by Kitsy Clare
“Like in the papers?”
He glances over at the trashcan by my desk and nods, as if he’s ashamed to look me in the eye or won’t have the nerve to keep going if he does. “There were multiple eyewitnesses, who all said I was innocent, that she just dashed out between cars, that it wasn’t anything I’d done wrong, that I’d been going a modest fifteen miles per hour.” Finally, he glances at me, and his eyes have a crazed look. It’s almost like he’s seeing a dead body right here, right next to him, with red blood ghoulishly staining its teeth. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“If I could kill someone at fifteen miles an hour then I’m not a safe person. No car is safe. Not even at five miles per hour. Nothing is safe.”
“So, that’s why you’ve kept people away. That’s why you’ve scared them off, tested them.” I tighten my arm around him because he’s launching into spasms of sobbing again, and my eyes are blurring with tears. “I see, and it makes sense. Yet, it doesn’t…Charles. It could have happened to anyone. The chances are infinitesimal.”
“But it did happen. It happened to her! Ella Gaines. I fucking killed her.” His voice is loud, more than a little hysterical.
“Yes, it happened. Do you need me to say it out loud, too? To agree that it was absolutely horrendous?”
“Yes, don’t try to sugarcoat it.”
“It was the worst thing ever, Charles. You need me not to sugarcoat it, like you’ve done with your trendy installations all these years?”
He nods behind his hands.
“Okay, it is terrible, and it happened, and yes, you were the driver.” I pause. “You’re actually starting to make sense—the pieces of you are coming together. I wish you’d trusted me before. Told me who you really were.” I stroke his back. “But I get it, you couldn’t. It was too buried inside you. Too big a wound.”
“Yes, Sienna, yes, yes, yes, yes.” He reaches for my hands, clasping them in his. “Once I got out of the madhouse I drank and drank and fucking drank. I was dog sick, waking up with blinding hangovers and going at it again until I threw up and passed out. And I saved every bottle of Jack Daniels because I wanted it to be a monument to the fuckup I was.”
“What about the ripped dress?” I hope with my heart of hearts that his answer will be one I can handle.
“I got that from a store. I don’t know, K-Mart or Walmart or some place. I needed to remember how tiny she was. She was all of four, Sienna, four. And my car was a metal tank of death.”
“Why is the dress ripped?”
“I wanted to remember it the way it really was. The destruction I’d wrought.”
“What about your mythical story—about yourself?” I urge.
“I had to start over. I hated myself so much. I had to create a whole new identity—Casper fucking Mason—a ghost of the man he used to be.”
“Did you ever speak to the girl’s mother?”
He closes his eyes in pain at the thought. “She wanted to speak with me. She tried to contact me multiple times.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t face her. Why would she want to do that? To look her daughter’s murderer in the eye? Why, Sienna?”
“I don’t know, maybe she needed to reach some resolution? Maybe she was willing to—?”
“Don’t even say it. I didn’t deserve to be forgiven; not when I couldn’t even forgive myself.”
“But maybe that would’ve helped you to forgive yourself, to move on.”
“Move on?” He chuckles mirthlessly. “All I know is I ran up north. I figured if I could start over fresh…. Pretend I was someone else.” He shakes his head. “But it always haunted me. It haunts me to this day. I was fooling myself.”
“Playing games, outsmarting people.”
“Sure. If I can outsmart you, if I can make you laugh, if I can mesmerize you, then I can’t be all bad. If I test you and you still don’t run off well, then.... If you believe my Johnny Appleseed just-trucked-up-from-the-Carolinas-to-conquer-Manhattan tall tale, then I’m a damn fine storyteller.” He brushes the back of his hand across his wet eyes. “Then maybe I’m not a completely toxic monster.”
“You’re not a monster. I only hated you when you were mean. When you refused to be real.”
“That was most of the time, so you must’ve hated me a lot. I’m so sorry, Sienna.”
