Magnolia Road

by J. Lynn Bailey

  In the bathroom, I wash my hands, rinse my face with cool water, and then pad back into the kitchen and make some coffee.

  I pull my phone from my pocket, knowing I have an appointment with James today in Augusta. Though we only meet every other week now, it keeps my head right.

  The coffee starts to percolate as I rest my body against the counter, checking my phone. I should just go. Things got too close last night. I should really go.

  “You’re still here.” Bryce’s voice is low, tired. Her steps almost unheard. She smirks. Her tank top and black yoga pants are still in pristine condition against her body.

  “Made coffee.” I shove my phone in my pocket and lean against the counter with my hands, trying not to stare at her body. “Sleep okay?” I know she did because I heard her quiet, small breaths for most of the night.

  Bryce nods. “More than okay.”

  I feel it in my chest first; it’s warm, and it spreads like ooze to my stomach. It’s something that makes my chest want to explode and simply contract at the same time.

  If I said something like this out loud, James would say, “What does that mean?”

  And I’d say something like, “What do you mean, what does it mean? How the hell do I know? That’s why I keep coming back here.” Then, I’d think on it because he became stoic and quiet. I’d say, “It’s a good feeling. Something I enjoy.”

  I play James’s question game with Bryce. “What does that mean?”

  Though she just crawled out from the couch, probably with a kinked back and maybe a sore neck, her red hair rests perfectly down her back. Her eyes are bright with promise, made a little apprehensive as she steps closer.

  “It means, I like the way you feel when the hands reach every second of every hour on the clock. It means, I like waking up with you. It means, I’m glad you’re still here.” She pauses. “And what I’m most thankful for is, the black substance leaking out of that contraption on the counter.” She smiles and pulls her hair up in a ponytail.

  I don’t know what to say to that, but the feeling she gives me in my chest and stomach sets my body on fire.

  “I’m going to go shower now,” she says.

  I can’t answer her, so I don’t say anything.

  The bathroom door shuts behind her, and I finally exhale, walk to the cupboard, grab two mugs, and pour some coffee.

  Once I hear the shower going for a minute, I bring her a cup of coffee. I don’t knock because something tells me I don’t need to, and this makes it all the more dangerous in combination with what I feel in my chest, the ooze still spreading to places it shouldn’t.

  “Bryce?” I call.

  The shower’s water runs hard.

  “Yeah?”

  “Here’s some coffee.”

  She pulls back the shower door enough to show her face dripping with water, her once-fiery-red hair now dark hidden, strands matted to her head. “Thank you.” She pauses. “Are you going to shower?”

  Wait. What? Right now? With you?

  Every fucking bone in my body screams yes. But it would go too far. I’d kiss her. Feel her with my fingers. Explore her body with my hands. Touch her breasts with my mouth, just to watch her come unglued like our night in Los Angeles.

  “Come here,” she says.

  I’m by the sink, and immediately, nerves build. Good ones. Not so good ones. I feel the ooze spread to my face as I visualize her body dripping wet.

  You shouldn’t do this, Ethan. You shouldn’t fucking do this.

  I take a step forward and then another.

  I’m to her, standing outside the shower, and she pulls the shower door to show me her body. The steam from the shower rages behind her as my eyes bury into hers. Then, they slowly make their way down her shoulders, breasts, stomach, hips, the hair that protects what I’ve tasted with my tongue.

  The ooze spreads to my mouth where I remember what she tastes like.

  My face is on fire when she says, “Can you get me a bar of soap?”

  Soap. I should know what that is. Soap.

  All I can think about is the way her hips fit perfectly against mine as she called my name, her face when she reached her peak three times that night.

  I had done that to her. I’d made her body do things and reach places she’d never reached until me.

  She asked for soap.

  Can you tell me what it looks like? I want to ask because I can’t fucking remember what soap is.

  I can’t handle it anymore. I can’t.

  Give her what you both need, Ethan, my head says. I don’t hear my voice of reason; it’s fucking gone.

