“I know.” I swipe the treacherous tear dribbling over my cheek. “I lost track of time, then I stood up to answer the door—”Liar! “But I knocked my mug over instead. I ruined your book. And your floor. And?—”
“Stop.”
“Did I chip the mug, too?” I rasp. “I didn’t even check. But as soon as I get my life together, I’ll pay to fix everything I destroyed, I promise.”
He twists and settles on the hearth beside me, resting his elbows on his knees and his arm against mine, then he nods toward the encyclopedia, with the pages already crinkling from moisture damage. “There are a million novels in this house you could’ve read, but you chose a reference book?”
“I keeptrying to read novels,but I get a chapter or two in and realize I’ve already read it.” I sniffle and wipe my nose. The cocoa on my shirt quickly turns cold, but the fire at my back makes me hot. It’s a brutal contrast that leaves me sweating and with goosebumps at the same time. “I already finished Alana’s book.” My heart gives a heavy thud. A good thud. One that has everything to do with the pride I feel for a stranger, and nothing to do with fear. Or encyclopedias. Or spilled cocoa. “It was really good.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” He leans into me, tapping his shoulder against mine. “I liked it. Especially the kissy stuff.”
I snort, lowering my gaze to the floor. “Apart from her book, I feel like I’ve read everything else. So, I pulled the encyclopedia off the shelf and opened it to a random page. Which kinda worked out well, because it turns out the pharaohs had some serious family drama going on.”
“Yeah?” He toes his sneakers off and kicks them acrossthe room. One lands a full ten feet from the front door, while the other rolls under the couch. “What’s the tea?”
“Hatshepsut was a female king doing the dirty with her own half-brother.”
His nose wrinkles with disgust. “Gross.”
“She became the queen consort at first, and when her husband died and their son became king, she helped him rule. But then I guess she got tired of that, because she declared herself king and led her people to prosperity.”
“What happened to the son who was king first?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t get that far.” I press my palms together, lacing my fingers, and stare at the shadows dancing on my skin. “The story’s really kinda cool, actually. It’s not so dry when I stop thinking of it as something to learn and start thinking of them as real people. This chick defied expectations and bowed down to nobody.”
“She was fierce.” He brings his feet back to the hearth and rests his elbows on his thighs. “Not entirely sure how I got to this point in my life, but I know alotof fierce women.”
“Your sister?” I swallow. “Alana?”
“And you.” His lips quirk high on one side. “You’re fierce as hell.”
I scoff and swipe my nose. “I’m a basket case. I cried because of spilled cocoa.”
“You picked up a fire poker and prepared to destroy whoever was stomping up the porch steps. Your tears had nothing to do with a book or a coffee mug, Rose. You think I don’t know when you’re lying right to my face?” He bumps my shoulder with his, winks, then he shoves to his feet.
“Come on.” He wraps his hand around my wrist and tugs me up beside him, catching me against his chest, and grinning when my eyes shoot up to his. “I’m gonna take a shower, because I’ve been to the gym and smell funky. I made pizza bases earlier, so after I get out, I reckon we could head into the kitchen, pick our toppings, and put them in the oven. I wanna hear about the new things you remembered while I was away.”
I frown. “What makes you think I did?”
He crinkles his nose and steps away, dropping my hand as he goes. “You’re a smart woman, and I know you’re working really hard at this. If you remembered something, I wanna hear about it. If you didn’t, then that’s okay, too. You can tell me about Tutankhamuninstead.”
“Hatshepsut. She ruled a hundred and fifty years before Tutankhamun.”
“See?” He wanders across the room. “Smart. I’m gonna walk away now, and you’re gonna pretend you’re not stressing about the cocoa incident.But as soon as I’m out of sight, you’re gonna snatch up the papertowel andscrub, scrub, scrub, because if you leave even a single mark behind, you’ll feel like a monster.” He scoops his gym bag up and meanders across to the doorway leading into the hall. “I’ll pretend not to notice, since I know it makes you feel a certain way. But don’t obsess too much, okay? It’s just cocoa.”
“It’s a stain on your floor.” I gesture around the beautiful room. “And you’ve already put so much effort into restoring the place. Ruining thisisa monstrous act.”
He tips his chin toward the front door. “You see the framing over there?”
I follow his gaze.
“That’s not a standard chunk of wood. It was a log that the guys and I found at the lake. We hauled it home, peeled it back, cut it to size, because I wanted something special up there. But when we were putting it up, my friend, Chris, dropped it. Snapped the damn thing in two. He felt like an asshole. But ya know what?” He flashes a handsome smile. “I could’ve had a standard, boring piece of wood up there. Instead, I get memories. Of the lake. And of my friends. Of the day of the installation. Of the way Chris felt like shit because he’d screwed up, those words banging through his brain the way his parents kicked them into him when he was a kid, and I got to be the one who reminded him he was worthy anyway.” He hooks a thumb toward the television. Or more precisely, the wall behind it. “Back when we were doing the floors, Tommy was getting fussy because back then, he wasalwaysin a bad mood. He was picking at me. Picking at his brother. He annoyed me a time too many, got in my way, and ended up with my fist in his face.”
“You punched him?”
He chuckles. “He stumbled backwards, tripped over a paint tin, and fell flat against the wall. Busted the plaster right through, so I ended up with a Tommy-shaped hole in the wall.”
And he doesn’t seem mad about it. Not at all.
