But this… This was different.
I just wanted to kiss her.
Be closer to her.
Keep touching her.
Stay here with her.
Never, ever leave.
If someone told me I could stop time—stay right here where I was, feeling exactly how I was feeling, but I would never get off again—I wouldn’t even hesitate to agree.
“I have to go,” I said, and though I was sorely tempted to give up and stay where I was or take her up on her offer of breakfast and damn whatever consequences may come, I knew I had to leave while I still had my sanity intact. I slowly brought my hand from her waist and pushed myself out from under the blankets and excused myself to locate my clothes.
My shirt was all crispy-feeling from air-drying on the coatrack. I didn’t even bother buttoning the damn thing up. I pulled the still-tied tie over my head in a loose loop just so I wouldn’t have to carry it. With my shoes in my hand, I cringed as I walked in bare feet over the gravel drive to my car.
At least my pants were dry.
I tossed my likely-ruined sweater into the back seat of the Jeep along with my socks and shoes and then walked around to the driver’s side door. A car horn beeped, and I looked up to see Clint Oliver cruising by, waving and smiling broadly at me. I gave him a half wave, got into the car, and drove home.
I didn’t think anything of it.
My focus was on getting home and trying to get into my room without being noticed. I parked the car and walked up to the door, looking around as I did. Dad’s Mercedes was in the garage, and it was nearly nine in the morning. The chances of him still being asleep weren’t great, but it was possible. Taking a slow, deep breath, I opened the door as silently as I could and peered though.
Silence.
So far, so good.
I peered around the corner to the living room but didn’t see him. He wasn’t in the kitchen, either. I tiptoed down the hall, up the stairs, and right to my bedroom door.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Shit.
I froze.
I was close, so close, to my bedroom door. He was already pissed. How much more pissed could he get if I just made a run for it and locked the door behind me?
It wouldn’t work.
I’d never get it locked in time. Even if I did, I would have to come out sometime, and that would just be worse. He might even just break the door down, and then I wouldn’t even have that normal barrier between us.
Shit.
“I asked you a goddamned question, asshole!”
I closed my eyes for a second before I turned around to face him.
His hair was plastered to one side of his head and sticking out the other. His normally clear blue eyes were bloodshot and narrowed, and his hands were tightened into fists. His face was contorted and his jaw clenched, and he breathed heavily through his mouth.
Not good.
Not good at all.
Taking a step backwards, I felt the edge of the door against my shoulder.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet gave me the words: “A countenance more in sorrow than in anger”—I knew well that Dad was not angry with me for coming home late; his grief over what I had done was just more than he could handle. Somehow, lashing out at me for causing that pain was the only thing that made it bearable for him.