Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  I’ve managed two glances at her. She didn’t catch either of them.

  I know she has noticed my behavior by now, though. We’ve just gotten Theo into bed, and the two of us are shuffling into the kitchen, and I don’t merely feel like her eyes are back on me, I’m starkly aware of them being on me.

  While I head for where I left my glass of water on the counter, I take a deep breath.

  “Beck?” comes Noelle’s quiet voice. “Are you okay?”

  Yeah, there it is.

  And here come the sorrow and guilt, swelling back up.

  I had flimsily imagined not messing with them until I was alone at home, but this moment…well, it’s the actual right one. Talking to Noelle when I’m upset is what I do because it’s what helps.

  Do I want to confess what I thought on accident earlier? Not exactly. But she’s my sanctuary, and I can’t feel my safest and steadiest with her if I try to lug dark things through the doorway.

  I take a long drink of water, set the glass back down, and turn around. Resting back on the edge of the counter, I finally look at her.

  For a second.

  Then I’m swallowing hard and dropping my gaze to the lacy sleeves of her gray shirt, because her expression is so—it’s so—

  “Beckett.” She steps closer, closer, closer, until she’s right in front of me. “I still want your trust and your eyes, you know.”

  And those are the exact right words for her to say.

  She knew they would be. She knows me.

  At long, long last, I do it: I drag my eyes back up to hers and keep them there.

  Yep, her expression is softer than soft, sweeter than sweet.

  Like it was a second ago.

  Like it was in the mirror at the dance studio.

  Like it was on so many other days before this one.

  I love it and am pained by it every bit as much as I expected, to the point that I’m damn near threatened by tears—an embarrassing truth, but one I can’t hide.

  Her features crease with a frown, and I can feel mine doing the same.

  I tell her quietly, “My heart hurts, Ellie.”

  Sorrow seeps into her, too, now. Into that expression. Into those eyes. Into her shoulders.

  “Why?” she whispers.

  I grip the edge of the counter behind me, let my gaze rove over her face while I gather my thoughts.

  “In Theo’s ballet class,” I start, “the two of you were being so cute and silly and happy. I was having such a good time standing there with you, being a part of something that matters to both of you, enjoying life yet again with…with my girls.”

  The words hurt my throat as they leave me, but I can’t shut myself up.

  In fact, as my heartbeat picks up, so does the pace of my words.

  “I thought of you and Theo as my girls, and I didn’t mean to. You’re Cliff’s girls, not mine. It’s like blasphemy, you know? We’re only friends, and he’s gone, and I can’t just throw around words like—like—”

  I take in a breath only to huff it back out.

  Into my mind drifts the memory of how she twisted her ring around her finger.

  I close my eyes and go on in a rush. “So I’m sorry. I’ve tried not to think about how bad it made me feel about myself, and I did pretty well for the most part, but it was still there, and I couldn’t even look at you because I know you lost him in a way I didn’t—you and Theo lost something with him that I didn’t have. And you haven’t stopped being his. He was gonna marry you, for God’s sake, and he was Theo’s dad. That doesn’t just go away.”

  My throat is stinging worse and worse. So are my veins, it seems like, with this heightening anxiety.

  “I know I’m your ocean and I know she loves me, and those things are priceless to me, but it’s a bad joke to think I deserve to think of you as my girls in any way. I don’t deserve that. So I’m just—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I accidentally thought it.”

  Come on, man, don’t cry.

  Even being closed, my eyes aren’t exactly asking my permission. They’re stinging, too, in response to the weight in me. It’s the only response they know because I feel like such a jerk, and the last thing I ever want to do is be a jerk to Noelle and Cliff.

  She isn’t saying anything, which doesn’t help.

  I doubt she’s outright disgusted by me, but what I’ve said isn’t insignificant. She’s likely feeling anywhere from uncomfortable to distraught to—

  Unexpected sensation has my worry halting and my breath catching.

  There are fingers curling against my cheek.

  Tentative.

  Tender.

  I’m tilting into the touch before I can stop myself, slipping my own fingers up to it, losing control of my heartbeat in a new way because of how shockingly good this feels.

  In return, Noelle opens her hand to fully cradle that side of my face. The brush of her fingertips over my skin sends a wave of tingles straight down my spine—and before I can wrap my mind around how that feels, her other fingers are sinking into the hair at my other temple, calmly stroking through.

  And I can’t breathe.

  I can’t do anything but finally reopen my eyes and fix them on her, can’t even care about how the sight of her affected me before or about how I must look to her now.

  At least, I can’t do anything until I notice she’s watery-eyed like I am.

  Heart clenching hard, I hurry out, “No, no, no—oh, don’t—I’m so sorry.” My free hand lurches into a nervous stroke at her waist. “Noelle, don’t cry, baby, I—”

  Our eyes widen at the endearment I have never used with her before and didn’t mean to use now.

  Oh. My.

  Why? Why would that fall out of my mouth? And why now? My God, what is wrong with my brain?

  My lungs are working again. I suck in a breath to apologize for this new thing, and I start letting go of her, and—

  “Stop, stop.” Her grab at my hands is as strong as her voice is brittle. “Beck, no. Stop being sorry.”

