by Lark O'Neal
“Thanks.”
“Skype your dad when you have some time in Queenstown, will ya? Keep me in the loop.”
“I will.” I lean over and hug him tight. “I’m so glad I’m here.”
“Me, too, kiddo.”
The courtyard is dark as I head for my room, but I can hear some of the crew partying in a couple of rooms on the second floor. I’m feeling a little hollow over the emotions left over from dinner and wonder if what I need is to let my hair down a little. I haven’t been drinking, because the morning calls are so early and I don’t want my face to look all ugly and hung over. But tonight I’m tempted.
Or I could see about Skyping Tyler. What is the time difference right now? I try to calculate it, but my brain breaks and it just seems too hard.
Instead, I let myself into my room, which is quiet and entirely peaceful. No one I have to talk to, no one who tempts me, nothing to think about. I shed my clothes, brush my teeth, and get into bed with a book, not even asking myself why I don’t at least sign on and check email.
The truth is, I don’t want to. I want to be alone in both real and virtual life, and I fall asleep still alone, hearing the laughter of the crew somewhere else, and I don’t care.
* * *
The dream starts pleasantly enough, with a birthday party and me blowing out candles. Even as I see it in a dream, I know it’s the party my dad reminded me of over dinner. I’m seven. I have a new Barbie dollhouse, and there are two other girls with me. Cousins, I know instinctively.
And then it’s night and a monster is tearing the house apart, stomping on it, breaking my doll’s knees and roaring. Roaring. Something ugly tries to smother me, and something is in my mouth and I can’t scream, and I’m thrashing, fighting, trying to scream, but I can’t, and I can’t breathe and it hurts and—
I wake up thrashing and screaming, sitting up straight in the dark. The images are simple, but the terror I’m feeling is a wild thing, making it hard to catch my breath. I pull on my coat and yank open the door to my room, and gulp in the cold night air, trying to calm down. The moon overhead is bright and cold and far away, but it offers enough ordinariness that I can breathe. I’m still shaking all over, and, without even thinking, I head across the courtyard where there once stood a Victorian house and climb the stairs to the room where everyone is partying.
I’m only wearing my pajamas and a coat, but I don’t care. My feet are bare. My hair isn’t brushed. My makeup is probably smeared. I. Don’t. Care. I can’t be alone right now. I just can’t.
There aren’t many people left in the group, just a few of the younger crew and Darcy and her guy, and the stylist who thinks Kaleb is hot. When I see them, I know the person I need. “What’s Kaleb’s room, Darcy?”
Someone snickers. “Booty call.”
“Fuck off,” I hear myself say. “Darcy?”
She’s clearly drunk, but she must see something in my eyes, because she stands up and grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room, down the corridor, then knocks on a door. “Kaleb. Let me in.”
He answers quickly, shirtless, in the same pajama bottoms he was wearing last night, his hair all crazy from sleeping. “Darce, you okay?”
“Not me, Jess,” she says, and steps back.
And suddenly I feel like a total idiot, because I’m really not here for a booty call, but that’s probably how it looks. “Sorry, I just had a bad dream. I shouldn’t have woken you up.”
I’m already walking away when he grabs my hand. “Hey, hey. No worries. Come back.”
“I didn’t come for sex. I just need—” The dream comes rushing back, overwhelming and dark and full of terror. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s okay. Come in. You can lie down with me. That’s all, nothing else.” He tightens his hand. “Promise.”
I nod and let myself be led into the dark room, which smells of him. His roommate grunts and turns over. Kaleb lies down and flings back the covers to make room for me. With relief, I shed my coat and slide into the space next to his chest. He spoons around me, our bodies fitting neatly together.
“God, you’re shivering,” he whispers, and pulls the covers around us more closely.
Maybe it’s reaction settling in after the wild rush to get away from the nightmare, but my whole body starts to shake, like I really have made an escape from a monster who wanted to devour me.
“So-rrr—rr—y,” I manage between chattering teeth. “Bad…bad…night—ma—re.”
