Free Falling

by Makenzie Smith

  Did he have strange girls come to his house often? What-the-fuck-ever.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. It was fake. She probably knew. “Do you know if he’s home?”

  “I think they’re out back,” she said. “I live across the street, but I can let you in.”

  From her pocket, she pulled out a key and used it to open his front door. Alright. His gorgeous neighbor had a spare key to his house and strange women came over all the time.

  I followed her inside. She went left towards the kitchen. “That way,” she said, pointing to a sliding door at the back of the house.

  I walked over to it and looked outside. There he was, in his swimming pool, three other girls with him. They were laughing, splashing and carrying on. Wally had one of them up on his shoulders, her hands tangled in his hair. That’s my hair, bitch, I thought, but immediately tossed the thought aside. Yeah, right.

  When he took her down from his shoulders and brought her in close to him, as if he was about to kiss her, I said, “Piece of shit,” out loud, not caring that the girl in the kitchen might hear me.

  His room had to be somewhere. If he had a spare copy of the video, it would probably be there. I noticed the stairs at my right and dashed up them. At the top landing, I checked the first room.

  It was empty, save a few boxes pushed into a corner. The next door was open, a bathroom. I pushed open the third door and immediately knew it had to be his. An amp and guitar were in one corner. A crappy entertainment center sat on one wall. Clothes were everywhere. His bedspread was kicked and pushed, half hanging off. From the light fixture, a Wall-E figurine dangled.

  I started rummaging through his things, opening drawers and moving his clutter around. In the distance, I could hear someone pounding up the stairs and started moving faster, knowing it had to be somewhere.

  “What are you doing?” I heard over my shoulder and stood from the floor. “Kristen?” Wally said, sounding surprised. He was still dripping wet from the pool, but was taking a towel to his hair and torso. I eyed his shoulder tattoos, having never seen them before. They were solid black, tribal looking, covering all of the skin. They were hot and it pissed me off. When I didn’t say anything, he stepped into the room and shut the door. “What are you doing?” he asked again, laughing nervously.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Where’s what?” he said, obviously knowing what I was referring to.

  “Cut the shit,” I said, shocked at how venomous my words sounded. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, his eyes shifting to the nightstand behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder. A laptop was sitting on it. “Unbelievable,” I said. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  Quickly, I reached for it and pushed the disc drive open. A disc, labeled the same as mine at home, popped out. He was behind me then and we reached for it at the same time.

  I had it, then he had it, then I had it. It went flying out of our hands and onto the floor. We scrambled to get it.

  He was faster, but I pushed him and it slipped from his fingers. When I got my hands on it, Wally grabbed me lightly around the waist, trying to keep me from leaving the room.

  “Wait,” he said, reaching for it.

  “No, Wally!” I said. “You didn’t have my permission to make this.”

  His long arm easily stretched and took it from me. I turned around, but he was holding it high above his head, so I couldn’t reach it. I jumped and missed. Using his shoulder for support, I jumped again, and he started laughing.

  “This isn’t funny!” I said.

  “Babe, let me explain,” he said, chuckling.

  “No,” I grunted out on a jump.

  Getting nowhere with my current tactic, I threw my legs around his waist so I could get higher. It pushed him off balance and we went tumbling to his bed. I was straddling him. The fight left him as he felt my weight settle. He actually moaned, and I grabbed the disc.

  With my legs still around him, I took it in my hands and bent it as hard as I could, making it unusable.

  “No!” he said. “Damnit, Punks, that was the only copy I have.”

  “Good,” I said, throwing it across the room. “That was a shitty thing to do.”

  His hands had settled on my legs and he was rubbing my thighs. “What?” he asked, honestly sounding as though he thought I was ridiculous. “I didn’t mean to make it. I was even gonna delete it right away, but when I turned around you were gone.”

  “And why does that make a difference?” I asked.

