"Sh-She didn't have proof you lived here," Terry stammers.
I turn to Bitsy. “Where was your key?”
She yawns and stretches. “I didn’t have it. We left so fast and it wasn’t in my things. Besides, I didn’t realize I would need it. Why would I be locked out of my own home?”
Shamefaced, I give Terry another nod, this time not so curt. It's not his fault this mess up happened. It's mine. I'm off my game. I lost track of Bitsy, allowed her to spend time with people I despise, and kept her from her home. If anyone should get pistol-whipped, it's me.
"Sorry," I mutter.
She shrugs. "I'm tired. Can we get this stuff tomorrow?"
"I'll have everything delivered," Terry proclaims, eager to make up for the misunderstanding.
"That would be great." She gives him a thumbs-up.
I want to protest. Everything should stay in the car because Bitsy will be leaving soon, but the girl is too worn out for an argument. Besides, no one needs to know about our business but us.
"Okay," I give in.
I usher her over to the elevator. She slumps against me, a warm, curvy, sleepy bundle of sweetness.
A dozen inappropriate thoughts swim through my sick head of her snuggling up to me after we've worked out our frustrations of the day on each other's bodies. I bat them away. This is my Bitsy. She’s my girl, not some…object. I shouldn’t be having any kind of thoughts about her that involve bare flesh and beds.
When the elevator doors open on our fourth-floor apartment, I wait for Bitsy to step off. She doesn't move. Looking down, I see her eyes are closed and her bee-stung lips are parted slightly. Her breathing is deep and even. The girl's so tired, she fell asleep standing up.
I lift her to my chest. She wraps her arms around me and whispers something…something like I love you. I’m glad to be home.
My weak, stupid heart swells. I carry her to the apartment and manage to open the door without dropping her. Her bedroom is in the same condition as it was when she left four years ago. The white and gold mirror over her desk still has a pink crepe paper ribbon wrapped around the top. There are pictures of us stuck into the side, and on the table rests a hairbrush, notebook and pink pen.
Her pillows are plumped and her green and pink comforter is smoothed over the mattress. A guy comes to clean the apartment twice a month, but this room is off-limits. I dust things with a cloth, straighten the comforter, punch the pillows a couple of times until they look fresh from the store. No one comes in here but me.
I lay Bitsy on the bed still dressed in her leggings, boots, and puffy coat and that's how I leave her. I can't risk my hands on her bare skin. Even taking her boots off seems too intimate.
I fish the phone out of my pocket. An alert shows on the front screen.
I'm coming home, the message says. I missed it. The phone company must've screwed up. I sink down next to the bed and rest my head against the side of the mattress. Inches away are her fingers, splayed out and relaxed. I'd like nothing more than to bury my face in those fingers and drink in her warmth. In my hand, the phone buzzes. It's probably Beefer. The notification is a good reminder of why Bitsy can't stay.
I get to my feet, but my body doesn't want to move. You should stay, my inner voice says. She might need you. I force myself to leave. I can't get used to her being here. It would be too dangerous.
The weekly visits to her room, the texts, the rare video calls—that's how I survived these past four years.
It was enough then and it'll be enough in the future. It has to be.
26
Bitsy
It's dark when I wake. There's barely a sound in the room other than the low hum of the furnace. When I roll over to check the time, I discover my clock is missing. I flick my eyes over to Audie's bed and see a door instead. Then I remember. I'm home. I'm really home.
With a satisfied smile, I starfish on the bed, stretching my sore limbs and muscles that were cramped from sitting in a car for eight hours. It takes the weird sound of nylon against cotton to make me realize I'm still in my coat. I prop myself up on my elbows and take stock.
I'm in my bedroom, still wearing my coat, yoga pants, long-sleeved navy and white striped Splendid T-shirt and my white Timberlands. Underneath my butt is the same white comforter with the pink and green accents. The overwrought gilt-edged mirror that I thought was the bomb when I was thirteen hangs over the matching desk. I have to get rid of that. My small carry-on suitcase rests just inside the door with my little Dior clutch perched on the top.
