In the Land of Tea and Ravens (14 page)

~21~

Tea, especially hot tea, is made to sip, to take slowly. Tea is about stepping back from the world. It’s about lifting a steaming cup to your lips and letting everything else go. There’s no rush. There is simply you, the steam, and the tea in a comfortable world where there are no schedules, no commitments, and no rules.

~The Tea Girl~

Grayson was offering Lyric the use of his camper. Though the RV was nothing special—just a simple, small outdated camper with a couch, a sink, a stove, a tiny shower, a toilet, and a bed—it was much better than sleeping in her cramped Tempo. It was an incredibly generous gesture, but Lyric couldn’t make herself feel glad about it.

She’d watched as Grayson set it up and hooked up a generator. She’d remained silent as she listened to him explain how the water and holding tanks worked, but when he led her into the interior, she finally lost her reserve.

“You really want to do this?” she asked. Placing her red backpack at her feet, she glanced at the worn linoleum floors, the frayed couch, and peeling, striped wallpaper. “You really want to anger your family over a stranger?” Her gaze found his, and she indicated the two of them. “What is this?”

The camper had a musty odor from too much time spent closed up, so Grayson opened several windows just above the couch. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “What is it to you?”

She stared at him, at his broad shoulders and red T-shirt. The garment had once had sleeves but they’d been cut away. Grayson’s hair was ruffled, his jaw shadowed, and the area beneath his eyes were darker than they should be. He’d been losing sleep.

“Do you need someone to understand you that badly?” she whispered.

He glanced at her, surprised.

She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “I’ve been living with what happened to my mother most of my life. I’ve learned to live with the guilt, and I’ve used it to do the best I can to make myself better, to make myself into something she would be proud of. Is that why you don’t want me to leave?
Do you need someone who understands what you are going through that much?”

Grayson swallowed, his muscles bunching as he stuffed his hands into his blue jean pockets. “And you?” he asked. “Are you so unwilling to accept the fact that I want you near because no one’s ever truly tried to understand or protect you? Aren’t you tired of doing it alone?” He stepped toward her. “The stuff that’s worth doing is never easy. It shouldn’t be easy to care about someone. It’s better when there’s a battle.”

Lyric’s brows rose.
“Because it’s fun to fight?”
She laughed. “I’ve never had anyone tell me they enjoy arguing.”

Grayson moved even closer, his expression solemn. “No, because the best part of any battle is when the other side surrenders.”

Lyric froze, her gaze trapped by his. She had to admit he was right. There was a pull between them that couldn’t be denied. It had a lot to do with their shared guilt, but it also had a lot to do with what that guilt had made them. It had turned them into people who wanted to quit fighting the world but couldn’t.

Lyric glanced at her backpack. She’d had the cup with her earlier when she thought she was leaving, but she’d taken it into her grandmother’s decrepit house when she’d returned and hidden it. It was safer there, safer kept hidden away from the world. That cup was her war. She’d have to spend her life fighting to keep it whole and unbroken. Not for herself, but for every female still living in her family.

“Don’t you want to be with someone who recognizes the fight in you?” Grayson asked suddenly.
“Someone who makes quitting okay?
Someone, who when you’re with them, let’s you just be you?”

Lyric reached for her backpack.
“How about a cup of tea?”

Momentary silence was met by abrupt masculine laughter.
“You and your tea.”
He eyed her. “There can be no war if there’s tea, right?”

Lyric smiled up at him. “Tea was meant to take away pain.”

He watched as she unzipped the backpack and removed a wooden box she kept a teapot and two cups in. They were small, the pot just large enough to provide for two tea drinkers, but it had continuously served them well since he’d met her.

“No willow bark,” he muttered.

Lyric threw him a look. “Tired of my family?” she asked.

He chuckled. “I think it’s more likely they’re tired of me. I’m lucky they haven’t attempted to crap on my head.”

Lyric moved to the camper’s small stove. “Oh, they’ve tried. Pride stopped them.”

Moving behind her, Grayson glanced over her shoulder. “Thank God for pride.” There was something about watching Lyric make tea that took all of the tension out of him. It left something else in its stead, a strange sense of contentment that felt like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

Lyric had small hands, the skin smooth. There was a tiny freckle above the ring finger on her right hand, so tiny it wouldn’t be noticeable if Grayson wasn’t staring. There was something about the freckle, something so alone and stubborn, as if it knew it shouldn’t be there on her finger but it didn’t give a damn. Even more disconcerting was that Grayson noticed it, and that he found himself wondering if he was the only person other than her that knew it was there.

Grayson’s hands fell to Lyric’s waist. “What do you do other than sing and make tea?” he asked.

She froze, seemingly reluctant to answer at first, but then, “I like to run. Not the kind you do to get fit or for marathons, but the kind of running where you go as fast and as far as you can, where you push yourself too hard.
The kind where you have to stop because you can’t breathe, but when you look up, you suddenly notice the world.
In that moment, I feel new.”

