Page 18 of Bloom

Oh my God. I’m literally smothering him with my cleavage. Not embarrassing at all.

He flinches, draws in a quick breath as if he’s been injured and is trying not to show it.

“Sorry,” I gasp, struggling to get up, to ignore his tight clasp on my hips and his breath on my skin. My hands are on his shoulders as I push off. His perfect, broad, taut shoulders. Even under extremely humiliating circumstances I can’t stop mentally molesting him. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he says, but the word is tight and controlled.

“My foot caught on something … ” I explain.

“Nails,” he says hoarsely as I stand.

“Huh?”

I’m the one who fell but he’s the one who sounds breathless, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded. He clears his throat. “There are nails popping up on the deck. That’s what tripped you. I’ll fix them.”

He jumps to his feet.

“You’re fixing them right now? It’s after midnight.”

“No,” he says. “I’m going running.”

My laugh is a little shaky. “It’s after midnight.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, and the look he gives me is tinged with anger.

“It was an accident,” I whisper. But he doesn’t hear me. He’s already gone.

Chapter 13

My days are still too empty. It’s a creeping kind of emptiness, a small tickle at the base of my neck that tells me I’m making a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be just … existing … this way. My life has always felt like it’s moving forward and now it’s completely stagnant. I will never turn into a Max, someone content just to take what life happens to send my way, but it sort of feels like I am. And I really could use a distraction right now, because James — his looks, his smile, his perfect shoulders and sudden dismissiveness — opens fresh wounds daily.

Aside from that one testy phone call when the whole story came out, I haven’t spoken to my father. It doesn’t surprise me, really. He’s always operated under the assumption that I was old enough take care of myself, even when I was barely old enough to know what the phrase meant. And I guess he has his hands full, what with his most recent tabloid cover, entitled “The Downfall of an Icon”, his girlfriend, future baby and job status.

But my mom too has been mysteriously absent, and that’s more troubling. I’ve been out of the house for nearly a year, so I shouldn’t still worry about her, but I do. When she finally returns my call I have to restrain myself from nagging her about how long it took.

“Hi honey,” she chirps. “How’s the beach?”

“It’s good,” I say mildly. The truth – one I’ve been ignoring – is that I feel sick with guilt for leaving her in DC with a complete disaster on her hands. It’s occurred to me more than once that maybe she was just putting on a brave face when I stopped by her house. Although that would be pretty out of character for her were it true. “How are things there?” I ask.

“Things here are fantastic,” she says.

“Really?” I ask. “That’s um, not what I was expecting to hear.”

“Oh,” she laughs. “I guess you thought I was holed up in my bedroom crying over your father?” she asks.

“Well, yes, sort of. So it’s not awful? Are there photographers camped outside your house?”

“Oh,” she says uncomfortably. “Well yes, I suppose but … ”

“What do you mean by ‘suppose’? Aren’t you in DC?”

“Well, not exactly,” she says. “I’m kind of on tour.”

“On tour?” I say, loudly enough that everyone in the room looks over.

“Yes,” she giggles. “Do you remember how I dated Tommy McPhee before I met your father?” Tommy McPhee is the lead singer of Thunder Jungle, this rock band that went through a brief period of intense fame in the late 80s/early 90s, before fading into relative obscurity. They still tour, and even put out a greatest hits album, although I can’t imagine what they filled it with since they had three or four hits at most. I’ve seen a few pictures of my mother with their squirrelly lead singer. It’s hard to tell if he was actually attractive or not — they all had such big hair back then.

“Yeah, I remember,” I say cautiously, wondering where this is going.