Deeper Than Need (33 page)

She smirked at him. “Oh, that’s familiar. You have no idea how much I’ve missed it, baby.”

“Enough.” He put enough of a slap in his voice that her face went red and some of the people in the restaurant turned to look at them. Lowering his voice, he said, “Stop it, okay, Layla?”

She curled her lip, her pretty face twisted in an awful sneer. “
Stop it, okay,
” she mocked. “I’m not good enough for you now, am I, Noah? You go ahead and pretend that, baby. But you forget—
I remember.
I
know
you. I remember nights when you couldn’t get enough. Not enough of me. Not enough booze. Not enough of
anything.
”

All too aware of Trinity’s intent gaze, he kept his own locked on Layla. “I haven’t forgotten who I was, either. But I stopped trying to bury myself in whatever vice a long time ago. It never does help for long, does it?”

“Shut the fuck up, Preach,” she snarled, the lavender contacts she wore unable to conceal the rage, or the misery, in her eyes. “I know who you are, who you’ll always be. You’re just the same as me. You can’t change what you
are.
”

She shot Trinity an ugly look and then spun around, swaying a bit on sky-high heels before she steadied and made her way to the bar. When she was halfway there, the manager intercepted her, shaking his head.

Trinity grimaced as the raised voices reached their table.

“Wow. What a sweetheart,” she murmured.

“Isn’t she?” Noah focused on the white tablecloth and tried to force his tight muscles to relax.

It wasn’t happening. The ugly, hot crawl of shame, something he’d thought he’d managed to overcome a long time ago, rose to take nasty chunks out of him. He didn’t know if he could manage to look at Trinity. She’d stripped herself bare for him, with all the grace and elegance with which she managed everything else.

But the thought of even looking into those misty grey eyes was enough to make him want to grab her glass of wine, toss it back and then get another. No. Something stronger. A lot stronger. The need was so strong, he could actually feel his hands shaking from it.

He should have found a way to do this sooner and he’d put it off. Apparently God had decided to give him a kick in the tail and force it on him. Throat tight, he reached for the soft drink in front of him, keeping his gaze off the wine glimmering in her glass.

He felt the weight of her gaze on him, and slowly he lifted his head, made himself look at her. Her misty grey eyes rested on him, but for once he couldn’t read anything there. She could have felt disgust, pity, a hundred things, and he wouldn’t know.

No more hiding,
he told himself. He should have already done this.

She lifted the glass of wine to her lips, sipped. Like a starving man, he watched as the deep red swirled in her glass. Wine had never been his poison, but just then he was more desperate than he’d been in a long, long while.

Trinity seemed to notice his preoccupation this time and she offered him the glass. “You look like you need it.”

“Don’t.” He covered his face with his hands. “Don’t ever offer me a drink, Trinity.… I … hell.”

Leaning back, he focused his eyes on the ceiling, because it was the one place he could look that was safe, he decided. “Don’t ever do it, okay? I don’t mind if you drink and I don’t care if anybody else around me is drinking. But please don’t offer it to me. Because sooner or later, I might say yes. If I start drinking again, I may never stop.”

There was a faint pause.

Then he heard the faint click of a glass being set down.

“Again?”

He closed his eyes, summoned up every bit of strength he had. He could look at her when he did this. It didn’t matter that she had the wine in front of her. He could do this. Had to. She’d given him her secrets … it was time he do the same.

But the glass of wine was empty.

Thank God.
Blowing out a faint breath, he met the pale, soft grey of her eyes. He opened his mouth, unsure what was going to come out, unsure if he’d be able to even
force
the words out at first. But they were there … and they all but came pouring from him in a torrent. “Up until I was twenty-four, you would have had a hard time finding me sober. If the sun was down, it was entirely likely you’d find me in bed with whichever woman would have me.”

Trinity opened her mouth. Closed it with an audible snap. “I … ah … what?”

