Thick Love

by Eden Butler

  “Not sure if I want that bonus,” Aly said turning to face me when I stopped playing. She had an eyelash underneath her left eye and I brushed it away, noticing that tonight her breath smelled like strawberries.

  “You don’t want to be in love?” I held my breath, not really sure why I did. Aly shook her head, but didn’t speak. “That’s too bad.”

  “Why? Is the sex better or something when you’re in love?”

  God, she had no idea, but I wasn’t about to talk about that or how deeply I’d fallen at sixteen or why I’d suddenly felt that tattoo burning on my chest. She would hate me then, and I wouldn’t get such a close view of the small shine on her bottom lip or the smattering of goose bumps that covered her arms and ran up her neck.

  “It’s a lot better when you’re in love.”

  “Guess I’ll never know,” she said, leaning into me when I brushed my face against her shoulder, inhaling that exotic scent.

  “Guess…” I moved closer, something about those lips, the small peek of her pink tongue drawing me closer, wanting to take, wanting to keep taking. “Guess not.”

  She was inches from me and I took my hands away from her arms and slid my fingers into all that thick, wavy hair, closing my eyes when I gripped several strands between my fingers. I was going to kiss her, take again something too good, too perfect for me, but just as I grazed my lips over hers, before I could apply any pressure at all, a loud groan came from my parents’ bedroom, followed immediately by the sound of my father shouting over and over “Fuck, Wildcat! Fuck!”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said, laughing right along with Aly when the noisy scream hit our ears. “God,” I said, resting my forehead on Aly’s shoulder before I stood. “They’re worse than teenagers.”

  “Oh I’m aware,” she said, standing off the bench.

  “You’ve heard them?” She nodded. “Do they know?”

  “They don’t even try to hide it when they come out of the room and realize I showed up early or Koa and I didn’t spend enough time at the park.” Aly waved off my wrinkled nose, still laughing. “You can’t blame them.”

  “Uh, yeah, I can.”

  She leaned against the piano, shrugging again. “Keira is still young, so is Kona and they’re stupid for each other and they’ve got a lot of years to catch up on. Besides,” she moved away from the piano and crossed her arms again as though she just remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra, “if I had a man who looked like your dad, I’d keep him in the bedroom.”

  It wasn’t something I hadn’t heard before. Women, no matter their age, went a little fangirl over my father. “Typical,” I told her. “But you know,” I said, resting my elbows on the piano. “I look just like him and I’m younger, have more energy.”

  Aly shook her head, like she thought I was a little pathetic. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  And when she walked down the hallway, leaving me alone, I couldn’t help having the smallest hope that she’d remember the heartbeat and that one day she wouldn’t laugh when I told her what I could give her. What I thought I wanted to give her, not some dancer, not some faceless woman. Just Aly.

  9

  I’d done this a thousand times and not once had I been able to leave my car. One thousand and one and I sat still, hands gripping my steering wheel as I watched the family on the porch.

  They couldn’t see me, not from the heavy cover of the oak trees and wisteria vines brushing against the street. It was a spot I remembered well, one I’d used so often I was surprised there weren’t grooves in the pavement from my tires. I hid here in the past waiting for Emily to shimmy down the back balcony and hop in my Mustang.

  We’d been a little desperate, too caught up in what our hormones and all that stupid emotion did to us. She’d risked being caught, being forced into a pointless, fake infatuation with a guy she’d never love, just to throw off her father. I’d park in this very same spot, hidden beneath that leafy cover sometimes all night. Sometimes for just long enough to touch her, make her come, kiss her soundly enough that Parker wouldn’t even register when she was around him.

  But Emily wouldn’t come today. She wouldn’t wait until her father had downed his third bourbon and passed out on the sofa before she’d move down the ivy-weaved lattice. She wouldn’t keep to the edge of the fence line to avoid the motion detector lights.

  Emily wouldn’t leave that house again. Not for me.

