The Best I Could

by R. K. Ryals

  Dropping my head, I rested it against his chest, listening to his heart as our bodies cooled.

  “One day, you’ll have to take me out on the sea,” I told him.

  An AC clicked on in the room, creating a steady hum, the window unit resting against the wall facing the Buick.

  Eli rose, lifted the comforter, and patted the bed. I climbed under the sheets with him, curling into him.

  He kissed the crown of my head.

  “So, admit it,” he said suddenly, “either you were having a G-spot orgasm right there at the end or there was friction in the right place.”

  I laughed. “I think that’s what I like the most about you. No filter.”

  “You’re not going to answer that, are you?”

  “And inflate your ego?” Tilting my head, I looked up at him. “According to a science thing I was watching a few years back, there is no G-spot.”

  “And you believe it?”

  “I’m leaving that one alone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t know for sure, you’ll keep trying to find it.” I winked at him.

  He chuckled, and we grew silent, our eyes on the trees.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Eli

  Tansy was warm, her body small next to my taller, broader frame. So petite, and yet I’d discovered that small was a frame of mind. Small was what a person made it. Tansy looked small, but the size of her heart lifted her up and carried her to towering heights.

  “I think I like the turtle slice best, the one with all of the chocolate, caramel, and pecans,” Tansy said, leaning forward, her tongue darting out to lick stray cake off of her lips.

  After our impromptu sexual escapade, I’d rescued the food from the deck, and Tansy had insisted we try every slice of cheesecake to see which tasted best.

  “It’s the Georgia in you. With the pecans, it’s got a pecan pie feel.”

  “That,” she said, brows arched, fork lifted, “does not taste anything like pecan pie.”

  Leaning back against the headboard, I studied her, my gaze trailing the ridges of her naked back, tempting me.

  I wasn’t lying when I told Tansy being at the treehouse wasn’t about sex. The sex came after her confession. It came after the unexpected surge of anger I’d felt when I thought she was ending it all; the friendship and this crazy connection we’d had since the beginning.

  Even angry, I wouldn’t have left. Gone for a walk until I cooled off maybe, but I wouldn’t have left. I didn’t abandon people. I separated myself from them when I needed to, but I didn’t abandon.

  When Tansy admitted she wanted more than friendship … the way she looked at me when she said it … her confession sent relief crashing through me, a stark surge of lust with it.

  “Which one?” Tansy asked, throwing a look over her shoulder, the diamond stud in her nose flashing. When she saw my expression, she paused and clenched the sheet to her chest.

  “I’d rather taste you,” I told her, my voice seductively low. Reaching out, I touched her shoulder, drawing a finger down her side.

  Her eyes fell shut. “I taste like cheesecake,” she whispered.

  “Let’s find out.”

  Pulling her toward me, I kissed her, our mouths melding together, my tongue nibbling at her bottom lip until she opened for me, giving me access.

  Lips, tongue, and teeth.

  Sensation and need turning us into raging beasts.

  Fingernails dug into my skin, her hands pulling at my hair, scouring my back, and clutching my waist.

  Pulling away, she dragged kisses down my neck, my collarbone, and my chest, her tongue circling my nipples, tasting and teasing.

  “Fuck …”

  I picked up a condom I’d placed on the table next to the bed, but Tansy stopped me.

  Taking the foil packet from my hands, she ripped it open, reached between us, and slid the rubber down the length of me.

  Her hand on my dick was too much.

  “Ride me, Tansy,” I hissed in her ear.

  Our lips met, heat against heat, my hands on her hips as she seated herself over me.

  She rocked.

  Our kiss broke, mutual moans filling the room. Bracing herself, she fell into a rhythm, a primal dance that commanded my dick like a fucking snake charmer.

  Her movements grew frantic, her head falling back, and I captured her breasts in my hands, kneading them, before feasting on one nipple at a time. Fire and heat built in my groin the faster and harder she undulated.

