Come to Me Quietly(76)

She turned away, stole a glance back at me, then turned to leave. “See you after work, Christopher.”



Furiously he thumbed at his controller. “Bye,” he said as if he couldn’t be disturbed long enough to notice she was there.

Aly walked away, her dark ponytail swishing along her back. She opened the door and bright sunlight burst around her frame as she stepped out into the day.

I inched forward to the end of the hall. I realized I was standing there like an idiot, watching the space she’d just taken up as she snapped the door shut behind her.

Shit.

“You better watch yourself, man.” The warning dripped low and slow through Christopher’s lips, hardness coiled tightly in the words.

Taken aback, I blinked hard and turned my attention to where he sat with his focus trained entirely on the TV. I swallowed down the pool of saliva that gathered at the back of my throat. “What are you talking about?”



Incredulous laughter seeped from Christopher, and he slowly shook his head in disbelief. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been looking at my little sister?” He cut his eyes to me, scrutinizing me in clear disgust, before he tore them back to the TV. “I wasn’t joking when I said her room was off-limits. I just didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you.”



I tried to rein in the panic that jackhammered in my brain. Guilt hit me hard, but not hard enough to keep me away from Aly. My body still burned with the residue of her touch. Nothing would stop me from going back for more.

Just a little more.

I shook my head and forced a frown that could only speak of my own distaste. “We’re just friends, Christopher. We’ve always been. You know that.” The words pushed out with the force of my faked revulsion, blended with the solemn oath. “She’s like a sister to me.” My tongue burned with the lie, and this time the guilt was consuming.

I was just going to stand here and lie straight-faced to my best friend?

He will hate me before I’m gone.

He turned to face me fully, his green eyes probing.

In discomfort, I fidgeted.

Then he slowly nodded. “Sorry, man… I just… we already talked about Aly being different than the rest of these girls. I can’t stand the thought of someone f*cking with her.”



My exhale came heavy. “I know that.” She was perfect. I hated the thought of someone f*cking with her, too. Especially if it was me.



FIFTEEN


Aleena



Joy reverberated through my being.

Intense, consuming joy. It was the kind of joy fraught with apprehension and stifling doubt. I wasn’t sure Jared came close to understanding what last night had meant to me, how his touch had become my truth.

Never before had I allowed anyone to touch me that way.

Either physically or emotionally.

Megan was right. I just hadn’t been able to fully see it. Every relationship I’d had, one way or another, I’d subconsciously sabotaged. I’d held myself just out of reach, staved off every advance, rejected every wandering hand. Maybe somewhere inside me I’d been saving myself for him because part of me had always believed that one day he would return.

Or maybe it was just that I had been waiting for someone who could possibly make me feel the way he had made me feel. Someone who could fill up the space Jared had left when he was so brutally torn from my life. Someone I cared enough about that it would cover up the sadness I felt for Jared, the ache that seemed to never dissipate. But there had never been anyone like that because it turned out it had been Jared all along. There was no one else who fit.