Outlaw

by Amanda Lance

  Situated right on top of me, I could see her features better than ever: the tiniest mole just below her right ear, how both ears were only pierced once, and her eyebrows were just a little bit darker than her hair, where the curve of her breasts just started to begin under her shirt…my heart pulsed hard, and it hurt me not to touch her. In my mind I pictured kissing her, and everything from beginning to end.

  Before I could do anything stupid though, she rolled away, putting just enough space between us before I acted on my instincts. I sighed and tried to get past that lump in my throat. When I couldn’t, I pushed myself up and went to the other side of the room.

  “Hey,” she said. “Wasn’t the door locked?”

  I was glad for the subject change. “It was.”

  “Then how exactly did you get in here?”

  I looked from her to the door. “Picked it.”

  Addie smiled, but I could see she didn’t believe me. She walked over to the door and checked it out thoroughly—running her hand along the knob and peering into the keyhole. When she couldn’t see nothing wrong with it she called me a liar.

  “No way. You just had a key.”

  I laughed on the inside and went to the hallway, calling at her to lock it. When she did, I listened for her laughter but didn’t hear any. A second later, I got to see her again and naturally I had to show-off.

  “See?” I brushed my shoulder. “Easy.”

  Addie looked real dark then, her pretty face falling into a frown. Right away I hated it—and not just ’cause I didn’t understand it.

  “What?”

  “If—if you can do that, then why didn’t you just go ahead and open the door that first day I was here?”

  Honestly, I had thought about it. But as dim as I was, I knew doing something like that woulda been a bad move. More than once, I’d seen Ben try and go after Elise behind a locked door after bickering and live to regret it—and they loved each other. I didn’t wanna imagine how bad it coulda been between her and me.

  “I guess I coulda, easy ’nough, but you’d seemed scared enough; I didn’t want to spook you anymore than I had to.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. For the first time though, I didn’t know what she was thinking.

  “Will you teach me how to pick a lock?”

  Had I heard that right? What in the hell would a girl like her wanna know how to pick a lock for? I laughed and rubbed my eyes.

  “Why would someone like you need to know somethin’ like that?”

  “What does it matter? It’s interesting, and anything that’s interesting is worth learning about.”

  It was simple enough to make sense, but I was still unsure ’bout it. What if she was trying to muscle me? Butter me up or something?

  Still, what other choice did I have? We still had a couple more days and if I couldn’t keep her happy, then that time might be real unhappy together. I sat beside her and took out my blade. Sitting beside her, I took out the wrench I’d grabbed on my way out of Polo’s, telling myself not to be giddy like a little girl ’cause she didn’t run away from me.

  “All right then.” I locked the door before it closed so that she could see what I was doin’. “This is a tumbler lock. It’s the most common lock ’round …” I took a good look at her face, surprised that she was still interested. In another world, hanging off my words even. “To get one of these open, you need a pick and a tension wrench—”

  Like she was in school, she raised her hand. “What’s a tension wrench?”

  I felt myself smile like an idiot. “Just one of these.” When she didn’t grab it from my hand though, I felt myself get disappointed. “You use it to put pressure on the inside of the lock so you can hold any picked pins in place while the others are bein’ moved.”

  “This is one of those things that requires a lot of practice, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “Generally.”

  “Okay,” she said, peering away from the keyhole. “Then what?”

  “The tension wrench goes in first and you turn it the same direction you do the key.” I showed her by picking away at the door, slow so she could see and trying really hard not to think about her chin lingering over my shoulder while she watched. “You’ll feel it give way on the plug. Then you use the pick…”

  For ’bout the millionth time, she was messing with my concentration. What do you call that? Psychological warfare?

  “…try and listen for when the pins fall back into place. If you get real good at it, you can just feel it and it becomes easy.”

  When I finally did get the damn thing unlocked I felt a lot better though, and I grinned up at her, trying not to think ’bout how easy she got to me.

  “I want to try.” If I didn’t know no better, I woulda said the smile on her face matched mine.

  “Go for it.” I gave the tools to her and resituated myself to sit behind her. Hey, I figured, it’s all for learning, right?

  Like a natural, she got the first lock plug within the first couple of minutes—though again (for learning’s sake) I leaned up against her, just to double check.

  “You got it?”

  I knew I made her uncomfortable again by the way she coughed, though I’ll admit at the time I thought it was funny how deeply her skin burned. “Um—yeah, I think so.”

  Even as a natural, Addie had a hard time lining up the pins. She was concentrating hard enough though to get it done, and I couldn’t help taking advantage by getting a little bit closer—for learning and everything…

  The back of her shoulders radiated softness, and like a crazy, I wanted to run my face against them, move those straps of her top and…

  I shook my head and looked back at the lock. If I was gonna get outta this anytime today, it mighta been best to lend her a helping hand.

  Reaching up for her hands, I felt her go limp and give way. Instead though, I pulled her back, wanting to know where her hands were at all times.

  “Here.” My damn voice cracked again.

