by Tracey Ward
"Jenna's going to give me some tattoo advice. Has she done any ink on you, Kellen?"
"No. I don't have any."
"I'm surprised. You're a fighter, right?"
"Boxer," I corrected instinctively.
"Oh," Alexander said, giving me a curious look. "Still, though. I would have thought you had something."
"I'm not good with commitment," Kellen replied vaguely.
Alexander laughed. "I would hope that's not true. Aren't you en--"
"Do you mind if I steal Jenna away for a second?" he interrupted, taking my arm at the elbow. His hand felt cold.
Alexander nodded. "Sure, of course. It was good to see you. Jenna, great to meet you."
I managed a smile for him. "You too."
Kellen pulled me gently to the edge of the room until we were nearly tucked in the shadows, hidden from the hustle of the room. It made me nervous being in this secluded area with him, as though everyone would know what we'd done (or almost done) just by us being here like this.
"That guy is a douchebag," Kellen muttered when he let me go.
I shrugged, rubbing my arm where his hand had touched me. My skin felt frozen. "I liked him."
Kellen shook his head, his eyes looking beyond me a little unfocused. I eyed him closely then. To the casual observer, nothing was wrong. But to me, to someone who had known him for years, it was impossible to miss.
“You’re drunk.”
He snorted but he didn't deny it. I noticed a glass of wine in his hand. White wine.
Kellen hated wine.
“Is that vodka?”
His eyes snapped to my face. “What are you? A witch? How could you know that?”
“Because I know you. Why are you drinking like this tonight? Are you okay?”
“I am what I am and that’s all that I am.”
I scowled. “What is that?”
“The words of a brilliant man.”
“I am what I am…” I muttered quietly, trying to recognize the familiar phrase. “I’m Popeye, the Sailor Man?”
“Nailed it,” he said, leaning in closer. “You know everything."
"That's simply not true."
"I could say anything to you and you’d get it, wouldn’t you?”
I stared at him for a moment before answering softly, “Not everything, no. Some things you say stump me.”
He focused up on my face, his eyes growing serious. “I don’t understand it any more than you do. I don’t like it any more either.”
“But you are who you are and that’s all that you are,” I sang quietly.
“I’m the Tin Man, Dorothy,” he agreed, beating his hand over his heart. “I’m running on empty.”
“We’re mixing a lot of genres here.”
He nodded, taking a drink. “Life is messy like that.”
“Can I have some?”
He looked at me in surprise, but then he smiled wickedly. “You’re only seventeen.”
I glared at him, yanking the glass from his hand. “Too soon to be funny.”
I took a quick sip before handing it back to him. Yep, vodka. The good stuff. It went down easy, burning slow and even. It felt good. It felt different than the empty hollow in my stomach that I’d been dealing with for days.
“Are you okay?” he asked, taking his glass back.
“I’m great. What time is it?”
He lifted his arm to look at his watch but he struggled to shake it out from under his jacket sleeve. I finally grabbed his hand and spun the watch until I could read it. 8pm. My midnight.
"Pumpkin time," I said victoriously, unbuttoning my cardigan.
Kellen's eyebrows shot up. "Are you stripping?"
"What is it with guys tonight? Porn star? Stripper? I gotta work on my vibe."
"Who called you a porn star? Douchebag back there?" Kellen asked hotly.
"Don't worry about it. I'm off the clock. Mom gave me the okay to leave after eight which means I can get clear of this crowd, ditch the death black clothes and salvage this Saturday night." I gave him a small salute as I went to step around him, heading for the door. "Good luck. Lay off the vodka, you're one drink away from sloppy."
"Wait," he said quickly, grabbing my arm again.
"What?"
“There’s something I need to tell you before you go,” he said, suddenly looking tense.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning with worry.
“Kellen!” Laney called. She waved from across the room, her face all light, laughter and excitement. Mom and dad were standing beside her. Mom was glowing as well.
“Shit,” Kellen groaned.
My heart felt tight. The thin air in my lungs had evaporated. “What’s happening?”
“I wanted to tell you before it happened. I wanted to be the one.”
My eyes went wide. Part of me knew, but I wasn’t ready to know. To understand what this party was really about. What was scheduled to happen at eight.
“No,” I breathed, staring at my happy family. My happy family standing there without me.
“Jenna.”
“Oh, Kel, no,” I said sadly. Not sad for myself, but for him. For Laney. This wouldn’t end well. Either that or it would never end and it would be a nightmare of a ride to watch, let alone live.
“Wait, just wait,” he said, taking hold of my shoulders.
His glass sloshed. Vodka soaked the left arm of my sweater. I didn’t care. I could only stare up at him in amazement.
“Kellen!”
“Just wait!” he called back, less kindly than he should have. Heads began to turn toward us.
“Kellen, you need to get up there,” I told him, glancing around nervously.
“You need to listen to me first.”
“Then talk fast. People are staring.”
“Fuck people,” he growled.
“What do you need to tell me?” I whispered vehemently. “That you put a ring on it? I see that.”
“No, I need you to promise me.”
I stared at him, searching his face. “Promise what?”
