Porcelain Keys (29 page)

“Depends. Which is more uncomfortable? Frostbite? Or putting my foot up my ex-boyfriend’s shirt?”

“Maybe you should ask yourself how uncomfortable it will be to press down the piano pedal when you don’t have any toes.”

I considered this. Maybe he was right.

“Aria. Just give me your foot.” He grabbed my foot and swiveled me toward him on the log. In the same movement, he slipped it under his sweater and pressed it against his skin.

I stifled a gasp. As soon as I got over the shock of having my foot against his abs, I remembered why I was there in the first place. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

He hesitated, opening his mouth as if to answer, then closing it.

“Are you avoiding me?”

“Would I be staying at your dad’s house if I were avoiding you? And anyway, what are
you
doing up here?”

“Looking for you,” I said angrily. “I need to talk to you.”

“Why didn’t you just wait for me to come back?”

“What reason do I have to believe you’d ever come back?”

He grimaced.

“I need some answers,” I said.

He brushed some newly collected snow off his knee
with his bare hand, then looked up at me, his gaze wandering over my face. “You’re right. Which answer would you like first?”

There were so many questions to ask. Where did I begin? “You said you were coming to get me to go to New York. Why didn’t you come?”

His brows drew together. He stayed quiet for a long moment, like he was carefully framing an explanation in his mind.

“Were you angry with me?” I suggested, losing patience.

“What?” He looked at me in astonishment. “Where did you get that crazy idea?”

“From you. Before you left. You said something about how you might have had time to save your parents if I hadn’t pulled you back.”

He let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t believe it. All this time, you’ve been under the impression that I was angry with you? Aria . . .” He pinned me with a hurt look. “You saved my life that night. If I would have gone up those stairs, I would have been crushed or burned to death when the ceiling collapsed.”

“Then why? Why didn’t you come back?”

He set his mouth in a grave line. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s not complicated. Just tell me what happened after you left. Did you get in a fight with Richard? He told me you gave him stitches. Is that true? And where did you go after that? Did you go straight to the Netherlands? And why there? Why didn’t you just come back to Colorado?” The questions poured out, my voice growing angrier and louder as I went on. “And if you didn’t want to be with me, why didn’t you at least let me know? I waited for you until August! Didn’t I at least deserve a phone call?”

He sighed, a dark cloud of remorse settling over his face. “You deserved a lot more than that.”

“Then why—”

“Look, can we slow down the interrogation a little?You’re not even giving me time to answer.”

“Fine. Answer.” I folded my arms across my chest and clenched my jaw, trying to keep more questions from spilling out.

Another strained silence filled the space between us, but this time I waited for him to break it. Finally, with a weary voice, he said, “After I left, I just wasn’t in a place I could call.”

“What does that mean? Were you on a deserted island? The middle of the Sahara? Or do you mean somewhere figuratively? Can you not be so ambiguous?”

He rubbed my foot, as if I needed a reminder of the awkward situation I was in, and he stared at me, his expression turning amused. “You’ve changed. You didn’t used to be so . . . demanding.”

“Would you just answer my question?”

“Which one?”

“Ugh!” I breathed. “What did you mean you weren’t in a place to call?”

He searched my eyes, seemingly weighing something. When he finally spoke, it was not the answer I was hoping for. “Devin seems like a nice guy. Does he make you happy?”

I was so thrown off by his reply that I couldn’t immediately respond.

“I hope so,” he said earnestly. “You of all people deserve to be happy.”

“Devin is amazing,” I admitted. “He’s been so . . . patient with me.”

“Why would he need to be patient with you?” The line between his brows deepened. “You never struck me as the type of person who evoked a need for patience.”

“I wasn’t ready to date for a long time after . . . after everything.”
Or make friends. Or shower.
“He waited for me to be ready. And he loved me when I was at my worst.”

He looked away with an oddly ruffled expression, and when his gaze returned to mine he studied my face as though trying to read my thoughts. “It must be nice to have someone with the same interests as you.”

“How did we get on this topic?” I asked, annoyed at the detour our conversation had taken.

