18. Tea
Tea
Melody
Greg got up and walked with me to the front door. Thank God for that, too.
“I swear they’re not usually like this.” I didn’t want him to think I was a negligent parent…sister…whatever. “Things in my house aren’t usually this chaotic, but…and they’re not bad kids. It’s just…”
“They’re spirited and finding their way.” He reached around me for the door, his chest grazing my back. “That Miriam’s real smart. And she’s got a spine to boot. I like it.”
I felt his warmth along with the familiarity of this gesture. Like we’d done it a million times. Like he lived here.
He had eased into an empty space I didn’t know existed, and while he was navigating his way around two teenagers, he was quietly holding me up as well. It almost made me cry.
I was so tired, and not just from the shooting, or the getting hit by a car.
I had a soul-deep exhaustion that I had lived with for so long that I didn’t know what it was like to not be carrying the weight of the world on me.
I didn’t know what it was like to wake up without rocks in my gut, and a desire to just…
let go. To disappear, and to stop existing.
It was the first time I could remember taking in a full breath. All because he had ordered food, stopped a fight, and now…was picking up bags and tipping drivers. Small things that, when added all together, became huge. Like I actually had someone to lean on…
I liked it. I wanted it to be my reality.
I wanted to watch my brother and sister spat and have someone to talk about it with afterwards. Someone who could help me keep calm and stay levelheaded, so I wasn’t always panicked all the time.
“She is.” I smiled, proud of her. “She’s the easy one.”
“Marcus is a good kid, too.” He turned the knob, and as he pulled it open, whispered, “He’s just going through it. But he’s a good kid.”
I always thought so. Marc could be a real prick, but at his core, I always believed he had a good soul. But it was blind faith and sometimes, I worried that I was deluding myself.
Two men, each with two bags, stood on the other side. One with Thai, the other with greasy American.
“How much food did you get?” I said, mouth open.
“I like leftovers. Don’t you?” He reached into his wallet for two bills, giving each a twenty. “Thanks for coming this far!”
“Oh, you already tipped in your online payment,” one of them said, and the other nodded to agree.
“I know, but it’s raining and shitty out. Here you go.” Both guys smiled as they plopped through the puddles back to their running cars.
“You sure like to throw your money around,” I said suspiciously. “Is that…because you’re trying to impress me?”
“You getting sassy on me, darling?” He lifted a brow. “And no. I’m not rich. But I also don’t spend much. So when I want to, I can.”
He had all four bags in his massive hands, leaving nothing for me to carry as he placed the food in front of the kids. While the teens stuffed their mouths, the argument was forgotten. What few dishes were used, Greg washed in the sink and put in the drying rack beside it.
I smiled. I didn’t think that my face knew how to do that anymore. Not the polite smile I use so that no one thinks I’m insane. But a genuine, contented smile that comes with not being terrified all the time that something is about to go wrong.
Then my phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Don’t make us do something you’ll regret
A strange, jittering shiver went through me. The feel of barely restrained terror. Of a scream or a shout or a temper tantrum I would not have. The cry I would not allow to escape. The absolute wish to flee, to disappear, to make it all go away no matter the consequences.
That terror that something would go wrong was there for a reason. I wasn’t safe.
No one was safe around me.
Nothing’s so good that it lasts forever…
My fingers trembled as I turned the phone, its screen facing down.
Greg took my hand and placed it on his thigh. A subtle, soothing move the kids didn’t notice. He couldn’t have seen the message. The notification barely popped up for more than two seconds before I’d flipped it over. But he must have sensed something was wrong.
The kids dismissed themselves to their rooms, and then there were two…
I held a mug of chamomile tea in my hands as the cold started seeping through the poorly insulated walls. The draft was coming from the broken living room window, and I shivered.
He stared at me, his own mug in one hand, the other playing with the tea bag.
He looked awkward in the small kitchen. Like he was looking for something to say, or was perhaps trying to make a hasty exit. I was a lot. The kids were a lot.
“You know…I’m fine,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to spend the night if you don’t want to.”
“I wouldn’t spend the night if I didn’t want to.” He shrugged one massive shoulder, and maybe I did have a concussion, because it took a moment to figure out what the heck he meant. Too many negatives in one sentence. How many negatives make a positive?
