Secondary Colors

by Aubrey Brenner

  “When can I see you again?” Aidan tilts his head against the frame of the open front door. I see him mentally putting me on a pedestal. Four years ago, this would’ve sent me over the moon. Now, after my time in the woods with Holt, I want to crawl under a rock.

  I don’t regret our kiss.

  And that’s the problem.

  “A few days. I’d like to spend time with my mom.”

  I’m not technically lying. I do want to spend time with Meredith. But I need space to figure out what’s going on with Holt before I see Aid again.

  “I’ll call you then.” Unrushed, he leans in and firmly places his lips on my forehead. “Goodnight, Evie.”

  When he leaves for his SUV, I shut the door and slope against it with a sigh. Relieved I finally have room to process everything that happened tonight.

  Sweet Aidan. It probably won’t go anywhere serious, but he’s a much better way to spend my summer than Holt. With that fresh mouth (as Hettie would call it), he barely has what normal people consider social skills. He pushes boundaries and makes me hair-tearing mad.

  Though—somewhere along the way, things changed. What would I have done about my car if it wasn’t for him? And he’s opened up to me more. Maybe not verbally as much as physically. It’s rare for him to speak beyond a quick-witted remark or a straightforward answer to a question. When he does, it’s a little piece of him given to me.

  Once in the seclusion of my bedroom, I kick off my shoes, slip out of my dress, and take off my underwear. I love the way the cool sheets cling to every insignificant line of my unclothed body. It’s divine on a hot summer night like tonight. I fling back the covers to slide in, and a gentle tap on my door stops me. Without thinking, I walk over to answer, nude as a newly born babe. I catch myself and toss my dress back on before opening up.

  “Wow,” Holt mumbles.

  His eyes wander down my body, loitering on my breasts. I glance down to see what he’s gawking at, my nipples are strained against the nearly translucent cotton of my dress. I hide them with my arms, but his hand clasps onto my wrist, stopping me.

  “Don’t,” he softly commands. “You wouldn’t cover a masterpiece, would you?”

  “No.” I twist my wrist from his hold and walk over to my bed, sitting on the edge. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to explain what happened earlier.”

  “No need. You had a momentary lapse in sanity and kissed me. I prefer not to relive it.”

  “Is that what you—” His words lag at the end until I can’t understand him.

  Within a sharp breath, he’s cradling me in his arms, our lips connecting so hard it’s almost like a body-awakening punch to the mouth. I’m surprised I didn’t chip a tooth.

  His breath is forced out through his nose, as he kisses me wildly. And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. His hands and mouth are all over me, no area left untouched. He doesn’t wait for permission to touch anything. He just does, taking me with a furious aching that verges on pain. Lips, neck, thighs, hips, waist, arms, breasts, nothing is off limits to him.

  “You taste like peaches,” he moans against my mouth.

  In a flash of recklessness, his mouth throws all logic out the window.

  With all his rough groping, the floss-like strap of my dress falls off my shoulder, exposing one of my breasts to him. The warmth of his strong hand cups it roughly. His free hand slides under the other, pushing it off so the top half of my dress hangs about my waist. He pushes me backwards into my door with a thud.

  While I’m lost in his hands and lips, the stairs creak under the strain of weight descending them.

  My mother.

  “Shhh,” Holt hisses against my lips, his turned up at the corners. I fight back a laugh.

  Once we hear her enter the kitchen, the door swinging back and forth before settling into place, he breathes out in relief, pressing my naked back into my door with his body.

  “I came here with a purpose,” he states lowly, covering me up, “but you distract me.”

  Using both of his hands against the door, he pushes himself away and moves over to my bed.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I planned on telling you what happened earlier shouldn’t happen again. But I saw your nipples through your dress and that plan was shot dead.”

  “What now?”

  “Fuck if I know.” The bridge of his nose scrunches. “Your mom’s been good to me, and I don’t want her to think my idea of payback is sneaking into her daughter’s room in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re a little late for that.”

  He ambles to the patio doors, his feet seemingly fighting him from leaving, opens one up, and stops.

  With his back turned to me, he whispers, “Evie?”

  “Yeah, Holt?” I respond, my voice mirroring the softness in his, noticing his name tastes different on my tongue now.

  His dark outline is bathed in moonlight through the glass panes of the door. “Sleep well.”

  Before I’m able to return a farewell, he disappears out the door and quietly shuts it behind him.

  “You, too, Holt,” I mutter, standing in the darkness of my room, staring at the empty space occupied by him an instant before.

  when structural support distorts

  or bends out of shape

  Meredith goes into town for the afternoon, something she usually does no more than a handful of times each month, but seems to be doing a lot more frequently since I’ve been back.

  Once she’s gone, I search out Holt.

  Since yesterday, everything is different between us. I’m not sure what he expects from any of this. This is one of the many things I hope to discover.

  It takes some time to locate him. When I do, he’s carrying a hay bale into the muggy stables from the barn. Specks of dander and hay dust dance in the thick heat. Shirtless and drenched in salty pearls, he takes the bundle into a stall, cuts the twine binding, and spreads the dried legume across the floor. He’s too engrossed with his work to notice me approach. He continues back to the barn for another bale. When he emerges again, I murmur, “Hey.”

