Doll Face (Baby Doll #3)

by Heidi Acosta

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He nods in response. “Paula is inside,” he mutters before sauntering off. I can’t help but get the feeling that he doesn’t like me very much, yet I’m just not sure why.

  The inside of the trailer is the same as the last time I saw it. Stacks of paper litter the counter. Dark paneled walls, with an old water cooler that sits in the corner. The wall unit that rattles the window blowing out damp air, dripping water into an already half-filled bucket.

  A plump woman behind the counter lets out a string of profanities.

  “Hello?” She sits up straighter; her short hair is in a red frizzy halo around her head, and she is wearing entirely too much makeup in the wrong colors. A pink shirt hugs her chest just a little too tightly. Her mouth forms an ‘O’ as she looks me over.

  “Katie.” I hold my hand out.

  “Oh yes, the new girl that Vic hired. Well, come on back … these invoices aren’t gonna process themselves.”

  I stand there, unable to make myself reach out and take them.

  “You do know how to do that, don’t you?” Nodding, I hurry behind the counter. Whatever I don’t know how to do I’m sure I will figure it out.

  “I’m Paula by the way.”

  “Oh, nice to meet you.” I look for a place to set my purse and decide it’s better to hang it on the back of my chair.

  “Vic said you would also be doing some da-ta en-try? Which I’m pleased as a peach in the state fair about. I have been after him to hire a girl for ages. I don’t know what he expects me to do around her, between all this,” she waves at the stacks of papers everywhere, “and those damn boys of his running amuck.”

  I instantly like Paula—she fills the room with mindless chatter, so I don’t have to think of where I am and what I’m doing or why.

  “It was hard enough to get that man to change; I had to prac-tic-ally clobber him over the head and drag him down to the Wal-Mart to buy these computers. He went kicking and screaming. But I said ‘Vic, I went down to the com-mun-ity college and took myself a weekend computer class, and the way we are doing things is somethang’ from the dark ages.'”

  Time flies by as I enter invoices into the computer. Vic has things a mess, I quickly learn most of the invoice are paid by barter. Across receipts are written things like, ‘paid with paint’, or ‘Bill’s mother is sick, cleared account.' How he makes any money is beyond me.

  “Now look at this, it’s already lunch time,” Paula says, cutting off her own story about her good-for-nothing-son-o-bitch ex-husband. “I’m going to go down to the Country Ham and pick up some lunch for me, and I better grab some for Vic, because they should be back soon. Would you like somethang’?” My stomach growls at the thought of food. I’m running low on funds, so eating out right now is not an option. Besides, Kiki packed me a lunch.

  “No thanks, I brought lunch.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll be back. If someone buzzes, you tell them to hang on ’til Vic, or I get back.” I watch her leave, smiling to myself. Then I dig out my lunch from Kiki, but when I open it, I can’t believe what I’m looking at. Inside is a can of beer and a condom with a sticky note with a winky face on it. “You have to be freaking kidding me.” I shove the bag in the trash.

  The sound of voices outside the door startles me, and I glance out the window to see Adam and his dad. I quickly smooth down my hair and fix my sweater, grabbing a stack of papers to make it seem like I’m busy. Too busy to notice Adam. Shit. Shit. Shit. The door bursts open and the conversation they are having stops the moment Adam lays eyes on me. His mouth splitting into that shit eating grin he wears, warming my cheeks.

  “Doll Face.” The way he says it makes my stomach flip like he is promising me something I don’t yet know what it is. Trouble, he is trouble. My guard goes up.

  “Hello, Adam,” I say coldly. His smile widens as if I just offered him a prize or a challenge. No, I’m not challenging him. I push the idea from my mind.

  “Oh, Katie, glad to see you. I trust Paula showed you the ropes?” Vic inquires, looking up from a handful of papers.

  “Hi, Mr. Nash. Oh, Paula is wonderful. She went to go pick up lunch for you two,” I say, trying to ignore Adam, who is still staring at me.

  “Country Ham?”

  I nod in response.

  “I swear that woman is trying to kill me with a heart attack.” He pat’s his stomach.

  “Adam, do you think you can pick up that tow for Officer Sam before you take lunch?”

  “Sure … if Katie comes with me.” He’s staring at me, daring me with his steel-colored eyes. I stiffen.

  “Katie?” Vic shrugs. “Sure. I suppose she should know how a tow works anyway. You don’t mind, do you, Katie?”

  “Not at all,” I say gritting my teeth and forcing a smile. I stand, grabbing my purse and march out the door that Adam is holding open for me. He follows behind me, whistling an annoying tune. Why will he not just shut up? I rip open the truck door before he can get to it. Every part of me is on edge, my senses heightened with Adam’s nearness.

  “I got this!” I snap at him.

  “I know.” He winks at me. Why is he winking at me? I’m not going to make this ride pleasant if that is what he thinks. Climbing up into the truck is a little trickier than when you are pissed off that someone is stealing your car. I have to grip onto the sides and hoist myself up into the truck. Not very ladylike at all.

  “Can you stop smiling like that?” I slam the truck door shut.

  His grin widens. “Like what?”