“Kellen!”
His hands tightened on my shoulders. He took a deep breath. “That you’ll never quit on me.”
It was the same thing I’d asked of him two years ago. Two years ago when I’d crept to the end of my bed and stared up at him, setting something off inside of him that ticked like a time bomb all those years, finally exploding in a moment of chaos and kisses in my mom’s kitchen, a moment we had yet to recover from. Now he was marrying Laney and I knew we probably never would. We’d never get back to where we were.
I felt tears sting my eyes. “Kel,”
“Other people already have,” he told me, his voice husky and hushed, only for me. “More will. But not you. Never you. Promise me.”
There were whispers all around us. Voices rushing through the crowd, rumors flying, speculation building. It was about to get ugly.
I took a sharp breath, nodding my head. “I promise you.”
He pulled me forward and pressed a kiss on my forehead before I could stop him. The entire room watched. I felt my cheeks explode with fire when he abruptly walked away, heading toward my waiting family. The eyes slowly followed him and I fell into shadow in the corner of the room. I watched with deaf ears and dead eyes as they made their announcement. As glasses were raised, cheers erupted, applause were given. Laney held up her hand, showing off the ring. He kissed her lightly. His mouth was smiling. His eyes scanned the adoring crowd, accepting congratulations.
But when they fell on me, they were as dead as mine.
Chapter Thirteen
Four Years Later – Manhattan, NYC
“Oh God, Kellen,” she moaned loudly. “Yes! Fuck yes, baby! Like that. Just like that.”
“The entire hotel is going to hear you.”
“I don’t care. Don’t stop,” she groaned. “Don’t ever stop.”
The bed creaked under the weight of their bodies as they moved together in a slow, stea
dy rhythm. Eventually the pace began to build as he moved over her faster and faster. Her moans filled the air, echoed off the walls and every now and then his heavy breathing turned to a guttural grunt that he couldn’t contain.
“I’m close,” she whimpered, her voice high pitched and strained.
“Let it go,” he told her breathlessly.
He quickened his pace, the bed creaking louder and faster.
“Not without you.”
“I can’t time it like that.”
“Kellen, please.”
“Don’t wait for me,” he said, his voice taught.
“Baby, yes, please. Look at me. Together.”
“Lane, just—“
“Oh!” she cried, drowning his words out.
I could hear it all through the pillow I had wrapped tightly over my head. The term ‘paper thin walls’ didn’t do this hotel justice. I could hear everything, absolutely everything as though I was in the room with them. I may as well have been sitting in a chair across from the bed munching on popcorn and enjoying the show because I was basically there already.
Even though Laney had mercifully finally found her release, I knew Kellen wouldn’t be far behind. I gripped the pillow tighter, punching it into my ears while I hummed the national anthem as loud as I could. Luckily, it was enough. I gave it five minutes of God blessing America before I risked pulling the pillow away. It was silent. Kellen was quieter than my banshee of a sister.
Growling in annoyance, I tossed the pillow across the room. It was a part of their sexapades now and I wanted nothing to do with it. In fact, everything felt tainted. If I could get away with burning the bed, the sheets, my pajamas, my ear canals, the part of my brain that stored this god awful memory to keep forever and ever, I would. I would do it in an instant. I didn’t even have matches but I was ready, willing and able to go full Girl Scout, breaking up furniture and rubbing the tinder together to spark a flame. Anything to rid myself of what had just happened.
After that, I couldn’t fall asleep. When two o’clock rolled around, I cursed under my breath, grabbed my phone and went into the bathroom.
“What’s up?” Sam asked, picking up on the third ring. “How’s the Big Apple?”
“Horny,” I grumbled.
Sam paused. “I don’t get it. Are you horny or is the city itself horny? Or are you horny because the city is horny and it’s made you horny by association?”
“Stop saying horny.”
“You brought it up. What’s the matter? You’re grouchy.”
I sat down inside the tub and let my head fall back on the wall. “I’m tired and I can’t sleep.”
“Shit, yeah, it’s what? Two in the morning? Why are you up?”
“Because Kellen was. I think he’s down for the count now, though.”
“Let me guess,” Sam said knowingly, “Laney KOed him?”
“For the better part of thirty minutes.”
Sam whistled in awe.
“Don’t be impressed. It was emotionally scarring. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Remember the trip to Mexico at the end of our Senior year? The one your parents made Laney and Kellen go with us on so we wouldn’t be kidnapped and sold into white slavery?”
I winced. “I remember.”
We had shared a room with them. Dad had booked us two but Laney sold off the second room in the fully booked hotel to some other seniors looking to upgrade from the roach motel they were in. She pocked the money and used it to fund a trip on a booze cruise for all of us. One afternoon Sam and I had gone out to go scuba diving but a storm rolled in and the trip was cancelled. We went back to the hotel early only to walk in on Laney and Kellen doing it. Sam liked to think back on it and remember Kellen’s naked body and I couldn’t say I blamed her. It was something worth remembering. But only if the sight of it hovering over your sister didn’t rip you in two inside.
It was an old wound, one I’d made a lot of progress in closing, but there was still a scar. I was pretty sure there always would be.
