by Morgan Rae
I’ve got a second of down time so I go to Maya’s door. Though it’s technically one house, Maya more or less has her own separate wing—separate bedroom, separate bathroom, and her own workspace where she can study and write in peace. We share the kitchen, the laundry room, and the living room, so it’s not complete privacy, but this way she’s got a place to escape to when she wants to live her own life. Her attached door is beside the kitchen, complete with a doggy door for T-Bone to run through, and I knock on her door once before calling through, “Maya! I’m taking T for a walk!”
I can hear her muffled music through the walls and I’m not certain she heard me, so I make an executive decision and nab T-Bone’s leash. He starts weaving in and out happily around my feet and I have to leap around to avoid tripping over his tiny body until I finally manage to get his harness on.
We leave the house and take a familiar route around the community. T-Bone sniffs his favorite bushes, marks every one of them as his, and tries to eat scraps of napkins off the ground before I make him put them down. The sun is out and the air is thick, almost un-breathable. That’s summer in the south for you. I let T-Bone lead me around for a while, until he gets dangerously close to the one place I don’t go.
It’s been five years and I still can’t bring myself to walk down the alley between 12th and Harmony St. The alley where I fell through a hole in the wall and ended up on Naruda. When I came back, I spent almost a week walking back and forth through that alley. I touched every brick, I glanced around the trashcans, I tried to make sense of that spot. But I felt nothing, it was just an alley. After that, I gave upon it and vowed not to walk down that street again.
Still, every now and then, like today, my eyes wander to that tight little strip of concrete, shadowed by the two buildings on either side. I’m drawn towards it, as though it has a gravity all on its own, pulling me closer.
No. I shake it off, tug on T-Bone’s leash, and turn away. “Maybe another day, buddy—”
But before I can get the words out, I realize I’ve tangled my legs all up on T-Bone’s leash. I yelp loudly as I stumble and fall forward, landing on my side . A hissing sound catches my ears and I realize a second too late that T-Bone’s leash has slipped through my fingers and I watch it drag and skip across the pavement as T-Bone takes off.
“T-Bone! No!”
. I jump to my feet and follow quickly on his heels as he goes dashing down the alleyway. Why does this seem familiar?
My feet come to a dead stop at the end of the alley. T-Bone’s collar jingles as his tail wiggles. A huge, hulking man is crouching down at the far end of the alley. His shoulders are broad as a line backers and his sea-green strips of clothing that run across his strong chest and cover his groin leave little to the imagination. He extends a large hand and T-Bone licks at it and yips happily. My heart is pounding in my chest. It can’t be.
He lifts his head and his long hair falls on either side of his face. Garock’s dark eyes meet my own and his expression cracks. Intense warmth brightens his face and he says two words I never thought I’d hear again, “My Goddess.”
I’m stunned. It’s all I can do not to faint.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Crap.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: KENNEDY
Maya cannot stop staring. She is grinning ear to ear like the Cheshire cat as she looks at Garock and then at me and then at Garock again. We’re sitting around the kitchen table while Garock devours a bowl of chicken noodle soup. The second he stepped in through our door it was too much for my mind to compute. I offered him food just to give my hands something to do and my mind time to catch up to what was happening.
Garock is in my house. Eating my leftovers.
He isn’t one to turn down a meal, at least. He slurps it down as though he hasn’t eaten in a decade and I wonder if he hasn’t. He’s still built as ever, but he looks leaner since I last saw him, smaller around the waist. I wonder if anyone’s been taking care of him. I wonder if he’s been taking care of himself.
Maya’s voice breaks in and brings me back to my current situation. “Nice axe,” she says. The casual way she throws the word about makes me believe she must think it’s a fake. I know all too well what the axe strapped to his back is capable of and it makes my stomach twist in knots.
“Her name is Swing,” he tells her.
“Are you, like some kind of cosplayer or something?”
He stops chewing for a moment, turns to Maya, and his eyebrows knit in confusion. “Cos…player?” he repeats slowly.
