Alone in the Wild(45)

I plan to find other conversation for the meal, but as soon as we settle and I open my mouth, I hear myself saying, “I’m sorry.”

He glances over, brows rising.

“Earlier with Tyrone. When he mentioned your parents, I should have dropped it, and I didn’t.”

He turns to me, and his head tilts, just a little, eyes piercing with a look I know well, from our earliest days. That keen scrutiny, as if he’s trying to peer right into my brain and figure out what I’m thinking.

“Is that what was bothering you?” he says.

I glance over.

He sets his plate down, one knee coming up onto the sofa. “You looked freaked out when Tyrone was talking, and I thought you were just shocked by what he said. Were you honestly worried I’d be mad at you for asking?”

“It’s your business, and if you wanted details, you’d ask. I shouldn’t do it for you.” I put my fork down. “It’s not just for you, either. I want to know. I want to understand. That isn’t right.”

His head tilts again. “Being concerned for me isn’t right?”

“It’s…” I flail my hands. “Complicated.”

“Yeah, it is. Those relationships are complicated. Ours isn’t, and if I’m making it complicated, you gotta tell me so I can stop. I sure as hell don’t want you thinking you need to tread lightly or you’ll piss me off. You asked the obvious question. One I should have asked myself, but…”

He shrugs. “It feels like picking at a scab. That scab’s not healing, though. I just…” He exhales, a long hiss of breath between his teeth. “I just don’t want to get into it.”

He stops, lips parting. “Fuck, that sounds bad. It’s not that I don’t want to get into it with you. I don’t want to get into it with myself. Best to stuff it under the bed and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Except it does matter. I haven’t gone to see the Daltons since you arrived, and part of that’s because when we have time off, I want to be with you. But part of it is that you give me an excuse. They’re my parents, and I should want to see them. Only they’re not my parents, and unless they have a damned good excuse for what they did, I’m not eager to spend my free time with them.”

He looks over at me. “They don’t have a good excuse, do they?”

“I have no way of knowing that, Eric.”

“But you think the same thing I do. They lied about my situation. They made shit up to justify bringing me into Rockton.”

“Gene did.”

He rubs his mouth. “Yeah, and I don’t know how to deal with that, because my gut says he lied to my mother, too. He presented her with a situation she wouldn’t argue with. Like Edwin trying to tell us the baby had been abandoned. If that’s the case, then I’m doing a shitty thing, shutting Katherine Dalton out of my life. But if it’s not? If she knew, too?”

He looks at me. “If she knew too, that’s gonna hurt. I need those answers. I’m not ready to march down south and get them. But you don’t ever need to worry that you’re going to upset me by prodding. Fuck knows, I’m the king of pushing people to face shit they don’t want to face.”

He lifts my plate and holds it out. “Eat.”

When I hesitate, he leans in, his forehead touching mine. “I love you. You know that. Sometimes I wish there was something more to say, a higher escalation. I can’t find the words to go beyond it, you know?”

I nod, still not speaking. I feel his breath on my lips, close enough to kiss, but he stays there, just breathing.

“I’m still afraid,” he says, “of doing something to scare you off. I’m mostly past it, but I worry that if I dive into this, and I can’t deal with it, you’ll decide I’m just too fucked up to be with.”

“Pretty sure my baggage is as heavy as yours.”

“Yeah, but what’s in your baggage has been sorted and arranged, and you open it up for a look now and then. Mine’s stuffed in a suitcase full to bursting, held by triple locks, and I don’t even peek inside. You shouldn’t feel like I’d go ballistic if you even jangle the lock. Especially when I’m throwing yours open, riffling through it, tossing shit everywhere so I can see what you’ve got in there.”

I laugh softly. “That is an awesome analogy.”

“Thank you. Totally true, too. I love you. I don’t want to lose you. You’re going to need to be patient with me. Right now, my life is fucking awesome, and if there’s this one suitcase under the bed that I don’t want to touch, I know that isn’t healthy, but I’m not ready to rip it open. You may, however, jangle the locks now and then to remind me it’s there, and that I need to deal with it eventually.”

I press my lips to his. It’s meant to be quick, but he bears into it, pulling me against him, the kiss hungry, edged with desperation. I slide my plate onto the table and pull him to me as I fall back onto the couch.





TWENTY-TWO


I’m on the floor, resting on my stomach, eyeing my plate of half-eaten food.

“You know what we need?” I say. “A microwave.”

Dalton snorts and pushes up. “You southerners make everything complicated.” He pulls out a tray that hangs over the fire, sets our plates on it, and adjusts it over the flames. Storm lumbers over to lie closer to the fire. She doesn’t even eye the plates. She knows better.