Rock Me Hard

by Casey Hagen

  “Maybe,” he said quietly, never thinking of it like that before.

  “You know, he might just surprise you. Maybe he’s waiting for you to stop making life so easy for him, and he just doesn’t realize it yet,” she offered as she scooted over as far as she could and laid her head on his shoulder.

  He knew from the way Anthony reacted to their mother leaving that it had cut deep, but then they’d become teens, and Anthony had slid easily into the in-crowd as the fun jokester while Aiden focused on his studies.

  He’d just thought they were growing apart. It wasn’t until a few days ago that Aiden realized it had cut a whole lot deeper, and while the feelings weren’t Aiden’s fault, Anthony wouldn’t find peace without Aiden’s help.

  Help by letting go.

  No, they weren’t the typical identical twins, but until just now, he hadn’t noticed that instead of having the mental connection or the phantom pains in the shadow of real pain for his brother that everyone always associated with twins, he had a compelling need to stay close, to clean up his messes, to soften the blow of their mom leaving, even though it had been more than twenty years.

  And in trying to protect Anthony, he’d held him back, and Anthony had never realized his true potential to be a great man, like the one they’d come from.

  She straightened in her seat and reached over, resting her elbow on the back of the driver’s seat while she sifted her fingers through his hair. “So, are you going to tell me about your love for the camera?”

  “My mother broke my heart when she left.” The words didn’t hold the razor-sharp bite they had before, but he had to force them from his lips. They sounded like old family relics he’d pulled from a dingy attic tumbling from his mouth.

  Natalie didn’t say a word, just watched him and waited, those fingernails of hers sliding lovingly along his scalp.

  “I started to forget what she looked like. You know what I mean?”

  “I do,” she said quietly with a sweet smile.

  “We had pictures. Our dad slowly put the ones away of them as a couple, but left out anything of us as a family or my mom with us as kids, but they never quite captured what I saw in her,” he said.

  “So you started taking pictures of your own,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Anthony had his social life when their mom died. Aiden had books and photography.

  He’d had to sacrifice the time he’d put into his hobby while he attended med school, but he had picked right up again before his dad’s health took a turn.

  “At least I managed to capture my dad, really capture him before he got sick.”

  “You’re a good brother, Aiden. And a good son. How did I get so lucky to have you pick me?” she said, leaning across to brush a kiss over his cheek.

  “I’m pretty sure I got the better part of that bargain,” he said, taking her hand and tucking it against his thigh.

  Something about her reassurance eased something inside him. He wasn’t alone anymore. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be able to confide in someone.

  Maybe because he’d always held it all in under the belief he needed to be the strong one.

  “Intersection coming...get that hand ready,” he said, letting her go and raising his fist. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot,” they said in unison.

  His rock beat her scissors and before long, right around lunchtime, they wound up in Fall River, Massachusetts.

  “Fall River, that’s famous for something, right?” he asked.

  She snorted. “Yeah, it’s where Lizzie Borden was believed to have hacked up her parents.”

  “She was a lovely girl...maybe a bit quiet. Brooding at times...” he trailed off with a laugh.

  “Axe murderers do it for you, do they?” she asked with a laugh as she scrolled through her phone.

  “Don’t they do it for everyone?”

  “Well, looky here. The house is open daily for tours. Wanna?” she asked, waggling her phone at him.

  “Do they allow cameras?”

  “Yup,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

  “It’s demented, but hell yeah. Let’s do it.”

  Within fifteen minutes, they pulled into a spot behind a line of parked cars across the road from the three-story, dark-green colonial adorned with even darker green shutters.

  A couple of people wandered toward the garage in the back while others came out the door with shopping bags from the gift shop.

  “It’s weird how this house is still here, and these concrete businesses just rose up around it. At least there’s a church,” she said.

  “The church can’t save you now. You ready?” he said, reaching out a hand to her.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  He went to the counter to get tickets while she wandered the shelves, picking up tourist mementos and examining them before replacing them to the shelves.

  Until she found the Lizzie Borden bobblehead doll.

  “We have to get this,” she said, bringing it to him. “Best souvenir ever!”

  “It’s yours,” he said, taking it from her.

  He paid, and they waited with the next group to go in.

  “Wow! People actually stay here overnight,” she said scanning the pamphlet.

  “No,” he said in an unyielding voice.

  “I wasn’t suggesting,” she said with a laugh.

  “A part of you was,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she asked, dropping a hand to her cocked hip.

  “I recognize that gleam in your eye.”

  “I wonder if nonbelievers notice anything when they stay here. I mean, what’s the best way to tackle it? Go in telling yourself there’s no such thing as ghosts and hope the spirits don’t decide it’s their mission to prove you wrong while you’re there, or go in with a healthy fear and respect for the undead and hope they leave you the hell alone,” she said, pursing her lips in thought.

  “You’re going to have to keep wondering because the hair is already standing up on my neck.”

  “Yours, too? I thought it was just me,” she said, reaching for his hand.

  Great.

