“Angel,” he says again, louder this time. I look up at his face.
I don’t find anger there, but I can’t pinpoint the look he’s giving me right now, not with this noise in my head. “I…I…” I slump, trying to get something out, to explain any of it…all of it?
A band comes across my chest and takes me a moment to figure out he’s buckled the seat belt and then pulled it tight. Then he wraps my hands around a silver flask.
“Drink this, Angel. It’ll help you get back to yourself.” He guides my hands, still clutching the flask, up to my mouth. I stare into his eyes as I take a heavy swallow. It’s some kind of whiskey, and it burns all the way down to my belly. The heat cuts the cold, firing a path through the chill and the haze. He’s right, it helps. This time I take another long gulp without his assistance and cough through the resulting burn.
I hand him the flask and sink against the leather at my back. My fingers are still trembling, but the rest of my body seems to have calmed down.
The SUV pulls away from the light of the hotel, casting shadows across the car. I risk a look at his face. His full lips are set in a grim line, and the stubble on his chin is thicker than the last time I saw him. His hair is messier than usual as if he’s been shoving his fingers through it over and over. The dark waves are unruly but not as crazy as my curls are after days of ignoring them.
I turn my attention out the window and focus on the lights. Now that we are alone together, panic begins to thread through the shock. I called him, and I know I shouldn’t have. At the time, I didn't even remember making the call, but something in my head told me he was the best option.
Now, alone with him, anger practically wafting across the back seat, I’m rethinking my choice. I left for a reason, and I’m not sure the trade is worth it. No, I know it’s not. The second he learns the truth about his mother’s death, I'm dead, his son is dead, and he won’t be able to live with himself after that.
In one moment of fear and shock, I’ve doomed us all.
Something cold touches my cheek, and I jerk backward, bumping my head against the window. He’s cleaning my cheek with a wipe he pulled from God knows where. I lean in this time so he can get better access, even as my mind screams to get out of the car and run.
My hands quake again, and he presses the flask back into my hand as he scoots closer, cups my chin, and rubs the wipe harder. It occurs to me he’s washing my father’s blood from my skin, and I take another long swig of the whiskey.
I don’t know if I’m more used to it now or if my mind is just clinging to sanity any way it can, but I don’t cough this time. The liquor sinks through me, warming me further. Maybe if I’m drunk, this confrontation will be easier to handle. If I’m drunk, maybe my death will be easier to accept.
When I lift the flask to take another long drink, he snags it from my hands and shoves it between his knees. I let him continue to mop up my face and then move down to my neck in long strokes. I’m dying for him to say something…ask for an explanation, or to unleash this horrible building anger on me so this will all be over.
My father’s face, etched with shock and pain, flashes in my head. The gunshot following, then starting again on a loop.
“Angel?”
I blink and look over at him. His hand is still pressed against my cheek with the wipe, his forehead bunched, his eyes searching mine. “You left me for a moment. Breathe, Angel, and it’ll pass soon.”
Since I don’t trust my voice to ask when, I just nod, hoping it placates him for now.
But I don’t get a reprieve for long, not that I deserve it. When his hand falls away from my cheek, I know it’s time…to explain something I can barely keep straight in my own head. Especially here with him beside me, the heat of him, the scent of him so close. I ache with the need to touch him, but I know I can’t. Not now. Not after leaving him.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asks, his voice low and full of pain.
It eats at me. Digging into the already gaping hole of my heart to carve away a little more.
I can’t answer, so I shake my head.
“That’s all I get? A headshake? What happened to being honest with each other? That's what…” He turns to look out the window and throws the soiled wipe at the back of the seat in front of him so hard it flies back into the trunk space.