Vegas Baby

by Winter Renshaw

  My cock pulses then aches each second it’s not buried inside her.

  “I want to feel you . . .” Her words come breathless and unrushed. “I need you inside me . . .”

  I crawl above her, pumping my shaft in my hand and readying myself between her thighs.

  Our eyes meet. And then they lock.

  I’ve never been big on eye contact during sex, but something about this is oddly natural.

  With a slow thrust and a single plunge, we’re connected. Calypso exhales with each inch I give her, and I hook my arms under her shoulders. Anchoring her. The desperate dig of her nails into my flesh as she grips my arms is electric.

  My lips crush hers, our tongues dancing and flicking, our skin beginning to stick.

  “You feel so fucking good, Calypso.” I breathe my words into her mouth and inhale her earthy scent. For the first time in a while, I’m not thinking about the way her ass is going to look as she walks out or the way her tits are that perfect C-cup handful.

  Her hands raise to the back of my neck, and she brings my mouth to hers again. It’s a silent plea to shut the fuck up and keep fucking her. But she’s too sweet to say that.

  I’m a smart man, so I take the hint.

  I fuck Calypso.

  I fuck her for hours.

  I fuck her on her back, on her side, and on all fours.

  I fuck her on the edge of my bed, the floor of my room, and against the wall.

  We fuck until the sun comes up and our bodies ache.

  She falls asleep in the crook of my arm, her head against my shoulder and the room smelling like us.

  Emme will be up soon. It’s going to be a long day, but this was so fucking worth it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Calypso

  He doesn’t need to be here. I told him that. He wouldn’t listen.

  I bite the end of a pen and watch from the open door of my office as Crew chats with Presley at the front of the shop the next morning. Emme’s in his arm, facing out, her legs kicking as she reaches for a stack of books behind the register.

  Crew and Pres are chatting about some new headlining act coming to town and some kind of multi-million-dollar, five-year contract. Must be nice to talk about the things that don’t matter. I’d give anything to be invested in a conversation like that right now.

  I stack the papers on my desk, trying not to think about the fact that Elijah could walk in here any minute.

  I’ve no clue what Crew’s going to say or do when he meets Elijah. And the same goes for Elijah. The charisma he inherited from his father generally serves to disarm his contenders. It served him well until his anger got the better of him and Father Nathaniel gave him the boot, saying there was no place for violence in Shiloh Springs.

  The bells on the front door jingle, sending my heart into a free fall.

  It’s a regular customer. A woman, maybe thirty, with a toddler running circles around her. She tries not to trip over the rambunctious child, and I watch from afar as the kid pulls a half-dissolved sucker from his mouth and sticks it against a Paris postcard on a nearby rack.

  Presley notices but doesn’t say anything. She knows we need all the customers we can get. I’ll sacrifice a dollar postcard if it means this lady buys a book or two. All in the name of doing business.

  The woman grabs a small slew of gently used Nora Roberts paperbacks and checks out quickly. I suppose toddlers tend to make you shop faster.

  Presley and Crew laugh about something a minute later. I’m tuned out. No clue what they’re talking about now. I look up, my gaze meeting his.

  He’s checking on me.

  I don’t know how I feel about that.

  It’s unnatural for one.

  Unnecessary for two.

  For three, it sends a warmth coursing through my veins.

  I don’t want it there.

  Getting attached to him, feeling all these feels, would only be dangerous.

  I don’t realize it at first, but I’m scowling at Presley. All those lectures about the joys of casual sex must’ve sunk into my subconscious, because that’s twice in less than a week.

  My computer screensaver flickers across my monitor. I wonder how long I’ve been staring into space. The shop’s been open less than an hour, and so far no Elijah. The knot in my belly tells me he’s coming soon. He’s a persistent man. He’s not going to give up until he gets what he came for.

  I tap my pen against my desk. The tap, tap, tap soothes and distracts me.

  “Calypso,” Presley calls.

  Leaning back in my rolling chair, I peek out front.

