by Dark, Ava
Chapter 5
When we finally stop, I find myself checking my crotch.
No, I didn’t piss myself. That’s one good thing.
“You’re insane,” I say, watching Cade as he gets off his motorcycle.
Again, instead of responding, he plucks me from the seat and sets me down on the ground.
“Let’s get this off you,” he says, reaching under the helmet. His fingers brush the skin of my neck, and chills erupt over my body. His touch has no right to feel this good. Not after what he’s put me through.
He gently pulls the helmet from my head—it’s not difficult, since it’s kinda loose anyway—and I brush my hands through my hair until it feels presentable.
We’re parked in front of a tall building. Not quite a skyscraper, but big.
“You’re staying here?”
“Not nice enough?”
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But knowing your stepbrother—who was once the boy you spent long, languid summer days hiding away in a secret hideaway with; spent nights in the same shitty house playing Monopoly, stealing from each other or the bank when the other wasn’t looking—is now rich… And seeing it firsthand. Those are two very different things.
“Mr Dorn,” a man says as he opens the glass doors to the lobby for us.
Cade nods at him, and hands him the helmet. “Martin. I didn’t know you were here already. How are those investments coming?”
“Not as good as yours,” Martin replies with a light smile, taking the helmet with his free hand.
“You’ll get there.”
“I doubt that,” he says, his smile widening.
“Better each month though, right?”
Martin nods. “That they are.”
There are two sets of doors, like a space shuttle’s airlock—perhaps to keep the LA smog out—and Martin rushes ahead to open them for us.
“Stay here often?” I whisper to Cade.
He shakes his head. “He used to work at the one in New York.”
He says something more, but as we enter into the lobby, everything else fades away as I take in the sight. The roof is far above my head, and the sheer wastefulness of it takes my breath away: you could fit at least another two, maybe three floors. That’s like, fifty, a hundred rooms?
And yet, they sacrificed that space for a place where people get their keys. A place where they don’t spend more than a few minutes in.
It’s a far cry from our house—it’ll never be home to me—where we have a plywood structure in our living room so we can take advantage of the “obscenely” tall and wasteful ten-foot ceilings.
I used to think it was cool, when Dad built it when I first moved in with them. Now, I don’t. At least not at my house. Maybe if I were in college, and had roommates, it’d seem okay.
“Come on,” Cade says, taking my arm, pulling me from my reverie.
He leads me quickly toward the elevators.
“Worried your room won’t be there?”
“I don’t want to be spotted.”
“By who? Ow!” I trip, and almost fall over.
Cade catches me. “Are you okay?”
I look up into his face, feel his hard body press into my soft one, and I find myself unable to speak.
“Let’s get to the room.”
We begin moving again, slower this time, but not much.
Cade’s arm is wrapped around me, and I want to tell him if he’d let go of me, we’d probably move faster. It’s not like I’m going to run away.
But letting go is the last thing I want him to do right now.
Chapter 6
The elevator ride is long, but not as long as I’d expect to go up to the twenty-second floor.
Cade has to use his keycard on the elevator to get it to go that high.
When the doors slide smoothly open, I see the reason. We’re in a small hall with only a single door.
And, as Cade slides his key and holds that door open for me, I’m stunned at the impressive sight.
“Is this a convention center or something?”
He chuckles. “It’s my room. Yours, too. Hungry?”
“Room? It’s a palace, not a room.” I stand there, staring. Directly across from me are huge panes of glass, looking out onto the city. I slowly walk across the improbable space toward them.
When I look down, at all the tiny cars and people, I get vertigo and a sudden fear that I’m going to fall to my doom, and quickly step back.
A menu is placed in my hand. I look at it, then at Cade.
“If you don’t know what you want, I’ll order for you.”
“Thanks,” I say quietly. I look around the room, taking in the opulence. I’ve seen places as nice, but only on Pinterest or Apartment Therapy. Or in movies. Never in person.
It’s bigger than my house.
It’s bigger than two of them put together.
“Who else is here?” I ask.
“Just you and me, little bird.”
Little bird.
Maybe it’s almost dying on a psychotic motorcycle-like contraption, but, instead of anger like I felt in the parking lot, a memory of betrayal, here, now, I just feel tears begin to form in my eyes.
The way he says it, just like he used to. I feel like I’m a kid again, relying on my big brother to protect me. To take care of me. To love me, like my dad and his mom never did or could. Or would. It’s like no time has passed.
My mom named me Maggie, after the Magpie: “The smartest, prettiest, most resourceful bird of all,” she used to say as she lightly shook my ear and tweaked my nose. I’d always giggle at that. When Cade found out that’s where I got my name, he started calling me little bird. After I moved in with my dad, it was one of the few connections to my mom I had left. I think I cried the first time he called me that after Mom…
But then I came to appreciate it, to love it. It was something we shared, a secret only we knew.
And now, hearing him say it here, brings back all those memories. All those emotions.
