I’m suddenly embarrassed. Suddenly ashamed. I bared myself to her, to the world, and these people here know the truth. The greater part of America might not understand the meaning of flames and the word Blaze underneath them, they might think it’s some hellfire and brimstone thing, but these people, at Tom’s, they know. And I’m suddenly bared to them, naked, and afraid.
Blaze’s gorgeous eyes look down at the metal table, then they look up at me again, lashes long and exquisite.
Her eyebrows still arch upwards, her breasts still perk outwards from her relaxed tee.
Her hair is different. She’s lost the whole Riot Grrrl thing and has it in a short pixie cut, spiked and ruffled every which way. It makes her look more innocent, and yet also more adult. Older. But it exposes the three star tattoos she has on her neck now. Before, her long hair on the left side used to hide them. I love those tattoos. Always have. Tattoos and ink like mine. Soulmates. I catch myself thinking this, and stop the thoughts hard. I can’t afford to go down that road again. Not after how it almost killed me last time. Trev picked me up from my deathbed, so did Skate.
I won’t go down that road again!
I notice my mouth is watering, and that I’m staring, and that I’ve been stuck in an internal, contemplative silence for...how long?
Trev’s firm hand makes it onto my shoulder, edges me forward through the throng of celebration. I want to ask him if he knew about this, if he knew that she would be here, but I’m speechless. Gawking, perhaps. My feet move like they’re stuck in concrete, each step a mountain of effort. Men and women slap us on the back as we make our way past the high tables and standing-room-only crowd. Blaze’s face disappears behind bodies closing in every now and then, as if she had only been a dream! Loose bodies stumble and jostle and then move away again, letting us through.
“WAYDAGO, BOYS!”
“Well done, Trev!”
“Hey sexy...” The voice is sultry. It belongs to a blond with a perm and boobs so big they’d jangle wildly with her above me. For a moment, a brief moment, my eyes lock on her lewd smile, then I look back at Blaze.
And it’s like being hit by a bullet.
My heart sinks. My bladder goes weak.
I’m so in love with you, Blaze, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re here, right here, in front of me, after all these years.
And then I get angry.
Three steps away from Blaze I stop, grab Trev by the elbow. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” I shout in his ear. I need to shout because the noise is too loud. On top of it, Mr. De Luca has the three TVs up on loud. They’re showing highlights and switching to interviews of players. When they comment on “Declan Cox’s outrageous scene in the locker room” the Tom’s crowd boos and yammers at Mr. De Luca to put the TV down.
Trev looks up at me. “She’s always here, Deck. Just never this late.”
“What do you mean she’s always here?”
Trev leans in, shouts, “Deck, just see her for fuck’s sake! She’s always here when she’s in town. She’s a football freak. She—”
I can’t take it. A football freak? She knew nothing about football when we’d been together. I start shaking my head, start turning to move to the door. I can’t see her. Not tonight. Not ever. I—
Trev snatches my wrist. I struggle to move it away. Trev pulls me, but when he realizes I’m not budging, he lets me go, follows me.
When we get outside, cold, snowy wind scrapes against us. Some people, out throwing snowballs, recognize us on the street and shout hello. Starting to shiver, I ask Trev, “What do you mean?”
He looks in through the frosted windows. “Deck, she’s always here. I didn’t know she was gonna be here this late. OK? If I did, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
Because then I’d snap, just like I snapped when she left me the first time.
“You didn’t answer my question, Trev. What do you mean she’s always here?”
“I did answer it. She... Look, Skate knows more. Y’know, because of Vikki and everything, and them being best friends. Look, Deck—it’s cool. You can do this, homes. It’s gonna be OK. You’re not the same guy as...”
As the one you found boozed up and dying before you cleaned him up.
“...as before,” he finishes. “You’ll be OK, bro. You gotta believe in yourself.”
I’m sure my face shows total shock. But before I can say anything, the glass door to Tom’s creaks, a lick of warm air escapes past us but is quickly swallowed up by the cold of the night. Noise and voices rise, the door tinkles. Blaze is walking out, her jacket on, her furry collar turned up. She looks up at me, regret and fear—and love?—and hate and everything else swimming in her beautiful, deadly eyes.