  “Because,” he said, moving his hands to my waist and sitting up, “After you left so fast, I got curious and you weren’t there to stop me.”

  “That’s not a reason,” I said.

  “Well, I watched it,” he said. “And it felt wrong that I did, but you didn’t.”

  That was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. “Did you show this to anyone else?”

  He pulled a face. “You honestly think I want anyone else seeing you like that? No, babe. That’s for me.”

  I was staring at him, my eyes narrowed.

  “C’mon.” he said, smiling. “I did delete it. I just made a copy first. You and me are the only ones that have it.”

  Slowly, he ran his hands up my back, pulling me closer to him. It was then that I realized I was holding onto his shoulders. Gently, I traced the black, tattooed lines, my finger swirling with the patterns. His mouth went to my neck and he began softly kissing me. My eyes closed and despite myself, I sighed, turning my face into him.

  “You didn’t put it on your computer?” I asked, suddenly breathless.

  “No,” he said, giving me a squeeze. His mouth stayed on my neck as he continued trying to explain. “It was so good, and I wanted to see it again. Did you watch it?”

  “Yes,” I said, moving on him, feeling him hard through his thin swim shorts.

  “Did you like it?”

  Yes, I thought. Our mouths moved towards each other and then I remembered the girls outside in his pool and tensed. I was better than this.

  “I have to go,” I said, pushing off him.

  “Why?” he asked, sounding extremely disappointed.

  “I think your friends outside will miss you.”

  He didn’t say anything right way, just watched me walk towards the door. As I turned the knob, he said, “Come out with me tonight.”

  “No,” I said, laughing away the offer, even though I wanted to accept.

  Before he could talk me into it, I went for the stairs. At the bottom, I heard him call my name and looked up.

  His head was peering around the wall. “Call me,” he said with a wink.

  I huffed and walked away.

  Chapter 8

  The big, burly man had just left my office. My mouth was hanging open, and I was still staring at the paper, dumbfounded. A subpoena. To appear in court. I was being sued for taking Scrappy away from his home.

  No one had contacted me, not the previous owner, not the authorities, no one. Someone must have seen us. Or it was more likely that the ex-girlfriend and he got back together and she told him.

  I put the paper down and took a deep breath. I couldn’t afford this. There was no way I could come up with the money needed to represent myself or even settle the case, let alone pay what Nathaniel G. Havaneaux was asking for.

  I knew what I had to do. It sucked, but I knew. Swallowing my pride, I picked up my phone and dialed Trey’s number. Almost immediately he answered.

  “Long time, no see,” he said, sounding cocky and excited all at the same time.

  “Yeah,” I said, ready to get to the point. “Look, I need your help.”

  Trey wasted no time in beginning the process of representing me. I faxed him a copy of the subpoena, and he started taking care of the rest. The court date was pushed back; he made phone calls, got police records, and spoke with Nathaniel’s lawyer.

  For days we talked back and forth. He was knowledgeable.
He was helpful. I hated it. I hated that I needed him. If I knew that we were both on the same page—over with the relationship aspect of our lives and ready to move on to the friendship portion—I’d be fine. But we weren’t. I looked at him and saw a man I once dated. That was it. There were no lingering feelings or desires to rekindle what we’d had.

  He looked at me and saw a sure thing. I knew deep down that he didn’t want to get back into a committed relationship. He wanted what we had before—a no strings attached, casual, I’m bored, you’re bored, random hook-up relationship.

  Well, I wasn’t feeling that anymore. I should have done what I always do, right from the beginning. I should have cut ties with him and pushed him out of my life before he knew what hit him. It was certainly easier that way.

  So far, I’d been able to keep him away from my house. But that changed a week into our correspondence. I’d been home for a few hours when there was a knock on my front door. It was Trey and he had boxes of Chinese takeout.

  “Had some stuff I needed to go over with you,” he said, stepping inside without an invitation. “Thought we could eat while we discussed it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sure.”

