Page 29 of Stay Baby Stay

We finish up dinner, filling the silence with the clinking of forks and knives. I know I should stop looking at her. Stop studying the way her red hair frames her face.

Her gaze catches on mine. Whatever makeup voodoo she’s performed on her eyes has somehow made ‘em look even bigger. I still don’t understand how she can look eighteen one moment, and then suddenly look ten years younger the next.

Maybe it’s the anxiety that makes her seem younger, like a kid trembling at the bus stop on their first day of third grade. She’s not a child, but she is innocent in ways that can be a danger to girls in her situation. I’ll do whatever I can to protect that intact sliver of hope in her otherwise fractured existence.

I put down my fork about the same time she lowers hers.

“You cooked,” she says. “Let me clean. After all, it’s what I’m good at.”

“I bet you’re good at a whole lot of things,” I say, then kick myself for saying it. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain I hear her gasp.

I’d been doing so well remembering what I am, who she is, and the fact that she’s off-limits.

She takes our dishes to the sink and turns on the water. As she opens the bottle of dish soap and lathers up the brand-new sponge I picked up today, my attention pours over her backside from head to toe.

She has no idea how glorious she is.

Fuck, this is not good.I need to put at least one wall between us. I push up from the table and head for the sliding-glass doors, practically hurling myself onto my back porch.

The air outside is hot and heavy. I scratch at my stubbled jaw and force myself to count to twenty.

“Get ahold of yourself, man,” I mumble. I close my eyes and deepen my breaths in an effort to slow my pulse. This girl has no idea what she does to me just by existing. Every inch of her body is a temple my inner demons would very much like to desecrate.

A moment later, I hear the back door slide open.

“What’s this?” Holly asks, holding up the stuffed kitten. I’d forgotten all about that impulse purchase. It looks even sillier now than it did in the store.

“I, uh, picked it up this afternoon. It’s all right if you hate it.”

“You got this for me?” She combs her fingers through the white fur.

“Like I said, it’s fine if you don’t want it.”

I reach for the kitten. She draws it fully into her arms, away from me.

“Don’t,” she says. “I love it.”

“Then she’s all yours.” I tuck my hands in my front pockets so I won’t be tempted to brush her hair back from her face, or stroke her cheeks, or the countless other things my paws are itching to do to this sweet girl.

The cold shell I’ve been forming around my heart melts like ice in the center of my chest, as I watch her pet the kitten’s fluffy ears. Holly smiles to herself, and I feel like a devil for thinking about her as anything but a victim in need of my help.

I tell myself,this, right here, is how it should be. I can be here for Holly, like a father. I can put a roof over her head and food in her belly. I can comfort her when she's sad or frightened.

All these things are within my power.

Of course, part of me wants more of her—a hell of a lot more—and I suspect it always will. But that's too goddamn bad. I’ll curb my desires for Holly the same way I suppress the urge to drink. By staying busy and keeping as much distance between us as I can.

She crosses the porch and throws her arms around me.

“Thank you, Cal,” she says. “For everything.”

I pat her back stiffly, praying she can’t feel other things stiffening against her.

Chapter Twelve

Holly

Cal bought me a present. My insides take on a buoyancy, as though my chest were filled with puffed-rice cereal snap-crackle-popping.

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