Saved By You (12 page)

“I’m not abandoning her,” I argued. “If she won’t let me in, if she’s going to keep everything to herself, then I’m going to do my own thing, too.”

Sarah shook he head, her brow still pinched together.

“Maggie, your mom is sick. She can’t go through this alone. She probably doesn’t even realize what she’s putting you through.” Sarah frowned at me, hesitating for a second. “Just like you don’t realize what
she’s
going through, either.”

My mouth opened ready to level another quick remark at her, but nothing came out.

“You know I’m right,” she said. “You know that you should be back there in that room with her right now.”

Her words sunk into me somewhere, but I still didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to be as far away from there as possible. I was sick of the hospital, and I was sick of being treated like a child.

“Is that all?” I said, sharply.

Sarah’s eyes almost drilled a hole straight through me. Her lips pinched together, but she stepped aside. I pushed past her and kept marching until I’d left the bright corridors of the hospital long behind.

The Beater lurched and puttered along the streets of Green Falls all the way back to the Lodge. Using the key card that Haden gave me, I made my way up to the suite. When the door opened, I heard the sound of a guitar coming from the living room. It was a sweet and steady song, but it stopped after only a second.

Haden’s eyes met mine as I entered the living room. His brow scrunched together, puzzled by seeing me already.

“How’d it go?” he asked, his voice wary, but soft.

He was sitting on the couch with the guitar across his lap. He was wearing a sleeveless tank top with a pair of his board shorts. His arms were taut as they wrapped around the guitar, and I could already feel the memory of them wrapping around me again.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it” I said.

His brow creased together. “Did something happen?” he said. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

I walked over and flopped down on the couch next to him. “You could say that,” I said.

He gave me a soft look, then he leaned in and kissed me. His lips were soft and sweet. As they pressed into me, I never wanted them to pull away. The guitar pressed into my stomach, stopping me from hopping into his lap right then and there. The desire was nearly overwhelming.

When Haden finally started pulling away, he gave me a soft look with those fiery green eyes. I could have gotten lost in those eyes. I wanted to get so lost in them that I’d never find my way out.

“What are you playing?” I said.

He looked down at his guitar as though he were surprised to see it in his lap.

“Just messing around with some new stuff,” he said. “Gotta keep the ideas flowing.”

“You’re so dedicated,” I said. I shook my head “I don’t think I could stick to something the way you stick to that.”

He grinned at me. “Well, if you’re looking for something to stick to—I have some ideas.”

I bit my lip and gave him a nudge on the shoulder.

“It’s not nice to tease,” I said.

His eyes flashed intensely, again, before finally looking away. He shrugged, and considered the guitar. “I don’t really think about it,” he said. “It’s just something I do.”

“That’s what makes it so sexy,” I said. My cheeks blushed when I thought about him playing the guitar for me the other night.

“You think it’s sexy?” he asked, playfully.

I shrugged a shoulder at him.

“Of course it is,” I said. “I’m sure I’m not the first girl to tell you that.”

“I don’t care about other times,” he grinned.

I bit my lip and gave him a longing look. He made me feel so much better just by being around. Everything felt easier with him there, like all of my pain could just be washed away. His eyes searched me, as though there was something I was keeping from him. He’d had the ability to read my thoughts before, so it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that he was able to read me right then, either.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, his voice quiet.

My eyes sunk back down to the guitar, and I tilted my head to the side.

“There’s really nothing to tell,” I said. I considered it for a bit longer, and then shrugged a shoulder. “I found out some stuff about my mom that I hadn’t expected,” I began. “When I asked her about it, she just shut down. She wouldn’t say anything—like she didn’t trust me.”

Haden frowned. “What did you find out?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if I should tell him. He and Scottie were friends, after all. At least, Scottie was as close a thing to a friend that Haden had in Green Falls. I didn’t know how he would take it. I didn’t want him to feel like he was in the middle of something. I knew I was being silly, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to open up about it. I wanted to figure out what was going on before I jumped to anything.

I waved a hand. “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m sure I’m just overreacting.” He gave me a quizzical look and studied me for a moment. I glanced back down at the guitar, and admired how natural he made it look in his lap. “Play something for me,” I said, finally.

His brow pinched together, and he looked down at the guitar again. His lips quirked to the side.

“What do you want me to play?” he asked, his voice soft and a little bit on edge. It was cute how nervous he could get when he was put on the spot.

I shrugged. “Anything you want,” I said.

Haden gave me a long look, and then studied the guitar again. His hands moved along the fret board. The strings let out a tiny squeal as his fingers slid over them. His other hand rose and fell, and, slowly, the sweet sound of his strumming appeared from within the guitar. His fingers locked into place when he played each chord. They glided effortlessly between the strings, strumming and picking at different notes as they did. The song was quiet and dark. There was something familiar about it that nagged at me. It wasn’t anything I’d heard him play before, though.

The tempo was slow as his hands fell into a pattern. The notes washed and slid into each other. Then, he started singing. His voice was low and meant for only me to hear.

The words were happy, but the tone of his voice pulled them down. The song was sad, and haunting. A darkness washed through each of the lyrics. They grew more familiar with each phrase, but I couldn’t place them, still.

“
And when the night falls, the loneliness calls
,” he sang.

His face slackened and his hands slowed as the first verse finished, and then he started the chorus. And, as he did, realization dawned on me, and the entire song fell into place.

“
Oh, I wanna fly with somebody
,” he sang, the words coming out slow and sad. “
I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I wanna live with somebody—with somebody who loves me
.”

He changed parts of the lyrics, but I knew the famous Whitney Houston song. But it sounded nothing like her song. He had changed it, making it his own. Emotions layered through it, and my body shuddered as he kept playing.

