Reft

by Libby Austin

  Realizing it still laid resting on my dick, I jerked my hand out of my lap. I probably couldn’t have been more conspicuous if I tried. Given the raised eyebrows, Layna had noticed my abrupt movement. Any second now she was going to toss my crazy, seemingly perverted ass out of her apartment. In an attempt to change the subject, I said, “You got ready pretty quick.”

  She graciously accepted my diversionary tactic. “Yeah, I didn’t feel like putting that much effort into getting dressed.” I thought she looked cute and … voluptuous. For such a simple dress, it certainly highlighted her assets without making her look slutty. And I knew slutty. You don’t make it as a band and not attract attention from a certain type of female. Stereotypes exist for a reason. Layna didn’t fit the stereotype. In truth, I wasn’t even sure if she was just being nice and tolerating me because she needed my help or if she might be considering getting to know me since I lived across the hall. My mind wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know her either, but my body definitely fell on the get-to-know side of the debate. The disconnect between my mind and body was a new experience for me. Usually they were in agreement on matters dealing with the opposite sex. “I figured we could grab some breakfast on our way. I’m kind of starving.”

  “Okay,” I agreed and stood up, ready to go and leave behind the awkwardness.

  Layna gestured to the TV. “You gonna turn that off, or would you prefer to stay and watch a little longer?”

  Feeling like a prepubescent teenager who got caught jacking off by a cute girl, I hurriedly fumbled for the remotes to turn everything off as I did my best to sound unflustered. “No, no, let’s go. I’m starved, too; haven’t eaten in …” My voice trailed off as I went back over the last couple of days, wrangling through the fog that covered my memory, the hours and days blending together in a foggy lump of bare existence. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I turned off the TV and the music. By the time I straightened up, my features were a mask of lightheartedness. “I could eat a horse I’m so hungry,” I proclaimed, hoping to cover my lapse.

  Layna’s face stayed unchanged, and I relaxed a little when she didn’t say anything. Answering questions sucked. It makes it hard to ignore the things you don’t want to acknowledge.

  “Well, let’s get going. Make sure we have plenty of time to eat,” I said on my way to the door. “Do you need me to carry anything?”

  “No,” she huffed from the exertion of walking with the crutches. “All I need is my purse.” Layna reached for a small bag, dropping the strap over her head until it rested in between the twin mounds of her breasts, and I snapped my eyes away before I got caught staring again.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I didn’t need to remind myself of why I kept women off limits. The reason never left my mind, even in the brief moments I wished it would disappear. Normally when I got nervous, I became even quieter, but not with Layna. With Layna, my mouth seemed incapable of staying shut.

  “So, where are we eating? You in the mood for anything in particular?” Then I proceeded to name every restaurant between here and the doctor’s office as we made our way to my Jeep. I kept expecting her to speak up and say one or the other sounded good, but she just let me rattle off names one right after the other.

  My rambling continued all the way to the doctor’s office. Once we’d settled on breakfast from a fast-food chicken place, where Layna ordered chicken nuggets off the kids’ menu because she said they didn’t look at you strange if you ordered non-breakfast items off the kids’ menu, my mouth continued to move unabated, bouncing from mundane topic to mundane topic. While we sat in the waiting room, I commented on every picture and article in the magazines I picked up.

  After the nurse called Layna’s name and she was ushered into a back hallway, I took a deep breath and exhaled. It was as if I hadn’t taken a full breath since Layna had opened her door. My mind spun around the fact that I was so worked up around this woman, like I felt connected to her. It had to be because she was hurt. That had to be it. It was the only explanation. I had to get myself under control. There was no way I was getting wrapped up in taking care of someone else, no matter how responsible I felt because of the guilt that followed me like a haunted shadow.

  When Layna trudged back into the waiting room, her foot wrapped in a plaster cast, I stood up and walked out. I didn’t say a word the entire way back to our building. Once Layna got out of my Jeep and made it clear of the inner garage door, I hit the lock button on my Jeep’s remote, closed the garage door, and took off for the stairs, figuring I could get away from the torment for a moment at least.

