“We could see the alarm clock in the next room through the crack between the doors. I remember every time we checked. Two twenty-four. Three eighteen. Five thirty-nine. Six twelve. Six fifty-two. Seven o’clock finally came and my sister made me stay upstairs as she got help for my mom. She was unconscious downstairs. Dad was already dead. And I never prayed again.” I take a deep breath and clasp my hands together as though I can press the next words out of my body. “Not even at Ashborne, when …”
Those words float away on the wind. I don’t try to catch them. They’re just gone, not ready to be shared, no matter how much I wish I could give them away.
I shake my head. This isn’t the kind of thing I can talk about with anyone, not even Sloane. It’s like the concrete in our foundation that we know exists, but never acknowledge. Even when I went to therapy, I talked around Ashborne. I was too nervous to tell the truth, too worried about endangering my best friend. It was easier to slip into another disguise, to channel the persona I’d practiced so that other people wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around me. I thought I’d end up lonelier if I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. But it doesn’t really work that way. You still live with your true self on the inside.
“Thank you,” I whisper, unable to look at Lachlan as tears fill my eyes. “For Dr. Campbell. For doing that with me.”
Maybe Lachlan is unsure how I feel about this. I guess it’s hard to know when I don’t look his way. But he takes a risk anyway. My eyes drift closed when he runs a knuckle across my cheek. “He did nothing to stop what happened to you. He deserved what he got.”
I turn just enough so that Lachlan can’t see my face and nod. As my gaze is caught on the horizon, his hand folds around mine, gently prying my palms apart so he can grasp my hand.
“Thank you,” I whisper, not taking my eyes from the city lights.
My lips press into a tight line as the silence stretches on, just the wind and cars far below us, the pulse of music behind glass, the drum of my heart behind bone. And after a long while, Lachlan starts to spin my engagement ring. Back and forth. Back and forth. It’s such a simple motion that he probably doesn’t even think about it, and maybe that’s why my heart creases like thin paper folded one too many times. His steady presence imprints in the lines left behind.
I’m not sure how much time passes. I’m not sure when it is I lean into Lachlan’s side just enough that I feel the warmth of his body through my clothes, or how long it is before he lets go of my hand to rest an arm around my shoulders. But it’s a long time before I say, “We should go home.”
“I’ll take you back.”
My breath catches. “You’re not coming with me?”
“No.” The word is absolute and unwavering, but I think I feel Lachlan’s arm tighten, his hand tense where it wraps around my arm. “I have to go to Leander’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
I turn to Lachlan and place a hand on his chest. Rising on my tiptoes, I kiss his cheek. I can feel the way his heart jumps beneath my palm. “Let’s go,” I say, and I lead the way back inside.
Within twenty minutes, he’s dropped me off. He waits at the curb until I turn on the lights in our apartment and give him a wave out the window. Within another twenty minutes, I receive a text with a photo, one of a gold star sticker on Lachlan’s chest. I grin as a second message comes through.
My first gold star! I feel like I’m getting somewhere.
My smile brightens as I pick up my guitar and open my notebook to a fresh page. When I’m settled in the round chair by the windows, I tap out my reply.
Maybe you are, Batman. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I play a few chords.
And before long, I start a new song.
SPOTLIGHT
Lachlan
“I made this for you.” I pass Lark a matte black box embossed with the Kane Atelier logo, a gold ribbon tied around its edges.
She’s sitting crossed-legged next to Bentley on the couch in our apartment, illuminated by the setting sun. She beams at me as she rattles the box. My nerves and excitement war with every thud of my heart. She’ll love it. Thump. She’ll hate it. Thump. Too much. Thump. Not enough. Thump.
“It’s nothing really. Just good luck for the show, I guess.” I try to bank the heat that courses through my veins. My voice is gritty and raw when I say, “It’s no worries if you don’t like it.”
I shrug like it’s no big deal, but Lark sees right through it. I can tell by the way her grin spreads as she slowly tugs one end of the ribbon to unravel the bow. “And what if I don’t?”
“What if you … what?”
