It Pours (Chambers of the Heart Book 2)

by C D Cain

  “Hey, yourself. You’re amazing.”

  Mo leaned in to hug me. “I believe you owe me a dance.” Her voice and the breath that followed it tickled the hairs of my neck.

  I let my lips find her ear, hoping mine would maybe have the same effect on her. How could it in reality? Any one of these women could be hers. “I believe I told you I don’t dance.”

  She leaned back, raised her eyebrows with surprise, and grinned. “But what if it was your favorite music?”

  The music suddenly changed as another electric violin played, followed by the undeniable voice of Annie Lennox singing, “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This.”

  I could do nothing but smile in my defeat. Mo’s face brightened in the flashing strobe light. She shook her hair free from the newsboy cap and handed it to Jazlyn. Thank the Lord she hadn’t cut it.

  “We’ll be back.” She grabbed my hand and led me out into the crowd of staring women. Their faces were visible to me in the flashes of the strobe lights. Thankfully, I still did not recognize a face, although many of them carried the same recognizable expression. I felt like the envy of each of them as they watched the woman who’d taken over their bodies guide me to center stage.

  The music changed. The opening of “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” started to play. She had made a collection of popular eighties songs. She turned to me and walked backward as she sang. She swayed her hips.

  “I’m serious. I don’t know how to dance,” I yelled over the music.

  Mo smiled. “Look around, love. There isn’t room to dance.” She held her hands in the air. “Feel the music.” She leaned into me and breathed into my ear. “Feel me.”

  I felt my heart skip. This time, the vibration came from Mo, not the bass. Her hands slowly skimmed down my arms and around my wrists as she placed my hands on her hips. She followed with her hands on my hips. I felt the pressure of her grip urging my movements to and fro with hers. She uttered not another word. Yet her eyes spoke volumes to me in her unreleased stare.

  I immediately recognized the lyrics of “I Melt With You.” It was one of my favorite songs from the eighties.

  “Moving forward using all my breath,” I sang along to the music.

  I became unsteady in the sensation of her body morphing into my own. Her hips against mine ignited me. I wanted to stop the world and melt into this moment. I envisioned no one but us in the strobe-lit darkness. The grip of her hands soft yet determined as they held me tighter against her. I felt the heat of her palm against my skin as she slipped her hand under my shirt to lie against the small of my back. The strength of her hand pushed me into her thigh as her leg interweaved between mine. She smiled as she nestled my thigh tightly between her legs and used the strength in them to lower our hips rhythmically together.

  So many of my favorite songs from the era filled my ears as the back of her fingers, warm and sensual, traced a pattern along the inside of my jean’s waistband. A clip from “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” started playing. I knew the feeling of her hands on my skin was one sensation I would not forget for a very long time. Her hands reached the front of my jeans where she gripped them tightly and pulled me all the more into her. Perspiration of desires not awakened for so long broke out in beads of sweat along the back of my neck. Her hand found the dampened curls there as it traced a pattern up my back.

  Each pulsating beat tore me down from the inside. She was taking my breath away just as the lyrics of the song described. Her eyes held me in a locked trance as they drifted from my eyes to my lips and then back again. Her hair tickled my cheek as her body melted into me. My breath was as the song described—taken away. I wondered how she picked so many of my favorite songs. Dizziness filled my head within the fog of curtain smoke as her chest, heavy with her breaths, rose and fell against mine. The closer she brought our bodies together, the more I felt the pressure of her breasts against me. Excitement…intrigue…arousal. Each completed me in equal proportions to the very core of my body as it was held in the gravity of her arms. Breaths escaped and retreated in labored fashion as her hand found a new tempo along the skin of my stomach. My body was hers for all she wanted it to be in that dance. The last lyric played told me what I wanted to feel in this moment. Even if only for today, if only for this moment, couldn’t I be unafraid?

