Connected: Part 4 of the On The Edge Series

Chapter 8

"Used to?"

"It's in the storage unit," I admitted. "I always knew that Eddie Cochran died in a car accident, but I didn't know that he died because he threw himself over his fiancé to shield her." Tears started to bite at my eyes. "Remind you of anyone?"

"I won't apologize for protecting you, even if it's hypothetical," Billy argued.

"I won't apologize for worrying about you, even if it's crazy," I agreed.

"Well, aren't we a pair?" He smiled and kissed my forehead. "What else worries you?"

"That you aren't happy." It fell out of my mouth before I could catch it, and I immediately tensed at the forward admission.

"What? Why would you say that? How could you think I'm not happy?"

"You're different now. It's not bad, but you temper yourself. I used to tell everything by the slightest tense of your body: the slouch of your shoulders or the gleam in your eye. When you were mad, you were mad. That's what you're feeling from Timmy. He won't quit on you, but he will worry about you. You need to let people in to help you and not hide what's happening in your head. Before, you hid nothing. You almost celebrated it, even anger with your drum kit tantrums."

"I want to discuss you and Tim, but drum kit tantrums?" I expected to see annoyance in his eyes, but instead, there was a teasing spark.

"You realize that when you used to get mad, you would always beat the shit out of a drum kit for a while? Why do you think Timmy always said I was good for business?"

Billy's fingers plunged into his hair as he thought about what I had just told him. "I think I still do that. When you first arrived, I played drummed a lot. I may have sprained my wrist." As he spoke, he stretched out his hand as though he had forgotten the pain that had only recently waned.

"And when you're thinking about something, like really thinking about it, you run your hand through your hair."

"I'm always shifting my hair," he argued, "not just when I'm thinking."

"You are, but there are subtle differences. When you quickly plunge your hand into your hair, you're mulling. You're uncomfortable when you tug on your hair. When you move it out of your face, you're sorry. When you have one hand in your hair and the other scratching your belly, you feel entirely out of control."

He blinked at me a few times before his mouth opened. Still, it took a moment for words to form. "Tell me more?"

"One of my favorite things is when you're in an exceptional mood, your words come quickly like the bullets from a machine gun, and your Midwest accent comes out. But the best part is your tone; it's higher and uneven. It melts years from you and always makes me smile."

He dipped his face to hide his smile, but I could still see the flush and prick of his dimples.

"Oh, and those dimples. You don't show them to strangers. Have you ever noticed? I looked through all your albums, and in every picture of you, you're either stoic or have a tiny smile that doesn't do your full smile justice. Your genuine smile is broad and crooked like a jack-o'-lantern. Your lips get thin from the stretch, and that's when the dimples appear. You know I love your dimples."

"My momma gave them to me," he murmured. "I love how you see me," he added after a moment. "That's all I ever wanted from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I just wanted you to see me. I never thought I'd get the chance to fall in love with you. And to have you fall in love with me." His head shook back and forth. "I honestly don't know what to do with myself."

"You don't have to do anything," I reminded him as my hand lifted to caress his face. "You've always been more than enough. I just want you with me. I want to be the one to make you smile, to calm you when you're geared up, to rile you up when you're too inside yourself." I giggled at how poking him to get his emotions out was a little too fun sometimes as my eyes fell on our interlocking fingers. "I want to be your rest and excitement, good days and bad days. I want you, all of you." I lifted my eyes to meet his and found them glistening.