Page 48 of Love Out Loud

When did he do that? He never told me.

I don’t even think then. I reach out and trace them lightly with my fingers. Lennon sucks in a breath, but I don’t stop. His skin here is so soft, and these birds…

“When…?” My voice comes out as a whisper.

“Ten years ago.” His is rough and restrained. “After I saw you. Right when I got back. It…” He trails off and swallows audibly. I don’t dare tear my eyes away from the birds on his arm to look at him lest it causes him to stop talking. I barely even breathe.

“It hurt, leaving you. It always hurts, but it was worse that time. Maybe a part of me sensed it’d be so long before I saw you again. Spending time with you and Devin… She’s such a cool kid, so much like you. It felt like…” He coughs, then runs a hand through his hair. “It felt like being part of a family. I almost packed up everything here and came back. But I didn’t know how that would make you feel, having me hanging around. You and Devin had a great thing going by then…”

My brain must have shut off or short circuited, because I lean forward and lightly brush my lips over the birds on his arm. Even though I know it’s wrong. I know I shouldn’t. But I do it anyway. It’s featherlight, but I can taste his skin. Clean and salty and smooth.

Lennon’s head tips back, and he moans. It’s an almost feral sound, low and full of pent-up desire and bad decisions.

I spring to my feet. “Shit,” I breathe, and I walk straight out the sliding door to the balcony. I close it behind me and lean against the railing. I can’t look at him, or I might make a terrible mistake.

My mind is going a mile a minute, looping around and around the fact that he has larks permanently tattooed onto his arm. That could be a normal thing that best friends do, right? If I were someone who had a habit of getting tattoos, I’d get one for him. And yet that sound he made when I kissed them didn’t sound at all friendly.

I shake my head violently, still gasping for air. If I can just get a handle on my breathing…

The door slides open behind me. My heart skips a few beats. What did I think was going to happen? He was going to just sit there and continue on with his movie while I hyperventilated on his balcony after kissing his arm?

“Lark.” His voice pierces through the cool night air, deep and weighted with something. Grief? Longing? Without looking at his expression, all I know is that the word falls quickly, lodging itself in my gut like a bullet, and it hurts almost as much.

What was I thinking, kissing his arm? He’s my best friend. The man who held me as I cried when I realized my acting career was over before it began. Who spent endless summer nights in college gazing at the stars and telling me stories about what they looked like over the ocean. Who dragged me out of my own self-pity and into the brave new world of audiobook recording. Who makes me happy. I need him. But I had to go cross that line—the line that I drew.

“I’m sorry,” I say out into the space between his building and the next one. “That was inappropriate.”

“Lark, look at me.”

No way in hell can I look at him, I think, even as my body turns around.

His frame fills the doorway, and his chest rises and falls with labored breaths. He looks anguished. Wounded, almost. I suddenly want nothing more than to crash into him. Taste him again. Take away whatever he’s feeling and replace it with something better.

Instead, I grip the banister behind me to keep me in place. “Those are larks. On your arm.”

He nods once. “They are.”

“For me?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I just like the way they look?” He smirks, but it quickly falls. “Of course they’re for you.”

It’s such a soft, tender admission. He leans forward as he says it, as if that could make the words hit home more than they already have. It’s unnecessary. They’ve already burrowed their way into my soul and taken root there.

“Why?” I breathe.

He runs a hand through his sandy hair again and blows out a puff of air. He looks up to the sky, clutching at the strands on his head, the birds on his arm on full display. He must have done this motion a hundred times since I’ve been here. I don’t know how I possibly missed them.

“Why not, Lark? You’re everything to me. You have been since we were fifteen. I was nothing until you dragged me into that Drama Club meeting. I have tattoos of things that mean far less to me than you. You’re my favorite person. You’re my best friend.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what I was expecting. An admission of desire? A declaration of love? Twenty-five years of friendship and he’s never once told me he loves me. Just that I’m his favorite or his best. I kind of thought it had become a sort of joke—one of those things you keep saying because you’ve always said it, that ends up meaning more than an I love you. But maybe not. Maybe I’m the only one feeling these warring emotions, and I’m imagining him reciprocating any of it.

Like being part of a family, he said. Not being a lover. That’s reserved for other women. I’ve been a fool to think otherwise. Suddenly, I’m embarrassed to have brought it up when we got home from the club last week. He probably thought I had lost my mind.

He drops his hand to his side, and it smacks his leg. The sound is loud in the quiet night, and I jump back into focus.

“I’m not doing a good job of this,” he mutters. “I don’t want to screw this up.”

“Screw what up?”