  Returning to Jazlyn, I was more aware of the faces in the crowd as they seemed to be watching me in the midst of Mo’s return to the deejay booth. Jazlyn said little. No doubt she was remembering a conversation warning Mo to not mess with me. I know I was remembering it and was left to wonder if that dance would be termed beyond friendly.

  One by one, I searched the faces around me. I watched to see if their dances mimicked the one I had experienced. Blondes. Brunettes. Gingers. Dancing.

  Flash of light.

  Sam.

  Off.

  On. Sam?

  Off.

  On again. Sam’s body moved through the crowd.

  Off.

  On. Sam stood in front of me. I felt her hand grab and clasp around mine. My pulse raced as she tugged me through the crowd. The music trailed behind us until it was a deafened noise locked behind a closed metal door. She pulled me out of the club and into an alley. She maneuvered me through groups of mingling women and traffic until we were nearly a block away. We entered a park at the corner of Piedmont and Tenth Avenue. Sam didn’t slow her steps until we were standing next to an empty park bench sitting by a small body of water. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my ears at the sight of Sam’s face staring at me in the moonlight.

  She was silent as she glared at me. I cursed the sweating of my palm held within hers as I felt her grip loosen to release it. I squeezed in an attempt to hold on tighter so she couldn’t let go of my hand.

  “No, don’t let go,” I begged her.

  She bit the corner of her lip and I felt myself melt in the memory of all that was her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jazlyn invited me.”

  “I know the simplicity of what brought you here. I’m asking why you’re here.”

  The sharpness of her tone caused me to recoil. “I don’t know.”

  “Figured you’d say that.” She briskly pulled her hand from mine and turned to walk away.

  “No, goddammit, don’t you walk away from me.” I felt a wave of nausea course through me.

  Why? Why had I said the profanity I never say? I felt the sickness in my mouth from the heated anger of it. Hadn’t I blamed my faith as much as anything for the reason I was where I was now? Wasn’t my scorn for the decision I had made somehow turned toward the religious teachings which had been shoved down my throat since I was old enough to sit in church with Charlie Grace.

  Sam turned to me with anger in her eyes. “Tell me one good reason why I should stay?” The tone of her voice was equal with her expression.

  “Because I die a little every single time you walk away from me. And honestly, I’m not real sure how much of me is still alive at this point.”

  “You looked pretty alive a few minutes ago.”

  “Sam, please. Please don’t go. For some reason, you found me in that club tonight. For some reason, in the mass of all of those women, you saw me. Can’t we at least just acknowledge that?”

  She studied my face. “We can acknowledge that I would’ve never imagined you’d dance like that with a woman. You’ve gone from not knowing who you wanted to be to practically making out with her in front of everyone. And with her. After everything, you get with someone like her.”

  “I didn’t get with anyone. I’m not with Mo. We’re just friends.”

  “That dance was anything but friendly.” She shifted her weight on her legs and looked away from me. “Whatever. What does it matter to me now anyway?”

  “Don’t be like that, Sam. We’re just friends. Please, let’s sit down and talk.”

&
nbsp; She brushed the overgrown shrubbery off the back of the bench and sat down. “I really don’t think there’s much to say.”

  “Can we try?” I sat beside her and took her hand. The fingernail moon was but a sliver deep in the darkened sky. Oh, how I yearned to get lost in the blueness of her eyes. I felt the warmth of her hand in mine as I stroked my thumb against the tip of her finger. I watched her as she looked down at our hands. The street noise was all but drowned out by the call of the insects in the night. Their song took me back to a night with our toes dangling in the bayou water.

  I looked over her shoulder into the rolling hills of the small park. “The noises.” I waved my hand. “Reminds me of being back home on the bayou with you.”

  She looked up and around the park. “Yeah, but they sound different.” I saw her catch a glimpse of the charms hanging from my neck. I heard her swallow hard and wondered what she was thinking when she saw the combination of the cross and cicada looped together along the golden chain. I hope she knew I wore the chain daily but I doubt she let herself think of the way I touched them constantly when I thought of her or Meems.

