CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
He wasn’t there when she reached a hand out in the night. The bed was empty, aside from Popcorn somehow on the end of it, snoring faintly. And occasionally muttering to himself.No, Mother, unhand me, I am in no need of a bath, she heard as she slipped out of bed, and padded into the living room.
But he wasn’t there, either.
She only unearthed him when she saw smoke spiraling past the window, and realized where the smoke was coming from. His cigarettes, she thought, then went to the door. Sure enough, there he was. Leaning against the porch rail in a barely buttoned plaid shirt and definitely not buttoned at all pair of jeans. Barefoot, even though it was freezing.
The cold hit her like a slap.
She almost went back and put on the pajamas he’d made her out of thin air, instead of sticking with just one of his old shirts. Or at least grabbing something more than socks to go on her feet. But in the end, the way he looked won out. He was gazing into the distance, in so mournful a way it squeezed her heart. Lost to it, it looked to her, and to the point where he barely noticed she was there.
She had to cross the porch before he did.
And even then he seemed startled. He straightened up, pinched out his cigarette, tried to laugh. “What are you doing out here, it’s freezing,” he said. As if it wasn’t the same for him. As if it wasn’tworsefor him.
“I could say the same to you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like smoking in the house anymore.”
“You know I know they’re not even real cigarettes, right?”
“That’s not the point. Good men don’t do it, poison to humans or otherwise.”
“And you still think you’re not a good man?”
He met her gaze then. So sudden and so charged it shook her a little. She’d thought he had started to at least get past that idea—of him being fundamentally horrible or unworthy. But clearly something had reaffirmed it in his mind. She just had to work out what, and she went to.
He just got there first.
“I can’t even be tender when we have sex,” he said.
As if that made any sense at all. “You were just tender then. You’ve been tender with me lots of times. You’re always tender with me, Jack. What are you talking about? Do you think that just because we got a lot rambunctious just now that it means you’re not?”
“It was a little more than rambunctious.”
“Yeah and that’s not a bad thing. I mean, you saw me enjoying it, right?”
“I saw. Don’t think I’ll ever unsee it. But that’s really not the point.” He looked away, into the darkness. “I guess I just thought it would be different after you helped me stay in human form all the time. Once I didn’t have to be that anymore. I thought I could be more normal, completely. I pretended for a while. But I’m just not, I’m not. I get someone like you in front of me, all beautiful and eager, and I always lose it.”
“Maybe I like that. Maybe I don’t think loving tenderness means you can’t be passionate, and hot, and devilish,” she said, then realized exactly what she had said. She’d used the wordlovein there, somewhere. As if what he felt for her was that. So of course she had to hedge a little. “And maybe she won’t, either. In fact I know she won’t. You’ve got to believe she won’t. You’ve got to try because you are running out of time. At least go to her and see.”
Then she gave him a playful thump on the last word.
All buds here, she thought that gesture said. Just wanting good things for each other. No expectations, if expectations wouldn’t be welcomed. Though a huge part of her was now hoping they would be, and she knew it. She saw his gaze flick to her, she saw him eye her in this oddly rueful sort of way, and imagined more.
But all he said was, “You really don’t mind if I do, do you.”
Then he looked back into the darkness, leaving her behind.
Stranded in the land of trying to seem like she was fine with that.
“Of course not. I want you to be okay. I want you to be happy,” she said, in a voice that sounded cheerful on the surface. But like rusty nails down a chalkboard underneath. Of course it did. It felt like those same things were happening inside her heart. Something was splitting her in two.
Though thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.
He was too busy thinking of other things.
“I don’t know, kid, maybe I can’t be now. Maybe I’ve messed things up. Not done enough, not been enough. Said the wrong things, thought I could play the game and lost. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes,” he said. Like all that mattered to him was winning her. And now feeling like he couldn’t. Like he was just running needless risks, maybe, if his expression on seeing a hellhound by the tree line was any indication. It went dark and flat.Determined, almost. Then he added, “I think you had the right idea when you said we should break it.”
