Beauty and the Bad Boy

by Scarlett Dupree

  For a long moment I just sat on the end of the unmade bed and mulled things over. What did I think I was doing, hoping to play around with Dakota? She was so obviously not a part of this world; the fact that she could recognize an old Harley didn't mean anything. What business did I have even considering bringing my life down on someone like her? No way. I was being a selfish asshole. No way. I would pick her up and bring her back to the garage for her car. Then I would say goodbye. The end. Any sexual desires I had for the forbidden, Heights girl would be taken out in the privacy of my bedroom. Alone.

  Thus resolved, I headed out to my bike. There wasn't a street in Shadowbeach I didn't know–even the Heights–so I rode straight to Dakota's house without a second thought. She lived on a tidy little street in one of the quieter sections.

  Dakota's blacktopped driveway ran the length of her detached house and stopped at her garage, well back from the street. I turned in, pulled even with her front porch, and cut the engine. I remained idle for a few seconds after I removed my helmet and took in the homey impression of her house. I wanted, even in my resolve to not pursue anything–to fill out my image of her.

  I had a strong visual sense and appreciated the harmony of a well-appointed house and garden. Dakota's home was large and well tended. She, or someone, had made the best out of the architecture. The creamy brick walls and red-tiled roof were accented with touches of vivid color. The frames around the leaded casement windows were painted violet. The heavily planked, arched front door was a deep violet.

  The yard was landscaped well and simply–the do-it-yourself work of someone with a knack for it. There was a rustic little bench on the porch surrounded by big, glazed pots filled with lush flowers in a riot of color. A large iron scrollwork piece hung on the wall next to the door. The effect was classy, peaceful, and sweet. Just like her.

  Again, it dawned on me how different we were. There was nowhere in my life where there was a space of such quiet serenity. But something inside me called out for it.

  I swung off the bike and strolled up to the front door. I searched for a bell, but I didn't find one. Taking a wholehearted breath, I knocked. When the door opened a few seconds later, she stood smiling up at me. I was lost in the rush of the breath I'd just taken, and I felt my resolve falter under the considerable weight of my lust.

  What she'd been wearing the day before had concealed a lot. Today, her dark hair was pulled up and clipped loosely at the back of her head. Several soft tendrils had escaped and framed her flawless, clear face.

  She was wearing a fitted aquamarine top with a very low neckline. It showed a bare, graceful collarbone. I had a thing for collarbones, and I imagined leaning over and pressing my mouth to it. The shirt was tucked into another pair of snug-but-not-tight, low-slung jeans cinched across her hips by a wide black leather belt with a plain silver buckle. It was just sheer enough to hint at her bra underneath.

  Everything worked to show her hot figure to its best advantage. She was killing my resolve. Her breasts were full but not huge. Her arms were lean and firm. Her waist was trim, her stomach flat. Her hips flared out just right. And her long legs were calling out to me to stroke them. Sexy as hell. She had the figure of a grown woman. One who obviously worked out and took care.

  She was barefoot. Her feet were slender, her toes varnished. I’d forgotten how tall she was. I still towered over her, but not as much as I was used to.

  "Are you a vampire?" she laughed.

  “Huh?” I managed to speak out.

  “Do you need me to invite you in before you’re able to actually step inside?”

  I realized that I'd just been brazenly checking her out, and I jerked my head up to her face. On the way up, I noticed what looked like the trailing end of a tattoo barely curling around from the nape of her neck. Christ. Ink, too. I was fucked.

  "Well..." My voice actually croaked. Fuck. “Who’s to say you’re not some sexy, vampire queen and I’m just making sure it’s worth my time?” I winked. I couldn’t help myself. It was so natural to flirt with her. It was taking all my energy to stop myself from taking her there and then against the doorframe.

  She took a step back and her cheeks reddened. "Thanks for this. Come on in. Can I get you a beer?"

  I followed her into her house. "Wow, super hot and a mind reader… Yeah, that would be great." When she turned and headed towards the back of the house–to the kitchen, I guessed–I saw that the low neckline continued on the back, showing several inches of what looked like an elaborate, botanical tattoo.

