by Carian Cole
My fingers grip the steering wheel my bare ass crack was shoved against just an hour or so ago. “See ya soon,” is pretty general and vague and not a real plan in any way after having sex in a car. Especially if he enjoyed it.
This sucks.
Later, when I’m lying in bed with Archie, who is attempting to suffocate me by sitting on my chest, I use my mental microscope to analyze every word and every touch we shared today. I grab onto anything I can perceive as a sign he wants to see me again, and I form a little pile in my mind. On the very top of that pile are the words, Don’t disappear again. Surely he wouldn’t have said that if he planned on ditching me.
My boring life has unexpectedly become filled with an onslaught of excitement, sex in any place but a bed, and emotional stress. I’m overwhelmed, petrified, anxious, and falling head over heels in love.
Chapter Seven
Monday morning, I’m half an hour late to work. I took a melatonin to help me sleep the night before, and even though Ditra suggested it, telling me it’s all natural with no side effects, I struggled to wake up enough to make it to work on time. I guess having vivid dreams about things floating across my room and waking up with brain fog aren’t considered side effects.
Two coffees, a nasty side-eye from my boss, ten phone calls, and a few hours of research later, it’s lunchtime and I’m walking nervously to the park. How did what used to be my daily hour of peace and calm become a mishmash of anxiety?
An irresistible guy with a guitar and an adorable dog showed up; that’s how.
Bluesy rock music in the air tells me he’s there before he comes into view, and I can’t help but smile as I walk through the iron gates and see him sitting on a stool in his usual place. I’m sure the stool is much more comfortable than sitting on the ground, and I wonder where it came from. His eyes are closed and his body is swaying slowly and seductively as he plays. Watching him transports me to a private visual cinema of flashbacks of how his body moves and sways sans guitar.
I shake my head to clear those visions, which I shouldn’t be having in the middle of the day, surrounded by strangers, just by merely looking at him. Minutes later, I almost choke on my spoonful of yogurt when the unusually long song ends, and he raises his head to look directly at me with a fierce hunger in his eyes like that of a wolf staring down its prey. He nods to the small crowd around him and then quickly packs up his things to come take a seat next to me.
“I liked that song,” I say. I’m surprised he walked away from the small crowd. People were throwing more cash into his jar than I’ve ever seen them give. “I could tell it’s one of yours.”
He shoves up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and stretches his arms. “It’s new. It’s called ‘Butterflies and Madness.’”
“I like it a lot. It was like a mix of everything you’ve ever played all at once. It sounded amazing.”
His eyes light up at the compliments, and I’m enthralled with how the color of his eyes can change so quickly. “That’s what I was going for. You’ve inspired me.”
“Me?”
“You.” He clicks his tongue piercing against his teeth, a habit I’ve noticed a few times, usually when he seems to be wrestling with a thought. “You didn’t come see me yesterday.”
My mental pile was right after all. “I didn’t know if you wanted to see me. You didn’t say anything—”
“Yeah, I’m not good with plans. I just kind of assume things will happen.”
I laugh at his honesty. “That can make things a little confusing.”
He grins and nods. “I know, babe.”
I’m sure thousands of women are called babe on a daily basis, but to have it said to me in such a deep, sensual, caressing voice that makes my insides turn to mush is nothing short of amazing.
“I can’t call you, Piper. I don’t have a phone or even a fucking calendar. Most of the time, I’m not even sure what day it is. I can’t take you to dinner or to movies or any of that fun shit. I’m working with limited options here.”
My heart constricts, and emotion clogs up in a lump in my throat. “None of that matters to me.”
He touches my cheek and turns my face toward him. “You sure about that?” A veil of sadness shrouds his blue eyes again, and I’m struck with the need to do anything to take it away.
“I’m positive.”
He leans closer to me, and I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead, he brushes his stubbly cheek against mine and nudges his lips against my ear. “Then bring your sweet ass here after work.” His hoarse tone drips with raw sexual power, and I submit. A burst of sheer excitement courses through me, and I feel like, if someone were to cut me open right now, my veins would drip glitter and rainbows.
“Okay,” I reply with a soft exhale. “I’ll be here.”
Here. There. Anywhere. None of it matters as long as I get to hear his voice, stare into those cobalt eyes, and feel his lips on mine.
For once, the afternoon at work goes by quickly. I call my mother from my desk to tell her I won’t be home for dinner and then move my car from the office parking lot to a safe spot on the street. Leaving it at the office after hours would raise questions, and I don’t want anyone poking around in my personal business.
I’m surprised to see Evan and Acorn waiting at the gates for me, one with a smile and one with a wagging tail. Blue takes my hand in his and looks up and down the street at the five o’clock traffic before talking.
“You mind if we go for a walk?” he asks.
I shake my head, and he puts his stuff in my car before he leads me down the street in the opposite direction from my office. We walk about four blocks until we reach a dead-end street with very few houses and zero traffic. As we approach the woodsy end of the road, I realize we’re in the same spot where we had sex in the car the other night. He stops walking and gestures to the last house on the left, which is set back from the road, surrounded by trees.
