Beyond Repair (3 page)

“Oh yeah. I could be a Bernard.”

“And your friends call you Bernie.”

He gave her two gleeful, triumphant fists.

“Yes! Yes, exactly that. I have friends just like you, and
you call me Bernie.”

“So you’re after some weirdoes, then.”

“I was thinking more of the kindness, and the decency.”

Something twanged inside her when he said it—something big
enough that it kind of stopped her breath a bit. Was he actually suggesting
that he didn’t have any kind and decent friends? And more importantly, did he
honestly think
this
was the standard for kind and decent? She’d barely
done anything.

She was still barely doing anything.

“You’re not falling asleep again, are you?”

“I’m absolutely not. I think it would be impossible to,
while trapped inside this medieval torture device. Or as it probably looks to
you—this ‘jacket’.”

“Well, since I’m so kind and decent, I could probably help
you out.”

“Are you also super strong? Because I think I’m welded into
it.”

She couldn’t help giggling. “Has it shrunk?”

“I think it’s shrunk. I took a dip in the ocean before
coming here, and apparently that’s an ill-advised move while wearing leather.”

“Good thing you didn’t go with the same material for your
whole outfit, huh? Your junk would be pretty unimpressed right around now.”

“Did you just say junk?”

She wished she hadn’t now. It had seemed okay before, but
once he flagged it her face flamed red. What had possessed her to say
junk
to Holden Stark? He probably thought she was thinking about his famous penis,
and how she would love him to rub it all over her body or some other weird
thing.

And the worst part was—she kind of did seem to be doing
that.

She had to pretend to be breezy just to get it out of her
head.

“I guess I did.”

“And you also suggested I might actually
choose
to
wear an entire suit of leather. Is that what movie stars are in your head?”

“Well, they’re certainly not like you.”

“And what am I like?”

“Funny. Self-deprecating.” She paused, considering. “Not an
asshole.”

“Hey, there’s still time for me to be an asshole. Get me my
tea, I only like chamomile with gold leaf in it, stop looking at my face—no,
look at my face more!”

“See, all of that just makes you
less
of an asshole.”

“Dammit.”

“I know, it’s a pain.”

“This jacket is a pain.”

She watched him shrug around inside it for a minute or so,
obviously trying to escape and obviously failing. He was starting to sweat
under the effort. She had to help.

“You know, I could cut you out of it, if you wanted. I was
actually going to suggest that earlier, only I thought it might be too weird.
But I see now that you actually
are
weird, so I’m not sure it matters as
much.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. Cutting me out sounds awesome.”

“I’ll get the scissors. And the tea with the gold leaf in
it. While looking and not looking at your face at the same time,” she said as
she stood and walked toward the kitchen. It was a good place to end it on, she
thought. It left her looking cool and light, instead of obsessed with his
penis.

Or at least, it did until he shouted after her.

“I think you’re kind of doing that anyway!” he called out,
and she was suddenly very grateful for the kitchen wall that now stood between
them. Her face had gone all hot again at the thought of him figuring her out so
easily. He knew she wasn’t really interested in everything but him.

He had seen her trying to glance and not glance at the same
time.

But that was okay, that was fine. She could be cool about
it.

“Can you blame me? Your face is what magic would look like,
if it were real. Harry Potter could probably use your jaw to destroy Voldemort.”

“Did you really just say that?” he asked, and it was the
strangest thing. She didn’t have a single solitary urge to say no. She just
wanted to carry on doing this, even though her face was hot and he might get
the wrong idea. It felt like coming to a really tall and impassable wall, only
someone was there with the best kind of ladder.

She suspected that someone was him.

“Yes, I did. Harry Potter does your face with a wand.”

“I think I could be arrested for that.”

“Nah, there was that whole epilogue at the end where he was
an old man married to Ginny. So at worst, you’d be an adulterer.”

“My face can’t be that great if the best you think I can do
is an old wizard.”

“Yeah, when you put it like that it sounds really bad. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry about anything in this conversation. It’s
probably the most amazing one I’ve ever had.”

