Deepest Blues

by Heidi Hutchinson

Damn that big-mouthed Jack. Clarke took in a deep breath, but didn't let it out. She didn't know what to say.

  “Were you out alone, Clarke?” Kip's soft voice came up on her left. She looked into his concerned green eyes and felt her eyebrows draw inward.

  “I was in the water. But not long enough for anything exciting to happen.”

  Truth.

  “Don't misunderstand, I think it's totally cool if you got over your phobia and you got back out there, I was just surprised that you didn't tell us yourself, is all,” Brady hurried to explain.

  Clarke's frown went deeper. “I don't have a phobia!” she insisted tartly.

  Mike began to stride in their direction and Clarke swallowed, attempting to calm her overreaction to a complete misunderstanding.

  “What would you call it, then?” Steve asked.

  “Uh... not a phobia!” Clarke crossed her arms over her chest. Her face was warming significantly and sweat began to prickle her hairline. She couldn't find any words. None. They were gone.

  “Why don't you neanderthals go take a swim.” Greta's bossy voice broke them up. She physically started shoving the boys towards the water. She picked up a bottle of sunscreen and threw it at Brady, who almost didn't catch it in time. “Make sure someone gets some protection on Kip's head. Melanoma isn't a joke, you know!”

  Clarke took a breath and scratched the side of her neck as she looked down at the sand by her bare feet. She avoided eye contact with the witnesses who remained. Mostly because it was Mike and Harrison. Greta didn't care. Greta was her homegirl. She wouldn't think anything of Clarke's obvious embarrassment.

  “C'mon, let Harry take over with your lessons for a bit,” Greta urged, tugging Clarke's hand out of the closed-down posture she had herself in. “It's your last day of vacation and you need to get some relaxation accomplished.”

  Clarke didn't fight it. She followed Greta a few feet away and tried to make it look like she wasn't collapsing onto the towel.

  What was bothering her was that Brady was right. Well, sort of.

  She still wouldn't call her dislike of surfing alone a phobia. She'd call it being responsible. Or plain common sense. Not a phobia.

  The part that bothered her was that she had forgotten.

  ***

  Mike pushed back from the table in frustration. The dishes shook and Harrison and Greta looked up at him in confusion. He hadn't meant to cause a physical disruption.

  Clarke didn't even notice.

  She had been closed inside of herself since the afternoon. Polite, but completely frickin' disconnected.

  “I'm gonna go watch a movie,” Clarke stated calmly. She gave the table a half-hearted smile and excused herself.

  Mike watched her go, trying to pinpoint the moment she had started to pull away, closing down. They had been having a perfectly wonderful time on the beach for the past two days.

  The water really was her element. She was fluid and graceful, understanding and respectful of the power of the ocean.

  Was she just sad that she had to go back to work tomorrow?

  “Normally,” Greta spoke up softly, her blue eyes focused on him, “when Clarke has a day like this, she watches one of her old movies in her room. I go in and lay on the floor while she gives away all the spoilers and recites random trivia that I'll never remember. But it always seems to make her feel better.” She paused and her lips twitched slightly before she continued. “Why don't I help with the dishes tonight and you go watch that movie with her?”

  Mike pressed his lips into a flat line. Then he shoved himself to his feet and rounded the table, heading for the stairs.

  He got to Clarke's door—a room that was off-limits—and paused. Deciding not to knock, he twisted the knob, and his eyes had trouble finding her in the dark.

  She was curled into her covers on her bed, back pressed to the headboard. The blue light from the TV made the shadows under her eyes more pronounced. Mike kicked off his shoes and crawled into the bed beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

  “What are we watching?” he asked against her temple.

  “To Have and Have Not.”

  Mike's eyebrows rose into his hairline and her pulled her tighter to his side. “The movie where Bogie and Bacall met and fell in love.”

  “It's one of my favorites,” she said quietly. “I've seen it probably close to a hundred times.”

