Chapter 10
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Thane
The next morning, I wake up with Sera tangled up in my arms. Her wild hair cascades across my chest, and I’m shown exactly what life would’ve been like if I’d stayed.
Her soft breath on my neck makes me wish for eighty more years of this: wrinkled and gray, but still madly in love with each other.
I want so badly to trace the edge of her skin where her T-shirt hangs off her shoulder, but I stop myself.
The sunrise peeking through our curtains means that any minute, she could rouse.
I sure as hell can’t jeopardize the progress we made last night, and I know if she wakes up wrapped around me, she’ll pull away even harder.
So I think more marathon than sprint: take in one deep breath to memorize the way her body feels against mine, then slide out of bed before she stirs.
I make my side of the bed out of habit, get dressed quickly, and wander downstairs to find Pearl serving breakfast to other guests.
“Hi, darlin’. How was your night?” she asks with a wink.
“Not like you’re insinuating, although I may or may not have cut the ties on your blanket… and possibly broken the bed frame.”
She shoots me a knowing grin, and as I open my mouth to protest her assumption, she nudges me and says, “That wouldn’t be the first time.” She pivots on her heels and smacks an empty table. “Sit! Let me feed you.”
“I think I’d rather just take breakfast back up to the room, if you don’t mind,” I reply. “Sera is still asleep.”
“Of course she is,” Pearl says while she pours me a cup of coffee.
“No. It’s not like that,” I insist.
“It may not be right now, but it will be soon. Just you wait.”
That comment gives me pause, so I press for answers. “Just for curiosity’s sake, why do you think that?”
“Son, I’m an eighty-year-old woman with cataracts, and I still could see in the dim candlelight the love that girl has in her eyes for you.”
I fight a smile and shift in my seat. “Well, she hates my guts most of the time, so…”
“Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Both are felt passionately, both motivate you to do crazy things, and both will drive you mad if you let them. It’s easier than you think to go from love to hate, and back again.
It’s indifference you’ve got to be worried about.
If she feels nothing for you, that’s when you know you’ve lost her.
But you’re wasting daylight. Don’t let that one get away, or you’ll regret it forever. ”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It never is, baby. It never is. But if she’s worth it, you’ll find the courage to take the leap. Now, what can I get for you two to eat?”
Pearl takes my order, then disappears into the kitchen—leaving me alone with the thought that she so haphazardly planted in my mind.
Sera and I are complicated. I look at the mess between us and feel overwhelmed at the idea of trying to fix it.
Some things just can’t be repaired, no matter how much effort is put into it.
After the way she reacted to seeing me the other day at her parents’ house, I worry that we’ve been sorted into the irreparable category.
Not that I expected her to run at me in slow motion and jump into my arms, but her instant distrust of me is concerning.
I deserved every ounce of it, though.
But underneath all the insecurities I mask with a cocky smile and too much teasing, a seedling of desire to try grows. Sera is worth the effort. But will she ever feel the same way about me again?
Pearl plunks a tray of biscuits and gravy in front of me and smiles.
“My work here is done. Now go get her, boy,” she says with a grin and pats my shoulder.
I walk up the staircase with a tray full of food in my hands and Pearl’s comments swimming around my head. I reach our room and knock softly. When Sera doesn’t answer, I figure she’s still asleep and open the door.
She’s sitting with her back to me, facing the window.
The morning sunlight filters in, resting on her shiny dark hair and soft shoulders.
I expect her to turn when I come in, but quickly realize she’s got headphones in.
She sings quietly to herself as she folds her clothes and repacks her suitcase, and I stand in the doorway in awe.
The more time I spend with her, the more she pulls me in.
But I can’t risk her seeing me watching her with heart-eyes pulsing, so I open and shut the door harder to give her the impression that I’ve just come in.
She startles and removes her headphone with a yawn.
“Hey. I grabbed us some breakfast while you were sleeping,” I say, setting the food onto the nightstand. I pull out a bed tray for each of us and place hers on the bed we slept in.
“Please tell me that’s biscuits and gravy,” she says, lowering onto the bed across from me.
“It sure is. And cheesy grits too.” I sit down on the broken bed facing her and pull my tray over my lap.
“Oh man, you sure know how to please a girl,” she says.
The realization of the double entendre hits her square in the brain, and she backpedals profusely.
“I mean, um, you knew exactly what I wanted…” She clears her throat and fidgets with her napkin and silverware before muttering, “Thank you.” A blush washes over her naked face, and I hold back a grin that nearly kills me.
I tease her to turn the steam valve inside me a little bit.
“So, I was right to ask Pearl for the chastity blanket, huh?”
“Oh, you definitely needed to be protected from me, all right, but not because I can’t resist you. It’s because I had to fight the urge all night long to put your pillow over your face.”
Pearl’s words float back through my mind: Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.
At least she’s not indifferent, I tell myself.
“Riiiight,” I say slowly, recalling her arms draped over me, “you can believe that if you want to, Handsy.”
She gives me a death glare and grits her teeth around her comeback. “I’d murder you right here if you hadn’t brought me a homemade breakfast that smells like it was made by the angels in heaven.” She sits cross-legged on the bed and situates herself excitedly.
