Live (The Burnside Series): The Burnside Series (33 page)

He kissed her.

He eased that top lip between hers and rubbed back and forth, keeping his hands on the wall by her shoulders but pressing his body close. She brought her hands around his waist—his shirt
was
soft—and rubbed through it to shape his muscles underneath. It made him breathe over her mouth like he would’ve groaned if they were able to make a sound. Which they couldn’t.

She opened her mouth under his and his tongue touched hers. Their kiss was just soft touches with their mouths, and it made their breathing seem loud.

Being so quiet, trying not to move too much, it made her body get really hot all over, like she was going to break out in a sweat from the tight and aching tension of everything they weren’t doing with their bodies and their mouths and their hands.

When he pushed his hips a little into her stomach, she let her hand press from his waist to his fly. He was so hot, even through the thin denim, so hard, her own hips kicked forward and she squeezed a bit tighter than she meant to, just overcome with her own neediness.

He backed away from their kiss and put his face in her neck, all smooth skin with a bit of bite from the first new whiskers. She rubbed, he bucked, she felt his open mouth on her neck.

The baby let out a ripping fart.

They both jumped, Hefin taking his hands from the wall so fast, he had to step back to keep balance. She put her hands to her hot cheeks, her heart going a million beats a minute, then had to bend over to keep from laughing out loud.

Holding her waist, tears streaming down her face with suppressed laughter, she dared look at Hefin, then wished she hadn’t, because he was literally biting his fist to
keep from losing it.

He reached out with his other hand, and she took it, and they limped past the deceptively sweet-looking Ellen, who had started sending a throat-choking stench into the previously fresh air, into the hallway, where after she shut the door, they let themselves have a few half-voiced laughs.

“Oh my God!” Des whispered

“What do you think they’re feeding the poor lass?”

“She looks all cute and innocent, but that was like something a freaking trucker would do!”

“I’m shocked she didn’t wake herself up.”

“That was totally God telling us not to make out in front of a baby.”

“Oh, I can’t think that’s true. How do you think babies get here?”

“When I asked, my dad told me that he brought them to families in his limousine.”

“Well, then. I won’t disabuse you of the notion.” He bent over and gave her a quick, hard kiss. He was telling her he wasn’t done, not yet. She realized she didn’t want him to be.

They tiptoed back down the stairs and found DeeDee in the kitchen, cleaning up.

“I thought I was going to have to send a search party for you two.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Des.

“Um, I think you might want to check on Ellen. She seems to be having a little gastrointestinal distress.”

DeeDee slapped her dishrag on the counter. “Goddamnit. Mikey probably snuck her bites of pizza at dinner. Cheese gives her the shits something awful.”

Hefin laughed, and Destiny reached over to squeeze his hand. He squeezed back.

“I think we’re going, DeeDee. Thanks.”

“Anytime, Des. You know that. Door’s always open to the Burnsides.”

Destiny gave DeeDee another hug. DeeDee whispered, “I mean it, okay? You’re always welcome to hang out here.”

“I appreciate that.”

DeeDee let her go but held on to her shoulders. Hefin had wandered into the living room and was running his hand over the woodwork. The tail of his shirt had come untucked, and it looked somehow sexy. “Jaysus, Des. He is fucking
hot
. Where’d you
find him?”

“The library.”

“Well, damn. There’s my incentive to haul the kids to story hour.”

“Say hi to Mike for me.”

“Will do. Did Sarah get the peanut brittle we sent?”

“Yeah, thank you. She loves that stuff.”

“Good. Hospital food is the pits. Give her a squeeze for me.”

“Okay, see ya.”

The long neighborhood good-bye properly dispatched, she walked behind Hefin and touched his shoulder. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he said “Very nice to meet you, DeeDee. Have a lovely evening.”

DeeDee grinned and waved and they left. It had gotten completely dark while they were inside.

“Thanks for showing me your old place.”

“Yeah. Quite the memory we made there.”

