Page 70 of Lavender Lake
The jewelry box housed my most sentimental trinkets that I couldn’t bear to part with. I refused to bring them to New York out of fear that I’d lose or misplace them.
There was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called.
Bowman appeared in the doorway. He was still in a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, but his cowboy hat was nowhere to be found and his blond hair was effortlessly mussed.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” I eyed him warily, unsure of his mood. During dinner, he’d been relatively quiet, but his eyes had sought mine often. “You gonna stand there holding up the doorway or come all the way in?”
He stepped across the threshold and gestured to the jewelry box I hadn’t closed. “What’s that?”
“Just some things of mine,” I evaded.
“What kind of things?”
“Bowman.”
“Powell.”
“Ah, so I’m back to being Powell, hmm?” I shut the lid and set the jewelry box on my nightstand.
He paused. “I wasn’t sure you remembered.”
Remembered that he’d called me Salem or that his voice had grounded me in a way I couldn’t have anticipated.
“I remember,” I murmured, my eyes meeting his. I patted my bed. “Sit. I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up at you.”
He walked over to the bed and sat at the end of it.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. It was . . . it’s been a lot. Being here.”
He rubbed his scruffy jaw. “Yeah. I can imagine.”
“And Dad waking up, it just . . .”
Opened something up inside me. Split me right down the middle and all of the anguish I’d been carting around poured out of me.
“That wasn’t just about your dad,” he said. “Was it?”
I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. I shook my head.
“Did you tell Hadley?”
“Tell Hadley I had an epic meltdown and that you climbed into the shower while I was naked in order to comfort me?”
His eyes burned with intensity. “Yes. That.”
“No.”
“No? Why not?” he demanded. “Oh. I get it. You don’t have to mention me at all if you don’t tell her.”
“It’s not that,” I said quickly. “It’s Declan.”
“What about him?”
