But he dropped his hand before I could clasp him. “So priceless in fact, I don’t think I can afford you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I whispered, disappointed.
“Hold out for that good guy, Tiff.” He squatted down and fished a handful of bullets out of the box. He loaded his rifle with sharp, angry movements. “That’s all it means. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
He didn’t think he was good enough for me.
The very thought stunned me. Made me incapable of speech.
It was laughable, insane, ludicrous. I wanted to step forward, to tell him that he needed to know his own worth, too. That he wasn’t a bad guy, or selfish, or greedy. That he was generous and thoughtful. Surly, yes. Bad, no.
But before I could gather my thoughts, he said, “Stand back.”
I did.
He aimed and fired.
The shot shattered the quiet of the afternoon.
I winced instinctively.
And that was the end of our conversation.
When he paused, it was clear he’d hit the target dead center.
When it was my turn, my aim was high.
Come upstairs. I want you to hear something.
I paused in the middle of chopping vegetables for a salad as I read the text from Devin. He was in his studio again, like he had been every day for the last few weeks since he’d arrived at Richfield. The days had settled into a pattern. I would wake up and he’d already be in the kitchen, drinking coffee and working, sometimes on his computer, sometimes on conference calls. He would wave me over and he would set everything aside while we sipped coffee and talked for twenty minutes or so. Then he would go upstairs to his studio, emerging only for lunch. By dinnertime, he was done and we would go for a driving lesson, then I would cook for him, with him acting as sous chef. At night we talked, played chess, made a fire.
I waited for him to get bored with me and go back to New York or at least start going out in town, eschewing my company for random strangers in restaurants or bars. But he didn’t.
He sought me out, repeatedly. I hung back and waited and every day, he inserted his presence into my day. He dominated and demanded my attention and I craved it. He made me feel like I mattered to his day. That I brought him some sort of pleasure with my conversation, my cooking, my existence. His moods became darker as the days went by, and I knew that he had made his mind up that he couldn’t be more than a friend to me. That he had decided I needed to wait for a guy my own age, with some ten page laundry list of virtues that I was pretty sure didn’t exist in one man outside of Jesus.
But I was willing to wait. To bide my time until Devin either returned to the city or he realized that more than friendship was brewing between us. We finished each other’s sentences. We sparred and discussed and challenged each other. We were deeply and undeniably attracted to each other, our casual touches too lengthy, too charged, to be fully innocent.
We were living together, yet we weren’t together. We had a nebulous unexplainable relationship that wasn’t a relationship, exactly. We weren’t boss-employee. We crossed too many lines for that. We weren’t romantically involved, technically. Yet we said things you didn’t and shouldn’t say to someone when your relationship was purely platonic. We were friends, as much as you can be when someone is paying you and they waffle between treating you like a little buddy and someone they wanted to devour with their mouth. I knew Devin saw me as an equal but then he would call me his “ma petite amie” or explain something utterly stupid to me, like where Budapest was in Europe, and I would be forced to admit that he wasn’t going to stop, no matter how times I called him out on it. He needed to use my age as a shield between us, otherwise he’d have me up against a wall kissing me witless.
I was tore between gratitude that despite his questionable methods he was keeping that barrier intact between us and frustration that he didn’t just fucking go for it. Would I really regret it if we blurred that line between friendship and love?
Whatever you wanted to call it, whatever we were doing, it made me wake up every day eager to see him. Our conversations were exciting, stimulating. I laughed more than I could ever remember laughing.
And if I was falling in love with him, that was my problem. My mistake. I would get over it when he left. But for now, I wanted to enjoy it. We were edging closer and closer to the point when we wouldn’t be able to stop, and with each day that went by my fear of the consequences grew smaller and my desire grew larger.
I went upstairs and found him in his studio, headphones on, computer in front of him. He had mixers and soundboards and other things that lit up and looked intimidating as hell all turned on. He looked up when I went in and smiled at me. It did me in every time. It made me as ridiculous and inane as every girl I’d ever made fun of for going gushy over a guy.
