Excavated

by Noelle Adams

  But still…it was really starting to bug him.

  He’d always been a good strategist, however, so he didn’t tense up or snap back a curt reply. “Shall we talk about your habits in the shower?”

  She laughed softly and snuggled against him, and he relaxed all the way. She might not be able to admit it, but she felt just as close to him as he felt to her. “All I do in the shower is lather up, wash my hair, and shave.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I do have a waterproof vibrator that comes in very handy,” she added, a smile in her voice. “But I very rarely have to resort to that.”

  “Your self-control is extraordinary.”

  She laughed again. Then she reached up give him a wet kiss on the jaw. “I wore out its batteries over the last month.”

  He laughed uninhibitedly and tightened his arms around her. He was feeling so soft and fond that he didn’t think through all of the implications of his words when he asked a minute or two later, “I can stay here through the New Year. What are your plans for Christmas?”

  It wasn’t until he felt her tense up that he knew he’d made a mistake. “I don’t know,” she said slowly.

  He should change the subject, brush off his question, not pursue this particular line of inquiry. He knew it. He knew it.

  But he said anyway, “It’s just a couple of weeks away. You must have some idea.”

  “Christmas isn’t tomorrow,” she said lightly, although he thought he detected a slight strain in her voice. “What happened to our one-day-at-a-time thing?”

  “Once you have a hundred-and-thirty-something days at a time, it becomes a relationship—whether you call it that or not.” There was more resentment in his tone than he’d expected.

  She pulled away from him and sat up in the bed, pulling the sheet up to cover her bare breasts. “What’s wrong with you? I thought things were going well as they are. I thought you were happy with…” Her words trailed off as her face twisted with aching confusion.

  “I am happy with things,” he said, realizing he’d hurt her rather than annoyed her. “I don’t know why we have to continue this pretense of being just casual, but I can wait if you aren’t ready—”

  “What do you mean by pretense? We agreed that there wouldn’t be any pressure on this.” She waved her hand vaguely between the two of them to signify whatever it was they had. “It’s not fair for you to suddenly act like this is a relationship, when we’d set the boundaries otherwise from the very beginning.”

  “I know how we set the boundaries, but it’s not like I’m changing terms without any warning. We’ve been together for months now. What we have is a relationship. Isn’t it?” His last question was needier than he wanted or expected, as he was suddenly hit with a nightmare vision of his having given his heart to someone who would just throw it back in his face.

  “I don’t…I don’t know.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and her eyes were wide and strangely intense.

  He suddenly realized it was fear reflected in her eyes. She wasn’t just using him or taking him for granted. She was terrified.

  He immediately walked them back from the precipice. “We don’t need to call it anything. Don’t worry about it.”

  She just stared at him with huge green eyes.

  “I’m serious,” he told her, pitching his voice as warm and confident. “Please don’t worry about it. Being with you one day at a time is better than any days I spent before. Let me just rephrase my question from earlier. Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”

  She was still eyeing him rather warily, but she lay down again and he pulled her back into his arms. “I was thinking about doing some Christmas shopping. I haven’t even started.”

  “Sounds good. Would you like some company? I could help you pick out your present for me.”

  ***

  The next morning, when Philip got out of the shower and walked back into Lucy’s bedroom with a towel wrapped around his hips, he saw that Lucy had packed his bag.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, immediately moving into crisis-mode.

  “I’m sorry.” Her face twisted as she sat on the edge of the bed near his suitcase. “I’m really sorry. But I think you’d better leave.”

  “What?” The one word was hoarse and stretched, so he cleared his throat. “What the hell is going on, Lucy?”

  She looked like she’d been crying while he was in the shower. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  He made himself calm down, although his heart was beating painfully in his throat and his first instinct was to start roaring with outrage. He went to sit down next to her on the bed. “You need to explain this to me.”

  “It’s just that…This wasn’t supposed to be a real relationship. I only started it because it wasn’t one. But you seem to think…I mean, you want…I can’t just keep stringing you along if you want it to be a real relationship.”

  This was very important—perhaps the most important moment of strategy in his life. If he could think clearly, he could fix this. He could make a workable plan out of emotional chaos.

  But he couldn’t seem to think strategically at all. It felt like the world was falling away at his feet. He blurted out, “I don’t just want it to be a real relationship. It is one. I understand if you’re scared, but—”

  Her face twisted again. “But nothing. The only point that matters is that I don’t want this.”

  “You do want it. You’ll never convince me that you don’t. What we have together is really good, and it’s not just good for me.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I already told you—”

  “You haven’t told me anything that makes sense. We’ve invested months of our lives in this relationship, and you can’t just expect me to walk away without any sort of explanation.” He knew he was too emotional. He could hear it in his voice. He hadn’t felt this out of control for a really long time, and he didn’t like it.

  He just couldn’t help it.

