I Like You Like This

by Heather Cumiskey

  “I’m going to take very good care of you,” he said, and then he kissed her, tenderly. Hannah parted her lips and he met her tongue, pressing his body against her. With a stroke of his lips, he colored her cheeks, eyelids, and forehead like a painter, bringing every part of her face to life. Deacon moaned softly and moved lower, lightly sucking her neck as if it was the sweetest of nectars. “God, you smell so good,” he said.

  Hannah smiled. Apparently he hadn’t a clue what his cologne did to her. His mouth found its way down to her collarbone, and suddenly his fingers started unbuttoning her blouse. Her whole being began to spin like a carousel, but not in a dizzying way—more like the part of the ride where everything starts to slow down and become clearer. She placed her hands over his chest to steady herself, and the ride came to a stop.

  Deacon pulled her partially opened blouse over her head, exposing the sexiest bra she owned, a black satin one. It wasn’t much, but it was far better than the array of white-pilled ones she’d scrounged through until she found this one in the back of her drawer.

  “Mmm, that’s coming off fast,” he said approvingly, his eyes absorbing every inch of her, turning her cheeks crimson. She knew he’d probably just kissed off all of her makeup and tried not to obsess about it. She started to tuck her head into his chest but he held her back, spreading her arms wide.

  “Look at me.”

  “I can’t,” she said, avoiding his stare. “I’m not used to someone looking at me the way you do.”

  Deacon lifted up her face with both hands like it was a chalice. “You’re beautiful, Hannah.”

  His seriousness made her giggle, and she felt herself relax a bit.

  He scooped her up in his arms and laid her across his bed, touching her head down last. Hannah pulled her hair away from her hot neck, and his pillows and comforter cooled her body. His bed was huge compared to hers; firm, too, and undeniably masculine with its dark, heavy wood and monochromatic, stone-gray bedding that looked pristinely pressed. Geez, Hannah thought, it’s like a fancy hotel. The curved footboard momentarily gave her the feeling she was flying on a magic carpet. As long as she ignored the strange bearded men eyeing her from either wall with accusatory looks, Hannah felt sexy just lying in his bed.

  “Now I want to see you,” she commanded, propping herself on her elbows.

  With a wicked smile, Deacon pulled his T-shirt over his head, revealing his impossibly toned abdomen and sculpted shoulders. He looked like a Calvin Klein model in his dark jeans. Probably from those years of swimming, Hannah thought. Their eyes never left one another as Deacon hovered over her, his hands resting on the bed on either side of her, one of his feet still on the floor.

  “Wish I knew what you were thinking,” she said, her fingertips tracing a heart on his smooth chest and summoning small goose bumps across his skin.

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “What?”

  “How I feel about you?”

  “Not always.”

  Deacon’s face dropped, and Hannah wished she hadn’t said anything. He shrugged and looked back over his shoulder. Then, all at once, he turned his gaze back on her and stared right through her. “I wouldn’t have invited you here if I didn’t want to be with you.”

  “I know that,” she said carefully, hiding the small panic rising in her chest. “But how do you feel . . . about me?”

  Deacon shook his head “no” several times. The words seemed lodged in his throat. He swallowed hard. In a low voice, he finally uttered, “Nothing . . .” He cleared his throat. “Like nothing I ever felt before.”

  Hannah grinned. Without words, their bodies began moving together, and the rest of the world fell away.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE AFTERNOON SUN SLANTED THROUGH THE BEDROOM window, catching Hannah’s eye. Her lashes fluttered open with a start, and she squinted around the room, trying to figure out where she was. After a few beats, she relaxed into the cocoon of Deacon’s body, his pulse strumming her back, his shallow breathing tickling her ear. A brown, muscular arm and a heavy leg were wrapped tight around her, preventing her escape.

  Hannah wanted to encapsulate the moment forever. No worries, no parents, and above all—no beeper. Just them. She and Deacon had been like two kids exploring one another’s bodies, and it had felt amazingly freeing to put her insecurities aside and let herself go.

