My Heart for Yours (5 page)

Missy’s greeting someone else who’s just come through the door.

“
You saved me from Missy’s bosoms, I should thank you.” And Tobin actually has to hold in a smile, but his eyes are still hollowed out.

I don’t know if the overwhelming sadness is because of me, or because of Eamon, but I hate seeing him this way.

My phone buzzes in what has to be the millionth text today. I pull it out as we sit. I start to type a response that’ll be vague enough to keep Mercedes off my back, but realize that I’m sitting across from a guy who just lost his brother. I’ll call Mercedes later. I’m here for a funeral. I’m sure that’ll push at least some of her holier than thou attitude away.

“
Sorry,” I say as I turn off my phone and set it in my purse.

When was the last time I did that? Just turned it off? It feels good. Better than good.

I rub my hands down the fabric of my dress, and wonder again how I thought it wouldn’t be too much. And my heels. Probably part of me forgot, and part of me wanted to show up back here and be looked at. Part of me wanted to look beautiful for Tobin. Like he’d care about something like that right now. Now I just feel a bit stupid, selfish, and petty.

Tobin doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. He’s in another world right now. One I really shouldn’t want to be a part of, but that I feel like he needs rescuing from. I don’t know what I expected would happen when I saw Tobin again. Nerves hit me as soon as I left D.C., but I was more worried we’d yell at each other. I didn’t expect this…confusion.

Five

Tobin

I weigh the salt and pepper shakers in each hand nervously. Girls never made me and Eamon nervous. Making girls sweat was our job. Delia was a completely different story. I don’t know what the point of me asking her here was. We don’t have anything left to say. There’s nothing left between us but a bunch of scars. Whatever used to be is long over.
Buried. Like my brother will soon be.

“
Just coffee,” I say to Missy. She can’t stop staring at Delia and me—grinning like a giddy fool.

“
Same.” Delia smiles politely. Polished. Perfect.

“
So…” I let my voice trail off, unable to come up with anything to complete the sentence. Missy sets the two stained coffee mugs down and pauses again to smile before leaving us to our awkwardness.

“
Look, I’m sorry I showed up without calling,” she says.

I toss two packets of sugar toward her, because I know things like that—how many sugars Delia Gentry takes in her coffee. Useless information.

“
I was afraid if I did, you’d tell me not to come,” she says.

I exhale loudly.

“
So why
are
you here? I thought you were never coming back to this hell-hole.”

Her head jerks against the back of the booth in surprise.

“
Geez, Tobin. I loved Eamon, too.” She blinks several times like she does when she is trying to keep the tears from forming and her cheeks redden. She goes back to blowing on the steaming liquid, looking wounded.

“
You’re right. I’m sorry,” I say.

We sit in silence for too long for it to be comfortable. It was stupid to ask her to come with me. Eamon would definitely kick my ass for sitting here right now. I stir my coffee, though it’s black and has nothing to mix in, and Delia folds her napkin into pyramids and fans and whatever other fancy shapes she can come up with.

“
Is that your best party trick out there in the big city?” I ask with an attempt at a coy smile. Something has to change this awkward mood between us.

“
Hardly!” She laughs. “You know my best trick was always…Never mind,” she says. The rosy color returns to her cheeks, she has to be thinking what I am—of those nights out at the cabin, just the two of us.
Yeah, I know.

“
Do you remember the first time I met you and Eamon?” Delia asks. She’s trying to change the subject.

“
He made such a fool out of himself that day, huh?”

She laughs. “True story. Complete and total ass.” I love when she accidentally lets her southern twang slip into the conversation. When she isn’t trying so hard to be nothing more than a perfect senator’s daughter.

I sit back in the booth, a little more comfortable now, and allow myself to really look at her. I search her face for the girl at the boat launch that Eamon and I met that summer afternoon. It feels like a lifetime ago.

***

“
You’d better slow down,” I told Eamon. He looked over his shoulder, grinning like an idiot as the waves lapped up over his jet ski.

“
Stop being such a pussy and keep up,” he yelled back.

It wasn’t that I was afraid, but we’d been drinking and Eamon was sure as shit not paying attention well enough to be going that fast.

I spotted them on the dock at what must have been the same moment that Eamon did, because he took off even faster, pushing the jet ski to its limits. I kept up the best that I could. I was the one with the ice chest full of beer that was tied to the back of jet ski, bobbing behind me. Two girls. Two fucking
gorgeous
girls. Say what you will about the South, but I think we have the market cornered on beautiful women.