She thought about telling him how ridiculous that was, but
somehow pulled back at the last moment. If she didn’t say anything he might let
her hold on to it for a little longer. She was a proper person, having a cool
conversation. And she was
doing well at it
. She was climbing up that
ladder with no problems.

Then in a little while, she could take him tea. She had no
idea how to brew tea and didn’t have a kettle, but he never had to know that.
He couldn’t see her filling a pan with water and putting it on the stove. And
he had no idea she was about to use teabags she’d been given years ago in a gift
basket from Atlantic Airlines.

She was sure tea tasted just as good, after so long under
cellophane. Plus, the box was completely sealed. It made a little
pffffing
sound when she broke it open—like the casket of a mummy, she thought—but that
seemed like a good sign. And the teabags turned the boiled water a good brown
color once she’d dipped them in.

That was the color tea was supposed to be, wasn’t it?

“Um…how dark do you like your…” She checked the box,
quickly. “Earl Grey?”

“How
dark
do I like it?”

Uh-oh.

“Yeah.”

“Is Earl Grey supposed to be dark at all?”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Medium then, I guess.”

“Okay, this is medium.”

In truth she had no idea, but when she sipped it none of her
limbs dropped off. She didn’t have the urge to immediately vomit, and he didn’t
seem to either once he’d taken a drink. He did, however, say the following.

“You’ve never made tea in your life before, have you?”

“No, I have not.”

“It’s okay though, because I’ve never drunk it. So in all
honesty this could be poisonous, and I wouldn’t know.”

“I’m hoping it’s not.”

“But there’s a chance it is?”

“I just found some old brown stuff in the fridge and stirred
it around.”

“I thought it tasted meaty.”

“Actually it’d be really cool if it tasted meaty. This is
disappointingly fragrant.”

“Like sipping a flower.”

“Right.”

“With a hint of old man in it.”

“Definitely.”

“So you were going to cut me out of my jacket.”

She’d been clutching the scissors ever since she’d brought
them in from the kitchen, but didn’t register how tightly until now. The metal
had made an imprint across her palm, though not for any reason she could think
of. She wasn’t nervous about doing this. Who’d be nervous about doing this?

“Are you nervous about doing this?”

God, he was really good at knowing things. That was the
second time he’d guessed stuff about her, despite the fact that people so
rarely did. Her first shrink hadn’t realized she didn’t like coffee, until one
day he’d discovered her pouring it into the potted plant. And she was pretty
sure her second one thought her fake name was Anne.

He’d always paused before saying it, then fumbled the last
part.

So how are you feeling today, Arglebargle?

“Maybe just a little, tiny bit.”

“Here. I’ll hold out an arm. Make it easy.”

“I’m sort of afraid I’ll accidentally lop off an ear.”

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere near the ear area.”

“Maybe not, but I could shear off an elbow,” she said,
though she took hold of the cuff anyway. She pulled it taut in a good and
businesslike fashion, then lined up the scissors ready to cut.
No muss no
fuss
, she thought, despite how mussy and fussy it sort of felt. They were
very close together now—much closer than she’d imagined. If he shifted his
other arm just a little, this would practically be an embrace.

And he was really looking at her too.

He was looking at her so hard she couldn’t pretend he
wasn’t. She could feel his eyes stroking over the side of her face before she’d
even started.

“Plus this jacket looks really expensive.”

“That’s why it’s going to be soooo satisfying when you snick
those blades together,” he said, and he was right too. It
was
satisfying.
They made a sound like a too-tight dress splitting up the seams, and she almost
let out a relieved breath to hear it. As though the dress had been on her and
she’d been wearing it far, far too long.

And then she cut again, and again—always feeling the meat of
his arm on one side, always aware that she could cut him if she went too fast
or moved too erratically—and after a while he was actually making that sound
that she’d imagined. “Ohhhh,” he said, when she got to the elbow. “Oh man
that’s so good.”