“I love this house.” He stares across the lawn affectionately. “There’s just something about it.”
The Tudor-style house he loves has clearly been abandoned for a long time. The stone and stucco are dirty with age and lack of care. The dark wood trim that probably once gave the home a very distinguished storybook feel is now hidden behind decaying leaves. The focal point of the house is definitely the arched wooden front door with its huge iron knocker and handle which is less than inviting given its surroundings. The grass is overgrown and riddled with weeds and twigs, and the windows have been boarded up with sheets of plywood. I try to see the house through Blue’s eyes. Perhaps he sees beyond the ruin. I see that in Blue in so many ways. His unusual perspective isn’t distracted by the dirt and decay that might turn others away. I feel like he sees beauty where others refuse to look.
“Let’s take a look around back,” he says, tugging my hand.
“Isn’t this trespassing?” I ask in a hushed tone.
He laughs. “I’m a professional trespasser, Piper. It’s what I do. Don’t worry about it. No one is around.”
True enough.
We follow the cracked driveway to a stone walkway that takes us to the backyard, which is surrounded by woods. There’re no other houses for as far as I can see, except for the house to the left, which is almost a quarter mile away. A four-season porch is off the back of the house, with long-forgotten plants and a hopefully empty birdcage visible hanging in the window. In its time, I’m sure the porch must have been a beautiful place to sip tea and read.
“How sad such a beautiful house has been let go like this,” I say.
“It happens a lot. Once a home, now a bunch of empty rooms with nothing but memories.”
“I wish we could go inside. I’d love to see all the rooms and the decor and what they left behind.”
“We can’t go inside. But we can go in there.”
Puzzled, I follow his gaze to a small toolshed in the far corner of the yard.
I blink at the dilapidated building. “In there?”<
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“Yeah. Come on.” He whistles for Acorn, who has wandered off into the weeds. The dog perks up his ears and trots over to follow us.
I worry about ticks and snakes as we walk through the high grass, but Evan seems oblivious to those concerns. When we reach the shed, he lifts the rusted metal latch and swings the wooden door open with a creak. I hold his hand and stay behind him. As he goes inside, he pulls me in with him.
Even though the sun is starting to set, there’s still enough light for us to see our surroundings, although there’s not much to see. A few old yard tools hang on one wall, and some old buckets and paint cans are piled in the corner. The wooden floor is dusty beneath our feet, and cobwebs lace random places over the walls and in the corners of the small window. I’m pretty sure we’re standing in bug central, and I’m petrified of spiders or any other creepy crawly.
I grip his hand tighter and wonder why on earth he wanted to come in here. There’s nothing of value or use at all.
“It’s starting to get dark outside,” I hint, but he continues to look around, clicking his piercing as he does so.
“I have a lantern,” he says absently, obviously forgetting his bag is back in my car.
“Are you looking for something?”
“No. I’m looking for somewhere.”
I scrunch my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“I think I’m going to stay here.”
His answer only heightens the state of confusion I’m already in.
“Stay here?” I repeat. “As in live here?”
“I don’t live anywhere, Piper. But I could sleep here instead of under the bridge. It’ll keep me out of the rain and wind.”
I blink, overwhelmed with the wave of facts that keep getting buried under the feelings I have for him. He’s homeless. And he’s honestly serious about moving into an old toolshed in the yard of an abandoned house. There’s no apartment hunting with this guy. Nope. He’s going to live in this dirty shed. Whether he considers it living here or not, that’s what this boils down to.
“And we’d have a place to hang out together and be alone,” he adds, squeezing my hand so tight his metal rings dig into my fingers.
I sway a bit as my gut lurches with a new realization. This place, this shed, will ultimately become a love nest if I want to continue to see him.
There will be no couch or bed.
No TV and VCR to watch movies.
No kitchen to keep snacks in.
No bathroom.
“It’ll be nice,” he continues. “I bet there’s lots of crickets chirping at night and the sound of the leaves blowing in the trees. This thing has a tin roof. Do you know how fuckin’ cool that’ll sound when it rains?”
The organic excitement in his voice is like that of a child’s—so pure and honest that I’m carried along to that place with him.
“It’s perfect,” I say softly.
He kisses the top of my head and puts his arm around me. “It is.”
As we walk back to my car, he asks questions about my job, showing genuine interest in my life, and I hope he’s forgotten about his idea of staying in the shed. When we finally reach my car, he takes his things, and when he kisses me on the street, I wish I had one of those minivans with a fold-out bed in the back and curtains over the windows. I would let him and Acorn live in it, and he wouldn’t have to look for a somewhere anymore. Maybe he’d finally want to stop wandering and walking.
“I have something for you,” he says with his hands still on my waist. “It’s just something I made when I couldn’t sleep and was thinking about you.”
“You were thinking about me?”
He kneels and opens his duffel bag. “I think about you a lot. Why does that surprise you?”
“I don’t know. No one has ever told me they were thinking about me before. I thought I was just… un-think-about-able.”
He studies my face as he stands. “That’s fucked up.”
