Page 47 of Only and Forever
I want to follow up. I’m a curious guy, and Tallulah’s family is largely a mystery to me but for the occasional tipsy statement Charlie throws out about her “fucked up family.”
Since Charlie came back into Ziggy’s life in adulthood, my sister has only painted me the broadest picture of the Clarke family’s dysfunction, and I haven’t felt like it’s my business to inquire any further. Except now, I sort of do. I watch Tallulah roll her shoulders back like she’s trying to shake off something bad, and there’s a knot in my chest. I want to know. I want to understand. I want to be there for her.
She’s your roommate. Your barely friendly roommate. And she’ll be gone in two months. Settle down. Don’t. Push.
That voice of reason inside me is right. I have no right to push, no reason to. I can care about Tallulah and not know all her business, especially the complicated, messy nuances of her family. If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.
“It’s a good whiskey,” she says, turning into the kitchen area. “Smooth, rich, smoky. You’re welcome to try it.”
I shrug. “Sure. I’ll give it a whirl.”
Tallulah frowns, scouring the kitchen counters. “Well, I’d offer it to you, but I don’t see it anywhere. I swear I left it right here.” She points to the right of the range, where the olive oil sits in a large green glass bottle with a pouring spout.
“Oh.” Suddenly, my memory is jogged. Tallulah dumped a number of things on the counter when she got here this morning, taking all of it with her down the hall except a tall bottle whose label I didn’t bother to read but figured was liquor. I swept it up without thinking and put it in the liquor cabinet. “That’s my bad,” I tell her.
Reaching, I open the cabinet above the fridge, then pull down the bottle I stashed there this morning.
Tallulah frowns, hands on her hips. “That’s not going to work.”
I hand it to her and watch her walk down the counter until she spots the glass-front cabinet revealing the small mason jar tumblers I have. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t reach that,” she says. “In fact, I don’t know what Icanreach in this kitchen.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “Sorry about that. During reno, I installed the cabinets higher than is typical.”
I frown, remembering Axel, the tallest in our family, saying in his deep, quiet voice, “You should install them standard height. Someone else might want to use these cabinets one day, and they probably won’t be as tall as you.”
I hate when my brother’s right.
Tallulah opens the cabinet door and huffs, reaching on tiptoe. I rush her way, reaching over her back for the glasses she seemed to be going for. “Here you go,” I tell her.
Tallulah glances up, and suddenly I realize how close she is, inside my arms, how good she smells, something expensive and quietly alluring, deceptively rich and floral. She glances away as I set down the glasses, her eyes on the task of pulling out her whiskey bottle’s cork.
I take a step back and open the fridge, letting the ice-cold air knock some sense into me. I have to stop doing this, letting my lizard brain override my good sense whenever I get close to her. But, shit, is it hard. She smells so good. She’s sexy and soft and my hands ache to touch her and learn her, to drag her hands down my body so she can touch and learn me, too.
Roommates. We. Are. Roommates. Nothing more.
Cooling myself down, settling my thoughts, I take longer than strictly necessary finding a beer that appeals to me, then pop the top off against the counter.
“Okay, Viggo.” Tallulah turns and faces me, holding two mason jars, one filled with a hefty glug of whiskey, the other with just a sliver. “We survived me moving in. We made it through IKEA in one piece. We assembled furniture and didn’t kill each other. This is a victory.” Eyebrows lifted, the barest coy smile softening her mouth, she raises her glass. “I say we get a little sauced.”
—
“This,” I tell Tallulah, setting down my whiskey glass, “tastes like a bonfire in my mouth. And that is not a compliment.”
She sticks out her tongue. Fuck, it’s cute. “You,” she says, pointing with her glass, “have no taste.”
“Excuse me!” I slap a hand to my chest. “I have impeccable taste.”
“Not when it comes to whiskey you don’t.”
I take a deep drink of my beer, washing away the ash and soot taste of the whiskey. Blech. “Let’s move on. We called a truce, remember?”
Tallulah nods, leaning forward, pouring herself more whiskey. Dusk bathes the living room in a cool blue glow, and the candles I lit flicker around us, warming the shadowy corners with fading gold light. Her hair’s fallen out of her bun, ice-blue waves crashed against the shore of her shoulders, the twisty old telephone-cord-looking hair tie she was using discarded on my couch. I pick it up and wind it around my finger.
“So.” I lean into my corner of the sofa.
“So.” Tallulah leans into her corner of the sofa, glass in hand.