And once that was all done, it was past nine o'clock. She didn't hear anything on the other side of the door and she wondered if he was sleeping. She picked up her gym bag and slung it onto her shoulder. She was wearing the small compass he had given her around her neck – she hardly ever took it off – and though it was dark outside and walking through the woods wasn't the wisest thing to do, she had to get out of there. She couldn't stay here with him now that she knew. The farm was west so she just had to keep walking west and she would walk into it eventually. Yuriel's trailer wasn't that far.
Alison went to the door and slowly pulled it open. She peeked out and saw him sitting on the couch, leaning forward, his head bowed, his arms resting on his knees but his hearing was better than most and the instant that door was open, he lifted his head and saw her and practically leapt to his feet.
She took a deep breath and stepped out and his eyes instantly went to the bag on her shoulder. He stared at it for a moment and then moved his eyes back to her.
"Don't go," he said and he spoke softly and yet, everything around them was so quiet, his words sounded as loud and sudden as two shotgun blasts.
She shook her head. "There's no reason for me to stay here," she said and her fingers curled around the strap of the bag so tightly, she felt her knuckles begin to ache. "I'm not going to stay where I'm not wanted," she told him and she was so happy with herself for being able to get that out.
Yuriel took a step towards her and she forced herself to stand still and not take a step back. Yuriel wouldn't hurt her and she didn't think for a moment that he would. Not hurt her physically anyway.
"I want you here, Alison," he then said, his voice lower, almost rougher sounding, and Alison hated the tingle that shot down her spine.
He took another step towards her and his eyes never left her and Alison found herself looking into his eyes and not looking away from him no matter how loudly she yelled at herself to do just that.
"'m sorry about earlier," he said.
"Sorry for what you said or sorry that I overhead?" She asked and she finally was able to move her eyes away from him. She looked down to his chest in front of her, staring holes into the Martin's Garage tee-shirt he wore, and she could feel his eyes still settled on her head.
She didn't even know why they were having this conversation. She didn't want to know because no matter what his answer was, she didn't want to hear it. She felt such a crushing disappointment and sadness towards him, it was as if someone was pressing piles of stones right down on her chest, slowly crushing her to death.
All of her thoughts came rushing back to him that she had had when she thought he wasn't showing up to the farm for dinner and she now knew that her thoughts had been right. She was nothing. Not to him. Not to too many people. Nothing more than a burden to everyone she knew and she felt so stupid and pathetic for thinking that Yuriel had actually wanted her. Her of all people.
And those stupid searing tears began flooding her eyes again.
It was her fault, she knew. She had just been so desperate for something good to happen to her – to finally have something good in her life – and she had looked for it anywhere. Even in something that wasn't there and she pretended that it had been.
"'m really sorry for what I said earlier," Yuriel finally spoke after a long moment. "I didn' mean it. I don't know…" he suddenly cut himself off as if he realized that he was talking too much and Alison slowly lifted her eyes despite knowing that they were red and wet and she had already promised herself that she would never cry in front of him.
She saw him visibly swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing down and then up again.
"I've never done somethin' like this 'fore, Alison," he said, his voice low and quiet again. "And I don't know how to act 'round you."
"Not like a jackass would be a good start," she blurted out before she could stop herself and she almost gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth.
She felt her eyes widen that she had just said that but Yuriel stared at her and she swore that she saw him looking something close to amused.
"I don't got a lot of experience with women," he then admitted to her.
"You?" She asked and she knew the disbelief was evident in her tone because how was that even possible? Yuriel Salas was the most handsome man she had ever seen and other women obviously thought the same thing and there had to have been loads of them in his life before her and this moment.
He shrugged. "Don't really like people," he explained and she thought that over for a moment, her eyes drifting to his chest again, realizing that that seeming simple statement was quite true.
For the longest time, working in the garage, she had been so convinced that he hated her but he seemed to hate everyone – always scowling or frowning or muttering about how big of an idiot this person or that person was.
"But, Alison…" he said her name and her eyes lifted to his again. "I like you." He said those three words in a voice barely above a whisper, all mumbled and hard to separate into different syllables, but Alison heard him as if he had shouted it from the rooftop and the voice carried, echoing throughout the trees and the night.
She stared at him and didn't say anything because she had no idea what to say. Her heart was thudding in her chest so loud, she swore that he could probably hear it in the otherwise quiet trailer. And the air around them didn't feel so cool anymore. In fact, Alison felt sweat droplets begin to form along the base of her spine as if she was in an inferno and she wondered if she had any similar effect on him.
"I like you and I wan' you to stay here with me," Yuriel said.
"Alright," Alison heard herself say before she could stop and even really think about it. She nodded her head slowly. "I want to stay."
They stared at one another and she wondered if he would kiss her. She hoped he would; wanted him to. She felt like they hadn't kissed in so long and she wanted him to initiate it this time. She needed to know that he wanted to kiss her.
