Beautiful Disaster

by Laura Spinella

  “That’s not true!” she said, finding herself on the defensive. “She doesn’t think for me and you haven’t made me do anything I didn’t want to. And don’t do that. Don’t make me feel the way I do about you and then tell me it’s wrong, that I shouldn’t be right here. I meant what I said in the hotel. I love you.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. There just isn’t much reason to trust me. You see the problem? That’s a tough position to be in, isn’t it?” He leaned against the door, still tense, still looking ready to bolt. But staring at her, his expression softened. “What you said, I can’t begin to tell you what that means to me. But it also scares me to death.”

  “And that’s bad. Does it make you want to run all the more?”

  “No, more like the opposite,” he said, his eyes moving over her body. “But I strongly suspect it should make you run like hell. I don’t deserve any part of you.” There was an awkward smile, a small sign that neither one of them was going anywhere. “I’m sorry. What you do deserve is answers. Birmingham, huh?” he said, stepping away from the door. “Well, I’ll tell you every detail I remember, about Alabama, about whatever you want to know. You’ll have to decide if it’s enough.”

  She backed up, sitting on a barstool, afraid that if she took her eyes off him he’d just vaporize. “I’m listening. Tell me how you got here, what happened in the days before.”

  “Did I come here from Alabama? Yes. From the university, no. I came here from Mobile where I was working a hotel construction site. But there aren’t any pay stubs. No motel receipts, not even a postcard of the Gulf Coast. Nothing but my word.” She nodded and he kept talking. “The job ended and I took off east, Interstate 10 all the way to Jacksonville. I admit, I did think about going to Birmingham. It was a logical choice. I can fade into the scenery in a place like that. Nobody asks questions, nobody looks twice. But I’d had my fill of Alabama by then.”

  “So you never went to Birmingham? You’ve never, ever set foot onto the University of Alabama campus?”

  “No, Mia. I’ve never been to Birmingham,” he said firmly. “We met on a Friday. Friday the thirteenth, if I recall. I spent the night of the twelfth in Milledgeville, Georgia. I remember because by the time I got to Jacksonville I was out of pot. I was getting anxious, looking for a place to score. I ran into a guy who told me about a big mental hospital there. Places like that, drugs flow like Kool-Aid. I went there, hung out for a couple of days waiting for a connection. That’s what I was doing, committing a misdemeanor—not a felony.”

  “I don’t suppose you got a receipt with that marijuana?”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “No, but I do remember the afternoon I arrived here. There was a bad accident on 441 North. A guy was killed on a motorcycle. It was a Harley, like mine. I tallied up the parts while they scraped up the body. I wove through traffic for miles; thought I’d melt right to the pavement it was so goddamn hot. If I had been coming from Alabama I wouldn’t have come from that direction, been on that stretch of highway. Look up the record of the accident if it helps. It’s not much, but it’s all I can offer you.” She bit a fingernail, saying nothing. “Mia, I’d like to know, is this just crap from the warp cycle in Roxanne’s brain or is there more?” She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. “Mia? Answer me. Is there something else I should know?”

  Believe him or don’t. If he wasn’t in Birmingham, he wasn’t in any of those places. End it right here, because there are no alibis, there is no proof. He’s paid enough for things he didn’t do. While Mia let faith lead, she also felt resolute in the decision. “No, there’s nothing else,” she lied in a voice so calm and steady she hardly recognized it. “It was just a crazy theory Roxanne dreamed up. Can’t you just hear her?” Mia said, forcing a laugh. ‘If Flynn came here from Alabama, surely the two things must be related, him and that girl. Lord have mercy, Mia, no doubt he slept with half the state. What more proof do you need?’ I told her that she’s been watching way too much TV. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought, except for, well, you know . . . the nightmares . . . Alena.”

  “Yeah, I can see how that would rattle you. Talk about bad timing.” She edged toward him and he reached out, pulling her the rest of the way.

  With his arms tight around her there was no room for doubt. As long as he was there, everything was all right. She couldn’t imagine it any other way. “Just tell me everything’s okay. Promise me nothing bad will happen, that things will just be normal . . .”

