"Dahlia?"
"My mother. She never let me call her Mommy or Mom or anything. Even when I was a toddler, she was always Dahlia. I tried calling her Mama once and she didn't speak to me the rest of the day." He shivered. "Felt like the end of the world. I learned not to make that mistake again."
A chill hung in the air, heavy with questions I didn't feel right asking. "Maybe she never t
hought of herself as being a mother and when it happened it was a hard transition?"
His mouth tightened. "Yeah that's probably it," he said shortly. Then he abruptly looked out of the window and brightened. "We're here!"
I pressed my nose against the tinted glass. Above us rose the impressive marble structure of the Franklin Institute. "You're taking me to a museum?" I asked. Then I looked again. The floodlights lit it, hitting the falling snow so that it sparkled like confetti as it fell silently to earth, but otherwise there was no motion. "It looks closed," I observed dumbly.
"Huh." Liam wore this secret, proud grin that made no sense. Hadn't he thought to check the opening times?
Darius opened the door, allowing the rush of icy air into the warm interior of the car. I slid awkwardly to the side, my foot catching a bit of ice. I would have slipped but for Darius's grip on my arm as strong as the branch of an oak tree. "Thanks," I gasped.
"No problem," he rumbled. There really was something familiar about his face. The way it was put together, the way the bones moved under his skin. I was staring at him as he stared impassively forward. I shook my head and turned to Liam.
"It's definitely closed," I observed again. "I guess we'll have to go somewhere else?"
"No, let's go see," he urged.
"Um," I followed him up the steps. There was a white sign hanging across the huge wooden doors. "Closed for a Private Event," it read. "See there?" I pointed. "It's closed."
Liam's gray eyes caught the glow of the yellow streetlamp and glinted with proud mischief. "Why don't we go in, before we freeze to death?"
I gaped at him as he swung open the door. "Liam!" I whispered, afraid of getting caught. "It's a private event!"
"I know," he smiled. "We're the private event, Shay."
I stumbled and stood rooted to the spot. "We?"
"Yeah. I called in a favor. There's something I wanted to do for you."
For me? With no other idea but to follow him and see how this all played out, I tiptoed into the eerily quiet museum. All the displays lurked in shadowy corners, giving the main floor of the place a definite horror movie vibe. I had been here as a child and remembered my terror at some of the exhibits, and that terror nipped at the backs of my heels as I darted past the saber-toothed tiger exhibit. I swear their dull, flat eyes followed us as we passed by.
Definitely not how I imagined my first date.
Liam's long legs pulled him ahead of me, and he stopped at the bottom of the marble staircase that swooped its way down from the upper level. "Up here," he beckoned, reaching for my hand.
It was the first time his bare skin had touched mine since he kissed me. It was a friendly touch, an easy touch. Just a nice, good looking guy helping me to climb the huge staircase. But somehow that made it worse.
When he kissed me without asking, I could dismiss him as being a pushy asshole. But when he held my hand, I couldn't help but think he might be something more.
The sound of footfall behind us made me jump. "There's someone here!" I gasped.
"It's Darius," Liam said lightly, squeezing my hand. "He parked the car."
"He stays with us?"
"He stays around," Liam said, but this time the lightness felt more forced. "You get used to him being there. He fades into the background."
I looked down the stairs. Darius's huge form was completely in shadow. He stood near the door, arms crossed over his chest, protective and alert.
"Up through here," Liam encouraged me, and I wrenched my eyes away from the bodyguard and to where he was pointing. And then I finally understood.
"The butterflies?" I gasped.
He pushed open the door to the solarium and the intense lights hit us with the full force of the sun. All around color bloomed and the air was filled with the swirling, fluttering bodies of the butterflies as they flitted from flower to flower, oblivious to the cold that reigned outside.
"Ooh," I gasped as the heat tingled on my skin. Immediately, I unraveled my scarf and shrugged off my coat. Liam silently swooped behind me, catching my coat up as I rolled up my shirtsleeves and let the warm air hit the bare skin of my arms. "Oh my gosh, it feels so good to be warm!"
