by Ryan, Alison
“People in our county love basketball, so high school diploma or no, he could rely on his name and helping lead his school to the state tournament his freshman year to get him in the door for jobs. But his attitude, temper, and drinking insured that none of them ever lasted very long.
“When I was a young kid, I was a huge fan of the Cincinnati Reds. It was the major league team closest to my Podunk town, and in 1990 they were on fire. They went wire to wire that year, meaning they started the season in first place and stayed there the entire season.
“I used to have a little transistor radio I’d sneak under my pillow to listen to all the night games. Even when the team was on the west coast and games didn’t begin until ten o’clock or later. Their announcers were Marty and Joe, Joe being Joe Nuxhall, who’d pitched for the Reds a million years ago. The sweetest sound I ever heard was Joe’s tagline at the end of every broadcast. “This is the old lefthander, rounding third and heading for home. Good night, everybody.”
Nolan was lost in melancholy, his eyes focused on something nobody but him could see, something off in the distance. Anybody else talking at length about a baseball team from twenty-five years ago would have put me to sleep. Nolan had me on the edge of my seat.
“Anyway, late in the season one of my best friends, Russ, had a birthday. For his birthday, he got tickets to a Reds game. Against the Dodgers, which was a huge deal because the Dodgers were in second place almost all year. So Russ got to invite a friend along, and he invited me. He brought my ticket over and you’d have thought we had golden tickets from Willy Wonka. We even got t-shirts with our favorite players on them, Chris Sabo for him, Barry Larkin for me. It was all we talked about for weeks. I put that ticket in my special desk drawer and pulled it out every morning just to stare at it.
“His grandparents were supposed to take us to Cincinnati for the game. Neither Russ nor I had ever been to a Major League game, and his grandad had been telling us all these stories, about how green the grass was at Riverfront Stadium, even though it turns out it was artificial turf, but what does a twelve-year-old know? And how huge the hot dogs were, how they had these little ice cream sundaes served in replica batter’s helmets. I mean he had us all sorts of pumped up. I don’t remember sleeping a wink for three days before we were supposed to go.
“So the big day arrived and I got up, put on my Barry Larkin shirt for what was probably the twentieth straight day, and went downstairs. My mom was already gone, she cut and colored hair sometimes, so she was probably at somebody’s house doing that, and my dad was asleep on the couch. I poured myself some cereal and tried to be quiet to avoid waking him up, but when I started eating it, I guess I slurped the milk a little too loud. He woke up in a rage. Told me I was a noisy little shit with no respect. I knew by then to remain quiet, so I just kept my head down and ate while he stomped around cussing. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When I finished, I snuck back up to my room to retrieve the ticket. I figured I’d just hang out with Russ for the day until it was time to leave. My father couldn’t yell at m or hit me if he couldn’t find me. But when I opened the drawer, the ticket wasn’t there. I’d checked and re-checked it for weeks and it was always there. I memorized every inch of it. I couldn’t have misplaced it. I’d just held it my hands before going downstairs. I was frantic. I wanted to avoid my old man at all costs, but he was the only one who was home, so he was the only one to ask. I went down to the basement, where he went to smoke. He was sitting in his lawn chair by the back door, smoking, and I walked up and told him I couldn’t find my ticket. He acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about, so I explained what ticket I meant, the Reds ticket, that the game was that day, that I was leaving in a few hours and I couldn’t find my ticket.”
To my shock, Nolan paused and seemed to be choked up. It never occurred to me that Nolan Weston could get choked up about anything. I took his hand, squeezing it tightly, kissing it to urge him to continue.
“My father just looked at me. Stared at me for a good long while. I was nearly in tears, but he showed no sympathy at all. Just annoyance. ‘It ain’t fucking lost, dummy. It’s right here.’ He motioned with his cigarette toward his ash tray. I didn’t realize what he meant. I thought it was under the ash tray or on the floor, that he was playing some kind of game with me. I looked all around and he just laughed. ‘You don’t have a brain in your head, do you? This is your ticket’ he said to me. He lifted up the ash tray and dumped it all over the basement floor.
“He’d burned the ticket. Because I woke him up. Burned it and then made me sweep up the ashes he’d dumped on the floor.”
I watched a single tear fall down his cheek. Even two and a half decades later, the memory stabbed him right in the heart. My tears fell in torrents from my eyes. Seeing him cry destroyed me.
“I knelt down on that floor with my bare hands and sifted through the ashes, looking for anything in the mess that could gain my entry to Riverfront Stadium. But there was nothing. All I’d thought and dreamt about for weeks was destroyed by a temper tantrum. My own father’s tantrum. Russ and his grandparents weren’t well off. That ticket, the whole trip, really, was beyond their means. I knew they couldn’t afford another one. And we couldn’t either. I had to walk over and tell Russ I couldn’t go, that I’d lost the ticket. Back in those days you couldn’t just bring it up on your phone, you know?
