by James, Ella
“Your mother sculpted for him. That’s a sign.”
I nod. “She never did like Elvie.”
“No. I don’t think anybody did.”
“Except me.” I arch a brow at myself in the mirror. “Young, dumb Gwen.”
She pats her face with a towel. “We’ve all been young and dumb, G.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” I yawn. “I should go join Prince Charming in bed.”
“I think it’s kind of funny that he has a headache.”
“Bitch!” I swipe at her. She laughs. “Not funny. But isn’t he like Mr. Secret Agent Man. They go to mountains sometimes, right?”
“He has a brain injury, Jamie.” I give her a for-shame look and shake my head.
“Well go take care of him,” she says, giving me a little glare. “These men, wrecking our girl time.”
“I know, right?”
“I think you kind of love it, though.”
I hug her. “I so do.”
“I love you, Gwennie.”
“You more, Jam.”
“I’ll think of something for you for tomorrow.”
“Yeah—you better.”
We trade smiles and then I’m in the dark, quiet, second-floor hall, heading toward mine and Barrett’s room, positioned at the far end of the floor for reasons not unknown. I grin.
Tomorrow night, Nic is hosting a giant costume party at his family’s place next door. Jamie said it was only going to be a normal party, but one of Nic’s friends is the tattoo artist who did my snowflake, and he has some Zelda costume, so they made a party around his desire to wear it. Ha.
Zelda reminds me, strangely, of Zoro. Maybe I should convince Bear to dress up as Zoro. Isn’t he that masked marauder who wears all black and carries a gun? That would be so hot.
Maybe I should go as a bear. If I can find a bear suit. Which, okay, is 100 percent unlikely. I could go as a bandit. Then I could wear a bandana over my face.
In Breckenridge, I’m sort of…known. I wasn’t ever really famous or anything, but enough people knew my face that when I had the accident, the papers in this area chronicled my recovery. Especially given how dramatic it was. I guess that made me all the more interesting.
I don’t know. But my mouth draws attention, and with my red hair, I’m just worried people will ask about the accident. So I’ll need some kind of mask.
I hear something behind me, and turn in time to see Jamie striding toward me in a black dress. “Hey, you. Hang on.”
I give a low whistle. “I thought you were just going to ‘some Southern place with fried stuff.’”
She shrugs. “It’s a bar type place. You know Nic. He gets the invites every time a new place opens. I remembered something, though, G. Something I thought you might be interested in.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Some guys came by here last night. Said they’d seen the snow plow toppled over near the street.” The house’s maintenance guy did, indeed, topple the plow; thank goodness he wasn’t hurt. “Anyway. I could be wrong but I thought they looked familiar. I think we saw them that night.”
“Really?”
She nods.
“Interesting. What did they act like?”
“Just normal.” She shrugs. “You told me to tell you anything that came up that reminded me of the accident, so I wanted to try.”
“Thanks. And have fun out.”
“Will do.”
As I turn, I realize I didn’t ask their names. And strangely, I don’t stop her. I don’t need to know right now. Not right before it’s time for bed. I just want to snuggle up with Bear and have a dreamless night.
TWENTY-ONE
Niccolo
January 1, 2012
1:28 a.m.
My motherfucking father: popular as all fuck politician, shithead of a person. Everyone in Breck knows it. I can’t imagine how Kim bears it. I’d have left him years ago. When I get back—I’ll have to go home to Kim before returning next door to Jamie—I’m going to make another bid for that. I could move her out to California. No one would know her there. I think she could really benefit from that. It’s got a lot of sun, like here, and no Dad.
Fucking perfect.
When I find that fuck, I’m going to haul him home. And then, behind closed doors, I’m going to punch him in his fucking teeth. Kim’s friend Leah saw Dad at a coffee place in Fairplay with a woman who was not Kim. When she called John crying, he told me, but I asked him to handle it because I was enjoying Jamie so much. Also, I trust John not to throat-punch Dad. His temper’s not as hot as mine is.
So he went. And then he texted me when Jamie and I were settled in the theater and said he’d tracked Dad’s iPhone via Dad’s Apple login info, and Dad and the woman were at what he thought was a ranch near Blue River. He said he needed to get back and check on one of his buddies, and he wasn’t sure what he should do, anyway. Ring the doorbell?
So I told him we’d switch places.
Kim’s my stepmom, but she’s better to Casper and I than our own mom ever was. Rumor has it Dad cheated on her, but that’s not true. Mom cheated on Dad, and after that, I guess he has a trust problem or something, because he’s fucked around on Kim, the sweetest woman ever—she gave John her Nice Genes—from almost day one. It’s shameful. Dad should feel ashamed, but I’m not sure he does.
I’m about to ask him. If I can find this fucking place. If I can get out of Breckenridge. It’s snowing hard as hell.
* * *
Gwenna
December 31, 2015
“Barrett?”
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
“Hey…” I rub his broad, bare back. He turns toward me. I wrap my arms around him. I woke up from my own dream, and I’m so glad I did.
“Hey baby. It’s okay. We’re here together.”
He’s shivering. “I dreamed about Breck.”
I rub his arms and back with my warm hands.
