Sticks and Stones
Page 17
“I know.”
It wasn’t enough. But almost. Almost.
Sandra sat back on her heels. Her whole body creaked, joints and knees popping. Danny’s hand followed her shoulder like he was trying to keep her steady, even though he looked likely to fall over himself, even sitting down. He seemed different, and not just because he so obviously hadn’t slept.
His gray eyes didn’t look any darker, though Sandra wasn’t sure she’d be able to tell until they’d gone dark like Lem’s. Danny’s hands shook as he returned them to his knees. His nails were clean, hands a little chapped and raw, and she wondered how long he’d spent scrubbing. It had taken a long time for him to finish in the bathroom yesterday. Maybe he’d gone back in after her, imagining all the spots on his skin she was sure she could still feel on hers.
Bruised knuckles and a cut on his cheek – probably from Aaron’s ring. It matched hers, less puffy with a lighter bruise. She didn’t know what Daniel looked like underneath his shirt, but she was sure he didn’t feel good. “Did you get any sleep at all?” she asked.
Flat eyes flickered and Sandra sighed, rising with difficulty to her feet. Daniel met her halfway, gripping her wrists to pull her and keeping her close even when she was upright. He stood near, a warm line of heat that made her pulse pound in all the wrong places.
“It’s still early,” she said, turning her wrists face-up so that she could grab his hands. He let her lead him up the stairs, to his room. His bed was wider than hers and she made him get in first, carefully setting herself down on the edge before sliding underneath the covers. He hadn’t taken off his jeans and they scratched her legs through her thin cotton bottoms. It was hard work to roll over and get her arm around his side, but she managed, ending up with her shirt bunched up underneath her, deep creases digging uncomfortably into her skin.
Things were going to be uncomfortable for a while, in all manner of things.
“Think you can sleep?” she asked, even though all she wanted to say was sorry again. Say it until it maybe became real. Danny closed his eyes, breathed out through his nose, and didn’t say a thing.
It took two hours for Jack to slip inside the room. There wasn’t space for him on the bed so he sat on the floor. His hand left a warm spot on her back, just between her shoulder blades and a little to the left. It felt like years ago, clambering onto a bed all together, legs hanging over the side and feeling safe for the first time in months.
~
They headed west. There wasn’t much to mark their presence in the abandoned house. They’d tossed the milk crates into the bushes at the side. The house was maybe cleaner than before, a few loose boards nailed down and an old table and several chairs left in a house where they’d never belonged. They’d taken all the blankets and quilts, had made sure not to leave anything behind that would give them away or lead the blood in the motel back to them. Even so, it had been nice, if only for a little while, to have a steady home to return to. Sandra would miss it, even with the lack of proper plumbing. Inns and motels weren’t the same, taking up too much money and smelling of people and cleaning supplies and sometimes of sweat and sex.
Jack hadn’t been seen that night at the bar and so he paid for the rooms as they worked far west, then slowly roamed south, breathing in air that turned dry and dusty. It didn’t rain, and the world sandblasted grit up against the windows, sounding like dust storms, the dust settling in the bottom of the car and getting on their skin. The boys didn’t go out as often anymore, but they didn’t always stay in and Sandra didn’t begrudge them that. She went out, too. Mostly trying to stay away from the places the boys went. Even this far away, she worried that someone would see her and Danny together, place their faces to another bar, and remember she’d walked out the door with a dead man.
Lady luck had often turned her back on them.
Sometimes Jack still came home with blood on his knuckles. Daniel still fleeced poor, unsuspecting fools, and wasn’t taken kindly to. In the motels, the boys would climb into bed with her to sleep, one or the other, like old times, and Sandra didn’t know if it was because they had to, or because they wanted to, but she couldn’t ever smell other women on them.
Danny had trouble sleeping most nights. Sometimes Sandra would wake and both brothers would be up. Sometimes it would be her keeping silent vigil, up against the headboard and her shoulder touching his.
They never talked about it. Maybe that was where they went wrong.
It was another night and Daniel jerked awake, shin skittering against hers and jolting her upright, watching as he turned his head away, staring at the faded patch of light streaming from beneath the paisley curtain. They were right under the outdoor motel sign and it felt like they had a spotlight shining into their room.
Danny’s shirt was bundled up around his arms, collar stretched loose and blankets hanging around his boxer-waist. Even through the shadows, Sandra could see the circles under his eyes. I’m sorry, she wanted to say for what seemed the thousandth time. I’m so sorry, Danny. It had been her burden. Not his.
Sandra wrapped one hand around Danny’s bent arm, the knuckles of his own left hand digging hard above his eyelids. The clock between the beds said it was quarter past three and Sandra was glad to be awake – away from her half remembered, senseless dream of charred earth and black eyes, bruised knuckles and blood-damp skin. Her throat felt thick and she pulled herself up, moved her pillow and dragged her heavy body against the headboard. Danny followed, keeping his pillow in his arms. Jack wasn’t awake and Sandra wasn’t going to make fun if he wanted to hold onto something. She felt like holding onto something herself.