  Freezing again, I stare at her.

  Time stretches out as she does the same to me.

  Then, trembling slightly, she fixes our hands in the air between us, knotting them up like we’re praying together, and steps even closer to me.

  “Um,” she nearly whispers, her fingers flexing around mine, “you’re right. We were his girls, and you were like his brother. We all miss him and still keep him with us. That’s true.”

  Her chin starts trembling like her hands, only worse. She shakes her head as she regards me with aching sincerity, and a tear makes its skipping escape down her cheek.

  “But things aren’t what—they aren’t what they were before. We’ve said that before—we said it just the other night. We’ve had to adjust to a lot of difficult things. So of course we’re your girls, too, Beckett, in your own way. Of course we are. We’ve…grown with you. We are who we are today because of you. You have earned being important to us just as much as he did. And…um….”

  She drops her forehead to our knuckles a second before whimpering out a soft breath, her hair falling forward over her drooping shoulders.

  “No matter what our bonds look like, Theo and I deserve to be someone’s girls who…who loves us as much as you guys have.”

  I don’t know what to call the emotion that explodes through me.

  It yanks a breath out of me, and I yank my hands out of hers and yank her into a hug, close her in against me as tightly as I dare. She bands her arms around me, too, almost desperately, and yeah, there’s no fending off these tears. We both give in to them.

  Because there’s also no fending off the deep, comforting truth of her words. Of the friendship—the attachment—we have forged with each other.

  She is so special to me.

  Theodora, too, but…Noelle is just….

  The ghost of something my ex said during our final argument drifts through my mind: ‘They’re just people you know.’

  Now, that
was a bad joke.

  Noelle isn’t just some chick my best friend decided to settle down with after he got her pregnant—she became my second best friend because of the kind of person she is. And Theo isn’t just some cute kid I have no attachment to other than that she shares DNA with a buddy of mine.

  Cliff was no ordinary buddy of mine. We weren’t the kind of friends who hit each other up every now and then to shoot the shit. We were bound by the deepest kind of friendship. We never drifted apart.

  I would’ve given my life for him.

  For so long, he was the only person in the world I trusted. The only person I loved. The only person who trusted and loved me.

  Then his girls came along, and they climbed their way into my heart to hang out there with him, and they let me into theirs because, like he did, they looked at me and saw someone worth looking at. They gave me their own trust and love.

  And if I had to, I’d give my life for them too.

  They are not just people I know.

  Even the shadows of my past that still lurk in my mind can’t deny they really have become my girls in my own way.

  They’re my girls because I care about them as honestly as a man is capable of.

  That’s the only requirement I needed to meet, and I met it. Having done it as a friend and uncle instead of how Cliff did it…Noelle is right, that part doesn’t matter. Not after what we’ve been through.

  “You’re perfect,” she cries against my shoulder, hot and heartfelt, pulling me from my thoughts. “You are. Please believe me. I—I wanted to tell you earlier at the studio, but I didn’t, so now I….”

  My heartbeat skips as that hopeful moment from out on the sidewalk washes over me.

  Warmth is washing over me, too, like fires are being lit in different places on me—where her face is at my shoulder, where her hands are on my back, where her chest is pressed against mine.

  Where one of my hands can’t help sliding up into her soft hair.

  Her shaky exhalation causes her to relax in my arms. My overwhelmed brain likens it to her melting a little; maybe she’s as warm as I am.

  But I don’t focus on that.

  I whisper back with my own earnestness, “I do believe you. I promise. I’m one hundred to you, Noelle. I know.”

  She nods.

  Even though I have cracks all through me, she thinks I’m perfect, just like I think about her.

  I sniffle, wet my lips, and say it: “You’re perfect, too, to me.”

  A sniffle from her, then another nod. “I’m one hundred to you right back.”

  “Yeah.”

  With that, we fall quiet.

  I take my time collecting all these things we’ve said and tucking them away somewhere deep in me, where I’ve saved so much else for treasuring over these last years of my life. I cling to her words, cement in my mind these new things she has taught me about myself and who I am and what I’m worthy of. This stuff started with Cliff, yes, but as Noelle said and as I’ve thought before, it didn’t end with him. It continued on, grew, became stronger through her and Theodora. Same as how they’ve continued on, grown, and become stronger through me.

  I’ve never glimpsed anything quite as brilliant as the camaraderie they’ve given me, much less been able to hold it in my hands. And I never want to doubt it again. I never want to feel again like it doesn’t belong with me. It belongs with me the way my heart belongs in my chest.

  I don’t know what she’s thinking about, but I can tell she’s finding her composure like I am.

  Moment by moment, we’re calming back down.

  Breath by breath, we’re steadying.

  We’re steadying each other, for the millionth time.

  We’re gonna be okay.

  “You smell good,” she says out of nowhere.

  Pleasantly surprised, I angle a look down at her hair. “I do?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  The hum is stuffy from her having been tearful—and when she draws back to look at me, I’m surprised all over again because that tearfulness didn’t do a damn thing in the way of making her look disheveled. She looks uniquely beautiful now. Endearing.

