y to fall into them, believe everything is okay. “After work. I have helped students with their homework before. I’m not a total newb. I know some techniques that you might find useful.”
Hope flares in the dark pit that’s my mind today. “You were serious? About helping me, I mean.”
She smiles, slowly and brightly, and for the first time I really believe she’d try, at least. Until she realizes just how bad my disagreement with reading is, that is.
I’m not holding my breath.
“Let’s sit here, after work.” She gestures at the armchairs and tables we have for customers to relax and leaf through books. “We could do an hour every day.”
Better here than at home, I guess. Less likely that we’ll end up fucking on the floor with everyone being able to see us through the front window.
“Okay.” I look down at our hands, held between us like knots, like promises. I wonder if she knows she’s giving me something nobody ever has, not even Joel.
A direction.
“Jet…”
I pull her to me, hug her. I bury my face in her neck and breathe in her fresh scent, trying to control myself. My eyes are burning. “Thank you.”
***
I admit I don’t believe she’ll do it until she seats me down after Donna has left and asks me for a list of the books I need to read, then finds one of them in the shop and hands it over to me.
“Read me some,” she orders me softly, and I have no choice but to do as she asks.
Because she wants to help, and even if my chest feels too tight with shame, I nod and open the book on the first page.
When I first stumble over a word, I freeze, my finger pressing into the page until it’s bloodless. The second time, I stop and swallow hard.
“You have a nice voice,” she says, and I glance up, finding her kneeling on the floor, at my feet. I jerk a little, but then her words sink in.
“My voice?”
“Mmm. Love it.”
That makes me grin like an idiot, and I duck my head. “I suck at this.”
“Not really. Just read that word again. Happens to everyone.”
No, it doesn’t. But when she drapes her arm over my leg and props her chin on it, looking up at me with wide eyes, I do it, just to feel her there.
I stumble over more words, and she repeats them with me, tickling my knee with her hand. I’m so distracted by that I forget to resume reading until she pokes me in the ribs with her other hand.
“This is a boring book, isn’t it?” she says after a while, and I put it down, my stomach dropping.
I was dreading this moment when she’d lose interest. Give up. I didn’t think it would come quite so quickly, but it makes sense.
“Sorry.” I close the book. “I’m just stupid, I told you. This has to be damn annoying, and a waste of your time. I’ll just—”
She lifts up on her knees and puts a hand over my mouth. My brows shoot up. Her hand smells of ink and roses. I give it an experimental lick, to see what it tastes like.
Salty.
“Ew!” She snatches her hand back and laughs. “You licked me.”
“I want to lick you all over,” I admit, then snap my mouth shut.
Not the time.