He managed an unhappy laugh. “So I won’t forget what he did to me. Or my mom. He’d been married to her for twenty-five years, then just pissed it all away, all for Lila.”
Her hand fell against his, gentle, comforting, drawing his gaze. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was telling you the truth. Maybe he really is happier now.”
Andrew smirked. “At least one of us is, then.”
“Hey, I know how it is, how hard it can be,” Dani said. “Tonio and I, we’ve been married seven years. I can’t imagine what it’s like after twenty-five.”
“What do you mean?”
“You miss that sometimes, the way it is when you’re first together, when you first fall in love. Because it’s exciting. It makes you feel…I don’t know. Alive somehow. Didn’t you feel that way about her once? Lila, I mean. Haven’t you ever felt that way since?”
He didn’t answer. He looked into her eyes, all too aware of a pleasant tension that filled the silence, the narrow margin of space between them.
It’s like a date, he thought. A first date, where you’re trying to figure out who’s going to kiss who at the end.
Andrew drew his hand to her face. God, her skin was soft and warm, and he used the pad of his thumb to brush a light line following the curve of her bottom lip. He could have sworn she trembled at his touch and he leaned toward her, tilting his head.
“Andrew,” she breathed, then he kissed her, letting his lips settle softly, gently against hers. Though she didn’t lift her head, she didn’t draw away, either. Her breath had drawn still, her body had gone rigid, that slight tremor he’d felt as he’d caressed her cheek now thrumming through her like an electrical current through a live wire.
He brought his free hand up to cradle her face, lifting her mouth to meet his more fully. He let his lips part, drew the tip of his tongue along the seam of hers, easing them apart to let him inside.
“Andrew,” she whispered again, her voice ragged as she turned her face away. She pushed him and he immediately sat back, ashamed of himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said as she scooted off the bed, stumbling to her feet. “Dani, I’m sorry.” He reached for her, but she backed away, shaking her head.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, helplessly.
“It’s late,” she mumbled, drawing her arms around herself in a fierce embrace, closing him off as effectively as Alice whenever she’d fugue out of conscious awareness.
“Wait,” he pleaded.
“I should go.” She bolted from the room, letting the door slam shut behind her.
Shit. Andrew sighed heavily, shoulders hunched, as he shoved his fingers through his hair. Way to go, Romeo. You just lost your only friend in this place.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Well, well, well,” Suzette remarked Andrew approached her and Alice along their regular walk the next morning. “Look who’s out at the crack of dawn again.”
He’d been hovering outside the bay door of the compound’s garage while Dani worked inside, trying to muster the balls to go inside and talk to her, apologize for what had happened the night before. But when he’d seen Suzette and Alice coming, he’d been nearly grateful for the chance to escape and had abandoned his post, cutting across the yard to meet them headlong.
“Hey, Suzette,” he said. She’d sounded snide in her greeting, a thinly veiled sarcasm he didn’t understand. Coming to a stop in Alice’s immediate path, since this was the only way to get her to stop, he squatted down to the girl’s eye level. “Morning, Alice. How are you doing?”
Alice blinked at some indistinct point beyond his shoulder, as if taking no notice of him. The only way he knew with any certainty that she was aware of him at all was the fact that she’d stopped walking.
“Where were you last night?” Suzette asked. “I sat in the rec room for at least an hour waiting.”
“Sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “I got roped into KP duty.”
“KP duty,” Suzette repeated, using her thumb to flick a column of ashes off the tip of her cigarette, sending it tumbling to the grass. She arched her brow and snorted. “Since when did you start talking like them?”
“Like who?” He frowned slightly. “That’s what it’s called.”
“That’s what they call it, the grunts,” Suzette said. “What, did you eat with them in the dee-fack, too?”
“I was invited, yeah, and I accepted,” he said, glowering. So I wasn’t imagining her bitchiness a minute ago. What the hell’s her problem?
“I waited for you,” she said again, her brows narrowing. “In the rec room. With dinner. I thought you were going to join me again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
That little furrow between her brows deepened. “I thought you were going to join me after that again, too.”
“Look, Suzette,” he said again as he stood. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me since I’ve been here, your hospitality and—”
She uttered a sharp bark of laughter. “Is that what you call it?” Shooting a withering glance at the garage beyond his shoulder, she added, “Let me guess. You’re getting your hospitality from someplace else now.”
For a moment, he stood there blinking, caught off guard and feeling somewhat trapped before it occurred to him that he had no reason to feel that way. It’s not like anything happened with Dani, he thought, then the furrow between his brows deepened. And it’s not like Suzette is my goddamn girlfriend.
“Wait a minute,” he began.
Dropping her cigarette onto the grass, she stomped on it, snuffing it. “Why? So you can give me some other pathetic kind of excuse?” She clapped him on the chest as she walked past. “Go fuck yourself, Andrew. Because you sure won’t be getting any from me anymore.”
O’Malley hadn’t ever turned up for dinner the night before, and by lunchtime, was still missing. None of his barrack mates had seen or heard from him in nearly twenty-four hours.
“I’m worried,” Dani told Andrew, pacing restlessly in the corridor outside of the mess hall while inside, the rest of the company ate lunch. He’d expected her to avoid him altogether, or even ream his ass verbally, as Suzette had done, and had been surprised instead when she’d sought him out back inside the barracks.
“About last night,” she’d started, but he’d cut her off, plowing full-steam ahead with the apology that had been on the tip of his tongue all morning long.
“I was an asshole,” he’d told her. “What happened was totally out of line and I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I mean, I was, but I had no right to think that way, or to even think for one second that you might not have minded. Because you did mind, and I know that now, and I’m sorry. I mean, I knew that last night, too, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just…I mean…”
He’d sputtered to a flustered, frustrated stop and looked up from his toes—where he’d pinned his gaze to that point—to find Dani regarding him with her head cocked, her brow raised, the corner of her mouth curled in a slight smile.
“You’re laughing at me,” he’d said.
“Only on the inside,” she’d assured.
“I just…the past couple of days have been really cool, nice even,” he’d said, trying again. “I like spending time with you and I’d like to continue. Spending time with you, I mean.”
That hint of a smile had widened, melting that awkward tension that had lingered between them. “I’d like that, too.”