“That’s exactly how it feels. Dear God, that’s exactly it! For the love of all that’s holy please find me some ill-fitting pajamas.”
She did better than that. She searched her bedside cabinets and found an enormous t-shirt that would probably fit him. And granted, it had a picture of David Hasselhoff on the front and a hole under the left armpit, but it was definitely better than tights and the robe. Once she’d paired it with sweatpants that would probably look more like shorts on him, they were in business.
“You know, you probably could have told me about those before I started putting on the green pantyhose,” he said, as she handed them to him. But she had to be honest—he didn’t look as though he had any regrets. He was still laughing in that half-sheepish way at himself, and when he took the clothes he did a weird thing.
He kind of brushed her cheek with his knuckle. Not a big move really and certainly nothing romantic, but the effect was rather startling. Her insides seemed to drop around three feet. That ache came back to her chest, only this time there was the oddest happy quality to it. A hopeful quality to it, that didn’t seem to make any sense.
What did she have to be hopeful about?
He’d just done the equivalent of chucking her under the chin. He could have been her big brother, or her physically impossible twenty-seven-year-old father. He could have been anyone who felt any kind of affection toward her...but that was the thing though, wasn’t it? When was the last time anyone had touched her so gently?
Years, it had been years and years.
And certainly, none of those people had ever followed it with the kinds of words he did. They had always said brotherly or fatherly things. This was not brotherly or fatherly. She didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that.
“You’re so lovely when you laugh. So lovely it breaks my heart,” he said, while her insides abandoned the building altogether. Her whole body flushed hot and then hotter, and it didn’t stop when he seemed to realize he’d told her the wrong thing. If anything, the little wince that flickered across his face only made it stronger.
It’s okay, she wanted to say.I feel the same way.
But of course she couldn’t. She couldn’t now.
She’d messed everything up with the almost-kiss.
She could see she had, before he spoke and made it worse.
“So I’ll just get changed then,” he said, in this awkward I-better-change-the-subject sort of way. Then as she was leaving, she caught of a glimpse of it all raw in his expression. He didn’t think she was looking anymore, so he just let it out. He let his head go back, and cursed soundlessly at the ceiling.
It was the single most amazing moment of her life.
And very nearly the most terrifying.
Chapter Six
She knew beyond a shadow of doubt what had happened in the closet. It was so obvious a virgin monkey could have worked it out—he had romantic feelings toward her and now no longer understood how to express them. He was possiblyfrightenedof expressing them, in case she ran away again. There was no denying it.
So why was she just sitting here at her computer, trying to pick something for dinner tonight? This was everything she’d been waiting on for the last two years. She could practically hear some unnamed deity telling her,Here, here, have this human connection to make up for all the horrible things I just put you through! Yet still she remained at her desk, afraid in that exact same way he’d described. The one she’d agreed with at the time but not fully appreciated until right now.
I’m so afraid of making the wrong choice that I just don’t make any choice at all, she thought, and suddenly it was so true it was painful. She couldn’t even go up and ask him what he wanted to eat tonight, for fuck’s sake. Something so small and it was too much—though she understood why. She could see it clearly now.
Maybe this wasn’t a reward at all, but a curse. A terrible curse filled with half-realized hopes and tentative dreams, just waiting to be smashed to pieces the moment she started believing in them. After all, the universe had never pretended to be fair. She knew it didn’t dole out gifts when you’d been good, and comfort when you had suffered. Mostly it just seemed like an indifferent lump, striped gray with mediocrity and empty of any real meaning.
And if it wasn’t...then what had she been punished so severely for? That penny sweet she’d stolen when she was seven? The lie she’d told at ten?
She didn’t know, she didn’t know.
She only knew she was deathly afraid of going upstairs and finding out the answer for certain. It took her a full forty minutes to make it to the bottom step. And once she’d gotten there, she kind of wanted to pretend she was doing something else. Maybe she’d just noticed some peeling paint on the bannister and wanted to examine it. Or perhaps she really needed an item from the bedroom and was simply trying to remember if she’d actually left it in the living room.
She was pretty sure she could pass this off as both, if he suddenly came to the top of the stairs and asked why she was standing there.
But the problem was—he didn’t do that. He was still in her bedroom for some ungodly reason, and she was still stuck on what to do for a dinner he probably wouldn’t want. There was no other choice aside from going up and finding out, but by God it was painful to do it. She had to practically drag herself, and once she’d finally made it to the bedroom door it didn’t get any easier.
She’d planned a cheerfuljust wanted to check you were okay, but it died on her lips the second she saw him through the half-open door. He was standing by her bed, fully dressed in her clothes and looking pretty comfortable—aside from his expression. His expression was so far from comfortable it couldn’t have reached it with a barge pole, though it wasn’t clear why.
He was only staring at his phone.
What on earth was his phone saying to make him look like that?
His face seemed in danger of caving in. She had the urge to get out some props and a few sandbags before the damage became irreparable. And it wasn’t just the canyon-like frown and sagging sense of some terrible despair. There was also the tension across his shoulders, so clear she could see it through that awful t-shirt. She could have probably seen it through twenty sweaters and a brick wall.