  “I’m so sorry, Philip.” She took a shaky breath and rubbed her face with both of her hands. “I really am. I don’t know what to say. But I can’t be in real relationship with you. I just can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?” He could hardly breathe, waiting for her to answer.

  “I can’t trust men that way. I can’t trust you.” She wasn’t looking at him as she said the words, and her body was so tight she was shaking with you. “It sounds terrible, but it’s true. I can’t trust you.”

  The room seemed to blur briefly in front of his eyes, but he finally managed to take a full breath. “Tell me why not.”

  She shook her head.

  He reached out to put a hand on her arm, reminding himself not to grip it too hard. “Lucy, you have to tell me why not. I don’t think I deserve your lack of trust. I haven’t done anything to you that would deserve it.”

  She jerked out of his grip and turned on him, something pained and outraged on her face. “Yes, you have. Yes, you have!”

  He stared at her in stunned silence.

  “You…you hurt me. Back then.” She shook her head and impatiently wiped away a stray tear. “And I can’t let it happen again.”

  Philip still couldn’t speak. His mind was normally razor sharp, but it evidently wasn’t working this morning.

  He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

  ***

  Lucy could tell from Philip’s stunned expression that he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

  His confusion just made it worse. Made all of it worse. That he could have hurt her so much and not even realize he had done it.

  Her throat ached with a sob that wouldn’t break, and she stared down at the floor, trying to get herself back under control.

  She’d been so, so stupid to sleep with Philip that first time over the summer. And to sleep with him every time since.

  “Lucy, what did I do?” His voice was barely a breath.

  She shook her head
, unable to speak even if she’d wanted to.

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her upper body until she faced him. His hands weren’t rough but their grip was like iron—absolutely unbreakable. “You have to tell me.” His blue eyes bored into her, deep with something that looked almost like panic. “I shouldn’t have kissed you that once, but you said you didn’t care about that. I might have been an asshole back then, but it was mostly because of angst with my mom. It was never about you.”

  Her vision had blurred with emotion, but she managed to make a choked sound that was almost a bitter laugh. It cleared her throat enough for her to speak. “I know it wasn’t about me. I wasn’t important enough for any of it to be about me. I was so incredibly stupid to trust you back then, but I did. I did.”

  She saw through unshed tears something twist on his face. He one of his hands from her shoulder to cup her face. “Lucy, I was young and stupid and driven by a lot of pain, but I really tried not to take advantage of you back then. I promise I tried. I knew you were really young—young even for a freshman in college—and I was a lot older than you.” His forehead wrinkled as if he were trying to sort through his memories. “Other than that kiss, did I do something…inappropriate?”

  He hadn’t done anything inappropriate. Even the kiss had been sweet and gentle, surprising both of them one night they’d been working late. He’d always been a perfect gentleman with her. Even when she’d initiated casual touching, he’d always pulled away.

  He’d made her believe he respected her, cared about her as a person.

  When he hadn’t.

  She jerked out of his hands. “No, you didn’t do anything inappropriate.” She hadn’t intended to tell him but the words came pouring out anyway. “It was afterwards. Afterwards. After the kiss. When you acted like I didn’t exist. You got a new girlfriend, and you dropped me like I was nothing.”

  He was staring at her in stunned silence again, looking kind of like he’d just been clobbered. Then, “I didn’t—"

  “Yes, you did! We were close. We were friends. I thought…but then nothing. Nothing. You wouldn’t even deign to look at me. How the hell do you think that made me feel? After everything with my dad, it was hard for me to trust men at all. But I learned to trust you, and you just threw it back in my face.”

  “But…” He almost choked out the word. He reached out for her again but she jerked away and stood up. The tears had spilled down her cheeks, and she hated herself for them.

  It was so many years ago. She’d been a foolish girl.

  It shouldn’t still bother her so much.

  Philip moved to his feet too. He reached out one more time but this time stopped himself before he pulled away. “Lucy, that isn’t what happened.”

  “Yes, it is.” She was shaking with mortified grief and indignation. “I was there, Philip. That was exactly what happened.”

  “I didn’t…” He rubbed his face with one hand. “I had no idea that’s what you thought happened. I thought… After we kissed, you said it wasn’t a big deal. I believe you. I just thought it was one of those things for you. I didn’t think it would bother you if I just…drifted away.”

  She didn’t want to believe him, but she did. He was telling her the naked truth. So instead of shaking him—which was one of her impulses—she rasped, “How could it not bother me? We were friends, I thought. I might have been interested in more, but I could live without having it. But I really thought we were…close. I trusted you.”

  Philip’s face twisted. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  The endearment pushed her over the edge. She turned her back on him and sobbed silently, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

  “Please don’t cry, Lucy.” His voice got closer as he approached, and she pulled away from him when she felt his hand on her arm. “I was stupid and clueless, and I had no idea I was important to you. I guess I didn’t really think I was important to anyone back then. But I never meant to hurt you. I never would have done it that way if I’d thought for even a moment I would hurt you.”