I vaguely remember the doorman offering to carry all my shit up from the car. That was decent of him. None of my boxes are present, but I suppose Leka didn't want to wake me. They're probably sitting outside the door.
I find my phone in the pocket of my coat. I have a few messages from Audie and one from Ms. B who writes that she hopes I made it home safely. I shoot off quick replies to both of them.
After, I toss the phone onto the empty nightstand and get up. I listen for any sounds in the apartment but hear nothing. It's nearing midnight, which could mean Leka is sleeping or he's out doing his thing for Beefer.
Or he could be at a woman's place.
I wrinkle my nose at that thought. No. Even if he did have a woman, he wouldn't go to her the first night I was home. I kick off my boots and pull the coat off, tossing it onto the bed.
It's weird that Leka didn't remove my coat and boots. Was he concerned I would feel he was taking advantage of me? I suppose that's a good thing. It shows he's a decent guy, although I already knew that.
I should shower. My clothes feel gross from the long drive, but it would be good to unpack a few things. As I reach for my suitcase, my stomach rumbles in reminder that I haven't eaten anything but fast food, and that was hours ago.
Food first, I decide. Then shower, unpack, and once I have everything in order, I can commence my seduction of Leka.
I pad down the short hall and find my love sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a mug. A smile of delight breaks across my face. He's here! my heart sings. He did not go to run some terrible errand for Beefer. He is not at some woman's house, drinking her wine and climbing into her bed. He's here at our table, drinking coffee, and waiting for me.
His T-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders and then hangs loosely around his narrow waist. He's got a good ass, which I attribute to all the lifting he must do for Marjory's. My fingers tingle with the urge to map out the valleys and slopes of all those muscles. One day, I promise myself, one day I will have the right to crawl into his lap, wind my arms around his neck, and kiss that tender, private spot behind his ear. One day soon. I practically skip into the kitchen.
"Hello, Leka." It feels good to even say his name. "I haven't eaten much all day and I'm starving. I thought I'd make a—" I pause because I'm not sure what he's stocked his refrigerator with, but I always remember there being cheese, soup and bread in the house. "—grilled cheese. Want one?"
"No, thank you."
His response is so formal. I cast an uneasy glance in his direction. He can't still be angry that I was at Marjory's. Nothing happened there. Everyone was perfectly polite. The one guy even made me cider and the other line chef was about to get me dinner before Leka showed up.
You're imagining things, I chide internally. "I'll make two anyway. If you don't eat it, I can reheat it in the morning," I decide. In the refrigerator, I find some cheddar cheese, mozzarella, and a soft, goat cheese. The last one is so unlike Leka that I get another pang of anxiety. Is this a sign of another woman?
I hold it up. "Since when do you like goat cheese?" I ask carelessly as if the wrong answer won't send me to my bedroom in tears.
"Guy down at the market said it made good sandwiches. Lower melting point or something like. You'll like it." Leka barely flicks a gaze away from whatever he's reading.
I release my death grip on the cheese and set it on the counter, ignoring the indent marks I've made with my fingers. It was just t
he guy at the market, I tell myself. Not another woman.
I take a deep, reassuring breath and look around for the bread. My search skitters to a stop when my eyes land on the table. The colorful brochures and pamphlets aren't junk mail, but marketing material from colleges. Blood thuds angrily in my ears.
Leka notices my interest and taps on the top brochure labeled USC.
“I called around this evening to some people I know. They told me that there are places that will accept you early. You can be enrolled as soon as their term starts in January."
"That's not true." I'd never heard of that.
He ignores my objection and shoves the brochures forward. I step away from the counter and approach carefully, as if the brochures are snakes ready to poison me. I rifle through them. USC, Stanford, Cal Tech. “Oxford, England?”
He shrugs. “It’s a good place, I hear. Good enough for royalty. Good enough for you.”
