"Okay, I'll tell you," she relented easily. "I woke up one morning and, on my windowsill, was a butterfly."
I had heard about this, people seeing butterflies and thinking they were visitors from the beyond. A message. A sign. It was just another thing people told themselves to bring a tiny shred of comfort to their lives. And I understood it, sure, but it didn't stop it all from sounding completely absurd.
"I see," I muttered, not wanting to say anything else in fear I might actually laugh in her face.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You're thinking I'm insane."
"Not insane," I corrected.
"I wasn't looking for a sign from my sister," she insisted adamantly.
"Sure. I get it."
"No." She grabbed my arm with a surprising amount of force and turned me to face her. "You don't understand and you're not listening."
"Fine," I muttered, staring down into her eyes, a dark navy in the darkness. "So, tell me."
"That morning, I woke up to find a butterfly on the windowsill of my bedroom," she said, a firm and serious expression drawn on her face. "My window was open a crack, there was a small hole in the upper part of my screen that I'd been begging my father to fix for months, and somehow, this butterfly managed to find its way through the hole and down through the crack and onto the windowsill inside my room."
"Okay," I nodded, still unimpressed. This was what they did, religious people. People of faith. They try to convince you of the things you know to be false. They try to sway you toward their stance of blind belief in something that might as well be as impossible as the unicorns or mermaids. This was exactly why Audrey and I couldn't happen, this was exactly why this entire night was a bad idea, and yet, I remained standing there with her as she stared at me with an intensity that could've made me believe in the Easter Bunny if she looked long enough.
"It was this butterfly," she pressed and wrenched the neckline of her top lower to reveal the tattoo I had done on her. Her finger tapped the black, white, and gritty half and I shook my head.
"Okay?"
"It was a black Swallowtail," she went on. "I had never seen one of these in person before, it was Sabrina’s favorite, and it just happened to show up on my windowsill on the day I woke up with the love of God in my heart for the first time in years. You don't think that means something?"
I struggled to find the right thing to say, to tread lightly into a subject we were both passionate about, but from opposite sides of the fence. "I think it's a very nice coincidence," I said in a flat tone.
"Is it also a coincidence that I booked my appointment with you the day before?”
"Yes," I stated, unmoved, pulling my arm from her grasp.
I was still drunk, but I could already feel the effects of the alcohol wearing off. I could feel too much, think too much, and I needed something to take the edge off this fucking conversation. I turned from Audrey to begin walking again, steering my loose legs down the sidewalk. When she asked where I was going, I didn't reply. I didn't want to say it out loud. But I was going home, and I was taking her with me.
***
"Your house is so cute," she commented as we walked over the cobblestone pathway to the front door.
"Thanks," I grunted, although I would never have used that particular word to describe my home.
I patted myself down in search of my keys. "You put them in your pocket," she said lightly, and I tucked my hands into my jacket. Audrey shook her head. "No, they're, um ..." She reached out to touch one of the front pockets on my jeans and pulled her hand back just as quickly.
I dipped my hand in and found them there. "Thanks," I muttered again, as I slid the key into the door.
It was an old house, built in 1870. I didn't believe in ghosts, or that something as silly as an old house could serve as a vessel to harbor them, but I loved the history. I loved the creaks and groans in the floorboards, the way it shifted beneath my feet. It was heavy with the memories of time passed and lives lost. It's what I had wanted, ever since I moved into an old apartment on Essex years ago, and as soon as I had enough money, I snatched this place up.
Apart from Jake and tattooing, the house was one of the only things in my life I truly cared for, and I felt it showed. It was clean, repainted. The hinges were oiled, and the appliances were new. But now, watching Audrey step through the doorway and into the living room, it somehow felt tainted. Soiled, like the stains on her white coat. Unworthy.
I drew in a quivering breath and brushed past her into the kitchen, where I kept my liquor. It was there only because my parents and relatives occasionally gifted me with a bottle on Christmas, yet I seldom drank it. Most of the bottles remained sealed, and probably beyond their Best By date. But now, I perused the shelf of multicolored glass, in search of something to further take the edge off of this goddamn night.
