He is silent for the rest of the drive home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It’s dark by the time we escape the Parlonis, and Teddy comes with me as I conduct my security rounds.
I go through my checklist, twisting doorknobs, and jolting firmly on the dumpster’s roller door. I pretend he’s not even there, to get in the practice for when he’s gone. We stand against the chain-link fence side by side and as I stare at the lights below, his face is just turned to me.
I finally speak. “You’re messing up all my plans.” My anger has burned out, leaving me cold and sad.
“You’re messing up mine.”
“How?”
“You believe that I can achieve my goal. You are so completely sure that I’m going to leave here on schedule and that I’ll have my own key to the studio.” He says it like I’m wrong.
“Should I be sorry for that?”
“No. It’s just no one ever has before. I can’t quite process this kind of total confidence. It’s because I haven’t disappointed you yet.” He turns his face away into shadow. “And I keep finding myself wondering what would happen if I just gave up. This isn’t so bad at all.”
“Take it from someone who had a dream once and never pursued it. You’ve got to keep going. Keep pushing.” It’s starting to require more and more energy to keep up this façade of platonic-friend cheerleader. “I pick a light down there and I visit it every night. If you have a day where Renata’s humiliated you, or you’re sick of living in poverty, just come up here and visit your light.”
“Which one’s yours?” He stares at the town. “And what are you wishing for?”
“You know what I wish for. That’s why I got so mad at you today. I don’t have that many chances in my life, so every single one counts.”
I walk back down the hill, my big shadow right behind.
“What if I don’t want to succeed,” he says to my back when I’m unlocking my cottage door. “What if I just want to spend it all on a vacation? Or maybe I’ll just mooch around Providence indefinitely.”
I feel a few things. My heart soars with hope, of course. My head quickly shuts it down. “You can’t be too sure that Providence is going to exist indefinitely. I’m getting less confident about it by the day.”
“I’ll just retire here, now.”
“No you won’t.” I open my door and walk inside to drop my thrift store purchases on the couch. For once, he doesn’t follow me inside. “Sometimes it’s really hard being the selfless one,” I grouch to myself.
Outside in the courtyard, the full moon is giving his hair a silver cast. He looks like an erotic nightmare, a black shape that should make me want to run. He’s sitting on a courtyard chair, long legs kicked out in angles. A lap has taken shape, but it would be a challenge to sit on. The thought rattles me and I’m glad of the dark. I go to close my front door when he speaks.
“You think you’re done with me?”
How the hell am I meant to respond? “Ahh …”
“Because I’m not done with you.”
You know that special, husky manipulative voice he’s so good at putting on whenever he needs something from me? It’s in its purest form right now. I lose balance; one of my knees has unlocked. It’s that kind of voice.
“It’s late.”
“I really don’t think we reached our full potential.” His hand slides down his thigh and pats it. “Come here. Get your real kiss.”
Surely he’s a test, sent my way, because how is it possible to resist an offer like that?
He keeps talking. “I want you to do what you did to me in the change room. Just longer and hotter. And kinda … wrap my hair around your hand.” His legs move in a restless way. “I’m gonna put my hand into the pocket of your cardigan real slow.”
“What has come over you?” My feet take me closer.
He glints a smile back at me. “I got a taste of you. And I’m being the brave one. I know you’re just gonna go inside and sweat over me all night.”
“What’s it like being this arrogant?” I make him blink with that. “I have never met anyone in my entire life who was so sure that he was irresistible.”
“Irresistible to you.”
I ignore that. “Was it how you were raised? You’ve got four sisters, right? Were you the spoiled baby, indulged in every way, and when you’re not getting a thousand percent of someone’s attention you feel weird?”
The silence that falls over the courtyard now is absolutely piercing.
“I didn’t meet my sisters until I was eight years old. So, no, I don’t think I’ve got something psychological going on. But I’ll check with my therapist to be sure.” His eyes are sharpening now until I feel the dangerous press of his gaze through my clothes. “I’m just a regular guy who likes kissing you. And I was selflessly offering myself up as someone you could let yourself be reckless and selfish with.”
I try not to be distracted. “I thought you had three full sisters, and Rose was the half sister.”
“They’re all my half sisters,” he explains patiently like I’m a real dummy. “Didn’t find that little nugget of info when you stalked my dad online? They’re all from his first marriage. The one I kind of ruined.”
“I didn’t stalk … Okay, I did. Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I’m getting a real good picture of who you think I am. Spoiled rich Prescott son, lying around waiting to inherit, completely addicted to attention.”
“You won’t let me get close enough to actually understand who you are. You are real good at sidestepping.”
He continues like I didn’t say anything, “I wish you could get a second first impression of me, but I can’t work out how to do it.”
“You thought I was elderly, and I’m scared your first impression was right. That’s why I’m trying so hard to be twenty-five years old. Tell me why you go to see a therapist. Is it because of your family?”
“Yes, of course it is. Nobody wanted me completely as a kid and now I have this fucked-up reflex to make everybody love me. I’ve done it to you, as well,” he adds, unaware of how the words love me drop through me like a stone into water. “I know what I do, and I want to be different with you.”
“The reason you want your tattoo studio so bad is because …” I leave the sentence hanging in the night air. Again, that hand pats his leg. “No, answer me. I know it’s more than just a thing to write on your résumé. You want it by Christmas so you can …”
He can’t tolerate the silence I’ve left. “I want to see the look on Rose’s face when I tell her.”
“Ah.” Most guys work their whole lives to prove something to their father. But Teddy is trying desperately to impress his sister. “Is Rose the one person you could never charm?”
“Pretty much. The other three, Poppy, Lil, and Daisy, they all think I’m a hopeless dope, but they love me. Rose thinks I’m a talentless homeless person. She despises me for what I did to their family.”