by Carian Cole
I take off my leather jacket and hang it on a metal skull hook by the door. “You’re not. I’m trying to help you, that’s all,” I hold my hand out to her. “Take your jacket off, I’ll hang it up with mine.”
“Are you stray catting me?” she asks, pulling off her jacket. “Is that why you asked me to come inside?” She chooses to shove her jacket behind her on the chair rather than give it to me, and I know that’s because she feels safer having it with her, in case she has to run. I’d guess she probably lifted one of my kitchen knives, too, and has it hidden on her someplace.
Shaking my head, I go to the small kitchenette and put some water in a teapot to boil. About a week ago, she told me her stray cat obligation theory, worried I’m only hanging out with her because I feel sorry for her because no one else wants to. In true me fashion, I shot back that maybe she’s only hanging out with me because I saved her life and now she has the white-knight syndrome.
Insecurity eats at both of us.
“Don’t fish,” I say.
“Fish?” Her nose crinkles with confusion, something she does that pisses me off with its cuteness. There are so many little things about her that just get to me lately, that make me smile when I don’t want to, that make me fight to focus on what she’s talking about rather than getting lost in the shape of her lips. Even the way she talks nonstop sometimes, like a song in my head that, even though I’ve heard it a hundred times, still puts me in a good mood.
“Fishing for verification.” I pull two mugs from the cabinet and put tea bags in them. “Do you like milk and sugar in your tea?” I turn to face her, and she’s staring at me like she has no idea who I am.
“Holly?” Shit, I hope she’s not going to have a meltdown and pass out in the middle of my tiny living room. There’s really no way she can fall without banging her head on something on the way down.
“You’re making tea?” Her voice is laced with surprise.
“Is that okay?” Maybe tea is a trigger, something she was poisoned with in the past. One night, during our texts, she told me all about how that asshole who had her would put something in her water to make her fall asleep. It put me in such a rage I couldn’t sleep for two days. My inner demons were begging to get high or drunk, anything to numb the feelings battling inside me.
Instead, I drove to the city, to a dirty warehouse I’ve spent a lot of my time in since my second accident. Underground street fighting, my favorite stress and violence outlet. My brothers used to fight, too, to make extra money to help support Mom and the bike shop after Pop died. They quit fighting a few years back, but I’ve secretly kept going about once a month. I don’t do it for the money, though. I do it mostly for the self-punishment. I let my opponent beat the fuck out of me until the very end, and then I take him down. Ninety percent of the time, I win. Every opponent becomes the face of karma to me first, giving me what I deserve for destroying my family, and then my opponent morphs into the asshole that kidnapped and hurt Holly, and I get to beat the hell out of him all over again. This last time I didn’t have to worry about explaining cuts and bruises all over my face when I saw Holly the next day because I chose to not even let the guy get a punch in. I just pummeled him right from the start and walked out with two grand in dirty cash that reeked of weed.
I guess the thing about Holly that makes me the craziest is how being around her is like being on an emotional train, and every stop brings something new and unexpected. Happiness, fear, anger, care, desire. Unfortunately, the train doesn’t let me get off. I’ve got a one-way ticket to places I never wanted to visit again.
Or even thought I could visit.
“Tea is good. I like milk, sugar, and honey. And you should have honey, too,” she says. “I just didn’t know you made tea. It’s so…nice.” She says it with a hint of disbelief. “And verification of what?”
I’ve been so lost in my thoughts I have to back the conversation up in my mind to remember what we were talking about.
“Verification that I like being with you.”
“I wasn’t fishing,” she protests, a pout gracing her face like a child.
She was definitely fishing, but I don’t mind giving her some reassurance when she needs it. Grinning, I hand her the cup of tea and sit on the couch across the tiny room. Boomer is asleep in his favorite spot, crammed under the small stairway that leads to the loft, which is good because when he’s awake he likes to tear around the house and knock things over. He also likes to pull socks and shoes off people and run and hide with them.
Holly gazes around the inside of my small house with genuine interest, studying the nature photographs on my walls—which I took myself—the miniature inset lights in various places, the incense holders on the mantle, my bookshelf filled with my collection of books by Stephen King, Madeleine L’Engle, Anne Rice, and Marquis de Sade, and the statues of foxes, wolves, angels and grim reapers that Tor’s friend-turned-girlfriend leaves for me by the dog feeding stations and traps that they set up in the woods when we think there’s a lost dog in this area. I check the stations at night and early morning, and I’m hoping maybe someday Holly will go with me like Kenzi does with Tor.
Holly’s eyes rove over the full-size fireplace, which is the focal point of the house, with its gray stone chimney reaching all the way up to the second-floor loft, and thick stone mantle.
“You built all this?” she asks.
“Me and my brother Tanner. There was a house here before, but we knocked it down. The garage was here, but I just fixed that up.”
“It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Thanks. Tiny houses are kind of a fad, but that’s not why I live in one. I only wanted what I needed.” I take a sip of my tea. She’s the only woman who’s ever been in here, other than my mother and my sister, and that was a long time ago, before I told them I never wanted them to come back. I couldn’t stand seeing the sadness in their eyes or the way my mother constantly touched her wedding band, rubbing her finger over the white gold like it was a genie’s lamp, missing my father with every breath she took. I couldn’t take seeing the damage I’d caused the people I loved.
