Page 68 of Tell Me You Love Me

“So I suppose it’s decided then.” My hands fucking itch to touch. My palms actively tingle in anticipation. So I lock them deep in my pockets and save us both fromadditionalheartache. “Fire her and take back your book. If she’s not listening to you, then she’s not the right fit for you.”

She breathes out a soft laugh, her sweet breath tickling my chin and feathering over my tongue.

In response, my lips curl higher. “What’s so funny?”

“You.” She twists and rests on her shoulder, her cheek on the door, and her succulent body entirely too close to mine for safety. “You literally never listen to me. Even before. You were always too bossy for your own good.”

“I only didn’t listen when I knew you were wrong.”God, save me.I drag my hands from my pockets and turn to face her. “You’d say you didn’t need a coat because it wasn’t gonna be cold out. But I’d force you to carry one anyway. Nine times out of ten, it was cold enough.”

In the darkness, but for the sliver of light coming down from the windows in the rafters, I catch sight of her dancing eyes.

“You’d say you weren’t hungry,” I tease, “or that you didn’t need to pack something that day. I knew your body better than you knew it yourself. You werealwayshungry.”

“And you always had something for me, even though you had such little to spare.”

That’s love, Lana. It was my honor.

“You didn’t think you needed sunblock, but then?—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves me off, the tips of her fingers brushing over my chest. Her touch sends my heart into a skittering mess. “I got it. You were bossy, but every now and then, you were possibly right.”

“Every now and then,” I snort. Fuck, the loose fabric of her skirt tickles my fingers. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I just know that I pinch the material between my digits and hope she doesn’t notice. “Almost always,” I tease. “Sometimes, I felt like you intentionally made bad choices so I’d be forced to pick up the slack. Like you enjoyed when I took care of you.”

Which, when her eyes flicker with acknowledgment, I realize how rightI am. She came from a home where her mother did nothing except make her feel like shit.

She was just a girl who wanted to be cared for.

Psychologically, it’s as simple as that.

And, plainly put, I wanted the same in return.

“We were exactly who we needed, huh?” Her voice comes out with a wistful sigh. Breathy and sweet. “It seems impossible that we could come from such different homes and wildly different worlds, but beneath all the noise, we were just two souls that needed what only the other could give. I often wonder… Would we have survived adolescence if we never met?”

“I would have survived. For Chris.” I roll the soft fabric of her skirt between my fingers and wish for a way to ask to take it home and itnotbe weird. “Not sure I’d have stayed out of prison, though, if not for you.”

Her plump lips curl into a seductive bow. “Yeah. You often lacked control over your temper back then.”

“Back then?” I brush the side of my finger over her silky thigh. Good fucking lord, I swear I don’t mean for it to happen. But she doesn’t run away, and I’m not sure I could stop, even if the whole place caught on fire. “Pretty sure some would say my temperstillruns a little hot. You don’t agree?”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.” Her heart creates a heavy, steady beat in the air between us. Not racing. Not slow. Simply constant. Comforting. “I wouldn’t have survived without you. At the risk of sounding ridiculously dramatic, I don’t think I could have gotten through those years ifhervoice was the only one I heard. How embarrassing I was. How flighty and dumb. I never dressed right, never walked right. My grades were never good enough.”

“You had A’s across the board. Always.”

She searches my eyes, the truth of my words floating gently between us.

“So much damage.” She sighs. “And for what? Did she think I would be better if she criticized me more? Did she think I could try harder than I already was?” She drops her gaze, tilting her head from side to side. “She was mean. Like she fed off my misery, and even to this day, she won’t acknowledge it. She sees no fault in her actions. I doubt she ever will. But then there was you…” She brings her eyes up again, a wrinkle in her nose and a sweet curl of her lips. “Your kindness was the antidote to her poison. Your love, and the way it never wavered, saved my life.”

“Lana…”

“If not for you, I would’ve assumed my mother’s example of love wasnormal. And if by some cruel twist of fate, Ididsurvive it, then Jesus, maybe that’s the kind of love I would’ve shown my child. Could you imagine a world where I spoke to Franklin the way my mother speaks to me? The viciousness. The spitefulness.”

Bravely—or stupidly, maybe—she rests her hand on my chest and strokes right where, beneath my shirt, she penned ink into my skin back before we knew how foolish and permanent such a thing would be. “You came from an awful home. From parents who wouldn’t know love if it smacked them in the face. But for reasons I’ll never truly comprehend, you loved me. You saved my life.”

My heart skips, but it’s not like they speak of in the movies. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

“If not for that light in the dark, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

“Have you been drinking today?” I slide my fingers over the side of her thigh—proving to us both it’s no accident—and cup her cheek with my other hand. “Tequila for dinner?”

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