Her hand was so close to the waistband of my jeans, and I diverted my eyes from her, forcing my brain to think about anything other than that hand and its location on my body in the two seconds it took for her to pull it away. I licked the ice cream again, slowly, distracted by my out of control male brain, and Lindsey cleared her throat.
“Here’s a tip: you should never eat an ice cream cone like that,” she said, eyes focused intently on my mouth.
“Huh?” I asked, sheepish. “What are ya talkin’ about?” And I flattened my tongue, and licked again, raking up the sprinkles and gummi bears and whatever the hell else was there, cluttering my mouth with sugary debris.
“Like that!” she laughed. “God, it’s like you’re trying to seduce it, or me, or both. Or maybe everybody in this damn town, since we’re standing out here, in the open, for all to see while you lick that thing like you’re, um …”
“Like I’m, what?” I asked, my eyebrows waggling, because I was suddenly an awkward Casanova and I was intent on seducing her with my ice cream cone licking skills.
“You know what,” she groaned, unamused, and she turned from me, eating her ice cream in big bites. Her eyes wandered the street sprawled before us, and she outstretched a hand.
“So, this is your little town,” she said, changing the subject to something much more innocent, for which I was simultaneously grateful and tortured by.
“Yep. This is River Canyon,” I said, with a nod and another lick. “You ever been here before?”
Lindsey shook her head gently. “Not really. My house—my ex’s house—is in Stonington, and I’ve never really had a reason to come down here.”
“Huh,” I said thoughtfully, nodding. “And you just happened to decide to come to Harold’s today, the day after you broke up with him.”
She smiled up at me. “Pretty serendipitous, huh?”
I didn’t want to agree. That would be to admit that this was perhaps fate playing a hand in granting me my own fairytale. So, instead of continuing the talk of serendipity and kismet, I pointed across the street. “Well, to begin the tour, right there, that’s my sister-in-law’s deli, then there is Dick’s Diner. I eat my breakfast there every single day.”
“Every single day?” she asked. “And do you get the same thing every single day?” I rolled my eyes and grumbled a “yes.” “How did I know,” she laughed, and then added, “What do you get?”
“A bran muffin, and a plum,” I said, laughing. “Oh, and a cup of coffee.”
“Sean, Sean, Sean,” and she tsk-tsked. “You are undoubtedly the most boring person I’ve ever met. Even more boring than me, and that’s really saying something. Tomorrow, you and I are going over there to Dick’s and you are ordering something different.”
“Different?” I asked, just a little more shrill than I would have liked. “Different, like what?”
She looked up, brown eyes blazing with excitement and lust. “You know … Pancakes, waffles, French toast …” She gasped and grabbed my arm, gesturing with her cone-wielding hand toward the sky. “Oh Sean, the possibilities are endless! The world is your oyster my friend, and tomorrow, you eat syrup!”
I rumbled with an uncontrollable chuckle, and when the hell was the last time I laughed like that? I mean, I laughed, I have a sense of humor, but it had been a long, long time since I laughed like that. Since I felt so completely able to let go. Holding an arm around my stomach while my eyes watered, wheezing and unable to catch my breath.
“Tell me you’re asthmatic too,” she said, wiping at her eyes once the laughter had subsided. “But God, you have a great laugh.”
“I actually am. I was real popular in gym class with my doctor’s notes and inhalers,” I said, raking my hair back with one hand. I finished the rest of my non-dairy ice cream, caught between a place of bliss and reflection. Thinking about those school days, about Sean the Nerd wandering the halls with his only friend and a big Kick Me sign taped to his back. Thinking about the pretty girl now at my side, and telling my inner child that sometimes shite does work out, even if only for a little while.
“So,” she said, tossing the wrapper from her cone in the trash can behind us, and she pointed to the corner across the street, “is that where you had your first kiss?” Her teasing tone made me smile, and I acknowledged the question for what it was: She was fishing. Fishing for facts inside my life. It was intimate, and it was dangerous.
