Can't Hold Back (13 page)

I want—

That was what he’d wanted. Just that. Those words in her mouth.

He reached for the condom he’d set on the side of the tub. Pushed her hands away—not gently. She made a noise of protest, but he kissed her, turned her around. From behind her waist was barely wider than a single hand span, while her hips were twice that, her ass the same creamy white as her belly and breasts. He pushed her to the wall, spread her open, entered her, filled her, thrust, thrust again—

“Yeah. Just like that.”

Her voice, against the tile, the words a gasp of pleasure as he reached around and cupped her and she ground against his hand, ground down on his cock, her hands sliding down the tile where she couldn’t get purchase, until they both had to lean their hot faces and bodies against the cold tile, panting, the water still running, the sound mingling in symphony with their jagged breath.

She could feel herself slowing down as she approached the office, her dread manifesting itself.

She knew this was the right thing to do. She and Nate had talked about it.

Her body felt loose and free. Her mind felt—empty. And even though he’d made her come
six times,
every time she let her mind wander back, she felt cavernous with longing for more.

She could lie to herself, but she’d know. What had happened between her and Nate was going to happen until something stopped them—the most likely thing being getting caught. And she didn’t want Jake to hear about it from someone else.

Sometime last night, sometime between the first time she came and the sixth, she’d realized that she didn’t care anymore about the job. Or, correction: She still cared, but she recognized that it had been sacrificed on the altar of her attraction to Nate. And she was okay with that.

But she wasn’t okay with losing Jake’s friendship, so this was what had to be done.

In the meantime, Nate had gone down to southern Oregon for a couple days to gear up for the upcoming weekend with Braden, now only a couple weeks off. They were going to inventory all their combined camping equipment and go shopping for anything else they needed.

I’ll be back late Wednesday,
he’d said
.

She wondered if he’d been thinking what she was doing. About whether they’d be able to steal more time together or whether it was already over.

Neither of them had asked the question aloud.

“Is Jake in?”

Sibby looked up from the computer.

“No, hon. Didn’t you get his message?”

She shook her head.

“He said he left you a couple voicemails. His mom was in a car accident last night.”

Alia’s heart contracted, and her face must have blanched, because Sibby said, “She’s okay. She’s okay. But he won’t be in for a couple days.”

“Do you think—can I call him? Or should I not bother him?”

“Why don’t you see what his messages say?”

“Can we get her some flowers? Or a basket? Something?”

“On it,” said Sibby with a smile.

“Can I—” She reached into her purse, snagged two twenties, and handed them to Sibby. Things were hard for Sibby, Alia knew—one son, a bit of a deadbeat, still living at home, and this income hardly enough for one, let alone two.

“No, hon.” Sibby tried to hand them back.

“Please. If you get other donations and it’s too much, you can give me some back.”

Sibby hesitated again, but then her face softened into gratitude and she slipped the money into her pocket. “Thank you, hon.”

“Let me know. If there’s anything I can do. If you want me to place the order—”

“I got it, love.”

Her phone began buzzing persistently. A call.

She pulled it out. It was Jake.

“Oh, Jake.”

“Hi, Li.” His voice was strained.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t call back—Sibby told me—I didn’t get the messages—”

They’d probably gotten tangled up in all the texting, flown right by her attention during a moment of bunched-up phone buzzing. Her guilt spiked.

“No worries. I just wanted to make sure you knew I hadn’t abandoned you. They think she’s going to be fine, but she has whiplash and a fractured rib and they’re still keeping a close eye for internal injuries and concussion. She can’t remember much, and she’s really shaken up. I need to stay. I’m going to stay a couple days, probably. Can you hold down the fort?”

“Of course.”

“Have Sibby transfer whichever of my appointments to you she can. Have her postpone the others for a few days. I’m hoping to be away less than a week.”

“Don’t worry about anything. Just take care of your mom. And take care of yourself.”

“You’re my hero.”

Oh, but I’m
so
not,
she thought. “Jake?”

She was torn. Not wanting to make his life more complicated, not wanting to be selfish, but also not wanting to use his mom’s situation as an excuse for dishonesty.

