Chapter 41 #2
“I know,” I said. “I know, but you seem…” I searched for the right words and ventured another touch on his arm. He didn’t flinch this time or shrug away. “I’m worried about you.”
He gave a humorless laugh, more of a huff. “I’m not the one who is lost.”
“I think we’re all a little lost,” I offered. “I am, or I was.”
“I’m not lost,” he said, standing, my hand falling from his arm. “I’m here. I’m standing still, right here. Not going anywhere. Standing right here while everyone else is moving.” He paced back and forth in the small space. This was a version of Deacon I’d never seen before.
“Deac,” I said, a hedge in my voice as a gust of cold wind blew raindrops toward us. “I didn’t mean to…”
He swept the light across the park and hollered for the dog again.
“I’m not going back so I can find him. I’m just trying to find the dog,” he said, walking out into the rain.
His voice roared through the rain, and the flashlight fell to his side, lighting the puddles around his feet.
“And I can’t find him.” Deacon’s voice seemed to crack, and I ran out into the rain, where his shoulders shook.
“He’s my best friend, my brother, and I can’t find him. ”
I wrapped my arms around him, and Deacon finally let me touch him, his own arms around me.
The rain washed away what I was certain were tears, all of it flowing in streams and rivulets through the grass.
“I’m not there. I’ve betrayed his trust, and I can’t do anything to help him.
” He clung to me as he spoke, tightly like he could stop me from getting lost, too.
“You didn’t betray him,” I said into his chest. “Don’t say that. What happened was between us. Surely, you see it has nothing to do with Cruz. He doesn’t get to decide what’s right for us.”
“I’ve spent most of my life bending the rules and deciding which ones I wanted to follow.
I see how special you are. I see what’s right in front of my face, but I don’t deserve you.
” His lips twisted into a grimace, and I knew he was thinking about Cruz.
“He asked me to look out for you, and all I can think about is kissing you again, touching you again. It was bad before he went missing. It’s unforgivable now. ”
I didn’t have any words for him. Every nerve in my body was raw, and every thought was one part worry, one part fear, and one part warmth when I realized Deacon might be confessing his feelings to me.
“I betrayed him,” he said. “An hour ago I planned to walk away from you because I told him I’d keep my distance, and now, holding you, I know I can’t. What kind of person does that make me?”
The words sounded pained, but they landed on me like something soft. “Human.” I pulled back so I could look up into his face, the furrowed brow and the rain running down his defined cheekbones. “It makes you human.”
Around us, the sheets of rain ebbed as suddenly as they’d begun, and the onslaught turned back to a steady, light rain. Deacon brushed the hair from my forehead and stared into my eyes. “I should…but I can’t,” he repeated, the brush of his rough hands against my skin comforting some of my panic.
The park was eerily quiet with the sudden easing of the storm, and Deacon’s fingers still traced along my hairline.
I felt the pull and push between us, the tension like one of those bolts of lightning, but a loud bark from the west end of the park pulled our attention, and a soaking wet Gus flew toward us from the tree line.
He reached us in seconds, and I dropped to my knees to run my hands over his big head, pulling him to me.
“Good boy,” I said over and over again, so intent on holding on to the dog that I didn’t notice Deacon falling to his knees beside me.
“He found us,” I said into Gus’s neck, running my hands over his ears.
“He came back,” I said, meeting Deacon’s eyes over the dog’s.
“Cruz will, too.” Deacon smiled weakly but then looked away.
“The rain is letting up. We should head back.” He said it so stiffly, like he hadn’t just exploded my heart into a hundred pieces.
I pulled the leash from where I’d stashed it in my hoodie and clipped it to Gus’s collar.
The little asshole already seemed to have shaken off the fear of being lost and now trotted happily between us.
We walked in silence, our hands brushing once in a while.
Finally, I spoke up. The old me would have waited for Deacon to bring it back up, and I pushed away that instinct. “It’s not betrayal,” I said, finally.
“It is.” He shook his head. “On so many levels. He saved my life. And not only can I not save his right now, I did the one thing he asked me not to do.”
Gus picked up his pace as we neared the house, his tail wagging at the sight of home. “To touch me?”
Deacon shook his head. The light from the front porch made his skin look golden as we stood in front of the door. He brushed my forehead again, where wet curls clung to my skin, and I held my breath, waiting for his next words. “No,” he said. “To—”
His phone rang in his pocket. I’d never heard it ring before—it always buzzed, and he hurried to dig it out, fumbling with the screen. He must have enabled the speaker, because I heard the best sound I could imagine from his phone.
“Dougy has a big mouth,” Cruz said, his voice breaking up with the bad connection. “I’m safe.”