Chapter 51 Bowen
Bowen
Kit jumps half a foot in the air when I finally clear my throat, alerting him to my presence, leaning against the wall just inside the hallway. I’ve been watching him for the last minute, contemplating the Coffee Mate Original in his hand.
I saw the bowl on the counter and the carton of eggs. I used the rest of the milk yesterday.
I didn’t think he was actually going to do it. He hesitated, sure, but then he was going in with the fucking jug anyway.
His hazel eyes swing my way, and I raise a brow, staying where I am and crossing my arms. I don’t miss the way he looks down my torso.
I’m not used to someone else being in my space. Sue me. At least I have pants on.
“Please tell me you weren’t about to put that in eggs.”
He has the decency to look sheepish, scrunching his little button nose when he looks down at the creamer. “It’s not vanilla, though.”
I shake my head and push off the wall. He watches me like I’m a tiger, and he’s a cornered fox. He’s got the shifty eyes and everything, looking for an escape route.
I stop next to him and lean my hip on the counter. “You gotta stop putting weird shit in eggs, dude.”
“You said a splash of milk made them fluffier.”
“Milk. Not coffee creamer.”
“Same thing?” he questions, cheeks red. Honestly? It would probably be fine. But I’ll never forget the sweet, vanilla eggs. Regular milk or no dice.
I take the carton out of his hand, and he watches the movement, pink lips parting slightly when our fingers graze.
“Please…just, give me a second.”
His cheeks are even redder when his eyes make it back up to mine. My heart kicks in my chest like it has every damn time he’s looked at me. I’m accustomed to him looking at my feet. My chest.
Looking at the back of his head while he fell apart in my arms.
The corner of the counter digs into my thigh when I push off it.
It's just as sad inside the fridge today as it was yesterday. There isn’t even any butter left.
It's about that time of month when I hit the store and do a big restock of shit.
I normally stop every few days for basics to get me through.
Mom said it was good for me to get out. I begrudgingly agreed.
I once didn’t see the end of the drive or outside my clearing of trees for two months straight.
Would have been longer if Tucker hadn’t dragged my ass to his car and forced me inside.
I wish I could say I was being sarcastic.
Two full months. I was surviving off the canned shit that the Meyers had stocked in the cupboards and online orders that I paid an arm and a leg for delivery out in bum-fuck-nowhere.
“I’m gonna hit the store today. Ian is coming later to grill; I said I would get the steaks.” I take a mental inventory of what I need to grab. When I close the fridge, Kit is still standing where I left him but turned with his back to the counter.
He’s got his arms crossed over his chest, fingers digging into his pale biceps. He’s fucking tiny. He’s always been small, but he looks exceptionally so now. I guess two years traveling, broke, and living off corn syrup and artificial dye will do that. I narrow my eyes.
“Can we call a truce?” he spits out quickly.
He looks all around the kitchen before he makes his way back to me.
I can visibly see the hitch in his breath when our eyes connect again.
His hair hangs too close to his eyes; I want to push it back so I can get a clear view of the things he denied me for years.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He taps his fingers on his arms, then uncrosses them to grip the counter behind him.
Wipes palms on the short shorts he’s wearing.
He finally huffs and crosses his arms again.
“You know, like, a truce. You…you made it clear you didn’t want me to leave.
I made it clear I didn’t want to leave. But I…
You…” He shrugs, like he’s not sure what words he wants to use.
I’ve never been good in that fucking category, so I just stare at him until he starts to fidget again. Even if I did know exactly what he’s talking about, which I get the idea, I’m not ready to let him off the hook. I want him to fucking sweat. I want him to try.
Just fucking try for me, kitten.
“A truce. You be nice to me; I’ll be nice to you.”
“Nice…” I murmur, tilting my head.
Kit scoffs. “You do remember what that means, right? Or have you become a fully wild forest man?” He bites the side of his thumb but adds, “Would explain the hair.”
Said hair is down this morning after I took a shower last night. My curls tickle the tops of my shoulders. I push it back and shrug. “Didn’t you just say you’d be nice?”
The laugh that comes out of him is high-pitched and just shy of a little panicked. “Bowen…dear, God.” He clears his throat. Sighs. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Peeks at me.
Sighs again.
“Bowen.”
“Kit.”
“Bowen…”
“Kit…”
“I cannot focus when you’re… When you…” he throws his hands in the air. “I’m coming to the store with you.” With that, he scurries out of the kitchen with a look over his shoulder. He moves faster when I smirk.
The steering wheel squeaks under my tight grip, and I force my fingers to loosen. I have actually never been more aware of my hands in my life. Kit has looked at them no less than a dozen times since we got in my truck.
That was about three minutes ago.
It started when I leaned over to grab sunglasses out of the glovebox at his knees.
He’s watching them now with a blush to his cheeks and caution in his eyes.
I turn down the main road that leads into town, and Kit fidgets in his seat. He never could sit still for long. Always picking at his fingers, bouncing his legs. I used to hold his hand just to keep him from biting his nails bloody.
The steering wheel creaks again.
In a small burst of action, Kit leans forward and lowers the volume of the radio. “What do you do?”
