The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (53 page)

Four pairs of eyes watch us from the landing below. Two pairs are this amazing grey-blue. Andy is open-mouthed holding a subdued Elliott who has probably never seen his mother have a meltdown of any kind because the girl exhibits angelic traits about ninety-nine percent of the time.

“Momma, are you okay? Look.
Daddy’s
here,” Cara says grabbing Linc’s hand who swiftly pulls her up into his arms.

“I’m fine.” I reward them all with my best stage smile and remain standing at the top of the stairs.

Marla descends the stairs like a beauty queen holding onto the banister and immediately takes Elliott from Andy without uttering a single word to anyone, although she does exchange a sympathetic look with Linc. Plus, I swear I see her roll her eyes. Andy makes an excuse to go to her studio downstairs, and I give her a little wave and a reassuring nod when she shoots me this is-everything-okay-with-you look.

It’s all going well from the standpoint that I too descend the stairs, just like Marla did a few minutes ago, until I again realize my shirt is on inside out and also backwards.

Ten seconds later, my baby girl is pointing this out. “Momma, your shirt’s on wrong. You look funny.” Cara laughs. I avoid Linc’s grey-blue gaze all together.

“Yeah, Mommy got dressed in a hurry. And I forgot to pack your stuff for the overnight with Daddy, too.”

“I’ll do it,” Linc says.

My eyes automatically go up and over to him and get caught in the tracking-device gaze he’s got going with me. “Okay. It’s just for the night. Right? Her laundry is folded on her bed. There’s a few things for her on mine if you need them. That would be great. Thanks for helping me out.”

“You’re welcome.” He gets this sexy I’ve-been-sent-up-by-the-Giants smile and the scent of his cologne has this dizzying effect on me.

He still carries Cara as he goes to climb the stairs. “Hi,” he says softly as he passes by me.

“Hi,” I say back while telling myself to breathe.

Then, I seek out Marla, who is having trouble coming back down from her own temper tantrum from minutes before. She stands to one side holding her head in one hand and Elliott with the other.

I go over to her and put my arms around her and Elliott. “I’m sorry. I suck. I love you.”

She lifts her head up and looks at me. “That about covers it.” Her lips twitch, and she presses together so she won’t smile. “I do love you even when you’re a B-I-T-C-H.”

“Especially then, I imagine.” We go for the full-court-press-frontal after that.

“I’m sorry I yelled.”

“I’m sorry I caused you to yell,” I say.

We’re squishing Elliott, who kind of pushes at my boobs, which are sore, which is completely insane and ridiculous. I pull away and cross my arms over them and yelp a belated response.

“Nine months or more of delicious cleavage. Are we the lucky girls or what?” Marla asks.

“Stop it.” I smile anyway, then start to laugh and find I can’t really stop. We collapse to the living-room rug laughing until the tears start to roll down our faces. Elliott snuggles in between us. And this is how Linc and Cara find us five minutes later.

“Tally, can I talk to you alone?” Linc asks.

It’s a simple enough request. Déjà vu sets in right away at his words. I sit up at once and look up at him.

He looks good. Too good. Tan. Tall. Perfect.
He’s got on a black Polo shirt with the Grizzlies logo.
A rebel to the end.
It makes him even more attractive.

“I need to talk to you.
Alone. Now.
” He extends his hand and pulls me up from the floor to a stand.

“Oh. Okay. Sure. Peace treaty terms. Got it.” I half-smile at him but he just studies me even more intently and isn’t actually smiling.

Uh-oh. What now? What more could possibly happen to me today?

I mean, really.

I completely ignore the implications of the scene that Marla and I just had in front of everyone.

“We’ll wait. We’ll watch Cara,” Marla says softly from behind me.

I turn to her, confused and on edge. “What? This will just take a second and—”

“In fact, you know what? Andy and I are going to take the kids to dinner. We’ll swing back in a couple of hours or so. That way, you two can talk.” She gets this wicked smile as I pull her up from the floor just like Linc did for me. Then she goes right over to Linc and hugs him. “Congrats again, Linc. On returning to the Giants’ lineup, I mean. Charlie is stoked. We all are.”

“Thanks, that means a lot,” he says to her. “Congrats to you. A girl. Awesome.”

“I know, right? Thanks!” She laughs. “Anyway, Tally and I are going shopping for baby clothes within the week for sure now.” Marla steals a look at me and turns so Linc doesn’t see her face and mouths, “tell him.”

I give her the I’ve-got-this-signal with a lift of my finger. It takes a lot of willpower not to just flip her off which would better convey my exact thoughts, but we’ve got the children around, so I refrain.
Somehow.

It takes all of five minutes for the four of them to clear out. I actually think Andy was stationed at the basement door awaiting orders; it was that fast.

And now, I'm alone with Lincoln Presley.

“So you wanted to…talk to me?” I look up at him and swallow hard suddenly nervous.

In fact, I feel like I could almost throw up which is weird.

And then? The power of suggestion takes over, and I’m racing past him in search of the downstairs restroom.

Déjà vu pays a visit. Or is that karma? One of those.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Adore You -TALLY

He’s holding my hair back.
Again.
Déjà vu
. Karma payback is in full force. The vomiting incident involving Patron was worse, although I still manage to hit my hair and his hand with this one. He’s busy wetting a towel and dabbing at my hair and face. I take the towel from him and avoid the incredible urge to cry, but it’s close. Dr. Eldon’s news hasn’t quite settled in on me completely yet; so instead, I say, “I. Am. Going. To. Go. Change.”

