“Phoebe Mackenzie, daughter of Sam Mackenzie, granddaughter of Silas Mackenzie, club president of the Dixie Wardens MC, Benton, Louisiana chapter,” I answered. “Did you want my social security number and driver’s license, too? Or will what I’ve already given you suffice?”
They all blinked, and I heard the sweetest laughter come from the man beside me. I doubted the others heard it, it was so low, but it was music to my ears.
“I’m not sure why you think you’re hot shit because you’re a president’s granddaughter, but you’re not,” the girl on the left said, crossing her arms tightly over her ample chest.
She had to be about eighteen or so, because she was tall and voluptuous while still retaining her young, baby face.
“I’m not hot shit,” I admitted. “I’m a Mackenzie. You asked who I was, so I told you.”
The girl on the right scoffed. “And you know nothing. He doesn’t talk because he doesn’t comprehend. I googled his affliction.”
I tilted my head to the side.
“Hey, you,” I said to the man. “You understand everything they say, don’t you?”
The man nodded. “I do.”
One of the girls gasped, while the boy started to laugh.
“Fuck you, Hoax,” he muttered.
“Sorry, Benson,” the boy who wasn’t a boy at all, but a young man like Benson, said. “It’s just so fuckin’ annoying listening to you not say anything while they tear you to shreds. These bitches were going on and on about you, and I wanted to see how far they could stick their feet into their mouths.”
The tall man—Benson—shrugged. “It’s easier to allow them to think what they want than to correct them and be required to explain my situation.”
Hoax grumbled something under his breath and left without another word, leaving the two girls gaping at him as he went.
I snorted in laughter at the look of affront on the girls’ faces. “What, it doesn’t feel good to be called names?”
The two left without another word, and I contemplated asking the man what the hell, but decided if he wanted to talk to me, he would.
Instead, I went back to my book, and got another eight pages in before Benson started to talk.
“I do have Asperger’s. I’m not dumb, though.”
I looked up sharply to see him staring at something over my left shoulder.
I turned around to see if there was anything there, but there wasn’t.
Just a dark back area in the helicopter that I hadn’t had a chance to explore yet.
Turning back around, I said, “Are you talking to me?”
His eyes skittered to my eyes, then immediately looked away. “Yes.”
I nervously started to fiddle with my necklace—a silver star-shaped necklace with fake Swarovski diamonds on it.
His eyes immediately fixated on the necklace.
“Then what did you want?” I asked.
“I wanted nothing. I was explaining myself,” he said.
“I never thought you were dumb,” I told him.
He blinked. “Oh.”
He still hadn’t looked back at me, though.
“And you should stick up for yourself, or they’re going to do that every time they see you,” I said. “That’s incredibly rude of them, but they are members of society. They should act like they’re not assholes, and you should call them on it if they are.”
His mouth twitched. “I’ve found it easier not to say a word when it comes to me. It only invites them to ask questions.”
“And what’s wrong with them asking you questions?” I questioned. “Asking questions is a sign of intelligence. That, and maybe they really are trying to get to know you better.”
He shrugged. “Thanks, Fancy. But I think I’ll just keep to myself like I’ve been doing. It’s worked well for me.”
“Fancy?” I asked, pausing at playing with my necklace as I watched his eyes become more and more fixated. “Did you just call me Fancy?”
Keeping my hand on the star-shape, I waited for him to answer my question.
His eyes followed the movement, now staying fixated not on my hand fiddling with my jewelry anymore, but elsewhere.
In fact, it wasn’t the necklace at all that he was staring at. It was the tattoo on my wrist.
“You have a tattoo,” he said, ignoring my question.
I brought my forearm down and glanced at my wrist.
“I do.”
“I like it,” he admitted. “But aren’t you a little young to be having a tattoo?”
I grinned and said, “Yes. But my father signed a waiver saying I could get it, and it was done by a family friend. My mom about died of a coronary, though.”
“Why’d you get that particular design?” he asked, sounding so interested in the answer that it was hard not to tell him everything.
“We have hummingbirds at our place,” I said. “From about May to October, they’re all over the place. We started feeding them when I was a young girl, and I’ve loved them ever since. I can’t really explain. I just liked it. Why?”
He shrugged, not answering me.
Then the silence continued for long enough for me to pull my e-reader back out and finish the chapter before he spoke again.
“I’m not normal.”
I clicked my e-reader off and looked up at him with a frown. “What do you mean you’re not normal?”
“I’m not normal,” he repeated. “I’m not mentally retarded, however.”
“Let’s not say that word anymore,” I suggested. “And why do you feel like you have to justify yourself?”
He shifted in the darkness and came to lean near the front of the aircraft.
Now, partially out of the shadows, I could make out more of his face and eyes. Though those eyes still wouldn’t meet my own.
Hazel, I decided.
They weren’t completely gray. Or green. More like mostly gray, with a ring of green, and a hint of blue around the pupils.