She understood what he meant. The material was near
unbearable. It felt like the pelt of a dead seal peeling away, soaking wet
inside and too thickly textured. The whole thing slopped against his upper leg
as she eased it off, and forced her to think of weird and unsettling ideas. Would
she find a man underneath this second skin?

Maybe he was something else, inside. Something dark and
twisted, from a fairy tale she only half-remembered.

“What are you thinking of?”

She wished he hadn’t whispered that. His whisper was even
better in person than it was in the movies—sort of husky, with a hint of
sensuousness that didn’t really fit this situation. She was just cutting him
out of a damn coat, for God’s sake.

Why didn’t it seem as if she was just cutting him out of a
coat? She could feel his breath on the side of her face now, as she tried to
negotiate his big, bulky shoulder. And all this heat was coming off him in
long, slow waves, even though he should have been freezing. The outside of the
jacket was freezing.

Maybe he was developing a fever?

“I’m thinking that I’m going to find a weird creature under
here.”

“I promise it’s just me,” he said, but he was lying.

He absolutely had to be. Holden Stark wouldn’t get as close
as he was currently getting. Something else must have been stirring the strands
of hair that curled against her right cheek, because it couldn’t possibly be
him. If it was that meant he was nearly touching her, and not with something
simple like his fingers.

He was doing it with his mouth. That lush, ripe mouth of
his, and he was nearly touching her with it. She could tell he was, without
even turning her head. She could make out the near-sulky curl of his lower lip
and the pout of the top one…could almost
see
them out of the corner of
her eye.

Plus, he was breathing on her, oh God he was breathing on
her.

Did he realize he was?

She doubted he did. He probably exuded such enormous amounts
of raw sex appeal that some of it was always spilling out—even at completely
awful times. In fact, wasn’t
this
the worst possible time in the world?
He’d just been through a terrible, terrible ordeal and yet all she could feel
was the heat rolling off him and the pressure of his big body. Her hands were
starting to shake. Her face felt red-hot.

Any second now, and he was going to notice. She had to get
herself together, but how to do it without revealing several embarrassing
facts? She couldn’t say,
I’m not used to a man being this close to me
—
please
go over there
. And she definitely couldn’t tell him to stop breathing hot,
humid breath on her. It would sound like a complaint, when really it was
anything but. The whole thing was a bit like being inside a tea-scented sauna
with a lot of naked men—which was nice, in one way. It was very nice, in fact.

It was just also very hard to escape.

She swapped sides and started working on his other sleeve,
only to find that this strange pressure had infected everything. It was in his
stare, which looked both amused and oddly defiant, whenever she dared to glance
up at it. And it was in the slow, steady cuts she was making. She couldn’t help
thinking of the word
undressing
now, as she slid the scissors ever
upward.

Even though that was insane.

He still had his t-shirt on, underneath the jacket—as thin
as it was, and as near transparent. She could make out the actual curve of one
pectoral muscle beneath, but she paid no attention to that. She paid attention
to the picture on the front, instead—a smiling octopus, surrounded by a faded
sunset.

“Almost done,” she said, just to break the silence. It had
gotten very thick in the last few minutes, and the longer she let it go on for
the more it seemed to be building into something else. Something coiled and
ready to crush her. If she didn’t do something quick she was going to wind up
smothered, or at least inadvisably excited.

She could already feel it starting to blossom between her
legs, in this terrible tingly way. Every time she moved, this sensation
threatened to get more intense, and that just seemed really bad of her. It was
important to cut it off at the pass, but all she could manage was a jittery,
jagged finish to this arts-and-crafts project, followed by a blurted, “There.
Now you can stand up and leave it behind, like a leathery outline of yourself.”

It didn’t help in the slightest. The moment he stood she
knew she’d misjudged. He emerged from that soaked cocoon like a brand-new man,
all bare arms and broad shoulders. Of course they’d been broad before, when
he’d been inside the jacket. But there was something much rawer and more real
about them now. She could make out things through the thin material—jutting,
rounded things.