“I’m sorry, too, that I broke into your secret room.” I lean over and kiss him lightly on the forehead. He startles, clearly as shocked at the touch of my lips as I ever was when he first kissed me.
He takes my chin in his hand and guides around so I’m looking directly at him. “I’m done with games, Sienna. I’m really done. I’m Charles Mitton and I’m no hero. Just another terribly, terribly flawed human being.” He reaches out and squeezes my arms. Brushes his big hands along them, from my shoulders down to my wrists. It feels amazing. “You’re the first person who ever got through to me. How did you manage to do it?” He gazes at me, wide-eyed and wondering, his face alive with questions.
I don’t answer directly. How can I answer that? I lean in close, murmur in his ear. “Use it. Remember when you told me to use my pain?”
“Yes. That reminds me—” He surprises me by suddenly sitting up. Wincing, he rises to his feet and limps out of the room.
“Is it smart to start walking around already? What are you doing up, Caz?”
“It’s Charles. I’m not Caz. He’s dead,” he announces in a soft but determined voice. And then he returns, more swiftly than I would’ve thought possible in his condition, with his backpack in hand.
“What?” I ask, baffled.
“I need to show you something.” He stares at me, his earthy-brown eyes emanating deep waves of wisdom and pain, wisdom and pain. “You’re my advisor, Sienna. You’re my bullshit detector, smart woman.” With that, he extracts a manila folder and slips out an 11” x 14” photo print, hands it over. “Tell me what you see, and be brutal.”
I take it all in, staring at it for a while before I speak. It’s the most honest and fragile art Charles Mitton or Casper Mason or whoever he was before that, has ever made. God, I could look at it forever.
It’s a spun-sugar installation, but not his old gimmicky kind. In the center is a spun-sugar girl, and she’s standing with her little chest pumped out, proud as anything. Her tousled sugar hair is falling out of her little ponytail, and her skinny arms are spread skyward. All around her are spun sugar flowers, a spectacular circle of them. And Charles has written at the bottom: Homage to Ella Gaines.
“You want brutal, huh?” I raise my head and grab his gaze.
He holds it, looking scared and raw, yet vibrant, his mouth slightly open, his expression utterly vulnerable. “Yes.”
“Honestly, it’s incredibly beautiful and sad and emotional and honest, and I freaking adore it, Charles Mitton.”
He exhales in a rasping huff that he must’ve been holding until he heard my answer. “It was you, all along,” he admits. “You’re the inspiration for the first honest piece of artwork I’ve ever done.”
Bubbles of hope and elation and true, true affection shimmer up in me. I put the print gently down on the sill. Then I move toward him and, wrapping my arms around his back, I pull Charles into a long, close hug.
We kiss for a while—sloppy, yet clean kisses, filled with the renewed childlike innocence of the redeemed. He runs his hands hungrily along my cheeks, the curves of my hips, and around to the small of my back, which sends shivers of feeling deep into my belly. I sift my hands through his auburn waves and along the whiskered angles of his face.
God, I missed that face. The time we spent apart felt so long. Like those early days at summer camp when I used to mark the days on the calendar off with magic marker Xs, missing my mom and home.
Pretty soon, his wound starts oozing again, so I make him lie back down. “Come here, Sienna, lie next to me.” He pats the quilt.
“I have to show you something first,” I annou
nce mysteriously and hurry into my makeshift studio.
“I need you right this second,” he begs.
“Hold on, bud.” I haul two of my new art pieces into my bedroom. “This is worth waiting for.” I balance them against my desk and walk over toward him, crossing my arms and grinning. “What’s your take? Be honest. Be brutal, fellow bullshit detector.”
He laughs and then turns toward the paintings and gives them his full focus. Sucking in a breath, he lets it out in a reverential, “Wow!”
“Do you like them, Charles?”
“Love them.” He nods enthusiastically. “They’re quite unique, Sienna. You really listened to what I was saying about taking it to another level, stretching out to an uncomfortable place.”
“I did, and it was uncomfortable. I’m an incorrigible neat freak, and oils trigger my worst anxiety.”
