Shape Of My Heart

by Khardine Gray

  And Amy, all she did was drive him crazy. Earlier, she’d driven him mad with her words and her body.

  He hadn’t lied when he said he wanted her.

  Now look at him, he was plastered and in bed with another woman.

  “Come back to bed, baby,” Allegra said, turning back to face him. “Save your strength for later.” She sat up, too, and he watched the heft of her weighty breasts bounce as she leaned onto him. Usually her touch was like a drug that lured him back to comfort, but somehow she made him feel more wretched. Wretched that he was so far gone he had no control over his emotions, wants, or desires. Wretched that he couldn’t even remember how she ended up here with him.

  “I’m gonna get some fresh air,” he told her and slid away.

  “Hurry back.” She smiled at him, turning back on her side.

  He wouldn’t come back. Josh pulled on a t-shirt and went outside to the back of the house where he could sit on the ledge and watch the steady waves of the sea pull in and out of the beach. It was five a.m. Even at this hour it still had that soothing beauty that refreshed his mind.

  Clarissa’s birthday was tomorrow.

  Maybe he should go and meet with his father and Pete. Maybe it was time to go and see the graves.

  The thought gripped at his heart and he didn’t know if he could do it. His mother and sister were buried right next to each other. Seeing them, seeing the graves, would make it all too real and remind him that they really weren’t here anymore.

  Josh watched the darkness fade away as the sun rose and basked in the glory as it kissed the sky and filled out the scene before him. He stayed outside for hours, just watching, and hoped Allegra would be gone by the time he got back inside.

  He waited another ten minutes then made his way in. As he passed the sitting room he got the surprise of his life when he saw Amy sitting cross-legged on the floor eating cereal and watching Saturday morning kids’ TV.

  He walked into the room believing he’d gone mad and was definitely hallucinating. This had to have been the effects from the drinks.

  She didn’t acknowledge him at first, she just continued to watch Cow and Chicken on the Cartoon Network.

  He looked her over and grimaced. She had her hair up with two plaited buns on top of her head that made her look extremely young, like under sixteen, and the look was enhanced with the bright pink t-shirt she wore with Princess written on the front in pink glitter. The denim shorts, however, he liked. He liked looking at her legs.

  Josh was actually happy to see her.

  “What are you doing here? It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” These days he had to check. He’d been known to sleep through the whole weekend on a binge-drinking spree.

  “Yes, and you have a bigger TV than me, with more channels and better food.”

  He sat on the sofa opposite her. She looked over at him when an infomercial came on advertising slinkies.

  “You came for the TV and the food?”

  “Yes, what else is here? Oh right, the beach and the whole Malibu thing.”

  He looked at her, trying to figure her out. “What’s with your hair?”

  “Nothing, it’s my Saturday morning hair. So that by Saturday night it’s all curly. That way I don’t have to use my curling wand. Too much heat isn’t good, it gives you split ends. Especially if it doesn’t have a ceramic coating on it. But a ceramic coating with tourmaline is even better because it makes the ions all the correct charge for healthy hair.”

  All that explanation for his simple question. Again he just looked at her.

  “What?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Nothing.”

  She focused her attention back on the TV and munched away on the cereal.

  While she did that he continued to stare.

  “There’s a surfing competition in about an hour. Do you want to come?”

  He laughed. She was up to something. He didn’t know what it was yet, but she was definitely up to something. Imagine him and her hanging out.

  “Since when does Kansas want to hang out with Joshua Mancini?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know who Kansas is. I don’t even know why you call me that.”

  “Well, I imagined you with your hair in bunches, making sure all your clothes are neat, and look at you.” He pointed to her hair.

  “You leave my hair alone. Worry about your own,” she huffed, pointing her spoon at him. “You look like you’ve been rolling around with dogs.”

  “There you are,” Allegra said, walking into the room. She frowned when she saw Amy and looked at him askance. “What’s she doing here?”

  “I guess I was right,” Amy stated through a tight-lipped smile in reference to her dog comment which Allegra hadn’t heard.

  “She’s my assistant,” Josh said to Allegra.

  “It’s Saturday.” She wore one of his shirts and pulled it closer to her chest as she continued to stare Amy down.

  Amy didn’t give her the time of day. She just focused her gaze on the TV.

  Now what did he do here?

  “Sometimes duty calls,” he told her. He didn’t want Amy to leave.

  “I thought we could go to the beach party later. Cindy will be there.”

  Cindy. As if her presence could make him want to go.

  “I’m going to sit this one out, I think.” He needed to, even for today. He wanted to think about tomorrow and didn’t want either Allegra or Cindy around.

  “Come on, baby. Just get rid of her.” She moved over to him and put her arms around him.

  He saw Amy look over at him out of the corner of her eyes.

  “I don’t want to.” He removed Allegra’s arms and stood up.

  Allegra looked surprised, shocked by his action. She then looked at Amy and assessed her.

  “I see, she’s another addition to your ever-growing list of bed friends.”

