“Brynne . . .” My name on his lips is the cashmere Presley first described. It’s soft and rich and textured.
He draws another pattern across my knuckles and I remove my hand from beneath his. Turning to look at him, he’s scanning me, searching for something that I don’t know how to give him.
“Yeah?”
He takes a swallow, his throat moving with the force. I wonder if his feels as constricted as mine. If he feels the awkwardness, yet the complete easiness, between us.
“I’m going to be really busy for the next few weeks . . .” he begins. He doesn’t look me in the eye, and I think that’s the hardest thing about the start of what I know is an about-face to what he said before. Even though I knew this was coming from the moment I looked into his face this morning.
I keep my features neutral and unreflecting of the jagged pain I feel inside when his eyes finally drag to mine. The hope I’d begun to feel, the visions of things that might be possible, vanishing through my fingers.
“This, whatever this is between us, is probably going to have to be put on hold a little while,” he mutters. I can’t tell if he doesn’t want to say it to me, or if he doesn’t want to say it at all.
“I get it,” I say, forcing an insincere smile on my lips.
“It’s not like that.”
“You’re busy,” I point out, as much to myself as for him. “And you told me we’d spend a few days together and you made them memorable and have been over-the-top in generosity. There’s nothing for you to make excuses for.”
“I didn’t just tell you that. I told you I wanted to see you when we got home–”
“And I never believed you,” I lie to the both of us. “Scotch makes people say funny things.”
His head drops into his hands. He growls, running his hands across his face, scrubbing it harshly before looking back to me again.
“Whatever I say is just going to make this worse, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agree, “it is. So you should probably just shut up.” His shoulders tumble forward and he grins. It’s the one I love most, the one that shows me that I get to him. That he doesn’t know what to do with me. I guess this time, he really doesn’t.
“I wish you would’ve let me have Presley pick me up at the airport. We could’ve saved ourselves this conversation,” I half-laugh.
“But I would’ve had to give up this time with you.”
His words choke me, bolts of poison cutting me to the core. How dare he say something like that now? I can’t look at him. I miss him already and he’s still a couple of feet from me. How am I going to feel when this car pulls away and I probably never see him again?
His hand picks mine up, engulfing my small palm in his. He clamps over it in a gesture I would’ve deemed territorial at this time yesterday.
I recognize the street we’re on over Fenton’s shoulder and start to pull my hand out of his. Before I can, he brings it to his luscious lips and presses a heavy kiss against each knuckle.
I take in his face, the lines around his eyes, the intensity of his gaze and the heaviness of my heart.
Giving him the best smile I can, I withdraw my hand. I start to speak, to thank him again for a great few days, but when I open my mouth, I sense the tears that may start and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry. So instead, I nod and open the door. His seatbelt clicks and I turn around.
“Fent?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t.”
“I just want to walk you to the door.”
“Please. Don’t. This will be much easier if we just end this here.”
“I didn’t say end, Brynne,” he grimaces. “I said put on hold.”
I shrug and start out of the car again.
“Brynne . . .”
I turn to look at him. I can’t read anything he’s thinking or feeling and it makes me feel so alone.
He takes stock of my features, of the pleadings of my eyes. With a heavy sigh, he sinks back into the seat.
I climb out and close the door and follow the driver that’s carrying my suitcase up the walk and never look back.
“I’m going to be real honest with you, Brynnie. I didn’t expect you to look like this when you got home.”
“Shocker.”
“I expected a post-coital glow, maybe a permanent smirk from all the sexy times. Not . . . this.”
I huff, stirring the sugar into my coffee. “Yeah, well, this wasn’t on my list of to-do’s either.”
Presley clasps her hands together and sits them on the table in front of her, which is across the kitchen table from me. Her bracelets rattle off the wooden planks, jingling through the room.
“I’m sorry, Brynne. I know what happened with Brady.”
“Yeah,” I exhale, lifting the warm mug to my lips.
“Your dad told me last night when they called here looking for you. I called them this morning to check on them. Your poor mother. I almost drove to their house just to try to offer some support or something.”
“I called her before the plane left Vegas and she just sounds numb this morning. I guess we all are in our own way.”