“Hey, how is the writing going?” he asked.
I was attempting a full-length novel and was about thirty pages into it. It was a horror story about zombies. How they craved and took and sought and begged for everything you had, and were never satisfied. Like so many people I’d met in my life. “I just wrote a couple of pages. I’m not feeling it today. I keep thinking about Christmas.” Five days out. I’d never decorated for Christmas but I was itching to go back to Cat and Heath’s and crash there for a few days and do the holiday up right for a change. With food, and a present or two. I’d never done that.
“Christmas?” Devin looked at me blankly. “What about it?”
“I was thinking I would go to Cat’s house. But I should stop in town first and buy some presents and food. Can you drop me off at the ferry?”
Now he was frowning. “Are you saying you’re leaving for Christmas?”
Perching on the edge of his desk, I frowned at him. “Well, yes. I mean, you’re going to New York, right? It’s okay if the house is empty for twenty-four hours, isn’t it?” I had pictured him either going to his parents’ house or doing some sort of friends’ celebration at his apartment. He’d been gone for weeks and the phone calls had gotten more frequent, his tone with his team more impatient as they clearly pressed for his return.
“I’m not going to New York.”
“Oh.” That surprised me.
“And if you’re there…” he flicked his hand in the general direction of the ocean. “Then I’m here alone. So no, you do not have my permission to go to Cat’s house.”
I felt my jaw drop. “For real?” I couldn’t believe he was going to pull that employer crap with me. Why did he care if I went to Cat’s?
“For real,” he said, sounding petulant. “I want you with me.”
My cheeks grew warm and I went very still, butt resting against his desk, legs near his arm. He wanted my company. He could do anything and anyone frankly and yet he wanted to stay there at Richfield with me. It meant more than it should. “You do?”
Because I wanted to hear him say it again. Because I needed to hear him say it again.
“Yes, I do. I
desire
you… to be with me.” Devin reached out and took my hand, stroking my fingers with his. “I got you a present, you know.”
Did that mean he was capitulating? Was he giving in to the chemistry between us, finally? I would stay if that were the case. “Oh. I guess I should stay then,” I said. I couldn’t say no to him. Or to a present. Or to any indication that he had abandoned the ridiculous notion that I was too young for him. That he might realize I was important to him, as more than a friend. “I didn’t get you a present.” I gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t really know how to give presents.”
I didn’t. I hadn’t since I was a kid and I’d made a potholder at school for my grandmother and she had scoffed at it. That rejection had stung more than any of the smacks, the swats, the screaming. It had been cruel and I wasn’t sure that I knew how to be vulnerable enough to give a present anymore.
But then again, I was nothing if not vulnerable with Devin. I basically had ripped my beating heart out of my chest and handed it to him. While allowing him to pretend that we were just friends, him my boss.
“You don’t need to get me a present. I have everything I want. You could bake me something though and I wouldn’t complain.”
That made me relax. “I could do that.” Him and his sweet tooth. It was a good thing he could afford stellar dental care.
But I’d turn his kitchen into a goddamn bakery if it got him to cross the line he’d drawn so carefully between us.
He went from stroking my fingers to lacing them through mine so we were actually holding hands. “You don’t mind staying here, do you?” he asked. He had sat back in the chair, and his legs were open. I wanted to wedge myself between his knees and climb onto his lap.
“I don’t mind.” I also didn’t mind how freely he touched me.
“Good. Listen to this song I’m working on. I created it with you in mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted to capture you. If you were a sound this is how I hear you. Light and innocent and dark and gripping all at the same time.”
He’d written a song for me? That was seriously hot. Seriously sweet. Seriously romantic. Or maybe it was akin to being inspired by your family dog or by a bus accident or crawling spiders. It could mean anything.
But that was a lie I told myself for protection. I knew what it meant. I knew that he had feelings for me. When you spend your whole life never having anyone give you that look, you damn well recognize it when it’s shown to you. He cared for me. He knew it. He just wasn’t willing to say it in those words.
