by A. J. Downey
I looked at it for a moment before extending mine over it, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to lower mine any further, to actually touch him. It was like I was blocked by some invisible internal force. That force was fear; fear of rejection, fear that he would pull away at the last moment and say ‘Just kidding!’ My heart was suddenly flung into such a tumult.
“Hey.” His voice was soft and my eyes jerked from our hands, so close but not touching, to his warm brown eyes.
“What?” I asked.
I jumped slightly when his middle fingertip grazed the underside of my wrist in a faint touch. Gooseflesh immediately swept up my arm in a tingling wave, the hair standing on end and my breath stilling in my lungs.
He stepped into me slightly, his other hand cupping the side of my neck and my mouth went dry as his thumb grazed my cheek, so soft, so gently. I let my eyes close and pretended for just a moment…
He stepped into me again, even closer, his lips grazing my hair on the opposite side from where his hand rested, my other hand still hovering above his, the heat and energy transfer between us a gentle thing.
He whispered into my ear, “Sometimes, I wondered if you might’ve been jealous.”
I froze and pressed my lips together. I didn’t answer, because he was right. I had been, but not about the fact it wasn’t me in their place, specifically, more about how easy it was for them to be free with themselves and their bodies, about the fact that I didn’t know if I ever would be again.
I took an abrupt step back, and he let me go with a nod. I turned back to our cooking food and turned off the water that had begun to boil, pouring in the measuring cup of rice and dropping a lid on the pot.
I swallowed hard, my movements jerking, halting, as I hovered between the place of wanting to move towards him and wanting to move further away. I closed my eyes and huffed out a frustrated breath, drew another, and let it out much more slowly.
“Beer?” he asked softly, opening the fridge.
“After last time? No, thanks,” I said with a bitter laugh.
He smiled and pulled a Corona out of the fridge and put it against the counter, gave it a hearty smack and busted off the cap.
He went back around the center island and retook his stool like nothing at all had happened while I still shook on the inside. I felt ripped open, gutted, and achingly realized that I was jealous. That despite what I thought would be normal, that I shouldn’t want to ever be touched again, all I wanted was to cuddle up close with someone and build new, sweeter memories around intimacy. It ravaged my soul when I felt like I would never have something like that again, and that sudden flood of strong emotion surged, making my face hot and blurring my vision. I switched off the burner beneath the stir-fry, turned my back to Golden and pressed my fingertips to my eyes, my palms to the rest of my face.
I heard his stool scrape and I stiffened but didn’t jump. A moment later, I did jump when his hands landed lightly on my shoulders and he turned me around. I didn’t want to come out from behind my hands, and he didn’t make me, just kind of carefully stepped in, as if he were approaching a skittish cat, and put his arms around me, hugging me awkwardly.
I either put my arms around him, too, or stepped away, and goddammit, I needed the comfort. I’d been doing this, carrying it all by myself for so long and I just needed a goddamned break for a minute. I hugged to him, and cried it out and he didn’t once tell me to shush.
Instead, he gave a heavy sigh that sounded genuinely sorry, and said, “I’m sorry I pushed.”
15
Golden…
“I’m sorry I pushed. I’m sorry,” I murmured, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. I needed to figure out how many tunnels this rabbit-warren of a mess had. It wasn’t just about feeling safe for her. I’d seen her jump or twitch any time her friend Kenzie touched her, too. I think she’d probably just gone too long without touch, so long, that every touch had become startling. Something about that killed me. Something about that wrung me fucking dry.
She was soft where I held her against me, and smelled like coconut and lime, tropical and fruity with this light herbal base. Like a woman, fresh from her shower. I closed my eyes while she trembled against me and breathed her in and willed myself not to get hard. Now was hardly the time to get aroused, but she was arousing,beautifully arresting. At least my heart was starting to think so.
I’d watched her, so solemn, moving like a ghost around here for more than two months now. Listened to her soft voice on the phone as she spoke to her friend, or conducted business. I’d sometimes come in late at night and see her through her open doorway, sitting at her desk, and I’d want to stop and follow the curve of her neck, sweeping up to the messy bun she had her hair in, her pencil between her teeth as she balanced her books. The way she sat in that damn chair, one leg curled under her, the toes of the opposite foot tapping on the carpet? Shit, there was just something simply alluring about it. Normal about it.
She had class. She had grace. She was nothing like the bimbos or bitches I’d paraded past her door. She was the kind of woman you settled down with, the kind of woman you made a life with. And the fact someone had hurt her, abused her, even if she were telling the truth and it was just the once… it was fucking heart-rending and I couldn’t fucking tell you why it bothered me as bad as it did, but it did.
I wanted to fix it, and I couldn’t, and it drove me nuts, but there wasn’t anyone in the world that could fix Lys but Lys. I just had to show her that it could be done, that there was such a thing as life and light on the other side, but I wasn’t sure I was the right man for the job. Surely not me. I was too down, too dark, and too twisted for a job like this.
Madre de Dios, this was the kind of job for Angel, not me.
