He + She

by Michelle Warren

  “This would be the perfect place to sell your Napa Valley wine and fortune cookies,” Hew suggests.

  “You’re joking, but I’m seriously considering it. If you’re going to build me a house here, then I’m going to need a job, too.

  “So true, Miss whatever-your-name-is.”

  We knock around the quaint town for a few hours, watching a people parade, a kid parade, and then an animal parade. The last is the most exciting, including everything from house pets to farm animals to the random beasties, all wearing wine-related costumes. My favorite is a camel encased with a bunch of round purple pillows, representing a bunch of grapes. The sign hanging around her neck reads, My name is HUMPOPOTAMUS. I decide in that moment that I must have my own Humpy for my Napa home, which of course, Hew argues with.

  Humpy ends the parade and I follow behind her, hoping for a better view.

  “Look!” I become distracted and run to a vendor who is selling temporary tattoos. “I think I should get one. What did you say I probably have on my back? A butterfly?”

  “I was joking.” He leans on the display.

  “But I think it’s perfect.” I decide it’s exactly how I feel when I’m with Hew, free and beautiful, and most importantly, renewed.

  I scan my options and decide on a plain black outline of a monarch butterfly with its wings spread wide. Though, to my despair, I have to wait in line behind four children who are being temporarily tattooed with Sponge Bob, Spiderman, and two Dora the Explorers. When it’s my turn, I sit down in the chair and lift the shirt from my back, explaining to the tattoo artist where I would like the image to be. She nods and immediately gets to work, cleaning the spot and applying the transfer image.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Hew asks. “It’s a very serious commitment.”

  “I think you should get a matching tramp stamp. But for a boy it would have to be called something else.”

  “A douche mark?” He laughs and shakes his head. “Not a chance.”

  When I’ve officially been “butterflied,” I stand and look in the mirror. “I love it!”

  “Would you ever get a real one?” With his finger, Hew traces the shape on my lower back. I close my eyes, coming undone with every stroke.

  “Never.” I swallow, trying to form words to answer, but it’s hard when he’s distracting me like this. “I’m deathly afraid of needles, hospitals, or anything medical related.”

  When he stops, I open my eyes and pull myself together. I tie the hem of my shirt in a low knot, the same way that Hew ties me in knots. I leave it on one side so that it shows my midriff and new awesome fake ink. With him I feel sexy.

  “Why?”

  “It’s one of those stories you don’t want to know.” As I say the words, the scars on my face, head, and legs throb in unison.

  Hew gives me a quick glance and I realize that I’ve let my guard down and said something truly real about myself without planning it. Yes, I dropped in truthful little details here and there, but I embellished them with unrecognizable nonsense. And nothing was ever said without serious consideration. I’ve become so relaxed around him that I’ve forgotten myself.

  I’m waiting for him to ask me for further details, but he doesn’t. He lets it go, just like this morning. Instead, he wraps his arm around my back, pulling me close like he’s protecting me from whatever I may be hiding. He doesn’t know it, but the closer we become, the more that seems plausible.

  After I’ve run off on him so many times, it’s possible that Hew learned his lesson, and for whatever reason, and despite my obvious tall tales, he continues to want to be around me. And more than ever, I want to be around him.

  A clown that was part of the parade walks past us with a bunch of cotton-candy-colored balloons. They bob around, hitting me in the face, but through them, between their smooth curves, I see a face—the one that I’ve been running from—and my heart absolutely stops.

  Chapter 29

  He

  Shea tenses at my side and bats away several pink balloons. When one pops, scaring everyone around us, the clown holding them turns to her and says, “Watch it, lady!” He gives her an annoyed expression before stomping away.

  I’m expecting a cute comeback, something worthy of Shea’s good humor, but instead I look down to find her squatting on the ground, shoulders hunched over and body shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” I bend over.

  “We need to leave. Right now.” Her face settles into a scared mask. One I recognize from the other times that she ran off on me. Worried, I grab her arm, twining it with mine, immediately anchoring myself to her. She’s not going anywhere without me. I’m not letting this girl go. I haven’t even learned her real name yet.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I held my tongue this morning when something happened in the bathroom. I even held it when I wanted to ask her about the hospital thing.

  Apparently, she’s too upset to respond to my question. Instead, she seems to frantically scan the faces of everyone as they pass. Kids, adults, it doesn’t matter. Each person looking down at her sends her into a spastic panic, and she clutches me tighter.

  “Did you see someone you know?” It’s the only explanation. I glance around now, too, searching for anyone looking at her.

  “Just please.” Shea breathes heavily and doubles over. At any moment she looks like she’ll hyperventilate or puke. I hope to God it’s neither. “Get me back to the hotel,” she pleads.

  I nod, wrap my arm around her shoulders, and we stand. I guide her out of the festival. When we’re several blocks away from the party, I rub her back, doing my best to soothe her, but she keeps her face turned into my chest, like she’s hiding.

  But hiding from whom?

