by Danes, Ellie
It had left a disgusting taste in my mouth, but that was easily remedied when I decided to study out in the courtyard behind the apartment. I soon forgot all about Reginald Briggs, the almost doctor, while watching Dalton lift weights through the window in the apartment gym facilities that looked out into the courtyard.
It seemed five other women from upstairs had coordinated their schedules to work out at the same time as Dalton. I watched them all greedily eat up the visual of him seated in front of the free-weights, his elbow set against his knee while he slowly lowered a barbell down in between his thighs and then back up. Sweat from his arm inched its way down the veins of his thick forearms, finding their way onto the metallic surface of the weights.
I tried to turn my focus back to my studies, but Dalton did not make it easy for me. When he was done doing curls, he sauntered over to the water fountain and splashed himself on the face and back of his neck, soaking the neckline of his t-shirt even further. He threw some water on his forehead, getting the brown hair that fell over his ears wet. He shook his hair dry like a dog, then wiped himself down with one of the white gym towels.
He grabbed a water bottle from one of the cubbies in the gym, and made his way out into the courtyard to cross back through toward his apartment. I could tell four of the five women working out alongside him had only been in the gym to watch his routine because they started packing up to leave the second he stepped outside. I casually looked back to the textbook on my lap and turned the page even though I had yet to read anything off of the previous one. I glanced back up as Dalton passed, pretending to notice him for the first time, and he nodded politely at me as he continued walking. The sweat at the bottom of his shirt caused the fabric to cling to his lower back and drew my eye as he passed, but I had to suddenly avert my eyes and pretend that I hadn’t been staring when Dalton hesitated at the door to go inside the apartment complex and turned back around to me.
“You’re not one of my fangirls, are you?” he chuckled, gesturing with a nod of his head back through the window at the four girls hurriedly evacuating the now Dalton-less environment. He sidled back up to where I sat, slipping a hand into his pocket and taking on a suave pose. He was trying to look confident, but I laughed.
“No,” I said, and I could see that Dalton enjoyed my answer. “How much did you have to pay those ladies to work out with you and make you look so sought-after?”
“A thousand each. They said they wanted hazard pay.” He chuckled to himself. Even though we were poking fun at his expense, he seemed to not have a care in the world. “I saw you come out here while I was on the treadmill. Studying for a test?”
“One could call it that, or one could call it syphoning out one’s brain through the ear canal until one’s skull holds nothing but ash and soot.”
“Sounds quite pleasant,” he said with a laugh, “but please refrain from draining your brain in the courtyard or I’ll be forced to clean you up when you get messy.”
“Don’t bother, just let the rain wash me down some drain.” I sighed, closing my book and rubbing my eyes.
I hadn’t been sleeping very well the past few days, and it wasn’t only because I kept myself up late at night massaging my hands over my body and imaging Dalton had his own hands over me. His hands were so close yet so far away on the other side of the wall in between our two rooms every night. I was also losing sleep because I honestly hated everything about getting my MBA and everything involved with the track my father had planned for me. My entire apartment was suffocating because I was constantly reminded that I was stuck there because of my father, and it made it so I couldn’t sleep. I was too uncomfortable in my own skin, because I was living someone else’s life.
I looked up at Dalton and said, “I can’t wait until I’m just done with it and I can start the next step, tick off the next box in the checklist.”
“You really don’t like where you’re going, do you?”
“No, I really don’t. The only thing I could ever invest this much effort into and actually enjoy no matter how much it beat me into the ground is painting. I could forgo sleep, food, and sex for weeks working on a painting. I would live in a cardboard box to afford art school if I had to, instead of going to school for this work that I dread but my father loves…but it doesn’t matter because it’ll never happen.”
“Who told you that? It just plain isn’t true.” Dalton came over and took my textbook out of my lap.
It took hearing it from somebody else to actually take a step back and pose the question to myself. Who had told me that? Nobody had, not even my father. It was just a voice I had ingrained into myself.
Dalton opened my textbook and continued his thought, “I mean, look at this, you understand all of this? I almost feel like I’m reading another language here, but you understand all of this because you work your ass off and get yourself wherever you want to go.” He handed me back my textbook. “You, Brittany Wellington, have just convinced yourself you’re not allowed to steer.”
“Said the man working for his father when he probably has enough money of his own to do whatever he wants and give his father the finger,” I shot right back at him. Even though what he said had calmed me down, I didn’t want him to see how attracted to him and how much I wanted to embrace him, so I decided to point out the contradiction between his wise words and his life choices.
“Touché.” He feigned clutching his stomach as if I’d gutted him with a spear, which made me giggle. He chuckled along with me. “Actually, I work for my father because I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything, Dalton Jones, that you don’t want to. You have a choice in everything you do in life.” I affected my voice to sound like his, smiling as I teased him.