She pushed back from me, calmer in that way that only a good crying jag could give a chick. I never understood that shit, but I’d seen my moms and my abuela do it enough times growing up to know it was a thing. I ripped down a paper towel off the dispenser and handed it over to her. She mopped at her face and sniffed saying, “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Life doesn’t come with a playbook, Chica. We just do the best with the shit life hands us.”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good with that at the moment,” she said.
“Doing better than some, a little worse than others. You’re doing you, that’s about the best anyone could ask of you right now.”
“Well,” she said, and didn’t sound like she was quite convinced. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Food smells good.” I changed the subject, giving her an out, and she nodded and went for plates. I leaned back against the counter and stayed out of her way. Lys dished up the food and set it on the breakfast bar, I went around and took my stool and she hopped up on the one next to mine. I thought about it and figured if she cooked, I would clean. Seemed like a fair trade. I wasn’t used to actually engaging with someone I lived with, who wasn’t family. So far, Lys and I had fended for ourselves. We hadn’t really done a meal together or anything like that. We’d just been two people occupying the same space. It wasn’t like family or anything.
I wasn’t at all used to living with anyone in a domestic capacity. When I moved out at eighteen, it was straight into the military and bunking with a bunch of dudes in the barracks. I stayed single then for a reason, that reason being most bitches couldn’t stay faithful to save their lives while dudes were on deployment. It wasn’t worth it to me to blow my money on a broad fucking some other dude. I saved that shit, got out, got my own apartment, signed on with the ICPD, and had lived alone up until now. It was strange even occupying the same space with a woman who wasn’t my mom, my abuela, or my sister.
We were quietly enjoying our meal, only about a half-a-dozen bites in, when a knock fell at the front door. I straightened, and said “I got it,” as I slid off my stool. I went to the door and peeked out, raising an eyebrow.
I opened it up and said
, “I was just thinking about you a minute ago.”
My sister, Maria, looked past me and her eyebrows went up. “Sorry to just drop by like this, I didn’t realize you had company, but it was Julio’s day to take Manolo and he cancelled on me last minute and I have to work tonight. I picked up an extra shift.”
I opened the door further to reveal my eight-year-old nephew, Manolo, and sighed. “Angel?” I asked quietly.
“On-shift, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.”
I shook my head. “You never have to ask,” I said.
She switched to Spanish and asked, “And what about your whore?”
Lys choked behind me and my sister paled. I laughed and said, “That’s what you get, and she’s not a hookup, Maria. She’s my roommate, she lives here.” I stood aside and motioned for my sister and nephew to get in. Maria walked past me, blushing with embarrassment, and Manolo followed her, grinning like a fool. “Maria, Manolo, meet Lys. Lys, this is my sister and my nephew.”
“I am so sorry,” Maria rushed out. “I didn’t know – “ She shut her mouth and looked like she wanted to melt into the floor. I bit back a laugh.
“Manolo,” I said. My nephew looked up at me. “Next time you want to speak Spanish in front of a gringo so they don’t know what you’re saying, I want you to remember this, ay?” Manolo grinned from ear to ear and Maria looked like she wanted to straight murder me. I smiled at my sister and she glowered back.
“It’s, uh, nice to meet you,” Lys said charitably, a little pink across her cheeks and nose.
“I’ll be back to get you in the morning, Miho.” My sister bent down to hug her son and he hugged her back.
“’Kay,” he said. “Love you.”
“I love you, too, son.”
“Thank you,” she said to me, rushed, and before turning, gave Lys a grudging nod.
I rolled my eyes and debated calling her out for not really apologizing, but decided to let it go. She looked harried as it was, and I knew it wasn’t a mark on Lys, but rather on me, and probably more than a little misdirected anger at Julio. I could take it. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Angel and I had been seven, and my mom pregnant and about to give birth to Maria, when our dad got killed. After that, it was just us, mom, and my dad’s mom, our abuela. Maria never had the father-figure growing up. Our mom did her best, but Maria had nothing to go by except stories. Like a lot of fatherless girls, she got herself knocked up in high school. Unlike a lot of fatherless girls, Maria had tried to make it work with Julio and kept him in Manolo’s life.
Julio just couldn’t seem to get with the fucking program.
He kept bouncing on his weekends and was in and out of jail. I’d even arrested him myself, once. That had caused all sorts of family drama for a minute. The point is, Maria had it hard, but didn’t often complain about it. She made it work. She relied on me and Angel some of the time, but not often enough to put a cramp on our respective lifestyles.
She shot a worried look over her shoulder and glanced from me to Lys and back to me. I rolled my eyes at her and she frowned and shut my front door. I would head that drama off at the pass, once I got Manolo settled.
I turned, but my nephew had disappeared. I heard him call from up the hallway, “What did you do to my room!?”
“It’s not your room, Hombrecito! It was the guest room, and it’s Lys’ room now. You can either bunk with me or on the couch.”
“I thought she lived with you!” he called back, and I shook my head while Lys stifled a laugh with her hand.
“Get out of there, and come back here!”
He came wandering back into the living room and dining room area of the apartment and looked up at me with attitude, a miniature version of his mom. If my mom, his abuela, had been alive, she would have been begging Mother Mary for mercy. I went over and lifted his backpack off his narrow shoulders and he relinquished it, shrugging out of the straps while he stared at Lys.
