by Roxie Noir
After a long moment, he reaches out and touches it. He doesn’t ask permission, but we both know he doesn’t need to: alone like this in hotel rooms, amidst our bad decisions, my yes is automatic and understood.
“I like it,” he finally says. “It fits.”
“Thanks,” I say, and his hand trails down my sternum, over the raven, falls away from me.
On a whim, I take his hand. I pull him a little closer, until our feet are nearly touching, and then I reach out and push his robe over his right shoulder.
It doesn’t take me a moment to find the scar he told me about, still slightly pink and raised, starting under his collarbone and slicing over his shoulder, ending just above his armpit.
“You volunteer to clean your mom’s gutters again?” I ask.
Once, when we were nineteen, he cut his forearm open on the edge of a rain gutter. He’s still got the scar if you know where to look.
Seth smiles, oddly sheepish, runs a hand through his hair.
“Not exactly,” he says. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I kept you one, didn’t I?”
“Dirt bike accident.”
It takes me by surprise, my fingers still tracing the scar.
“A what?”
He shrugs, that same smile still on his face.
“A buddy of mine races ‘em, so he let me take a spin around the track. I got too cocky on a turn, there was a rock…”
“And you didn’t get stitches?”
From the looks of it, he probably should have at least seen a doctor and had the cut taped together. It’s not a huge scar, but it could be smaller.
“That seemed like it might result in my mom knowing I’d gotten on a dirt bike,” he admits.
I just give him a look.
“I didn’t want her to worry?”
“You’re a grown man who doesn’t want his mother to chastise him,” I tease.
“Whereas you would never hide something like that,” he teases right back.
Point taken.
“At least see a professional next time you fuck yourself up,” I say, running my fingers over it one last time. “And keep it bandaged until it’s completely healed over. It’ll take longer but scar less.”
“Anything else, Dr. Radcliffe?”
“Be a smartass all you want, I know a lot about avoiding scars,” I say, pulling his robe back over his shoulder. “Hell, just call me next time. I’m not a doctor but I can do better than that.”
Without asking, I push down the other side of his robe, expose his left shoulder, pull it gently toward myself.
The tattoo is still there: black dots connected by black lines. If you know how to look at it, you’ll see a scorpion.
“You know you could get that removed,” I say.
“I could.”
“Or covered,” I go on. “This would be a cinch.”
“You really want it gone, huh?”
I don’t know what I want. I know that every time I see him, I look for it, and I know that when I find it, relief and guilt back me into a corner with a one-two punch. I don’t know whether to be glad that he doesn’t want it gone, or to be sad that he doesn’t think about it enough to do something about it.
“It’d be pretty easy to make it into another constellation,” I say, pretending I didn’t hear his last statement. “You could still match the others.”
All five of them have constellation tattoos, gotten right after the youngest turned eighteen. Their mom is an astronomer.
I’m a Scorpio.
“I could do a lot of things, Bird,” he says, and I take my hand off the tattoo, let him pull his robe back over his shoulder.
He pulls me off the bathroom counter, turns me around, drapes an arm over my shoulder, holding me against him. I rest my head where the scar is, turn my face away from the mirror.
“You shouldn’t call me that,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because it’s an old nickname.”
“So?”
I swallow, take a deep breath, feel the ever-familiar push and pull of wanting to believe that he means it and knowing that all the hurt and anger and resentment is still there, like lava just below the surface. I know because I can feel it there, bubbling, heating.
All those other women.
“It’s too old,” I say. “It doesn’t apply now. To this.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say anything, just puts his chin on top of my head, keeps looking at us in the alternate world that the mirror shows, where we’re just two people sharing this moment of intimacy. Two people who’ve never hurt each other, simple and sweet and straightforward.
“This isn’t real life, Seth,” I finally go on. “This is drunk at a wedding life. We both know what’s going to happen next, so let’s just agree that tonight is tonight, and when the time comes you’re going to leave before we fight about how I got married and you fucked everyone we know and then starting tomorrow, we go back to what was working.”
I’ve got my eyes closed while I speak, but I can feel his body shifting even before I’m done: from relaxed to tense, defensive, ready to strike back.
“You mean back to pretending I don’t know you?” he says, and his voice is tense, tight. It feels like a band around my ribcage.
“That worked, didn’t it? For two years?”
Seth doesn’t answer. Instead he drops his arm until it’s around my waist, brings his other hand up to the heart tattoo.
Slowly, intensely, he traces a path through it, as if he’s following the gears from chamber to chamber, coming in one side and out the other. As he does my robe opens more until I’m fully exposed and he’s still covered, the reverse of before.
“Come back to bed,” he says, his voice suddenly soft and warm. He drifts his hand to one breast, strokes his thumb across my nipple. It puckers instantly, like it’s sitting up and asking for him.
“We haven’t been to bed yet,” I point. “We’ve only been to couch.”
“Then it’s high time,” he says.
