Page 44 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
I can’t quite look at her. “You. This.” She’s quiet. So damn quiet, I know she knows there’s more, and she’s waiting. I remind myself not to be a chickenshit about love and turn to face her. “I’ll say it plain. I’m scared this will get old. That you’ll stay for a few months and realize that hedgeriding never ends. That it’s bloody work and people you love will die doing it. And then you’ll leave.”
She arches an eyebrow, but her breath comes even and slow. Alice is one cool cucumber when it counts. “Does something I’ve said or done make you think that’s the kind of person I am?”
“No,” I reply. “Not a bit. But you asked what’s wrong, and I’m telling you what I’m scared of. I know the difference betweenfear and truth, but that doesn’t mean I’m not scared of you leaving.”
The words hang between us, but Alice doesn’t look away. And then she smiles like sunshine. Like it’s her birthday and I gave her the best gift at the party. I don’t know what’s happening, exactly, but I know Alice well enough to know that she wouldn’t smile like that if she was gonna break my heart right here and now.
“And why,” Alice asks, getting up from the kitchen table, “should it scare you that I might leave?”
She’s standing so close to me now, looking up at me with those serious hazel eyes, that I could reach out and touch her. And I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think she’s coming on to me. “You know why, Blythe.”
There’s a cruel little smirk on her face when she shakes her head, and now I’m certain. Alice is about to change the game, and I’m here for it. “Nope. Not a clue.” She seals her fate by tapping my chest as she says, “You’re going to need to enlighten me.”
“Oh,” I breathe, new air filling my lungs. If Alice wants to play this way, I’ll play. There’s not many I’d be willing to tease like this with. In fact, she might be the one and only. “Do I?”
She nods, stepping closer. This little dance we’re doing is a tricky one, but she’s right. She hasn’t once given me the impression she’s the love ’em and leave ’em type. And it’s not like she’sexactlya civilian. She was getting a goddamn PhD in Extraterrestrial Biology, after all.
If she wants to be enlightened, I can do that for her. Maybe we both need a little reassurance of where we’re at.
Before I can think another thought, I’ve got my hands around her waist and I’m boosting her up onto the kitchen counter, my hands sliding up her bare thighs. She makes a breathy little noisethat tells me this is exactly what she was bargaining for when she got up from the table.
She presses her hands to my chest, pausing. “I want to see what’s here. Between us, between me and this town, and what I can bring to the table with what’s going on here. But I can’t promise I won’t leave someday, just like you can’t promise you won’t leave me. We’re just not there yet.”
I like her answer. It doesn’t set up promises to break. It’s real, and realistic. It’s honest. “So, you wanna see what’s between us, do you?”
She smacks my chest, and I nestle between her legs, dragging her against me hard enough that she can feel just exactly what’sbetween usat the moment. Alice gasps, and her mouth is on mine in an instant, her hands in my hair, her back arching into me as she wraps her legs around my waist.
And then we’re making out like teenagers left alone in the house for a hot second. I’ve got my hands up the back of her shirt, and she’s not wearing a bra, which just about makes me lose control. I don’t want to go too far too fast. Not with Alice.
But she’s moaning in my mouth, her tongue dancing with mine as she deepens the kiss. I wind my hands through her waves, pulling the hair at the nape of her neck so I can trail kisses down the column of her throat, nipping at her when she whimpers, pulling her hips tighter against mine.
“Wyatt,” she breathes in my ear as she tilts her hips into just the right spot that has to be giving her an accurate perception of how much I want her. “God, that feels good.”
She’s only wearing a tiny pair of boxer shorts under her giant t-shirt, and it would be so easy to slip my hand inside them. But I am determined not to fuck this up by doing too much too soon.
The kettle whistles, startling us both so much that we bang heads. She screeches. I swear. I yank the kettle off the burner,and the two of us dissolve into laughter. Alice laughs harder as I return to my previous position, this time to hug her.
She wraps her legs around my waist again and smiles up at me, but there’s something a little sad in her eyes. “I don’t have anything to go back to, Wyatt. And I’m not saying that to obligate you in any way. If things don’t work out here, I’ll just figure something out.”
I pull her a little closer, hating that she thinks I’d feel like she’s a check on my to-do list. “You’re not a chore. Whoever made you feel that way needs their kneecaps forcibly removed.”
I gesture around the kitchen to the signs of her and Fallon coexisting not just peaceably, but amicably. There’s books everywhere, scrunchies and hair claws, and I can’t tell whose is whose, ’cause I’ve seen them both in all of them. There’s a whole flock of wool sweaters and, frankly, too many shoes at the back door. There’s notes with both their handwriting on the table, and some with mine, too.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve fit neatly into our life here pretty quick. Honestly, I think that’s what’s scared me.”
She nods, wrapping her arms around my neck a little tighter. “It scares me a little bit, too. But after everything—” She chokes up a little, and I know she’s thinking of the tales we’ve told these past few days. “After everything, I think we all deserve a little happiness.”
“We do,” I agree.
The sound of Fallon’s Jeep coming up the gravel driveway has Alice laughing again. But we don’t spring apart like kids caught at something. Alice tousles her hair a little, but she stays on the counter as I dump the dry tea leaves back into the canister. If there’s gonna be coffee, we don’t need the tea.
Alice slides down from the counter, on my wavelength without speaking, to fill the coffee pot with water. When Fallon walks back in with Fern and a bag of coffee, she tosses it to Alice,smacking her ass as she strides by. “Did you get in his pants while I was gone?”
“Just a little,” Alice replies, snapping Fallon’s bra strap as she passes her.
“I oughta pull your hair,” my sister says with a grin.
I take the coffee from Alice as Fallon hugs her around the waist. “I like having you here, Blythe. There’s too much testosterone around here. With you, me, and Fern, we’ve finally tipped the scales in the right direction.”
