at it with impatience and irritation. But he knew it wasn’t just sorrow for the loss of his mother and sister that he was feeling; it was sadness for what might have been if only his father was capable of the sincerity to which he pretended.
Carefully folding the letter back up, he shoved it into its envelope and put it in the drawer. He didn’t want to see his father. Robert was right. Depression wasn’t an excuse he could accept, because he didn’t believe his father had been depressed. It was narcissism, not depression, that drove him that day, just like every day.
He tried not to think about Robert or anything else as he got ready for bed. He was tempted to head back to Vegas and be done with Silver Springs. It was easier to forget his past when he kept moving forward, kept rolling on, constantly looking toward the next day.
But he couldn’t leave before the wedding, would never do that to Aiyana.
It was at least an hour later, when he was still staring at the ceiling—sleep miles and miles away—that he heard a knock. It was so soft that at first he wasn’t positive there was really someone out there.
“Come in,” he said.
Emery slipped inside the room, wearing an overly large T-shirt. He didn’t know if she had anything on underneath.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said. “I just... I couldn’t sleep. The way things ended tonight... I was too worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” He heard the remoteness in his own voice, the “leave me alone” tone of it, and felt bad, but he didn’t know how to bridge the sudden distance between them.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He could tell she wanted him to open up to her the way she’d opened up to him about Ethan and that sex tape. She had to be surprised by what she’d learned tonight. He hadn’t mentioned what his father had done—even that his father was in prison.
“Okay.” She hesitated for another few seconds, giving him a second chance.
He wanted to reach out to her, to pull her into bed with him. But he struggled with the fact that it felt as though he needed her. He couldn’t help fighting that dependence; the desire alone suggested he should deny himself, or maybe he’d come to need her, which he couldn’t allow.
“I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she said at last and turned to go.
Before she could let herself out, he managed to force her name past the lump in his throat. He could help her with Ethan, could reach out because she needed him. It was much harder for him to admit when he needed someone.
“Yes?” she said, looking back at him.
He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, but he lifted the covers.
She didn’t react right away. He held his breath while she stood there, deliberating. For some reason, he couldn’t bear to see her go, and yet he had too much pride to ask her to stay, too much fear of how she made him feel and the vulnerability those emotions created.
His heart jumped into his throat when she closed the door, padded across the floor and crawled into bed with him.
He kissed her immediately, parting her lips with his tongue, and started to remove her shirt. He assumed she wanted another sexual encounter. He certainly wasn’t interested in talking. He expressed himself much better physically, and he looked forward to converting all the negative emotion coursing through him into sexual energy—and a release.
But she resisted, letting him know that her shirt would stay on.
“Emery?” he said, slightly confused.
She didn’t answer. She just pulled him into her arms, pressed his head to her shoulder, and combed her fingers through his hair in a soothing and hypnotic motion. She was refusing to let him change this into something sexual; she was asking him to accept her comfort on a different level. For him, it was a deeper level.
He wasn’t sure he was capable of that. But as the minutes ticked by, he found himself settling more comfortably against her. Then he started to relax. And, at last, he was able to drift off to sleep.
When he woke the next morning, she was gone.
19
Monday, December 14
The following morning, while Emery worked at the cookie store, she kept checking her phone. She was worried about Dallas. He’d seemed so tortured last night, and she felt terrible for how consumed she’d been with her own problems while remaining oblivious to his.
She was hoping to hear