Kamikaze Heart

by Craze, Chelle C.

  “No.” I tried to console her, knowing I should take back my invitation, but I couldn’t. It was too late. Acceptance slowly washed over her face, and she nodded.

  “Okay. The movers should arrive with my belongings in a few days,” she simply agreed, brushing her black hair away from Alf’s nose as his whiskers moved with protest and then sneezed onto her face. She exhaled and wiped her cheek with her flattened palm. “Really? Could this week get any worse?” She glowered in a defeated tone, but she was not talking to him or me. She was asking the universe, begging for a little sympathy.

  I wanted to take her into my arms to comfort her, but it would only push me farther into the wrong, and it wouldn’t make this situation any better for me. I wasn’t this person. I was often neurotic and at times even a bit of an asshole, depending on who was asked, but I’d never been so unsure of basically every decision I’d made. Since the moment my eyes landed on her, I was second-guessing my every movement. Nothing about this was okay, but it didn’t stop me. I might go to hell for my actions and/or thoughts today, or it might be the ones to follow. Either way, I refused to be a dick to her by letting her sleep in an empty house without so much as a bed. It wasn’t her fault I asked her to stay with me. She wasn’t the one that might soon be dealing with a less than copacetic situation. I needed to man up and get over the potential of everything going to shit. Trinity was a tenant being housed, and I shouldn’t be thinking of her as anything more. She just happened to be female. There wouldn’t even be a situation if she weren’t so damn hot. I silently blamed this woman’s parents for blessing her with good looks and me for stupidly answering the phone when she called. I should have rolled over and gone back to sleep like Bart did, but I answered the unknown number for whatever reason. Curiosity, I guessed. Maybe it was the fact I wasn’t fully awake. Who knew? It was funny, I never answered calls from numbers I didn’t recognize, but once I answered Trinity and heard the desperation in her voice, there was no walking away from her. I didn’t know what brought her into my life, other than the obvious old beater of a car that had to be at least ten or so years old. Judging by the chipped paint, numerous dents that somebody tried to fix by pulling the fenders back out, and worn tires, its life hadn’t been easy. It had traveled the roughest of roads and probably hit just about every imperfection in its path to earn each long mile on the odometer. Something told me that analogy was true for Trinity, too. I couldn’t tell her no because it was more than likely what she was told every step that brought her to Louisiana. Besides, it was only a few days, right?

  “Let’s go get you settled in,” I said in a shaky voice, uncertain of what I would do next, holding my breath a little the closer we got to my house and cussing myself each step of the way.

  6

  Trinity

  The first night we spent together was awkward, and that was putting it lightly. It wasn’t for lack of Eli trying. He helped me carry in a few things from my car and showed me to his room shortly after.

  “I’m ordering a pizza. I’m hungry. You are, too, right? Hell, you must be tired, and I’m here running my mouth keeping you awake,” Eli politely observed, his words flowing faster than they had earlier. I was hungry, but also exhausted as he had guessed. I had no clue which I needed more, food or sleep.

  “You’re right,” I admitted without telling him which I was, not really having an answer, settling onto his bed and eyeing him, afraid this was as weird for him as it was for me. “Are you sure, Eli? I can always sleep on the couch or even my floor—”

  “Out of the question,” he professed with a hint of irritation in his voice, something I said not setting well with him. He stretched and gritted his teeth, licking them momentarily before walking across the room as if he was having a hard time making a decision. His fingertips shook as he brushed a group of hairs off my cheek and secured them behind my ear. My skin shuddered beneath his touch, and I froze in place.

  “Sorry. Shit,” he apologized and immediately withdrew his hand, putting some distance between us. “It’s been bothering me for a while, and fuck, I don’t know. I’m an idiot. Sorry again,” he profusely repeated his apology.

  “All of us can’t pull off the unintentional messy look, huh?” I lightly poked fun at his appearance, wanting to make him feel better. He had caught me off guard, but hadn’t overstepped any boundaries, per se.

  He nervously chuckled and ran his hand through his thick hair, his brown strands now sticking up in various directions. “You think I can pull off messy, huh?” His demeanor relaxed a bit, but the stress was still there. He walked across the room and leaned the top of his head against the door facing, and even went as far as crossing one leg over the other, but the tension never left his shoulders. It was as if as soon as he touched me his upper body stiffened in protest and he refused to release it. He piled his arms over one another and secured them to his body.

  “Maybe not that messy,” I lied and clamped my mouth closed, sucking on my bottom lip. I was pretty sure Eli could pull off any look, but telling him wouldn’t do either of us any favors. Other than swell his ego, of course.

  “Duly noted.” He nodded, walking out of his room after grabbing the spare blanket from the foot of the bed and a pillow from what I assumed to be the side he slept on nightly. His hand wrapped around the knob and he smiled. “What’s mine is yours. Really,” he added in a sincere tone.