  He’d known Allegra a very long time. They weren’t a couple, not by a long shot, but they were together often. This was probably the part where he should talk down any concerns she clearly had over Amy. But he didn’t want to do that, either.

  “No. I’m not that lucky, sweetheart,” he replied and shocked them both.

  Allegra looked like he slapped her in the face and Amy simply looked stunned.

  Allegra turned on her heel and walked off. Once she was out of the room he returned his focus to Amy.

  “What time do we need to leave?”

  “What?” Surprise filled her face.

  “The surfing competition.”

  “We could leave now.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, let’s go now.”

  Chapter 10

  This morning seemed to be filled with all sorts of surprises. Both good and bad.

  Amy had thought about Josh all night, wondering how he was doing. She’d planned to go see him today, just to check in, but her plans changed when she heard noises coming from outside her apartment door very early in the morning. At first she didn’t know what was going on, then she looked through the peephole and saw Dom and his brother talking and heard everything they said.

  Dom had said, “Let’s see if we can catch her with her clothes off today. I get to look first.”

  Then she watched him bend down by the door lock and peer through. All this time she’d been here she didn’t realize that you could see clearly through the keyhole. It was like a viewing parlor. She couldn’t have been more mortified at the thought that they’d been watching her get changed and had seen her naked.

  Not only did she feel uncomfortable there, she had the desperate urge to leave immediately. She left minutes after that.

  She knew Josh would be surprised to see her and hoped that he wouldn’t be in one of his moods. What she didn’t expect was him choosing to spend his time with her over Allegra. That truly surprised her.

  Now they walked side by side along the beach on their way to the surfing competition. It was Hilda that told her about it. Amy had never been to anything like that,
and rarely ever got the chance to watch any form of sport, so saw it as a good idea with perfect timing.

  Josh didn’t say anything as they left the house. He just walked next to her, seeming deep in contemplation. He looked at her looking at him and a slight hint of a smile lifted his face.

  “Wait,” he said, stopping.

  “What for?”

  “I’ve decided I really don’t like your hair like that. We have to change it.”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with my hair.”

  “Maybe not in Kansas, but this is California.” To her surprise he pulled her closer and started undoing the braids on her buns.

  “What are you doing?” She swatted his hands away.

  “Making you look decent. You look like you have horns. Keep still,” he snapped. They must have looked ridiculous.

  “What’s it going to look like when people see Josh Mancini unbraiding hair?” she teased, giggling.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Princess, this is Malibu Beach, no one will care and there are far more well-known celebrities here than me. I’d be lucky if anyone even recognizes me.”

  “I can do my own hair.”

  “I would have believed you more yesterday. Keep still, damn it.” He held her in place and frowned, then resumed his hairdressing.

  “So I’m supposed to stand here and allow my boss to fix my hair how he wants?” she huffed.

  “Yes, except that today I’m not your boss. I’m just Josh, and if you’re going to hang out with me on a Saturday you can’t look like that.”

  She didn’t think she looked that bad, but then again she did leave in a hurry this morning. Amy stood still and allowed him to undo her hair. Once he had, he smoothed it to one side, allowing it to drift down to her stomach. It had a subtle wave to it and wasn’t half as curly as when she left it twisted up for hours, but it looked okay.

  She thought he would leave her alone now but he surprised her further by pulling her t-shirt out of her shorts. Again she swatted his hands away.

  “Josh, what are you doing? You can’t try to get into my pants with everyone watching,” she retorted, looking at him wide eyed.

  “Princess, if I was trying to get into your pants I would have been in well before now.” He smirked with a devilishly handsome grin that lit up his blue-green eyes. The grin turned saucier. “Also, are you saying I could try to get into your pants if no one was watching?” He looked down at her shorts.

  “No, and stop with the creepiness.”

  “I told you, Italian blood flows through my veins.”

  She wasn’t aware of that about Italians, but that could just be her. The way she figured it, he didn’t need any kind of blood to flow through him to make him like that. She also figured he wasn’t nearly as creepy as the men at her apartment. He was the lesser of two evils and honestly, if she hadn’t been worried about him she probably would have still ended up at his house. It was the only other place she had to go. Sadly, there was nowhere else she could go to hang out or relax. She supposed she could have met up with Hilda or Gabriella, but she didn’t want to impose.

  “Okay, so what were you doing, then?” She looked at him askance.

  “This.” He pulled out the rest of her t-shirt, gathered the ends together and tied it into a knot that rested just above her belly button. “Because this isn’t the eighties where people walk around with t-shirts tucked in.”

  He had a point. She had to laugh because she was supposed to be the fashion designer here, yet he just made her look a whole lot cooler.

  She watched him as he hooked his finger into the loop on her shorts and pulled her a little closer.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Being creepy.”

  She batted his hand away and moved back. “You are so silly.”

  He smiled and she found herself smiling too.

  “What’s this?” He took hold of her upper arm and felt the underside, rubbing his thumb over the extremely tiny rod she’d had inserted last year. Her cheeks warmed as he focused on her.