  Addie let my hands use hers while we picked at the lock. I was so happy about it I tried to be extra alert ’bout the way my arms leaned against hers. Though it might notta been on purpose, her thumb rubbed just along the inside of my hand, and I shivered on the inside so hard that I swear it made one of the pins come undone.

  “Do you feel that?” I wasn’t even sure what I was talking about anymore.

  She didn’t laugh though, and her back relaxed against me. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  ***

  I chuckled each time she swore and every time she failed at it, but eventually, she did pick the lock all on her own. The bad part about it was that I didn’t have a reason to stick around her no more. If she saw me pause to back up though, she didn’t show it.

  “Okay, now what other kind of lock am I learning?

  I laughed like I hadn’t in a long time. Maybe she wasn’t playing me when she said she liked to learn, ’cause her eyes were all lit up again, telling me there was nothing that was gonna hold her back.

  “And why exactly am I a source of comic relief for you now?”

  “You like to learn, huh?”

  “Yes.” She stared at the floor. She wasn’t ashamed, was she? “Do you think that’s strange?”

  “I guess, yeah.” But it wasn’t for the reason she probably thought. At the end of the day there wasn’t nothing bad about being a nerd—hell, they were usually the guys that didn’t get caught—but I’d never known somebody to be scared in one second then ready to learn in the next. It was like she wasn’t afraid to die, but not willing to go down, either.

  “’Cause girls tend to be all crying and stuff when bad things happen, not wanting a school lesson—it’s weird.”

  Addie scowled at me, and I added it to the list of things that made her sexy. “First of all, not all females panic in disabling situations. Second of all, lock picking is hardly something my parents would have taught me, let alone something I would think they teach in public schools. And third
ly, if you recall correctly when…we did meet, I originally did ‘cry and stuff.’

  She was practically daring me to say something, but I didn’t. All I could think was that other than nearly getting her killed, and scaring her, I had made her cry.

  I stared at her long and hard. If she had been anybody else, she probably woulda been dead by now.

  “That’s right.” I dug through the cabin for smokes. I needed one worse than ever. “You were homeschooled. You liked that?”

  I never liked school much myself, but the best part ’bout it was always gym class and recess, throwing dodge balls at people smaller than me and pinching girls on the playground. With homeschoolin’ you probably didn’t get that stuff, right, so what was the point?

  “You went to public school?” she asked.

  I smiled to myself thinkin’ of all the days I’d given truant officers and social workers a run for their money just to spend the day in an arcade or fishing.

  “That worked out well.”

  She was being sarcastic now, right? Makin’ fun of my accent or something?

  “I picked up things I wanted to,” I said, more harsh than I meant.

  “What does that mean?”

  I went over to the bed and laid down. What exactly did that mean? When I used to ditch in South Carolina, the older kids in the park would show me how to smoke in exchange for stealing stuff for ’em in the Quickie-Marts. And in Georgia, every time hurricane season came back ’round again, one of my fosters had me fixing windows and roofs—not caring how much school I missed as long as he had a free assistant.

  Missin’ school, I had learned things both good and bad. But for better or worse, what I did know had given me the life I had so far.

  I looked back at Addie—maybe that wasn’t so awful.

  “I ain’t smart like you, but I always managed to learn things that I wanted to know.”

  She played some more with the door lock. “I guess we’re both like that.”

  We smiled at each other again.

  ***

  When I left for the bridge, I kept my eyes to the floor the whole way there. It was stupid of me to invite her to lookout duty and I knew it even when the words were coming outta my mouth, but I couldn’t keep ’em from coming. Then, once they were out, there was relief and hate at myself: relief that she had seemed enthusiastic about it, and hate that I was letting myself get my hopes up.

  “Charlie Boy!” he said, looking up from his phone. “Where in the world have you been?”

  Noddin’ at the crew, they scrambled to disappear real fast, skating around me. The captain only staying behind ’cause technically he had to.

  Sighing, I sat at the bench table. It creaked beneath me and I peeled away some of the duct tape around it. “Don’t think I won’t toss your ass overboard.”

  “Why are you in a poor mood? You’re having your fun, aren’t you?

  “Don’t—”

  “I mean, we haven’t seen you around since port, so I just assumed you were having your full—”

  I pounded my fist into the table. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “Polo told me he spent the night in the rec room because you stole his.”

  I was still mad, but my hands relaxed a little. “I’ll buy him a box of snowballs and he’ll forget all ’bout it.”

  Nodding, Ben tapped the S-band radar screen to some tune I knew but couldn’t remember the name of. At the time he didn’t say nothing else, but by the way he was staring out, I got the feeling he was thinking of something serious. It gave me a headache just to think of the possibilities though, and I couldn’t make myself ask.

  “How we doing for time?” I picked off more duct tape.

  “Hmm? Oh, well enough, considering.”

  I got up and went to see what had him so interested. As far as I could tell, the ocean was just as blue as ever, capped with white and shining from the sun. Normally, that’s all it woulda been, but all a sudden I was thinking about what Addie Battes thought about the Atlantic and whether or not she liked swimming. Had she ever been on a boat before or was this old for her? What did she look like in a bathing suit…?

