“It could be like this all the time,” I said.
She was quiet for a minute. “Only if we stayed right here forever.”
I turned my head, burying my nose in the dark hair tucked behind her ear. I smelled vanilla and cinnamon as if she had been baking. “I won’t apologize for keeping you. You were always meant to be mine.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, then changed her mind at the last second and tucked her face against my shoulder. The horse knickered softly as it approached the fence where we stood, then began grazing. I closed my eyes and let the world fall away for a few minutes.
This was the peace I’d been seeking when I locked myself in the bathroom. When I thought I smelled her shampoo right before I faded away, it was really her coming in to rescue me. I was mad to think I could exist anywhere without this woman. We were bound at the soul, even if she didn’t know it. I owned her. I was keeping her.
But this would never be a fairy tale. Maybe she was finally disabused of that notion for good, even as she held me like she wanted this moment to last forever. Her fingernails cut into my back, and I leaned into the pain, knowing it was all that awaited us no matter how we moved forward. Conrad would always be there. Our pasts would always intersect in the most violent way. I could keep her close, I could possess her, but she would only be mine. I would never be hers. Because I would never allow her to know me well enough for that to happen. Last night had been as close as we could come.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, breaking our reverie. She stepped back from me as if awoken from a dream, bumping into the fence and startling the horse.
“It’s Shawn,” I muttered. “Fuck.” It was still a weekday. Everyone would be wondering why I wasn’t at work.
He was already speaking when I brought the phone to my ear. “You have to get in here immediately. Your father is on the war path. I’m trying to cover for you, but I don’t know how much longer I can put him off.”
“I’m on my way,” I snapped, grabbing Madeline by the arm and pulling her after me back to the house. “Tell him I was up late getting laid, that should make him happy.” Madeline gasped behind me, and I ignored the way it pierced my heart. “Push any meetings back to eleven o’clock. I’ll go through emails on the way in.”
Joshua was still sitting in the kitchen, the crossword barely worked. No doubt he’d been watching us. I pushed Madeline into a chair. “I’m driving myself to the office.” They both protested, even Madeline as she rubbed her arm where I’d held her, but I cut them off. “I might be late tonight. Do not let her outside unchaperoned again.” With a final glare at them both, I returned to my room to change in such a hurry that I put on two different colored socks and had to catch my breath while I sought out a matching pair. When I emerged minutes later in my normal suit, Madeline and Joshua hushed their conversation.
“I expect you to find better things to discuss while I’m away than my behavior. You’re both being too dramatic. I’m alive, I’m walking, and I’m going to work.” I couldn’t look at them. I grabbed my wallet and keys, then my laptop bag. “I’ll be back late.”
“You said that already.”
I glared at Madeline, but she wasn’t taunting me. In her words was an unspoken request, an appeal that spoke to me through her chocolate eyes. Don’t go. Stay here. Rest. Talk to me.
It was almost enough to make me stay.
But not quite.