  Even though he’d said “while,” he insisted that we wait until after the food had been consumed before we talked about any of it, and then, when we finally did, it was stupid. All he wanted to do was go over a list of names, the people who I’d been in contact with about the incident. I told him about all that had happened with Mamie and Sheila, and also the ex-girlfriend—which I now knew was named Trish—and the police officers I’d contacted after Trish’s initial call was made. I couldn’t remember their names. He’d have to find that through records. In all, it took about fifteen minutes.

  He could have come by the shelter to ask me about all of this or even phoned. I was annoyed, more so when he asked to stay and watch a movie—one that he produced from his messenger bag.

  I let him, telling myself that maybe he was trying to be friends. It was a wishful thought, and deep down I knew that it was a lie. But he was being so helpful and it felt rude to force him to leave. Throughout the film, some dumb comedy that he thought was hilarious, I sat in a chair, away from him. He sat on the couch.

  When it was finally over, he had to take a phone call and went out onto my patio. He must have been gone for forty minutes before I decided to go to bed. Not wanting him to stay, I put a note on my table. It was directly inside the patio door and I knew that he would see it.

  Trey, it said, gone to bed. Thanks for all your help. Lock up on your way out.

  Either he didn’t see it or he was pretending not to, because not long after I was under the covers, I heard my bedroom door open. I stiffened, but then tried to relax so that he would think I was asleep.

  Over my shoulder, I heard him undressing and then felt the bed dip.

  He curled up behind me. “Sweetie?” he whispered. “Sweetie? You asleep?”

  I said nothing, working hard on keeping my breathing deep and level.

  He huffed and rolled onto his back. “Whatever,” he said but didn’t get out of my bed.

  The next morning was awkward and I said as little as possible to him as he dressed and left my house. He was silent throughout the day, and I was grateful, not in the mood to deal with him.

  I was thankful that he was helping me, I was, but it was an uncomfortable situation, and one I wished I didn’t have to be in. Boundaries are what we needed, but broaching that subject would also be uncomfortable. I decided that if he ever tried to take things further than professional and friendly, I’d have to lay it out for him.

  It was late in the day, and I was clearing my desk getting ready to leave when Mamie came into my office. “Kristen, you’ll never guess what’s happening right now!”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Bruno,” she smiled. “Someone is interested in adopting Bruno.”

  “Really?” My heart soared. Bruno was one of our older dogs. He’d been with us a long time, and it didn’t seem like anyone would ever adopt him. Excited and eager to meet them, I raced out into the hallway, my feet faltering when I saw Wally crouched down rubbing him behind his ears.

  “Hey,” I said, warily.

  He looked up and smiled at me. “Hey,” he said. “I like this guy. He’s got character.”

  “Yeah, he’s been with us a while. Are you gonna take him home with you?”

  Wally stopped petting him and looked deeply into his eyes. “I can’t,” he said, sounding regretful. “Not yet. My landlord won’t let us have pets.”

  “Then why are you wasting our time?”

  Next to me, Mamie’s eyebrows shot up. “Ummm…” she said, quietly.

  Wally didn’t let my harshness affect him and stood. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  “Fine,” I huffed and walked away, heading towards my office.

  He followed and shut the door behind him. I was quiet, my arms crossed over my chest, waiting for him to speak. After some awkwardness he finally said, “Look. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” I shrugged.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, honestly looking remorseful. “I was being a jerk. How about we start over? You’re cool and I wanna be friends.”

  “Fine,” I said. “We can be friends.” It was a little depressing that the man I wanted to want me only wanted to be friends, but the man I wanted to leave me alone wanted to bang me all the time.

  “Nice,” he smiled, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Well, I gotta go. Maybe we can get together later this weekend or something.”

  “Sure,” I said. He was an idiot if he didn’t see how annoyed I was.

  If his goofy grin was any indication, he didn’t. With a wave, he left my office. Ten minutes later, he was back because his car wouldn’t start.