He worked into the second verse, all of his attention focused on the guitar and the emotion behind the lyrics. He was losing himself in the moment—the moment he was creating. The weight of it was pulling me down along with him. In an instant, all of the things that were going on in my life descended. Emotions bubbled to the surface. Their heat built and built until all I could feel was the tightness in my chest.

A tear fell down my cheek. What was I doing? What had gone so wrong between Mom and I that we weren’t able to talk to each other anymore? Why was Haden able to make me think and feel these things that I couldn’t feel on my own? How did he have this power over me?

The tempo quickened as the song neared the end. The strings vibrated more intensely, and pushed their emotion into me. Haden’s body swayed with each strum. The muscles in his forearms twitched as his fingers moved. I imagined them wrapped around me. I imagined him giving all of himself to me. And me to him.

“
Don’t you wanna dance, say you wanna dance, with somebody who loves me.
”

Haden’s fingers slowed again as the song came to a close. He ended it on a single, haunting strum that reverberated throughout the room. I sat there, motionless, as though frozen in place by the music. Tears were flowing down my face freely. I didn’t even bother trying to hide myself from him.

Haden’s eyes were locked on the guitar for a long time, as though he sensed something special about what he had just played. Finally, I freed a hand and brushed at the tears. I wondered if he might think that I was just some crazy, emotional mess. But I knew it wouldn’t matter if he did. I knew that Haden loved me for who I was—nothing more and nothing less.

Finally, Haden looked up at me. He gave me a soft look—a knowing look. I hated that he could read through me so easily. It was impossible for me to keep anything from him. His eyes held the same questions that he’d asked before, but he didn’t speak them. He didn’t have to—he already knew that I couldn’t handle things. He knew that I was losing control, and that I had nowhere else to turn.

“Can you just hold me?” I asked.

He regarded me for only an instant before nodding. He leaned the guitar against the couch, and inched closer to me. I turned into him and let him wrap his arms around me. The tears were renewed, and streamed freely. Sobs bubbled to the surface, and with each one, Haden pulled me closer to his body.

The soft kisses on my forehead were the last things I wanted to remember. I wanted to shut everything but him away, and hide it in some dark place. But, there was no dark place where they would stay hidden. There was no way to shut out my life.

Haden held me like that for a long time. Eventually the sun descended and the light coming through the windows disappeared. We moved from the couch to the bed room. My body was warm with him next to me, and I could feel his excitement pressing into me. But he didn’t make a move. He didn’t try to initiate anything, even though he knew he could have a had anything he wanted. A tiny part of me was thankful, and feeling of peace settled on me.

Too much had happened for me to be in the mood. And I didn’t want to cheapen my time with Haden by having it always come down to our physical needs. There was more to us than that, and I was happy that we could both appreciate everything. I liked his arms around me, and I liked feeling him so close.

When I woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains. Alarm shot through me as I scrambled up, flailing for the clock on the nightstand. My hands clattered around, my vision too blurred to see straight.

“Everything alright?” Haden asked, sleepily.

“We slept all night,” I said.

Finally, the blurriness receded, and my eyes focused on the red numbers—just after seven in the morning. A small sigh of relief escaped me—at least we hadn’t slept in too late.

“Sorry for waking you up,” I said. I looked over at Haden, and saw him leaning up in the bed, rubbing his own eyes. “I didn’t plan on staying here all night.”

My eyes fell along his body. At some point in the night, he had lost his shirt, and the rest of his clothes, too. I felt a stirring inside of me as I took him in. I shut my eyes tight, and tried to focus.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

My legs kicked around as I slid off the side of the bed.

“I need to check my phone,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”

I padded into the living room, and found my phone. There was only one text message from Sarah, and no missed calls.

“I know things are tough. I’m here if you want to talk.”

I winced. I had been a complete bitch to my little cousin at the hospital, but she was still big enough to see past it. Sometimes I wondered if I really deserved to have such caring people around me. They loved me unconditionally, even when I acted like a brat.

Haden appeared in the doorway behind me. He had put on a pair of boxers, but I considered tackling him to the floor all the same. Heat rushed through my body, and the fact that it felt so natural scared me.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

I nodded. “No news is good news, I guess,” I said.

His eyes lingered on me, then they fell down along the length of me. A quiver ran through my legs. Sudden flashes of him taking me right there in the living crashed into my mind.

Haden seemed to be thinking the same thing.

In a heartbeat, the distance between us vanished. His body slammed into mine and, without a thought, I was up in his arms, my legs wrapping around his waist. His lips found mine, and they mashed together. He nipped at my lip, and then slid his tongue down along my neck. His hips pressed forward into mine, and the bulge between his legs was immense.

“We don’t have much time,” I whined between kisses. “I have to get back to the house, soon.”

He took a step forward, and I felt myself falling over the back of the couch. He pressed farther, and we both toppled over it, his body landing on mine. I groaned in pleasure as he dug his hips into me, pressing his thickness against my center.

“Then we better make it quick,” he said.

I bit my lip.

“Did you bring a condom?” I asked, kissing him some more.

He pulled back and flashed a devilish grin at me. He held up his hand, and, to my amazement, he had a condom in it.

My eyes narrowed at him. “Were you planning this?” I said.

His lips pinched as he tilted his head. “How can I resist you?” he said.

His eyes flashed, dangerously, sending a wave of heat down through my center. I rolled out from under him, and off the couch. Quickly, I grabbed my shorts, and unbuttoned them. Haden’s eyes were locked on me as I pulled the shorts down, taking my panties with them.

“You really are in a rush, aren’t you?” he said.

I bit my lip. “Maybe if we’re quick we can go again,” I said.

“I like the way you think,” he said.

I held out my hand, eyeing the condom in his. He studied me for a second.

“Think you’re ready to handle this?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You know they’re very delicate, right?”