“Okay…” I said. “And…”
My brows furrowed, unsure how to respond.
I wanted him to be clearer, because he made my head swim and my heart flutter, and it was confusing. I had never felt like this before. Not in a good way, at least. In the past, anytime my heart stuttered or my head got foggy, it was because I was scared or powerless.
Around him, I was neither.
“You…want to…” I trailed off. What could I say to help clarify what this was? Without sounding needy and desperate? Without sounding like the baby Luke said I was? Without scaring Greg away?
“I…want to…” He matched my tone, but it didn’t feel like he teasing me. “Kiss you.”
I gasped, watching as he put the mug down on the counter with a clatter.
“But I need to say a few things first.” He glanced at the ground. What was he ashamed of? “I wasn’t always the kind of guy I am now. I was…a pretty crappy person. I hit rock bottom. Made a lot of mistakes. Most of them involved women.”
He scratched the base of his neck, which I recognized as a self-soothing gesture. Was he worried about how I’d respond? Considering I was guilty of step-patricide, I didn’t really have a leg to stand on. Not that Greg knew.
“I’m telling you this, because when you find out, I don’t want you to be surprised.” He finally met my eyes. “I’ve been sober for five years. Mostly quit my vices. And women was one of them. I had to figure myself out.”
He placed his hand over his chest and rubbed the space above his heart, as if willing it to stay steady.
“It turns out that I don’t need women, and I’m okay by myself.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped.
This wasn’t anything after all.
“So when I say I want to kiss you, it’s because I want to have something real.” He ran a hand through his hair, pulling the strands from his man bun before unfurling it and trying to finger comb it again. “What I’m saying—really poorly—is…”
He cleared his throat. My heart pounded as I braced for rejection.
I didn’t know how desperately I wanted him in my life until right this moment. How much I wanted to try something with him. To have a relationship. To…not be lonely. It was like I’d forgotten the loneliness of my solitude until I realized another option seemed possible.
The longing in the pit of my soul twisted my guts as I waited for him to speak.
“If I kiss you…” He slowly dropped his hands to the counter as he leaned back on it, creating even more space between us. “I want it to be something.”
He shut his eyes and let out another long sigh.
“I know you’re young. You’ve got a lot going on.” He shrugged. “I don’t. So if it’s a no, that’s fine. If it’s not right now, then I can wait. But if it is a yes, then…I want it to be real from the get-go. I don’t want to kiss you until you’re ready for that.”
I was too foggy to grasp everything he was saying. It was like I was reading a piece of text over and over again, and…nothing. I had forgotten what words meant.
“That’s a lot of pressure on a kiss,” I said on a breath. I closed my own eyes, trying to figure out what to say next. “Are you…are you asking me out?”
Greg snorted. “No, baby.”
Oh…I guess I was really misreading everything.
He covered his mouth. “Sorry…I know you don’t like it when I call you that.”
“No…it’s…” I was surprised by my next words. “It’s okay…coming from you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He bit his lower lip, and it was the most sensual thing I had ever seen.
I thought he would kiss me right then. I really did.
He had that look in his eyes—the longing that spoke to something in me.
Like he was mirroring a desire that was in me as well.
A desire I was trying very hard not to acknowledge.
But he didn’t.
He put more distance between us, turning away as he cleared his throat. “I’ll be on the couch. I’ll check on you through the night, though.”
And maybe I was feeling sour. Maybe I was just…sick of this game.
This something that wasn’t really anything.
He was doing so much. Too much.
He was always on the brink of a kiss, always with desire in his eyes, always saying the right things. Always too good to be true. But also always pulling away at the last minute.
“Is Marcus right?” I asked. “Are you just here because I’m an easy target, and you want to get out of a barn?”
He sat on the couch. This farmhouse, open-kitchen plan had been my mother’s dream. Being able to see us in the family room while she cooked and washed up gave her so much joy. She liked having her children close. But from where I stood, he was too far away. Out of my finger’s reach, and I hated it.
“I have absolutely no need to get out of that barn.” He didn’t even look at me. Instead, he flexed his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fists as he stayed silent.
“You said we were something, but you do everything short of just kissing me, and from where I’m standing, it looks like the last thing you want to do is be anywhere near me.”
“That’s what it looks like from where you’re standing?” He scoffed. “Then move.”