by Ren Benton
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Car theft is fine, but littering just pisses me off.”
His gaze slid forward about fifteen feet to a pale heap in the road. Closer inspection revealed the heap to be his shirt.
What did it say about his fashion sense that his clothing had been rejected by teenage stoners?
He shook out the shirt, filling the air with the reek of weed. Hopefully, it wouldn’t give the mosquitoes a worse case of the munchies. He handed it to Tally. “Have some insect armor.”
“They’re more interested in you.”
Come to think of it, she hadn’t done more than wave a whine away from her ear once or twice. “The curse of being irresistible.”
“The curse of eating dessert with every meal and snack for thirty years. Seventy percent of your body weight is sugar. I’m surprised hummingbirds don’t follow you around.”
He smashed another bloodsucker. “Some of these bugs are about the same size.”
She flapped the shirt at him. “You need this more than I do.”
He took it, bunched the hem up around the neck hole, and dropped it over her head. “Let me be chivalrous, dammit.”
“All right, but when you pass out from blood loss—”
“It’ll be your turn to carry me.”
“I knew when I said that it would come back to bite me in the ass.” She shimmied the shirt down to cover her chewed-upon posterior, leaving only long, long legs exposed.
The vulnerability-to-sexiness ratio shifted radically. Ben tore his stare away from the hem of the shirt, which — judging by his sudden, intense fascination — now concealed the answers to all the mysteries of the universe. “Know what pisses me off? I mean, in addition to the larceny and littering.”
“That the stoners definitely ate our pizza?”
“Our pizza? The car clearly does not have two flat tires. That makes it my pizza.”
“But we are walking.”
“For being a third right, I suppose I could have let you eat the mushrooms.”
“There were no mushrooms.”
“I didn’t make that pizza. Not my fault somebody forgot to put on your mushrooms.”
She pinched a mosquito off his forearm and wiped her kill on the back pocket of his jeans. “That’s the last time I let Jules in my kitchen.”
Jules, huh? Within hours of lamenting Tally’s unfriendliness, Julie ended up making a pizza for her, and Tally had said more words at one time than he’d ever heard from her.
Making up for lost time was in the air, borne on the wings of the bloodsucking horde.
He linked more fingers with hers and resumed the hike before she got the jitters and the mosquitoes spread the word about the stationary buffet and swarmed in earnest. “Why did Jules make you a pizza?”
She took a minute to ponder. “She was hungry, I was tired, and we needed an excuse to yell at each other, I suppose.”
Tally hadn’t stayed in touch with Julie, either, after she left Westard. He knew because he asked Jules every day if she’d heard from her, until hope followed Tally’s example and deserted him. If they hadn’t spoken in the two years she’d been back, no wonder they had an explosive amount of air to clear.
There was a lot of that going around. “I ran into her at the school earlier. She said you’d hated me since second grade.”
Chapter 22
Damn that Jules. Tally once told her the only reason they were friends was because she was terrified to be enemies with that much of a blabbermouth.
This happened when the friendship lapsed.
“I can tell from the way you pokered up you know exactly what she was talking about.”
Of course she knew. The most exciting and crushing event of her young life left an impression — on her. There was no reason for Julie to remember.
There was no reason for Ben to ever know.
He jiggled her hand. “Come on. You’re overdue to tell that seven-year-old bastard off.”
She raked her teeth over her lower lip, as if that had ever scraped the right words into her mouth. “I never said I hated you.”
“But you couldn’t decide you liked me for the next six years, either, despite my herculean efforts to be liked. How did I sabotage myself that early on, too much tact?”
“It wasn’t you.” Her unrealistically inflated expectations set her up for disappointment. If she’d kept her feet firmly planted on familiar ground, she wouldn’t have fallen so hard. The damage sustained was all her fault.
During silent reading time, she took her carpet square to the corner under the hamster table. The wheel overhead whirring in time with her thoughts kept her company without demanding anything in exchange, and everyone else left her alone there.
Except that one day when Ben plunked himself down next to her. He never sat. He plunked, he flung, he hurled himself at life as if he expected to encounter resistance and didn’t intend to pause in getting to the other side of it.
When she turned her head to ask why he had invaded her fortress of whirring solitude, he bumped his lips against hers.
Her insides lit up like Christmas lights, twinkly and warm. Ben Fielder likes me.
He flashed a big, goofy, gap-toothed smile, his cheeks pinkening. Her own dopey grin stubbornly lingered after he flung himself back to his own corner, showing off his talent of scooting under the teacher’s radar.
She couldn’t focus on her book after that because breathing required all her concentration. The wheel overhead couldn’t keep up with her thoughts while she stared at the same page for twenty minutes. Whirwhirwhir. BenFielderlikesme.
When the class spilled onto the playground for recess, Julie asked why her face was stuck on dopey. Unable to contain the sparklies inside any longer, Tally told her about the kiss.
Julie replied, “He’s kissed every girl in class and moved on to the third graders. Did he just now notice he forgot you?”
The sparklies extinguished all at once, leaving her insides black and icy.
