He sets my water down and I ask, “Are you going to go change?”
Tilting his head to the side, he looks down at me. “Do you want me to?”
Oh God. How could I possibly answer that? Of course, I didn’t want him to change. I’m not crazy. But I needed it if I was going to keep my head clear. I must take too long again because he sets his milk down and turns away. “I’ll be back, Pickle.”
And we’re back to that again.
When he’s gone I gulp down some water and then press the cold glass to the side of my heated face.
I don’t know what it is about this guy that screws with my head so much. It’s like he releases some kind of airborne toxin that melts all my sense. The Silas Virus.
He comes back not even two minutes later. He’s still damp all over, his shaggy hair stuck to the sides of his face and the back of his neck. And he’s still not wearing a shirt. He’s swapped out the towel for a pair of gym shorts, which does nothing to make me any more relaxed. I suppose there’s less chance of a wardrobe malfunction now, but he’s still so very naked.
And nice to look at.
The legs of the chair scrape against aged tile as he pulls it out to take a seat. He demolishes half his glass of milk in one long drink, and my eyes stick on the way his neck moves. His Adam’s apple bobs, and I notice how very defined it is. It’s chiseled like his jaw and his muscles, and as weird as it is . . . it’s kind of a turn-on.
If I can’t even look at the guy’s freaking Adam’s apple without getting tingly, there’s probably no hope for me.
He sets the glass down and wipes his mouth.
His mouth. Oh God.
“Water okay?”
I blink. “Hmm? Oh. Yes, it’s fine. Thanks. I mean—”
“I think you’re the most polite person I’ve ever met.”
I shrug and trace a finger through the condensation on my glass.
“Strict upbringing.”
That’s an understatement. The foster home I’d been in before the Brenners adopted me was practically a military institution. We were out of bed at dawn, and had a full day of scheduled chores and activities. There was never a spare minute to just be . . . to play or imagine or discover something new. I was the youngest one in the group, and all the older kids were used to it, but I still only wanted to be outside lazing around in the sun, climbing trees, playing games.
I can’t be too sorry, though. The Brenners had liked how well-behaved I was. At nine years old, I’d stopped dreaming that some family would come take me away. Or at least . . . I told myself to stop dreaming about it. Even then, I was practical to a fault. But they met me, liked how polite I was. They’d laughed and looked at each other every time I uttered “please” or “thank you” or “sir” in my high-pitched voice. And they picked me, just plucked me up and gave me a new life, and there are still days when my life before that feels like a dream.
So really, structure has worked out well for me most of my life. It’s only the last week and a half that it’s been crumbling around me.
Needing to do something to fill the silence, I push the envelope toward him and say again, “Thank you for helping me and Matt. That was a really nice thing to do.”
“Nice,” he mutters and lifts his glass to his mouth again.
“Yes. It was very nice. As was getting your friends to give us a ride and inviting us over to your place.”
He clears his throat. “Trust me. My intentions were not nice at all.”
“You were nice to me.”
I see the first hint of a smile on his face since the moment he opened the door, and even though it’s small, it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
“Yeah, well. That’s the only kind of nice I know how to be.”
I blush. Because I hadn’t meant what he’d done to me, though that had been far more than nice.
“I mean . . . you were honest with me. You didn’t get angry when I decided to leave. You offered me a ride home even though you probably didn’t want to see my face again. You invited me inside today, and you didn’t have to. I think that qualifies as nice.”
He taps his fingers on the table and lifts those gorgeous eyes to mine. “I’m not sure my intentions are any nicer today than they were then.”
I swallow, but even with the water I’ve been sipping, my mouth is so dry that it takes longer than normal just to perform that simple task.
“Oh.”
He laughs. Actually laughs. And it reminds me just how different today’s Silas has been from the one I met the other night. I smile back at him. It feels really good to know that even for a few seconds I pulled him back from that. I spend most of my days trying to make a difference, and none of it has ever felt quite as satisfying as that laugh.
“How’s Matt?” he asks.
“Telling everyone that he met you and Carson. He won’t shut up about it, actually.”
“Well, I’m glad someone left that party happy.”
“I didn’t exactly leave unhappy, you know. A little confused, yes. Overwhelmed. But not unhappy.”
Then I wonder if he wasn’t talking about me, but himself, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I won’t feel guilty for leaving on Friday. It was the right thing to do. And if he was so upset at how things didn’t turn out, he could have gone downstairs and found another girl. I’m sure he would have had no issue there.
Maybe he did do that.
He gets up to refill his glass of milk, and I drag in a few gulps of water because I suddenly don’t feel so well. I don’t want to think about what he did after I left. He sits back down and I say, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
He shakes his head, and all traces of that earlier laugh and smile are gone.
“Still trying to fix me?”
“I wasn’t trying to fix you that night, Silas. I just wanted to know more about you, wanted you to talk to me. Same as now.”
He scowls. He opens his mouth, but then pauses and looks at me, really looks at me. His eyes narrow slightly, and he purses his lips, thinking. It’s becoming even harder to swallow as I sit there wondering what it is he’s seeing when he looks at me. When I’ve waited as long as I can to ask the questions burning inside of me, he leans across the table and beats me to it.
“What if I wanted you to fix me after all?”