I had parents, but I might as well have been an orphan for how alone I felt in the world.
“I guess this is your side?” He motioned to my purple and red floral bed.
I nodded, my heart constricting as he sank down on it. He spent his time studying my postcards and posters. He didn’t even look at me. I frowned. One minute he wanted to devour me and the next? Not so much.
I rubbed my perspiring palms against my thighs as he stared at a picture I had taped to the brick wall. I’d drawn it one day during my Biology class last semester. I was bored out of my mind. I had to take the course to meet my degree requirements, but I spent most of the time staring out the window. It was a simple pencil sketch on notebook paper.
I remember that day. It was still warm and nice outside. There had been a girl studying on the quad, her boyfriend across from her, their hands laced lightly together between them as they studied, heads bowed over their separate books. I didn’t know them, but there had been something so natural and intimate in the pose. So sweet and innocent. Even the cynic in me had responded and had ripped out a piece of paper and quickly started drawing them.
“You do this?” he asked, a hint of wonder in his voice.
I nodded, feeling a giddy sense of pride.
“It’s amazing.”
I sank down on the bed beside him, my hands clutching the edge of the mattress. “I’m a studio arts major.”
He faced me. “You’re really good. Is that what you want to do? Be an artist? Well, you are, clearly,” he amended. “But when you graduate?”
I sighed. “I’ll probably end up going into marketing somewhere. Maybe a design firm, but . . . yeah, the dream would be to paint.”
“Then that’s what you should do.”
He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Smiling, I pulled one of my pillows into my lap and plucked at the fringe. “I need to actually get a paycheck.”
He snorted. “You mean you don’t have some fat trust fund? Daddy won’t take care of you indefinitely?”
My smile slipped. Yeah. Dad would keep paying my way. I was his only child and he seemed to have an endless supply of wealth, but I didn’t want that. I couldn’t keep accepting his money. It didn’t feel right. He paid my way because he had more money than he knew what to do with. You didn’t run a Fortune 500 company and not take your responsibilities seriously. And that’s what I was to him. A responsibility—the remnant of a marriage he would rather never have happened. I was an obligation that he would never shirk. He’d take care of me as long as I asked him to, but not because I was “Daddy’s girl” or because he loved me to the point of overindulgence. I’d met my fair share of Daddy’s girls here at Dartford. But I wasn’t one of them.
My silence—or maybe my expression—must have answered for me. Shaw’s gaze moved on, skimming other scraps of paper that I’d pinned to my wall. His long, blunt-tipped fingers stalled on a sketch I did of Pepper and Reece locked in an embrace where I gave them multiple hands. They were like some sort of human octopus, with hands all over each other.
He laughed. “That’s an accurate depiction.”
I grinned. “I amuse myself sometimes.”
“I can see that.” Humor danced in his eyes and he looked at me with something akin to appreciation. The way his eyes slid over me warmed me inside. It wasn’t the kind of look I usually got. It wasn’t lust filled. He looked at me like he liked me.
I toyed with one of my short strands of hair, twisting and tucking it behind my ear. Useless. It sprang free again to dangle over my eye. “Those guys need to lock themselves away for a month until they get it out of their systems.”
“You think a month would be enough?” His gaze roamed my face, his gravelly voice rubbing over me like the drag of satin on my skin. Skin that suddenly felt overly sensitive. “I could see how some people might need longer than that.” He was staring at my mouth now and my face went from warm to hot.
Butterflies erupted in my belly. I tore my gaze off him and looked back at the sketch of Pepper and Reece. Now I’m pretty sure we were talking—or at least thinking—about something else. Definitely not Pepper and Reece anymore.
I suddenly had a vision of us together. With a whole lot less clothes on. I swallowed and took charge of the conversation again, determined to get my mind out of the gutter. “Pepper wasn’t as amused when I offered it to her. She thought it was creepy.”
“I think it’s funny.”
“Thanks.” I smiled again and curled my hands around my knees. The fabric of my purple tights felt smooth under my palms.
“You should paint,” he reasserted with a swift nod. “Don’t go take some job in a cubicle. That would be a crime.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “You were in the Marines. Are you finished with that?”
“I’m still in the reserves, but after two tours, I’m done.” His face was impassive as he said this. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. He traced one finger along the slope of a tree that I had sketched when I was home for Christmas. It was an enormous beech tree right outside my bedroom window. I imagined it was the kind of tree a teenage girl would have shimmied down to sneak out. If her parents cared about her comings and goings and bothered with a curfew, that is. Neither of my parents ever cared. I never had a curfew. I came and went as I pleased. Got myself to school. Ate whatever the cook prepared for me. Sometimes Agnes even stayed and ate with me instead of her own family. Out of pity.
While Dad was away in Barbados over the holidays, I hung out at the house and sketched the tree. It was something to do. A break from reruns of Top Chef.
He still stared at the picture, but he looked far away, like he wasn’t here with me anymore, and I wondered if mentioning the Marines had pulled him away.
I moistened my lips and decided to press for more information. “You lost your cousin over there . . .”
Suddenly he was back with me again. His sharp gaze swung to me, alert. “Guess you would have heard that. No keeping something like that a secret.”
I smiled almost apologetically. “Logan told me at your cousin’s engagement party.”
He nodded grimly. “It’s the Marines, right? Some come home. Some don’t. We knew that before we went over there. I lost three in my unit in the first tour . . . and then I signed up again because I was determined to make it matter. To make a difference.”