  “The cicadas don’t sound the same here,” she said flatly.

  “I think those are katydids.”

  “Katy dids?”

  “There are a thousand different species of them. They say they’re named because they sound as if they’re saying ‘Katy-did.’” I was nervously rambling about a silly insect fact. “Meems would tell me…” I looked out into the water. I’m not sure if it was a reflex or intentional but Sam’s grip tightened on my hand. “One of the folklore stories is that there was a woman named Katy who was madly in love with this man. But he left her to marry another.” Her grip loosened. “They were found dead in their honeymoon bed the morning after they’d married. It was said they were poisoned but no one saw the crime. Well, no person saw the crime. They say the bugs saw what happened as they had been watching from the window. On hot summer nights, it’s said they shout from the trees to tell us who committed the crime. ‘Katy-did, Katy-did.’”

  Sam stopped a smile that tried to curl the corners of her lips. “I should’ve known you’d have a story about them.”

  I shrugged. “Guess I’m weird like that.”

  “Not weird. Different.” She faced the park. “So really, what are you doing here?” she said with a softer tone than the one she had used earlier when she asked.

  “Jazlyn invited me. Violet had to take call this weekend so she asked me to come with her.”

  I’d hoped she would look at me but instead she turned her head away even more. “And how’d you two become friends?”

  “I met her when I went to the Pineapple Post.”

  She snapped her head back and stared at me. “Why were you there? Why did you even go there?”

  “I overheard Kylie talking about it.”

  “Oh? And what? You hear the Queen Lesbian Conqueror talking about a lesbian bar and you just have to go. Please tell me you didn’t get with her after I left.”

  “Why do you say that? Why do you keep assuming I’ve been with another woman?”

  “I do believe lesbian bars are filled with lesbians. Why else go unless you’re looking for one?”

  “I wasn’t looking for another woman when I went.” I looked down at the bench. “I was looking for myself.”

  “It didn’t look that way to me. Looked like you were trying to sew some wild oats before the big wedding day. You were nearly making out with Mo on the dance floor. Geez, Rayne, why don’t you try to have some decorum and keep your little lesbian trysts discrete.”

  Bitterness. That’s what her tone held for me.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and stared out into the tiny moon’s reflection. The glow of the skinny moon was barely enough to cause a sparkle across the small pond. I couldn’t speak for the fear of the tears toppling over so I held my words for more than I had anticipated. I felt her hand loosen to release mine. I didn’t fight it this time.

  “It’s not like that,” I finally said.

  We sat with the silence building between us. I turned to her and bent my knee to lay it on the bench. “Sam, I don’t know what all of this means. Why I’m here. I see these women being together so openly and yeah, it makes me know there is something beyond what I’ve always been taught it would be like. I understand why Jazlyn wanted me to come but it doesn’t change what I feel.”

  I watched her profile as she continued to stare out at anything but me. She looked thinner than I remember. The shirt she wore was baggy over her shoulders and chest. A large brown belt adorned her blue jeans and I struggled to remember seeing her in a belt in the days we had spent together. She tried to brush a strand of hair away from her eyelashes but the shortened length didn’t stay tucked behind her ear. I wondered how long she’d had her highlighted blonde hair cut this short as it rested just above her shoulders. I wanted to run my hand along the side of her head and let the defined layers flow between my fingers.

  “It doesn’t change that it’s still only you.”

  She looked at me surprised. Her mouth was slightly open with an arch of her lips.

  “Among all of these women, it’s still only you.” I picked her hand up and rubbed the back of it across my face. The taste of her skin as my lips parted against her knuckle sent a wave of butterflies through me.

  Butterflies.

  I searched her eyes. Her eyebrows softened as I traced my thumb across her jawline. The layers did fall softly between my fingers as I ran them along the back of her neck to pull her lips closer to me. I closed my eyes to the thumping of my heart with her breath upon my lips.