  With both hands, I lift her out of the shower and feel my adrenaline begin to surge.

  The color red, the color of her hair, blurs my vision as I gently put her down in front of me, so we’re both facing the mirror.

  She’s biting her lip, staring back at me. She doesn’t say a word but gasps when I grab her hips and hold her against me, so she can feel what she does to me.

  With two fingers, I hold back the lips that protect the one place I need access to. I slide another finger against her and feel how wet she is.

  I watch her reflection in the mirror as she slightly leans forward, placing her hands on each side of the sink, spreading her legs for me.

  “Ethan, I need you.” Her voice is breathless already.

  I get lost in her as I slide my finger inside her, and she moans.

  “What do you need, Bryce?” I push harder. “Tell me what you need.”

  “You.”

  I remove my fingers and gently push on her center with only a little pressure.

  Red.

  Blurred vision.

  I can’t control myself as I hear her soft whimpers again and then, “Ethan.”

  My hardness rages against the confines of my pants.

  Gently pulling her head up, I watch her face in the mirror as my fingers do this to her. Bryce says my name again, this time more shallow and between controlled breaths.

  I watch her breasts start to bounce, as she moves against my fingers.

  “I’ll stop once you come.”

  Her eyes narrow as her mouth stays open.

  A painted red mural with a mix of only shades of red, I see shades of passion, feel her panting against me, and I need more. The more panting, the more colors in my mural.

  “Oh my God.” I hear her say as my fingers slide up against her again and back inside her. She grinds her hips hard against me as she screams my name, “Ethan!”

  My vision is blurry with shades of red still reaching my mural, and then they slowly fade away as I feel her body fall forward.

  I don’t remove my fingers. I keep them there as she pulses, allowing her to come back down.

  Slowly, I pull my fingers from her, and my body goes rigid, hard, cold.

  Why did you let it get to this point? You should have handed her the soap and left.

  I place my hands on her hips as I drop my head against her back, trying to regain whatever control I have over my actions. Her breathing is still ragged.

  Bryce doesn’t turn around. She stays put, maybe for fear that I’ll walk away again. Maybe to save herself. I drop my hands from her hips and walk out, leaving her there to clean up the mess that we seem to keep making.

  Thirteen

  Bryce

  Last night, I wanted to tell Ethan about the black sedan. Instead, I told him about my mother. Our relationship. The unease of it all. Maybe, if I had told him about the black sedan, things that happened between us this morning wouldn’t have happened. How would the story have changed things? I’m not sure.

  It’s now late in the afternoon.

  I’m at Granite Harbor Grocery right now, in the lentil aisle, staring at the dry chili beans, trying not to remember Ethan. The look he gave me. A look I’ve seen only twice from him. A look of no control. Fear.

  Need. Something we both saw coming.

  Touch. Something that we both desperately needed.
r />   Onions, I think to myself. I need onions. I attempt to shake myself from the confines of thought.

  Our foreplay was good. Hot. I feel my cheeks grow warm. I wanted more of him. He just stopped. When my body came to its conclusion, he just stopped. Walked out of the bathroom. He hadn’t let me touch him.

  Stop, I tell myself. I feel my face flush again.

  “Hello, Bryce.” I hear a gentle voice behind me. A voice that doesn’t mix well with my thoughts at the moment.

  I turn to look toward the voice. “Hi, Helen.” Ethan’s mother.

  “They have the best lentils here, if you ask me,” she says, grabbing bags of pinto beans. “Did you hear that Granite Harbor PD tracked down the black sedan? It had gone off the road just past town, and nobody was in it. Can you believe it?” Helen shakes her head.

  I can believe it because whoever was driving the black sedan is probably more sinister than we think. Immediately, I think of Ethan and how he went into preservation mode. Hero mode. Making sure everyone was accounted for, safe.

  There’s silence between Helen and me as we stand here.