“He used to do this knock. This secret knock from his older brother’s frat. I heard it. It seemed so real, Piglet.” I take his hands. They’re shaking.
I ease him down in the bed with me. I kiss both hands. “You’re a good man, Barrett. Breck loved you. I know he did, because you are impossible not to love.”
His eyes squeeze shut. His mouth flattens. He looks pained. I wait for him to ask me some anguished question, I can almost feel it coming. But he pulls me very close, holding me tightly, so I can feel his chest shaking a little. And I can feel it still.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
As we drift off to sleep, I think I hear a knock at the window.
* * *
There’s no question about it. Something is off with Barrett. I’ve noticed him staring into space a dozen times since we landed in Denver, staring at me more than normal, looking troubled, with his dark brows notched and his pretty lips melded into that pensive line.
I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t want to ask, because after the information that he volunteered about his friend last night, I don’t want to pry. So I just try to stay near him, to hold his hand.
The strangest thing is, looking out for him is making me feel better. With his hand in mine, I feel less alone here. I smile at him; he smiles at me. There’s something comforting about loving on him.
We spend the last day of 2015 inside this bubble, taking fabric to a woman who works out of a little cottage north of town so she can sew Barrett a Zoro mask and alter a black blouse for me to wear with my red bandana; sitting beside each other in a small booth in a sandwich shop downtown, Barrett’s arm around my shoulder, even as he eats; touring a candy factory where he buys me salted caramel fudge and I buy him a massive chocolate bear; buying cowboy boots and black jeans; picking up the rest of our costumes; and finally heading back to the Madisons’ place just in time for pre-party hors d’oeuvres. I’m surprised to find Jamie eating goat cheese dip and crackers with her parents, no Nic in sight.
> She’s already wearing her pink contact lenses.
“Hey there, alien.”
She studies the bags Bear and I are holding. “Zoro and…”
“His sidekick.”
“A nameless sidekick?”
I shrug. “I thought of going as his horse.”
Mr. Madison gets a chuckle out of that.
“So when are you all going next door?” Jamie’s mom asks.
“I’ll probably go soon,” Jamie tells her. “Help set up.”
“We might go soon, too.”
After a few minutes of small talk, the three of us escape upstairs. Jamie tries to chat us up, but Barrett is clearly unenthused. I can tell he’s trying, which makes it all the more obvious. Jamie gives us both an understanding smile. “I’m going to put on my alien gear! See you next door in a bit?”
I nod.
While Barrett showers, I sit on the bed and look out at the window he was staring through when I woke up last night. I get up and go over to it, staring down at the snow. It looks like…footprints. In between the bushes. As I tip my forehead toward the glass and squint, I hear the door creak.
I turn, then jump as Batman appears in the doorway. “Oh my God! Nic?”
He nods, removing his mask.
“Wow, you’re…very Batman-like. You scared me.”
“Looking out the window?” he asks.
“Yeah. I thought I saw some footprints.”
He comes over to stand beside me. “Mine.”
“What?”
He nods. “Jamie was in this room last year, remember?”
“Oh yeah. I guess she was. Were you trying to signal her or something?”
He smiles slightly. “Yeah. Hope I didn’t wake you guys up.”
“No,” I lie. “Barrett hasn’t been sleeping very well,” I babble. “Probably the altitude or something.”
“Maybe. I can always feel it when I come back up here.”
He taps the window with his knuckles, then turns toward the door. “I guess my alien’s not in here.”
“Nope. You try her parents’ bedroom?”
He snorts. “Pass.”
“Yesterday she said she might make her eyebrows darker with one of her mom’s pencils.”
“Ahh.” He lifts his brows, and something about the moment makes my stomach rearrange itself.
Even after he leaves, I feel weird. Kind of spacey, like I might dissociate at any moment. That’s normal, I tell myself. This night is always going to be weird. We’ll go next door, show face at the party, and then go to the site of the accident.
I had thought about visiting the beer bar, too, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I don’t have to find out anything new on this trip. Maybe I should just try to move on. With Barrett, I feel like it might finally be possible.
When he comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, I lead him over to the bed and unwrap him. I take his thick cock in my hands and start to stroke it, while he moans and tweaks my nipples.
“Gwenna…”
“I need you,” I whisper, squeezing him. “In my mouth…or pussy?”
“Let me eat this pussy. Then…” He lays me on the bed, never finishing his thought as he peels my pants and panties down and gently spreads me… Tastes me with the tip of his tongue.
I grip his arms, moaning as his tongue trails up my slit, lapping gently at my throbbing clit.
“Lay down so I can suck your dick.” I pull on him, and Barrett does as I ask.
I get him in my throat, playing with his balls as he makes my body tremble from the pleasure of his tongue. I start to ride his face, taking his cock deeper with every moan. I feel him harden…tighten…swelling, and he lifts his hips. He moans against my pussy.
I can feel his hips shake as he tries to keep from thrusting at me.
I moan, and he trembles. I can taste him. His tongue circles my clit. I focus on his balls, so taut and heavy in my hands. I stroke them, stroke the base of his cock. Suck him deeper, work him with my tongue, and Barrett touches me just right, and I explode.