He had eyelashes that were longer than mine.
And those lips. They were surrounded by a few days’ worth of scruff that came in surprisingly well for how young he was. All the men that I knew that were his age were still trying to be cool and grow beards, but all they ended up growing were little patches of hair here and there that looked scragglier than anything else. Benson didn’t have that problem.
He had a scar on his right eyebrow that ran the length of it, denoting an injury—and likely a pretty bad one—of some kind that was lucky enough to be hidden by his brow.
He had a nose that was crooked, likely due to a break, but other than those two things, he really was quite striking.
His brown hair framed his beautiful face, and I wanted to brush a few strands of it off his forehead and away from his eyes.
He stayed silent for so long, allowing me to inspect his face, that at first, I wasn’t sure if he was paying attention to me.
But finally his eyes flicked to mine—our gazes connecting for a few long seconds—and I knew he was more than aware of my inspection of him.
“So what is this disease you have?” I questioned.
I mean, I vaguely recollected hearing the word before, but the meaning of the statement didn’t immediately come forth.
“It’s a mild form of autism,” he said, his eyes skittering to mine before immediately falling away.
I had a feeling that he physically couldn’t make himself hold my gaze.
Was that part of his problem?
Suddenly I wanted to google it in front of him just to find out what it was.
“Just do it.”
I blinked. “Just do what?”
“Google it,” he answered. “It’s easier than explaining to someone what’s wrong with me.”
I pulled out my smashed-up phone and did just that, clicking on the first article that I saw.
“When you meet someone with Asperger’s you might notice tw
o things,” I started reading aloud but quickly trailed off as my eyes flew across the page.
Basically, the article started off with saying that Asperger’s wasn’t a death sentence. It was a diagnosis that pretty much explained that people with that condition had trouble mostly with social skills. On top of that, they could become obsessed with things.
I looked back up at him to see his brows furrowed and his hands clenched.
His mouth was moving fast, and I could hear him counting if I focused hard enough.
“Why are you counting?” I questioned.
“My psychologist said that when I want to do something I probably shouldn’t do, I should find a way to distract myself.” He paused in his counting. “Did you finish the article?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, and my curiosity got the best of me. “Why do you want to distract yourself?”
His shoulders seemed to slump. “Did you know that a hummingbird’s wings beat from seven hundred twenty times to five thousand four hundred times a minute depending on their species?”
I tilted my head. “No. What are the ones that come down here?”
“There are fifteen different breeds that come down here,” he answered. “Did you know that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward?”
My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “That hummingbird on your wrist is a ruby-throated male. The females are green backed with white, black and gray tail feathers.”
I looked down at my wrist and examined the tattoo. “I liked this one in particular and happened to get a picture of it. One morning I got up and he was dead on my back porch. I was really sad.”
“Hummingbirds only live three to five years,” he said. “Maybe he’d outlived his lifespan.”
I smiled at his attempt to protect me. “I’m fairly sure it hit the glass door really hard,” I admitted. “We’d opened the blinds and I had hung up a really pretty flower right above the door. I’m fairly sure it was my fault that he died.”
“Possibly,” he answered. “They’re attracted to red.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Thanks, Sherlock,” I muttered.
He frowned. “Who’s Sherlock?”
I remembered reading in the article that people with Asperger’s had trouble understanding jokes and sarcasm.
“I was teasing you,” I said.
“Oh.” He frowned. “Why?”
“Because you were supposed to make me feel better about killing the bird, not tell me that it probably was my fault,” I admitted.
He opened his mouth and then closed it. “Shit.”
I giggled.
“How do you know so much about hummingbirds?” I questioned.
He reached out and touched my wrist. Once. Twice. Three times.
On the third, he pulled away, and actually looked like he was relieved to have done it.
“I like birds,” he admitted. “They’re entertaining to watch.”
I grinned. “All right then, tell me why you like birds so much.”
And so he did. He talked about it for a good, long ten minutes before he frowned and stopped in the middle of a sentence.
“Hawks have really keen eyesight for…what?” I pushed.
He frowned. “I didn’t mean to go on and on about it.”
I waved it away. “If I had a problem with what we were talking about, I would’ve said something.”
He seemed to think about that for a long moment, and then nodded once.
“I’m going to join the Army,” he randomly said.
I blinked. After what he’d just disclosed to me, how the hell did he think he could handle being in the Army?
Honestly, I didn’t see a way that he was going to accomplish that.
“Ummm,” I hesitated. “Excuse my bluntness, but how the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish that? From what I understand, people with Asperger’s thrive on routine. I’m fairly sure there’s no routine at all in basic training.”
He swallowed. “I can’t stay here.”
Before I could ask what he meant by that, my sister’s voice raised, and all of a sudden, I saw the man that I was talking to go from a quiet-toned man to a pissed off bear that stood up straight. If he’d had hackles, they would’ve been raised.