  Maybe it was being around Aly, feeling things I thought would never come to me again, wanting something I knew I couldn’t have, that had led me back to St. Charles watching Emily’s mother and little brother sit on the swing, swaying front to back. I wondered what they talked about, if maybe the turning temperatures would remind them that her birthday loomed. I wondered how often they cursed my name, hated me for everything I hadn’t been able to do for her.

  I still didn’t have the strength to tell them how sorry I was.

  One thousand and one times, just like the others and I still couldn’t say it so I drove through that thick brush of limbs and leaves and sped away from that large house and the people on the swing. I was late for another practice in Metairie and this time, when I thought about exerting myself in that dance, I didn’t dread it.

  You should. You should dread ever seeing her. She’s too good for you.

  Aly was too good for me, I knew that, but that knowledge didn’t ease my foot off the gas. Even though I knew how careless it was, even though I knew I could easily let Aly make me forget that I shouldn’t want to be around her, I still drove down the interstate, foot lowering again and again until I left the city behind and found myself at my cousin’s studio.

  I probably looked a little obvious, just too damn anxious. My clean polo wasn’t wrinkled, my jeans weren’t faded. Hell, I had even shaved and was wearing my new, black Chucks. Aly would know that I gave a shit about how looked as soon as I walked through the door.

  A little worried that I looked like I was trying too hard, I untucked my shirt and pulled a flat brim ball cap from my backseat to hide all the gel in my hair, all the extra time I’d taken to not look like a bum.

  Damn, that girl did something to me. Just being around her, helping her out, made me feel less guilty about my past, made that weight of shame feel less heavy. And when I was around her, distracted by her smell, the almost smile she gave me, I didn’t hear that grating voice telling me I was unworthy.

  She silenced the noise and I wanted to know why.

  Even that unknown dancer, who had worked some kind of sweet juju on my body, hadn’t silenced that voice completely. Not like Aly did. That thought alone had me thinking I’d call Ironside and cancel the performance. Why see a faceless woman who probably only cared about the cash when I could get the same release from Aly without even touching her? Besides, I wanted Aly more. As surprising as that realization had been to me when it hit me, it was true.

  Even being at the studio, a place I knew she’d be, made my head quiet, kept that voice mute. I walked inside, frowning at the empty classroom, the lack of student noise and followed the only sound I heard: Aly’s laughter.

  She was talking to someone I couldn’t see, but the second voice was lower, didn’t sound as clear and I stopped outside of Leann’s office to listen, noticing the screen in front of Aly showed an open Skype window and the smiling face of some jackass I didn’t know looking at Aly like he wanted a bite of her. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, putting all that stupid kanji art work on his shoulder and down his chest on display.

  “I can’t wait, gorgeous,” he told Aly. The guy was, I guess what girls would think was good looking. I wasn’t sure, looked a little too much like a pretty boy to me. I remembered seeing him around Leann’s studio a few months back when my cousin hosted some sort of mini-camp. Guy acted like he was the shit.

  Whatever he was, Aly seemed to like him. Go figure.

  “I’ve missed you,” that jackass told Aly, leaning toward his webcam with a smirk on his face that made him look lik
e a punk. “I’ve missed you a lot, gorgeous.”

  “Wi, cheri, I bet you have.”

  I didn’t want to listen. It made sense to me when I really thought about it. They had a lot in common, they both were decent dancers, they both enjoyed that shit a hell of a lot more than I did. And Aly was sweet, beautiful when she wasn’t putting off that “back off” vibe.

  Of course she’d be into someone like him.

  She’s not for you, that voice whispered as I walked out of the studio and I let that feeling seep into my skull, hating that I didn’t fight back, feeling like a coward when I let it run its mouth over and over. So much for Aly quieting that voice. You don’t deserve her.

  “No shit,” I said, climbing into my car with no thoughts about practicing. I couldn’t do it. It was stupid. Aly didn’t need me. She had that asshole to hold her, dance around the studio like they were fucking with their clothes on.