He holds out another second or two, and then he’s pulling out. I grab his hips, so I can swallow. We end up, sometime later, wrapped up in each other as the light outside the window turns a fuzzy, indigo blue.
“Bear?” I press a kiss against his nape.
“Mmm.”
I’m spooning him, but he turns around, onto his back, so he can get an arm around me.
“Scoot back over,” I scold. “Let me hold you. It makes me feel good,” I add softly.
He does, and I wrap myself around him.
“Do you want to skip tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“The party.” I play with his now-short hair.
“Do you want to?” He reaches behind himself, rubbing his palm over my hip.
“I don’t care. I’d probably vote ‘go,’ for Jamie. But I doubt she cares.”
“Then let’s go.”
He turns over on his stomach and pushes up on his arms, so he can look at me. His eyes are surprisingly soft.
“Do you want to talk? You haven’t...much.”
“About the accident?”
He nods.
I shake my head. “Not now. Maybe later tonight. I could tell you the whole story.”
He smiles sadly. “Okay, Pig.”
TWENTY-TWO
Barrett
December 31, 2015
The gun is at the bottom of my duffle bag. If you pack them right, the airport scanners never know.
One of those job perks they can’t take away…
I didn’t want to bring the gun.
I hadn’t planned to.
Then Blue called.
Things have changed.
I take the gun out of the bag and unwrap it. Then I don my black costume. I say a silent prayer before I leave the bathroom, .38 strapped to the inside of my boot.
* * *
Gwenna
January 1, 2012
1:42 a.m.
“Oh my God, you’re Jessica! From End of Day!”
The girl’s brown eyes are huge in her freckled face. Her jaw drops in stunned elation, and I nod, casting my eyes down for just long enough to steel myself. I’ve had some practice with this sort of thing since EoD came out. It’s an indie film, and like a lot of good indies, it’s developed a bit of a cult following.
By the time I glance back up, the girl has whirled around, the knot of her work apron riding up her mid-back, revealing a dancing Grateful Dead bear tattoo.
As I set my items on the Breckenridge General Store’s counter, she cups her hands around her mouth and bellows, “Come here, Silas! Jessica from End of Day is here, and she’s buying one of your dad’s gardenias!”
I hear the smack of shoes on the cement floor, then a high school guy steps out from between two aisles. He’s tall, with white-blond Justin Bieber hair. He sticks his hands in his pockets as my eyes roll up and down him, keeping his gaze on his sneakers, his face cool, while the brown-eyed, brunette cashier cuts her eyes at him. When he comes to a stop beside the nearest magazine display and doesn’t fall down at my feet, she gives him an incredulous look. “Seriously, Silas? You’re the biggest fan. Can you believe she’s fucking here?”
Never meeting my eyes, he gives her a sideways smile and murmurs, “No.”
I’m betting this boy has my Abercrombie pool party stuff, or my Burberry nothing-under-the-jacket campaign bookmarked in his spank bank. Which means it’s time to change the subject before we all end up embarrassed.
“Your dad grows the gardenias you guys sell?” I ask him, hoping to put everyone at ease, as well as steer the subject away from the movie. I’m a singer, not an actress—although I am proud of the movie.
The guy nods and finally, he looks me in the eyes.
“It’s a kind of insanity,” he says, revealing a retainer than makes his voice sound—well, like he’s got something in his mouth. “They won’t survive for long in someon
e’s yard. So they’re just house plants up here.”
I hover a fingertip over one of the satiny white leaves, mostly so I can break the stare he’s aiming at me like a laser beam.
“It’s probably insanity to buy one when it’s snowing this hard. I’m not even staying at my own place.” I smile at them before I realize my publicist would smack my mouth for giving details.
“Jessica,” the girl squeals, jumping up and down.
I tug Mr. Madison’s big black jacket down around my ankles before reaching in his huge pocket to grab my wallet out.
“That’s…not me,” I murmur, joking.
“God, she’s famous,” the girl says to the boy, scanning my four-roll pack of toilet paper. I pass her the plant.
“You’re a model too,” the boys says, “right?”
I struggle to suppress a cringe. “Yep. But really I’m a singer.”
“A singer?” the girl says.
I nod. “I have a record deal. My sound is somewhere between teenage Taylor Swift and old-school country. With a kind of bluesy undertone. Singing is my true passion.”
“Damn,” the boy says as the girl takes my cash. “You’re multi-talented.”
Heat tingles on my cheeks. Clearly, I’m 12.
The girl starts belting out a Taylor Swift song I recognize while the boy shuffles his feet. Thank God, I’m out of there not long after.
I step outside onto the cement walkway and am pummeled by fat snowflakes.
“Christ…”
I cross myself for taking the Lord’s name in vain—a habit I picked up from Elvie—then cast my eyes to my boots and shuffle carefully toward the SUV.
Which doesn’t crank.
Like, seriously. This thing will not crank.
“DAMMIT.”
Just my motherloving luck.
I set the gardenia in the passenger’s seat and try again a few times. Nothing.
“Ughh.”
I look at my phone, even though I know already it will have no more than one bar. This is Breckenridge. My service blows here. Probably everyone’s service blows here.