“What?” she asks, a tinge of hurt in her voice. “Am I not allowed to play with your hair anymore?”
I roll my eyes.
Dylan laughs, getting to her feet. “Peck, tonight has been … real.” She glances over my head at Molly. She laughs again and lets her gaze fall back to me. “See ya later.”
She gives me a final smile, one that’s laced with annoyance, and walks right out of the bar as if she owns the damn place.
I’m still watching the door when Molly sits down beside me in the chair Dylan just vacated.
“What the hell was that?” Molly asks.
I drag my eyes back to her. “Just stop. You don’t care. You just want—”
“I always care. You know that.”
Her eyes soften as her entire face shifts to something more vulnerable. It’s true—she’s vulnerable. But not in the way she’s playing me right now.
“Molly, just stop it. Please.”
“Why are you being mean to me?” she asks.
“I’m not being mean to you.”
She takes my beer and downs half of it. Her bracelets clamor against the bar as she sets the bottle back down. Without Dylan around, there is no touching my shoulder or batting her lashes. Why? There’s no audience.
“I’m not being mean to you,” I repeat, “but don’t do that. It’s not cool.”
“Don’t do what? Don’t put that girl in her place? She was making a fool out of you, Peck.”
I glare at her. “No. You know what just happened? She made a fool out of you.”
Her jaw drops.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” I ask her. “Damn it. You’re better than this, Molly. You don’t have to go up to some woman who’s done nothing to you and be a jerk.”
“First of all, I wasn’t a jerk.”
I slow blink in response.
“Second, she did do something to me.”
“What? What could she have possibly done to you?” I pause, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. “She had the audacity to have fun with me in your presence? Is that what she did?”
“Peck …”
Navie slides me another beer. A bit of the liquid sloshes out onto the bar. I’d normally grab a napkin and clean it up, but I don’t. My head hurts too bad, my body too pulled to a place outside this establishment to care.
Instead, I take a long, slow drink before turning my attention back to Molly.
“Dylan is nice. You could’ve made a friend there,” I tell her.
“I don’t want to be her friend.”
“Good, because it’s probably not going to happen now.”
“Good, because I don’t care.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “She’s not right for you.”
A chuckle passes my lips, but it’s not one of humor. It’s filled with years of frustration at a woman who refuses to see the light. Any light. Anything besides the darkness that’s surrounded her for the past twenty-six years.
“I like Dylan,” I tell Molly. “She’s funny and sweet and …”
Her face falls.
I sigh. She’s going to play this card until it can’t be played anymore. The longer I sit here, the more I want to leave. To go home. To see Dylan and make sure she’s not fucked up by this little show Molly’s put on. She’s not used to her antics and might not write them off like everyone else does.
“Molly, I need to get going.”
“Are you going to see her?”
“Well, we live together.”
A look of panic settles on her face. It’s a fear for herself, not for me. She’s never really cared about me.
This is not a revelation. I’ve known this stinging fact about her my entire life. I’ve always just been unsure that she was able to care about anyone, like maybe that part of her is broken. I’ve never blamed her for that, considering the reason behind the nights we’ve spent together over the years. Reasons I’d still go to prison for if the police hadn’t taken care of it already.
I take Molly in—the feel of her hand on my arm, the smell of her perfume dancing through the air. The pull of her gaze trying to bring me back into her world.
Usually, those things matter. They’re so familiar, and I worry that if I don’t have them, my life will be off-balance. That or someone else will be in my place and hurt her.
But tonight, things are … different.
It’s not her touch I crave, and the strength of her perfume is strangling out the remnants of Dylan’s on my shirt, and that alone annoys me. The eyes I want to be looking into—the ones I want to be checking to make sure they’re okay—aren’t whiskey colored. They’re the prettiest shade of green there ever was.
I let the rest of the alcohol flow down my throat. “Molly,” I say, motioning to Navie that I’m leaving, “have a good night, okay?”
“Peck.” My name comes out in a rush as she reaches for my arm. “I’m sorry,” she says.
She bites her bottom lip, waiting to see if I’ll cave. I always do.
“I just sort of lose my mind when I’m triggered, and it’s been a bad night,” she says. “Then I come in here and see you and her and … I just love you, you know?”
Dylan’s words on love, which have stayed with me since she said them, come barreling back. Can you really, truly love someone who doesn’t love you back? Love should be based on mutual respect. A healthy love, anyway. Molly doesn’t respect me. She’s happy to have me on the periphery, someone she uses when needed. But she doesn’t want me or love me.
And maybe, just maybe, love isn’t what I feel for her either.
“Good night, Molly,” I say again.
A streak of panic flashes across her face. I give her the best smile I can manage before I walk out. And for once, I’m walking away from her. And it feels just fine.
Sixteen
Dylan
“Well, this isn’t going to work.”
I take out the last shirt from my suitcase and lay it flat on the bed. The remnants of the wardrobe I packed to last me a few days until my rental was ready stare back at me from the top of Peck’s black guest room blanket.