  I'd seen the curling tip of a vine at the nape of her neck. I could see a hint of the rest of it under her shirt. It followed her whole spine. And it wasn't the only ink on her back. I stopped in the foyer to compose myself, closing my eyes and taking another deep breath.

  When I opened my eyes again, I glanced around. The floor was dark parquet. The walls, surprisingly, were white. There was a wall covered with framed photos on my right. To my left a wide, arched opening led to what was probably a living and dining room combo, though she had it set up more like a living room and office. Curious, I stepped in, and then called out, "Your place is real sweet. Mind if I have a look around?"

  There was a pause, and then I heard her call back, "Go for it. Go right ahead. But don’t go snooping in my underwear draw."

  “I quit wearing lace long ago, babe. It chafes too much.” I heard her laugh as I walked on ahead. It was a big room, and there were books everywhere. The walls were completely lined, floor to ceiling, with bookcases. The only gaps were for the leaded windows, the arched entryways, and the big gothic-style fireplace. A very large flat-screen TV took up the middle of one bookcase, but otherwise, the cases were chock full of books. And still there were stacks of books on the floor at various points, especially around a big, old-fashioned wooden desk against a wall at the back of the room.

  There was a dark rug on the floor at the front of the room near the fireplace. A big leather sofa and a couple of plushy chairs sat on it. A heavy, low table sat between them–stacked with books. There was a curved leather chair and ottoman combo and a floor lamp in one corner at the other side of the room. It was a warm, comfortable room with an eclectic vibe. I loved it. I loved reading, and I wanted to stay in this room for a long time.

  Dakota came back with two beers just as I had headed back to look at the wall of photos. She handed me a beer with a slice of lime wedged in the top. "I hope Brooklyn’s okay. I have others, but nothing else is chilled. I do have all the hard stuff, if you'd prefer."

  Looking at the photos, I found myself distracted. I took the beer without really looking and said, "Na, this is perfect, babe. Thanks." I put the bottle to my mouth and collided with the lime. I looked down, squeezed the lime into the bottle and took several deep swallows.

  The photos distracted me. There were dozens of them, showing a beaming, beautiful Dakota and a man who was presumably her late husband. He looked different from what I had expected–big and burly, but clean cut. A little square, maybe.

  There were a few arty photos of a slightly younger Dakota. A few stood out more from the rest. Dakota on a beach doing a complicated yoga pose. Dakota and late husband on a roller coaster. I noticed Dakota was laughing not screaming. And, then I caught sight of Dakota nursing a newborn... Oh… Maybe that’s why she had gotten married at such a young age. But where was her child?

  I turned and looked at her. She met my gaze and held it silently. The sorrow I knew existed in her came back, but this time I could see it was deeper than ever. A long moment passed before she spoke. Still she held my gaze.

  "That's my husband, Jon. He died of cancer two and half years ago. And that's our son, Joshua. He passed away four years ago. He climbed too high on the playground at daycare and fell and broke his skull."

  "Jesus, Dakota. Fucking hell..."

  She laughed sharply. "Yeah. Jesus had nothing to fucking do with any of it."

  "I'm sorry." I drank down the rest of my beer. From the moment
I saw her, I had judged her to be some silly, Height’s girl looking to rebel against her easy and perfect life. But my judgment was far from the truth. It was so far from the truth yet it brought her closer to me like I never expected.

  I'd come within a hairsbreadth of telling her about Tina but I pulled back, understanding that this wasn't the time to compare notes on tragic losses. But I had another inkling right there that maybe we had more in common than I'd thought. That realization swelled something inside me. Sympathy and empathy had cooled my lust for the moment, but had intensified my desire exponentially.

  She cleared her throat and huffed out a softer little laugh. "No, it's fine. I don't normally have guests over, so I forget my wall of mystery right here at the front door. To me it's just my family who say goodbye to me when I leave the house and welcome me when I return home. It's not as lonely, I guess, or something." She sighed and shrugged. "Anyway…"

  I felt a lump growing in my throat and tried to cough it away. She was so young, so angelic yet I could see in her eyes she was a lot older and darker inside. There wasn't anything I could say here, so I didn't. I asked instead, "Shall I have a look at the shovelhead?"