  She stretched slightly, feeling deliriously alive, each of her senses sharpened and crisp, her body whole and exquisitely ripe. Deacon had transformed her world into a prism of color and possibility—a place where everything was in focus.

  She watched him sleep, looking more peaceful than she’d ever seen. She studied every curve of his cinnamon complexion, his thick, feathery lashes and cherry lips, engraving it in her mind . . . in case it all was to disappear.

  Deacon stirred, his body so heavy it was like he’d become one with the bed. For the first time in a long time, he’d slept hard—and blissfully uninterrupted. He pulled Hannah closer, wanting her to move her attention away from the window and onto him. He kissed her shoulder, and its delicate whiteness squirmed underneath him. She turned her smiling face to his, and he kissed her.

  They didn’t have much time. Soon he’d have to turn on his beeper, let it light up with crazed clients who would be crawling the walls by now. He didn’t want to think about it, or about his parents coming home, silently shedding their coats, pouring themselves drinks, and heading to separate parts of the house without so much as a hello.

  He didn’t want to let her go. Not this one. Just the thought of Hannah leaving unsettled him. He didn’t understand the pull he felt to her.

  Deacon watched her shyly tie up her hair and drape his sheet around herself. She leaned over, grabbed the two Trojan wrappers from the floor, and crumpled them up in her hand before giving him a sly look and heading to the bathroom. He got a kick out of her combination of nervousness and unexpected bravado. She had been an indulgence for him right from the beginning, since the first time she poked him in the back to get his attention at school, like he was being struck by Cupid’s arrow. He liked her sharp wit and the way her pretty eyes danced whenever she laughed. She was the knot inside his chest. In his bed alone with her, he had kissed her to tell her all the things he couldn’t say. For now, that seemed to be enough.

  Hannah returned ready to find the same boy she’d left in bed, but he was gone. Deacon’s overcast eyes told a deeper story, one she couldn’t read.

  “What is it?”

  Deacon rolled onto his side, and when she sat down on the edge of the bed still wearing his sheet, he slid an arm around her waist. She had cleaned up the best she could without taking a shower, but now a chill trickled down her back, causing her body to shudder. She touched his cheek tentatively, hoping her touch would encourage him to spill whatever it was that was bothering him.

  “So the weekend of your ‘trip’ . . . what I saw . . .” Deacon swallowed hard, his eyes avoiding hers. “I don’t know how to ask this . . . the way you were screaming . . . what did your dad do to you?”

  Hannah’s head swirled, and the color rose in her face, making her lightheaded and unable to mask the shame she suddenly felt.

  “You never told me you saw that.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” he said, lightly strumming her hand.

  “What did you think?”

  “Did he rape you?”

  Hannah flinched. Her gaze went to the paintings across the room. The two bearded men on the wall stared her down, demanding an answer. She felt little pricks rise across her back. She dug her nails into her shoulders and looked around for her clothes. The dark room felt cold and threatening now, the men seemed to be smirking at her. She wasn’t safe and had to get out. She eyed the bathroom door, plotting her escape, but Deacon pulled on her hand, forcing her to look at him.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly, sitting up to hold her.

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head without looking at him. />
  “It’s okay, I’ve told you how much my parents suck—”

  “I mean no, he didn’t . . . my dad has a terrible temper. Always has. He can be fine one moment, but the next he’s on top of you.” Hannah stopped, realizing the tremendous irony of her words, and tried to find a way to explain. “He’s crazy religious in a ‘hell and damnation’ kind of way. Always thinking the worst in people, especially me . . . that’s what it seems like, anyway. He’s real strict and old school, like ‘children obey their parents no matter what’ strict. My father has assaulted me many times, but not in the way you think. He calls me these horrible names, ones I don’t like to think about.” Hannah knew she wasn’t going to tell him the skirt story. Even Deacon didn’t need to know that gem of history. But suddenly, it all came into focus: “He tries to control me by shaming me.”

  Feeling dizzy, she stretched onto her back next to Deacon. “How can a father talk like that to his daughter? It’s hard to forget the things he says. Those words, I torture myself with them, repeating them in my head over and over. Sometimes I just want the pain to go away . . . for me to go away.” She looked into Deacon’s eyes, searching for a trace of disgust or even boredom, but only saw tenderness. “I guess the LSD just magnified all those awful feelings to the point that I believed he was actually raping me.”

