Chapter 12
Once they stopped moving, Sake tried to catch the breath she’d been holding since they’d started out. By the way her heart hammered inside her chest, she might be having a heart attack; her face and torso were awash in a dewy film.
“Hey.” Bill’s voice held concern.
Warmth atop her icy right hand jarred her back into the present.
“You okay?”
She looked down at Bill’s hand covering hers, still clenching the wheel.
And then something crashed that was even worse than the car: her composure. Her hands, sticky with anxiety, flew up to hide her face.
“What is it? Hey. Don’t cry.” Bill’s hand slid up to rub her forearm.
His pity only proved how pathetic she was.
“Sake.”
An ugly-sounding sob escaped from her core.
She heard Taylor being deposited onto the floor mat with a thump, felt Bill’s arms slide around her as best they could within the confines of the vehicle.
“What are you crying about?”
Thinking about that only made it worse.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. This was your first time. You’ll get a handle on it.”
“Maybe it’s not the driving. Maybe it’s every other shitty thing.” The unholy mess that was her life. “I’m so tired,” she cried. “I’ve been trying so hard, for so long.”
“Trying to do what?”
“I came this close to losing it when Teeny fired me,” she cried. “And now, here I am in a new place, leaning on people again, just like before. Papa. Another boss. And you, who had the serious bad luck to be in the blast zone when my world blew up. You don’t need the likes of me. What if I can’t do it?”
What if she was doomed to repeat Haha’s mistakes?
Above her sobs, she heard the click of his seat belt coming apart. Then the tension on her own belt relaxed as she realized he’d undone hers, too.
“Shhh.” Bill eased the belt over her shoulder and took her into his arms, stroking her hair, gently rocking her as she let loose her emotion into his neck. When was the last time she’d been held like that, with no strings, no expectations? She barely noticed when another vehicle squeezed through the narrow alleyway to get around them.
“You’re going to do it, sweetie. I’m going to help you.” When she quieted, he drew back to examine her face. But she still couldn’t meet his eyes. She felt his finger under her chin.
“Look at me.”
No. To let someone see how bad you hurt was to be vulnerable.
Bill angled in until his mouth was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her skin. Softly, he kissed the track of a tear on the right side of her nose. Beneath her left eye, he kissed away another tear. Then a third, where it was about to fall from her chin.
He smelled like warm cedar and ginger.
“There,” he said, wiping both cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.
For the first time since she’d stopped the car, she looked at him. His heavy-lidded eyes shone. He smiled crookedly, right cheek dimpling.
The sight of him had a miraculous calming effect. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“That’s better.” He cupped her face and touched his forehead to hers, while his fingertips massaged slow circles on the base of her skull . . . rubbing her problems away. Sake melted into the sensation.
And then Bill brushed her lips with his.
Her mouth responded by opening a little, and the tip of his tongue slid in, tasting . . . prodding . . . deeper. Deeper still.
Sake’s insides went limp and gooey. She put her hands on Bill’s shoulders, barely touching him, wary of spooking him away.
But as the kisses went on . . . their mouths experimenting together, trying this, then that, she forgot to be careful. She took his head in her hands.
Sure, she’d bumped fuzzies with Rico. At first, out of curiosity, and after that, from of some unspoken sense of obligation. During most of those so-called sexy times, Sake thought of nothing spicier than cinnamon. And though she didn’t have much experience to draw on, she didn’t imagine Rico had felt any more of a burning desire for her than she did for him. Still, when all the other aspects of life were such a grind, it was a relief to have at least one thing sorted out.
But Sake had never felt like this before—like she couldn’t get close enough to Bill even if she crawled inside his skin. Need fired white-hot between them. She wanted him surrounding her, on top of her, around her, every inch of him. But he’d already rejected her once today. She’d die if he pushed her away agai—
Ping!
Bill slowly withdrew from their kiss. “Should you get that?” he breathed, face flushed, eyes dreamy-soft.
“No.” She pulled him back in for more.
“What if it’s your papa?”
She sighed impatiently. Was anyone really that responsible?
Before she could stop him, Bill reached between the seats. With a glimpse at the name RICO filling the screen, he frowned and handed her her phone.
Reality smacked Sake in the face like a wet towel.
“Hey. This my bae?”
She could hardly hear Rico above the heavy metal blasting in the background. Picturing one of his many hangouts in her mind, she flicked a glance Bill’s way. Typically, by this time of day, Rico had been drinking for hours.
Sake switched the phone to her far hand. “It’s me,” she mumbled into her shoulder.
“Baby, where you at? Izza Fourth of July. I’m out here celebratin’. You been gone a week. Thought you were comin’ back by now.” He had to talk so loud to be heard above the music, no way Bill couldn’t hear him.