Lark giggles. The ribbon unravels to fall across her lap, but she doesn’t prop open the lid and just stares at me, eyes glittering. “What if I don’t like it?”
Christ Jesus. What if she doesn’t? What if she pulls it from the box and she loathes it? Feckin’ hell, I’ll want to find a hole to crawl inside to die.
“If you don’t, I can just—”
“What if I hate it? Or what if I love it?” Lark says, her voice quiet as she pulls the leather gift from the box.
Lark sets the box on the floor and holds up the leather harness between us. I say nothing as I watch her eyes trail over the details of the black leather and the small gold buckles. My mouth goes dry when she presses it against her chest and looks down to judge the size. Her expression is unreadable as she examines the small details on the straps that are meant to crisscross her chest and frame her breasts. It’s a row of tiny, evenly spaced gold stars. There’s just the faint outline of metallic shimmer on the embossed angles and points, each line carefully laid down with gold foil.
Her lips part as she runs a finger over one of the strips of black leather that will rest beneath her breasts. If she puts it on. If she doesn’t think it’s too much. Maybe it’s too far. Too soon.
“What were you thinking about when you made these?” she asks, pointing to the stars.
Lark still doesn’t look up and her question hangs in the air around us, suspended.
I take a step forward around the coffee table. Another. One more. Then I let my hand drift free of my pocket and I point to a star near her thumb. “I was thinking about the time you told me not to Keanumatize you into forgiveness when I made that one.”
Lark puffs a quiet breath of doubt. I can nearly hear her eyes roll. “Liar.”
“No, really. I remembered it and laughed. It’s why the edge of that star isn’t as uniform as the others.”
Lark’s eyes flick to mine before returning to the strap in her hand. She brings it closer to her face and tilts it in the light to examine the details. When she glances at me again with suspicion and doubt, I pick another one. “I was thinking about the time you sang ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.’ Your voice, it …” I shake my head. “I had to take a minute. My mother loved that song. I’d forgotten how she would sing in our house in Sligo. Hadn’t thought of her in so long.”
Lark is quiet. She runs a thumb over the star I just touched, as though she can divine my thoughts from it.
I clear my throat, point to another. “This one, your face at Sloane and Rowan’s wedding. Didn’t know why you seemed so different when you asked me to dance.”
“Different …?”
“Cold but strong. Not that I knew you, but it felt like you were sharp around the edges that night in a way I hadn’t seen. Didn’t seem to make sense at the time. Now I know why.”
I could leave it at that. Maybe walk away, let her make sense of my words however she wants to without any help from me. And Lark watches me like she expects that’s what I’ll do.
But maybe I see a little bit of wary hope in her eyes that I’ll try. And it terrifies me.
When I first realized I needed to earn her forgiveness, I never thought about how it would change me in the process. I knew I’d have to prove to Lark that I was sorry for judging her. That I’d made mistakes. That I felt horrible for being callous, for making her feel unsafe in my presence or afraid or disrespected. But how do you show someone in a way that’s more than just a handful of empty words? Because I know now that it’s not only about creating a safe place for her, or crushing anyone who threatens her happiness, or looking after her health when I know she can’t. It’s not just a gift I can buy or an action I can take. It’s not relentlessly wearing her down until she just gets in the damn car. I’m starting to realize I need to give something of me. I need to be a little vulnerable. Put myself in a different kind of danger than what I’m used to.
Like now.
It’s the hope in Lark’s eyes that keeps me rooted to the floor, even though every instinct tells me to run.
I let my hand fall back to my side, and that’s the most I’ll let myself pull away. “At the time, I thought it was just because you didn’t like me, but that was only part of it. Now I see it was determination to go through with your plan to help someone you loved, even if it meant giving up your own happiness and tying yourself to me. That’s very brave, Lark. We were in that position in the first place because of me. And knowing you had to muster up that level of courage to save me and my brother even though it was my fault …” I shake my head. Drop my gaze from hers. “I’m ashamed about it all, that I treated you the way I did. But that moment on the dance floor is the worst, just knowing now what must have been going through your head. I think about it every damn day. And every day it just gets worse, because it becomes clearer how wrong I was.”
