Hell on Heels

by Anne Jolin

  I smirked at the closed door. Charleston, one.

  Bypassing the kitchen, I didn’t turn on any lights and walked directly towards the bedroom. Losing both my coat and my jeans along the way, I unhooked the back of my bra and tossed it somewhere into the abyss that was my floor. Padding half asleep into the bathroom, I turned on the shower and removed the rest of my clothes.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  I looked at my naked reflection in the mirror and widened my eyes.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  “Hold your horses. Jesus,” I muttered, and grabbed the kimono from the back of the door.

  I slid it over my arms as I moved, wrapping it around my middle as I hit the living room.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  “I’m coming!” I hollered, doing up the tie on my robe.

  The knocking started again, and now, a little pissed off and a lot tired, I threw the deadbolt back and yanked the door open.

  “What?” I yelled into the wall of Maverick’s chest.

  He growled. “Did you even look to see who it was?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What are you doing back here?”

  He held a pair of women’s sorrels with the cute fur around the top up to my face. “You left your shoes in the car.”

  “Oh.” I grabbed them and tossed them onto the floor behind me.

  “You’re messy.” He shook his head.

  I scowled. “You’re rude.”

  He smiled.

  “Well, goodnight. Thanks again.” I slammed the door and flipped the lock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  “Oh, for the love of God!” I stomped back down the hall, threw the lock again, and almost fell backwards when the door was pushed in.

  He stalked towards me.

  “You’ve slapped me and slammed the door in my face,” he snarled. “Twice.”

  “You deserved it,” I shot back like the spoiled brat he thought I was.

  My sleepiness evaporated completely when he smiled.

  It was the kind of smile hunters made right before they fired their rifles.

  I tripped over my boots as I tried to retreat, but he caught me around the waist and flung my back against the wall. I hit it hard. My hands shot out to steady myself and were met by his massive chest as it crowded me.

  He pushed his hips into my stomach and his cargo pants scratched at my bare thighs.

  My breathing spiked and pulse eradicated.

  One of his rough hands slid up my arm and wrapped around the front of my throat possessively.

  “Are you afraid of me?” He asked it like he was making a threat.

  I leaned into his hand around my neck. “No,” I spat.

  And I wasn’t.

  Maverick treated me like I was unbreakable.

  He was the wild high, unpredictable and ravaging.

  There wasn’t another high like him.

  “Good.”

  His lips slammed down on mine and I dove forward to greet them.

  I bit and he growled.

  My arms snaked around his neck as our mouths went to war.

  I would push, and he would shove me back into the wall.

  We played dirty and I liked it.

  His hand on my throat squeezed as I wrapped one of my legs around his hips.

  Our bodies couldn’t get close enough.

  My skin burned.

  Releasing my throat, he grabbed my ass with both hands and lifted me into the air.

  I fell forward onto his chest, securing my legs around him, and he spun, knocking a tray off the table before slamming me into the adjacent wall.

  I pulled at his hair and he bit down on my lip.

  It was everything but nice.

  Kissing Maverick Hart was like rushing the gates of hell with a one-woman army.

  I didn’t stand a chance.

  My legs tightened like a vice around him and he groaned, ripping our mouths apart.

  He dropped me feet first onto the ground and started to back up.

  Then he was gone, out the door so quick I still could feel his stubble on my lips.

  I heard him growl, “Deadbolt,” from behind the copper.

  Dishevelled, I wandered to the door and locked it.

  Then his boots moved down the hallway and he was gone.

  Gone.

  I’d officially illuminated the No on my heart’s no-vacancy sign.

  It was full, full of three men.

  Have you ever seen inside the soul of a romantic?

  I suppose you haven’t; it is hardly for the faint of heart, because while love for a romantic is epic in its highs, the lows of love are sadly so very crippling. It would certainly not take educated eyes to see that. In fact, the soul of a romantic is indeed an expansive battleground of long-lost lovers and the futures that died with them.

  So, if you get a chance to see inside the beating heart of a romantic, I dearly hope you say no. It’s so very messy and, sadly, it’s a sight not forgotten by most.

  I knew I would never forget seeing inside hers.

  “Leighton, honey…” I whispered into my cellphone and leaned against the headboard of my California king. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I just… I… I thought he was…” she choked out.

  She had gone to Banff with Morgan for a romantic long weekend just the two of them. It should have been perfect for her, with the snow and the cozy fire. Instead, she came so close to love and it burned her. Again.

  “I know you did,” I cooed, and fisted my hands in my lap.

  Love was a blinding emotion, and Leighton loved with all she had, every time.

  “He’s married, Char! Married!” she shouted.

  That was the catch.

  Morgan had gone to shower. His phone rang, and like the good girlfriend she was, she answered.

  And spoke to his wife of six years.

  Leighton dumped the contents of his suitcase in the snow. Took the keys to their rental car and left Morgan in the shower without saying a word.

  She was now en-route to the airport.

  “He’s a pig.” I shook my head, climbing out from behind the covers.

