Sweet Ache

Chapter 34

QUINLAN

Be there in thirty.

When I stare at the text once again, giddiness soars through me. I know we need to talk about things, sort out the creases, but at the end of the day, I want Hawke in my life and a chance for whatever this is to take its course.

I finally want it to rain.

Anticipation runs rampant as I look out the front window again. I’m nervous, excited, and a little unsettled at the text. I’m not sure what I was expecting in response to my text. Maybe a bit more enthusiasm? I don’t know. I’m overthinking this, know he said he would be here in thirty minutes and that in itself says he hasn’t moved on and wants to try to work things out.

Being cautious is okay, but it doesn’t take away the toll of the emotional wringer I’ve been through the past few days. Plus, I just plain don’t want to be hurt any further. I need to play it all by ear when he gets here, follow his lead.

Add to all of this the notion that the hearing must be over and if he’s getting here this quickly, then it must have gone in his favor. At least I think that’s how it works, but my clean record is proof of my naïveté of the judicial system.

Busying myself, I put some music on, and then shut it off, not wanting to appear like I’m trying too hard. In a fruitless attempt to waste time, I check my makeup, pull my hair up, and then let it back down.

When the knock sounds at the door, my breath hitches, nerves jittering through me from head to toe. I rush to the door and then force myself to stand there for a moment so that I can retain some of my dignity. I smooth my hands down my shorts and slowly open the door.

A cautious smile spreads across my lips at the sight of him in the just-setting sun’s light, which halos his silhouette. My rush of nerves collides with cautious optimism. He looks different from how I’ve ever seen him, sans his beloved vintage rock T-shirts, and wears a button-up dress shirt and slacks. My first thought is that he needs to change because he looks nothing like my rocker boy and too much like Hunter, but I really don’t care, he’s here and we’re going to figure out how to navigate this minefield together.

“Hey,” I say softly, stepping back.

“Hey.” He steps into the foyer and angles his head to stare at me a moment, eyes guarded, an impassive expression on his face. For a split second I fear that he’s here to instigate more conflict but after a beat, his eyes searching for something I’m unsure of, his mouth turns up into a soft smile.

I want to step into him, hug him, hold him, kiss those lips of his, but I don’t sense the same on his side. I’m confused—I should be the one who’s guarded and pissed and yet I feel like he’s the one acting that way. Then it hits me that something must have gone wrong at the hearing. Oh shit.

“Come in.” I lead him down the hall, trying to figure out how I need to proceed, because feeling uncomfortable was the last thing I’d expected in this reconciliation. I stop just inside the family room and turn to face him. “Look, I hate that this is awkward, hate everything about this situation except for the fact that you’re here and I want to try to make this work and figure out how we can move forward. Hawke,” I say his name, a plea in a sense as he stands there, jaw clenched, body stiff, but then he steps toward me. And so I ramble on, unable to help myself. “When I look at this all, the bet and the night at the party, I feel like it’s one clusterfuck of a misunderstanding and so we have to …” My voice trails off as he reaches out and cups the side of my jaw, thumb brushing over my bottom lip. My breath hitches and that electric current of our connection is still there, so much stronger after my skin has been starved of his touch.

He opens his mouth to say something and closes it again, words unspoken, and the moment is full of conflicting emotions. When he does it again he just shakes his head and pulls me into him, wraps his arms around me, and holds me tight. Our bodies fit together perfectly but something seems off to me. At first I chalk it up to the change in his cologne that makes him seem not like my rocker boy, but then realize that he’s so tense, strung so tight that it’s affecting me. But I hold on to him, absorbing the feeling of his body against mine and the knowledge that I made the right choice to reach out to him.

When he doesn’t say anything, I become even more worried. “How did the hearing go?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he murmurs into the crown of my head with a deep breath. The heat of it warms my scalp as my mind worries itself into circles trying to figure out what exactly happened.

“Really? Please just tell me your piece of shit brother was there, stood up, and actually took the blame for once.” I wince, worried I’ve overstepped my boundaries, but at the same time seeing him this upset is disconcerting.

