by Lori L. Otto
“And you probably read how Callen was missing in your Googling of me last night…”
“I did… and it was news over the summer.”
“Let’s just say I collaborated with him to find him a place to stay for awhile. And he started out at the asshole’s home.”
“But your dad’s not cool with homosexuals, you said.”
“No, but he wasn’t aware that Callen was gay. And Callen split before he figured it out. But anyway, I was kind of harboring a runaway–which is a crime, and very few people know about it. All the ones that matter do. When Jack and Emi found out, they were impressed at the lengths I went to. They wanted to show me their appreciation.” I glance at the guitar.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Because he was desperate and it was the right thing to do. And in hindsight, I’d do it again, seeing how happy he makes my brother. Risks and all.” I start strumming the chords to my song, looking out the window at the desolate street as the snow continues to fall. Shea hops up and turns off the front interior fluorescents, keeping the place lit with small, ambient lamps on the countertop and the lights streaming in from the kitchen.
“So who did you write your song for?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I hadn’t met her yet.”
“Haven’t or hadn’t?”
I stop playing and glance over at her, feeling my cheeks flush red. I didn’t realize I said hadn’t, but now that she pointed it out, it makes me wonder if my subconscious mind thinks that I’ve met her since I wrote the song. Makes me wonder if she’s sitting right here next to me. “I don’t know that, either.” But the outcome of the song is sad, and I wouldn’t want Shea to be the girl in it.
And look, that fucking dimple is back. Such a distraction.
I clear my throat and play the song for her. She sets her wine down, leans back into the couch, and watches me, enchanted by every line I sing; every note I play.
A somber, autumn morning
Lying prone on a pile of brittle leaves
Bare feet, eyes to the earth
Roots steal her air like indulgent thieves
Hopelessness guides her
Her heavy heart hides her,
Presides over logic but
Casts it aside
Pulling myself up, telling you I’m fine
Stumbling to that place where your horizon meets mine
Midnight in the spring
No direction, no permanence, no place
Satchel packed, eyes to the sky
Stars take his breath away like a tight embrace
Curiosity feeds him but
His past leads him
Speeding away from
All that he’s known
Wandering the earth, looking for a sign
Until I find the point where your horizon meets mine
In the brilliant summer sun
Strangers give in to a magnetic force
Self-conscious eyes discover new faces
She smiles at his rambling discourse
Literature ignites and
Music unites them
Lights a sweltering flame
That lasts a season, maybe two
Finally at peace, a feeling so divine
Grateful that I’ve found where your horizon meets mine
But winter’s iciness is all it takes
To devour the warmth, once so strong
Sudden darkness rips out the pages
Vacuum sucks the notes from the song
You return to the earth where I found you
Hopelessness prevails and I am through
After wandering the earth and looking for a sign,
I’m starting my life over where your horizon once met mine.
I’m starting my life over where your horizon once met mine.
Tears trickled down her cheeks throughout the whole thing. I eventually had to look away to hold myself together, or else her emotions would have taken me with her.
At the end, she stands up and claps for me, taking breaks to wipe away the lingering teardrops. “That was beautiful.”
My throat tightens as I try to thank her. I can’t speak for a few seconds, so I take off the guitar, setting it against the couch, and drink a long sip of the water. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad you’ve never lived through something like that. I hope you never have to.”
“I wouldn’t want the loss… but the connection, you know. That’d be nice.”
“Yeah,” she says, her smile bigger than I’ve seen it, and her dimple more pronounced than it has been before. Instinctively, I reach out for it, then pause.
“Can I?”
“Can you what?” she asks.
What, Will? Touch her face? “Touch your face.” Idiot. “I don’t want to be presumptuous. Maybe you don’t want me to do that. I would never assume. Your skin just looks so soft, and warm, and that dimple–”
Her voice trembles as she whispers a response. “I want you to touch me.”
My chest heaves in quickened breaths. I rest the pad of my index finger against the beautiful indentation that remains with her smile, and sweep the back of my forefinger of the other hand just over her quirked brow. I love her expression.
I don’t make the move to kiss any more than she does, but suddenly we’re kissing, and I feel her fingers lingering just below my jawline, feeling my prickly skin.
I move my hands to both sides of her face. I fight the desire to curl my fingers into her soft, brown hair, even though I have the urge to grip onto something. I feel like I’m falling and need to hold on to her.
This kiss is slow; insufferably slow, but I love it. The softness of it, the sensuality. Yes, it feels like torture, and leaves me gasping for air in each millisecond we’re apart, but I can’t wait to return to her. The moment her tongue meets mine for the first time, every part of my body is at full alertness. One part, embarrassingly so.
Shea breaks away first, but holds my head next to hers, keeping me close enough so I can hear that her breathing is even faster than mine.
My heart has never pounded this hard or this quickly. I can hear it in my ears. It feels healthy and alive and raging with the flow of all my hormones.