I flick the brochures away. “I’m taking a gap year," I inform him, crossing my arms over my chest.
He frowns, keeping his eyes on the catalog in front of him. "What the hell is that?”
“It’s where you take time off to recharge your batteries, experience the world, and then enter college with a renewed sense of purpose." It's where I am going to convince you that we belong together forever. No more separations. No more excuses.
"I thought we agreed you would go to college," he replies, still not looking at me.
This isn’t how I imagined the reunion would go. I knew it was too much to hope for an immediately enthusiastic welcome, but, I figured, once the shock wore off, Leka would be thrilled. He'd been as alone as me these past four years. His heart had to be sore from missing me as mine ached from missing him. He'd at least hug me. Press a kiss to my cheek. Smile in welcome.
I didn't expect him to be pushing me out the door even before I took my coat off. I scan the apartment for the boxes. Other than the two bedrooms, there's only this kitchen and living room with a small hallway leading to the entry. None of my boxes can be seen.
A sense of foreboding creeps over me. Did he leave my boxes in the car? Did he go down and tell the doorman to only deliver the suitcase? Or worse, did the doorman bring up the boxes only to have them refused by Leka. Embarrassment burns my cheeks.
"Where's my stuff?" I blurt out.
"In your car," he replies. His eyes are on his empty mug.
"Why?" I demand. I want to stomp over there and force him to look at me as he kicks me out.
"Because you're not staying."
I knew what the answer was going to be, but it still hurts. It still makes me angry. It still burns in the pit of my stomach.
"Why are you doing this?" The question comes out plaintive, almost whiny, and I wish I could take it back.
He needs to see I'm an adult—not a child he can boss around, not a puppet he can direct. But how do I prove that when I'm sleeping in the same bed I slept in since I was ten, eating the food that he picked out, wearing the clothes that he paid for?
Abruptly, I twist around and replace the food.
"What are you doing?" He rises from his chair. "You said you were hungry."
"I'm not." My stomach grumbles in protest.
"The fu—hell, you aren't."
"I'm not eating any of your food." I jut out my chin.
His brows crash together. "What nonsense are you saying? Of course, you're going to eat. It's not my food. It's our food." He stalks over and reaches past me for the fridge handle.
I move out of the way, not wanting any contact with him because I don’t want to make love to him at this moment. I want to hit him. Hard. "You just told me I can't stay here, so obviously it's not my place."
"I…" He jams a frustrated hand through his hair. I try not to notice how his muscle flexes in his biceps or how the thin T-shirt fabric stretches across his very fit pecs. I try to keep my body from clenching in response to this very fine male body in front of me. I try to keep my heart from flipping over in delight at his closeness. I try, but my nipples tighten anyway and poke insistently against my shirt.
Leka doesn't notice. "I meant you should go back to school," he continues, eyes purposefully pointed over my shoulder. "You're a kid. Kids belong in school."
"By that logic I’m an adult. I have graduated and therefore am no longer a child.”
"An adult doesn’t stick her tits out demanding attention. That's something a kid does."
So he does see. He sees but still insists I’m only a girl. Resentment scalds my tongue. “Mary’s an adult and her tits are out there for everyone to see.”
“If I wanted you to be like Mary, I wouldn’t have sent you to Vermont,” he replies.
“Maybe you liked Mary so much you shipped me off so you could fuck her all the time without my bothering you!”
The words fly out on the wings of embarrassment and anger, but I don’t regret them because Leka roars back, “I haven’t fucked anyone!”
The admission snaps my jaw shut. He’s…not slept with anyone? Ever?
Before I can ask, Leka drags a large hand down his face. Defeat sits heavy on his shoulders as if this confession is more than he ever wanted to share. “You should go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” His eyes are fixed on some spot about five feet to the right of my shoulder.
“But—”
“Go to bed,” he growls.
I don’t get a chance to say another word because he doesn’t wait for me to leave. Instead, he flees, leaving me in the kitchen feeling flustered and giddy.
