by L. B. Dunbar
I’m excited that my creativity is returning, and the familiar buzz of wanting to start a project hums within me. Some of that energy I’m even attributing to the town. I feel strange right here, even if this is Dolores’s old house. I feel like I’m home when I’ve been aloof for the last six years. Even though I have an apartment and a little studio space I rent, I’ve been discombobulated in Savannah. Being back in Blue Ridge feels right.
I spend the afternoon in Duncan Hardware looking for supplies. To my surprise, I find a soldering kit, complete with a torch and soldering paste. I stop back at the diner for the silverware pieces, and I have an early dinner as I’d skipped lunch. Then I settle into my new home, looking up materials to order and forming a plan to move my things from Savannah. It isn’t late, but it’s dark outside when I hear the roar of a motorcycle ripping down the street and coming to a growling halt before the house.
Still filled with the fever of new projects and a fresh start, I assume it’s James. I don’t even glance out the small front window of the one-bedroom house. I just open the door and find not James on the step.
“Rusty?” I choke out his name, immediately leery of his presence. From my understanding, Dolores hasn’t lived here since January or something like that, and she has a new man in her life, though I have yet to meet him. Still, this was her house for years, so I’m wondering what Rusty’s doing here.
“Heard a new bird moved into this nest.” Rusty makes no attempt to be subtle. His red-rimmed eyes take their time to scan down my body, and I shiver. Holding the edge of the door for support, I try to think fast. I don’t want him on my step, and he won’t be getting in this house.
“What are you doing here, Rusty?”
His eyes are focused lower on my body, and he licks his lips in an eerie way before his gaze leaps up to my face.
“Heard you’re living here alone, beautiful. Thought you might like company.” I could tease him and ask him if those lines work on any woman, but Rusty does not seem like the type to tease, nor do I want to appear as if I’m flirting with him.
“I’m good, but thanks for stopping by.” I step back, pressing the door toward him, but his foot comes forward, and a hand slaps at the wood. Rusty takes a deep breath, holding his position, which appears like he’s coming inside. He’s not.
“I don’t think James would like you being here.”
“Seeing as James ain’t here himself . . . fuck James.” Rusty’s voice drops with a sinister edge to it.
“I understand you two don’t get along but—”
“Don’t get along? We aren’t fucking twelve. He hates me, and I hate him. Thinking he can just join the club and do as he pleases. Taking all the women and turning some against me.” Rusty’s chest heaves, his breathing growing more exaggerated.
“James didn’t do that,” I defend even though I have no idea. I could be missing something. Maybe Rusty had a girl, and James did something with her. The thought makes me sick, but I hold my ground, hand still on the door while Rusty’s foot props it open.
“You don’t know nothin’ about your man now,” he sneers. I’m not about to admit Rusty is right.
“I know he wouldn’t take a woman from another man.” I don’t know this, and when I consider I took him from Dolores, I just feel all kinds of wrong even though it’s been almost two decades.
“Just because he’s a fucking Harrington, he thinks his shit don’t stink.”
What a terrible saying, and I don’t have any response.
“Rubbing his nose all up in Justice’s ass, earning him second in command.” Rusty swipes at his own nose as he speaks, and I worry once again. Is he high? Is he on something? And how am I suddenly connected to the likes of him? Secondly, I had no idea James was considered second in command. Does that make him vice president of a motorcycle club? I’m in over my head, and I want Rusty off the step.
“Rusty, I think you need to leave. Whatever your issue is with James, it’s with James. Not me.”
For a second, I think I hear the roar of another cycle coming down the street, but I can’t be certain, and as my falter in attention on Rusty prompts him to tap the door with the strength of his steel-tipped boots, I’m walking backward before I know it with Rusty pressing at my belly.
My heart races. I can honestly say I’ve never been so frightened in my life. My ass hits the backside of the couch in the position where it sits, and I’m leaning as far from Rusty as I can get, when suddenly, he isn’t before me, but being dragged out the door.
Profanity like I’ve never heard meets my ears as I follow Rusty into the dark yard where James is punching him, and Rusty bends at the waist. Justice stands nearby.
“You fucking piece of shit,” James yells, landing a second hit to Rusty’s nose. Blood immediately spurts out, and Rusty cries out with another round of words I’ve never heard strung together in such a way. Too stunned to scream, I watch in horror for another minute before Justice intervenes.
“Enough. Go to your woman now.” James gets another punch in before Justice repeats, “Now.”
Rusty is dropped from James’s grasp and folds to his knees in the yard. James takes a step back, taking several deep breaths. His chest heaves and nostrils flare. He shakes out his blood-covered hand and then looks up at me.
“I’m okay,” I say for some reason, and the next thing I know, I’m in the toughest embrace. Two strong, vibrating arms surround me, holding so tight I can’t breathe. “I’m okay,” I say on repeat, wrapping my hands around the back of his head and stroking over his hair, petting him as I try to soothe him. I’ve never seen him in a fight. I’ve never seen him so angry, and I realize he’s in this position because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter to the side of his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“No,” James snaps. “No, you have nothing to be sorry about.” He leans back, placing hands on my shoulders and scanning my body. “Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?”
