Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Seventeenth encounter
“What do you do when you’re not feeling well, Lucas?” she whispered, tracing circles on his bare chest. She immortalized herself on his skin with each touch, leaving her imprint beneath it.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t do anything?”
“I wait until it’s over.”
“What do you do when you get impatient?”
He hesitated, stroking her soft hair that tickled his chin. “I’m with you right now, aren’t I?”
Lucas followed Anna into the BBQ joint and looked around. Animal heads hung on the walls, the smell of scorched meat filled the air, and tinny country music blared from two speakers on the wood-paneled walls.
Charming.
He didn’t know what he was doing here, only that he couldn’t leave Anna alone. He’d seen her nervous before, like when she’d summoned him to her bed to distract herself from her exam worries, when he’d discovered her sex toy drawer, and when she’d asked if he wanted to be friends.
However, he’d never stayed long enough to experience the full effect of Anna’s nervousness. And he realized he didn’t like it.
How self-conscious she became. The way her head sank between her shoulders as if she was smaller than usual, and the way her fingertips twitched. It was as if Anna wasn’t comfortable in her own body or mind.
Shit. He already disliked the person she was supposed to meet in the seedy, backwoods bar, just because they made her feel that way. In his opinion, a person who made Anna Temple feel insecure simply shouldn’t exist. And he hated the thought that he might have been that person.
He would have stayed in the car if she’d asked him to, but when she’d pulled into the restaurant parking lot, she’d just looked at him and let out a very long sigh.
He’d freely interpreted that as an invitation.
Anna stopped directly in front of him, jutting out her chin. She rubbed her hands together and glanced at him anxiously over her shoulder.
“He…doesn’t seem to be here yet,” she murmured, checking her watch.
“Who is not here yet?”
It wasn’t a date. She wouldn’t have taken him on a date! She didn’t have a boyfriend. Everything was…fine.
So, not that he’d mind if — oh, fuck. It would have bothered him if that shitty boyfriend actually existed. He wouldn’t have done what he did with Anna in the shower if she’d been a taken woman.
The thought that within a few days of seeing someone else, Anna had not only kissed him, not only slept with him, not only moaned his name… It bothered him. It shouldn’t have, but the idea of other hands on her body…
To me, it sounds like at first sight, you fell…
No.
No, no.
He rubbed his shoulders and took a step back so he wouldn’t inhale Anna’s scent. It was obviously driving him crazy.
“Should we sit?”
Anna nodded and strolled over to one of the empty tables to her right, her gaze constantly glancing back at the entrance. She hadn’t answered his question. Overall, she’d barely spoken after their little discussion in the car.
Which, in turn, made him nervous. He hadn’t realized it until half an hour ago, but Anna had the ability to make you feel comfortable with her chatter, to feel strangely confident in her presence, as if you could hardly do anything wrong as long as you didn’t forbid her from flirting with hockey players or jumping into bed with them.
He had no problem with silence. He even encouraged it.
Leon, for example, would definitely benefit from a daily dose of about eight hours of silence.
Anna, however, hated silence. She had to fill every silent second with words or sounds so that it didn’t stretch into infinity and become unpleasant.
He’d known that since their first evening when she’d chosen the completely wrong hockey player.
So the fact that she wasn’t saying anything now…
“Talk to me, Anna,” he murmured, sinking next to her on the bench at the corner table she’d chosen, which offered the best view of the door.
“What?” Her eyes shining, she turned to him. Again and again, she tucked her curls behind her ears, which defiantly sprang forward again.
“I want you to talk to me,” he whispered. It might have been the first time he’d ever spoken those words. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She swallowed and bit the inside of her cheek. “No talking. That was the deal.”
“Yes. Talk. Please.” Because he couldn’t bear her silence. “Our deal is long over.”
She sighed and looked up as a waitress approached their table. She didn’t even glance at her, just stared at Lucas.
“What can I do for you?”
He returned her gaze darkly. He wasn't alone, so why was the waitress only looking at him?
The waitress's cheeks flushed a deep red and she quickly turned her gaze to Anna. “Would you like something to drink? Otherwise, here are our menus.” She placed a laminated menu in front of them, and Lucas was surprised to find a small smile tugging at the corners of Anna’s lips.
