Page 89 of True Honey
“Not jealous,” I called out to him as he jogged to the bedroom. “Protecting your modesty!” I said and heard him laugh wildly from the hall.
When he returned I was still sitting on the counter, staring at the wall trying to keep my mind out of the dark corners. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt that hung off his frame and gave easy access to his torso, his graying hair pushed off his head with a hat.
“Better?” He asked with a smile.
“Better.”
I had no clue where we were going and I didn’t really care. With my arms wrapped around Silas and my face pressed to his back I let the wind from the highway drown out everything. He was right, a ride would clear my head. There was no nagging voice when I was on the bike, just the hum of the outside world whipping past us as we sped around the outskirts of town. My fingers curled against his stomach, beneath the fabric of his shirt and I felt him tense as he took the corner that leads back down toward Hilly’s.
I noticed Kayla’s car in the parking lot when we pulled in and before I could follow him, he slipped off the bike. “I’ll get the ice cream, stay here.” He pointed at me in warning.
“Silas." I grabbed the back of his shirt and held on until he turned to look at me. "If Kayla flirts with you all bets are off.” I glared at him and he laughed, reveling in the jealousy that poured from me.
“I’ll be good, baby.” He winked, pointing at the bike to get me to sit back down and I let go.I felt like a child. I wasn’t going to do anything even if Kayla decided to cross a line. But I was also a little disappointed that I’d miss the look on her face when she realized that Silas and I had shown up together.
Silas took longer than expected but he returned with a cone for himself and a paper bowl for me filled with strawberry ice cream and chocolate flakes. I wasleaned up against his bike picking at it, the creamy consistency melting against my tongue with each quiet bite.
“We know whyIneeded a ride on the bike, why did you?” I asked him finally and he paused the assault on the waffle cone to shrug at me. “Don’t shrug, answer.” I pushed gently, knowing that I had very little right to do such a thing given how hard headed I could be about discussing my feelings.
“Cael said something to me the other day that’s chewing away at me,” he admitted. “In not so many words, he suggested that I need to find myself. But I don’t know what that looks like anymore.”
“What did it look like before?” I asked him, trying to help him the way he’s helped me.
Silas scratched his eyebrow, his hat ending up lopsided on his head as he thought about the question. The ice cream I hadn’t finished was starting to melt in the paper bowl and was turning into a soupy, sugary mess as I waited for him to answer.
“You said that you didn’t want baseball to be your answer, that you chose differently than your father and grandfather for a reason.” I said when he went quiet. “What’s stopping you?”
Silas chuckled, fixing his hat and squinting at me in the sun. “How do I trust anyone anymore?” He asked me and it hit like a ton of bricks against my chest. “My entire life was curated so I could carry on some legacy, a family name that meant something and now…”
I set the bowl on the seat of the bike to listen to him while he worked it out for himself. It was rattling to know the man of stone was made up of nothing more than thousands of tiny cracks, waiting to be picked at, seconds from crumbling into dust.
I knew the feeling.
“It means nothing, he made sure of that when he destroyed our lives and here I am still trying to recover from his mistakes to right the wrongs of my father. He doesn’t deserve salvation,” Silas frowned. “But it’s the only path that saves the Nest, that keeps the team together.”
“That’s not true,” I argued, shaking my head gently and stepping into his space with a napkin, the remainder of his stupid bright orange ice cream meltingdown his hand as he vented. I ran the napkin up his wrist slowly, cleaning his skin from the sticky mess he had made. “If it was, I wouldn’t be here. You saw a solution to your problem, a way to cut your father out of the equation and save your home. You did it your way. Even if it meant doing it in the most dramatic fashion.” I said to him, not looking him in the eye but focusing on his hand. “And for the record,” I cleared my throat as it started to get tight. “You saved more than just the Nest.”
Silas tensed as I pulled away my arm to put the napkin in the garbage and to give him some space but his hand caught my wrist and pulled me back against his chest. Without a word his mouth was on mine and his fingers were in my hair tugging tightly to keep me as close as possible. He was funneling every ounce of himself through our connection, it tingled like being too close to a bonfire and left me breathless in his arms.
“What was that for?” I swallowed hard, trying to inhale as he pulled away.
“I like when you’re honest with me,” he whispered, his eyes focused on mine and his hand still wrapped around my neck, “lets me know where I stand.”
The look in his eyes terrified me but it also left a last electric feeling that coursed down my spine and made me feel alive in a way I’d never felt. I was falling in love with Silas Shore and I didn’t know how to stop it. His attention was like quick sand and suddenly the idea of being suffocated by him was intoxicating.
“You taste like orange soda and black licorice.” I whispered, choking down all the other words I wanted to say as I licked my bottom lip. Silas’s grip loosened and that soft, smug smile returned without effort to his handsome face.
A loud crash came from the dumpster beside the building and I turned my head in his hand to see Kayla standing there looking pissed off. If glares could kill, I’d be dead.
“I think I just got fired,” I giggled, as he pressed a kiss to my jaw either completely oblivious to our audience or purposely adding fuel to the fire.
“Good,” Silas hummed, his fingers dug into my skin, turning my face back to his so he could continue to kiss me without a care in the world.
COURTNEY
The office was a mess again. It felt like every time we managed to get it organized, a new rush of papers came across the desk and the phone rang non-stop with sponsors, scouts and press wanting to be transferred internally.
Susanna had left to get us lunch and thankfully the phone had stopped ringing for the time being, giving me the chance to separate the papers into urgent and easy. We could get to the important stuff within the day and the rest could wait until tomorrow.
