Chapter 13 #4
The shape of an eleven forms between his brows now, and it’s amazing that he’s able to pull them together so tightly. The incremental descent of his face into pure rage, or disbelief, or frustration—whatever color is best suited for the moment—is fascinating.
“I’m not upset,” he says evenly.
He’s still holding her elbow. She realizes this and begins to wiggle in his grasp until he releases her.
“You look very sad. Or maybe pissed. I can’t ever really tell which one it is until I see your eyes.
But s’too dark right now.” And maybe she can’t see the light brown, caramel-swirled-with-forest-green irises in the darkness, but she can certainly see the way his body straightens at her words.
The way he is staring at her in that relentless manner of his, intense and unforgiving.
But then Crew’s voice is a little softer, lighter, when he speaks. “That right?”
“Mm-hm,” Grace hums. She starts to walk away from him and is almost successful until she’s about a foot past him, and then her boots decide to tangle up with each other—stupid, old, run-down boots, can’t even walk in a straight line—and gravity decides it ought to team up with her boots to yank her down to the ground.
Knees first. She falls with a grunt, a loud and breathy oof as she hits the crunchy grass.
From behind her, she hears something that sounds like All right in a conceding, impatient tone.
She doesn’t have long enough to dissect what it means, because in the span of a blink, there are two hands gripping her arms and hauling her up.
She’s only on two feet for a split second before she’s being hoisted up and tossed like a bag of flour over a large, sturdy shoulder.
It all happens so fast that she barely has time to process it, but once she realizes how far she is off the ground, how she’s hanging upside down, and how there’s an absurdly large hand holding her thigh to keep her steady, she gasps in horror.
“This is ridiculous,” she protests, knocking a fist into his back.
“You can’t just throw me over your shoulder like a duffel bag and carry me around. ”
“I’m just helping you to your tent,” Crew says, and it pisses her off, how not drunk he is at this moment, how he’s rescuing her and speaking to her like the damsel in distress he said she wasn’t all those days ago.
“I don’t need your help.”
He is unfazed. “I’m not letting you sleep in the dirt.”
“Maybe I like to sleep in the dirt.”
“You’d prefer to wake up with a colony of fire ants crawling all over you?”
An absurd memory pops into her head at his question, and she starts giggling to herself.
Six-year-old Grace, stringy hair and lips red and sticky from a lollipop.
Said lollipop dropped onto the sidewalk, and a legion of fat, dark red ants marching over it, celebrating the bountiful offering from above.
A gentle hand stopping her from touching them—They’re different from regular ants. They hurt a lot more. Like burning.
“What’s funny?” Crew barks.
Catapulted back into the present, Grace lets her laughter peter out with a sigh.
“I was just thinking about when I was little and my mom told me about fire ants. She said they burned, so I decided to call them spicy boys.” She finds this just as funny as the memory had been, and once again bursts into a fit of giggles and snorts.
“Cute,” Crew says curtly, but Grace can hear the hint of amusement in his tone.
Soon enough, she’s being gently lowered to the ground, set onto her feet and held in place by strong, unmoving hands.
To her left, she sees her tent. Her bedroll is laid out, looking inviting even if it will only supply an inch or two between her and the hard ground.
In front of the tent sits a blue-lit lantern and a smattering of shared camping supplies.
The other tents at the campsite are spread out nicely, but close enough that the glow from the lanterns within softly breaks through the darkness outside.
“Aha.” She grins, then swings her head dramatically to look at Crew. “I see we have arrived at my front porch.”
Crew huffs a breath through his nose. “Indeed.”
Grace nods firmly. “I appreciate the lift, good sir.”
“Hm. You were singing a different tune about ten seconds ago.”
She tilts her head, considering, then pokes her index finger into his chest. “A lot can change in ten seconds, you know.”
“Sure.”
“This is…” She pokes in a different spot, pushes inward as much as she can despite the resistance of the muscular expanse. “You’ve really got some heft here.”
A deep, rumbling laugh sounds from his chest, and it pulls Grace’s attention from his chest back to his face.
Her finger, however, does not stop its exploration.
Crew watches her, amusement flashing in his eyes. “Enjoying yourself?”
“I think yours might be bigger than mine.” Grace snorts.
“Ah,” Crew says with a sigh. “Time for bed, Grace.”
Grace pouts, then lets her hand drop to her side. “Party pooper.”
“Afraid so.”
Then, almost as if on cue, a giant yawn escapes her mouth. She shudders toward the end of it, her eyes growing sleepy and weary in its wake. “Fine,” she relents.
“Go on,” Crew says softly.
Grace sighs, then bends down to pick up the lantern.
With it in her hand, Crew is fully visible, and she takes a brief moment to study his face.
That face—how she wishes she could stare at it for hours without interruption.
Learn its peaks and valleys, its sharp and soft edges, and name the constellations of his freckles and moles until she’s invented a whole new star system.
A thought crosses her mind, and damn Jameson and his Irish brashness—but it leaves her lips, too.
As if her brain is now attached to her mouth with a liquor-soaked adhesive, one unable to operate without the other.
“I think you’re so beautiful,” she says dreamily. Dazedly.
And then, about two seconds later, clamps her mouth firmly shut.
But she doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t apologize. Because even if it is only whiskey-induced honesty, it’s honesty nonetheless. And frankly, she thinks, now resolute in her decision, Crew deserves to know. To hear it out loud. Even as he stands there, silent and still, she doesn’t concede.
Grace has felt many different kinds of touches in her life.
Some—too many, perhaps—originated from anger.
Roughness. A sense of urgency so intense it manifested itself into brutal physicality.
Some of them were gentler, born out of love, like her mother’s lips on her forehead, or Maryann’s bony but reassuring embrace.
But she’s never felt a touch like Crew’s hand coming up to her face, never once experienced the contrasting, delicate caress of rough, work-torn fingertips.
Never felt a shiver run down her spine like the one that does as he tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and then rubs his thumb softly over the apple of her cheek.
A stuttered breath leaves her lips before she can stop it.
His face, lit harshly by the lantern, is all shadows and stark highlights. But it makes her ache, the way his eyes seem to be boring into her, like it has suddenly become his mission to peel back all her layers of protection and burrow himself into the depths of her soul. She feels exposed. Raw.
When his entire hand cups her cheek, only a whisper of a touch, Grace can’t help but lean into the warmth of his skin.
A quiet hum sounds in Crew’s throat.
“Good night, sweetheart.”
He leaves her then, turning away and walking toward his own tent.
But his touch stays—it lingers long after he’s gone.
It radiates, like a burning sun after weeks of cold.