“Wait, hang on—”

Someone was talking to him, a doctor or a nurse, and held the phone a polite distance from her own ear so it didn’t feel like she was eavesdropping on him, and—God, he didn’t need her little piece of drama right now.
His mom.

He came back to the phone. “What were you going to say?”

“I—”
I can’t tell him right now. The last thing he needs is to be worrying about that while he’s trying to help his mom.

“And don’t worry about Nate,” Jake said. “He’s not on my schedule, but if he needs something in a pinch, text me and I’ll come back—I’m only forty-five minutes away.”

“He’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Don’t give us another thought.”

“I’m so grateful you’re there.”

She felt another sharp pang of guilt. And loss. Because he would have been such a good boss. It would have been such a good job.

She hung up the phone and sat on the steps outside the office. Until she realized her dominant feeling was no longer guilt, but relief. As much as she hadn’t told Jake the truth for his own sake, she hadn’t told him for
her
sake. Because his absence offered her a few more days, a few more days before the moment of reckoning.

A few more days with Nate.

She wanted them, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

Alia:
Jake’s not here. His mom was in a car accident; he’ll be out a few days.

Nate:
Oh, no! She okay?

Alia:
I think she’s fine, just shaken up.

Nate:
Glad to hear it. Geez. Makes you think, right?

Alia:
I know.

She set the phone down and logged in to the patient-records app. Griff was up next. He’d seemed to make a cosmic leap forward in progress since Nate’s arrival, further convincing her that one of the foremost healing properties of this place was the way it let veterans be around other guys who’d seen the worst and lived to tell.

Nate:
So you didn’t tell him about us?

She liked it. That
us.
Too much.

Alia:
No.

Nate:
Does that mean—a little bonus time?

Bonus time, huh?
Like the overtime in a video game when you were pretty much already dead. And even though she knew he’d used those words without thinking, hadn’t meant to turn what had passed between them into a transaction, to be enjoyed, prolonged, but ultimately finished, her stomach hurt anyway.

Nate:
Can I see you when I get back Wednesday night?

Oh, foolish, hopeful heart.
He just wants to get laid again.

But what if he doesn’t want just that? What if he’s open to the possibility of more?

She hated how it felt like birds taking off in her chest, thinking about it.

She had missed so many opportunities last night to ask him. If the sex had changed things for him, too, if there could be more for them than “bonus time.” And she’d missed the biggest chance of all this morning, when he had stood inside her closed door and kissed her, so tenderly and lingeringly, goodbye. He’d withdrawn his hands from hers with as much reluctance as she’d felt, and he’d looked back at her once before he’d closed the door, and been gone.

She was afraid if she brought the questions out into the open, he’d point out the obvious. That it was one night. That it was too soon, too fast, to draw conclusions or change plans.

It wasn’t just that night,
she argued with him, silently.
I’ve known since way back.

She known. But he hadn’t. He’d been in love with a person who looked like Becca and wrote like Alia, and—well, that wasn’t her.

Nate:
Can’t stop thinking about it. The look on your face when you come.

Oh, God.

Alia:
I can’t, either.

She needed to sort this all out. To make some sense out of it. And then maybe once she did that, she would know how to talk to him. What to ask him for.

As if the depth of Alia’s confusion had conjured her, Becca’s photo flashed across Alia’s screen and the phone began to ring.

She thought about not answering it, because her thoughts were such a jumble. Because if there was a person on earth to whom she might suddenly blurt out the mess of her thoughts and feelings, it was Becca—and Alia wasn’t ready for that.

But she had never not taken a call of Becca’s when it had come in, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Alia:
Phone call. More in a bit.

“Hey, big sister.” Becca’s voice was a balm.

“Hey, little sister.”

“I’m so glad you’re there.” Becca’s voice caught. Tears.

Everything shifted suddenly, the way it always did when her baby sister was in trouble. “Are you okay?”

“No. No.” Another catch, this one almost a sob. “I make a mess of everything.”

“No! You don’t. Hon, absolutely not.”

