I look away just as quickly as I start. The tornado in my stomach not easing as I make my way back to our table. It’s almost as if I can feel his eyes burning through the fabric of my clothes.
Who the hell is this guy? I quickly run through everyone I know in town, but he doesn’t seem familiar. I gather that he must be the new guy. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how fast news spreads around here, if you sneezed you can almost guarantee the deputy would know within a few minutes.
“You alright?” Rach asks as I sit down beside her, dropping our drinks onto the table.
“Oh yeah. Have you heard anything about the new guy?” I try to keep my voice as cool as possible, not wanting to let on that I’ve already been burned by his stare alone.
“I heard he’s gay” frowns cash, forcing my eyebrow up my forehead.
“That’s a bad thing?”
“Well...for you” he shrugs and then realizes what he’s said and we all burst out laughing.
“I didn’t mean that! You know I love pussy too much. Whatever floats your boat and all that” he rolls his eyes before scanning the crowd, no doubt for his next victim.
“You can tell us anything, you know” I glance in his direction, waiting for the punch to the arm I know I’m far past due.
“I’m not gay. Besides if I was you’d have known long ago bitches. Stop with the jealousy already” he rolls his eyes before slugging on his beer bottle, dragging a laugh from each of our bellies.
“I heard that he’s an asshole” Austin pipes up.
“Oh yeah?” I frown glancing back in the direction of the green-eyed man.
“Apparently Gus, the new owner isn’t his real dad. I’m not sure on that whole story but I’m sure we’ll hear soon enough” Rach offers, glancing around me towards the bar too.
“Anyway, what’s the gossip today?” Rach leans forward on the table, her big hazel eyes taking in the new polished inside of our local. Most of our night was uneventful, well until it was my turn to get the rounds in again. I thought I was safe when I stepped up to the bar a little later on when it had emptied a little. There was no one behind it and I prayed that the green-eyed monster had left for the night.
“What can I get you?” The deep voice comes from below the bar, forcing me to lean over a little before his tattooed fingers grip the edge and pull him up to a staggering height above me. It was that moment and those words that forced the lump in my throat to grow thicker. I couldn’t pin point it then, that look in his eyes. The pain was excruciating, even for me. There was a light in them, but it was forced. I itched to reach out and draw my fingers along the tattoos on his hands, all the way up his toned arms but somehow, I refrained from touching the delicious stranger.
That was just the beginning of how I ended up in bed pissed off with the mystery man with enough pain behind his eyes to kill an entire continent. I was pissed because I had the sudden urgency to know what was hurting him, to help him. But, how could I? and most importantly why should I? I should have learnt my lesson long ago that helping people just doesn’t get you anywhere if they’re selfish from the get go. Kaine McAdams had been one of those people, he’d fooled me into staying with him for two years just so he’d have someone keeping his bed warm for him while all along he had been planning to leave for Europe as soon as High School was over.
Groaning, I got myself ready and I’d sulked my way down to the shop with the hopes that today would be the day that Rach puts me out of my misery with her tales of love and world rocking sex. I left Austin passed out on my couch and Cash rummaging through my nearly empty cupboards. I assumed Rach had already headed down to the shop after I’d emerged from my shower, what with her being MIA already. The bright sun welcomed me as I opened up my front door. Most of the promenade took Mondays off but it was a day to restock and prepare for the week ahead. I had new stock I needed to sort out and boards that needed waxing. The café just up the road was already busy with people sat outside sipping coffee’s and smoothies in the morning sun as I came from down stairs and unlocked the all glass front door, double checking the sign hanging in the window read closed. I was envious of those people, but if I got this work done quickly then I could hit the beach.
Around midday I was starved, Rach was finishing up cleaning the front windows after we spruced up the display and I grabbed my purse.
“Lunch?”
“Ohhh, can you grab me a smoothie please?” she asks as she throws the cloth into the basin she was using.
“Sure, usual?”