  “Like you just won the damn lottery. I’m in this truck strictly for work, not because I like you or think you’re hot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.” My cheeks flare with heat.

  “Admit it, you are excited to be alone with me.”

  “Hardly. Let’s just get to this job in silence and back as soon as possible.”

  “Whatever you like, Doll Face.”

  “And while we are at it, stop calling me that. I’m not Your Doll Face or Red. It’s Katie, just Katie.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

  He turns up the radio, and I try to ignore his singing, which is almost perfect. Each note makes me more aware of him, until he is everywhere, his voice and scent swim inside my head, filling every cell of mine. I want to scream. I want to lean into him and feel his warmth; I want to jump out of this moving truck. My mind is racing a mile a minute, and my heart feels like it’s about to explode. He turns down the radio. “You know, you should try relaxing.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Panic fills my core, and I’m ready to detonate. Everything about Adam Nash has me on edge. I sit ramrod straight in the passenger side of his truck. I’m too aware of what he is. Telling him I would go with him was a mistake, a big mistake. I should have insisted on taking my own car; then I wouldn’t be stuck here where he seems to take up all the space and air. The smell of him lingers around the cab. His cologne is spicy and sweet but not overpowering. It fills my head, all the same, making me dizzy. My hands feel clammy as I try to focus on the numbers on his dashboard clock. Sometimes this helps me escape when I get stuck in my own head, or when anxiety builds inside of me like the clouds before a twister.

  He reaches over, pushing a stray hair off my face. His touch sends electricity through me. “Keep your eyes on the road,” I snap. I can’t take it; I feel like screaming, like the parts of me I’m still hanging on to are coming untethered and floating away. Parts of me that I’m not ready to let go. Adam has a way of making me feel like anything is possible, that he might be a new path in my life I want to explore. But where would that take me? It would take me spiraling so far off my path that I might never find a way back, and that scares the hell out of me. I have always known what I wanted—college, a career, and marriage shortly after school to a successful, educated man. Adam is as far away from that goal as can be. Besides, I don’t even know anything about Adam. Anxiety
builds until it takes me over. “Tell me something about you,” I practically scream, trying to chase the beast away.

  Me?” He looks slightly confused. “What do you want to know?”

  “What is your middle name?” I ask, the anxiety still building.

  “Lester.”

  “Lester? What kind of middle name is that? Adam Lester Nash.”

  “It was after my dead grandfather.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Anxiety’s not going away. Will he think I’m a freak if I put my head between my legs and hyperventilate?

  “Nah, it was after an artist my mom knew in college. My dear old Pop-Pop is still alive.

  “That’s horrible!” My chest feels tighter.

  “Relax, we always joke about Gramp’s demise … it got me out of multiple tests in school.”

  I don’t know if it’s Adam’s complete lack of appreciation for education that I loved so much or just the whole situation in its entirety. I completely break; it was bound to happen sooner or later, my chest constricts and my heart feels like it might burst from my ribcage. My hands are clammy, and I can no longer breathe. I’m having a panic attack. I used to see a therapist for them when I was younger; I even used to take medicine when they got really bad, but as I got older, I learned how to talk myself down, how to breathe through the crippling fear. It had been years since I had one this bad. My head spins with irrational thoughts. Thoughts that somewhere I know are not real, but it doesn’t stop my mind from cartwheeling with them.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Adam actually sounds concerned, which only seems to heighten my anxiety. Why the hell should he care? This is just a game to him, to see if he can get in my pants. “Yes.” I suck in a breath through my teeth, our previous conversation lost. I’m probably freaking him the hell out. Good, when he sees how fucked up I am, it will make him leave me alone. I stare at the numbers, trying to focus in on them, but it’s not helping it’s only making my head spin faster. My chest squeezes my lungs, my heart pounds like at any moment it might explode and kill me. I look ahead of us and try to count to forty and back, another learned technique. Not helping.

  “Stop the car,” I gasp.

  “What?”

  “Stop the car, stop the car.” I panic, wanting to claw myself out of the window. The cab closes in around me, and the world start to tilt, and I’m once again sliding off.

  Adam pulls the truck over. “Seriously, are you okay?”

  I think about telling him I’m fine and to take me home, but instead I tell him the truth. I don’t know if it’s my need to drive him further away or that he is looking at me like he might actually care. “I’m having an anxiety attack.”

  I pull the truck over, and she hops out like it’s on fire. Shit. I push open my door and go after her. She paces in front of the truck. She went from zero to sixty in a split of a second. I was pushing her too far; I had it in my head that I need to show her that I was the one she wanted. But maybe I need to worry about being the guy she needs, not the guy she thinks she wants. She turns, looking off into the distance, and I feel helpless. I don’t know how to fix her. Everything about her changed, her posture is as stiff as a board, and she’s on edge, ready to leap. I don’t know how to talk her back. What really is scaring me is the not the sudden mood shift, it’s that she is staring off into the distance like the sky might swallow her whole. Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she takes shallow breaths.

  “Please answer me, are you okay?” I ask again. She hesitates and I’m not sure she is going to answer, but she does.

  “No! I’m having a panic attack.”

