Chapter 18. Lenore #2
“Good riddance,” I mutter, rubbing the spot behind my knee. Now that the immediate threat has been eliminated, I feel exposed in my underwear and wrinkled shirt. I press my knees together.
“Still a good idea to keep an eye on that bite over the next few days, in case it develops a rash.” Callan grabs my jeans from the bathroom floor and shakes them out, turning the legs inside out to make sure there are no more ticks hiding in them. “I can’t believe you’re still scared of bugs.”
I pin him with a look. “I am not scared of bugs,” I say. “It’s bloodsuckers that are the problem.”
“Encountered many of those in the city?”
“My fair share.”
“Here.” He hands me my jeans. “Learn to wear shoes next time. And maybe invest in bug spray, while you’re at it. Lyme disease isn’t something to play around with.”
“Thank you,” I mutter.
He extends a hand to help me to my feet, and I let him.
As soon as I’m on my feet, my bare knees brush against his sweatpants.
I laugh, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I say, and take a step back.
My legs knock against the cold cast-iron bathtub.
I stumble, arms pinwheeling at my sides.
His hand shoots out to steady me, but not fast enough.
I fall backward, my head pinging against something hard on the way down, the narrow tub folding my limbs in on my body like a dead spider.
Staring up at the ceiling, all I can think to say is “Ow.”
“Shit.” Cal enters my field of vision, hovering over me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I attempt to shift into a sitting position inside the tub, but slip. His hand finds the middle of my back, propping me up. “Physically, anyway.” My dignity, on the other hand, might never recover.
“Here, look at me.” His hands press against either side of my face to force me to hold eye contact.
It’s not particularly intimate—more clinical.
I think maybe he’s trying to tell whether I’ve been concussed.
Still, I have trouble keeping my eyes trained on his.
They keep wanting to drift to the cowlick in his eyebrow, or the whitish scar that bisects his nose, or his full bottom lip.
“Are you going to ask me how many fingers you’re holding up?” I say.
Cal shakes his head in mild concern. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His hands slip from the sides of my head, into my hair, resting in the gentle slope where my neck meets my shoulders. “You seem all right.”
I raise my eyebrows. “High praise.”
“You look great, for someone who just lost a fight with a century-old bathtub,” he amends.
I go to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, but it catches beneath his thumb, pressed against my collarbone. Every nerve ending in my body alights to this singular point of contact like a plasma ball.
His eyes are still on mine, but something has shifted in his expression, concern melting into something soft and unnameable. I can’t help thinking, Here’s another moment we’ll never act upon. Another moment he’ll never act upon.
I lean toward him and tip my mouth to his, not quite closing the gap.
His fingers thread into my hair. We’re so close that his eyes flutter almost shut when they drop to my mouth, and we’re frozen like that for a moment, breathing each other in.
I wonder whether the buildup is better than the reality.
Whether kissing Callan Bradford would be just another kiss.
I have no intention of waiting for him to take the lead, this time. I don’t think of it as making the first move. I think of it as giving him permission.
I curl a hand around the back of his neck and pull him down to me. Our noses touch first, the shuffling choreography of a kiss that hasn’t been rehearsed. His answering chuckle is hardly more than a breath, warm and quiet, and then his mouth sinks against mine.
It’s not just another kiss.
It’s rushed and a little messy, but not in a bad way.
It’s like we’re tripping over ourselves to make up for every almost moment that slipped through our fingers.
My neck is crooked at an uncomfortable angle, thanks to the tub separating us.
At the first brush of our tongues, he lets out a relieved groan, like it’s a balm for some ache deep in his chest. His rough hands thread into the back of my hair, tugging it gently to tip my head so that he can take my mouth how he wants it.
It makes me think about what he’d be like in bed. Demanding, but also a little desperate. There’s something so hot about that. An equal give-and-take.
It’s that awareness that sends a fresh pulse of desire through me, my body confirming, Yes, it would be so good between us, before my mind has the chance to fully catch on.
I want his hands on me. I want him on top of me.