They laughed again, randomly breaking out in new laughter as they walked from one square of light on the sidewalk to the next. They openly looked into windows, spying everyone’s little evening rituals. Sometimes she would point out someone she knew or some spot with a little story.

Her corner of the world.

Her people.

But the man at her side felt like hers, too.

Her bottom in those trousers had been driving him mad all evening, and as soon as she shut her front door, he grabbed her around the waist and slid his hands down right over that curve, gripping when his fingertips met the tops of her thighs.

“Well, hi there,” she said.

“Is this all right? Should I?”

She stepped right up close to him, thank goodness, and grabbed his arse. “You’re good.”

She got even closer and put her face in his neck, then inhaled, which was enough to top off the erection he’d been working on since he saw her tonight. He gripped her tighter.

“You smell so good,” she said. “You shaved and got a haircut. Did I tell you how nice you look?”

“Yeah,” he said. “When I turned up.”

“You do, look so nice. I wish I’d dressed up.”

“You always look good to me. Also, I was trying to seduce, you. A bit.” He put his face in her neck, all salt and soap and Destiny.

She leaned back and smiled at him, her mica shards looking dark against how soft the color of her irises were tonight. “Yeah?”

“I hadn’t seen you since Sarah was put in the hospital. I know we’ve both been busy thinking. And you’ve been occupied with staying bedside with your sister and working. But when you emailed, I had some hopes.”

She put her head against his chest, and he cupped her head so she’d stay there.

“How is it between us?” She slid her arm right up his shirt to rest against his chest, like she was seeking him out, skin to skin. He understood, so he reached down and unbuttoned it and shrugged it off, pulled her close again. Now he could feel her cheek against his heart, feel her breath on him.

It was better.

“It’s just you have a compass needle pointin’ one way, and mine’s another. But I talked to a friend this last week and I realized something you can think about a little. Or, I’d like you to think about it a little.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just—you’re not me, who I was, when I was where you were.” He winced. That wasn’t quite right.

She looked up. “Maybe we better sit down?”

“Good idea.” But he didn’t want to lose her body against him, so he pulled her into his lap, her back against the arm of her sofa, her feet braced in the cushions. He’d sit like this with her leaning her cheek against his shoulder for a hundred years if he could.

“So you were not me, when you were me?”

“It was Jessica.”

“It was Jessica, who?”

“Who I saw this week.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I asked her to have lunch with me.”

“That’s … Good?”

“Yes. It was good. I had things I needed to talk to her about, and ask, and it turns out we both had things we needed to say. I wanted her to know, too, that I was leaving.”

He pulled her closer. She was quiet but soft in his arms. Listening.

“When I left Wales to follow Jessica here, I don’t think I knew myself very well, or that I didn’t trust who I was, not totally. I had just figured out who I was in Beijing and was so full of that discovery, and it spilled out over that summer in Wales and meeting Jessica. Then I came here and couldn’t locate the part of me who gave in to my best, first thoughts. Who made things happen.”

“Why?”

“I think I was afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Nothing so unique. Failure. Not loving enough.”

“So why does that mean I’m not you?”

“The thing is, I didn’t know what failure really was. I thought it was messin’ up or
making mistakes. What I am starting to realize is that failure isn’t even an option until you have messed up a lot and made a lot of mistakes trying to get really good at the things you care about the most. Messin’ up and making mistakes may lead up to failure, but along the way, you’re really makin’ something. You’re really doing something. And it feels good. Like the time I spent in Beijing. Or how it feels with you.

“And you’re not me because I feel you’ve got that handled. The people who love you aren’t afraid of messin’ up because
you’re
not afraid of messin’ up. You just take everyone right where they’re at. You take yourself right where you’re at. It’s a gift you have, takin’ the important things as serious as you do, and all the other stuff is just proper bollocks, as it should be.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Jessica helped me understand that when everything is taken seriously, you can’t take anything at all. You stall out. I like to climb to the top of buildings, and when I look below, instead of seeing everything as small, realizin’ how small I really am, I look below and I see everything, just the whole world, and can’t imagine how it’s possible to make a single move in it because it’s too big and I’m too likely to mess it up. Better just to stay safe in whatever spot I’ve made for myself. I think I was even able to decide to go back home at all, make any kind of move, because I made a move for the first time in years and went back to carving, and bidding on that project was such a risk. But without knowin’ it, I’d been building up to that risk on projects all along, here in Lakefield. I got an email …”

“From who?”