  Grasping her hips, I moved with her.

  “Eli,” she breathed.

  It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard, my name on her lips. Much better than cheesecake.

  The angle, the way she moved, was friction enough that I didn’t have to reach between us to make her come. She did that on her own, her lips parted, cheeks flushed, her inner muscles clenching around me.

  Taking over, I pounded into her, riding her orgasm, pleasure building.

  One thrust … two … and I was coming so hard and fast, my head spun.

  Tansy clung to my neck, her lips near my ear when she whispered, “Yes.”

  We fell into a hugging embrace, our frantic heartbeats resting against each other, her arms on my neck, mine around her waist. Tight. Not letting go.

  “Best cheesecake I ever had,” I gasped.

  Laughter shook her. “What do they call this flavor? And don’t say love because that’s predictable, saccharine, and corny.”

  “Suck all of the romance right out of it,” I huffed, feigning disgust.

  Sitting up, she peered down at me, her eyes so close to mine, I could make out small specks of brown in the green. “Speaking of romance. You wrote that on your bag—”

  “You’re making me believe in it, roof girl,” I stated, cutting her off, smoothing the worry lines between her brows.

  We moved apart long enough for me to slide free of her and discard the condom.

  “I was nine the first time I managed to get a stone to skip across the water,” I said suddenly. Out of nowhere. “We were camping, staying in a cabin near a large lake. So big, that at the time, it felt like I was staring at the sea.”

  Tansy settled into the crook of my arm, and I played with her hair.

  “Okay?” she asked, amused.

  The story came out of left field. From sex to stone skipping. Tansy was rubbing off on me.

  I chuckled. “Bear with me. You’ve told me so much about yourself I figure I owe you a few stories.” The air conditioner switched off, the hum replaced by the sound of the creek outside. “I’d been on a boat quite a few times with my grandfather, but it was at the lake that I found myself really dreaming about the sea. My grandfather used to skip rocks, and I’d mimic him, but I could never get the stone to skim the surface. It would hit the water and sink. Even Jonathan, as small as he was, could get the rock to skip a few times. For some reason, I got obsessive about it. From sunrise to sunset, I looked for rocks, felt them out, and threw them into the water. Once I got a rock to skip, I couldn’t stop. I needed to make them skip longer, farther. As if trying hard enough would get a rock to skip all the way across the ocean.”

  I smiled at the memory. “I competed in stone skipping contests for years. Even won a few of them.”

  Tansy tilted her head. “They have stone skipping contests?”

  “Sweetheart, they have rock-skipping championships and record holders.”

  She laughed, and then sobered. “I like that image. You as a boy standing on the side of a lake trying to skip stones.”

  We fell silent.

  Despite the hard times in our lives, there were good memories, images, and instances that sustained us.

  Tansy grew heavy and relaxed against my side, and I glanced down to find her eyes closed, her breathing deep.

  A vintage, black iron clock rested on a small desk across the room, and I glanced at it, relieved to discover we still had hours before we had to leave. The sun was high
in the sky.

  My gaze returned to Tansy’s face. She looked young and untroubled when she slept, all of the thoughts, questions, and ideas which normally ran through her eyes, put to rest.

  Beneath the façade, beneath all of the grief she’d suffered—through the death of her parents, and the displacement of her family—there was a sensitive girl who felt too much. A girl scared of love and what it would mean for her.

  Despite that, she’d told me she loved me.

  That was the reason I trusted her, the reason I could look beyond the feelings I had about romance and women. As afraid as she was of loving someone, she’d trusted me enough to overcome the fear.

  Me, the asshole who’d been standing on a roof smoking a cigarette, mentally cataloguing all of the things he thought was wrong with his life.

  Relaxing against the pillows, I shut my eyes, but I didn’t sleep. I listened to Tansy’s even breathing, memorizing it. When I went to Michigan, I didn’t want to forget the way it sounded.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Tansy

  I was dreaming about an earthquake when I woke to find Eli shaking me gently.

