Page 77 of Honey Pot

I hooked a finger under his chin and lifted his gaze to mine. "It didn’t hurt me, Cael.” I shook my head, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t talking about my skin.He was upset about the stupid pieces of thread. “I liked it, and you obviously needed an outlet.”

That dark look flickered across his face, unsure if he should believe me or if I was just trying to make him feel better. I rubbed my hand over his shoulder, the scars still pink from his surgery months before. It would be a little while longer before they faded into white, and the pain subsided enough for him to play baseball again.

“How bad is it?” I asked him under my breath.

“Are you asking as Mary or Clementine?” He swallowed tightly.

“I’m only Mary now.” I sighed. “Clementine never left her room, Cael. I became Mary because I was protecting myself, not to punish you.”

He let go of his breath and looked up from where my fingertips still traced the thin, delicate scar.

“Don’t lie to me.” Cael chuckled under his breath. “It’s not like I don’t deserve it.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he shook his head softly and he looked away from me.

“Maybe your mistake was thinking this was about you.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” Cael’s shoulders straightened like he was trying to hold himself together.

“I never hated you,” I said, so quietly that the sound of Cael trying to catch his breath was louder than my words. “I hate the way you make me feel, and I hate that you do it with such ease.”

MATTHEWS

“Hello?” I answered the phone, already annoyed, and I put him on speaker.

“Clemmy.” Julien’s voice flitted through the other end.

“Hi, Julien,” I said, curbing my tone with him.

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” he purred.

“Service in Rhode Island isn’t great.” I lay back against the deck and groaned softly.

“When are you coming home?” He asked.

If my heart had its way, never.

“Soon, I’m almost finished. Couple of weeks at most.”

“Weeks?” Julien’s voice raised. “You should have beenhomeweeks ago, not needing a few more to finish!”

He said home like he was it.

“This is my job, Julien.” I reminded him and myself as my mind wandered to Cael’s naked, sweaty chest. “I have to get this right.”

“It’s a newspaper, Clemmy. If it falls through, I’ll take care of you,” he said. That was the problem with him, it was never encouraging and constantly suffocating. ‘I’ll take care of you, we can get married, I’ll buy you a big house, you can have kids. Stay home, be a mom’… I stifled the groan that bubbled up.

“I’ll be home as soon as I finish,” I deflected. “I should go. It was nice to hear from you.” The lie came out half-strangled.

“I miss you, Baby,” he whined.

“The space has been good for us, Julien. Give me some time,” I repeated myself for the thousandth time. “I’ll call you when I’m coming in. You can pick me up from the airport, and we can talk.”

“I love you,” he said.

“Goodbye, Julien.”

I set the phone beside me on the deck and sat up.

Everything had been peaceful until he decided to call, or at least not plagued with more decisions about my future and what I needed to do with it.

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