The Fable of Us (29 page)

I hadn’t realized I’d come to a stop until Boone had to shout his last words back at me. I had to shake my head to clear it enough to make sure that when I reapplied pressure to the gas pedal, it didn’t ram all the way to the floorboard. Still, the car jumped forward faster than I’d intended. Boone shot to the side of the road, throwing me a look like I’d been trying to hit him.

“If I wanted to run you over, I would have done it years ago,” I snapped, making sure the car was in park before I threw open the door and burst out. “I can’t believe you’d say that to me. Any of that!” I flailed my arms at him as I stomped toward him.

Boone took a few steps back, not as though he was afraid of me, but more like he wanted to keep his distance.

“Me choosing you back then had nothing to do with wanting to piss off or please my family. It had nothing to do with them at all. And me choosing you this time definitely didn’t have anything to do with that either.”

Boone made a face. “Forgive me if I’m not convinced. I’m a little jaded from the two years we spent dating and how you spent that whole time making sure you were holding my hand when Daddy walked into the room, or we were making out when your mommy got home from her rotary club brunch. You weren’t content unless we were wrapped around each other whenever anyone from your inner circle was close by. I was too young and dumb to see it then, but I see it now. Find someone else to be your puppet. I’ve done my time.”

It was a good thing he’d put so much distance between us, because he’d just earned himself a slap on that other cheek of his. “How dare you, Boone Cavanaugh. How dare you say I was using you when I went through hell that entire time we were together.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it was so hard for you having everyone whisper behind your back about how you just needed to get it out of your system before settling down with some guy like Ford McBride. I’m sure it must have been torture for you to face your parents’ disapproval when it came to your choice in boyfriend, and yet still get that fancy convertible when you turned sixteen and spend two weeks every winter in Vail and four weeks in the Hamptons every summer. I’m sure that was so hard for you, Clara. All I had to deal with for dating outside of my league was having the sheriff pull me over anytime we passed each other on the road, or getting cut from the damn football team every single year because the other guys didn’t want me on it and their daddies had plenty of sway in the community. Then when we did finally break up, I couldn’t find a girl to date me in this county or the next one over. The ones who were supposedly in my league didn’t want me because they took me being with you as intentionally shunning them, and the girls in your supposed league looked at me as used goods.”

When he finished, I stood in front of him, arms crossed and insides fuming, but I stayed quiet. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted to spew right back at him, I needed to figure out what I wanted to argue with first.

“Are you done?” I said, raising my brow.

“You asked me to talk.” He held out his arms. “I’m talking.”

“I asked you to talk about what you were feeling.” I lifted my brow higher. “Not what you’ve imagined up in that depraved head of yours”

“So what do you want to hear? What do you want me to tell you? I remember that game. I’m sure I can settle back into that role easily enough.” He stepped closer, coming within arm’s reach.

I cinched my arms tighter around myself to keep from slapping him, because my God, if he ever deserved it, now was the time. I shook my head furiously. “If you told me what you thought I wanted to hear, that’s on you. Not me. All I ever wanted was to know you, the real you. I knew enough about people plucking at my strings and wanting me to act this way and say that and do this. I never wanted you to feel that way with me.”

“No, you just wanted me to say and do and act how you wanted me to, and say it was who I really was and what I really wanted.”

I marched closer, my eyes narrowing. “You go ahead and keep on believing whatever it is you think you know. That won’t change how I really felt about you and why I wanted to be close to you. Asshole,” I tacked on when he gave a huff of dissent. “And just for your information, when I reached for your hand, it was because I damn well wanted to hold it. And when I lifted up onto my tiptoes to kiss you, it was because I damn well wanted to kiss you. And since I’m on a roll when it comes to setting you straight of all your preconceived—totally erroneous, by the way—notions, when I made you that offer a few nights ago, it had nothing to do with wanting to piss off my family. If that had been my goal, I would have made sure we had a couple of rings settled on our left hands before marching through those front doors.”

