by Shelly Crane
“I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me and then you come here?”
“I didn’t realize I had,” I answered softly. I shivered.
“Please, Ava,” he said and when I looked back at him, he was looking right at me. In me, through me, to me. “I know you doubt me and I’m sorry for that. I’ll spend as long as it takes proving that I want to be worthy of you one day. You can doubt me all you want, just let me help you. Please,” he practically growled and that’s how I knew he was for real. He sounded just like Daddy did when it came to Mom and her safety.
The one thing I seemed to forget in this was that no matter what, yes he was a Watson, but we were still imprinted, still bonded. That wasn’t fake. It was real.
I barely moved my hand in his direction and he was gripping my fingers in both of his warm hands. I was slammed with calm, a cloud of warmth and need and morphine-like haze everywhere. I felt unhinged. And then he was pulling me towards him before I even realized it, unbuckling me, pulling me down from the car seat into his lap on the ground. He leaned on the car door and held me against his chest.
His breaths raged and I got little glimpses from him. How he was so happy to have me in his arms, no matter how small the time was, how he was surprised that I hadn’t hit him for being so bold, how finding me in front of his fire station had brought him so much delicious pain in his chest. Even if I hadn’t known or meant to go there, my subconscious still wanted him and that was good enough for him, for now. He was hell bent on figuring this all out, on making this work, on proving himself. He knew he had a lot of work ahead of him and he was up to the challenge.
I leaned back and shivered when my nose grazed his chin. He smiled. “I won’t bite.”
I scoffed, but bit my lip so I wouldn’t smile back. “I don’t have any proof of that.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it.”
I looked down, unable to continue to play like nothing had happened. “What now?”
“Well,” he said and ran the backs of his fingers down my arm, “we have a lot to talk about.” His pause was telling. “My place or yours?”
I yanked my gaze back up. “I’m not going to—”
He pointed across the road. “That’s where I live most of the time, but I have my own apartment a couple blocks from here. I live alone.”
“Oh. Um…” I licked my lips and would be lying if I said the way his eyes immediately moved to watch it didn’t thrill me all over. “Your place. Mine is a little crowded.”
He chuckled. I barely stopped my groan. Good Lord, that laugh. He looked at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he did. His lips quirked. I sighed.
“But how? We aren’t supposed to be able hear each other like this yet. It’s not…copacetic to our ways. It doesn’t makes sense.”
“Maybe someone knew we’d need the extra help,” he said, as if he knew the answer to that already.
I nodded slowly. “Maybe so.”
He helped me stand and held my hand for a couple seconds longer than needed. His eyes met mine just before he released it and I knew he could tell that I wasn’t ready for all this yet and that the only reason he was giving me the space I needed. His uncle had tried to kidnap me for goodness sake.
His mouth quirked again and I balked at the fact that he thought his uncle trying to kidnap me—
“No,” he rushed to explain, “no.” He put his hand just below my elbow and gave me a look that dared me to tell him to move it. “Copacetic to our ways? Goodness sake? I was thinking…that you wax poetic like nobody I know.” He stared at me hard, waiting, but with a little smile, and seemed to be keeping his mind closed in a sense. I wondered what it was about, but was hung up on the “wax poetic” part.
“My grandpa always says that exact same thing about me.”
“Your Grandpa Peter?”
I nodded, but felt my eyebrows lower. “How do you know that?”
“They told me a lot of the Jacobson history.” He looked down, embarrassed. “Sorry.” I could hear the little fuzzy strings of knowledge coming from his mind to mine, how he knew that his family was wrong, but he didn’t really know who my family was either. He was so confused. All he knew for certain was that I was his and he had to keep me safe. He knew that our families were going to cause problems for us, on both sides.
He was so much better at the mind reading thing than I was. Everything came to me in fuzzy patches while he seemed to be able to read me so easily. I wondered why that was. Why it was so easy for him.
“I think it’s intent, Ava,” he muttered under his breath, so low I barely heard him. He looked back up, his blue intense eyes meeting mine so fiercely that I felt as though I’d been physically touched. I rocked back a little and a warm hand on the small of my back stopped me. “I think that I want to know you so completely and it’s working in my favor.” His smile was a little condescending, but I didn’t hold it against him. “One day you’ll get up to speed with me. I can hope, right?”
Even that playful, adorable grin that was making my insides shake with all sorts of emotions I didn’t want to acknowledge couldn’t erase the events that happened last night. The weird texts he kept getting. His family showing up and acting as if there had been some plan. Him leaving with them and just coming to see me today as if nothing had transpired. I knew he was torn, but I needed answers, and as much as it pained me, I needed space because my significant’s skin was the most distracting thing I’d ever encountered.
I knew he had heard everything in my head because his blue eyes dulled painfully. It took a lot not to reach out and brush my knuckles against his chin, for my own benefit as much as his, but I couldn’t. Right now, he was just a stranger who held my heart, and who also happened to be my enemy.
He jerked as if I’d slapped him. I wondered if Romeo and Juliet had been brought to life if this is what they would have felt. Betrayed, torn, confused, alone even when the person you’re supposed to be with is right in front of you.