But minutes counted by and he didn't make a move and she felt something inside of her get smaller and smaller with each tick of the imaginary clock.
"I cleaned your room," she blurted out, subsequently killing whatever thick mood had been hanging over their heads.
He looked at her for a moment as if he didn't understand. "What?" He asked the question on an escaped breath past his lips; as if he wanted to let out a laugh but was able to catch himself in time.
"I wasn't… I'm not able to help myself. I'm…" she had no idea how to explain this to him but Yuriel was looking at her and there was no judgment in his eyes. And he had hurt her, yes, but he had apologized and she looked at him and couldn't help but feel like she could trust him.
He liked her. She just had to keep telling herself that because Yuriel wasn't going to just say something he didn't mean and if he said he liked her, he must. She couldn't doubt that. She refused to let herself doubt that because if she did, she would never be able to trust anything about him and she so desperately wanted to trust him.
She made herself take a deep breath. "I like things neat. I don't really feel in control of a lot of things in my life except my eating and how I can keep things around me. I like things having their place."
"Alrigh'…" he said slowly, almost hesitantly, and he looked at her with an expression that seemed like a mixture of confusion and curiosity. She felt her cheeks blush as he reached out and slowly too the bag from her shoulder. "Mind showin' me?" He asked, tilting his chin towards the bedroom behind her.
"I know I shouldn't have touched your things but I just…" she trailed off because there really was no explanation as to why she had cleaned his room other that she was sick because she was – and she supposed she was in more than one way.
She stepped into the room and stood in the corner but the back window and the closet, watching with a nervous knot in her stomach and her fingers fidgeting as he set her bag down and looked around. He looked and saw all of his flannels hanging in the closet and his
extra pair of boots on the floor beneath them. He turned slowly to his dresser and began pulling open drawers, seeing his tee-shirts and his jeans and he was staring at them all as if he had never seen any of them folded before.
"I didn't touch the top drawer," she blurted out and she almost winced. She really had to stop blurting things out like that.
Yuriel slowly turned and looked at her and his face was completely unreadable to her. She opened her mouth to say something but she had absolutely no idea what to say so her lips stayed parted with no sound being made between them. She didn't know what to think; what he thought.
She watched as he approached her slowly and she had no idea what he was thinking or what he was going to do. His eyes locked with hers and suddenly, he was standing right in front of her and it felt as if her heart was beating right in the base of her throat. And she let out a small gasp as his hands lifted to her cheeks and then he pressed his lips to hers.
…
It was Sunday – the start of their weekend – but Alison woke up nonetheless just a little bit after six o'clock in the morning. She laid there for a few minutes, listening to the light songs of the birds chirping outside and her eyes adjusted to the soft greyness of the room as the dawn grew lighter with the sun creeping above the eastern horizon.
She would have to get up and start getting herself ready for church so she could meet daddy, Vicky and Shawn but she didn't want to move just yet. She didn't know if she would ever want to move. Everything in this moment – for the first time in such a long time; maybe for the first time ever – she was experiencing perfection.
Alison turned her head on the pillow and next to her in the bed, his head on the mattress since there was only one pillow on the bed now – the other out on the couch when he had taken it to sleep on the night before – Yuriel slept deeply and peacefully and she watched him, too afraid to even move because if she did, that might wake him and this moment would be over.
She wanted this moment to last forever.
Chapter Eighteen.
The first thing he saw when he woke up was blonde hair and even though his mind was still half asleep, he knew it was Alison. He shut his eyes again just for a quick second before cracking them open and leaving them open. Alison laid beside him, still on her side facing him, the same position she had fallen asleep in, and he saw that she was already awake, her eyes looking at him. She gave him a small smile and he returned it, wondering in the back of his mind why this all felt so damn natural.
He had kissed her the night before – more than once because he hadn't been able to stop himself from not doing it anymore. He had been wanting to kiss her since the garage bathroom but something inside of him had always told him that the time wasn't right. Just like taking her out on a date. He kept waiting for these moments – these perfect moments – and he saw her standing in his now clean bedroom, looking so damn nervous and she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen and he realized that he was sick and tired of waiting for all of these moments that seemed like they would never come.
She had gasped a little the first time he had kissed her but then almost immediately, she had sank against him, her hands lightly resting on his shoulders as his own hands dropped down from her cheeks to rest on her sharp hips. He couldn't help but think of how bony she was. Even through her clothes, he could still feel all of her sharp angles and he had seen her eat enough times to know that she did but he wondered just how much more weight she had to gain to where she wasn't quite a walking bag of bones anymore.
And then he felt so damn guilty for thinking that because Alison got that enough from others in her life and she didn't need him to have thoughts like that, too.
There was more to Alison than how much she weighed.
