Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“That’s what you want?” he asked.

My heart raced from being close to him again, all my instincts telling me to flee. “Actually, part of me wants you to stay . . . so I can call Corbin and give him the pleasure of kicking your ass.”

He winced. “Don’t say his name to me.”

“Corbin, Corbin, Corbin. You must be thrilled such a worthy man was my first kiss, my first love, my first . . .” I chickened out. “Do you get off on it, Manning? Do you fantasize about pushing me right into his arms, about all the ways he touches me, kisses me?”

As Manning’s eyes darkened, the room seemed to as well. He took up enough space to make it feel as if the apartment’s walls were closing in. “You act like I wanted this for myself,” he said. “I wanted it for you, but you don’t have to rub it in my face—”

“Why not? You forced me to stand there and watch you with her.” I pushed past him and started gathering up the assortment of tools, tossing them back in their cardboard box. I grabbed his blazer and coat from the loveseat and held them out to him. “Here.”

With his eyes on mine, he came toward me. In what felt like slow motion, he took his things, but I didn’t let go. He splayed his hand, and his fingertips accidentally brushed mine—except that he didn’t pull away.

Maybe it wasn’t an accident.

Goosebumps traveled up my arm. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m leaving, like you told me to.”

It wasn’t what I’d meant. Why are you touching me, I wanted to ask, but I was scared if I acknowledged it, I’d be unable to resist touching him back. “Where will you go?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He paused. “My hotel. For now.”

I held on—to his things, to his warm presence in the cold room, to the love rising inside me. He was standing in front of me again, as I’d often hoped for, but I didn’t know if I was allowed to want him here.

He tried to take his coat again. I clung to it. My chin wobbled. It wasn’t fair that she got him, that I had to kick him out when I wanted to get closer to him. After a few tense seconds of tug-of-war, he pulled the coat hard enough to bring me with it. “Lake.” The warmth of his presence turned to undeniable body heat. “You don’t really want me to go.”

“You can’t tell me what I want,” I said, my voice hitching as I stared up at him. “You can’t tell me what to do. I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“No, you’re not, are you?”

I froze, caught off guard by the way his voice noticeably deepened.

His pulse quickened at the base of his neck. “All the ugliness I tried to spare you was for nothing. You’re not safe. You’re not loved, not the way you should be. Your family is gone. You’re not soaring.”

“I am, though.” It was a pathetic protest, but it was true. It’d taken me a long time to get to this place, and things were finally going well. A few days earlier, I’d graduated quietly with Corbin and Val and some other friends in the audience. They’d taken me out to an expensive dinner and we’d brought home cheap champagne. “I’m starting my career. I’ve got good friends, an apartment, and most importantly, a life of my own. I’m happy, Manning.”

We were face to face now, just the coat between us. He frowned. “Then tell me there’s not one thing in the world that can make you happier,” he said, “and I’ll go. Tell me you are truly content with all this. With him.”

I needed to lie. I needed Manning to go and stay gone if I had any chance of making it through this life. There was no point in dragging everything back into the light. What could it serve, except to break me again?

I couldn’t lie, though. Not to him. “I’m as happy as I’m capable of being,” I said.

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s all I can do. It’s what you left me with. Maybe one day down the line, ten years, twenty, I can be truly happy, but without you . . . I don’t think . . .” His expensive shoes touched the tips of my ragged boots. We were closer than we’d been in more time than I could measure. My heart pounded in rhythm with an ache between my legs I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel again. No part of my body wanted him to go.

Now, I could read the emotions in his soda-pop brown eyes—regret, pain, anguish. But under it all, I recognized something else that turned my legs weak. The day Manning had been released from jail and I’d stumbled into the foyer in front of him, the heat in his eyes, the hunger, had haunted me. I hadn’t understood it then, but I did now.