[2014] Ten Below Zero

by Whitney Barbetti

  He looked down at me, seemingly taking me all in. I wasn’t uncomfortable with my body. I was ambivalent about it. The way Everett was looking at me was anything but ambivalent. He placed a hand on the center of my chest and pulled it down, tugging on the center of my bra before moving on. I heard him hum in his throat and I reached up to touch him.

  He caught my hand on its ascent and held it still. He shook his head and trapped my wrist between his middle finger and thumb. I narrowed my eyes and lifted my other hand, only to have it trapped the same way. He shook his head again, before leaning forward and holding both of my hands in one of his, bringing our hands to rest above my head. I squirmed, my body’s instinct to fight him taking over. I bucked my hips, but he pulled back to eye me. He held me still in his stare. But it only lasted a moment before I twisted my hands, releasing them from his grasp.

  Before he could try to trap them again, I grabbed the back of his head and yanked, pulling his mouth to me, kissing him and then pulling back. I breathed against his lips for a moment, more to catch my breath than anything. And then his teeth tugged my lip and I moaned. I couldn’t even be embarrassed.

  One of his arms came to wrap around my back, supporting me as we kissed partially inclined on the bed. His hand slid open the snaps of my bra. Everett leaned back on his legs, pulling me up with him until we were sitting up straight, facing each other. My bra hung loose on my shoulders. His hands glided up my arms to the shoulder straps. He teased me then, his fingers playing with the straps, tugging them nearly free and then running his fingers under them.

  Impatient, I shrugged forward so the straps slid off. The cups stayed on my breasts. Everett looked me in the eyes while he brought both hands up to cradle the bra.

  He paused. We stared at each other, breathing heavily. I felt nearly drunk on desire and anticipation. The room was clear of sound, but full of sound too. Deep breaths, raging heartbeats. And then everything happened at once.

  Everett pushed me back down, flat on my back on the bed. In a flash, he whipped off my bra and tugged my underwear down my legs and off, onto the floor. And then he stood at the side of the bed and stripped himself of his clothing. I stared, brazenly. His body was beautiful, but not because it was perfect. It wasn’t. He had scars down his ribcage, biting into the ink he had there. His stomach was sculpted, tanned like the rest of his body, but there was another scar cut into one side of his belly. Imperfections were what thrilled me, not the shape, color or size of his body. My eyes traveled further down; his desire was evident. I looked up at his face, watching him watch me.

  He climbed back over me, slowly. And then he laid on me, covering my body with his. I felt every inch of his body against mine. His eyes were on mine, his face so close it was all I could see. His lips touched my cheek, the side that wasn’t marred by the scar. His lips moved up my temple and down again before settling on my own lips.

  “Mmmm,” he moaned against my mouth. He kissed like I was a meal to savor. I squirmed again, desperate.

  “Everett.” I bucked my hips slowly, indicating what I needed.

  He sighed, blowing warm air into my mouth. He moved his lips to my chin, to my neck, over my shoulder, and around my breast. His lips moved down my torso as he reached for something next to my hip. I heard the wrapper being opened.

  “Thank God,” I whispered.

  I felt his returning smile against my stomach before he stood back, slipping the condom over himself. He climbed back onto the bed and in a flash he was inside of me. I couldn’t help it, I gasped. And then he moved. Again, and again, until my head was thrown back, my eyes closed, my breathing ragged. I felt pressure on my clit and opened my eyes, staring into his ice blue ones. Before I could close my eyes again, he spoke, his voice deep, gravelly. “Look at me, Parker.” I couldn’t help it; I did exactly as he asked. And when he saw me slip over the edge, spiral into my bliss, his own eyes closed and he hammered his final strokes, falling onto me afterwards.

  We were silent for several moments then, Everett’s face next to my right cheek, his breath in my ear. I stared up at the ceiling while my heart beat leveled out. I tried to make my mind blank, but it rebelled, unable to think about anything but Everett.

