Page 22 of Fierce Love
“Easy,” he says, and he tilts my chin before his lips brush mine, unhurried, far more practiced than I want to consider.
But he’s right. It is easy. So easy to slip into the rhythm from the other night, to forget about my waiting aunt, the massive social-class gap, all the ways this decision could bite me in the ass. None of it matters as his lips move across mine. All I can think isNate, Nate, Nate.
When we break apart, I punch my code into the building, and he holds my hand until he can’t possibly hold it anymore.
“I’m coming back,” he says through the glass, and I smile, unable to hide the joy that’s bloomed in me.
“You’d better,” I say, and then I rush up the stairs to the apartment, slot my key into the door, and shut it, collapsing against the wood with a sigh.
“Where in the world have you been?”
Aunt Verna’s voice makes me jump at the same time my phone finally gets a signal and begins vibrating with messages. Probably messages from her, and I know guilt is seeping in, but it hasn’t reached me yet.
“I met a boy,” I say before I can think it through. Everything inside of me is buzzing. It makes me wonder if this is what it’s like to be drunk or high—it’s a feeling I can see people chasing, longing for, constantly wanting to replicate.
“A boy?” Aunt Verna’s tone shifts quickly from concerned to amused. She comes out of the kitchen, a mug of something warm in her hand. Steam rises off the cup.
It’s the middle of the night, but I knew she’d be awake. Even if I’d messaged to tell her what I was doing, she would have waited up, but I’m surprised she isn’t mad. With everything my parentshave done, I try to be good at telling her where I am, what I’m doing. Disappointing her or letting her down makes me anxious.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so…” She smiles. “Happy. Do I know him?”
“Nate,” I say. “Well, Nathaniel. Tucker. He’s a… he’s a Tucker.”
“Hollyn.” Her expression darkens, and she shakes her head.
“He’s not like the rest of them. He’s not like the ones you’ve warned me about.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t seem like it. They never do.” She rubs her face. “But it’s notthatI’m worried about. You’ve always been good at looking after yourself, protecting yourself where boys are concerned.” She gives me a look loaded with a meaning I can’t decipher. “Mickie and Niall are going to think they’ve hit the jackpot. Their daughter dating a Tucker? One of Celia Tucker’s kids? Whew.” She sucks on her teeth. “I hope you’re ready.”
“They’ve got nothing to do with who I go out with. Who I’m friends with.” I straighten against the door.
“Oh, sweetheart. I’d think you’d know better by now.” And that’s all she says before she wanders down the hallway back to her bedroom.
Chapter Ten
Hollyn
“Just drive,” I say to the cab driver, barely able to get the words out around the constriction in my throat.
Part of me knew Nate would be angry with me. Our meeting at the funeral home hadn’t exactly been sunshine and roses, but it hadn’t been terrible either. Then when he’d come to Aunt Verna’s funeral, when I’d felt so much inner calm at his presence, I tricked myself into believing he would have felt that way too. That maybe, despite what I did, how things ended, we could be okay.
That meeting in the boardroom just now was the opposite of okay.
I dig around in my purse until I find my phone, and I call Shannon. But it’s not Shannon who answers the landline. It’s Kinsley.
“Did you get the job?” she asks, her voice brimming with excitement. “It sounded like you were going to get it.”
“I can’t take it, Kin. It’s not a good fit.” My voice is husky with regret.
“Can’ttake it?” Her anger pokes through. “Ican’tgo back to New York. Not if things are going to be like they were. I hate it there. I hate everything about it there.”
“Kin,” I say, trying to suppress my own scattered emotions to reason with her. But I don’t get the chance to say anything else when the phone goes dead in my ear.
A dropped connection, or did she hang up on me? I’m not sure it matters. Calling her back will only escalate the fight. We’ve been in enough of them lately that I know that much.
Even if I wanted to take the job—and I’d been prepared to accept it until Nate walked in the boardroom door—Nate made it clear he didn’t want me hired. The bank account always gets what it wants, no matter what anyone else in the room thinks. Before he arrived, Posey and the other producers told me the third producer was the one covering the majority of the shortfall from the government, the one who’d been so adamant about giving lower-income families this opportunity at no cost. I’d been touched that someone had considered the impact on families and used their own money to solve the problem, and I’d been feeling a little bit of pride that I’d be involved in an initiative that would make a difference for neighborhoods like the one I came from.
I will never admit it to Kinsley, but staying here seemed possible, at least in the short term. Then it all collapsed around me when the boardroom door opened. One way or another, Nate was always going to be one of the reasons that staying on the island didn’t—couldn’t—make sense.