Then I watched him stomp his way over to where my sister was and pull the other girl into the curve of his arms. He glared at my sister as if she’d just committed the ultimate sin.
“Don’t ever speak to her that way again,” he growled.
The girl’s eyes narrowed on my sister, and she sneered.
I wanted to poke her eyes out with a dinner fork.
But not because she was mean to my sister—my sister could handle her own self. Because she was snuggling deeper into Benson’s arms, and something inside of my chest was throbbing with anger and jealousy.
I was jealous as hell that she got to have his hands on her. The one and only brief touch that I’d had to my wrist as he’d touched the hummingbird tattoo was enough for me to crave more.
But, when Benson led the girl away, farther away from me and my sister, I realized that it didn’t matter.
I was fifteen and he was who knows how old. It wouldn’t work anyway.
Unfortunately, I never stopped thinking about him, regardless of what I told myself.
***
Phoebe, Age 16
I looked for him the moment that I got into the door.
I didn’t know what it was, a compulsion, maybe. Whatever the reason for why I’d sought him out, I couldn’t stop myself.
I’d thought about him constantly since I’d seen him last year, and wondered how he was doing.
Hell, I even wondered if it was possible that he was even here since he’d joined the Army.
That, I knew for certain, he had done. I’d asked about him in passing, hopefully not drawing attention to myself in the process.
And I’d gotten relieved ‘yes, he dids’ from Dixie and my grandfather alike.
We were once again back at the hangar—a place where we ended up having quite a bit of our family get-togethers lately.
Unfortunately, this time there was no helicopter to sit in, so I chose the next best thing—a plane.
I didn’t buckle myself in this time. I did flick a few switches up and down a few times just to see what they did. What could I say, I was getting wild in my old age.
“Statistically, one of those will do something and you’re going to find yourself getting into trouble.”
I blinked at that smoky, edgy male voice and looked up.
Right into the face of the man I’d been thinking about non-stop for a year.
How had he gotten there, right next to me, without me being aware?
I smiled. “Hello, Benson.”
Being in the Army agreed with him. He’d put on muscle, and now his freakishly tall body was filled out.
He’d changed a lot since I’d last seen him, and I was more than amazed at how good he looked.
He also held himself differently.
“Hello, Fancy.”
I rolled my eyes at that name.
“Why Fancy?” I asked.
He ignored the question and, once again, he didn’t make eye contact.
“You got another tattoo,” he said.
I looked down at the other wrist and smiled. “I didn’t want to have a male and not a female, so yeah. I got a female.”
He studied it.
Then, one large, tanned finger came out and poked it. Three times.
My heart skipped a beat.
“So how is the whole Army thing?” I asked, trying to make sense of the touch while also not making too big of a deal of it.
I’d spent the last year researching Asperger’s, and I knew that the compulsion to do something was sometimes too strong t
o ignore for people diagnosed with it.
“Bad,” he admitted. “At least in the beginning. So, so bad. There was a routine, but only they knew what was next. It made no sense to me. None of it. People screamed at you. It was…awful.”
I winced. “But?”
His eyes briefly flicked to mine and immediately flitted away again.
“I got a good drill instructor,” he admitted. “His brother had Asperger’s, and he saw the signs and symptoms almost immediately.”
“And he let you stay?” I asked in surprise.
He nodded once. “Covered for me, too. I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it.”
I shook my head in surprise. “That’s amazing.”
“It was. I scored a perfect score on my ASFAB, too,” he admitted. “I think he knew that I was smart as hell, and he overlooked a few things. I even made a few really good friends. He helped me a lot. I never realized just how much I’d have to learn to rely on another person, which is definitely not in my repertoire at all. It could’ve been fucking awful, yet he caught me before I could be pounded into a million tiny pieces.”
I smiled. “What about the loud noises? None of that bothered you?”
I remembered my father talking about his boot camp experience, and I wasn’t sure how that worked.
“Surprisingly, once I got the hang of it, none of it bothered me.” He hesitated. “I think that was due in part to how structured it was. Once I figured out the day to day plans for what we were going to do, it got easier. There was a time and place for everything.”
“And how did you do with the being screamed at bit?” I wondered.
He winced. “That was how Drill Sergeant O’Malley found out at first,” he laughed. “He was in my face, screaming his head off, and I was looking around wild-eyed. When he told me to meet his eyes, I did and started to freak out more. He told everyone to drop down and do push-ups until I could make eye contact with him. I think the worry that I’d be outed as different freaked me out more than making eye contact, so when I did, he saw the wildness in my eyes. Jesus, that was a fuckin’ mess.”
I shook my head. “I knew it would be.”
He laughed. “It was. You were right. I might’ve should’ve listened to you.”
I tilted my head in surprise.
“I…”
“Hey there, stupid.”
My back stiffened at the hateful words.
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