  It was the first time I’d had sex since before Morris Jensen had cut into my life. Three years. There’d been a reason I’d avoided this sort of thing. I knew it would be hard to have such a physically intimate connection with someone and keep emotions from the situation.

  I didn’t want to feel. I wanted to roll out from under Everett and walk away casually. And the fact that I knew I couldn’t do that was terrifying.

  Everett turned his head and kissed my ear. “Stop,” he said, before delivering another kiss to my cheek this time.

  “Stop what?” I asked, a tiny bit breathlessly.

  “You know what. Stop the turning in your head. You spent too much time in there.” He turned his face so I could feel him staring at my profile. “It was fun. That’s all.”

  Ouch. For some reason, that hurt more to hear than a messy confession of emotions.

  I must have frowned slightly because Everett leaned over me. “You know what I meant, Parker.” But I didn’t. Did he just make me another Charlotte? I refused to meet his eyes, confused by my feelings.

  His hands framed my face, forcing me to look at him. “It was fun. I want to do it again. Soon. Let’s add it to the rules.”

  I frowned again. “Add what, exactly?”

  “Sex. Lots of sex. No feigning me off with an excuse of a headache or some other bullshit, because that would mean breaking the no lying rule. And breaking the rules equals punishment.” He cocked his head to the side, a smile lifting the side of his lips. “On second thought, please break a rule. I’ve love to punish you.”

  I squirmed, uncomfortable with his weight and his words. I tried pushing him off.

  “No, Parker. We’re going to lay here next to each other for a little bit. No running. Add that to the rules as well.” His cheek was pressed to mine again. Each word he spoke grazed his facial hair on my cheek. I found it soothing, the bite of his stubble against my flesh. So soothing, my eyes closed, relaxing.

  “Right underneath ‘no black clothing’?” I asked, sweetly.

  He huffed and laid down, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me so we were facing each other on our sides. “Can we change that one, slightly?” he asked.

  “Depends.”

  “How about I can’t wear all black clothing? Like say, black shorts and a color tee. Or vice versa.”

  “Hmm. Okay.” I felt sleepy all of a sudden, probably thanks to the warmth of being wrapped up in his arms. I turned my face to his and inhaled, the smell of cool rainwater filling my nostrils. “You smell good,” I murmured, slipping into sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  I awoke cold and alone. A sheet had been pulled up over me, but the room was empty. I sat up, holding the sheet to my chest as I looked around. Bright sunlight still lit the room, so I safely assumed it was early afternoon.

  I slid out of the bed, looking for my clothes. They were missing. All of them. In fact, the room looked like it had been picked up and straightened. I spied Everett’s bag in the closet and strode to it, yanking out the first black shirt I found and slipping it over my head.

  It hung off me like a sack, but it was my only option. I walked out into the living area that separated the two bedrooms, looking for Everett. I finally found him on the patio, holding his blue notebook with the cover closed, looking out over the view.

  He turned his head to me, his eyes lighting up at the sight of me. I was sure I looked funny wearing a tee that was several sizes too large for my frame, my hair a mess. He patted his knee, indicating that I sit there.

  Instead, I sat in the adjoining chair. Then he grabbed me, picking me up like I weighed nothing, and put me on his lap. “I like your choice of clothing,” he commented, setting his journal onto the glass patio table.

  “’Choice’ is not exactly th
e word I would use. Where are my clothes?”

  “Hiding.” His arms were wrapped around my waist, my back to his chest, as we shared the view of the Las Vegas strip.

  “Well then, I guess this is one less article of black clothing you’ll be able to wear.” I didn’t know what to do with my hands. This position felt like cuddling, and I was more than slightly uncomfortable with it.

  Everett squeezed his arms gently, pulling me even closer to him. His nose found my neck and I heard him inhale. “You smell great,” he said after a moment.

  “What do I smell like?”

  “Me. It’s a great smell.”

  I rolled my eyes. I squirmed again, uncomfortable being so close to him, with his face nuzzling my neck.

  “We need to finish the rules before tonight,” he said, his lips on my neck, his fingers on my thighs.

