I swallow, choking back tears. Poor Braden. Poor Ben. Poor Mrs. Black. She must have been beautiful to produce such beautiful children.
I stop at a red light. “How did you ever forgive your father?”
He turns toward me, his sapphire gaze burning. “What makes you think I have?”
Chapter Thirteen
“He works for you,” I say. “I just assumed—”
“He got sober. He’s smart. He works hard. He’s my father. I wouldn’t exist if not for him. So I let him ride on my coattails, and he’s good at his job. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him.”
“And Ben?”
He chuckles. “Your turn.”
How is this not public knowledge? Dozens of publications have written extensively about Braden and his family, and of course, I’ve read them all.
“Braden…”
“Nope. Your turn.”
I can’t top that. My father isn’t a drunk. My mother isn’t scarred. Sure, they separated for a few months when I was young. I still don’t know why, but we never lost our home, and we always had food on the table.
Things I took for granted all those years. Things I still take for granted now.
I turn onto the main road, and our small town comes into view. “Welcome to Liberty. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.”
“It’s charming,” he says.
“It has a bit of charm,” I agree, “but the charm goes to shit when you’re looking for a good cup of coffee and all that’s available is Mrs. Temper’s black water at the Sunrise Café.”
He chuckles.
Funny. I’ve seen him laugh more since I got home than I have in the weeks we were together in Boston.
I drive to the tiny hotel. “Only four rooms. You were lucky to get one.”
“Are they usually booked?”
“I was being sarcastic, Braden. No one comes here.” I pull into an open spot on the street. “Here you go.”
“Want to come up?”
“Don’t you think my father will notice if I don’t come straight home?”
“I’m not asking you to have sex, Skye. I’m just asking…” He sighs. “Hell, I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m asking.”
“Aren’t they expecting you in New York?” I ask.
“They are. But they’ll wait. Not like they have a choice.”
“I suppose not.”
He grabs the car door handle but holds onto it, not opening the passenger door. “Skye…”
“Yes?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”
“At the dinner table, watching you… God, I want you so much.”
He’s anguished. Not unnerved—or perplexed, as he likes to put it—as I’ve seen him many times before, but truly anguished.
“Braden, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”
That’s a lie, and we both know it. “Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For telling me about your mother. It means a lot to me.”
“Oh, Skye… In the grand scheme of things, I’ve told you nothing.”
He doesn’t grab me or try to kiss me.
I’m disappointed, but part of me understands. He’s in a weird headspace. He told me things he probably doesn’t let himself think about often. In fact, I know that to be true, as neither he nor Ben talk about their mother.
“When are you flying to New York?” I ask.
“Sometime tomorrow.”
I clear my throat. “Would you like to—”
“Take you with me?”
I gasp in astonishment. “No! Where did that come from?”
“You begged me to take you to New York last week.”
“Yeah, and we all know how that turned out.”
“Yes, we do.”
Is he having regrets?
“Why is everything black-and-white with you, Braden?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I asked you for something you didn’t want to give me. Instead of working it out, finding a compromise, you ended our relationship.”
“I wouldn’t have ended it if you could have answered my question.”
“Maybe I need your help to find the answer.”
“Do you?” he asks.
“I…don’t know. Maybe.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t. If you needed me, you wouldn’t have come here. To your hometown. You would have come to me.”
And it dawns on me then.
Maybe I don’t need him to find my answers.
But he needs me.
And he hates that he needs me. It disturbs him. It perplexes him.
“Stop fighting yourself, Braden,” I say.
“I don’t know how to.”
I lift my brow. Not the response I expected. I was thinking more along the lines of, You don’t know what you’re talking about, Skye.
Apparently I do know what I’m talking about.
As much as my own psyche confuses me sometimes, perhaps I know myself better than Braden knows himself.
“Will you come up with me?” he asks once again.
“My father—”
“Your father knows you’re an adult.”
“True, but—”
“Please, Skye. Come up with me. Make love with me.”
“You just said you weren’t asking me to have sex.”
“I’m not. I’m asking you to make love.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning just you and me. No toys. No games. No bindings and no commands. Just the act itself. I want to experience something special with you.”
“What’s so special about vanilla sex?”
He pauses a moment, staring out the windshield, and finally, when I’m convinced he’s never going to speak again—
“I’ve never done it before.”