She was not special.
She was an oversight.
Ben grinned at her from his perch atop the monkey bars, and she forced her lips to curve because what else was there to do? It wasn’t his fault she’d forgotten people didn’t act nice to her for no reason. Nice was how they softened her up so the really mean thing that followed hurt more. She knew that.
She would never forget again.
But a major life lesson for her over two decades ago wouldn’t mean anything to him. “You wouldn’t remember.”
“Try me.”
She shrugged so he’d know it was no big deal. “In second grade, you kissed me.”
“I remember. I remember every time we’ve kissed.”
She chuffed. “How much cloud storage do you need to remember all those girls?”
“Not all of them. Just you.”
He always knew the perfect thing to say. Must work like a charm on women who hadn’t watched him develop his technique over the years. “So much for counting on you to be honest.”
“You were wearing a blue sweater. It brought out the silver in your eyes. I’d never seen them that color before. I pestered you all morning so you’d look at me so I could look at them. Your hair was loose, and you made it fall around your book like a curtain to shut the real world out. You left cherry ChapStick on my lips, so I tasted you all day.”
She caught her breath and dragged him to a halt. Her memory of that day didn’t include her clothes or her hair — whatever her mother deemed presentable before shoving her out the door that morning — or what she had on her lips. She chewed them until they bled on a daily basis back then, so they were always coated with something — whatever her mother grabbed in the checkout line at the store. The flavored ones were disgusting, like candied kerosene, but Tally knew better to complain, or that’s all she ever would have gotten.
Why was any of that important enough for Ben to file away?
He looked back at her and smiled. “It was pizz
a day in the cafeteria. It was a perfect day.”
She might have thought so, too, if she’d kept those sparklies to herself and protected them from the frigid gust of truth.
Maybe, in a weird way, it had been tact on his part, not wanting to hurt her feelings if she learned she alone had been left out. Which was worse: being picked last or not being picked at all? He might have done it to prevent cruelty rather than inflict it.
Not that it mattered now. She didn’t know why Julie had mentioned it to him twenty-something years later. They’d been seven. “You kissed everybody else first.”
“Tried to, anyway,” he admitted with no discernible evidence of remorse. “You were the only one I wanted to kiss, but I was terrified of messing up. I needed practice to build my confidence.”
She rubbed the bottom of her foot against her ankle to dislodge the grit and resumed walking. “I’m sure you hated every minute of it.”
“As much fun as studying for a test. And then blanking at test time because I was nervous. I was still nervous at seventeen.” He breathed out on a laugh and matched his stride to hers. “I was still nervous three days ago.”
He’d probably sensed the risk she’d take a swing at him. “Am I that scary?”
“Skittish.”
Like flinching at loud noises and when people touch you.
“If I make a wrong move, you’ll bolt and I’ll never get close enough for a second chance. Even trying to be careful, I’ve had to wait more than a decade between kisses. Twice.” He squeezed the hand he showed no inclination to relinquish. “Tonight proves I still haven’t learned not to do the stupid thing with you.”
Shame trickled through her upon hearing him blame himself for her irrational behavior. The only thing he could have done to avert it was stay clear of her and save himself. Even when she knew she was overreacting, she couldn’t stop herself from driving her victim away. If she didn’t keep people at a distance where she could see their every move, how could she anticipate the next swing and dodge it, or at least put a less-tender target in its path?
Maybe decent people got tired of being scrutinized like suspected serial killers and drifted away from her. Maybe she attracted abusers, liars, and cheats. Maybe everyone, sooner or later, became a monster. All she knew for sure was that letting her guard down led to pain. If she didn’t protect herself, for damn sure no one else would.
She decided long ago that losing a rare decent person was a fair price to pay to keep the abusers, liars, cheats, and monsters at a safe distance. That’s how she ended up alone and adjusting her expectations to include staying that way.
Once Ben was gone, that would seem like a sensible strategy again. Getting this close was an aberration on her part, and he couldn’t even tell she had left herself dangerously open, by her standards. “I’m sure you do fine with anyone less uptight.”
“Everybody’s uptight about something. At least your somethings make sense, once I know what they are. Kissing other girls and calling you cheap are perfectly reasonable somethings to get upset about. You would never, for example, take one of my golf clubs to the television because I left the cap off the toothpaste.”
He was full of surprises: marriage, divorce, now this. “You play golf?”
“That’s what you took away from that?”
“I got the irrational part.” Her mother had been an expert at violent outbursts — extreme punishment for the most minor offense to make it clear imperfection would not be tolerated. Her overreaction game was world class. “What’s the energy expenditure of putting the cap on the toothpaste if it bothers you versus beating the hell out of a TV? How does making a huge, destructive mess show someone the value of being tidy and considerate? It costs money to replace a TV that now can’t be spent on, say, romance, not that there’s likely to be a lot of that after playing the Fatal Attraction card. It’s like saying, ‘You’ve been warned. Next time you leave the toilet seat up, it’ll be your balls.’ By what logic does instilling fear in a man’s heart lead to a nice dinner and a carriage ride?”