He grabs my hand, and I watch as he wraps a bracelet around my wrist and clasps it. I inspect the bracelet under the streetlight, running my finger lightly over the colored beads strung on a thin, black leather cord. I marvel at one tiny bead shaped and painted like a ladybug.
“You made this? For me?” My voice cracks, and I bite my lower lip to keep it from quivering.
“Yeah. I know it’s not much. I just wanted to give you something.”
“I love it. The ladybug is adorable.”
“I wanted you to have a reminder. You can’t piss off the ladybug and defy the love myth.”
I stand on my tiptoes and throw my arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “I’m never going to take it off.”
“Someday you will.” He pulls away and rakes his hand through his hair. “Or someday I’ll fuck up and you’ll throw it at me.”
He’s wrong. I could never be mad at him, and I’m never taking the bracelet off.
Two days later, I’m invited over to the shed by way of another note I find on my car seat when I’m leaving the office. I guess it’s a good thing I always forget to lock my car, and I probably never will again now that I know he’ll leave me notes.
Due to the nonstop rain, I haven’t seen him since the night he gave me the bracelet. Not being able to see him or talk to him was definitely starting to upset me. But the rain has stopped, and now I have a note telling me he misses me and wants to see me. It makes me happy enough to overlook the shed part.
Before going to see him, I drive across town to my house to change into comfy stretchy jeans and a sweatshirt, unsure of what else to wear on a shed date. While I’m there, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then fill Archie’s dishes and grab two cans of soda and an unopened bag of chips to bring with me. I know he doesn’t like me bringing him things, but I can’t change who I am, and I’m a person who likes to give to others. I’m also a person who likes snacks. If we’re going to be sitting around talking, then we should have cold drinks and munchy food. Or maybe this is just my attempt to try to sprinkle some kind of normalcy into this unconventional situation.
When I pull up in front of the abandoned house at the end of the dark street, I can’t get out of my car. The invisible hands of common sense and logic grip me, trying to force me to spin the car around and go back home.
I almost do.
But then I see him walking down the driveway toward me, a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, untied boots thudding on the asphalt with that sexy, confident walk.
And then that smile. It’s that magical smile that’s sexy as hell one minute and adorable the next that’s going to be my undoing.
He opens my car door and leans his arm on the roof as he peers in at me. “You coming out of there?”
I take my keys out of the ignition, grab the bag of snacks, and climb out of the car. He steps back just far enough to pull me forward to close the door behind me. Then he backs me up against the side of the car. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger and turns his head to the side to blow out a cloud of smoke.
“Thought you forgot about me.” Today, his voice is deeper and scratchier. I wonder if he’s getting sick or if he’s been singing in a smoky bar downtown instead of just playing guitar.
“How could I forget you? It’s been raining, that’s all.”
He moves forward until his body touches mine. “Maybe that’s when I want to see you the most.”
“When it’s raining?”
He moves his hand hesitantly down my arm. “As much as I love the sound of the rain, the moody gray clouds and the rainbows, the storms trap me. I can’t stand the thunder and lightning and all the wind. That’s when I need you the most. You’re like my own little sunbeam.” A weak smile touches his lips. “You chase the storm away.”
I stare up into his eyes and see my first glimpse of the other side of Blue. But I’m so entranced with his lyrical words and being considered a sunbeam that I don’t hear what he’s saying.
“Then
I guess I better find my umbrella,” I say with a smile. “And next time it rains, I’ll come find you.”
His response is a sizzling kiss that nearly melts me into the car door.
“C’mon. Let’s go inside.”
The way he says it makes me think he’s somehow gotten into the abandoned house, but as I follow him up the driveway, he passes the walkway leading to the front door and leads me to the backyard. He holds my hand as we walk through the wet weeds toward the shed. A dim orange glow illuminates the small window, and I assume he must have his lantern on inside. The door of the shed is open a crack, and Acorn pokes his nose out when he hears us approaching.
“Hi, little guy,” I say as we step inside, and he immediately starts wagging his tail and bouncing on his front paws.
“I think he likes it here,” Evan says.
I stand near the door and peer around the small, dim space. I’m afraid if I move, I’ll walk right into a spider web. A sleeping bag is on the floor under the window, and Acorn’s dishes are on the other side of the room, next to Evan’s guitar case.
“We can sit on the sleeping bag.” He moves the lantern from the middle of the floor to one of the corners. “Or we can sit on these old lawn chairs I found. I just have to clean them off.”
“Um….” I gnaw my lower lip and try to fight off all the phobias that are engulfing me.
“What’s wrong?”
The breath I’ve been holding whooshes from my lungs. “It’s just a little scary in here.”
“Scary how? What are you scared of?”
“Spiders, mostly. And bats.”
“The only thing in here that can hurt you is me.”
A shiver creeps down my spine. “Would you?” I whisper. “Hurt me?”
He backs me up against the cobweb-strewn wall and leans his arms on either side of my head, trapping me.
“I don’t want to, but I will. And you’ll keep letting me.” He brushes his lips across mine. “You falling in love with me will destroy us both.”