He releases me the minute the words are out of my mouth and walks into the kitchen, his back toward me, and pounds a fist on the counter so that the few dishes stacked on it rattle from the force. I startle from the sound as he braces his hands on the counter and hangs his head down in silence.

“I’m sorry Hawke. I don’t know what happened today.” I trace the strong lines of his back, my heart lodging into my throat as I attempt to explain my comment. I know how it goes, you can bad-mouth your own kin but no one else can. Shit, I have Colton for a brother. I’ve bitched about him countless times before but the minute someone else does, my back is up and my mouth is on the defensive.

But then again, Colton has never tried to ruin everything I’ve worked for either.

“Look, I just …” I really want him to turn around so that I can see his expression but when he doesn’t, I continue. “I see how much of a burden he puts on you, how even when you know you are doing the right thing, it affects you … eats at you … and I just want you free of that. I know you love him, Hawkin, no one would ever question that, but you work so hard at everything and you need to be able to live without the constant shadow following you of what he’s going to fuck up for you next. So I’m sorry I said it but not sorry all the same.”

Silence hangs heavy in the air between us, and this reconciliation feels so very different from what I ever imagined.

“I need a drink,” he says, voice strained as he shoves back from the counter, eyes flicking to mine before he starts pacing like a caged animal.

I watch him for a beat, his hand pushing through his hair, jaw tense, and it’s nearly impossible to tear my eyes from watching the inner turmoil eat him alive. “Sure. Of course. Jack and Coke?” I ask as I move toward the cupboards to pour him a drink.

“Just Jack.”

I pull out the bottle of Jack Daniels from above the refrigerator and grab two glasses and set them on the kitchen table near where he’s pacing and lost in thought. I take a seat, every part of my body aware of his nearness. It’s like my nerves are a damn light switch and anytime he’s near me I’m flicked on, in every sense of the word.

He stops when he pulls himself from his thoughts and approaches the table as I sit down. The clink of the bottle’s neck as it hits the glasses fills the room as he pours us both a drink. I stay quiet, accept the glass he offers me even though I’ve never drunk Jack Daniels straight before, and just hold it in my hands. I watch him raise his to his lips and toss the amber liquid back without so much as a wince from its burn.

He finally looks up to me as his tongue flicks out to lick a drop off his lip. The smile he gives me doesn’t reach his eyes, and I hate how that makes me feel so off-kilter. It’s almost as if he’s nervous, agitated, like a trapped animal, and I want to roll my eyes at the thought but that’s the only way I can explain it to myself.

The onset of the coming night darkens the room as he pours another glass. He sets the bottle down, sits in a chair next to me, body angled so that we face each other, knees touching. He blows out a breath before taking a sip of the Jack, and meanwhile the air has thickened with tension and the disquiet of the unknown in what lies ahead between the two of us.

“You wanted to talk?” he asks, eyes locked on mine, expression undecipherable, almost like he’s detaching himself from me, and I hate it.

“I need to hear about the bet from you. I need you to make me understand why you didn’t tell me when things changed between us…. They did change, right? I mean I’m not making that up, am I?” The silence stretches during which he grants me a slow, even nod, words unspoken but his eyes show that he’s conflicted. “Hawke … I’m a pretty forgiving person, but you hurt me. I may have overreacted with the Vince thing, but finding out about the bet from Hunter was a blow to more than just my ego.”

He nods again, the drink now gone. I narrow my eyebrows as I watch him pour another. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake, a band thing that normally I would have let run its course—”

“But you did let it run its course,” I tell him, wanting to make sure that he sees my side of the argument.

“I know, that didn’t come out right. Look.” He scoots closer, so that one of my knees is between his. “At first it was a real thing, the bet…. But you’re right—things changed and I fucked it all up. The thing with Vince … Well, that was …” His voice trails off as he leans forward, his eyes darkening, a sheepish smile on his face.

I meet him halfway, hungry for his kiss, his taste, to demonstrate the intimate connection between us because even when we haven’t been able to communicate well in the past, our bodies have. And maybe that’s what we need, this little sip of each other to remind us what we have between us so that we can begin again.