Too Close to Resist

“I just need...” Her voice hitched, but she shook her head as if to shake it off. “I just need...”

Kyle couldn’t stand it any longer. Knowing all too well what it was like to fight those gnawing, oppressive feelings. The way they dug into every wound, making them deeper, more painful. It was too much to bear seeing those feelings on Grace. Gently, he took her arm and led her toward the stairs. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

He expected her to fight him, but she didn’t. Perhaps she was too busy fighting the tears shimmering in her eyes.

He stopped in front of the locker room and she nodded in silent understanding. Forgetting his normal after-workout routine, he grabbed his bag out of the locker. When he returned to Grace, she was slumped against the wall, her eyelashes suspiciously wet.

He took her arm again, not sure why. Crying didn’t make her incapable of moving on her own, but he didn’t know what to say, so a friendly touch seemed the way to go.

Grace climbed into the car, her body tensed from head to toe. He slid into the driver’s seat, and though the rational part of his mind told him not to look, he couldn’t help himself. When it came to Grace, the other part of his brain too often took over.

She was curled up in her seat, forehead pressed to her knees. He opened his mouth to tell her to buckle her seat belt, but clamped it shut. He’d just drive with extra caution.

“I’m not going to cry.” Her voice was muffled by her knees.

“Praise every available deity.”

She laughed. “I like it when you’re funny. It’s much better than pretentious-asshole Kyle.” She turned her face so her temple rested on her knees and she looked at him, just the hint of a smile on her lips.

He looked at the windshield. “I wasn’t really trying to be funny.”

“Things were fine when he was locked up.” Her voice was a whisper. “No, they were good. Great. Why does it have to change?”

“The unknown tends to screw with us a lot more than what we know for fact.”

“Yes! Exactly. I don’t even know if he’d try to hurt me, you know? I mean, we’d only been on three damn dates, so it’s not like I was the love of his life. Maybe he doesn’t even care that I testified.” Her vigor faded and she slumped in her seat. “And maybe he does.”

“Grace.” What could he say? What was there to say? He knew the weight of uncertainty, the oppressive bulk of it. He remembered reading The Crucible in high school and thinking it felt a lot like the way being pressed to death must feel. Except lucky Giles had an end. This way, you just felt it all the time, that heavy weight, that struggle to breathe.

He’d done what he could to circumnavigate it, but he knew his way wouldn’t fit Grace. She was too bright and vibrant to mold herself into something else, someone else. So he had no advice. Only silence.

“Did your parents beat you?”

The question didn’t surprise him, but he never knew how to answer it. Had he been hit? On occasion. But beaten in the after-school–special sense? No. And now, well, it didn’t constitute beating if he dished it right back. “Not exactly. What happened to us isn’t the same.” Not at all. Grace was innocent. He was not. “But I know what it’s like to try to beat something and feel like you’ll never win.”

Grace rested her hand on top of his. Kyle let the feeling of human contact, human comfort, wash over him for a minute. Just a minute. Any longer and he’d take more than he deserved.

“Let’s head home.” Kyle lifted his hand from Grace’s and turned the key in the ignition. Part of him wanted to see what expression he would find on her face, but fear bolstered the rational part of his brain and he kept focus on backing out of the parking spot.

“It’s nothing to feel ashamed of.”

But that was exactly what he felt, what drove him. Shame. Of everything he’d let happen in that trailer for eighteen years. Of everything his father still could bring out in him.

* * *

GRACE WAS SPRAWLED on Jacob’s bed, painting her fingernails a bright purple. She was not thinking about Barry. She was not thinking about losing it at the gym. And she definitely wasn’t thinking about Kyle being understanding and nice. About how he was more complex, more kind, more fascinating than she’d ever given him credit for.

Instead she was thinking about how she was going to wring Jacob’s neck for ditching her again so she’d felt compelled to go to the gym with Kyle. Maybe he’d thought she’d have Mom for company, and maybe at the time she’d been happy he was giving her lots and lots of space, but still. He was a grown-ass man, and would it kill him to stand up to his girlfriend?

So a little payback was in order. Step one: fill his room with nail polish fumes.

Grace studied her purple nails and smiled. Mission accomplished. Step two: wait for him to get home and poke and prod him over being such a wimp when it came to women.

Jacob opened the door and immediately scowled when he saw the nail polish bottle. “Okay, what did I do this time?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Ditch me every night this week ring any bells?”

He threw his keys and wallet onto the nightstand. “First, I thought you wanted space. Second, I know.” Jacob sighed and kicked off his shoes. “I suck.”

Grace frowned. It wasn’t like him to give in to her so easily. “What’s up with you?”