  Deacon reached for the side of Hannah’s face, wiping her tear before it traveled into her earlobe. The sweet gesture made Hannah smile before she allowed herself to crumble. Like a tidal wave, she could feel the release, starting with her shoulders then moving down through her chest and arms and into her belly. Mercifully, Deacon did nothing to stop her. She shook the bed as she let her secret go.

  Deacon held her for a while even after she stopped crying, stroking her hair and gently kissing her warm, wet face. Exhausted, Hannah felt wrung out but lighter. She exhaled, letting the unexpected sense of peace wash over her like a baptism and feeling suddenly fearless.

  “Why do you deal, Deacon? It’s not like you need the money, just look at this house.” His body stiffened like a cadaver, but she didn’t let it deter her. She rotated onto her side, propping herself up on her elbow, and waited.

  After what seemed a small eternity, he finally answered. “Power,” he said. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t always cool, you know, like respected. As a little kid, I was beat up a lot. Dealing gave me power.”

  “But what if you get caught or . . . expelled?”

  “Guess I’m willing to take that chance. Live on the edge, right?” Deacon pulled her on top of him. “Hey, let’s do it on my parents’ bed. Not like my dad ever sleeps there.”

  “Eww gross, no.”

  “Why not? It would be fun.”

  Hannah scanned his face to see if he was kidding, but he wasn’t. First his dad’s study and now this. “Do you want us to get caught or something? Does that turn you on?”

  With a sudden jerk, Deacon rolled her off of him. He turned away and swung his legs off the bed, grabbing his clothes off the floor.

  “Hey wait, what’s wrong?” she asked, but he’d already shut down. “So that’s it? You don’t like my questions? You can ask about my dad ‘raping’ me, for Christ’s sake, but I can’t ask about your hang-ups with your parents? Well, F you!”

  Too pissed to think, Hannah felt her tears coming again. What the hell just happened? Feeling her nose fill up, she reached for the top drawer in the nightstand next to the bed.

  “Don’t!” he said, grabbing her wrist

  “What? I’m just looking for a tissue! What’s your problem? Let me go!”

  Without a word, he released his grip and threw the box of tissues on his bureau toward her. Then he sat back down on the bed, holding his head in his hands. Hannah blew her nose and began to get dressed. All she wanted to do was get the hell out of there.

  Deacon cleared his throat. “This thing with my parents, it’s so fucked up. I don’t, like—really, it’s nothing.” Hannah watched him fumble with his words. He seemed unable to look at her, and his brown cheeks were growing redder by the moment. He thrust his leg into his jeans, shaking his head. The angrier he got, the smaller he became.

  “What are you afraid of? Your parents never coming back for you?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, I can’t wait to finally get out of here and away from them.”

  Hannah didn’t buy it for a second, but this brought up new questions. “So what’s going to happen to us? Next year you’ll be going to school . . .”

  “What, college?” He laughed. “I’m not going to college. Hell, my parents could get me in anywhere. One call from Kingsley . . . I guess I could deal on campus—again—but school’s not for me. I’m better off alone. Always have been.”

  Alone. The word stung somewhere deep inside of her. What were they doing, then? She couldn’t let it drop. “So we’re having a fling, nothing too serious, right? Just sex, right Deacon?” Hannah finished dressing and threw open his bedroom door. She’d walk home; at this point, she didn’t really care. He used you. You mean nothing to him. You whore.

  “Please . . . please don’t leave,” he said quietly. She hesitated, and he came around to her back, placed his hands on her shaking shoulders. His touch blurred her anger and the jumbled mess in her head. With a long sigh, she reached up for his hands and he rested his chin on her head.

  “All these mixed signals. I’m so confused. What exactly are we doing?”

  “Just stay, please.”

