Page 21 of Tell Me You Love Me

“I didn’t know you were back in town.” I slide my tongue across the front of my teeth, if only to rearrange the way my lips curl into a nasty sneer. “Seems Bitsy ain’t opposed to a little omission here and there.” I drop my hands to my hips. Hell, I’m half tempted to put them onhers. “She mentioned someone coming to stay at the house, but she sure as shit didn’t say who.”

“Your memory must be faulty if you don’t recall. Sheonlyever tells half a story.” Proud, and perhaps a little stupid, she glances up and stares into my eyes. “Why are you here, Tommy?”

“Here?” I look down at the ground we stand on. For the first time in ten years, we occupy the same land, we breathe the same air, and goddammit, wecouldtouch… I just have to reach out. “In Plainview? I was born and raised here. Like you.”

“Here, at my mother’s house. You don’t live here. You don’t work here. You have no reason to be sneaking past Whacky anymore.”

“Whacky is a stupid name for a rooster,” Franklin grumbles. “It’s creative, I suppose. And different. But it’s a rooster. Who even names their roosters?”

“You haven’t aged a day in ten years.” I can’t help the feral smile that crosses my lips. Or the way my heart thunders. My hands shake. Jesus, I can’t help the way my stomach whooshes with nerves I’ll never tell her about. “Motherhood has helped you fill out in all the right places. But maybe that was gonna happen anyway? Girls are still girls when their agestarts with a one. Women become women when the one changes to a two.”

“Tommy—”

“I kinda expected to still know you during those years, seeing as how we promised we would, and the girl I used to know had a reputation for standing behind her word. But liars are gonna lie, I guess. And Bitsy might’ve passed on the skill of telling half a story.”

“Tommy!”

“Most of the other girls from school kinda filled out in similar ways, though, and not all of ‘em had a kid. So maybe it wasn’t motherhood at all. Maybe it’s just what you were always gonna look like, no matter what.”

She slams her lips closed and stares… stares… stares, until finally, she bites out a savage, “You done?”

“Talking about your body?” I lower my gaze and shake my head gently from side to side. “Not until the day I’m dead. Doubt either of us are surprised by that. Didn’t expect you to sneak off to the big city and have a baby, though.”Fuckkkkk. Stop it, Tommy.“Caught me by surprise, is all. Hopping on a Greyhound in the dead of night kinda left me shook.”

“Tommy…”

“Hey, Franklin. You wanna come drive my truck?” Chris steps up behind the boy and places his hand on his shoulder, turning him, even if he isn’t entirely committed to moving. He meets Alana’s gaze and tips his chin in a silent hello, but then he’s gone, walking away with her whole world.

Walking away with the giant fucking chasm that sits between us.

“Can we not do this?” She folds her arms but brings her hand up and nibbles on her pinky fingernail. “I know, Tommy. I know everything you want to say to me. But a whole decade has passed, and we’re two entirely different people now.”

“You contradict yourself.”Don’t touch her. Don’t grab on and beg for those ten years back. Don’t embarrass yourself, dickhead. “You claim to know what I’m thinking, but in the same breath, admit we’re not the same people anymore. How can both be true?”

“Because you’re still you! You’re Tommy Watkins, which means you’re pissed. At the world. At the life you were born into. At the family you were saddled with. And at me, most of all. You’re pissed because I left.” She brings glittering eyes up to mine. “But I’m not a teen anymore, dying to make you happy. I’m grown now, I’m a mom, I have a life that no longer includes you. So while I’ll admit that leaving was shitty, which in turn makes me a shitty person, I no longer care for your approval.”

“Such an odd thing for you to say. I don’t recall youevercaring for my approval.”

She drops her hand and turns, but I snag her wrist and yank her back again, our chests clashing and her sweet breath hitting my tongue with enough force to make me salivate for more.

“I always loved that about you, Lana.” I grit my jaw and search her beautiful, hypnotic eyes. “Your wildness. Your refusal to conform. You were bred to be Bitsy 2.0, and punished every fucking day when you wouldn’t fall in line. You refused to be the perfect clone everyone else in town expected of you.”

“Let me go.” Her nostrils flare with rage, her arm tensing as she attempts to escape. But she can’t. Not until I allow it. “You don’t get to touch me anymore, Tommy. We’re not those kids anymore. I’m not yours anymore.”

“Ya know…” I pull her closer, so her belly touches mine, and her strong thighs tremor enough for me to feel them. “I guess I just got lost somewhere back in our senior year. Because the last thing I knew, we were talking about busting out of this shithole together. Packing our bags and escaping where no one could find us. But then you just… you went ahead with our planswithout me. No text. No phone call. Not even a goodbye. If you changed your mind and wanted that adventure on your own, then there wasn’t really much I could do about it. But leaving me here to wonder what the fuck went wrong was a little cruel. Even for you.”

“I’m not here to rehash the past.” She tears her hand from mine. But she doesn’t back up.And fuckkkkk, she still smells like lavender and coconut soap. “Life happened, Tommy. And we already know fairness is not something either of us get to count on. It’s our responsibility to suck it up and move on.”

“Seems like life treated you alright.” I lick my lips and thrill in the way her eyes follow the movement of my tongue. “Went off to New York, got an agent, got a husband, and had a baby. All in the space of a year. Tell me, Lana, did it all happen so fast that you lost control? Or did your need for control have you seeking those things out, all so you could sever the ties that bound you to this crappy town?”

“The fact you know so much about me is concerning. I know nothing of your life.”

“I knoweverythingbecause I fucking loved you, even when you stopped loving me.” I lean back and search her stricken face. “Plus, Bitsy has a big mouth and a tendency to tell anybody who’ll listen how herdaughter is gonna have her face all over Times Square soon. Everyone in Plainview has been waiting for the news about your book deal.”

Two deep dimples flash in her cheeks, like a time machine hurtling me back a decade to when her happiness was easy to come by, and her belly laughter was saved for our adventures.

But she’s not smiling now. She’s not pleasedat allwith our proximity.

No. Dimples are for anger, too.

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