Page 68 of Parallel

He’s watching my face in a way I can’t pretend is justfriendly. “I like having you here,” hesays.

I twist my ring, letting my feet swing over the dock, inches from the water. “It’s been the best Saturday I’ve had in a long time.” A disloyal thing to say, but not as disloyal as what I’m actually thinking, which is that it’s been the best Saturday I everremember.

I catch a flash of his dimple. “Even if it’s noParis.”

“You say that as if I routinely go to Paris. I’ve never even been out of thecountry.”

“Why not?” heasks.

I smile. “Spoken like a kid who grew up with everything. I was dirt poor in a town so small you’d miss it if youblinked.”

He leans back a little, a casual gesture, but there’s nothing relaxed about the way he’s watching me now. “I guess that’s how you wound up withJeff.”

I bristle at his phrasing. He makes it sound like I’msaddledwith Jeff, as if I chose him by default. “What do youmean?”

“You’re just…ill-suited. He doesn’t seem like someone you’d have chosen unless you were someplace where there weren’t a lot ofoptions.”

He hasn’t seen the best side of Jeff since this thing started, but it’s not like I chose him out of desperation. I had plenty of options back home. “Going through a tragedy with someone shows you pieces of them you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And when my father died, I realized what a good person Jeffwas.”

His mouth twists as if he’s just eaten a piece of fruit gone bad. “Right. Your dad dies, and Jeff, who’d probably been after you for years, suddenly comes to therescue.”

I place my sandwich carefully on the plate and turn toward him. “He did, yes. Why are you trying to make that sound like a deviousthing?”

“I just suspect he had an ulteriormotive.”

I run my tongue over my teeth, feeling flustered and angry, though I don’t know why. While it’s true Jeff was interested in me well before I moved home, he didn’t act on it for a long time. He just remained quietly in the wings, helping us where he could. “He’s not a bad person, no matter what youthink.”

His eyes are as stormy as the clouds that now gather in the distance. “He’s also not quite as good a person as you seem to want to believe. He left you alone at the hospital after you had a very serious episode,” he says, his voice low and gritty. “He should have been there. He should have been home every fucking night since it startedhappening.”

I want to cover my ears like a child, or simply walk away. “Well, we can’t all be doctors, Nick. He was trying to keep his job. And it’s how we were raised. Men wake up at 5 a.m. and work until dark, and they do it until they’re in the grave. That’s how Jeff shows hecares.”

His jaw shifts. “That doesn’t mean you have to acceptit.”

This is a fruitless topic to explore. Nick was raised with different values. He will put whomever he ends up with first, always, the rest of the world be damned. There’s a piece of me that cries out for that kind of care, but it’s not reasonable to hope for it from Jeff. “Why are we discussingthis?”

He stares hard at the water. “Because I think you should cancel thewedding.”

I glance at him quickly and away. I long to ask if he’s saying it as my doctor, or as something…more, but I doubt he’d tell me thetruth.

“Jeff is suggesting moving the date up,” I reply. “He wants to do something small and private next weekendinstead.”

His head jerks toward mine. “I wasn’t saying you should skip the big wedding. I was saying you should skipanywedding. You can’t seriously be thinking about marrying him nextweekend.”

My spine goes straight. “I’ve been with him for years. Why wouldn’t I considerit?”

“Because you’re not inlovewith him,” he says, standing, fistsclenched.

“Ah,” I challenge, gathering our stuff as I climb to my feet, “but you and Meg are? It must be a real love story for the ages, what with you spending all your free time withme.”

“I’m notmarryingher.”

My throat tightens, and I feel the start of tears…angrytears. “But you will,” I rasp. “Or someone just likeher.”

He steps toward me, pulling the bag from my hand and throwing it behind him before he cups the back of my neck and pulls my mouth to his. Without hesitation or gentleness, he kisses me, and the moment his mouth touches mine, all thought seems to stop. I am only a mass of nerve endings and sensation and want. There is heat and pressure and his hands sliding over my skin, leaving a trail of fire in theirwake.

I moan against his mouth and he pulls me harder against him.I’ve missed this. My God, I’ve missed this. For years, for decades. I am molten, nothing but a collection of burning atoms, so weightless I could be floating in midair, for all I know. My hands are on his chest, but itch to lower, to pull at his shorts, to slide my dress around mywaist.

Sex for me has always been precise and careful, led by thought rather than impulse. This is the opposite of that. I’m driven entirely by instinct, some ancient part of me rising up and taking over. I want everything from him, right here on this splintery dock. I don’t care who sees. His hands are on my thighs and my greedy fingers are already sliding into his waistband before I come to a sudden, shockedhalt.

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