“I’m typically a little bit of a wordsmith, but I think I lost about half of my vocabulary just now. You stole my words,” I tell her softly.
“What do you mean? What words are you looking for?” She pulls back to let me see the dimple that caused this all to start in the first place. I move my thumb over it, back and forth, watching the motion.
“You know those paddles that they use on your heart?”
“Defibrillators?” she asks.
“That!” I say, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes! Thank you…”
“Well…” she hesitates. “Why were you thinking of defibrillators?”
Because I think you just awakened a heart that’s been dead for eight years. “Oh, um… no reason.” She runs her hands down my stubbled chin. “I should have shaved,” I say apologetically, resting my forehead against hers.
“No. It’s very masculine. I like it.”
“But your skin is so delicate. I wouldn’t want to mar it.”
“Those are the only acceptable marks for a man to leave on a woman. No hickeys. No scratches. No bruises. But a little scruff burn never hurt anyone. It’s nothing a little foundation can’t take care of.”
I can definitely abide by those rules, but it makes me curious why she has them. “Has any man left other marks on you?”
She laughs lightly. “Momma made my sister and me take self-defense classes after Daddy died. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s the second time you’ve told me that today. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Let’s just say his scars are far worse than mine.”
“I hate him,” I tell her. This causes her to kiss me again. I stop her for a minute so I can put the guitar away, and when I come back, I ask her to stand up so I can turn the
couch around. “A little more privacy,” I suggest, nodding to the front window.
“Nobody’s out tonight,” she says.
“Just in case.”
“Okay.”
I take her hand as we sit back down and return to the kiss. I’m just as worked up as before within seconds.
Shea lies back against the cushions, pulling me on top of her. Shit, I wanted to do that, but I wasn’t about to make the move.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, worried about the weight distribution on the couch that’s not really made for making out.
“I’m good,” she says as she slides her left leg out from under me, settling her foot on my calf. Her right foot joins the other one there.
Even though I’m in the perfect position to do lots of other things with her, my lips return to hers, because I’m still fascinated with the kissing part. I love these slow kisses, and when I feel her smiling and catch that dimple, I make sure I give it attention, too. She smiles a lot when I kiss her.
When they deepen, I realize our bodies are moving together. It must just be an instinctual response, because I didn’t knowingly start making out with her like this. Suddenly, she turns her head to the side and starts gasping for air.
“You all right?”
“I’m great,” she breathes. “Please don’t stop.”
“Okay,” I tell her, definitely not stopping. I push her sweater up and put my hand on the side of her breast. It still feels weird to cop a feel with her. Like I don’t know her well enough, but then I think where I’m lying, and how much I’ve told her, and how she makes me feel, and–
“Oh, Will,” she cries in a tiny voice, the dimple on full display. “Wow. Oh, Will.” She keeps repeating it, over and over, the sound coming from her so expressive, yet so subdued. I keep pace with her body, putting my hand on her ass to hold her close to me in the final seconds. She never gets louder than her normal speaking voice–not even as loud as her normal voice, I don’t think.
I kiss her cheeks and neck while she catches her breath, her face looking completely relaxed. When she opens her eyes, I make sure I’m the first thing she sees.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
“Is that really how you come?”
“What do you mean?”
“That was the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I’m not even kidding.”
“Shut up!” she half-yells, smacking my shoulder.
“Even that was louder than you were… you’re gonna need to work on that.”
“I can be louder,” she tells me.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Different orgasms. Different sounds, volumes. You know.”
“No, I don’t know…”
“Oh, well. That’s how I work.”
“Really?” I ask her, wanting desperately to know how she works. She smiles coyly. I return to kissing her, realizing I could do this all night.
“Hey,” she says, nudging me after a few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“Have you been tested?”
I nod, not breaking eye contact with her. “Actually, a couple weeks ago in Iowa. I’m clean.” After seeing how free Lola was with her, uh, love, I felt it was necessary to get checked.
“But since?”
“I haven’t been with anyone since.”
“Right,” she says. “That is a musician’s biggest lie.”
“I wouldn’t lie about that.”
She looks at me skeptically.
“I swear, Shea, I wouldn’t. But if you want to put the brakes on this because you don’t trust me, I understand. Completely. We can stop.”
“Do women ever turn you down?”
“Honestly? It’s rare.”
“Shit,” she says, shaking her head in frustration.
I laugh. “That doesn’t mean you can’t! You don’t have to be like them… I mean… you’re already not like them…” I feel the gravity of that statement and swallow. “I won’t even make you make the decision. I should be heading back to the hotel for the night anyway.”
I push myself off the couch and offer my hand to help her up.
“Can you come back tomorrow?” she asks.
“Of course. I’ll even make it so I have to. Can you be the custodian of my guitar for a night? I don’t want to take it out in the snow like this.”
