Falling In

by Stark, Avery

  Unsure of what to think, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the glass. Of all the things that she prepared herself for after Max dropped his bombshell at their dinner, a handsome bad boy who liked her wasn’t one of them.

  She sighed and licked her lips, where a faint hint of Liam lingered. Before long, all of the tempting possibilities danced like sugar plums through her head and lulled her into a deep, much-needed slumber.

  Chapter 5

  As would be the case for a few mornings in the small, seaside town, the noisy birds stirred Audrey from where she sat the night before, slumped over in the upstairs windowsill. She sniffled and peeled her sticky forehead off of the glass. Without even looking, she could feel the hot disk where it would to be red for a while.

  “Great,” she groaned and slipped down from her makeshift nest.

  The skin on her feet felt like it was being pricked with thousands of tiny needles as she dragged down the hall and started a steaming hot shower.

  It was almost three hours later--close to 10 in the morning--when she rolled up to the Island Hotel. Under the gently fluttering flags that adorned the front, Arthur was seated on a stone bench with a newspaper that was spread open over his lap.

  “It’s really quiet around here.” Audrey pulled in just a few feet away and climbed off of the bike. “Like a ghost town or something.”

  Arthur meticulously folded his paper and didn’t speak again until it was done.

  “It happens a lot, but I wouldn’t call it creepy.”

  “I guess. I’ve been here a few days now and I still can’t get used to how desolate it is sometimes.”

  “That’s why some people love it here,” he stood up, tucked the newspaper under his arm and wagged a finger at her. “Once you’re here long enough, you’ll understand.”

  Too bad I’m only here for two weeks.

  Preferring instead to get down to brass tacks, Audrey responded, “So you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes,” he said and stretched out his back. “I was wondering if you would be interested in touching up a painting for me.”

  Audrey’s mind wandered back to the brief conversation they had at the party.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a long time and-”

  “Nonsense,” he interrupted and started on his way inside. “Follow me.”

  Audrey let him take the lead, though she was surprised to find that she remembered much of the building very, very well. The same thing went for the locally-famous painting of Neptune himself, bursting up from the seas surrounded by all kinds of creatures with his trident in hand. When they got back to the bar, she slipped behind it and pulled herself up onto where the liquor bottles once stood. Arthur had been kind enough to move every last one onto a table near a window.

  Her knees planted onto the narrow ledge, Audrey ran her hands over the battered painting. Every ripple and bump that was left by the previous artist’s brush strokes tickled the sensitive pads of her fingertips. Just like the town, they had their own colorful story to tell.

  At the very top of the mural--about three inches from the ceiling--a small patch of yellow stained the white crest of a wave.

  “It really has been a long time, Arthur.”

  She looked over her shoulder to find the old man, who leaned back against the bar with a knowing smile on his face.

  “And I believe you.”

  “Then why are you asking me?”

  “Because,” he said simply. “I like you.”

  Audrey turned back to the painting and ran a finger over Neptune’s lackluster trident.

  “Forgive me, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to let me work on this.”

  “It’s as good a reason as anything, in my experience.”

  As she hopped down from the ledge, the old man’s faith in her was both stunning and flattering.

  “I can have all of the supplies here tomorrow morning,” he said. “And I’m willing to pay you a thousand dollars.”

  Audrey felt like she needed to gather her jaw from the floor. The hefty price tag that came with the work was tempting, for sure. After all, she just lost her job and knew that a divorce could cost a fortune. It would be stupid for her to decline.

  “Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “But you have to promise to stop me if it starts looking bad.”

  Arthur nodded and said, “I promise.”

  The two shook hands over the deal.

  “You’ll do fine.”

  ---

  In the kitchen of her friend’s home, Audrey slowly paced back and forth. Under her naked feet, the chilly tile felt so refreshing. The whole time that she had been in Florida, the hot, sticky air hung around like a wet blanket, forcing her to take a cold shower on more than one occasion.

  On the far side of the long, narrow room, an equally long window stretched from end to end. It overlooked another span of swamp that looked nearly the same as the one in front, save for Kim’s elderly neighbor’s home, which sat like a doll house near a half circle of trees almost a quarter of a mile away.

  Audrey ran her fingers over the rugged edges of tile that covered the counter and went on walking.

  The responsibility of fixing the Island Hotel’s painting weighed heavily on her, though not nearly as much as everything else. She hadn’t returned a single call from her husband since the plane touched down and it was, without a doubt, the longest that she went without talking to him in all the time that they were married. And though the lack of Max made her feel a little better every day, the way everything changed so suddenly left Audrey feeling like she would give anything to go back to how it was before.

  Though her new feelings for Liam held promise, she didn’t know how much fight she had left.

  Just after opening the fridge and sticking her head in, her phone rang to life. She glanced down to it and was immediately relieved when she saw who it was.

  “Hello, stranger,” she said playfully after she answered.

  Liam’s soothing, deep voice bled through the line, “What are you up to today?”