“He didn’t. He . . . scared me. That was all.”
James shifts his upper body, but I clutch at the sleeves of his leather jacket. “No, please. Stay with me.”
His head swings back, and his arms circle me again. With my elbows over his shoulders, I lift myself, and James catches me under my thighs, walking me backward into the house. He kicks the door shut before placing me on my feet.
“What about Rusty?” I whisper, finding the past few minutes catching up to me. My voice quivers. My body trembles uncontrollably.
“I should kill him.” I know James doesn’t mean it, and I cup his face, trying to soothe him as his hands continue to stroke from my shoulders to my elbows and back up. “Justice is on it.”
When I look up at him, he’s still wound tight. Nostrils still flaring a bit as he grapples for air. Our eyes meet and hold. I refuse to let him look away from me. One hand of his slides higher until he’s cupping my jaw, and then his mouth is on mine. We kiss through all my fear and his anger—biting and sucking, and taking all we need before we can calm down enough to separate.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” James mutters, pulling away from my mouth and pressing his forehead to mine.
“I don’t want to fight with you, either.” I pause for another calming breath. “And I’m so thankful you’re here.”
“Let me take you home,” he says. “You aren’t safe here.”
For half a second, I consider it, and James is pulling away from me. One hand still on my upper arm and one reaching for the front door.
“Wait,” I call out. “No, stop.” James freezes, turning back to me. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here.”
James’s brows come together so tight a crease forms between them.
“We still need this. Don’t let Rusty ruin it for us.”
“I can’t let you stay here, Peach. I’ll go out of my mind worrying about you.”
“You said Justice is handling Rusty.”
James sighs heavily. “He is, but I still don�
�t like the idea of you here alone.”
Placing a hand on his chest, I peer up at him. “Then don’t leave me alone here tonight.”
“Evie, we said slow,” James replies, but I see his struggle. He’d like to rip my clothes off and bury inside me, and I want that too, but we need to try to go slow.
“Maybe-maybe tonight, you could just hold me.” My voice isn’t more than a whisper, and I gaze down at my fingers spread over his tight tee, feeling his heart still racing under my palm.
“I can do that, Peach.” He sighs once more. “I’ll do anything for you.”
27
Ice Cream. I Scream.
[James]
I never wanted to hurt someone as much as I did that fucker Rusty Miller. He was going to get his own for scaring Evie. Hell, he was going to get it twice for touching her. I’m afraid to consider what could have happened had I not gotten word from our eyes everywhere that Rusty had pulled up to Evie’s new house. Dolores’s old one.
I still can’t believe that shit, but I’d have to process that another time. For now, I need to hold my wife and keep her as close to me as I can, because I’m paranoid I’ll lose her again.
We don’t make love that night. We just lay pressed together, as tight as two bodies can fit, without being naked and attached. I’d never been in this house when Dolores owned it other than one time, and that time also involved Rusty. It felt like a bit of karma, or bad luck, or just something awful, and I didn’t want Evie here. However, she was insistent she stay, and I wanted to honor her wishes. I was done fighting with her.
I overreacted this morning with the missed note, especially since her things were still in the house. Tonight, I would have returned there alone, and her absence would have been felt all over again in a new way. It wouldn’t be the deserted sensation of when I kicked her out. It would be the hollow emptiness of knowing she’d left because we were going to date.
It was so backward I almost laughed out loud. Instead, I tightened my hold on Evie, who wasn’t sleeping yet in my arms.
“You still scared, baby?” I ask, and she speaks into my chest where her head rests.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see his eyes looking at me. He’s on something, isn’t he?” Yeah, Rusty Miller had an addiction to shit he put up his nose, but I didn’t want to address Rusty’s issue. It’s the other thing she said, about his eyes, that got me. While our situations were one-thousand percent different, still, the look in someone else’s eyes can haunt you. I know. I didn’t want that for her. I didn’t want her to close her eyes and see Rusty’s every night.
“I know what you mean about his eyes,” I say, my voice hoarse as I speak in the quiet darkness of this bedroom. I’m still wearing my T-shirt and jeans while Evie wears the same. I couldn’t release her long enough to let her change.
Her head shifts on my chest.
“It’s horrible to close your eyes and see the panic, or fear, or hate in someone else’s eyes.” My voice croaks, and I swipe at my eyes, squeezing at them as they burn.
Evie shifts in my arms, and I squeeze at her to stay in place. She only shifts a little bit, perching up on an elbow in the crook of my arm around her.
“I remember when Michael was only one. He needed shots, and he was so chubby. His fat little thighs had so much meat on them. The nurses were going to double team as he needed two, one for each leg. He was looking at me, wondering what these ladies were doing on either side of him, and then they counted to three. As they pinched his skin and poked him, he had no response. Just a blank face. It was only when they pulled back, praising him for being such a brave boy that it hit him something happened, maybe even stung on those little legs, and he burst into tears. That look on his face as he was looking at me.” Evie chuckles. “It broke my heart.”