I sniff and wipe my eyes.
Cade walks past me, lightly brushing my bare arm with his fingers as he passes, his touch transmutive, instantly changing the longing I feel into another kind entirely.
I watch as he goes up the spiral staircase to the second floor. Of the hotel room. Jesus. I didn’t even notice there was a second floor. It must have been too much for my poor, peasant mind to take.
“Where are you going?”
“Changing.”
I swallow. “I’ll just wait here.”
He looks back at me and raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to see the rest of the place?”
“Maybe later.” My palms start sweating, and my blood starts to rush downward.
He shrugs. “Make yourself at home.”
When he comes back down again, I’m still standing in the same spot. I don’t know if he’s just gotten really fast at changing clothes, or if I spaced out the whole time.
But I do know that as soon as I see him, I can’t take my eyes off of him.
He’s wearing a pinstripe suit, that fits him very well. It hugs his shoulders and chest, and I find my eyes drifting to his crotch as he walks down the stairs.
“Never seen a guy in a suit?”
He’s in front of me now. I look up into his face.
“I… I’ve never seen you in one.”
“My wardrobe has necessarily expanded since I was a rebellious eighteen year old.”
“You look nice.”
“Not as nice as you.”
We stare at each other for what seems like forever.
Then Cade grins, touches my shoulder, and goes to the large kitchen, where a tablet sits on the island. He turns it on and begins swiping at it.
After a moment, he says, “I’ll have clothes for you waiting when we land.” He glances up at me. “To better fit the new you.” He leans over the counter, and swipes at the tablet for a few seconds more. “Okay. We fly out in about six hours.�
��
“Fly out?”
He looks up from the tablet, and the way he’s leaned over it, palms on the counter, makes me think of that night, when someone was over me that way. When Cade wasn’t there to protect me. When he wasn’t there to save me.
I can still smell the alcohol. Still taste—
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Home,” I hear him say. “To SF.”
I shake my head, eyes still closed, because that’s the only way I can resist him. “Not my home.”
“And this is?”
“Not here,” I say, avoiding the question.
He lets out a bitter sound. “You call that shithole you live in a home?”
I open my eyes. “Not all of us are rich like you. You’re called the one percent for a reason. The rest of us just do the best we can.”
“Hey,” he says, coming out from behind the counter and toward me. And I realize I was wrong about needing to see him to feel his influence. Just his tone, how comforting it is. It is enough.
I’d need to close my eyes and cover my ears to resist him.
He reaches me, then reaches out and touches my cheek.
I’d need to cover my skin, too. Or tie his hands behind him.
The image accompanying this makes me wish I hadn’t thought it, and I try to push it away.
He leans in close to me, and his smell takes me back again to when he was there to protect me.
God, how I missed it. How I missed him. I try to tell myself I don’t, that I don’t need him.
That I hate him. And maybe I do. But I also still love him.
And now something else resurfaces, something I’ve tried to forget, to repress, because it’s wrong. So wrong that I’ve been denying it, maybe trying to cover it up with hate: I want him.
Want him to take me.
He pulls me into an embrace, and I find my arms wrapping around his body.
“It’s all right little bird,” he whispers, kissing the top of my head.
I squeeze him tighter, pressing myself harder into him. It feels so good.
His hands slide down to my back, keep going, stopping at my hips.
His grip tightens slightly. Not quite a squeeze, but close enough to get my attention.
I breathe in sharply, and his hand moves down more, resting on my ass.
Now he does squeeze, and my head starts spinning.
I look up at him, my chin sliding on his jacket, and see his lips, which are so close, yet just out of reach. Even on my tiptoes, I’d still be much shorter than him.
But then he leans down, leans into me, while at the same time lifting me into him, both his hands under my ass now, and brings his lips to mine.
I wrap my legs are around him, and feel something hard and insistent against my crotch.
I can’t believe it. That I could possibly cause that in him. That this is happening at all.
Is it just pity? Does he feel sorry for me? Maybe—
But then his tongue pushes into my mouth, and I can’t think of anything but the warmth, the heat. His hardness pressing between my legs, separated from me by only my thin pair of shorts and his pants.
“Cade,” I moan against his lips, digging my fingers into him like I did on his bike, and for a very similar reason: I feel as though I’ll die if I let go. Or maybe I have, maybe when we landed sideways, he didn’t recover, and we crashed.
And this is what comes after. This is my heaven.
He jerks suddenly at my voice and lets go of me, stepping quickly back.
I fall on my butt on the polished tile floor, both wrists bending painfully as I land. I cry out, then stare up at him, stunned.
“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head and still stepping back. He bumps into the kitchen island and is forced to stop. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I haven’t seen you in so long. I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”
This is more disappointing to hear than it should be.
“We can’t do this.” He looks around, almost wildly, like he’s looking for a way out.
