Don’t Deny Me: Part Three by Megan Hart Page A

“What’s wrong, Alice? You’re white as paper.”
    “Tired, I guess.”
    She sounded tired. Looked it, too. Maybe she was coming down with a post-vacation bug.
    “We don’t have to go out for breakfast. I can run to the store, grab some bagels.” Concerned, he put a hand on her forehead to check for fever.
    She leaned into his touch, her eyes closed. Her face was cool, though two bright spots of color had appeared high on her cheeks. She put her hand over his when he put it on her cheek.
    She opened her eyes. “We can go to breakfast. Just let me take a shower, okay?”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    She hadn’t convinced him she was fine. The opposite, in fact, because while normally Alice showered with the door wide open and sang show tunes, today she closed the door tight, and Mick swore he heard the muffled sound of sobs.
    Shit.
    Anxious, he made the bed while he waited for her to finish her shower. Noticing that her closet door had come off the track again, he tinkered with it until he got it to work. Pleased, he pointed to it when she came out of the bathroom, bundled in her robe with a towel on her hair.
    “I fixed your closet door.”
    Alice glanced at it. “Thanks.”
    He demonstrated how smoothly it now opened and closed, watching her face for signs that she was happy. Or at least that she didn’t look sick anymore. The circles under her eyes had faded a little, but her eyes were red-rimmed.
    So she
had
been crying.
    At the diner, she ordered eggs and toast. No pancakes, no potatoes. She sipped at coffee and gave him a weak smile when he tried to joke with her. But when he tried to take her hand across the table, she didn’t let him.
    His stomach sinking, Mick didn’t have much of an appetite. Neither of them did, apparently, because when the waitress came with the check, she had to take away a bunch of plates that were mostly still full. He paid the check and left an extra-large tip, like that would make him feel better. It didn’t.
    In the car, Alice stared out the window in silence as he drove. The radio played one song after the other, none of which he knew the words to, but while normally he’d have made some up to make her laugh, now he stayed silent. The drive back to Alice’s house took only a few minutes, but it felt like hours.
    In her driveway, he didn’t move to get out of the car. He twisted in his seat to look at her. “You sure you’re okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “You don’t look fine.”
    She gave him a smile that looked like a lie. “Too much vacation, I guess.”
    They sat in silence, staring, and for the first time since they got back together, Mick wasn’t sure he knew what to say to her. He wanted to reach for her hand, but didn’t.
    “I guess I’ll get going, then,” he said, hoping she’d ask him to come inside with her.
    “Sure,” Alice said with a fake smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
    When he moved to kiss her, she turned her head just enough so that his lips caught the corner of her mouth. They stayed that way for a few seconds. Then she pulled away.
    She looked at him, expression inscrutable. She touched his face, traced his eyebrows with a fingertip. His chin. She kissed him, then, fully on the mouth, soft and sweet.
    Then she got out of the car and went inside the house.
    * * *
    Alice. Answer the door. I’m not leaving until you talk to me.
    —Mick to Alice, text
    * * *
    What more is there, other than wanting you?
    Alice couldn’t decide if that were better or worse than Mick loving her “on some level,” which she’d previously thought to be possibly the most horrifically disappointing and gut-wrenching thing anyone had ever said to her. She thought that love on any level had to be better than there being nothing more than wanting. Either way, once again she’d asked and once more she’d been given an answer.
    She’d cried herself sick in the shower this morning, but she wasn’t going to do that now. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. But it