He helps me feel like I belong here and has from the very start, when I was ashamed to have to be working my way through this university, where the poor kids drive Mercedes and the really rich ones have drivers.
I pull myself back from my mental meanderings to find him watching me. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he says. “Does it involve Mr. Tall, Dark and Psychotic?”
I duck my head, not sure how to answer. “In a roundabout way, yeah.”
He moves across the room like a ghost and is suddenly sitting across from me. “Do tell.”
“He’s just… There’s something about him.” I twist my hair absently, redoing a few curls that have gotten away from me lately. “The other night when he was at the Baywater? He wanted to walk me home.”
“And you said no, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, guy totally shows up at work out of the blue and asks to walk me home and I’m going to jump all over it. That’s how horror movies start.”
“That’s also how pornos start,” he says. “And lord knows this dry spell of yours has gone on long enough.”
“I’ve seen that movie,” I say quietly.
“Not the one with this guy as the star.” He slides into the chair next to me. “Look, I don’t get the creepy stalker vibe from him. You should give it a shot. Even if it’s just for coffee.”
“Is coffee a euphemism for sex?”
“Well, you know, oral is known as flicking the bean.”
I laugh because I can’t help myself. “Really? How do you know these things?”
“I used to steal my mom’s Playgirl magazines.”
“I really didn’t need that visual.”
“You’re welcome.” He drums his fingers on the table in front of him.
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to risk asking Graham a question I may not really want to know the answer to. "You know he used to be a soldier, right?"
“Yeah. He told me that day at the bar. I guess that explains why he reminds me of Noah,” Graham says softly. Noah is a former soldier and is seriously involved with our friend Beth. And he’s got a metric ton of issues from the war.
And just like that, I am no longer confident about what I have considered getting myself into with Josh. “I know.”
Graham reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “That means that whatever issues he’s got, underneath it all, he’s a good guy.”
I press my lips together. I don't want to be there to pick up the pieces. I've done that before, and it sucks because even when the person you love is standing there, cut and bleeding, a part of you hates them for putting themselves in that situation to begin with.
I know what I've felt every single time I am around Josh. I know how I felt when his mouth touched mine.
I know what I’d be giving up if I walk away from this thing that’s starting between me and Josh. It’s something I’ve wanted my entire life.
But the part of me that whispers to run…I can’t. I have to stop letting that part of me rule my life. I won’t live afraid.
Not even now, when I'm pretty well convinced that I am going to end up just like my mother—hurt and broken and lying on the bedroom floor, crying her eyes out, then crawling back to the bastard that ripped her soul out.
I suddenly do not want to be alone. I very much want to take a chance with Josh.
I want to lay my head on Josh's shoulder. Feel his strong body curled around mine. And I’m afraid of how strongly I feel the pull toward him. Despite the mystery. Despite the darkness. That maybe, just maybe, hope would be enough to pull him through whatever it is that he’s facing.
And that maybe, he wants someone to face it with him.
I'm tired of being alone. After Robert, after my dad. After my mom’s boyfriend made it all too clear that I was the reason their relationship went to hell.
Too many things are circling in my mind today as I finish my shift at work and head home.
Too many resurrected specters from my past destroying my present.
I have a choice.
I can be safe.
Or I can choose to fall.
Chapter 11
Josh
Finally admitting the problem to Eli hasn’t solved anything. I should be able to identify the feeling twisting in my guts at this point. I’ve had lots of time snuggling up with anxiety and its fun cousins panic attack and nausea.
But I can’t sit around and mope about it either. Nothing has changed. Which means I need to drag my happy ass to campus and pretend to be normal for another day.
I arrive at class early and disappointment is a tangible thing in my gut when I see that she’s not there yet. I take a seat at the back of the small raised rows. I tap my pen on my thigh. Sitting still has never been one of my strong points. It’s good for my blood pressure.
I'm watching the door, waiting. Just waiting.
I have no right to feel this…this anticipation. She's not mine. She can't be.
But I can't forget how it felt to kiss her. A momentary breakthrough in my neuroses where for a brief moment, I found the right thing to say, the right thing to do.
I lick my bottom lip, remembering the feel of her mouth beneath mine. That kiss was as close to paradise as I’ve felt since I came home from the war.