He doesn’t blink an eye, just takes in this potentially disturbing info about me. “I wondered about that,” he says, “because your work was so incredibly precise before—all of those perfectly mirrored digital prints. I was kind of hoping you might stretch beyond that to a more fluid place. And you did it!”
“It works, right?”
“It totally works. Now get your sexy butt here before I get up, carry you to the bed, and rip my wound all to hell. Make-up sex, baby, it’s the best!”
“Patience, patience.” I sashay over and wrap my arms around him. “No funny stuff, mister, not until that leg heals.”
“I think you cut me on purpose, so we couldn’t make love,” he teases. But, quickly, he gets more serious. Brushes his lips over mine so slowly and lovingly it sets me on fire. “For real, Sienna. I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.”
We kiss more deeply, exploring each other with our tongues. I lick the funny bow shape of his upper lip. And his lower lip is sweeter than his spun flowers. My hands stray down to his hard, wide chest, to his slim waist, to his boxers, and the evidence that I’ve turned him on big time.
“I’m just going to stroke you a little bit,” I say. “I don’t think we should go all out, yet. I don’t want your wound to burst the butterfly bandages. Then we really would have to go to the hospital.”
“That would be bad,” he agrees. Rebelliously, though he moves his hand downwards to the heat between my legs, gazing at me with a naughty gleam in his eyes all the while. “Nothing to say I can’t pleasure you, is there?”
“No law against that.” I’m already wet and breathing fast. He does that to me. Sliding his hand under my panties, he finds the bud of my clit and strokes me just behind it, teasing it until I need to buck harder over his thick middle finger.
“My smart, talented lover,” he murmurs, and starts to nip at my earlobe, setting a faster rhythm down below.
I think of us under that pile of sugar packets after we first played tag, of falling into his arms in the dark after he hauled me out of that cold metal sugar vault. I think of us carving pumpkins together, and how he grinned at me in the flickering light. He may as well have been the third crafty jack-o’-lantern. I thrust harder against his hand, moaning, “Charles, Charles.”
And, in response, he moans back, “Sienna, give me all of you. I love you.”
He loves me! Charles freaking Mitton loves me! I buck one more time, taking two of his fingers completely into me as I release fiercely in wet spasms of pleasure.
17 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I get the internship with Talia Johnnie, the writer. Turns out, she writes romance. Ha. I could give her a few fresh plotlines from my own real life! She needs tons of help with the demands of her booming social media empire: organizing and distributing her newsletter, keeping her Talia’s Tryst Street Team in swag, and confirming her conference appearances, not to mention getting the word out about her books via timed Tweets and Facebook posts.
She’s one busy lady and heck, she pays incredibly well! More than Caz, I mean Charles, did. It’s still hard for me to remember to call him Charles, but I’m trying because he really needs me to. He wants to start being 100 percent honest in his life, and I’m definitely down with that.
Over coffee in a Polish diner in the East Village, I tell him about my new internship. He’s quiet, at first, I guess hoping we can still work together. But I explain that I don’t like working for him. I don’t want to be the personal assistant in our pairing. Not even the all-important assistant, like Tommy is. I want to be his girlfriend. His lover.
The longer he stays quiet, the more I sweat it, but then he grins and brushes my hand with his palm. “I get it. This way, we’ll be able to go out on official dates. Want to go out with me, Sienna?”
“I’d be delighted. Where to?”
“How about the movies next Friday. That’ll be after my art dealer comes over to look at my new work. After I tell him my new, I mean, old name, and that it’s Charles Mitton all the way from here on in.”
“Oh, geez. How do you think he’ll take it?”
Charles shrugs. “I’m sure he’ll figure out how to put a genius PR spin on it. But you have to know I’m not doing it for the PR.” He gets an earnest look on his face. “Don’t you?” Really? Charles is truly different. He’s openly seeking my approval.
I’m so not used to it, but it charms me. “Don’t worry, I know. Will you fill me in with what he says?”
