“Peach?” Amber asks, a nervous smile twitching her lips as she glances at me, then the curious spectators, then back to me.
“Yeah.” I drop my voice, every syllable a slow burn. “A sweet . . . juicy . . . ripe peach.”
She swallows, her breath faltering. Yup, I’m definitely doing something fucking right.
“Whatever. Fine. This peach has a sick, slightly twisted, unhealthy crush on Jared Leto.”
“Jared’s not gonna do it.” I chuckle. “Dig deeper, Moretti.”
“I love thunderstorms,” she tries, getting closer but not quite there.
“Deeper.” I drag out the word. “I know you can do better.”
“I hate the smell of cheesecake. It nauseates me.”
I blink. “Cheesecake’s doing better?”
“Well? I really don’t know what you’re after, Ryder.” Confusion twists her beautiful features. “I’m not some kind of enigma.”
“Ah, but you are. You just don’t know it.” I shoot her a wink.
“It all depends,” an older woman speaks up, shoveling a bite of apple pie into her mouth. “What kind of information do you want her to tell you?”
I glance at the woman before crouching down in front of Amber. Resting an elbow on the table, I hold Amber’s gaze. Her eyes soften, a storm of curiosity thundering behind them as she searches my face.
“I want to know what makes her tick, what gets her going. I want to know what she dreams about, what she fears.” Still staring at her, I take a deep breath, hoping my tactics don’t scare her away. “I want to know her quirks, her weird little habits. I want to know what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning and who she’s thinking about when she goes to sleep. I want to know her favorite color, cereal, and band.” I pause, losing myself in everything that makes up this girl, this . . . gorgeous mystery. “I want to know anything she’s willing to tell me.”
“Dean, why don’t you want to know things like that about me?” a less-than-thrilled voice squeaks.
I ignore Dean’s answer as Amber looks at me as if understanding my need to get inside her head. “I . . .” she starts, then pauses, her voice conflicted. Her fingers nervously rip at the edge of a napkin as she shrugs. “I write.”
“Like, you’re writing a book?” I slide back into the booth, true curiosity taking over.
“No,” she says with a half smile. “But I could. That’s for sure.” I see memories moving behind her eyes, her expression once again somewhere distant. “I . . . write in a journal. My thoughts, how my day went, what I ate. Dumb shit like that.” She shrugs again. “It’s stupid, but I started keeping one the day after my parents died.”
Confused, I tilt my head. “Why do you think it’s stupid?”
Her fingers continue their assault on the napkin. “I don’t know. It just is. Most of the foster parents I wound up with thought it was, so it must be, right?”
“Wait. What?” I hope I misunderstood her. When she doesn’t immediately respond, I feel my jaw set in anger, fury slicing through my chest. I stare at her, trying hard as fuck to tame my sudden need to find out who those people were, show up at their houses, and beat them to a bloody death. “They told you it was stupid to write in a journal?”
“Yeah. Well, all except for Cathy and Mark. They encouraged it, but the rest of them thought it was childish.”
Sick bastards. Now I’m determined to find out a few addresses. “What do you think about writing?”
“I just told you what I thought about it,” she says, her tone edgy.
Here’s where the average person might back off and tread the rough waters in a raging sea. I’m nowhere close to average. I’m beginning to see that Amber needs a hard kick in her ass to get her talking. Really talking.
“You told me what those assholes thought about it, not what you think about it.” I cross my arms. “I’m calling your bluff.”
Challenge knifes her eyes. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that’s twice today I’m not buying your shit.”
Her luscious, pink bow of a mouth drops open.
I try not to picture it wrapped around my cock as I go in for the kill. “It means that you have a brain and can think for yourself. You don’t seem to have a problem voicing your opinion, so I’m finding it hard to believe you honestly think that writing in a journal is stupid. You said you started writing down your thoughts the day after your parents died. There’s a reason for that. There’s still a reason you use it as a way to dump out everything diseasing that pretty head of yours.”
I pause, watching the fight deflate from her shoulders. At this, I lean across the table, making sure my tone holds the gentleness I know she needs to hear. “It means that I want you to admit that you know you need to write. Admit that at this point in your life, it’s the only way you’re surviving what happened.”
“The paper listens to me better than any therapist ever has,” she whispers, pain spilling across her face. “There’s no . . . no . . . right or wrong about how I feel on any given day.” Her attention’s focused on the shredded napkin in her trembling hands, her lips beginning to quiver as her eyes threaten tears.
My heart takes a nosedive, nearly gutting me wide open as the realization that she’s never spoken to anyone about this hits me. Hard. It’s been hours since I smoked a bowl and days since I killed a few shots of tequila, yet I feel drunk, completely fucking high. I may not be in her every waking thought the way she is mine, but right now, Amber’s giving me something greater than that . . . She’s allowing me to enter her empty heart, guiding me through her bent past.