Andrew’s eyebrows are in the middle of his forehead. All his angles, his jaw, his nose, his shoulders, seem sharper, more alert. “What would he do?” he asks.
“It wasn’t often. He made me touch him until he got hard. A couple times he pinned me to the bed until I gave in. I’d just do it to make him stop.”
“Jesus,” he says. “That’s force.”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes, my therapist has said the same, but we were married—”
“So? No wonder you don’t like to be restrained.”
I ball my fingers into a fist. Having a hand around my wrist is the simplest way to make me feel helpless. “Actually, I’ve never liked it. This obviously didn’t help, but I’ve refused it with partners I had before him too.”
“And Reggie knew that?”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head. “Have you confronted him about this?”
“No. I’m still working on it with Dianne, and I’m not ready to go there with him. Not sure if I’ll ever be.”
Andrew lets go of my ankle so fast, it’s almost like I’ve burned him. “Jesus Christ, Amelia. Why didn’t you tell me all this before? I wouldn’t have been so overbearing, so dominant. At the hotel. Just now, in your bed.”
“No. You’ve helped me without even realizing it,” I say, shaking my head. “You have no idea how great you’ve been.”
He stubs out the cigar harder than necessary. “I’ll kill him. I’ll really kill him.”
“I didn’t tell you this to make you angry,” I say. Without thinking, I reach out and take his hand, trying to call him back to me. “I want you to understand. Why I sometimes freak out. Why I’m so grateful to you for respecting me.”
“You shouldn’t have to be grateful for—for—” He swallows, puts his other hand around mine and brings it to his mouth, kissing my knuckles. He looks up at me but doesn’t speak, just stares, his expression hard. After a few seconds, he presses his forehead to our hands, as if in prayer. “I’m so mad.”
Seeing his struggle makes my throat thick. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No. I mean yes, of course you should have. I’m not mad at you; I’m mad at the situation. At him.” He says him like the word itself has wronged him.
“I’m not a victim,” I tell him. “I got out. I’m stronger than him, believe me.”
“How did this . . . why did you marry him?”
“He didn’t act that way most of our relationship. When avec started doing well and I could stand on my own, it drove a wedge between us. That’s when the name-calling started. After he met Virginia, he wanted sex with me less, but when he did and I didn’t, he took it as an insult.”
“You never thought about leaving him?”
“I still loved him. I couldn’t see the big picture. He’d been manipulating me in my business dealings and personal choices for a while without me realizing it, so it almost happened like a shift.” I take my hand back. “When I started therapy after the split, my doctor listened to it all, and she’s been helping me understand how wrong his behavior was.”
“But you’re so strong,” he says. “So independent. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m still human. I fell in love.” I pause as we stare at each other. “Stupid, I know.”
He looks me in the eye. “Not stupid.”
“No? Maybe not the first time. But I know better now.”
“So do I.”
I smile timidly at him. “That’s why we’re such a good pair.”
“Yes, that’s why,” he says. “Not because of amazing sex. Or our unintentionally intimate conversations. Not the fact that I care about you.”
He’s gone and done the exact opposite of what he promised, and yet, when he says it, I know I feel the same. I care. He lets the comment hang. Either he’s wishing he hadn’t said it, or he’s letting me adjust to it. I shudder with a mix of excitement and fear.
He misreads my reaction for cold and stands to swipe a towel off the rack. “Come on,” he says, holding a hand out for me.
I take it, letting him help me up. He wraps the towel around my shoulders and rubs them, warming me up. “I mean it,” he says. “I care about you. Since we started this, I’ve wanted you to be happy, but now—now, I want you to be safe, and that comes from a different place.”
I may be able to open up, but telling him how I feel doesn’t come quite as easily. I wipe the leftover bubbles off his chest like steam from a mirror to reveal the tattoos underneath. They’re such an important part of him, like a hidden appendage, but until now, to me they’ve just been ink on skin.
“What do they mean?” I ask.
He looks down at me, as if debating what to share and what to keep private. He takes my wrist and pulls my hand away from his chest.
My heart drops. After everything we’ve just gone through, it feels unfair to be shut out.
But he replaces my hand on his left shoulder, over the first tattoo I noticed, a cluster of rich, purple-blue flowers. They droop lazily onto his upper pec. “Bluebells,” he says. “For Bell. I got them when she was a baby. Shana’s favorite flower.”
They resemble upside down bells, sagging but vibrant, small individually and striking as a bunch. “They’re pretty,” I say, “and also a bit sad.”
He nods. “That was Shana.” He moves my hand down his pec to a skull and crossbones, only the bones are a wrench and a hammer crossed in an “X”. “I drew this in memory of my grandpa, a fix-it guy with a special love for cars. He lived clean for most of his life. He’s my role model, unlike my dad. My dad,” he slides my hand under his arm, over his ribcage, to a script of words I can’t see well enough to read, “is a drunk and a gambler. This says ‘the things I cannot change’.”
“That’s from the Serenity Prayer,” I say, glancing at his half-finished whisky. “Are you an . . . alcoholic?”