  She doesn’t want you.

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  When the voice’s whisper grew louder, that tone bit harder, I cranked up my stereo, letting that thudding bass drown out any thoughts beyond my foot on the gas as I moved down the interstate. I didn’t want to think about Aly or that punk she flirted with on Leann’s PC. And when my cell chirped with a text from her, I didn’t reply. I wouldn’t.

  I stopped at the red light once I took the exit, my head bobbing to old school Mystikal telling folks to shake their asses, and stared at her text for the entire circulation of the light.

  You’re late, slacker!

  Even over a text she managed to be bossy and funny at the same time, a fact that pissed me off. I was going to toss my cell on the empty seat next to me, but deleted her message and pulled up Ironside’s last text to send him a new one. My single focus was on keeping Aly out of my head.

  Am I still getting my performance? I texted, holding my breath a little until he replied, not caring that the voice kept nagging me, not caring that it felt almost wrong to want the unknown dancer now. It felt like I was somehow stepping out on Aly. That made no damn sense.

  And then, when his reply came, I decided I didn’t care about what seemed right or what made sense to me.

  Yeah, man. No problem.

  My breath came out easy, relieved even though my chest felt tight, even though that voice in my head kept silent.

  10

  April, 2015

  Leann wanted to host a fundraiser. Jambalaya sale, $12 a plate and a car wash with the students doing all the dirty work. Just a little something that would bring in sales and help fund her recital budge. Carl had scheduled me for a double shift that I couldn’t get out of so it was late, very late when I got back to my apartment. The fundraiser had long since finished but Leann was still there, barking orders at Tristian and Ransom as they returned tables back to the storage room next to my front door.

  “Sorry, Aly,” Tristian had apologized, when he and Ransom blocked the path to my door with a long card table. “I’ll get Mom. Somebody put all the chairs in the way and we can’t get the table in. Let me go see what she wants us to do.”

  “I can wait.” I’d been tired, hungry and to be honest, didn’t mind that Tristian ran off, leaving Ransom inside that tiny storage room holding one end of the table. “I can help you,” I’d told him, moving my head over the top of the table.

  “I got it.”

  Same tone that he’d been using since that horrible accident on the lake. It was deep and impassive, as though he’d been taken over by an android who’d offer the blandest, most evasive communication possible. That sound broke my heart.

  Stuck with that large table and larger boy blocking my door, I sat on the steps with my purse swinging from my fingers, and looked up at the sky, unaccountably self-conscious with him so close to me.

  But, I couldn’t take the silence or the feel of indifference that radiated from him. When someone is hurt, it’s human nature to want to help. And that night, Ransom’s silence had seemed like an unbearable wound.

  The sky was dark and peppered around the few spindly clouds were four stars brighter than the rest, twinkling in a square.

  “Pegasus,” I said, to fill up the silence.

  A quick glance to see if he heard me and Ransom followed my nod to stare up at the sky. He didn’t say a thing.

  “My grann told me once that Pegasus brought renewal wherever he ran. He was a mammoth, guarding the skies, giving the earth a new start, something to look forward to.”

  When I didn’t hear even a low grunt of acknowledgement, I glanced over my shoulder to find Ransom watching me.

  “Pegasus is charging above us,” I said, looking back up at the constellation.

  It seemed like a minute, maybe two, before Ransom said anything. “Hydra is bigger, fiercer. Pegasus isn’t charging. He’s fleeing.”

  Present

  Ransom Riley-Hale had swagger. It wasn’t something I noticed very often because, being honest here, nobody really gets the definition of “swagger” quite right. It wasn’t the way he carried himself or how the dip of his chin made me think no one could pull off flirting like Ransom. It wasn’t even how those black eyes of his sometimes looked right through you, like he saw people deeper, could claim to know the filthiest secrets you tried to keep from the world. It wasn’t any of those individual things that had my attention focused directly on him. It was everything—the skill it took to make the world think he was perfectly himself. The strength in his body, the power in a single look that could make any woman desperate to know everything about him and too cowardly to make the attempt.

