Birthday Girl

by Penelope Douglas

  “I love you, too.” She kisses me, her naked body molding to mine. “I was so nervous. I didn’t know if you’d want more kids, or—”

  “Shh, baby,” I tell her, kissing her and holding her face. “I love you. I just…” I pause and then continue, looking up into her eyes. “You’re stuck with me now, aren’t you?”

  She gives me a little smile, and I take her ass in my hands.

  “I’ve seen lots of bad love, Pike,” she says. “We both have, haven’t we?” And then she does the barest of grinds on me, awakening my body immediately. “This is the good kind. When you find it, you keep it. Nothing is more important.”

  I grow hard as she moves against me, and I hold her face, staring up into her eyes.

  “Do you love me?” she asks.

  “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  She dives in, kissing me and hovering her lips over mine. “Then I’m so lucky,” she whispers. “We’re so lucky.”

  I dig my hands into her and pull her closer, but there’s suddenly nothing there, and I blink my eyes open, seeing that my arms are empty. It was a dream, and I can’t slow my breathing. Whipping off the sheet, I sit up, swing my legs over the side, and bury my head in my hands.

  “Fuck,” I choke out, my forehead covered in sweat.

  I’m still hard, blood pulsing through my cock, because I can still feel as much now as I could two months ago. I’d give anything to have her in my arms right now.

  Standing up, I pull on my jeans and head out of the bedroom. I pass Cole’s room where he’s asleep inside and quietly open Jordan’s door. Her room’s been closed up for eight weeks, and I’m overcome as soon as I inhale. She’s everywhere, and I close the door and switch on the light.

  Her Home & Garden magazines lay at the bottom of her bed, and I look over to the desk, my eyes falling on its corner and remembering how beautiful she was that night. The boombox Dutch gave her sits on top, and I walk over, turning down the volume and pressing Play. I recognize Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire come out of the speakers, and I adjust the volume again, not wanting to wake Cole.

  Walking over to the bed, I sit down and listen to the song, looking around.

  I can’t get away from her, and I never want to. I thought I was in love with Lindsay at one time, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t like this.

  And I never even told her. She doesn’t know that I love her.

  I never thought I’d say this, but Cramer is right. I would’ve loved her with everything I had. She was it for me. I would’ve gone to any length to make her happy for the rest of her life.

  But I blew it.

  Looking over, I spot a jar sitting on her bedside table, the label on front reading Dreams. I reach over and take it, studying the few dozen little scrolls of paper, all different colors and tied with gold string, piled inside.

  My heart thumps in my ears, not wanting to invade her privacy, but I need to know. I need to know her dreams don’t include me or things I can give her. Her love clouds her mind. What she wrote here will be the truth.

  Unscrewing the lid, I dump the scrolls on the bed and pick one up. I slide the string off, my stomach rolling with nerves as I unroll the first scroll.

  Invent my own Christmas tradition.

  I smile weakly, something like that sounding right up her alley. She’s creative, and I’d love to see what she comes up with.

  Setting it down, I pick up another one and pull it apart, reading it.

  Drive a convertible with the top down in the rain.

  Yeah, I can just see her dragging me out for something like that, trying to get me to have some fun.

  Picking up another scroll, my smile falls, and my mouth goes dry, readying myself again to see something I might not like. The pulse in my neck throbs as I unroll it.

  Have a library in my house someday. Built-in bookshelves, leaves blowing outside, and a cushy chaise with cozy blankets.

  I dig in my eyebrows and drop the paper, quickly picking up another.

  I wonder if I can get Pike to stay in bed all day on a rainy day to watch movies.

  I guarantee you, girl, watching movies won’t be all we do if we stay in bed all day.

  I unroll another. Ride in a hot air balloon.

  My breathing quickens as I keep unrolling scrolls, one right after another.

  Adopt a dog

  How do you make your own beer? I’d like to try that.

  Take my kids for trips to the lake in the summers.

  Install a clothesline in the backyard of my future house. No one has those anymore!

  I blink. I just installed a clothesline. She has that now.

  I keep going.

  Run a marathon.

  Keep a blanket in the trunk for spontaneous picnics.

  See a parade.

  Learn how to make chili.

  Go four-wheeling.

  Swim in the ocean.

  Fill Pike’s truck bed with blankets and pillows and go star-gazing.

  I keep reading scroll after scroll, finally unable to take anymore and pushing them away.

  “Fuck,” I breathe out, my eyes stinging.

  I can give her all this. Every single one of these things—her dreams, the life she wants—I can give it to her. All of it.

  What did I think? She wanted wealth, power, and fame? What did she say on one of her first nights here?

  I don’t care about the wedding. I just want the life.

  She wants a home. She wants people to love.

  She wanted me to want her. That’s all she wanted.

  Tears I won’t let fall spring to my eyes. “What the fuck did I do?”

  Pike

  I take a deep breath and hold it in as I grip the door handle to Grounders. I tried calling Cam, and I even went to The Hook again, but I can’t find her. So Shel it is, I guess. I’m sure this is a waste of time—the woman has hated me since she met me—but I’m desperate.

