Tempting(50)

“That’s not why I came over here, and I think you know it.”

I heaved out a sigh, abso-fucking-lutely not willing to bring up Diana first. “Well, we’ll need to discuss it eventually. You being a scholarship recipient makes a huge—”

“You have a wife?” she interjected, whispering harshly. “Or girlfriend, I don’t really know. I just know there’s something pretty major that you’re not telling me.”

For a moment I wondered whether my face looked as weary as I felt. Pretty major. Yes, it was pretty major. It was also a massive understatement. And not a single word of defense crossed my tongue. Just pictures, memories and nightmares that always hovered at the edges of my sleep.

“Just tell me something true, Nathan.” When I looked at her again, her eyes were huge and pleading. She was so young, with moments like that highlighting it for me. At that age, would I have been willing to make that kind of request, the kind that could so easily be rejected? “Please,” she whispered.

I drew my thumb across the calloused skin underneath the ring finger on my left hand. Adele immediately honed in on the movement and narrowed her eyes.

“I was married. But I’m not anymore.” She lifted both eyebrows. And? I could practically hear her saying it. My brain raced, trying to loosen the iron fisted grip that had been over my tongue for the last almost four years. Something true, that’s all she was asking. “It’s hard for me to talk about this, Adele. To anyone.”

She moved to sit, but stopped herself, looking back over her shoulder. Her coworker still hadn’t returned. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“It’s not that,” I reassured her, rubbing a hand down my face. “She … Diana. That’s my wife. She, well, she … died. In a car accident, years ago.”

Simplification and omission. They were the grayest of areas when it came to lies, weren’t they? No part of that was a lie. Not a single word. But the way her face fell, the way she looked at me just a little bit differently, that was exactly why I never wanted to talk about this.

“I’m so sorry, Nathan,” Adele moved to touch my shoulder but I shook my head. The door to the back room swung open, and the other girl working resumed her place behind the cash register.

“How long do you work tonight?” I asked, almost desperate to change the subject.

“Until eight.”

I nodded, starting to file the items on the table back into my messenger bag.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Here? Yes, Adele. That’s it.” I stood, looping the handle of the bag over my head. “I don’t like to talk about her. It’s too hard. And I’m especially not going to do it in your workplace, where anyone we know could walk in.”

She relented, standing back a step after grabbing my still full coffee cup off of the table. “I can respect that.”

“Thank you,” I said, and made sure she could see that I meant it, dropping my chin so that our eyes held for a few seconds longer than they should have, considering where we were. My skin prickled, that chain that hadn’t seemed to drop, the one that had shackled us together since that first night, it tightened along the whole length of my body. With a quick glance behind her, I reached forward and slid my fingers along the inside of her wrist. Her eyes fell shut, and I took a step back, not trusting myself any further. “Have a good night, Adele.”

She didn’t look at me when I walked away, and once I was out the door, I didn’t look back either.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Nothing felt right, nothing felt clear. Not how I felt about Adele, about the fact that she knew about Diana, that she knew my father, albeit not very well. I must have sat at my dining room table for two hours, staring at the blank wall across from me and sifting through my sluggish thoughts.

I wanted her, that I knew. Physically, definitely. Emotionally? That was murkier. I didn’t want to talk to her about Diana. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about that, so I was just keeping Adele on an equal playing field with the rest of the world’s population. If I owned a dog or a cat? I wouldn’t tell them, for fear that the animal race might suddenly evolve and gain the ability to speak. I wasn’t looking for marriage or children or any of that. It wasn’t something I needed after losing it once.

But she was smart. She was tough. And she’d trusted me enough to show me her biggest vulnerability: her relationship with her father.

I nodded my head, and grabbed my phone, where it had stayed silent on the table while I processed.