My options for work at the bank are more limited than I realized. It’s fancier than the bank in Indiana, and I don’t think I have enough pieces to really stretch my wardrobe longer than six days or so.
I try to focus on my clothing predicament and not the other one—the one prickling at the back of my brain. It’s much easier to worry about the logistics of getting clothes out of the barn, or getting a dresser, or moving into the rental Joanie might have information about rather than thinking about what Peck is doing with Molly right now.
Sitting on the bed, the mattress dipping with my weight, I blow out a breath.
It’s none of my business what Peck is doing. None at all. Tonight was just us goofing off and having some fun. So what if I felt more alive on that bar with him than I might ever have before? It didn’t mean anything. To him.
“Damn you,” I whisper.
Despite the words toppling from my mouth, I smile. The man just gets better and better the more I see of him.
I can still feel his hands on my body and the weight of his gaze. His cologne still clings to my hair. I close my eyes and can almost put myself back on that bar with his body behind mine—nothing mattering except our movements to that song. I’ve never done anything so … sensual in my life. Not with any other boyfriends over the years. Not even with Charlie and I dated him for a year and a half.
No, this was different. Crazy in the best way. Real, raw, and electric.
But when I open my eyes, I’m forced back to reality.
And Molly.
A knock on the door gets my attention. I look up. My heart skips a beat as I see Peck standing in the doorway. I didn’t hear him come in, but there he stands with one arm gripping the top of the doorframe.
“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing back so early?”
His muscles flex as he grips the door tighter before releasing it.
His hand drops to his side. The light from the hallway billows around him, making him look taller and broodier than he is.
I stand so that I’m not at a disadvantage.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asks, ignoring my question. He moseys through the room, his bare feet slapping against the hardwood.
I hesitate. Did I have fun? With him, yes. But if he means all-around, including the last piece where I watched a girl Navie and Machlan hate, a girl Peck loves, fawn all over him to stake her claim, then no. Not so much. They have history. Something that no amount of dancing on a bar can compete with. At least, unlike with Charlie, I was warned up front and knew I needed to pull back.
He reads my uncertainty. “I’m sorry about Molly,” he says.
“Don’t apologize for her. She’s a big girl. She knows what she’s doing.”
“You’re right,” he groans. “She does know exactly what she’s doing.”
We face each other a safe distance apart. I wonder why he doesn’t come closer—if he’s fighting the same pull to me that I’m struggling with over him.
There’s a chance I’ll never be able to be around him now and not feel this tingle, this need to be in his orbit. I’m not sure how all of this will work if I can’t shake that.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Is she always this …” I search for the right word. “Aggressive?”
“Believe it or not, she can be just as indifferent.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. The waistband of his jeans dips, and I have to fight myself not to stare.
“Can I ask you another question?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you like her?”
His eyes fire immediately. It’s like he was prepared for this question. His lips part, and I know I’m going to be given some spiel that he gives everyone about Molly. But that answer—that canned response—isn’t what I’m after.
I hold up a finger. “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t say it.”
“But I’m just tryin’ to answer the question you asked.”
“I want you to answer it,” I say, picking up a shirt and folding it. “But I want you to think about it first.”
He makes a face like he’s confused.
“You’re going to give me some practiced answer, and that’s not the answer to the question I asked.” I plop the shirt by the pillow. Turning around, I look at him directly. “I want to know why you like her for real.”
His hands slip out of his pockets, and he watches me curiously. A sober look filters his features. He looks around the room, meandering slowly until he ends at the window. Leaning against the wall, he stares into the night.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say softly.
“It’s fine. It’s just that no one has really asked me that before.”
“Really? No one?” It occurs to me that maybe it’s not my place to ask. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping my bounds here—”
“You’re not.”
He doesn’t move. His body faces away from me as he stands there with his shoulder against the wall like he has all night to talk about this.
I sit on the edge of the bed. My stomach spirals with a flutter of nerves as I try to figure out what he’s thinking.
He bites his bottom lip as his gaze drifts out the window again.
“I just …” I stammer. “I just don’t understand. Clearly, you like her—even by your own admission. So there has to be something you see in her that justifies it. Not that it has to be justifiable to like someone. You can like people just because you do.”
I suck in a hasty breath.
His lip pops free of his teeth. His face becomes completely passive. It’s like he relaxes right in front of me.
The wrinkles on his forehead smoothen as his shoulders fall, and I wonder how I didn’t realize how stressed he looked before.
“It’s hard to explain,” he says softly. “It’s … complicated.”
“I think that’s pretty normal,” I offer. “I mean, I can’t really think of a relationship that I’ve ever had that’s not been complicated. Once emotions get involved, everything sort of tangles up.”
“Yeah …”
An awkward silence settles over us. The easiness that we usually enjoy is tainted somehow by the discussion of Molly.
“I told you about Charlie,” I say. “Not everyone understood our relationship, and I was fine with that.”
