The Best I Could (43 page)

“I think I like the turtle slice best, the
one with all of the chocolate, caramel, and pecans,” Tansy said,
leaning forward, her tongue darting out to lick stray cake off of
her lips.

After our impromptu sexual escapade, I’d
rescued the food from the deck, and Tansy had insisted we try every
slice of cheesecake to see which tasted best.

“It’s the Georgia in you. With the pecans,
it’s got a pecan pie feel.”

“That,” she said, brows arched, fork lifted,
“does not taste anything like pecan pie.”

Leaning back against the headboard, I studied
her, my gaze trailing the ridges of her naked back, tempting
me.

I wasn’t lying when I told Tansy being at the
treehouse wasn’t about sex. The sex came after her confession. It
came after the unexpected surge of anger I’d felt when I thought
she was ending it all; the friendship and this crazy connection
we’d had since the beginning.

Even angry, I wouldn’t have left. Gone for a
walk until I cooled off maybe, but I wouldn’t have left. I didn’t
abandon people. I separated myself from them when I needed to, but
I didn’t abandon.

When Tansy admitted she wanted more than
friendship … the way she looked at me when she said it … her
confession sent relief crashing through me, a stark surge of lust
with it.

“Which one?” Tansy asked, throwing a look
over her shoulder, the diamond stud in her nose flashing. When she
saw my expression, she paused and clenched the sheet to her
chest.

“I’d rather taste you,” I told her, my voice
seductively low. Reaching out, I touched her shoulder, drawing a
finger down her side.

Her eyes fell shut. “I taste like
cheesecake,” she whispered.

“Let’s find out.”

Pulling her toward me, I kissed her, our
mouths melding together, my tongue nibbling at her bottom lip until
she opened for me, giving me access.

Lips, tongue, and teeth.

Sensation and need turning us into raging
beasts.

Fingernails dug into my skin, her hands
pulling at my hair, scouring my back, and clutching my waist.

Pulling away, she dragged kisses down my
neck, my collarbone, and my chest, her tongue circling my nipples,
tasting and teasing.

“Fuck …”

I picked up a condom I’d placed on the table
next to the bed, but Tansy stopped me.

Taking the foil packet from my hands, she
ripped it open, reached between us, and slid the rubber down the
length of me.

Her hand on my dick was too much.

“Ride me, Tansy,” I hissed in her ear.

Our lips met, heat against heat, my hands on
her hips as she seated herself over me.

She rocked.

Our kiss broke, mutual moans filling the
room. Bracing herself, she fell into a rhythm, a primal dance that
commanded my dick like a fucking snake charmer.

Her movements grew frantic, her head falling
back, and I captured her breasts in my hands, kneading them, before
feasting on one nipple at a time. Fire and heat built in my groin
the faster and harder she undulated.

Grasping her hips, I moved with her.

“Eli,” she breathed.

It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard, my
name on her lips. Much better than cheesecake.

The angle, the way she moved, was friction
enough that I didn’t have to reach between us to make her come. She
did that on her own, her lips parted, cheeks flushed, her inner
muscles clenching around me.

Taking over, I pounded into her, riding her
orgasm, pleasure building.

One thrust … two … and I was coming so hard
and fast, my head spun.

Tansy clung to my neck, her lips near my ear
when she whispered, “Yes.”

We fell into a hugging embrace, our frantic
heartbeats resting against each other, her arms on my neck, mine
around her waist. Tight. Not letting go.

“Best cheesecake I ever had,” I gasped.

Laughter shook her. “What do they call this
flavor? And don’t say love because that’s predictable, saccharine,
and corny.”

“Suck all of the romance right out of it,” I
huffed, feigning disgust.

Sitting up, she peered down at me, her eyes
so close to mine, I could make out small specks of brown in the
green. “Speaking of romance. You wrote that on your bag—”

“You’re making me believe in it, roof girl,”
I stated, cutting her off, smoothing the worry lines between her
brows.

We moved apart long enough for me to slide
free of her and discard the condom.

“I was nine the first time I managed to get a
stone to skip across the water,” I said suddenly. Out of nowhere.
“We were camping, staying in a cabin near a large lake. So big,
that at the time, it felt like I was staring at the sea.”