“I just want to know if you’re happy.” His voice was soft, his eyes clinging to mine. “Does he make you happy?”

I had a feeling his explanation would be altered depending on what my answer was, and I didn’t want that to be the case. I didn’t want to involve Devin in this. I just wanted the truth.

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

Surprise flitted across his face. “He doesn’t make you happy?”

“No, I mean, I’m not answering your question. You hijacked my interrogation. You’re the one who owes me answers, remember?”

“You answer first.”

I gave a sigh of frustration. “Yes, okay? I’m happy. Devin makes me feel . . . safe. I know that no matter what, he’ll never leave me or hurt me. In fact, he just asked me to marry him.”

His face slackened in astonishment. “Did you say yes?”

I stared at him, suddenly wishing I hadn’t brought up Devin’s proposal. “It’s your turn to answer.”

“The thing is, I don’t want to ruin your happiness. If I tell you everything, you’ll wish I hadn’t. You’ll be better off without me rehashing every awful thing both of us have been through the last two years.”

“No,” I responded automatically, “I’ll be better off having answers to the questions that have kept me up every night for the last two years.”

“Every night?” He seemed bewildered by this revelation. “Is that why you were in my room last night?”

“What makes you think I was in your room?” My heart dropped at the thought that he’d known I was there last night, watching him.

“Because you left your blanket on my floor.”

I cursed myself privately as I felt my cheeks flush. “Yes, all right? I waited for you to come home last night because I needed answers. But then you were asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you. So, please,” I pleaded, “don’t make me wait for those answers any longer than I already have.”

“All right,” he said after a long pause and a sigh of resignation. “Look, all you really need to know is that after my parents died, I became someone different. Someone you wouldn’t have even recognized. I didn’t want you to see me the way I was.” His face darkened as if tormented by some painful memory. “And I felt like, in the long run, you would be better off without me. And look at you—you’re better off for it. You have someone who is perfect for you, who makes you happy, and you’re living your dreams.” He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m really happy for you, Aria.”

“If you think I’m so much better off without you in my life, then why did you come back? Why now?”

He combed his fingers through his hair, making flakes
of snow fall out. “I came back to do a favor for an old friend. And . . . I didn’t want you wondering for the rest of your life what happened to me.” His face was guarded, like he was hiding something.

“How kind of you,” I said with heavy sarcasm, “to only leave me hanging for two years.” I felt my temper rise, and I withdrew my foot, but not before giving him a healthy jab in the stomach. He didn’t even wince, which angered me more. It seemed he wasn’t affected by anything. I enclosed my bare foot in my gloved hands and leveled a fiery glare at him. “Why didn’t you call me sooner to tell me you weren’t coming back? You have no idea what it’s like to have the person you care about most just drop off the face of the earth.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but in my anger, I cut him off.

“For six months after you left, I couldn’t breathe. For six months, I paced in front of the window, jumped every time the phone rang, rushed to the mailbox when I saw the mail truck. On the rare nights that I slept, I had nightmares of your Bronco mangled up on the side of some deserted road, and of you walking away from me even though I screamed your name until my throat burned!” It all came out with unrestrained severity, and I went on and on. My cutting words, my breaking voice, and my desperate expression unfurled with precision every pain, fear, and anxiety I’d had since the morning he’d driven away.

The longer I went on, the more he appeared to withdraw inside himself and shut down. When he could no longer bear to look in my eyes, he dropped his gaze to the snow-covered ground and listened to me with quiet forbearance.

After a few minutes and a lot of tears, I ran out of steam
and the space between us was still again. He looked up at me with an expression that betrayed just how much my words had wounded him. His eyes were shining, tears clinging to his eyelashes. The color had drained from his face, and his chin quivered for a split second before he set his jaw to make it stop.

I waited for him to say something, but I waited in vain. He wouldn’t be saying anything else to me. I’d ruined whatever opportunity I might have had to get an honest explanation from him. I knew I should apologize, knew I should speak forgiving and encouraging words to get him to open back up, but I couldn’t rein in my anger. It galloped full speed ahead, breaking through every feeble restraint, plowing over every attempt at reason and civility. Blinders of pain kept me from seeing anything but my need for justice and restitution.

