The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (36 page)

“God, I wish I’d been there,” I tease, and she laughs harder.

It’s like a little miracle to see her this way. Relaxed and carefree.

“You invited me back to the guest house, showed me all your trophies, all your ribbons. I told you I was twenty. I was seventeen and still in high school.
I lied.
” She looks apologetic for a few seconds and then shrugs. “I told you my name was Holly. That I had birth control covered.” She winces. “Which I thought I did.” She shakes her head and laughs. “Hook, line, and sinker, Elvis. You would have done anything I asked.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“You told me you went to Stanford, played baseball. And that baseball was your only focus. You were very honest about that right from the start.” She nods and glances away for a moment and then looks back more intense than ever. “I don’t know, in some ways, you seemed as lost as I was. Maybe that was the attraction. And yet, in others, you had it all together in ways I’d never been able to achieve. We shared the same fears—falling, failing, losing. The baseball player and the ballerina. A good match. Fire and water. Oil and water. Water and air.
Something.”

She looks uncertain for a few minutes, shakes her head side-to-side, and seems a bit lost in the memories. Then, she smiles.

God, that smile.

“You cooked for me—some sautéed chicken dish that was utterly mind-blowing. I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, and it’s like you knew. It was as if you could see all the way to my soul and didn’t want to look away. You saw me, dark as I was, and you saw something good. In me. Something worth saving. And I could breathe again, which I really hadn’t done since Valentine’s Day, since Holly died. It was weird that first night. Make no mistake. I liked sex and I used guys. I’m in; I’m out. Everybody wins. So I was busy trying to get to the good part, you know—
doing the deed
—but there you were cooking for me, feeding me, taking care of me. So I wrote the thank you note in gratitude, to you, for giving me a respite for a few hours from the pain I carry. I left it on your pillow planning on never seeing you again. And the rest is history. Our history. Solely my history now I guess.”

She’s bared her whole soul to me, and I am at a loss as to what to do or say. As she was talking, these memories began to flash through my mind. Her words give life to pictures that still make absolutely no sense to me. I shake my head to try to clear the jumbled-up images from my mind and then the pain comes down on me like a hatchet has just sliced through my skull. I close my eyes, which makes it worse, so I open them again and just look at her struggling to find the right words.

“Say something,” she says softly. “It’s a good story. It’s
epic
. I told you all the good parts. Do you want me to cover the sex scene in detail?
That
was epic too.”

“Tally.” It comes out like a plea or a cry for help and suddenly she looks uneasy. In a foolish and desperate attempt to help her out and get back from the emotional ledge I’m precariously too close to, I go for levity. “
Doing the deed?
Do people still say that?” I try to laugh but it doesn’t quite work with the pain lashing at my head.

But Tally isn’t laughing.

She’s staring at me, looking completely undone by what I’ve just said. “Don’t do that,” she says flatly.

“Do what?”

“Say shit like that, like you
remember
. You said that exact same thing that night. At Charlie’s party, later, but before we did the deed. You were teasing me about saying
do the deed
. That night.”

“I was teasing you?”

“You were. You said almost the exact same thing. God! Don’t do this to me, Linc.” She gasps for air. “I have triggers and you’re pulling them. Don’t do this to me. Stop it. Right now.”

She looks wounded in all kinds of ways. Three words—
do the deed
—cause her to practically fall apart right in front of me. She’s delivered this soul-lancing speech ever so calmly like she’s on stage easily honing an already perfect performance, but she’s losing it over my teasing her about
doing the deed
.

“Okay, I won’t say it again. I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says getting up and turning away from me. “I think you should go.”

“You cannot blame me for the things I do not know. Look…it hasn’t been a walk in the park for me either. I just want some answers about my life. About
us
.
Tally
.”

Her agitation returns. She paces the room, kind of strutting the length between the living room and adjoining dining room.
It’s sexy as hell.
And all I can do is watch her move. I can no longer concentrate on anything else because I’m instantly captivated by her. Caught up in her presence. She moves through space as if she owns the atoms themselves, and they split upon her command.
She is fusion. Nuclear. Cold.

Yet, she is so graceful and purposeful it makes me want to follow her wherever she goes. It’s not just a mental thing it’s more like a mind meld.
I get her.
I think she knows I get her, but I would bet that neither one of us can explain the why.

And then there’s the physical attraction. That’s a given. But there’s so much more to it than that. It’s everything about her from the melodic sound her voice makes that seems to have worked its way into my brain like the lyrics to a song. It’s the way her eyes metamorphose into different shades of green depending solely upon her mood in that given moment and being lucky enough to be the one who lives to see it.

She is living color, and I’ve been in a black-and-white world for far too long without her.

Powerful stuff. It surrounds me. I’ve felt it since I first arrived. The forcefield of her. The magnetism of her. The power she wields over me. I’m alive again because of her, like a dying plant that finally gets some water.
I’ve got it bad for this girl.

Reality dawns.

The light comes through the darkness and shines on me.

She’s my water.