  Chapter 9

  It was awkward at first, him in my passenger seat strumming his fingers on his legs. Not able to take it, I turned on the radio with a quick flick of my hand. Casually, purposefully, Wally reached up and turned it off.

  I huffed and turned it back on. He turned it off again.

  “Excuse you,” I said.

  “Radio sucks. You’re better than that.” I wasn’t in the mood to argue and let him have his way.

  A few minutes into the drive I said, “How are you gonna get your car back?”

  “My buddy’s a mechanic. We’ll come get it tomorrow.”

  “Ever thought about getting a new one?”

  “A car? Of course, I’ve thought about it. My car is shitty. Maybe one day.”

  The drive from the shelter to his house wasn’t a long one. Thank God. Within ten minutes, we were pulling into his driveway.

  “Thanks,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You can, uh, come in if you want, I guess.”

  Welcoming as shit.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said.

  My phone buzzed as he stepped out of the car. It was a text message from Trey.

  Mind if we meet up later? Need to go over some stuff, it said.

  I did mind. A lot. Instead of responding, I opened my door and called after Wally. “Actually, I’d like to come in,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do anyway.”

  “Alright,” he said.

  I followed him inside and was immediately assaulted by loud laughter from the kitchen. Timidly, I trailed behind. A group of people were sitting around the kitchen table, all of them stopping to stare at us.

  I recognized his neighbor, the pretty brunette. She was sitting in a man’s lap. There were two other obvious couples sitting at the table and a blonde haired girl propped against the kitchen island. Her eyeliner was thick, and her stare was telling me to go to hell.

  “This is Kristen,” Wally said. “Kristen, those are my roommates, Charles and Priscilla.” A thick man, with huge biceps raised an arm. The tiny girl next to him gave me a small smile. “That’s my old roommate Marlowe, and the ugly guy underneath her is Lucas.” She smiled, running
her hands through the ugly guy’s hair.

  “Ignore him. He’s jealous,” Marlowe playfully told Lucas.

  “Like I give a shit if he thinks I’m ugly,” Lucas said.

  “That,” Wally continued, pointing to a younger girl with caramel hair, “is Ugly’s sister, Mia. Clearly, she got all the good genes. This dude is, Paul.” The first thing I thought about the two of them was how adorable they looked together. If they were dating, it was new, their body language awkward but eager.

  “And last, but not least, this chick is Nicole.” The heavy eyeliner wearing, stink eye giving girl looked completely uninterested in speaking to me.

  “Hey,” I said to everyone.

  “We were about to play Berserker. You guys in?” Charles asked.

  I had no idea what that game was, but Wally assured me that I’d pick it up no problem. He was lying. It was a card game. As far as I could tell, the goal was to get four of a kind, with one person at the start of the deck, another at the end, who they affectionately called “The Dump” throughout the entire turn.

  Each person started out with four cards. The first person drew from the deck and decided whether they wanted to keep the new card. If they did, they placed it in their hand and discarded one, never having more than four cards. The discarded card then went to the next person, and so on, each of us trying to get our four of a kind.

  That part was easy. The second was hard. Each card you removed from your hand had some hidden meaning, or weird action you had to perform. For instance, if I discarded a King, I had to yell out the name of someone I’d kissed. They were lenient about it, letting your mother or dog count; you were even able to say the same name more than once.

  But others were more difficult. A three meant you had to drum a beat against the table, a six meant you had pick someone at the table to high five, Aces constantly changed—their rule depending on whoever had discarded the last 2.

  And it was fast paced. Quick. Everyone yelling out and moving around the table, throwing arms up and shouting out weird things. Not to mention unfair. Clearly, they’d all played this before and knew what each individual card meant. I was slow learning, constantly having to ask Wally for guidance. If someone slipped up or didn’t fulfill a cards rule, they were out of the turn.