“Come on. The toilet seat bothers women universally.”
“I can see it’s up. I can flip it down. I can take responsibility for my own butt.” What a stupid thing to make such a stink about, men thought it was universal. “What would be nice is if someone else cleaned it once in a while.”
“But toilets are icky.”
“Says the man who spent a summer peeling road kill off the asphalt.”
“I got paid by the hour for that assault on my delicate sensibilities, and Bernie Fleischer had a bounty on anything intact enough to practice taxidermy on. That ick bought my first car.”
If only she could afford to compensate someone else for toilet duty. Her first roommate had been a slob, particularly in the communal bathroom. The second had been a neat freak but wouldn’t let her numerous visitors use her immaculate private bathroom, so Tally still had to clean up after slobs directed to the main john. On his good days, her dad managed to keep the house in shape, but the toilet might as well be invisible for all the attention — or aim — he gave it.
Yet somehow, during the course of her three decades on this earth, she had refrained from wanton property destruction because someone wasn’t neat enough to suit her. “If that’s how your wife acted, you’re lucky to be rid of her.”
“Ex-wife, and while I’ve had cause recently to appreciate her departure, Ellen’s methods of devastation were more subtle than Miss Wrecking Ball 2010.”
Ellen. A name would add some punch the next time she cursed the woman for hurting him.
He hadn’t answered the last time she asked, but she’d been outright bitchy to him prior to asking. Maybe he’d be more forthcoming this time, after sex to offset the prying. “Why did you marry her?”
“She wanted to get married.”
Just about everyone wanted to get married. Most didn’t seem to put as much thought into who they were marrying as they put into the venue for the ceremony. “What did you want?”
His index finger tapped an irregular rhythm against the back of her hand. “I wanted to make someone happy.”
He was always trying to make someone happy. He had a gift for choosing women who didn’t appreciate his generosity: Tally, his mother, his wife. “Well, that explains everything, jerk. No wonder you ended up divorced.”
“Maybe I run out of charm after a year. I seem to become intolerable to be around no later than that.”
“In the past hour, you’ve given me an orgasm, carried me on the back you gave me the shirt off of, and apologized immediately for giving me something to overreact to. I can see how you’d exhaust the supply of tolerability at that rate. I’ve had whole relationships that contained less consideration. Pace yourself, Fielder.”
“What I took away from that is why you’re so easily impressed.”
It was a hell of a list, worthy of awe. “At least I don’t cruise for chicks outside anger-management meetings.”
“They’re working on getting better!”
She shouldered hard against his arm. He staggered and took her along with a tug on her hand. Just when she thought they were both on the way to half-naked road rash, he scooped her up in his arms, pecked her on the lips, and set her back on her feet.
Her dopey grin faded before it fully formed. How much time did he spend appeasing her so she didn’t get moody and violent?
She’d spent every waking hour of the first eighteen years of her life in appeasement mode, and all she’d ever wanted was get far, far away from the cause.
They arrived at his mother’s house before the mosquitoes sucked him dry and she had to drag him the rest of the way home. “Can I watch you break in through your bedroom window?”
“Only if you stay.”
“Your mom would have kittens.”
“And what’s a reason not to do it?”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Go home, boy. Go on. Shoo.”
He wrapped an arm aroun
d her and bound her to his side. “Like I would let you walk home half naked and barefoot in the dark, alone.”
Going home alone held no appeal, but there was no sensible alternative. “It’s right around the corner. You walking there and back is a waste of time.”
“So’s arguing about what I’m going to do even if you make me follow ten paces behind you like a creeper. Let’s split the difference and take a shortcut.”
Her house was down the street and around the corner. There was only one way to shorten the trip. “Through the woods? At night? Ben, people die that way.”
“It’s a couple of vacant lots, not the Yukon. Saddle up.” When she hesitated, he added, “Your something to do can be defending me from moose.”
He was determined enough to follow at a distance if she refused the escort. She might as well enjoy this terrible idea. She mounted up and wrapped her arms and legs around him. “I’ll protect you from moose and mosquitoes, but if you find a giant tree rat with shark teeth, you’re on your own.”
“I promise to sacrifice myself so you can run away from the scary possum.”
He could poke fun all he wanted. Wild possums were not camera-ready TV specimens. They were hissing gobs of soggy, matted fur with naked flesh whips for tails. She had territorial rights on her side in trash can disputes. She was not facing one down on its own turf.
He piggybacked her into the woods, which enveloped them in darkness and quiet of fairy-tale proportions. The distance stretched unnaturally between steps, as well.
“This shortcut is slow going, pardner.”
“I ain’t gonna lie. It’s a lot easier to navigate the wilderness in daylight.”
“We’re going to die wandering in circles on a couple of vacant lots, aren’t we?”
“We’re more likely to get eaten by tree rodents of unusual size.” He prodded something on the ground with his foot and decided to walk around rather than over. “You’re safe with me. I know where we’re going.”
She followed the line of his upraised finger toward a white spire jutting above the other trees, and a wisp of dread curled around her heart.