I open my mouth to tell her, to share this profound revelation with her, but no words come out.
Instead, I’m breathing fast. Too fast. I can’t get any air. I try again inhaling again and again. I need air.

It’s been a while since the last one, but it feels exactly the same.

I’m suffocating. Or, drowning.

“Tally.” Her name rushes out of me taking all the air I have with it.

She’s made her way to the farthest side of the dining room—away from me. Now she turns, glares at me, but then witnesses my personal battle. “Are you? Linc, are you okay?” She rushes over. “Okay. Look at me. Keep your eyes on me. Just breathe. In and out. See? You’re going to be fine. It’s going to be fine. I’m right here. Everything is going to be okay.”

My head still pounds and seems to have been synchronized with my fast beating heart. It’s a long while before I slowly start to drift down back into the atmosphere like a parachuter in mid-flight with a chute that mercifully opens.

And yet it swiftly changes to a hard landing. I’m drenched in my own sweat but shiver with cold. Tally’s stroking my clammy face and is busy telling me I’m going to be okay. It appears; I’m breathing. The room begins to look normal.

Miss Cloves and Vanilla
sits perched on the arm of my chair and pressing a damp cloth to my forehead. Her white dress shimmies up her thighs as she leans in closer to me. I get a good view of the top of her breasts which causes me to get an immediate hard-on. Now I sweat for a different reason. I’m too close, too turned on, when I’m clearly supposed to be the patient to her nurse. I turn my head away from hers because her laser-like green eyes are too upfront and center in my personal space. I cannot handle seeing her disappointment in discovering yet another of my failures.

Lincoln Presley panics. I’m a freak show. For free.

“What’s with the panic attacks?” She asks gently after a few shared moments of silence.

I turn my head and look at her, smartly feeling my designated loser status. “Yeah, came along with the headaches and the memory loss. It’s a package deal; you have to be super fucked-up to get awarded all three.”

“Are you seeing someone about them?” She grabs my wrist and takes my pulse. I stare at her fingers. The left one where my ring should be. It’s still in my jean's pocket, and I can feel it there grinding into me like the point of a dull knife.

“I see Brad. I’ll tell Brad. I forgot my medication. I’m off my schedule. That’s why.”

She looks worried. “I’ll tell Brad. Where’s your phone?” She reaches into my right pocket without waiting for me to answer. “Password?”

“8-2-5-5-9.” Please don’t let her figure out what
that
means.

She stares at the screen. “Kimberley’s sending you frantic texts. Mostly,
call me
. All caps.” She gets this bemused look and starts reading aloud. “Okay. She’s human; be sensitive to what she’s feeling and where’s she’s coming from. You’re going to have to explain LA and I’ll leave that up to you. You are so SORRY. Bowing at her feet might be in order.” She steps back from me with my phone still in her hand and tilts her head to one side. “Hmmm…you didn’t bow. I don’t recall any bowing.” She sighs dramatically and then she’s typing a text.

“What are you going to say?” I reach out in an attempt to get my phone from her. She holds it up in the air off to one side and then moves further away but not before I catch a glimpse of a wicked smile.

She reads it out-loud. “Elvis had a panic attack. No meds with him. What should I do? This is Tally, BTW.”

There’s a little zing sound fifteen seconds later.

Tally reads it to me. “Hey it’s Brad. Has he eaten?”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “Have you eaten?”

I have landed into ten-year-old boy land and she is my mother all of a sudden.
I shake my head side-to-side because there are no words for this surreal scene.

She texts Brad back: “No. I’ll feed him. I’ve got this. He’s fine now. Thx Brad.”

She moves off toward the kitchen. “Food. Damn. The endless forage for food. Do you like birthday cake? Though probably not really considered a food group, huh? Let me see what I can find. You stay there.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” I cover my head with my arm to try and stem the pain, wishing for painkillers, wishing Tally was a narcotic that I could swallow down and have live inside of me forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In Repair -LINC

I wake up to Tally pushing at my right arm. “You fell asleep. You still look like you’re in a lot of pain. I brought you something to eat.” She hands me a plate with four mini sliders on them. All warmed up. I’ve already wolfed down three when she says, “Sam brought them from the restaurant for the party.”

Now, the last one is harder to chew let alone swallow.
God damn Sam.
“Thanks.”

“You don’t have to sound so glum about it. They’re
sliders
. They’re so good. He brings me food like this all the time. It’s a mission of his getting me to eat. I’m his mission, but I’m not sleeping with him yet. You can still try to win me back.” She gets this little smirk.

“I think I hate you.”

“Hate is the best defense, Elvis. Good job.” She pats my right knee and moves away from me altogether.

I set the empty plate down. “What the fuck are you doing to me? Are you
friend-zoning
me?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes, I am. It’s the best way. Let’s-be-friends. Let us be friends.” She grabs a pill bottle. “Brad sent another text while you were sleeping. He wanted to know how you were doing. He wants you to call him first thing tomorrow morning. He said you could have three more Tylenol.” She counts them out and hands me a fresh glass of water. “Here you go.”

I drink down the pills with the water and manage not to choke even though she watches me the entire time making me self-conscious.