“No, but I could’ve been. My grandpa was. He cleaned himself up when my grandma got pregnant. My dad didn’t, though. When I was a teen, my dad drank and picked fights with me. I’d leave the house and meet up with friends to get wasted. But Sadie was always in the back of my mind. I knew, no matter how obliterated I wanted to get, I had to come home for my little sister. I didn’t want to leave her there alone, and she worried about me.”
“She kept you from going over the edge.” I glance at the flowers again. “Like Bell.”
He nods. “When Shana left, I just wanted to numb myself. Not going to lie, it wasn’t easy—raising a child, a girl no less, by myself while my heart was broken. Some nights, it got to be too much. I wanted to say fuck it, drop her off with a sitter, and go on a bender.”
“That’s understandable,” I say. “What matters is that you didn’t.”
“I got ‘the things I cannot change,’” he says, “because life doesn’t always go as planned, and that can be a good thing. There are things I can’t change, and it does me no good to try. I also got it to remind myself of what I avoided and how easy it is to go down that path.” He winks. “Plus, it hurt like a bitch. I made a deal with myself—if I ever get blackout drunk, I have to add a line the next day. Fortunately I don’t plan on it.”
“Aha. Pain therapy.” I smile and glance at the tattoo I’m most curious about—and most hesitant to learn about.
He squeezes my hand and lets go. “I got the rest before Bell. Stupid shit. Things I thought mattered.”
“Even this one?” I go to touch the illustration of an anatomically correct steel heart made of machine parts, like it’s the guts of a clock or car engine. Except that it’s a heart. He stops my hand. I look up at him. “What?”
He shakes his head a little. “I got that when Shana left.”
“So it’s not before Bell.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“A hard heart. Steel. Can’t be broken.” He releases my hand, kisses my forehead, and gets out of the tub.
As he dries himself off and wraps the towel around h
is waist, I’m left standing there with most of my questions answered—yet somehow less informed. Steel casing seems appropriate right about now, considering I can’t seem to get through to him where Shana is concerned. I should leave it. We’ve been through a lot already. And yet, I’ve admitted to myself I care about him when I promised myself I wouldn’t. He made it clear he’s not emotionally available, and for the first time I wonder if it’s because he never wants to fall in love again, like he said, or if it’s because he’s still in it. “Andrew?”
He glances over his shoulder but doesn’t look at me. “Hmm?”
“Do you still love her?”
He pauses, but only for a second before he picks up his drink, downs the rest in one gulp, and then does the same with mine. “I don’t know. I did, but it’s been almost four years since I’ve seen her, so . . .”
Unfairly, my heart drops a little. I’ve been warned. I have no right to be upset if he still pines over his ex. I don’t understand it—I’ve never been tempted to give Reggie a second chance—but I don’t have to.
I realize I’m alone in the bathroom, standing knee-deep in cold water. I pull the stopper from the drain and change into a black cotton nightdress before I find him in the kitchen rinsing out the tumblers.
“What was she like?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Shana.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Volatile.”
“And?”
He places a glass on the drying rack. “How specific do you want me to get? She’s a woman. Women have a lot of different person—” He stops, smartly so.
“What?” I ask tersely. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. They’re just complicated is all.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I say. “Men are a fucking breeze.”
He wipes his hand on a dishtowel and turns to lean back against the counter. “Look, it’s really not worth getting into. I’m in a good place now. I don’t want to drudge up old shit.”
“Do you think it was easy for me to talk about Reggie?”
“No, but I’m glad you did. It’ll help the healing process. It’s better to be open about these things. I just can’t.”
I balk. “That’s unfair.”
“Maybe.”
That’s it. Maybe. “Why’d she leave?”
He crosses his arms. “How should I know? There was no note.”
I take a step back. “She didn’t even tell you she was going? She just left in the night? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” He runs a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back. “I understand how she could leave me, but not Bell, even if she didn’t want her.”
He says it so bluntly, a statement both cryptic and telling, so sure and sad, I don’t even know where to start with it.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I don’t want anyone’s pity.”
I school my frown. “I’m sorry, I just—it’s shocking, is all.”
He looks down at the ground between us, and I take the reprieve to study him with new eyes. His tattoos are less intimidating now that I know their meanings. Oddly, though men with ink are typically considered tough, Andrew’s artful body makes him softer. Sweeter. I wonder if he’s always been this way, or if Bell is the reason. Shana hardened his heart and simultaneously gave it a weak spot.
“You going to make me leave now?” he asks.
My thoughts clear, and I meet his eyes. His beautiful, blue, piercing, searching eyes. Eyes that belong to a man who has the potential to hurt me. Look how far we’ve come in only one night. “You don’t want to?” I ask.
He shakes his head slowly before pushing off the counter. He stalks toward me. I place my hands on his chest as he wraps his arms around me. “I didn’t set that rule. You were the one who wanted that.”
I didn’t want that, though. I needed it. Sleepovers are scary. They’re fitting yourself to a new body, they’re that split-second confusion when you wake up with unfamiliar arms around you. Staying the night means morning breath, awkward exchanges over a whirring Keurig, closing the bathroom door in your own apartment for the first time in years. He’s right. I set the rule. I haven’t wanted him to leave since the first night we spent together, though. And now, I know about him. He knows about me. We’re damaged, our edges ragged, but is that why they seem to fit together?
