Chapter 21
[Stone]
Iappreciate that Taxi wants privacy, but I’m not about to leave her alone. She was woken by bad news, raced to an airport, and rushed to a hospital, then napped hunched over beside her ailing aunt’s bedside. I didn’t trust her mental capacity or physical ability to be alone.
And I was also being fucking selfish.
I was one-thousand percent certain Taxi could take care of herself, and yet I wanted to be here for her, whether she wanted me to or not.
This was my way of trying to process what happened to Trudy. I needed to do something, and that something was to be present for her beautiful, yet annoying, niece.
Being tough skinned, I could take her little jabs and sharp tongue if she needed someone to lash out on. Needed some way to make sense of a frightening heart attack striking her beloved aunt.
After my mother passed, and my father changed, I’d built resilience.
With every insult he hurled, I reminded myself he was hurting.
He’d lost the love of his life. He was left with seven children to raise when she’d been the nurturer.
But when his insults turned to something deeper, more sinister, my compassion wavered. My sympathy waned.
However, Taxi is not my father.
She is hurting in a different way. Fear. Confusion. Relief because her beloved aunt will live.
As I busy myself cleaning up the kitchen and washing the plate I used, I hear Taxi move through the small house. Her path to the bathroom. Her return to the living room. The light goes out in the other room.
I meant what I said. I’m not leaving. She can ignore my presence all night, but I’ll be parking myself in a hard-backed, wooden chair in this square kitchen. In the morning, Taxi will need a ride back to the hospital, and I use that as an additional excuse to stay.
I’ll be here for her.
In truth, I’m relieved Taxi is here, as we don’t know what is next for Trudy.
Or for Simon, for that matter. Because a ten-year-old boy cannot be the caregiver for a recovering heart attack patient, not that Judd or I would let that happen.
Especially Judd. Recalling my own childhood, and the way things flipped from my being a pre-teen to practically a parent, I don’t want that kind of responsibility falling on another child, even if Simon is excessively competent.
When I pull the kitchen chair away from the table, it scrapes on the linoleum flooring, and I wince as the noise sounds like thunder rattling the shingles on the roof.
Taxi needs her rest, and I take a seat, setting my phone in my hand to send out an update in the family group chat about Trudy’s condition and Taxi’s present location.
As if just thinking of her conjures her, she’s suddenly standing in the entrance to the kitchen. Her wild dark hair is tied up on her head and she’s wearing a deep magenta velvet robe that looks three-sizes too large for her.
“It’s Aunt Trudy’s,” she says, glancing down at herself before leaning against the opening to the kitchen. One leg crosses over the other, separating the fold of the robe and exposing the shapely length of her leg. Her head tips to the side as she tugs at the two ends of the robe’s belt.
“I can’t sleep.”
Once upon a time, I’d argue with Hudson or one of my younger siblings that they hadn’t given sleep enough of a chance. They’d want a drink of water or need to use the bathroom for a third time.
Only ten minutes might have passed since Taxi told me she wanted to lie down.
“I need a distraction.” Her silver eyes are exhausted and sad, but also sheepish, and she quickly dips them, glancing down at her toes. “Want to take my mind off things, Superman?”
Leaning back in the hard chair, I stare at her for a long moment. Taking in how she’s avoiding a glance in my direction, while her voice drops lower. Low, but tired, despite what I think she’s proposing.
Her shoulders hunch forward. Her hand clutches at the two folds of the robe before both hands slip into the giant pockets.
She doesn’t really want what she’s suggesting.
As much as the nickname she’d given me once upon a time sends my belly swirling, tonight isn’t the night for anything other than rest.
And the longer I stare at her, I realize her ask might be a silent cry for comfort and support, not one of desire.
Her vulnerability tears at my sternum.
Slowly, I stand from the kitchen chair and close the distance between us, scooping a few loose strands of her hair around her ear and cupping the back of her neck.
Taxi shifts, releasing her hands from her pockets and crossing her arms over her chest, like a small barrier between us. A wall between what she’s asking for and what she really needs.
Tipping my head forward, I bring hers to mine, resting our foreheads together.
“Tallulah Alexander, I’d give you anything you need, but I won’t do this.” My tone is quiet but firm. I’m not rejecting her, I’m accepting her pain. I’m sensing she’ll regret any decisions made under stress and exhaustion.
“Because of Emerson,” she quietly asks.