  He stops, an unreadable expression straining his face.

  “Hey,” he says cautiously. “What’s up?”

  “Not much.” I dip my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, nervously swaying from side to side. It seems from the time it took me to get from the house to seeing his thought-killing face, I’d lost my balls. “The barn looks great. The whole property does.”

  Without a hint of sarcasm or arrogance, he utters, “I’m good with my hands.” He hauls the hay into the stables, dumps it next to the stall he enters, picks up a shovel, and scoops out the old straw.

  “Is there something you want? Or are you here for idle chit chat?”

  Flustered, my tongue ties into an impossible knot. I’m not one to act a lovesick goof in the presence of boys. I’ve never met a man who gave me shaky knees, not even Aidan.

  “I want to talk.”

  “That’s never good,” he states, going about his chores as if he were trying to avoid eye-contact with me.

  “It’s nothing like that. I was hoping to talk to you about last night.”

  “Can we do this later? I have a lot of work to get done before the end of the day.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I’m really confused by his attitude toward me. Not that I should be. One second, he can’t stand me. The next, he’s shoving me against a tree and kissing me like he was trying to steal my oxygen for himself.

  I stride away without pushing it further.

  Later that evening, while I’m cooking dinner, the phone rings in the front hall. After two rings, my mother picks it up. She speaks in a hushed tone to the person on the other end. Curious, I poke my head out of the doorway. She’s standing with her back towards me, her hand over her mouth so she’s harder to hear. I have to strain to listen.

  “Yes. This weekend,” she whispers. “I miss you, t
oo.” There’s a lightness in her voice. “I’m counting the minutes.”

  She hangs up without a goodbye and stands there silently. Before she finds me spying, I pop back into the kitchen and skip to the stove. She comes in and turns to the sink to wash dishes.

  “Who was that?”

  Dishes clatter in the sink.

  “It was your Aunt Margo,” she replies with a tremor.

  She’s lying. She loves her younger sister, but she would never talk to her with the loving tone she used.

  I play along.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s good.” Her voice cracks.

  Now I’m positive it isn’t my aunt. If it was, Meredith would go on and on about every minor (and major) thing I’ve missed. They are very close despite the fifteen year gap in age.

  “I’ll have to give her a call. It’s been forever since we last talked.”

  “Mm-hm,” she mumbles nervously.

  Getting weird calls, leaving for long periods of time, the change in her housekeeping and appearance.

  What is she hiding?

  Holt kept a distance after our encounter in the barn. I heard him come in and retreat upstairs while Meredith and I were cooking dinner, which ended up being very tense with the secrets hanging in the summer night air.

  After, I cleaned up and then went into my room to shower and call it a night, wanting to get a full eight hours of sleep. I was assigned an early shift the next day at the shelter and don’t want to be tired while handling the animals.

  Around midnight, I’m half-woken by movement in my bed. A warm mass presses against me, cradling me snuggly. Even in my sleep-induced daze, I know the weight of Holt’s body, the scent of his skin, the caress of his touch. I inhale a body-easing breath, smelling his unique fragrance of male musk, soap, and earth.

  I want to talk with him, ask him why he was standoffish this afternoon. Instead, I mumble, “Why did you push me away?”

  I sense the heaviness of sleep.

  “Because I want you,” he admits, “and I shouldn’t.”

  Holt’s gone when I wake. I’m not one hundred percent sure he was ever really here. I rise, dress, and journey into the kitchen to make myself tea. I’m met by a beautiful vision of Holt at the counter with his back towards me. His pajama bottoms sit where the lower back meets the round of his cute butt, revealing two dimples.

  He looks over his shoulder at me then turns around with a teacup and saucer in his hand.

  “You made me tea?”

  I’m flattered by the considerate thought.

  “You like the stuff, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I take the cup from him. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  When he strides past me, I open my mouth to speak, my bottom lip shuddering uncooperatively. “Holt,” I whisper in a broken voice, eager and terrified to probe him about us. When he turns back to me, the words catch on the tip of my tongue. “Never mind.”

  Confused by my clearly odd behavior toward him, “I’ll be back this afternoon,” he says and then exits the kitchen.

  I kick myself for losing my nerve…again.

  Tonight.

  I’ll talk to him tonight.

  When I arrive home after a long day at the shelter, I’m starving. I bathe, slip into a cozy change of clothes, and then cross the hall to scrounge for dinner. The aroma of bacon hits my nose, making my stomach gurgle. Holt glances up from dicing vegetables, the hard line of his lips cracking when his eyes rise to meet mine.

  I was expecting Meredith.

  Truthfully, I’m happy it’s him.

  I span the kitchen to the chopping block in the center of the room, picking up a piece of green bell pepper and popping it into my mouth.

  “What are you making?”

  “An omelet,” he answers, tossing a diced mushroom piece into his mouth. “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m so hungry I could eat an omelet.” I giggle when he glances up at me, one eyebrow raised. “Want help?”

  He nods his head.

