What She Needs - Lacey Alexander [123]
The corners of his mouth turned up in just a hint of a smile. “I’m not suggesting that this would even be wise in real life. But I wanted you to experience it, to know that you can. And I . . . wanted to see you that way,” he admitted. “That part was selfish.”
“I don’t mind,” she whispered.
Cuddling back up to his warm body, she noticed the initials on his arm once more. And the closer she felt to him, it seemed, the more she longed to know about the one woman Brent Powers had ever fallen in love with. Biting her lip, she reached out to gently run her fingertips over the tattoo. “What happened with Deena?” she asked.
But he didn’t respond.
She waited for a long moment, yet he still remained quiet, eyes on the ceiling, as if she’d never asked.
Given that the two of them had grown close, whether he liked it or not, she didn’t hide her disappointment. “You’re really not going to tell me?”
“She died,” he said.
Oh no. “Oh. God. I’m sorry, Brent.” Then she whispered, “How?”
This time, when he hesitated, she didn’t dare press him—she could see how hard it was for him to share this, but that he was trying now. “An accident. On the highway. A semi lost control.”
Jenna’s heart constricted. “God, that’s awful.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “They say it was quick, though—no pain.” Yet then his eyebrows knit.
“What?” she asked.
He gave his head a short shake—but then he confided in her further. “We’d fought that day. About sex. She was . . . kind of like you.”
“Like me?”
He met her gaze briefly. “She’d had some bad experiences growing up, and she wasn’t very comfortable with sex. But I wasn’t mature enough to get it at the time—and I was mad she was always rejecting my advances, always acting turned off.” He stopped, sighed. “So we argued. And so I’ve always known she was mad at me—hurt by me—when she died. And worse, she had every right to be, because I was acting like an asshole.”
Jenna blinked, shocked, putting pieces together. At the risk of overestimating her importance to Brent, she whispered, “Is that why? Why you insisted on fixing my problems?”
His face changed then, going dark, looking even sadder somehow. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” Then he let out a rough breath, appearing disgusted with himself. “Shit—I kind of wondered why it was so damn important to me, so . . . hell. Maybe.”
“Maybe you wanted to . . . give me what you weren’t able to give her?” Jenna suggested cautiously.
Brent’s only response was to close his eyes—and then she saw a tear leak free, rolling down his cheek.
Oh God. Oh God, her heart broke for him. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
Yet then he seemed to shake off the more brutal emotions. “No, it’s okay,” he said, reaching up to wipe the wetness from his face. “I just hadn’t realized it, but you’re probably right.”
Despite herself, Jenna still wanted to know more. She wasn’t sure she should keep prying at this point, yet . . . “When did Deena die?”
“The April before I graduated from college.”
Oh, wow. That explained a lot. Like why he’d looked so unhappy in those graduation pictures. And could it also explain . . . ? “That was . . . right before you came here. Right?”
He nodded against the pillow. “I came that summer.”
She simply looked at him, wondering if he truly couldn’t see what she suddenly saw. She raised on one elbow to peer down at him. “You came here to get away from her death,” she said.
Yet he only shrugged. “Sure I did. It was a good distraction. A different lifestyle, a different world.”
“But you never left, Brent. You came here to hide from it and you never stopped.”
This finally got his attention. He arched a brow and she felt his muscles tense. “Okay, who’s the psychology major here?”
Jenna wasn’t sure how to proceed. She didn’t want to be hard on him, but the fact was—his girlfriend had died a very long time ago. He should be over it by now. So she was as honest with him as he’d been with her about confronting her issues. “Maybe you should quit trying to dodge this, because