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“I’m doing it.”
“I mean... after.”
He was already tense, but he suddenly seemed to turn into stone. She stared at his hands, crooked over the steering wheel, and the fact that his knuckles looked whiter by the second.
“After what? This is after.”
“After the military, sure. But you can’t do Alaska Force forever, can you?”
He cut the wheel, pulling the SUV over to the side of the road, and then stopping abruptly. So abruptly she threw out a hand to catch herself on the dashboard.
“What do you think is happening?” he asked, a kind of midnight in his voice. His gaze, too. But he kept his hands on the wheel, still clenched too tight. “Let me tell you right now, little girl—this isn’t some fairy tale where you walk through a deep dark forest and come out the other side a princess.”
“That’s great news, because I’m not a little girl and I don’t actually look good in tiaras.”
Blue ignored that. “This is just life, Everly. We’re going to fix this, you’re going to live your life and apparently start it with some job hunting, and you don’t need to worry about what I’m going to do after Alaska Force. That’s not your business.”
She’d known better than to poke at him, and she’d done it anyway. She had no one to blame if he’d hurt her feelings. Exactly the way she’d known he would. “It was just a question.”
“Like hell it was. You think I can’t tell the difference between an innocent question and an agenda?”
“I don’t know if you can, actually.” Everly hadn’t been mad at him a second ago, so it was surprising how quickly it ignited inside her. “So far, the evidence seemsto suggest you see agendas wherever you look. Your mother can’t be happy to see you. I can’t ask a question. It’s all a big dramatic plot to harm you, headed toward some end only you know.”
“The fact that you think you can sit here and talk to me about my mother is everything that’s wrong with this situation,” Blue said coldly. So coldly it should have frozen her where she sat, despite the summer heat outside. “And it ends now. You don’t know a goddamned thing about my childhood. You were across the street living out your perfect little life. You’ll go back to pink bikes and fairy tales the minute this crap is over. The end.”
“My childhood wasn’t perfect. Far from it.” She glared at him, and wished she didn’t know how to hit things now, because it was all she wanted to do. “You’ve met my mother. She’s driven and exacting when she’s on vacation. You have no idea what it’s like being her disappointing child who failed to follow in her footsteps.”
“Yeah, let me haul out my violin. That sounds terrible.”
Somehow, Everly managed to keep her head from exploding. “It’s not a competition.”
“I should have known better than to touch you,” he said, in that same way he’d brought up what had happened between them before. Like a gut punch. And this time, even though she knew it was deliberate, a distancing maneuver he was using to push her away, she found that it worked. It felt like her heart was three times its usual size, bruised, and lodged in her throat. “I knew you couldn’t handle it.”
“I don’t think that I’m the one who can’t handle it, Blue.” She refused to let him see how much he’d hurt her.No matter how it cost her to stay calm. “It’s pretty clear that I’m not the one freaking out here. Do you want to talk about whyyoucan’t handle it?”
She knew perfectly well he didn’t.
And they were so close, there in the front of that SUV. She could see that fascinating muscle tense in his jaw, and she wanted nothing more than to run her palms over his face again, so she could marvel in the feel of his cheekbones. So she could feel the heat of his skin. And get close to that gorgeous mouth of his, which she really didn’t know if she could bear to never kiss again.
But she didn’t dare reach out. Not now.
Everly had never seen anyone look more lonely, or more angry and defeated, somehow, than Blue did right now. As if he were carrying an unbearable weight he didn’t know how to put down.
She felt tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She felt the ache of wanting to help him moving over her like a kind of flu.
“You don’t have to freak out about this,” she told him, though she knew better. She really did. But she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. “You don’t have to worry. I love you.”
He let out a sound, not quite a laugh, because it was far too bitter for that.
And he looked at her as if she’d betrayed him.
“Blue...”
Everly cast around for something to say. She wanted desperately to take back what she’d said, or modify it so he wouldn’t look at her as if she’d attacked him. But on the other hand, she was reluctant to do anything of the kind. Because it was true. And because some suicidal orjust plain silly part of her thought that even though he didn’t want to hear it, he needed to.
“Blue, you have to know—”
“Stop.” His voice was soft. Too soft, and somehow still a stern order. His dark eyes glittered, as if he were holding back a storm by sheer force of will alone. And still, she felt it wash over her—through her—like a hurricane. “We’re here.”