“You and Kyle will be happy to know that I broke up with Candy.” Since she was sprawled across his bed, he took a seat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall.

Part of her did an inward jig, but putting on her big-sister hat, she remained outwardly neutral. “It’s not like you to do the breaking up.”

He tapped his fingers on his knee, frowned at the floor. “Even I can be forced into breaking up with someone when there’s an ultimatum involved.”

“What was the ultimatum?”

Jacob closed his eyes, bounced his head against the wall. “Idiotic.”

“Ah, so it was about me.”

He opened one eye and studied her. “Self-absorbed much?”

Grace only had to lift an eyebrow to have him deflating.

“Okay, maybe partially about you, and me wanting to stick around the house more than take her out.”

“I know I should keep my mouth shut—”

“But you’re not going to.”

“She was awful.” Not nearly good enough for her brother. He had a bad habit of being unable to do anything alone. She couldn’t remember a time since high school when Jacob had gone more than a few weeks without a girlfriend. “She wasn’t even nice.”

“You’re right.” Jacob nodded solemnly. “I don’t know. I just...” He shook his head. “It’s not fun being alone.”

“You’re not alone.”

“You know what I mean.” He gave her a pointed look. “We seem to have opposite fears.”

She folded her arms across her chest and flopped back on his bed. “It’s not fear. I like being alone.”

“You like not taking a risk.”

She shrugged and stared hard at the ceiling. “So what?”

“So Barry was one guy.”

Grace knew that. Intellectually. But the intellectual part didn’t always win. She’d grown up with Barry, had known his family; going out with him should have been safe and easy.

But it hadn’t been, and the fear that it could happen again meant even the prospect of a date made her break out in hives. The prospect of something new left her feeling like an insecure teenager.

Knowing it was so damn stupid didn’t change how she felt, though.

She wondered how much Kyle dated. His trauma had stemmed from his family, but in all the years she’d known him, she couldn’t bring to mind any women in his life. Maybe the mention of a date, but never a girlfriend.

Maybe he was gay. She smiled a little, thinking of the moment in the kitchen when he’d been awfully close, and just as affected as her. No, she didn’t think that was it.

And wasn’t it interesting that when she thought of that moment and Kyle, she didn’t get that sick, nervous feeling over the prospect of something new?

“Do you know what happened to Kyle?” That wasn’t what she’d meant to ask, but, well, why not ask?

Jacob pressed his lips together, his tell. Lying had never been his strong suit. “What do you mean?”

“When we were kids. I mean, I guess everyone in Carvelle knew his parents were into drugs and stuff, but what happened to him? What makes him...the way he is? Spill it.”

“I don’t know much, Grace. Kyle’s not big on sharing. Why?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t get him.” And the fact that she wanted to get him wasn’t something she wanted to analyze.

“Give it time. He warms up after a while. You get kicked around most your life, being a little standoffish is how you cope.”

“How come nobody ever got him out of there?”

Jacob sighed, got up and then pushed her legs to the side so he could plop onto the bed next to her. “I don’t know. Bad stuff happens. You know that better than anyone.”

Yeah, she did. Maybe it would be best to leave it at that, but Grace didn’t really have that kind of self-control.

“Should I be worried about this weird thing you and Kyle have going on?”

Grace studied her toes. “What weird thing?”

“Give me a break. You’re sitting here asking about him. Then there’s the staring, the bickering, the very careful not staring. I may be a guy, but I’m not blind.”

“You’re a sensitive guy, though.”

Jacob elbowed her calf and she laughed. “You’re a catch, little brother. Stop dating anyone who walks by and maybe you won’t keep ending up alone.”

“She wasn’t that bad. All the time.”

“I wanted to tell her to go to hell every time she pranced around on those fancy heels wrinkling her nose at me.” Grace smiled blandly. “But because I love you, I didn’t.”

“I wanted to punch Kyle in the nose when I caught him staring at your ass.” Jacob smirked. “But because I like both of you, I didn’t.”

“Kyle was staring at my ass?”

“You’re happy about that?” The disgust in his tone delighted her even more.

“It’s flattering. Besides, I do have a very nice ass.” Grace flashed him a grin.

“Gross.” Jacob pushed to his feet. “On that note, I’m going to take a shower and erase this conversation from my mind.”

Grace knew she probably should erase it from her mind, too, but she didn’t want to. Not even a little bit.

CHAPTER SIX

SQUEAKS, LAUGHTER AND chatter booming from the kitchen could only mean one thing. The whole McKnight clan had descended upon the house.