I fist a hand in the front of his sweatshirt to drag him closer, almost forgetting that there’s a bathtub between us acting as a buffer.
My phone vibrates in the pocket of my jeans.
Which I’m still not wearing. They’re in the tub with me, and the vibration reverberates through the cast iron, loud enough to make us both flinch apart.
“Sorry,” I say, breathless. With fumbling hands, I pat around my jeans in search of the phone so I can mute it.
Callan sits back on his heels on the bathroom mat and scrubs a hand over his dark hair, making it stand on end. His chest heaves beneath his sweatshirt, and there’s a healthy flush in his cheeks like he’s just finished a run.
I turn the jeans inside out and my phone clatters into the bottom of the tub. I pick it up and turn it over to look at the screen. It’s an unknown Vermont number. I position my thumb over the side button to mute it, but hesitate. Maybe it’s the real estate agent. Maybe something’s changed.
Cal lets his hand drop to his side, staring at me.
“Give me just two minutes,” I say, holding out a hand like I can press pause on him—on what happened between us. I swipe to answer and press the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Lenore,” the man says in my ear, “this is Bill, from the municipal office. I’m calling about those records you requested.”
“Oh, hi.” I lean back and stuff my legs one at a time into my jeans, struck by the utter ridiculousness of this entire situation. Despite all our near misses, our first kiss happened while I was pantsless, in a bathtub, possibly with a mild concussion. “Were you able to find anything?”
My cheery phone voice feels too big for the bathroom. I step out of the tub and Cal gets to his feet to unlock the door. I mouth a sincere apology to him before slipping past.
“I’m sorry to say that there’s no sign of the last name ‘Button’ in the birth, marriage, or death records prior to 1909. Are you certain you have the correct date?”
“I don’t have any date. I have paintings.”
A rustle on the other end as he adjusts the phone. “Sorry, did you say paintings?”
“I found them in my attic—my grandmother’s attic,” I babble. “They’ve got this giltwood framing that makes me think the artist was pre–twentieth century.”
“Perhaps the artist didn’t live in Whitbury,” he suggests.
I’ve had the same thought, but I’m still left wondering how so many of their paintings ended up collecting dust above our old farmhouse.
“You’ve already spoken with June over at the antique mall, I’m guessing.”
“Ah, no. I haven’t.” I stare, distracted, out the window above the kitchen sink, where my blanket is sprawled on the hill. “An antique mall, you said?”
“Right there off Old Shaker Road. Might be interested in taking the paintings off your hands, if you’re looking to sell.”
I’m not sure what I want to do with them yet, but maybe an antique mall wouldn’t be a terrible place for them to end up. “Thank you,” I say. “I’ll check it out.”
I hang up. Cal hovers in my periphery like a shadow. I stare at the phone screen, not quite ready to meet his eye, because I’m terrified of what I might see there. Regret. Shame. A mirror for my own emotions, now that the moment’s passed. I practically threw myself at him. Stupid.
Except … he responded in kind, so it can’t have been entirely one sided. I didn’t imagine that.
“Everything okay?”
At the rasp in his voice, my eyes snap to him on impulse. His expression is hard to read, but he’s watching me closely, like I’m an animal he’s worried might spook easily. “Yup,” I chirp. “All good. Do you know the antique mall on Old Shaker Road?”
If he’s at all bothered by the change in subject, he doesn’t show it. His shoulders rise in a noncommittal shrug. “Sure. I’ve driven by a few times.”
I stick my phone in my back pocket. What would’ve been a simple request now feels irrevocably complicated by the kiss we shared—every question another flavor of What are we, an invitation bracketed on one end by Is this a date and on the other by Maybe we’re just two friends who happened to share a kiss.
It sounds so simple when you phrase it like that, Just friends.
As though people are ever just anything. “Would you want to come with me?”
“What, now? Can’t it wait?” His eyes nearly set me on fire. All I want is to pick up where we left off. But I can hear Gran’s voice in my head, twisted into a harsh anger I’d never encountered from her before the wedding. You’ve forgotten all about me. You left me behind.
“No,” I say. “It can’t.”