  I knew technically as a rule you weren’t supposed to bad mouth someone’s ex to a certain extent, just in case your friend ever happened to get back together with them, but I figured in this case I was likely good to go.

  “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” she ragged on herself.

  “You’re not stupid,” I told her. “You want to believe the best in people and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  She scoffed. “I’m pathetic.”

  “Shut up. You’re not pathetic; you’re romantic.” I sat on the edge of my bed and dangled my legs over the side. “And yeah, sometimes that’s brutal—”

  “No shit,” she interrupted.

  “But sometimes it’s magical as fuck.”

  Leighton laughed.

  “I mean it,” I said as sternly as I could. “I couldn’t do that. Being romantic is not easy. Only tough people can handle that.” I heard her hiccup a sob. “And you’re tough people, Leigh.”

  “Thanks.” She didn’t believe me now, but she would be okay.

  She always was.

  She had a forgiving heart and a forgetful mind where men were concerned.

  “Listen, what time will you be in?” I asked.

  “Probably six, unless they delay the flight due to weather conditions.”

  I padded across the room and pulled a hoodie over my head. “I know it’s not our thing, but why don’t I go get a tree—”

  “The ugly Charlie Brown kind?” she interrupted again, and this time I laughed.

  She loved those stupid ugly trees.

  “Sure. We can decorate it and watch Saw or something.”

  “Okay.”

  Surviving heartache was the only state
in which Leighton ever agreed to watch horror movies with me. She’d come to believe in their properties of distraction much like I had.

  “Text me when you’re boarding?”

  “I will…” She paused. “Char?”

  I stopped at my open bathroom door and leaned against the frame. “Yeah?”

  “For what it’s worth, I think you really are trying.”

  My eyes welled and a lump formed in my throat. “Thanks.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Then she hung up.

  “See?” Henry said in my head. “We aren’t the same, Charlie bear. You’re getting better.”

  “Maybe,” I whispered into my bathroom.

  It was mid-December now, and Beau still wasn’t back from Calgary. There had been complications with his Dad’s surgery and he needed to be monitored around the clock. We exchanged text messages every few days, but mostly I tried not to bother him.

  Maverick, as per his usual nature it would seem, had been AWOL since our shotgun kiss.

  I’d thought about emailing him, but each time, I deleted the draft before it could send.

  There was so much in my head.

  My heart was starting to go awry this close to Christmas.

  Missing Henry seemed to get worse this time of year. We used to love the holidays as children, but when he got sick, that changed. He began to hate them. It seemed to be a reminder of his shortcomings, and he was never able to get past that. In fact, I think he suffocated in it. Being around us became too hard for him. All he saw were his own failures in our eyes.

  It was brutal to watch someone you loved be tortured before your very eyes.

  Since then, I’d grown not to hate the holidays, but to wish them gone quickly.

  The usual Saturday morning routine was lax in comparison to that of a weekday. I brushed my teeth, lazily applied the basic steps to my face—tinted moisturizer, eyebrow pencil, and a swipe of mascara—and pulled my un-brushed hair into a high ponytail.

  Snow had fallen overnight, and it blanketed the city in white through my window. I shrugged on a pair of blue jeans, no holes this time, a heavy wool sweater, and socks that looked like they belonged to a lumberjack, before shuffling into the kitchen.

  When I said I didn’t use my kitchen for anything other than reheating, that went for coffee too. I wasn’t even sure I owned a coffee pot. Therefore, I was in desperate need of a trip to the Starbucks down the street before I met Doctor Colby for my weekend session.

  She’d requested to continue seeing me once a week, but with the hectic holiday schedule at work, it was getting harder and harder to make it in during the week. So, for the month of December, we’d opted for Saturday morning sessions, and it had been working well thus far for the both of us.

  I tucked my jeans into my sorrels and zipped up my parka. My purse was on the breakfast bar and I scooped it up on my way out the door.

  Locking the door, I bypassed the elevator and pushed open the door to the stairwell. With the weather this cold, I wasn’t walking to as many meetings, and Emma enjoyed trying out her holiday recipes on the office staff, so my butt could really use the stairs.

  I was trying to locate my gloves in the black hole that I called a purse, when I heard his voice. “Hey.”

  My head snapped up.

  “What are you doing here on a Saturday?” I said, startled.

  He kept towards me. “Boss has us on overtime with the cold weather rolling in.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled lamely.

  The months had gone by without us speaking, and I expected him to pass me and continue on his way, but he didn’t.

  He climbed the stairs until he stood on the same landing as me. “How are you?”

  I fidgeted awkwardly while I watched him. “I’m fine.”

  Dean was wearing his usual, but with a twist. He’d exchanged the plaid shirt for a white thermal and had on a plaid work jacket open in the front. His muscular legs wore black jeans today, and they were shoved into steel-toe boots with the laces half undone.

  “That’s good.” He stepped towards me, and I unconsciously backed up a little. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  I winced. “You’ve been avoiding me, too,” I countered.

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve been hoping you’d come to me when you were ready.”

  “Oh.”

