by Shealy James
“Yes. I do. Now, come on. I’m not leaving you down here.”
She had let some kind of frustrated sound escape from her throat before she stomped up the stairs. “What is it with men?”
The question was rhetorical, which was a good thing because I was too busy staring at the way her perfectly heart-shaped ass swayed as she ascended the stairs.
Not surprisingly, her brother was watching the whole scene unfold from the top of the stairs. I almost laughed at his intimidating stare, knowing I could take him out with one finger if I felt like it. Huh. I hadn’t threatened someone in my head in a while. Suddenly, Sarah’s in the picture, and I was mentally and physically kicking people’s asses all over the city.
I held out my hand once we reached her floor. “Michael Pearson, the guy who kept the bastard from beating the shit out of her.”
“I suppose you think I should thank you.”
“Seth,” Sarah groaned.
This time I did laugh and dropped my hand. “I don’t think anything. I was simply letting you know that I wasn’t the one who hurt her, nor would I ever hurt her, so you can wipe the glare off your face and fill me in on what’s going on.”
He stared at me for another minute or so while I remained stone-faced waiting for him to respond. It was then I noticed how similar their eyes and the shape of their faces were, not to mention their matching scowls. Someone in their family had strong genes. I looked nothing like my sister. She resembled my mother while I was a carbon copy of the man who would forever be dissatisfied with his only son.
“You fucking my sister?”
“Seth!” Sarah shouted from the doorway.
I laughed again. “No. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it, but she’s not the kind of girl you fuck. She’s a good girl and doesn’t need her big brother keeping her from good guys.”
“You a good guy?”
“Sometimes.” I shrugged. “With Sarah, always.”
“All right, then. Seems you’re okay if you’re willing to be that honest. Come on in. She ordered pizza.”
He walked inside, and Sarah looked up at me relieved. She shot me a small smile when our eyes made contact. “You could’ve taken him.”
“I know.”
“You’ve thought about fuckin’ me?” she asked in that sickeningly sweet accent of hers. That word coming from her mouth should be illegal.
“Who hasn’t? Have you seen your ass? Shake it like that on the stairs again, and I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“I wouldn’t blame you. I have a great ass,” she said and walked into her kitchen to grab plates.
She left me laughing while I closed the door. How could I not want to be around her all the time when she said shit like that?
Sarah
The boys talked and talked as if I wasn’t sitting in the room with them. Every time I reminded them I was there, one of them did something so annoying I decided to go work in my bedroom. The first time my brother shushed me. I about popped him for that. Then Michael patted my knee in the most patronizing way. The last time they flat-out ignored me. The only time they answered was when I asked if anyone wanted a beer. My brother said, “Yeah,” the same time Michael said, “Nah.” It must have been too much to use real words or heaven forbid, say please.
A knock on my bedroom door distracted me from my work, and I looked up to find Michael filling my doorway. “Hey you,” he said as he came to sit on the end of my bed.
“Hey.” I finished typing my sentence then stopped.
He was looking around at everything, and while my room was always clean, it felt a little invasive to have him eyeing everything like that.
“This room’s really pink.”
“It’s my favorite color.”
“I’d say so.”
“Where’s my brother?”
“Phone call. Stepped outside.”
“Did you guys become BFFs or did you focus solely on my life?” I asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.
His expression showed me that he didn’t understand the reason for my tone. “You’re pissed.” Way to go, Captain Obvious.
I raised my eyebrows in response.
He had rubbed his neck before he looked at me like he didn’t know what to say. “Okay. I get it, and I’m sorry. I want you to be safe.” He said the last part in a whisper with his eyes glued to the floor. There was more there. I could feel it. Why couldn’t he just freaking admit it?
“Is that all you want?” I asked with a lump of fear resting in my belly like Aunt Rose’s meatloaf. I knew what Amy had said about him needing to protect people, but I didn’t want him around to protect me. I wanted him around because he felt something for me, something like what I felt for him. He was smart and funny and everything I looked for in a man all wrapped up in this packaging that made me want to drop my jaw and drool, but if he was looking for a damsel in distress then I was the wrong girl. I would never admit to needing a man, even if it was true, which it wasn’t.
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, and I held my breath as I waited for his answer. “No.” I didn’t realize there was room for it, but I took a little more air into my lungs then froze when he spoke again. “But I don’t know how to do this. You know better than anyone that things still aren’t…that I’m not…well, you know.” He paused and rubbed his face. “I want to be the kind of guy you deserve. I don’t want to be this screwed-up guy who’s afraid to fall asleep at night.” He paused and rested his elbows on his knees letting his head drop down. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Good for you,” I said surprising him. I was burying every feeling I had about him as far down as I could while I looked at him for what he was, a lost boy.