“Shhh, it’s okay now.” His accent is sweeter in a whisper, and his big hands smooth over my arms and shoulders. “You’re safe now. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
After a while the solidness and heat of his body ease my shivering. I can take a deep, deep breath and let it out. He brushes my hair away from my face, his fingers soft on my skin. “Better now?”
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I turn to lie on my back. “I don’t even know,” I murmur. “My dad and I were talking tonight about how little I remember, and he told me about my birthday party when I was seven.” I pause, thinking how stupid this is going to sound.
He props himself on his elbow. “And?”
“In my dream I was at the party, and then a monster came and smashed everything, all the presents, then tried to eat me or smother me or something.” Even saying the words aloud, the stupid words, I feel a huge weight compressing my heart. “Kaleb, I’ve never felt so afraid in my life.”
“You’re still shaking.” He lies down and pulls me back into the cradle of his body. “Go to sleep.”
With his breath on my shoulder and his chest solid against my back, I whisper, “Thank you.”
His lips brush my hair. “No worries.”
* * *
When I wake up, light is pushing at the curtains and the roommate is snoring, which is probably what woke me. Kaleb is draped around me, one leg thrown over mine and I can feel a major hard-on against my ass. His hand rests on my waist, and there’s something about his tension that lets me know he’s awake. I move a little, stretching one leg, and my bottom rubs against his erection. It’s very hot and urgent, and wakes me up all over.
“Sorry,” he says, and reaches down to adjust himself in that easy guy kind of way. “He has a mind of his own.”
I turn over, laughing. “It’s okay.”
He props himself on his elbow again and brushes the hair off my face. “You all right now?”
“Yeah, I am.” I stretch a little beneath the covers, and my foot finds his. “Thanks to you.”
His foot moves against mine, kind of sexy. Now that I’m not completely insane with terror, I’m fully aware of the way he feels against me, alive to the power in his thighs and the way his hand rests on my tummy, half on my shirt, half on my skin. As if we become aware of it at the same instant, his pinky and ring fingers move on my belly, right above my pajama bottoms. I want them higher, and lower, and as if my thoughts send that signal right to my breasts, my nipples leap to attention.
He notices. His fingers move beneath my shirt, beneath my waistband and back again. He’s leaning on his other hand, black hair falling sideways, and his eyes trace the length of my torso and come back to my mouth.
“You’re really being a gentleman,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Only a douchebag would take advantage of a woman as afraid as you were last night.”
I look at him steadily. “I’m not afraid now.”
His eyes close, then open. His hand moves over my belly, up to my ribs, back down. His eyes fall on my mouth. “When I woke up,” he says quietly, “my hand was around your breast.”
“I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Maybe you should get back to your room before everybody is up.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “You want me to go?”
He looks at my mouth, down to my chest and the place where his hand rests on my ribs. Slowly he m
oves his hand up my arm, and his thumb tucks under the edge of my tank top, and tugs it aside. Against my thigh, his cock presses urgently into my flesh, and I can’t help moving against him a little, feeling it. His fingers move the strap of my shirt down my arm, and he bends to press slow, full-lipped kisses against my shoulder, the top of my chest, my throat, then to my mouth. His hand slides down over my breast, beneath my shirt, and I make a little sound. My nipple rises to his palm, and then he moves away again, swallowing, and raises his head. “We have to be downstairs in twenty minutes. You should go.”
I raise my hands to his black curls, feeling them fall around my fingers, feeling the curve of his head and the edges of his ears. I can only look at those beautiful lips, that aggressive chin, his lids heavy over his eyes. “Kiss me again.”
He lowers his head and our mouths meet, hot and open. His fingers find the erect, aching tip of my nipple, and I make a soft noise in the back of my throat. His tongue strokes and thrusts, his lips suckle and slide, and I’m completely lost in the kiss, lost in this very second in time.