“What was your relationship with him like?”
“Good,” I say, picking up another shirt. “Mostly. We were together for about eighteen months. Navie really never understood our coupledom, and my mom hated him. But she hates anyone who takes potential attention away from her, so that’s not all that crazy. But anyway, no one really got why I liked him, and I couldn’t explain it. We just had over a year of experiences built up together that felt like something substantial. And it worked for me. I saw him differently because I knew the things he’d been through and fought against and his insecurities and all that.”
I fold the shirt and set it on top of the other one.
“I’m sorry he hurt you. He’s a fool.”
My heart hurts as I think of Charlie but not in a ravaged, heartbroken kind of way. I never did have that feeling with him. It was more like a betrayal that he lied to me about going on a work trip when, in reality, he was going to see his ex. Deciding while with me if the grass was actually greener on the other side. Which it was. Ouch.
“Nah, it’s okay,” I say. “He was my first serious boyfriend, so I think it meant more to me than it did to him. He had way more experiences with his first love than he did with me. Hence, my theory that first loves are always the most powerful.”
I wait for him to give me some indication of what he’s thinking. His features remain thoughtful as he presses off the wall and stands tall. But he still doesn’t come near me.
“I think you’re right in some ways,” he says. “I think the deeper your roots go with someone, the harder it is to cut that off. Even if it is sucking poison.”
My spirits fall.
His hands go back in his pockets again as the lines resurface on his forehead. “I met Molly right before the start of first grade. Her family moved in next to mine.” He wanders around the room. “My dad was a dick back then. He drank a lot and would yell and carry on. It was more emotional manipulation of my mother than anything because Vincent used to take me to the side and tell me how big and powerful we were and how all the garbage he said wasn’t true. And I knew that. I mean, we spent so much time with Nana and Pops that I knew nothing was wrong with Vin and me. It was that something wasn’t right with Dad.”
My chest pulls with the pain of imagining a little Peck scared or worried. I take another shirt, mostly to busy my hands.
“So, one night, Dad pulled his shit. Vincent and I had climbed out of my bedroom window and climbed the big oak tree on the border of our yard and Molly’s. We stayed until we figured Dad had passed out before coming back home and climbing through the window.” He frowns. “We weren’t in there that long before a little rapping sound knocked on my window. I turned to see this little girl with pigtails.”
I fold the fabric slowly, watching him choose his next words.
“She’d seen Vincent and I crawl through the window. She was scared.” He gulps. “I thought my dad was an asshole, but hers …” He snorts angrily. “Mine was nothing compared to hers.”
He turns and looks at me, a fire in his eyes so hot that I almost flinch.
“She kept coming back. Sometimes with bruises, other times with a swollen lip. Every time scared out of her little fucking mind of this six-foot-three-inch man who had full custody of her and her sister.”
“Peck …” I wad the fabric up in my hands. “I’m sorry.”
He smiles sadly. “Vincent and I were her safe place, you know? She’d tell us things he did and beg us not to tell.” His fists bunch at hi
s sides. “She’d lay in my bed in her little Barbie pajamas and ask me if she deserved that.”
My eyes sting with tears as I imagine children having to deal with the things he’s alluding to. It’s not fair, and my heart breaks for them.
“I get it,” I say, my voice cracking.
“No one knows all that, so I’d appreciate it if you keep those things to yourself.”
“Of course.”
He nods. “I just … if people understood what she’s been through, maybe they’d have a little empathy for her. Maybe they’d cut her some damn slack. Or maybe not. She is a grown woman and needs to quit using that shit as an excuse.”
“That’s not really an excuse,” I say, unable to believe I’m defending the woman who was just a jerk to me. “That’s … rough.”
“Yeah. It is. It’s why she can’t connect with people. She trusts no one. She sleeps with anyone looking for someone to love her …” His face falls.
Mine does too. “But you love her,” I say cautiously.
He walks around the room. “I do. I love her. For sure. But …” He glances at me over his shoulder and stills. “Maybe not like I thought I did.”
“Oh.” My heart beats so hard I can hear it. My mouth dries like it’s swabbed in cotton. My brain sings with a mixture of hope and caution because this doesn’t mean anything.
This doesn’t mean he likes me.
“I’ve always cared about her,” he says. “Like you said, our roots run too deep not to. But it kind of became this … thing. People jumped to, ‘Oh, you love her—look at you defending her all the time,’ and I went with it. Because maybe I did. I don’t know. But looking back on it, maybe … I don’t know.” He shakes his head.
“Like you said … complicated.”
He leans against the wall again. “She deserves a lot of what she gets. As you witnessed tonight, she’s not easy to deal with. But it’s hard for me not to look at her and see the wounds that I know are there.”
“I get that. I do. And you’re a nice guy for being her friend when it’s not easy to do that.”
Bowing my head, I go back to my little pile of shirts. I fold the one in my hand, add it to the stack, and grab another.
Gibson Boys Box Set Page 110