by Lucy Lambert
Vagabonds don’t fit anywhere.
We went inside, me following her. She started for the kitchen.
“I was just going to do something simple. I have some leftover mashed potatoes from yesterday. Figured I could pair them with those frozen veggies you used and maybe a couple steaks.”
“Ellie,” I said. I stopped and she walked a few more steps away, her lovely figure outlined in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Yeah?” she said. She turned around and saw me standing in the middle of the hall.
I walked over to her. I stopped close. Close enough that I needed to look down at her, that our bodies were inches apart. I could see her pulse racing beneath the delicate skin of her throat. And even though the hallway was dark I could see the little spots of color flushing her cheeks.
“I don’t want supper,” I said.
Her jaw worked. Neither of us blinked.
“What is it you want, then?” she asked.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if she wanted the same thing I did, but I was gonna find out.
This time I didn’t stop myself. I reached up brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. My fingers traced down her jawline until I cupped her cheek.
I tilted her head back. I heard her breath catch in her throat. Excitement and desire flared inside me, like someone threw a switch.
She didn’t stop me when I wrapped my other arm around the small of her back. And she didn’t stop me when I pulled her hips against mine.
Then I kissed her. Gentle at first, just letting our lips brush together. My whole body tingled with the energy of it. She went rigid in my arms, then relaxed. I put my lips to hers again and felt hers soften and part.
I kissed her harder, and then harder still. Her hands swept around my back and her fingers dug into my shoulder blades.
I pulled her blouse up so that my palm rested against the hot skin of the small of her back.
This felt so right. She felt so right. So right for me. So much better than anything had felt for me since before I left New York, even.
Then her hands wrenched between our bodies. She put them against my chest. They made fists, grabbing up my shirt. Our bodies thrummed in time to each other.
Then she pushed me back.
I didn’t want to stop, and I thought that deep inside, she didn’t either.
But I let her push me away.
Even in the shadows of the hall, I could see the flush in her face. Her chest and shoulders rose and fell with every breath she gulped in. My own chest and shoulders did the same thing.
I could still taste her on my lips. She was sweet.
I ached to kiss her again. It seemed the only thing I wanted, the only thing I could ever want. I knew that I could, knew that part of her wanted me to as well.
But it still would have been wrong.
“Was that a mistake?” I asked while the silence pressed in around us.
Her hands still rested on my chest. Relaxed for the moment. If I moved towards her they would stiffen and push me back again. I felt her fingertips push against me, just a little. I don’t even think Ellie noticed.
She pulled her hands back. They balled into white-knuckled fists at her sides.
“I’m going to start supper,” she said without meeting my eyes.
She didn’t head for the kitchen, though. She headed for the stairs. I didn’t stop her. I didn’t follow her, even though I wanted to.
Chapter 12
ELLIE
I didn’t start supper. Not right away, at least.
It was a fight to not dash up the stairs as fast as I could. The muscles in my left arm tensed, ready and willing to haul me up along the banister.
For once, I kept myself in check and walked to my room. I even closed the door gently, so that I heard the latch click into place. I twisted the little button lock on the knob.
He can’t just walk in here again.
Except I wanted him to just walk in here again. Part of me wanted him to put his shoulder to the door until it splintered inward.
My lips still burned from the kiss.
I sat on the corner of my bed. Fell, more like. My knees went loose and watery.
I could still feel the light prickle of his stubble against my cheeks. I could still feel the needful pressure of his fingers where they had pushed against the flesh of my back.
The biggest thing, though, the thing that sent me running to my bedroom like a little girl, was the memory.
It was a memory from a summer long ago. A summer before my dad died. I had been kissed like that before. My first kiss, before Bobby happened on the scene. Bobby had been my first—and last, I suppose—boyfriend.
But he hadn’t been my first kiss.
Dash had kissed me before. He didn’t seem to remember this, not yet at least.
I remembered a handsome, shy boy who mostly kept to himself. There was more locked away in those memories, but I didn’t want to deal with them all. Not yet, anyway.
Dash was anything but shy now.
What happened to you, Dash? Who are you now?
I thought that was the question that he had come to Pleasant to answer. I knew then that I was a part of that answer.
But did Dash?
“You can take the couch,” I said after supper. It was early, but I was worn out and I suspected that Dash was, too.
The house still smelled like buttery mashed potatoes and steak.
Maybe I’ll make something fancier next time, I thought. Even though Dash liked it. Though I think he never looked down at his plate once. He watched me. Which was annoying, because I wanted to watch him.
But I also didn’t.
It was a word you didn’t much hear around Pleasant, but it fit. Surreal. I never thought I’d see him again. I never even knew what became of him. Even though, in that first year after he left, my younger self dreamt about him often.
I wanted so badly to grab him by the shoulders and say: Where were you? Where did you go? Why did you leave?
But I also didn’t want him thinking I was any crazier than he already did.
I knew him, and yet I didn’t. It was a hard thing to hold in my head.