“You heard me.” Under the table, he opened and closed one hand into a fist, over and over, because he had to move, had to do something. Staring at the empty bowl of her glass, he said, “I can go days, you know … sometimes even a few weeks, but not much more than that, without really
craving
a drink. Today, though, I’m having a hard time.”

Forcing himself to look away from that glass, he met her eyes, ready to all but beg her to understand. “Don’t ever offer me a drink, okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded, said it again, her voice gentle, “Okay.”

A heavy sigh escaped her, and then the weight that had settled over his heart eased when she reached over and took his hand. “I’m probably not as good at listening as you are, but do you want to tell me about it?”

The words burned on the tip of his tongue, but part of him feared what she’d do, what she’d say, once she heard the full truth of it.
You hypocrite,
he thought sourly. He’d wanted the truth of her past. It hadn’t changed how he’d viewed her. Why was it so hard to give her that same faith?

Turning his head, he stared outside, found his gaze on Layla. The manager had “escorted” her out there, although it had been more like
crowded
her out there until she really hadn’t had much choice. Now she was outside making a scene. A loud one.

Noah knew why he was afraid to tell Trinity. His past was far uglier than hers. She’d ended up in a mess that somebody else had made. He’d managed to claw his way out of the pit where he’d been, but that pit was his own fault. He’d dug it, one miserable shovel full of dirt at a time.

His gaze lingered on Layla as she continued to yell, her hands moving in time with her mouth as she berated the manager and anybody else who’d listen. “Layla wasn’t lying. I pretty much slept my way across town—if the girl would have me? Then that’s all I cared about. If there was alcohol involved, even better.”

“Was…” Trinity paused, rubbing her palms together. “Well, you said up until you were twenty-four. You make it sound like you’d been drinking awhile.”

He looked up at her. “Since I was seventeen. I started sneaking it from wherever I could get it. Back then, it wasn’t
quite
as hard for a kid to get his hands on booze as it is now. Even now, if you’re determined, you’ll find a way. I was an alcoholic before I even graduated from high school … and I barely graduated.”

“What happened?”

Lana.

Ghosts of her voice came back to haunt him.

Promise me.

Shoving those voices to the back of his mind, he focused on the table. But the memory of Lana’s face, the way she’d looked as she smiled on that last day, continued to flicker in the back of his mind. “How hungry are you?”

“Right now? Not at all.”

He fished some bills out of his wallet to cover their drinks and a tip and then he stood up. She was already on her feet.

One hand was reaching for him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

David was looking at her again. It was … weird. The way the guy watched Lana. It wasn’t like he was checking her out. Noah was used to guys looking at her like that, although most of them stopped after they realized Noah had seen it.

“Why does he do that?” Noah asked abruptly, aggravated by it and trying not to be.

“Who?” Lana looked up from the homework she hadn’t gotten finished the night before. She never got around to doing it when she needed to. Somehow, though, she still managed to pull off straight As.

“David.” Noah jerked his chin toward him, but even as he did it he realized David was already leaving.

Lana sighed, reaching up to rub her brow. “You don’t need to worry about David.”

Noah clenched his jaw, wondered how he could explain that he wasn’t worried about David the way Lana thought. But sometimes … sometimes David worried him. He thought about the weird scars he’d seen on the kid, thought about a dozen other things.

“I’m not worried like that,” he finally said. “But he watches you. It’s weird, baby. It’s really weird. It worries me.”

Lana closed her book with a snap and then wiggled off the brick wall where they’d been eating lunch. “David just doesn’t have a lot of people to talk to. I’m about the only one.”

“So he has to stare at you like he just found his missing puppy dog or something?” Noah shoved his hands in his pockets and wished he could settle the weird feeling that jerked in his gut.

She looped her arms around his neck. “I much prefer it when you stare at me,” she said, grinning. “It’s like you’re seeing me naked again.”

He went red, automatically reaching out to close his hands around her waist. His body reacted just as it always did and that was just great, because the bell was going to go off soon. She probably did it on purpose. “Stop changing the subject,” he said, pressing his mouth to hers.