  “I just got back, actually. Arthur is paying me to touch up the painting in the bar.”

  “Really?” He sounded a little surprised. “That thing’s been there for ages.”

  She grabbed a carton of orange juice and threw the fridge door shut.

  “I know.”

  While she knocked back a hearty gulp, Liam spoke again.

  “So do you want to see something cool?”

  Audrey lowered the carton from her lips and raised her eyebrow.

  “That’s a little too ambiguous for my tastes.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Do you want to see something really fucking cool?”

  Audrey choked on the drink for a second and tried her best to stifle a laugh from sending the acidic fluid through her nose. It took a few seconds, but she eventually swallowed it down.

  “You sure do have a way with words.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She glanced down to her left hand, which clenched the carton of juice tightly. If she looked hard enough, she could still see the faded tan line from her wedding band. Its blurred edges taunted her like a silent reminder of how everything went wrong, forcing her to remember both the good and the bad.

  Desperate to move away from the shattered remains of her old life, Audrey answered, “Yeah. That’s a yes.”

  Though they were only on the phone, she swore that she could hear him smiling through her speaker.

  “Awesome. I’ll be back at the dock from last night. Wear some sneakers; there’s a little walking involved.”

  “I can manage that.”

  “And don’t bring your phone,” he added.

  “Um,” Audrey chuckled. Every time he spoke, she could feel the walls surrounding her heart start to come down. “That’s a little creepy.”

  The line crackled as he laughed into the phone.

  “That’s not what I meant. If it doesn’t get wet, it won’t work w
here we are going anyway.”

  She leaned up against the fridge, took a big drink of the sweet liquid and replied, “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Come on,” he said with light-hearted exasperation. “You’ll be safe with me.”

  The simple way that the words rolled off of Liam’s tongue was vastly different from the way that they made Audrey feel. They were small words--individually insignificant--but spoken together, they made her heart stutter. By then, all that she could ask for was to be safe; to be able to put her guard down for just a little while without everything in her life imploding.

  “Okay,” she resigned. “I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

  “Sounds good. See you soon.”

  She hung up the phone and put the last few drops of OJ back into the fridge, doing her very best to stifle the school-girl giggles that threatened to spill out. It was something that she knew she wasn’t supposed to feel, but Audrey couldn’t help herself. She longed for the tender affection that the fire between them promised, even if it meant that she would have to put herself--and her heart--in his hands.

  The cell phone was still warm from being cradled between her head and ear as she let it fall from her grasp. It clattered and clanked down with a little skid and eventually landed near the edge of the sink.

  Knowing full well that the phone wasn’t the only thing that she wanted to leave behind, Audrey quickly showered again and dressed. Before she could change her mind, she forced herself--and the rattling, green bicycle--down the rickety road that led off of the property.

  ---

  Waiting with his red kayak at his feet, Liam’s loose mop of hair shone brightly under the blazing sun. When he caught sight of Audrey, he looked away from checking the vessel out and greeted her.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Audrey parked her bike just as a soft gust of tropical air blew her loose locks back behind the shoulders of her thin, white blouse. It was sheer enough to let her pink bikini top show through, along with the gently sloping curves that led to her hips. Similarly, the loose ends of the strings tying the matching bottoms together poked out from the waist of her denim shorts.

  “Yes,” she laughed and started down the dock. “What a surprise.”

  Liam stood up and hugged her when she was close enough.

  “I hope you brought your paddling arms.”

  “Why? Have you been bad?”

  He raised an eyebrow with a chuckle and responded, “Maybe, but I can’t tell you all of my secrets, now can I?”

  Though it wasn’t intentional, his comment made a pang of guilt hit Audrey’s stomach.

  “Of course not.” She paused and looked beyond him. “Where are we going?”

  Liam finally let his hands drop, but not before he made his palms graze the fluttering strings on her hips.

  “Hop in and I’ll tell you.”

  Audrey helped him lower the surprisingly light boat into the water, which was almost as warm as a relaxing bath. Not long after, Liam joined her and pushed them away from the dock.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t know that this town was already wiped off the face of the map once,” he said with a smug--if not adorable--look on his face. “In-”

  “1896,” Audrey cut in.

  Liam’s eyes rolled back and he groaned. If he didn’t already have a calling, Audrey thought that he would probably do well as an actor.

  “There you go again. First Arthur at the party and now this. How could you possibly know all of that?”

  “I hate to say it, but Arthur had his hand in that, too. When I met him, he told me a little about the history of the town.”

  He grabbed the paddles from near their feet and handed one over.

  “Did he tell you that the old town is actually somewhere else?”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  He turned around started to paddle, which prompted Audrey to do the same.

  “I’m taking you to Atsena Otie Key,” he said and pointed to a little island not too far away. “That’s where most of the town was before the hurricane in 1896. After it was wiped out by a ten foot storm surge, the surviving residents moved it to where it is now.”