  My stomach lurches when I see Elijah.

  When did the door chime? I didn’t hear it. How long was I tapping my pen?

  My face goes numb, and when I stand, that tingling sensation creeps down my veins and fills my extremities. The tips of my fingers ache, and I slide my hand along the wall to find the light switch, feeling nothing.

  The buckling of my knees threatens to take me out on my walk to the front, but I refuse to allow it. Elijah doesn’t get to see me shaken.

  The Elvis song, “All Shook Up,” comes to mind and makes me smile. It’s not relevant to Elijah, but it brings me back to that night on the strip with Crew. The photo with the impersonator. Him calling Crew my Hunka-hunka-burning-love.

  My thoughts are a much needed, if not poorly-timed, distraction.

  I bite my lip to keep from smiling. Crew noticed. His head cocks for a second.

  Funny how my body just had to pick the most inopportune to fucking smile. I’m damned if I tell Crew I’m smiling because of him, and I’m fucked if Elijah thinks I wear that stupid grin because I’m excited to see him.

  Elijah drinks me in from his perch by the register. The closer I get, the wider his clear blue eyes become.

  “Calypso.” His voice has a gentle delivery, a creepy contrast against his true nature. He steps toward me, placing his hands on the sides of my arm. I freeze at his touch.

  Crew watches with a steely gaze.

  “Elijah.” I take one step backward. From my periphery, I notice his style of dress hasn’t changed one bit over the years. He still dresses like his father, the very one he denounced. The very one who disowned him and set him free like a captured wolf returning to the wild. “What can I help you with?”

  I keep my tone fresh, cordial, and unassuming. I treat him with the same benign courtesy I’d treat a paying customer.

  Elijah’s blond mane partially obstructs his eyes as he tucks his chin. “Is there somewhere we can go? We have much to discuss.”

  I glance at Crew, my eyes falling on the hollow of his jaw as it pulses and releases.

  “Anything you need to say, you can say right here. In front of all of us.” Crew clears his throat.

  Elijah whips around, giving Crew a disapproving glare.

  “I don’t know who you are, but this doesn’t involve you.” Elijah’s words cut, but they’re pillowed with a kind delivery. It’s a manipulative tactic honed and perfected by the Shiloh men.

  Crew hands Emme to Presley and steps closer. I’ve never seen his eyes so wild until this moment. His arms fold tight against his puffed chest.

  “This is an extremely personal matter.” Elijah lifts his palm, squaring his shoulders with Crew’s. “This involves some very personal past matters, and I don’t believe Calypso would like me to announce this in front of . . . all of you.”

  He says you as if he and I are somehow above them.

  “We can talk here,” I say. “There’s nothing in my past I haven’t told these two about. I have nothing to hide.”

  Elijah’s mouth pulls into a condescending leer, as if I’ve disrespected him.

  “You know, Calypso,” he says. “When I found out you’d left the compound, I was thrilled. I thought, she’s finally figured it out. She’s finally realized how evil and corrupt Shiloh Springs is.”

  “Right.” I lift my chin.

  His gaze runs from my eyes to my mouth, to
my breasts, and then back. I shudder.

  “How’d you find out I left?” I ask.

  “I have . . . sources . . .” he says. “Anyway, one of those sources is the reason I’m here.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Some information recently came to light,” he says. “Involving you. And Mathias.”

  He says his brother’s name as if it’s accompanied by a bitter taste.

  My heart rate speeds. The room spins for a few seconds until I get my breathing under control.

  “Do you realize how hard it is to track down a woman with no last name?” Elijah laughs. “It’s virtually impossible. I had to coerce your social security number from the Shiloh Springs hall of records secretary and then hire an investigator. Didn’t take much to get your social, by the way. Sister Henrietta only wanted three dairy goats, five laying hens, and a hundred yards of silk poplin. Anyway.”

  Fucking Sister Henrietta. I never did trust that woman.

  Crew exhales loudly. He doesn’t appreciate Elijah’s stall tactics.