Boone made another face, one that implied he didn’t believe a word I’d just said. “Then why don’t you clear up why you did make me that offer? I’m still a little sketchy on that.”

Of all the things I’d just fired at him, I hadn’t expected that would be the part he’d cling to. The one he’d ask for clarification on. It seemed like the most harmless of the list, but I knew better, and from the look on his face, so did he.

“I told you already,” I said, angling myself so I wasn’t square in front of him. “You were the only one in that sorry excuse for a bar I could get through my parents’ front door without them calling the cops.” When Boone cocked a brow, I added, “Or at least the only one who wouldn’t have warranted an immediate call to the psychiatrist in charge of committing new patients that night.” His other brow lifted. I sighed and rubbed my temples. “My options were limited. At least I knew you and guessed I could trust you not to stab me in the middle of the night before running off with my parents’ crystal and silverware.”

He was staring at me. I could feel it, but I wouldn’t let myself meet his stare.

“That’s a pretty speech, Clara, but dress it up all you want. It won’t change the fact it’s a lie.”

“Are you implying that I’m lying?”

“Not implying, more stating a fact, and yeah, I am.”

“Well, you’ve accused me of just about everything else tonight, so why not?” I backed up toward the Chrysler. If this was how he wanted to treat me when all I’d done was try to help him tonight, then fine, he could have his alone time.

“You could have picked anyone to ask to be your date to your sister’s wedding, forget the ten grand. Why did you pick me?” His voice was closer but softer.

The sudden change in tone took me by surprise. “I’d flown into the airport a whole forty minutes before walking into that bar for a drink. I had a whole fifteen minutes to spare before my family was expecting me to arrive. Not only was I limited on applicants for the plus-one job, I was also a little short on time.”

Boone’s boots moved closer, crunching the dirt and gravel. “You said you and your boyfriend back home broke up a few days earlier. That gave you a few days to put together a back-up plan. Why wait until you were minutes away from your parents’ front door? Why would you care about having a plus one so badly anyway? The girl I remember didn’t care what people thought about her.”

I reached for my temples again, but no amount of massaging would make the pulsing dim. It was as if everything I’d kept hidden inside me was trying to break free—their preferred path being through the spots I was rubbing furiously.

“Clara?” Boone’s voice was closer, even softer.

“You know why,” I whispered, sealing my eyes closed. “Stop pretending like you don’t. Stop with the questions. You
know
.”

I heard his breaths behind me, slow and steady. “I know what?”

I went to clamp my mouth closed, but it was too late. “Why we’re here now. Together.”

I didn’t hear his breathing for a while after that. “I need you to give me your explanation for that, because I have my own ideas, but I’d like to hear yours first.”

It was late. I was tired. And life was short.

Those were the reasons why I wound up giving him my answer, despite knowing it should have remained a secret I took with me to the hereafter. “It doesn’t seem to matter how far away I go or how many years go by. I’m starting to accept that there will always be some part of me that is going to hold on to some part of you.” I just barely glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was still there. He was. “And you’re here right now, saying these hurtful things, trying to push me away, because some part of you has held on to some part of me too.”

Boone remained frozen behind me, his breathing silent. The night seemed to circle in tighter around us, relentless. The longer he stayed quiet, the more tempting my desire to leap inside the Chrysler, speed to the airport, return to California a few days early, and never come back to this godforsaken part of the country again became.

Boone had been my source of strength for much of my life. He’d been just as much my weakness. I wasn’t sure what he was more of now, but I also wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait with my words hanging between us before I ran away and, this time, stayed away. For good.

A half a lifetime had passed, and Boone was still silent. I guessed he would stay that way, no matter how long I hovered on this dirt road.

My lungs had felt like withered balloons for years now, but I couldn’t feel them anymore. The part of me that was responsible for keeping the rest of me alive had disappeared. I’d been losing parts of me for a while. Scattered pieces of Clara Abbott were strewn all over this county. I only had one piece left, and I was leaving it on the side of this dusty Charleston road.

