His Reverie (Reverie #1)(60)
Relief floods me at how normal she’s acting, how normal she looks. She’s wearing those little denim shorts that turn me on like nothing else and a hot pink T-shirt, her hair in a sloppy bun on top of her head, wisps of blond hair falling around her face.
“I needed to see you.” I go to her, draw her into my arms and just hold her close. Breathe her in. I don’t try to kiss her. I just want to absorb her for a bit. “I don’t want you to leave early,” I murmur against her hair.
She clutches at my T-shirt, her face pressed against my chest. “I don’t want to leave either. It’s the second time Mama has mentioned it to me too. She sounded serious this time though,” she says, her voice muffled. “She has a date planned out and everything.”
“When?” Nerves eat at me as I anxiously wait for her answer.
“A week from today.” She clutches me tighter and I hear her sniff. So help me God if she’s crying… “We should’ve had at least another two weeks together if we were going by the normal schedule. I usually don’t start school until the last week in August.”
“So what happened? Why are you leaving early?” I ask, impressed I don’t sound like a panicked loser because that’s exactly how I feel.
“I don’t know,” she practically wails, shaking her head against my chest. “One day everything’s fine and then the next, my mom is talking about shutting down the house and packing everything up. She won’t talk to Daddy. They aren’t speaking, but he hasn’t come out of his office in days so that’s no surprise. Something weird is going on. They’re being so secretive.”
I tug on the ends of her ponytail so she lifts her head, her luminous blue eyes meeting mine. “You don’t think it’s about us, do you?”
“No.” She slowly shakes her head, her eyes going even wider. “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t they just confront us if they found out what we were doing?”
“Those are my thoughts, too.”
A little sigh escapes her. “Evan came to me last night and asked if I knew what was going on. Even he’s worried and my brother really doesn’t worry about anything.”
That is definitely a clue something is up. Evan usually doesn’t hang around the house long enough to notice if anything’s wrong. “Did he tell you anything that he might know?”
“He mentioned the television station and Daddy’s show. I know ratings are down but my dad reassured us a while ago it was normal. But he hasn’t been right since they came back from that meeting.” She drops her gaze, chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe it’s going to get cancelled. That would devastate him. This is his calling.”
I’ve watched him a few times on TV and haven’t been impressed. Nervous and kind of scared, most definitely. The man knows how to put the fear of God in a person, that’s for sure. He’s not that intimidating in real life though. Actually, the guy is pretty pleasant.
What’s weird though, is that we rarely speak although I work directly for him. We’ve exchanged words a handful of times. And once I started messing around with Reverie, I tried to avoid him every chance I got.
“You need to talk to your mom,” I suggest as I push her hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. “Find out what’s really going on. You deserve to know what’s happening.”
“I know I do. I agree. But what if…” She presses her lips together for a second, like she’s unsure she wants to say it. “What if I don’t want to know what’s going on?”
“You can’t be kept in the dark forever,” I say gently. “You deserve to know what’s going on with your family, even if they want to hide it from you.”
“You don’t understand.” She pulls out of my embrace, frustration and anger written all over her body. “You had this great relationship with your mom and she treated you like an adult. My parents aren’t like that. They still treat me like the little girl I used to be. I bet my dad looks at me right now and sees the eight-year-old girl I once was. The one who wore the fancy dresses and always wanted to sing on his TV show. I really doubt he sees the woman I’ve become.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself baby,” I tease, but she shoots me a hardened glare.
“I’m being serious, Nick. Maybe I should tell my parents about us.” She lifts her chin slightly, looking every inch the dignified princess despite her causal outfit. “What can they do? How can they stop us?”
Oh they can do plenty to stop us. The fact that I haven’t told her about my past and the time I spent in jail is weighing on me big time. I’m a liar by omission. And that sucks. My secret is killing me and I need to come clean. I’ve needed to come clean for weeks. It’s just so damn hard to tell her what I’ve done. What’s happened to me and the kind of people I had to spend time with while I was locked up.
It doesn’t matter that my friend lied and that’s how we ended up in jail. It’s the fact that I’ve been there in the first place that will horrify her. She won’t see the injustice it of it all. How time was ripped away from me as I was forced to sit and stew and wait for a judge to decide my fate when I knew it all along.
All she’ll see is that I’ve been arrested and that I spent months in jail. She’s so good and sweet and would never do anything wrong. How can I expect her to understand? It’s why I’ve been so afraid to tell her.