by J. C. Allen
He gave me a look that was hard to read. I trusted him, but damn that was a dangerous look.
“Of course.”
I smirked at that, wondering if I could truly trust that kind of promise when he was involved.
If nothing else, I worried if I’d be able to be strong enough to fight my own desire once we showered. The night was going so perfectly and I hadn’t wanted it to end, plus I really did love showering with Derek.
“How you feeling? You okay?” he asked, helping me to the bathroom.
“I’m fine, really,” I said. “You really were incredible.”
“Good to know,” he said, laughing.
He started the shower, carefully set the temperature, and then led me in. True to his word, he didn’t try anything; he helped me wash off, giving me little kisses here and there to stave off the potentially awkward moments and letting silly moments pass with giggles that I felt comfortable to share in with him.
As wonderful as the act itself had been, the aftermath—what could have been embarrassing or awkward or outright unpleasant—became a moment that was simultaneously touching and humorous.
Knowing that laughter and comfort could replace loneliness and shame offered a new sense of freedom and happiness that I’d never thought possible.
And Derek gave that to me; gave me that and so much more.
He really was too perfect.
Just as the night had been too perfect.
Except….
It wasn’t. I had seen Chuck by the parking lot, and no amount of self-deception was going to change that. He was stalking me, he had not left the town, and Derek and the crew were in danger.
But… then again, Derek had gone to see Matty earlier, and surely, they had had some tough conversations, most especially since Derek had zoned out to some dark places a few times. He had to know what was going on.
And even if he didn’t, there was no one I trusted to protect me more than Derek Knight.
We finished washing soon after—too soon, we wordlessly agreed—and we lingered there, in his giant, wonderful “fucking” shower, and just seemed to meditate on each other’s company. He leaned forward, capturing my lips in his. The kiss demanded nothing; there was no need to turn it into anything more and no reason to let it stop.
And so we just stood there, under multiple streams of serene warmth, and kissed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I relaxed against him, returning the kiss.
This kiss seemed to hold something completely new in it and a part of me was enthralled at the feeling. This kiss felt like a promise of something more.
The promise of a future that was…
Forever.
23
Derek
To say I was riding on cloud nine would have been an understatement to end all understatements. I was alive—no small wonder given what I’d gone through—and, save for what would likely pass as a few really bad bruises before the month ran up, looking none the worse for wear.
But forget being alive—I’d been alive for many years before this and had had a miserable experience full of death, depression, and half-suicidal wishes. No, there was one reason and one reason only that I was truly on cloud nine and not cloud two or three.
I had the love of a good woman.
No, scratch that, a great woman.
We’d gone to hell and back, wound up saving each other’s lives in the process, and come out of it saying we loved each other. If I was being completely honest…
Well, the thought of getting married again had crossed my mind. It seemed incredibly unlikely in the end—I didn’t want to be twice widowed—but the idea that Eve could be my lifelong partner, someone who was there for me through thick and thin? Yeah, that seemed very real.
I almost regretted ever doubting her with Roost. I had let my emotions get the best of me. I knew I had a long, long, long way to go before I was a whole person again, as just because I’d found Eve didn’t mean I was magically rid of all of the trauma and emotional baggage from before. Eve would have to be patient with me in some moments, just like, if I was being honest, she’d have her moments. Although she hasn’t really had any yet.
Or she hasn’t shown them yet. Whereas me… well, I’ll let time play out my final grade.
I couldn’t exactly express such thoughts to her in the moment, though, because I had left Eve behind again. But this was purposeful by my decision, not Roost’s.
I was going to help Tara get a prostitution circle set up with guardians from the Savage Saviors.
I couldn’t say I was exactly comfortable with the idea. There felt like there was some psychological problems with Tara if she was so willing to go back to the life that had nearly killed her so quickly. I worried that my association with the trade would upset Eve or, worse, my worst nightmares about Eve going back to being a hooker would come true.
But I needed to rescue Roost, damnit.
OK, that wasn’t the real reason. Tara kept insisting the work wasn’t that bad, it was just that she hated the constant fear of death. I guess in some way it made sense, and seeing that Tara would take a more leadership than “boots on the ground” role than before… I suppose I was… kind of OK with it?
It took a serious stretch of rationalization to make sense of it, but if it made Tara happy—truly happy—I was OK with it.
I got on my bike, alone for the first time since I awoke, and gunned it with the kind of freedom that I hadn’t had since, well, before my wreck. Sure do enjoy all these “first times since the wreck,” don’t I?
A horn blared as I rocketed through a light that had only just gone red. I cursed inwardly, chastising myself for risking the yellow and swerved to avoid becoming a gored hood ornament on a neon green convertible. The car was, admittedly, vintage, shiny, and looking like the owner had put a good deal of time and money into making it look so good. It would’ve been a shame to ding up a beauty like that.
Only thing that remotely compared to such an awful turn of events would’ve been me getting shredded under such a gorgeous ride and getting myself dead so soon after celebrating just how good life could be. And on the heels of an accident, no less!