“A man who worked with my supervisor in Beijing. I’d sent him my portfolio sometime ago. He told me it was good, good enough not only to present some ideas at a conference in Beijing in September, but good enough to rejoin my old team. I knew I’d be returning to a job in the field, but this is even better than I’d hoped.”

“Wow. Hefin, that’s amazing. I’m really happy for you.”

He rested his hand over her soft hair. It was in her voice, her genuine happiness for him.

“I just started thinking about what would happen if I really started going after what I wanted instead of being afraid I didn’t want the right thing.”

“It sounds like you’ve been thinking about a lot.”

“Yeah, and that’s what I mean, too, I think you can take what you want, without being afraid. That’s what I’ve been thinking, too. That asking you for what I want wouldn’t mean you’d take something that you’d regret. You know the difference between mistakes along the way and fear, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you choose fear.”

She took her head away from his chest and looked at him, her eyes big and clear, her face rosy where it had pressed against his chest. “Is that what you really think? That I’m not afraid?”

“I’m not saying you don’t get afraid, Destiny, I’m saying you don’t choose to live your life by its restrictions, by what it prevents you from wanting.”

Her forehead creased into its map of wrinkles, freckles decorating everything. “And what do I want?”

“It’s not that I know for certain, it’s what I’m hoping you want.”

She looked at him, color blooming over her neck until a tear skipped over her cheek.

“To come with me, is what I mean. I’m hoping you want to walk through my neighborhood with me, Destiny. I’m asking you to come with me when I go. Because I know now that if you do, it will be because it’s what you want with your whole heart. I don’t need to worry that you were me, back then. I’m not afraid you’ll grow to resent me, somehow. I’d like to see the world with you and mess up in the regular ways two people mess up.”

Her look never moved away from his face, even as her color got higher and her eyes wetter.

He wasn’t sure what to say next, and felt he’d said a fair bit, already. Maybe he’d cocked that up? Then she reached out and put her hand against his face, her thumb over his lip, and he was just helpless, wasn’t he? Because he turned into her hand, just to revel in her touching him.

“Braf cwrdd â chi,”
she whispered.

“It’s been the best thing to meet you.
Annigonol ydy un iaith
.”

She grinned. “I know that one.”

He laughed. “How, then?”

“
Annigonol ydy un iaith
. ‘One language is never enough.’ I picked it up on YouTube. Plus, it was something you said.”

“It’s something like a proverb.”

“I gathered.” She put her forehead against his. “Hefin, look …”

“You don’t have to tell me anything right now. I just wanted you to know what I wanted.”

She cleared her throat. “But you’re going? I mean, I knew you always were, but …”

“I am. I—need to go. Not because of what happened here but genuine reasons. Mum and Dad need to see me, spend time with me. I need that too. I need to reconnect with some old colleagues who will be more accessible if I can spend some time in London before I head to Beijing in the fall.”

“You do, you know. I’ve known this. You need your
mum
to make tea for you. You need her. And your dad. You really do. I’ve been thinking about things too, about what I missed out on, not knowing my mom, and about how much I wish she was here, now, because I think she would understand things about what I’m going through. I think we might have gotten along really well, actually, and I’ve never thought about that because Sam and my mom were always considered such peas in a pod, but maybe we were all peas in her pod, in our own ways. Or something. I just mean, you have your parents there, and I can’t believe you guys have all been without each other for so long. You need them, and they need you.”

Hefin breathed in carefully, swallowing over and over the choke in his throat.

“I wish she was here for you, too, Destiny.”

“Yeah.” She pulled her head away and looked up. “I never thought it was something I should even bother wishing for. My mom. Now I know that if I had just let myself yearn for her more, the thing is, Hefin? I might have found her.”