I didn’t entirely hate it.
“No,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “My first kiss was right here, actually.”
“Oh, that’s precious. Tell me about it,” she said, leaning against the side of the ice cream shop.
I scoffed. “Oh, let’s see. I was hangin’ here with my best friend, and this girl from school, Libby, just came up and planted one on me.”
Lindsey pressed her hands over her heart. “Oh God, that’s adorable.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Oh, yeah, it’s really adorable that she was dared by one of her friends to kiss the biggest loser in school. It was even more adorable when her boyfriend found out about it, and snapped my glasses in half.”
That surprised her, and she looked taken aback before lowering her eyes. “What the hell Sean. You gotta warn me before you drop a bomb like that.”
“Hey, it was because of that incident that I started wearing contacts, so it had its silver lining at least.” I quirked a half-smile, but she didn’t reciprocate.
“Did that type of shit happen to you a lot in school?” she asked quietly.
I shrugged, maneuvering my gaze to some random tree along the sidewalk. The vibrancy of the springtime leaves, the texture of the trunk, the little notch above one straight limb, everything—just to keep myself from thinking about that humiliating moment from when I was fifteen. “Not really. I was more invisible than anything. Patrick and Ryan usually kept people from pickin’ on me, but there wasn’t much they could do about that one.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s really … really awful.”
“Yeah, well, it is what it is.” I shook my head. “Like I said before, some things just happen for some people. One thing that happened to me was that I was a loser in school.”
Lindsey shook her head. “You definitely would not have been a loser to me.”
My eyes rolled playfully, appreciating the sentiment but not wanting to take it to heart. “You didn’t know me.”
“No, but … It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said, facing her feet. “Everything that happened back then, to you and to me, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No. It really doesn’t,” I agreed, my voice gruff and edged with an old pain I didn’t realize I still carried.
Christ, what happened to the mood? Why had I needed to tell her about the random acts of bullying I had been subjected to as a kid? Why had I needed to tell her anything at all, when I could have kept my mouth shut and spent the night alone in my apartment?
“Tell me something else,” she said, looking up to me.
Appreciating the change in conversation, I cleared my throat. “Like what?”
“Anything,” she encouraged.
“Ehm, okay. Right. Well, above Dick’s is my apartment,” and I pointed up to the little window I called my own.
“Good to know,” she said, biting her lip. “You know, if I realize I don’t like sleeping on the floor, I can come crash on your couch.”
I thought about mentioning that she was more than welcome to sleep on my couch, or in my bed if she preferred, and I would take the living room. Whatever she wanted, just to be away from that place where her heart was shattered and her bed was burned. But as much as I wanted to say those things, as much as I wanted to be a protector and a hero, underneath the ice cream and fleeting dose of courage, I was still Sean and I was still afraid.
CHAPTER FOUR |
Brothers & Crushes
Monday
The morning brought the shrill squealing of my alarm, and a knock
on my door.
I threw a t-shirt on over my pale Irish skin. Summer was around the corner, and the Harold’s crew would begin their teasing.
Sean the Vampire.
Sean the Friendly Ghost.
My personal “favorite” was when Carlos, Jules’s buddy in Security, said that the only thing J and I were missing was the graham cracker in our s’more. He had called me Marshmallow for that entire summer. I had stopped laughing after the first three times.
I did try to tan once. My first girlfriend in college thought it would be fun to take a day trip to the beach. I had warned her about the Curse of the Irish Skin, but she had laughed it off and told me it was nothing a little SPF couldn’t fix. But no amount of SPF could have kept me from turning red and more crisp than a moderately charred lobster. The only thing more awkward than having her slather aloe all over my pained body was the night she took my virginity.
With a quick glance in the mirror, and a gentle shove of a hand through my hair, I shuffled my way to the door, and opened it to Lindsey. This was the first reminder that night before had happened at all, that it hadn’t all been a dream, and I smiled through my melancholy memories and just-woken-up daze.