Audrey walked in slowly behind me. Her footfalls were light and barely audible against the kitchen tile, save for the gentlest tap of her heels. Her steps whispered to me with warnings of her coming. Closer, closer, closer ...
"What are you drinking?" She was directly behind me now. I pulled in another breath, controlled and deep, as I pulled a bottle of Fireball whiskey from the shelf. I lifted the bottle over my shoulder, to show her the label. "Cinnamon? That sounds interesting."
"It's good," I told her as I grabbed a couple of glasses from a nearby cabinet. Then, as I opened the bottle, I realized what a presumptuous prick I was being. I needed the drink, not her, and yet, I had assumed and grabbed a second glass. "Do you want any?"
"Sure," she answered cheerfully.
I only poured a small amount into her glass, she wasn't staying and would have to get home. Being too inebriated was a recipe for disaster, no matter how you looked at it, so I kept that in mind as I poured some into mine.
I turned and passed her glass into her waiting palm. "Thanks," she said gently, and immediately pulled it to her lips. I watched her drink and thought about how pretty her mouth was. After she took a sip, she pressed her lips together, savoring the flavor. A bead of whiskey lingered on her bottom lip, and I would've greedily enjoyed it for myself, had her tongue not flicked out to capture it, as I stood there like a voyeuristic statue.
"Oh, wow," she gushed, looking down into the glass of liquid amber. "That's so good."
Her eyes lifted to mine and she watched me expectantly. There was a mingled blend of scrutiny and uncertainty chilling the flecks of silver in her icy rings of blue, and as she swallowed, the gradual shift of her throat revealed the presence of her nerves. I excited her with fear and danger, and wasn't that a fucking laugh? There wasn't a damn thing about me that was at all fearsome or dangerous, but here she was, standing before me in a façade of bravery, hiding the anxiety beneath.
I drank, needing my own dose of courage, and the hot, hot heat of the cinnamon and the alcoholic burn warmed my body instantly. It was comfortable and good, and in that comfort, I wondered if she could feel that way, too.
My gaze held hers as I put my glass on the counter and shrugged my jacket off. I laid it over the back of a chair before reaching out to take the buttons of her coat between my fingers. Audrey's breath tripped from her mouth as she dropped her stare to my hands. She stood there, pillar stiff, as I worked at the buttons, moving downward until there weren't any left and I could slip the coat from her shoulders. She turned soundlessly, allowing me to pull it off, and I laid it over mine.
It was a simple invitation, but a big step. I grabbed my glass and headed back into the living room, where I took a seat on the couch. Audrey, on the other hand, decided to continue her walk.
Touching her fingertips to the mantel, she looked at the pictures, all of Jake and me throughout the years. In a visual timeline, she watched us grow, seeing me change and him staying the same. She picked one up and studied it closer, allowing her smile to grow.
"You were so cute," she said, turning the frame to show me the picture I already knew so well. Jake and me,
with our arms wrapped around our family's old dog, Daisy, an Old English Sheepdog with more hair than brains.
"What the hell happened, right?" I chuckled, studying my drink and glass.
"You look so much alike."
I laughed again, deep and surprisingly genuine. "Well, we are identical twins."
"I know that," she giggled lightly, and somewhere in this dark house, someone turned on the faintest of nightlights. "But you looked more alike then."
"Yeah, well," I shrugged, lifting the glass, "I grew a beard."
She laughed again and put the picture back on the mantle. "He doesn’t live with you?”
"He doesn’t. I pick him up for school in the morning and drop him off in the evening."
She nodded and continued to move around the living room. Eyeing the pictures and studying the art on the walls. She cocked her head at a gritty penned portrait of Jake and me, lying side by side in the yard. Mom had taken the original photograph a few years ago, after I had first bought the house. It was my favorite of the two of us, and I remembered that day in the sunshine. A moment of playful reprieve, when Jake tackled me to the ground and we rolled in the grass like we were kids.