  His swagger was this undefinable way he had to take the challenges set in front of him and overcome them like the effort was nothing. But behind that boldness, the cool, confident man the world saw, there was someone else. Something darker. I’d seen a hint of it that night he’d barged into the studio calling me a liar. His anger had been real, a stinging bite that had shoved back any composure my introverted mind told me to put on display. He’d pissed me off with his shouting and put me into a rage when he called me a liar. No one, not even Ransom, could quell my temper when it had been stoked.

  So that night, it was my anger, my irritation with myself at not perfecting the dance and his attitude that kept me from shying away from him. At his parents’ lake house, the first time we’d sung together, I didn’t have my anger pushing me to lash out. I went in utterly unprotected.

  Keira was amazing, a determined woman who, in my mind, could tackle anything and usually overcome it. She was fierce, but then she’d have to be to endure a life on her own, raising a son when she’d barely been more than a kid herself.

  She and Kona welcomed me, trusted me to look over their son, take care of their home and I felt humbled by their determination to make me comfortable. The woman even helped me with my voice lesson, gave me advice on stage presence and pitch and everything seemed normal to me then, easy. I liked Keira and Kona, respected how much they’d endured together and instantly fell in love with Koa when I first met him. The day should have been relaxed, being there, getting first rate advice from a Grammy winner. And then, he walked through the door, larger than life, engulfing the empty space between me behind that piano, and the path he blocked for an escape. There would be no running, not with him watching me the way he did. So, I shot for subtle, casual, hoping I could make myself small enough that he’d continue on not realizing I existed. But my wrong-note singing had caught Ransom’s eye.

  It made him want to help me.

  He’d played that guitar like it was a lover he’d forgotten he could touch. With every note, Ransom poured whatever he kept to himself, all the things he would not say to the world into each strum. He played with confidence, and with joy. I’d been powerless, scared, sure, but entirely powerless to keep from watching him. The deflection was there, but when he touched me, put his hands on my stomach, that mask began to crumble. He taught and I listened, with the eager need just to hear him play, for him to keep his hands on me.


  I’d been so caught up in him, the way he sounded when he hummed that melody, the way his gaze focused on me, me of all people, like no one in the world could hear him but me, that I imagined he stared too long, his gaze lingering on my mouth.

  He’d looked hungry, predatory, and I’d wanted to offer my entire body to fill him up. I’d settled for the voice lesson and the soft brush of his fingers against my arm while he played.

  That almost kiss after the fundraiser? Yeah, that wasn’t a figment of my imagination. He’d brushed my lips, made me think impossible, desperate things. Make wishes I was convinced would never come true. Not with Ransom.

  My fear, my awkward bumbling that I’d tried to hide from him since the day I met him, had sort of disappeared the more time we spent together. Usually, on the weekends, he came to visit his family and though it was my day off and I’d assured her I was completely fine, Keira insisted that I have Sunday lunch with them.

  “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches isn’t a meal, Aly,” Keira had told me when I feigned having a pantry full of groceries. “Besides,” she’d said, “Ransom can help you with your audition song.”

  The woman wasn’t as slick as she thought she was, but she’d begun to feel more run down than normal, the preeclampsia diagnosis bothering her more than she let on and though I didn’t know if it was having a possible nap that made Keira insistent, I’d found myself spending Sundays at the lake house with Koa on my lap, telling his brah that I was his girlfriend and Ransom strumming his guitar, not telling me how badly my singing voice sucked.

  I kinda fell in love with all of them.

  Well. Maybe not Ransom. Not yet.

  Sunday afternoons we’d practice for my upcoming audition and Leann had managed to sweet talk Ransom into three nights a week at the studio helping me work on the Kizomba number. Tommy would be back in a couple of weeks and when he returned, there would be a smooth transition from one partner to another.