Thomas puts his hand on my right knee and it jerks. It isn’t even a sensual touch. There’s a no-nonsense, clinical quality to it as he puts my foot on his thigh. He does the same with my other leg, barely touching me, barely lingering on the skin, but I feel it all the same.
The silence is thick, thicker than the delicious muscles of his thighs that I want to rub against—but I won’t. I might be a slut, but even I have limits. Not here. Not here. Not here.
He reaches over and fishes bandages and other stuff out of the box with tight, jerky movements. I have a feeling that, like me, he’s holding on to his control by a thread.
“Uh, did you always want to be a poet?” My voice is squeaky, but I need to fill this stupid quiet.
He doesn’t answer for a while, dabbing alcohol onto a ball of cotton and then putting it on my wound without warning, making me wince and curse. He watches me through his lashes before focusing on my trembling thighs.
“I’m not good with words,” he says, startling me. “Or rather, talking. When I was a kid, I’d go days without talking to anyone at school, buried in textbooks, comics, and stuff. Sometimes I felt like I had a lot to say but didn’t know how.” He pauses to clean the wound on my other knee. This time I’m prepared so I don’t jump too much. “Then I found my dad’s journals, his poems, and I knew.”
“Knew what?” My hands are holding on to the edge of the desk. It’s my way of stopping them from sinking into his gorgeous hair.
“That this was the way for me to talk.”
“Your dad was a poet too?”
“Not a real one.” I’m confused at his meaning and he explains, “He never published anything.”
“Oh,” I offer lamely. His definition of a “real” poet doesn’t sit well with me, but what do I know? I’m not even a fake poet. “He must be super proud of you, then.”
“He’s dead.” He finishes bandaging my other knee. “Besides, I’m not a poet anymore.”
Before I can ask what he means by that, he asks a question of his own. “So did you always want to be a stalker?”
His fire-breathing eyes…they are smiling, slightly. I should be offended that he’s laughing at me, but I’m not. In fact, I genuinely think about it. “Well, I guess, yeah. It was kind of inevitable. I’ve always been invisible to everyone, to my mom, my dad. I don’t even know if he remembers me.” I shrug. “And to…Caleb. I always watched them through the shadows. So, yeah, it made perfect sense for me to become a crazy stalker.”
By the time I finish my explanation, Thomas has a permanent tic in his jaw like a livewire crackling with dangerous electricity. I think about the cause for it. Is it because I mentioned Caleb again? I tamp down a delicious shiver at how he convinced me that he is different than him.
“Thomas?”
His name called out in an unfamiliar, a feminine voice chills me more than the winter ever can.
Is it…Is it Hadley? Is she here? How could Thomas do this to me? Bring me in his house when his wife was here all along?
Thomas stands up. The creak of the chair sounds more like a death knell this time.
How could he do this to us, my heart cries.
“Susan, this is Layla.”
For a second, I sit there. It’s Susan. Not Hadley. Susan.
Oh God, who’s Susan?
I jump down from my perch like someone injected me with a shot of adrenaline. Susan is an old but beautiful woman with the face of what I imagine a warm grandmother would have. My grandparents—too many of them—have faces carved out of Botox.
“H-Hi.” I move away from Thomas and stand to the side, hands primly folded in front of me.
“Hello.” She is confused. She looks from him to me and then back again. “Is everything okay?”
We weren’t doing anything. I wasn’t even touching him.
“Yes.” Thomas’ face is blank. “I’m going to take her home now. Is Nicky still sleeping?”
“He is. I just woke up to get a glass of water.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit then.” Without looking at me, Thomas issues his command, “Come on.”
I give Susan a tremulous smile, which she returns, and follow Thomas. I feel her stare on my back and I don’t know if it’s my newfound paranoia or if she really knows something is going on. I collect my clothes from the island and Thomas drives me home.
The ride is silent and tense. I don’t know what happened. I’m freaking out, breaking into a sweat and slathering his leather seats.
When he stops the car in front of my tower, I turn to him. “I’m sorry. For…For showing up the way I did.”
He stares ahead, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel. “You should be.”
“It won’t happen again. Ever,” I tell him. “Will… Is Susan—”
“You don’t have to worry about Susan.” He looks at me, and something in his eyes puts me at an uneasy sort of ease. She won’t tell, but she’ll know, and that’s even worse. Silent reprimand. How does she know, though? Could she tell just by looking at us? Are we that transparent in our lust for each other?
Thomas is waiting for me to get out, but I can’t go. Not yet. “What did you mean when you said you aren’t a poet anymore?”
His sigh is sharp and long. “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything. Now, go home.”
“Last night you told me you forgot about her, because…because you were too busy with your words.” A dreadful feeling makes a home in my chest as I put all the pieces together. “Are you… Did you quit? Is that why you came here?”
How is that even possible? How can he quit writing? How can anyone?
“Get out.”
But I don’t budge. “Thomas, that’s ridiculous. I mean, you’re too good to quit. You love this stuff. And how can you even do that? How can you un-become a poet?”
Thomas turns to me, his face stark and white within the tinted windows of his car. “Get the fuck out.”
I should be offended. I should be. Really. There are many things about him that should offend me. He is rude and mean and made of thorny, jagged edges, but I’m crazy enough to see what he doesn’t show me—his raw and unpolished pain.
“Thomas—”
“Just…go, Layla. Just go. Leave. I… It fucking hurts me to hurt you, but I’ll do it. I’ll keep doing it because that’s just who I am, so you need to cut your losses and move on.”
Like Hadley, I add silently. The love of his life, for whom he’s given up the very thing that defines him—his words.
Right here, in the confines of his car, I hear my innocence shatter. Whatever I’ve believed in is gone. Apparently, love isn’t enough.
And right here, I decide I’ll never leave Thomas. I’ll never abandon him like his wife did.
I’m being sneaky this morning. I told Emma I had an early appointment with a made-up professor. She didn’t question it because, well, she is out of it these days. I’m waiting for Dylan outside our poetry class. I called him a while ago and asked him to meet me here. He’s already late, and we only have just about thirty minutes before class starts.
The sound of hurried footsteps alerts me to Dylan’s arrival. He is cold and panting and clutching a mug of hot coffee as he comes closer. “Hey, sorry. I got a little held up.”
I stare at the mug and strangely, I don’t have any urge to steal a sip from him. Thomas is the only person I want to steal things from now.