Carry Me Home

by Lia Riley

  I receive more attention, but in my gut I know he is the better rider.

  That night, I let him goad me. Get under my skin. Finally, I taunted him back, dished up some of his own shit and nailed a trick I could do in my sleep. He went next and bailed hard. With his injuries, he’s out for at least the next six months, and his career could be over. Me? I won a title that I didn’t deserve. This should be his moment. Instead, he’s home in Vegas with a broken collarbone and arm, a shattered ankle. That’s why I’m going with Sunny, because I have to give him the prize money. He’s the real champion, not me. Plus, he’s got a girlfriend and a kid. He could use the cash more. It’s the least I can do for robbing him of his chance to break out.

  “So…”

  I startle at the sound of Sunny’s voice. Shit. Focus. I’m already on the interstate. Six lanes of traffic and zoning isn’t going to lead to anywhere good.

  “Where exactly are we headed?”

  “My aunt has a place in Nevada City and she gave me a key. I go up there sometimes, when I don’t want to come home.” Which has been more and more lately. People keep looking at me around Santa Cruz like I’m this big deal, like I’m something to aim for, a goal. A person who has made it.

  At least with Sunny, we’re honest. She knows the worst parts about me, like what happened with Talia.

  “Will you tell me about what went on with Pippa?” Sunny asks.

  I almost swerve into the next lane.

  “Whoa, there.” She braces her hand on the passenger side door. “Guess that’s a sensitive subject?”

  “Yeah.” No one asks me about Pippa or ever even says her name anymore. People assume tragedy is catching. They are sorry for your loss but don’t want to get too close. They use codes like, “How are you doing with it all?” That means her though. My dead girlfriend. For so long I knew her. Loved her. Making it seem like her name is a curse feels strange, like that part of my life wasn’t real.

  “I broke up with Pippa the day before her accident.” I say it out loud, the words I’ve never told anyone. The world doesn’t end. We’re still here, driving in the dark.

  Sunny claps her hand over her mouth. “What?”

  “I broke up with Pippa—”

  “I heard you the first time. It’s just, Jesus. I had no idea.”

  “No one does. She, me, I was…tired of the situation.”

  “There was something going on with her, right? The last few years she felt off, but Stolfi girls can shut down hard.”

  Don’t I know it? “Things started changing at the end of high school.” I clear my throat, tighten my grip on the wheel.

  “You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but something is eating you from the inside.”

  “Let me have some time?” I know she’s trying, and I appreciate more than she can know that she’s sharing the sweet side of herself most people don’t ever get to see.

  “Take all you need.”

  I drive in silence. Traffic around the East Bay is light, and Sunny gazes out the window. I’m grateful for the quiet. We’re passing Sacramento before I find the way to start.

  “Pippa didn’t want anyone to know. This was her biggest secret.”

  “Tanner.” Sunny’s hand settles on my shoulder. “She was my friend, too, remember. Pippa wasn’t the kind of girl who’d want you beating yourself up. It’s okay to talk.”

  “She had a disorder, I think, because she couldn’t control it, but she wouldn’t get help or acknowledge anything. Things got so bad that she was finally ready to try. But the accident…” It’s hard to talk. Harder to breathe. I know I didn’t make any sense, but Sunny doesn’t ask me to clarify. She waits until I can continue.

  “See, she thought she was ugly. Not how you hear girls talk sometimes, calling themselves fat or whatever. She actually believed there was something hideous about her appearance, defective even.”

  Sunny turns to face me. “But she was—”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know.” I take off my hat and flip it into the backseat. “Did you know she hated leaving her house?”

  “She was kind of a homebody.”

  “Because she didn’t like people looking at her, thought she was repulsive.”

  “She never said a single bad thing about her appearance. Ever.”

  “Because she didn’t want to draw attention to it. I tried to love her, but she hated herself so much.”

  Sunny shakes her head and leans back in the seat. “Why didn’t Talia ever say anything?”