  “I don’t exactly lead your average life. It wouldn’t be a promise I’d have a lot of control over, considering my situation. I’m not the guy you’d meet in a study group or even some asshole from your business law class—you’d have a better chance at normal with either one. Whether it’s some detective in a café or Roxanne deciding to swipe my coffee mug and dust for fingerprints, this is only real until the past catches up with me. It’s why fugitives run.”

  Roxanne lifting his prints, sending them to the FBI—it was a lucid vision. Startled by the prospect, Mia stepped back and looked at him, hearing a solution in his words. “That’s why we should leave here, just the two of us! Think about it, Flynn, we could just get on the bike and go . . .”

  “Yeah, that’s a nice fantasy.” He laughed, pulling her back into his arms.

  “Why does it have to be a fantasy? Why can’t we do it? What’s stopping us? It’s not like I have big career plans . . . well, not like Roxanne. I mean it, I’d go anywhere with you. The two of us could—”

  “Mia, stop.” Flynn pushed away, grasping her firmly by the shoulders. “Understand something—that will never happen. I was afraid of this, what you might be dreaming up in your head, where this is going to end up. Do you really think I’d let you throw away your future for some shabby hand-to-mouth existence? Maybe you don’t have a grand plan at the moment, but you will do something incredible. Jesus, it’s half of what gets me out of bed every morning.” She tried to interrupt, but he gently put a finger to her lips. “Besides, it’s not the romantic notion you’re banking on, sweetheart. It’s dirty, uncomfortable, and, hell yes, it’s scary. You think I want that for you? Spend a few days and nights on a motorcycle, Mia. In the rain, the cold. There have been times when that seven-by-ten cell didn’t look so bad, nightmares and stabbings included.” He looked past her, trying to untangle himself from her pleading gaze. “I have a little bit of pride left, sweetheart. Don’t take that away from me.”

  Mia dug in, clinging to fistfuls of T-shirt. To hell with pride, she’d dig her hands right through to his flesh if it kept them together. “I’d do anything to keep you safe. If they take you back to jail, they’ll kill you. If running is what keeps you safe then I’m willing.”

  “Hey, it’s not an option. So put an end to those ideas right now.” He snatched her wrists, yanking her hands back. “Your future is not negotiable, not for my sorry-ass existence. You can’t change who I am.”

  “But it’s not who you are,” she insisted, pulling away from his grasp, her fingers weaving through the mane of hair. “And you’ve no idea how much faith I have in you.”

  “Mia, you have to recognize the limitations, what I can promise and what I can’t. I won’t just up and leave, steal away in the middle of the night. But what we have is day-to-day; not because of what I feel or don’t feel for you. That’s not the issue . . .” He stopped, dangling perilously close to the words she wanted to hear. “But anything else is just that, a fantasy.” Her gaze dropped to the floor and she backed away. He came right after her, dragging her chin up, forcing her to look. “And I know out of all the things you’ve heard me say in the past few hours, it’s the past few weeks that hurt the most. But I will not promise anything I can’t follow through on.” She blinked hard, but a single tear got away and he caught it with his fingertips. “Damn it, if this is what I’m doing to you maybe it would be better if I just left.”

  Life-on-the-run fantasies and forever commitments, it wasn’t what
he needed to hear. He was right; his future wouldn’t include landing a high-tech job or moving into an apartment with a view. It was about surviving to the next moment, with or without her. “I just want us to have a chance, Flynn. A chance to be together without you looking over your shoulder or someone making crazy accusations.”

  “I’d like that too. I’m just not sure how to get it.”

  “Well, I can’t promise the future any more than you can.” But I can certainly hope for it. “I’ll be right here, from now until next June. I’m comfortable with things exactly how they are and I’m not asking for anything else. Stay with me, for now.”

  His staid blue eyes traveled her anxious face, his hand tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. A contemplative gulp echoed through the quiet apartment. “And what happens when June finally comes? And it will, Mia. Don’t kid yourself. You’re only borrowing a future.”