“What do you want?” I ask him.
“I already told you. I want to spend the night with you.”
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll argue my case.” He adds, “Respectfully. If you don’t want me here, I won’t stay, but if you do but you’re still afraid, I won’t let that be the reason we spend another night apart.”
He says another night as if there’ve been endless nights apart. There haven’t. Not by a long shot. He really does want this. My forearms, rigid until now, give against his chest.
“I’m spent, Amelia. Let me sleep,” he says. “I’ll spoon you like you’re my favorite ice cream. Promise.”
I curl my hands into loose fists right over his heart—his real one, not his hardened one. “What does this mean, though?”
He kisses the top of my head and leads me into the bedroom. “It means good things.”
Good things.
Reggie meant good things once. It doesn’t feel the same with Andrew, though. With Reggie, everything is measured and calculated. I was never quite sure if he got that from his work, or if he exceled at his job because he was innately that way. Andrew, on the other hand, is upfront. Honest. It’s what attracted me to him that first night I met him.
I can trust him.
But after all the mistakes I made with Reggie, all the times he was out with her behind my back, the fact that I let him take from me without fighting back or even speaking up—it makes me wonder . . .
Can I trust myself?
TWENTY-ONE
ANDREW
When Amelia wakes, I’m standing at the foot of her bed in my underwear, sipping coffee and watching her. Like a fucking creep. Great. As if the first morning with a girl isn’t awkward enough.
“Morning,” I say, breaking the silence. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good. Really well.” She sits up, rubbing one eye like Bell does after a deep sleep. Her blonde hair is tangled and full of static, messier than I’ve ever seen it. Finally, I managed to ruffle her. Hair mussed, makeup gone, skin pink where I’ve left little marks with my mouth and hands.
“God,” I groan, “you look—” I stop. I hadn’t meant to say anything out loud.
She grimaces. “I know. The bubble bath sounds nice in the moment, but it makes me all sweaty, and my makeup runs, and the humidity destroys my hair—”
“Beautiful. I was going to say you look beautiful.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to say that. You already got me in bed.”
I pass her my coffee. “You have a lot to learn about me.”
“Oh yeah?” She curls her hands around the mug and takes a sip, humming pleasurably. “Teach me.”
“I don’t pass out compliments. Never have, never will. I have no reason to. When I say something, it’s ’cause I mean it.”
Two red patches form on her cheeks. “All right.”
“Something else about me you should know going forward,” I say.
“Forward—”
“I don’t find beauty in the glossy stuff.”
She blinks up at me, and I think she’s attempting to suppress a smile. “Where do you find it?”
“When you get done up with your hair and makeup and dress—I like it if it’s for me. I like when you’re messy, like now, if it’s because of me. I don’t find my daughter beautiful because she has nice hair or unusual, blue eyes. She glows like a beacon from the inside. When you let me see you without hair and makeup, it makes me feel like you’re beginning to trust me, and that . . .” I pause, taking in her alarmed expression. Steam from the coffee coils around he
r face. “It’s really beautiful,” I finish.
She swallows. “Andrew . . . please don’t tell me—”
“I’m not telling you what you want to hear.”
“That’s not what I was going to say. I believe you. I just . . . don’t tell me what you tell other girls. That’s all I ask.”
She wants to be special. Or, at least, different. Is it because she’s jealous? I let a slow smile spread over my face and don’t respond for a few seconds, enjoying the way uncertainty sets on her face. “Is that all you ask?” I repeat. “Or are you asking me not to tell other girls anything at all?”
She glances into the drink. “I mean, that wasn’t really our deal . . . we haven’t discussed anything other than—but last night . . .”
I wait. I could rescue her, but I want to hear what she has to say. Honesty has been a two-way street for us, and if it’s going to work, it has to stay that way. I’m not going to guess what she’s thinking just so she doesn’t have to own it.
She looks up again, a new determination in her eyes. “I don’t know what I want,” she says. “And that’s the truth. The idea of other girls makes my stomach hurt. But I can’t ask more of you, because I don’t know if I can give more.”
I feel a slight pinch of disappointment, but then it’s gone. This isn’t Amelia’s fault. It’s that motherfucker ex-husband of hers. After what she told me last night, I can’t expect her to trust me just because I ask it of her. I’ll have to prove to her I’m worth it, and for the first time since Shana left, I’m up for the challenge. Amelia is broken. I can help her through it, because I was broken too.
Was? My thoughts grind to a halt. I was broken? I’ve known for some time that my resentment toward Shana was weakening. When I thought of her, anger was no longer instant; it took me more time to work up to it. But am I finally past it? It’s been almost four years to the day. Everyone who knew Shana and me said ‘give it time.’ I’d thought it was bullshit. Maybe I’ve been here awhile and didn’t realize it until Amelia came along.
She’s gnawing on her bottom lip. I’ve left her out in the cold with no response. “There are none,” I say.
The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue Book 2) Page 22