He sees me watching him and gives me a crooked smile. “Last time I was in town, I’d foisted one of my dad’s bottles of single malt and gave it to Ricky to keep for me when I came in.”
I eye the bottle. Subdued label, the words “aged” emphasized. I’m sure it’s worth more than most of the other bottles of booze in this joint put together.
“You gonna stay down there or are you gonna cheers me?” Ax nudges me.
I consider not responding, but finally lift my head from the bar. “What are we toasting?”
“To bubbles tickling your throat.”
I purse my lips, confused for a moment, and then I remember. Prom night. A little cottage on the beach. And losing my virginity to the hottest boy in high school.
Lifting my half-empty glass, I touch his. “Aux bulles.”
His left eyebrow rises. “You know my French is horrible.”
I shrug. I remember teaching him the French word for “bubbles” one afternoon when we’d been studying under the big oak tree behind the school. I was chewing gum, and I blew a bubble to demonstrate.
He’d asked me what else I could do with my mouth, and things had fallen apart from there. Not that I minded spending the rest of the afternoon making out with Ax.
Suddenly spending the evening drinking away my troubles doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Not with him here. He’s too close, too real. And I’m too vulnerable.
Draining the remainder of my drink, I pull out my card and motion to Ricky. “I want to close out my tab.”
He takes my card and heads back to his old-fashioned cash register. “Leaving so soon?” Ax asks, his face neutral.
I nod. “Despite present appearances to the contrary, I’m not a frequent visitor to the saloon, and I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“Nonsense,” Ax says as Ricky returns and hands me the card slip to sign. “Everyone is welcome here, for as long as they like. Right, Ricky?”
“As long as they ain’t fightin’, they’re fine,” Ricky chimes in.
“While I appreciate your open policy, Ricky, I think it’s time I head home.” I attempt to gracefully slide off the bar stool but end up stumbling. Those drinks are stronger than I had anticipated, or I’m out of practice. Either way, the alcohol has a visible effect.
Ax stands, putting a gentle hand on my elbow. “Slow down, Sabrina.” On his face is an expression I can’t read. “No need to run away from me. If you want to stay, I’ll go.”
Suddenly I feel ashamed. “No, that’s not it. Please stay. I’ve already had enough.”
“You’re too drunk to drive. Let me take you home.”
My eyes widen. “I’m not driving.” My mind plays out a scenario in which I wait for my mom to come pick me up, possibly bringing along my daughter, while Ax watches over my shoulder. Not going to happen. “I’m walking.”
“I’ll walk with you then.”
That solution is no less ideal. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll be fine.”
His eyes narrow. “You almost fell off the barstool.”
I start walking toward the door, hoping I’m conveying a confidence I no longer feel. Before I can open the heavy wooden door, he’s there, pushing it open for me. I frown, but he extends his arm and bows, motioning for me to precede him.
Apparently, it’s not going to be as easy as I’d hoped.
The night air is cool, and I again regret forgoing a sweater. I wrap my arms around myself, staring up at the sky. The stars are bright, wheeling around above our heads. It’s beautiful, but also remote. The stars are peaceful, but that peace is far away. Unreachable.
I feel him behind me, the heat from his body surrounding me. He slides something over my shoulders. A leather jacket. The same one he’d worn the last time he’d been in town.
“Thanks,” I say almost whispering, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. How had this all gone wrong? In high school, we’d fit together like peas in the same pod. Until he left.
Then he came back, and we spent an unforgettable night together, making me start to think that maybe he’d stay this time. Maybe we’d become the family I’d dreamed about when I was younger. But again, he’d left. Not under his own volition, sure, but he’d still been gone.
I look up into his face, into the eyes that seem to glow with their own, slightly sinister light. The shadows lay against the angles of his face, highlighting his dangerous beauty.
“How long until you leave again?” The words slip out before I realize it.
He recoils slightly, the corners of his mouth turning down. Ax looks away, his eyes taking on a faraway cast. “I’m not sure.”
I let out a slow breath. So he is thinking about leaving already. “That’s too bad.”
His hands grip my shoulders as his gaze returns to mine. There is an intensity in his face that echoes inside me, that reaches into my chest and squeezes. “But I’m here now.”
11
Ax
I’m close enough to her to smell the enchanting scent that belongs to Sabrina alone. It goes directly to my head, and I already don’t want to let her go.
“Can we talk?” I ask, feeling like a desperate teenager even saying the words. “Catch up a little?”
I watch her face, waiting for the rejection I know that’s in the offing. But it doesn’t come. She stares at me for a moment, not answering. I hold my breath, praying for mercy.
There’s never been this awkwardness between us before, and I feel it like a physical barrier. I miss the days when she was an open book. The days when she would tell me anything, about her hopes and dreams, about her plans for a future that wouldn’t come to be.
It’s something more than a disinterest in rekindling what we had. Sabrina’s reaction to me, in the diner and earlier, has swung from the begrudging interest of my last visit to outright avoidance.