Eamon continued full speed toward them. I watched the looks on their faces change. They must’ve been wondering if he was going to stop. He would. This was typical Eamon. He was most likely just going to wait until the very last second. When I got in close enough to see that one of the girls was Delia, I slowed almost to a stop. Watching her. Her eyes wide with what should have been terror at the sight of Eamon barreling toward her and her friend on the dock. Instead, there was a hint of something behind them. Something that looked like it was begging for excitement. Daring him to keep coming. And he did.

He tried to veer away at the last second, but misjudged how close he was to the dock. The jet ski hit the edge of the wooden platform at a such a high speed that Eamon went airborne before landing on the wooden planks. When I got to him, I saw that his leg was full of splinters and cuts.

The son of a bitch just laughed, even though Delia’s friend was screaming that Eamon had broken her dock.

Even with the feisty look in her eyes, I expected Delia to freak from the blood. Instead, she kneeled beside him and pulled off the tissue paper thin tank top she wore over her bikini top. She used the shirt to dab the blood that was slowly dripping from his cuts.

“
Am I going to live?” he joked.

“
You’re lucky I’m not going to have to pull splinters out of your ass. What the hell was that stunt?” Delia asked him.

“
I’m so sorry. We’ll fix the dock,” I said before Eamon could answer, though I wanted to laugh at her serious tone with Eamon. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. The sun kissed shoulders dotted with tiny freckles. Her eyes were a shade of gray I’d never seen before.

And Jesus Christ that tiny top that left just enough to the imagination and had me wanting to take her right there, that instant. I had seen girls wearing much less, but
this girl
was something else.

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” Her friend started to protest but the narrowing of Delia’s eyes told her to let it go.

“
Are you going to be okay to walk? My car isn’t far,” Delia said. “We really need to get this cleaned up. You should get it checked out at the hospital.”

“
Bull shit,” Eamon said. “I’m going to pass on the hospital, but why don’t you lovely ladies let us take you out for a drink?”

“
I don’t think so,” Delia’s friend said. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest in annoyance, which only meant Eamon was going to push even harder to get her to go out with us. The bigger the challenge, the more he’d want her.

Delia and I had locked eyes minutes ago and she hadn’t released me yet.

“
Yeah, we’d better not,” she finally said.

I felt myself deflate. I didn’t know what else to say, so I decided I’d better just help Eamon up and get us out of there. When I reached down to offer him my hand, she was so close that I could feel the heat radiating off of her sun drenched skin. I would’ve given my left arm to touch her right then.

“
Look, we’ll get this fixed up tomorrow,” I said. She leaned in. I held my breath.

“
Meet me back here after midnight,” she whispered.

DOUBLE EDGE

The way you looked at me

Love

Mistrust

The way you sounded to me

Distant

Caring

The way you held me

Horrible

Wonderful

The way you left me

The way I left you

In one way

It’s the same

I’ll never be Whitman, that’s for dang sure.

Six
Delia

There’s a clatter of voices, and a group of people I know comes in the door of the diner, but already I’m pushing hard to remember names. How does a single year cause near-amnesia? Nelson, Rachel, Kelly…It’s amazing how much they’ve all changed in a year, or maybe that’s me. No asking, no questioning—the booth in front of me and behind me are now filled. Tobin’s gone silent.

I’m still confused. Is it losing his brother that’s making him so stoic? I figured the next time I saw Tobin, he’d chew me a new one. Maybe he doesn’t care enough anymore to even be angry. That thought hurts me in a way that it shouldn’t. Not for a girl in love with someone else.

“
Hey, y’all!” Rachel says. “It’s like prom flashback, right? Cause we’re all dressed up.”

Tobin shifts his weight and looks like he’d love to throw a peppershaker across the room. I want to smack her.

“
Oh.” She touches Tobin’s shoulder from behind him. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I mean…”

Tobin’s face falls. I rub the inside of his calf with my foot under the table, because that’s what I’ve always done when I want to tell him I’m sorry without words.

His head snaps toward me, and my foot drops to the floor as my cheeks heat up. This is so weird. To be close to him, but
not
close to him. To know that he isn’t mine to touch anymore.
All of the history that we have, and yet we sit here almost like strangers. All of the little moments that we’ve shared—the way that he used to smile when I’d kiss that certain spot under his ear, the way he’d trace circles on my bare skin after we’d made love—and I can’t even tap his leg?