“After that, my friendship with Russ was never the same. He brought me back one of those little helmets they served sundaes in, but I had to hide it. I was afraid I’d piss off my father and he’d smash it or something. But anyway, yeah, that was a microcosm of my childhood. Just one shitty story of many. And you’re the only one who’s ever heard that one.”
I sat there, a complete mess of tears and despondency. He’d done what I asked. He’d told me something true, told me something no one else knew. And it was like seeing the inside of a bleeding heart. All I wanted to do was go back in time and hold that sweet boy that Nolan used to be. Tell him that none of this will be forever, that he would escape.
I wanted to tell Nolan that, but I sensed it was better I say nothing for now. When someone reveals their soul to you it’s often best to just listen; to accept it and bear the pain of it with them.
Seventeen
The love we made after his story was the slow kind, and I was learning that was the kind I craved the most.
But I could feel a coolness in Nolan again. Perhaps digging up the past had been a bad idea. I could tell his head was in a different place now, one where I couldn’t go. One where probably no one got to go.
He sat with his back against the headboard as I straddled him, my legs wrapped around his waist. We said nothing. I ran my hands up and down his back, kissing his shoulder every few minutes, wondering what this silence meant, what any of this meant.
“What are you thinking of?” I whispered to him. “I’m sorry if I caused you to think of things that make you upset. I just want to know you.”
His eyes were on me again. He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me in for a long, lingering kiss.
“No, Camilla. That story is from a past I have long since let go of. I’m thinking of you,” he said. “And how long I wanted this.”
I laughed, “How long? A whole 3 days?”
He shook his head, “No. Longer than that, Camilla. You’ve only known me three days. I’ve known you much longer.”
I pulled back from him for a moment, “What do you mean?” Goosebumps rose on my flesh.
“I told you,” he continued. “I want to always be honest with you. That’s the only way to gain trust. Even when the truth is hard to tell.”
“Okay,” I said, slowly. “Nolan, I can’t take too many more revelations. This week has seen enough of those for me.”
“I know,” he said. “But now that we’ve become… close, I feel like it’s time you know everything.”
He stood up and I watched his naked body as it paced across the room and o
ver to the window. I wrapped the comforter around me, shivering in anticipation of what he was about to tell me.
“Your father,” Nolan started. “He entrusted me with a lot of things over the years. I’ve had to do things and see things that haven’t always been easy to stomach. I’ve told more lies than truths, hurt people to assist other people who maybe didn’t deserve my help. I know things about people that have made me a cynic about the human race in general. But that was always fine. Growing up with the man I did, I knew how truly terrible people were capable of being, even when they had the world at their feet.
“But there was nothing more important to your father than you. Although I know you find that hard to believe, it’s the truest thing you could ever know about him. It was a very poorly kept secret that Richard had a daughter. Everyone in our world knew and it was part of the reason he kept his distance from you. As powerful a man as your father was, I always figured you’d be safe, that nobody would dare to involve you, but I’m not a parent. He would get nervous when you were both in the same place at the same time, afraid one of our enemies would take advantage of that scenario to get back at him and the firm. Because you have to understand, in our line of work we do have enemies, Camilla.”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but it made me nervous to know that my father and I would have ever been in danger when we were together. I’d been completely oblivious to the world Dad was a part of.
“Well, the one thing he entrusted me with,” Nolan said. “Was you, Camilla. With protecting you, with making sure nothing happened to you.”
“Right,” I said, confused. “So, what? You were my bodyguard? That I didn’t know about?”
“Kind of,” Nolan replied. “Your father didn’t want his work to interfere with you having a normal life. He knew your life was already impacted enough by his absence. And when your mother died, that made it even more difficult. He didn’t want to share with you the stakes of his work, because he knew it would make you afraid. And he didn’t want that. He wanted you to feel safe, to build the kind of life you wanted.”
I still wasn’t sure what Nolan was getting at so I didn’t say anything.
“When you went off to college in Virginia,” Nolan said. “That’s when my assignment began. The firm bought a home in Charlottesville. I have lived there the last four years keeping watch over you. Making sure you were safe, that no harm would come to you.”
What. The. Fuck.
I stood up, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.
“You spied on me?” I yelled. “Are you fucking serious?” I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, the sound of it pumping through my ears.
“I didn’t creep into your room at night, Jesus,” Nolan said. “I kept a watch. I never went in your room and I never did anything that changed the course of your day. I was the Secret Serviceman you didn’t know you had. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” I said. “You really don’t think that’s a big deal? I had someone spying on me, someone my father sent. So instead of you know, doing what normal fathers would do and just calling me or seeing me himself, he paid for someone to spy on me for four years. I’m not the first lady, or a Senator, or anyone. I didn’t need a protector. I needed my father.” I had never been so angry in my entire life.
“I don’t disagree,” he said, walking toward me. I wanted to push him away, to pull away from him and run. But Nolan still had a hold on me. Even after finding out the truth.
