Aaron
I jump, as if my body were falling. My eyes fly open and stare at a ceiling I’m unfamiliar with. The scents and sounds are different. I look around the semi-lit room.
This isn’t my place.
This is Lydia’s.
Shit.
She was reading.
I fell asleep.
But she’s gone.
I’m the only one in bed.
I rub my eyes with the sides of my fists, trying to get a clearer picture of my surroundings.
Still in my uniform, I pull back the blanket that I didn’t have to begin with, and quietly, I walk down the hallway. When I walk past Lilly’s room, I see Lydia curled up with her Lilly.
Something in my chest aches. A longing maybe. Like something’s been missing, and the feeling that I get in this moment tells me that I’ve found something I didn’t know I was looking for.
Lydia doesn’t have a blanket, so I tiptoe as best I can back to her bedroom and grab the blanket from the bed. I tiptoe back to Lilly’s bedroom and cover Lydia up. Lilly is tucked in close to her mother.
For the first time in my life, I pretend this is my family. My daughter, my wife. That I’m leaving early for work. Pretend my whole world is wrapped up in these blankets. And then fear takes hold. What would it be like to lose them? What if they lost me?
This is temporary, Aaron. This isn’t your family. This is Lydia’s family.
Neither of them budges. Sound asleep. Part of me wants to take credit. That they’re sleeping soundly because I’m here.
Does Lydia sleep soundly when I’m not around? Does she sleep on edge, waiting for her past with her ex-husband, Lilly’s father, to catch up with her?
I know why Lilly is the way she is. Wise beyond her years. Compassionate. Empathetic. Loving. It has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with Lydia and the way she raises Lilly.
Leave. That’s what I need to do.
Now, it’s getting awkward. I’ve been standing here too long, staring at the White girls. I quietly creep down the hallway, down the stairs, and lock the door on my way out.
It’s 6:57 a.m. I try to be discreet, as if I’m not just leaving the White residence. I see Patricia Crowl walking her dog. She gives me a wave.
“Morning, Warden.”
I nod, making my way down to my house. The summer sun hasn’t yet risen, the morning fog drawn in like steam. Main Street hasn’t come alive with busyness. Tuesday morning deliveries to local businesses. Tuesday morning mail runs. Bank runs. Early morning trail blazers with expensive hiking shoes. Lake-goers. This thought makes my stomach turn. The thought of Caleb waking up, being hit with the realization that his brother is gone. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Ethan. Cody’s wife. What she’ll feel or not feel today and the days that follow. Weeks. Months. Years ahead.
A simple decision turned deadly.
When I get home, I make a pot of coffee and jump in the shower.
Text my lieutenant that I’ll be running late this morning. The thing about wardens is, we’re always on the clock. When we’re not working, we’re on call. When we’re not on call, we’re thinking about work. Decisions we’ve made. Searches we’ve conducted. It’s constant, wondering if you made the right decision for all parties involved.
I jump out of the shower, tuck a towel around my waist, walk to the kitchen, and pour myself a cup of coffee. I walk back to my bedroom and get dressed in a new uniform.
It’s midday when I receive a text from Lydia. I’m typing up a report at headquarters in Augusta in one of the spare offices, complete with a phone and a water cooler that makes a glug-glug noise every seven minutes.
I smile at her name and try not to allow my heart to beat quicker, but it’s no use. The heart will do what the heart will do.
Lydia: You left early this morning.
Me: Didn’t want to wake you.
Lydia: Thank you for the blanket.
Me: Just returning the favor. ;)
Bubbles appear to show she’s typing. Then, they disappear. Reappear. Disappear again. And then reappear.
Me: Also, I’m curious about that book Standing Sideways. Is Ned really a dick?
Lydia: I thought you fell asleep. ;)
Me: I did. But I picked up some of the tail end. I’d like to know how the story ends.
Lydia: Me, too. What time will you be available?