I don’t know what we were fighting over at the end, but I think I won. No. We won, I correct myself, because we are together.
27
Leka
Sleep evades me. I feel like I can hear every noise in her bedroom. The swishing of her coat as she shoves it off the bed. The snap of the elastic as she pulls her leggings down and drops them on the floor. The ping of her bra clasp as she frees her breasts.
My hands curl into empty fists and the blood in my groin pounds angrily. I try to ignore my cock. It’s mind over matter, I tell myself. If you don’t think about the thing that excites you, eventually the erection will go away.
But when I close my eyes, all I see is her, standing out in the kitchen with her tits pointing directly in my face, begging me pertly to suck them until they’re hard as erasers. The kitchen where she colored and packed school lunches and made ice-cream sundaes.
I’m a monster. I mentally lock my hands to my side. I can’t touch myself—not thinking about her like this. She’s my ward. I raised her. Imagining her naked, kneeling in front of me, pressing her face against my heated groin is all wrong.
I should take a spike to my brain, but then she’d be without anyone in this miserable world. I can’t have that.
I need to endure this. It’s because I’ve gone without for so long. Beefer’s been after me to fuck around, and maybe that’s what it’s going to take to get rid of these sordid thoughts.
Beefer’s answer would be for me to pick a girl from the stable. Mary would fuck me if I asked. She pretends to hate me, but she’s desperate because Cesaro hasn’t come through on his promise to elevate her to the main territory, which means she’s stuck here sucking Beefer’s dick. And I’m powerful enough at this point for her to believe it would be to her advantage to climb into my bed. I don’t want that.
I don’t want a prostitute. I don’t want any other woman at all. Or man for that matter.
I’m coming to the realization that I’m probably going to die without having had sex because the one person I do want is the only one I can’t have.
I lie like a statue until the sun breaks through the windows. I take that as a sign to leave. She’ll be safe today. I’ll leave her a note telling her to stay in the apartment. After a good run to sweat out my arousal and a stint at Marjory’s, I’ll have myself under control.
We can eat dinner, talk like two rational adults about where she’s going to spend t
he winter vacation, and then we’ll go to our separate bedrooms and fall asleep. I’ll maintain this routine until she leaves.
It’s a good plan.
I end up running for eight miles. It takes that long for my brain to shut off. To be safe, though, I go to Marjory’s and wash myself off there with a hose. No one else is here this early in the morning. The restaurant doesn’t open until eleven and the cooks don’t roll in until nine or so.
But my plans for a solo morning are busted when Beefer shows up when I’m neck deep under a faucet, rinsing my hair out.
“The water line break at your apartment or something?” he asks.
“Something like that.” I straighten and let the cool water run down my bare back.
Beefer eyes me speculatively while handing me a thin dishtowel. I take it gratefully and wait for the inquisition.
“You look like shit. Water busts are the fucking worst. We had one a few years back. Remember? The wife made me put her up in the fucking Plaza for a week. I swear to God, I was ready to divorce her.”
I mop my face, hair and pits and toss the sopping dishtowel in the trash. There’s a stash of clothes here and I trade my sweaty workout gear for a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck.
“So, Bitsy,” Beefer says. “I’d kinda forgotten about her.”
That was the whole point, and I’m sick that Bitsy’s main source of protection has evaporated. I need to get her away from this city before any more questions are asked. Unfortunately, Beefer’s curiosity has been pricked.
“She said she graduated early. Didn’t know that was even a thing.”
“Me either.” I pull out the coffee beans and measure out enough for Beefer and me.
“We should get our girls together. Camella could stand to be around a smart girl like yours. I’m tired of her hanging around those sluts at the club.”
Yeah, that’s never going to happen. Camella’s on a bad path and I don’t want her dragging Bitsy down to hell.
“I can’t decide if your girl’s pretty or not. She was a homely kid, but, yesterday, there were some angles where she looked kinda good. Your girl could encourage Cammie to get some more schooling while Cammie could make her look nice.”
Want You Page 18