And then the bike began to tip over.
“Aww, hell fucking no!”
Through raw sill and sheer luck, I managed to pull the roaring machine back into place beneath me. My right knee felt the hiss of passing pavement, and I figured if I hadn’t just lost a few scraps of denim from the pantleg of my jeans, it was only just barely. The blap of a classic car horn crowed on, punctuated by a few other, newer horns singing behind it as well as a few startled shouts from people watching from the sidewalks.
“Jesus,” I said, in disbelief that I had almost killed myself again—and in broad daylight! “That’s it. From now on, driving like a grandpa. No more reckless driving. No more showboating. No! No! Derek Knight, you will be a law-abiding citizen who drives five miles per hour under the speed limit!”
OK, I was laughing to myself by the end. I at least had my sense of humor. And, coming out of it all with a smile on my face and a casual wave of apology to the driver behind me, it occurred to me again just how different my outlook on life was.
I never would have thought that Eve would have turned me into this. The love factor occurred to me then, reminding me that past hookups were hardly a sound comparison. I’d never felt anything for the other girls who’d been up for a little “exit polin,’” as Roost often called it when detailing his own exploits, so it was only reasonable that this occasion would resound as something different.
Up until last night, anal sex with somebody I cared about was not unlike handling glass. With Eve, however, I’d felt like a potter handling a supple and eager bit of clay, a firm and responsive subject that was quick to take shape around my touch.
The way she’d thrust herself against me as I…
I hit the brakes and came to a screeching stop in time to avoid running another red light.
I rolled my eyes at mysel
f.
Fucking shit, Derek, get a grip!
For real. Drive safe. No more nonsense.
Drive safe.
I was a mess. One could go so far as to say I was a hot mess.
Before Eve, I’d been so laser-focused on a routine that something as insubstantial as a busted stereo was cause enough for an all-out meltdown. Sex, anal or otherwise, had felt like a punishment. Roost had often “prescribed” an evening with a hooker as though it were medicine, and, like a whiny child, I’d carried on and protested as though it were medicine. It was not that difficult to admit that I was suicidal.
Yes, I had been a terrible mess before Eve and now I was a goofy, giggling mess that was practically singing love songs of Eve down the middle of the highway, throwing flower petals and blowing kisses along the way. I’d gone from being a hot, stinking pile of garbage heaped atop a time bomb that was set to go off at any moment to being an oven full of melting Valentine’s Day chocolates and scorched Hallmark cards.
A car horn blared behind me, drawing my attention to the now-green light in front of me, and I waved a half-apologetic, half-thankful hand over my shoulder as I started forward.
OK, this isn’t quite what we meant by drive safer. But I suppose we have to let the pendulum swing some before getting to the middle.
For the first time in my life, I was with a person whom I connected with so perfectly with that I no longer felt inclined to worry about where we might not connect. Like the well-oiled workings in my chopper, Eve and I meshed so well that neither of us had to worry about grinding the other’s gears. And yes, such a moment would come, but I was prepared for it and loved her enough that I could take it.
Especially when the so-called mismatches come from your misunderstandings of her, you fool.
And while a part of me felt like I was doing Maggie’s memory a disservice through this thought process, I couldn’t help but think that this was part of the reason things had turned out this way. A perfect gear had no trouble meshing with another perfect gear, after all. In most instances a perfect gear might even be able to pick up some of the slack brought on by a busted gear that it was partnered with.
But what about when two broken gears were brought together? It was incredibly unlikely that two broken gears, perhaps jammed together by a cruel and sadistic cosmic mechanic, might manage to function even remotely. And a broken gear, knowing what it was, would forever feel like a burden if it found itself paired with a perfect gear, whether or not the pairing stood a chance of functioning.
But what if two such busted gears, lonely and certain of their own uselessness, happened upon one another? What if they discovered that, by some divine miracle, their raging imperfections actually managed to fill in the gaps for the other? That they, busted and tormented as they were, might actually function better than even the newest and best of gears as a unit?
Well, in an event such as that, nobody could blame one of those gears for feeling the way I felt. No one would dare question why someone like me should be riding on cloud nine, ten, and onward.
And then, as if slapping me with his big paw bear hand before threatening to bring me back to reality with a big, sloppy, wet kiss, Roost’s pink house appeared.
“My God,” I said.
I never got used to seeing a house painted pink like this. Even though I’d been many times over to his place, it just never felt right. It was like seeing a four-headed dog, or a golden retriever with green fur, or me with a normal state of mind. It just felt so jarring, so out of place, so confusing… nothing made sense.
Roost opened the door, perhaps having heard me coming, and stepped outside shirtless and in nothing but underwear.
“This was not the view I expected this morning,” I said.
“Ya think this is bad, jes wait till ya see the insanity of the house.”
I rolled my eyes but moved forward. I had a feeling Roost was just exaggerating, anyways—he enjoyed creating a little drama with his personal life, and I think it made him feel a little important.
I tried not to notice the wounds and scars across his big, fat belly and chest.
