This startles me. He normally only goes twice a week. Have I missed something? Is he worse? Is he slipping? I fight to keep my voice casual.
“Again? Why?”
He shrugs, like it’s no big deal, but his hands are still shaking.
“I dunno. I think it’s all the change. It makes me feel antsy.”
And shaky? I don’t ask that though. Instead, I just nod, like I’m not at all freaked out. “Of course I’ll go.”
Of course, because he needs me.
An hour later, we’ve walked down the hallways filled with our mother’s pictures, past her bedroom filled with her clothes, and are driving to town in the car she bought us. We both pointedly avoid looking at the place where she plunged over the side of the mountain. We don’t need to see it again.
Our mother is still all around us. Everywhere. Yet nowhere. Not really.
It’s enough to drive the sanest person mad. No wonder Finn wants extra therapy.
I leave him in front of his Group room, and watch him disappear inside.
I take my book to the café today for a cup of coffee. I’ve grown accustomed to the rain making me sleepy since I’ve lived in Astoria all my life. But I’ve also learned that caffeine is an effective Band-Aid.
I grab my cup and head to the back, slumping into a booth, prepared to bury my nose in my book.
I’m just opening the cover when I feel him.
I feel him.
Again.
Before I even look up, I know it’s him. I recognize the feel in the air, the very palpable energy. I felt the same thing in my dreams, this impossible pull. What the hell? Why do I keep bumping into him?
When I look up, I find that he’s seen me, too.
His eyes are frozen on me as he waits in line, so dark, so fathomless. This energy between us… I don’t know what it is. Attraction? Chemistry? All I know is, it steals my breath and speeds up my heart. The fact that he’s invading my dreams makes me crave this feeling even more. It brings me out of my reality and into something new and exciting, into something that has hope and life.
I watch as he pays for his coffee and sweet roll, and as his every step leads him to my back booth. There are ten oth
er tables, all vacant, but he chooses mine.
His black boots stop next to me, and I skim up his denim-clad legs, over his hips, up to his startlingly handsome face. He still hasn’t shaved, so his stubble is more pronounced today. It makes him seem even more mature, even more of a man. As if he needs the help.
I can’t help but notice the way his soft blue shirt hugs his solid chest, the way his waist narrows as it slips into his jeans, the way he seems lean and lithe and powerful. Gah. I yank my eyes up to meet his. I find amusement there.
“Is this seat taken?”
Sweet Lord. He’s got a British accent. There’s nothing sexier in the entire world, which makes that old tired pick-up line forgivable. I smile up at him, my heart racing.
“No.”
He doesn’t move. “Can I take it, then? I’ll share my breakfast with you.”
He slightly gestures with his gooey, pecan-crusted roll.
“Sure,” I answer casually, expertly hiding the fact that my heart is racing fast enough to explode. “But I’ll pass on the breakfast. I’m allergic to nuts.”
“More for me, then,” he grins, as he slides into the booth across from me, ever so casually, as though he sits with strange girls in hospitals all of the time. I can’t help but notice that his eyes are so dark they’re almost black.
“Come here often?” he quips, as he sprawls out in the booth. I have to chuckle, because now he’s just going down the list of cliché lines, and they all sound amazing coming from his British lips.