"You're so talented," she uttered on a thin breath.
"Thanks."
Looking at me over her shoulder, she smiled weakly. "You don't believe it, though."
"I know I'm good at what I do," I offered. "I have skills, and I know how to use them."
She nodded, turning back to the drawing. "Yeah, you do, but it's your gift that allows you to capture the difference in your eyes with nothing but a pen."
I furrowed my brow. "What?"
She pointed at pen-Jake's eyes. "He's so happy, innocent and excited, but then, you ..." Her finger aimed at pen-me now. "You're smiling, but your eyes are so empty. Like you've given up and you're constantly reminding yourself to not care."
I sucked in a heavy breath of air. "Hm," I grunted and downed the rest of my drink.
"Hm," she mocked the sound, albeit lighter, and turned to walk toward me. She sat on the couch, one cushion away, and sipped lightly at her drink. "So, what do you want to do?" she asked.
"I don't know." That was bullshit. What I wanted to do was reach over, pull her hair, and thrust my lips against hers until she begged me to rip her clothes off and fill her soft body with the hardness of mine. She would've expected that, I realized, after my crass attempt at making her leave earlier at the club. But I couldn't say it now, not even with the extra liquor floating through my bloodstream. My tongue wouldn't move and my lips remained shut.
So, instead, she asked, "You know what I think we should do?"
"What?"
"I think we should talk."
And even though my body would've preferred to lay over hers and sink between her thighs, I swallowed those urges and nodded.
Chapter Fourteen
WITH GLASSES OF WATER now in hand, we sat on either end of the couch, facing each other while keeping at a safe distance. She watched me intently, listening with intrigue, and the way she nodded and replied made me wonder if I could possibly be the most interesting person she'd ever met.
"When did you first start tattooing?" she asked before sipping at her glass.
"When I was fifteen," I told her.
"Wow, isn't that young?"
Shrugging nonchalantly, I replied, "I guess. An old buddy of mine got his hands on a tattoo machine and we fucked around with it in his basement." For the sake of sharing, I lifted my left leg and crossed it over the opposite knee. Rolling up the leg of my pants, I pointed at the shitty, faded skull on my calf. "This was my first."
Audrey tipped forward just a bit, peering at the old ink, hiding between pieces of art much more impressive. "Your friend did this?"
"No. I did it."
Her eyes lifted back to mine. "Your first tattoo, you did on yourself?"
With another nonchalant shrug, I rolled the pant leg back down. "It was no big deal."
The bowed curve of her lips spread slowly and the brilliant blue of her irises twinkled in the living room light. I asked what that look was for and she answered, "It feels so ... wrong to be talking to you. Like, bad."
I snorted as I lifted my glass of water to sip. "I told you. I'm no good."
She shook her head. "No, I don't mean like that. I mean, you're like, one of those boys TV shows and movies always warned me about. The bad boy that always felt like an exaggeration of the truth. Like … Kiefer Sutherland’s character in The Lost Boys. But you're not an exaggeration. You're the real deal."
I laughed at that, taking a deep drink before placing the glass on the coffee table. "Your mom wouldn't approve, is what you're saying."
"Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that."
I dropped my gaze to the cross hanging against the frame of her collarbone. I imagined her upbringing and the judgments her family would make on me. But why the hell did I care, anyway? Just a couple of hours ago, I was saying whatever I could to make her leave me alone, and now I was wondering what her parents would think of me.
"Ask me something."
Tearing me away from those thoughts, I looked back to her. "Ask you what?"
"Anything."
I threw my whole body into another shrug. "I don't know ..."
Her smile was never waning as she readjusted herself on the couch. "Come on, you gotta be curious about something."
She was right about that. There were a thousand things I was desperate to know, anxious to find the answers to, but to ask would have been to admit the niggling doubts worming their way into my brain. Asking would be a confession of the distress I'd been feeling for the past couple of weeks, regarding beliefs I thought I had a handle on.