  Respite was short lived. As I came out of the stairwell, Layna stepped through her door, but not before looking over her shoulder to make the briefest eye contact. The look on her face gave nothing away during a time span that felt like hours when, in actuality, it was no longer than the few beats of a battered heart. She turned her head away without saying anything and continued to make her way into her condo. The thud of the closing door reverberated around the hallway separating our homes. Home, the place that was supposed to be sanctuary, was slowly becoming my personal torture chamber.

  “NOOOOOOOOOO!” THE SCREAM JERKED ME from the all-too-familiar nightmare. I’d been reliving it in one way or another for the past thirteen years. Over the past year, ever since Ty and Danelle had gotten married, it had become more and more frequent, to the point where I could barely close my eyes before being wrenched awake with sweat coating my body and my heart beating so fast I had trouble catching my breath. Reaching for my phone, the time read 8:49 pm. The last I time remembered looking at the clock it was 5:27 in the evening. Closing my eyes in the daylight used to help keep the nightmares at bay. I needed to talk to Barrett, the other half to my whole. Connecting with him always made me feel better.

  “Hey, man, you busy?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  “Of course I’m busy. I’m stoking the iron for the fire.” I rolled my eyes at his absurd innuendo but felt my body calming immediately.

  “Do you always have to be so skeevy and gross?” I said, knowing the insult would roll off his back. Barrett didn’t take anything seriously if he didn’t have to these days.

  “It’s not skeevy or gross,” Barrett defended. “Now, your junk, on the other hand, is probably gonna fall off from lack of use. What’s the point of being in a band if you don’t gorge on the buffet of beauty offered to you every time you turn around?”

  Shaking my head, I told him, “I think you’ve lost touch with reality.” A strangled laugh managed to escape.

  “Reality is relative,” he said with a sigh, and I immediately sobered.

  The deafening silence hung like a pall over the conversation. I didn’t know how I could say something so stupid. I silently berated myself for my thoughtless slip of the tongue.

  Like always, Barrett knew what I was doing and sought to relieve the tension. “Remember the time you were making out with that slutty chick—shit, what was her name …” After tossing out a few names, he snapped his fingers and shouted, “Mary-Beth,” as if he were proclaiming ‘EUREKA’ at a gold strike. “I think that chick got banged more than a drum.” I groaned because I knew Barrett wouldn’t shut up until he finished his moral of the story, even if it was at the expense of my dignity. “Anyway, back to you making out with Sluterella. You were all hyped up because you were finally going all the way. But, when the time came, you came”—Barrett practically choked he laughed so hard at his own lame joke—“bwahaha, see what I did there? You and time came together.” He continued laughing, and I scowled so hard my mom’s warning that my face would freeze like that came to mind. “Shit! I kill me.” And I frowned harder at his flippant comments. “Anyway, you came when she touched you, with your dick still in your boxers. You didn’t even get your pants down.” Barrett snickered again but managed to control himself. “It wasn’t funny at the time, but you gotta admit it’s funny as shit now,” he asserted.

  Our definitions of funny were a
s different as night and day. “Funny isn’t how I would describe it. It took so long for her to get off I thought my jaw was gonna break. I tried everything in my limited arsenal—developed by watching porn—to get her off, so I wouldn’t have to go down on her—”

  “You were willing to stick your dick in her, but you got grossed out at going down on her?” he asked me in disbelief.

  “Well, yeah, I could wrap my dick up …” I shook my head at how dumb I was back then. “What can I say? I was young and stupid.”

  “Now, your ass is old and stupid. But my point is, remember when a couple of months later she came up pregnant? If things had gone the way you planned, you could have had more shit to worry about than her telling everybody you came in her hand. Things have a tendency of working out the way they are supposed to, regardless of our plans, and we have to make the best out of the reality we’re handed. Get it? Handed?” And he was laughing his ass off again at his own cleverness.