Lark stares up at me, giving nothing away. It feels like a challenge. A little shove, to see if I’ll retreat. But I’m not going anywhere.
“I want to make this marriage into one you can be proud of, no matter what it looks like or how long it’s meant to last. I don’t want it to be something you regret.”
A heavy tension fills the space between us. The air feels thick with the weight of all the thoughts I’ve let loose into the world. Then Lark’s lips form a smile and the knot in my chest uncoils.
“What about this one?” she whispers as she points to the next star in the row without breaking her gaze from mine.
I run my hand over the back of my neck and give her the faint echo of a rakish grin. “Nah, you don’t want to know what I was thinking about for the rest of them.”
“I don’t?”
“Can’t imagine so, no.” I hold up both hands when she gives me a teasing, skeptical grin. “This piece is pretty close to a corset, so feathers were obviously involved.”
Lark laughs and I think I see her cheeks blush in the dim light. “It’s beautiful, Lachlan. I’m going to wear it tonight.”
“You don’t have to,” I say, trying not to let my chest swell with pride.
“I know I don’t. But I want to. And I got you something too. Wait here.”
Her legs unfold from beneath her and she rises from the couch. She pads to her bedroom, the door closing behind her with a quiet click. I wait in silence, hands shoved in my pockets, my thumb pressed against my wedding ring as I try to remember all the shit that used to come so naturally for me when I wanted a woman. Give her a lopsided smile. Maybe tease her a little bit, but only enough to make her laugh. Be confident, but not cocky—I’m not sure I ever mastered that one. Definitely don’t be an asshat.
But when Lark walks out of the bedroom a few minutes later, all those thoughts of how I’m supposed to act suddenly evaporate.
“You, um … look … uh …”
Fan-feckin’-tastic.Now I have neither confidence nor cockiness. I’ve somehow regressed into some teenage version of myself, and even that guy had more game than me.
And Lark revels in it. Of course.
“That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she says with a shimmering laugh. With a small box clutched in her hand, she gestures down to the gauzy layer of the sheer black dress that flows over the bralette and opaque skirt beneath it. The harness fits tight across her upper body over the layers of fabric, looping over her shoulders and crisscrossing her torso to hug the contours of her breasts. “Imagine if I didn’t have the bottom layer on and it was just the tulle.”
My heart roars in my ears.
“The compliments would be rolling in,” she continues. “Just one long ‘uhhhhhhh.’ That’s some real Irish charm.”
“Duchess,” I growl, and she beams at me like she’s walked right into my brain to shine a light into every hidden corner, even the one where I keep my need for her stored in darkness. Especially that corner. No matter how much shit I pile up around it, she finds that feral desire and feeds it.
I swallow and try my best to stack the blocks of my crumbling walls back into place. “You look great. Really great.”
Lark smirks. “‘Great.’”
“Yep.”
“Cool. Thanks. You also look fine. Just fine.”
I snort.
Lark bites down on her grin. “I must admit, I was expecting maybe stunning, or beautiful. Or, God forbid, feckin’ sexy.”
Chrissakes. Lark is all those things and more. She’s everything. She’s fierce and unique and surprising and so goddamn gorgeous it sometimes feels like my heart is trapped in a vise when I just look at her. There isn’t a single word I can think of that captures what Lark has become to me. And when I try to open my mouth to say any of them, they dissolve on my tongue. So the only thing I can do is tell her the truth. At least, maybe a little bit of it.
I step closer to where she stands next to the couch, her hand resting on Bentley’s enormous head as she strokes his ear. When I stop, I’m just within her reach, but I don’t touch her despite how badly I want to feel the softness of her skin beneath my fingertips.
“You’re always stunning, Lark. Always beautiful. Always feckin’ sexy.” My voice is a husky rasp that coaxes a fleeting blush into her cheeks. “But I don’t want you to feel as though I’m trying to compliment my way into forgiveness. I know it won’t fix us.”
Lark’s smile fades. “What do you think will?”
“Time.”
“How much time?”