Page 33 of Salvaged Heart
What had I been thinking?
Sure, Beckham came on to me, but I should have stopped it. I should have used the few brain cells I hadn’t killed off to tell him it was a bad idea, one he would regret the moment it was over. My brain kept replaying his face when we pulled apart, the look in his eyes, the way he parted his lips to tell me it had all been a mistake. A word I'd heard so often in my life up to this point that it barely did damage anymore.
“We need to talk.”
I knew it was coming, but that didn’t soften the overwhelming sense of dread that came with his words.
“Yeah, I know.”
We sat in silence for a few more minutes, words hovering on the edge of each of our tongues, but both of us lacked the confidence to be the first ones to let them fall. Part of me wanted to tell him what was in my heart, no matter how he received it, how much he regretted what happened between us. But the self-preservation inside me knew the right thing was to squash that down as deep as possible.
“I don’t know what came over me.” Each word stung as I pushed it out, my voice gravelly. “I can be gone by the weekend. Just give me a few days to find a place to go.”
He exhaled slowly, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. I forced myself not to turn and meet it, terrified of what I might find there.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It’s not, but it is what’s best.”
“Just to be clear, it’s not what I want either.” He swallowed hard. “And I don’t agree that it’s best, at least not for me, but I will help get you somewhere safe if what you need is space.”
The words hung between us, heavy and full of a million things left unsaid. I finally relented and met his ice-blue gaze. He looked so tired, eyes welling with emotion, hair tousled like he had run his fingers through it a thousand times. My palms tingled with the urge to reach out and fix it, gently brush each strand back into its usually carefully kept style. How could he look at me after what I did? How could he keep reaching out to me when I only ever pushed him away? Most importantly, why did I continue to let him past my cracked defense, allow him all these little broken-off pieces of me like some fucked up conciliation prize for his efforts.
“I would like you to stay,” he whispered, reaching a hand up to hesitantly rub my cheek, pausing before pressing his skin to mine, a question lingering in his expression. I nodded, gently leaning the rest of the way into his touch, allowing the soft swipe of his thumb over my cheekbone to soothe the restless, anxious feeling growing rampant in my chest.
“We can talk about it or pretend it never happened. Whatever you need. But…” His forehead came down to press against mine, grounding me. “Whatever that was doesn’t scare me. I wanted it—you—desperately, and I think I have for a while.”
“I don’t understand?” He couldn’t mean that. No one had ever meant that.
Not since Jonah.
Possibly not even Jonah.
“Me neither, but there’s something about you, Anders. Something I can’t look away from. Some kind of strange gravity that pulls me to you, and I don’t want to fight it anymore.”
“I can’t be what you need…”
“Just let me care for you then. If I crossed a line earlier, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. But I don’t need anything from you, Anders. You don’t owe me anything you aren’t ready to give. Ijust want you to know I’m here for you in whatever capacity you’ll allow me to be. I am not afraid…”
A soft, breathy laugh left my lips. “That makes one of us.”
All those voices telling me I was useless, not enough, broken beyond repair, the wrong gamble to take, hung just outside my periphery, waiting for a split second of acknowledgment to take me down. Pull me into a never-ending spiral and spit me back out. But I pushed them away, moving before I lost the fragile courage I'd mustered, and pressed my lips to his.
This kiss was different from the last. Where initial hesitancy had quickly subsided to a frenzy of want, need, and untamable passion, now it was laced with a quiet, hungry desperation. It was slow, and soft, and… safe. It wrapped me up and held me close, a thousand possibilities flashing like a movie montage behind my closed eyelids. His hands cupped my face, and I held them in place like if either one of us let go, the entire world would come crumbling down. It was patient, unhurried, and so unbelievably right.
My heart was pounding in a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like his name.Beckham, Beckham, Beckham.
My mind harmonizing, yes, yes, yes.
Warm sunlight floodedthrough the windows, casting the room in a hazy glow. It was a little after ten am, but I'd been up for hours already, lost in memorizing all the details on Beck’s face. Counting each individual freckle that covered his nose—fourteen—then counted them again to ensure I hadn’t missed one. Transfixed by how his long, dark lashes fluttered with each breath. It was the kind of face you could spend hours learning and notice something new every time you looked at it.
The urge to grab my sketchbook and try to capture him, fast asleep, one long arm slung over my stomach, face half buried in my pillow, was strong, but the need to not disturb him was greater. We’d woken together most mornings, but this was the first time I hadn’t immediately wriggled away or tried to hide the fact we had spent the greater part of the night plastered against one another. I allowed myself just to look. It was also the first time I had woken to him cocooning me instead of the other way around.
Not much had been settled between us the previous evening. After the kiss that still tingled on my lips hours later, Mark interrupted us with a not-so-subtle throat-clearing and announced he really ought to be locking up and heading home. We rode back in silence, Kara trailing my bike until we turned onto the peninsula. Once inside, we changed quickly and tumbled into bed, falling asleep the moment our heads hit the pillow. The only contact was Beck’s palm resting over the covers on my thigh.
In a moment, I’d get up.
Just a few more minutes of soaking this in, feeling his warmth, believing that whatever was happening between us was bigger than a few stolen kisses. I’d allow myself a few more inhales of his cedar and bergamot scent. Feel a few more of his soft, warm breaths on my cheek. Run my fingers through his dark hair a couple more times. Keep the hundreds of questions I had spinning through my brain at bay for just five more minutes. Just be for a little bit…