“Don’t say that,” he groaned, his hands on my elbows tightening. It was then that I was smacked with the realization that I was still on his lap. I could feel the hot pink racing up the column of my neck. “You’re never alone. I promise you, if nothing else, you’ll never be alone, Ava.”
“Seth.” I begged him to release me, hating the way my voice quivered.
His hands released me slowly, painfully, and I stood up, waiting for him to stand, too, so I could close my car door and make use of my shaking fists.
“Want to get some coffee or breakfast before we go to my place?” he asked gruffly and then cleared his throat, realizing how off it sounded. “I don’t keep much there because I’m not there much myself.”
“Yeah, I do,” I answered with as much smile in my voice I could muster and reached for my door. He stopped me with a hand on my mine. I looked up at him and he looked comically torn again. It was obvious he wanted to drive, but was fearful of pushing me too far. “You want to drive?”
His eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to let me?” He tacked on a small satisfied grin.
“Don’t get smug,” I couldn’t help but say. “You live close, right? Can we walk?”
He perked up even more at that. “Absolutely. I missed my run the past couple of days, so that’s a great idea.”
“You run?”
“Fireman have to keep fit somehow. The gym and weights and all that aren’t for me. Running is right up my alley, however.” He took the keys from my hand and locked my doors before handing them back to me. He swung his arm out. “Shall we?”
I eyed him and lead the way for about two point two seconds before he was right next to me again. “Thanks.”
He continued on as if nothing had interrupted. “Running helps me clear my head, helps me think. With my kind of work, your head gets pretty scrambled from the long hours and the things we see sometimes.”
“I can imagine,” I replied softly. I stopped when he put his hand out i
n front of me before we looked to cross the street. We waited for the cars to go and I eyed him the entire time. He had to feel the heat from my gaze, but he never looked over. The protectiveness was so endearing…but I needed to be objective right now. And he was making it so hard. “Where are you taking me?”
He looked over a little alarmed, like I thought he was kidnapping me. I laughed once and said, “For breakfast.”
The corners of his mouth barely pulled up and it made it evident how much this was affecting him. He hated that he didn’t have my trust. I prayed one day that he would. That it would be earned and true and valid.
That my mind and my heart would be on the same page of this book that had just been opened for us.
Six
“Wow, this has to be the best omelet I’ve ever had.”
He smiled at me over his coffee cup and downed the rest of it. “I knew you’d like it. This grease bucket is a place the fireman love to come to. It has good, plain, strong coffee for people like me and then frou-frou nutty coffee for people like you.”
“It’s hazelnut!” I laughed.
He smiled as he continued. “It’s one of those places that’s always open, always serves breakfast or dinner, so we can get whatever we’re in the mood for. It’s good for people who have no life and work around a schedule like mine.”
“Have no life?” I asked and felt my eyebrow raise.
He swallowed and leaned back in his side of the red booth. “Other than my family and the firehouse, I don’t have much else to do.”
I smirked. Well, what I imagined was a smirk. “Sounds like me. If I’m not in school or working, I’m…” I shrugged. “I’m doing nothing.” And then I did what I imagined was a grimace. “That sounds incredibly lame.”
His foot touched mine under the table and I couldn’t tell if it was a coincidence or not. “Don’t your friends from school want you to go out?”
“Don’t your friends from the firehouse want you to?” I countered.
He laughed under his breath and mumbled, “Spitfire,” before saying fully, “Yeah, they do sometimes. Most of them are married though, so they spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to fix me up with every single girl they have in their entire list of family and friends.”
“Same,” I muttered. “Except I got the surprise blind dates with frat boys when I went out. They meant well, but the guys they fixed me up with would have never been my type anyway.” I laughed softly. “Usually drunk and grabby and way over confident—” I saw Seth’s jaw muscle tick. “So I just stopped going out with my friends altogether.”
I bit into the side of my lip and looked down at the table. I could feel the tension in his body from across the table, somehow, the way we were now so connected. My body was being taken over by this boy. I hated that we seemed to be letting each other down so soon.
Since I was already grating his nerves with my ‘boy talk’, I dove right into the one thing I needed to know most of all. “What happened after you went home last night?”
I let my eyes lift slowly from the off-white tabletop to look at his face. His face showed no emotion, but his eyes showed fear—the one thing I hoped I wouldn’t see. I sighed. But of course he would be scared. He thought I hated him already.
“You don’t?” he whispered.
“Seth,” I said quietly, refocusing him. He blew a small breath from his lips and I noticed how his eyes closed a little too long. I squinted, a hint of déjà vu washing over my skin as if there was something I should remember. Something on the edge that I wasn’t grasping, but should.
His eyes opened fully at that and he watched me, his lips parted for a few seconds. When I just stared back, he looked away, disappointment all over his face, and signaled the waitress.
I didn’t know what I had done to earn that look of disappointment, but it stung nonetheless.
He shook his head at me and took out his wallet before asking the waitress to bring us two of our coffees to-go. “It’s not you. It’s…me.”
