Chapter Two #3
It was long enough for both of us to know she’d noticed.
Her mouth curved with slow, wicked satisfaction. “Oh.”
I didn’t move. “Careful.”
“That wasn’t my imagination.”
“That was none of your business.”
“I’m in your motel room. Your business is making itself known.”
“You like poking bears?”
“I like knowing where the danger is.”
I took one step closer before I caught myself.
Her breath changed.
There it was.
A real inhale. Thin. Fast. Sharp enough to hit my blood like whiskey.
I wanted to put my hand on her throat, not to hurt her. Just to feel that pulse. To hold her still while she decided whether she wanted to keep lying or finally tell me what she was so damn scared of. To feel her swallow under my thumb when she figured out I wasn’t as unaffected as I looked.
I kept my hands to myself.
“You’re going to sit back down,” I said.
Crystal’s smile sharpened. “You sure you want me on the bed?”
“No.”
That made her blink.
I let her have the truth, since she’d already seen too much. “But I want you away from the door.”
Something hot and startled moved across her face.
Then she walked back to the bed as if she’d chosen it.
She sat, crossed her legs at the ankles, and picked up the pretzels again. “You always this honest?”
“Only when lying wastes time.”
“That explains why you’re so fun.”
“I’ve had complaints.”
“I bet you have.”
I took the second chair from the table and angled it between the bed and door. The view gave me the window, the bathroom, and her.
Crystal watched me set up like she was making a study of every move.
“You really think I’m getting past you?” she asked.
“I think you’ll try if I give you enough room.”
“You sound almost impressed.”
“I’m cautious.”
“Same thing, if you say it with enough longing.”
I sat. The chair creaked under me.
She snorted.
“Do not start,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to express concern for the furniture.”
“The furniture can take it.”
“I admire your optimism.”
I should’ve shut it down. I should’ve told her to eat, lie down, and save her breath for the morning. I should’ve put more distance between us, even if the square footage didn’t offer much.
Instead, I sat there under the lamp’s bad yellow light and let her get under my skin one line at a time.
The air conditioner rattled. A truck passed on the highway beyond the trees. The television next door went quiet, and somewhere behind the motel, the trash-bin lid banged once in the wind. Crystal ate three pretzels, drank water, and pretended exhaustion wasn’t dragging at the corners of her eyes.
I knew that kind of stubborn.
I’d seen it in mirrors.
“You should sleep,” I said.
“You first.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“Because you’re afraid I’ll run.”
“Because you will run.”
“I might surprise you.”
“You have surprised me several times today.”
“That sounded complimentary.”
“It was a warning.”
“Those are sexier when you mean them.”
My grip tightened on the armrests.
Crystal noticed. She noticed everything that mattered when it gave her leverage.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You keep pushing because you want me off balance.”
“I keep pushing because you make interesting faces.”
“You’re trying to make me careless.”
“Are you getting careless?”
“No.”
It was the only answer I could afford.
Her gaze moved over me, not shy and not subtle. Across my shoulders. Down my forearms. To the tattoos visible below my sleeves. To the crucifix where it had slipped over my shirt again.
She nodded toward it. “That yours?”
My hand covered the cross before I meant it to.
Her eyes narrowed, but not with mockery this time.
I lowered my hand. “It is now.”
“Wasn’t always?”
“No.”
The silence held.
She could’ve cut at that. She didn’t.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, that restraint worked on me harder than any of her teasing.
Crystal looked away first, toward the drawn curtains. “I had one of my dad’s old shop rags for years. It was disgusting. Oil, metal dust, probably tetanus. I kept it in a zip bag like it was a relic.”
I looked at the anchor-and-compass ink peeking over her shoulder strap.
“Your dad had a shop?” I asked.
Her fingers tightened around the water bottle.
I’d stepped too close to something without knowing the shape of it.
“He fixed things,” she said.
That was all.
I let it be all.
The quiet thinned between us. The banter had covered a lot. Too much. Without it, the low hum of the air conditioner and the soft movement of her breathing made the space feel smaller.
Crystal set the water down. “I need to lie down.”
“Take the side away from the door.”
“I was planning to levitate.”
“Crystal.”
Her name cut out sharper than I intended.
She stilled.
Then she looked at me with a flash of something I couldn’t read because I wasn’t looking for anything except defiance.
“If you say my name like that again,” she said, “I’m going to start charging you.”
Heat hit low and hard.
I stood because sitting still had become impossible. “Boots off. You sleep in your clothes. You don’t touch the window, the lamp cord, the phone, my keys, or me.”
Her lips parted. “That was a very specific list.”
“You’re a very specific problem.”
“And you say you’re not romantic.”
I took my jacket off and put it over the back of the chair. My keys went in my front pocket. My phone stayed under my thigh when I sat again. The room key went on the table within my reach and out of hers. I didn’t make a production of any of it.
Crystal watched every bit of it anyway.
She worked her boots off slowly, using her hands and the edge of the bed. The first boot hit the carpet with a dull thud. The second followed. Her bare legs stretched under the ugly motel light, the flower tattoo curling from ankle to lower calf, dark ink over pale skin.
I looked away too late.
She saw that too.
“You know,” she said, “for a man who insists this isn’t romantic, you spend a lot of time staring at my legs.”
“I’m watching for weapons.”
“My legs are weapons?”
“You already tried using one.”
“That was your thigh, not your virtue.”
“My virtue is doing fine.”
Crystal pulled the coverlet back. “If you have to say that out loud, I have concerns.”
“You have a lot of concerns.”
“I’m complicated.”