Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

They stared at each other. Foley’s stomach flipped. Drum was so perfectly calm, while she stood there like a stupid stork, wobbling about on one leg. He didn’t want her here. “Do you need time alone?”

She brought her foot back to the ground; her pissed off caught in a rinse cycle of apprehension, making her feel irrationally sad. He could well have been angry with her, accused her of colluding with his father. Instead he was so remote she was awkward with him. She wanted the sleepy-eyed, purring man who’d been intense and fun in bed, but the Drum who stood in front of her wasn’t the man she’d lost earthly contact and found heaven with. “What did I do wrong?”

He stroked a hand over her cheek. “Nothing. This is my fault.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Drum’s hand went from her cheek to her neck, to her shoulder. He ran it down her arm to her waist, then tapped her side. “Tell me about this, on your skin.”

Her idiot tattoo. “Juvenile stupidity. I’d spend the money to get it removed but you’re right, I need a new car first.”

“You do need a new car.” He smiled at that. “What does it mean to you?”

“Of all the things to want to talk about, my dumb tatt. Can we not?” Drum stepped closer and nearly all of him grazed all of her. It made it impossible not to answer his question. “I thought I was making a statement about looking for my soul mate.” She felt heat in her face, even the concept of a soul mate sounded all new age daft. “It was supposed to be deep and mysterious. You’d have picked it for my initial straight up, and for the naivety.”

She could feel the weight of his palm through layers of clothing. “I picked it for your heart. It’s not stupid to want to find the person who understands you, who fits you. That’s why you made it shaped like a puzzle piece. It’s you.”

“Please, next topic.” This was so irrelevant.

“There’s no next topic for us, Foley. There’s no mystery, no fit and we knew it. We let it get out of control.”

“No, no, no.” She put her hand to his chest. “You are not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“I’m saying goodbye.”

“No, no, no. Not now.”

Panic didn’t feel like the Titanic landing on your head, it felt like being shoved into a matchbox. It wasn’t an intense weight to struggle against, it was feeling trapped. He was closing her in, giving her nowhere to go.

“Not after last night, not after … Drum, don’t do this. We can work it all out. We can, I know we can.”

“I feel safest, happiest, living in the cave. You can’t live there with me.”

“Neither can you. Council are going to board it up. The metro media worked out who you are. They know all about Circa. They’ll come for you. You can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”

He inclined his head, brows angled down, taking in that news, and she rushed on. “Come back to the house, or come and stay with me.”

His hand tightened at her waist and he skimmed his nose along her temple. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You moved out for the sculpture walk, it will be like that. Nothing else has to change.”

“Everything would have to change. How would your Nat take that? Would I live off you? Would I keep on my odd jobs? Would I need new clothes? Would I get to meet your mother? Foley, everything would have to change.”

His breath was warm against her face. “And if we can be together, what’s so bad about that?”

Drum went very still and the outside world crashed in: the sound of the sea, of birds, a dog barking, a man in Marks Park calling his kid, “Adam, Adam, don’t go too far. Stay where I can see you.”

Drum breathed against her hair. “I don’t want to change.”

“I’m not asking you to reconcile with your father or go back to your job, or start a new career.” She fumbled for his hand again and he let her hold on. “I don’t need you to buy me a new car, or bring me good wine. I don’t need your money. The changes you’d need to make are small. You don’t need to work. I make enough to support us. You don’t need to—”

“You’d let me sponge off you, drag you down. You’d hate me inside six months.” Now he gripped her hand back. “You’re better than that.”

“I love you and I’ll take you any way I can.” Stay, stay, stay where I can see you.

He eased away, put space between them, an ocean of it, but he still held tight on her hand. “I don’t want that.”