Holly’s sweet voice floats across the room, sucking me back from the edge. “It’s so cozy and warm. I thought I would be scared, or feel cramped, but I’m not. I feel like I’d never want to leave.”
Then don’t. “Isn’t that what a home should be? A place you’d never want to leave?”
“I hope so,” she agrees. “I don’t feel like that at my apartment, though. Or at my parents’.”
“Because home is more than a bunch of walls and floors.”
With a faraway look, she nods and wraps her hands around her mug. I wonder if anyone ever hugs her, or if she has to constantly comfort herself. I want to pull her into my arms, show her what it’s like to let someone else make her feel better and not hurt her. “That’s true, Tyler,” she says softly.
“Someday, you’ll have your home. A real home.”
She smiles weakly. “I’m hoping when I move to New York I’ll feel that way, with Zac and Anna.”
I clear my throat, not trusting my voice to reply to that. I’m going to need a better truck if I plan on road-tripping out to New York to visit her. My old rustbucket truck isn’t gonna make it there in one piece.
“My parents gave my old room to my little sister. She was born after I was taken.” She stares into her tea. She hasn’t talked about her family much, and I haven’t pried, so I’m surprised she’s bringing them up.
“How does that make you feel?”
“Replaced.” My heart wrenches for her. “And jealous.”
“Totally understandable feelings.” Sometimes I’m her friend. At other times I’m her therapist. She takes on those same roles with me.
I want more than that with her, though. I want to taste her lips, stare into her eyes, wrap my hands around her tiny waist…
“They told my little sister I was dead,” she continues. “And now that
I’m not dead, they’re all awkward when I visit. It’s like they don’t want me there. I can feel it. I make them uncomfortable. I think they think I’m dirty. They barely even talk to me or look at me.”
“People can be assholes when they have no idea how to deal with their feelings. It’s not you. It’s them.” Yes, listen to the poster child of how not to deal with your fucked-up feelings.
She grips her mug tighter and gazes out the window. “You’re the only one that seems to understand. My doctor listens…but she’s paid to. And Feather—she understands, but her situation is different. Nobody really knows what happened to her. It wasn’t made public like what happened to me. Her outsides are normal. She’s beautiful. People only know what happened to her if she tells them.” She licks her lips nervously. “I kinda envy that about her.”
“You’re beautiful on the outside and the inside, Holly.” Honestly, she’s not just beautiful—she’s fucking breathtaking and sexy. If we weren’t two majorly fucked-up people, full of scars and rampant dysfunction, I’d be going out of my mind hitting on her.
Her cheeks flush at my compliment, and her eyes shift back down to her teacup. “I feel like I’m made out of glass and everyone can see…everything. Like I’m a big gaping window. They know…what that man did to me. I want to just forget it. But it’s hard when people look at me a certain way and then bring it all up, like they have the right to ask me questions.”
“Just remember you didn’t do those things. Those things were done to you.”
“I know, but…”
“I know it’s hard. People can fucking suck. They do it to me, too. They think my scars will jump onto their own skin and make them ugly. They cringe when they hear me talk. They call me a murderer, a monster, a freak.”
Her eyes squint closed as if each word I say hurts her. “Oh my God. You’re not any of those things! How do you deal with that?” Her voice is strained with compassion.
“I fuckin’ don’t anymore. Everything I need is right here. Everyone can fuck off.”
“But…what if you want to go out…like shopping, or to dinner?”
“I’m a vegetarian. I don’t go out to eat. I make my own food.”
“So you really don’t go out at all?” she asks, her mystical eyes widening.
“Nope.” I shrug. “Unless it’s dark out and I don’t have to interact with judgmental douchebags. I’m over it. Most things I need I can have delivered or one of my brothers will bring it to me. I ride my bike at night, that’s my escape outta here if I feel stir crazy. But I like it here in my little fucking bubble.”
She nods in slow agreement. “I’ve never told anyone this,” she whispers. “But sometimes…I feel like being locked away was easier. I didn’t have to make decisions or try to fit in. I knew what I was dealing with, if that makes sense?”
I nod and take another sip of my tea.
“Out here, I have no idea what people want, how they’re going to act, what they want from me. Being free is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
I clear my throat. “I get what you’re saying, sugar. You just have to find your groove.”
“What about you? Is this your groove, or are you still trying to find yours, too?”
I love how she’s not afraid to ask me questions. And I love how she listens to me so intently, like a sponge. That actually makes me want to open up to her more.
I let out a sigh, lean back in the couch, and put my foot up on my coffee table. “I think this is mostly my groove. Most days, I’m content. I can live with the choices I’ve made. That’s what I need the most—peace of mind.”
“But are you happy? Because you don’t seem very happy to me.”
