“I don’t think anyone knows how to help me.”
“I’m sure there must be someone who—”
“Though I’m starting to think you might.”
That jolted her. It jolted her so hard she almost turned to see if he was joking, but managed to save herself at the last minute. She focused on the thread instead—the one that she was now winding around her finger. Tighter, she thought, tighter, until there wasn’t a single drop of blood left inside it.
“You don’t even know me,” she said, and wasn’t that true? He didn’t even know her real name. He didn’t even know she wasn’t American.
“I know you saved my life. I know you trusted me when I shouldn’t have been trusted. I know you hugged me when I didn’t know I wanted to be hugged.” He paused just long enough for her to realize she wasn’t breathing. “You did it because you were glad I was alive, right?”
She couldn’t give the answer she wanted to—Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. It sounded stupid enough in her head and besides... She knew she would choke up if she said it. She couldn’t possibly choke up over someone she’d met yesterday. So she went with something simple and guarded, instead.
“Maybe I did. Maybe I did.”
“You know how good that feels? To know someone’s glad I’m alive?”
Not even a little bit. Not anymore.
“I think a lot of people feel that way about you, Holden. You should visit this place called Tumblr, sometime.”
He made a sound, caught midway between a laugh and a snort of frustration.
“It’s not the same. You didn’t do it because I’m a movie star.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because you don’t like that I’m a movie star.”
She couldn’t help the rueful smile that spread over her face, to hear that. Of course he was right—but wasn’t it brilliant that he was? Maybe it wasn’t so strange that they were connecting so fast, if he already knew her so well. He kept guessing all the things and she in turn found she could read him, so really where else could they be?
In a good friendship, she thought, frantically.
We’re just really, really good friends and that’s all.
“Very perceptive of you.”
“Thanks, but I can’t take any credit. It’s so obvious I kind of want to pretend I’m Bernard just so you don’t shy away so often, or look at everything but me.”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m gawking, like an idiot.”
“Honey, you do the opposite of gawking. You actively refuse to look.”
She swallowed thickly, before responding. “Sorry. That sounds awful.”
“It’s not. But it does make me wish for the first time in forever that someone wanted to look at me more, rather than less. You’re not even looking at me now.”
She’d kind of thought she was, then realized elbows probably didn’t count. She had to raise her eyes to his face and hold his lovely gaze and not worry that he’d be bothered—because he wasn’t. He actually wanted her to look, and judging by his expression he wanted it very badly.
“Is that better?”
“Well, it’s kind of making my heart beat faster. Does that count?”
She nodded, not sure she could speak. Was he for real with this? Hadn’t he heard her desperate attempts at making them just friends with her thoughts? Friends did not let their hearts beat faster when they looked at each other’s faces. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
Yet somehow they were going there anyway.
Her own heart felt as if it were trying to run right out of her body. Her eyes kept trying to swallow him whole, and she was pretty sure his were doing the same thing to her. Something had to be dragging her closer, at the very least. It certainly wasn’t her will. Her will wanted her to ask him again why he’d done it.
And it won by a hairsbreadth.
“Stop changing the subject.”
“How am I changing the subject?”
By looking like you want to kiss me, she thought, even though that was crazy.
She went with a much saner option for her real words.
“I don’t know but you’re doing it.”
“And if I stop, what then? Do you really want to hear about my ridiculous movie-star problems? Oh woe is me, my diamond tiara is too tight. No one wants to hear that, Alice,” he said, though it was his tone that really got her. He sounded so sneering, so dismissive of himself. It beggared belief, when she thought of all the things he’d told her with his words and actions and gestures.
She had to point them out to him.
“You just told me that your mom changed your name to you. When you hugged me, it felt as though you were a robot just learning what affection was. I almost took out an oil can to lubricate your hugging joints, for God’s sake. It’s understandable that you might want to...you know...maybe hurt yourself.”
“I didn’t really try to hurt myself. Well, maybe I tried to hurt myself a little. But I was just drunk and stupid and right in that moment it seemed like a good idea.” He swallowed thickly, once, twice, before continuing. “Though I want you to know, I don’t think it was a good idea now. I realize how lucky I am to have the things I do—to be healthy and alive and successful.”
“Sometimes it’s not enough to be those things, Bernie. Sometimes we need more than that. We need to feel like we’re understood.”
“And you think you can understand me?”
“I know that I’m willing to try. I’m here, if you want to try.”
There was a long, long silence after that. His head dropped back against the bed, and he seemed to breathe in this shaky sort of way for a while. But when she finally worked up the courage to put a little finger out, and just rub it against his crooked arm...
It came out of him in a rush.
“I just don’t deal well with pressure, that’s the thing. It’s always been the thing, but lately it’s like a fucking nightmare. Sometimes I’m so afraid of making the wrong choice that I just don’t make any choice at all. And the bigger I get the worse it is because suddenly the wrong thing is watched by half the world and inside I’m so tiny. I’m so fucking tiny, but I just don’t know how to explain that to anyone. I’ve never dared to say any of this to a single living soul.”