“I told him that, many times,” Nolan said. “Especially after the first year. You didn’t need me or anyone. I was struck by how independent you are, Camilla. I had this assumption on what kind of girl you were. The daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the country, someone who’d been born to privilege and into a luxury most people can’t come close to imagining. I figured you’d be a whiny, entitled, bitch. If I’m being honest.”
I rolled my eyes, “Wow. Sounds like you really had me pegged.”
Nolan shook his head, “I was so wrong. I knew that right away. You didn’t rush sororities, you didn’t get wasted every weekend, and you didn’t treat people like other girls of your status treated people. You were different. You saw people. You ached to see the world.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “If you didn’t spy on me?”
“Well, I was in your world. I knew you were studying English and that you loved to read more than you loved to do anything else. You were kind to the friends you had. You had a roommate your second semester of your freshman year that was terrible. She went off to Hampden-Sydney one night and got so drunk she couldn’t drive herself back to Charlottesville. Even though she was terrible to you, you still drove to her, in the middle of the night. Just so she’d be okay.” He smiled. “It was the first time I realized you were more than what you seemed. And I suddenly realized I shouldn’t be protecting you. Because I was falling for you.”
He was in front of me now, his lips so close to my own. The heat from his body permeated through the sheet I was holding up between us.
“I was thinking of you in a less than professional manner,” he whispered in my ear. “You were beautiful. Physically exquisite. But your heart is what I was drawn to, Camilla. Your desire for depth, your incessant optimism, despite what you’ve dealt with. I was drawn to your soul.”
I allowed the sheet to drop and our bodies were one again, his hands in my hair, my lips on his, kissing him with a hunger I hadn’t known before. The thought of him watching me should have angered me, should have made me feel violated. But knowing he’d been in the shadows looking into my life only made me want him. It only made me wish he’d revealed himself to me then, so we didn’t need to be without the other all this time.
“Show me what you wanted to do to me,” I gasped. “Show me, Mr. Weston.”
“I wanted to teach you,” he said, pushing me back onto the bed, immediately entering me, his hardness overwhelming. I wondered if he’d ever been this hard before. I couldn’t imagine so. “I wanted to be the first and only man to have you, Camilla. To taste your skin, to watch your face as you come, to be the man that makes you scream as you run your hands down my back. Some days I wanted to fuck you and other days I wanted to make love to you. I was torn in every way and I couldn’t function sometimes from my desire for you.”
My thighs were wrapped around his waist as his thrusts battered me, making me moan with both pleasure and pain. His size and his aggression would be my undoing.
“When did it start?” I said into his ear as he pounded me.
“Within a week of being on assignment,” he said. “It was impossible not to fall for you, Camilla. When it came to you, there was no fucking hope for me.”
Eighteen
Later when we were spent and exhausted, he held me in his arms, both of us content in the silence.
But I always had my after-sex questions.
“Was there a time you ever really had to protect me?” I asked, running my index finger across his chest. “I mean, did anyone actually ever want to hurt me to get to my father?”
“Not so much,” he said as he kissed my head. “No one from our world anyway.”
I looked up at him, “So tell me. Anything exciting happen in the line of duty?”
He smiled, “Just little things. One time you had a flat tire. You were going to visit a friend of yours at Mary Baldwin and you got a flat as you were trying to cross Afton Mountain. Your cell signal must have been lousy because you started walking to a gas station to use their phone. I had one of my guys who happened to be in town follow you to make sure no one messed with you, not that anyone would, it was the middle of the day. Well, while you were gone, I fixed the flat. Put on a new tire. You came back with a friend of yours from school and you were shocked that it was fixed. Your friend thought you were crazy.” Nolan laughed. “I got a real kick out of that one.”
“That was you?” I yelled, laughing and punching him softly in the side. “I’ve been wondering for yea
rs how that happened! I actually thought maybe I was crazy. I tried to tell my friend Alicia that the tire really had been flat but I don’t think she ever really bought it. It’s been the biggest mystery of my life! I had to call AAA and tell them to cancel the tow, that my tire was now ‘unflat’. They thought I was insane.”
Nolan laughed, pulling me in to kiss me on the mouth now, his hands wandering down the curves of my hips.
“That was a funny story,” he said, suddenly more somber. “There have been other times, though, when things weren’t as funny. You have walked home twice from parties by yourself where a guy from the party followed you home. Both times I had to make them take detours.”
“Who?” I asked, sitting up, chills running up and down my body.
“Someone from your dorm your sophomore year. Russell.”
Russell Tybell. Creepy kid, engineering major.
“That’s terrible,” I said, shuddering. “It happened twice?”
“Yep,” Nolan said, his voice cold now. I could tell he was thinking about it and it upset him. “The other motherfucker was a fraternity douche who spiked your drink. Roofies.”
“What?” I asked. “When?”
“Your freshman year, you went to your first party on Rugby Road. With your two suitemates who were both rushing. The frat had a bowl of punch that only the women were allowed to drink from. Well, that was because it was spiked. You stumbled out of the house an hour later and one of the guys tried to help you home. Instead, I helped him to a knee to the groin and the promise that I would kill him if he ever went near you again.”