  “She didn’t know, still doesn’t.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I’m serious. No one knew. The only reason I think I did was because I…I’d try to touch her. She hated it.”

  “Oh my God, Tanner,” Sunny says. “How long did this go on?”

  “From the time she turned sixteen until she died. Finally, I told her that I was exhausted, that she needed to tell Talia or her mom and dad. She was embarrassed and scared.”

  “Beth was her best friend. I don’t even think she knows.”

  “Pippa was the best faker I’ve ever met.” I remember how she’d hide in her room, curled in a ball while I sat beside her trying to convince her to come to the skate park or go to a movie, anything. Then Talia would waltz in and Pippa would pop up, crack jokes, laugh. She could turn on the happiness show when she needed to, for others, but she couldn’t turn it on for herself.

  “But you guys slept together, right? I mean you were together forever. Years. Our entire young adulthood.”

  “We did. But not long after we started, there were rules.”

  “Rules?”

  “Of where I could touch. Some places were off-limits.” I swallow hard. This is getting difficult, like I’m taking Pippa’s dirty laundry and hanging it off the front fence. “I feel like I’m betraying her, telling you this.”

  “You aren’t, but I get it.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t know you were carrying that.”

  “She tried and tried, but couldn’t get better on her own. I should have said something to someone, but I didn’t want her to shut me out. I didn’t want her to feel like she had no one she could trust.”

  “You tried your best.”

  “I gave up.” My laugh is bitter. “Call a spade a spade, Sunshine. I gave up on her and then she died.”

  “Nothing about her accident was your fault.”

  “Afterward, people kept coming up to me saying, ‘Sorry about your girlfriend.’” My voice cracks. I have to swallow hard. “Then there was Talia. She always looked at me as if I were something special, not the guy who couldn’t fix his girlfriend. Pippa never said no if I tried to hook up. She’d just…endure it. Finally, I stopped trying. For the last two years of our relationship, we barely kissed.”

  Sunny sets her hand on my leg. “Tanner—”

  “And then what happened with Talia. I wanted to feel something so fucking bad.” I’m almost shouting.

  Sunny pets me. “Wanting isn’t bad.”

  “What I felt toward Talia was lust, not love.” I clear my throat. “Taking, not giving. And I’m so tired, so tired of taking from people. You want to know the worst thing?” I need her to know every shitty part of me.

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  Might as well put it all on the line. “Sometimes, over the last few years, I wished for you instead.” I give her a quick sideways glance, her features veiled by the dark.

  “Most guys would never have stood by her as long as you did, not by a long shot.”

  I wait, but she doesn’t add anything else. “You aren’t saying anything about what I just said. About wanting you.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know how to process that. I honestly thought you judged me.”

  “Judged you? I was jealous as hell of you with other guys and felt guilty, because how messed up is it to want my girlfriend’s friend?” It’s hard to keep my eyes on the road, to focus, but I need
to. I have to keep Sunny safe, can’t afford to get distracted.

  “Way messed up.”

  My grip increases on the steering wheel. “I’m not a good guy, Sunny.”

  “You have provided evidence to the contrary.”

  “There’s so much I’m not proud of.”

  “Me too, but maybe, I don’t know…” Sunny’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe that’s okay. As long as we’re trying to do things with grace.”

  “I don’t know how to move past this, how to let go.”

  She moves her hand to the back of my neck, massages the tightly corded muscles. “If you do, who knows? Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Yourself.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunny

  We’re here.” Tanner veers off the main road and bumps along a gravel driveway fringed with live oaks. The car windows are down, and crickets hum from the grasslands.

  “Will we wake your aunt up?”

  “Nah, Sue’s not home. She works as a flight attendant. This place is her retirement plan and hideout for when she’s on vacation.”

  The headlights flash onto a cabin and then a white, circular, durable-looking tent, and suddenly I’m grinning ear to ear despite everything revealed this evening. “A yurt! I’ve always wanted to stay in one of these.” As we get out of the car, an unfamiliar shyness takes hold. “Are we sharing the same room?”