Tansy settled into the crook of my arm, and I
played with her hair.

“Okay?” she asked, amused.

The story came out of left field. From sex to
stone skipping. Tansy was rubbing off on me.

I chuckled. “Bear with me. You’ve told me so
much about yourself I figure I owe you a few stories.” The air
conditioner switched off, the hum replaced by the sound of the
creek outside. “I’d been on a boat quite a few times with my
grandfather, but it was at the lake that I found myself really
dreaming about the sea. My grandfather used to skip rocks, and I’d
mimic him, but I could never get the stone to skim the surface. It
would hit the water and sink. Even Jonathan, as small as he was,
could get the rock to skip a few times. For some reason, I got
obsessive about it. From sunrise to sunset, I looked for rocks,
felt them out, and threw them into the water. Once I got a rock to
skip, I couldn’t stop. I needed to make them skip longer, farther.
As if trying hard enough would get a rock to skip all the way
across the ocean.”

I smiled at the memory. “I competed in stone
skipping contests for years. Even won a few of them.”

Tansy tilted her head. “They have stone
skipping contests?”

“Sweetheart, they have rock-skipping
championships and record holders.”

She laughed, and then sobered. “I like that
image. You as a boy standing on the side of a lake trying to skip
stones.”

We fell silent.

Despite the hard times in our lives, there
were good memories, images, and instances that sustained us.

Tansy grew heavy and relaxed against my side,
and I glanced down to find her eyes closed, her breathing deep.

A vintage, black iron clock rested on a small
desk across the room, and I glanced at it, relieved to discover we
still had hours before we had to leave. The sun was high in the
sky.

My gaze returned to Tansy’s face. She looked
young and untroubled when she slept, all of the thoughts,
questions, and ideas which normally ran through her eyes, put to
rest.

Beneath the façade, beneath all of the grief
she’d suffered—through the death of her parents, and the
displacement of her family—there was a sensitive girl who felt too
much. A girl scared of love and what it would mean for her.

Despite that, she’d told me she loved me.

That was the reason I trusted her, the reason
I could look beyond the feelings I had about romance and women. As
afraid as she was of loving someone, she’d trusted me enough to
overcome the fear.

Me, the asshole who’d been standing on a roof
smoking a cigarette, mentally cataloguing all of the things he
thought was wrong with his life.

Relaxing against the pillows, I shut my eyes,
but I didn’t sleep. I listened to Tansy’s even breathing,
memorizing it. When I went to Michigan, I didn’t want to forget the
way it sounded.

Tansy

I was dreaming about an earthquake when I
woke to find Eli shaking me gently.

“Come see this,” he whispered.

His jeans were on, but his shirt was missing,
lying in a wrinkled navy blue pool on the floor. He had bed head,
all tousled and spiked in places, and it looked good on him.

Pushing myself up, I wiped the sleep from my
eyes, leaned over the side of the bed, and picked up my dress. “You
let me sleep?”

Not that I minded the rest, but I didn’t want
to miss any moment I had left with him.

Eli lifted my chin. “It was good watching you
relax.” Releasing me, he stepped back. “Come.”

Slipping the dress over my head, I climbed
out of the bed, the fabric sliding over naked flesh, hiding it.

Eli’s hand was out, and I took it.

Fingers closing over mine, he led me to the
door, guiding me onto the rope bridge beyond. The fairy lights were
bright, the world above it a deepening mix of magenta and gold.

“Oh,” I breathed.

A crescent moon braved the sunset, a knight
waiting to kick the kingly sun out of the sky.

“It’s …” I wasn’t sure which word to use.

Eli’s gaze fell to my face. “Like I said, you
don’t want to miss this place at sunset.”

We were enchanted, laughing as we traversed
the rope bridge, entering the living area before bursting onto the
deck.

“En garde, Peter Pan,” I teased, climbing up
onto a bench built into the side of the deck, fist pumping the
sky.

Approaching me, Eli gripped my waist, his
height keeping him mostly even with me. I was only a few inches
taller on the bench. “You are no Captain Hook.”