  “All right, all right. All these comedians out of work, and you’re trying to be funny. I get it. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could change it.”

  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” he espoused.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said sarcastically.

  “Oh, God, I just sounded like a parent. Kill me now,” he began to bemoan how unfair it was to sound like our mother and that he should be excused from the indignities of growing up and becoming an adult.

  Sometimes it was hard to believe we were two individuals split from the same cell. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember our paths had diverged, though I tried hard to forget. I couldn’t fault Barrett for how he chose to deal with our circumstances any more than he faulted me for my ways of dealing.

  Out of the blue, Barrett said, “So, you still avoiding your neighbor?”

  “Do you have ADD or something?” I asked rhetorically. “How did we get from you turning into Mom to me avoiding my neighbor?”

  “Uhh, dude, you’ve been sitting there starring off into space for like five minutes. I was merely filling the gaps in your conversational abilities. But, to answer your question, your neighbor is the daughter of one of Mom’s friends, and you’re supposed to be helping her settle in, not ignoring her ‘cause she manages to make you forget your asinine rules about avoiding all women—”

  “Wait. Mom knows Layna?” I was so lost. “How the hell does Mom know my neighbor who just moved in the building? They don’t normally pay any attention to who’s living here and just let the management company run things.” This shit didn’t make sense. Not that I cared who lived here, but my parents wouldn’t be dumb enough to try to set me up.

  “Uhh, Mom told you over a month ago they were letting the daughter of somebody Mom knows from God knows where to live in the other condo while she’s in town. She’s got some freelance consulting job or some shit like that. You were supposed to keep an eye on her and see if she needed anything. You know Mom is going to be calling to make sure you’re being neighborly. You can only avoid her for so long.”

  Which ‘her’ couldn’t I avoid? I asked myself.

  “Either of them,” Barrett answered for me. I hated that he knew me so well.

  “How could I not remember Mom telling me about Layna?” Was I losing it that much? I tried to remember the conversation with my mom, and still I came up blank.

  “ ‘Cause, like with most things you don’t want to deal with, you shoved it so far out of your mind it doesn’t exist.” I took back what I said about Barrett not finding fault with how I dealt with shit.

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” Barrett proclaimed. “Always yours. I just happen to agree with Mom and Dad on this one.”

  “You talked to Mom and Dad?” I asked, stunned that Barrett would reach out to them after all this time.

  “No. You know I can’t. You told me, dumbass. What could it hurt to hang out with the poor injured girl from time to time? She won’t be here that long. It could give you someone to spend time with and take your mind off things until the band starts recording again.”

  “You know why I won’t go there.”

  “Jesus Christ, Brandon, you don’t have to fuck her to be friends with her. You’ve managed to have a few female friends over the last decade.”

  “Yeah, and we saw how that went. They ended up fucking my band in more ways than one,” I yelled.

  “Oh, come off it. Your friends fell in love. They didn’t set out to sabotage your happiness. People aren’t meant to be alone in this life, Brand. You need to remember that.” I hung my head at his words. I knew I’d been given opportunities I should be grateful for, and I was, but knowing something and accepting it were two very different things. “Look, I gotta get going. You know where to find me when you need me. You’re never truly alone, brother; you’ll always have me, no matter how far apart we are.”

  “I know,” I whispered to the air since he was already gone by the time I got the words out.

  FATE WAS A HEARTLESS BITCH who’d never done me any favors. Two days later, she stayed true to form by way of the knock at my door. The choices of who could be at my door were limited. There was a list of visitors who were allowed up, but even with them, the front desk would call to let me know someone was here. You couldn’t access my floor without a key or a code that the front desk clerk would enter to allow the elevator to go to the top floor. The only people besides me who had a key were my parents. Oh, God, I prayed it wasn’t my parents.

  Opening the door, my prayer had been answered. Unfortunately, this answer was just as bad: Layna, the newest key holder. I groaned to myself. How did I forget her on my mental list?

