Back to You(81)

The night air was heavy with the dewy scent of spring and the distant sound of crickets chirping.
“How did you know about that place?” he finally asked.
“Mr. Brennan was talking about stress reducers in psych class a couple of weeks ago. He said there were places like that. I just looked it up.”
Del nodded as he looked down at the bottle in his hand, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Well, thanks. I think,” he added with a tiny laugh.
Lauren shifted on the grass, crossing her legs in front of her. “Do you want to talk about Aaron?”
His smile fell. “No.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her look down. A beat of silence passed before she asked, “Will you anyway?”
He turned toward her, irritated. “What, is this part of your psych class too? I’m not an experiment, you know.”
She lifted her eyes then, looking at him.
And even in the dim light, he could see t@is"> shoulderhe hurt there, and he had to look away.
“I just…I know he was important to you,” she said, turning away from him and picking at the hem of her jeans. “I just wanted to know about him.”
Something pricked in Del’s chest at her tone of voice.
At the words she had spoken.
He hadn’t talked about Aaron in so long. And he realized then that one of the main reasons for that was because no one ever asked him to.
He inhaled slowly. “Aaron was my brother, my mother, my father, and my best friend. He took care of me. Maybe more than he should have. I wish I hadn’t needed him so much. And I miss him every day.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. Maybe it was because he’d already dulled his raw emotions, but that hadn’t hurt as much as he’d expected it to.
“I bet he needed you too,” she whispered. “Probably more than you realized.” Lauren reached over, taking the bottle out of his hand.
Del thought she was cutting him off and he was about to protest, but then she surprised him by bringing the bottle to her lips.
She grimaced as the liquor hit her tongue, and Del watched in shock as she took two long pulls from the bottle. She was about to take a third when he reached over and yanked it away from her.
It splashed down her chin, and she brought the back of her hand to her mouth as she whipped toward him. “Hey!”
He looked at her wide-eyed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What, you’re the only one who’s allowed to take the edge off?” she asked, her voice thick with the burn of the alcohol.
“Just let that settle for a minute. Jesus.”
She swallowed and coughed, turning away from him, and Del could only imagine how much her throat must be burning.
A few minutes passed before she spoke again. “Thank you. For telling me all that,” she finally said.
He nudged her with his shoulder, and she turned back toward him. “Thank you for asking.”
She smiled softly. In the dim glow of the motion light, he could see that her eyes were glazed.
It already hit her. Of course it would have.
She looked down at the bottle and then back up at him, quirking her brow.
He had no idea what this was about, but who was he to deny her?
“Slow,” he said, handing her the bottle, and she nodded, bringing it to her mouth and taking a much smaller sip. She flinched again, shaking her head slightly as it went down.
“You know,” she said, her voice somewhat husky before she cleared her throat. “I was kind of jealous of you in there tonight.”
He smirked, looking over at her as she handed him back the bottle.
“You got a lot of built-up aggression, Red?”
She smiled, looking down as she shook her head. “No, not aggression. Frustration, maybe.”
He glanced at her. She was studying her thumbnail, and there was something about her expression that didn’t sit right with him.
“Come on,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Like you could have done any real damage anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”
“I mean seriously, look at these things,” he said nd"> shoulder, reaching over to grab her bicep. He jiggled her arm, and it flapped lifelessly under his hold. “What were you gonna do?”
She whirled suddenly, attempting to grab his arm, and he pulled it out of her reach with a laugh, jumping back slightly.
She immediately followed him, lunging forward and gripping his wrist, trying to twist his arm behind his back. He laughed at her determination, but her attempt was pathetic. He let her maneuver his body for a minute, giving her the false impression of success, and then he shifted his weight, circling his wrist quickly so that he was the one gripping her arm.