I run my hands over his bare, hot back and the round of a shoulder, and slide my fingers into his pajama bottoms. He stops me urgently, pulls my hand up over my head and slides on top of me, our crotches hard together. “Not this time,” he says gruffly. “Not with someone else here.”
I flush, feeling suddenly slutty. “Oh, sorry.”
“Jess,” he says, whispering over my lips. “I’ve been lying next to you all night, trying not to think about the things I’d like to do to this sleek, beautiful body of yours. It’s not lack of wanting that’s making me stop.”
His chest is hard, his cock nestled right between my legs, and his skin smells like everything you’d want to devour forever. “Okay,” I whisper.
He slides sideways to free me, and I stand up, tugging my shirt into place and pulling up my pajama bottoms. Standing there, I look down at all his gorgeousness and the plain thrust of his arousal sticking out. I put my hands to my cheeks. “Wow.” Then I bend down and press a kiss to his mouth. “Thank you,” I whisper.
For one second I feel the heat of his tongue behind his lips, feel the restraint of his desire, and it’s maybe the best thing anybody has ever done for me.
“You’re welcome.”
Chapter FIFTEEN
The day is intense. The weather is cold, with a brutal wind, and the dark clouds make the grim ruins of the downtown area look even more so. The crew wants to film in a strip of park by the River Avon. It’s genuinely beautiful, but the weather makes it look bad, so we give that up and head for an area that wasn’t badly damaged and film there, but everyone is tense and gloomy, and, even if we wanted to be upbeat, it’s hard. Darcy is sharp-tongued and hard to get along with. Kaleb has a grim aspect that I’ve never seen before. It’s my turn to pull him along, and I do my best, flirting and teasing, and eventually we get the job done.
The last shots are at a well-known restaurant where they’ve arranged to have a meal for the crew. It’s mid-afternoon and the wind is blowing outside, so there aren’t many people around. The food is great, however, and we all drink pints of ale, me and Kaleb included. It’s the only thing to do with so much tension.
And it helps. The filming there is cheery. Someone starts to sing a rowdy song, and soon everyone is laughing. Kaleb and I are supposedly having a romantic meal, with wine, and we share a bottle of red that’s rich and deep. “Tell me about this wine,” I say to him between takes. “My dad doesn’t make reds, right?”
“Right.” He spins the bottle around to show me the label and points out the vineyard. “This is a pinot noir from a vineyard not far away from ours, Clos. It’s one of their best years, 2010. Do you like it?”
I swirl it in the glass the way my dad showed me last night and tuck my nose in. “Stronger smells than the whites I had last night.”
“Notes,” he says, and does the same thing, swirling and sniffing. It makes him seem older than 22, and more sophisticated. “The smells in wine are called notes. I get raspberry and black cherry. Some other things, too.” He gestures with his chin. “You try.”
I swirl and sniff. “It’s kind of—green. Like a field or something.” I smell again. “No, more like herbs.”
“That’s good.”
“Look at you two,” Ian says, making notes. “You look like experts.” He raises his head and remembers. “Oh, that’s right,” he says to Kaleb. “You’re training to be a somm with her dad, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t we do some shots of the tasting, then the kiss and wrap up? Everyone is beat. Besides, it’s Saturday, and we all want the night off.”
The kiss goes smoothly this time, and we’re done. Some of the crew go off to a bar. I’m planning a repeat of last night, going back to the room with a book and my solitude—it’s just unbelievable how tiring the long days can be—when Kaleb comes over, holding up some keys. “Darcy and I are going to the old neighborhood. Want to come?”
A pang touches me. “Sure.”
The streets out toward their old neighborhood get more and more deserted, more and more devastated, even more than some of the downtown areas. A rolling ball of paper dances across the street. Trash litters the gutters. Empty malls and storefronts, empty houses. It looks like a modest, middle class neighborhood, nice enough, but nothing special. Big trees in the yards, and abandoned cars here and there on the streets, a ghost town. In the gathering twilight it’s enormously depressing, and I want to say that, but I glance over at Kaleb, and his mouth is set hard. Darcy is silent as he drives up and down the streets they must both be imagining a different way.