“You’ll be the first. And how are you doing?” When Charles turns his attention on me, his dark, expressive eyes warm my whole being.
“I’m doing well. I’m taking a few pieces of my new work into Rey Feinman’s.”
“Hot shit! That huge gallery on 57th Street that shows a lot of digital art?”
I nod, beaming like a kid in a candy shop. “Dave’s aunt, Lydia Hightower, gave Rey my number after Erik’s show way back in May. Rey actually called me a week later, but I chickened out.”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s okay, I wasn’t quite ready then. I think I knew on some level I’d be doing stronger work in the future. So I finally called him back a couple of days ago. And he said to stop by on Thursday afternoon with a couple of pieces.”
“Good for you! I guess the future is now, Sienna Karr.” Charles’ mouth quirks up in that killer grin that never fails to turn me on.
If we weren’t sitting at a crowded diner, I’d grab him, lift the shirt right off him, and start a heavy make-out session.
“Hey, I’m friendly with Rey’s partner, Paul,” he tells me. “Do you need me to put in a good word for you?”
“That’s sweet, but I got this, Charles. I mean, Lydia Hightower already started the process for me, so I ought to stand on my own merit from here on in, you know?”
“I understand.” He leans in and kisses me across the table. “You’re so strong. Good luck, and keep me posted.”
I kiss him back before my last sip of cappuccino. “Totally. Friday. Date night. Comparing war stories, and then a movie.”
“And then?” Charles wags his brows.
“And then, look out!” I lick my lips slowly and sensually, so he gets my drift.
***
I have such a busy week, what with polishing my work, taking two pieces into Rey’s, and interning for Talia that Charles and I don’t get to see each other and hardly even have time to talk. We at least exchange sexy selfies wearing very skimpy clothes—him bare-chested in his ripped denim shorts. Me, braless, in a sheer tank top and black bikini panties.
Plus, he sends me a gooey text with another sugar-spun flower image. Who knew he would be such a mushy romantic! I send him one back with a detailed drawing of a heart on it.
I miss him incredibly, and I’m so looking forward to Friday. I’ve got some exciting news to spill.
In the meantime, Talia Johnnie keeps me hopping over at the internship. As far as Talia’s writing, I always thought that romance was all about getting slutty and dirty, but she explains that it’s more about the wooing. She says you have to come up with a truly original plot and that the characters have to be three-dim
ensional and written against stereotype. I think of Charles—how he went against his own bad boy cliché after all.
I would’ve never, ever predicted that. When I tell Talia this, she laughs. It’s a husky laugh, as though she’s seen just about everything, and been in some heavy-duty relationships herself. She must be about forty, though she’s still super pretty and obviously works out at a gym, because she’s fit, and wears trendy clothes. She likes red—red earrings, tight crimson tops, and red leather boots. All of that steamy storytelling must inspire her to wear red-hot clothes.
Anyway, on that Friday afternoon, while I’m taking a break from proofreading her upcoming newsletter, she tosses back her wavy brown hair and says, “Sienna, you should keep a journal. Sounds like you have great stories to tell.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I’m more a visual artist, but um, I do have some tales.” I think of my time with Erik, my first serious boyfriend. Who would’ve thought a live-drawing model could have such art-star chops? I hope he’s happy doing his shows in Europe, and I wonder if he’s with his art dealer Betsy, after all. They were certainly spending huge blocks of time together, and not just at the gallery! As I wonder, my heart aches a little. I have no right to feel bad. I was the one who broke it off. If he ever comes back, I hope we can talk, maybe still be friends.
So when I leave Talia’s place on the Upper East Side—yes, she’s that writer who can afford a freaking penthouse on Eighty-Fifth and Park with at least a twenty-mile radius view—I swing by the stationers and buy a pretty leather journal. I add it to the bag Talia’s given me with one of her romance novels tucked inside. It’s homework reading, but, hey, I’m fine with that!
When I get home, I crack open my new journal and write random stuff that comes to mind. It feels strange, but fun.