by Lia Riley
Do I let Bran’s shadowy former hookups stand between us? Or do I blow them away like dandelion seeds and make a wish that we can start again?
You’re only perfect for me. Those damn words stick with me wherever I go, along with the hope that maybe they’re true. Hope is scary, even more dangerous than doubt.
He shifts his weight, quiet for once, and waits for me to decide. Maybe I’m an idiot—but I’m going to go for it. For him. Because here’s a guy who doesn’t run. Who doesn’t want me to be someone else.
“Here’s my question.” I arch my brow and enjoy his nervous fidgeting. “How did you ever score with all those ladies?”
Questions pile up behind those green eyes.
I hook my fingers in his belt loops. “I mean, look, you’re hot—”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, although I doubt you need the ego boost. But you’re not exactly Mr. Congeniality. When I first met you, at the pub—”
“We first met on Lygon Street. After the fight. I remember exactly.”
“Right.” You do? “Um, yeah, you were dressed like a koala.”
“And you were a cute girl in a white dress who stumbled across me at a personal low point. No, I didn’t try to fake nice that night. No point trying to impress the girl who knows you’re a dick, who watched you get your ass kicked in a koala suit. A girl who’s dating your mate.”
I flinch. “Jazza and I never dated.”
“He’s a wanker.” His intense look sends a shock of heat thrumming up my thighs. “I wouldn’t have let you go.”
“Well he didn’t really have a choice. I don’t like Jazza, at least not like that.”
“Who do you like?” He braces his hands on either side of my hips.
My body wants me to give in. My lips scream for me to shut up and kiss him already.
His mouth hovers dangerously close to mine. “If you’d tossed me out, I’d have tried to get you back again. And again. And again. I wasn’t lying when I said I can’t stay away.”
He’s waiting for me to kiss him, and I want to, so badly, but I’m scared. The last few days I’ve felt more than in the whole of last year. I don’t know why Bran has this effect but I’m not stupid enough to ignore the lurking danger. Don’t want to sleep with another guy only to get bailed on the minute it’s over. I want to move forward, but in the slow lane.
Bran sneaks a curious glance at the orange pill bottle on my dresser.
A jolt shocks my system. No one, outside of Dr. Halloway and the pharmacist, knows about those pills. “I…I…take meds, okay?” Defensiveness curls around my words to shield me from his reaction.
“They help?” His response is remarkably unfreaked.
“I think so, a little, but they’re not a perfect solution.” Dr. Halloway hadn’t been a fan of me going to Australia. He stressed I should take medication in combination with therapy, one without the other might only let me hobble along.
I’m hobbling all right. Stress seems to heighten my symptoms.
“You’ve always taken them?”
“No. Never. Not until…not until after my sister died. And I started to have problems, dealing, or whatever.”
He sits quietly and I feel like I might say more. But how to even start to explain about what happened as I descended into OCD’s grip? It’s like trying to grab shadows; they keep slipping from my hands. Besides, it’s hard enough to get someone to listen about your dreams, let alone nightmares.
“I don’t like talking about this stuff,” I mumble.
“Why not?”
It’s hard to find an easy way to articulate. “Because, if I do…” I take a deep breath, hold it for five counts. “What’s happening to me is real, not made up in my head.”
He nods, his gaze reflecting only thoughtfulness.
“When my sister was in the hospital, little things began to crop up. Like being afraid to leave my dad without a hug good-bye in case I never saw him again. Or this idea that if I wore red shoes, someone I loved might get hurt.”
“No red shoes.”
“I threw them away. I threw all my red clothes away. They reminded me of…of Pippa. There was…so much blood. Over time things got worse.” I told him about the obsessive thinking, my growing compulsions, and my health anxieties. How I nearly flunked out of school due to my WebMD addiction, because I couldn’t find a good reason why I should be alive and healthy and my sister dead.
“You’re still here,” I said when I’d finished.
He looked down at himself. “Yeah.”
“I’d have thought you’d make up a perfectly valid reason to escape my company by now.”
“Hell no.” He moves beside me and wraps an arm around my waist. “You are one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
I draw a shaky breath. “I don’t think I can handle sarcasm right now.”
“I’m dead serious. What you’ve dealt with—I can’t imagine.” He lifts one of my hands and kisses the center of my palm. “Please know this, what happened with your sister, it wasn’t your fault.”
My chest contracts in a vise, my next breath left to fight its way out.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeats, pushing himself up, brushing his lips over my forehead.
My breath hitches.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he breathes into my ear.
My sob is short, a single note I quickly swallow. He wants to make me feel better and I’m grateful. But he can’t.
He doesn’t know his sweet words are a lie.
Because he doesn’t know that what happened to Pippa really is all my fault.
Chapter Sixteen
Talia
Bran stops by my room on the first night of Easter break. We’ve been seeing each other, tentatively on and off over the last month. Poster children for the notion of “taking it slow.” As if we have all the time in the world, which we don’t, as I’m heading home mid-June. I’ve been back to his place a handful of times, mostly so he can grab a jacket or credit card, once to watch a movie. Bella was there and she pointedly snubbed us, and we ignored her. Bran says she barely speaks to him, which I apologized for, even though I wasn’t 100 percent sorry. He rolled his eyes and said he was grateful, and added a new guy had been sniffing around, so she clearly wasn’t too broken up.