Finally he parks in front of a house that is clearly ready to be torn down. It’s like all the houses here, but the roof is half-gone, tumbled into the house.
“This is where you lived?” I ask as Darcy gets out of the car.
“Yeah.” He gets out, too, but only leans on the fender and stares up at the house with a dark expression. I get out and join him, watching as Darcy heads for the side yard.
“Is she going in?
“No, it’s condemned. She just likes to go to the back yard and look at it. It looks normal back there.”
I say nothing, just tuck my hands in my pockets and hunch my shoulders against the sharp wind.
“The first earthquake, we were asleep. It was like five o’clock in the morning, and it shook us right out of our beds. The walls got some cracks and a lot of shit got knocked down, and we were scared out of our wits, but it was okay, you know.” From his pocket, he takes a cigarette and puts it between his lips. I’ve never seen him smoke before, but this is not the right time to comment. He holds a lighter in his right hand, flicking it restlessly, but the cigarette just hangs there. It makes him look hard, tougher than I thought he was, but I must have known that core was there, just like it is in me. Steel that gets you through.
“The second one—” His eye twitches, just slightly, and he traces the scar on his eyebrow. “They sent us home from school early that day because of a union meeting or something, and me and Darce were making some toasted cheese sandwiches when it hit. We ran into the doorway and held on, but it was really bad right away. The roof fell down—” He gestures with his lighter hand. “—and everything fell off the walls and the counters, and it seemed like it shook for Jesus-fucking-ever.”
I realize I’ve never heard him swear before, and now he’s sworn twice in two minutes. He still hasn’t looked at me. He’s just looking backward. He lights the cigarette and blows out the smoke. I’ve also never seen him smoke before.
“When it stopped, the house was wrecked, my head was bleeding like a gusher, and Darcy started freaking out about Neko, who ran away like a smart cat. We went outside and everybody was in the streets, shocked.
“We had no idea where my mum was or even what happened. My cell wouldn’t work. The electricity was knocked out. Our neighbors brought us into their house, which was messed up but not like ours, and we
tried to get information from anywhere. All this gossip was pouring in—the CBC was wrecked, thousands dead. You could hear sirens and helicopters and just…chaos. People were crying and screaming and walking around like zombies, and our old neighbor kept going out and bringing them in. He put a bunch of meat on the grill, everything they had in the house, and his wife roasted potatoes right out there, too, and they had a case of ginger beer, so that’s what we drank. There were aftershocks and aftershocks and aftershocks for hours, days. We bedded down on the floor. I left a note at our house that said me and Darcy were next door, but I didn’t want to go back in the house to get anything. It just looked so unstable, so we curled up on the couch and the floor with some blankets and sofa pillows.
“By the first morning my mom came and found us and said we’d have to go north to Uncle Keiran and Aunt Katy. No other choice. So we left, so fast we couldn’t find our friends or Neko or anything. Darcy had a breakdown, like freakout breakdown, and Uncle Keiran brought her back down to look for the cat.” He glances at me for the first time.
“Your dad. He found us the cat in the first place, you know? He got it, how much she loved Neko. I loved him for that. And thank God we found him, that crazy cat, just waiting for us on the porch. We had to break the law to get into the neighborhood—, it was closed off by the city, but the guy looked the other way. Lots of people were doing it.”
He’s totally disappeared into the story, and the unemotional way he delivers it leaves gooseflesh up and down my arms. Anything I can think of to say is so trite that it seems better to just be quiet. He finishes the cigarette and tosses it down, grinding it under his heel.
“I don’t smoke,” he says eventually. “My dad did, though, and sometimes I stole his.”
“You looked pretty expert.”
It coaxes a faint smile to his mouth. “Well, I might have stolen a lot of them. But it’s bad for you, and girls won’t kiss you.”
“I think they probably would.”
“Yeah?”