A gust of icy wind pushed a flurry of snow through the trees, coating us in frozen white dust. “My foot is warm.” My voice was flat, emotionless. “Let’s get back.” I looked down at my bare foot, then at my frozen boot. Before I could figure out how I was going to walk back down the mountain, Thomas pulled off his blue sweater, leaving only his plaid button-down shirt between him and the elements.

“Let me wrap up your foot so it doesn’t get cold again.” His voice sounded empty. He was on autopilot, like he was somewhere else, hidden away in a dark corner licking the wounds I’d just given him.

I watched as the cold air drew goose bumps from his forearms. “You can’t wear just that in this weather,” I protested.

He brushed off my concern and wrapped my foot in his sweater, tying the sleeves together to secure it. “I’ll be fine.”

I shrugged his coat off my shoulders. “Here. Put your coat back on. Mine is warm enough.”

“No. You keep it on.”

“I’m not putting it back on,” I insisted, dropping it in his lap. When he hesitated, I picked it back up and pushed it toward him. “Just take it!”

With an irrational amount of reluctance, he finally took it. “All right. But keep my hat and gloves on.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, tossing his gloves and hat on the log between us. “You’re not the only one who’s grown thick skin.”

He slid back into his coat and zipped it up, then picked up his hat. But instead of putting it on, he reached over and put it back on my head. “I have a hood,” he said, his face inches from mine. “And unless you want to stop again to warm up your hands, put my gloves on.” He straightened and handed me his gloves. I put them on.

He knelt down with his back to me. “Come on, I’ll carry you down.”

I cringed. “No, you’re not carrying me.”

“Aria,” he said angrily and turned to look at me. “You can’t hike in snow with a sweater for a shoe.”

I ignored him and got up to start walking. On my first step, the sweater-shoe sunk knee-deep into the snow. It was clear I wouldn’t get ten feet before his sweater was caked with snow and my foot was freezing again. I glared up at the snow falling from the sky. I couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t admit he was right.

“Here,” he said, handing my frozen boot to me. “Hold this.” I took it in my gloved hand, and he knelt in front of me again. “Hop on.”

I hesitated, then submitted. I climbed on his back, and
he hooked his arms around my legs and started trekking back down the mountain. Flecks of snow continued to fall steadily from the sky, but he blazed a path close to the stream so we wouldn’t lose our way.

Neither of us talked, and the only sound was the stomping of snow beneath his boots and his heavy breaths as he trudged along. He didn’t pull up his hood, and my face was so close to his that he could probably feel my breath on his neck. Clinging to his solid shoulders, I could feel the strength of his body as he plowed through the snow. His familiarity saturated my senses—his rousing woodsy fragrance, his dark hair brushing against my cheek, even the sound of him breathing. It all made me breathless and weak, and I realized just how powerful my feelings for him still were. But the realization only angered me further. I didn’t want to feel anything for him.

We eventually made it back to the house, and we entered the back door to find Dad sitting at the kitchen table. Thomas set me down.

“You okay?” Dad asked, his face concerned.

I pulled out a chair and sat. “I’m fine. My boot just got wet and I had to take it off, so Thomas carried me back.” I took off Thomas’s gloves and hat and laid them on the table. I untied his sweater from my foot, and as I handed it to him, our eyes locked. His expression was apologetic and hurt.

“Thomas,” Dad said, “I was wondering if you could help me with a project today.” He and Thomas exchanged an odd look, like they were communicating without words.

“Sure,” Thomas said.

Dad took his mug to the sink, then turned to me. “Aria, I’m not sure if we’ll be back in time for dinner, so if we’re not, would you tell Vivian to put ours in the fridge?”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“A few places.” He turned to gather his keys and wallet from the counter. “There’s a project I’ve been meaning to finish up for a long time, but it’s not something I can do alone.” He turned around and looked at Thomas. “You ready?”