I Love You Like That

by Heather Cumiskey

  Peter put the car in park and turned down the radio.

  “What time is it?” Hannah asked, squinting at the dashboard. She blinked a few times to lubricate her cloudy contacts. Her mouth tasted cottony and stale.

  “Not too late . . . here,” he hiccupped and reached for her face. “Come here, you.”

  Hannah leaned away from him, sniffing the air. “Did you finish off the rest of the beer?”

  Peter laughed and yanked her toward him.

  She dropped her eyes and lowered her chin to her chest. She wished she were already home. Her mind raced through the excuses she could give but knew it would be easier if she stayed just a little bit longer. Maybe he’d sober up if she got him talking.

  He tilted her chin up. “I’m sorry I teased you about crying. I wanted things to be good between us tonight, like they were before.”

  “Yeah . . . well, it was fun anyway. They sounded great.”

  “I’m glad we went. Happy early birthday.”

  “Thanks,” she said, flashing a quick smile and stuffing her hands under her legs.

  “I’ve missed being with you.” He grinned, his sea-glass eyes shining. “I never stopped . . . wait . . . here’s our song . . .” He turned up the radio excitedly and belted out the lines to “Every Time You Go Away.”

  She laughed at his attempt to sing. “Our song?”

  “Yeah, love Paul Young, don’t you?”

  “Sure, though I think it’s originally a Hall & Oats song—”

  “The words, Hannah, they’re how I feel.”

  Oh, shit. She had no words before he grasped the back of her neck, pulling her toward him.

  She twisted her head and moved away from him. “I’d like to go home now.”

  “Oh come on, don’t be like that. I’ve missed you. It’s okay. Just one kiss . . . I swear.”

  He kissed her gently and she had to admit, it felt nice. Familiar. She relaxed. Old Peter was back. They could make out a little, no big deal.

  He pulled back searching her eyes. His lips tentatively touched hers again, then he began running his hand up her thigh and around the side of her waist. He softly moaned as his fingers traveled under her shirt and over her bra. Her body tensed at his touch. She knew what he wanted and her brain sputtered for the right words.

  “Stop, Peter.” Say it louder. “I don’t—”

  “God, I love your body. I can’t get enough of it.”

  With her eyes half open, she envisioned herself as a robot; she wanted to be home. She got the feeling that she could sit there numbly and he wouldn’t care as long as he got what he wanted.

  He started to unbutton her shorts.

  “Peter, I don’t—”

  “Shh, I got something,” he said retrieving a thin package from his back pocket.

  “That’s not—”

  He kissed her harder, his tongue entering her mouth like an unwanted intruder. He tasted like sour Bud Light and eggs. In one motion, he released the lever on the side of her seat, leaning her back horizontally, and climbed on top of her. He pulled off his T-shirt and lowered his board shorts from his hips.

  “Oh, baby . . . I can’t wait to be with you . . . been dreaming of this . . . I love you . . . love me, Hannah.”

  He ripped the corner of the Trojan wrapper with his teeth. She saw him slip on the condom. She closed her eyes and told herself to just go with it; he’d be done soon. She would figure everything out in the morning. He kissed her neck and she cracked her eyelids watching him move his hips. In her peripheral vision, something shimmered on the driver’s side seat under the streetlamp. Her lids fluttered until they peeled back wide.

  “What’s that? What the hell is on the seat next to me?”

  “Shhhh, baby. Just relax. You feel so good.”

  “Oh my god, is that the rubber? You slipped it off when my eyes were shut?”

  “Shhh, I’ve got it, I’ve got it . . .” he said as his breath quickened and he started to groan.

  She grabbed the base of him and squeezed hard. She punched and kicked him off of her like a wild animal, surprising herself—and him, too, judging by his bewildered face.

  “Get the hell off of me!” she cried.

  “God dammit!” he yelled slamming his hand on the dashboard. He held his crotch and began swearing, bringing his fist between his eyes. He pulled up his shorts and leaned out the car window. With his hands between his legs, he groaned like an injured animal.

