Three #2
He gazes at me with the look of a man who has zero scruples. It always freaks me out to be reminded that Thomas isn’t only the guy who takes me ice skating in the middle of the night just to see me smile, but he’s also this . Impetuous, ruthless, remorseless. Completely out of control.
“Listen to me…” I take his face in my hands, standing up on my tiptoes to do it.
“I understand that you are still furious about what happened; I am too. But you should not underestimate the seriousness of this situation. His father is a judge. You could get in trouble. Serious trouble. Maybe if I talked to him, I could keep him from—”
“You’re not talking to him,” he orders, looming over me, his voice harsh.
“If he wants to press charges, let him, but I bet my ass he won’t dare, so stop worrying about it.
” The elevator doors open on the ground floor.
“Seems to me, you’ve got more important things to worry about anyway.
” He takes my hands from his face, skewering me with a look that brooks no argument.
Then he walks out of the elevator, unconcerned about whether I follow him.
He heads for the dorm’s exit, and before he can go through it without me, I run out of the elevator to him.
“Thomas, wait,” I say, grabbing his arm and turning him in my direction.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m scared because I don’t want anything to happen to you.
I don’t want anything to happen to anyone because of me ever again.
But I especially don’t want to argue with you, not today, not after everything that happened last night.
I couldn’t stand it.” He just stares down at me reproachfully. “Please,” I murmur, my voice cracking.
It is then that he sighs, relaxing his shoulders. “I don’t want to argue with you either.” His features soften almost imperceptibly. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.”
Neither of us says much during the car ride.
I try to keep my mind busy, pushing aside any thoughts about my mother or about Logan’s condition, but it’s fruitless.
I start gnawing my thumbnail, feeling my anxiety increase with every mile, each one of them bringing me closer to my house. Or rather, my mother’s house.
Pulling into the driveway, which is still wet from last night’s storm, I stare out the window at the porch, where I sat hours ago.
It’s the same porch where I spent whole summers sunbathing, reading, or just tending to the peonies.
Thomas turns off the engine and rests his hand on my thigh. “Still sure?”
I continue looking at the house, worrying at my lip. I have to do this. I straighten my shoulders as if to give myself courage, and I swallow hard. I unbuckle my seat belt and get out of the car without answering his question.
***
Inside the house, silence reigns. We both leave our bags on the floor, and I put my keys in the bowl on the entryway cabinet.
Together, we walk through the kitchen on our way upstairs, but I stop and turn toward Thomas.
“Are you hungry? You have practice in less than two hours, and you shouldn’t go on an empty stomach. ”
“I’ve got these.” He shows me the pack of cigarettes he always has on him. “All I need.”
“And a real booster for your lungs,” I answer sarcastically, pushing him into the dining area.
He grins at me while he sits on a stool at the kitchen island.
I open the fridge and find it well stocked.
“Is there anything you want to eat? I don’t know, a sandwich?
Maybe some eggs? Aren’t athletes obsessed with protein? ”
“A sandwich will be fine.”
My lips curve into a smile as I get busy.
I take everything I need out of the fridge before washing my hands and rinsing the tomatoes in cold water.
In a frying pan, I toast two thick slices of bread while I cut the bacon into strips.
While I wait for everything to cook to perfection, I grab a plate, put it on the table, and start slicing the tomatoes.
“Are you a good cook?” he asks me, intrigued.
“Good enough. When I was a kid, I liked to watch my grandma or my mother in the kitchen whenever I could.”
“My mother always liked to cook for the whole family,” Thomas tells me, the spontaneity of this disclosure taking me by surprise. “My house always smelled like fresh-baked sweets, especially on Sunday mornings.”
I stop to listen to him with interest, delighted that he is confiding something to me of his own free will for once.
He stretches his arms out over the marble counter, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.
There is such intense nostalgia in his face that it makes my throat feel tight.
“My sister would get excited every time. She’d start jumping on the bed and singing to herself until she woke everyone up.” He chuckles softly. “She was an insufferable little snot when she was a kid. She’s calmed down a bit over the years.”