He cursed under his breath, which prepared her somewhat for the last little kicker.
Not enough, however. Oh God, not enough at all.
“And that’s so fucking lonely I could die.”
It was as if he’d spoken with her voice, though she didn’t know how to tell him that. She was too busy suddenly and silently leaking out of her eyes. Something wet streaked down one cheek and she was so embarrassed she went to sit up, so he wouldn’t see.
It was too late though.
“What are you crying about?” he asked, and despite the fact that he did it in the best kind of way—with warmth and surprise, rather than laughter—she couldn’t explain in any manner that made sense. She just blundered words out like a child, unable to articulate her plain dumb feelings.
“Because it’s sad,” she said. “Because it’s sad that this is the way things are.”
He seemed to understand, however. He understood so well that he didn’t even have to say anything in return. He just offered her the safe little crook between his shoulder and his body, and when she pressed herself into it he did the rest. His other arm came around her all strong and big and good—like some kind of shelter against whatever terrible thing might be out there.
And she rested in it gratefully until the pain died away.
Chapter Four
She hadn’t realized how tired she was until she woke again from a doze she didn’t remember sinking into. All she could recall was the heat of his body and how firm yet soft his chest had felt against her cheek, and then the next thing she knew it was lights out for the second time.
It made her wonder if he had some kind of sleeping drug impregnated in his skin. Or maybe sh
e just wasn’t used to being held...yeah, that was probably it. The last time she’d had arms around her everything had still been okay, so really it wasn’t a surprise that she let go whenever it happened now.
She was glad of it, in truth. The night before had wiped her out, and some of her limbs still weren’t working properly. They’d stiffened and set themselves at funny angles, and it took her a good long while to work the kinks out of them. She had to slowly ease her left leg into bending, and that grinding metal-against-bone feeling happened when she did.
It was pretty bad.
But not half as awful as the sudden realization she had a second later—Holden was missing from the space beside her. And if he was missing from there, it probably didn’t mean he’d gone to get himself a drink or some breakfast or a bathroom break.
It probably meant he’d freaked out and made a run for it.
She’d said too much earlier. She’d cried too weirdly. Now he was off killing himself with cocaine in some seedy bar most likely, and it was all her fault for being rubbish at comforting people.
“Hey, is that you I can hear creaking around?”
She didn’t like the way her heart thumped once against her rib cage on suddenly hearing the sound of his voice. Like it’s being restarted, she thought, then shook the idea away. It was far too intense for this early in their semi-friendship—a second ago she’d been sure he’d flown the coop.
Things needed to settle first, before she had all of these strong feelings about him.
“Yeah, I’m awake. I don’t even know how I fell asleep really,” she said, to the bathroom door. And then there was one awful moment of silence, where she really let herself think— He’s not actually in there. You’re just imagining him.
You needed someone, and so invented the most impossible person ever.
“I’d guess it’s ’cause you were tired, honey. Oh, and maybe my magical arms had something to do with it.”
Yeah, he was definitely the most impossible person ever. A handsome movie star who echoed thoughts she’d just had and hugged her when she needed to be hugged. Surely he couldn’t be real? And if he was, then why on earth was he in her bathroom right now, splashing around in her tub?
That didn’t seem right, for someone like him.
She needed to check, to be sure.
“Are you...having a bath?”
There was a moment of silence—one which almost reeked of mild embarrassment.
But he got over it fairly fast.
“Uh...yeah.”
“Is it weird if I find that weird?”
“I think it’d be weird if you didn’t. I’m some stranger, soaking himself in your bathtub while you’re passed out on the bed. Sounds like the start of a horrible Lifetime movie about a crazed hobo.”
She laughed, but had to correct him at the same time.
“You’re not some stranger. Or a hobo. And I wasn’t passed out on the bed.”
“I’ll give you the first two, but not the last.”
“Passed out sounds like you slipped me a roofie then stripped me naked. Come on. I went to sleep in your gently cradling arms.”
“So maybe my reward could be that I get to bask in your tub?”
“You can totally bask in my tub, Bernie.”
“While you come in here and talk to me?”
That pulled her up short. She hadn’t realized that acquiescing to one small thing without a thought would lead to this other massive thing that didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t serious, was he? And if he was, did that mean he was in the bath with all his clothes on?
Because otherwise...
“Why would you want me to do that?”
“I can hardly hear you, honey. Come on, come on in here.”
He had a point, about the hearing thing. But there was another point he wasn’t really addressing. In fact, it kind of sounded as if he was avoiding it—or maybe it wasn’t such a big deal to him? Yeah, maybe it was only a big deal to her, and if she didn’t just go in she’d look like the biggest idiot alive.
She’d look like someone who was imagining sex things when they really weren’t there at all. Of course they weren’t there at all. How could they be?
“Okay, I’m coming in.”
“Was that a warning?”
“Well, you know—I don’t want to startle you.”
