Chapter 12 #2
Lily took her cup and saucer from the nightstand and went to the little chair, moving aside its lacy white throw pillow before sitting down. She sipped the tea, which had cooled to the perfect temperature and tasted like heaven.
Chelsea said, “I thought you might be longing for a mom to talk to, like I was then. And I thought I’d let you know I’m here to stand in, if you think it would help.”
The teacup in Lily’s hand was jiggling on its saucer with a soft ting ting ting ting ting. She looked at her hand in surprise. And then Chelsea came to take it from her trembling hand and set it on the windowsill. She crouched in front of Lily’s chair and opened her arms.
Lily burst into tears and leaned right into them.
Chelsea held her and stroked her hair until she’d cried herself out.
She had no idea how long that had taken.
Her face burned from the salt of her tears, and her nose was running.
Little spasms kept tearing through her chest—aftershocks.
She straightened and pressed the heel of one hand to her cheeks in turn, embarrassed to her very toes.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re in love. You know that, right?” Chelsea tilted her head, searching Lily’s eyes as she rose from the floor where they’d wound up. She eased Lily back into her chair, and then she took her own.
“Yeah,” Lily said. “I’ve come to that conclusion.” And then she panicked, and blurted, “But you can’t tell him!”
“I will never betray your confidence,” she said. “Besides, I’m here as your stand-in mom. I asked her if it was okay, and she said go for it, so…”
Lily smiled at the notion of the two of them chatting. It felt completely plausible when Chelsea said it. “I just…I don’t know what to do. How do you make someone love you?”
“You can’t make someone love you, hon. That’s not possible.
But the question is, why would you want to try?
” She reached across the space between them, took Lily’s hands in hers.
“You are an amazing, brilliant, ambitious, beautiful, funny, kind, gemstone of a female, Lily Hyde. Your mother must’ve been so proud, and she’d be even prouder today.
And I think she’d ask you the very same thing I’m about to.
Do you really want a man you have to work this hard to land?
Wouldn’t you rather have a man who’d work this hard to land you? ”
“Sure, I’d love that. But only if it was Ethan.”
“Well, then?”
Lily frowned. Chelsea was looking at her as if she’d just answered her own gnawing questions, but she was no clearer on anything than she’d been before. “I don’t understand.”
“Know what you’re worth, Lily. There’s no man you ought to be chasing, not even our thick-headed Bubba. And the sooner you stop, the sooner he’s gonna realize it.”
Chelsea got up. Her teacup was empty. She was going to leave. But she couldn’t leave! She’d given hints but not real answers.
“But…but what if he doesn’t?” Lily asked. “What if he just doesn’t feel the same?”
Chelsea pressed a warm, soft palm to Lily’s cheek. “Then he’s not the one for you, and the sooner you know it, the better. Don’t you think?”
“Oh.” It was, even to Lily’s own ears, a heartbroken syllable.
“I don’t think that’s the way this is will go, though. I know Ethan pretty well. Better than anybody, I think. And I don’t think that’s anywhere near the way this will go.”
“No,” Ethan said aloud. “No, no, no. I’m not goin’ out there to see if she’s still up.”
He was alone in his room at the Texas Brand with his hand on the doorknob, but he forced himself to let it go and pace back toward the bed.
His room was just the same as it had always been.
Chelsea had deemed it off limits to everyone but him, even though he was only home a handful of times a year.
That made him comfortable leaving things around.
He had clothes in the closet and dresser drawers, and enough belongings for comfort—books, a spare phone-charging cord, shaving gear, shower supplies, and a stack of CDs he refused to get rid of.
Mail was stacked on the dresser, because he’d never changed his address. Once a month Chelsea would bring it to a show if he was playing nearby, always with a sad-sounding comment about how coming home would be so much nicer than a hotel.
He wished he was in a hotel instead of a few doors away from Lily.
No, he wished he was in her room with her, in her bed with her, instead of a few doors away. Being with her had been earth-shaking. Shattering.
He didn’t even know who he was anymore. It had rattled him right to his core.
Cold shower, that was the ticket. A nice, cold shower would shock the horny right out of his body and clear his mind.
He strode into the attached bathroom, yanking his jeans and shorts down on the way and kicking out of them before he entered the little room.