  “You care for her, don’t you?”

  I looked down at the linoleum, stained by coffee and rust. “I was serious ’bout throwing you overboard.” I couldn’t see it but still knew he was smiling. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then.”

  “Right over the edge there. You’ll get sucked up by the engine in six seconds flat.”

  He leaned up against the navigation system and sighed. I tried to make myself calm even while he crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. He had taken his Leave it to Beaver stance and had a lecture all revved up for me, I could just feel it coming.

  “You understand why that is not a good idea, yes?”

  “Yes!” My imitation of him was dead on after years of practice, and I threw up my arms, not even caring if somebody could hear.

  “Perhaps you just need to consider how badly—”

  “I’m not gonna do anything stupid.” I sighed. “You know me, you know I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, Charlie Boy…” I glanced over just as he was shaking his head. “What if you already have?”

  “Get outta here, will ya?” I threw a bunch of sugar packets at him. “Let me have a look at this mess you call a map.”

  Only when he was long gone did I go back out and shuffle the little cash I had on me to Mac, Rodney, and Kevin, promising Bert an ass kicking or an IOU if he didn’t help me out. I only chose them because they were either family guys or I knew where they settled up at the end of the day. Maybe I never woulda needed their help—after all, I knew Yuri and Polo had my back, and I could always hold down my own, but if it came down to it, I mighta needed an extra pair of eyes to keep a look out on Addie or worse yet—a couple extra pairs of fists just to make sure none of theirs didn’t touch her.

  I thought about bad decisions and the future while we walked to the deck together. One of the crew saw her and eyed her up pretty good but the glare I gave him had him turning around real quick, but I still knew I couldn’t risk leaving her alone again. Addie didn’t seem to notice how twisted up I was, but I was glad about that, glad to see how interested she was in everything around us: the pipes and different floor pieces… I smiled. We were walking side by side for the first time now. And despite it all, it felt pretty damn good.

  There was almost nobody around when we got to the deck, but I already knew that coming in. Between that and the sun going down, everything looked a lot prettier than usual—just like the ocean did from the bridge. It was probably just ’cause I’d been cooped up for the last couple of days—busy with watching Addie and all. When I’d first gotten out of the joint everything I’d first saw was like that, but this wasn’t quite the same. Something else was getting uncluttered in me, and when all was swept away, I had the feeling it would be worth the look.

  She sighed. “Is it always this nice?”

  I laughed, only looked at her for a second. “No. Sometimes the weather gets real bad. You can have an entire trip where it does nothing but rain or it’s real cold. Other times other ships bother ya, people lookin’ to steal your stuff.”

  Addie stared at me, laughing while I had a hard time lighting my smoke. The wind kept putting out my lighter, and though I knew plenty of tricks to get the flame going, her laugh was way better than any tobacco fix. But after a second she held out her hands and covered ’em around mine so I could light the damn thing. I looked at her, surprised.

  “You mean pirates?”

  I blew my smoke away from her. I shoulda known she was gonna ask more questions. “I s’pose.”

  “That’s kind of ironic isn’t it?”

  What was that supposed to me?

  “Thieves are stealing from thieves…”

  I cut her off there. What she was saying was just another example of how innocent she was, how little she knew ’bout the world and how th
ings were done in it.

  “Everybody steals from everybody, Addie. That’s the natural order of things.”

  “Don’t be so morbid.” She laughed. And here I thought she mighta gotten mad at me again.

  “It’s true,” I told her. “You know, survival of the fittest and all that.”

  “I don’t think Darwin intended the laws of evolution for crime.”

  “It’s all the same.” I blew out a smoke ring into the ocean.

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  I started wandering around the deck, somewhat sure that either she would follow me or be okay on her own. When she did start following, I smiled just enough so that she wouldn’t see. A few steps in though, I heard a clattering of noise and some choice words on her part. I turned back just in time to see her holding on to the railing for dear life.

  “Be careful,” I looked forward and called to her. “Gotta watch out for oil, sea spray, grease… everything ’round here is slippery.”

  She had no idea.

  Addie grabbed me by the wrist instead of saying something smart that time and it kinda startled me into keeping quiet for a second. When I did though, she started giggling like crazy.

  “If I’m going down,” she said between giggles, “I’m taking you with me.”

  If only I could be so lucky.

  “Promises, promises…”

  Addie looked out at the waves while the sun finished coming down. It was probably just the high of the moment, but I felt brave enough to touch those bruises ’round her neck. Right away she flinched away like my fingers were fire and closed her eyes.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she lied.

  Leaning up against the keel, I blew out another smoke ring. Addie was real sweet to try and let me have that fib even though we were both past knowing it could ever be true. “Yeah, it is.” I tried to laugh but it came out wrong. “But I’m still sorry.”

  It was the second time I had said it, but it didn’t feel like nearly ’nough.

  “You heal real fast,” I told her. “That cut on your foot is probably all but gone.”