Angling his head, he says, ‘What?’
I shake my head faintly. ‘When I didn’t like you, the fact that you were so hot played against you.’
He smirks. ‘You don’t say.’
Struggling to find the right words, I lean on my elbows. ‘If I was already angry at you for something you said or did, I’d look at you and just get angrier. Because it seemed so unfair to be given a face like that and use it for nothing but … egocentric causes. I’m guessing that’s not how it normally works for you – or I guess I should say, not normally how it works against you.’
His mouth pulls up on one side and he shakes his head once. ‘Uh, no. That’s usually not the case.’
‘People find themselves letting you have your way, because you’re so beautiful that they don’t want to deny you anything.’
‘I feel so cheap now.’
‘You shouldn’t. It’s not your fault you were born looking the way you look –’
He barks a laugh, hand across his mouth, weirdly self-conscious. ‘Thanks for the … sympathy?’
‘What I mean is, how you look just intensifies everything else about you, which didn’t work with me, because I was raised to weigh people’s actions, to rank them higher than their looks. Superficial people can be swayed by surface beauty alone. It’s basic human nature to like pretty things, after all.’
‘I’m not so sure I’m enjoying the turn of this conversation, to tell you the truth. I feel like I should go and rub some dirt on my face, or at least change into polyester plaid.’
I shake my head and try again. ‘When you showed up at Habitat with the cast of Mercy Killing, I’d already experienced, first hand, what it was like to be cared for by you. By the time I left that day, I knew what you’d done for Deb – and the knowledge of that beautiful part of you – the real you, apart from your looks – stunned me. But the combination of the compassion you were capable of and your physical beauty, right in front of me, was so overwhelming.’
His mouth drops open just slightly, and his brows draw together just as disconcertedly. ‘Dori, I’m no angel –’
‘I know, and I don’t expect you to be. You know I like the, uh …’ I feel the blush creeping over my ears, and with my hair in a messy knot at the nape of my neck, I know that tell-tale signal is visible. My voice drops to the lowest possible level. ‘… The naughty side of you too.’
He takes my hand from the table between us and holds it loosely in his, splayed open, tracing loops on my palm with the tip of his thumb. ‘Is that why I was able to say a few words I’m not allowed to say in the daylight, when I whispered them to you last night?’ His voice is low and rough, dragging something deep inside me to the surface. He leans closer. ‘When I told you what I was going to do to you before I did it? When I told you what to do to me?’
My face floods with heat and memory. I had been beyond shocked to discover that those forbidden words – some of which he’s never spoken in front of me – made my body go liquid under his as he whispered them in the dark, his voice husky and demanding.
When he sat on the edge of my cramped bed this morning, stretching, his shoulder blades bore the evidence of my enthusiasm. And he seemed to have a bruise or two in curious spots. I was mortified.
‘I hurt you,’ I said miserably, tracing my fingers over the thin lines on his back.
He turned and flattened me against the bed in the space of one blink, his chest pressed to mine, his elbows bearing his weight. ‘If you ever apologize to me for doing,’ he closed his eyes and then flashed them open, ‘anything you did to me last night, I’ll have no choice but to punish you.’
‘Oh?’ I whispered, my imagination running rampant.
He smiled wolfishly. ‘In the heat of the moment, it appears we forgot to employ that scarf you were promising to produce. The next time you give me a few hours of your time, Dorcas Cantrell, I think we have a few new things to try.’
His soft laugh brings me back to the Starbucks. ‘I always feel like doing a quick fist-pump when I manage to say something that makes you blush well beyond the ears,’ he says.
‘Meanie.’
‘You know you love it.’
‘I’m a glutton for punishment, apparently.’ Another wave of pink descends after I realize I just used the word punishment, and he chuckles again.
Tapping a coffee stirrer on the table, he stares at it before sighing. ‘Dori, what you said about the “real” me – I’m trying to be a better human being, but I’m still the same guy. People can only change so much.’
My heart aches at the truth of those words, and how they apply to the thing I’m dreading most – losing him. But I know he’s referring to other, more personally important changes. ‘You underestimate yourself, Reid. As always. You have a good heart, and now your eyes are more open to other people, to suffering you can do something about. All you have to do is not close them again. I know, better than anyone, that everything isn’t fixable.’
Everything isn’t fixable, and miracles are only happy twists of fate. Fate can so easily twist in the opposite direction. I face that fact every time my sister looks right through me.
13
BROOKE
‘Brooke, where are you? I heard a rumour that you’re in Texas. Is that true?’ Janelle’s voice is a bit overly-screechy before my second cup of coffee. Truthfully, it’s screechy all the time. I love her, but Christ, when she’s worked up, her voice could pierce steel. I hold the phone a foot away from my ear, only bringing it close to speak.