“I’m not capable of anything, Salinger.”
“Wrong,” he said and his fingers found my forearm, wrapping around the skin there. He stopped me and I stared up at him. “You’re smart, smarter than her, and you’re talented, and that eats at her.”
“Why? Does she play?”
“She does.”
“Is she any good?”
“She’s okay, but that’s not what eats at her.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me,” he said, letting go of my arm and we continued on. “You have my attention, so that night she told me she didn’t want me to be around you.” My heart beat in my chest. “I asked her why and she explained she felt threatened. I told her to chill. She exclaimed she was in love with me and asked if I felt anything for her. For the fifth time this year, I told her no. She promised to calm down and we could go back to being friends. I don’t believe her anymore and told her we should both cool off for a couple of months.”
“Did she take it well?”
He looked at me like I was crazy and barked a laugh. “Uh, no.”
“I see.”
“I don’t understand how hard it is to take a hint,” he said, dragging a hand across the stone facade of a building. “She just couldn’t be cool.” This sobered me. I won’t be making the same mistake. “Anyway, let’s forget all about it.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Take the hint, Lily.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WE PRACTICED WITH BERNARD until late into the night. We decided to stay and played the entire next day as well. By Sunday evening, I’d gotten a lot of my confidence back and beat Bernard several times while still applying tournament rules and procedures.
Pulling up to my house after not seeing it for two days felt strange. I hardly recognized it. It was actually pretty, something I’d never really experienced, even when we first moved in. It looked like someone loved it, and I guess that someone was me. It reminded me of the girls and why I was working as hard as I was.
“See the neighbors around you?” Salinger asked when we pulled into my gravel drive.
I looked around and saw that during the weekend several people had started to take pride in their homes. A few had mowed their lawns, fixed broken windows and doors, and ridden their yards of trash. Two neighbors down, the Garsides, had actually painted their house.
“Weird,” I said.
“It’s cool, actually,” he said. “You did that.”
“I definitely did not.”
“You did,” he insisted.
He brought my bag inside for me then stretched out on our old couch. I’d covered it with a couple of crochet throws since it didn’t seem to match the house anymore. I turned the stereo on.
I brought my phone out and texted Ansen and Katie that I’d made it home all right.
“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he told me.
“I promise.” I paused. “I’m going to beat Aurek,” I told him.
“I know,” he spoke into the cushion.
He was too tall for the couch and his legs extended onto the perpendicular love seat. He was a gorgeous boy. I didn’t want to think that about him, but I couldn’t help it. It was too obvious to ignore. I didn’t blame Lyric the least bit. I started to imagine running my fingers along the skin on the back of his neck but stopped myself.
“Not because I’m better than him or anything,” I continued, “because winning is my only option.” He leaned up, rested on his elbows, and looked at me. “Winning is the only option.”
“I agree.”
“Then it’s settled,” I told him and he laid back down.
I went into the kitchen and raided the fridge for anything of substance. All I found were a few beers Salinger had left over the other day.
“Salinger, do you want a beer?” I asked him. He didn’t answer. “Salinger?”
I walked back into the living room and saw him still on the couch, but his breaths had evened out.
Salinger Park was asleep on my couch. He’d nodded off.
My heart raced.
I debated waking him up or risk him getting upset I’d let him sleep, though I’d promised. I thought I could suffer his wrath because I wanted him there. The house felt empty without him, so empty it made my skin crawl. I’d been the one to empty it.
Him being there brought me peace, though, more than life to the lifeless house. It was more than his mere presence there that motivated me to keep quiet. I wanted him there with me. I wanted him. For him I had tunnel vision and he was the light at the end of that tunnel.
Salinger was a very bright, beautiful light. I could admit it openly to myself, at least. I thought if I could admit it, maybe I could also live within those parameters.
So I sat there, silent and still, in my pitch-black house, nursing one of his bottles of beer, the low base of a song playing on the stereo rumbling through my chest, and watched his own rise and fall with each breath he took, feeling more and more like who I was supposed to become, because Salinger didn’t just fill my house or paint the walls. He filled me, painted my insides with a purposeful life.
He was a burning lantern guiding me home.
I’m falling in love with him.
I suddenly remembered myself. I got up, poured the beer down the sink, and paced the kitchen floor. Focus on your list. Finish the house, get visitation, get the girls, mourn Mom, and deal with Trace. Stop looking at Salinger. Stop thinking about Salinger. Stop wanting Salinger.
I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve him. I don’t de— “Lily?” I heard and startled to a stop.
Salinger was leaning on the jamb of the open doorway into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked me.
“Thinking,” I explained and stuck my hands in the back of my jeans to keep them busy.
He fought a smile. “You let me fall asleep. You know what the penalty for that is?”
I tamped down the heat that pooled in my belly when he said that. “What?” I whispered.
“A quick game of chess.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” he said, tucking his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, “but there’s a handicap.”
My heart beat wildly behind my rib cage. “What’s the handicap?”
“You have to be blindfolded.”
I swallowed. “Blindfolded,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said, standing upright and walking backward toward the living room and the little chess table we’d set up.
I followed after him.
“Take a seat,” he told me.
I sat down, my heart beating a million miles a minute; for some reason as he left for the kitchen. I could hear him rummage through the drawers there then he returned with a thin, worn cheesecloth. He folded it over and over until it made an appropriate blindfold. He smiled at me.
“You ready?”
I nodded and he placed the cloth over my eyes. I felt him carefully brush my hair aside and I stifled a shiver. He tied the knot.
I felt him lean into my ear. “Too tight?”
“N-no,” I stuttered.
I heard him take the seat opposite mine.
“Ladies first,” he said.
I carefully brought my hands up and felt for the edges of the table. I lightly ran my fingers over the tops of the pieces and chose my play. I moved my piece, placing it where I thought it should go.
“Is this close?” I asked him.
His hand found mine and he guided it to its correct spot. “There,” he whispered.
When he let go of my fingers, I brought the hand he’d touched to my lap and with my other tried to wipe away the maddening drug he seemed to leave behind.
“Your turn,” I said.
“Let me have your hand,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, desperate for him not to touch me again.
He laughed off my question. “So you can know which piece I’ve played.”
I swallowed nothing. “Oh.”
I offered my hand to him and he took it in his, moved his piece, then let it go. I felt my breaths coming faster and I tried to steady them.
“You going to be able to remember every move?” he asked.
“Not sure,” I whispered.
If I’d played this way with anyone else, I’d be able to know the table and the position of each piece at any given play easily, but with Salinger? He did things to me. He distracted me.
“This is good practice, I think,” he said.