“Please” she smiles and wipes the fine mist of sweat from her brow.
“Won’t be long” I pull open the door and am immediately greeted with the slight humidity still hanging in the air and a gorgeous sound of someone playing guitar. I passed people on the street, some local and some not but I still couldn’t get those forest green eyes from last night to leave me the hell alone. There was something in them that made it impossible to look away. When has that ever happened before? I literally could not move my eyes. I don’t even know his name. I think of all these things as I head up to the café and order two detox smoothies to go. Somehow, I didn’t think mine and Rachel’s plan of drinking ourselves into oblivion and then having a detox smoothie a few hours later really constituted as healthy but there we go. I read a few of the leaflets pinned to the notice board as I wait, some advertising Austin’s Surf School and another Kite Surfing company at the other end of the beach, along with a few of the bed and breakfasts available on the front. I’d always send you to Lily-May’s anyway, Austin would kill me if I didn’t for one, given that she is his sister, and secondly it was pretty damn cute. I flicked my eyes over the rest of the notes tacked to the wall, some for upcoming parties and one for the annual beach bonfire that takes place at the end of the summer. It’s my favorite night of the year when everyone gathers on the sand with music and drinks. A few of the guys start a barbeque and it’s just so much fun being with everyone. What more does someone need than good company, good beer and great music? Couple that with the waves and I was in Delia Heaven.
I grab our smoothies from the spotty teenager behind the counter and head back to Moonbeam. The sound of the guitar hits me again and this time I follow it, I hadn’t noticed where it was coming from until my feet come to a halt just a few feet from the shops door. There’s a guy sat on the cobblestones just a few feet from the shop front with the guitar strapped around his shoulders singing the most haunting lyrics I think I’ve ever heard.
“In our bed is where you belong, my tiny poppy seed, between me and your mom.
But Fate will have it that you’re with her forever and I’ll wait a lifetime until we’re together”
A lump forms itself in my throat as I watch his fingers work the strings of the instrument. The leather jacket he has on is pulled tightly across his shoulders and the mirrored sunglasses make him look totally delicious. The wood of the guitar is decorated in swirls of black ink, images I can’t work out from this angle but it’s the deep, rhythmic and soul shattering music that has my attention. My eyes never leave his fingers as he finishes his song, my heart aching for this stranger. Cold condensation wets my fingers as I hold the melting smoothies too tightly in the afternoon sun, but I can’t tear myself away. My feet won’t move, my soul needs to hear this person’s story. Long dark hair falls across his eyes as he watches his fingers move and I find my eyes following his. It’s then that I recognize the inked fingers.
It’s him, the bartender.
Before I know it, my feet have moved so I’m stood in front of him and I can feel his blazing green eyes stare up at me through both his glasses and his mop of hair. My fingers itch to brush it away from his eyes but my hands are full of smoothies and that would be a little weird. Pulling his glasses from his face I get another look at his beautifully painful soul. My chest aches every time I look into them, and this is only the second time, I don’t know what it is I should be doing. Helping him or running in the other direction.
<
br /> “That was really good City boy” my voice comes out quiet and unconfident and as I watch the light dim in his eyes I can’t help but wonder what I said wrong. The words left my lips without me even having to think of them, and now I wished I’d said nothing at all.
“Thanks” his deep voice sounds horse from singing and he reaches for the bottle of water beside him, his eyes finally leaving my face and releasing me from the hold they had over me. The fire in his tongue from last night has gone and my heart cracks a little for him. My eyes wander over his broad shoulders all the way down to his thick thighs clad in ripped jeans and I have to mentally slap myself back to reality.
“Those lyrics...” I change the subject, telling myself that I need to be on amicable terms with this guy if he’s living in Delia.
“Yeah” he coughs, cutting me off mid-sentence. After a second or two I take the hint, I don’t want to push it.