“Yeah, you know, like Ren Fair, Comic Con. Where everyone dresses up and pretends to be someone from a video game or movie or something. You supposed to be from a video game, He-Man?”
Her eyes flicker over the tattoos that curl up his arms. Maya has hungry cat eyes and for a second a flame of jealousy rips through me even though, quietly, I can’t blame her.
“I am from Naruda,” Garock explains. “My people, the Kurah, are in grave danger—”
This is too much for me. “Maya, can we discuss over here for a second?” I turn to see Garock standing, watching us. I quickly put out my palm, “Stay there, please, for now.” He lowers himself back into his seat obediently, but his eyes don’t leave me. Ever since our eyes met in the alley, there’s been an about him, he’s too alert, too ready to jump to action, and it makes me all too nervous.
I grab her arm and nearly topple her chair in effort to pull her away. “Ow! Aw, the story was just getting good!” There’s humor in Maya’s eyes and it’s clear she thinks this is all some huge joke. Of course she does, why wouldn’t she? I yank her straight into the pantry, which has no room for one person let alone two, and draw the door partially closed behind us.
“Holy shit, girl,” Maya chuckles. “I told you to play the field, but that does not mean picking up the first homeless guy you see.”
“Maya. It’s him.” I annunciate the word carefully, inflating it with importance. Suddenly, the light flickers on in her eyes and her hand flies to her mouth.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Is that…Mystery Man?”
I nod. I can’t bring myself to say yes yet.
Maya parts the cheap blinds of the pantry door with her fingers to get a good look at him. She lets out a low whistle. “Dang. You did good for yourself. Not a lot going on upstairs, but who needs that when he looks like July on a sexy firefighter calendar?”
“Why July?”
“Hottest month in the year,” Maya winks at me.
“Maya.” I need her to focus. Or I need me to focus. “Ben will be here any second. I can’t let Garock see him.”
“Why not? He is his…” her voice trails off and her mouth goes slack. “Oh, honey. He doesn’t even know he has a kid, does he?”
My teeth are grinding and I’m on the verge of spewing out at least ten practiced lines of defense when I hear a click in the doorway and my heart sinks.
“Ben!” I fling myself out of the pantry and my heart catches in my throat. There he is. My precious little flop-haired boy, standing in the foyer. He has his thumbs hooked under the straps of his backpack and he’s come to a stop at his name.
I go into mom mode. “Ben,” I put on a practiced smile. “How was your first day at school?”
“Fine.” His eyes sweep over the scene. Garock watches the child like a large panther observing a cub, almost warily endeared by the boy.
“This is Mommy’s friend,” I say by way of introduction. “Garock.” I set my hand on his shoulder so Ben can see that the hulking man is harmless.
“Hi, Garock.” That’s all Ben says. As though it’s perfectly normal for a giant, half-naked man covered in body tattoos to be standing in Mommy’s kitchen. That kid has a miraculous way of putting logic to the insanity that is his mother’s life.
Garock’s gaze snaps to me, however. His eyebrows crunch together and deep confusion etches in the creases in his forehead. “Your son?”
I nod
. I stand my ground. “Yes. My son.”
He turns his eyes back on Ben then. He steps forward and crouches down on one knee so he’s level with my son. Instantly, the hair on the back of my neck rises. A bundle of nerves fight within my chest.
Seeing Garock with Ben, it’s too jarring.
Garock looks at my son and, when he speaks, his voice is deep with honesty. “Ben,” he says as though testing the word out on his tongue. “I want to know everything about you.”
My son, who is normally skittish around new people, doesn’t so much as flinch. He looks bizarrely at ease with the other man. My heart is in my throat and, for a second, I can’t get my voice to work.
“It’s a beautiful day, shame to waste it,” Maya says. “Ben, why don’t we take a walk to the park? Give you two a second to…catch up.”
The smug look on Maya’s face makes me want to shake her mind out of the gutter, but I’m grateful for the reprieve so I nod and rub my arms across my chest. “Yeah, that’s a great idea.”