  “Yeah.” He fiddles with his key chain. “There’s only one bed.”

  If we go inside, Tanner and I are turning a corner. No way can what happened earlier in the evening, at my studio, go ignored. Tanner’s a bundle of Christmas lights turning on and off. He doesn’t know which side is up and somehow thinks I’m going to be the one who teaches him.

  But I don’t have a lesson plan ready to go.

  “Think I might go stretch my legs,” I say, shifting my weight.

  “You want to take a walk? Now?”

  “I’m not scared of the dark.” But I’m terrified of what might happen if I go into that yurt.

  “Let me get our stuff inside and I’ll come—”

  “No.” I’m too quick with the answer. He freezes. God, it’s so easy to do damage, to cause him more hurt. “I just need a little fresh air. You have to admit, tonight’s been pretty heavy.”

  He gives a curt nod, and I know what I am doing. Pushing him away. Don’t touch. Stay back. The same thing Pippa must have done. I hate that Tanner suffered in that relationship, and I hate that none of us knew how much she suffered. It was too much of a burden for her to carry and way too much responsibility for Tanner. He always ends up taking care of everyone. I don’t want to be another problem, and I have never seen a normal functioning relationship firsthand, where partners are equal, share rather than struggle.

  I take off toward the wide grassy knoll. Santa Cruz isn’t a big city, but up here in the foothills, silence reigns. I still and allow my senses to attune to the surroundings. No, silence isn’t the right word. Life thrums all around. My body practically buzzes from the vibrations. Insects call. A gentle wind blows through the branches. Grass swishes against my calves.

  In moments like these, it’s almost as if I can see how everything threads together. My part of the greater patchwork isn’t the best or the showiest, but tonight I need to be happy with my little square in the universe. And in the yurt waits a guy who is threadbare. I know only one way to patch him back together.

  I turn and make my way back.

  Tanner is in the shower when I let myself inside. There’s a wooden rocking chair in the corner. I walk over, sit, and close my eyes. Behind the wall, he’s naked, soapy, skin flushed from the hot spray. I could join him. He wants me. The space between my legs throbs to the beat of my heart. What’s set in motion between us isn’t going to stop.

  I rock, straighten my backbone, and focus my attentions. Imagine each breath spiraling through the open door, to the sky, leaving the atmosphere. A quiet prayer. Please. Please don’t let me fuck this up. My hands grip the rocking chair’s sides hard, hands that ache to touch his wet skin.

  The water turns off and he’s out, rubbing a towel over his body.

  I’m going for it, can’t help myself.

  I tried my best to be my own island.

  Turns out my best isn’t nearly good enough.

  The door opens and he stands, backlit in a tight white T-shirt and pair of low-slung jeans. His mop of hair is wet, slicked back from his striking face.

  “Good, you’re back,” he says. “I didn’t like you out there alone.”

  “I was fine. Nothing scary outside.”

  He frowns, catching my double meaning. “I decided to sleep in the back of my car.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Of course he doesn’t. He’d sleep on bare concrete if he thought it would be easier for me.

  “I get it.” He backs toward the door. “Tonight’s been extreme. You want space. I’ll go—”

  “Stop.” I’m in the darkest corner, in this rocking-chair throne, the queen of the shadows. There’s a great mystery at work. How can my heart be chained to this guy and still feel free?

  A bead of water drops from his thick hair and falls to his shoulder. Then another. Tiny wet patches appear on his shirt each time one makes impact. The way he watches me, his gaze writes a secret poem on my skin. “Tell me you don’t want me,” he says. “Say you’re not interested, and nothing will happen.”

  I want to curl into a ball. Instead I stand.

  “Sunny,” he whispers, and it’s hard to know if he intends my name as a question or an answer. Funny, the way it sounds like both.