Silence follows. One more person screams from across the street, “HEY, IT’S DECLAN COX! WOOHOO! GO DECK-MAN!”
I shuffle my feet, can’t stop looking at her. Wind howls against my ears and makes them hurt. I dig my hands into my jeans. Blaze tightens her jacket around herself, shivers once as well. Its fur collar and cuffs lend an element of worldliness and elegance to her otherwise grungy style. She’s different, I think. She’s not the same person she was before. Leaving me has opened up doors for her.
The urge to hug her suddenly, to put her in my arms and wrap myself around her is all-engulfing. I shake my head of the thought and bring myself to the Here and the Now. Just like the tattoo running down the inside of my right arm says, Live In The Now. We’re not together anymore, and she didn’t want to be together with you, Deck. So stop reminiscing.
Trev says, “Why don’t I just leave the two of you alone.”
His shadow goes around her. He opens and closes the door, that same gust of warm breath from inside rushes out, that momentary rise in noise, and then the slam and tinkle. And finally, silence, except for the whining wind around us. We’re under an awning, but drifting snowflakes entangle themselves in her hair. I could just stretch out now, take my index finger and thumb, and pluck that little snowflake from between those golden strands...
But my first statement is cold: “What are you doing here.” It’s not a question.
She says nothing at first. I scowl down at her.
“I shouldn’t have come. I mean, I shouldn’t have stayed. I just thought...” She turns on her heels, takes a step away from me, and just like that I see everything I once lived for start walking away from me. Again.
I fling my arm out and grab her elbow! She stops, doesn’t fight me. When she turns to face me again, I see her lips are going slightly blue from the cold. I’m practically an ice-block myself now, because I’ve only got a sweater on.
She looks me up and down, says, “You’ve gotten bigger.”
“They make you train a lot. What are you doing here.” Again, not a question.
She points a quivering hand inside. “I watch all The Giants games here when I’m in town.”
“Why?”
She runs a hand through her beautiful hair, looks down, exhales. White mist expands from her mouth and up above her ears. “I—I’m sorry. I should have left. I just—”
“Just answer the damn question!”
“I did answer it.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t answer why!”
I tower above her. She looks smaller than she once was, or I really have gotten bigger. She kicks the ground with her ankle boots. They’re light brown, maybe suede. Different for her. Expensive. She’s moved on since she left you, Deck. Moved on to better things. She shakes her head, says, “I’m sorry. I—”
But she’s gone before my arm can reach her again this time! She’s running, as much as a person can run with slippery ice forming on the ground! She’s running across the city street and I’m shouting, “Blaze. BLAZE, WAIT! Blaze!” And then, so that probably the entirety of New York can hear it, “BLAAAAAAAZE!”
Three dudes on the other side of the road stop and look up. They’re all wearing Giants caps and jerseys. One of them says, “Blaze?�
� as if he’s just realized the truth and meaning of life itself. “Blaze?” he says again, loud enough for me to hear it from across the street, as if he wants me to hear it. As if he thinks that letting me know that he knows will somehow make us best buds, best freaking pals. He smiles, that smile of recognition, of sudden understanding. Then he looks at Blaze, running, sliding and slipping and almost falling as her boots argue with the frozen street and sidewalk.
I realize this will be on some forum or some online outlet somewhere tomorrow, or even tonight. I only hope this dude across the road doesn’t have a gazillion Facebook friends and that no one will listen to him when he tells the world “The Truth About Declan Cox’s Blazing Tattoo” on his blog or something.
“Damn it,” I mumble, and then I start running across the street after her. She’s stopped running, it’s too dangerous, and is now simply walking fast, almost tripping every now and then. Like a crazed stalker, I’m behind her, our footsteps clocking and bouncing off the walls of the buildings. “Blaze!”
She stops. She looks down. Turns.
