I Need You. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ into her eyes, but she nodded.

      I wanted to grip her hand as we walked across the parking lot. There was a whole minefield of protective energy bubbling around inside me. But it had blown up in my face before. I was steering clear of too much touching.

      The thing with Lindy was she was so tiny it made me want to just put my arms around her and wrap her up. She was like a precious, breakable doll, five-two, to my six-one.

      I glanced over at her. The ocean breeze flicked her wavy blonde hair against the curve of her cheek.

      Her fingers tucked her hair behind her ear.

      I’d wanted to do that for her. There was a hard need to touch her in my belly. But I’d spent years ignoring that instinct. That was nothing new.

      She didn’t look at me. She looked ahead at the apartment block.

      She’d won beauty pageants as a kid. Her Mom had been into all that shit, driving her to loads of contests and Lindy did have the look for that sort of thing, perfect symmetry.

      At high school she’d been full of confidence. At college that had died for some reason.

      She glanced at me, her blue eyes seeming bluer under the clear sky.

      “I’ve ordered adjacent places, is that okay? I can ask them to change them if you want?”

      “No, that’s okay.” She nodded.

      The apartments were stacked and set out in rows spread along the edge of the beach. The guy at the desk said ours were on the top floor. The place was something between a hotel, a motel and cabins, and the rooms ‘slash’ apartments were accessed via a long hallway, with stairs at either end of the block.

      When we got up there, I slid the card key through the lock, then stepped back and shoved the door open for her to go in. “You can have this one.”

      It had a small kitchen and a sofa that turned into a bed. But most importantly, at the end of the room was a big window that looked out on the ocean. It had a balcony too.

      “I’ll go get your stuff.” I left her in her room. But before I went back down to the SUV, I went into mine.

      Shit. I combed a hand through my hair, then realized I’d fucked it up, and rubbed it so it spiked again.

      It was going to be a hell of a couple of weeks.

      I walked over and slid the glass door to the balcony back, letting in the soothing sound of the ocean. It pulled me outside.

      Lindy stood out there, on her balcony, gripping the wooden rail and looking at the ocean. I turned my back on it and rested my butt against the rail. “You okay?”

      “Yeah, just taking in the air.”

      “Look, Lind––”

      “I’m not in the mood to talk.”

      Well, there was probably nothing I could say that would make anything better anyway. “I’ll go get our things.”

      I dumped mine in my room, then went round to her door and knocked. She opened it, but stood there, stopping me from going in.

      “Here you are.” I dropped her case and backpack just inside the door. “Are you ready for something to eat? We could walk downtown and then walk along the beach if you want?” I leaned against the door jamb, watching her, waiting on her answer.

      I’d spent hours in this position, on the border to Lindy’s and Jason’s bedroom at college, talking to one or the other.

      “Yeah, I can unpack later.” She turned away, knocking the door open wider, before walking back into her room.

      I stayed where I was. “Did you call your dad to say we got here okay?”

      “Yeah.”

      “He’s okay with it?”

      She turned, her eyes flashing impatience, a little of the real Lindy shining through the dark clouds hanging over her. Like a beam of intense sunlight catching me off-guard and blinding me.

      “He may be a cop, but he doesn’t order me about. I’m twenty-two. I can do whatever.”

      Yep, she could. When she was herself, she always did whatever she wanted, with a just-deal-with-it attitude. That attitude had made Jason go silent. He’d always let her have her way.

      I lifted my weight off the door frame.

      “You ready to go then?”

      “Yeah.”

      When she came out of the room, my hand hovered behind her. I had no need to touch her; it would have been strange to do it and yet it felt strange walking down the hall not touching her.

      Lindy barely came to my shoulder.

      I’d picked her up once or twice, messing around, and she was as light as anything. So frickin’ tiny.

      Her thick blond hair flowed in waves about her shoulders as she moved. My hand itched to touch that. Literally.

      Crap.

      I lifted my hand to touch her shoulder. I didn’t. Instead I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my pants to keep them tamed.

      The way out from our apartments was a wide wooden staircase, leading down from the third floor.

      The view was amazing, the beach and ocean stretching into the distance. I breathed the salt air in. It felt good. Like it healed.

      “Wow.” She smiled at me.

      I hoped the healing would work for her. “Just being by the coast always makes me feel different, better somehow, lifts the weight off my shoulders––”

      “What weight have you got on your shoulders?” Yep, the old snappy Lindy was coming back.

      I didn’t answer, and that killed the conversation.

      But, it wasn’t really the old Lindy. It was just the pre-overdose Lindy. College Lindy. That wasn’t the girl I’d fallen for originally. She’d been pushy and self-confident at high school… but not snappy and not the bitch she could be at times. Those elements had slipped in while we were at college.

      We didn’t talk much the rest of the way into town, but we’d been friends long enough that our friendship could take silence.

      When we got there, though, we wasted half an hour arguing over which restaurant to stop in.

      She wasn’t hungry. I was ravenous.

      In the end we chose a place that did the salad she wanted and a huge portion of fried chicken that would do me.

      She was quiet again when we sat down.

      “What do you wanna do this afternoon?”

      Her head came up. She’d СКАЧАТЬ