  “Try to contain your excitement.” Okay, I guess the groan wasn’t so silent. “I don’t want to get knocked over since I’m not so steady on my feet,” she said, gesturing to her crutches. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she cut me off. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to force myself on you.” And my mind careened into the gutter with an image of her jumping on me and me grabbing her ass as she wrapped her legs and arms around me. My body visibly shook as a shiver coursed through me. Layna’s eyes widened, and I figured she was about two seconds from hitting me with one of her crutches and storming back across the hall. I could be so lucky. However, either my reaction wasn’t as obvious as I thought or she was made of sterner stuff than most women, because she continued talking as if nothing had happened. “I need some help moving stuff around, so I can get around easier while I’m on crutches. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  Move furniture. “Yeah, sure, I can do that.” I motioned with my hand. “Lead the way. I’m at your service.” Damn it! Did everything I said have to come out as some kind of thinly veiled proposition?

  Okay, I knew my perception of time was skewed, but her few minutes of furniture moving turned into two hours of moving a piece here and then over there and then somewhere else. By the time Layna was satisfied she would be able to get around better, I had worked up an appetite. Since I actually wanted to eat something, I was about to excuse myself when her stomach let out a loud growl. I laughed, and she looked sheepish. Nothing to be embarrassed about, but I would have come across as even more of an ass than usual if I didn’t offer to get her something to eat while I was taking care of myself. My mother did raise me to have manners.

  “I was gonna grab a bite to eat. Do you want to join me?”

  Layna glanced down at the shorts and tank top she wore, which I had been doing my utmost best to ignore. “I’m not really dressed to go out, and I’m pretty wiped out. I don’t think I’m up for taking a shower to go somewhere.”

  Great! I was off the hook. Too bad my mouth didn’t get that message before it opened, because the next thing I knew, I was assuring Layna her appearance wasn’t an issue. “You look fine. You’re always beautiful.” I looked up at the ceiling and silently asked God why I couldn’t think before I spoke. “Anyway, I …” My head dropped back down and my eyes met hers, and I lost my tr
ain of thought. Layna’s face was so open; she wore her thoughts in her expression. If only I knew how to decipher what that look meant. “I was gonna order some sushi from this place I go to sometimes. Do you like sushi?”

  “I love sushi, except eel and squid.” She shuddered. It was adorable. “That fucking shit is disgusting.” I stared at her, dumbfounded. “What?” Layna asked.

  I shrugged, shoving my hands farther into my pockets to stop myself from reaching over and smoothing the little wrinkle in the middle of her furrowed brow. “Nothing. It’s just your mouth is worse than some of the roadies we work with.”

  “Is that a problem?” she asked as she made her way over to the overstuffed chair I’d just finished moving for the nine-hundredth time.

  Before she could bend forward to reach for the ottoman, I stepped forward and slid it closer as I reached for her leg to prop her foot up on it. A current similar to static traveled up my arm as my fingers connected with her skin and my breath caught. Time seemed to freeze for a millisecond before I was able to remove my hand and speak. “No, not a problem. You just don’t look like the type is all.”

  “We can’t always tell what makes someone who they are just by looking at them. I would think you, of all people, would know that.” Oh, fuck no! No. No, there was no way Layna could know. My parents would never betray my trust like that. “Being a rock star and all, I’m sure people make assumptions about you all the time.”

  My body relaxed from where it had seized in place, and my lungs filled with air. “True. I should know better.” I stepped back and sat on the arm of the couch. “So, sushi sound good?”

  Eyeing me skeptically, she said, “I’ve never had sushi delivered. I’m not so sure I trust it.”

  “Don’t worry. This place is topnotch, and they make sure everything is kept fresh during transport. Give me a sec to go grab my phone and call the order in,” I told her as I stood up and began making my way to the door. “Do you need anything before I go?” I thought to ask before crossing the threshold.