“Sexy an’ I know it,” Roost said, giving a little jiggle.
“Oh, God, OK, please, not necessary,” I said, now shielding my eyes and rolling them.
“Ya know I’m jes givin’ ya a Roost Welcome.”
“Yeah, thanks, what happened to ‘how yer doin?’”
“One day, Derek, you will learn to imitate what I sound like. I hate to break it to ya, but today is not that day.”
“Heartbroken.”
I moved up the stairs and into the house. I waited for the sudden flood of prostitutes, as if out of a movie—I expected to be crushed by a stampeding horde of women like you’d see in a bad cartoon.
It did not shock me in the least to see that while three girls cooked breakfast in the kitchen, the place did not look like it was on the verge of collapse. Old Roost, once more, had hyped up the house as the feminine apocalypse and instead it just looked like he’d had a sleep over with a few friends as the gay best friend.
“Where’s Tara?” I asked.
“Right here, lover boy!”
OK, with that screech, what Roost is saying makes a little more sense.
I looked up the flight of stairs to see Tara, wearing what looked like the world’s tiniest G-string—I felt like I was cheating just by looking at her—walking down.
“How ya doin’, Derek?”
“I’m, I’m good,” I said, for the first time in my life trying on purpose not to look at a woman’s chest. “Can we just, just get to the paperwork? So we can make this official!”
“Of! Course!” Tara said, in an unusually good mood.
I looked to see if the other girls had any reaction to Tara’s cheerful nature. A few of them smiled, but most of them seemed to have acquiesced to the singing hooker.
It just made so much sense right now that Roost and Tara would be living under the same roof. It was like we combined all of the loudmouths of the entire city and placed them under a single roof. Hell, I imagined living here would make me start speaking like Roost!
“Well then,” Tara literally sang. “Let’s get down to the business, shall we? Call me doctor, because I’m about to run some diagnostics on this deal!”
“That’s not even… OK, fine, whatever,” I said, looking at Roost, who merely gave me a knowing nod. I nodded back, as if to empathize with all that he now had to deal with.
Tara had abandoned and then just as quickly reclaimed the title of “Tara: Whore Wonder” shortly after she and Eve had liberated themselves from the Black Falcons and the street corner they’d been condemned to. Since then, Tara had taken to her “new job” with all the ferocity Roost had warned she would have. While much of the paperwork I was handling could have just as easily waited another week, I was certain that Tara’s patience wouldn’t last that long.
And let’s just say if she lost patience, Roost lost patience. And a grumpy Roost was a sight not even I wanted to witness.
Through her work for the Black Falcons, she’d developed something of a working relationship with many of the prostitutes, working relationships that ran too deep and were too personal to simply be filed away as “office friendships.” And once Rock went down, she took advantage of the chance to take them in.
I was aiming to reboot what my father had started, if for no other reason than it would give Tara and her friends much more safety and security than they’d ever had, even if I secretly wished for them to “graduate” out of it.
And now, with Tara raring to get her old comrades off the streets and “playing the whore-game right,” I felt compelled to help.
As I dragged my cramping hand through the process of yet another signature, I wondered if my dad had ever found himself as intimidated by his brothel-running colleagues as I felt with Tara. She was sharp as a razor, funny as hell, and the best friend Eve could ever hope for, but to say she was intense was an understatement. I
began to think if she and Roost switched places, the Savage Saviors would have a lot more intense and strict rule.
“You better make sure all these papers are in line, big boy,” she said. “Otherwise, Eve’s gonna need a shovel to take you on your next date!”
“Yes, Tara, I’m aware,” I said, sighing. Why did I not delegate this task to Roost. Why, why, why.
Yes, yes, to save him and get these girls out. Sorry, Roost, I love you, but I don’t love you this much.
I finished up the last of the signatures and began itemizing various lists and documenting various phone numbers and email addresses so that various permits could be assigned. Finding this to be a ridiculously long task, I called in Eagle to the house.
I heard him the second he rode up, and not because of his bike.
“Goddamn ugliest house I ever seen!”
I tried not to laugh. Roost went outside to greet him, and though Eagle wasn’t much of a talker, Roost was one of the few people who could get him to talk like no other. I tried to work my way through, but just before Eagle and Roost showed up, I gave them about eighty percent of the remaining documents so I’d have them off of my hands.
We resumed work, trying to ignore Tara prattling on behind us. In the middle of all of this, my phone buzzed with a new text message. I passively retrieved it, expecting either something cute and-slash-or sexy from Eve, or twisted and threatening from Tara.
Crazy? It wouldn’t have been the first time that Eve had messaged me at the table.
I was wrong on all guesses, the text coming from an unknown number.
* * *
meet me on the conrer of church annd lyle in 29 mins. com alone. IMPORTANT!!
re: Eve
* * *
And another one of Falcon’s games, I see.
They can’t possibly think I’m stupid enough to go to that corner alone, can they? I mean, are they trying to kill me by mocking my intelligence to death? I don’t think that’s gonna work very well.