  The movie began and they settled in. Mike had only seen this one once before and true to Greta's prediction, Clarke talked through the entire thing.

  “It was supposed to be an adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel, but it really wasn't. It more closely resembled Casablanca,” she informed him.

  “Also a great movie.” Mike found his hand in her hair, threading it through his fingers. Pure silk.

  “You know, Lauren Bacall was only nineteen when they met. Bogie was forty-four. And married.”

  “I think the affair alone would have been too scandalous, but that age difference...” Mike whistled low under his breath.

  “Maybe,” Clarke murmured, and he tilted his head to look down at her, but her eyes were lost in the film. “But maybe your match is just your match. You know when you meet someone, and there's just something easy about how you communicate with them? They understand your jokes, your references, your tone. That kind of connection is always instant and it's always powerful. I imagine Bogie and Bacall were that way. I mean, look at them. You can see their connection every time they're on screen together. When she walks onto the set, he lights up. His posture, his smile, his confidence. Her presence brings out the best in him... Like she was the one he was born to love.”

  Mike closed his eyes and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “The circumstances sucked for them, but... look at them,” she continued softly. “The affair was inevitable. How could they resist each other? Love like that...” She didn't finish. She didn't need to.

  Mike held in a groan. She was killing him.

  “Would it weird you out if I started calling you Slim?” he asked against his better judgment. Slim was the nickname Bogie's character gave to Bacall's.

  She let out a small laugh. “I think I'd be more flattered than anything else.”

  “What happened today to make you get all serious on me?” he asked into the dark, hoping that her favorite movie playing out in front of them and the comfortable vibe surrounding them would be enough to get her to relax and open up.

  “I tried to go surfing alone a week or so ago and forgot.” He felt her sigh slightly before she continued. “You were supposed to be coming that day and I guess I got so wrapped up in my worry... in my fear,” she corrected, “that I forgot to be afraid. Or maybe I was in some kind of denial or avoidance. I'm not really sure. I think I need to go back to therapy.”

  Mike's heart began to pound ridiculously hard. He licked his suddenly dry lips and croaked out, “Therapy?”

  “Yeah. I'm afraid I'm going completely crazy-cakes. I went for a while after my brother Paul and my dad died. Two funerals in ten days can really push a person to the edge.”

  Mike tightened his grip on her as his lungs did the same in his chest.

  “I may not have told you this, but my little brother—my twin, younger by a minute—died of a drug overdose in Europe almost three ago. Then my dad was in a car accident on the 101 two days later. I lost my whole world in less than a week.”

  The back of Mike's eyes began to burn. He knew all of this of course, but having her say it out loud was heart-crushing.

  Clarke sniffed quietly and he knew she was crying while trying to hide it. He gave her that.

  “I think I left therapy before I should have. I've been thinking about going back.”

  Instinctively, Mike was aware that she needed this. To be able to talk about it without questions, without advice.

  “I didn't even know that Paul was a user, you know? I was in denial for a long time, positive that it was some weird practical joke he wa
s playing and that he'd jump out and surprise me any second. But... he never did. I guess that's why I went out that day. I knew you were coming and as much as Greta swore up and down that you were clean, I didn't know how I'd ever know.”

  “Why did it matter to you if I was clean or not? You didn't know me.”

  Clarke twisted so she could look up at him in the dark, the blue light from the black and white movie highlighting the pain in her eyes. “Because I had the biggest crush on you for the longest time, and the same weekend that Paul died, you were hospitalized. In my head, I connected the events.”

  A tremble tore through Mike's body and he was sure she felt it. How was he ever going to tell her the whole story? Seeing the devastation on her face now, with the little bit of information she had, was almost too much for him to keep his composure.

  “Anyway,” she cleared her throat and turned back to the movie, “my brain is probably a great big labyrinth of mental disorders that would make any psychiatrist giggle with morbid glee. I wonder if David Bowie is available to make an appearance as the Goblin King,” she finished dryly.