  She dressed madly and threw his shirt at him. “You’re an asshole! What the hell were you thinking? Trying to ‘spread your seed’ or something?”

  “Relax! You wouldn’t have gotten pregnant . . . and I don’t have an STD. Or AIDS.”

  “Oh, so then it’s okay?”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “Damn it, I should have stopped you. What’s my problem?” She clawed at her bare legs. “I’m not this. I don’t want to be this!”

  “I’ve been so patient . . . I just got carried away,” he said in a low voice, his chin in his chest. “I just figured—”

  “You figured what?”

  “That deep down, I was the one you wanted. Not him. Hannah, you slept with a low-life drug dealer, but you won’t sleep with me . . . what the hell?”

  “You’re obsessed with him. Deacon has nothing to do with me not wanting you. Get it through your thick skull!”

  Peter hid his face from her, his shoulders shaking.

  “How could you put me at risk like that?”

  “I used to watch you guys at school last year. He’d meet our bus every morning. I’d get a few minutes alone with you, but once you saw him, you forgot I was even there. It killed me the way you looked at him . . . and how you kissed him. I could tell you were sleeping together. I f-figured that you didn’t use protection with him . . . b-because you loved each other . . . and I wanted it to be like that with us.”

  “You are so fucked up, you know that, Peter? Take me home, take me home now!”

  CHAPTER 40

  South beach, Miami

  2:19 A .M . DEACON COULDN’T KEEP HIS EYES CLOSED OR calm his brain. The new guy in the top bunk snored like a wild boar, and the man on the other wall had been repeating “damn, girl . . . that’s it, girl,” all night.

  Deacon rubbed his eyes and attempted to rub off his entire face. Stay put, he told himself. Chalfont and his henchmen were crawling all over Miami looking for him. By now they knew he was no Xavier Coyne.

  For a week, he’d been hiding North in Miami Beach at a men’s shelter. He’d convinced the director with the carefully placed comb-over that he was an addict in need of treatment after finding the shelter’s address in a Yellow Pages chained to a payphone. The shelter was a four-story pink building with a Spanish façade and an Alive with Pride in ’85 banner hung across its entrance.

  His dirty clothes and ripe body odor—courtesy of sleeping on the street for days—had worked in his favor. He’d also acted the part during his interview by clawing at his skin and acting jumpy like he remembered his customers back in Connecticut doing.

  The director eyed him skeptically. “We don’t house criminals,” he told him.

  Deacon knew his face had never appeared in the newspapers. “I whole-heartedly agree with that decision, sir. I just need a few days to get clean and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  He’d given the director his Rolex and gold jewelry to end his hesitation. Those things had also been enough of a bribe for him to not turn Deacon away when he voluntarily relinquished the gun Chalfont had given him.

  “Sell this too,” Deacon told him, as he placed the gun on the director’s desk. “I want nothing to do with it.”

  Even with that, Deacon knew he wouldn’t be able to stay long. The place was overcrowded and swarming with desperate men.

  He’d waited several hours in the lobby for a room to open that first night. All walks of life came through the shelter’s doors, from slick executive types to an elderly man wearing just his soile
d underwear.

  He thought about Paul and how much he missed him. He’d still be alive if it weren’t for him. Dammit, Paul. You and your stupid cars.

  A handsome, preppy kid around his age started rambling to him in the waiting room. The boy’s body shivered as if it were the middle of winter. He clutched his stomach and cried in between asking the empty chair beside him nonsensical questions, asking about a callback and where Rachel had gone.

  When the boy began dry heaving, Deacon retrieved a garbage bag from the admissions desk and offered it to him. The young man continued to throw up into the red rain slicker he’d bunched up in his lap, ignoring the proffered bag, until nothing more came up. Then his body heaved some more.

  A middle-aged gentleman walked through the doors with a much younger man whom he lowered gently into the open seat next to Deacon. They were accompanied by a couple of women who began whispering impatiently to the staff and to one another.