  I don’t know what’s in this moment that wasn’t in all the other times I saw her with damp cheeks and smudged mascara, but there’s something.

  And I can’t resist the urge to slip my hand out of her hair so I can rub that dampness away.

  The soft hitch in her breath stops me before I’ve really started, though.

  With my fingers resting just against her cheek, I catch her eye.

  But other than faint surprise, all I see is liking that is also soft.

  No signs of, ‘Beckett, what are you doing?’ or, ‘Aw, you’re sweet, but I can dry my own face.’

  So I get to it, gently so I don’t hurt her somehow, with purpose so there won’t be anything left for her to take care of herself.

  She kind of looks like she wants to close her eyes, but she doesn’t do it. Instead, her gaze touches my face here and there and everywhere.

  And…I like it.

  I like that Noelle Bright would rather look at me than not.

  I like that she wants to give me her eyes as much as she wants mine for herself.

  I’d say it’s not every day that a guy gets looked upon by someone so glorious, but that isn’t true for me at all. And I appreciate every single bit of it, every moment I get with her.

  We learned the hard way that you never know when you’ll run out of moments.

  So I don’t rush what I’m doing, even when it turns into doing something else impulsive—after I finish dealing with the bit of teardrop-grayed mascara that made it down to her jaw, I move on to feeling the few places where her hair got a little damp. Then I find myself cautiously discovering how the deep brown locks look being sifted through a couple of my fingers.

  Her eyes do fall closed now, that soft liking still radiating from her.

  They reopen, though, when I tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

  I’m not blushing or awkward this time, but the smile that tugs at her lips still becomes a quiet chuckle. I have to join in on it. I know we’re both recalling the other night like an inside joke; just as I figured, she doesn’t mind that I’ve done this again.

  And I don’t mind that she lifts her hands to my face to reciprocate rubbing at whatever dampness might remain, despite that very little—if any—does.

  It’s what puts her thumb in position to brush over the scar on my cheek.

  She does it once. Twice. Again. Back and forth. Gently.

  Her gaze follows the motion, and…

  …and mine follows the tiny, absentminded way she licks at her bottom lip.

  The sight and the touch together send a strange feeling through me—one that has me inhaling sharply without meaning to, which startles her into stillness.

  Blinking out of her thoughts, she reconnects our gazes.

  “Oh,” she says on a breath. “Did I—? Am I bothering you?”

  In the next second, there’s open air against my skin instead of her hands. Color begins to tinge her cheeks up high along her cheekbones, where the scar would be if it were hers instead of mine.

  I like how that looks on her—hell, I remember liking it when she very, very first turned her attention on me many years ago on a hot summer day—but it’s unwarranted.

  With a slight shake of my head, I answer, “No,” on my own breath.

  And there’s no stifling the realization rapidly building in me.

  The confession rapidly building in me.

  It escapes me in a whisper.

  “You can’t bother me. That’s not possible.” I shake my head again. “I’m pretty sure you’re the best thing I’ve ever felt.”

  All I get back is a blink.

  Except—no, that’s—my face is back in her hands and she’s—she’s—

  My breathing falters and so does hers against my skin, interrupting what she—but—but then she does it again.

&nb
sp; She presses a warm kiss to my scar.

  The tenderness with which she does it has my knees going so weak, I don’t know how I stay standing.

  I have many ugly souvenirs from the days before I finally escaped hell, and she’s kissing one of them.

  The languid action isn’t elegant; the old mark is in a spot lips don’t smoothly reach, so her chin and nose aren’t in comfortable places.

  But I don’t care one fucking bit.

  I love it.

  I love every overwhelmingly intimate millisecond.

  I can’t seem to say so, but it must be clear in how my hands are drawing her up against me, as close as they can get her, because she breathes unevenly before blessing the spot with a third drawn-out kiss.

  And I’m ruined that much more for any other kiss on the cheek I’ll ever get.

  Has anyone else ever done this to me? Even the thought is breathless somehow.

  No one comes to mind.

  But it wouldn’t matter if anyone had—they would’ve shown up only to pale in comparison and be dismissed again. It wouldn’t matter if I’d gone through this fifty times before now.

  Nothing. Feels better. Than Noelle.

  She finally pulls her lips off me and keeps them that way.

  The loss is stark. So stark.

  I don’t want it.

  I’m this close to begging her not to stop. My chest is tight, and I’ve never experienced anything as achingly sweet as this, and I…I….

  But I don’t beg her. Of course I don’t. A guy can’t spend his life under a kiss; a girl can’t spend her life giving one.

  I really don’t know what to say at all, so I just trade clutching her waist for bringing her into a proper hug. I feel one last breath on my cheek before she shifts her face away from mine and locks her arms around my neck.

  Her heart is beating as fast as mine is.

  And that list of memorable moments my brain has spent days going over and over—the one I was thinking about at work? It’s growing.

  Something about that, paired with the way I feel right now, prickles at me.

  But it isn’t strong enough to dominate my attention.

  Right now, all I have room for in my mind is how Noelle is softly, breathlessly asking if I’d like to drink some peppermint hot chocolate while we watch TV.