Just like that we’re back to the language we know: the language of bodies and muscle and touch, of mouths and tongues and skin on skin. The language of desire so overwhelming it overrides everything else.
The bedroom is dark, lit by one lamp in the corner and the flickering glow of the fire. It gives Seth shadows where he had none before, makes him seem translucent, like he’s there but already sliding away from me.
And beautiful. He’s beautiful, of course. But that’s half the problem, isn’t it?
This time I’m on top. This time we go slow, as slow as I can stand, and as I come I grab his hand, press his palm to my face and I don’t know why.
We don’t speak when we’re finished. What else is there to say?
Instead we fall asleep in the huge bed, covered by expensive sheets and firelight, and as I drift off I take his hand in mine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Seth
Six and a Half Years Ago
(Four years before the previous flashback.)
We’re sitting at my mom’s kitchen table. It’s the same one that’s been here my whole life: scarred but sturdy, worn and refinished, slightly ugly. It’s the kind of heavy furniture from a bygone era that looks as if it could be repurposed as a battering ram if need be.
“We don’t even have a place to store it,” Daniel is saying. He’s looking down at a mess of papers in front of us, my laptop off to one side. “It’s an IPA. They don’t even store well. There’s a reason you never see barrel-aged IPA, because no one wants them.”
If I didn’t know my older brother so well, I’d think that maybe he was starting to panic.
“You said it can stay in the holding tank a little longer, right?” I ask, glancing at a calendar on the laptop.
Daniel nods.
I rub my hands over my eyes, wishing I’d gotten a degree in marketing and not economics. Right now I know what has to happen
for this possibly-insane venture to work, but I have no idea how to make it happen.
“We should give it away,” I tell him, a bolt of inspiration from the blue.
“We can’t afford that,” he says, pulling a paper toward himself. “I thought we figured that —"
From the living room there’s a crash of blocks, followed by hysterical giggles.
“I crashed the tower!” toddler Rusty shouts between peals of laughter. “I crashed it!”
“Oh no!” responds my mom in faux-alarm. “What will we do now?”
We look at each other again, then down at the papers.
“ — Figured that we’d have to sell almost everything we made in order to stay in the black,” he says.
“Well, right now we haven’t sold it, don’t have a place to store it, and no one knows if it’s any good or not,” I point out. “We’ve got a couple more months before we go belly-up, so if we can solve two out of those three problems —"
My phone clangs from where I set it on the table, and we both jump.
“You have to change that ringtone,” Daniel grumps. “I swear it sounds like you’re in an old-fashioned fire station.”
“It gets my attention,” I say, and grab my phone to turn it off.
When I glance at the phone, I freeze.
THE WITCH
I clear my throat, still looking at my phone, thumb hovering over the decline call button.
“Butt dial?” Daniel asks, his voice grim as he looks up at me.
“No idea,” I say, evenly.
“Seth —”
“I’ll be back,” I say, and stand so fast I nearly knock the chair over.
At the screen door to the back porch, I clear my throat, then answer.
“This is Seth,” I say, as if I’m expecting a business call.
As if I deleted her number from my phone and don’t know exactly who this is. Caleb wanted to but I wouldn’t let him, so he just changed her name to THE WITCH.
“Hi,” she says, after a pause. I can hear background noise, but I can’t put together what it is. “It’s Delilah.”
I think about hanging up on her, just to let her know I’m still angry. I think about demanding to know who the fuck she thinks she is, calling me. I think about telling her that she must have the wrong number, I’ve never heard of a Delilah in my life.
But there’s a tiny, flickering glimmer deep in my heart that just came back to life, and it doesn’t allow for any of those responses.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask, casual, neutral, politely curious without betraying the agonizing clench behind my breastbone.
“Do you remember what you said to me at the Whiskey Barrel?” she asks, her voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it.
“At the Whiskey Barrel?” I repeat. I need to know that I heard right.
“Yes.”
Of course I remember. We got kicked out of the bar. We screamed at each other in the parking lot. I’d have punched her fiancé if Levi and Caleb hadn’t been there.
“I remember,” I say.
I can hear her inhale on the other end, street noise behind her. A car going past. Voices.
“Nolan and I are getting divorced,” she finally says, the words rushed. “It’s, um — it’s over, I guess? I moved out, I filed, we’re separated, he texted me that he got served his papers at the office and how it was just like me to embarrass him like that, as if I put any fucking forethought into how he got his papers. Sorry.”
She says it all in one breath, and at the end she exhales like she’s coming up for air.
Delilah’s not married anymore. She’s not married anymore and she’s calling me to tell me that she’s not married anymore —
“And you’re calling me?” I ask, staring out at my mom’s back yard, the sun going down behind the trees. It’s early August and the past week has been brutal. Real scorchers, my dad would’ve said.
“Do you want to come get a drink or something?” she asks, and she sounds nervous, terrified, or maybe it’s just the connection. “I know we didn’t really end things on good terms, but I wanted to just… talk it out, maybe?”