I’ve never asked about Adie Lind or the mysterious engagement. Bran’s never offered. Never even breathed the word Denmark. I’d know, I listen. Hiding a secret of this magnitude makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t know how to tell him the truth. He’ll think I was snooping. I wish we could have everything out on the table, all our cards, but I don’t know how to get us there.
“Any plans for the break?” he asks, handing me a paper cup stamped from the Bean Counter.
I take a sip; heavenly Belgian hot cocoa, my complete and utter favorite, made from melted Lindt chocolate. “Oh, wow, that’s good.” I lick a dollop of whipped cream from my top lip.
Bran stares at my mouth.
We haven’t kissed, barely touched except for the odd shoulder grazes and knee bumps, not since he held me crying in my room. It’s like we’re just friends. Except friends don’t gaze at each other’s lips for thirty seconds.
“I’ve finished a couple big papers and midterms went well. Better than well, actually,” I say.
“I’ve meant to ask for a while, why history?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you want to study it? I never asked.”
“Um, you know, no one’s ever posed that question. I mean, it’s not the most practical or sexy degree. I think that everyone probably assumes that I’ll want to go on to law school or get a teaching degree.”
“But you don’t want to do either of those?”
“No.”
“Hmmm.”
“What? Do you think I should have studied something practical?”
He throws his hands up. “I’m only curious, Captain. No need to bite off my head.”
�
��Sorry, you’re right. I don’t have a planned linear career path and that kind of freaks me out. I picked history to study for a few reasons. I like secret stories. I’m not content with being fed the easy version. There’s always more to a situation, you know? I’m curious about the voices during war or large social change movements that don’t get heard quite as easily. Maybe I could work at some scholarly press as an editor or researcher. I’m also interested in historic preservation societies, with a focus on alternate history. One of the things that makes Australia so interesting is the convict past, the story of the oppressed tied with the oppressor, plus you had the Aboriginal element of loss of country and—”
“It turns into a mess.”
“Terrible things happen. But I love to read cheering letters from women to suffragette prisoners during hunger strikes to get out the female vote or subversive lesbian identities in the nineteenth century, or the way native people turned their struggles into hymns of struggle that slipped under the radar from the masters in the plantation houses.” I realize that I’m talking so fast I’m barely breathing.
“Sorry.” I raise my cup in a rueful toast. “I get carried away. Dorktastic, I know.”
“Shut the fuck up, Talia.”
“Excuse me?” I recoil.
“Never apologize for having passion.” Bran shakes his head. “Especially not to me. It’s rare to love what you do.”
“I don’t do anything, at least not yet.”
“Talia, promise me something.” He stares at me like I’m to make a solemn vow.
“That’s tricky. I don’t like to make promises without knowing the terms and conditions.”
“Of course you don’t.” Bran’s mouth curves into a private smile that’s gone before my next blink. “Don’t break your heart trying to batter against the world, okay?”
I gesture ineffectually. It’s either that or burst into tears. How can I explain—without sounding like I’m playing the world’s saddest violin—that that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me?
“I don’t have any real concrete plan for Easter break,” I say when I trust myself enough to speak. I self-consciously rub one teary eye with the back of my hand. These things Bran says sometimes, they are like little gifts I want to hide in a treasure box. “There’s an international student club field trip to the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island that I might check out.”
“The Penguin Parade?” Bran blinks, his face clearing. “You don’t want to go to that.”
“Why not? I’ve never seen a penguin. They look so cute.”
“Yeah, sure, they’re cute…or whatever. But here’s the thing, you visit the Penguin Parade and it’s you and hundreds of other people watching the birds exit the water after sunset. By my parents’ place, there’s a penguin colony. Sure it’s a lot smaller, but if you head there, guarantee no one else will be around.”
I wait after he stops talking, but he doesn’t add anything else, like an invitation to take me. “Okay, cool, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m heading downtown tonight.”
I perk up. “Anything fun in the cards?”
“Nah, just going out for a guys’ night.”
I fall back against the bed. “Guessing that’s code for I’m not invited.”
“Jazza will be there, if that’s of interest to you.”
I fall silent. Two can play at this game.
“So I’m out.” He walks to the door and pauses. “I’ll come by at eleven o’ clock tomorrow morning to pick you up.”
“Where are we going?”
He looks at me like my brains are broken. “To Portsea, to stay at my parents’ house? They aren’t around. We’ll have it to ourselves. We just talked about this.”
“Um, I think that conversation mostly took place in your head.”
He gives a half wave. “So see you at eleven.”
“Hold up. If I go, and note I’ve never said I will, I want an actual invitation.”
His lips quirk in the corners. “Written or verbal?”
“Verbal will suffice.”
“Dear Natalia, would you please come to Portsea with me for a few days? I’ll introduce you to penguins and a weedy sea dragon or two.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Sea dragons are real. I’ll find you one.”