  Oh, Eli. I had no idea what it was about him, but I wanted to be one of those people for him. He had it all. Looks, personality, and a golden heart. The sooner my furniture arrived, the better. Something told me the more time we spent together, the more difficult it would be to convince myself I wasn’t able to give him what he deserved. As it was, my reservoir of willpower was dwindling quickly when it came to him.

  * * *

  Alf and I hulled up in Eli’s bedroom, and both of us were on edge. He spent the better part of the night tiptoeing around the room and sniffing various objects cautiously.

  At first, I opened the door, not wanting to appear as if I had something to hide, but after about the third time chasing Alf down the hallway, I gave up and closed it. This was our only option. I didn’t have anything to sleep on in my own home and Eli probably wouldn’t have let me if I tried.

  I yawned and stretched my limbs, getting comfortable in the bed I shouldn’t be in, but I didn’t think there was any point in arguing with Eli. He had a touch of the whole Southern gentleman thing going on. I hadn’t been around him long enough to know if he always opened doors for women, and he didn’t call me madam or anything, but the way he got upset when I mentioned sleeping on the floor showed he had a certain code he lived by. Maybe chivalry wasn’t dead.

  Eli and I hadn’t been in proximity of each other, but when he brushed my hair behind my ear, I caught a whiff of his delicious cologne. It was an intoxicating mixture of outdoors and soap. His sheets smelled like him. I wrapped myself in them and breathed in his scent. It was weird, but it brought me comfort when I needed it. When I was alone, the thoughts I avoided crept into the silence of the night and usually ended up on the color display of my dreams.

  Eli, on the other hand, drove my anxiety through the roof. It was like just being near him turned my brain to mush, and I hated women like that. The superficial ones who were so wishy-washy they behaved as if they weren’t capable of making their own decisions. I guessed it was possible I had judged them wrongly, now knowing it couldn’t have all been an act. I definitely was no actress. I would have much rather answered Eli directly and stopped thinking of how his body would feel against mine, but I didn’t exactly have a choice. Lying in his bed, his sheets lingering with his smell, he was all I thought of.

  7

  Eli

  I tossed and turned all night, too curious of what Trinity was doing in my room. When I wasn’t thinking of her, I beat myself up over touching her. How could I be so fucking stupid? It was like my body had run on some twisted kind of autopilot since she pulled into my driveway. I shou
ldn’t have done it. Every inch of my body screamed to stop as soon as the thought entered my thick skull. Yet, in spite of the increasing volume of the screams, my fingertips greedily took their own mission.

  Every time my eyelids managed to close, I touched her, and eventually she was touching me. Inviting her to stay was a bad idea, but that was before she was in my house, underneath my sheets, and before I gave in to curiosity. Now, every second that passed with her being here counted down the seconds until the ticking time bomb would explode.

  * * *

  I’d ordered pizza and eaten a few slices before lying down last night, but left where it could easily be found in the fridge in case Trinity decided to eat. I thought I had heard her sneak down the stairs and into the kitchen, but I wasn’t sure what I had dreamed and what really happened. Lifting the lid, I noticed a few more slices were missing from the box. She had eaten. Good. As long as she was in my house, she was a guest. It was how my grandparents raised me. Actually, if Grams were here when Trinity arrived, she would have had a glass of sweet tea in her hand as soon as her feet touched the soil. So, the fact she was staying here and ate cold pizza was a fraction of how I was taught to treat someone.

  “Eli? You here?” Jocelyn called through the screen door before her heels tapped against the hardwood floor with a familiar click. Shit! She was going upstairs to look for me. Fuck!

  “In here, babe.” I tried to remain calm as I redirected her and made a mad dash out of the kitchen. The sound of her heels paused and then grew closer to where I was headed. We met at the threshold of the living room. “What’s up?” I asked in the evenest tone I could and rubbed my neck with my left hand. She tilted her head and her eyes faintly squinted, but if she knew something was up, she didn’t mention it.

  “Did the random person move into the cottage house?” She shrugged, changing the subject, and peered out the screen and across the field to Trinity’s car.

  “Yes.”

  “Still looks pretty vacant to me,” she pried in a higher octave and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her yellow and white polka-dotted dress. “You know,” she held her hand up and pointed her finger with determination, “I’ll just march over there and greet him. I brought a housewarming basket, anyway.” Of course, she did. She nodded her head to the showboat of all baskets sitting on the porch. This was how she handled situations when she was irritated—she didn’t. She avoided them and busied herself with something else.

  “Because she’s upstairs.” I cleared my throat, and my eyes widened as I mentally prepared myself for her to finally lose it. “Her furniture hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Oh, well. Hmm. That was very nice of you to do, Elijah.” She nodded her head and forced a blatantly forged smile onto her lips. She knew the renter was female. I had told her. She brushed it off as she did most things, but didn’t really seem to have much of an issue with her…until she was sleeping in my bed. This much I expected, though. Perhaps it was possible she forgot, but very little slipped her mind.

  I was honest, which was more than I thought I would be. I didn’t want to see Jocelyn, and now that she was here, I knew I wouldn’t be marrying her, and I should have told her. I knew it, but I didn’t want to hurt her. Even though she had crushed me, I didn’t want to do the same to her.

