“I wasn’t giving it back.”
“Right,” my voice came out even softer. “I’m aware. Yours. Still,Iwant to give you what it represents to me. My luck.” I used a fingertip to trace the tattoo, over and over, enjoying the fact that I could summon goosebumps to rise on his skin.
He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. The fire had become a blaze, all-consuming and full of ache. “Stay away from that kid.”
That kid.He meant Ace.
“All right.” I dared myself to stare back, to meet fire with fire, and lifted the set of my chin. “If you’ll stay close to me.”
We stood that way for some time until he closed his eyes, leaned forward, and whispered against my forehead, “We’ll see,” before he placed a tender kiss there.
Chapter Eight
Scarlett
After dinner with Maggie Beautiful and her friends, and after Brando’s “birthday shindig,” he dropped me off at home. After I shut the front door behind him, I ran upstairs and stepped up to my bedroom window, using my pointer finger to push back the white lace curtains.
He must have sensed me there and turned. My body trembled from the sting of cold upon wet skin, and from watching him.
He stood in the glow of his truck lights, his flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves, his dirty work boots washed by the rain, sending black ribbons swirling into the many puddles before dissipating. His arms were crossed, his feet the same way.
He pulled his beanie down, shielding his ears from the cold. He stared at me without apology, without shame, without turning away when I met his unwavering stare and our eyes connected.
Fine moments were not exactly my forte. Smoothness either. Or sultriness. Or anything along those same lines. I was eighteen. I had never been in love with anyone other than Brando—and had only been fifteen when I first fell for him. My brother had died in the wee hours of the next morning.
It was no secret that in some aspects of my life my mother had sheltered me to the point of smothering. She’d send me off to Russia in a heartbeat to dance, but to dance with a boy at prom? Forbidden.
Life had always moved me at a particular speed, a speed in which “talent” had dictated my every twist and turn. It’s all I knew, all I did, from the moment I could walk. Dancing with Maja Resnik’s shadow came with hefty responsibilities.
In one word, I was naïve. But not so immature that I didn’t understand my feelings, or which direction I was heading, and the speed with which I was getting there.
True love was the feeling—without the burden of guilt. Brando’s direction was where I was headed—which I had been for some time. And I was getting there at one hundred and fifty miles per hour—whereasI had only been going twenty before.
Though in this moment it was easier for me to stare back from the comfort of my bedroom window—easierandharder. I wanted to touch him, run my fingers up his arms, over his ribbon tattoo, over his lips and through his hair. I wanted to know what it felt like for his lips to touch mine, to taste his mouth, his tongue to twirl with mine in that way that lovers do, and for him to return my want with just as much passion.
In truth, it was much easier to imagine all of these things without the pressure to act on them.
Brando had feelings for me, I knew, but I didn’t know how deep they ran, or if he even intended to act on them. In his presence, it was easy to forget what Mitch had told Violet: He wanted to fill a loss in my life, become an older brother figure. “We’ll see” meant no, bringing back the crushing reality that he felt an obligation to watch out for me. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I sighed, my feeble breath not touching the already condensed windowpane.
After our moment in his room, a quiet, heated debate went back and forth between him and Maggie Beautiful (which is what he called her too), and after a few moments of tense deliberation, he threw his hands up, stalked from the kitchen back into the front room, and took his seat at the table after holding mine out.
Their next-door neighbors, Craig and Marvin, a delightful couple who seemed to marvel in Maggie Beautiful’s sequin ensemble, came over with the main course.
I watched Brando throughout dinner, partly because I was curious as to what his reactions would be to the wild things Maggie Beautiful did, and partly because, no matter what he did, he seemed to capture my attention without meaning to. I had a hard time keeping my eyes to myself. My hands, too, for that matter; they itched to touch him, to memorize his every feature.
The years that had passed had caused me to hunger in a way that had not been apparent until I was with him—I felt him in a surge, on an acute, primal level.
Dinner was good, the cake even better, but Brando became the entire meal. It seemed that no matter how much time would pass, or how many times he would do some mundane thing, my need for him had established itself as insatiable.
There was nothing for me to compare it to; still, whateverthingexisted between us was unusual. I could feel him deep in my bones, just as I could feel the connection rush through my blood in heated passion and cold fear.
If our love was a book, the language was ours alone. We both seemed to understand the writing easily enough, even if he refused to read past the first chapter.
Not long after Maggie Beautiful put on an after-dinner show, Brando insisted on taking me home. I didn’t protest. I wanted to be alone with him.
The truck ride had been silent, reflective. His hand so close to mine on the seat had become almost unbearable, an awful temptation that became a need to connect.
