Hidden

“Scott McCall, I’ve been in this bed with you when it was a hundred degrees outside and the air conditioner was broken and you were still asleep the minute your head hit the pillow.”

He turned his head, studying the shadows of her face in the moonlit night.

“When you moved in here, we promised no questions.”

She didn’t look away. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just felt a distance in you all day and figured I’d make it easy on you.”

He frowned. “Make what easy on me?”

“You’re getting ready to tell me it’s time to end things. And I understand. You’re probably right. I’ll start looking for a place for Taylor and me in the morning.”

She could walk out on him just like that? If so, he’d made more of a mistake than he’d realized. He’d thought their enjoyment of each other, at least, was mutual. He’d thought that when they eventually parted it would be with regret on both sides.

“I’m really sorry about today,” she continued, licking her lips as though they were too dry. “I never should’ve run off and left you with Taylor, forcing you to be responsible for him.”

“You didn’t force anything. As long as he’s in my home, I am responsible for him. If nothing else, the law would hold me accountable. And that responsibility,” he added, staring back at the ceiling, “is of my own choosing.”

“Well…” Her voice was thick and she sounded as if she had something in her throat. “Thank you.”

Silence fell. A million things ran through his mind. Words to say. Warnings to himself. They were jumbled with emotions he didn’t completely understand. She’d fall asleep soon, and then he’d be free to work it all out. He didn’t have to report until eight in the morning. He had hours yet.

When Tricia pulled the covers up to her shoulders and moments later, scratched her neck, Scott knew she wasn’t any closer to falling asleep than he was.

“I wasn’t planning to ask you to move out. I don’t want you to.”

A reply might have made him feel better.

“Unless you need to, of course. In which case you have my full support and the use of my truck and any muscle you need to move Taylor’s things.”

“I’m a free spirit, Scott.”

“I know.”

“If you have expectations I’m only going to disappoint you.”

“I don’t.”

“I can’t live my life always being a disappointment.”

“You aren’t a disappointment.” Life was, maybe—the circumstances that had brought them together at this place and time, when neither of them was in a position to get involved.

“I can’t stay if my being here hurts you.” Though their bodies were close, they weren’t touching, separated by the covers. She hadn’t moved. Neither had he.

“It’s not your being here that hurts me.” He wasn’t supposed to hurt at all anymore. His whole life was organized around that principle. It was a decision he’d made years ago. And upheld without fail.

“What does?”

The air return flipped on, blowing thinly across the bed, across his skin. Scott started to get hard. All he wanted was to pull the covers off Tricia’s delicious body, roll over on top of her and just live.

He pulled the corner of the sheet over his thighs.

“I wouldn’t call it hurt.”

She continued to stare in his direction. Did she see him more clearly in the dark, without the distraction of light and color? Really see him? Or did the darkness allow her to pretend?

“What, then?” she asked.

He might as well tell her. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose. She was going to leave eventually anyway.

“I’m just curious,” he murmured.

“About what?”

“You.”

She rolled onto her back, her head facing up. “What about me?” Her voice had grown more friendly and that in itself rang as a warning to him.

“Your inconsistencies.”

“Such as?” He might have been responsible for some of the distance between them that evening. Right now, it all came from her.

“You speak as though this modest lifestyle is all you’ve ever known, but when you need to use the restroom, you go to the Hotel Del.”

“It was the closest—”

“No.” He turned his head, pinning her with his stare although he knew she couldn’t see that. “It wasn’t. There was a motel five minutes down the road with a public restroom sign in the window. It’s like you didn’t even see it. Which would often be the case with someone who’s grown up with only the best. Without even realizing it, you learn to disregard anything less as if it doesn’t exist. Because in your reality, it doesn’t.”

“Well, I—”

“It wasn’t just that.” Scott cut her off as soon as he heard the prevarication in her voice. “It was the way you moved at the Del. You demanded your share of space, as though you belonged there.”

She rolled over to look at him. “I walked out the door!”

“If I hadn’t lived an affluent life myself, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, Trish, but today wasn’t the only time. You get this…air about you. An air of privilege.”

She sat up until her head and shoulders were resting against the headboard. “So I’m a snob.”

“It’s not a snobbish air. More, it’s a sense of self. A natural awareness of worth. I think it’s something bred into wealthy children. Something they take with them wherever they go. Sometimes it’s as simple as the way you stand or the way you move about a room.”

“I had a persnickety aunt. She made me spend one summer at a camp where they taught tomboys to be ladies.”

He believed her. He also believed she’d been born wealthy.

“I told you about my past,” he said.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

She had him there. Still, it bothered him that she didn’t reciprocate. Was it pride?