“Are you a stripper?” he asked.
“Manolo!” I barked.
“What? That’s what my mom said about the last girl you had around here that I met.”
“Dios mio, kid. You’re killin’ me with that mouth tonight. You and your mom both.”
Lys was killing me, too, trying, and failing miserably, to suppress her laughter, but she gave my runt of a nephew a pass and answered his question.
“Not a stripper,” she said. “I’m a florist.”
“What’s that?” Manolo wrinkled up his face and jerked his head back. To be fair, he was an inner-city kid. The closest he’s probably ever really been to flowers and a flower-seller is the florist department of a grocery store.
“I arrange flowers for a living, and own my own flower shop,” she explained.
“You can make a living off of that?” he cried, incredulous.
Lys laughed, “It isn’t easy, but yeah. Mostly on wedding arrangements, sometimes funerals, but we do bouquets for all occasions.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like corsages for dances, um... center pieces for catering companies, and flowers for hospital patients to help them feel better.”
“What kind of flowers?” he asked suspiciously, and I stopped him just long enough to ask him if he had dinner.
He rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, but I can always eat!”
I went over to dish him up some food while Lys listed off a bunch of flowers I don’t think I’d even ever heard of.
“Where do you grow them?”
“Oh, I don’t grow them, but a lot of them come from local farms, nurseries, and green houses. It also all depends on what is in season.”
“Sounds kind of cool,” Manolo said, taking off his jacket and putting it over the back of one of the chairs at the table. He came over and climbed up on one of the stools on the other side of Lys.
I set a bowl of rice and stir-fry in front of him and got him a fork. He picked around the vegetables for a moment and asked suspiciously, “What is this?”
“Food, now shut up and put it in your face,” I said, smiling.
“Okay, geeze.”
Lys was back on her stool and I retook mine. We ate and I listened to her patiently answer all of Manolo’s questions, and that kid had a lot of questions. Reminded me of Angel, when we were kids.
“What’s that?” he asked, for like the millionth time, when she named a Phalaenopsis orchid.
“It’s a flower native to swamp lands and tropical regions. They’re really pretty but require a lot of care and specific conditions to thrive. You have to keep them indoors here, preferably by a window that gets the most sun. They like a lot of sun.”
I felt a sudden stab of sympathy, watching them together. I had to admit, Lys would have made a great mom. I was pretty sure she was feeling every minute of it right now, too, even though she didn’t show a bit of discomfort talking to my sister’s kid. There wasn’t a trace of sadness in her eyes or on her face. It made her knock-out beautiful.
I smiled to myself, happily munching away on my dinner until there was a natural lull in the conversation.
“Hey, Manolo,” I said, finishing a bite.
“Yeah, what?”
“Wanna watch a movie?”
He gave me a gap-toothed grin and asked, “Desperado?” excitedly.
“Mm, you sure you don’t want to watch something else?” I asked.
“It’s our movie,” he said almost indignantly, the way that kids do, you know?
“Desperado?” Lys asked, an eyebrow raised.
I shrugged a shoulder, “It’s our movie,” I said like it explained everything.
She let out a sigh that sounded a lot like Why am I not surprised? and I winked at her. She tried to suppress her smile, but failed.
“Okay, Desperado it is,” I said, and Manolo gave a stoked grin.
“Cool!”
“That’s all you two,” Lys said. “Too violent for me.”
“Really?” Manolo asked, wrink
ling his nose.
“Mm-hm.”
“Oh, come on!”
Lys smiled and asked, “Don’t you have school in the morning?”
He rolled his eyes and said, “It’s Friday.”
“It is?” she asked surprised, and I laughed at her and nodded.
“It is.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Eh, you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
Manolo frowned and said, “No she doesn’t,” while looking at her actual dinner plate.
Lys and I shared a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded.
“Tell you when you’re older, kid.”
He rolled his eyes at the effective conversation-ender and Lys shot me a grateful look over his head. She even did the dishes so I could keep Manolo entertained.
I kind of liked playing house with her. Maybe a little too much.
16
Alyssa…
Golden’s week off went by in a blur, but it was definitely eye-opening. He didn’t so much teach me how to fight as he did to recognize potentially violent situations and how to avoid them altogether. What he was teaching me was more valuable to me than how to hit, or punch, or kick someone, because let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly a physically-imposing specimen. He was of a mind that self-awareness was key, and that getting away and calling him or the police was the best thing I could do.
I was sad when he went back to his regular schedule and we went back to being ships passing in the night. Except things were still different. He would look in on me when he got home from work, check in and see how I was doing, and when I fixed my supper, I made sure to fix extra so that he would have something when he got home. I wasn’t always awake when he got home, but when I was, we talked, and it was nice.
One Thursday night, when he got home, he knocked lightly on my bedroom door before pushing it open. I lowered my reader into my lap and looked over, curiously, from where I was sitting up in bed. He sort of half-stepped in the room sideways, still in uniform. I tried very hard not to think about just how damn handsome he was in that uniform and, I confess, I failed miserably.