“You all right?”
I looked up and Orion was on the top step next to the seawall, his stupid painted face, and pretty hair blowing all over his head. His stupid toned arms. At least there was one positive thing about the pain I was feeling—I didn’t want to see Orion right now. I didn’t want to see anyone. “I’m fine,” I said, and turned away, wiping the last bit of moisture from beneath my eyes. “Jasper all right?”
“He’s in bed, asleep.” Orion came down the steps and sat directly beside me. “You get a bad phone call?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Look the opposite of fine.”
“It was my son on the phone, and I miss him, that’s all. It’s fine.” I looked straight ahead. “Thanks. For coming by when I called. For helping with my dad.”
“We should talk about the situation with him.”
“I know.” A quiver ran through my stomach, leftover from my brief weeping episode. “I know we need to. I’m just…” Another shudder, and I doubled over holding my face in my hands, taking deep breaths. “I can’t talk about this right now. There’s a lot of shit going on in my life and I…just not right now, okay? I’ll call you later.”
I heard Orion shift, and suddenly he was crouched before me, a hand on each of my knees. I opened my eyes. “What’s going on with your son?” he asked. “He coming to visit?”
“I…I don’t think so, no.”
“You tell them they can bring a friend?”
I nodded.
“They’re not coming at all, are they?”
I shook my head.
Orion sighed. “I’m sorry, Kurt.”
My head fell forward, and I stared at my hands. “You were right, what you said in your reading. I am losing everyone.”
“You ain’t losing them,” Orion said. “That could never happen.”
“They’re going off to college in the fall. Which is basically the start of their adulthood. This is it, the end of them being my kids.”
“No, that ain’t true.” Orion’s fingers brushed through my hair. “Hey, come on, that’s shit talk. They’re always gonna be your kids.”
I shook my head. “But it’s the last summer before college, the last summer they…that they’re at home being kids and I’m missing it.” My breath hitched. “I’m missing all of it. And it’s not fair, but there’s not a damn fucking thing I can do about it.”
“Hey, look at me.”
I lifted my head.
Orion squeezed my thighs and smiled. “Why don’t we go for a ride?”
I wiped my nose. “Why? And stop smiling at me with that big red clown mouth, it’s creepy.”
“I’ll wash the makeup off first, but then let’s go for a ride. I wanna show you something. After that, we can have a drink and talk about what to do with Jasper.”
“What do you want to show me?”
His hands slid higher and despite my sadness, a little shiver ran through me when he squeezed my thighs. “Trust me. It will cheer you up. Validate your cold, skeptic heart and make you happy, because you like being right about things.”
A laugh escaped me, and Orion’s smile widened. “All right. If there’s going to be alcohol at the end of this venture.”
“I promise. Come on.” He stood, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet. “We can take my car. I’ll bring you back later. Just let me run inside and wash my face.”
When Orion didn’t let go of my hand right away, I didn’t protest, just let him lead me up the stairs and along the side of the house. He let go before reaching the door, and I waited on the stoop while he went inside. I rubbed my hands together, my right one still tingling where Orion held it. I was still sad, but his gesture, however odd, had warmed me inside, and I already felt better. But hell, anything was better than where I was a few minutes ago, crying the first tears I’d shed since my mother died—and those had been the first tears I’d shed probably in over a decade.
The tears of a clown, when there’s no one around. I forced Smokey Robinson out of my head by humming a Red Hot Chili Peppers tune, and then stood when Orion came back outside. “You ready?” he asked.
I smiled, unable to help myself, because with the makeup washed off, I was reminded how much I liked his face. “I guess. You gonna tell me where we’re going?”
“You’ll see. Come on, get in the car.”
I got in his Mustang, and soon we were off, heading down toward the boardwalk. I glanced at Orion as he drove. “You ever put the top down on this thing?”
He ran his fingers through his disheveled locks. “And mess up my perfectly coiffed hair?”
I chuckled. “You do have nice hair.”
I felt Orion look over at me, but I stared straight ahead, realizing I hadn’t meant to make that comment out loud. Sure, I’d thought about Orion’s hair, the silkiness of it, wondering how it might feel if I ran my fingers through it. Admiring the way it framed his perfect bone structure. But those thoughts were supposed to stay on the inside. I was clearly in a compromised, weakened state after my call with Matthew.
“You like my hair?”
I had little choice but to own my comment. “Sure,” I said. “It suits you.”
“Wow.”
I looked over at Orion. A smirk creased his cheek as he drove. “What wow?”
“That’s just the first thing you’ve said directly about me. Other than scolding me for being in your father’s life or scoffing at my psychic abilities. I just realized, you haven’t asked me a single question about myself or made one comment about me that’s even close to personal.”
“So?”
“So, I strongly sense you’re going out of your way not to. I can feel that you hold back things you think about me. Things you want to know.”
That was true, but I balked anyway. “Wrong. I don’t think about you.”
“Aren’t you curious at least about how I know your father?”
“Oh.” I nodded. “That.”
“Yeah. That. You’re not curious or you just don’t care?”
“Of course I’m curious,” I said. “I’ve speculated, but Jasper told me it was connected to his old job, and I was raised knowing that was private. Sacred almost, because it involved other people’s privacy.”
Orion was silent for a time. I looked out the window, letting the warm air flow through my fingers as we drove alongside the boardwalk, then turned right, heading along the curve of the shoreline toward the end of town that bordered the three hillocks.
“I appreciate that,” Orion said finally. “But if you want to ask me about it sometime, I don’t mind. The past isn’t a threat to me anymore. Jaz and I are real world friends now.”
I looked over at him and he glanced at me. “Okay,” I said.
“That surprise you?”
“That you and my dad are friends? No, I can see that, I have eyes.”
“No, I mean does it surprise you I’ll let you ask me anything.”