They sat and Danny stared blankly at the television set. The sign’s light made their reflections visible in dark, cold, monochromatic shades. Sandra’s fingers found the remote and fumbled with the buttons until she got the television on, just to wipe their reflections away. There were five channels. The highest channel showed infomercials and repeats of the news and she and Danny watched until their eyes began to close. Danny’s tired eyes gleamed in the flickering light and Sandra leaned into him, waiting until she slept.
The world was on fire. They were burning.
Awake again, and it was Danny twisting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close.
The next evening Sandra was amazed they hadn’t killed each other. They’d been stuck inside the same tiny room for twelve hours. Jack lay on the bed, legs swinging over the edge and watching some sitcom that was supposed to be funny but so far wasn’t. The room smelled like the pizza they’d ordered and Danny had managed to catch a few winks in between their showers and the obsessive cleaning of their weapons. Sandra’s gun lay hidden in the bottom of her duffel bag even though the boys disapproved.
“Going out tonight?” Jack finally asked, and she figured it was aimed more at his brother than her, but his eyes met hers, too, and she shrugged, moving in sync with Danny. It made Jack smile.
“We should all go out,” he said.
“Still too young,” Sandra said, because she was pretty sure he didn’t remember things like that.
He made a dismissive sound. “Like they’ll look. I’ll buy for you.”
Lem would never have allowed that, she thought. She could tell it was on Daniel’s mind, but he merely shrugged, said, tiredly, “You sure that’s a good idea, us all being seen together?”
“We’re ages away.” Jack had a pocket full of cash from the night before. Sandra didn’t know how he’d gotten it; he’d never been as good at pool as his brother, but he hadn’t come back covered in blood, either.
“Never far enough,” Danny said and Jack made a disgusted noise, throwing the pillow over his head hard, looking pleased when it bounced off Danny’s and knocked the empty pizza box onto the floor.
“You need to get drunk. And possibly laid.” Jack swung his feet to the floor and sat, clapping his palms down onto
his legs. His jeans were old, bleached along the top of his thighs with holes all over the place. They made him look a little like a rock star.
Danny shrugged and it was as close to a yes either of them were going to get.
At half past eight, they found a small, crowded pub with a pool table and good beer. Jack bought the first round. Sandra sipped hers while Jack and Danny made their way onto their third. She figured it was a good thing that they hadn’t driven. None of them spoke much, but it was nice to just sit with them without worrying someone was about to say something stupid and start a fight. A group of veterans near the back were telling raucous stories about the good old days. The group at the pool table looked just about to quit and Sandra knew the boys were itching to try, kept ragging on each other about who was the better payer, even if they already knew. Danny looked better. He took another swig, half the new bottle gone, and grinned easily as Jack wagered bet after bet – looser buys the beer, looser cleans all the guns, looser streaks through the bar naked.
Daniel threw back his head and laughed.
Jack sent her a wink.
“C’mon,” he said, slapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and pushed up fast before someone else could claim their game. They took their beers, using the edge of the pool table as coasters as they gathered the balls and lined up their shots. Jack was all talk and Danny was quiet contemplation, thinking ahead to his next move and making Jack buy the next two rounds in a row.
Neither was going to go streaking, it seemed.
It was a little hard to keep an eye on them, too many people in too small a space, but just as Sandra contemplated getting up, a mug slapped down across from her. The man who slid into the chair was young, Danny or Jack’s age maybe. He had floppy brown hair and smiling blue eyes and Sandra didn’t really want him there.
“I hope you’re not going to give me some really lame pick-up line,” she said.
His smile wilted. “Not anymore.”
In spite of herself, Sandra’s lips twitched. Danny and Jack still hadn’t noticed her visitor, and Daniel was drunk enough to laugh somewhat obnoxiously as Jack missed his next shot. The smile encouraged him.
“My name’s Nathaniel.” Sandra wanted to tell him she wasn’t interested, but instead she reached out to shake his grasping hand, getting a slow tingle of heat and moist-palmed flesh and nothing else.
“Hey.” His grin only got wider when she didn’t say her name.
“Look,” she told him, “It’s nice that you’re interested and I appreciate you coming all the way over here to let me know, but this isn’t a good idea.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “Why’s that?” His hair curled out behind his right ear a little, like he’d slept on it and hadn’t taken the time to brush it out. He had freckles, she noticed, lightly dusting across his nose and cheeks. She figured it made him look younger than he actually was.
“I’m here with my brothers.” The lie came easier and easier every time she used it.
“So it’s best not to talk to you? They’ll beat me up?” His brow quirked and he wasn’t disregarding the idea, but he was definitely making fun.
“Maybe knock you around a bit.” It made him smile. And it surprised her to find herself smiling back.
“I’ve been through worse. Besides, you’ve got your own say in it, haven’t you?”
Sandra pushed her hair back behind her ears, pointed out, “I didn’t ask you to sit down.”
“Oh ho,” he chuckled, and Sandra had to snort because he sounded ridiculous. “See?” he smiled. “You like me.”