“Has Bryce burned down the store without me yet?”
Sam chuckled. “Still standing. He has tried to fire me twice though.”
“Well, you’re very lippy.”
“He likes it. What would he do with a mouse behind the register?”
I yawned. “Live peacefully.”
“Probably. But he’d miss me.”
I was pretty sure he would. After working at Bryce’s shop, Black Ink, my entire Senior year, I finally talked him into an apprenticeship. It was essentially the same thing I had been doing working for him only now I did it almost every day without getting paid. Sam took over the receptionist portion of my job and I became the shop bitch, running errands and doing everything undesirable. But I was in the shop, I was learning and the hours would help me in getting my license. I spent the summer there and started attending CalArts in Los Angeles the following fall. My mom wasn’t thrilled because she didn’t see where this was going. She also didn’t see the compass rose tattoo Bryce did for me on my eighteenth birthday. Or the small anchor I did myself on the inside of my left wrist. Or the sparrow on my right. It wasn’t until my second year of college, my third year hanging around the shop, when she saw the small smiling skull I put on Sam’s shoulder. That’s when she found out what I was doing.
And she flipped.
I explained to her for hours that I was doing it in a sterile shop and I was working my way through an apprenticeship. Sam had signed a release giving me full permission to ink her and Bryce had been right there beside me the entire time. Same thing with my wrist tattoos. I was under supervision because I was still learning, because I was working on becoming a professional. I told her I was still going to college. I still planned on graduating with a BFA before I went to work in a shop full time, but she wasn’t hearing any of it. We didn’t speak for three days after that. Luckily I was already back at school but it still kind of stung. We were better now. I was about to graduate, I was a licensed tattoo artist working in the shop and both dad and Laney had sort of forced her to come around. Things were still tense though. I felt like I was on eggshells a lot.
After I hung up with Sam, I didn’t fall asleep until 4am. I waited to go back out to the bed until I was sure they’d finished. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been in bedrooms beside them on vacations before. Never any as acoustically impressive as this one, but I’d heard my sister’s incessant shouts of ecstasy and the occasional rumble of Kellen’s voice vibrating through the walls. What I’d learned from the previous shows I’d unwillingly attended was this – Kellen had a speedy recovery time. Boy could go three rounds before tapping out for the night. It was exhausting. I wanted a Gatorade and a PowerBar just thinking about it, though I desperately tried not to.
The next morning down in the hotel’s restaurant, I drowned my nightmares in French toast and scrambled eggs, intentionally getting downstairs before the happy couple had a chance to come knocking at my door wearing satisfied smiles. I felt hung-over from lack of sleep and I’d put on the bare minimum of makeup to cover the dark circles under my eyes.
“You look like hell,” Laney said, suddenly sitting down across from me.
I glanced up at her. She looked perfect and perky. Her golden hair expertly curled, swept and sprayed into place. Her makeup was CoverGirl flawless, not too much but just enough to look effortlessly perfect. Her outfit was a summer dress she’s picked up from Old Navy but she’d dressed it up with just the right jewelry and scarf to make it look designer. The girl had a gift.
“Thanks,” I told her dryly. “You do too.”
She grinned at me, knowing I was lying. “You’re going to get cleaned up before we go to the boutique, right?”
She glanced not very subtly at the streak of dark blue cutting through the black of my shoulder length, choppy haircut.
“I am cleaned up.”
“Your hands are filthy.”
I glanced down at my fingers. They w
ere black from my charcoal pencil. I’d picked it up and started sketching last night after I hung up the phone. While I waited to make sure the bout was over.
“I’ll wash my hands,” I conceded.
“Seriously? That’s it? You have to at least wear something over your shoulders. You can’t go in a tank top. All of your tattoos are showing. Do you have a shawl or something?”
I chuckled. “A shawl? Who are you kidding?”
“I can lend you one.”
“I’ll put on another shirt before we go.”
“Something nice.”
She wasn’t asking.
I shook my head. “All of my clothes are nice.”
“No, all of your clothes are clean. That doesn’t make them nice.”
“You’re wearing Old Navy!” I exclaimed, pointing my fork at her.
“But I won’t be when we go over there. Mom gave me a Chanel. She would have lent you something if you’d let her.”
“You’re doing a wardrobe change before we go?” I asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you just put on the clothes you’re going to wear?”
“Because I didn’t want to spill anything on it,” she said calmly, laying a white linen napkin across her lap.
“Huh,” I grunted, turning back to my breakfast.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I said, deciding it wasn’t worth the argument to find out why she was changing her clothes to go somewhere where she was going to be changing her clothes. Again. “What are you going to order?”
“I don’t know yet. How’s the breakfast here?”
I forked a large chunk of French toast and shoved it in my mouth.
“Delifus,” I slurred, speaking around the huge glob of food.
She chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re lucky mom isn’t here to see you do that.”
“You’re lucky mom isn’t here to hear you getting it on all night.”
Lacy looked up sharply in surprise. She pressed the open menu to her chest and leaned in closer, whispering, “You heard us?”
“Why can’t you be that quiet when you get down?”