  Chapter 30

  She

  When we arrive back at the B&B, I jump out of the car, run across the sidewalk, push through the front door, and race up the stairs to our room. But when I realize that I’ve forgotten my room key, I lose my wits, shake the knob, and bang on the door like it will somehow magically open.

  Hew runs up the stairs to my aid. “Hold on. I got it,” he says in his calm voice, which I have come to know well, but this time it won’t help me. As soon as the door creaks open an inch, I push through and dodge into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

  Frantic, I pace the bathroom. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. How did Luke find me here? I should have known he would; he always does. There is no way to get away from him, and the thought of being hunted by him poisons my mind. Thank God he didn’t see me. I pull my hair and scream, and then think of Hew in the next room.

  I stop, trying desperately to control myself, which leaves me shaking where I stand. I bite my nails, bite my fingers, bite my hands. Nothing works. The only thing I can think to do to save myself is to turn on the shower and step into the freezing stream. So I do, fully clothed. I want it to wash Luke away. Wash everything in my past away, even if it means I’ll forget Bren. I press my back against the tiled wall and slide to the shower floor, landing on my butt. From the new position, the water pelts my face but it seems to calm my anxiety. I curl myself into a tiny ball, wishing, like I have so many times before, to fold in on myself until I’m so small that I become nothing.

  Hew knocks on the bathroom door. “Shea, are you okay? I’m really worried.”

  “Yeah.” Even though I’m mumbling, my voice echoes in the tiny shower stall.

  “Okay.” He doesn’t press for more info. That’s how good he is, how much he respects me, and I know it’s not really fair that I keep doing this to him without telling him why. Can I tell him? Will it all really matter when our whatever-this-is fling is over? He still doesn’t know my name. I’m positive because I have taken every precaution to make sure he doesn’t find out.

  Water pours over my skin until it shrivels into the likeness of a chilled prune. Hew does check on me a few times, each time I think to confirm that I’m still alive, but for the most part,
he leaves me be. That’s a good thing because I need to get myself in check before I face him.

  Finally calmed, I drag myself out of the shower and stand, dripping on the floor mat, and open the door. It swings open and Hew jumps up from the bed where he’s been waiting and rushes in.

  “Did someone hurt you, Shea?”

  I shake my head. It’s not the truth, but it doesn’t matter.

  “Are you cold?”

  I nod, but Hew is already pulling a towel from the rack. He drops it around my back like the comfort and protection he always tries to show me, and hugs me close. In this moment, I want to stay wrapped up in him forever. Somehow, I always feel better with him at my side.

  “We need to get you out of these wet clothes. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  He must take my silence as assent because he sets the towel aside and grabs my shirt from the hem and begins to lift it. “Raise your arms,” he says, and I comply. He peels the shirt from my body and the air hits my skin, freezing me further, and pricking every inch with goose bumps. He throws the drenched shirt into the sink and then turns back to me. His hands slide to my cutoffs. His fingers twist at the button until it pops free, and then he tugs on the zipper, dragging it open. My wet and heavy jeans fall to the floor at my ankles, and I lean on him as I step out of them.

  He wraps the large towel around my body, starting at my chest. I grab it and turn away from him. “Help me with my bra.”

  I look at his reaction in the mirror. He stares at my bare back for a moment as though he, too, is undecided, but then does as I asked, gently, slowly. The clasp releases, freeing my restraints. Now I’m only wearing my Thursdays.

  This is a test. For me. For him. To know what it feels like to be with someone other than my Bren. To be in control and to defy Luke. To move on. To do something for myself.

  At the thought, my shaking subsides. I don’t have a panic attack. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel like I need to run away. I only know I need to leave everything behind to be here with him, right now.

  These feelings have grown stronger in the last days, but the sense of comfort and intense attraction is the same that I have felt in every intimate moment with Hew from the beginning. I’m drawn to his strange familiarity. I care for him. It’s easy to tell he cares for me, too.

  I let everything that I’ve been fighting against happen. My body’s physical reaction is stronger than my mind, and I turn to him and twine my arms around his neck, dropping my towel on the floor. And finally, after all this time, I press my lips and body to his. He tastes like the candy he was eating at the fair, sweet like caramel, and salty. I swipe my tongue across the inside of his mouth, wanting more, and he growls.

  Hew is as hungry for me as I am for him and he reaches over my shoulders, down my back, pulling me to him. He thumbs the elastic of my panties, pulling and stretching, sending a fire of desire racing across my skin, over my quivering stomach muscles, and dropping south to that spot between my legs. The throb there begs to connect with the one pressing on me from his pants, and I forcefully push him backward and into the bedroom. When we can’t walk anymore, we fall onto the bed.

  I land on top of him, sit up, and straddle him, locking his lean torso between my thighs. Looking down at his handsome face, that sexy grin leaves me feeling in control, the one thing in my life that I’m desperate for. It fuels me to press forward. I tug at his shirt, flipping it over his head, pulling it free and toss it across the room. I lean over and trace the deep lines of his hard abs with my tongue, as well as the curved hip flexor muscle that forms a V, pointing directly into his pants.