  I gather the eggs and milk and butter from the fridge, cracking the eggs into a bowl with milk and whipping it vigorously until it’s well blended. He scoops the cubed peppers, mushrooms, and onions with his hands, dumping everything into the mixture. When the butter’s melted, we pour everything inside the pan.

  Once the liquid turns to a fluffy solid, he cuts it in half and serves it up with a toasted English muffin and bacon. We take our plates to the porch and eat without saying much besides the occasional, “This is delicious,” and “It’s a nice night out.” Other than that, we don’t force conversation, even though I really want to talk about what’s been going on between the two of us. I don’t want to define anything, but I’d like to understand his expectations of what he sees happening.

  “Are we going to keep avoiding what’s going on?” I ask once he’s taken his last bite, sitting back to let his food digest.

  “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  He chuckles into his orange juice.

  “I haven’t really thought about it. Have you been thinking about it, Evie?”

  He leans forward, a little too intrigued.

  “I—” My face flushes. My cheeks warm. “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea about us—this, I mean.”

  “What ideas should I not be getting exactly?”

  He’s doing this on purpose, trying to make me squirm. Sadly, it’s working.

  “Don’t you dare do that,” I warn him, placing my hands on the edge of the table and pushing myself away. I stand and stare down at him with fire in my eyes. “You can’t make me believe I’m making this all up. You kissed me first. You came to my room the other night. You—I don’t want you to think there’s anything going on between us.”

  “I don’t want anything between us either.” It’s exactly what I wanted, yet an ache tightens my chest when it comes from his mouth. I need to leave.

  “Good.” I try to sound as if I could care less, but it comes out snippy. I turn and step away from the table, ready to drown in self-pity when he rises from his chair, grabs my wrist, and pulls me into him. It’s so quick I’m rendered dumb.

  “I meant, I don’t want anything between us.”

  He brings his mouth onto mine with the same frenetic kiss as that night. His hands clasp to the indent of my waist, his strong fingers digging until the skin burns. Fighting to break from me, his lips stiffen, and his hands strain the hem of my shirt. He steals his lips away, pressing his forehead into mine with a deep breath. His hands remain on my hips, gripping on for dear life.

  He caresses his lips against mine. “Come to bed with me.”

  “To do what?”

  “Anything you want,” he kisses me again, as if his lips have been apart from mine far too long, “just come to bed with me.”

  I want to go to his bed. My body wants me to go to his bed, more than I’m used to, more than I’m comfortable with. He makes me need things, things he can give me. That’s exactly why I shouldn’t.

  “I—”

  “Anyone home?” Meredith calls from the hallway, the front door shutting behind her.

  “It’s not a good idea,” I say hesitantly, my feet trying to take a step back, his hands on my waist keeping me in place.

  “It’s a terrible fucking idea,” he agrees. “Say yes anyway.”

  “Hello?” she calls again, her voice becoming louder, clearer, closer. I make another attempt to step away from him before she catches us in an intimate embrace, but his hands remain resolute. “Evie baby, you home?”

  Crap.

  “It doesn’t define anything.” He reaches up to my face with one hand, touching my cheek with a gentle stroke. “Be mine tonight.”

  “Evie?” she calls again, nearing the kitchen.

  My resolve dissolves, and I nod in agreement, my eyes cast down at his chest.

  “Come to my room at midnight,” he whispers,
“once your mother’s gone to sleep.”

  Satisfied, he pulls away. And just in time, too. The screen door opens with a shrill whine, and my mother appears.

  “Oh, you’re out here,” she says, looking back and forth between the two of us. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  Holt clears our plates and whisks them inside.

  “Sorry, Mama,” I apologize. “We were finishing up dinner when you came in.”

  She stops me with a hand on my upper arm when I attempt to pass. “You seem to be getting along really well,” she observes.

  A blush washing over my face, I smile swiftly and continue into the house.

  The neon blue zeros taunt me.

  I struggle with my options. Stay in bed and pretend I don’t want to be up there with him. Or—

  I roll out of bed.

  By 12:02, I’m standing in front of the closed attic door, his door, with my fingers floating around the knob.

  I shouldn’t do this.

  Why am I doing this?

  What am I doing?

  Stop being a wuss.

  My fingers wind around the metal doorknob, hesitating to turn it. I attempt to locate where my balls went when the door opens and jolts me forward. I fall into Holt and grip my hands to his shoulders to keep myself from crumbling to his feet. His arm around my waist ensures that, too. Our mouths merge like a proton to an electron, a negative and positive charge attracting to each other by chemistry and instinct. They remain linked as he picks me up and climbs the stairs. On the final step, something cold and wet tickles my calves. I giggle against Holt’s mouth. We glimpse down at Max, staring up at us with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

  “Are you trying to ruin my game?” he asks the panting black Lab, setting me down but keeping his arms clasped around me. Max shoves his snout between Holt’s and my legs, separating them.

  “I guess so,” I reply with a laugh.

  “Go lay on your bed, Max.”

  Even though he’s not happy about it, he does as commanded, his big sad eyes moping back at Holt every shuffled step of the way. He circles the floor repeatedly before plopping down in his spot with a huff.