I laugh a little, thinking of my own story about a look Michael had given me. The one where he hit a ball at the house, and it broke a window. Our eyes met, like oh shit, and then he burst into tears thinking Evie would be so mad at him. It was only glass. Nothing we couldn’t replace.
I share my story with Evie, and for the next few hours, we go back and forth, recalling tales of our son and his shenanigans. Remembering facial expressions and words, and those moments when parents must be stern but whatever happened was really too damn funny. And there were even memories we shared that pulled up Michael’s little temper as well as his sensitivity. We laugh at things that probably aren’t that funny, and Evie sheds a tear at things she felt guilty about, like never saying yes to a dog.
Before we knew it, morning seeps through the closed blinds, and we finally drift off to sleep.
+ + +
I wake feeling strangely refreshed. It was a long night, but the memories we shared brought me much relief, and we were able to forget about Rusty for a few hours.
As I shift out from under Evie, who is draped over my sleeping arm, she opens her eyes.
“Where are you going?” That sleepy voice of hers is so sexy in the morning.
“Gotta hot date tonight, and I need to go home, get a few things done before it.”
“Oh yeah.” She chuckles. “Ditching me in the morning, for some hot piece at night.”
“The hottest piece,” I tease, leaning over her. “Morning, baby.”
Her expression softens. “Morning, handsome.” Her hand cups my jaw, and then fingernails scrape over my scruff. I want to kiss her, but I’m trying to be good.
“Is there a no sex rule on our dates?” she asks, her voice still sleep-rough and smoky.
“Let’s not go crazy,” I tease, but I’ll do what she wants. If the sexy times we’ve had have been too much, we can step back. I just want us to spend time together.
She smiles up at me, still scratching her fingernails through my facial hair. “You’ve gone so gray.”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“You look distinguished.” She smiles larger. “I think you look hot.” Her face turns bright red although I don’t know why giving me a compliment has this effect on her.
“Well, look at us. Two hot pieces, fitting together.”
“Together,” Evie whispers, and I kiss her. I keep it short and sweet, and that almost gives me blue balls because the moment our mouths meet, I want her in every way. Under me, over me, on her knees as I come at her from behind. I want to fill this woman, so she doesn’t forget me, so she doesn’t want to walk away.
+ + +
“Bowling?” Evie says to me as I pull up outside Bing-Bowl. The place is owned by Bear Grady about twenty minutes outside of town.
“Bowling,” I announce before opening the driver’s side door of my truck. The nights are getting cooler in October, and while I’d love to spend every second on my bike, I’m trying not to freeze Evie out.
I walk around the front of the truck while she helps herself out on the passenger side.
“My mama raised me right, so next time, wait for me.” I nod toward the door, and Evie smiles large. Damn, I want to see that smile more often, and I make it my mission to do just that.
We bowl that night and make out in my truck in the driveway of her rental.
We go to Ridged Edge, and Evie holds her own with some of the guys like Bear, Rocket, and of course, Justice. We play pool, and we laugh, and her perfect ass teases me every time she bends over the table. Outside the bar, against the exterior wall, I finger fuck her as she jacks me off.
We even take a day trip to Savannah to gather more of her clothes and all her jewelry-making equipment, plus some of her stock and business stuff, essentially emptying out her studio. For me, it’s a silent victory. A hint that she’ll be permanently staying in Blue Ridge. We park on the way back to town at a scenic roadside stop, and I eat her out before she gives me a spectacular blow job.
I want to have sex with her again, but these little bits and pieces are enough for now. The building anticipation is off the charts. It’s almost as if not having sex with her is winding me up more than actually doing the de
ed. Don’t get me wrong, I want to fuck her six ways to Sunday, but I can be patient. When we finally come together again, I know it’s going to be special. Not that every time hasn’t been special in the past, but this will be different than the harried meeting on a kitchen counter or in the shower.
We go to the Pub for dinner one night, this time more officially together than before, and I ignore all the stares. I never dated when Evie was gone, so it isn’t prying eyes on me for that so much as people are staring at me with her. It makes a statement to the community to sit with my wife, huddled in a booth, holding hands, kissing her temple, and nuzzling her neck. We aren’t obscene about it, but I don’t stop touching her, making it clear to anyone who wants to question it.
My wife and I are back together.
We aren’t perfect. We won’t ever be. But we’re trying hard to learn about each other as we are now.
And we talk.
We talk about Michael, and we talk about us.
We talk about her business and my work at the firehouse.
We don’t talk about my family.
This only needs to be about Evie and me.
“Let’s get ice cream,” I say one night after I pull into her drive, and she meets me before I’ve gotten off my bike. It’s an unseasonably warm night, and we won’t have many more, if any, of these this fall.
“Ice cream,” Evie teases. We didn’t have an official date planned for tonight although we’ve seen each other every night or afternoon if I’ve had to work. We had ice cream a million times with Michael and his baseball teams, but I can’t remember just Evie and I getting ice cream together.
“There’s a new place called Lick It, just outside of town.”
“That is not seriously the name.” She laughs.
“It is. I swear. They even have an ice cream called Blue Balls. It’s really blue.” I’m certain it’s only vanilla ice cream with food coloring, but it’s a fun name, and you get two scoops in a cup.