again.”
Fuck. I face the windshield, and the smug little sound she makes beside me strips away whatever dignity I had left.
“It was a good date,” she croons, and I melt from the inside out. “The best I’ve ever had.”
I take in the damp hair curling around her face, my handkerchief folded in her lap, the quiet certainty in her voice when she tells me she had the best date of her life with me, and the feeling goes frighteningly deep.
“Yeah,” I say. “Mine too.”
The rain follows us north, softer now, old country music playing low as Columbia disappears behind us and the highway stretches black beneath the headlights.
We talk with nowhere left to get to conversationally; she tells me about the first terrible apartment she rented after moving to Nashville, the neighbor who practiced trumpet at two in the morning and the summer she lived mostly on cereal because every royalty check went straight back into demo sessions.
I tell her about Lila putting gum in my hair when we were kids and Mom cutting out such a catastrophic chunk that I wore a baseball cap for three weeks.
Laurel laughs until her eyes water and demands photographic evidence I have every intention of denying exists.
Somewhere past Spring Hill, her hand appears on the console between us, palm-up and waiting.
I cover it with mine, and her fingers curl around my hand. We drive the rest of the way like that, joined between the seats, and when I pull up outside her house, neither of us lets go.
Her eyes drop to our hands before finding mine. “Thank you.”
I squeeze her fingers once. “Anytime.”
Laurel lifts our joined hands to her mouth and kisses the back of mine, right over the same place she kissed me at Studio B.
My fingers tighten around hers on reflex. I’ve spent the entire night starving for her mouth, and one soft press of it to my skin sends heat straight through me.
She starts to lower our hands, but I turn hers in mine and bring it to my mouth. My lips find the same spot she kissed me, lingering there until her breath catches.
“There.” I keep my eyes on hers as I raise my head. “Now we’re even.”
“Not even close.”
“No.” I keep her hand near my mouth for another second. “We really aren’t.”
She opens the door, pauses with one foot outside and glances back at me, her face soft in the porch light. “Goodnight, Beckett.”
“Goodnight, Laurel.”
She makes it halfway to the house, stops, and gives me a little wave over her shoulder.
Heat runs up my neck. My hand goes up in answer, and whatever she reads on my face makes her laugh. She touches her fingertips to her lips and sends the kiss my way.
I swear my heart stops.
Laurel slips inside while I’m still trying to recover, feeling like an idiot who just got waved at by the prettiest girl in school.
The door closes, and I sit there with rain ticking over the windshield and the memory of her hand still warm in mine.
Tonight I got her laugh, her hand in mine, hours that belonged only to us. Laurel running through the storm in green silk. Laurel telling me I gave her the best date of her life.
Christ, I’m going to remember every second of it for the rest of my fucking life.