Chapter Eight Barrett #2
With my hands on my hips, I paused before walking into her eyeline, tipping my head back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment.
There were eyes on me in situations like this; I’d have to be careful.
Bryce slid past her and took his seat, immediately talking with a tall, skinny boy next to him.
They leaned their heads in and laughed, so he must have been a friend of his from school.
When Lily’s face was visible in profile, I slicked my tongue over my teeth and walked over to the open chair at the end of the row, taking a seat wordlessly.
Her bare arm brushed against mine, and I kept my eyes forward, staring blankly at the stage covered in trees and garland and lights, the empty risers waiting to be filled with nervous students.
Mine wouldn’t be nervous, of course. But someone’s kid was.
Next to me, Lily shifted, and I desperately wished I’d changed from the short-sleeve polo I’d chosen that day.
Her skin was warm. Soft. And without me giving them explicit permission, my eyes darted down from the stage.
She was wearing dark jeans and a soft-looking charcoal sweater with short sleeves, combat boots with a chunky heel on her feet. Around her wrist was a bunch of delicate little gold and silver bracelets.
There was another tattoo just on the inside of her wrist, but in my peripheral vision, I couldn’t see what it was.
Finally, she turned in her seat and pinned me with a stare that I tried very, very hard to ignore.
“I’m concerned about you,” she said.
“Why’s that?” Even though every atom of my being implored me to look in her direction, I kept the impulse lashed down.
“Is it a small-talk thing? I hate it, too, don’t worry.
But it’s common to say hi. Polite, even.
Then I’d say hi back. Maybe a What are you doing at my daughter’s Christmas concert?
” Her attempt to sound like me had me closing my eyes for a moment so as not to threaten the structural integrity of my retinas because of the mighty eye roll wanting to be unleashed.
“Or are you afraid of women? Divorce can do a number on a man’s ego sometimes, and given your personality deficiency, I could understand if that was the problem. ”
My eyes snapped open and I slowly turned my face toward hers.
Immediately wished I hadn’t. Her eyelashes were darker and thicker.
Her cheekbones looked . . . shimmery, chiseled features of her face seemingly amplified by whatever simple makeup she’d added.
Her lips, already full, were glossy. Shiny. A shade darker than her normal color.
It took me only a single heartbeat to realize I hadn’t lied earlier. Lily wasn’t pretty.
She was so beautiful that it made my chest hurt.
“Hi,” I said simply. Her eyes blazed with heat. “What are you doing at my daughter’s Christmas concert?”
Lily quirked an eyebrow. “She begged me to come. I told her you wouldn’t want me here, but she was insistent that that was not the case.
” Why was her skin so perfect? This close up, I could see everything, every little fleck of color in her eyes, and I realized they were a deep blue.
I’d never seen eyes that color before in my life.
“I’m not in the habit of breaking a kid’s heart if I can avoid it.
So even if you hate that I’m here, I think you and I can play nice for the next hour, can’t we? ”
I ran my tongue along the bottom edge of my teeth, and she inhaled slowly.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” I told her.
Lily turned in her seat with a sharp pivot, and her arm moved away from mine. Bryce leaned forward, gesturing to his friend.
“Dad, this is Booker. He’s the friend I told you about.”
I managed a small smile, holding my hand out. “Nice to meet you, Booker. Thanks for hanging out with Bryce at school. I know he’s a little hard to manage sometimes.”
My son groaned, allowing a good-natured eye roll.
The boy smiled, clearly a little starstruck. “N-nice to meet you, Mr. King. Um, can Bryce maybe come over to my house over Christmas break? My mom said it’s okay.”
A friendly-looking woman with a big smile leaned forward, her waist-length braids shifting over her arm when she extended it to shake my hand.
I managed to return the handshake without touching Lily, which might go down as my biggest win for the night.
“I’m Booker’s mom, Imani. We can trade numbers if that sounds okay to you. ”
I nodded. “Sounds good. Bryce, why don’t you go ahead and give it to her.”
The boys immediately started planning, and I leaned back in my seat, expelling a quick sigh.
Lily gave me another pointed glance. “Well, I stand corrected. You can be friendly to people.”
“On occasion.” I flicked my gaze briefly in her direction. “I’ve yet to see you do the same thing, you know.”
“What?”
“Be friendly. I imagine you hissing at everyone new, smacking their hands off doors and trying to glare them back to a safe distance.”
“Are you saying people don’t like that? Weird. Maybe that’s why I don’t have any friends,” she mused. “Maybe I’ll work on my hissing technique,” she whispered, leaning in toward me like she was telling a secret. “Do you have friends, Mr. King?”
Before answering, I tried to count to ten. I made it to four. “I don’t have time for friends.”
To my utter surprise, Lily didn’t have a response to that. She merely sniffed, adjusting her long legs, crossing one over the other, the combat boot on her left leg bouncing slightly as we waited for the concert to start.
I recognized a couple of faces in the row in front of us.
One of the dads from Maggie’s class glanced back and stared at Lily’s legs, his gaze slowly dragging up to her face, where it lingered.
I crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes in his direction, and as much as I wanted to stop the scowl on my face, there was no helping it.
He caught my expression and blinked guiltily, giving me a little wave and a lift of his eyebrows.
Lily made a small sound just shy of amused. Could’ve been annoyance, but it was hard to tell. “Now, why you’d do that? Maybe I wanted to talk to him afterward.”
Watch the fathers of my daughter’s classmates fawn over Lily in public? I’d rather shove bamboo splints under my fingernails.
It wasn’t jealousy. There was nothing to be jealous of. I tried telling that to the fire lodged under my ribs, but each deep breath seemed to inflame it more. God, she was driving me out of my fucking mind, one interaction at a time. A couple more weeks and I’d need to be institutionalized.
“Trying to make some new friends?” I asked, choosing my words carefully.
“Maybe.” She sniffed, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. It smelled like vanilla. Why the hell did she always smell like cookies? “He’s cute. I bet he likes to be smacked around a little, don’t you think?”
The not-jealous burning sensation flared hot. I’d trade half my savings account for some TUMS. I needed to ask Bridget to start stocking them in my desk.
“He’s a spineless little dweeb,” I said, keeping my voice remarkably even. “You’d eat him alive.”
“Maybe that’s exactly my type.”
Now it was my turn to stare at her profile while she looked ahead. “No, it’s not,” I said in a low voice.
Her throat worked on a swallow, a flicker in her brow that conveyed surprise, maybe? Yeah, join the club, Townsend; I was even surprising myself.
“How would you know?” she replied quietly. Not just quietly, but there was a split second of unsteadiness in her voice that sent an unholy streak of satisfaction screaming through my veins.
Satisfied for what, exactly? That I wasn’t the only one affected? I didn’t want to dwell on that for too much longer.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say something dangerous and stupid, like she needed a man who knew how to handle her. A man who wouldn’t try to tame her but wasn’t afraid of her either. A man who would take much, much longer than fifteen minutes.
But all those words stayed locked down, safe behind my well-honed discipline.
“He’s also married,” I said instead.
She made a disappointed clicking sound with her tongue. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Otherwise, I love a spineless dweeb.” Her face turned, her eyes locking on mine until my heart thundered in my ears. “They’re so malleable.”
Before I could respond, the lights dimmed, and the first class marched out onto the risers. Lily faced forward, tilting her chin up and focusing on the little faces in front of us like nothing had happened.
It took me thirty minutes to get my pulse under control, and my hands finally relaxed when Maggie’s class took the stage.
I couldn’t keep doing this. Even having her on the periphery of my life for another day felt like too much. Something needed to change.
Immediately.