  “So what’s with that kid Toby? He’s always hanging around. He came to my house last week looking for you,” Hannah said. She was sitting on the counter in Deacon’s palatial kitchen, watching him cut a roll to make her a sandwich. Every appliance and surface screamed state-of-the-art nouveau riche, and was so squeaky clean you could eat off of it— Probably perform surgery, she thought. Hannah wondered when Babette’s cleaning crew came through. It was the complete opposite of her crusty kitchen.

  “Yeah, he just transferred from another school . . . I think. He bought from me once . . . I can’t shake him.”

  “He’s infatuated with you,” she teased.

  Deacon’s face clouded over again, and his knife beheaded the piece of bread like a guillotine.

  “Hey, I’m just kidding! I never took you for a homophobe.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. It’s just this kid’s pretty intense. Calls you ‘bro’ all the time like he’s your best friend—”

  “He’s not my brother!”

  His defensive tone caught Hannah by surprise. “Of course not. Chill, Deacon. Geesh!” She jumped off the counter and swooped up half of the sandwich in her hand. “Come on, I gotta get home.”

  Deacon stared at the half she left for him, his eyes still somewhere else. “Yeah, coming.” He picked up the knife, hovering the blade above the sandwich, and stabbed it.

  CHAPTER 28

  “SHE’S NOT YOUR DRUG BITCH TO PLAY WITH !” GILLIAN shouted. Deacon smiled condescendingly at her before turning his back. You could see her seething from a whole hallway away. It was the way her lower jaw jutted out with her top lip pulled back, exposing her venomous fangs. Her icepick stare was trying hard to puncture his smooth façade.

  Hannah had heard them arguing from down the hall. Now, her curiosity chained her to the nearest water fountain. She wanted to hear more.

  “Fuck you, Deacon,” Gillian hissed, trying to regain his attention. “She’s done, that’s all. Leave her alone.”

  “She’s a big girl, Gillian. Does what the fuck she wants,” he said, now inches from her again, haughtily peering down at her.

  The exchange reminded Hannah of Gillian’s passionate kiss in the backyard with the pretty dark-haired girl. She must really like this girl, Hannah thought. How strange to see the meanest girl in school so crazed over someone. Hannah could see herself defending Deacon in the same way. But it was so much more complicated for them. She almost felt sorry for Gillian.

  The cold fountain water made H
annah shiver, breaking her from her trance, and she began to stroll toward Deacon, blurring everyone out except for him. Their eyes locked, and Gillian was forgotten. His unwavering gaze in front of her nemesis made Hannah feel suddenly powerful. She’d never known such power.

  “Hey,” Deacon called out. Gillian swung around, hurling daggers at Hannah with every cruel cell in her body, but Hannah ignored her; she just floated into her boyfriend’s arms and kissed him.

  “Let’s go,” she said, wrapping her arm around him, fitting perfectly in the folds of his coat, beaming and content. She didn’t say a word until they were halfway down the hall, but then she whispered, “So Gillian’s girlfriend works for you?”

  “Yeah, Jade. The girl in the park.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “I KNOW YOU HAVE IT, BRO. I’M JUST ASKING THIS ONCE.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” Deacon said, shaking his head like he was blowing off a panhandler on the street. What a fucking loser, get a life.

  “Why not . . . what’s a few hundred out of your pocket?” Toby said, taking a step closer. They were back by the lockers in the short hallway at school, near the gymnasium where he’d first met Hannah.

  “Listen, poser—show some respect. Unlike you, I work for my money . . . taking risks every day. You have no fricking clue!” Deacon felt his neck grow hotter just breathing the same air as this guy. He wanted to rip that annoying varsity letter right off of his jacket.

  “I’ll pay you back!” Toby said, his voice skyrocketing a few octaves too high.

  “How?” But Deacon knew the answer even before Toby said it.

  “I’ll work for you, man. Whatever you need . . .”

  Deacon always found ways to stay competitive in his line of work, creating new cravings for clients and reinforcing any old ones to keep them coming back. Dangling the candy, as they said. If his customers declined using needles, preferring to snort their heroin, Deacon would purposely put a needle in their bag anyway, telling them, “You’re wasting your time the other way. With the money you’re spending, you want to get the quickest, best possible high.”