Yes. My heart thumps, pounds in one syllable: yes, yes, yes, with a fervor that surprises even me because I thought maybe I was getting over her.
If nothing else, I’ve definitely moved on.
“Tonight?” I ask.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she says. “I mean, I don’t really have plans —”
“I can make tonight.”
“Then yeah, tonight.”
I’ll have to cancel on someone else, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t think Abby will care, and if she does, so what? She’s not my girlfriend, just a way to pass the time.
“Where? Are you still in Leesburg?”
“Don’t come here,” she says quickly. “It’s not a good idea, someone might see us and it’s not a good look and Nolan might drag things out.”
“Where?”
“The Marriott in downtown Harrisonburg,” she says. “There’s a bar in the lobby, Harrisonburg is about halfway between us, it looks like it’s pretty nice.”
I go silent for a long moment. The pit of my stomach swirls, ebbs. That deep-down glimmer grows and burns.
“You want to meet in a hotel?” I ask.
“In the bar. In the lobby.”
“A hotel bar, in a hotel lobby.”
Delilah says nothing. I fantasize about saying no and keeping the plans I’ve already got because Abby’s a nice girl. Eager to please. Likes it when I talk dirty. Doesn’t mind that I don’t spend the night, says she doesn’t care that I see other people.
It’s just a fantasy, though.
“Downtown Marriott,” I say. “Harrisonburg. I’ll look for you in the bar.”
“Thank you,” Delilah says before I hang up, then put both elbows on the wooden railing around the porch and cover my face with my hands.
A moment later, I straighten, slide my phone into my pocket, go back inside.
“Something came up,” I tell Daniel. “I gotta go. Talk about this tomorrow?”
“No,” he says. “Seth. Are you kidding? Don’t fucking —"
He glances at the living room, lowers his voice.
“Whatever she told you, don’t do it,” he goes on, sotto voce. “Be rational.”
“It’s nothing,” I assure him. “Just an old friend. Bye, Mom. Bye, Rusty.”
“Wait!” Rusty shouts. It’s the most dramatic wait I’ve ever heard. “Wait, wait!”
Then she powers over on her short legs and runs straight into my leg, both arms going around it, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Bye Seth,” she says into my upper thigh.
“Bye, kiddo,” I tell her, and lean down to plant a kiss on the top of her head. “Keep your dad on his toes, all right?”
She looks up and just bares her teeth at me, making a grrr sound.
“Just like that,” I tell her, and then she runs back to her blocks.
I leave my mom’s house, get in my car, and drive to Harrisonburg without stopping.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Delilah
Still Six and a Half Years Ago
I get to the hotel before he does, and I have a drink. Then another. Both whiskey sours, both stronger than you’d think in a hotel bar.
Then I get a room and pay in cash. Not two days ago, my lawyer suggested that any unseemly behavior could be used against me in court if Nolan felt like making this more difficult or dragging this out.
Not that it really matters. We’ve agreed in writing to split the house down the middle, and after that he keeps what’s his and I keep what’s mine. It’s all in a trust, any way. We don’t have kids or other shared property, so according to my lawyer, after the mandatory six-month separation I’m free and clear.
Right now I’m subletting, using my dad’s money to live, figuring out what to do next. I know it’s a luxury that I don’t need to have a plan yet.
&nbs
p; Another whiskey sour. I try to make friends with the bartender, but she’s not really interested. I google go to college for art on my phone.
When Seth walks in, it feels like the whole bar turns sideways, then rights itself. He looks around for a moment, sees me sitting on a stool, walks over. Hops up himself.
Orders a whiskey and puts his hand on my knee below the bar, on bare skin. I turn toward him.
“Thanks for coming,” I say. “And on such short notice.”
Seth just gives me a long, slow look. I’m wearing a tank top and shorts, and I wish I were wearing either more or less. More, if I wanted him to take me seriously.
Less, if I were being honest about what I want.
“Want to go sit in a booth?” I ask, nodding toward the back. His hand has already crept a couple inches up my thigh, and there’s a corresponding ache in my core. “Easier to talk.”
“Sure,” he says, that sandpaper-on-velvet voice low.
We pretend to talk for another five minutes, but we don’t really say anything. Already his hand is up my shorts and I’m practically in his lap, his erection thick steel under my thigh, when we finally kiss.
I moan when we do, because I’m drunk and a little desperate and a lot horny, because I’m twenty-three and just got divorced and I want someone to fuck me without hoping he’ll knock me up.
In response Seth bites my lip and shoves his hand under my panties, stroking one thumb over my slick folds right there in the hotel bar.
The booth’s not dark enough. People are starting to look over at us but before anything can say anything, we throw back the rest of our drinks and I pull Seth to the elevator, the fifth floor, into the room I haven’t even seen yet.
I’m out of my clothes in seconds, then him. We haven’t even gotten to the light switch and I’m on my knees, his cock in my mouth and then my throat and his hand in my hair and I moan again with pure relief that this is happening, that my long mistake is finally over.
Relief that I’m wanted, not tolerated.