  “Medicine.” It was birth control. She got it because it was easy to have and she didn’t have to think about it like she would with a pill.

  “What kind of medicine?” His smile turned up a notch.

  She got the feeling he knew what it was but was teasing her. “It’s birth control. Now unhand me.” She shrugged out of his grasp as he laughed, revealing his gorgeous dimples. The sight of which made her stomach tingle. It would be so much easier if she didn’t find him so attractive.

  “Good to know, princess.”

  She cut him a sharp glare and continued walking. He fell in step with her and they proceeded to the area that had been cornered off for the competition. They found a good spot near a fan palm tree and sat next to each other within its shade.

  It didn’t take long for the area to get packed and she was glad they’d left at the time they did. As the crowd rolled in the area became saturated, and while Josh might have classed himself as practically average, a ton of people recognized him. A lot asked for his autograph and took pictures with him.

  It was a casual event that turned into a public appearance.

  They stayed out all day, which was good because he didn’t drink. Every time they were somewhere where he could easily grab a beer, she made sure he had fruit juice in his hands.

  At nine they sat on the beach near his house watching the sunset. They were together for longer than yesterday. She wasn’t sure, but wondered if this might have been the longest that he’d gone without a drink.

  She tried to remember what her father was like when he wasn’t drunk. It was difficult to remember because he was rarely at home. At the time she’d thought he was away working hard to take care of their family, but later found out he’d spent the time with one woman or another. He mostly used their house to crash and revive himself.

  It was Tristan who told her all that. He’d found out the hard way and hated their father just as much as Amy did. Their mother, however, was still in love with him until this day. Amy blamed her illness. Clearly her defective heart gave her a distorted vision of the man. He’d put her through so much, all of them, and she just still hoped for the best in him. They hadn’t seen him in more than twenty years but she kept looking out for him.

  That was Amy’s biggest fear. To fall for a man like that, someone who she knew would never be able to love her the same way as she loved him. At least she’d been lucky to stay clear of anyone like that.

  She glanced over at Josh. He seemed to be doing well.

  “How long have you been playing football?” she asked.

  A peaceful silence had filled the space between them and she didn’t want him to leave just yet, get back in, and be tempted to drink. She thought she could fill him with happy thoughts of his love for football and maybe that would help.

  “All my life.” He smiled. The soft, fading daylight caressed his tanned skin. He rolled up the sleeves of his t-shirt revealing solid muscle, which she couldn’t take her eyes off. “I can’t remember not playing. My earliest memory was when I was about four. My dad got me my first football, which I was attached to.”

  “You remember stuff from when you were four?”

  “Yep. It all checks out too. My mom would get so mad at me when I played in the house and terrorized my sister. So my dad had to take me out to play in the park. We lived in San Francisco then.”

  She liked this, him talking about his family.

  “I love San Francisco.”

  “It’s cool. My family still lives there, they just…” His voice trailed off and a faraway look filled his eyes. “I mean they used to, all of them. It’s just my dad now.”

  Pain etched over his fine features.

  She realized that he was talking about his mom and sister as if they were still alive. That must have been so painful. She remembered the other day, too, when his dad called and he allowed the phone to go to voicemail. She didn’t know what th
at was about, but guessed that Josh was avoiding him.

  “Josh, are you okay?” She looked him over and noticed the change in his appearance.

  “I’m fine. I should probably go. Plus, you shouldn’t be getting back too late.” He stood up to go. She got up too.

  “Josh. What are you going to do?” She knew he was going to drink. She could feel it. It was just like yesterday when he rushed out of the car and headed for the first bottle. She could only begin to imagine what he must feel. She’d never lost anyone that close to her and didn’t think she could survive if she did.

  “That’s a big question, Kansas. You’re actually going to have to be specific.” The attitude had returned.

  “What are you going to do right now?” Yesterday he’d been completely vile with his response of booze and bitches. She didn’t know if she could handle any responses like that, especially since she just spent a really nice day with him.

  “Go home.”

  “Go home and do what? You said be specific.”

  “It’s Saturday night, Kansas, I might get up to all sorts of things.” He gave her a wicked smile.

  “Does that include…drinking?”

  “Kansas, you shouldn’t worry about me. I’m certain that even you have better things to do on a Saturday night.”

  She continued to look at him. “Will you drink?” She decided to ignore the comment.

  “Yes.” At least he was honest.

  “And…call Allegra and bed friends?”

  She didn’t know why she said that. The words just resonated from her lips from somewhere.

  Maybe it was her failure to help, or…

  Maybe it was her suppressed desire from the other day when they kissed and he couldn’t remember. She tried to forget the whole damn thing but found herself thinking about it at times, much to her great annoyance. It was like some kind of curse where she had to live with the memory and he just went about his normal life with these women.

  Most people would think she was overreacting because it was just a little kiss, and yes there’d been a lot of intimate touching, but it was perhaps the most heated, passionate moment in her life. That was sad considering how old she was. She supposed it was down to her avoidance of serious relationships.