  Eucalyptus mint. I smiled to its scent and closed my eyes to fall into her kiss. Instead of her lips, I felt skin and opened my eyes. She held her finger against them but left her forehead to rest against mine.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Why?” I kissed her fingertip until she dropped it from my lips.

  She inhaled deeply. “I barely survived our last kiss, Stormy. I dare not tempt fate and try again.”

  “I’m so in love with you that I can’t breathe when you’re near me.” I felt the pleading in my words. I wanted badly to feel her kiss again.

  She moved on the bench and grabbed the hand I had resting across the back of the wood. “And this?” She tapped the ring on my left hand.

  Damnit all to the hell. That fucking ring. Why in the hell did I wear that fucking ring tonight?

  “Aren’t you engaged to Grant?”

  “Sam…don’t. Don’t bring that up right now.”

  “Why not, Rayne?”

  “Because.” I looked up at the moon. “Because I know I’m not marrying him.”

  “Does he know that?”

  I placed my hands across her face and urged her to look into my eyes. To read them as I knew she could. “I’m telling you I love you. Please don’t do this. I need time. We need time. Time to get it all worked out. It’s not easy for me and I know it’s not easy for you.”

  “But you said yes. You didn’t have to say yes. I was there. I was in that room when he proposed. You had me but you let me go and you said yes.”

  I shook my head vigorously. “No, no. That’s not true and you know it. I didn’t let you go that night. You left. There’s a big difference. I know what I asked that night wasn’t right. I know my mistakes but I needed you to stay and help me work it all out. Be with me and support me while I did. But you said you couldn’t. It broke every single part of me when you left. Not a moment goes by that I don’t think about you.” Reflexively, I reached up and rubbed the cicada charm. “I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say anything. He and Charlie Grace started planning things as if I had. I was just too broken and numb to argue.”

  “Rayne, you wanted me to fit into your perfect picture. You wanted me to guarantee you what it
would be like so you could plan it out just like you plan everything in your life out. But life’s plan isn’t a guarantee. It’s ever changing and you have to be ready to make those changes. I couldn’t and wouldn’t be that for you. Don’t you get it?”

  “No, not really. We could’ve been together while I made those changes.”

  “But I needed you to make the changes on your own. I needed you to realize who you were without it being dependent on me.”

  I dropped my hands in my lap. “So, I’m to blame for losing us because I wasn’t ready or because I didn’t know who I was. I don’t think that’s fair. You showed me a life I’d never imagined. Loving you changed everything I had ever seen my future to be and you left because I didn’t accept all of those changes immediately. As if something like that wouldn’t take time to adjust to.”

  “No, it’s not fair and it’s not entirely you. I let you take the blame for it. I’m sorry for that.” For the first time, she reached for my hand. “Stormy, you changed me too. You changed everything I saw for my future too. I saw you. I saw us. I wanted us so bad. For as hard as it was for you, it was equally hard for me. I didn’t know who that person was or how to even be someone’s girlfriend. I ran.”

  “But you’re here now. It’s not too late. We can have another chance. We can work it all out together.”

  “I can’t, Stormy. I’m not back.” She stuttered on her words. “And…I’ve got someone I need to get back to.”

  “Oh.” I let go of her hand and tucked mine between my thighs. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t.” She pulled her knee up against her chest. “Because I still don’t fully see myself. I’m still trying to figure out me. In much the same way as you’ve been trying to find you, I’ve been trying to find myself. I didn’t know what I truly wanted until you showed me.” She pulled at the frayed strands of the hole in her jeans. “I didn’t tell you why I was here. My parents are getting a divorce. Mother finally asked the old bastard for a divorce. I’m here for her. See, Rayne, he had it all planned out too. His whole life, her, me. We were all according to his plan. And then one day we weren’t. I don’t want to be my mother. She stayed in his plan until the day she couldn’t breathe. I want my own plan. I want to know my own path. You showed me how much more of life I wanted. I fell so hard for you that I forgot the reality of the situation. I wanted the fairy tale.”