  Dakota smiled at me. "Thank you for ending that awkward moment. Not just a pretty face, huh?" she said brightly. "But yeah, that would be great. Follow me through to the back. The garage is this way." She turned and walked back towards the kitchen. This time, I followed.

  In the kitchen, she turned and took my empty bottle. "Want another while we pass by? Or, you prefer to have something else, maybe?"

  "Another beer, thanks." While she was disposing of the empties, I looked around the kitchen. Again, her taste struck me exactly right. The kitchen was, I thought, mostly original and in great shape despite its age. Even the appliances were old–or, maybe they were new and just retro style. Whatever they were, they had character.

  I looked over and saw her leaning into the fridge to pull out the beer. I got an eyeful of her amazing ass, and the urge to walk up and clutch her hips almost overwhelmed me. I clenched my fists at my sides. I was swinging back and forth between the equally powerful urges to hold her and to fuck her. I didn't know what the hell was going on with me, but this caveman shit I was feeling around her was against everything I had told myself not to do. She deserved better.

  She handed me another Brooklyn. Seconds later, she gave me a little sideways smile. "Notice the lime? The beer comes out better if you push it into the bottle first."

  I laughed nervously realising I’d been too into my dirty thoughts to notice I’d been drinking nothing. "Yeah… thanks..."

  “Why don’t you take a picture? It will last longer,” she grinned.

  “Yeah, I think I will,” I replied as I pulled out my phone, jokingly.

  She hurried over and said, “Hey! I was kidding!” and tried to grapple the phone out of my hand. When our bodies entangled, we both stayed still for a bit before pulling away from each other. "Um… let’s head to the garage shall we." She slid open the patio door and stepped into the garden.

  I followed her as far as the patio before I stopped again. "Fuck, Dakota. This is fucking unbelievable."

  The patio was plain concrete and typically furnished: Round table with umbrella and matching chairs, and a gas grill. But the garden had been pulled out of some fantasy story. It was lush and green and packed with all kinds of flowering plants. Butterflies flew all over. I could see the beginnings of a stone path zigzagging away from the patio and through a rose-covered archway several feet into the garden. I couldn't see any further than that. But I heard a fountain splashing somewhere beyond. I was awestruck and stood there literally gaping.

  "Thank you, I assure you it’s all real,” she said quietly from behind me. “Nothing fake except the miniature stone squirrels." I peered over my shoulder at her. She was smiling with genuine pleasure. "It’s where I spend most of my time when I’m not working. Alone feels remarkably right, here."

  I'd been thinking about moving off the patio and following the twisting stone path, but something in her voice, and in her words, told me that going through the archway would be a violation. This haven was just for her. I understood that need too well. So I just said, "Well, it's fucking amazing. Really."

  She nodded a little thanks and gestured with her beer to the side gate, leading to the driveway and the garage. She moved in that direction, and again I followed.

  She pulled up the garage door–it was the old, one-piece kind that cantilevered to the ceiling–and leaned in along the side to switch on the overhead light. It was a roomy three-car garage, and it was obvious that she wasn't like most Californians who lived in houses without basements. She used the garage for her car, not for storage.

  The big space was mainly empty, since her car was at Auto-Fire. One wall was lined with shelves neatly holding various garage-type clutter. Against the back wall, under a fitted cover, was apparently the shovelhead. We walked back together. She hesitated when we reached the bike.

  "Um. This is a little harder than I thought it would be. I seriously have not touched this cover since before Jon died. I don’t know if I have enough courage... to…"

  “’Courage is grace under pressure.’ And from what I’ve seen, you have a lot of grace.”

  She looked stunned. After a few seconds, she finally spoke up. “You read Hemmingway?”

  “Yeah, Pops, my Uncle, got me into reading. It’s my way of escaping… things.”

  “Wow, I wouldn’t have thought you–”

  “–You wouldn’t have thought someone from the Ghetto could read?”