  “I see you could use a little push.” He leaned in closely. His lips hovered a mere inch from mine, our bodies closing the space between us, and the wall inside the stairwell.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  The words were new, but the gravel in his voice was familiar, though it had been years, as was the weight of his hand at the base of my neck and the prickle of anticipation that preceded it.

  My body recognized him.

  My heart missed him.

  My soul needed him.

  He still wore the same cologne, the smell not least of which incited a mere few dozen flooding episodes in the years after he left. It closed in around me as a result of our proximity, the ridge of my nostrils flaring with a mixture of panic and excitement, now that it was all I could breathe in.

  Lungs shaking, my tongue snuck out to wet my lips, deepening my inhale, and my heart spasmed.

  Dean pressed the wall of his hips into my stomach. I should’ve wanted to say something. I should’ve told him to stop. I should’ve told him this wasn't fair. I should’ve told him I wasn’t ready.

  His hand moved from the dip of my throat to the curve of my neck, edging our lips closer. So close I could faintly taste the black in his morning coffee.

  “I have a blue wallet,” I blurted.

  The crack in the air around us subsided, and in its ebb was something else entirely. Something new.

  “What?” he asked in disbelief against my lips.

  “I have a blue wallet.”

  Lifting his head a few inches, his eyes found mine. “Okay?”

  “When you left, and Henry—” One of the talons grief had around my heart squeezes and my sentence dropped off shortly after it had begun. “I retreated to the shadows of me after that, Dean.” I felt his body coil with tension against mine, but that was too bad. He needed to hear this, and more so, I needed to say it.

  I needed to explain the parts of me that I had managed to heal, and make no apologies for the ruthlessness in which I chose to protect them now.

  “I couldn't see colour. I couldn't appreciate colour… For years, I lived in varying shades of black, and then one day, I didn't. Little by little, I revived the coloured parts of me in tangible places where I would remember them.” The back of my head dropped against the wall. This way he could see all of my face when I told him, “The me after you took a long time to appreciate colour…but now I have a blue wallet.”

  “Now you have a blue wallet,” he repeated.

  I nodded. “And I can't give you or anyone else that part of me. She belongs to me.”

  His eyebrows pulled together. “I'll buy you a million blue wallets, Charlie.” The span of each of his rough palms cupped the sides of my face.

  Sighing, I closed my eyes. He didn’t get it. Wrapping my fingers around each of his wrists, I tugged them away and he let me.

  “Whenever you get done hurting me back, Charlie, I'll still be waiting.”

  Then he too was gone. I felt the chilled air replace his warmth and the heavy door to the stairwell open and close. My eyes eventually opened to the empty corridor, as I slid my back against the wall until my ass found the ground.

  Digging through my purse, I found what I was looking for and laid it in my lap. Turning it over once or twice, I admired the way the white polish on my nails contrasted perfectly with the leather.

  I’d bought it the day I remembered how good it felt to laugh. It was summer. I'd been walking through Stanley Park. Two boys were chasing their sister through the trees and one of them reminded me of Henry when we'd been young. They finally caught her, tickling
her ruthlessly into the grass, and the sound of their laughter was contagious.

  I’d laughed for the first time in years, and I mean really laughed. I’d laughed so hard my sides ached and tears trailed my cheeks.

  I bet I looked crazy, and I hadn't cared.

  The sky had been blue that day, just like my blue wallet.

  “So tell me about Beau.” Doctor Colby asked, “What draws you to him?”

  I drained the last of my venti caramel macchiato and positioned it onto the table. “It’s simple, really. I think something about him makes me feel accepted in my entirety.” She took notes as I spoke. “Beau is effortless.”

  “How do you mean, effortless?” she questioned.

  I twisted the lid of the empty cup. “You know how sometimes you just do something because it feels nice, it feels right, and feels like you’ve done it every day for your entire life?”

  Doctor Colby nodded. “You mean similar to a habit?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Beau is the good kind of habit. I find a serene part of my soul when we’re together, one that feels more whole.”

  She frowned. “Do you feel that he is what makes you whole?”

  This was a test, I knew that, but luckily the truth I knew would pass. “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe Beau makes me whole, but I believe that in his peace, I’ve found some of my own,” I told her.

  “Inner peace is a very rewarding feeling.”

  I nodded. “He just sees me, and with no explanation, he accepts that. It’s quite uncanny.”

  “Do you believe now that people are capable of so much more than an expendable high, Charleston?”

  Looking up from the cup, I moved my eyes over her office. “I’m trying too.”

  She seemed appeased with that.

  “And what about”—she glanced back a few pages in her notes—“Maverick?”

  My eyes rolled and she caught it. She caught everything. “What was that for, just now?”

  I sighed. “Maverick is… Well, he’s the very opposite. He’s difficult in every way.”

  “Do you enjoy that?”

  I drew my eyes to the framed photo on her desk. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Why do you think you enjoy that?” she asked.

  Crossing my legs, I then uncrossed them, my nervous therapy habit.

  The answer came to me quickly, however. “It’s just in his nature. He challenges me.”