What’s behind this avoidance, I wonder. It could be anger or disappointment. I am a convicted criminal, after all. But that doesn’t seem quite right to me. I’ve seen Sabrina hostile before, and I’ve seen her turn cold to people she doesn’t trust. Like Andrea Mitchell back in high school. She can give the cold shoulder like no one’s business. But she’s not freezing me out completely. It has to be something else.
Could she be keeping something from me?
The thought paralyzes me. My asshole brain instantly rushes to a conclusion I’ve never allowed myself to consider. Is she seeing someone else?
Does she have a boyfriend?
None of the dossiers my agent provided have said anything about Sabrina being in a relationship, but then again, I prevented myself many times over from asking my agent to look into her situation. I told myself that Sabrina wasn’t a part of my plan, so I didn’t need to compile intel on her.
If I’m truthful with myself now, I realize that I was as afraid of finding out she’d met someone else then as I am now. If I didn’t ask, then I couldn’t find out. I preferred to think Cape Craven and the people in it remained frozen in time, just as I was in jail.
It might not have been the brightest idea, but we all tell ourselves little falsehoods to get through the day. And there were lots of long and empty days in the big house.
I know that I don’t deserve the kind of unfettered access that I long for, and it hurts, worse than any cut or bruise from the service or jail. It hurts in a way that doesn’t diminish over time, like an open wound in my chest.
She’s staring up at the night sky, and I watch her, wishing I could read her thoughts. I’d stared up at the sky myself, for hours since I’d been let go from Tabor Correctional. I keep expecting to feel the freedom I’ve told myself is worth sacrificing. I haven’t felt it.
I only feel free when I can touch Sabrina. When I can hear her voice and see her smile.
It’s a freedom I want to allow myself.
But I can’t.
“Okay,” she says suddenly, swinging around and pulling the saloon door back open. “You twisted my arm. One more drink, then I’ve really
got to go.”
I try to disguise the surprise I feel, but I don’t think I do a very good job of it. There’s a twinkle in her eyes that says she can see right through me.
I feel like the ground is moving under my feet. Then again, Sabrina has always made the earth move for me. I let out a laugh and follow her in.
I expect her to return to her barstool and start considering and discarding possible topics of conversation. But she surprises me again and bypasses her empty seat.
“Pool, anyone?” she says as she strolls to the back. “Or wait,” she says when she reaches the table, turning around to rest her shapely behind against the table and spreading her arms open in a way that seems welcoming to my frayed nerves. “You’re the hustler now, aren’t you?”
“I’m a little rusty,” I say, not adding that the prison didn’t have a billiards table.
Sabrina shrugs. “So am I. I haven’t been able to practice much.” She turns and rolls a ball across the table, her words slurring slightly. “Maybe now I’ll finally find the time.”
“Why is that?” I ask softly, wondering where all this new free time is coming from.
“I’m unemployed.”
“That so?” I ask, seeming only slightly interested while I hone in on her answer. I pretend to check over the cues, picking one up and inspecting the tip.
“Yeah. Ms. Birch fired me today.”
Ms. Birch. Managing Director of the Craven Foundation. My research had informed me all about Sabrina’s job. Or, should I say, former job.
“Now why should she do a thing like that?”
Sabrina snorts, coming closer and picking out her own cue. “She’s been looking for an excuse for years.”
“And you gave her one today?” At her nod, I ask, “What happened?”
“I ran into her at the general store. After I told her I had the flu.”
I shake my head in confusion. “That doesn’t seem too serious.”
“Well, the way she sees it, she’s already given me countless warnings about my attendance. ‘Sabrina, this fraud will not stand.’” She laughs without humor. “Fraud. Ha. From a woman past sixty who still dies her hair platinum blond.”
Things begin to make themselves clear. That’s why she’s here, getting adorably drunk. “It will all work out,” I say cheerfully, racking up the balls at the end of the table. “You’ll find something else.”
“Sure,” she slurs, leaning over the table to break. “Cape Craven is awash with employment opportunities for a woman with only a high school education and—” she pauses, her eyes cutting to me nervously, then back to the balls. “And family commitments.”
The hand holding the cue jerks back uncoordinatedly and she smacks the white ball into the others, which don’t so much break as fall apart sloppily. No ball goes into the pocket.
I take up position behind the cue. “Solids,” I call out, then knock a ball in, easy peasy. “That’s something I’ve always wondered about,’ I ask nonchalantly as I line up the next shot. “What happened to Chapel Hill?”
I aim the cue at a ball but at the last minute, subtly tweak the shot so that the ball misses the pocket. Sabrina lines up her shot but doesn’t answer, squinting one eye and managing to knock a striped ball within a few inches of a pocket.
“Damn,” she grunts. “Not my best, I’ll admit.”
It’s clear she isn’t interested in talking. I remember that from the last time we’d played the game. I had asked her the same question, and she hadn’t answered then. We’d talked about everything else, from her Mom’s flirtation with the town mechanic to my father’s policies and their effect on the folks in Cape Craven. But when I asked about why she hadn’t gone to college, she shrugged and said it was a personal decision.
“Remember our bet last time?” I ask, knocking another ball into the pocket.