  Pulling the door open, I step inside, music and the smell of fried food instantly swarming me. Shel stands behind the bar with only three customers in front of her, and I look around the place, seeing a few tables filled but mostly empty. It’s a pretty quiet Monday night.

  I crack my neck, bracing myself as I step up to the bar.

  She sees me instantly and stops drying the glass as her back stiffens. “Cam, can you serve this guy?” she calls.

  I glance at the other end and notice Jordan’s sister leaning over it. She must be covering Jordan’s shifts while she’s gone.

  Her head rests in her hand as she talks to some patron, but as soon as her eyes lock with mine, she stands up straight, her smile falling.

  Shel starts to walk away.

  “Wait,” I say, stopping her. “I’m not staying.”

  “Good.”

  “I just—”

  “I’m not going to tell you where she is,” she cuts me off.

  I see Cam watching us, and I take another breath, squaring my shoulders. “I just need to know she’s okay.”

  “She’s fine,” she replies curtly. “And she’ll be even better if she stays away from you and this town.”

  I move in, dropping my voice. “I need to see her. Please.”

  “You had her.”

  Her eyes are nearly covered by her long black bangs, but I can see the hatred in them well enough.

  I don’t want to bother Jordan. She’s stayed away, and I haven’t heard from her, so that tells me I think I did the right thing. She’s doing fine, and she’ll be happier.

  But I’m not. This isn’t over for me. You need your heart to get out of bed, walk, talk, work, and eat, and she took it when she left. I wasn’t much before she came along, but what I did have inside me she left with. I’m fucking miserable.

  “Please tell her…” I pause, admitting out loud what I was afraid to face. “That I love her.”

  Shel doesn’t say anything, and I can’t even look in her eyes and see everything she’s thinking that I know is true. I fucked up. />
  I’m about to leave when Cam moves in.

  “It’s been two months,” she says to Shel. “And he still looks like shit.”

  “That’s not Jordan’s problem.”

  “And we’re not Jordan’s keepers,” Cam retorts. “She walked away once, she can walk away again if that’s what she chooses. We don’t need to protect her.”

  Shel hesitates, shoots me a glare, and finally gives up, walking around Cam to the other end of the bar.

  Cam turns to me. “Look, we don’t know exactly where she is,” she says. “She calls and checks in every few weeks. But she has a friend whose family runs some motel in eastern Virginia. She’s been trying to get Jordan to come visit and even offered her a job there one summer.” She hesitates and then shrugs. “Without a lot of money, I can’t imagine Jordan has anywhere else to go.”

  Virginia. That’s a twelve-hour drive. Would she have done that with the VW?

  I guess if Cam says she’s calling, then she’s safe. And this is as good a lead as I’m going to get. Her fall classes start in a week, and if she were returning, she’d be doing it by now, wouldn’t she? She’d want her things out of my house, and she’d need to figure out where she was going to live. Was she planning on coming home at all?

  I need to find her. I can’t wait.

  I turn to leave but then stop. “What’s the name of the motel?” I ask Cam.

  But she just sighs. “Hmm, can’t remember,” she says, playing with me. “I guess if you want her bad enough you’ll find her.”

  And then she walks away, pleased with herself that she’s making it more difficult for me. I could call around, I guess, but if I do happen to find her, she might just hang up on me. I need to go find her.

  I need to at least see her one last time and tell her that I love her and that she’s everything.

  And that I’m dead without her.

  Jordan

  I click the mouse, moving the red six-of-hearts and everything underneath it to the black seven-of-clubs. Then I turn over the new card, clicking it twice, and watching the Ace automatically slide up to a free cell.

  After nine weeks I’ve gotten pretty good at this game. Danni keeps suggesting I learn poker or blackjack or maybe even get into some online gaming with people from around the world, but I’m not that cool. I like playing alone. Just something to keep my brain occupied. It’s been an eventful summer vacation, too. I’ve won about three-hundred-fifty games out of four hundred, and I only lost that many, because I kept playing too late and would fall asleep, letting my battery die.

  I actually feel quite pathetic when I let myself think about how I’ve spent hours and hours over this gorgeous summer. But then I just start a new game, and I stop thinking about it.

  The bell on the lobby door chimes, and I look up, seeing a young man in a black pullover and jeans walk in, heading for the front desk.

  I slide off my stool and stand. I’m always nervous when we get customers this late. The motel sits on an old highway without a lot of businesses or lights. Most people stick to the Interstate, especially when it’s dark out like this, and those who don’t kind of make me wonder.

  But hey, it’s business.

  “Hi.” I smile. “Welcome to The Blue Palms.”

  He steps up to the counter, and my smile falters, seeing the huge wing tattooed on his neck with the words The Devil Doesn’t Sleep etched in black ink. This is a pretty conservative area. He can’t be local.

  “Hi.” He meets my eyes but only for a second. “How many vacant rooms do you have?”

  “Um…” I look in the cubbies and count the keys to make sure. “Six,” I tell him.

  He nods, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, I assume. “I’ll take five. For one night, please.”

  Five? I don’t think we’ve been this close to No Vacancies since I got here. What does he need all those rooms for?

  Not that I’m complaining, though. We need the business.

