by Devin Sawyer
Tonight, I can tell he wants to talk about it, and for once it’s okay by me because I feel the alternative is going to be discussing the upcoming New Year’s celebration and also his last night with Eventor. It took us this entire time to get here and I’m going to play dumb about that deadline a little bit longer. He curls into me and doesn’t reach for the remote to turn the TV on when we make it home. He kisses me on my chest beneath my chin, showering kisses in my cleavage before deciding to rest his head there instead.
“You know, when I got out. I went to find you.” I hadn’t known that. I was out of Layton by that time.
“You did?”
He nods his head, still lying on my chest, but he doesn’t move to look up at me. “I hadn’t heard from you or seen you since the day in the courthouse. I wasn’t delusional. I wasn’t convinced you would be waiting for me at my release, but I had held out even the slightest hope that maybe once I laid eyes on you again, we could solve things. Put the pieces back together again, maybe we’d be broken, but we’d heal the cracks.”
“I wasn’t ready for that back then, Torren. I was still processing being taken home in a police car and feeling like you chose giving-in over fighting. I was really angry with you. Hell, I’m still angry with you for it. But maybe that’s what we are doing now, we’re healing.”
He nods his head again on me and squeezes my torso harder into a hug. I’m not ready for the conversation where I tell him when I decided to look for him. I had been successful, in the worst kind of way. Things had just leveled out for us, we’re in a really good place. That conversation could wait. Or, I thought it could.
“Let me take you on another date,” he pleads.
“You always said you didn’t know how to date girls,” I tease back.
“I don’t know how to date girls. I only know how to date you.”
This swoony ass motherfucker is sexy when he says shit like that. I kiss him deeply, turned on by him again, and rather than answer, I roll on top of him. I am so tempted to end our misery, to complete the game we’ve been playing and take him to bed, but I get an even better idea. I pull back and the groan of dissatisfaction escapes from his throat.
“I’m not ready for that quite yet,” I say with heavy breathing. “But you can take me out. You can have Sunday afternoon after our meeting. You get one shot, Torren. Don’t fuck it up,” I say this jokingly. He has all the chances in the world to get this right with me. I know it, heck, he knows it.
A smile spreads across his face and I love the way his cheeks wrinkle up at the sides of his mouth when he’s really happy about something. I love that I get to see that part of him again.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Ace.” He pulls me in for a kiss and then rolls me over to maneuver himself on top of me, kissing me endlessly all over my face.
“You won’t regret it,” he whispers.
And, I believe him.
Chapter 27
Torren
I knew where I wanted to take Ari the second she agreed to go on a real date. I’d thought about it endlessly since moving here. This day had played on a loop in my mind for the last few years and now I was about to make it happen. Ari peppers me with questions on the ride about where we are heading. Like a mad teen in love, I blindfolded her so she wouldn’t know where we were heading. When we arrive, I park and help her out. I whip her blindfold off and watch her take in her surroundings. She brings her hand to her mouth, in shock.
“You’ve never been?” I ask.
“No. I mean I obviously knew about it, but it always felt like something I would have done with you.” A slight pause, but it’s not awkward now like it was a few weeks ago. “Have you been before?” she asks.
“Yeah. More times than I can count. When I first got here, I used to come when I felt…alone. Grady and I weren’t as close then, and I felt better here. Like I was still sharing it with someone. It wasn’t always you either, it was just that connection that muscle memory in my brain putting me at ease when I did this stuff.”
It was always an escape for us. Ari had been my escape from the low lifes of Glennville and I was her escape from the expectations that burden high society. We found each other both running toward a life of mediocrity and yet, with each other, life seems anything but mediocre.
I take her hand and pull her inside. I pay the entrance fee and lead her farther into the NASA space center, to a map and information center with a list of the sites. This place is massive. All the times I’ve been here, and I still find things each time that I hadn’t seen before.
“Where to, Ace?”
She peruses the list, reading all the exhibits listed and the information for each when she finally points to one. The Moon Revisited.
“Take me to the moon.”
So, I do. I follow the map directions to get us to the right area. When we arrive, we see the wall lined with the space suits used in the Apollo space missions, varying parts of the spacecraft, and one of the engines that were lit to propel the Apollo 11 into space. The engine sank and sat at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for nearly half a century before being found and reunited with the other Apollo 11 artifacts. For this reason, it’s one of my favorite pieces. The story of the reunification feels akin to the very story unfolding between Ari and me.
Next, I take her to touch the lunar touchstone, one of only eight lunar rocks in the world that you can touch. I watch the wonder, the magic, fill her when this happens. I know she feels inside of her how rare it is. We fill the rest of the afternoon meeting astronauts, checking out the automobiles used in space, and getting briefed on current NASA missions. Ari looks like a curious child as she excitedly explores each new aspect. I’m enjoying watching it all unfold for her for the first time. We catch the tram out of one of the far buildings and head toward the exit, but last minute I stop us outside one final building. This building is one of the most replicated in movie history. The mission control room. Ari goes nuts when we get inside and sees we are alone. She runs from computer to computer and plays with the old rotary phones. She picks up a headset, even though there are signs everywhere telling us not to touch the stuff, places it on her head and pulls her hand up to her ear as if trying to hear something coming through the headphone. She looks at me from across the room and giggles. She is so rarely light-hearted in nature that I wish I could capture the moment. I take my phone out and snap a few photos of her as I watch her play and flounce across the room, geeking out over all the historic equipment. I laugh as I watch her.