“Those terms are acceptable,” I say.
After her first bite, subsequent eye roll, and tiny little chipmunk sounds, her hanger turns happy. She swallows and reveals what I already read online while waiting for our breakfast. “The roads are going to have debris and some flooding from the storm last night, so we should get an early start.”
I nod slowly, trying to take in the idea of the trip ahead of us.
I only have a few hours of uninterrupted time left with her before we’re bombarded with events and people.
The idea that I wasted the opportunity yesterday to set things right with her makes me hate myself.
It was the chance I’d been waiting for since the night I left, and now that I finally have it, I’m blowing it.
I had hoped that after all these years I’d learn to speak up for myself and say how I really feel.
But so far, I’m just the same old people-pleaser who puts everyone else’s comfort first. Even when I shouldn’t.
Even when it hurts. Even when it ruins everything.
I set down my fork and push away my plate.
“Thane, what’s wrong?”
Her deep brown eyes burrow into mine, and I’m reminded that even though we’ve spent years apart, she can still read me like a book. It disarms me when she looks at me like that, and I love that she has that power still—and it also sucks.
I sigh, buying myself a few seconds of time to compose my face and concoct a story, because now doesn’t feel like a good time to emotionally vomit all over her.
“Well, I didn’t sleep very well. I’m just tired.”
“I’m sorry. Did I hog the blankets?”
No, Fina. The mere presence of you inches from my fingertips all night and not being able to touch you threw off my whole circadian rhythm. So instead I settled for listening to you breathe softly in my ear.
“No. But you snore like a lumberjack,” I say, flashing a grin, shoving the pining I feel every time I look at her right back where it belongs.
“I do not!” she argues.
“You do. But your secret is safe with me.”
She seems to accept my lame excuse, and my shoulders relax a bit. Heaven knows I’m not ready for the deep dive into my thoughts, because I’ll confess everything and scare her off. I need a distraction from all these feelings.
“I’ll start taking bags out to the car while you finish,” I say, standing.
“You’re going to make me eat alone?” Her voice has a hint of sadness in it.
I pause, hovering over my suitcase. “I just want to make sure we get to Amethyst Lake on time,” I say with a shrug.
Sera looks at her watch and does the mental math. “We have time. Sit with me. And eat, for heaven’s sake. I know you’ve got to be hungry in there somewhere. Normally you have hollow legs and can eat anyone under the table.”
I surrender—because that’s what I have always done when it comes to Sera—and sit back down. After cleaning our plates, she smiles with satisfaction, which makes me feel better to know that I can make at least one of us happy. I set my tray aside and stand up.
“Pearl just said to stack our plates on the dresser and she’d get them when they cleaned the room,” I say, gathering our things.
“Okay,” Sera replies, eyeing me suspiciously.
“What? Would you stop that?”
“Stop what?” She plays innocent.
“That over-analyzing look you keep giving me. It’s making me feel like an animal at the zoo.”
Or like I’m standing in front of you in my underwear.
“I’m doing no such thing.”
“You are, and you know it.”
She quirks a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re acting… off.”
“Because you’re staring at me like a weirdo!” I insist, faking a laugh. “I’m fine! Just tired, remember?”
She purses her lips. “I don’t believe you. But whatever. Keep it to yourself, like I haven’t known you your whole life,” she says, her words dripping with passive-aggressive sarcasm. “Let’s get going. I’ll drive so you can sleep.”
Crap. That excuse backfired. Now I have to let her drive, and there’s no way I’ll be able to relax with her behind the wheel.
“Remember, there’s a huge crack in the windshield right at your eye level? I’m okay to drive. I’ll have Pearl give me a coffee to go.”
She hesitates for a moment and eyes me before relenting. “Fine. But if you get even a tiny bit tired, I want you to switch with me, okay? We’ll figure out the windshield. Maybe I can sit on my bag to boost me up or something.”
“Deal,” I say, shaking her hand. “Now let’s strip the bloody sheets so Pearl doesn’t have to, and get out of here.”
We pack our bags back into the rental car—minus locking the keys in the trunk this time—and wave goodbye to Pearl standing on the porch.
“I’m sorry again about the bed,” Sera says sheepishly.
“Oh, that’s just fine. My handyman will have it fixed by check-in. I put him on standby after y’all checked in last night.”
Sera’s face twists with confusion, and before she can ask any more questions, I open her door and herd her into the car.
“I slipped her an extra hundred-dollar bill for the trouble,” I say quietly in Sera’s ear as she sits down in the passenger seat. I shut her door and walk to the driver’s side. “Thank you again, Pearl!” I holler, and shut my own door.
Pearl waves heartily with her arthritic hands and smiles knowingly at me. I know exactly what her wink means, although Sera misses it completely while checking her weather app.
The dead air between us in the car is louder than Grand Central Station, but I do my best to ignore it.
I force away the urgency I feel and turn on our travel playlist instead.
I put the car in reverse and pull toward the freeway.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Sera folds her arms across her chest and sighs.
When that doesn’t work, she sighs louder, then throws her arms up.
“Seriously, Thane? Are you just going to leave me hanging?!”