  “Okay,” I said, shrugging away from his touch and standing up. I saw Everett already had the paper out. He amended the “no black clothing” to say “no wearing all-black outfits.”

  “Outfits?” I asked, sitting in the chair next to him once again. I scrunched up my nose. “That sounds like something you’d dress a baby in.”

  Everett looked over at me with his eyebrow raised. “Do you have a better way to word it?” I shook my head. “Okay then, moving on.” He wrote down his next rule. When his hand moved, I read it aloud.

  “Sex all the time?” I looked at him dubiously. “How about just ‘sex’? I don’t want to add quantity to it.”

  Everett sighed dramatically, but crossed off the “all the time” part. “Okay, what’s your next rule?”

  I tapped my finger on my chin, in thought. “I need space,” I finally said. “And I know you don’t have a healthy understanding of personal space, at least in regards to me. But I need time to myself.”

  “You’re by yourself all the time, Parker. You live and breathe more inside that skull of yours than you do outside of it.”

  “Why do you argue with all my rules?”

  “You argue about mine too.”

  I shook my head. “I need space, Everett. I need space to breathe, without you around polluting my air.”

  “Polluting your air? I don’t think I’ve ever been described so fondly before.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re always there. Pinning me to a wall, getting up in my face, forcing me to stay in your arms when I wasn’t comfortable.” My mind drifted to his bed. “Sex or not, I want to fall asleep in my bed.”

  “I’m not opposed to sleeping in your bed.”

  I wanted to throw the pen at him. “I meant alone. Let me breathe. The more you push me, the more likely I’m going to run.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to run? You want to stay here for a bit?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what I want. You confuse me. I don’t particularly like you, but I’m drawn to you. A moth to a flame.”

  “The feeling’s mutual. I don’t particularly like you either.” He grinned.

  “Can you live with my rule or not?” I asked impatiently.

  “Sure.” He didn’t sound convincing. I added it to the list.

  “Your turn.”

  “I want you to be open to new experiences,” Everett said without hesitation. One of my eyebrows lifted up in question. “If there’s something that I want you to try, but you’re uncomfortable, I want you to be open to it. To try it,” he elaborated.

  “That could mean a lot of things,” I protested. “Dangerous things.”

  “I would never put you in danger, Parker. Remember the seatbelt? Anything I want to introduce you to, it won’t be dangerous. I can promise that.”

  No he couldn’t. But it would be futile arguing. I nodded. “Fine.”

  I wrote my next rule on the list for Everett to read aloud. “Be nice?” he asked.

  “You like to tease me a lot. I just want you to be nice to me once in a while.”

  “Your hair is pretty,” he said, grinning.

  I eyed him. “No lying, Everett. Or did you already forget your rule?”

  “Okay fine. Your hair looks awful. Your laugh is maniacal. And you’re a terrible driver.”

  “Clearly the concept of being nice completely escapes you. And how do you know I’m a terrible driver?” I racked my brain for the moment he experienced my driving. It was when I drove him home from the restaurant, when he was drunk.

  “When you drove me home. I wasn’t as drunk as you thought. Unlike you, I’m a good actor.”

  I focused my eyes on his. “Wow. You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”

  “Hey,” he said, holding his hand up, stopping me. “These rules apply to us both right? Sounds like the concept of being nice escapes you too.”

  “Be nice,” I repeated firmly, rewriting over the word to make it bold. “Next rule?”

  “I’m done with rules for now. Let’s get ready.”

  “Ready?”

  Everett smiled slyly. “We’ve got plans, you and I. Nice plans.” He put emphasis on “nice.”

  “Do these nice plans include clothing, or not?”

  “Well, I had nice plans for both. You game?”

  “I guess.”

  Two hours later, I was standing in front of the mirror in my en-suite bathroom. Everett had picked out a dress for me. It was a column of gold, starting above my breasts and ending halfway to my knee. It was modest in cut, but the color screamed flash. I wore my hair over my left shoulder, feeling the inexplicable need to conceal my scar as much as possible. I went heavy with makeup on eyes and slipped into the gold heels Everett had picked out for me as well.