He shook all thoughts from his head as quickly as he could and concentrated on kissing her. Focused on her soft lips and her faintly sweet taste and the way her hands touched him, shy and hesitant but not pulling away or stopping herself. He didn't really know what he was doing but he didn't stop himself either. He wasn't just saying it when he said he didn't have a lot of experience with women. Yuriel never lied – never really saw a reason to. He wasn't a virgin but if it came to a choice between being alone and having companionship, Yuriel liked himself just fine.
But Alison was different in seemingly every way because now that he was kissing her, he wasn't really looking for himself to stop. Now that he had gotten her to stay, he really didn't want her to leave and he knew, if he thought about that, it would scare the shit out of him because why exactly didn't he want her to leave? Whatever the reason, he knew he wasn't ready to face that yet.
They kissed one another over and over again and his arms tightened around her waist, her small body being pressed against his, and Alison let out a soft moan that he felt sparking every inch of his body as her arms slipped around his neck.
He wasn't entirely sure how it happened but he felt themselves being lowered down and then he could feel the softness of the bed. Alison stiffened ever so slightly beneath him and it was more than enough for his lips to pull off of hers. He looked down at her and her eyes fluttered open to look up at him. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were slightly swollen and he had never seen her eyes such a dark shade of blue.
He gave her a small twitch of his lips in what he hoped was reassuring before he slipped from her, lying himself down beside her, his heart racing and the pumping blood roaring in his ears. He knew she wasn't ready for this to go any further and to be honest, he wasn't ready either. He had made a silent promise to her pops that she was going to stay a good girl while she was staying here with him and Lawrence Silver wasn't a man he was looking to piss off.
And he didn't want to cross that line with Alison yet. Yet. He didn't know if they would ever cross that line together; didn't know if she would ever want to or if he would ever feel brave enough to.
"This bed is really comfortable," she said, breaking the silence, and he felt himself smirk, turning his head and looking at her. She was lying on her side, facing him, still blushing but smiling faintly.
Yuriel rolled himself onto his side, facing her. "Yeah. Came with the place. It was Martin's but the thing was just sittin' here, gettin' old and no one usin' it. Martin sold it to me for a good price."
"I love it here," she then admitted quietly. "Your own little space where no one bothers you. I lived on my own in Atlanta. I had a roommate, Rosita. We both were helping each other get on our feet and I loved the freedom that came with being on my own without having someone breathing down my neck."
Yuriel looked at her for a moment. "You ever gonna talk to your sister 'bout that?"
She shrugged a shoulder. "I keep telling myself I will. One day. When I'm feeling brave." She tucked her hands between her cheek and the pillow. "Don't know if I'll ever feel brave though."
"You're brave already," he said and she smiled a little as if she didn't believe him but Yuriel shook his head slightly. "You are. Everyone in this town knows…" he trailed off. Knew what? That she starved herself damn near to death? Yeah, that was what they all knew but he didn't know how to put that into words. "And you face 'em every single day. That takes a lot."
Alison's face darkened another shade of pink as if his words embarrassed her and her eyes left his for a moment before they flitted back again. "There are stories about you and your brother," she said quietly.
"Yeah…" he grunted because he knew there were still stories floating around though there hadn't been any new ones for years.
He and Carlos had been a couple of hellions just like all of the Salass before them and it seemed like every law enforcement officer in the county knew them. But then, Carlos had gone off to prison and Yuriel had landed in this small town and they both seemed to calm down and settle down and now, both were downright boring. Even Carlos – which seemed to surprise people more than anything.
Yuriel shrugged, looking at her. "Some people can change," he said and that was all he said and Alison didn
't press him to say anything else.
Some people could do something with their lives but not everyone. Some people were fine being drunken assholes who beat their kids for fun. Some people liked living their life doing nothing except getting drunk and getting into fights and getting arrested. It was no way to live but to some, it was all they ever wanted to do.
He didn't know when he fell asleep. They laid there, side by side, talking about all sorts of things – things he couldn't even really remember now the next morning but he looked at an awake but still sleepy-looking Alison beside him and whatever the conversation had been, he knew it had been a good one; the kind of conversation he had never had with another person before.
"You're a blanket thief," he grunted in a morning-rough voice, rolling onto his back and scrubbing his hands over his face.
She laughed softly and he thought it was better than a bird's song outside. There he was – having those stupid, down-right cheesy thoughts about her again.
"You know I'm always cold," she reminded him. She was the first to sit up and he watched as she ran her fingers through her hair.
"Forgot to turn on the heater last night," he mumbled, sitting up now, too.
"You give off plenty of heat," Alison said with a faint blush staining her cheeks. "I just needed something a little extra. I've never slept beside a man before," she then told him and despite her blush, she was still bravely looking at him.
He shook his head a little. "Ain't never slept beside a woman before."
Screwed, yeah, but as soon as it was done, he was gone and the few times he had done it, it had rarely been in an actual bed. Usually just up against some wall outside behind some bar. He had never had this with another woman – being so close to her and having her so close to him. Hell, he still stiffened a little every time Annie hugged him and she was family.
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