It felt good to comfort her sister. The one time things had been reversed, on that terrible night when Alia had sent Nate the instant messages, it had felt all wrong. She’d hated that night, the way she’d broken down, the tears and sobs, Becca patting her head and offering awkward comfort. It had made her understand why parents don’t cry, the wrongness of having your child offer you solace. It felt like weakness and, worse, she knew she didn’t deserve the sympathy, didn’t deserve the generosity of Becca’s total forgiveness. Becca kept saying all the right things,
You knew I wasn’t into him anymore. I knew you liked him.
It was bound to happen, the way you felt, keeping that inside all that time, all those letters that weren’t for you.
And
It’s going to be okay, I promise.
And
Please stop beating yourself up.

That, of course, had been beyond impossible.

Becca’s sob recalled her to the present.

“Oh, hon. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I—I freaked out is what happened. And now it’s been three days, nothing. That can’t be a good sign, can it?”

“It was the third date?”

“Fourth.”

“Can you give me any details? Not the gory ones—” Alia amended quickly.

She’d pulled a shaky laugh from Becca, and she felt the relief that accompanied having a concrete problem to solve. A sister to soothe, someone to heal, something easier to fix than her own romantic difficulties. All her irritation with her sister vanished, and she perched on the table so she could concentrate on her sister’s story.

“He’s like—he’s this great guy. Supersmart, started his own computer company, now he’s like a bajillionaire with a staff and going to get bought out by Google or Amazon or whoever any minute. But totally down-to-earth. So nice. And so romantic with me—all the wining and dining, and telling me he really liked me, making me believe it, and telling me he was starting to care for me.”

“And then?”

“And then—we went back to his place, and oh, God, it was amazing—this guy can seriously—never mind, you said no gory details, but you know—and then I’m—we’re on the couch, after, and it’s getting late, the heat shut off, and he gets up to go get a blanket for us and I start wandering around, looking at his books, and I totally freak out. Looking at book after book after book I’ve never read and I’ll probably never read, and he comes back and I freeze up. Totally freeze. So I ran away.”

“Because of his books?”

“Because—because he said—being able to talk to someone smart and thoughtful and educated is really important to him—”

Becca’s voice broke, a sob for real this time.

“He said that when? Last night? When?”

“As we were walking back to his place.”

“Before he asked you up? Before he kissed you? Before whatever?”

“Yes.”

“So he meant
you,
Becca. He was telling you he thought you
were
smart and thoughtful and educated. Easy to talk to. Because you
are.
”

Someday she’d say it and Becca would believe her. She knew it. But in the meantime she’d tell her as many times as she needed to hear it.

“And since then—nothing.” Becca’s voice was a whisper.

“You’ve left messages, texts, all that?”

“Yes. But—I ran out on him without an explanation. He has a right to be angry.”

“Yeah, that’s not the perfect scenario, sure, but you can still talk about it. What did you say in your messages and texts? Did you apologize? Did you tell him
why
?”

“I—I apologized, but I didn’t tell him why.”

“You need to tell him why. You need to talk about it.”

Becca was silent. She’d never liked to talk about it. Not about her learning disabilities or the self-esteem issues they’d caused.

“If he’s a good guy, you can make yourself vulnerable to him. That’s really the only way things are going to work out anyway, right? He needs to know who you are, what you’re afraid of, and what you want.”

Ah, she was
such
a hypocrite.

It was time. Time for her to tell Nate how she felt, and then they could have The Talk. And she’d see. If maybe there was more wiggle room than she’d thought.

She felt like laughing out loud. And bursting into tears.

Griff poked his head into Alia’s office. “You ready for me?”

She nodded, got up from the table, and indicated that he should lie down. “Hey—my patient just walked in.”

“I’ll let you go. But do you really think it’ll work? Telling him?”

Did she? She wasn’t sure. She wanted to spout all the right words—
Honesty is the best policy
and
To thine own self
and all that—but did she believe them? Did she believe that all it would take to heal a rift was a bridge of words?

“I think it’s worth a try, baby. And let me know how it goes, okay?”

Her sister drew a deep breath. “Okay. Love you. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

It wasn’t until Alia hung up the phone that she realized she’d never told Becca any of her own story.

Her phone buzzed again.

“Do you mind if I tie up this one loose end?” she asked Griff.

“Take your time.” He had his hands behind his head and his legs crossed, the picture of relaxation, even though she knew inside he was as knotted up as any of them.