He follows me up the stairs. “I’ll run you a bath.”

I turn as I hear him stop at the guest room and stare at him questioning his motives but simply nod and manage to say, “okay.”

The test sticks. My bathroom.
My heart races as fast as my body moves. I sweep them into a drawer, strip off my dirty clothes, and grab a towel from the rack and wrap it around me just as he appears in the doorway.

“You okay?”
H
e asks. “Must have been something you ate.” He gets this twisted-up face where he’s kind of smiling and yet his eyes are now this blazing blue like he’s mad about something, but he just watches me warily and doesn’t say anything.

“Must have been.” I’m having trouble reconciling the scene. There’s a role reversal of sorts going on. He’s a little pissed, and I’m a little blissed. The incongruence makes me want to laugh, but somehow I’m guessing he won’t appreciate that right now. I slip past him. “You’re running water in the guest bath?”

“Yeah.”

“The tub’s overflowing.” Sure enough water’s streaming down the hallway just like before all those months ago. I catch my lip between my teeth, both remembering and feeling the loss of the past, but then I just laugh and he’s staring at me intently for a few seconds before he actually turns and sees the water is indeed coming down the hallway toward us.

“Fuck,” he says it just like before but this time he grabs my hand and we walk past the mess together. “Be careful. Don’t slip,” he says sounding impatient.

We reach the guest bath, and he shuts off the faucet and starts throwing towels everywhere. Just like before. I’m fascinated in watching him move about the small space. He’s lit candles. The air smells like lavender. I pull the towel around me tighter reminiscing about the past scene that went just like this, calculating the differences, and feeling the nostalgia for it all—for us—all around me.

“Tally? You can get in. I’ll make you some tea. Do you think you can eat something? Maybe some toast?”

“Tea and toast would be great.” I look at him completely blown away by his generosity but acutely aware of his indifference. He seems a little far away.
Subdued. Something.

It’s not the same. He’s not the same. I’m not the same.

Of course, it makes me want to cry because the emotional pendulum—given Dr. Eldon’s news less than an hour ago—starts to move in on me. I watch Linc retreat from the bathroom, lean my head up against the tub, and try to relax a few minutes. On some level, I prepare myself for things to get weird. And we’re short on time like always. Marla and Andy will be back soon enough with the kids. And we haven’t even said anything of significance to each other as of yet. Nothing meaningful anyway.

The bath grows cold. It’s been ten minutes since Linc left and I’m bored. The thing is I don’t want to spend time with myself. Alone, I can feel myself start to splinter and all kinds of thoughts intrude upon my psyche. I have basically three weeks before I have to tell Mikhail and give up dancing which means no fall line-up for Tally. No Swan Lake. No Nutcracker at Christmastime. I can probably return by March which would mean only missing four weeks or so of rehearsals for the spring performances but still, it will be a long while before I’ll dance again. Bolshoi. Out. SFB? In. Most likely if I continue to stay in Mikhail Rostov’s good graces, but how will that work if I’m not dancing?

“Oh God.”

“Get out of your head.” Linc stands over me saying this. He proffers tea and toast. He sets the cup of hot tea and the plate of toast on the widest edge of the bathtub. “You okay? Everything all right?”

I start to form the words
I’m fine
. I may actually breathe them but then I stop. This cat and mouse game is too taxing, and I’m tired of playing it. With him. Without him. I need to know where we stand and I need to know like right the fuck now.

He sits on the edge of the tub and trails his hand through the water.
I swear he’s baiting me. I swear it’s working.

“I have something to tell you.” My voice trembles as do my hands.
Really.
I need a little help, a little faith, and my hands betray me along with my voice.
Great.

“I have something to tell you too,” he says. “You first.” He smiles ever so slightly.

I stall by drinking the tea, then taking a bite of the toast, and pronounce it good. “Fit for a queen,” I say with a little laugh.

What am I doing? Flirting? Why?

“So Marla and I gave up the word
fuck
because Cara may have started saying it one day.” I wince because this is seriously bad stuff but really I’m just trying to soften him up for the more sobering news I have to tell him, of course.

“Cara’s swearing?” Now he smiles.

“She doesn’t
know
she’s swearing. It’s just a word she picked up. It’s not like she knows why we say it. In any case, I’ve had to give it up, and it’s been a bit of hardship, and I was wondering…if perhaps…we could try it slow. Note the absence of the word. And see how it loses some of its sexiness and forcefulness with that edict alone? But I was wondering if you were good with slow and if, in fact, you are good for slow, then we best get on with it because they’re due back in forty-five minutes and my throwing up episode puts us seriously behind.”

He looks a little pissed. I’m getting a little anxious at how thunderous he looks, actually.

“Why would I do that? I’m not good with slow or
good for it
. I’ve got an early day with Cara tomorrow. I think I’ll leave you to your tea and toast and just wait for Cara downstairs. Do you
mind
?”

“Do I mind?” Tears rush my eyes. I make a show of taking a hand and wiping my face so water mixes with the tears and have to hope he won’t notice. “Nooooooooooooooo. I guess not. Okay.” Now his gaze is more intense and I kind of laugh in an attempt to get it together.

“How long are you going to keep this up
?" He
asks gently.