I glance over at him, but he’s looking out the window.
This summer has been brutal. Beautiful, but brutal.
Hot damn near every day with little cloudy respite from the sun.
There are big, white puffy clouds up there today.
I’d be willing to bet my entire bank account that he’s already picked out at least one animal look alike.
“What do you mean?” The turn signal clicks softly, and I look back over at him.
“Like, for work?” His fair cheeks bloom a rosy pink, and he looks over at me from the corner of his eye.
I roll my bottom lip between my teeth as I make the turn into the store's parking lot. The fact that he even needs to ask that question makes me fucking bitter. I want to snap something petty, but I keep my mouth shut.
Nice.
“I’m a gym teacher at the high school in town. I’ll be helping out during football season this year. A few side gigs.”
Kit blinks, then smiles. “Ah. The classic hot gym teacher. Not what I expected, but it fits?” He hops out of the truck after I park and follows me to the door. “Would explain you being home all the time. Must be nice having the summer off.”
I thought it would be nice, too. To have the summer for myself. Decompress. Feed the part of me that wants nothing to do with the outside world and close myself off in my own solace of trees and lake air.
I didn’t realize how deep the spaces between the trees were until Kit showed up. As soon as he opened his eyes on that dock, the lack of life around me became glaringly obvious.
I take a cart and push it into the store. “Do you like it?” he asks when we make it into the produce section.
I shrug, tossing a head of lettuce in the cart. “It’s a job.”
“You wanted to go to school for sports medicine,” Kit says after picking up a bag of oranges, looking at them through the mesh net, then setting them in the cart.
“And you wanted to be a therapist.”
Kit snorts so loud it sounds painful. “Could you imagine? Humanity lucked out with that dead dream.”
The word dead hits me somewhere in my center like it always does. We’re quiet as I pick out potatoes, a tomato, and an onion. Kit trails just behind my side, chewing away at the corner of his thumb.
“Ian is…nice,” Kit says when I pick up a pack of steaks. I glance from him and back to the meat. He’s blushing.
“Too, sometimes.”
“He’s cute. The poster of golden retriever energy in a guy. Easy to talk to.”
“Is this a fucking Yelp review for my neighbor?”
“If it was, he’d get five stars.” He tosses a jar of peanut butter in the cart without looking.
I grunt, and Kit trails right next to me now.
“Is he gay? I couldn’t really get the vibe. My gaydar was bouncing back and forth.”
“Why? You interested?”
“What if I was?” he asks, drilling his eyes into the side of my face.
“You’ll have to ask him. It’s not really my M.O. to ask what kind of holes a dude likes to stick his dick into.”
Kit scrunches his nose at my crudeness but says, “Ian strikes me as the type to let you know whether you actually wanted to know or not.”
He’s not wrong.
I happen to know exactly the type that Ian ends up going for. More the flavor of curvy blonds, like Delaney. Not small guys with eyes a fraction too big and a mouth that always looks like he just bit into a berry.
“He mentioned something when I saw him the other day that I wanted to ask about.”
Unease tightens my gut. Ian has seen me through quite a few days the last few years. Days that were so bad my brain has tried blocking them out. He’s great, really. But the dude has a mouth almost as big as his biceps and no filter.
“Go on.”
“He said you avoid the lake.”
I grab three different boxes of Pop-Tarts when I realize Kit is too busy looking at me, biting his lip nervously, to notice we’re standing in front of them. Blueberry. Strawberry. S’more.
I sigh and push away. “Is there a question?”
“Why? Do you avoid the lake, I mean.”
“Next.”
“What?”
“Next question.”
“Why is the small cabin locked?”
“Next.”
“What happened to your motorcycle?”
“Sold it. Ma said it was a death trap. Guess I feel obligated to keep myself alive now.”
Kit huffs.
“Does it make you miss him more or less? Being here,” he spits out quickly.
His hazel eyes are wide open and pleading with me to cross the line that was drawn somewhere along the way.
“Did running away make it hurt less?” I reply instead.
“Yes… No…” Kit shrugs his slender shoulders. “Both.”
I turn and start moving again.
I nod at Mrs. Hennik when I grab the butter and turn to say something to Kit just to get out of what is normally a long winded, one-sided conversation with the older woman who I swear spends half her days in this store.
He’s not behind me.
I don’t see him anywhere in the refrigerated section.
Milk. Eggs. Cheese. I work my way down the aisle, checking between each item. My jaw flutters, and I ignore the swooping feeling in my gut.
He couldn’t just leave, idiot. How would he get anywhere without a car? Calm the hell down.
I find him in front of the housewares section. The endcap has a big yellow Clearance sign at the top.
Kit has two small canisters of paint, one in each hand. He’s looking at them like they either hold all the answers or are the very reason for all his problems.
I stop long enough to take them out of his hands and put them in the cart.
It's not until we’re back in the truck after he fussed over me paying for his food that he finally gives me his eyes again. I can feel them on the side of my face, and my shoulders drop an inch with my next exhale.
“Can I help you cook?”
My laugh is unexpected. “No.”