“The couch is fine. Be nice to have a ceiling that isn’t the stars over my bed for once,” he said.
I grabbed him a pillow, a frayed but comfy blanket, and some old sheets. I started making the couch for him, but he took it all from me and did it himself.
Our hands brushed when he took the pile of bedclothes from me, and for a moment that deep inner thrum started again.
My knees started going weak. I caught myself against one armrest of the couch. I tried making it look like I hadn’t been about to fall over on my face.
Outside, dusk settled over Pleasant. Without the light, I hoped he couldn’t see the way my cheeks burned.
“Well, I’m going to hit the hay…” I said. My jaw creaked with a yawn, and I threw my hand up to cover it. I started turning around.
His hand fell on my shoulder. My heart kicked into high gear.
“Ellie, just a second.”
“What is it?” I asked. I faced him again. In the low, dusky light pools of shadow replaced his eyes, but I could feel them on me. His hand fell from my shoulder.
“There’s a place I want to visit tomorrow. I want you to come with me.”
I smiled. “You talk different from anyone else I know.”
“What do you mean?” He said.
“You hardly ever ask any questions. You just say things like they’re facts, or givens. Like, instead of saying, ‘Ellie, will you come with me tomorrow?’ You say what you just said. You talk like you’re used to getting your way with people.”
He gave a single, throaty chuckle, accompanied by a slight shake of his head that made his hair rustle around his shoulders. “In another life, I suppose I was used to that sort of thing. So, Ellie, will you come with me tomorrow?”
Of course I will! It will help me solve the mystery of Dash from
Back East! I almost said. But why appear too eager?
“So long as you wait for me to finish my shift. Some of us don’t have the means to be motorcycle vagabonds.”
He smiled, a wide one this time. It gave him dimples in his cheeks. It also set my stomach fluttering.
“Deal,” he said.
Then, without warning, he stripped off his shirt. One moment I saw his smile when he joked with me, then I saw the corrugated muscles of his abs, his deep chest and broad shoulders.
And are those tattoos? In the semi-light I couldn’t quite make them out. I had the urge to explore him with my eyes. And then my hands.
My cheeks burned again. Strike that, my whole body burned with the deepest blush of my life.
“Bed it is,” I said.
I got to the foot of the stairs when he called out again, “Ellie.”
“Yes?” I said, stopping, one hand on the smooth and cool wood of the banister.
“Thanks for all this. And good night.”
“Good night, Dash,” I said.
More like long night, I thought. I didn’t know if I could sleep after a day like that.
It was a long night, too.
I couldn’t get warm enough. I snuggled into the blanket. I even grabbed an extra comforter and drew it around myself like a mouse in a nest.
The tree in the backyard, normally never a both, clattered and clicked its branches together in the breeze.
And I kept thinking about Dash down on the couch. I bet he’s warm, kept going through my head.
He wasn’t warm. He was hot. My mind returned again and again to the glimpse of him shirtless.
I didn’t even have to concentrate hard to think about what it would feel like for him to wrap me up in his arms and hold me against him.
Thoughts like that did warm me up, though not in the way I wanted.
Part of me thought, You’ve only known him a day or so! What kind of woman are you? And the other part was like, No, you’ve actually known each other a long time. He was your first kiss! There’s nothing wrong with thinking about what you’re thinking about.
Both sides had good points.
Sleep was fitful when it came. I kept wondering where Dash wanted to go tomorrow.
I dreamed about him. About us, when we were younger.
Chapter 13
DASH
It was pleasantly cool in Ellie's house that night. I’d grown used to the night chill of the road, barely warded off by the thin blanket stowed away in my bike.
There had been nights at the beginning of my journey— my escape? — when I let myself stay in rooms. Hotels, motels, truck stops, that sort of thing.
I crossed my arms overhead, cupping the back of my head in my palms while I contemplated the shadows clinging to the ceiling above me.
But then I thought the risk was too much. Someone, somewhere, sometime would recognize me. And I couldn’t have that, not yet.
Being here, being with Ellie, felt right though.
I wanted so badly to go up and join her. To slip in under her covers and mingle body heat. Part of me thought that she wouldn’t even try to stop me. That she would welcome me.
But it was too soon for that.
She was the key to my memory, somehow. The longer I stayed around her, the more I remembered about her. About myself and the time my mother and I spent in Pleasant.
I had to unlock all of that. I needed to.
And I would start tomorrow, when I took her with me to the old house where my mother and I had lived.
Just that thought sent tickles and tingles of apprehension and excitement along my stomach.
Without Ellie, I would I have just driven on through Pleasant and not remembered anywhere near so much.
She was the key.
Chapter 14
ELLIE
I don’t know what Dash did all day while I worked. When I got back from my shift I found him out back, rubbing down the chrome on his motorcycle with an old rag.
His shirt, a plain white tee, lay across the saddle.
The way the bike leaned on its kickstand, the single, round headlight watched me like an eye.