“Who could forget? If I won, you’d give me Delilah. But you hustled me that night, plain and simple.”
I smile, feeling wolfish. “I did, and I have absolutely no regrets.” I won and spent the most passionate night of my life with the only woman I’ve ever really wanted.
Sabrina laughs, and it’s the sound of water over rocks. The sound of bells tinkling in the breeze. It’s the first sound of freedom that’s really affected me.
“How about another little wager?”
She snorts, then slaps a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. Once she gets ahold of herself, she replies. “You can’t expect me to agree now. You’ve seen how shitty I’m playing. I won’t let you take advantage of my body that easily.”
Something in those words lets me know that she wants the opposite. A thrill of electricity shoots through me, going straight to my cock. I take a deep breath, reminding myself that something more important is going on here, and not to be distracted.
“As tempting as that is, I have another prize in mind.”
Sabrina straightens, trailing her hand over the table and rolling a few balls into each other in the process. “State your terms.”
I start rolling balls into pockets, leaving only the cue and the eight ball, set up in the center. “If you can get this ball into the pocket on the first try, I’ll get you a ride home and won’t pester you for the rest of the night.”
“And if I miss?”
“If you miss, then you tell me why you decided to stay in Cape Craven and not go to college.”
Her eyes narrow, and I can see she’s thinking about it. I know there must be something very serious that’s kept Sabrina in Cape Craven. She’d been nuts about going to Chapel Hill, had even forced me to apply there too. We were supposed to live in the dorms until our junior year when we’d move off campus into an apartment together. Sabrina had everything planned out.
So why hadn’t she followed the plan?
Of course, my own decision probably had something to do with it. I’d loved the dream world she was building for us, but I knew my father would never go for it. He’d already gotten me admitted to Tulane and had the next several years of my life planned out.
If I’d told him I was going to Chapel Hill instead with my girlfriend, the one I desperately tried to keep hidden from him, he would have disowned me.
So I chose the military instead. He still disowned me, but at least I knew I’d come back a man, one who had options for starting a family with his high school sweetheart. Without Dad’s money, I wouldn’t have been able to afford Chapel Hill. I wasn’t an A student like Sabrina. And if I took out loans, we’d be starting our life in debt.
I made the choice to enlist because in the long run, I thought it gave me a better chance to pursue my goals. It got me out from under Dad’s thumb and would teach me how to live an ordered life, would teach me the skills I’d need to be strong, to be a provider, a protector.
I hadn’t counted on it teaching me how to kill without feeling anything, how to destroy, how to stand helpless while innocent people died. Before long I was afraid I was changing into a man that didn’t deserve any woman, let alone the most perfect one alive. I stopped writing letters, stopped responding.
But when I left the military, the first place I came back to was Cape Craven. And not entirely to make up with my dad. If I’m honest with myself now, a large part of it was to see Sabrina again. Even if I didn’t think I was the right man for her, I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. I wasn’t strong enough then, just like I’m not strong enough now.
And, as if five years in the desert wasn’t enough to crush a man, I now had five years of nightmares from prison to fuck me up. It would be better if I walk away now.
But I can’t.
“Deal,” she says, pulling my attention back to the present. Without hesitating, she lines up the shot. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and moves.
It’s as if the ball is attracted to the pocket by Fate itself. It flies directly in, and Sabrina turns to me, a gigantic smile on her sweet face.
“I win.”
12
Sabrina
“I’ll call the cab company,” Ax says, his face deadpan, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“No,” I respond, snatching his phone out of his hand.
He looks down at me, confused. I love that look. It makes him look so young and handsome. So boyish. Like the day he convinced me to skip A.P. English so we could catch crawdads in the creek behind the Friedmont farm.
“You said you’d get me a ride,” I say, pointing a finger at him.
“Yeah, and I was about to.”
“And that you wouldn’t pester me for the rest of the night.”
“Hence the cab,” he says.
“So stop pestering me and give me a ride home,” I reply. “It’s less than two miles, don’t bother with a cab.”
“You want a ride on Delilah?” he says, and I can see he’s trying to hide his reaction. Ax has always been exceedingly proud of his bike, and a girl can’t blame him. Not to mention, he’s sexy as fuck riding that monster around.
“It’s been a while,” I say casually. “It could be fun.”
“Okay,” he says, a slow smile taking over his face in stages, making him look like a dark angel. “Let’s go.”
I wave to Ricky, and we head outside. Delilah is parked out back. He’s always been very protective of his machine, so much so that he gets nervous when people park next to her. So Ax is fond of tucking her away places. Which is why I hadn’t seen his bike at the diner, or I would have kept right on going.
We get to his bike, and it’s as beautiful as always. Shiny. Taken care of. He opens the seat hatch and pulls out his helmet, tucking it on my head. It’s a little loose, but he tightens the strap under my chin, and I smile without realizing it, feeling protected.
I climb on behind him and hold him tight around the waist. He starts up the bike, the motor howling, and I start to get tingles all over my body. “Take the scenic route,” I whisper-shout into his ear.
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