I nodded again and pushed my plate away. As he spoke, I watched the little scar on his chin as it moved with his jaw with every word and I listened to him tell the tale of how he thought things happened from way back when he was a child. A family took him in and cared for him as best they could. No family is perfect. A boy that came from nothing and was brought in to a family like that should be happy to have something at all. At least that’s what Seth believed.
So the little pieces of weirdness and strange things he saw over the years, he dismissed and discounted them as that. They were none of his business and besides, he came from a magical family so there were bound to be some strange things going on.
He couldn’t remember his mother at all. He was made to believe all sorts of things about her—that they had found a drug addict wandering in the woods with a small boy and when they confronted her, she ran and left him there, but it was on the news later that night that she had died. If they hadn’t come along, he would have died, too.
I knew that wasn’t the story, but didn’t want to try to hash any of that out right now. I’d have to let Mom do that.
There were a lot of things from his childhood he would have changed, he explained, but a lot of things he was grateful for. I felt so bad for him. He was doing a bang-up job of trying to find the good in them at all cost.
“Let’s go,” I begged.
He deflated and rubbed his hair. “Okay, Ava.”
“No, no, not to school.” He looked at me with the first spark I’d seen all day. “Take me somewhere.”
“I’ll take you anywhere,” he said almost sadly. “Where do you want to go?”
I took a big sip of my coffee. “Surprise me.”
He grinned and then stood, offering me his hand. “Then let’s go.”
He took me to this art gallery that was nothing but music inspired art pieces. Lyrics, notes, musicians, old, new, jazzy, classical, alternative. It was amazing to see it all smashed together, a smorgasbord of beautiful music and pictures. It was on the outside of town, near the river. When we passed a canvas of Etta James’s “At Last” that someone did for her lyrics, I thought I was going to keel over and die right there. We probably stood there for fifteen minutes staring at it.
“How did you know this was here? Better yet,” I asked without waiting, “how did you know I would love this?”
“Do you? Love it?” he asked innocently.
I squinted and shook my head. “You’re too good at this. It’s not fair.”
He chuckled and walked closer, taking my hand in his easily, massaging my fingers as if each one was priceless and precious.
“Is this okay?” he asked quietly as we walked.
“Which part? The part where you’re totally sweet and hold my hand or the part where you completely ruin me by somehow knowing all my favorite things and make me crazy?”
My breathing was a little rapid at this point, but for some reason this seemed to please him.
He leaned in, inspecting me, and cupped my cheek gently, letting his thumb sweep over my cheek back and forth. “Both of those things sound pretty good to me.” His smile was the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. “Come on, little bird. I’ve got something else to show you.”
Little bird…
He took me to this awesome food truck at the river and got us some sweet tea and the most amazing shrimp tacos I’d ever had before taking us out to the mountains. We moved to the back of the truck where he laid out a blanket first and then helped me up into the bed of it by getting in first and giving me a hand up.
We sat back there and ate, watching the waterfalls and the mountain, just enjoying the quiet and the life that Tennessee had to offer. When I was done, he leaned back inside his truck window and got some pencils and paper. “What’s this?”
“What do you think?” he explained hesitantly. A little sheepishly. “It’s your turn.”
“You’re going to draw me?” My heart practically sang out loud at those words.
“I’m no Picasso. Keep that I mind.”
“I hope not,” I scrunched my nose. “Picasso stunk. And he’s dead, so.”
He laughed and tucked my hair behind my ear, causing me to bite me lip. “You like art, but do you like to draw? Or sing? Play the piano? Anything?”
“No,” I answered and tried to see what he was drawing. He pulled it back and smiled, shaking his head. I sat back, giving up. “No, I’m not good at anything. I just have to admire other’s work. My uncle can make you good at things with his ability, but I never had any interest in learning that way. It’s cheating.” I smirked.
“I’ve always loved to draw. It used to get me into trouble in school.” I watched his deft fingers as they worked. And kept watching in silence for the next fifteen minutes until he was done. “It’s just your face,” he said and cleared his throat, seeming to be nervous.
“I’m sure I’ll love it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’ll have to because you’re my—you know. It’s like when a mom can’t say that a kid’s picture is ugly because it’s her kid’s.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s not really the same thing.”
“And we just went through the daggum art gallery. Now you’re going to be comparing it to—”
I took it. “Will you just give it to me?” I turned it over slowly and watched his face. He was actually nervous. I looked at it and felt all the air leave my body in a painful burst. It hurt from not breathing. “Seth.”
He gripped my forearm. “Ava.”
“Oh, my gosh.”
“What?”
“It’s…” I met his eyes and hoped my face looked like a smile. “I look so…pretty. My hair is so… Blowing in the wind like that, it’s so lifelike. And my lips. Is that really what my lips looks like?”
“Absolutely,” he growled.
I looked up to find his eyes hooded, and I would have given anything for him to reach over and kiss me right then. It was the first time I really, truly wanted him to kiss me. And it scared the crap out of me.
“It’s beautiful. Can I keep it?”