“Stop laughing!” she demands jokingly. The computers look ancient. I myself get lost in the awe of it until I hear…
“Crrchht,” she imitates the white noise an old radio would make. “Come in Houston, are you there?” She looks over to me and I see she wants me to play in her charade, so I pick up a headset and put it on.
“Crrchht, Houston, we have a problem,” she repeats.
I imitate her and lift my own hand to the headphone, pretending to hone in on her.
“Come in, Ace, what’s the problem?”
“I suspect an explosion in one of our oxygen tanks. Can you confirm, Houston?” Apollo 13. I know she’s re-enacting the Apollo 13 mission.
“Roger, I can confirm. Redirecting route back to Earth, Ace. Do not land. I repeat, do not land.” I feel like I sounded more like a GPS, but she continued on enjoying the role play.
“Rounding the far side of the moon, Houston, attempting return.”
“Fly back safely to me, Ace.” My heart pounds feeling our connection grow in this new playfulness.
“I don’t think I’ll be flying, Houston. I think I might be falling.” Her voice falls, and her eyes connect with mine across the mission control room. I pray I didn’t imagine the double meaning behind that. Her hands fall to her sides, no longer pretending to talk into a fake microphone. Her hair hangs loosely around her face and I’m struck by her simple beauty. I take my headphones off. Done with this charade of ours, where we pretend we aren’t f
alling in love all over again, and walk slowly, but intently, over to her. I never break eye contact and when I get closer, I reach out and pull her to me, against my body and kiss her deeply. I place my lips to hers and cradle her head in my hands, her headset falling from atop her head. I let this moment last as long as possible and when I have to breathe, I pull away only far enough that our lips detach. This feeling could never get old. Having her in my arms after all those rough years, and to come this far again, feels like I’ve arrived at an asylum for the broken. Here I am being pieced back together.
“I think I’ve finally landed safely, Ace.”
I hate that in that moment, I know we are both thinking about tomorrow. New Year’s Eve, and the final party. I want to talk to her about us. I want to talk to her about keeping jobs exclusively in Houston so I don’t have to travel as much.
The doors open and another tour walks in interrupting this moment between us. Our time for play has ended.
“Let’s head home,” I say, and she simply smiles and nods.
We head to Ari’s apartment and I can’t wait to get her alone. Something feels different today. It was perfect, it was us, and it was the past. I want her again all the time, I don’t want to question when she will be in a mood and send me packing. I want this to be forever.
“Pick a movie.” She tosses me the remote when we arrive. “I’m going to get changed.” Before she goes to her room, she steps toward me and kisses me gently. I hold her close to me, grateful to have her back.
I peer in on Ari as she changes from her dress into an oversized pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. Her hair is still soft and curled and she looks like an angel. She looks like she belongs in bed, dressed like this and I really hope that “watch a movie” is code for “Netflix and chill,” which is code for a home run…Really, all of those are euphemisms for getting laid. I feel like a fifteen-year-old boy, unable to even think the words “making love,” but I know that’s what I want. I know that’s what Ari and I need. I know that the moment it happens between us, she won’t ever second guess us again. My palms sweat and I wipe them on my jeans and peek back in on Ari as she pulls her hair up into a long ponytail. I have waited so long for this moment—and for a few years there I was even convinced we would never see each other again. I can’t wait to be with her in a moment like that. I’ve waited far too long to have her, to show her everything I feel. I begin to pace, allowing nerves to get the better of me.
I pick up a magazine off her side table and flip through it, wondering what the hell is taking her so long. I have no interest in reading People magazine and I quickly put it back down once I realize it can’t hold my interest. A manila folder lies beneath it and I pick it up, snooping around it, interested in knowing what kind of mail she receives, if she subscribes to anything. I fiddle through it and find paperwork with the Eventor logo placed at the top. I know she brings work home and she’s been doing it less in the last few weeks I’ve been here.
The paperwork appears to be a handwritten list of vendor suggestions for every event she’s done. Some events are more specific, like celebrity birthday celebrations, while others are broader groups of events like summer concert bashes. I skip to the back where she’s drawn up the holiday season and draw my eyes to the security detail to find my company listed.
“Safe Keeping” is scrawled out in Ari’s writing. Next to it, “Torren?” is also written. I read it over again. Had Ari been the one to select our company? I find three to four other companies listed in the same section, recognizing a few of them. I wasn’t aware that she had any part in the selection process when it came to vendors and I feel a bit betrayed as if she purposefully brought me into her life again and toyed with me. I need to get out of here and I need to fucking clear my head.