“Good morning Sean,” she said with a bright smile.
“Mornin’.” I leaned against the door frame, forgetting my manners just long enough to take in the denim skirt and flowered top. The sandals on her feet. The chipped purple on her toe nails.
“You’re not ready for breakfast,” she teased, reaching out to pinch the threadbare t-shirt between her fingers.
“Hey, you’re early,” I pointed out, and stepped away from the door.
“Is this your way of getting out of having pancakes?” She narrowed one eye, glaring.
I grumbled a chuckle. “Nope.”
“Good, because we’re living this week, remember?” she said.
“Uh-huh.” My lips curled into a half smile.
As she came inside and closed the door behind her, I headed back to the bedroom to pull a clean t-shirt and jeans from my dresser drawers.
“Hey,” I called out, “there’s stuff in the fridge if you want to help yourself to somethin’ to drink while you wait. I’m just going to—Jesus!” I shouted with a startled jump, after turning to find her standing right behind me. I clutched my hands to my chest.
“Jumpy?” Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
I narrowed my gaze at her, scowling. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I warned.
“The bogeyman’s really out to get you, huh?” An airy giggle followed her words.
I pointed out my bedroom window. “That statue in the park? Right down there? It scares the shite out of me. I kind of spend every moment in here on edge.”
“You’re scared of statues?” she asked. She was grinning now, teasing me, and dammit if I didn’t love it.
“Uh, statues, mannequins, action figures, dolls …” I shrugged. “Don’t even ask me why I work in a department store. I have to put on blinders every time I walk through the feckin’ clothing departments.”
Lindsey sat on my bed, folded her hands in her lap, and when I shot her a questioning look, she gestured for me to continue with what I was doing. “Relax. I won’t watch you get dressed,” and she turned to the side, her back to me. “Tell me about this fear.”
I watched her with curious caution, both wanting her to turn around and wanting her to not be there at all. Wanting her hands all over me, wanting her to be back in her ex-boyfriend’s place. So many contradicting thoughts as I hesitantly pulled my shirt over my head, staring at all of that blonde hair. So many varying shades, weaved together in a different braid from the one the night before. A rainbow of near-white, yellow, pink-gold. What did it look like loose, cascading over her shoulders like a waterfall of daffodils? Was it as soft as it looked? What would it feel like, tangling with the blonde hair on my chest?
“Sean?”
My eyes doubled in size, glancing at the clock. How long had I been staring? Long enough to be awkward, that was for damn sure, and I scrambled to collect my thoughts.
“Ehm, sorry. Right, ah … so Ryan used to tell me that my action figures would come to life while I was sleepin’. He’d say stupid shite, like they would pull all my hair out and I’d wake up bald, or they’d steal my eyes and I’d wake up blind. Stupid crap like that. Anyway, that fear progressed to mannequins, and later statues, so now that I have feckin’ William Fuller watchin’ my every move, I have the urge to shite myself at the slightest noise in this feckin’ place.”
While she was busy laughing at my expense, I considered the act of hastily pulling my boxers down, to get it over with as quick as humanly possible with her still in the room. But then, there was always the possibility of her turning around, of her catching a glimpse of just how feckin’ turned on I was.
The bathroom was a much safer option, I decided.
“I, ehm … I’ll be right back,” and I rushed from the bedroom with my clean underwear in hand. I closed the bathroom door behind me, pulled my boxers off, ignoring the discomfort of my raging hard-on, and faster than I ever thought possible, I was in the clean pair and rushing back to my room.
“Better?” she laughed, and I rolled my eyes with a sarcastic “ha-ha.”
The jeans came next, and lastly, the t-shirt. I told her she could turn around, and when she did, she brightened the room with her grin.
“So,” she said, getting a look at me, fully dressed. “Your brother really liked to torture you, huh?”
“It’s what siblings do,” I said, shrugging. “I mean, he and I used to drive Patrick absolutely insane with the shite we used to say and do, regarding him and Kinsey. This one time, we hid in his closet, just to watch them make out. What kind of feckin’ psychos do that type of thing? It grosses me out, thinkin’ about it now.”