He nodded and kind of smirked a little as he looked down. “I might have a one or two already.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. You’re mine, Ava. I dream about you.”
I gasped a little and felt that statement all the way to my toes. “I think…I dream about you, too.”
His smile never changed. “I think so.” I bit into my lip and watched him watch me. He closed his eyes for a second before he said, “Here. Give me your foot.” I put my blue Converse in his lap and he pulled a sharpie out of his front shirt pocket. On my shoes that I loved so much, I watched as he made them even better, immortalizing not only our relationship, but my favorite song and singer as he drew in a beautiful script “At Last” on one shoe top and “My Love” on the other.
I wanted to cry, just burst.
Instead I scooted up next to him, looped my arm through his, and we watched the falls for a while and waited until it was time to go in silence. Nothing but the sounds of the water and the beats of our hearts together in his chest to keep us company.
But that was the best kind of music.
_ _ _
I was stalling again. Tonight would be another test. I knew it. He would say he was coming and there would be a chance he would fail and I…
I looked over at him. He was waiting patiently for me, but I could tell by the look on his face that he knew I was right. We were all being tested. His family was being tested, too. If they truly were up to no good, then they wouldn’t keep stopping him from seeing me. They wouldn’t keep coming up with “emergencies” and things that needed to be done in order for him to not see me.
He licked his lip and furrowed his brow. It was in anger, but not at me.
“Touché,” he rumbled and reached across the seat slowly, rubbing his pinky against mine.
It was his capitulation.
It was the first time I’d seen him admit tha
t something was amiss with his family. It broke my heart for him. Though we’d spent all afternoon in an almost-fight about his family, I couldn’t stand the thought that his world was crumbling around him. What that realization must feel like inside was ripping me from the inside out. I slid across the seat, noticing the way his eyes widened as I turned to put my back to the steering wheel and my knees to the seat, and curled myself against him. Laying my head against his chin I wrapped one arm around his neck as best I could while taking his arm in mine and putting it around my leg on my calf since he seemed so stunned he didn’t move, or was afraid to. I then flushed so hot at why I had done that. But it felt so heavenly. I didn’t look up at him, just continued to stare at his neck and chin, breathing in his scent and shirt so close to me. His hair was right near my fingers on the back of his neck. No, I told them, no, God, please, no.
“Mmmm,” he groaned as my fingers dug in and tugged a little. That sound…
That sound could cure what ailed you.
I kept moving them, scratching lightly and tugging, trying to be soothing, trying to push my calm through with my every thought and movement. That was the whole point of this. It didn’t matter if we had fought, it didn’t matter what had happened. Just like I had told him before. Our kind doesn’t fight. He said his aunt and uncle fought so bad every night that Harper had to sneak out and go somewhere else. That just doesn’t fit the bill. Once one or the other got that upset, they should be trying to comfort each other. He said his whole family fought—it just isn’t the way of our kind.
We work things out. We talk, and argue, and go back and forth, and compromise. We don’t fight.
I needed to remember that. What we had been doing wasn’t fighting. We were gently arguing to the point of working things out.
“I’m sorry, Seth,” I whispered and tugged us closer, closing my eyes and pressing us together, physically and in every other way. In that moment, I just wanted to take away all his ache. “I wish there was something I could do.”
His fingers went under my chin and he lifted, an expression on his face that confused me. He looked almost angry, but more confused than anything.
“How can you not see what you’re doing?” I squinted, thinking I was being scolded, but his hard fingers loosened and that thumb that had tortured me on several occasions already started sweeping across the arc of my jaw. I felt my eyes getting heavy and could see why girls in books could fall so easily for a guy who worked with his hands. Those hands meant something. They worked for something, saved lives, and touched me with meaning—not just for personal pleasure or gain. He was so close that another inch and our noses would have touched. That thumb that was my undoing swept over the curve of my jaw again and I shivered, unable to hold it in. The look of absolute satisfaction and happiness was expected, but different. It didn’t come in the form I thought. No smirk emerged, no chuckle, no laugh, no smile. Just utter elation. Absolute joy. He was happy, but didn’t want to joke or rub my face in it—he was just happy that he could elicit a response from my body, that I wanted him for more than just his calming touch, and that all he needed to know.
For now.
He moved on with no fanfare and I was grateful. “How can you not see how you’re helping me by just being here?” The palm on my calf squeezed. “This is what I need. You. Like this,” he said, leaning his head back on the seat, his voice fading away in exhaustion. “God, help me, I don’t know what to do anymore.” His eyes followed the cars that drove past us, like they carried the answers away. “I know you think I’m a fool for believing in them.” It wasn’t a question. I put my hand on his chest, right on the ‘22’ for his fire station. I gulped, feeling the pain of his words dig into my chest as he felt them, and just clung to the feel of his fingers on the skin of my jaw. “I just wanted to have it all. A family. A great job. A wif—a significant,” he corrected.
I looked down at our hands on his chest. But I would be his wife one day. That was a fact. And that didn’t scare me as badly as it once had. He brought my face back up with that same torturous thumb. He seemed to be pulling one of my moves. Stalling.