He’d been shirtless again, wearing nothing but an old pair of jeans. I almost let myself stand there and admire the play of muscles in his back and shoulders. I didn’t.
“So, where are we going?” I asked. I’d changed at work. I could still smell the muffins I’d been helping to bake when my shift ended, but I didn’t want to waste time showering at home.
All day I could think of nothing but this. Where are we going? Where is he taking me?
Dash glanced back over his shoulder and then stood up.
He shoved the rag back into a saddlebag and then snatched his shirt up, turning to face me.
There was no dusk to hide anything now. Again, a flush of heat rushed up my body. He was a man rigid with muscle. Not muscle-bound, which was nice. Football linebacker wasn’t my type.
But then he caught me staring while he pulled his shirt on. My cheeks burned and I dropped my eyes to the cracked concrete of the walk that led to the back of my house.
He took a step forward and reached out one hand, palm up. “Keys. I think I can get us there, but I know I won’t be able to direct you.”
No one had driven the Ranger since my dad died but me. Apprehension stirred in the pit of my stomach, but I handled the ring of keys over. They jingled a little while he sorted through them, finding the one stamped Ford.
And then we started down the road.
“You still know how to drive one of these things?” I joked, which earned me a sidelong glance while he adjusted the mirror. That was all he adjusted though; he didn’t throw the bench seat out of whack. Instead, he didn’t seem to mind having to keep his legs all bent up.
We pulled our visors down simultaneously to block out the sun’s glare. It left the upper half of his face in shadow.
We made a left onto Spruce St. It was another neighborhood of largely empty houses, the windows all soaped over or covered with boards. A few places still had cars or, more often, pickups in their driveways.
A few even had desperate For Sale signs poking up from the long, untended grass of their front lawns.
Driving, I never really saw this all that much. Kept my attention on the road.
Are things really so bad as this?
“Why haven’t you left this place?” Dash said.
“Are you saying that I should?” I replied. I heard the affront in my voice. Pleasant’s not much, but it’s my home! I thought.
He uncurled a few fingers from the steering wheel and used them in a gesture meant to encapsulate the whole town. “Are you saying that you prefer it here? With men like Bobby and his father? Pleasant is dying, Ellie. You shouldn’t let yourself die with it.”
He made a sudden right onto Spruce. The back tires chirped, and the seat belt bit into my shoulder while I tensed.
The consolidated public school loomed up ahead. It was a yellow brick affair that always reminded me more of a prison than school. A few portables sat scattered on the grounds around it.
“You want the truth?” I said, a little scared, a little excited. The truth was something I'd been hiding from for a while now.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ve lived my whole life in a twenty-mile radius. I’ve never even been out of Kansas before, did you know that?” I asked. I kept going before he could reply. I knew the secret to this was momentum. “I did pretty well in school. Great grades in high school. I applied to half a dozen colleges, most of them out of state, and got into them all. A bunch of them even offered me money. But I didn’t go. This place, this town, has a hold on me. Even when he begged me to go, I couldn’t make myself. Pathetic, huh?”
I stole a glance in his direction. His eyes swept the road and then looked at me. I turned away and watched the cracks in the sidewalk pass us by.
Here’s the part where he laughs at me and agrees that I am pathetic.
&
nbsp; “Sometimes a place is a part of you. Leaving it can feel like pulling out a part of yourself. Or sometimes it isn’t always a place, but a person,” he said. “Ellie, who’s he?”
“What?” I asked.
“You said he begged you to leave.”
“Right.” I meant to give him the answer, I did. But when I opened my mouth to try it was like opening up an old wound that was almost but not quite healed. The hurt ran deeper than any knife could cut, though. “You have your secrets. Let me keep some of mine.”
“Fair enough,” Dash said. Then he pushed the brake. Not hard enough to lock the wheels, but hard enough that I put out my hands to brace against the dash.
“This is it,” he said, “This street. I know it.”
I turned my head so I could see the street sign while we passed it. Beech St. And just below it on the post: NO EXIT. A dead end.
It tugged at my memory, though. Like when you walked through some cobweb and you could feel it on your skin but for some reason couldn’t pluck the strands off no matter how hard you tried.
It was maddening. Dash was maddening.
And mysterious. And handsome. Can’t forget handsome, can we? The voice of my internal monologue mocked me with its tone.
He tapped the gas pedal. The engine grunted in response and the truck glided slowly down the street between the houses. There were only four on each side. The street ended abruptly not far ahead, terminating with a large yellow diamond-shaped sign that read “DEAD END.”
“But which…” I started. I stopped when my gaze rested on the third house down on the left hand side. “It’s that one.” My heart surged and my back and arms broke out in gooseflesh.
Seeing that house was like seeing something from an old but powerful dream, one only half-remembered but never completely forgotten.
“Yes,” he said. He stopped by the curb and we both leaned back in our seats.
How could I have forgotten so much? I thought. I looked at Dash, saw the way his jaw worked, the way frustrated lines creased his forehead, and knew he wondered the same thing.