Garock doesn’t look pleased, and I can’t exactly blame him. He just met his son and now, just as quickly, Ben is ripped away from him again. But I can’t do this. Not now. I need a second, just one, quiet second to figure out how I’m going to approach the topic of Garock with Ben. If I’m going to approach it.
“We will talk more later,” Garock says intensely as he gives Ben’s shoulder a small squeeze.
Ben looks at me questioningly. I give him an apologetic smile and say, “See you in a few, okay?”
Ben nods and grips the straps of his backpack. “Yeah. Cool.”
He glances protectively between me and Garock a couple more times before Maya ushers him back outside. I’m a bundle of nerves and hug myself tightly to keep my anxiety at bay. Ben is out of the lion’s den but I’m back in it. Garock stands and turns to me and, by the look on his face, I can see he wants answers.
“That was your son,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Is he mine?” His tone sounds so possessive and it’s a sharp stab in my heart.
“He’s not anyone’s. He’s his own person.”
I’m dancing around the topic and Garock isn’t having it. “His father…”
“He doesn’t have one. Immaculate conception. It’s a thing here, look it up.”
His eyes are hard now. I should be afraid of him, but I’m not. Maybe motherhood gave me a new pair of fangs and sharper teeth, but I’m not going to bend to anyone’s will when it comes to the wellbeing of my son. Not even this mountain of a man.
“Give me the truth,” he says.
I sigh. My arms uncoil from my chest and I turn to busy myself with rinsing out the plates in the sink. “You contributed your biology, your DNA. That’s it. Five years is a long time to take credit for anything, in my opinion.”
Garock’s hand settles on my arm and he draws my attention away from the dishes. I turn to him fully expecting to see anger and resentment. I’m surprised to see that his eyes are gentle now, even sad, and suddenly I wish he were angry. That would hurt far less.
“You should have told me I have a son,” he says. There’s heaviness in his voice, a deep loss.
Emotion builds up in my throat and I swallow it back. I’ve gotten good at hiding my feelings from my face over the years. “I wanted to,” I confess. “I didn’t know until Faron had me, and then…”
“And then?” He’s on pins and needles, his eyes like lasers on my own.
I break our eye contact and turn back to the dishes instead. “And then he convinced me that Ben would be better off here.”
“Faron is a trickster and a liar.” Garock’s voice is hard. “My son would be better off with his father.”
My son. Those words make me drop the plate in the sink. I swear as one of the shards jabs into my palm and breaks the skin.
Garock is quick to help. He takes a hand towel and cups my wrist with it as he moves to pluck the fragment from my palm.
“I can do it myself.” I yank my hand back sharply and grab the towel, dabbing off the blood splotches. I recognize I’m being stubborn and prickly, but I can’t help it. Garock being here has thrown everything into chaos and all my walls are up.
A small silence settles between us as I focus on my hand. It’s fine, the bleeding stopped, but I’m afraid to look up at Garock. He’s here, he’s so close to me, for the first time in five years, he’s here. The only man I’ve ever loved hard, the man who I thought I would never see again, is standing right next to me and I’m being petulant, licking my wounds and pulling away from him.
“You have done everything on your own, haven’t you?” he asks.
“I’ve had help.” I lift my eyes finally and look at him as I set the bloody cloth in the sink. “Maya, mainly. But I’ve gotten used to doing things on my own, yes.”
“You’re stronger now.” His eyes don’t leave mine.
He’s noticed. My chest warms. It’s better than him telling me he likes my new haircut or that I’ve lost weight. I have changed. I’ve grown up. There is affirmation there, knowing that even after all this time, he can see that. I don’t need his compliment, but it’s nice. I nod. “Yes. I’m a single mom. I have to be.”
His fingers brush against my jaw and his thumb rubs over my cheek. The single light touch of his hand sends sparks shooting through my blood. “You do not have to flex your muscles with me,” he says. “I have always known you were capable of anything.”