“Really?” she asks.
“I trust you. I’ve got another at the hotel if I’m inspired to write tonight,” I explain on my way to the door.
“I’ll keep it someplace safe, temperate, and out of sight,” she promises.
“Sounds great. Thank you.” I put on my boots and coat and smile down at her gorgeous face lit up by the street lamps outside. After taming some hairs that got a little wild on the couch, I give her another kiss. I hope it got her heart racing as much as it did mine, because fuck. For this to be a one-sided thing?
I can’t even think that way.
“I want to pay you for dinner, but it seems kind of weird…”
“That wasn’t the chef cooking for a customer. That was Shea cooking for Will.”
“Thank you. It was perfect.”
“I’m glad you liked it so much.” She opens the door for me, and I start to walk out, but stop to say one last thing to her.
“Hey, Shea?”
“Yeah?”
“I have such a crush on you.”
Chapter 9
“What’s up, Will?”
I look down at the phone, making sure I called the right number. I told Siri to call Jon. She did. “Max, what are you doing answering Jon’s phone? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“He took me out to lunch.”
“Oh, well, hey! How’re things?”
“Great!” my little brother says. “We’re at Luke’s.”
“Lobster Rolls, huh? I’d kill for one of those.”
“Still stuck in Minneapolis?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s not so bad,” I tell him. “Can I talk to Jon?”
“Yeah. Call me tonight, if you can.”
“I’ll try. Love ya.”
“Is everyone still alive?” Jon asks me.
“Yeah, we’re staying warm.”
“I meant no one’s killed anyone yet? You said you were close to murdering Tavo and Damon the other day.”
“Oh, no. I’ve found a place to escape to during the day. The one restaurant with electricity.”
“Good,” he says. “What do you need?” He knows I wouldn’t bother him during the day for a social call.
“Listen… you know your dad’s Hitchhiker’s Guide book you gave me?”
“Yeah…”
“Would you be mad if I gave that away?”
“Uh… well. I’d kind of like to keep it in the family, I think.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”
“Is that okay?”
“It’s fine, sure.” I look out the window, watching the quick thaw of the ice and snow on the trees. People are moving about today, and I’m sure Shea’s going to have customers. I wish I had gone first thing this morning, when I woke up with the nagging feeling that I shouldn’t have left that book there yesterday. That book means everything to me. I can only imagine what it means to Jon.
“How’s Peron holding up?”
“Still devastated. I don’t know what kind of woman thinks it’s okay to break up via text. And then she disconnected that number yesterday. Now he can’t communicate with Brooke at all.”
“That’s evil.”
“Yeah. We’re just trying to get him through the next few weeks, and then we’re putting him on a plane to New York for a couple days while we write in LA. He’s of no use to us like this. He needs some closure.”
“He’s your writing buddy, though, right?”
“I seem to be doing okay on my own right now.”
“Yeah? Feeling inspired?”
“I am.”
�
�Good for you. How are you sleeping?”
“Still not doing well in that department,” I admit. “But I don’t feel tired.”
“I guess that’s something.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to get some recipes for Livvy to try for Edie’s food from the restaurant owner. She’s made baby food in the past for her friends. I’ll email them to you as soon as I get them, okay?”
“Sure, yeah. She’ll appreciate any help she can get. She’s resigned to buying organic jarred food right now, but I know she’s not happy with that.”
“Well, I hope these work.”
“Thanks. Look, Max doesn’t have much time for lunch, so I need to cut this short.”
“Yeah, man. You guys have fun. I’ll talk to you later.”
Someone knocks on our hotel room door. When I don’t hear anyone else making the effort to answer it, I leave the bedroom to get it, glaring at my three bandmates who are all staring at the television.
“Are you deaf?”
“Figured you’d get it,” Tavo says.
I open the door for Ben. “Hey, come in.”
“What are those assholes doing?” He observes them all in their pajamas, sprawled out on the unmade sofa bed and cot.
“Getting caught up on their stories, apparently.”
“Dudes!” he yells. Damon looks over at us, but he’s the only one. It’s good enough for Ben. “I got a tow truck for the bus and found a garage to take a look at her. We should be back on the road the day after tomorrow. Hope you’re not too comfy here.”
“Is Lola gone?” Peron asks.
“Not yet. She has a ticket for a flight this evening. Should be enough time for the roads to clear up for a cab to get to us.”
“Give Will your room,” he says. “He needs to write, and he can’t get anything done here.”
“What?” Ben asks.
“I can’t listen to him play. Don’t want to hear him.”
“That’s not gonna be a problem or anything,” I say sarcastically.
“Give it to him,” Damon says.
“Fine,” Ben says.
“It’s fine, really. I’m going back out today. I can write there.”
“No, really. I’ll leave the key at the front desk after Lola leaves this afternoon. Where are you going?”