Page 61 of Over & Out

You’re hideous. You’re weird.

“Chris,” Hopper says. “What—” he cuts himself off.

There’s no running away from it now, is there? That old humiliation roars in my ears. The foster mom yanking my shirt up.Don’t show this to the other kids.My first kiss jerking his hand away in disgust that bordered on fear.

Hopper backs up, like he’s the one who was burned. “You were in an accident.” His voice is low. Wary. Unlike the Hopper from a moment ago.

All that heat from a moment ago funnels into something sharp. Hard.

“It’s not from the accident.” I’m unable to hide the emotion in my voice. Anger masking something far more excruciating. “It’s a burn. It happened a long time ago.”

I can’t see properly in the dark, but I can see Hopper grappling with something. Horror, I think.

Why did I think that he might be the one to understand feelings without condition? Why did I think I could trust him?

“You hide that,” Hopper says, his voice barely a rasp. “You never want anyone to see.”

What the fuck? Tears prick my eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”

He shuts down then, hard and cold as ice. He stands up, head in his hands. And I feel my heart—my hopes, my trust—shatter into pieces.

Chapter 19

Hopper

Ibang on the hotel room door, the sound thudding through the lush velvet-carpeted hallway. Part of me is glad I won’t have to do this down in the hotel lobby. I’m fucking wrecked, in more ways than one.

It’s been twelve hours since the stiff, silent ride back to my place; since Chris peeled out of my driveway in the Maserati. Thirteen hours since I felt her against me—her lips, her hair, her beautiful self—thinking I was on the top of the fucking world.

I made the mistake, when she kissed me, of releasing the door on everything I’d been holding in. I let my mind go wild. And wild it fucking went. As I held her, I pictured us driving back up the highway to Redbeard Cove on that bike. I pictured carrying her up to the porch of a wood-clad house by the ocean. Then I pictured this kind of unbelievable future: Me standing at an altar behind a country church. Chris coming down the aisle with flowers in her hair. Chris laughing as I lift a little girl who looks just like her mom, twirling her in the air.

I saw even the heavy parts in this micro-dream: Chris yelling at me because I fucked something up. Me at her feet, telling her I love her and I’m sorry. Chris, silver-haired and beautiful, driving me to a doctor’s appointment because I’ve got a pain somewhere dangerous.

Yeah, I went that fucking far. Because she’s the first woman I’ve ever had these kinds of feelings for. When Chris kissed me, that dream exploded into technicolor. Lightning flashed through me, from the place where our lips met to the tips of my fucking toes. When I coaxed her lips open so my tongue could meet hers, the surge of want was staggering.

Then my hand on her stomach. The corded flesh there too old to be part of the accident she described.

Words coming back to me.

Don’t let them lift up my shirt!

I bang on the door again. “Wake up!”

“Hey!” A man pops his head out of a door down the hall. He looks like an asshole. He’s got slicked-back hair, and his expensive looking shirt is open, tie loose. There’s lipstick on his neck. “Do you fuckin’ mind?” he demands.

“Do you?” I roar.

The man’s eyes widen, and not just in fear at my yelling.

“Jesus, you’re Hopper D?—”

“Do not finish that sentence, asshole. Or I’m calling your wife. I’m sure she’ll love to hear about that urgent nine a.m. appointment you had to rush off to.”

His eyes turn to dinner plates before he slams the door shut. That’s the thing about assholes: they don’tquestion whether I could do shit like that. At least this isn’t likely to make it into the tabloids.

I bang on the door again. It’s been five minutes. She’s not here. It’s fine. I’ll wait. I slump down onto the floor, knees up, my eyes burning from exhaustion but my heart still racing.

I scroll through the texts I sent Chris in the airport, after calling Tru and begging her for the name and number of the charter we use for flights. Insisting she go back to sleep and that I was fine.

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