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or what,” I said. “I’m both light and dark?”
“Not dark in an evil way, but mysterious. With depth.” He brought our hands still clasped up and tapped his knuckle on my head. “No one really knows what’s going on in there, do they? It’s a secret garden. That’s the title of the song- ‘Her Secret Garden.’”
I heard both the compliment and the sexual innuendo loud and clear. God, I wanted this to finally be it… when he wrestled his doubts into submission. My doubts had evaporated.
There was nothing but me between the desk and Devin, me open and unable to hide my emotions. The things he said weren’t stupid pick-up lines. He wasn’t obvious and crass or anything that I could dislike or dismiss. His flattery was like ivy, it crept around the edges of my defenses, wrapped them, and overcame them. He smothered me with a commanding kindness. It wasn’t always nice, it was sometimes selfish, but it was honest.
My wall had been forced down, gradually and ironically, while he was struggling to build his higher. Maybe that was why. Because I knew he wasn’t trying to get in my pants, or use me and toss me aside, or have me fall for him as a pure ego stroke the way a guy in high school had. While he fought his feelings, I was able to slowly and quietly embrace mine.
“I guess that’s better than ‘Damp Basement,’” I said. I meant it as a joke. Though as usual my delivery was dry.
But Devin shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t undermine yourself. Please. Even if you’re kidding.”
I swallowed hard.
He stood without warning, filling the space immediately in front of me, a hard masculine wall rising before me. I looked up at him in question, wondering if I should pull my hand away from his. Not wanting to.
“I keep trying to find flaws in you,” he said. “I’ve been working really hard at it because it’s really, really inappropriate for me to find you attractive. But I do. Does that make me a fucking pervert or what? You’re too young.”
He sounded anguished.
“Devin. Stop. You said yourself there is nothing young about me.” I shook my head, overwhelmed by how much I wanted him to kiss me. “I’m an old soul. I’m no carefree teenager. I may not have world experience, but I’m not innocent. And I find you attractive too.”
I wasn’t sure where the courage to say it out loud came from, but I figured it wasn’t exactly a mystery. Anyone would be able to see that I hot for him. It was more than that. I was falling in love with him. I wasn’t uncomfortable with our age difference. A guy my own age was never going to appeal to me with his stupid bragging and potty humor and fascination with random breasts. Those guys would never impress me or hold my attention. So the age difference definitely wasn’t what bothered me about Devin.
If there was anything that gave me pause, made me uncomfortable, it was his wealth that did, his lifestyle. He came from a different world entirely from me, and here, hidden away at Richfield, he might want me on some level. In the real world? He wouldn’t. I knew that.
Or he might want, but he wouldn’t act on it. Not with prying eyes and nosy media and online bloggers and trolls ready to eviscerate anyone who did anything they could take a jab at. If Devin busted me out in public, he would be thrust into the limelight in a way he would despise. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe no one would give two shits what a rich guy did with a girl who was legally of age. I guess it depended on whether or not Devin wanted to take that risk. Any risk. For me.
So I just stood there and waited, studying his beard scruff, wanting to touch it. To touch him. Everywhere.
His free hand snaked around behind my waist and he did something at the computer. The music filled the room. It was electronic, ultimately a dance song for a club, yet it was more than that. It had nuances and layers. It was raw and emotional, pounding, anguished. Was that how he saw me? Or as he put it, heard me?
Cupping my cheek, he caressed my skin and I sighed. I had been getting bits and pieces of that touch, that tender connection, since the minute he’d arrived at Richfield. I craved his touch now. I wanted more. I wanted all of him.
“I keep thinking that I have no right to keep you here, like this. But I can’t stop myself. I can’t let you go. It’s selfish, but I’m tired of being reasonable. I spent four years being reasonable. Now I just feel defiant.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Devin?” I asked, because I had to hear it. I had to know. We could dodge and weave around the sexual tension between us forever. Though there was more to it than that. It wasn’t just about desire. Sex. We couldn’t pretend that our feelings were just simple and platonic friendship.