“Curious psychos,” she said with an affectionate smile. “I can do you one better than that. An old friend of mine and I listened to her sister having sex through the door of her bedroom. I can’t even remember what would make us even want to do that, but we did it.” She shook her head. “Kids do weird shit.”
I smiled, enjoying the moment as it passed. Those moments with her seemed worth holding onto, and I wished for the ability to pin them down. To frame them. To visit them later when they were no longer mine.
“I like your room,” she announced suddenly, taking a quick look around.
“Ehm, thanks?” There was nothing particularly special about my room. I slept there. I got dressed there. That was about it, but she looked around the place with that little smile painted to her lips. What was she seeing that I wasn’t?
“It’s cozy,” she said, looking down and touching her fingers to the quilt on the bed. “Like, who made this?”
“My granny,” I said, finding it hard to breathe and thinking I should open the window.
She nodded and looked up to the mirror, where I had a few pictures tucked into the frame. “Pictures of your family?” I nodded, and her smile widened. “That’s so—”
And then, there was another knock on the door, pulling me from her voice and whatever she was about to say, and I cursed under my breath. “Who the feck is that now?”
I stalked toward the door, fists clenched at my sides. Angry that whoever-the-feck it was had dared to interrupt this rare moment of having a gorgeous woman in my bedroom. I gripped the doorknob, willed myself to calm down, and pulled it open to stare at my brothers.
“Why?” I found myself whining. So manly. “Why the feck do ya have to be here right now?”
“Good to see you too, Seanie,” Ryan laughed, his breath heavy with cigarette smoke.
“God, you need a feckin’ mint,” I grumbled, waving a hand to clear the air of his disgusting habit, and he laughed again.
“Snow’s not lettin’ me smoke at the apartment anymore, so …”
“So, he smoked half a pack just on the way over here,” Patrick finished for him, sighing heavily before sa
ying, “Do ya not remember agreein’ to help Da move furniture from their garage to my house?” he asked, pushing past me into the apartment.
“Oh, Christ,” I groaned, scrubbing both hands over my face. “Shite, no, I forgot.”
Ryan grabbed my chin in his hand. “Hey, what’s this? You’re growin’ a beard?”
I smacked his hand away. “I just haven’t shaved in a couple of days,” I explained needlessly, as I turned to rush back to my bedroom before either of them could notice I wasn’t alone.
“Well, ya should. Might actually help get your arse laid for once. Our face looks good with one, and women feckin’ love it, man. Snow loves the way it feels on her thighs. Ya know, when I’m—”
I shot him a hard look before he could paint me any pictures. “Yep, got it,” I muttered with a groan, and I stuck my head into my bedroom. Lindsey’s hands worked nervously in her denim-covered lap, and I whispered, “I am so sorry about this. I had no idea they were comin’ over. I apparently agreed to somethin’ and completely forgot, and—”
Ryan crept up behind me. “Who the feck are you talkin’ to?”
I jumped. “Jesus feckin’ Christ, Ryan,” I gasped, pressing a hand over my heart. Lindsey pinched her eyes shut, biting back a laugh. “I’m not talking to anybody,” I shot at him, and Lindsey rolled her eyes. Because we both knew I wasn’t fooling anyone.
Ryan’s eyes flooded with excitement and suspicion. “Seanie Boy, did you get laid last night?” He winked at me, and I groaned, looking back through the crack in the door.
Lindsey stood up, cupping her hands over her mouth as she walked to the door. I gave her a warning glare, forgetting that she barely knew me and probably wouldn’t understand that it was even supposed to be a warning, as she pulled the door open.
Ryan smirked, looking down at her. “Paddy, there’s been a feckin’ miracle!” he called out, reaching up to grab the lip of the doorframe. “Seanie, ya could have told us you had some company.”
Last Chance to Fall Page 5