Talent isn’t trapping me. He’s hugging me.
I’m so emotionally broken, I couldn’t tell the difference.
Turning my face into his neck, I inhale his sweet smell and let my eyes fall closed once again. I’m slow to reciprocate this unfamiliar show of affection, but I start by relaxing into his embrace. Once I feel his heart beating against my own, I rest my hands on his sides and carefully slide them to his lower back.
Then I circle my arms around him and exhale, hugging him back.
Talent cradles my face between his hands and asks, “Are we staying here or going back to my place tonight?”
As much as I wouldn’t mind sleeping between his sheets again, I don’t want to leave Camilla alone in the apartment.
“I need to stay.”
Talent nods, laces his fingers between mine, and guides me toward the bedroom. I sit on the bed while he removes his jacket and toes off his shoes. He untucks his button-up shirt and rolls the sleeves to his forearms. And I still can’t wrap my mind around Grand Haven’s very own Talent Ridge in my bedroom, let alone crawling across my mattress and lying on the side of the bed that’s never touched.
Turning off the lamp, I immediately find ease in the dark and rest my head on my pillow. Two large hands find and pull me over to tuck me snuggly against his side. And once again, I find myself experiencing another first with Talent. There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve shared a bed with a man for the sole purpose of sleep, but I can tell by the way he settles into the mattress and rests his arm over his head while the other is secure around me, that’s what’s happening.
And it’s exactly what I need.
Talent asks, “Do you want to talk about her?”
“I don’t know how to talk about her,” I admit instead of saying no like I normally would.
Clearing his throat, Talent crosses his ankles and sweeps the tips of his fingers up and down my arm. “Start at the beginning. Or at the end. Just start talking.”
“Talent,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
He turns his body toward mine and pushes a lock of hair away from my eyes. “What’s her name?”
“Cricket Anne Montgomery,” I answer, saying her name aloud for the first time in an exceptionally long time. The impact the enunciation of her name has on me is powerful, and I hold on to the sounds of her name like I held on to Talent by the front door.
Talking about her after that is easy. I start at the beginning and spend the next few hours telling Talent every detail I remember about my life with a mother as engrossing, reckless, and devout as mine was. He’s careful not to react too strongly, laughing quietly and smiling in the dark at stories of an irresponsible teenage mother and her loyal, dirty-faced daughter. But he tenses and holds me tightly when I get to the parts of misuse and neglect. He needs to know that I’m the same girl who slept in the back of a Buick while her mom danced in a smoky strip club, and I don’t let anyone too close because the only person I’ve ever loved abandoned me by dying.
“I miss her,” I admit, resting my head on Talent’s chest. “Despite it all, I miss my mom.”
I miss her.
And then I release her.
When I wake up the next morning, Talent’s standing at the end of my bed brushing his teeth with my toothbrush. Last night feels like a dream, but judging by the scratchy feeling in my throat, it was real. And judging by the way Talent smiles around my sudsy toothbrush, he still wants me.
Until he hears the rest of the story.
“I have an extra toothbrush under the sink.” I pull the sheet to my chin.
Talent nods, walking back to the bathroom to rinse his mouth in the sink. “I saw them, but I wanted to use yours.”
“That’s gross.”
He winks in the mirror back at me.
Talent slips his feet back into his shoes and slides his arms through his jacket before straightening his tie. “We have an important meeting with some high-profile clients today at the office, and I can’t get out of it this time. I have to swing by my place to shower and change first, or I’d take you to breakfast.”
“I understand,” I say. It’s sweet that he wants to feed me before he starts his day.
Talent’s eyes darken and his jaw tenses when he asks, “Do you work this afternoon?”
“Not today.”
Clearly reassured, the right side of Talent’s mouth curves into a slight smile and he comes forward to kiss my forehead. “Come downtown for lunch. I’ll send a car to pick you up.”
Stocked with an arsenal of reasons why I shouldn’t step foot in the Ridge & Sons building again, I push them aside and nod hesitantly. Talent stayed up all night and listened to stories about my grueling upbringing, and he’s still here. The least I can do is show up for lunch if it makes him happy. Now that my schedule is clear while Inez sorts out Hush, I don’t have anything else to do with my time.
Although, I’m positive I’d cancel my entire schedule to spend lunch with him even if I were booked.
“Great,” he says. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Talent leaves my room and I pull the sheet completely over my head, wound up with eagerness and bubbling excitement. I’m no better than a pubescent teenager with her first crush, kicking and thrashing for some relief from the flood of endorphins having its way with my nervous system.
No, this isn’t just a crush.
This is everything I’ve never felt before all at once.
“Lydia.” Talent’s voice scares me from my revelry, and I push the sheet back, utterly embarrassed because I don’t know how much of my kicking and squealing he saw and heard. Judging by the smirk on his face, all of it. “Your dog was scratching on the door this morning, so I already took him out.”
My cheeks burn red, and I say, “Thank you.”
Jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, he chuckles and says, “Your neighbor with the basset hound and the good coffee talked my ear off for fifteen minutes about the neighborhood watch program she’s trying to organize. She wanted to know if I’d be staying with you for a while because she thinks I have what it takes to recruit members. I told her you were in for sure, and we’d work on everyone else later.”
“I hate you.” I throw my pillow across the room, but he closes the door before it makes contact with his face.
“No, you don’t,” he says as he steps away from the door and leaves my apartment.
Without my scheduled appointments with clients, my routine’s going to look different for the foreseeable future. This kind of change would normally give me massive amounts of anxiety, because I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. My life hasn’t varied at all in eight years, but like a domino effect, one by one, everything collapsed after I stepped into Talent’s office for the very first time only two months ago.
With my hair tied up and my running shoes double-knotted, I emerge from my room with the intention of running on the treadmill like I do every day. But outside, spring is bouncing into summer and the sun shines high in the sky.
I look down at Dog and ask, “Do you want to go for a run with me?”
Camilla hasn’t come out of her room, but the television is on and the glow from her candles seep from under the door. She’ll come out when she’s ready or before she dies from smoke inhalation from all her candles, and I’ll be here to toughen her up. The more she does it, the easier it’ll get. I’m just not sure I can sit back and watch her lose her spark like I did.