  “No, sorry. I didn’t mean to…” she said with a sheepish look. “It’s just–”

  “–It’s just I’m so hot I wouldn’t need to read?” I could tell she felt genuinely bad. I needed to change that quickly. “Yeah, you’re right, my looks have gotten me everywhere. I know.”

  Her embarrassment faded and the cheeky glint in her eyes returned. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, bucko. I’ve seen better.”

  “Oh, have you really?” I chortled. “Well, there can only be one hot mechanic in this world so tell me where, and I’ll take them down.”

  We laughed with one another before she said, “But really, I’m… impressed.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Silence filled the space for a long time until I asked, "Do you want me to do it? Or, you know, we don't have to do it at all." I could feel her anxiety rolling over me. I was afraid to look, too. I was on empathy overload. That really wasn’t my deal. And, it scared the shit out of me how much she brought me out of my comfort zone.

  "No. I’m being foolish. It's not like Jon's ghost is going to leap out at us." I had my doubts, actually. I was feeling Dakota's dead husband's presence pretty strongly right here. "If it's in bad shape because I've neglected it… well, you can fix it, so..." She took several long swallows, finished her beer, and set the empty on a shelf. "Okay."

  She reached down and unfastened a few tabs at the bottom of the cover, then started to pull it up over the bike. I set my own empty bottle on the floor and stepped up to hold the other side of the cover. The aging vinyl coating cracked audibly, and Dakota flinched. I looked over and saw that her eyes were shimmery with almost-tears. I was drawn to her like never before. The urge to hold her was definitely dominating my senses now.

  The cover came off in a puff of dust, and there sat a nearly showroom-quality '66 Harley-Davidson shovelhead, looking ready to ride right out into the sunset. It was gorgeous. It was like brand new. Untouched. "Holy shit," I shrieked. My eyes darted at Dakota, who was standing silently with her arms wrapped around her waist. A few tears had poured over, but she wasn't sobbing. She was just quiet and still. I didn't know what to do. It felt like an intrusion to say anything or to keep looking at her, so I squatted down to take a closer look at the bike.

  After a minute or two, I heard her take a well needed breath in and then out. "Well," she said, "it looks pretty good, doesn't it?"
<
br />   I stood up and brushed my hands off. "It looks fucking magnificent. I mean, you don't want to turn the engine over until the gaskets have all been replaced. You start it now, and you're likely to get fuel and oil spraying every which way when the gaskets crack like the cover did. And the tires will need replacing for the same reason. You were right that anything rubber will need an update. And the fluids will need refreshing. But otherwise, as far as I can tell right now, it's fucking perfect."

  She turned and smiled at me, and I could tell that her melancholy moment had passed. "That's a fucking relief. You’ve no idea how relieved I am. If I'd let this bike rot because I was being a big baby about it… well, I’d never forgive myself. I'm not sure what I want to do with it, though. I don't think I can sell it."

  "Don't you ride?" I asked.

  Dakota looked at the bike, and then back at me. "I can… well, I could. But, well…" She hesitated, and then shrugged. "…I never really enjoyed wrapping my hand around the throttle as much as I loved wrapping my arms around my guy. That probably kicks my feminist cred all the way to hell, but there you have it."

  Fuck, she was perfect. I was wrestling my inner caveman again, so it took me a beat to respond. "I don't think it makes you any less strong, for what it's worth. It's a good feeling, that closeness."

  As we stood looking at each other, I felt something astonishing snap into place between us. I took a step towards her. I was going to kiss her.

  Dakota broke the moment. "Hey… I don't suppose you want to stay and have a bite to eat? Or should we get back to the garage before it closes?"

  I took a breath. Okay, too soon. It was probably not a good idea, anyway. I mean, we were still standing in front of her late husband's bike, probably with his jealous ghost astride it. "The garage closed at five, but that's not a problem. We can head back anytime. I am really hungry, but you really don't have to cook for me."

  "No, I love cooking. I'm a quarter Asian. It's a thing we do. So if you don't mind, I'd like to cook for you. Or is that weird? It's probably weird..." She looked away, obviously nervous. I kinda liked that, liked what I thought it meant. She picked up the tarp and started to fold it–well, break it, actually. "I'll need a new one of these, I guess."