  She smiled at the glimmer of optimism. He was considering it. “Maybe by then we’ll be able to figure something else out. Maybe by then you’ll be so in love with me, you won’t want to leave.” It was a gauntlet of a statement, tossed straight from her heart in front of him.

  “I haven’t wanted to leave since the moment I first saw you.”

  There’s a goal. Maybe I can get you to say it, tell me you love me before June. Mia reached up and pulled him into a long kiss that he didn’t fight, sealing the precarious deal they’d just made. She felt him give in, felt the argument drain from his body as his hands traced the curve of her back, pulling her close. Mia melted into his embrace, needing him like air, in a way that far surpassed sex, although it appeared a perfectly logical place to start. Leaning hard into his body she roamed every tight muscle that tempted her. As he kissed her again, his hands flirted with the dance that came next, but he kept stopping, as if suddenly unsure of the steps. Then Mia remembered the hotel. “Please don’t stop.”

  “It’s just that . . . I figured I blew it, for good. I can’t believe you still want . . .”

  “Flynn . . .”

  “Yeah,” he murmured between the hard kisses that were plainly picking up the slack for the rest of his desire.

  “Let me spell it out for you. We seem to have a body language issue. The real reason I want you to stay, what I’m really after . . .”

  “Yeah?” He kissed her again, his hands easing from the self-imposed time-out, slipping beneath her shirt.

  “It’s my plan to use you for sex.”

  He stopped, staring willfully into her face and smiling. “Damn, why didn’t you just say so?” He scooped her into his arms, exactly as he’d done outside. “Hmm, and I really thought that was my one and only chance.”

  Chapter 22

  “Your hair. You cut it,” Flynn said, gazing over her as it feathered around the mountain of pillows.

  “Girl thing, part of life and death reflection. It usually involves retail therapy and a makeover. Too short?”

  Tossing the pillows onto the floor, one by one, he answered, “It’s fine, but I like it long.”

  “Hang around, it’ll grow.”

  His mouth curved into hers, his body wanting to erase the doubts, to reclaim every inch of her that he’d hurt, inside and out. “Even with everything that’s happened, the worst part was thinking about the last time we were together, at the hotel. About what I almost did. That would have been your last memory of us.”

  She put her fingers to his lips. “But it didn’t happen. And I’ve already forgotten about it.”

  He smiled back, having finished with the pillows, busily removing each piece of clothing they both wore. “Part of retail therapy?” Flynn popped open the buttons on the pink blouse, his mouth following the lacy edges of the paler pink bra.

  “You noticed. I’m impressed.”

  He liked the bra, the way it barely covered her, yet pushed her breasts together creating an inviting valley of flesh to travel. Sitting up over her, he left it on for now, caressing a body that could not have been clearer in his mind. “This isn’t going to be anything like that. You understand, don’t you? Never again, Mia. How you don’t have a million little doubts, I can’t figure.”

  “I have more than a little faith in you. This is what faith is, Flynn. Trust without proof. Is it so hard to be the recipient? But I will tell you one thing,” she said, her eyes going wide, her fingers gripping his shoulders. “If you don’t kiss me, like, right now, you will make me cry.”

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” It washed over him. That implausible sense of peace Mia brought. Flynn couldn’t get enough. She couldn’t right the past, but for the first time in a hellish eternity, the future didn’t seem doomed. Mia was as permanent and burned into him as any wrong he had ever done. Inside his head was a bright hypnotic vision, every part of her captured and bound to his soul. Not only the brilliant doll’s eyes, but the tiny freckle-covered nose, the body he couldn’t stop reaching for, and the scent of her, powdery soft, intoxicating. The way her skin felt next to his, clean and untainted. His mind could render each slim curve, knowing how she moved when his hands were on her. She soothed his ravaged mind, making him hunger for the life he had disavowed. Mia was salvation after a lonely, hard road, harder women, and a guilt that he suspected would only die with him. She was worth anything. He was beginning to think—no, he was sure he could live off it for years. Flynn sank back into her lips, soaking in the uninhibited growl of rapture from her throat. Mia’s arms were around him, holding on tighter than usual. It was fine; she could hold on tighter if she needed. He wanted to lose himself in her faith. Flynn rolled over, pulling her on top of him, but thoughts of an uncertain future seeped between the cracks of what they shared. What the hell am I doing? Staying is only going to make it worse. I should leave, go now. She’s so in love, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Who’s in love with who? Idiot.