Grayson’s hands tightened on her waist. “I used to have this tree house when I was a kid. It was more dangerous than anything, something my brothers and I built out of old limbs, wood we dragged away from construction sites, and rusted nails. Climbing it was always a risk, but when you got to the top, you could see across two fields full of rolled hay and a large pond covered, more often than not, in mist. There was magic in surviving the climb. There was even more magic in the view, in the country, the clean air, and the way the sun didn’t just rise but captured the world.”

Despite the distracting feel of Grayson’s hands on her, Lyric carefully measured the tea. “When did you get the tattoo on your arm?” she asked.

Grayson glanced down at his bicep.
“After I got out of prison.”

 
“What does it mean?” She turned the heat up on the water.

He shrugged, and as close as he was, she could feel the movement all the way into her toes. She could have moved away from the stove then, but she didn’t. She liked the feel of his hands on her, as if she were trapped between discussion and surrender, electricity lighting her body.

“I don’t really know what it means,” he admitted. “I’ll be somewhere someday and someone will ask me why I have some really silly word like kite or something on my arm.” He laughed. “But it doesn’t matter. At the time, it wasn’t about the
tattoo,
it was about marking down a certain moment in my life. People don’t always do something because it means something. Sometimes, we just do it for the memory.”

Lyric’s palms clutched the edge of the stove in front of her. Bubbles were beginning to form in the water, steam rising from the pot. Lyric often preferred putting the tea leaves in the pot, but this time she’d placed them in the cups. It was a floral, minty scent that drifted from the leaves.

“What is that?” Grayson asked curiously.

Lyric’s lips twitched.
“Chamomile and spearmint.”
She glanced up at him. “It’s not always about the tea for me. The taste has to be inviting, sure. Sometimes, though, it’s about what it means. About what it can do for
me.
Did you know the Romans once used chamomile to prevent nightmares?”

Grayson stared down at her. “I don’t like to sleep,” he admitted.

Her gaze searched his. His arms were circling her waist now, the movement having pulled her into him. He made her feel small but also large somehow.
As if holding her was keeping him grounded.
It was a heady feeling … powerful. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was helping someone rather than scaring him away.

“The tea will help,” she told him.

Carefully, considering his hold on her, she poured the water into the cups and watched as the color changed. Because of the spearmint, there wasn’t really a need to sweeten the brew, and she set the cups aside to steep.

Grayson could have released her then, but he didn’t. “I want to make love to you,” he admitted.

Lyric grew still, her heart pounding. Her relationship with Grayson was like running; similar to placing her feet against the ground and taking off. It was too fast, the wind pushing at her and begging her to slow down.

Somehow, Grayson understood. His lips were near her ear when he whispered, “Not now,” he promised. “But when I do, I want you to push yourself too hard. I want you to keep pushing until you feel like you can’t breathe, and when you finally let go, I want you to feel new.”

He released her, and she had to fight not to stumble, her heartbeat so loud she could barely hear the cawing ravens beyond the camper. The birds had decidedly good hearing, and they didn’t approve of her relationship with Grayson. She barely understood it herself, but she knew one thing. She liked to run. She liked how it felt to keep moving even when she knew she should stop.

Picking up the cups, she turned to face Grayson, her cheeks flushed.

“Tell me about your brother, the one who passed away,” she said.

Grayson paused, his gaze dropping to the worn floor. “No one asks me about him.”

Lyric held out one of the cups. “Maybe someone should.”

Taking the offered tea, Grayson gripped it in both hands before sitting heavily on the camper’s small couch. Lyric sank down next to him.

Grayson lifted the cup, taking a careful sip before glancing at her. The tea had a strange taste, not unpleasant but unusual, minty, and different. “He smiled the same way some people frown, too often.” He swallowed more tea. “His name was Benjamin. He preferred Ben.” Grayson shifted, his back settling further into the couch, as if just mentioning his brother’s name made him feel heavy. “He was the youngest son, but he wasn’t spoiled. He was happy,
too
happy. I used to hate him for it, you know. I used to hate that smiling came so easy to him.”

Lyric sipped her tea. “No one likes to be around someone cheerful when he doesn’t want to feel cheerful,” she murmured.

One side of Grayson’s lips rose. “I used to tell Ben that. I was only three years older than him and the closest in age. He followed me everywhere. He thought I was so much better than I really was. He was wrong.” Grayson looked up, his eyes shining. “I wasn’t good. I wasn’t good at all, and my being bad is what destroyed him.”

Lyric watched him. “I’ve heard the story. You didn’t ask him to follow you.”

“No,” Grayson said, “but it wasn’t his fault that I was involved with the wrong people. He died because he cared enough to want to be with me. He died because I was stupid.”

Lyric took another sip of her tea before sitting the cup on the floor at her feet. “We’re all stupid at some point. The only way to learn strength is to make mistakes. Your choice came with heavy consequences, but your brother wouldn’t have wanted you to quit living. You said it yourself. He would have wanted you to smile.”

Grayson’s gaze met hers. “And would your mother have wanted you to become a skirt-wearing hermit who abandoned life to a tea cup?”

Lyric’s gaze dropped. “No,” she admitted. “She would have wanted me to run, to live life battling the breeze, but also to enjoy the stop when it came.”