“What do you want me to say? I’m helping him out with some classes and we’re working on a project together. I’m just helping him, that’s all.” Lana combed her hand through Noah’s hair, teased the back of his neck, her nails scraping lightly over his skin.

“It still doesn’t explain why he watches you like that.”

Her sigh drifted across Noah’s lips. “I think it’s because he hasn’t had anybody to talk to. Not in a long while.”

“He’s the football captain and he has half a dozen cheerleaders following him around. He can find people to talk to.” Noah toyed with the ends of her hair.

“Being surrounded by
people
isn’t the same as having friends.” Her nose wrinkled. “Besides, he’s got some crazy shit going on. Bad things, Noah. Really. His parents, baby. I think I hate them. Everybody in town thinks they are wonderful, but they aren’t, Noah. They really aren’t. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

She rubbed her lips against his. “I want to know when we can get out to the park again.”

All the blood drained out of his head.

Just three weeks ago, they’d been out to the park. Just the two of them, a couple of blankets and a lot of fumbling. It had been the sweetest, craziest thing he’d ever done. It hadn’t been as good for Lana, he didn’t think, but at least she was willing to try it again, which they’d done, fumbling in the backseat of his car a week later. That had been a little better for her, he thought.

“Soon, I hope.” He kissed her and then pulled away with a groan as the warning bell sounded. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Reaching out, he smoothed her hair back from her face.

“Are we going out tonight?”

Lana smiled at him, but the smile, pretty as it was, was a guilty one. She shifted from one foot to the other, and then finally, taking a deep breath, she blurted it out. “I can’t. I … I have to do something.”

Narrowing his eyes, he studied that guilty expression.

Do something
, he thought.
Yeah. Right.
Lana was
always
doing something. Usually the kinds of something that got her in trouble. Burying the various animals that were supposed to be used for dissection in biology. Painting advocacy messages across the doors of the high school.

She did it with that same look he saw on her face now.

“Just what are you up to now?”

“Nothing.” She stared up at him, her face the picture of innocence.

“Uh-huh.” Dipping his head, he pressed his brow to hers. “You don’t lie very well. Especially not to me.”

She poked out her lip. “I lie just
fine
. You just don’t accept my bullshit the way others do.” Lana reached up and pressed her finger to his lower lip. “Look … I just…” She shrugged. “I have to do this, okay?”

Do this.
He shot a look past her shoulder, at the boy standing in the commons, surrounded by so many others.

Because the jealousy had already reared its ugly green head, Noah decided to go ahead and ask. “It’s David, isn’t it?”

“Noah…”

“I just asked.”

He didn’t like the way David looked at her. He knew Lana wasn’t messing around on him, she wasn’t like that, but Noah didn’t like the way David watched her. It was too much like the way
Noah
watched her.

When she didn’t say anything, he knew he’d been right. Twining a fat red curl around his finger, he said, “Why are you seeing him?”

“I’m not seeing him.” She made a face. “I’m
helping
him with something.” Then she slid out from under Noah’s arms and twisted away, looking around. When she turned back to him, the look on her face was serious, her eyes hard as stone. “Listen, Noah, you can’t tell anybody, okay? I know you don’t understand. Just … Noah, just trust me, okay?”

He blinked. The urgency in her voice tugged at him and he caught her arm, pulling her close. “What do you mean?”

“Just promise me you won’t.” She lifted a hand and pressed it to his cheek. “Please. Don’t tell, Noah.”

Alarm blared in his gut. “What’s going on, Lana?”

“I love you.”

She pressed a kiss to him, hard and fast, as the bell rang. Then she was gone.

*   *   *

The memories rose up to choke him as he and Trinity came to a stop in front of the house. It was a long walk, in so many ways. Nearly a mile from the restaurant to here, made in silence, and each step of the way a memory rose up to slam into him.