“I mean, I really don’t have that much,” he said. “A lot of it is tied up with my father’s money. It’s a long story, but something that happened to me in the past…well, something I did makes it so he has all of my money until I’m either granted access by him, I get married, or I become a partner in my father’s business. Two of those won’t happen, so the only actual way is for me to get married to someone my father approves of and only if I court her exactly as he prescribes. There’s also a lot I’m not allowed to do. You could say I’m in debt to my father until I prove myself. But I don’t care about getting access to the money, I just don’t want him to kick me out. This is the only place I can afford to live.” He shook his head and pinched the top of his nose between his eyebrows, squeezing his eyes shut as he took a deep breath.
I wanted to stand up and squeeze him. I had no idea he had this much financial stress on himself. I refrained from giving him any physical comfort, knowing that I could spook him in his current vulnerable state. He had shared something heavy with me, and I knew that he had kept this secret guarded where he didn’t want anyone to see. Yet, the details he’d omitted made me wonder how dark the rest of his secrets were, and he seemed like a wild animal his father kept caged in this building. It was almost as if he were a young rebel fresh from dropping out of college, breaking into homes just to sleep on a couch for the night, and he was only staying in the building until he could hitchhike and catch the next van leaving for anywhere-but-here, working on the road to feed himself as he went.
“You’re still choosing to live here,” I said gently. “You don’t have to follow the path your father has laid out for you; you’ve just convinced yourself that it’s the only way possible.”
“Said the girl following the path her father laid out for her and is convinced it’s the only path possible,” he quipped back. “You’re right though, we both need to stop listening to our fathers.” Suddenly, Dalton seemed to be standing up straighter, the tension in his brow and shoulders gone, and a confident smile had settled beneath his nose. “I want to take you out to dinner tomorrow night, at eight o’clock. I can’t take you anywhere nice, like I was just explaining I’m not as gold plated as I may seem, but I can take you somewhere decent with a top notch at
mosphere. Would you want to go eat somewhere like that with me?”
I could hear my father in my head, saying, “Don’t dash your future for this derelict.” I could also hear Talia’s voice, whispering, “Why not?”
“As professional apartment manager and his tenant, you mean?” I asked.
“No, this is a date.” He gave off such a calm and commanding air, completely sure of his words.
My decision had already been made. Probably before he’d even asked. “Then yes, that does sound like something I’d enjoy very much.”
Chapter 13
Dalton
My father’s assistant arrived in front of the building at eight o’clock in the evening since I had arranged for him to check in on me earlier than originally planned so that I could take Brittany out tonight. He had reluctantly agreed, obviously not pleased that I had rescheduled. I made up an excuse about going to a support group for managing anger—a bold-faced lie I hoped my father’s assistant wouldn’t double check the validity of. After answering a gamut of questions the assistant had for me, I left him parked outside to go in and prepare for my date with Brittany.
When it got closer to the time that I told Brittany to meet me, I peeked out the window to make sure that my father’s assistant had left and didn’t catch me leaving with Brittany on my arm. My heart sank as I spotted him still waiting outside of the building, presumably to take note of which direction I left for the meeting I had fibbed about.
Thinking quickly, I jogged outside after making sure Brittany was not in the hall yet and pretended as if I was leaving the building in sight of my father’s assistant, waving as I went to be positive he had seen me. I walked a couple blocks until I felt positive I’d given him enough time to confirm that I had left and he himself had gone on his way. As I snuck back to the apartment, I saw that the car still sat in full view of the entryway doors. That was not good.
I checked my watch, noting to myself that I had five minutes before Brittany expected me at her door, and I sprinted back the way I had come so that I could double back to the other side of the apartment building without being seen by my father’s assistant. I reached the black door which opened up to the apartment courtyard as an access point for tenants needing to deposit their trash in the outside bin. I knew where all the cameras were pointed, and I also knew there was a window to the gym that was in the blind spot of two cameras. A few days ago, I had ordered another camera to fix the hole in security, and I silently thanked my luck that it hadn’t arrived yet.
I was also lucky that one of the tenants who was always in the gym when I was exercising had opted to partake in a solitary workout today, as the gym was empty except for her. I lightly tapped on the glass and, with some awkward fibbing about testing the security, managed to convince her to unlock the window allowing me to crawl through. I bent down on my way through the courtyard to avoid the prying eyes of the cameras and picked a rose and some lavender I had been caring for.
When I got to Brittany’s door, I realized I had to scheme some way to get back out the building without being seen by my father’s assistant, the security cameras, and also without drawing Brittany’s attention to the fact that I was using one of the windows as a door. I lightly knocked and held my makeshift bouquet at my side. When she opened the door, her own lavender scent reached out to caress my face as I drank in the sight of her. She had on a beautiful gown. The thin straps held snug over her collar bone and came down near the top crest of her breasts where the neckline started and clung tightly to the peak of her curves as if it could slip off at any moment. The tightness of the fabric went down to just below her breasts, where the dress boasted a hole in the fabric to show off her belly button. The rest of the dress hung down to her ankles in ruffles, its burnt orange color seemingly ablaze as it loosely danced from the breeze she caused coming to the door.