I managed to take a step and then another, the second harder than the first. By the time I was taking my third and closing in on the car, my legs felt as if the moon had been tied to one and the sun to the other. Moving seemed impossible, but somehow, I did it.

My arm was reaching out for the door handle, and just when my fingers were about to curl around the kiss of cool metal, something intercepted their path.

Warm fingers tied through mine, his firm palm pressing into mine. Boone’s footsteps crunched closer. Nothing but the sound of the car’s engine, the sounds of the night, and his slow and even breathing filled the air. But he had my hand. He’d reached for me. He hadn’t let me walk away. Instead of his grip loosening, it grew stronger.

“You were right.” His voice echoed into the night, his body so close to mine I felt the warmth of his words on the crest of my shoulder.

I tipped my head back. He was closer than I’d guessed. “Right about what?”

His other hand lifted to my face, his thumb tilting my chin up until I was looking at him. The veil that had been shading his eyes since I’d seen him in the bar was gone. The boy I fell in love with was in those eyes, in the man standing before me now.

His thumb swept up the line of my jaw, his forehead drawn together, before all at once, he seemed to relax. “About everything.”

My heartbeat thrummed in my ears, slow and steady and strong.

“I’m going to kiss you.” He spun me around slowly, his hand on my hand and the other one lowering into the bend of my neck, anchoring himself to me. “And I see you’ve got two options for how you can react to that.”

My eyebrows came together, my chest rising and falling heavily between us. “I do?”

Boone nodded, his eyes glimmering. He slid closer until our chests were just barely touching. I felt the car brushing against my back. “You can slap me across the face like I know you were desperate to do a few minutes ago, get in that car, and drive away. You can leave me in the rearview and the dust, and this is where I’ll stay if that’s what you want.”

I was about to ask what my other option was, because as much as I might have known leaving was what I should have done, it was the very last thing I wanted to do.

Boone pressed closer, cocking a brow and not letting my eyes leave his. “Or . . .”

But he’d said enough. The instinct that resided deep within me broke to the surface, and before I knew it had escaped, I was lifting onto my toes, my fingers curling around the material of his shirt and pulling him to me at the exact moment I was pushing myself closer.

My lips pressed into his, lingering there for only a moment before I lowered back onto the balls of my feet. It had been an innocent kiss, unexpected and fleeting, but it had sent a torrent of emotions cascading through me. One simple kiss. That was the only simple aspect of it.

“Or you can kiss me back,” Boone finished his sentence, looking not quite as surprised as I guessed I did, but surprised enough for me to assume he’d been bracing for a slap just as much as he had for a kiss.

So many things fired to life inside me, places I thought had gone dormant, hidden caverns I’d forgotten about. I felt as if I was coming to life, shedding the shell I’d been traipsing around in the past seven years.

I pressed my body into the car, not trusting myself to listen to reason and behave if I remained so close to Boone. Instead of heeding the fresh distance I’d put between us, Boone moved closer.

His lips were parted, his breath coming in quick pulls, but no other part of him told the tale of a man being rattled. He was as solid as he’d always been. “I do believe I said
I
was going to kiss
you
.”

His smile was more crooked than straight. Our bodies locked like I remembered, two pieces made to fit together. My jagged pieces accepted his. His rough edges smoothed out mine.

“It didn’t seem like
you
were in a hurry to kiss
me
.” I returned his smile.

“It’s been seven years since our last kiss. I stall for two seconds, and its one too long?” His fingers curled into my neck lightly.

“Like you said, I’ve been patient for a long time.” I slid one hand up his chest and let it curve around his shoulder. “I’m done with patient.”

His smile stretched, then his head lowered toward mine. His smile dissolved, replaced by a look I loved even more—the intent one he got whenever he was about to kiss me. The one that made me feel like I was and always would be his beginning, middle, and end.

“Then let’s be done with it together,” he whispered right before his lips brushed across mine.