  We slide farther onto the bed by rolling, twisting, and turning with each other. My kisses are frantic, nipping and playful, but somewhere along the way, his kisses turn tender. When the difference between our intentions becomes agonizingly apparent, I pull away to question him.

  Chapter 31

  He

  I have wanted this to happen for days, hours, minutes, and seconds. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen her naked in my mind, when I saw her nearly naked on the bike the first time, and my wet dreams. And now here she is, on top of me, squeezing me between her legs, licking my body, and even more beautiful, more perfect than I ever imagined. Jesus.

  But something has happened to Shea. She changed her mind in the shower and I don’t know why. My brain is fighting a death match with my dick. It wants to allow this kissing, touching, and—oh God—playful biting to continue. I don’t want my brain to care why everything has changed all of a sudden, but it does. Or maybe that’s the don’t-fuck-up voice, telling me to do the right thing.

  I slow us down, transitioning from hot and heavy to gentle and sweet kisses, and she notices. She pulls away and tethers her emerald gaze to mine.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t want to?”

  “Of course I do. Can’t you tell?”

  “I can, actually.” She looks to my nether region and smiles. “So, what?”

  I sigh and rub my hands over her back. I’m not sure if my concerns will win me points or cause her to run in the other direction. Everything with Shea is a crapshoot. “I want you. But I don’t want it to be in reaction to whatever just happened to you out there at the festival, or in that shower. I want everything to be perfect when we do this, and I’m worried about you.”

  She immediately rolls off and I think this is it. It’s over. “You’re such a fucking chick,” she says, surprising me. She laughs, pulling the sheet over her perfect breasts.

  “Maybe. But it’s only because I care about you.” I sit up.

  “I know.” Her gaze falls to the floor. “And I appreciate that. A bad person would take advantage of this situation.” She points her foot and draws a circle on the carpet with her big toe.

  “I did something terrible back in Maryland.” Her words fall out so effortlessly that I try not to react. “I cheated on my boyfriend, my fiancé, actually.” She looks up from under her lashes but she doesn’t blink, signaling that she may or may not be telling the truth. Somewhere over the last few days, the lines between truth and reality have blurred.

  “Okay.” I shift where I am. I didn’t exactly see that coming. In my mind, I imagined something in reverse, where Shea was the victim.

  “With his brother,” she adds.

  “Wow.” She’s caught me off guard, and I don’t know what the hell to say.

  “Yeah, I suck.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do, and I know it.”

  I rub her arm, trying to comfort her. I know there must be a reason.

  “Anyway, ever since I ran away from the ginormous mess that I created, the brother has been looking for me.”

  And here is the reason. The brother. “Is that who you saw at the festival?”

  She nods. “And in San Francisco, on the morning of the day that we visited the fortune cookie factory. That’s the only reason I agreed to go with you. I was hiding from him. He’s been tracking me since I left him.”

  “And I thought it was because of my charming personality.” I try to keep the tone lighthearted, even though everything she’s telling me is upsetting. Thinking back on our time together, I remember how she wore a hat and sunglasses and tied up her hair, even though it was cloudy. How she freaked out at the sight of a wedding, and her appearance the first time I saw her on the plane. All of her strange choices now make sense.

  “That too, obviously.” She reaches out and grabs my hand. “The thing is that this brother is kind of a bad guy.” She pauses, seeming to look for the proper words. “We’ll just say that he needs a gigantic douche mark on his lower back to warn away other girls.”

  “Did he hurt you?” I ask the question again, focusing on her scars. The hook on her face, the long, ragged line running up the inside of her leg, and other small chips and dents marring her soft skin. Could he have done that to her?

  She doesn’t answer this time, but her silence is enough of an answer for me. I tens
e, my blood heating at the thought. The anger I’ve been trying to suppress and control bubbles to the surface, ready to kill someone for hurting this beautiful creature.

  “So do you think I’m a good person now?”

  This question disarms me, and I feel every bit of the pain I can see in the pools of her eyes. I’ve been there, too. Neither of us is perfect. We’ve just been playing the part for days, actors in a perfect play, trying desperately to run away from our pasts. Getting lost with a stranger.

  “As far as I’m concerned, there was nothing before I met you. I only know this version of you, and this is the version I’m falling for.”

  Shea is in my arms in seconds. We’re not just holding each other but pressing out all the bad, letting it seep from us, and allowing it to disintegrate in the air, leaving room for only the good within our embrace. With everything that we have with each other, I think there is no room for anything negative. Not anymore.

  We reposition on the bed and take up where we left off the night before, just spooning, no kissing, only chatting, but still without sex, and every second that she doesn’t run away from me is a victory. It’s only been a few days since she broke down crying at the sight of a wedding, and a few more since I saw her in a trashed wedding dress at the airport. I’m honestly not sure how long I can make this last, but I’ll take everything that I can.

  We decide to stay for one more night after tonight, and then move on to the next place—wherever that may be—on Saturday morning.