  Under the smooth strokes of their oars, the crystal blue water rippled by with random, brightly-colored fish that darted around. Audrey watched to her right as the tall mangroves slowly passed by with their long, arched roots dipped like hesitant toes into the ocean.

  “That sounds-”

  “Pretty fucking cool?”

  Audrey chuckled and nodded her head.

  “Yeah, I guess it does.”

  It didn’t take long to reach the abandoned island, though the gently rolling waves didn’t help much as they paddled up to a dock that showed its age. Half of its boards already gave up and dangled from where they once proudly sat. Liam took off his shoes and socks, then hopped out and pulled the kayak up onto the pearly white sand, which was studded with hundreds of untouched shells.

  When then boat was secure, he extended his hand to Audrey and said with a smirk, “Now get the hell out of my boat.”

  She climbed up to the front and took his hand. In seconds, her feet touched down on dry land and Liam turned back to pull the kayak up even higher.

  “There,” he said and sat down on the dock to put his shoes back on. “It gets better, I promise.”

  Audrey eyed the way that the toned muscles in his arm flexed as he tied the laces back together in neat, double-knotted bows and dusted the extra sand off of his ankles. By the time that he stood back up, she had to tear her eyes away before she ended up looking like a creep.

  “You ready?”

  “I was born ready, my friend.”

  Liam led the way to where the wooden boards of the tiny, forgotten pier gave way to the glittering sand, which in turn relented to firmer, grassier patches. He pushed past a massive, willowy-looking branch that blocked the way, finally allowing Audrey to see the first part of the forgotten town: the graveyard.

  Much as they stood over a hundred years before, rectangular mounds of bricks sat scattered across the tree-shaded patch of land. All of them faced the same direction and some were higher than others. A few even still had the names and dates. Audrey leaned over one to get a better look.

  She reached a hand out and wiped away a wet layer of leaves, but as soon as the letters and numbers came into focus, she couldn’t make sense of them. Behind her, Liam had moved in close enough for her to feel the steamy heat radiating off of his tight body. It distracted her so wholly that she gave up on reading the head stone all together.

  “This really is something,” she said and straightened her back. When she did, her shoulder bumped into Liam’s golden chest. On the sides of where the thin strap of her shirt covered, Audrey’s skin met his.

  It felt like heaven.

  “Yeah. This place just feels unreal every time I come out here.”

  He squeezed her hand and pulled her away from the decrepit, moldy head stone.

  “Do you take all of your dates to graveyards?”

  He peeked back with a grin.

  “Nah, you’re special like that.”

  “I don’t know if I should be flattered or concerned.”

  Liam shrugged his powerful shoulders and continued to pull her deeper into the town. Along the way, small shacks were scattered in a hap-hazard fashion, some in a bigger state of disrepair than others. They were obviously peoples’ homes, given away by the tangled clothes lines that still hung in front of a few of them.

  “Here,” he said and pointed to the only building around that still had a roof. “Look at this.”

  They stopped short of climbing a set of sinking stairs and peered in through the door. Inside, dozens of small desks had been pushed up and piled against the wall. Where the windows once were, rectangular holes in the building’s wood facade were all that remained, allowing the little light that made it past the trees to filter in and illuminate softly-swirling clouds of dust
and pollen.

  “This was the schoolhouse?”

  “Yep. I don’t think that anyone was actually in here when the storm hit, but it’s still kind of creepy.”

  Audrey looked to where one end of the chalkboard had been torn down and sat on the wood floor, splintered and cracked.

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. You should see it at night.”

  “No thanks,” she said and leaned in. The moldy, musky smell of rotting wood assaulted her nose and made her pull back. “But I don’t think it’s that creepy.”

  Liam moved behind her and slipped both hands around her waist.

  “Then what do you think?”

  Audrey cast aside the nervous rumbling in her gut and leaned back into the handsome, tattooed man. Even though the temperature was an easy 10 degrees warmer than when they arrived, the sensation of Liam’s rock-solid muscles holding her close made her shiver with delight.

  His hands wrapped around a little further and eventually came to rest over her hips.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” she said, forcing the words out amidst a maelstrom of excitement.

  “How’s that?”

  “Stuff like this is like a snapshot of a world that stopped living; like a reminder of lives that were changed in the blink of an eye.”

  She felt a few of Liam’s fingers tips dip below her shirt so that they could rest on the bare skin of her waist.

  “Well if you like this, you’re going to love the old cedar mill,” he said and pointed past the sinking school house to where a single, rust-red spire jutted above the ancient tree line.

  Over the sweeping curve of a long, flat hill, a tangled mass of red pipes towered over the rotting frame of what used to be a massive processing mill. All around--leading to and from a sizeable inlet--the precarious legs of former log flumes stuck out of the ground like crossbones.

  “This thing isn’t going to be here much longer, is it?”

  Liam finally stopped walking and shook his head, allowing a small bead of sweat to roll down over his high cheek bones. The air around them got hotter by the minute.