  “Get to the point.” I huff.

  “My mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer last year.” His statement lacks an ounce of compassion. “Or as I like to call it: karma.”

  I spot Crew’s fist clench. I despise Elijah too, but I need to know where this is going.

  “Apparently, there’s been bit of tension in dear old Shiloh Springs between your family and mine these days. My father went to your father for help. It was a last ditch effort to save her life. Wasn’t enough money in the community pot to pay for chemo.”

  Interesting, especially considering the fact that my parents literally worshipped the ground Father Nathaniel and his wife, Penelope, walked on. I saw him kiss the grass one day after Father Nathaniel came to see him. He fell to the ground, kissed the earth, and then smiled like it was his pleasure.

  I was five years old, and I followed suit.

  I couldn’t get the taste of dirt off my lips the rest of the night. That metallic, earthy taste is a memory I can still conjure up if I try hard enough.

  “You’ve got five minutes to tell her what you came here to tell her,” Crew says. “Five minutes and then I’m kicking you out.”

  “I’m getting there.” Elijah shoots Crew a look and turns back to me. His face softens when our eyes meet, and my body shudders. “Your father promised to cure my mother of her cancer, saying this herbal remedy came to him in some kind of vision. My father allowed it. The treatments didn’t work. My mother passed. My father claimed it was a deliberate move on your father’s part. Retribution. Retaliation, if you will.”

  I hate that I’m about to stick up for my father, but here it goes. “It’s not my father’s fault that your father agreed to herbal cancer treatments.”

  “See, Calypso? You need to let me finish. We’re on the exact same page.” He clucks his tongue. “All those years of my father vilifying me have really stayed with you, haven’t they?”

  “You are a villain,” I say. “You’ve done some horrible things. What about the chicken coop being knocked over? And the graffiti on the side of the schoolhouse? The grass fires?”

  He scoffs. “Did you see me do any of these things, Calypso? Or did you simply hear them through the Shiloh Springs grapevine?”

  I heard them.

  I never saw Elijah do a damn thing.

  The stories were compelling, and I saw his mother in tears on more than one occasion. I saw the destruction in the meditation room firsthand. Guess I never thought to question anyone when the guilt was laid on Elijah.

  “I was painted as a pariah,” he said. “Mathias was the golden child. I was the outsider. Everything bad that happened in Shiloh Springs, and there wasn’t much, was pinned on me. Even from childhood. My father needed someone to take the fall when his rage consumed him. What would his sheeple think if they knew their peaceful leader was filled with darkness?”

  I take three deep breaths, attempting to wrap my head around the idea that Elijah was a victim and not a victimizer.

  It’s not entirely implausible.

  “Is this all you came to tell me?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” Elijah balks. “I don’t need your compassion to validate me.”

  I shrug. “Okay, so what did you need to talk to me about?”

  His lips pull to one side of his face as his gaze drags the length of me one more time.

  “You really want to do this? Right here? In front of everyone?”

  “Two minutes,” Crew interrupts.

  Elijah rolls his eyes, his back to Crew. “Fine. Here it goes. Your miscarriages, all three of them, were not natural.”

  I take a step back until the ledge of the counter digs into my ribcage.

  “Wh-what? I don’t believe you.” My words are spoken in a cloud of thin air.

  “Each time you were pregnant,” he says, “my mother would dote on you and care for you.”

  I nod. “I remember.”

  “And all those herbal teas and compounds she’d force down your throat?” he says. “Those were given to you with the intent to make you miscarry. My source says they contained concoctions of raspberry leaf tea and castor oil. Amongst other lovely things.”

  I want to throw up.

  I need to sit down.

  Crew comes to my side, his arm linked into mine as I reach for the counter.

  “My source also tells me your father was the one who mixed these herbal remedies,” he says. “Specifically at the request of my father.”

  All those times I thought Penelope cared for me out of love and kindness and sweetness . . .