The hot, moist air kissed my dried out skin, and the colors awakened my winter-deadened eyes. I laughed out loud and rushed towards the flowers, gasping as a Monarch alighted on my arm. "Oh my gosh," I squeaked, watching the delicately veined wings rise and fall like baby's breath before it lifted off, as light as a feather. I watched it swirl upward until it vanished into the tornado of color all around us.
"Oh my gosh," I repeated, struck dumb.
"You like it?" Liam asked, moving next to me.
I turned to him. He had shrugged off his coat as well and stood next to me in a dove grey pullover that exactly matched his eyes. It was the first time I could see his true form without the added bulk of winter coats and what I saw made me bite my lip momentarily.
He had the long, rangey build of a swimmer, strong and sure and erect. The sweater was a fine as silk, stretching over his pecs and biceps lovingly. It looked so touchably soft, and he looked so warm underneath with his impossibly burnished skin for the dead of winter. Even my dark skin was ashy and gray after the month brutal cold, but he had a bronzed glow of health that seemed to come from within.
My hands moved, fluttering like the butterflies against my sides and I finally contented myself with clasping his hand. "Thank you. This is exactly what I needed."
Chapter Eight
Kiki looked so happy she seemed ready to pass out. "And then what happened?!" she demanded, the scoop of ice cream poised against her lips.
We were spread out on Jasmine's floor in a cocoon of blankets. Kiki had shown up after work with three pints of Ben and Jerry's and a burning desire to rehash my date with Liam.
"Ice cream in the dead of January?" Jasmine had shaken her head and turned to her cabinets. "There's only one way this will make sense."
I took another sip of that sense now, letting the whiskey-laced hot chocolate warm me after the bite of ice-cream. "And then we walked," I said.
"That's it?" Keysha squealed. "You just...walked?"
"You have no idea how good it felt to be warm." I protested. "We walked around the exhibit like fifty times, just...talking."
"And then what?" her eyes twinkled. I knew what she wanted, but I couldn't lie.
"Nothing." I couldn't hide my grimace and Jasmine shot me a look over the rim of her hot chocolate mug.
"Nothing?" Kiki repeated.
I leaned back against the sofa with a sigh and rearranged my blankets. "I told him I needed time," I laughed lightly. "Maybe...that was a bad idea?"
Kiki nodded feverishly, but Jasmine held up her hand. "No, it wasn't."
Jazzy had been silent all through my story, so when she finally spoke up, we both looked expectantly at her. "Granny's got something on her mind," I teased. "Speak to us, oh wise woman. Impart your wisdom upon us."
Jasmine shot me a look. "Well, my child," she intoned in a grand, dramatic voice, then switched over to her normal tone. "I think moving slowly is exactly the right move, Shay. You always look for meaning in things, deeper meanings." Kiki nodded in emphatic agreement. "And sometimes," Jasmine went on, "that means you miss what's right in front of your nose." She leaned back and cupped her drink with both hands, fixing me with her professor's stare. "People tell you exactly who they are, Shay. You just have to listen to them."
The silence stretched out, long and painful. I knew what she was saying. Tre was a cheater, I always knew that about him. He cheated on girls before me, why did I think he wouldn't do the same to me? Other than my desire to believe he meant something more when he said he wouldn't do that again.
Kiki squirmed under the heavy silence. "What I want to know," she piped up, "is who this Darius guy is, he sounds like some kind of action hero."
I perked up. "He acted like it. All mysterious, only speaking in two word sentences, lurking in the shadows like that."
"Mysterious Darius," Jasmine piped up immediately. "Shadow in the night."
"Guarding you from danger," Kiki picked up the thread.
"Ooh, he needs a theme song."
"Dun dun DUN dun, DARIUS! Mysterious DARIUS!" Kiki rapped out a rhythm on her thighs.
I shook my head. "You two are completely nuts. I mean, maybe it's a rich person thing to have people around you like that?"