Page 21 of Light in the Dark
"Dimmed, yes. Broken, no. And if this is you dimmed, missy, when you finally learn how to be happy again, you'll be brighter than the damn sun."
For some stupid reason, I think of Felix. The hurt in his eyes when I hesitated. The way he bolted…he's known sorrow. He's dimmed and broken, too.
I should have said yes. One innocent date couldn't hurt. Right? I admit I'm attracted to him, but as Faye said, who wouldn't be? Attraction isn't the problem, although I haven't felt an attraction to anyone since Dutchie's death.
I just don't know where to start. Especially if he's as fucked up as I am. How do two hurt, closed-off people learn how to let each other in?
Someone has to take the first step, take a risk.
Oh.
Oh…fuck.
He did.
He asked me out.
I guess that explains his reaction when I hesitated—it would have felt like a rejection. I wasn't—I was taken aback, surprised. But to him, it had to have felt like I was shooting him down.
I think I'm gonna have to find Felix and hope he gives me a second chance. I'm not sure it'll go anywhere, because I'm not sure I'm brave enough or strong enough to open myself up to him, but I know I’ll regret it if I don't at least try.
Five
FELIX
It's been a hell of a week.
Holden's new hire fuckup left a shitload of problems in his wake. Holden fired him and blacklisted him with everyone he knows in the industry, which is just about everyone in a thousand-mile radius. But the asshole was so clueless and incompetent that we have to carefully test everything he went near in the three weeks he was on the job. We caught a dozen issues that would have meant a dozen catastrophes like the Aspenview house. Holden's insurance covers the cost of the repairs, but that doesn't put my guys back on schedule. It's gonna take a full crew damn near a month to properly repair the basement, which means my whole fucking schedule is now off by a month.
I barely have time to breathe, let alone do anything else—I'm in that soggy basement with the crew, ripping out flooring and drywall, going over plumbing and electrical, setting up fans and dehumidifiers to get everything dry, and putting everything back in fresh. And when I'm not there, I'm at all my other builds watching every nail and screw go in, every plumbing junction, every foot of wiring, every floorboard, every sheet of drywall. Or at least, that's the intent, impossible though it is.
Despite the sixteen- and twenty-hour days, I collapse in bed and promptly fail to fall asleep. Why?
A certain siren with white-blond hair, silver eyes, and a body I literally have embarrassingly wet dreams about keeps splashing through my mind. I just can't stop thinking about her. I want to know what put the sorrow in her eyes. I want to heal it. Take it away. Put joy in those bright eyes, put a laugh on that beautiful face.
The wet dreams are less altruistic.
I wake up hard as rock, visions of Ember in that damned teeny bikini dancing through my mind…but in the dreams I'm kissing her and my hand is stealing up to her back and tugging on the string, and the blue scraps of fabric are tumbling away to bare the most glorious tits I've ever seen…
I always wake up right before I see them, leaving me aching and frustrated and restless.
Night after night, I have the same stupid, maddening dream. Yet I can't bring myself to allow any relief. It would feel like a violation, or…or taking advantage of her somehow to jerk off to thoughts of Ember James. She wouldn't even go on a date with me, much less let me put my dirty hands anywhere near her perfect, golden skin.
Which means I've gotten intimately acquainted with the hellish normality of ice-cold showers. Not that it helps, mind you. I still have the dreams, still wake up with an erection so hard I could drive nails with it, and I still can't allow myself to do anything about it. I even tried porn, something I'm not usually a big fan of, but I kept seeing Ember's face when I closed my eyes, and imagined Ember's hand on me when I gripped myself. I just can't do it.
A week turns into two, and the dreams continue, and I'm growing increasingly desperate. I swipe through Tinder and find a handful of good matches that would without a doubt lead to a fun weekend tumble with a horny fudgie, but I can't even bring myself to hit send on the flirty messages I drafted.
Because I don't want some random tourist.
I want Ember.
Fuck.
I don't know what to do.
Find her? Ask her out again? To what end? She's not interested. She'd have said yes if she was.
A quiet, niggling voice in the back of my head suggests that the way she ran after me means she may have had a change of heart. I mean, I'd swear she was crying when I drove away. Why would she be crying?
