Emily and Sophia grab a stack of plates from the cupboard, then start serving themselves.
“I’m so sorry,” Mirth whispers to me.
“I’m shocked.” I press a kiss to her forehead, then tug her toward the breakfast to see what we can salvage. “But I’m not sorry.”
4
MIRTH
The Yates-Harris householdis in such an uproar after the confrontation with Adeline that, after eating only a few bites of breakfast, I blow way past the emotional onslaught I’ve been attempting to ignore until I’m actually swaying in my seat. Bolan, in the middle of an agreeable rant with Livi about their mother’s past misdeeds, sees this, then promptly scoops me up and carries me the three flights into his attic room.
I fall asleep snuggled in his arms in his single bed. Just as I had fantasized about doing almost every time we visited in our youth.
I sleep hard, but the light hasn’t shifted much when I wake. I blink up into the open rafters as the edges of the small room slowly come into focus. The walls around the low bed are lined in decades-old glam-rock posters, including one directly overhead with a scantily clad, big-haired, extremely sexy woman surrounded by likewise big-haired, bare-chested skinny men in gold leather pants and heeled boots.
All the posters were hung by a much younger Bolan. But the wall above the long, low bureau and the top of the bureau itself have been turned into a shrine of sorts for Bolan’s band, the Blitz. Band posters, photos, magazine articles, and ticket stubs are pinned to the wall, with all sorts of memorabilia cluttering the furniture.
A tiny ache takes up residence in my chest. Adeline’s reaction to finding Bolan and me all tangled up in the mudroom was … unexpected. But still … she loves Bolan so much, and I’ve damaged their relationship in a way I know can never be fixed. Not without a fundamental shift in beliefs— namely Adeline’s.
Rian is in Dublin and about to confront his own mother. Or he has already …
I reach for my phone, only just then realizing that I’m wearing nothing but a printed black tank top and my panties. My backpack, with my phone, is all the way downstairs. A glance around the cluttered but tidy room informs me that other than my bra, which is hanging on the desk chair, the rest of my clothing is nowhere in the immediate vicinity.
Shifting out from under the bedding, including a patchwork quilt made out of old band T-shirts that I immediately wrap around me, I pad barefoot into the tiny bathroom. After relieving myself, I brush my teeth with Bolan’s toothbrush and try to sort out my hair. I’m unsuccessful. But I flush — all pink-cheeked and more than a little pleased — when I catch sight of myself in the reflection and realize that the top I’m wearing is from the Blitz’s first European tour, well-worn with age and use. I’ve coveted it for years.
Around the corner from the bathroom, the door to the rest of the attic space has been drawn partially closed. Catching a rhythmic pluck of guitar strings, I pause before opening it all the way.
The guitar fades. I peek around the doorframe to catch a side view of Bolan as he leans over, the old Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar that Armin and I bought him for his fifteenth birthday in his lap as he crosses something out in an open notebook. The Martin is the guitar he used to play me the song in the rowboat, right before I kissed him as a teenager. Bolan jots something down, likely an edit to whatever he crossed out.
I can really only see his left side from this angle, but my heart skips a couple of beats, then picks up, as I lay eyes on him. As it always does.
I can’t quite believe that … Bolan is mine now. More than just a friend I keep a careful distance from, more than a first love that my heart could never shake. He’s mine. He’s always been mine.
He believes we’re soul bound. Carved from the same section of the universe and fated to search for each other in every lifetime.
I’m … I’m still concerned that I’ve somehow stolen that bond connection from Armin. But I want … I want to be Bolan’s … fate.
His fingers dance over the strings of the guitar, as quiet as he can be as he finds a rhythm that satisfies him, mouthing words as he reads from the notebook.
Trying to not wake me.
With the quilt still draped over my shoulders, I slip around the door as quietly as possible, bringing more of the room into view. Dozens of notebooks have been pulled out of the worn steamer trunk that also serves as a coffee table in a seating area excavated from the rest of the box-and-furniture-filled attic. The old brown corduroy couch slumps so deeply under Bolan’s weight that he’s practically sitting on the floor.
Bolan looks up, unsurprised at my approach. His expression is shockingly serious — not even a hint of a smirk in sight. Not until he runs his eyes over me. Twice. Then his gaze heats up, just a little pleased with himself.
“My clothes?” I ask.
“Laundry. Except the long sweater. Livi said it needed to be hand-washed and hung to dry, so I just spot-cleaned it.”
Unable to hide my surprise, I raise both eyebrows.
Bolan flashes me a grin, seemingly enamored with my bare legs.
Slightly flushed myself — he’s still wearing only the tight black sweatpants, and the lyric tattoos twining around his arms and chest, of course — I force myself to drop my gaze to the pile of notebooks.
Because more words between us, instead of giving in to the need to climb all over him, might be prudent.
We’ve known each other for almost two decades. So maybe the stages of our relationship are all actually moving glacially slow, and we’re just now at the point where I want to be constantly touching him.
