Page 43 of In Every Lifetime
He seemed surprised at my sudden question, but not by my words. He leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s nothing… I hope it’s nothing. I don’t want you to worry.”
“No, I need you to tell me,” I explained. “I can tell something’s off with you, and I’m spiraling here thinking I did something wrong. That you’re angry with me.”
“Angry with you?” he asked, confused.
“Yes, angry with me,” I explained. “Which is stupid, because I shouldn’t care what you think about me. Not anymore… not after everything. But I do, okay? I worry you’re angry with me, and ifyou don’t tell me we can’t fix it. So I need you to tell me so we can fix it.”
“Woah,” he muttered and stood. He took my hands and pulled me to stand. We were only a few inches apart, and he wrapped his hands on each side of my jaw, forcing us to look each other in the eyes. “I am not angry with you, honey. I promise. I can honestly say I have never been angry with you. Frustrated? Maybe. But never angry.”
“Then what’s wrong?” I pleaded.
He sighed and stepped away, dropping his hands from my face, and glanced quickly at the closed door. “Jackie called.”
I winced. “She told you about Will?”
Fai smirked and nodded. “Yeah, she told me about Will. The question is, why didn’t you?”
I bit my lip and scrunched my nose, knowing I had been caught. “You were already pretty angry about the whole snooping in the office. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
Fai rolled his eyes with a smile and sat at the foot of the bed. I sat next to him, our shoulders pressing into one another. “Next time, tell me, okay? I’m only upset that you didn’t. But I’m not angry.”
“Then what’s got you so off?”
“What Jackie had to say.”
I looked at him, perplexed. He took my hand in his and held it to his chest as he spoke. “I’ve thought about it all day, and I know what I want to do with the information. I… I need you to trust me, and I know I don’t deserve it, but please consider it.”
"Fai," I said, my mind already running ahead of itself. "What did she tell you?"
Fai sighed. “They can’t find anything on Gabriel. And before you say, ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’, it’s not. They can’t find him in any records. He doesn’t exist, at least in the state of Montana.Now, there could be a few reasons for this, one of which is that maybe their spelling is wrong.”
“He also works in Alaska, so maybe the records they would need are there. Maybe that’s his permanent residency?” I supplied.
Fai sighed again, in relief this time. “You’re not worried?”
I shook my head and smiled softly. “I’ll worry until we have a reason to worry. I mean, he has to exist somewhere. We’re sitting in his house right now. Is it weird? Maybe. But I also got to know him better today.”
Fai smiled. “What do you think of him now?”
“I think he genuinely wants to know you, wants to be just like you. I think he’s a good guy, Fai,” I explained.
Fai breathed in another sigh of relief, his head leaning forward and his forehead meeting my own. It was an act so intimate, it took me a moment to calibrate, to accept Fai in my space, to allow his smell to envelope my senses. I let my eyes fall closed, breathing in the intimacy, the closeness that I had been longing for.
“Sarah,” he muttered, pulling back ever so slightly, his breath fanning across my face.
“Fai,” I breathed, all rational thought fleeing my mind when my eyes met his. At that moment, I didn’t know much, but I knew he wanted me.
And damn, did I want him.
He leaned forward, moving to kiss me. The world slowed around us, time meaningless. I closed my eyes, ready to finally feel his lips on mine again.
But they never came.
“Damn it,” he mumbled. I opened my eyes as he pulled away, standing and moving away from me. He rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“Damn it.” His voice was more forceful this time, frustration radiating off him.
“What?” I asked, wondering why he had stopped. Why he hadn’t kissed me?