I fold my arms over my chest and smile sweetly, perfectly able to imagine this scene in my head.
I feel like I can even smell the odor of sweet treats spreading throughout the house.
I picture his mother at the stove, cheerful and radiant, intent on preparing breakfast for her family while her mischievous children clamor around her, chasing each other and getting into tiffs.
I inch closer to him to reduce the distance between us, though I’d like to do so much more.
I’d like to kiss him, to sit on his lap, hold him, and listen to him talk for hours and hours.
I want to hear as many stories as I can about his life, about his family.
Until I understand him completely. But I promised him that we would move on his timeline, and I intend to keep that promise. “That sounds lovely.”
The expression on his face turns hard, as though my comment has upset him somehow. He focuses his eyes on me and shakes his head slowly. “Nothing that happened in that house was lovely, actually.”
Coldness spreads through my chest, and my words die on my tongue. I stiffen and frown at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
Thomas shrugs and, clearly trying to end the conversation, jerks his chin toward the stove and scolds me: “Careful you don’t burn it.”
I can tell from the detached sound of his voice that he’s put up his usual walls once again. “I’m going out for a smoke,” he says, getting up from the stool to leave.
Time’s up.
He gave me a little piece of his past, but whatever impulse led him to do it has gone now, and he has withdrawn into himself. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
That’s okay too , I tell myself.
Baby steps.
***
Five minutes later, he’s back. I am relieved to see that some of his tension seems to have been released.
I arranged the crisp bacon on the toasted bread along with the tomato slices and some fresh lettuce, trying to assemble everything in the most inviting way.
I’ve cooked for other people over the years, for my father or for Alex when he’d come by, but I’m surprised by how much I like doing it for Thomas.
I can feel his gaze on me the whole time, so I raise my face to smile shyly at him.
He has a strange way of always managing to make me feel awkward and nervous in his presence. He knows this. He embraces it.
“What is it?” I ask, licking a bit of bacon grease off my fingertip.
He moves closer, positions himself behind me, and, looming over me with his broad frame, he buries his face in the crook of my neck.
Right where the skin is still purple, marked by last night’s kiss.
He rubs his closed lips over it, producing an animal noise of satisfaction.
He dips his cold fingers under the hem of my shirt, lifting it slowly to reveal a strip of my torso, which he caresses.
“I could get used to this, you know?”
I swallow as his vetiver smell, mixed with the odor of tobacco, goes straight to my head. “To what?”
“To you cooking for me,” he murmurs. “Although, if we’re being honest, I’d like it even better if you were wearing just a pair of lacy black panties.
” I feel his mouth curl into a smirk. “And some high heels in the same color.” His hands tighten on my hips, pressing me into his pelvis.
I feel a heat blooming in the low part of my abdomen.
“Then, I could satisfy your appetite too.”
I hold my breath, unmoving. I am silent, unable to formulate anything like a meaningful sentence.
Thomas rests his forehead on my shoulder and starts laughing.
It’s a deep, mesmerizing sort of laugh. “It takes so little to make you freeze up,” he notes, shaking his head.
He turns me to face him before lifting my chin and planting a chaste kiss on my lips.
Then he snags a piece of toast and sits back down with a smug look on his face, probably well aware of all the silent insults I’m directing his way as I try to regulate my heartbeat and regain some small measure of control over the situation. Damn him.
We sit down to eat and clean our plates.
I ask for help washing the dishes and tidying the kitchen; then we go upstairs to my room.
After putting some clothes into an old moving box, I move on to selecting today’s outfit.
I quickly pick out a pair of white jeans and drape them over one shoulder as I continue hunting for a shirt.
Thomas is lying on my bed, propped up against the headboard with his ankles crossed in front of him.
Bored, he flips through one of my philosophy textbooks on deductive reasoning.
“Do you really study this stuff?”
“Yeah, it’s interesting. And in theory, you should be studying it too.” I take two sweaters out of the closet and lay them on the foot of the bed; one is gray, the other baby pink.