  Mike chuckled at her dark joke. “You're not crazy.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her voice was so resigned that he couldn't stop himself. He shifted in the bed until she was on her back and he was mostly on top of her. She stared up at him, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

  “You've seen this movie how many times, Slim?” he asked cupping her cheek with his palm and running his thumb over the apple.

  “A lot,” she whispered.

  “And you've never taken in Bogie's wise words?”

  Her delicate eyebrows twitched with confusion. “Which ones?”

  “What he says to Dolores Moran's character when she's apologizing for being scared. 'You didn't invent it... being afraid.'”

  Clarke's breath hitched as his words penetrated, drawing his eyes to her now parted lips. Mike knew he should get up off the bed and walk away. He knew it.

  But he couldn't do it.

  His head dipped, as if pulled by an invisible force straight towards her perfect lips. He brushed them with his own and felt her tremble in his arms. He kissed the corner of her mouth softly. Then he repeated it on the other side. She sighed and he lost himself. His mouth took to hers with hunger and her arms wrapped around his back.

  He plied her lips open and explored the inside of her mouth at leisure. Savoring every taste, every stroke, every sensation.

  She was perfect for him. Her mouth fit his in a way he'd never experienced. Her body was soft and yielding under his hard one. Her hair was a silk ribbon that he had wrapped around his fist.

  But that wasn't all. Her wit, her humor, her charm. The delicate parts of her that she exposed when only he was watching. His mind began to race at the same speed as his heart with endless possibilities.

  Mike suddenly shot up, severing their connection with shocking speed. He looked down at her stunned expression, his breath coming in pants. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, dropping his head into his hands and trying to calm down.

  “Mike...?” her small voice asked from behind him as she rested a hesitant hand on his back.

  He flinched and she jerked her hand away. He pressed his finger tips into his temples and ground his teeth together.

  “This can't happen,” he declared, more for his own knowledge than hers.

  “Okay,” she whispered hesitantly behind him.

  That's when Mike turned to face her, hating the broken and confused look on her face. “Clarke, I am so sorry,” he plead, putting as much honest regret into his voice as he could muster. “You're amazing and fantastic. This isn't...” He swallowed and looked past her shoulder, hoping to find the right words somewhere nearby.

  He found it. Returning his eyes to her, he came clean.

  “I'm not healthy yet. I made a promise that if I could stay clean for at least five years, then I'd consider trying a relationship again.” His breath shuddered through him. Conflicted didn't even begin to cover it.

  Then her hand was sliding over his knee. He looked down at it, then back to her. Her expression was soft. Forgiving.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” He squinted, wanting to know for sure that she knew. That what he'd been feeling from her over the past week wasn't a fluke. That somehow she could look inside him and decipher the truth from the twisted fortress of dark memories he lived in moment to moment.

  “I do,” she confirmed calmly.

  He let out the breath he'd been holding in relief. She had that effect. Soothing turquoise waters with endless depths.

  He took her hand off his knee and laced his fingers in between hers. “I like you. I really—I want to explore this with you.” Her fingers flexed against his. “But it's too soon... the circumstances suck, Slim.”

  She smiled, bit her lip, and looked down at their entwined hands. “I'm not going anywhere.”

  Her simple statement was a spark of hope that caught flame in Mike's chest. Maybe she would wait this out with him. Maybe in time, this could turn into their own unconventional yet glamorous love story.

  ***

  The next morning Mike got up early and went to a meeting. It had been a week since his last one, but it felt like longer than that.

  As he looked around the room at some new faces and some old ones, he resolved inside that he wouldn't let this thing with Clarke get out of hand. He knew too many people who'd jumped from one dependent relationship into another. Leaving drugs and then hooking themselves to a companion who either wasn't ready to walk with them through the steps of recovery, or were just another kind of drug.

  He wouldn't do that with Clarke.

  She was her own person, with her own issues. She had even admitted that last night. They both had a fair amount of healing to do before they could give a legitimate try to this thing that had started to grow between them.