  “So, as unfortunate as that situation was,” he says, “and I know you’re probably still processing everything, but the good news is you’re not infertile. I just thought you should know that.”

  I can’t speak. The wind is sucked from my lungs.

  “I tracked you down, Calypso, to tell you that. Aside from everything you’ve ever believed about me, I’m a good person. I could’ve kept that information from you the rest of your life,” he says. “But I couldn’t do that to you. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  Elijah takes a step closer. Crew intervenes. He’s between us, shielding me.

  “You’re not a goddamned saint,” he says. “You came here with an agenda.”

  I’m sucking in air, but my lungs are drowning in thickness. It takes all the strength I have not to break down in front of Presley, Elijah, and Crew.

  I need a minute alone.

  But my feet are lead, weighted down.

  I’m frozen.

  “And what might that be?” Elijah spits his words at Crew.

  “You wanted to hurt Calypso,” Crew snips back. “Otherwise, you would’ve let her down gently. And fuck you for coming in here and acting like you were doing her a favor.”

  My eyes intersect with Elijah’s from behind Crew.

  “I never wanted to hurt her.” Elijah’s voice is void of his signature arrogance. “I loved her. Always did. But I was the bad guy. Is it so wrong to want to clear your name with the woman you once loved?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I manage to say.

  All eyes are on me.

  “Why would your father want me to lose those babies? Mathias wanted a huge family. Your father said Mathias needed to be with someone who could give him that. Why would he play God like that?” My words are broken and rushed. I wrap my hand around my neck. The cherry heat burns my palm.

  There’s a burning between my hip bones. Deep. Intense. A sensory memory, perhaps. The physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional pain though.

  “My father wanted Mathias to be with Holly Linwood,” he says. “There was a secret agreement made when we were all toddling around in cloth diapers. The Linwoods and the Shilohs wanted our family lines to cross. But good old Father Nathaniel never accounted for Mathias falling in love with you. First loves are a powerful thing. They know no logic and reason. They’re virtually
impossible to dissolve without good reason.”

  Elijah steps around Crew, coming to my side. He takes my trembling hand in his.

  “The only thing Mathias wanted more than you was to make my father proud. The only way to make him proud was to carry on his legacy. Mathias knew he’d inherit Shiloh Springs someday. He needed to be a family man, and my father needed you out of the picture.”

  Holly Linwood was one of my best friends growing up. She and Mathias were oil and water. Night and day. I try to picture them together. Committed. His babies growing in her belly. I can picture her shiny ringlets, a vibrant shade of orange-red. The spray of freckles across her nose. That pretty smile. Those round, violet eyes.

  The image of Mathias’s hand across her growing belly makes my stomach churn. I swallow a half dozen times to ensure I don’t lose it right here on Crew’s shoes.

  “All right. That’s enough. You’ve said what you came here to say.” Crew talks to Elijah, but his eyes are on me. “Now go.”

  Elijah releases my hand. “I’m glad you got out of there, Calypso. Shiloh Springs is a fucked up fantasyland. A bubble. Life is so much better when it’s real.”

  “Bye, Elijah.” Crew’s words are terse, spoken through clenched teeth.

  Emme coos in Presley’s arms as she bounces her lightly. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Pres hold a baby. I should be laughing. Teasing her. Making jokes. I want to tell her she’s doing a good job.

  My mouth is dry. Elijah stares my way, but I don’t have the strength to utter a single goodbye.

  “Goodbye, Elijah,” Crew says again.

  Elijah lifts his palms like the peaceful protester we were both raised to be. He steps backward to the door, his eyes on me the entire time.

  He gives a friendly wave, and for a second I try to picture him in a different light, but I don’t have the energy.

  A soft jingle of the door bells and he’s gone.

  “Shit, Calypso.” Crew turns to face me, pulling me into his arms. “You okay?”

  I nod, but I’m not okay.

  All I can think about are those babies.

  Three babies.

  Never had a chance.

  I want to be sad. I want to be angry. Can I be both?