A professor I had in undergrad had taught us about soldiers coming back from war. He said some soldiers have all these preconceived notions about battle. They saw the commercials and the propaganda and thought they could help save the world. Once they got there, they realized it was a series of slow days and routine jobs and very little action. The action they did receive was devastating. Not only did they lose friends and watch people suffer, but they realized they weren’t saving the world. They saw the worst side of it, instead. They came home disillusioned only to realize no one at home understood what they went through. Finally, someone called them a hero or told them they were proud of them. That was when the guilt set in. Survivor’s guilt. The guilt of an anti-hero. He’d said, “Suddenly these men who left our country with a mission come home with nothing. They’re simply lost boys with no Peter Pan to guide them.” It was the saddest story I’d ever heard.
“What?” Michael asked. “Why is that good?”
“I think that was the most honest you have ever been with me.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “But?”
“But nothing.” I paused for a second and took a breath to help maintain my even temper. “I appreciate your honesty, and you’re right. What’s between us should be easy. I think right now you should focus on you, not me and my drama. I don’t need someone to watch over me. I don’t need you or my brother making decisions for me, and I certainly don’t need any more men in my life who think they can charm their way in only to realize I’m not what they want for the long haul. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” I looked back down at my computer. “Close the door on your way out.”
I could feel the weight of his eyes on me, but I refused to look. A part of me pleaded with him to tell me that I was wrong, but a bigger part of me knew I wasn’t. He might have held my hand and laughed at my jokes, but his protective instincts kicked in the second he saw Jameson’s hands on me. That was all this was. That was all this would ever be. I wanted a man who wanted me so much that nothing would stand in his way of being with me. Was that too much to ask?
When I heard the door click shut, I didn’t allow the disappointment set in. I’d been through this before. Guys l
etting me down. Same ol’ thing, if you think about it. The only men who hadn’t let me down were Daddy and Seth.
I knew work wasn’t going to happen, so I threw my head back against my pillows and closed my eyes. What was it about me that screamed temporary? Blond hair, slightly larger than average cup size, a little junk in my trunk? I was pretty, naturally so, and I didn’t mind saying so. All dolled up for pageants, I could pull off beauty queen better than any girl in six counties, but mostly I just looked like Sarah. Simple, sometimes sweet, mostly stubborn Sarah.
As I lay there pondering whether I should call Maggie or continue to wallow in my self-pity, my door flew open. “This is bullshit,” Michael growled.
My eyes snapped open, and I sat up to find him pacing my room. “Pardon?”
“I like you, you know that. Of course, you do. I’ve walked around holding your hand for Christ’s sake. I don’t hold girl’s hands, but yet, I can’t help but hold yours. I want to be close to you, but I can’t be like Phil and Amy. I can’t see past today. It’s all blank. Therapy didn’t work for me like it did for him, so I can’t be that guy for you even if I wanted to be. I would let you down. I can watch out for you like a friend would.” He took a deep breath and added, “I’d really like to be your friend.”
“You want to be my friend?”
“Is that such a bad thing?” He looked so distressed, so lost.
“No, it’s not a bad thing at all. I just don’t need added security if that’s what you are planning. I have enough men watching over me. I don’t need another.”
His face changed from distressed and flustered to softer and a little coy. The way he was looking at me had me squirming in my seat and regretting the whole idea of friendship. Then he spoke, and I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy being his friend. “Sarah, you need a whole army watching over you. Men, women, the works.”
“I told you not to try and charm your way into my life.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m already there,” he said with a wink.
Thirteen
Michael
“You were in pageants?” I asked with a small laugh. I was at Sarah’s apartment eating a home cooked meal with Sarah and Seth the next night. Seth had invited me the night before, and I think this was honestly a job interview to see if he felt he could leave her in my hands when he went back to Alabama.
“Why is that so hard to believe?” She sounded offended, which made this whole thing even funnier. Seth was even laughing from behind his beer.
“Her senior year they asked her to be a judge because she hadn’t been beaten since she started competing as a kid.”
“What? Please tell me you have pictures.”
“Dude, Google it. It’s all online.”
Sarah stomped her foot and shot an angry glare toward her brother then me. “Seth, I will kill you. Michael, you Google it and this friendship is over.”
“My favorite’s the year she wore the hot pink dress.”
“Did she ever wear anything other than pink?” I asked already knowing the answer.
“Nah, man, but do you know how many different pinks there are? My mom can name at least fifty shades.”
“Fifty shades of pink. If they make a biography of your life, I insist you call it that,” I told her.
She pushed me and told me to go to hell. Then she turned to her brother and said, “I hate you.”
He laughed at her. “You love me.”
“You know what I love?” I asked them then waited for them to look my way. “Pink.” That earned me a slap in the face with a pillow, so I pulled her off the couch onto the floor so I could tickle her until she begged me to stop. Friends did this kind of shit, right? Because this sure as hell felt natural to me. It was the most fun I’d had in a really long time.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Seth warned. “She peed on me once.”
“Seth!” she screamed and tried to sit up. “I was six and had been in the car for five hours!”
“Doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget the day of the tinkle tickle.”
“Mama told you not to call it that!”