  “Come see this,” he whispered.

  His jeans were on, but his shirt was missing, lying in a wrinkled navy blue pool on the floor. He had bed head, all tousled and spiked in places, and it looked good on him.

  Pushing myself up, I wiped the sleep from my eyes, leaned over the side of the bed, and picked up my dress. “You let me sleep?”

  Not that I minded the rest, but I didn’t want to miss any moment I had left with him.

  Eli lifted my chin. “It was good watching you relax.” Releasing me, he stepped back. “Come.”

  Slipping the dress over my head, I climbed out of the bed, the fabric sliding over naked flesh, hiding it.

  Eli’s hand was out, and I took it.

  Fingers closing over mine, he led me to the door, guiding me onto the rope bridge beyond. The fairy lights were bright, the world above it a deepening mix of magenta and gold.

  “Oh,” I breathed.

  A crescent moon braved the sunset, a knight waiting to kick the kingly sun out of the sky.

  “It’s …” I wasn’t sure which word to use.

  Eli’s gaze fell to my face. “Like I said, you don’t want to miss this place at sunset.”

  We were enchanted, laughing as we traversed the rope bridge, entering the living area before bursting onto the deck.

  “En garde, Peter Pan,” I teased, climbing up onto a bench built into the side of the deck, fist pumping the sky.

  Approaching me, Eli gripped my waist, his height keeping him mostly even with me. I was only a few inches taller on the bench. “You are no Captain Hook.”

  “Wendy?”

  “Tinkerbell maybe.”

  Head back, I stared at the sky—richly-colored air above me—Eli and a world covered in fairy lights below. The feel of it, the giant emotions, overwhelmed me, and I pulled my arm into my chest, popping the band on my wrist. Not because I felt like hurting myself, but because I liked knowing this was real.

  “A new world,” I gasped. “This place where nothing else exists. Makes you wonder if the people we’ve lost are up there. Among the stars.”

  Eli inhaled the night. “I don’t know. It’s moments like this that makes you wonder if we look too closely at our lives. If we let troubles touch us more than we should. If maybe we shouldn’t spend more time enjoying what we have and less hating what’s happened to us.”

  Surprised, I peered down at him. “Wow, roof boy. Maybe this treehouse was as much for you as it was for me, huh? Not a date, but a … something.”

  “Ha, I think we trampled over the whole ‘this was supposed to be a date’ thing when we turned it into a steamy mini-vacay.”

  My laugh rivaled the fairy lights. “I never want to be typical. This was perfect. I mean it.”

  We went back to gazing at the sky, crickets striking up an orchestra in the forest below. Frogs played second fiddle near the creek.

  “We have to get back soon,” Eli said finally.

  The sun vanished, leaving the moon smiling like a Cheshire cat, the world a sudden explosion of stars. Of fairy dust.

  After a while, I let my head drop, my gaze finding Eli’s, his pupils lit up by the lights.

  Without warning, he took my face in his hands and kissed me—long and deep without any expectations. His soul was in that kiss.

  No words.

  Something about the way the sun disappeared, the world changing so drastically, made it seem wrong to say anything.

  Pulling away, Eli helped me down off of the bench, and we went through the treehouse, dressing and cleaning up before we climbed down, taking turns visiting the ground-level bathroom for the final time.

  I’d been downstairs during the day, but this time there was no returning to the house in the trees, to that moment standing among the stars wondering if they held secret pieces of us.

  We left, me backing the Buick carefully out of the woods to the road beyond, headlights glaring.

  The interstate loomed, signs and car lights winking at us, when Eli spoke. “One day I’m going to own a boat, one I designed, and I’m going to take you out on the sea. At night.”

  My heart swelled. “I’d like that.”

  He leaned back, lost in thought.