  She whirled around to face him again. “But why did you do it at all?”

  He grew very still for just a moment.

  Wiping away a few tears, she persisted, “Tell me why. If you weren't just tossing me away, why couldn’t we have just stayed friends?”

  He swallowed and looked away from her.

  “Philip?”

  He took a deep breath and turned back to face her. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were seventeen, and I was twenty-three. And I was thinking about you in ways that were wrong.” He shook his head. “Even if it wasn’t against the law in Tennessee, it would have been wrong for me to... I might have been selfish and stupid back then, but there were boundaries I refused to cross. You were one of them.”

  She was so surprised she actually swayed on her feet. “What? You’re saying—what?”

  “It hadn’t gone too far,” Philip said, looking acutely embarrassed. “I wasn’t some creep slathering over an under-aged girl. But I could tell the direction in which my thoughts were starting to drift, and there was no way I could let that continue. I thought it would be better if we had some…some distance.”

  “Oh.”

  It felt like the foundation of her world had started to shake, and she wasn’t sure she was going to make it through the tremors. She sat down on the side of the bed again and hunched over, twisting her hands together as she tried to process this revelation.

  “You can see now, can’t you?” Philip asked, sounding more urgent than embarrassed now. He moved over to sit beside her. “You can see why I couldn’t tell you the truth? Why I couldn’t let our friendship go on the way it had? I should have done better by you. I can see that now. I never dreamed I hurt you. I just never thought you would…you would care one way or the other. About me.”

  She almost laughed at the irony. The beautiful, twisted, aching irony of their lives.

  He took her by the shoulders again so he could see her face. “Baby, please tell me you understand. Maybe I wasn’t worth trusting back then, but you can trust me now. You mean more to me than anything else in the world. I’m not going to let you down again.”

  She believed him. The words sounded ripped out of him, and she knew they expressed his heart.

  But she didn’t know if it could be that easy—to take back so many bitter years. Not just this one heartbreak when she was seventeen, but a lifetime of them.

  “I—" The one word stuck in her throat. “I don’t know.”

  Philip gazed at her with haunted eyes.

  She wasn’t used to such intensity. She wasn’t used to such naked vulnerability. She wasn’t used to pouring herself out. She wasn’t used to the responsibility of someone else’s heart.

  And she wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

  She tried again. “I understand what you’re saying, and I believe you. But my whole life has been… I don’t know, Philip. I just don’t know.”

  She heard him let out a breath, and his hands dropped to the bed beside him.

  “I need a little time to process.” She darted a quick look at him and was relieved that he now looked quiet and contained. Much safer than the moment before.

  He nodded. “Okay.” He stood up, although it seemed to take great effort. “Do you want me to go back home?”

  Back to Scotland. A different continent. An ocean apart.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He relaxed slightly, and she knew his worst fears hadn’t been realized. “I can get a hotel in town for as long as you need. Then we can talk…when you’re ready.”

  She nodded. “I’m really sorry, Philip. I just don’t know—"

  “I know you don’t. I’m sorry too.” He picked up the bag she’d packed for him earlier. “I’ll send you a text when I get a room. Just give me a call when you want to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  Then Philip left the room, left her apartment, left her building. She missed h
im before he was fully gone.

  ***

  Late that afternoon, Philip lay stretched out on the bed of his hotel room, staring blindly at the television.

  He was dying for a drink. For anything that would take the edge off the bleak ache in his chest.

  He didn’t pour himself a drink, though. If his inhibitions were lowered, even slightly, then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from banging on Lucy’s door until she let him in. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from begging her to take him back.

  He didn’t get a drink. He didn’t order any food. He didn’t leave the room. He didn’t get off the bed.

  He just lay and stared at the cable news channel, never seeing or hearing a word of it.

  When a sound started to penetrate through the blurred haze of his mind, he couldn’t process it immediately. At first, he thought it must be the television, but after a minute it got louder. And it was from a different direction.

  He sat up and blinked until he realized someone was knocking on the door to his hotel room.

  He managed to get up and move stiffly to the door. He looked through the peephole, his mind still not working properly, but when he saw who was in the hallway, he swung open the door in a frantic rush.

  Lucy’s face crumpled as he stared down at her in bewildered hope. “Can I come in?” Her shoulders were shaking with sobs.

  He wasn’t exactly sure how it happened. He couldn’t seem to say anything as he let her into the room, and they ended up on the bed, Lucy crying against his chest. His arms were wrapped around her, and he was trying desperately not to hold her too tightly, even though every instinct in his being told him not to let go, to never let her go.

  She couldn’t seem to stop crying, and it hurt him horribly to see her so broken.

  But—despite everything—she’d come to him, she was clinging to him, she was burrowing against him, she wasn't pulling away.

  It felt like trust to Philip.

  Ten

  Philip woke up with a stiff neck and a dry mouth.

  He blinked several times, managing to get his muscles to work enough to turn his head.