  I move toward her, and she flinches at my closeness, which hurts more than I want to admit. “Katie, look at me.”

  She doesn’t move; her hands are balled into fists at her sides. I’m afraid she might bolt if I touch her, but I want to help her. I reach out, taking her hand in mine, and turn her so that she is facing me. I need to get her mind off whatever is haunting her. Now that she is facing me, I tilt her chin up so that she is looking at me. Her eyes are amazing, a bright shining green, with flakes of gold in them.

  “Look at me,” I urge her as she tries to move out of my hand, but I don’t allow her to. “Come on, count with me.”

  “Adam.”

  “Just count with me. One, two …” She starts to count with me, repeating each number as I say them, and when I reach forty her breathing has evened. Her eyes are locked on mine, making my stomach flip, adrenaline courses through me from our skin touching. I want to lean down and kiss her so bad. Everything is right from the position—the background, and the light breeze that blows across our skin, lifting a loose piece of her hair off her shoulder. Everything is perfect, but the situation. I trail my thumb over the line of her jaw. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment before I let go of her and shove my hands into my pockets.

  She stays like that, head tilted, sun kissing her skin, eyes closed. Did she feel what I was feeling? That invisible rope that seems to tug us together. The jolt of electricity to the heart. She opens her eyes again; she looks tired. Dropping her gaze to our feet, she whispers, “Thanks.” I turn, leaning against the truck, and scoop up a handful of pebbles and begin to toss them one by one out onto the road, sensing she is not ready to get back in the truck. We watch them bounce across the blacktop.

  “I haven’t had an attack in a long time,” she sighs and leans on the truck next to me. So close but not touching, the charge between us is undeniable. I want this. I want her; I don’t care what anyone says I have to have her for my own. After seeing her like this completely raw, real, I want to be the one that talks her off the edge every time.

  “I’m glad I could help.” I toss another pebble.

  “It’s just everything that has happened these last few weeks.” She lets out a breath. “Can we just take it slow?”

  “Slow?” Slow is not a no, and I need this girl in my life … every broken, complicated piece.

  “I like slow,” I murmur, looking at her from the corner of my eyes, a smile tugging at my lips. I can do slow if that is what she wants. Damn it’s going to be hard, but I can try.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me too.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. How slow are we talking?” I ask.

  She squints up at me. “Friends. No more flirting. Let’s just be friends.”

  “For now.”

  “For now,” she agrees.

  “I can do that.” I smirk, knowing that is going to be the hardest damn thing I will ever have to do, but if the end result is that she will be mine, and I can do that.

  “As your friend, I feel I have to be honest with you.” I drop the stones and turn so I’m facing her; she keeps staring straight ahead. “I want you. I have never felt this way about someone before, and it scares the hell out of me, but it’s also the most exciting thing I have ever felt.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “But I want to know you.” She turns toward me, and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to pull her to me and kiss her.

  “Can I be honest with you?”

  “I would expect nothing less from a friend.”

  She blows out an exasperated breath. “My life is a mess right now, like a colossal, giant fuck-fest mess.”

  “A colossal giant fuck-fest, sounds fun.”

  “Adam.”

  “Sorry, do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know, not right now.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Katie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When you are ready I’m here to listen.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh and, Katie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to try as hard as hell to only be your friend, but I can’t promise you will not fall in love with me in the process.

  She gives a nervous giggle. “I highly doubt that.”

  After we pick up the wreck and I chat for a mi
nute with Deputy Sam, we pull into the Dragonfly café and park. Katie is calmer, but still fidgety; she smooths back her hair into a neat ponytail in the mirror. “You should wear your hair down more often, I like it messy,” I say, getting out of the truck. What don’t say is that I want to be the one messing it up. I try to help her out of the truck, but she refuses my outstretched hand and climbs down herself.

  “What? Like your blonde bimbo?” she snarls.

  “You mean Karly? Trust me, there is nothing going on between us.” At least not after the other night.

  “Whatever.” She storms into the diner, and I race to keep up.

  “Are you jealous?” I say once I catch up with her.

  “No, I’m not jealous. And can you get that stupid smirk off your face. I meant it, Adam Nash, me and you are just friends.”

  I hold up my hand in surrender, but before I can say anything a girl I have never seen before storms up to us.

  “Katie Bloom? Holy shit that is you.” The girl has short spiky black hair. Katie stiffens, and I instinctively move closer to her.

  “Roxie. Hi.” Even though she has a smile on her face, her voice is tense.

  “Now Roxie Cruz.” She holds out her hand, showing off a silver ring with a pink gemstone in it. “Holy shit, I would never have expected to see you back here after what happened,” Roxie says.

  “Yeah. Well, I had to take care of a few things,” Katie states.

  “Look, I’m sorry about your mom and dad.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, I better get this food back to Third and Jr. before Third throws a temper tantrum.”

  “Yeah okay. Congrats,” Katie says.

  “Thanks.” The girl eyeballs me for a moment and then leaves.

  “Old friend?” I ask as we slide into a booth.

  “Hardly.” She grabs the menu and flips through it frantically. “Did they raise their prices?” She huffs.

  “Don’t worry about it, lunch is on me.”

  “No, I—”