He sighed and finally whispered, “Wife,” correcting himself once more.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until it came rushing out and my eyelids fluttered in a rush with it. The lightheadedness made him seem almost ethereal as I looked at him, a little haze around him. I shook my head and licked my lips.
“You do have a family. I’m sorry that we may not have made you feel as welcome as we should have in the beginning. I’m really sorry about that.” I lowered my head shamefully, remembering that first night… He raised it, not letting me get away with it for a second. His thumb brushed side to side across my chin, giving me strength and forgiveness whether I deserved it or not as our breaths picked up speed between us. “But you have family here. You have all the things on your list,” I whispered.
His surprised breath was loud. “Ava.”
“You do,” I insisted, pressing my hand up higher on his chest. “And the fact that you felt like you were not only about to lose your only family, but were about to be inducted into a family that hated you on top of it is…” I shook my head. “We completely dropped the ball. I’m so sorry.” I pushed his hand away and took his face in between my hands. His eyes lowered as he emitted a small sound, but I steamed on. “If the situation had been reversed, you would have made sure I felt safe. You would have made sure that I knew that you and your family were there for me. My parents haven’t even spoken to you since that first night. I should have…I should have made them go and talk to you—”
“Your father spoke with me,” he blurted out.
“What?” I whispered, shocked.
He pulled my hands down gently and held them between in between his own firmly, but gently, with clear intent that he wasn’t letting them go.
“This morning when I pulled into your yard,” he chuckled in an embarrassed way, “at four a.m., your father came outside to speak with me. He came out and sat on the bench next to your mom’s bushes and waited. I got out and we sat in the dark for a while, not saying anything. And then he started to tell me about your mom, about how he used to sneak in her window at night because her father was human and that was the only way they could be together in the mornings. That he would have done anything to make sure she wasn’t hurting,” he finished, his voice low and telling. “That they had faced obstacles just like we had to and that it—” He stopped.
“What?” I asked—begged—in a whisper.
“He basically asked me if I thought it was worth it to stick it out. If I thought you were worth all the trouble. That he knew my family has ways of removing my imprint if I wished it. I could even get a new significant.” I groaned painfully, hating that statement with every fiber of my being. His fingers swept over mine in apology. “He basically wanted to know why I was still bonded to you, why I still kept coming back, when I had every reason not to and every resource at my disposal. And then he wanted to know if I thought it was worth it, was I going to fight for you with everything in me, with all I have, all I’ve got, every breath, every beat.”
I couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t make me wait long. He pulled me a half inch closer as he laced our fingers with one hand and put them over his chest.
“No one is taking you away from me,” he promised, his voice low and ominous was strangely exactly what I needed in that moment to finish falling over the edge for him. “Are you worth it?” he asked as if it were ludicrous. “Is this worth it? Have I waited my entire life for it? Will I give it up just because it’s hard? Just because it’s not given to me so easily?” He shook his head so slowly and leaned forward, pressing his lips to my hair. “Ah, little bird, you are so worth it,” he whispered.
I licked my lips as my breaths raged between them in confusion. Little bird. Little bird…
He pulled back and looked at my face. “Yeah,” he sighed and smiled. “Little bird.” He gu
lped and searched my face and he took my cheeks in his hands. “You like?”
I nodded. “I like.”
He looked down and back up, looking like he wanted to say a million and one things. “Ava.”
“That’s not the first time you’ve called me ‘little bird’, is it? Or the second, or even third,” I whispered in awe. There was something going on, humming at the edges of understanding, but strangely, I wasn’t afraid. It was Seth and I knew now, without a shadow of doubt, that he was on Team Ava. This was a catalyst for the rest of our lives and I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I did know that I trusted him—wholly, completely, with my entire beating heart.
“No, sweetheart, it’s not,” he whispered back. His fingers played with the curls at my ear and I wanted to close my eyes and soak it in, but I focused. I made myself focus. “I don’t want you to hate me, Ava.”
I smiled, even as he said those words. “I could never hate you.”
He tugged me even closer, my hand between us on his heart—our hearts—the only thing separating us. “I wanna…” He growled.
My mouth popped open at that and I found myself giggling. He scoffed. “What?” He chuckled despite himself and shook his head. “My misery is funny to you?”
“You growled.” I kept my smirk in place inches from his mouth.
“Yeah,” he relented, his eyes hooding a little further, “I growled.” Funny how his voice seemed a little bit more growly when he said that.
“But why did you growl?”
“Well it’ll just seem stupid now,” he pouted. I could have bitten into that lip right then. Nibbled it like a peanut. He made a breathy, growly noise. “So not helping.” He leaned up and pressed his mouth to my ear, causing me to moan pretty embarrassingly. “I can hear everything you’re thinking like a foghorn, little bird. You’ve gotta stop.”
My hand wrapped in his collar wasn’t pushing him away, it was tugging him closer. I fought for air as it raged in my lungs. The scruff of his chin rasped against my cheekbone as he moved.
“What did you want?” I asked, my voice ridiculously breathy.