Me? Happy? “I kinda forgot about being happy and just wanted to find peace. But I’m happy when you’re here with me. You wanted to make me smile, and you do. That’s not an easy feat.” I wink at her from behind my cup, because I like the way it makes her eyes twinkle. She’s a hard one to read—sometimes she trembles and her eyes go dark with terror if I stand too close or touch her in a casual way, and other times she looks at me like she’s totally ga-ga over me. Without knowing it, she twists me all up, oblivious to the way her fear knocks on the door of my hidden desires and her sweetness melts the ice around my heart and lulls the voices in my head.
Not for the first time, I wonder if I do the same for her.
“I like when you smile,” she says softly.
Today, she’s ga-ga.
“Where’s your television?” she suddenly asks, looking around the room.
“Don’t have one.”
This fascinates her; her eyes are big like an owl’s as she stares at me. “Really? You don’t?”
“I’d rather read or go for a walk.”
“I had a TV…” She shifts in the chair nervously. “Back then. I watched it almost nonstop. It got to the point where I almost thought those people in the TV were my family. I didn’t have a calendar, or a clock, or a window to see if it was day or night, so it was hard for me to figure out when my favorite shows were going to be on, so I would just sit and watch and wait.”
“That sucks.” I can’t even imagine living with time deprivation like that. What a severe mind fuck.
“Without the TV, though, I wouldn’t have had any company before Poppy was given to me. And it’s how I learned a lot of things. By watching TV.”
Warped is the only word that describes a child being raised by a television. How she isn’t completely fucked up is a miracle in itself. Yeah, she’s innocent and naïve in a lot of ways, but she’s got a good idea of what’s right and wrong, and she knows what she wants. The more I learn about her, the more I admire her.
And the more I want her.
“What is this?”
I rip my stare from the fireplace, which often mesmerizes me with unwanted memories of flames and burning flesh, to find her fingering a throw blanket draped over the chair she’s sitting in.
“It’s just a blanket.”
She lifts it and rubs it across her cheek, her eyes falling closed as she revels in the sensation, an act so intimate—almost sensual—that it makes my cock jump to a rock-hard state almost instantly.
What the fuck.
“It’s so soft!” She continues to torture me by rubbing it across the other side of her face, the fabric sliding across her lips. “It’s softer than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“It’s plush or something,” I mumble, my brain short-circuiting as I watch her basically face-fuck a blanket my mother gave me.
“I love it.”
I stand uncomfortably and walk the few steps to the sink and put my mug in it, trying to distract myself from thoughts I shouldn’t be having about someone who is my only friend and I’d like to not lose or fuck up.
“I never had a blanket,” she says, her voice quavering with emotion. “I never had anything soft like this. I used my backpack as a pillow, and I had an old thin sheet. I didn’t know things like this…so incredibly soft and comforting existed…I don’t even have anything like this at my apartment, or at my parents’…”
I’m so glad I killed that douchebag.
And now I wish I was a blanket, my every fiber being slid over her body, taking in her warmth and curves, comforting her…
By the time I turn around, tears are falling down her cheeks and her hands are trembling, and it fucking guts me and fills me with guilt. I walk over and kneel in front of her and coax the dog out of her lap, and he immediately curls up at her feet. I grab the throw blanket, shake it open, and gently lay it over her.
“No crying here,” I say softly, reaching up to wipe her cheeks with the back of my tattooed hand. Not the badly scarred one. I won’t touch her beautiful face with my ugly flesh. I take her hand in mine and slide slowly it across the plush fabric of the blanket covering her leg. “Feel the fabric. They say texture helps ground you if you’re having an anxiety attack.”
Her eyes track our hands moving along the b
lanket, and she sniffs back her tears. “It does feel so good and soft.”
“This house…this is my only happy place,” I confess. “And it can be yours now, too.”
Nodding sleepily, she pulls the blanket up to her chin and leans her head back against the chair. “I need a happy place so bad, Ty. I love how soft and warm this is… it’s like magic,” she says as her eyes drift closed. “It makes me feel like you do… safe and weirdly good.”
She falls asleep snuggled up under the blanket, and I sit on the couch with her dog in my lap and try to pretend that having her in my house isn’t making me question my life of solitude.
I want her to be part of my groove.
She jolts awake when I open the door to let Boomer and Poppy outside and stares around in wide-eyed, open-mouthed confusion for a few seconds until she remembers where she is.
“Sorry,” I say when her eyes focus on me, still standing at the door waiting for the dogs to return. “Had to let them out.”
Sitting up straighter, she runs her hand through her hair. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. I’m so sorry. This blanket made me feel all woozy.” She rubs her eyes, looking so innocent and alluring that I just want to kiss her until our lips are numb. “I’m still trying to get used to only sleeping at night. Before…I slept whenever. My doctor says my inner clock might be confused for a while.”
My inner everything is confused. “You were comfy and sleepy. It’s okay to nap. Rest is good for mind and body, nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Isn’t it rude?” she asks. “To do it in someone else’s house?”
“Not at all. I want you to feel comfortable here.”
“I do. More than I do anywhere else. It really is my happy place.”
She may have been comfortable physically, but the way she twitched and whimpered during her nap made it clear she wasn’t comfortable mentally. Dreams were torturing her—maybe from her past, maybe from her present. I was equally tortured wondering how she would’ve reacted if I had carried her to the couch and let her nap in my arms, under the blanket together.