“See you ‘round” I smile, needing to get away from him but also aware of the very strong eyeballs of Rach boring into my spine through the shop window. The door closes behind me as I make my way back to work and Rach snaps her head in my direction.
“Go for it” she crosses her arms across her chest as she crosses the shop floor, the small smirk across her pouty lips is enough to tell me she knows exactly what I was just thinking.
“What?” I scrunch my brow and head for the counter, placing both smoothies on top and hoping she’ll drop my whole very obvious eye-fuck with the new-guy.
“Oh, come on! You were so eye fucking guitar man!”
“Guitar man?” I huff on a laugh before wrapping my lips around my straw and sucking down the fruity goodness.
“Well yeah” she shrugs as she grabs her own drink.
“He’s also the bartender from Gus’” I nod and twiddle with a flaky piece of wood on the corner of the counter.
“Oh right! I couldn’t see his face from here. You blushed to high heavens though” she nods, and I can feel the heat rising up my cheeks again.
“Shut up” I wince and grab my drink before heading into the stock room. I hide in here all the time when I can’t deal with people. Because people can be assholes and right now, being accused of eye-fucking the new bartender wasn’t on my high list of priorities.
Raindrops & Flip-flops
IT WAS HER. Again. The words had stopped falling out of my mouth the minute her flowery scent had wafted in my direction. How could a girl smell of fresh flowers every damned second of the day? Even in a bar full of alcohol, she’d drowned out the sour smell.
How was I supposed to know that I would bump into her today? I chose this spot because it was part in the shade and part in the sun. I couldn’t sit in the sun all damned day, I’d bake. I didn’t know what to expect when I’d decided to throw Aurora over my shoulder and head down to the bay. I usually busked on the streets of Bancroft, but this place was totally different. Up in the city I could maybe make a few bucks from my songs but in all honesty, it wasn’t about the extra cash. When I wasn’t working the bar, I had too much free time and that only lead to dark thoughts and late-night walks along the train tracks. I’d take to Aurora as if the body of the guitar was her. I treated her like my baby girl, the way I would hold her body, feather light before gripping her neck in my hand and playing her the way I knew best. The sounds she would make drove me insane and suddenly lyrics would appear, and they helped me forget. As if splurging those words from my lips somehow alleviated the pain in my lungs.
I wanted to go back to that time where all I thought was important was sex, video games and keeping my girl happy. I was never into sports as a kid, I was a lanky teenager, but all that changed when I had to channel my energy into something other than trying to kill myself every five seconds. I’d hit the gym and worked myself to sleep. It was the only way I could collapse at the end of each day without a bottle of vodka or whiskey in sight.
Instead, today I’d sat my ass down on the cold cobble stones and pulled Aurora from her case. The bay wasn’t overly busy this morning, but it was busy enough that I could forget my shit. I could play for someone other than the darkness in my skull.
I sensed her before I seen her, which in itself was fucking weird because that has never happened before. Not even with Aurora. It was as if suddenly all of my nerve endings set alight and my eyes were roaming the crowds already looking for her. I’d felt just a smidgen of it last night at the bar, but somehow it was today it was stronger.
Suddenly there she was. All blonde waves and curves holding two cups of some mush that looked like something I should have vomited back up this morning. Standing there in her tiny denim shorts and flip-flops with a too-big cardigan draped over her shoulders, she looked beautiful. I’ll admit it. I won’t ever say a woman isn’t beautiful because they are, but this chick stood in front of me is the best god damned thing I’ve seen in years. And she isn’t a chick. She’s a creature in her own right, it’s almost as if she gives off this aura of purity that I can’t seem to get away from. I want to speak to her, to learn all the stories behind those dazzling blue eyes but the words won’t form on my tongue and I feel like a sodding idiot. Grasping Aurora in my palm I tug the instrument tighter to my body as if somehow, she’ll protect me from this little dove. Why, please do tell me do I need protecting from something so god damned innocent? It isn’t as if she’s wielding a knife in my face, but merely asking about the lyrics to my song.