Me: The time you’re willing to give?
Lydia: Tonight. My house. You can come over for dinner again. If you’d like. 6 p.m.?
Me: That’ll be great. What can I bring?
Lydia: Yourself.
Me: You’re difficult. Anything else?
Lydia: No. ;)
Me: See you then.
Lydia: See you then.
I finish up the report from yesterday, still feeling a piece of the loss for the family. It takes me three more hours to catch up on other reports and paperwork I need to turn in. When I leave Augusta, it’s just after four in the afternoon. The commute time is just under an hour, and in the summertime, it’s a beautiful drive. In the wintertime, wardens usually never make the trip due to shitty weather conditions.
In the truck is where I can think. Allow my thoughts to wander. Sometimes, it’s just the silence that I listen to. The low hum of the truck tires against the asphalt. Sometimes, it’s the music that splits my thoughts into a million little ones. My cell phone rings, and I glance at the screen to see who it is.
Unknown number.
I hit Talk and the speakerphone button. “Warden Casey.”
Nothing.
“Hello? This is Warden Casey.”
The line is quiet.
I hit End.
A few seconds pass. The phone rings again.
I hit Talk. “Warden Casey.”
Silence. But, this time, the silence is different. It cuts through the line like razors as I wait for the voice at the other end of the line. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand.
“Who is this?” Now, I know there’s someone on the other end because, in the background, I hear a little girl’s voice.
Something covers the phone with a muffled pull of a hand or a blanket or something, and then the line goes dead.
The call doesn’t sit well with me.
I call Lydia.
She answers on the third ring. “Hello, Warden.”
Ease spreads through my body. “Hey. Everything okay with you guys?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I could tell her the truth. Tell Lydia about the message on my home phone and the suspicious calls on my cell phone. But why cause her to worry?
Instead, I ask, “Have you received any suspicious calls lately?”
The line goes quiet.
My body starts to react from the lack of words. “Lyd?”
“Sorry, I was listening to Lilly. She has this new friend, Shelby, who no one can see. Um, what was your question?”
“Any suspicious calls?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious. Police Department has been getting some complaints from citizens receiving mysterious calls.” I’m not lying. I don’t want to put her on edge. Create fear. Besides, if this keeps up, I’ll have to tell her eventually. It could just be nothing, but something tells me it’s not.
It’s just after six when I walk upstairs to Lydia’s. The bookstore is quiet, dark, except for the light in the windows display. I could get used to this. Although, if I had things my way, we’d have a house just south of town that overlooked the Atlantic and was still close enough to town.
I knock.
Lilly swings open the door. “It’s about time, Warden. I was just setting up the game. Come on in.” Her blonde hair flies behind her as she takes off to the living room.
Lydia is looking back from the stove. A long-sleeved dark blue blouse covers her black leggings. And the leggings hug her body in all the right places.
“Hey,” she says. It’s a soft hello. A hello that I hope she
only gives me.
What I want to do is walk over to her, push her against the counter, hold her against me, and let her feel how excited I am to see her. Which is the wrong thing to do but would feel so right.
“Hi.” I shut the door and walk over to her, stand too close behind her, enough to take in her shampoo and touch my lips to her neck. But I don’t. Instead, I whisper in her ear, “Looks fantastic.” Gently, I put my hand to her hip.
Taking her this way, from behind, I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it. Because I have. Fantasized about it.
“Take off your boots, Aaron. Stay awhile,” she whispers, and I can see from where I’m standing that her breathing has quickened.
“Aaron,” Lilly calls from the living room in a singsong voice. “Are you ready to start the game?”
“Coming, kiddo.” I give her a quick kiss on the neck and feel her chills break out underneath my lips.
I don’t say anything more and walk into the living room to join Lilly.
When Lydia comes back to the living room. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Come on, Lilly. Let’s go wash up.”
The three of us sit down at the table and eat dinner.
“Thank you,” I say to Lydia.