  “Thanks,” I managed to say without looking at her, removing some dirt from underneath my thumbnail with the edge of another nail.

  “Well, anyway. I won’t stay. Just make sure she gets the basket, would you?”

  “Sure,” I answered her mechanically, completely and utterly confused. She was upset because Trinity was asleep upstairs. That was unmistakable, but this was something else. She didn’t used to knock before entering. Hell, she was usually here more than I was, anyway. Ever since she and Abram happened, things had been off between us. “Jocelyn, we should talk.”

  Her yellow heels stopped mid-stride, and she raised her hand in the air without turning to face me. “Another time, Eli. I’m late for work.”

  “But…” Slid out of my mouth in protest of her deflection, but she bolted out the door and to her vehicle in a hurried fashion. If I hadn’t known her for so many years, her pace could have been mistaken for her just having a naturally fast walking speed. This wasn’t the case. Something was going on inside her, and it was there before she ever stepped foot into my house. It would all come to a head eventually. It always did with her.

  8

  Trinity

  “Come on, I want to take you somewhere,” Eli announced, lightly thrumming his fingers along the back of the broad board of the rocking chair.

  “What if I don’t want to go?”

  “Too bad. You’re in debt to me,” he playfully jabbed, rounding the chair and halting my rhythmic rocking with his long fingers. He was only joking, but his words stung. I was indebted to him; we both knew it. Yet, I knew without him I would have nothing at this point.

  I did not have the strength to tell him on the second day when I received the call, or even the fourteenth day that the moving truck that held most of my belongings, the ones that made a home livable, had wrecked on the way here. Most of my furniture was ruined in the collision, and what wasn’t, weren’t the things I desperately needed, like a bed. In my haste to get away from West Virginia, I forgot to ask Eli if the place I would be renting was furnished. I had only assumed with the amount of money I would be spending that it was. Apparently not. If I had known, I would have taken more things from the home Roland and I shared. Although, it didn’t really matter, because it would have been destroyed in the accident, too. Of course, I filed a claim with the company and had taken out insurance on the items being shipped, but it was going to take some absurd amount of time to see even a fraction of the money. I had to figure something else out, but I didn’t even know where to begin.

  It was taking advantage of Eli’s hospitality, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go now. I had drained my bank account on the deposit and last month’s rent. It didn’t make the fact I was more or less mooching off him any easier to swallow. Every smile that glistened from him drove a little more guilt into my body. He was sleeping on his couch, one that looked luxurious, but was not designed for comfort. Everything in his home surprised me by its extravagance in style. It was all much nicer than anything I had ever had in my entire life. Either he had killer taste or the finer décor in here was from a woman’s touch.

  I shuttered thinking of any other woman being in his life. I had no right to think of him the way I often found my thoughts lingering to, but it didn’t stop them. It was easy being here with him, while not actually being with him. There were no expectations, no unanswered questions. We just were. It was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like I was toeing a constant edge.

  “C’mon.” He nudged my bare feet with his, trying to convince me to move.

  “It doesn’t involve money, does it?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head and poked my shoulder. “Trin-it-ty.” He elongated my name to its fullness and poked my shoulder again, reminding me of something my son would have done to try to get me to agree out of sheer annoyance. “Trinity.”

  He held his fingertip an inch away from my skin, and I moved to the left to get away from him, glaring at him from my peripherals. “Eli, I swear, if you poke me one more time…”

  “What? What are you going to do?” He laughed, bouncing around the porch, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “You gonna get up and make me stop?” He wiggled his finger in front of my mouth, and my lips twitched with irritation.

  “No.” I sneered through gritted teeth.

  “Then what?”

  “I’m warning you, Eli Bond…”

  “Elijah ‘Eli’ Waylon Boudreau,” he corrected, bowing and tipping his imaginary hat. A smile almost bubbled out of my body and would have, but he waved his damned finger in front of my face again.

  9

  Eli

  I should have stopped, but I was having too much fun.
Trinity wasn’t exactly a peach in the mornings and often well into the afternoon, considering she never got up before noon. Her noon was like my 9 AM. She tried to caution me. She even went as far as using the words, “I’m warning you,” but I didn’t let up. Not even a millimeter.

  I laughed, swirling my finger in front of her face and tapping her lower lip. That was all it took. Using more force than I thought possible, she sideswiped my feet out from under my body. Just as my ass clattered against the slats of the porch, I snaked my fingers around her wrists and pulled her on top of me without thinking ahead. I was quick to shift her onto my lower thighs and not my lap. Every day I spent with her the sexual tension rose and so did the reasons to talk to Jocelyn. I’d called her, so many times I’d lost count actually, but it was always the same thing. Straight to voicemail.

  “Let me go,” Trinity grouched, but a mischievous smirk flashed on her lips before she could hide it. “Trust me, Mr. Boudreau,” she purred, careful not to touch any part of me as she lifted her body and hovered over mine.