Harder (Caroline & West #2)(75)

Then I can make them out just fine.

“For the fifth time, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I’ve already made a decision, and I’m not going to just wait and see how I feel in a few days. I already know how I feel. That’s why I’m informing you of my feelings.”

“Stay here,” I say to Frankie.

I find Caroline sprawled on the bed, hands and legs flung wide, scowling at the ceiling. “No,” she says. “No! I don’t accept that. I knew you’d say it, and I hear where you’re coming from, but I don’t accept it.”

I sit down on the bed, prop my back against the headboard, and extend my legs over top of hers.

She reaches out to find my hand.

The conversation takes a nasty turn, and every time she raises her voice, she squeezes my hand tighter.

“Not listening to me.”

“No, Dad, I hear you, but no.”

“Damn it, Dad, it’s got nothing to do with him!”

She doesn’t say anything too ugly to take back, but she’s upset enough that her voice cracks, and I can tell she’s not getting anywhere with her old man.

Eventually, they start cooling down. I’ve never heard anyone argue loud enough to be audible through a closed door and then, ten minutes later, work back around to, “Merry Christmas, Daddy.… I love you, too.”

Caroline hangs up and shifts onto her side. I lie beside her. She turns her face into the bedspread, letting her hair conceal her expression.

“Are you crying?” I ask.

She sniffles. “No.”

“It’s okay if you’re crying.”

“I’m not. I’m gathering my strength to fight another day.”

“Okay. Does you gathering your strength but not crying mean that now would be a bad time to give you your Christmas present?”

Slowly, she sits up. Her eyes aren’t red, but her throat and cheeks are flushed.

I think if she’s going to be president, we’ll have to work on her poker face at some point.

“You already gave me a bunch of presents,” she says.

“Those were from Frankie.”

“Since you paid for them, they were from you. I love my scarf.”

She wore it earlier over her pajama T-shirt—orange and blue and red, with silvery threads shot through it. It looked good.

Felt good, seeing her wear something I’d bought her.

I release her hand so I can get up and dig around on the top shelf of my closet. The jewelry store box is dense as a rock in my hand. The leather bracelet seems stiff and clumsy when I hold it out to her, a symbol I’m not sure about.

What if she doesn’t want the reminder? Maybe I should have buried it in the backyard.

But Caroline extends her wrist and lets me put it on her. My name pressed into leather, snugged around her skin.

She traces the letters with one finger. Smiles at me.

“It’s okay?” I ask.

“It’s good.”

She draws close and kisses me, and it feels good. Like I’ve righted a wrong, restored something that was out of balance.

When she eases away, I press the jewelry box into her hand. She takes it with eyes so huge, I wonder for a second what the f*ck I did wrong. Then I figure it out and laugh. “It’s not a ring. But good to know it’s too soon for that.”

“It’s not—I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine, Caro. Open it.”

Inside are the heavy silver links I bought her.

“Pretty,” she says, lifting the bracelet out. “What’s this on it?”

The light catches the charm when she lifts it to the light. She answers her own question. “It’s a comb. West—”

“I thought I’d give you both,” I say. “The comb, and the watch chain. It’s … maybe that’s not a good present, but I thought—”

And then her arms are around me, so I don’t have to say the rest of it.

“West.”

She’s crying for real now.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry. It just reminded me, is all.”

I’ve thought so many times of her telling me not to write a story over us. Not to give myself a role—good guy or bad guy, sheriff or villain, because life’s more complicated than that.

That conversation was never about the story she read in English. It was about me.

It was Caroline telling me I f*cked up, but I could have another chance.

When I went to the jewelry store, I was going to see about silver combs to give her. I thought she should have a keepsake of the moment she offered me what I most needed—what I didn’t even know I needed.

But then I thought, No, I don’t want her to have half.

I want her to have everything.

She kisses me. “It’s perfect.”

When I kiss her back, she drags me on top of her, the cool silver links dripping down my neck from where she’s clutched her fingers around them. “You’re perfect,” she says.

“I’m so f*cking far from perfect.”

She kisses my lips, my cheeks, my closed eyes. “Close enough for me.”

I roll to my side, and we lie there for a few minutes, legs intertwined, looking at each other.

Close enough.