  Hopefully Lizzie didn’t hear that crack about being a lovely girl.

  They followed through with the one o’clock tour, walking through each of the rooms with the period furniture, floral wallpaper, rich wood furnishing, beams, and trim.

  The tour guide, a lively guy who either had been there for so long that he no longer caught the weird vibe in the place, or had a direct line to Lizzie’s spirit who reassured him she wouldn’t haunt him while he tried to make a living, vibrated with energy. And not the good kind.

  He reached the height of his excitement in the rooms where Lizzie’s parents had been murdered raising the already peaked creep factor.

  He even went so far as to drape himself over the couch as the father had been found and crumple into a heap on the floor in the same spot and position as the mother.

  “This guy is way into his job,” he whispered behind his hand next to her.

  “I heard him tell one of the others that he did some sort of ancestry test, and he’s a descendent of the family. You better not let go of my hand until we’re locked back in the car,” she whispered back.

  “Is it just me or does it feel like there’s a weird vibe in here? The kind that requires holy water?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you want to go? I think I want to go. We’ve seen most everything anyway,” she replied.

  “You think he’ll notice?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Doesn’t matter, we can run faster than him. Come on,” she said, turning and yanking him along with her.

  They jogged out to the Jeep, breathless with laughter, the tires squealing when Aiden pulled out of their spot and hit the gas. “No more Google for you,” he said, crooking his finger at her.

  “We made a memory and left before demon possession. I’d say Google worked out just fine,” she said, ripping Lizzie from the plastic p
ackaging and slapping her suction cupped base to the dashboard.

  “She’s looking at me,” he said, glancing back at the doll as its angry eyes bobbled with every bump over the cracked asphalt of Second Street.

  “She likes to watch,” she said with a suggestive wiggle of those eyebrows. The same wiggle that had had him agreeing to the tour in the first place.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “Still full from breakfast. You?”

  “I’m good for now,” he agreed.

  “Why don’t we explore, find a place to stay, and go out tonight wherever we end up?”

  “Sounds good as long as we get far away from Fall River,” he said.

  They ended up travelling through Attleboro and Woonsocket. Along the way, they came across a covered bridge closed to car traffic in the winter. They parked and walked the length, his camera clicking the entire time, capturing the architecture of the crossbeams. The floor creaked and crackled in the cold with their steps. The angle of the light was just about perfect and with a few adjustments, he might be able to hang a few of the pictures at the practice.

  He even captured her leaning against the rough wood, her copper strands aglow with the sun standing in stark contrast to the gray, cracked timber.

  She talked quietly to herself as she tossed rocks into the creek below.

  She did that a lot, the talking. It had taken a few times for him to realize that she was working out lyrics in her head. Sometimes she’d jot them down on paper or email them to herself.

  Maybe she’d write something on the same level as “Hidden Heart.”

  At least he hoped she would.

  An hour later, they arrived in Webster, Massachusetts where she spotted a cute bed and breakfast. The life-size Victorian dollhouse stood proudly amongst the more modest homes on the street with an intricate paint scheme of blues, greens, and white.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think a certain someone better figure out how to keep her screaming to a minimum,” he said.

  She laughed and slapped his chest playfully. “Funny. And I’m going to need to break the Google rule.”

  He pulled in and parked. “For what?”

  “I really want a beer and dancing. Would you mind if I find a place for us to go tonight?”

  “God, no. I could use a beer after Lizzie’s place. Let’s go see if they’ve got a room, and we’ll find something.”

  A half hour later, they were tucked in their corner room with sweeping views of the back garden, now a blanket of white.

  “There’s a place called the Barbed Wire Bar and Grill about five miles from here. They have dancing,” she called to him from where she stood in front of the bathroom mirror fastening her hair on top of her head in a messy knot.

  “Dancing?”

  “Yes, dancing,” she said with a shake of her head as she wound up and shot a throw pillow at him, hitting him square in the chest.

  “Like Lizzie, I like to watch,” he said.

  “You don’t dance? What was all that first date talk from the night we met about dancing in the glow of the city lights?”

  “Slow dancing,” he pointed out.

  She shrugged and grabbed a worn pair of cowboy boots from her bag. “Okay, so you can watch.”

  Chapter 15

  THE SINGLE-STORY BARBED Wire sat behind a wide dirt parking lot overrun with pickup trucks on the outskirts of town.

  Through the windows they spotted diners sitting at scattered tables to the left, but on the right, the lights flashed and bodies moved in circular motion to a two-step beat that seeped from the cracks and crevices of the worn building, giving it a pulse.

  “Oh, this is perfect,” she said, hopping out of the Jeep and staring at the building with a look of wonder on her face and her cowboy-booted foot already tapping to the rhythm.

  He couldn’t wait to see who she became inside. This might the closest he’d get to seeing the woman who’d captured his attention on Crossroads.

  Not that she hadn’t caught it at least a thousand times since.

  “I bet they have killer wings,” he said. “Let’s go.” He reached for her hand, and she practically bounced her way to the front door.