“You look absolutely breathtaking,” I managed to say, holding out the flowers I had picked for her.
Her face had lit up bright the minute she had opened the door, and now that she was holding the flowers I had given her, it flushed into a deep shade of crimson. “Did you grow these?”
“I may have encouraged them along,” I said, not wanting to relinquish the fact that I had planted them with her in mind a few days after she first moved in.
She brought the flowers inside of her apartment to deposit them into a vase.
Seeing an opportunity, albeit a small one, I leaned into her apartment and called out to her. “I have to take a maintenance call really quick, meet me outside in the back of the building?”
Before she could answer, I sprinted back to the gym and leaped out the unlocked window, shutting it behind me. Making sure I was out of sight from the security cameras, I walked to the other side of the street and brought out my phone to complete the charade.
Brittany soon met me outside. She seemed a bit confused, but she didn’t press me on the matter as I pretended to hang up the phone as she approached me. She had put on a jacket that also only fell to the top of her belly button, and I could hear the tap of her high heels as she stepped with confidence against the sidewalk. Ashamed I had lied to her, I vowed to myself that I would eventually confess to her my lie, and all my other secrets with it.
“Do we need to fix someone’s refrigerator before we leave, Mister Manager?” Brittany moved a strand of her blond hair away from where it had gotten caught against her eyelashes.
“Mister Manager is now officially off-duty,” I said, visibly turning my phone off.
She grinned mischievously, deciding to do the same. Then she reached out her arm for me to link with, and I walked her down to a local mead shop. I offered to buy her drink for her, and she refused at first but eventually let me pay for both our glasses of mead. I couldn’t afford much else after that so instead of getting a second, we ordered some food and found a secluded table in the corner as a local guitarist and singer crooned to us from a stage.
Not once during the entire date did my mind drift to the stress of my work at the apartment building or my father, and not once did my inner shadow bubble up to derail me. Brittany didn’t make me feel like my father did, or any of the other tenants, or really anyone for that matter. She didn’t make me feel broken, as if I was a sick dog in need of rehabilitation. Even the man in the mirror made me feel like a sky bird trapped in a fish world. Not Brittany. As we laughed together and teased each other, shared our stress and opened up about what kept us awake at night, I felt as if she already knew my dark secrets and that we had been partners in crime since day one. I felt comfortable in my own skin around her, as if my ugly scars had been washed away under her knowing, familiar gaze.
“I haven’t felt this free in a long time,” she said to me as we walked down a sidewalk in the international district. We each had an ice cream in one hand and linked our free hands together.
“A very long time,” I agreed.
She gave my fingers a squeeze, the heat and pressure from her hand igniting something in me. We finished our ice cream cones and turned a corner to enter a park on the way back home, and almost ran into a group of graffiti artists decorating the sidewalk. This particular group of artists were rendering a large piece of art with gold colors that reflected the lamps keeping the park company at night.
“That is my favorite painting,” Brittany whispered. It was a painting I knew of, also, one of the few I could actually name by its title. It had been the favorite of a woman I used to love a long time ago. It was called The Kiss.
“Mine, too,” I decided in that moment. I looked over at Brittany to catch her reaction and found her looking up at me. Her eyes were wide, almost as if she was both deathly afraid and extremely happy at the same time. Her expression slammed against my heart with a ferocity I didn’t expect.
My breath came faster. We had still been holding hands, but I let her fingers slowly slip out of mine as I brought up my arms to take her face in my palms. I started to lean in without intending to; my body acted
of its own accord.
As I leaned in, her eyes closed and she lifted her chin upwards in anticipation. Her mouth hung slightly open, and she nervously wet her lips with her tongue. I closed my eyes as I got close enough to feel her hot breath against my lips, remaining for a moment in the electricity caused by being so close and yet not quite touching.
I held there for quite some time, the sound of spray cans hissing next to us as our lips brushed against each other. When the tension was too much for me to stand, I covered the final distance her lips and inhaled sharply as blood rushed through my entire body. I couldn’t help but lightly bite her lower lip as she brought her hands to my lower back and let them drift to the top of my ass. We stood there, our lips locked, and I forgot everything else, everything except for her.
When it was over, I opened my eyes and for an instant was transported to my past. Brittany resembled somebody I used to know, another woman who was able to break through the walls I’d surrounded myself with. But this woman who Brittany reminded me of was someone lost to the past, someone from a time when I was a completely different person. I placed those thoughts out of my mind and once again saw Brittany without comparing her to anyone else.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at me before resting her head against my chest and squeezing me gently. I wanted to enjoy this moment without marring it by being reminded of another woman, the only other woman I had ever fallen for, but the fact that this whole thing felt familiar and that Brittany had uncanny similarities to this woman from the dark times in my past was a red flag for me.
I shook off the feeling of alarm bells in my head. The date had been perfect and Brittany had made me feel free and like myself again, so I attempted to ignore my trepidation. Yet, it wouldn’t dissipate completely no matter how hard I tried.
“You’re trouble, you know that?” Brittany said to me.