  Mia loomed over him, her hair tumbling every which way, running her hands hard over his chest, kissing skin that had earned nothing but sweat and grime for years. Eyes narrowed, she looked at him as though she were a sleek, graceful cat, ready to pounce. Her voice was a smoky tether of enticement. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. This is the only place you need to be. I’m very selfish that way. I want all of you. Your complete attention.”

  “Believe me, Mia, you’re all I’m thinking about.”

  “Hmm, faith only goes so far. Prove it,” she challenged, arching an eyebrow.

  That much I can prove to you. In one deft movement she was under him again. He wanted it like this, to show her that the man she so blindly trusted could be what she wanted—at least here. Flynn took his time, making sure there was an equal sharing of skin, not really thinking about the act itself. That was the mark he wanted to leave. But each time he strayed from her line of vision, Mia pulled him back. It was as if seeing his face, looking into his eyes, was more important than any amount of foreplay. As he tried to move once again toward things that he knew would make her gasp with pleasure, she jerked away. Flynn saw the boldness fade from her eyes as she retreated to the top of the bed, pulling her knees close to her body. He finally got the message.

  “I will not disappear. I promised you that much from the beginning.” She nodded, but it was with uncertainty and distrust. Incredible, that she could accept his dark past, his actions that lacked a soul, yet was unwilling to believe a simple promise that he wouldn’t walk out on her. She said nothing, having gathered the sheet up tight around her in an almost defensive gesture. Flynn gently pried her fingers open, releasing a fistful of flowered jersey knit. He threw it and the matching comforter to the floor, his own sweeping defensive gesture. There was nothing to cover her but him, his body a heated blanket of reassurance. “I will not vanish. That will never happen. You’ll know what I’m thinking, no matter what.” He left it at that, though he wanted to finish the sentence, to remind her that a promise not to vanish was not the same thing as staying forever. He couldn’t do it.

  The sun had gone down and Mia s
napped on the light. “I need . . . I need to see your face.” Her hands went to the beard, reaching for the skin beneath. Hearing the frustration in her voice, Flynn’s mouth moved over hers, kissing her hard. The words were almost a whimper, her fingers digging into his back. The hours before weren’t meant to be a tease; he just needed it to be the forever he couldn’t give her. Flynn finally gave in to his desire. Mia looked up into his face, whispering, “Please . . .” He reached to the nightstand drawer, knowing where he’d stashed a few condoms.

  Mia grabbed his hand. “No, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything between us.”

  “That’s not smart, and you know it. Why?”

  “Just this once. I need it, like I need to feel you breathe.”

  He guessed the why. He’d made such a point of being willing to go without at the hotel. If it was okay when he was such a bastard, why not when it meant so much more? Flynn didn’t answer, but his hand dropped away from the drawer. Mia’s eyes were focused, locked onto his. She traced her fingers delicately over his mouth as he kissed them one by one. Her hands gripped his body as he drove himself inside her, harder than he knew he should. Flynn felt her entire body tense, the rush break over her, surprising him when she came right away, crying out so loudly he barely managed to stay in control. But he needed it to last. He whispered huskily in her ear, “If I’d known that would be the effect, Mia, we would have done this a long time ago.”

  He caught a glimpse of a smile as she shyly buried her head in the crook of his neck. It was supposed to be slow and tender all the way. That was his intention. But after that she wanted no part of storybook lovemaking. Mia wanted everything he had. Slightly insatiable, she could literally wear him out. She amazed him. From the moment she crossed that downtown street, Flynn’s image of Mia was someone small and delicate, easily handled. She had proved him wrong over and over—in and out of bed. Sex was just the first place she chose to show that steely underlying will. He wished to God that he could be there when she unleashed it on the world.