  She should be exhausted, but the minute her ears caught the sound of the music, she was off and running, energized and ready.

  Beer flowed, laughter echoed, and smiles filled the place as waitresses zipped in and out of crowds with impossibly full trays of drinks and food.

  A stage off to the right held a DJ set up and a sign that said dollar beer night for the ladies.

  She leaned in and cupped her hand around his ear. “Do you mind if we grab a table on the same side as the dance floor?”

  He shook his head and gestured for her to lead the way.

  She snagged a spot closer to the corner, but where couples flowed by on full display as they twirled, dipped, and promenaded around the perimeter of the room.

  He pulled out a chair for her. “This reminds me of that country dance show that used to be on TV. God, I can’t remember the name of it, but my uncle used to watch it all the time.”

  “And for me it reminds me of Cowboy Calvin on YouTube,” she said with a quick grin.

  He took the seat next to her. “Who’s that?”

  “Seriously? You’ve never seen Cowboy Calvin? Beautiful black cowboy with jaw-dropping dance moves? What he can do with those hips, mmm, mmm, mmm,” she said with a faraway look in her eye.

  His lips twitched as he raised his eyebrow.

  She shook her head and glanced back at him. “Sorry,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  He leaned toward her and nudged her chin. “Why? I’ve got hip game. Put you in the doctor’s office, didn’t it?”

  “Touché,’ she hummed before biting his knuckle.

  “Your girl here looks hungry. I’ve got a couple of menus for you. What can I get you to drink?” the waitress said with a laugh as she set cardboard coasters on the table along with glasses of ice water.

  “Actually, do you have wings?”

  “Sure do,” she said with the point of her pencil resting on the order pad.

  “Flavor doesn’t matter to me. What about you, Natalie?” Aiden asked.

  “Barbecue, and if you don’t mind, I’d like a Guinness.”

  “Make that two,” Aiden said.

  “Barbecue and Guinness? I might just have to marry you,” he said.

  “You better not doddle, I hear I’m a catch,” she said with a wink.

  She thought he was joking, no doubt about it, but for the first time in ever, he could picture sliding a ring on a woman’s finger.

  Most people married, then settled into responsibility and duty. He’d already done the latter for years, but marrying her, she’d keep him on his toes.

  Their relationship would never collect dust.

  And no one would up and leave the other behind to go traipsing across the globe for adventure or whatever the hell his mother had gone off and done. He assumed it was adventure, but without a letter, a phone call, hell a post card, he’d never know.

  He glanced at Natalie, watching the way she scanned the crowd, vibrating with energy in her chair, but yet she held his hand tight, like she didn’t want to go without him.

  Yeah, they’d explore the world together.

  The waitress came back with their beer. “A toast,” she said, raising her glass.

  “To discovery and adventure,” he said, clinking his glass against hers and taking a long drink of the dark, rich brew.

  “Mmmm, that’s good,” she said, sucking a bit of foam off her upper lip.

  “And it will still be here after you get out there and dance. Go ahead, you know you want to,” he said.

  “You won’t mind?” she asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “Thanks.” She stood and shrugged off her sweater before dropping it into her chair. “I’ll be right back.” She leaned over the table and pressed a quick kiss to his lip
s.

  “I’ll be right here,” he said quietly as he watched the sway of her hips in her worn Levis.

  The jeans hugged her from waist to just below the knee where the cut allowed room for her cowboy boots.

  She didn’t try too hard like most women heading out for a night on the dance floor. How many times had he seen women with their cowboy boots over their jeans or paired with skirts or shorts, on full display? It was as though they needed others to see that they were country.

  Not Natalie.

  The scuffed boots she’d taken out had seen lots of life. They weren’t a way to show the world that she was a country girl, but to show the world she lived a life off the beaten path. And she’d tucked them under her jeans, letting what peeked out speak for themselves, scuffs and all.

  No need to make a statement when your body from head to toe, your aura, and your smile, conspired to do it for you.

  And now, here in the dim light of a bar and grill that hovered on the edge of full-fledged honky-tonk, she stomped those battered heels in time with a line of dancers, the sound of their thuds complementing the beat.

  Her fitted black tank top displayed arms full of black tattoos running up her biceps and around her forearms. She bumped and swayed, rolling her hips, her head thrown back in laughter as she made friends with the dancers on either side of her.

  The last bit of his heart fell.

  He didn’t even try to catch it.

  When the song ended, she dropped into the chair, laughing breathlessly.

  “You seem to have recovered from your injury just fine,” he said.

  “I feel great,” she said, fanning herself. “And hot.”

  He smiled. “And drawing every eye in the place.”

  She dropped her chin and began fanning her neck. “You aren’t jealous, are you?”

  “Not at all. You chose me.” He took the stack of napkins at the edge of the table and dipped them in his ice water before laying them across the back of her neck.

  “Oh, that’s heavenly,” she said on a sigh. “Thank you.”

  The wings came, and they ate while they chatted about their favorite country songs and recalled who they’d seen in concert.