“Wendy?”

“Tinkerbell maybe.”

Head back, I stared at the sky—richly-colored
air above me—Eli and a world covered in fairy lights below. The
feel of it, the giant emotions, overwhelmed me, and I pulled my arm
into my chest, popping the band on my wrist. Not because I felt
like hurting myself, but because I liked knowing this was real.

“A new world,” I gasped. “This place where
nothing else exists. Makes you wonder if the people we’ve lost are
up there. Among the stars.”

Eli inhaled the night. “I don’t know. It’s
moments like this that makes you wonder if we look too closely at
our lives. If we let troubles touch us more than we should. If
maybe we shouldn’t spend more time enjoying what we have and less
hating what’s happened to us.”

Surprised, I peered down at
him. “Wow, roof boy. Maybe this treehouse was as much for you as it
was for me, huh? Not a date, but a …
something
.”

“Ha, I think we trampled over the whole ‘this
was supposed to be a date’ thing when we turned it into a steamy
mini-vacay.”

My laugh rivaled the fairy lights. “I never
want to be typical. This was perfect. I mean it.”

We went back to gazing at the sky, crickets
striking up an orchestra in the forest below. Frogs played second
fiddle near the creek.

“We have to get back soon,” Eli said
finally.

The sun vanished, leaving the moon smiling
like a Cheshire cat, the world a sudden explosion of stars. Of
fairy dust.

After a while, I let my head drop, my gaze
finding Eli’s, his pupils lit up by the lights.

Without warning, he took my face in his hands
and kissed me—long and deep without any expectations. His soul was
in that kiss.

No words.

Something about the way the sun disappeared,
the world changing so drastically, made it seem wrong to say
anything.

Pulling away, Eli helped me down off of the
bench, and we went through the treehouse, dressing and cleaning up
before we climbed down, taking turns visiting the ground-level
bathroom for the final time.

I’d been downstairs during the day, but this
time there was no returning to the house in the trees, to that
moment standing among the stars wondering if they held secret
pieces of us.

We left, me backing the Buick carefully out
of the woods to the road beyond, headlights glaring.

The interstate loomed, signs and car lights
winking at us, when Eli spoke. “One day I’m going to own a boat,
one I designed, and I’m going to take you out on the sea. At
night.”

My heart swelled. “I’d like that.”

He leaned back, lost in thought.

Later, after I’d parked the car in the
orchard drive and climbed out to meet Eli in the yard, he took my
hand, laced it with his, and said, “This won’t end with summer,
okay? Believe that.”

I nodded, words trapped in my throat.

Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he backed
toward the cottage, his fingers drawing a cigarette out of his
pocket, the first one I’d seen him pull out all day.

“I’ll call,” he promised.

I didn’t doubt him.

***

“I’m doing the best I can!” Nana yelled.

Home found my sister and Nana in the final
throes of an argument, their faces heated.

Deena’s shoulders slumped.

Hanging the Buick keys near the door, I
stepped forward carefully. “Everything okay?”

Deena glanced at me, her gaze taking in my
wrinkled sundress and wind-kissed cheeks. “It’s fine,” she mumbled.
“Did you have fun?”

Images of my body entwined with Eli’s flitted
through my head, and I blushed. “It was great.” Gesturing at the
two of them, I nodded at the room. “What happened?”

“It’s fine,” Deena repeated, stomping
off.

My gaze slid to Nana.

She sighed. “Your sister has a friend in her
boxing class she’s worried about. A Roger Hernandez. He’s in the
foster care system, and she saw him when we were in town today. The
man he was with hit him.”

My mouth dropped. “What?”

Nana winced. “It’s a bad situation, I know.
These people you girls keep getting attached to …” Lifting her
reading glasses, she rubbed her eyes, and laughed shortly. “I like
that you know them. That you both have big hearts, but Deena wanted
me to take him in, and I can’t do that. I reported the foster
father, and with all of the red tape and legal trouble the boy has
been in, that’s the best I can do.”

I studied her, the way she glanced at the
hallway, genuinely concerned, and I melted. “You did good.”

Her head shot up, her astonished gaze finding
mine. “I wanted to do more.”