My breath catches in my lungs, and my heart thuds against my chest. “Don’t,” I whisper.
His eyes narrow but he doesn’t remove is hand. “Why not?”
“Because.” I fumble. “You don’t know anything about me. It’s been five years. I could have moved on. I could be married.”
His eyebrows knit. “Are you with someone else?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He cups my face and his thumb presses to my bottom lip. “Have you moved on from me?”
“I’m not…it’s not that I haven’t tried…” A tornado swirls around my heart. I can’t lie when his eyes are on mine. He’s watching me intensely. He wants an answer. I swallow hard and whisper, “I still think about you. Constantly. Have you been with anyone else?” I’m trying to sound casual. Really, I am. But even I can hear the quake in my voice.
He cocks his head to the side as he looks at me. He leans in closer and I can feel his breath patter against my lips. “Where does my seed belong?” he says.
I tremble at the look in his dark eyes. Pure, carnal need for me. I know the response he’s waiting for and I give it to him. “Inside of me,” I whisper. My throat is dry, I’m amazed I can get the words out.
“My Goddess,” he moans reverently. He crushes his lips against mine and I open up to him immediately, craving his taste.
He’s waited for me. Without knowing when, or if, he’d ever see me again, he’s waited for me. That turns me on more than it should. He’s waited a very long time for this and so have I. The second his lips connect to mine, a rush of arousal coils in my stomach and floods between my legs. I need him, oh god, do I need him. For all my effort to keep my hands busy and my mind distracted, I realize now that I’ve been fighting the urge to kiss him since I first laid eyes on him again. He broke that dam with his lips and now every tingling desire I’ve stuffed away in the furthest part of my mind comes pouring out of me and crashing against him like a wave. I twist his tunic in my hand and feel the stiff leather stretch under my grip.
Garock takes control. He lifts me up as though I weigh nothing and sets me down on the kitchen counter. His fingers move to my shirt. I wish I had thought to look nice today, maybe worn something a little classier than an oversized t-shirt and scuffed jeans. And then suddenly I’m glad I didn’t wear anything nice, because in his haste he rips my shirt clean in half. I can tell he didn’t mean to, when he glances down briefly and knits his eyebrows in confusion but I quickly mutter, “It’s okay, leav
e it,” as I shrug out of the arm holes and shove my mouth back against his.
I’m so desperate, and it’s showing. My nails leave marks in his chest. He smells like earth and Garock and I want to cover myself in him. My legs hook around his hips and the hard bulge of his manhood presses against my thigh. My skin is flushed and my nipples tighten into sensitive little peaks. Despite myself, I find myself grinding my hips against his, panting like a dog in summer.
Our frantic touches upset the balance of the kitchen and my hand bumps against something right before I hear a sharp, shattering crash. Garock pauses to glance down at the fallen object and I drag him back to me. “Ignore it,” I say, which is apparently my motto of the day.
I can’t let anything break my horse-with-blinders focus on my own burning desire, or else I might do something dangerous like start thinking again.
But Garock has already released me and he crouches down to pick up the frame. It’s fallen face first and shattered glass remains splayed out on the ground. Garock rises up, straightening his legs, but his attention remains on the picture in the busted frame. I realize then that it’s a picture Maya took of me and Ben at the park. It’s one of my favorite pictures of us, I’m looking at the camera while my sneaky son gives me bunny ears behind my back. It rained only a couple minutes after the picture was taken and we all ran for cover back to the car, laughing.
Garock, on the other hand, is pensive. A frown creases his mouth as he stares at the picture.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say as I rack my fingers through my hair. My skin is still aching for his touch. “It’s just a picture. I have about ten more copies of that one.”
“He took this from me,” Garock says. His voice is low.
“Who took what? I’m confused.”
“Faron.” Garock’s eyes turn cold and the anger behind them makes me shiver. No, I’m mistaken, his eyes aren’t cold, they’re hot, like there’s a flame burning behind his irises. “Five years of my son’s youth Faron has stolen from me.”