I didn’t fight him on the check. I knew there was no point. I saw his smirk in his profile as he stood shaking his head. We met her at the counter and grabbed our coffee cups. He balanced the cups in one hand and held the door for me before handing mine to me once we were out on the street.
“Thanks,” I said, trying so hard to not fall head-over-feet for the sweet gestures he kept piling up in his favor.
“My apartment is just around the corner,” he said just before his phone dinged. He pulled it out and sighed. “Daggumit.”
“What is it?” I said as casually as I could.
“Uh…” he stalled and looked over quickly before looking back at his phone, “my uh…Harper is at my place. She says she needs to talk to me.”
“Harper,” I heard myself say quietly. “The girl I saw in your mind last night.”
“She’s not a girl. She’s family. She knew I was seeing you today so she wouldn’t have come unless it was important.”
Him defending this Harper hit me in the chest like a dirty brick. It must have been like what he felt when I talked about those guys my friends made me go out with. Maybe I was overreacting, but they weren’t family—not really. I took a deep breath and just looked out at the street as we walked. Maybe we’d get there and I’d see that there was nothing to worry about, but in my gut, that’s not what I felt.
As soon as we turned the corner, I felt the hot poker of jealousy stab me in the gut. As soon as she saw him, she jumped from the steps leading to what I assumed was his apartment and ran toward us in all her porcelain skin, long-legged, dark-haired glory. He left me in my stupor to meet her halfway, though I gave him credit for not galloping after her like she was him.
“Oh, Seth,” she whispered miserably into his neck as she wrapped her arms around his head. Her entire body was pressed against his, knee to cheek. I could barely breathe watching the exchange, but I couldn’t have looked away if my life depended in it. “Seth, everything is just awful. It’s all falling apart.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he soothed and tried to lean back, but she held on tight.
“It won’t!” she argued. “Dad is losing it. Everything we worked so hard for, to keep our family together, and now it’s all slipping away. Why did this have to happen this way?” Her eyes finally looked up and locked on mine. I waited, hoping I was wrong, but when her lips lifted into a grin, I knew that the Watsons were still up to no good. Even as she continued to spout her pitiful words to him, she made sure I saw her satisfied smile—loving that she had ruined our day, knowing that this was the day we would have been trying to make up, or explain or…understand what was going on between us. “Why is the world playing these cruel tricks on us when all we want is to be happy? When all I want is for you to be happy and now you’re just going to be in danger. It’s not fair.”
He sighed, shifting on his feet. “I’m fine. It doesn’t seem like it now, but everything is supposed to happen this way.”
“How can you say that when it’s destroying our family?”
“It’ll work out, Harp. I know it. It’ll be okay, all right?”
Harp. He had a nickname for her. His cousin who wasn’t really his cousin who was shooting daggers into me that he couldn’t see, and he obviously thought she hung the moon. And she thought he did, too, and wanted so much more than to be his friend.
I was no longer just the uncomfortable third wheel here. I wanted to away run as fast as I could. I turned to face the other way, no longer able to look at them. I knew that by doing so, I was letting her win. A Watson, with her hands all over my significant. Every bone in my body told me to make her stop, to make him see what was true, but I knew he’d just think it was jealousy. I had only been bonded to him for a day and a half and my claim to him was so strong yet so feeble all at once.
My breaths came hard as my eyes searched around me. My brain couldn’t make the decision. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life. Before I kn
ew it, a hand was touching my wrist. I didn’t jolt and that seemed to surprise him. He was breathing harder, too, and his eyes were bunched around the edges. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly and simply.
“She’s fine, Seth,” I heard behind me, clearly irritated that she wasn’t winning this round. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do about the family.”
“Later,” he said not removing his eyes from mine.
“But—” she shrieked.
“Harper,” he said harder and looked back at her. He guided me along with his hand on the small of my back. “I’ll call you later and we’ll talk.”
She scoffed as we passed and he guided me up the stairs, his warm hand ever-present on my back.
“Why don’t you just come by later when you’re done here?” she suggested in a cheery voice. But I wasn’t fooled.
“I don’t think so,” he said and turned to look back at her when we reached a door. “I plan to be busy for a while. We’ll work it out, okay? But this is important. I need you all to understand that, but you most of all.”
She swallowed and then put on a convincing smile. “Of course, Seth. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know. See you later.”
“Have fun,” she said suggestively and wiggled a shoulder like she actually meant it.
He laughed once. “Bye, Harper.”
“Bye, Seth.” The longing in her voice was enough to make me turn for one last look. So Watsons did have real feelings. How was Seth so completely naïve to it?
“I know they aren’t my blood family, but they’re all I’ve ever known.” He shut the door and put his keys on a hook by the door before turning back. “She’s the daughter of someone I have looked at as my uncle for all intents and purposes my whole life. I do not now, nor have I ever, had any kind of feelings for Harper. She is family and that’s that.”
I didn’t want to talk about her anymore. I was sure we’d talk about her plenty before it was all said and done. Tonight, I needed to talk about what happened last night after he left my house.