“I know,” he said slowly, a faint hint of a smirk curling at the corner of his lips. It’s maddening how much I like his face. I don’t want to like any part of him, but especially not the part that lied to me and won me over. And the part that watched me, carefully, learning me inside out when I wasn’t given the same privilege. “But you hate that part of yourself, and glory in being a little inappropriate. Or, when pissed off, a lot inappropriate.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Pissed off for a legit reason.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“What do you want, Scott?”
“I want to talk. Air what needs to be aired, and get this behind us.”
“So talk.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “What do you want to know?”
I huff a frustrated breath. “How am I supposed to know that? How about the complete, unvarnished truth of who you are?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Well, it turns out I’m not that complicated. So…nice knowing you.”
“Whoa, wait.” He holds out his hands, palms up, fingers spread. “Stop making snap, rash decisions like that.”
I frown, adrenaline ricocheting through my body. I try to ignore the fight or flight reflex pressing hard against my ribcage from the inside out. “This isn’t going to work if you tell me how to be.”
“How will it work?”
“I don’t know.”
“But it will, if we figure out a way?” It’s so easy to hear hope in his voice. To listen to the matching voice streaming through my mind, chanting that I can trust him and if I just crawl into his lap, it’ll all be okay.
I can’t trust that voice.
I can’t trust him.
I shake my head. “I didn’t mean to promise that. I don’t know.”
He moves forward, settling right on the edge of his chair. He’s fisting his hands so tightly his knuckles are white. “I don’t want to push you, Ali.”
I stare at his hands and my frown deepens. “I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re barely holding yourself back from grabbing me and shaking me and telling me I’m wrong.”
He makes a frustrated sound but doesn’t deny it. He gets a point for not denying it.
I stand up. “Come back tomorrow. Bring cupcakes.”
— —
He brings a half-dozen chocolate cupcakes.
I look in the box and burst out laughing. Hailey leans closer, then looks up in confusion. “Ali doesn’t like chocolate.”
I nod, my gaze locked on Scott’s the whole time. “And Scott doesn’t like to be told what to do.”
He stares right back. “But I’m here.”
I shrug. “Tomorrow, bring me lemon ones and we’ll talk.”
— —
There are three lemon cupcakes the next day, and we sit on the couch together, the cupcakes between us, for nearly an hour.
His beard is getting pretty long. I want to rub my hand over it and find out if it’s soft or prickly. I can’t decide which I’d rather.
I settle for asking about the “work” he didn’t get to do in England.
“My brother…” he trailed off. “Do you know I have two brothers?”
I do now. I’ve done the complete Google search on him I should have done months ago. “Yeah.”
“Jeff extended the use of Mayfair attorneys to me. I was already using them on this end to smooth over some immigration difficulties I was having, so…basically I took advantage of having them at my disposal and they’re going to…”
“To….what?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot.
I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t know what you do, Scott! You’re not just a bodyguard, remember? All mysterious and shit?”
He has the good graces to look chagrined at least. “Right. It’s…complicated.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, great.”
“What do you want from me?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “Maybe what I want is something you can’t give me.”
We fall into a frustrated silence for a bit, then he asks me about my project. I’ve done fuck all on it, but I let myself talk about my plans. It’s not a real conversation, but it’s something.
When we fall silent again, I twist so I’m looking at him more full-on, and I tuck my feet under my butt.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
“No. Yes.” It’s actually a pretty hot day out there, but I’m suddenly chilled.
He passes me a soft blanket from the end of the couch. Our fingers brush against each other briefly and my heart hammers against my chest, like, let me out of here, because my rightful place is over there. I ignore it and wrap the blanket around myself, but from the stricken look on Scott’s face, he’s having a similar reaction.
Well, then we’re both fucked, aren’t we?
I’m suddenly snappish. I pin a hard stare on him. “What do you want?”
He answers terrifyingly quickly. “I want you back.”
My mouth goes dry. “That scares the living daylights out of me.”
He nods, the corners of his mouth turning down.
“I think…I’m just too young, you know? I’m not meant to…” Fall in love, that’s what I want to say here, but I can’t. I can’t show him that again. I did once, in England. I yelled it in anger, and now he’s latched on to it like it might be the thing that brings us back together.
It’s not.
“I’m not meant to get attached yet. And that I did, and it went badly…that’s a poor reflection on me.”
He shakes his head. “No. I ended up being your worst nightmare, and that was preventable. It won’t happen again.”
I know it won’t. I’ll never risk it again. “Thank you for bringing me cupcakes,” I say quietly. “Two days in a row, even.”
“My pleasure.”
“You should go now.”
It takes him a minute to realize I’m dismissing him. “No. Don’t do this.”
“It’s not you…” I say, trailing off, but it is. He’s too much for me. Too old, too serious, and carrying too much baggage. “It’s just that I can’t handle all that a relationship would demand.”
He glares at me. “Now who’s the liar?”
I jut my chin out at him. “Get out.”
“This isn’t over.”
“Of course it is. Not everything happens at your beck and call.”
He scowls at me. “No. It happens at yours.”
“Screw you.”
His arm snaps out and he strokes my cheek, then rubs his thumb across my lower lip. “Anytime you want, babe. Anytime you want.”
—twenty-eight—
Scott
When I leave Ali that afternoon, I mean to go home. But I swing past The Horus Group offices and Wilson’s doing his creepy stalker thing again. Jason growls at him that it’s inappropriate and Tag suggests we all go out for a liquid lunch.
This is how we wind up weaving down Connecticut Ave right around the time that everyone else is leaving work. We’re probably taking up too much space on the sidewalk, but who’s going to tell us to get out of the way?
We really just need to get to the other side of Dupont Circle. Then we can dump ourselves on the Metro and head home to our beds.
Except Wilson. He claims he’s going back to the office.
Lunatic.
“I don’t even want to work anymore,” I say out loud, to nobody in particular.
A woman walking buy snorts. “Of course you don’t,” she mutters.
“Hey!” I call, spinning around. “I served this country!”
“Shut up,” someone else says, and I’m going to make another smart remark when I realize it was Jason. He’s shaking his head at me. “Don’t use that as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse,” I mumble. Fuck, I’m wasted. And it’s not true that I don’t want to work. I do. I just don’t know what I want to do, exactly. “It’s a fact.”
“It’s also a fact that leaving the navy was your own free fucking choice, asshole, so get over yourself.”
He’s got me there.
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“We should eat something,” Tag says, rubbing his stomach. “Steak, maybe.”
The hostess at the steakhouse we go into gives us a dubious look, but she seats us in a booth in the back, and by the time we’ve eaten senator-sized dinners, we’re all more or less sober. Not driving sober, but good to make it to the subway station.
I’m just upright enough to think that texting Ali is a good idea. Nobody else is sober enough to stop me.
S: I miss you.
She doesn’t reply. I stare at our messages all night, and for the next week, until I get drunk again with Wilson and delete the entire history.
I still miss her like fucking mad. But she doesn’t miss me at all, and that’s all there is to it.
Can’t get blood from a stone.
Can’t get love from a broken girl.
I know there’s something wrong with that thinking, but I’m too wound around the axle to see it any other way.
—twenty-nine—
Alison
S: I miss you.
I read this text message every single morning and every single night for two weeks.