I just spent the last four weeks trying my damnedest to win over a woman I thought I was fated to be with. I’m a man nearing his thirties that believed in fucking destiny. It’s laughable, really. I grab my jacket and throw my shoes back on, but before I reach the door I hear, “Did you pick a…” Her voice falls off as she walks into the living room and realizes I’m on my way out. “Where are you going?” she asks with the nerve to sound hurt and scared that she will be left by me, again.
“You knew?” I ask incredulously, pointing to the files I left lying on the couch that clearly indicate the selection of my company.
Her face fills with panic. I can see her breathing quicken and her voice is shaky when she says, “I…I wasn’t sure. I found the company randomly, a friend from college had used you guys last year and recommended you, and then I pulled up the website to check for licensing. Your name was on the site, but I still couldn’t really believe it might be you.”
“So, what? This was a game to you? You brought me back on purpose to toy with me? You looked like you hated my guts that first week, Ari.”
“No, like I said I wasn’t sure it was you. I really thought I had gone crazy after all these years, and I don’t know why, but I submitted it to John, something compelled me to do it and he picked you. I swear, I get no say in final decisions.” Her breathing is heavy and near tears, but at the moment I don’t feel an inch of empathy for her.
Her eyes swell with moisture “…And to be fair I did hate you, I saw you in living color and anger rushed through me like a seventeen-year-old girl all over again with you choosing jail over making the right choice, over choosing me. I didn’t expect us to really work together.”
“Well after tomorrow we won’t have to anymore.” I turn and walk out again.
Chapter 28
Arianne
Torren doesn’t talk to me the next day at work, completely avoiding me. He spends the entire morning holed up in his office, door closed, following the morning meeting. At lunch, when half the office is out, I abuse my power as second-in-line and gather my master key from the set at my desk. I unlock his office door and slide inside. He’s working at his computer, typing vigorously.
“Now is not a good time, Ari,” he seethes. Ari, not Ace. I hate that he does that to me. Makes me mad for using my own name.
“I just want a few minutes. I hate this feeling. Talk to me, please.”
“Like how you talked to me that year I was in prison? Right?”
The past is always a dark place for us to go. It holds bitter memories for both of us. There is a lot of blame we haven’t worked out.
“I have a guy that’s come down with pneumonia and not enough workers for tonight. If you want to talk it will have to wait until after the party.”
I nod, conceding. Maybe the New Year will be a good place to restart anyway, there’s something hopeful about a day that signifies new beginnings. It’s exactly what we always needed. A new beginning that isn’t tainted with deception.
I try to go about my day as usual, prepping for the two New Year’s parties we had scheduled for this evening, distracting myself with work. It’s helping, but it’s not a foolproof plan when my disaster of a social life is sitting in the same office building as me. My chest feels sullen and filled with a dull ache. Fear and anxiety fuel my work, wanting the day to be over. I decorate venues until I’ve seen so much metallic glitter that the locations look like they could pass as a strip club.
When six o’clock rolls around, I’m exhausted. All I want is to go home and sleep, but I find myself sprucing up until I look like an adequate version of myself that isn’t mourning over a man. Not just any man. Torren Holdridge. This may not be a New Year’s I can let loose, but I’ll still be in the same room with the man I want to start over with. I toss on my own golden lace romper and a black blazer and heels. Stripper-look be damned, I’ve got a man to win over.
Walking into the hotel ballroom, the crowd is still forming. I check all the stations to make sure they are running smoothly and head back to the kitchen to check on Joyce and the food. Evan is set up by the dance floor playing one of many top forty hits that will cross his speakers tonight. He waves when he sees me. When I get to the ki
tchen Joyce, as usual, is manic running around making last minute adjustments.
“Everything okay in here?” I yell over the hustle and bustle.
“Oh yeah. Perfect.” She doesn’t bother to look up from her numerous tasks.
“Let me know if you need something,” I say.
“Well, I could use you to get that brooding man-child sulking on the steps back here from smoking near my kitchen. Send him to the front of the hotel or something.”
Confusion draws my eyebrows tight and I peek out the kitchen door window leading to the alleyway. Torren sits on the steps with a cigarette between his lips, the butt fiery red. I take a deep breath and exit the door. He looks up at me and his eyes look hooded and tired, I’m not sure why he seems sexier because of it. He looks irritated that I’m here, as if he expected not to see me.
“Hey,” I offer shyly, my voice quieter and meeker than I would like it to be.
His throat clears in the cold night air. I pull my blazer tighter around me, trying to shield off the cool air. Winters in Texas aren’t brutal, but it’s not exactly romper weather either and I curse myself for attempting to use skin to entice Torren back to me.
“What’s up?” he asks uninterested.
“Joyce is asking if you could smoke farther away from the door…you know how she gets. I thought maybe we could walk to the front together and talk on the way?”
“No need,” he says, promptly putting the butt of the cigarette out. “You look cold anyway,” he says, eyeing me up and down as he pushes himself up off the steps and heads back through the kitchen door.
The entire night goes on like this. The party runs smoothly, but Torren keeps his distance. I see him at the bar eyeing the party and the guests. I tell myself to find him before midnight. If he won’t talk to me, maybe he will respond to action. He’s going to need someone to kiss at midnight anyway, and it might as well be me.