“Fuck you,” I say. I mean to scream it, but it comes out as barely a whisper, and even then, my voice cracks as the words leave my throat.
Cade doesn’t seem to hear. “This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll get you your own apartment.” He glances at me, sees me sitting there on the floor, flexing my wrists, and comes over. “It’s the least I can do.” He kneels in front of me. “Are you hurt? Fuck, Mags, I’m so sorry, I—” He shakes his head and looks away again.
“Take me home,” I say, as tears burn my eyes.
I expect him to fight me. But he doesn’t. And when he just nods and says, “Okay,” I realize I wanted him to.
Needed him to. Needed him to not let me go.
To not leave me. Again.
Chapter 7
We ride the elevator silently down to the parking garage.
It’s only as the doors open and I see all the vehicles that I realize he didn’t bring even one helmet.
“Don’t we need helmets?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“We’re driving,” he says without looking at me.
Opposite us, there’s a wall of what look like small, one-car garages, or possibly storage units.
He heads to these, and I follow. He slides his keycard across a panel to the side of one of them and it opens slowly, eventually revealing a Mercedes SUV.
“Thought you didn’t drive a Mercedes.”
He finally looks at me for the first time since we left his hotel room. He frowns, then smiles. “Oh. No, it’s a rental. I don’t pay attention to those things.”
The doors unlock when he pulls on the handle. He glances at me. “Are you planning to sit on my—” He stops himself, and looks away.
I realize I’m at the driver’s side, and find myself saying, “I’m sitting in the back.”
He looks at me again. Again, he frowns. “Want to see what having a chauffeur is like?”
I shrug and raise an eyebrow.
So does he, and it makes me remember that it’s a habit I picked up from him when we were kids.
In the car, I sit directly behind him so he can’t look at me in the mirror.
We drive out in silence, leaving the garage open.
I stare out the window as we drive, but keep finding my gaze drawn to him. Leaning my head against the cool, darkly-tinted glass, I can see the left side of his face, and it hurts. Because he’s going to drop me off at my house, and then I’m never going to see him again.
And after the kiss… I should have known never to get my hopes up. I was right that he couldn’t like someone like me. Love me as a sister… Maybe. But not in any other way. Certainly not find me attractive.
But the kiss. It seemed so— I force myself to look away. It’s pointless to think about. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. It never even started.
I feel the heat of his tongue in my mouth, the heat of his cock against me.
“Why don’t you know?” I blurt out to distract myself.
“Know what?”
“Those things?”
“Mags?”
“The car.”
I see him nod slightly. “My assistants handle all the small details. This is the first time I’ve even seen this.”
“What about your motorcycle?”
“The bike is mine. There’s a builder near here. I picked that up from him myself.”
“So you’re driving back on your motorcycle?”
He laughs. “Hell no. It’s electric, and has a range of less than two hundred miles. I could probably use Tesla’s chargers, but I can’t spare the time right now. No, I’m having it shipped. It’s probably on its way there now. Or maybe that’s tomorrow. It will be there by Monday.”
We fall silent again.
I begin to regret my decision to sit in the back. Though it wasn’t really a decision, just something that happened.
Like almost everything else in
my life. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, things just go the way they go, ignoring my desires and intentions. Saying “Fuck you!” to any plans I make, before stomping them into oblivion.
Like that night. The night. I had planned to ask him to move away now that he was eighteen. To take me with him. Well, he moved away. He just forgot me.
But Cade hasn’t forgotten how to get to our house—well, not his anymore. We pull up in front, and he leans over the passenger seat to look at his once-home through the passenger window. “It’s the same,” he says to himself.
If I had been sitting there, I think, his head would have been deliciously close to my lap.
I open the door. “Thanks for the ride,” I say quickly, then get out.
“Hey!” he calls. He gets out too, and I’m already on the lawn. He catches up and grabs my arm, spinning me toward him.
I glare. “What?!”
“You’re just… going?”
“Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”
His grip loosens. “Mags…”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Mags? You love it when I do.”
“No.” I yank free from him. “I did when I was twelve. I’m not a little kid anymore. A lot’s changed.”
He touches my face, and goddamn my heart, I just want him to hold me. “I know.”
The front door of my house opens and his hand drops as he looks up.
I look over my shoulder and see Cynthia, my stepmom.
“Maggie? Is that you? Why don’t you invite your friend up?”
I turn back to Cade. “Hear that, friend?”
“She doesn’t recognize me.”
I turn and wave at her. “Be right in, Mom.” She loves it when I call her that.
“Okay sweetie.”
“Mom?” Cade asks when she goes back inside, an eyebrow raised.
“Like I said, things change.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t expect her to change. But, she seems…” He shakes his head. “I guess I was wrong.”
I laugh without humor. “I thought no one fooled you, Cade. She probably saw that nice, expensive vehicle,” I point behind him at the SUV, “and assumed you have money. And that she could get some.”
“But, ‘Mom’?”