  Later, after I’d parked the car in the orchard drive and climbed out to meet Eli in the yard, he took my hand, laced it with his, and said, “This won’t end with summer, okay? Believe that.”

  I nodded, words trapped in my throat.

  Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he backed toward the cottage, his fingers drawing a cigarette out of his pocket, the first one I’d seen him pull out all day.

  “I’ll call,” he promised.

  I didn’t doubt him.

  ***

  “I’m doing the best I can!” Nana yelled.

  Home found my sister and Nana in the final throes of an argument, their faces heated.

  Deena’s shoulders slumped.

  Hanging the Buick keys near the door, I stepped forward carefully. “Everything okay?”

  Deena glanced at me, her gaze taking in my wrinkled sundress and wind-kissed cheeks. “It’s fine,” she mumbled. “Did you have fun?”

  Images of my body entwined with Eli’s flitted through my head, and I blushed. “It was great.” Gesturing at the two of them, I nodded at the room. “What happened?”

  “It’s fine,” Deena repeated, stomping off.

  My gaze slid to Nana.

  She sighed. “Your sister has a friend in her boxing class she’s worried about. A Roger Hernandez. He’s in the foster care system, and she saw him when we were in town today. The man he was with hit him.”

  My mouth dropped. “What?”

  Nana winced. “It’s a bad situation, I know. These people you girls keep getting attached to …” Lifting her reading glasses, she rubbed her eyes, and laughed shortly. “I like that you know them. That you both have big hearts, but Deena wanted me to take him in, and I can’t do that. I reported the foster father, and with all of the red tape and legal trouble the boy has been in, that’s the best I can do.”

  I studied her, the way she glanced at the hallway, genuinely concerned, and I melted. “You did good.”

  Her head shot up, her astonished gaze finding mine. “I wanted to do more.”

  “Deena is going to be okay, Nana. She’s tough as nails, and you’re going to be what she needs.” I smiled sadly. “Despite what I’ve said in the past … I don’t blame you for the time you took to heal after Mom’s death. You didn’t know Dad would do what he did, and we would have been better off … more responsible, if we hadn’t tried to deal with it alone. At the time, we just weren’t thinking, you know? I wish I had you then.”

  She blanched.

  “That wasn’t me blaming you,” I rushed to say. I’d put my foot in my mouth enough for one day. “That was me saying I should have reached out. Kids or no,
we knew we had you, and we didn’t try.”

  My grandmother frowned. “Thank you, Tansy. You have a big heart, a forgiving heart. Sometimes so forgiving that it hurts you.” Her gaze fell to my wrist. “As much as I want to hide from it, it was my fault. Grief is a strange thing, and losing a child is hard—harder than you could ever know—but I shouldn’t have gone three years without checking in. I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. I started something new here, got caught up in it, and I walked away.”

  She was right, and yet … “Well, I don’t hate you for it.”

  “Good.” She smiled. “I blame myself enough as it is.”

  Nodding, I moved past her, pausing just long enough to say, “We’re all getting there.”

  We were getting there.

  Pausing in front of Deena’s door, I lifted my fist, and knocked.

  “Go away!” she yelled.

  I opened the door.

  “What the hell!” she cried, whirling.

  A white punching bag hung from the ceiling, a gift from Eli delivered and installed the day after her class, and Deena stood in front of it, a red marker in her hand.

  “Total invasion of personal space,” she accused, sneering at me.

  I leaned against the door. “You should write hate on that bag.”

  Deena froze, her face contorted, her braces flashing when she asked, “Why?”

  “Because that’s where it all comes from. The anger, the things people do that don’t make sense to us, and the way we feel at the injustice of it all.”

  Deena started to say something, and then stopped. Twisting the marker lid off, she wrote it. Big and red. Hate.

  My gaze locked on the crimson script. “Now beat the shit out of it.”

  Deena, rather than throwing a sarcastic retort at me, simply said, “Okay.”