  The Blue Palms, owned by my friend Danni and her family, sits on a nearly deserted road, the new interstate put in twenty years ago making business very hard to come by these days. The only people who seem to know we’re here are the townies, the relatives of townies traveling in to visit, and bikers looking for a more authentic experience by riding the old highways.

  I’m glad I came to help out, though. Danni’s been begging me for years to visit, and it’s been a throwback to spend another summer with her. She and I won scholarships to a sleepaway camp when we were twelve and have been keeping in touch long distance ever since. I’ve always wanted to match the place where so many of her quirky and sexy stories come from with my mental picture.

  The customer hands me his I.D., and I take it.

  “Thanks,” I say, propping it up on the keyboard to register the rooms to him.

  The door suddenly swings open again, the bell ringing, and I hear a demanding voice bark, “We need food!”

  I look up, seeing three women standing at the door and notice a few more outside. I don’t see any other men. My eyes fall down their attire, and next to them, my sister’s clothes at The Hook seem prudish. Hair, make-up, heels…

  I shoot my eyes to the guy and see him blink long and hard, looking aggravated. He picks through the paper menus stuffed in the board on the wall and takes out a few from different places.

  “Do these restaurants deliver?” he asks, setting them down and pulling a wad of bills out of his wallet.

  “Yeah, all of them.”

  He holds up the menus with the cash, and one of the girls jogs up and snatches everything out of his hands.

  “I want receipts and change,” he orders, not looking at her.

  She makes a face at him behind his back and then she disappears outside with the others.

  I feel compelled to warn him. This place has an unofficial code of conduct, and Danni’s pretty strict about shenanigans. They’ve scraped by here for a long time, but the town is looking at developing this property. She doesn’t want to give them an excuse to want this place gone.

  “This is a pretty quiet, family-oriented place,” I tell him, slowly typing in his name and address. “Parties aren’t allowed, so just an FYI…”

  He looks at me, his dark sandalwood eyes almost amused. “They’re my sisters,” he says.

  I bite back my smile and focus on my work again. Sure. If those are his sisters, then I’m his mom.

  But he certainly seemed pretty annoyed by them like a brother would be, I guess.

  I place the keys on the counter—with the old-fashioned, rounded diamonds for key chains—and print off the contract to sign.

  “The pool closes at ten,” I tell him. “The ice and vending machines are between the two buildings, and there’s a laundromat across the way there.” I glance at him and point behind him, outside. “Front desk is open twenty-four hours. Let us know if you need anything. And that’ll be two-hundred-eight-dollars-and-forty-two cents, please.”

  But as I place a pen on top of the contract and wait for his response, I see that he’s not even listening to me. He’s staring at the neon sign on the wall to his right and the quote written in script…

  Well, they’re nothing like Billy and me…

  His stern expression breaks into a small smile all of a sudden as he stares at the sign, a mixed look of wonder and confusion on his face as if a memory is playing in his head. I glance at the sign again, Danni’s obsession with 90’s music the bane of my existence all summer. It’s a quote from a Sheryl Crow song, and I never asked her if it meant anything, because then she’d play the song, and I’d suffer.

  “Sir?” I say.

  He blinks, turning to me, still seeming disoriented for a moment.

  “Are you okay?”

  He shakes it off and opens his wallet again. “How much is it?”

  “Two-oh-eight-forty-two,” I tell him.

  He hands me three-hundred-dollar bills, and there’s a sign that says we don’t take bills larger than fi
fty, but seeing the unnerving pile of cash in his wallet, I don’t feel like ruffling his feathers. I take the money and get his change.

  He taps on the counter as he waits, and I realize he’s matching the rhythm of The Distance by Cake that Danni has playing on the speakers in the lobby.

  “Oh, don’t do that,” I joke, handing him his change. “You’ll encourage the owner. I’m trying to convince her the playlist is driving away customers.”

  He takes the money and shoots me a look. “Nineties music is the best. It’s when people told the truth.”

  I curl the corner of my mouth, not arguing further. He clearly drank the same Kool-Aid as she did.

  “Thanks,” he says, swiping up the keys.

  I hand him back his I.D. and watch him leave. Outside, he doles out the room keys to all the ladies, and after a moment, they all make their way to their rooms. I’m half-tempted to go to the window and see if he goes in with one of them. Or five of them. Very curious.

  “Was that a customer?” Danni says behind me, and I glance back, seeing her walk into the office. Her apartment, where she resides with her grandmother, sits behind the office, so it’s easy to run and check on her when she needs.

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “He got five rooms for the night, and he’s traveling with at least half a dozen women, so have fun on the night shift.”

  She snorts and walks up, picking up the contract. “Tyler Durden?” she reads his name, squinting through her glasses.

  I nod, pulling a stray brown hair off her flannel shirt. She even dresses 90s.

  “Didn’t you get I.D.?” She makes a face at me. “It’s a fake name.”

  “His I.D. said Tyler Durden,” I shoot back. “Why do you think it’s a fake name?”

  “Tyler Durden is a lead character in Fight Club,” she spits out like I’m an idiot. “The best movie of the 90s, and one of the best books ever. It’s disturbing that you don’t know that, Jordan.”