I inhale his birthday-candle pheromones. I want to know what his goddamn bones smell like. Let me start down in his DNA structure and work my way back out.
I speak into his muscles. “You shut the door like you’ve just accepted that I don’t come back. I’m going to start being like you. Completely, one hundred percent honest.” I hover on the precipice and decide to try. “This is the best hug of my life.”
His heart below my cheekbone is diligent and regular, and I need it to beat forever.
“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he agrees, amused, and I can’t see how I’m pulling my weight in this. He’s the one doing all the work. I tighten my arms and press closer. That gold-bubble feeling expands around us again. I’ve never felt this with another man. I know what this is: joy. The weight of his arms is the only thing stopping me floating off the floor. I have to tip my face back to see if he feels it, too.
He smiles at the wonder he sees in my expression.
“Complete honesty from Darcy Barrett? I can’t handle that. And I’m not as honest as you think I am.” Some of his pleasure fades.
I pull back a fraction. “Why are you always trying to convince me that you’re not perfect? To me, you are. Completely perfect. Believe me, I’ve undertaken a worldwide census. No one else measures up.”
His hand slides up my back. “How could I possibly deserve Darcy Barrett’s total honesty, as well as her blind faith? I’m not perfect. I don’t know what I’ll do when you realize that.” He swallows and tries desperately to change the subject. “Oh hey, your new neck. I still can’t get used to your hair.”
On my nape, that warm hand clasps down, and I light up.
Hands on my skin are how I recharge. It’s always been this way for me. Is it a twin thing? Is it because I slept in an incubator for a week? I don’t know. It’s a Darcy thing. To feel another human resting against me just clears out the crazy inside me, and Tom’s leathery big palms are next level.
I know my eyes probably go black and crazy, but I press back into his palm and exhale a weird purr. His reaction is instant. I’m bumped away and my skin goes cold. He looks shocked, like I’ve just coughed up a furball.
“Sorry, sorry.” I put my hand where his was and rub it vigorously. “That’s my thing.”
“Necks?” He says it faintly.
“I’ve got hungry skin. All I ever want is someone touching me.” Do I have a phantom bruise against my stomach? Did his body give mine a low-down, hard press? Surely not. Look what I’m doing. Ruining a beautiful moment. “I’d better go to Truly’s place now.”
I flip open the pizza box and take out a slice. Pizza is an excellent recalibration tool. I bite, chew, and he says nothing. He’s completely frozen.
“Say something,” I say on a swallow. “Tell me I’m a freak and get it out of the way.”
“Is that why you need Vince?” He tries to clear his throat but it’s just a growl. “Your skin is hungry? What does that mean?”
I bite my pizza, holding his eyes. “He’s better than nothing.”
“How’d you get from Loretta’s romance novels to ‘better than nothing’?”
“While you’ve been with one person, living your best life, I’ve been getting disappointed a lot. And probably disappointing others, if I’m being truthful.” It does help my ego that he looks like he doesn’t believe me. “Vince isn’t that bad.”
Tom chooses his words carefully. “You want my opinion on your fuck buddy? I’ve got a sledgehammer in the truck. I’d be glad to show him how it works.”
A spiky thrill unfurls inside me. “See. You always tell the truth. I’m going to do the same. How the fuck isn’t Megan just hugging you permanently? You’re one hell of a hugger.” Her name aloud brings me back to the scene on the footpath. “Why’d you bother lying to Vince before?”
He knows exactly what I mean. “I didn’t lie.”
“Of course not. You never lie. Except … Megan. You haven’t broken up.” I pull apart the pizza crust with my fingers. “He’s hardly going to feel threatened, or care, if you live here with me.”
“We did. We broke up.”
“Hilarious. Really funny. Quit fucking with me.” I offer a corner of crust to Patty and dust my hands on my pants. I wait, and he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. “But you’re going to force me to be your wedding photographer. You’ll ask, and I’ll say yes. You’ll both be sickeningly photogenic.” I put a hand on my hip. I glare at him but he doesn’t crack. Is he serious? “Exactly how long has my phone been in the toilet?”
“We broke up about four months ago. I told your family that I’d tell you in person.”
“But it’s just a break. You’ll get her back.”
“No,” he says gently. “I won’t.”
“But you want her back. I’ll help you.” He just shakes his head. And I briefly lose my mind.
I dodge sideways toward the back door—I need air. I need sky and stars and cold; I need to sit on the rings of Saturn dangling my boots into the black universe to be alone, but he steps easily around me, and now I’m the one leaning on the sink.
“Stay here.”
“Are you okay?” I want to grab him by the shoulders and check for physical damage. I’ll crack open his chest to check how bad his heart looks.
“Me?” He thinks for a second. “Everyone just asks if she’s okay.”
“Yeah, because she’s just lost you. Are you okay? Do I need to go and beat the shit out of her?”
I notice one of the cabinets above me is ajar. For something to do, I put a hand up to close it. When my fingers hook into the tiny handle, the web-thin hinge breaks. Now I’m standing here with a broken door in my hand. I lean it against my leg and try to look cool, but I’m practically auditioning for SmackDown.
Unwillingly, he laughs.
I am going to beat Megan with this door until she realizes what a fuckup she’s made. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“You’re always so vicious, DB.” A smile quirks at the edge of his mouth as he looks at the damage I just inflicted. My viciousness thrills him. “How do you know it’s not me that deserves the beating?” He takes the cupboard door from me. More to himself, he says, “This is going roughly how I thought it would.”
“Is your heart broken?” I reach up and yank off the next cupboard door along with a satisfying crack. I hand it to him.
“It’s … sore. Not broken.” He looks up at the next cupboard door along. Something like fuck it crosses his mind, and he breaks off a door himself.
“Who ended it?” Crack. Another door gone.
“Well … I’ve been trying to work it out. After eight years, it was kind of a joint decision, like most things. I’m sorry. I know you really liked her. Actually, no. I never could tell if you liked her.”
I pull off one of the lower cabinet doors and try to break it in half over my knee. I can’t do anything else with this energy. He’s single. The first time in eight years. And I need carpet burn on my knees and a wall against my back, and to lick the shower spray off him and feed him cold pizza in the middle of the night so he keeps up his strength.
Megan is a red stain behind my combine harvester, and that’s the extent of my pity for her.
He tries to ease me with a hand on my shoulder. “Why are you doing this?”
“If I don’t do this, I’ll do something else.” Something so deeply irreversible we won’t be able to make eye contact when we pass each other in the nursing home hall. Fuck it. That complete honesty I pledged? Here it comes. Up my throat and out loud. One big terrifying blurt.
“Are you going to put your hands on me, or what?”
Chapter 10
Tom looks at his own hands, holding a cabinet door. He tries to compose a sentence for a long time. Finally, he manages, “Excuse me?”
“ ’Cause I swear, I need your hands more than I’ve ever needed anything.”