Read Online The Tenderness of Thieves by Donna Freitas - Free Book Online

saved.
    When Handel asked if he could join me, I didn’t think he would lie down, but that was what he did, and now we were stretched out, side by side, on a blanket meant for one, staring up at the stars as they disappeared behind the clouds. For the first time since dinner, I began to feel good again. My breaths came slow and full, the warm ocean breeze a soothing whisper all around. There was something so childlike and innocent about lying here with Handel. It was the kind of thing Bridget and I did when we were small and still sat with our mothers under their umbrellas and dug for crabs in the sand. Handel and I managed not to touch, not in a single place, not our shoulders or our hands or our feet, but I was so aware of him, his skin in the places it was exposed and his clothing in the places where it wasn’t, the curve of his jaw and the rise of his chest as he breathed. I wondered if he was thinking the same about me.
    It’s amazing how much was said without saying a thing.
    After another while, Handel shifted positions. He rolled onto his side, facing me, propping himself up on his elbow like at dinner. I could feel his eyes on me.
    “You won’t tell anyone about the story of my name, will you?” he asked.
    I laughed softly, my eyes still on the clouds above. They were about to eclipse the moon. “No, I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
    He let out a big breath, a long sigh of relief. “Good.”
    “Were you really that worried?”
    I could almost feel the smile cross Handel’s face even though I wasn’t looking at him. “I’ve got an image to maintain.”
    “Oh yeah?” I rolled onto my side, too, so we were facing each other. I propped myself up in the same position, happy to note that the smile I’d imagined on Handel’s face was real. “And what image is that?”
    “You said it yourself earlier. I’m the town bad boy. One of them at least. That story about my name would kill my reputation.”
    I reached out and flicked him on the arm. “You’re leaving out the other half of what I told you. The part about how you’re not so bad.”
    “Yeah. Well. I have my days.” He combed his fingers through his hair. Glanced toward the ocean. “Sometimes it’s hard to look my mother in the face. Knowing that every time I go off to work on the docks, she’s wishing things turned out differently.”
    Thunder rumbled far off in the distance. The air around us was growing thick with humidity, like you could slice it. “Maybe it’s a sign,” I said.
    “A sign of what?” Handel asked.
    I was so tempted to reach out and touch him, but I settled for a look. “A sign from the heavens that your mother was right,” I said. “You are destined for great things.”
    “Oh, of course I am.” He laughed. “What things exactly?”
    More thunder sounded. “Meteorology?”
    “In this town? No way.”
    “Right,” I agreed as a bolt of lightning cracked and lit up the ocean, flickering, then going out. “Firefighter, then?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe the storm is a sign I should be a fisherman after all.”
    In other circumstances I might have laughed at this, but Handel’s voice was so even, so steady. Like he really believed this was what he was meant to do. Or that it would be a relief to just let himself be this and only this. So all I said was, “Probably, that’s what it is,” and we turned our talk to other things.
    “Why are you doing this, anyway?” I asked Handel eventually.
    “Doing what?”
    “Hanging out with me.”
    Handel looked out over the ocean at the lightning again before turning, ever so slightly, in my direction. “I just,” he said, and paused. “I just . . . wanted to get to know you.”
    “Okay,” I said, because I felt like he’d told me the truth, and because it
was
okay. I wanted to get to know him, too, so much, more now than ever, and this seemed fine. More than fine. Like something I deserved.
    • • •
    Just before the rain came, we agreed we’d