  She’s holding her basket, looking between the items in her basket and me. “I hope I’m not being too forward, Bryce, but we’d really love to have Ethan and you over for dinner.” A warm smile spreads across her warm face, blue eyes. “Ethan … Ethan hasn’t introduced us to a girlfriend in an awfully long time, and I must say, I’m elated that it’s you.”

  I want to tell her that the girlfriend thing isn’t real. That Ethan hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend. But I also don’t want Helen to worry about Ethan. I want Ethan to be okay.

  “Well, you raised a good man, Helen”—I pause—“an extremely good man.”

  “Ethan came out like that. Though”—a concerned look she wears now—“when he came home from his second tour, things changed. He grew quieter. More withdrawn. But I still see the same magnetic spark in his eyes as I did when he and Aaron were just boys.” Her voice grows lighter.

  “We’d love to come to dinner. What day and when?”

  Helen looks at the chili ingredients in my basket. “Are you making chili?”

  Shit, caught. I was going to enter my chili into the Fall Festival but under an alias. “Maybe.” I eye her.

  Helen covers her mouth. “Are you entering chili into the Fall Festival against Milton Murdock?” She eyes me back, and a smile starts to form.

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You’ll have to take an oath of secrecy, Helen. I have a secret recipe,” I whisper, leaning forward.

  “You have my word. Fall Festival is tomorrow. When should we get started?”

  “Meet me at the house on Magnolia in twenty minutes,” I say.

  “You’ve got it,” Helen whispers back.

  And then we separate.

  I grab the rest of the ingredients and am able to think clearly without Ethan popping into my head.

  “Thanks, Bryce,” Mr. Pete says, waving as I leave. “You know, if I were keeping tabs on chili ingredients, I’d say you were prepping for battle with Mr. Murdock in the cook-off tomorrow.”

  What the hell? How does everyone know I’m making chili? It could be stew. Stew can have beans sometimes.

  “Bye, Mr. Pete. Thanks again.” I wave and make my way outside to the fall weather that’s beginning to take shape.

  I stop and grab a coffee at Level Grounds just to say hi to Lyn. We chat for a minute, and I’m back on my way to the house on Magnolia.

  Ethan’s truck is outside.

  Heart, don’t freak the hell out.

  Stop.

  It starts to pound.

  He’s walking back out to his truck from inside the house.

  Be cool, Bryce.

  “I’d say come in, but it looks like you’ve already been doing that,” I say as I approach.

  Although caught off guard, he, too, tries to act casual as I watch his defined arms reach for a paint bucket.

  “Just finishing up the paint on the outside,” he says. As if he didn’t have his fingers inside me this morning. As if he’s unaffected by what happened.

  You gave him what he needed or what you both needed, Bryce. Let it go.

  I stop at his truck, watching him put the ladder up over his head as his jeans rest lower against his hips, exposing a piece of his washboard stomach.

  Totally doesn’t affect me. I try to convince myself. “Look, I’m having a friend over in fifteen minutes, so you’ll need to be gone by then.”

  Ethan gently sets the ladder down against the house and stops. Looks at me.

  Part of me wants to see how he deals with this. Part of me doesn’t.

  “Besides, isn’t it a bit late to get started with paint?”

  “Who’s coming over?” He walks back over to his truck.

  “Why do you need to know?” The stubborn Bryce comes out, the one my mother wrestles with when she calls.

  Ethan walks over to me and stands in my personal space, making me wish I had gum in my mouth right now just in case he decided to kiss me so that I’d be ready. If he tried to kiss me, my body would crack into a million pieces.

  He shrugs. “If your friend is a man”—he leans in so that his lips are close to my ear, too close for me to gain any rational thought—“does he know my fingers were inside you this morning?” His lips brush my ear.

  I feel his words, his tone, vibrate in my chest. I swallow against sandpaper. “No,” I say breathlessly. Why can’t I have the same wit with Ethan that I do with my mother?

  He pulls back so that he’s staring at me. His jaw tense, his look long, staring.

  Pull your shit together, Bryce. “It’s your mother.”

  I watch relief spread all over him like a blanket.