“Let me see.” I tap my fingers on my lip, pretending to decide. A few days alone in a beach house with Bran? I can think of a million worse options and none better. “What the heck, maybe it’ll even be fun.”
“Yeah, I think I can promise some fun.” His smile is so naughty that I’m blushing in seconds. Maybe we’re ready to change lanes, speed things up a bit. Easter break just got interesting.
* * *
After a car ride thick with flirty innuendos, the last thing I expect upon entering Bran’s childhood room in his family’s ultra-modern beach house is for him to crawl under his bed.
He removes a beat-up Vans shoebox while I study the décor, stylish yet soulless, designed for a generic boy, not a real kid. The room feels like an interior design catalog, not a real, practical space.
He flicks through a stack of photographs and selects a few. “If you’re visiting Lockhart Penitentiary, you might as well get familiar with the inmates.”
“That’s a funny thing to call your house.”
“Hilarious as a life sentence.” He hands me the pictures with a humorless smile. “Here, check these out.”
I cross my legs on the comforter, oddly touched he wants to share his family with me, and begin to flick through the pile.
“That’s my sister, Gaby.” He points at a petite knockout with his same wide mouth. “She’s a pain in my ass, but cool, practically raised me.”
“You once mentioned your parents traveled a lot.”
“Yeah, they were never around. Why bother when they had Gaby and boarding schools to fall back on?” With evident pride, he hands me another picture of two girls clowning around. “These are Gaby’s daughters, the troublemakers, Winnie and Claire.”
“Which one’s the Bieber fanatic?”
He grimaces. “You’ll never let me live that down, will you?”
“Nope, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
“Winnie is the wannabe pop star. Claire prefers books and horses. They live in the city’s west in one of those McMansion suburbs. Her husband, Joe, is a wanker, raced back in the day.
“Cars?”
“Nah, former jockey.”
“Joe the Jockey.” I peer closer at the shot of the short guy with the toothy smile. “Was he any good?”
“Yeah. Now he’s retired, drinks too much, and talks shit about stallions and share prices.”
“Sounds a little boring.”
“Like I said, he’s a wanker. We don’t…get along.”
I wait for him to say more, but his shuttered face indicates that conversation is a dead end. I glance back to the dark-haired woman, arms looped over her two identical miniatures. “Your sister really is stunning. She looks like a supermodel or something.”
“She did model, a little. But she’s vertically challenged. Wait, you’ll love seeing this.” He shuffles through a few more pictures and selects one, yellowed by age, of a sultry young woman in a clingy red evening gown. “That’s Mariana,” he says.
“Wow, who’s she?”
“My mother. She hates being called Mom. I’ve had to address her as Mariana since I was five years old.”
“Ouch.”
“Whatever,” he says with a shrug. “She’s not the maternal type. Anyway, that picture is from when she was Miss Argentina.”
“Whoa—what?”
“Yeah, wild, huh? Dad snagged her a few years later during a business trip to Buenos Aires. How, I’m not sure, because he’s a bastard. But I guess money can buy most things. Don’t know why they ended up having kids. Still, can’t complain, right? Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
There is such a deep sadness b
ehind his sarcasm. A chill creeps through my chest. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my family is all kinds of messed up. But even in the darkest times, while Pippa died by slow inches in the hospital, Mom screamed about everything, and Dad never spoke at all, I knew love existed for me. Bran speaks about his parents as if they are distant acquaintances and yet keeps their photos stored under his bed. I can’t imagine growing up in such a lonely world. No wonder Bran’s so prickly and defensive. Does he even know what it’s like to receive unconditional love?
“I’m sorry,” I say, which is lame. Because I’m so much more than sorry. I want to take him in my arms and rock him like a lost boy.
“Don’t pity me for a single second.” His laugh is a poor imitation of the real thing. “Look at all this stuff. Kids grow up way worse.”
“We all need love.”
“I don’t believe in love, remember?”
He acts like his smile is genuine, and I pretend my stomach doesn’t flinch.
“Hey, this must be your dad.” I switch the subject, no point arguing when he’s in a mood. I raise the next picture, which features a smoldering guy in a dark suit, no tie. Except for the crew cut, he’s Bran’s doppelganger.
“Yeah. That’s him. Bigshit Bryce.” Bran’s voice is tight with a bunch of emotions, none of which sound remotely positive.
“He’s total handsomepants.” When it doubt, go for humor. Except in this case, I’m serious as a heart attack. I don’t have a daddy complex but Bryce Lockhart is hawt with a capital H.
“Dad?” He snorts. “Really, you think so?”
“Dude, he looks like your twinsie. Super sexy.”
Bran’s green cat eyes lock on mine. Delicious dimples threaten to put in an appearance beside his parted lips. Maybe I’m shameless, but whatever, a little honesty might improve the suddenly grim situation. Once upon a time, during an afternoon not all that long ago, we hooked up like bonobo monkeys at his place in Carlton. I haven’t forgotten the way my body responded when Bran put his hands on me. I want to get us closer.