  The men’s shirts hung on their bony shoulders like clothes on hangers. Their shrunken bodies appeared too narrow and small for their heads. The younger one kept yanking his long-sleeve striped shirt over the sore on his arm. The older man gently kissed his lover’s sunken cheek before brushing his own tear away.

  Talk of quarantine and a “special floor” floated from the employees behind the admissions desk. One lady with a clipboard and glasses balancing on the end of her nose announced repeatedly to whomever was in earshot, We’re full. We can’t possibly take them. There’s just too many coming through our doors.

  Deacon stayed in his spot and watched, transfixed by the couple, even when the young man expectorated blood onto his striped sleeve. He knew he was one of them: alone and forgotten, riddled with his own sores and disease.

  2:26 a.m. He couldn’t settle down. His lack of sleep was making him crazy. His ulcer burned, and the fried food at the shelter wasn’t helping. Something told him Hannah needed him. Or maybe it was he who needed her—more than ever.

  The one payphone in the place was conveniently out of order, sending him onto the street to find another. He wandered toward Flamingo Park, south on Washington and across Lincoln. He turned down Drexel Avenue and found one on the corner. The stagnant evening air had transformed the phone booth into a hothouse. He cradled the receiver on his shoulder and scrounged up some change.

  He longed to hear her voice and to know that in this ugly world, where children were kidnapped, sliced up, and sold for parts on the black market, someone like her could still exist, someone far away from the evil and greed of men like Chalfont and Luis. That somewhere, good people like Paul could still be kissing their wives goodnight. That damn dirty car. Thank you for everything.

  Maybe, just maybe, Hannah could forgive him for his part in all of this: for the innocent people who died, those girls, Paul’s life. Could she forgive him and still want to lie at night in the crook of his arm? Would she still love him, the old him, Deacon Giroux? Whoever he was.

  He held his breath as Hannah’s phone rang. Talk. Say something, you coward. Just do it already.

  She picked up. “Hello?” She sounded strange and it threw him off.

  His mouth opened. He forgot how to speak. He stepped out of the phone booth, pulling its armored cord taunt. His blood pulsed in his ears like he’d just sprinted.

  “I-I . . .”

  “Fuck you! I can’t take this,” she cried. “I’m not yours, I never was . . . what you did was unforgivable! Don’t. Call. Me. AGAIN!”

  From behind, Deacon felt a warm breath engulf his ear. A voice yelled next to his face, “Xavier . . . Xavier Coyne!” He jumped and quickly cupped his hand over the receiver.

  Claudia stood behind him, laughing.

  “Shit, what the fuck?” he whispered tersely. He put his finger over his lips to silence her. He jammed the phone back up to his ear. Hannah was gone.

  Claudia smacked her lips against his. “Been looking all over for you, cowboy.”

  CHAPTER 41

  darien, Connecticut

  HANNAH CALLED OUT SICK THAT MORNING. HER RED, swollen eyes resembled two puffed balls stuck to her face. She’d barely slept. She was supposed to open and probably would be fired for giving her manager such short notice. Screw Howie and his all-white staff mandate. Prick.

  She lay in bed, scratching at the bumps on the back of her arms. Soon she would move on to her face. Thoughts of last night kept thundering through her head. What Peter had done was unforgiveable; what she’d done was almost worse. She was disgusted with herself. Her nagging inner voice chimed in: What were you thinking, letting him have sex with you because it would be easier than saying “no”?

  Her guilt poured through every cell. All summer she’d toyed with his feelings, knowing it was wrong. Did I somehow cause this? Is it my fault?

  She’d consented to having sex with a condom. But by Peter removing it without her knowledge, it crossed the line; she’d been violated. What kind of person does that?

  Guys could casually fool around with girls who were in love with them. But when girls did it, it was akin to playing with matches. It still didn’t exonerate Peter’s actions.

  Hannah vowed to never be that girl again. Stupid, stupid.

  And then Peter had the nerve to call her. At least, she thought it was him. What she’d heard on the line hadn’t made sense.

  Jade’s face last night at the concert and her unspoken words as she walked away kept nagging at Hannah. What was she keeping from her?