“I know. I am. Just . . . not yet.”
“Whatthehell? Wha’s taking so long?”
“I got . . . stuff to take care of. It’s gonna take some time.” Haha had taught her from a young age never to argue with a drunk.
“How much time?”
“Not too much longer. Any sign of Haha?” If there were, Sake would drop everything and run to San Francisco.
“Not yet. But hey, you know that new guy Teeny hired? He quit already.”
Sake tucked that factoid away. “Thanks for letting me know. I gotta go. I’ll call you, ’kay?”
“But—”
“I gotta go.”
She pushed end.
“Who’s Rico?” asked Bill.
Ha. She paused. Easy question, complicated answer. “The guy I stay with.”
“Used to stay with.”
Was Bill right? Where was her real home? Whose life was so out-of-control that she wasn’t even sure where she lived?
“What did he want?”
“The guy that Teeny hired to replace me at Bunz quit already.”
He snorted, confused. “Why should you care?”
“Means I can probably get my job back.”
“Is that what you want?”
Was it?
Bill’s eyes burned a hole through her, demanding an answer.
Her pulse pounded. What did she think she was doing up here . . . rumbling around in an empty mansion with only the hired help for company, imposing on this innocent guy she barely knew, thinking she could overcome years of ingrained fear and learn to drive?
She hid her face in her hands. “I don’t know.”
“What’s this Rico guy really want?”
“Nothing.” She looked up. “He’s been drinking. Celebrating the Fourth.” That explained the flags flying everywhere. Not that the holiday was especially meaningful to her, but it was as good a way as she could think of to get Bill off the subject of her life.
“You don’t have plans, an all-American guy like you? Barbecue, parade, fireworks or something?”
“No.”
“No? That’s it? What, you once get burned by a sparkler or something?”
“You could say that.”
She’d been trying to make a joke. Sake smoothed down her dress, now curious about what had happened to Bill Diamond on some past July fourth. “So what happened?”
“Brittany Wilson happened.” He looked out the window, as if looking into the past. “We were together for over a year. She worked down at the bank. Pretty blonde. She liked cooking, talked about having kids someday, dissed tattoos. Britt was about as regular as they come. Heck, we double dated with Britt’s best friend Jessica and her boyfriend—until last July.”
“Then what happened?”
Bill huffed and let Taylor hop back up onto his lap, fluffing her fur. “Britt and Jess showed up arm-in-arm in front of the whole town at the July Fourth celebration sporting matching blue rings, inked around the fourth fingers of their left hands.”
“Ouch.”
He exhaled. “Guess we ought to get going.” He opened his door to trade seats.
Once the car was back in Bill’s capable hands and Taylor was in hers, he said, “Sometimes I wish I had a brother or a sister, like you do. You’ve got a ready-made support system. Why won’t you confide in them?”
“I’m not in their business and they’re not in mine. Besides, those wine princesses would never get my problems,” she sniffed.
Bill reached back between the seats for his trusty box of tissues.
“How do you know?”
“Figure it out. Their mother’s dead—now. But she was alive until Meri was eight years old and I was seven. Which means that Papa cheated on their mother with my mother when Meri was only a year old,” she said, honking into the tissue.
From lips swollen with kissing, Bill let out a low whistle. “That’s rough,” he said, surprising Sake by reaching over to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear.
The only time Rico ever touched her was when he wanted something from her.
“It’s a shame you all can’t get along, though. You’re all so close in age. Think about it. If they resent you so much, then why’d they bother to visit you at the hospital?”
“How should I know? Maybe Papa ordered them to. Maybe they wanted to look good in front of Savvy’s wedding guests. Or could be they just wanted to throw it in my face, how much better they are than I am.”
Doubt filled Bill’s eyes. “I’ve done work for Char and Merlot. They don’t strike me as the vindictive type. Can’t imagine Savvy is, either.”
“To them I’m nothing but a skid mark.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a smart, capable woman. Your sisters have got nothing on you.”
She huffed. “Nothing? What you don’t know . . .”
“What I do know is, you can be a little . . . snarky, yourself. Maybe they’re walking on eggshells around you. Ever think of that?”
Her head whipped back around. “Me? Swerve. You’d be snarky too if—” She snapped her mouth shut at the last second. There were some secrets she would never tell.
“I’m never going to fit into Napa, where everyone’s nice and polite and rich.”
“Sorry,” said Bill. “You didn’t ask for my opinion.” They sat in silence as he continued driving. “You like ice cream?”
She granted him the merest of nods.
“That’s as good a Fourth of July tradition as any.”