Kyle sighed. They were a loud, gregarious, demonstrative bunch, and he avoided them as much as possible. Mrs. McKnight always, always hugged him. He never knew what to do about it. Mr. McKnight would pat him on the shoulder and tell him the same joke he’d been telling his high school baseball players since the beginning of time. “A man with a wood eye asks a girl with a harelip to dance. She says, ‘Would I? Would I!’ He replies, ‘Harelip! Harelip!’”

Then there was Grace’s music teacher aunt who preferred singing to actual speaking, and a cousin who was always sneaking out for smoke breaks, not always of the tobacco kind. Added to all that noise and touching, the cousin’s four-year-old daughter always insisted on crawling into Kyle’s lap anytime he sat.

Kyle turned in retreat. He would hide away in his office for a bit longer. His grumbling stomach would just have to wait.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Kyle winced and turned to see an all-too-amused Grace standing in the hall between living room and kitchen. “Well, I...”

She shook her head. “Who knew you were such a coward?” She advanced on him, and he would have backed away, but he wasn’t that big of a coward. Her hand latched on to his arm. “We’re all going out to dinner and you have to come.”

“Oh, no, no.” Kyle tried to pull his arm away, but her grip was firm. “I have plans.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Liar. Come on. A dinner with the McKnights is just what you need to lighten up.”

“As I keep telling your brother, I’m plenty light.”

She snorted and kept pulling him toward the noisy kitchen.

And that was how Kyle found himself sandwiched between Jacob and Grace in a large booth at the Bluff City Pizza Hut.

Kyle focused on his off-white plate etched with the knife marks of years of use while Grace’s aunt belted out an aria from some opera she’d recently attended, the four-year-old demanded money to play games and Jacob and his dad told old baseball war stories. Meanwhile, Grace’s cousin kept trying to talk to her about Barry while Grace kept trying to change the subject.

“I saw him at the grocery store yesterday,” Paula was saying in a conspiratorial whisper the whole restaurant could no doubt hear. “He had on this black sleeveless shirt and there was this giant tattoo on his arm. He didn’t have that before, did he?”

Grace fidgeted next to him and her bare arm brushed his. Luckily it was very hard to fantasize about someone whose leg was pressed against his when his other leg was pressed against her brother’s.

“I’m not sure. Do you want me to give Bella some quarters for Pac-Man?”

Paula waved her off. “No, no, no. I’ll get it in a second. Anyway, he bought a twenty-four pack of Natty Light and a carton of Kools and—”

“Grace, did Jacob tell you that a client of ours is interested in buying one of your paintings?”

The entire table went silent. Kyle wasn’t sure if it was because of what he said or because he was talking at all, but at least Paula stopped yapping about Barry.

“What?”

He kept his attention on his plate, having no desire to see what expression might be on any of their faces. “Jacob hung the painting of the river in the kitchen and a client of ours asked Kelly about it last week. She mentioned you were a local artist and they were very interested.” Kyle took a careful bite of pizza, chewed and, okay, damn it, he looked at her because he couldn’t not.

Her eyes were wide; her mouth hung open a little. “Jacob, is he serious?” But she didn’t look at her brother. Her brown eyes stayed on Kyle’s face.

“Well, I wasn’t going to mention it until the client made an appointment to see your stuff, but yeah. According to Kelly they were really excited about it.”

“Gracie! Isn’t that wonderful.”

The cacophony of a McKnight dinner returned, but everyone was too busy talking about Grace and painting to bring up Barry again.

Luckily, Kyle wasn’t forced to talk after that, but somehow on the drive home he found himself in Jacob’s truck. Just him and Jacob. Kyle got the uncomfortable feeling they were about to have a discussion.

“So,” Jacob began conversationally. “I saw what you did there.”

Kyle shrugged, focused on the passenger window. “What where?”

“The painting thing.”

Kyle shrugged again. He had no desire to be called out on this. “It was news. I shared it.”

“Yeah, at the picture-perfect time to shut up Paula rambling on and on about Barry. I’m supposed to believe that’s just coincidence?”

Kyle didn’t know what to say. He wanted to forget about the whole thing and not have this conversation. “She seemed uncomfortable, so I changed the subject. I don’t see why this warrants a discussion of any kind.”

“I don’t know. I think it does. The thing is, we’re friends. Have been for a long-ass time. I like you, Kyle.”

“Is this where you warn me to keep my hands off your sister?” He was already doing everything in his power.

“Actually, no.” Jacob pulled the truck into the drive, stopped the truck. “Whatever weird thing you and Grace have going on is none of my business and, what’s more, I don’t want it to be. I’m just saying this. I like you, Kyle. That’s why we’re friends.”

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