Shyness had taken her whole when she turned around with the plate clutched in two hands, her shoulders to her ears as she crossed the floor. Carefully, she slid the plate over to me. “That’s for you. Because your mom didn’t do a good job of taking care of you.”
Emotion clutched me. Heart and soul. I looked down at the food. “You don’t have to feed me, Penny.” The words grated free.
“But what if I want to?”
Warily, I gave her a rigid nod. “Thank you.”
A tiny smile pulled at her mouth. “You’re welcome.” She turned away and headed back for the counter. “Coffee?” she asked from over her shoulder.
Disbelief left me on a shot of low laughter.
“Tell me you don’t drink coffee.”
Her head shook as her body swayed. Her demeanor a thousand pounds lighter. “Of course not, silly, I made it for my mom. Because she takes such good care of me.”
I got it, what she was saying. But in the end, I couldn’t blame my mother for who I had become. For what she’d gotten involved in that had been passed on to me.
It was all on me.
A second later, Penny was back with a steaming cup of coffee, sliding it over beside my plate. She grabbed a container of creamer and some sugar and did the same.
God, this kid.
Mia threaded in her.
Goodness and purity.
“You’re the best, Penny. This is exactly what I came in here looking for this morning.”
Redness flushed her face. “Really?”
“Yep. And you should probably call me Leif. The only person who calls me Mr. Godwin is . . . well . . . no one.”
A timid smile flitted over her face. “Okay, Leif.”
I gave her a nod and took a sip of the coffee. Warning spreading wide. Knowing I was digging myself deeper. Losing sight. Burying myself in something that wasn’t mine to keep.
But I had to think maybe . . . maybe . . . this was another debt that I owed.
Another loss. Another penalty.
But if it gave this child a second’s relief?
Then I would gladly pay the price.
Eighteen
Leif
Bursts of laughter and shouts of voices seeped through the walls. Sunlight crawled in through the edges of the windows and made its way through the cracks.
I was sitting on the floor, hunkered down like I was in some kind of war zone, hoping beyond hope that would be enough to keep me camouflaged, my back leaned against the couch with my acoustic guitar balanced across my lap.
Chicken-scratch notebook open on the floor beside me.
There were nothing but a disorder of words on the page.
Pencil slashed and sliced like knife marks in the thick journal paper.
Nothing quite making sense because there was no sense to be made for the mayhem going down in the depths of me.
Suppressing a scream, I dropped my pencil onto the notebook and roughed both hands through my hair, blowing out a sigh toward the ceiling.
Swore, the family gathering happening right outside was more like pandemonium.
A storm gathering strength in the distance.
I was doing my best to remove myself from the situation and put some distance between me and the disorder.
I stared at the scratches of words.
Incoherent.
Senseless.
And basically the only thing I could hear for the last two weeks.
You came out of nowhere.
A trainwreck.
Paradise.
Moved.
Desolate.
Would give it all up.
If it would keep you from falling apart.
Another shriek of laughter echoed from outside right before there was a huge splash of water as someone cannonballed into the pool, voice shouting, “Watch this!”
Penny.
That one was Penny.
I knew it. Felt the tenor of her voice reverberating through the floors. Could almost see her timid smile splitting her face as the pool swallowed her up, sent her floating, flooded her with joy.
Everyone was out there. The whole family spending their Saturday afternoon out at the pool, loving and living together, the exact way Mia had explained them to be five days ago.
Which was precisely the reason I was hiding out in the guest house this afternoon.
Quietly strumming at my guitar while not so quietly counting down the days until I could get the hell out of here. This sentence had become more than I could bear. More than I could handle.
The awareness I had every time I got in their space.
Swore I could feel hot blades being dragged across my flesh every time Mia sent one of her earth-shattering smiles my way. Every time she tried to act casual and like there wasn’t this burning thing between us.
A fireball.
A lightning storm.
Flashes of light. So bright, they were blinding.
I curled my left hand around the neck of the guitar, tucking it close to me, and I strummed a few chords, lightly humming under my breath. I kept both low enough that no one could hear me.
Lyrics began to flow with the melody I was weaving. Words I couldn’t seem to evict from my mind.
Moved.
Desolate.
Would give it all up.
If it would keep you from coming apart.
Are you falling?
Are you flying?
Tell me baby,
Is it worth dying,
For everything you’ve been living for?
My heart raced harder as the chorus came to life, pulse running wild as the key lifted and rose and dove toward the ground.
Hope and grief.
Belief and despair.
My spirit shuddered.
I had to wonder if you couldn’t have one without the other.
A fierce pounding started up at the door.
Huffing out a breath, I flipped the notebook closed, set my guitar on the couch, and climbed onto my feet.
I scraped the hair back that had fallen in my face, my mind still running somewhere a million miles away, somewhere in the heavens, riding with the stars, and still right there with that girl who was outside.
Exactly where I wasn’t supposed to be.
Warily, I turned the lock and pulled the door open an inch. Just enough to peer into the spray of the late afternoon sunlight that tried to flood into the guest house.
Brendon was there, smirking his little smirk, black eyes patting me down through the tiny crack in the door. Like the barrier between us might as well not be there.
He lifted his chin. “’sup?”
Kid was nothing but preteen swagger, wearing swim trunks low on his hips, outright confidence in his body, all while being about as scrawny and gangly as a stick figure.
I held the chuckle rolling around in my chest. “Not much, man. Just hanging out. Relaxing. What’s up with you?”
“Swimming.”
“I see that.”
He was drenched, hair dripping, kid making a 10-foot deep puddle in front of my door.
Maybe if I was lucky enough, I could drown in it.
“So?” he prodded.
“So what?” I asked, leaning against the doorjamb and peering out.
“Are you comin’ or what?”
“And where is it I’m supposed to be going?”
Huffing, he rolled his eyes like I was dense. “Um . . . outside . . . with the rest of us? Or are you going to be the loser who stays inside all day, afraid of a little sun?”
Wow.
“Loser, huh? Are you actually trying to offend me or is this some kind of messed up guilt trip?”