  “I highly doubt she’d want to know that.” I smile. There she is! I tell myself. There’s Bryce.

  Ethan’s shoulders relax. His words are still spinning in my head like a Ferris wheel.

  “What’s she coming over for?”

  “Top secret.” My legs, like jelly, make their way to the porch. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

  “You are anyway,” is what I think I hear him reply.

  “What?” I ask, turning to see him at his truck.

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you just say something?” I walk down the steps of the porch and toward his truck. “Did you just say I was killing you?”

  Ethan turns to me after I reach out and touch his arm. He flinches.

  I immediately pull back.

  His back to me, he sighs. Ethan’s broad shoulders move with a big breath in.

  “Ethan …” I hold my breath, my best effort to hold back the words on the tip of my tongue, but it doesn’t work. “You’re the one who put your fingers inside me this morning. I was taking a shower. You, not me, were the forward one,” I try to whisper and get my point across at the same time.

  He places his hands on his hips, his back still to me.

  “At least look me in the eye, Ethan.”

  Ethan slowly turns around. Gives me the same look he did this morning.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Helen calls, making her way toward us on foot.

  Snapping out of my confusion with Ethan, I turn toward Helen. “Not at all.” I swallow, taking several hard steps back.

  “Mom.” Ethan nods, turns, and stares at me.

  Helen looks between the two of us. “I’ll meet you inside, Bryce.” Her hand touches my shoulder as she walks inside.

  I’ve never wanted anything more than to reach out and run my fingers across his lips. My hands to touch his bare chest. For my heart to heal his wounds that I can’t see.

  Take what you need from me, Ethan, I want to say. Take what you need, and we’ll fix the rest later.

  “I’m sorry, Bryce. I’m not who you think I am. And I can’t be the man you need.”

  He doesn’t wait for me to say anything. Besides, it wasn’t a question. Etha
n Casey was giving me a statement. Is the statement true? He thinks it is. Do I think it’s true? Not a chance.

  “You don’t know me well enough to know what I need, Ethan. You don’t get a say in that.”

  Ethan takes a step toward me. “You’re right; I don’t. But I know myself. I can tell you what I’d like to do to you, but I won’t. I can’t. The price you’d have to pay for my selfish ways would never be worth it.”

  All the air that surrounds me now, I can’t seem to breathe it in. My skin breaks into chills. “Who says we both can’t be selfish? Take what we need.” I find pockets of air that I take in slow and steady, trying not to let Ethan know that he has this effect on me.

  “You can’t agree to that, Bryce.”

  “Nobody tells me what I can and can’t do, Ethan. Nobody.”

  A smile barely touches the corners of his mouth, and then it fades quickly. His stare has me transfixed.

  “It won’t be fair, Bryce,” he whispers, taking steps closer to me.

  “I’m not asking you to be fair.”

  His stare turns to sadness when he’s mere inches away from my face. Maybe he has feelings he can’t help. I have them, too. Toward Ethan. Toward my mother. My brother. Maybe he has wants he can’t help, too. We all do.

  He pulls at his short hair; it isn’t long enough to do anything with, but it’s enough to show his frustration. He breaks eye contact with me.

  I reach out and touch his hand as it leaves his head and falls to his side. My fingers intertwine with his, and my mind flashes to this morning. He wore a coat of armor around his heart, keeping it between us, protecting himself.

  “What are you asking?” he says.

  “Give me what you can.” What the hell are you doing, Bryce?

  Like a drug I’ve never had, he’s the sweet taste in my mouth. He’s the euphoria I get when he touches my body. The intoxication that seeps into my veins, giving me the release that I need. Crave.

  With the wall, his wall, still between us, he lets go of my hand, taking the rest of the space between us. Gently, he pushes my hair back, so he can get to my ear. Looking forward, I try not to close my eyes. I take in a deep breath because I know I’ll need it.

  “I’m a complicated man, Bryce,” he whispers into my ear. Then, he pulls back, quickly walks to his truck, and leaves.