  “It’ll be harder for you to run away in these,” he’d said as he handed me the box. I’d shoved him away and then spent the next several minutes running my fingers over the heels, being reminded of a time when I’d have killed for heels like these.

  I emerged from the bathroom and found Everett sitting in one of the sitting chairs, wearing a crisp white button up shirt, tucked into gray slacks. He had one leg bent over the other and was writing in his notebook as I approached. His eyes lifted up and lit up.

  “Hi,” he said, keeping his eyes on me as he set his journal down and stood up. “You look…nice.”

  I laughed at his use of the word. “Okay, you’ve given me a compliment. You can revert to being the asshole you truly are for the rest of the night.”

  “Phew, thanks,” he said, blowing out an exaggerated breath of relief. “Ready?” He put a hand out, taking mine and leading me out of the hotel room. On the elevator ride, he squeezed my hand, sending shivers up my spine. “Hungry?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. Why did he affect me so much? Only our hands were touching and yet it was as intimate as when he’d been inside of me, just hours before. The thought burned bright, low in my belly.

  “How are you at poker?” he asked.

  “Shit at it.”

  “Good. Let’s lose some of your money.”

  Hours later and with a wallet short two hundred dollars, Everett took me to dinner. “I’ll pay,” he offered. “Since I helped you fail spectacularly in there.”

  My eyes were pointed. “How gracious of you.” I opened the menu and scanned the items, noticing each of the prices. I tried to keep my eyes from popping out of my head when I saw the prices listed under each entrée.

  After the waiter took our orders, I sipped the water he’d poured. “What does your tattoo mean?” I asked after the waiter had removed the wine glasses at Everett’s request. I’d wondered if it was a way to avoid temptation or if he simply thought they were in the way.

  “You’re just as straight forward as I am, Parker,” he said, swallowing a gulp of water. “Which tattoo?”

  “This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us,” I said. I couldn’t forget the words.

  “What do you think it means?”

  I shook my head. “It sounds slightly morbid,” I admitted.

  “It could be interpreted that way
,” he agreed, playing with the rim of his ice water. “That’s partially why I chose it. Because it was open to interpretation. Right now, I’m taking it in a very literal sense.” He drank some of his water before setting his glass down and clasping his hands on the table. “Why do you think I’m taking this trip?”

  “Bucket list?” I asked.

  He pursed his lips. “Sure, in some ways. But I’ve yet to find my one sweet moment. I couldn’t find it in California. Too much heat, sand. Too many people.”

  “So you thought you’d find it somewhere along the way?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I want a moment to live for.”

  “But you’re dying.” He cocked his head to the side at my response.

  “I thought that topic was off-limits,” he said.

  “We haven’t signed the rules yet. But what do you mean, live for?”

  “I want one sweet moment, one moment in my memory to hold on to when my soul leaves this earth.” It was the answer he’d wanted to say before, I could tell. But it was also an answer that made me feel a little sick to my stomach.

  I looked down at the white tablecloth and smoothed it with my fingers. “I hope you find it.” The words barreled from my mouth and I couldn’t stop them. I recovered quickly. “I like your other tattoos.”

  “I’ve got a lot of them,” he said.

  “And scars. You have lots of scars too.”

  “I do.” He drank his water and then set it down, his fingers making shapes in the condensation that had formed on the glass. “You do too.”

  “I don’t have lots,” I disagreed.

  “You do,” he insisted. “I’m not talking about the scars that separate your skin, Parker. I’m not blind, I can see those. I’m talking about the scars much deeper than that. The scars that exist within you. The ones you actually try to hide.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I didn’t think I did.” He held my eyes. “Turns out I do. Why are you so scarred, Parker?”

  “I’ve told you-Morris Jen-”

  “I’m not talking about the surface scars, and you know I’m not,” he interrupted. He was right. I’d tried to avoid this question. “Anyone can see those. I’m more interested in the scars unearth the skin. Tell me, Parker. Tell me your story.”