  My lids flutter as he closes the distance. He’s tall enough that when he bends, his face buries into the top of my head. He inhales as if I’m a secret flower. I wish I only ever bloomed for him. A stupid notion. This moment would be perfect if it weren’t us. If we were other people.

  I move to hook my fingers into his belt loops but aim too high and brush his stomach instead. His abdominal muscles flex, and there’s my cue to explore. I can’t help but inch under the cotton, trace the thick muscles that make up his defined V-line. My nails gently cut to the top of his jeans. His groan vibrates into my skull.

  He’s slipping, less careful with every ragged breath. His skin heats under my fingertips. There’s no choice. There’s never been with him.

  Every place my fingers travel pulls from him a different sound. Together we compose something beautiful from the carnage in our lives. He drops his hands to my waist as I loop my arms around his neck, hikes me belly to belly. I jump, fasten my legs around his narrow hips, let his erection press where I need it most.

  I rock into him, hard, and his mouth explodes on mine like a wet, hot grenade. He bites my lower lip, and even though I’m scared, I’m not scared of him anymore. He settles me on the bed, stands between my splayed legs, and hesitates at my shirt’s buttons.

  “There are a lot,” he whispers. “Fuck it.” He tears open the front, and the little glass buttons ping off the wall, scatter across the floor while I kick off my skirt.

  I don’t have on a bra and am wearing only a thong, which he wraps in one hand and yanks free as if it’s nothing but a scrap of cloud.

  “I hope you’re taking me clothes shopping in Vegas.” I gasp as he sucks my neck. I’m naked and he’s still clothed. Not fair. He’s seen me, or at least enough of me. It’s my turn.

  He hears my thought and fists off his shirt, throwing it over one shoulder. I like his muscles. The way they bunch and flex, the light blond dusting of hair across his chest, the darker, thick line disappearing beneath his waistline. He unzips his jeans, stands in black boxer briefs, and pulls a condom from his wallet.

  “Hang on. I should check the expiration date,” he says, examining it.

  “Oh, Tanner.” I slide to the edge of the bed and take his hand. “Are you sure about this?”
/>   His eyes hood, his breathing quickens, and then he turns me around, spanning my breasts between his big hands, biting my shoulder. My knees sink into the feather-down mattress, his dick hard against my ass. I grind back, getting the growl I seek. I’m not going down without a fight, and something tells me he needs it rough, hard enough to pound through any self-doubt. Lucky for him, that’s my favorite way to play.

  There’s a tearing sound. A tremble runs through me as he puts the condom on. He slides a hand between my legs to find me more than ready and hauls me back against his haunches, burying himself with a sudden deep thrust. I didn’t expect such a power play. My mouth opens, but no sound escapes. For a moment I don’t move—I can’t. I just let him fill me, slowly adjusting to his thickness. He lets out a husky groan, slides out, then fills me until I’m broken and whole. His next thrust is harder. I shove my ass back, giving as good as I receive. I’m not facing him, and yet, with his whole body anchoring me, every point of our connection is hypersensitive.

  I reach to touch myself, and he knocks away my hand.

  “I got this.” The gruff, unfamiliar note to his voice constricts my inner muscle as he begins to rub me. He’s in the moment. This is pure unfiltered Tanner, no censoring or editing. He’s taking what he wants, and right now that’s me.

  It’s fucking hot.

  He fills me again and again as I settle the back of my head against his shoulder. The build is there, just ahead, the last tick-tick-tick of the roller coaster, but for once I don’t want to go over. I’m not ready. I want to keep climbing.

  “Sunny,” he chokes, and as he falls, I let him take me down, down, all the way down.

  We slow, breathing hard against each other, the sweat from our bodies making a soft, sticky sound.

  “Christ, Sunny,” he breathes. “You’re everything.”

  A single tear slides over my cheek. Tanner Green is turning me into something impossibly fragile, a line of moonlight slashing across the water.

  You’re everything. Those two words enter my bloodstream and circulate like a drug. It’s dangerous to get hooked on the feeling that you matter, that you are cared for.