“Coke for me, Fanta for him,” she said, and as soon as the waitress disappeared, she shook her head at him. “You can’t just scare innocent waitresses like that, Lucas.”
He frowned. “She spoke only to me even though you’re sitting right across from me. It irritated me.”
Anna laughed, the sound like a ray of sunlight slipping through the dusty windows. “Well, that’s because you’re hot,” she informed him conspiratorially…before returning her gaze to the door.
A tingle ran down his neck. He assumed she didn’t regard him as ugly, but it still didn’t suck to hear that she thought he was hot.
“And hot people are thirstier, or what?” he asked sharply. Her argument made no sense to him.
Anna snorted. “No, but they make waitresses hungrier.”
“Yeah, I’m not interested in that at all.”
“Of course not.”
“You’re changing the subject, Anna.”
She tore her gaze away from the entrance and fixed it on him. “Fine,” she murmured, grabbing her braid and letting it fall. “I’m meeting my father.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You have a father?”
He had assumed he was dead.
To his surprise, she laughed. “That’s an accurate response. Yes, I do. He’s mine and Dax’s dad. Temple Senior. He was an asshole. I was telling you about him the other day. Drinking problem. Gambling problem. Anger problem. The whole gamut.”
Fuck.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She waved her hand as if reading his thoughts. “He didn’t beat us, well, except for Jack, once. He just did a shitty job. Dax hates him like he hates penalty minutes.”
“What about you?” Lucas asked quietly.
Surprised, Anna glanced at him. “What about me?”
“You have a habit of always mentioning your brothers and their attitudes toward your family or each other, whereas you minimize your own opinions.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Yeah, maybe. Most of the time, people just ask about my brothers.”
“I don’t care about your brothers,” Lucas stated dryly, placing his forearms on the table and leaning forward, facing Anna. “I hear their names far too often as it is. What do you think of your father?”
She smiled tightly. “I haven’t seen him since my mother’s funeral. I mirrored Dax, and haven’t been in touch. Not that he’s bothered to try at all. Maybe Dax told him he’d kill him if he called me again. It would be just like Dax to do that.”
“It wouldn’t have been his damn decision though, would it?” His voice was even darker than before because it was starting to irritate him how often Dax interfered in his sister’s life.
“No,” she stated simply. “But, at the time, I was glad to be able to put it behind me. The thing is…”
“You didn’t put it behind you.”
Tired, she smiled. “Do you ever put your childhood behind you, Lucas?” she asked in an exaggeratedly tragic tone. “Aren’t we all victims of our inner child?”
“Right now it sounds like you're the victim of a psychology podcast, Anna.”
Her smile broadened. “Well, it’s kind of true.
He contacted me a year ago, sent an email saying he’d like to see me…
” She sighed heavily. “Dax wouldn’t understand, but I want to forgive our father.
I don’t know if I can. But I want to badly, so that this wound left behind by the people that I should have been able to trust blindly will finally heal.
So that I stop expecting that something good will be followed by something terrible: a nice family dinner is followed by smashed dishes, calm followed by a storm.
To the best years with Jack and Dax, years full of anger and bitterness.
You know I became a doctor because I was good at patching up Dax and Jack, but also because I wanted to help people.
When I hadn’t been able to help myself or…
or us, all these years. Because I was too young, too weak, and too helpless.
And now I know I’m an adult, strong and competent.
But every time Dax and Jack try to protect me, they only remind me of who I was back then, that helpless girl who could only watch her family fall apart.
Who couldn’t convince her mother to leave her father, and couldn’t convince their father to leave Jack alone.
Who couldn’t convince her brothers to let her join them in their fight.
” Her eyes brightened and, clearing her throat, she looked away.
Lucas wished she wouldn’t do that, that she would look at him. Maybe his gaze could give her strength. By God, she’d done that for him often enough.
She sighed heavily. “It’s so vile, you know?
That the bad things that happen to us stick with us so much longer than the good ones.
That bad experiences leave larger marks on our hearts than good ones.
That the smallest moments can have gigantic consequences while the long stretches in our lives leave almost no impression.
Short-term happiness can leave long-term damage.
Short-term damage can ruin long-term happiness. It’s…it's not fair.”