  Hannah pulled up the phone from the floor by its cord and dialed Deacon’s private line, hoping Toby was awake.

  “Yo!”

  “Hi, it’s Hannah. I know this is a really strange request. But can we meet?”

  She took the long way around the mall to avoid seeing anyone from work. When she got to the food court, she made a beeline for his table.

  “What did you hear exactly?” Toby asked as soon as she sat down. His right knee was bouncing like a sewing machine needle at warp speed.

  Does this kid ever stop moving? she wondered.

  “Something like ‘flavor coins or savior something . . . maybe braver coins?’”

  “Braver coins, braver coins . . . hmmm, not sure . . . could it have been a wrong number?”

  “Someone has been calling my house in the middle of the night and hanging up after several seconds ever since Deacon died. About once a week, sometimes more.”

  “That’s creepy. Think it’s Gillian?”

  “Not anymore. For a while I thought maybe someone blamed me for his death and was harassing me.”

  “You never thought it was me, did you?” Toby cocked his head to the side.

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Just thought is was kids, mostly . . . or maybe one of Deacon’s former customers?”

  “Savior of coin, huh?”

  Her eyes lit up. “I think more like that Catholic high school up north, Xavier something?”

  “That’s weird, I just read about some kid from Xavier.” He reached for the newspaper from the table across from them. He pulled out the local section and started flipping through. His constant amped energy made Hannah dizzy. “Nope. I got my stories mixed up. This is about Xavier Catholic getting a new headmaster.”

  Hannah exhaled and leaned back against the booth, folding her arms over her chest. “I saw Jade last night at The Cure concert. She acted funny when I brought up Deacon. Maybe she knows what happened the night of his death.”

  “Don’t we already know? We were both there,” he said flatly, slumping back into his seat.

  She touched his arm lightly. “I know . . . but what if we don’t know everything?”

  He gazed down at her fingertips and looked as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it.

  “Truth?” He stared soberly at her, resting his head on his hand. “I’ve blocked out most of that night. I don’t even remember the gun going off. Only that he was suddenly lying on the ground.”

  Hannah nodded knowingly. “My brain has j
umbled up a lot of that night, too.”

  He sighed deeply. “Okay, let’s ask her what she knows.”

  Hannah shook her head. “I’ve tried. But you could.”

  “Jade never gave me the time of day. She was only interested in Deacon and his drugs . . .” Toby’s brows shot up. “Wait, I have an idea.”

  They walked to the payphone by the mall exit. He deposited a quarter and turned back to her. “Deacon’s pager, right?”

  He entered the phone’s seven-digit number and hung up. Less than a minute later, the phone rang.

  She grabbed his arm before he picked up. “Wait, what are you going to tell her?”

  He smiled mischievously. “Is Deacon there?” he said in a deep voice.

  Hannah nodded her approval.

  “That’s not going to work, I only deal with him . . . what do you mean he’s no longer at this number . . . where the hell is he?” His voice grew sterner. “I’m not going to repeat myself. Tell me where I can find him . . .” His voice took on an ominous tone. “No, we both know that’s not true . . . right, Jade? Yeah, I know who you are and I know exactly where to find you . . . why don’t you start again and tell me where he is . . . or . . .”

  Toby hung up with a stunned look on his face, his hand still glued to the receiver.

  “Oh my God, what just happened, what did she say?” Hannah demanded.

  He gaped at her, unable to speak.

  “What, tell me!”

  “She said . . . ‘He wouldn’t tell me where he was going.’”

  Hannah moved numbly back to their table. She didn’t hear anything Toby said after that. Everything swirled around her, spinning faster by the second.

  “It’s not possible,” she kept uttering softly.

  “I know. But why would she say that? Just as easy to stick to her story that he was dead than to say that.” His dark eyes fastened on hers. “Holy crap!”

  “She’s lying, I know it.”

  “He fucked with us?” he said, squinting and tilting his head to the side as he fell into the booth. “So I’m not a murderer?”