When Daniel and Jack walked up, their expressions were dark, standing tall with their shoulders back and looking big. Sandra wanted to call them on it, but Danny’s face was asking, is this another one? Do we have to kill him, too? And everything in Sandra’s stomach went flat. It wasn’t amusing anymore.
Nathaniel caught the sudden shift in mood, eyebrows rising and fingers tightening around his full mug of draft. The boys towered over them, standing at the table’s edge and looking more menacing than they had any right to. Jack did, in any case. Daniel looked tired, like he was remembering all of his nightmares all over again.
No, she tried to say, met his eyes and didn’t look away. She shook her head, subtle as she could.
“We should go,” she whispered.
“Hey,” Nathaniel touched her hand, just lightly, but Jack tensed all the same. “You sure?”
“Yeah … we, uh … we have to leave.”
She slid out and Nathaniel’s hand fell away. He made to follow, but Jack’s big hand pushed him back, made him flop into the chair and slop his drink all over the place.
“Hey, man,” Nathaniel said, raising his hands, expression irritated, but also serious as he tipped his head goodbye, something in his body promising a next time.
It pleased her. Just a little.
The ride home was silent.
During the night, Sandra dreamed that her eyes were so black that they poured tar. She woke with Danny asleep at her side and Jack snorting awake across the room. He crawled into bed next to her, nearly pushing Daniel out the other side, and his face settled close enough to kiss. Sandra didn’t move, but he waited with her until the early hours when she fell back asleep.
Daniel didn’t wake once all night.
~
Sandra was drinking hot chocolate the next time she saw Nathaniel.
There was a coffee shop two blocks from the motel. The boys had gone target practicing and Sandra had escaped out the door before they could force her along. They’d be angry with her when she got back, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The metal burned her skin when she held it. She swore she could feel it hours later, fingers numb and aching.
“Oh!” Nathaniel said, looking surprised and less put together than the last time. Hair messy, he had a sleep imprint on his face. She doubted he knew, but it stretched from his ear all the way down his jaw. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and he had clearly just woken up.
“Hello.” Still trying to process, he stared at her, and then turned to the stretched menu behind the coffee bar. She didn’t think he could see it. He had trouble focusing, and came back to the table with a medium coffee, no cream.
He sat down with her.
It was kind of nice. He didn’t talk and she read a paper someone had abandoned in the shop. It was a slow news day and the front page had stories such as City Incorporates New Pet Bylaw and Freak Fire Burns Down Abandoned Market. It took Nathaniel a while to wake up. And that was after he ordered a second coffee. Then he blinked at her, like he’d forgotten she’d been sitting there all along. “Hey,” he said again.
“Hi.” Sandra folded the paper and set it down. The man across from them had been eyeing it, reading the back every time she turned the pages, so she handed it over.
“Ummm,” Nathaniel rubbed his hands over his face. He looked more awake. The mark was gone and he kept his elbows folded on the table, hands around his mug like more caffeine would magically appear. “What time is it?”
“After three.”
“Umm,” he said again, letting his head fall forward, though the sound was distinctly disgusted this time around.
“Hard night?” She tried to sound sympathetic, she really did. But unless he had to deal with death visions, well, he didn’t come close to competing with her sleepless nights.
“Tequila,” he said, and it surprised a laugh out of her.
“You better not be waiting for my sympathy,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I feel sorry enough for the both of us.” He got up, ordered more coffee, and finally looked her over. His gaze was appropriately appreciative even though she was cloaked in an old sweater and he was probably ready to hurl.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He shrugged, mumbled, “It was wort
h a shot,” and downed his entire mug in one go.
Chapter Seventeen
She didn’t know how they ended up pressed to the side of the building. The traffic was a distant noise. They could hear the gentle murmur of voices, the din of plates and mugs and kitchen noises through the cracked side door. Nathaniel pressed his mouth to the space below her ear, a hot, damp lick of his tongue. He didn’t speak much, and Sandra was reminded of Danny as he held her against the rough, dirty wall.
She didn’t want to be thinking of Danny.
She didn’t want to be thinking.
Nathaniel smelled like coffee and cleaning supplies, and tasted like coffee and a little of sick. Sandra didn’t let him kiss her a whole lot.
He didn’t try real hard.
He didn’t last long either.
But afterward he got down on his knees and made sure she came, too. It was more consideration than she was used to getting. It felt kind of silly when he shook her hand afterward, not kissing her because she kept turning her mouth away.
You don’t let anyone close, Danny had said.
But this wasn’t getting close. This was hardly knowing the other person at all. Nothing but his name and that he had freckles and that he made jokes and was kind of a dork in a cool sort of way. It wasn’t about being close at all.
It was about feeling. Touching. Not even about great sex.
It was something she wasn’t even sure she was happy about happening. Nathaniel wasn’t a bad guy, but she didn’t really like him either. He wasn’t another Thomas, and he certainly wasn’t a Jack or a Danny. He was still hung over and Sandra was pretty sure he smelled like another girl.
“That was nice,” he said, and she had to agree, even if it hadn’t been anything spectacular. “See you around?”
“I don’t think so,” she mumbled and Nathaniel shrugged again.
“Fair enough.”