“You’re welcome, Warden.”
“Mommy makes the best spaghetti.”
When we finish eating, Lydia helps Lilly bathe, and I get the dishes done.
She tells me to stop, but I say, “You know the drill, White.” I smile.
After the bath, Lilly and I read the same book from last night, and Lilly falls to sleep.
When I walk back into the living room, Lydia asks, “Are you comfortable in your uniform?”
I’m not sure how many more nights I can sit next to her and not want to be inside her. Moving with her. Loving her. I see Standing Sideways in her hands. That’s a fully loaded question.
I’d rather the uniform be on the floor next to us, and I’d rather make love to you, but it’s not the right time.
“I’m fine.”
Sets the book in her lap. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” I cross my hands together so that I won’t reach out and touch her. The wine might have this effect on me.
She starts to read.
“Nice shirt.” He turns me around, pushing my waist-length light-blonde hair to the side.
A “dancer’s figure” is how Tracy has always referred to my body. Where my breasts just barely fill an A cup and my hips are nothing but bone. I think it was her softer way of saying, Shaped like a boy.
Simon was Jasper’s best friend.
After Tracy and I returned from Los Angeles, Simon and I ran into each other at Green’s Pharmacy. He didn’t look good, and I know I resembled something of a well-spun piece of blonde cloth with snakes for hair and flames of fire in my eyes, like some sort of Greek goddess though an ugly one—whoever she is.
Somehow though, I feel closer to Simon than to anyone. Not that he and I are friends. In fact, I’ve loathed him at some points in my life. His sarcasm, I want to smack it right out of his head, and I’m pretty sure I did when we were ten.
He’s the bad boy who lives disguised under sheets of armor—lanky, simple brown hair, blue eyes, and a few freckles on his nose. Nothing glaringly obvious indicates that his parents are almost nonexistent. That they might or might not work under the table as trimmers for the Steins and that they might or might not be using a white substance that keeps them up for days at a time to get their work done.
Tracy would have adopted Simon long ago if he had agreed. He’s the boy who is always on the brink of a good decision, but in the last minute, he never pulls through. Like his body should be littered with ink, maybe a teardrop from his eye—though I don’t think he’s ever murdered anyone. No, I take that back. I know he’s never murdered anyone. He’s the boy who should smoke cigarettes behind Bob’s at lunch and on breaks. But he’s never gone that path.
Simon James is your normal-looking boy with moments of clarity, which, I think, has kept him in a good position not to go to prison. And I think Jasper helped him stay on the right path—until now.
Every time we touch, I feel like he needs this as much as I do.
First, in the beginning, it was just our tongues that became entangled. It was simple and easy. And comforting. But, for some reason, we just needed more. Then, things progressed quite quickly.
Fingers pushing.
Arms squeezing.
Tongues everywhere.
And, now, we meet here four times a week to have sex.
I feel him harden against my stomach, and I look into his eyes. He’s been crying. Since Jasper died, I’ve never seen the evidence that Simon James, resident bad boy/not bad boy, cry, but I’ve seen the aftermath. I don’t ask if he’s all right because I know he isn’t.
I’d gladly give up my therapy appointment for Simon. I’d give up my therapy appointment with Dr. Elizabeth for him if I knew he would go. If I knew it would help. I’m not even sure his parents have come out of their drug-induced coma long enough to know that Jasper is dead.
His dull blue eyes, plagued with bad memories, prove the bright blue is sitting back, hidden behind the bruises that he carries underneath his clothes. The ones I see. And the dull blue tells a different story than what comes from his mouth. The darker story. The one he pretends Jasper and I don’t know, the one he doesn’t want us to know.
Simon would have an excuse.
I fell down the stairs.
I burned myself.
I ran into the wall.