When she speaks all I can muster is a mumbled “Yeah” and I pray to god she doesn’t pry, but then as she turns to walk into the shop, my chest feels gutted that she didn’t stop to talk longer.
What are you thinking asshole?
I can’t talk to her. I just can’t. It won’t get me anywhere getting close to someone again. What if I knocked them up and they died too? Yeah, not taking that fucking chance.
It’s almost as if I have the angel and the devil on my shoulders, the angel telling me to talk to her and just be friendly, while the devil is arguing and telling me to fuck her. While my dick agrees, my head does not. What good would that do? I mean she looks like a goddess anyways and I bet those lips would feel amazing wrapped around me, but I need to get along with the people of Delia. For now, at least.
And that reminds me that I need to scope the place out in the off chance that I do decide that enough is enough and that I want to join Aurora and our little nugget.
I don’t have anything to leave behind so I’d written a small note and shoved it in my sock drawer for when the time came. All it asked was that I be buried with them. Finally, together. I planned to leave it out for no-one to find once I plucked up the courage to end it all.
Glancing up at the too-blue sky with cotton candy clouds scattered here and there I inhale the salty air of the bay, hoping to feel free from my past’s clutches but it’s anything but. What was I expecting anyway? That I could move and leave Aurora back in Bancroft? That she wouldn’t follow me here?
I couldn’t be feeling this shit, not after everything. It had been nine long years since she left me but the pain in my chest was still as raw as the day that phone call came.
I kept talking to her in my head as if that would make her magically reappear. I knew it wouldn’t, but I had to try. Talking to her in my head was always better than talking to no one.
I was numb but on fire. Tears wouldn’t stop falling from my eyes until they were raw and all I could see was you.
I had to identify you.
My perfect girl all beaten and bruised, while our baby lay forever sleeping and perfect in your belly.
I had nothing.
No one to tell me it was going to be okay. No one to tell me how I was supposed to keep on breathing without you here. How was it fair that I could roam this earth while you lay beneath it?
You took my heart with you the day you died. Our baby took my soul.
There’s no emptier a person can be, and I’ll never feel whole again.
The day will come when I end it all and
be with you again, but I can’t.
Something is holding me here, maybe it’s you.
I still feel your skin against mine. Perfectly pale and flawless as my fingertips brushed it softly.
I remember how I used to sneak into your room by climbing the drain pipe after your parents had gone to bed. You couldn’t handle the thought of them finding out you were sleeping with the High School bad boy. I wasn’t that bad, was I?
Your parents still won’t speak to me. That’s another reason I moved to Delia. I couldn’t take the blame in their eyes any longer. It broke me even more every time I passed them on the streets and how likely was that in a city like Bancroft that had a population in the millions?
Aurora if I hadn’t have gotten you pregnant then you would never have had that bleed and my parents wouldn’t have rushed you to hospital. And you never would have died with them in that car and left me all alone.
You shouldn’t have been at my house waiting on me to get home from work. I was working late baby and you should have been curled up in bed at home. Instead you wanted my arms wrapped around you as you fell asleep. As our little nugget burrowed deeper inside you and further into my heart you wanted me near. Baby, I wanted you too.
But you should never have waited. I’ll never know why you had that bleed, it could have been something or nothing, but I do know the day that you died was the day I took my last breath.
I’m sure my Mama did her best at reassuring you that everything was okay, that was the way she worked. Never a dull moment that, that sweet lady couldn’t brighten somehow. It was a tiny bit of comfort knowing that you were all together and none of you died alone but that didn’t fill the gaping hole you all left in my life.
I don’t remember burying you. I just dream of the white coffin you sleep in with our little nugget curled up inside you. I’ll never know if our tiny seedling was a boy or a girl. We never got a scan or heard its heartbeat, but we knew it was there. Live and kicking.
Delia Bay Page 5