  Mike felt like he was near a reckoning. He was close to settling his past debts and being able to move ahead freely. He'd been focusing on the band, giving everything back that he'd taken from them. But always, in the back of his mind, there was this hope that maybe God would give him one last chance at one great love.

  It was so close he could almost reach out and touch it. Last night he'd gotten a taste. And it was sweeter than anything he'd ever had before.

  Maybe Mike would step up his meetings to twice a week while he was in LA.

  Just to be safe.

  Chapter 10

  Enough Space

  Clarke leaned into the mirror as she put on her eyeliner and noticed the small smile that danced on her lips. She pulled back and studied her face for a few seconds before grinning, shaking her head and finishing her makeup.

  Mike had kissed her last night.

  Mike had told her that he liked her last night.

  Sure, the timing was all wrong, and maybe it wouldn't go anywhere in the long run.

  But maybe it would.

  That last maybe was the one that was giving Clarke hope in an area she'd never really had it before.

  Hope in tomorrow.

  Hope in all her tomorrows.

  “Someone looks like sunshine this morning,” Greta smiled slyly over the edge of her coffee cup when Clarke came striding into the kitchen.

  “That's because I'm wearing an obnoxious shade of yellow,” Clarke pointed out, standing on her tiptoes to grab her own coffee cup out of the cupboard.

  “Yeah, okay,” Greta conceded with her words, but not her tone. She cleared her voice, set down her cup. “Back to work today?”

  “Yep. Hoping those three new hires of Shane's haven't caused too much pain and suffering in the shop. I'd hate to have to put them out of their misery.”

  “Shane seems pleased. He did mention that the girl he hired was already pulling away from the pack.” Greta moved her sketch pad off to the side so Clarke had a place to set her breakfast of yogurt and fruit.

  “It's weird how gi
rls do that,” Clarke raised a knowing eyebrow and Greta snickered.

  “Poor Shane. I mean, really, how in the heck did he end up surrounded by the toughest and smartest women in the world?” Greta asked.

  Clarke shrugged. “I have a theory. I think strong women are attracted to strong men. They tend to gravitate to one another. Who was it that said, 'Recognizing power in another doesn't diminish your own'?”

  Greta was nodding in agreement. “Joss Whedon.”

  “Right.” Clarke took a drink of coffee, loving the hot burn in the back of her throat. “Well, he's right. Strong men are made stronger when they support and encourage strong women, and vice versa. I truly believe power inspires power. It only makes sense that someone like Shane, who is one seriously intimidating mofo, would end up surrounded by those with similar characteristics. I know that I'm boosted by his leadership.”

  “You're an inspiration, Clarke Matthews.” Greta lifted her coffee cup in toast.

  “Galvanizing speech early in the morning, vacation must be over,” Brady said, heading straight for the coffee pot.

  Clarke smiled and rolled her eyes. “Make fun of me all you want, but I speak truth.”

  “I'm not making fun of you,” Brady protested, “just making fun in general.”

  “Har, har, har,” Clarke retorted as she drained her cup and pushed back from the table. “Try to stay out of trouble today,” she advised, putting her dishes in the sink. “I'm going to probably regret this, but... I'm leaving Greta in charge.”

  “Yesss!” Greta clenched her fist and pumped it into the air.

  “I can live with that,” Brady said soberly. His blue eyes twinkled and his lips twitched with a barley-withheld smile. “But that day you left Steve in charge was probably the most fun ever.”

  “Yeah, and that's why I still have green frosting on the ceiling,” Clarke reminded him, her lips twisting at the memory. Brady barked out a laugh and Greta sucked in both of her lips to keep from smiling.

  “To be fair, it was Greta's idea to make the cupcakes in the first place,” Brady said.

  “That still doesn't explain how they ended up stuck to the ceiling of my kitchen,” Clarke replied, not sure why she was getting into this again.