When she faces me, her eyes are red and wet. She’s sniffling, gasping, sobbing. And when she stares at me, the sobs break out into harder gasps, a full outbreak of uncried tears, now suddenly released. “Blaze,” I say. My voice is remorseful, ashamed. I take a step toward her. She flinches once back. I wait, try again, and this time she doesn’t move away. I stretch my hand toward her. As I do it, I see the flash from across the street. A camera. “Fuck!” I mumble. I pull her into me. She’s still gasping wildly, wetting my sweater and trembling in my arms.
“I’m sorry, Deck. I’m so sorry! I didn’t— I was fucked up back then. I was— I was wrong! I—”
The words are javelins. Bullets. The camera across the street keeps firing away, flashes of light like the afterlight of a rifle in the dark. Flash! Flash! Flash! And with each flash are whispers from them, and a growing crowd. “Hey, it’s the tattoo. It’s not flames, it’s a chick! Check it out!” Flash!
“Bullshit,” someone says.
“I swear it, check it”—flash!—“out. She’s the one”—flash!—“he’s hugging now. Blaze! That’s someone’s name!”
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. I turn her, put her under my arm and walk her to my car. Flash! I grit my teeth, that last flash almost causing me to jut my fist out across the street and plaster the pimply teen to the nearest tree.
Flash!
“Deck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause a scene.”
I get her to my metallic red Chevy truck (the Porsche doesn’t ride well in the snow), help her up into it. “It’s OK.”
When we get in, the flashes suddenly take on a paparazzi-quality, and I imagine that the kids taking the shots now will probably be the Gawker and People reporters of tomorrow. I rev my truck to life and start to high-tail it outta here. I throw my phone at Blaze and ask her to text Trev that I’m gonna be late for dinner. She does. And then I say, “Where should I take you?”
The question puts her up short. “I—I—I was supposed to go home with Vikki. They’re still at Tom’s.”
The mind plays tricks. Because why exactly did I bring her to my truck? Why didn’t I just take her back into Tom’s? Because I was running, that’s why. Or, perhaps, because I really wanted to take her, in my truck, over to my penthouse... Now, here we are, driving up Washington Avenue, in the direction of my place (I hadn’t thought about it, just started driving!) instead of leaving her with her friends who would have taken care of her!
“Well, I can take you home,” I say.
“I don’t need you to take me home. Just drop me off anywhere and I’ll catch the train.”
My fingers clutch the steering wheel tighter.
“I can take you home.” I say it through clenched teeth.
She sighs loudly. “Deck, just let me out.” Her voice is cold and heartless, defeated.
I almost slam on the breaks just to prove a point. But I breathe deeply, try and put things into perspective. We haven’t seen each other in over four years. OK, fine, we can do this. I can do this. Surely we should be able to have some sort of relationship, shouldn’t we? I mean, I loved her. No, I still love her. So why can’t I talk to her? Surely I could at least do that! “Please, let me just take you to Vikki’s place.”
She sighs out strongly again, shakes her head, looks out the window. I hear her sniffle once. Is she crying? I try and look over at her from the corner of my eye, but I’m too afraid to. Too afraid to have that face bury itself into my heart and not let go. That face was already there, already inside me, but it was hidden and silent. Now it’s screaming, howling, telling me it never left in the first place.
And telling me that I’ll never be the same without her.
“You still remember where she lives?” Blaze asks.
Like I remember my first name. “Yeah,” I croak.
“Good.”
I look at the speedometer and see I’m speeding by four miles. I slow down by ten, then by another three. I’m in no rush to get Blaze out of my truck. We get onto Atlantic Avenue, drive east, then make it to Bedford going north, past Quincy, Lexington, Greene, Clifton, Silence, Silence, Silence, Silence—
“So, how you been?” I ask lamely.
She coughs as if I’ve startled her from some bad dream, then clears her throat, shifts in her seat. She wipes her eyes and says, “I’ve been OK. You?”
I’ve been miserable. “Fine.”