"Okay. What do you do?" I settled on with a flippant wave of my hand, as if to say, "There, happy?"
"I'm a preschool teacher," she answered with a pride I found endearing.
I laughed gently, not intending to and Audrey asked what was funny, and I admitted, "Because that's exactly the kind of job I would've pictured you having.”
She smiled; her cheeks tinted a shade of embarrassment. "Yeah, I guess I play the part. Except," she outstretched her arms and glanced down to her shirt, "right now I'm missing the finger paint and glitter glue all over my clothes."
I chuckled, painfully aware of the dipping, swooping sensation happening in my stomach. The gradual descent of my heart, barely scraping the surface of something emotional. Testing it out and trying it on for size. Before, I had liked her appeal. I had liked what we could do together in my bed. But now, I found, I simply liked her. It was wrong in a thousand ways. She was wrong for me, I was entirely wrong for her, but this attraction of my heart couldn't be quelled.
It didn't help when she looked up at me and smiled, her eyes twinkling and her lips shining. How could she look so put together while weaning a lingering inebriation? I imagined how I must look to her, red-eyed and fucked up. Messy hair and scruffy beard. Sweaty and dirty. My lips begged to meet hers, to say hello, to feel the contradiction between our skin. But I was filthy, and she was so, so clean.
"It's getting late," I found my mouth moving, unsure of the words.
She lifted her wrist to look at her watch. "Oh, wow, yeah. It's past midnight. That's crazy." Her eyes met mine once again. "Time flies when you're having fun, I guess."
My laugh erupted from my throat, bursting past my lips. "Oh, yeah. I'm loads of fun." I swiped my glass from the coffee table and took hers before standing and heading into the kitchen. "Should I remind you of the shit I said to you before? I'm a world class asshole."
I placed the glasses in the sink, and there were her footsteps again.
"You're not an asshole," she argued gently. "You're guarded, and abrasive, and way too hard on yourself. But you're not an asshole."
Guarded ... I spelled that word out in my mind, tracing the curve of the G with my fingertip against the sink's lip. I was guarded. The good doctor always said I was defensive with h
er, but actually, I was always defending. Myself, my faults, my brother.
Guarded.
What a perfect word to describe something so far from perfect.
"You should go," I muttered quietly.
I awaited her reply with dread. I wanted her to go so badly, but even more than that, I wanted her to stay. Cee had never stayed the night, and for once, I wanted the company. I wanted to witness the contrast of her skin against mine. I wanted to entangle my legs in the web of hers and catch myself in the lengths of her hair. I wanted to breathe in her scent as we fell asleep. But those reminders of why this was all a terrible idea wouldn't shut the fuck up, and I couldn’t stop telling myself that the last thing she should want is me.
"Yeah," she breathed, and I exhaled with relief and regret, until she added, "but I don't want to."
I turned to face her with trepidation and anticipation, and before she or I could speak and stop this from happening, my hands were on either side of her face and my lips were on hers in the most impromptu first kiss. It wasn't magical and it certainly wasn't sweet. It was an urgent display of my desire in the middle of my kitchen, in a house she thought was cute.
I walked her backward until she hit the wall, never breaking the lock my mouth had on hers. To feel her hands in my hair was deliciously deviant. Her fingers wrapped within the strands in coordination with her lips, opening to accept my tongue, and I obliged with a needy and guttural groan. Every bit of warning was silenced by the sounds of our mouths, moving together in a dance of tongues and the crash of teeth, and every want I'd ever had aimed directly at her was spread blatantly across every one of my fingertips. They clasped at her face, thrust into her hair, and moved around to press firmly against the small of her back, to prove just how badly I wanted her.
Audrey whimpered into my mouth and her knees buckled, leaning further against me. "Blake?" she whispered, pulling her lips from mine.
"What?" The word scraped against my throat.
She opened her eyes and they dodged over my face before settling within my gaze. "Did you mean it when you said you'd try to fuck me?"
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