“You think you’re going to startle me while shuffling in here with your hand over your face like a shield?”
“I’m trying to be polite!”
“You look like a fool.”
She knew she did. She could see herself in the long mirror that stood next to the sink, looking exactly as he’d described. One hand crouched over the side of her face to block his half of the bathroom out. Body moving backward into the room, in this tentative sort of manner. She had to almost feel her way to the toilet on the opposite wall so she could sit, though sitting wasn’t really any better. Sitting said you’re staying here now with him, in this little blue-tiled, too-warm cavern.
“I should really put the light on.”
“No don’t, it’s nice,” he said, and it was. But there was also something secretive and vaguely sensuous about the dimly lit atmosphere. Everything seemed sort of soft focus, as though the heat from the tub had melted away all corners and edges.
Or was it the heat from her addled mind and disobedient body?
Either way it was probably best to think about something else.
“Do you...feel any better now?”
“Physically or mentally?”
“Both.”
“I feel warmer. And less...salty. And more content than I’ve been in a while.”
“That sounds pretty good,” she said, but the minor victory was short-lived. She was just starting to smile when he suddenly swerved the conversation into oncoming traffic.
“You can look at me while we talk, you know.”
“I can’t look. You’re completely naked.”
“But you’d probably look if you found me attractive.”
“It has nothing to do with that. I wouldn’t look at anyone.”
“So you’ve never seen someone nude in the tub?”
God, his questions were maddening. It was like being in a maze filled with booby traps, and every time you went down one escape route something sprang out and hit you in the face. How on earth did he expect her to work around this stuff? She couldn’t tell him she found him ugly. But nor could she say he was hot.
And she definitely couldn’t say yes to that last one.
He would know then that she was a big stupid mega-virgin.
She couldn’t be a big stupid mega-virgin in front of him.
“Okay I’m looking. Are you happy now?”
He raised an eyebrow in a way she wasn’t sure how to process. It made her blush, at the very least—a blush that she was glad he couldn’t see. The darkness had its benefits, it seemed, and she was grateful for them.
“Very,” he said in a tone she couldn’t quite like.
It was too licentious. Or at least, it was too licentious in her head. In reality it was perfectly normal and not like that at all.
“This is so not cool of you.”
“Would it be cooler if I stood up?”
“Fuck no.” The curse word just kind of busted its way out of her, before she could get ahold of herself. She didn’t regret it, however. It was probably the only appropriate response to the threat of his naked body—that and really fierce warnings. “You’d better stay sat down, Holden.”
“Afraid of seeing my famous penis?”
She was, but saying that seemed a little off. It didn’t really convey what she was bothered about, which wasn’t exactly his fame. It had a hint of that—a bit of oh God he’s a magnificent movie star—but there was something more there too. She felt it every time her eyes were drawn to some oddly unfamiliar part of him...like the heavy jut of his collarbone. Her own collarbone looked like a bird’s by comparison.
And hi
s arms, Christ his arms. Who had arms like that? They weren’t just oddly unfamiliar. They were completely alien. They belonged to Zargoff the Destroyer from the planet Blatnick, yet had somehow found their way onto him and into her tub. Now they were here and all covered in gleaming, soapy water, light and shadows dancing on them in just the way she hadn’t imagined.
Darkness made the curve just below that thick, heavy muscle even more pronounced than it probably was, and the hint of sun turned his skin a color that kind of made her throat catch. It reminded her of freshly split oak, skirting close to gold but far too pale to really count.
Yeah, that sounded right.
It sounded insane, but it also sounded right.
“I’ve already seen your famous penis. Thanks though.”
“Sorry to tell you this, honey, but you haven’t.”
“I have. You flashed it in that romantic movie with Louisa Firenze.”
She didn’t think about what he’d flashed, however. She thought about Louisa, lovely and lissome. Those starlight eyes, that beautiful mouth. He’d kissed that mouth. He’d done all sorts of things to that mouth—things she couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard she tried. She was actually considering going outside to find a big brain-bludgeoning rock, when he saved her from herself.
“It was a body double.”
“Shut up,” she said, but the extra emphasis was more relief than anything else. Now she could focus on this crazy fact, instead of Louisa’s thighs wrapped around his head.
“It was, I swear.”
“You’re lying.”
“Hand to God.”
“Is it...is it because you have a micro one? I’m not judging.”
She was glad he laughed in response. Not because it meant he probably didn’t—she’d have been glad if he did. A tiny little micro penis would have made him at least twenty percent less super fantastic than he already was, and that seemed like a good deal to her. But if she couldn’t have it, then she’d settle for him not being offended at the very least. She could hardly believe she’d asked, and was grateful for his amusement. It made her seem much less weird.
As did his willingness to answer.
“No. God no. I’m perfectly normal down there,” he said, and that made it even easier to relax into this conversation. It was okay to question his penis. He didn’t mind. In fact he seemed to relish her raised eyebrow and her little extra push.
Beyond Repair (Deeper Than Desire) Page 5