I shake my head gently against hers before pulling back and tipping up her chin, so she’ll look at me. Those silvery eyes that I recall as so playfully gleaming are dull, almost gray, cloudy on the verge of a quiet storm.
“Taxi, I already told you that Em is nothing more than a friend, but I’ll reiterate it again. Nothing ever has, and nothing ever will, be more than a work friendship between us.” I stare into those eyes that make my knees a bit weak. “I haven’t been with anyone since long before last summer.”
The last bit of information isn’t necessary for our current position. The one where she is vulnerable and I’m trying to be an upstanding man, but I want her to know that just like I told her a year ago, I don’t sleep around. Not randomly, not casually, and that includes Emerson.
Her eyes briefly widen before she must decide on something. She nods once as if accepting that Em is important to me, but not more than any other friend.
It takes every ounce of strength I have not to tug Taxi into my arms, hold her against me, press her where my heart hammers, and wrap my arms around her to protect her. Protect her from herself and her pinging emotions.
I can only imagine the thoughts in her head. Her fears for her aunt. Her concerns for the future. Her guilt, as she expressed earlier.
But tonight, I don’t want her thinking about any of that.
“I’m here for you,” I say, hoping to impart my meaning. Let me be her rock, not her distraction.
She nods like she hears me, but I’m not certain she’s really listening.
Bending at the knees, I scoop her up, and she screeches in surprise before quickly wrapping her arms around my neck. She lets out a sharp laugh, reminding me of that tambourine tingle from the night we met. The sound travels down my chest to a place that won’t be gratified.
I carry Taxi back to the living room, which is now doused in darkness, and set her on the couch she made up like a bed.
She huffs as I release her, then reaches for the side of my pants, gripping the strip that runs down my outer thigh.
“I was jealous,” Taxi quietly owns. “Earlier. Seeing you with Emerson. I didn’t like it, which wasn’t fair to you.”
I fight a smile, warning myself not to read more into her admission of jealousy.
“I’m right here,” I remind her, stroking a finger around her face.
“Don’t leave,” she whispers, looking up at me with eyes I can’t quite make out but know even in the dark because those eyes appear behind my lids when I close my own. They’ve haunted me and teased me and played out in fantasies I don’t dare admit.
And something deep inside me opens even wider, drinking in the drops this woman gives me.
“Just give me a minute,” I respond.
Trudy has a recliner in her living room along with the couch, but I’m not interested in rearranging her furniture. Instead, I opt for bringing a kitchen chair to the side of the couch, staring at Taxi as she lies on her back, face aimed at the ceiling.
I can’t imagine she can fall asleep any easier with me watching her, but after she’s asked me to stay, I won’t leave her side.
Eventually, she drapes her arm over the top of her head, causing the long sleeve of her aunt’s robe to expose her forearm.
She sighs heavily before saying, “I’ve been so unfair to you.” Her voice remains quiet, puzzled and apologetic.
My brows lift as I lean forward in the chair, resting my elbows on my thighs. “How?”
“Last summer.”
“Taxi,” I groan. “We don’t need to go back there.” We don’t need to rehash the kiss that meant nothing to her and everything to me, or the day she spent at my home, where she rejected me.
“I was wrong.”
Her statement puts a hold on any argument I was about to offer.
Her head shifts so suddenly on the pillow that I sit back in the hard chair. She rolls to her side, tucking her hands underneath her cheek. With the light streaming from the kitchen into the hallway, a sliver of illumination enters the room, and I catch her eyes focusing on me again.
She swallows thickly. “What do you know about me?”
“Other than you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met?
” The intention was to keep my answer light, almost teasing, but it comes out sharp and direct, and I bite back the additional comments fighting to be added to that assessment.
Ones that recall a kiss in a hotel hallway.
The feel of her hips in my hands and the taste of her tongue.
The way her breath hitched, and her body arched toward mine.
Her smile is weak. “I mean, about my history. My backstory.”
“Your history doesn’t change who you are,” I admit. Oftentimes, we are who we are because of our backstory. How we resist it, persevere through it, survive it. “But if you’d like to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”
Because sometimes, even when the backstory doesn’t matter in the present, it needs to be told. Or it feels like it should be shared.
Maybe talking about herself and her aunt will ease her mind. Bring up good memories and settle her into her sleep.
Or, maybe, Taxi is finally opening up to me.