We pass Dekalb, Willoughby, Myrtle, Park Avenue, past the Cancer Society, past Loumar Deli, Tanya’s Antiques, Rutledge, Hewes, under the Brooklyn Expressway, we’re almost there, we’re almost there, we’re almost there!
I stop at Viktoriya’s condo. Another moment of silence follows, like at a funeral, mourning the dead. Our dead relationship. Poetic. Blaze grabs the car’s door handle. My heart starts to pace like horses on steroids, her hand lingers there, her leg eases up off the seat as she gets ready to move out.
Her leg, under the jeans, catches my imagination. I think of it as it had once lain on my naked body, her moist center straddling me, licking my manhood, pressing down on me as I slid up inside her...
She pauses in her exit. I swallow. She sits back in the bucket seat again. I exhale silently in relief. She looks straight ahead, out the windscreen at the pockets of low-rise buildings intermingled amongst cranes and constructions sites. Snow falls lightly.
“Why the tattoo, Deck?” Her eyes are still dead-ahead. “Why?”
I clear my throat, try and think of some manly answer, try and come up with a reason that she can accept. But there’s only one reason. I was ashamed. And I was in love. And I did something you will never forgive me for, Blaze. Ever.
The tattoo is so that I never forget it.
“You shouldn’t have seen that tattoo. I was...in the moment. I never intended for you to see it.”
“But I did.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have.” Yeah, real mature...
She turns to me, her eyes red with sorrow. She controls herself, but I see the shiver of livid anger under her forceful gaze. “Why?”
My knee-jerk reaction is to shout at her, to tell her she was the one who left me! How dare she ask me such a thing, how dare she put me on the spot now like she’s some all high-and-mighty goddess who has me under her pretty little finger! How dare—
She shakes her head, sighs despondently. “Never mind.” Her hand reaches for the door again with the speed of a bullet through my chest. I feel it all leave me, all the haughtiness, the self-righteousness, the attitude, the bad-boyness, everything. It leaves me like a deathbed confession.
I can’t lose you again. I don’t have you, but I can’t lose you. Go figure.
Her door opens. Wind gusts into the cab. Her leg—that leg!—rises to step outside. She begins to say, “Thank—” and my hand latches onto her thigh.
“Shut the door.” I think she’s caught by surprise, because she does shut it. And Blaze has never been one to
do what someone tells her to do. Catching herself, she begins to open it again. “Wait!” My voice is trembling now, no longer commanding but desperate. “Wait. Please. Just...wait. I’m...begging you.”
She closes it. I shiver once, the car is cooler, much cooler.
“How long are you in town?” I ask.
“A few weeks. You?”
“Next week’s game is at home. Then we’re off to Seattle the week after, just after Christmas. First playoff is in early January. But Coach has a knack of sending us training at some secret boot-camp-style location before a playoff game. And when he says go, we go immediately. Sometimes even less than twenty-four hours’ notice. So, I’m probably in town for only ten more days, until just after Christmas.”
Some more silence. The car rocks with a sudden gust of angry wind. “The tattoo, Deck, why did you get it? Just answer me that.”
I look down at my lap, then press my fingers into my palms. I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her about... No, I just can’t. “I—I needed to do it, OK? Just...please accept that. Why does it mean so much to you?”
I look up at her. Her eyes are watering. Tears splatter onto her jeans.
It breaks my heart.
“I...just wanted to know.” Her lip trembles violently. She opens the door. Cold wind slaps me again. And then she’s outside. She closes it, disappears into the white. I look after her, try and see her. I don’t. I look up at Vikki’s apartment—top floor. I remember it like it was yesterday. Even though Skate and Vikki have been dating for years, the last time I was at this apartment was when Blaze and I had still been dating. Too many memories.
A few minutes later, the light goes on. Blaze steps out onto the balcony, raging snow pushing her new pixie-hair crazily against her head. A goddess on a mountaintop.
I want to go and tell her. I want to get out of my car and press that button and just tell her, Look, Blaze, you left me, OK? So what right do you have to ask me why I’ve put your name on my body? What right do you have!?
Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three) Page 9