He peeled off his shirt and tossed it behind him, then leaned through the shower curtain to crank on the taps.
Mostly cold. Clenching his jaw, he stepped right in.
The icy blast made him yelp, but just once, and not very loud. Other than that, he took it like a man.
After the bracing shock did its job, he adjusted the flow warmer, which felt even better after the cold.
He was in no hurry to finish up and go to bed, because he wasn’t going to sleep anyway.
So he took his time and let the pounding heat massage his back a little, let it soothe his head.
It didn’t ache, exactly. It felt like his brain was firing sparks in all directions.
He couldn’t seem to quiet it, so he stood in the water for a long time, and when he got out, he shaved, trimmed his nails, combed his hair.
Finally, with nothing left to do, he stared into the mirror, thinking about making love to Lily Ellen Hyde right there on the banks of the river, under the bridge.
If they ran into each other again tonight…
“No, no, no,” he said again. “I’ll stay in my room; she’ll stay in hers.” And yet he had to keep working with her, and she probably thought now that it had happened once, they were in a relationship. Did she think that? Was that where they were?
He was between a rock and hard place. A persistently hard place, whenever he thought about Lily Ellen Hyde.
He stepped back into the shower for another cold blast.
When he finally re-entered his bedroom, wearing nothing but a scowl, Lily was sitting on his bed. She looked up, her gaze locking on his junk and warming, before sliding up to meet his eyes.
He took two steps backward, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his hips. It was very close. He’d nearly taken two steps forward instead.
She rose to her feet. “I was just going to leave it, and?—”
“Leave what?” He felt the brush of terrycloth and mentally ordered his lower body to stay the hell down.
She tilted her head, but not her eyes, toward the bed. Her eyes stayed on him. He managed to look where she’d indicated, but the only thing there was her tablet with a pink sticky note on its face.
“It’s for you to take to the bank with you in the morning. You’re going about the financing first thing, right?”
He nodded and wondered why she was still talking about the cantina.
“So, about earlier,” she began, but then she left off there.
It wasn’t a statement, Ethan realized. It was a prompt for him to make one. “I don’t know what to say about earlier,” he managed. “I’m…processin’ it.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She sighed, looked everywhere but into his eyes, then said, “Well, regardless, I’m not here for…you know, more. This isn’t the place. Even if we wanted to, I mean.”
For the first time in his adult life, Ethan fully understood why he needed a home of his own in Quinn, even if he didn’t want to live there.
On the road, it was hotels and motels and sometimes a camper.
And so far, on the road was the only place he’d…
hooked up. Never with anyone he truly knew, much less from his hometown, much less a part of his family.
He couldn’t think of anything to say but he didn’t want her to go, so he said the first thing he could think of. “Estimates’ve been comin’ in all night. We should go over ‘em.”
“Pick whoever you want. You’re footing the bill.”
He nodded and lost his words. All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and tumble into the bed.She was still standing in front of the door.
It was like she didn’t dare get any closer to him but couldn’t quite leave.
She reached behind her for the doorknob.
He was still only wearing the towel. He went to her anyway, not close enough to touch, but almost. The air between his body and hers was damn near crackling.
Their eyes locked. She said, “I’m feeling like maybe I have something to say after all, about our…lovemaking.”
A few tendrils of icy panic crawled through his veins, both at what she was going to say, and at her chosen terminology. “Oh?”
“I know being with me like that is the very thing you’ve been trying to avoid. I just…don’t want you to think it changes anything.”
But it had changed every thing. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I’m not gonna chase after you like a lovestruck pup just because we…did it.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“ I don’t want a man I have to chase down and rope, like your cousin Trevor with a stray calf. That’s not what it was about to me.” She was opening the door. She was backing through it. “I told you it wouldn’t be the end of the world, and it’s not. So you can relax. Okay?”
What was happening? It didn’t feel like what he wanted to be happening. Not even close.
“G’night, Ethan.”
Do something! Don’t let her walk away.
“’Night, Lily,” he said.
At least he didn’t need another cold shower. Her words had been like a bucket of ice.
Eventually, Ethan got into bed, stacked the pillows under him, and reached for Lily’s tablet. The note on the front said, “password 999999.”