Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(33)

West is sort of almost smiling. I feel like I’m an experiment he’s running. What will she do if I do this? “You get any sleep before you came here?”

“A few hours. And I took a loooooong nap after class, too. See, look.” I turn my cheek to show him the imprint from the throw pillow. “I was trying to read for English, but I fell asleep on the couch and permanently branded corduroy into my face.”

He steps even closer to see the faint lines that remain all these hours later. He lays his fingers lightly along my jaw, using them to tip my face up toward him.

This is how he’d kiss me. Just like this, with a drink in one hand and a casual half smile, competent fingers putting my lips where he wanted them.

I inhale. Don’t get too excited, Caroline. He’s just looking because you told him to.

“Nice,” he says. “I’m jealous.”

“Of my nap?”

“Of your pillow.”

I stand there with heat crawling up my cheeks, breathing through my open mouth, trying to convince myself he didn’t mean it.

Yeast, idiot. Dill and onion flakes and poppy seeds. Focus on the work.

I can’t, though, because it’s impossible to look away from his eyes. They’re gray-blue today, storm clouds and tiny sparkling flashes of lightning.

What do you want from me? Take it. Whatever it is. Please.

He swigs the rest of his Monster drink, and I watch the column of his throat. He’s all stubbly, like he always is on Wednesday nights. No time to shave. With his head tipped back, his eyes closed, I notice how blue and bruised the skin beneath them looks. I notice how the brim of his black ball cap presses into the back of his neck, how his dark hair’s longer than it was last month, curling behind his ears and up into the fabric of his hat. He looks weary and … I don’t know. Precious. I wish I could give him something other than snack food I picked up at the Kum and Go on my way here.

I wish I could give him rest. Ease.

I wish he’d stop torturing me like this, where I’m so tuned in to him I feel like I might explode, and he’s so mellow I can’t even tell if he’s doing it on purpose.

His forearm tenses when he takes the drink away from his mouth, then contracts when he crushes the can. My attention catches on what looks like a black leather cuff on his wrist.

“What’s that?”

He looks where I’m looking. “Bracelet.”

“I know, doofus. Is it new?”

“Yeah.”

Abruptly, he turns, tosses the can across the room into the recycling bin, and goes back to measuring out ingredients.

I don’t even think. I just walk to where he is and grab his hand while he’s got the honey container tipped upside down over the bowl. “Careful!”

I don’t think he’s warning me about the honey.

“I want to see.”

It’s the kind of bracelet you can buy at a booth at the county fair—a stiff strip of leather, with an embossed pattern of a few red and blue roses, and his name pressed into it and painted white. The black dye has turned his wrist slightly blue.

“Fancy.”

He tugs against my grip, and I look up into his eyes. I want him to tell me where he got it, because someone must have given it to him. It’s new. He’s wearing it to work, even though it’s kind of cheap and tacky, so it must mean something to him. But I can’t just come right out and say all that, and I feel like I shouldn’t have to.

“My sister sent it.” He pulls his wrist away.

Even though there isn’t really room between us, he squats down, forcing me to take a step back so he’s got enough space to pull the bowl off the scale and carry it over to the mixer. I can’t even lift those bowls when they’re full, but West makes it look easy. He turns the mixer on. The dough hook starts its banging, rattling song.

He has a sister.

“How old is she?”

“She’s nine. Ten in the spring.”

“What’s her name?”

“Frankie.”

“Frankie like Frank?”

“Frankie like Francine.”

“Oh.”

When he looks up from the machine, his eyes are full of warning. “You got any other questions?”

I shouldn’t. I know better. The more I ask him right now, the faster he’ll shut down.

“Why didn’t you ever say?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“If I’d asked, would you have told me?”

West shrugs, but he’s scowling. “Sure. Why not?”

“I don’t believe you.”

He shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything more. I watch as he goes over to the shelf, flips the top bread recipe to the bottom of the pile, and starts working on whatever is next on his list. His lips move in a whisper, words he’s making only for himself. He could be repeating the ingredients on the list, except it’s just like the clipboard—I know for a fact he already has those recipes memorized.

I go back to the dill bread, furious and hot, my heart aching.

He has a sister called Frankie. He’s wearing her love for him on his wrist, and I’m glad for him. I’m glad there’s someone else in the world who cares about him enough to press the letters of his name into leather, word into flesh, an act of memory.