Unbeknownst to me, he’s already laid a blanket down. Part of this whole song and dance makes my stomach creep up into my throat. Simon has never done something like this in the two whole weeks we’ve been sleeping together. Like he’s trying to make this a romantic thing. But it isn’t. Not to me. It’s an existential need. And sex seems to be the momentary cure, even at the risk of losing Simon as a friend. Even if it is at the risk of his girlfriend, Whitney Patmore, finding out. Even if it is at the risk of losing my dignity, my self-respect, or anything logical that goes along with casual sex.
I don’t care.
I need to be fixed.
I catch his scent, pheromones launching into the air like arrows and attaching themselves to me. I pull his lips to mine as he lowers me down onto the blanket.
Not that I can’t see myself with Simon. I guess maybe I can—in a different life. Maybe.
While he puts the condom on, all I can think about is how much better I will feel once we’re in the act. It takes all my thoughts, all my pain, away. But I know the sorrow, the guilt, the fallout from all this will follow. It always does. It will come quick and hard, and I’ll wish I hadn’t done it. I’ll wish I’d made a better decision. I’ll leave Simon with the intentions of never meeting him again.
But come the morning, the bitter, painful monkey of despair will bite me again, and I’ll feel like I don’t have a choice.
And the whole sick cycle will begin again.
“Wait. So, Jasper is Livia’s brother. Jasper died, and we still don’t know how. Simon was Jasper’s best friend, and now, they’re having sex?” I ask Lydia just to make sure I’m following accurately.
“Seems right.”
Lydia continues to read, and I think it’s the tone of her voice or the feeling she gives me when she’s next to me, as if everything is just how it should be in the world.
Nineteen
Lydia
The next morning, it rings once.
Twice.
On the third ring, a woman on the other line picks up the phone. “Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. How may I direct your call?”
“Hello, my name is Lydia White.” But that’s not really my name. I’ve spent too long trying to protect my real name because I know, when Brett gets out of prison, he’ll come looking for me, but I won’t tell this to the twenty-something on the phone, who’ll be looking for her next job in a week or so. “
Can you transfer me to”—I take his card in my hand—“I’m looking for Parole Officer Robert Black?”
“One moment, please.”
Mr. Black doesn’t pick up the phone, so I leave a quick message. I leave the important stuff—my fictitious name, the reason for my call, Brett’s name, his prison identification number, and the most important question, his release date.
“It’s hard to convict,” the State of Ohio explained before we went to court. “But, with your testimony,” they explained, using words like great bodily injury and history of abuse, “hopefully, we can get a conviction.”
The scariest word they used was hopefully.
I push my phone across the counter. Give myself space. The fear moving down toward the pit of my stomach. I wish, somehow, I could put all my fears in a jar and leave them be.
Lilly ran upstairs with her make-believe friend, Shelby, to grab a snack real quick.
The bell to the bookstore rings.
Looking up, I see his hat first, and I smile.
Will takes off his hat and holds it over his chest as he makes his way to the counter. He does something between a shuffle and a slow-paced walk. The look on his face isn’t for his own sake. “Lydia, are you all right? You’re white as a ghost.”
“One day.”
“What?”
“One day, I’ll be all right.” I change the subject. “Good to see you back.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.” He’s methodical with his words. “I’m real sorry for leaving the way I did the other day.” His eyes bore into mine as if honesty is always at the forefront of his mind. Will seems like that type of man.
“No apology necessary, Will.” I shake my head, straightening some handouts for a music event later this month.
Concern—no, it’s not concern. It’s maybe protectiveness. Protectiveness colors the lines that run horizontally from his eyes. An even deeper black in the crow’s-feet. His nimble fingers, clean nails, white nail beds nervously move along the bill of his hat. But Will’s face never gives off nerves. His demeanor is cool, easygoing, like a jazz saxophone player after a great set or a humble man after delivering a well-received keynote address. But, the other day, I did see nerves. I did see something I’d never seen before in him.
Lilies on Main (The Granite Harbor Series Book 4) Page 13