“Mama’s the one who named it!” he fired back. I was really starting to like Seth. One minute, he fiercely protected his sister, and the next, he had her showing her true colors. She was currently pouting and stomping her foot, somehow making the tantrum look sexy as hell.
Suddenly, the hurt in her eyes switched to fierce determination, and she took off after her brother. “Don’t you do it!” he called out and ran away from her. He leaped over the table while she dashed around the couch. I could imagine her crashing to the ground, so I decided to stop the chaos before someone ended up in the hospital. Right as I went to stand up, she stepped in my way. Her foot caught on my knee causing her to trip. To keep her face from smashing down on the wood floors, I quickly moved to catch her. We fell together and landed nose-to-nose with her laying on my chest and my back on the floor. The pain in my back flared like a wildfire through my veins, so I held her on me while I breathed through it. Focusing on her helped me quickly forget why the pain was there in the first place.
“Don’t need anyone, my ass,” Seth muttered as he headed over to the kitchen to grab a beer. I didn’t care where he went; I couldn’t take my eyes off the pair of blue ones that were currently inches away from mine.
“Sorry ‘bout my brother. We have a love-hate relationship.” Her smile made me forget everything but her. Sarah was truly stunning in an all-American girl kind of way.
“That’s cool. My sister and I have a never-talk-to-each-other kind of relationship.” I closed my eyes as soon as I heard the admission come out of my mouth. It slipped out of me, just like the night before. I despised how being around Sarah had me spilling my guts like a girl. I was not about to get in touch with my emotional side. Sarah would be running for the hills if she saw what was really behind those doors.
“Why?” she asked without moving from her place atop my body. Maybe she wouldn’t run, I thought just as she slightly shifted, giving me another problem to worry about. Soon it would be difficult to hide my growing arousal from her. Something about the lack of sex over the past few weeks and having her laid out across my body like I had imagined a million times. Or maybe it was the way Sarah held eye contact that made me unable to keep my brain in control of my body. I had the urge to run my hands down her body and feel her beneath her tight jeans and white t-shirt.
“Does it matter?”
She shifted, inadvertently rubbing her body harder against mine. I had to resist responding and instead focused on the way her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Of course, it matters. She’s your sister.”
“We never had a relationship like you and Seth.”
“So? It doesn’t mean you can’t talk to her.”
“No. Deciding to enlist did that.” Desire was gone. My head dropped to the floor, but I kept my hands on her waist while an anchor of guilt sunk in my gut at the memory of my parents and sister telling me it was stupid to enlist. “Only people with a death wish enlist,” my older sister, Lydia had said. My father had followed up with, “Stop with the foolish notion that you can save the world, son. You’re too old for heroes. Time to focus on a real career and stop being such a disappointment.” My mother just sat at the kitchen table and cried. She’d never even said a word. The day I signed with the recruiter was the last day I spoke to them. I was finished letting my father be disappointed in me. He had been my whole life, and at nineteen, I wasn’t going to take it any longer.
I remembered making the varsity baseball team as a sophomore. I was good, even though I didn’t love the sport. I wanted to spend all my time at the track, but my dad loved baseball. He was a huge Yankees fan. I couldn’t wait to tell him when I made the team. His response wasn’t what I had hoped for though. He patted my shoulder and said, “Yeah, we’ll see if you play. Youngest guy on the team usually sits the bench.” I never sat the bench, but he didn’t come to my games, not until the last one of the season. W
e were behind by one run when I was up to bat. The first pitch was a ball then a strike. I hit the third pitch. It was a perfect hit to the outfield between center and left field. Neither outfielders should have been able to pluck it out of the air like the centerfielder did, but it happened. The only thing my dad said after the game was, “Tough luck.” The centerfielder now plays for the White Sox, and I quit after that season. Instead I started hanging out with Joe more and gave up on sports altogether.
Things between my father and me never really improved. I used to wonder if he was waiting for the moment when he could disown me. Enlisting was his chance. He hated everything the military stood for as a self-proclaimed pacifist. I hated him for turning me away and then showing up when I woke up from my third back surgery to rub my failure in my face. I never gave him the chance though. The nurses were kind enough not to let him come back to my room. I didn’t need him in my life.
Tension spread throughout my limbs as Sarah waited for an answer to what should have been a simple question. I could feel myself teeter on the edge of control. Looking into Sarah’s worried eyes only made me feel worse. She didn’t need to concern herself with my family issues. Without knowing the truth, she was already looking at me with sadness in her eyes. Pity wasn’t something I could tolerate. “No frowning for me. Everything turned out okay.”
“Did it?”
While I didn’t want to continue a discussion full of emotional landmines, I couldn’t help but enjoy being this close to her. She didn’t need to worry about my story, but the way she cared made me believe more and more that she was a risk worth taking, or maybe I was the risk. I didn’t know. I might not have been the kind of guy I would want for her, but I wanted her. Sarah needed a man to stand up to her, with her, and for her. My head was still all over the place. I couldn’t be that man if I was having panic attacks, flashbacks, and night terrors. I would only disappoint her and me, yet the words were right there on my tongue.