by Sierra Hill
She nods and presses her thumbs into the bridge of her nose as if to ward off the fear and worry.
“It might not be the right time, but if you want a night out, you’re welcome to come out with Christiana and me tonight. We’re just hitting up a few bars. Nothing special or crazy.”
Lucy smiles a wistful grin and shakes her head. “Thanks for the offer, honey, but I have plans to watch the newest Disney movie and build blanket forts with the boys tonight. But I sure do envy you and your youth. I remember those nights in my early twenties, bar hopping and dancing and doing all sorts of devious things.”
Lucy shimmies her breasts and hips, lifting her eyebrows to prove her point.
I choke on my laughter. “I’m not so sure about the devious part, but I do plan on dancing.”
I demonstrate my intent by shaking my own hips and arms in a similar fashion, the samba dance move Lucy taught me.
She laughs. “Girl, you’re adorable, but you definitely don’t have the Latina hip roll. Let me help you out.”
She turns on the music of “Señorita” by Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes on her iPad and schools me on proper dance techniques. By the time I clock out to leave and get ready for tonight, I’m swinging my hips like a pro with the perfect amount of sex appeal and booty-shaking Latin-flavor that I hope will impress my friends.
“Are you sure I look okay in this? I feel so. . .”
“Hot,” Christiana exclaims at the same time that I say, “Conspicuous.”
We laugh, looping our arms together as we walk down the sidewalk on our way to meet up with our friends, Taylor and Layla. It’s just after ten p.m., the nightlife awakening from its daytime slumber. Music pumps from inside the small bars and restaurants we pass down the block, lines are forming as bouncers check for ID’s and collect money from their over-excited patrons.
“You are so going to get lucky tonight,” Christiana hoots, giving me two snaps of her fingers and a waggle of her brows with wide eyes as they scan me from head to toe.
I glance down to see what she sees, feeling a burst of proud self-confidence, which I haven’t possessed in a long time. Especially with how Miles has treated me lately, with such dispassionate interest, as if I’m inconsequential.
He’s definitely not the same guy he was when Melodie was alive. The Miles I knew back then was someone kind, loving toward his sister and grandmother, and an all-around decent guy, even if he was the biggest flirt in town.
Now he’s just an arrogant, stuck-up big shot.
At least that was my impression until a few days ago while at the pool, when he acted entirely out of character and became the guy I’d dreamed about as a teenager. The same man I’ve dreamed about every night since.
Undeniably sexy, charming, flirtatious, and fun to talk to. He was flirting with me, wasn’t he?
Now after several very strong drinks at our first stop, while we wait for Taylor and Layla to arrive, my head buzzes happily with the delicious effects of the alcohol. The libations swim through my limbs, clouding my mind just enough so I’m not a hundred percent sure if I’m clearly and accurately recalling what transpired between Miles and me.
What I do know is he’s been on my mind nonstop, but it’s just a ridiculous fascination and an unrequited attraction. He has no more interest in me now than he did when I was a brace-faced teenager.
Anyway, Miles probably has a girlfriend, and I can’t compete with the type of woman he’s likely to date. I envision him with stick-thin, sexy models or Ivy League educated, boardroom women who like to get kinky after-hours.
Not someone like me who rarely goes out or knows how to do anything more than study, work, and barely take care of myself.
Christiana orders a bottle of cheap champagne when Taylor and Layla arrive, and we laugh and talk, gaining the attention of a few men who stop by our table to offer us drinks and invitations to dance.
Technically, the offers are for Christiana and Layla more often than not, because they both exude a sensual, exotic beauty that appeals to most men. Both have darker, supple skin, dark eyes with long lashes, and are well endowed.
Whereas Taylor and I are both flat as boards. I may have a bit more in that area than she does because she’s a dancer in a New York dance company and therefore is extremely thin and waif-like.
As I take another sip of champagne, I look down at my chest and sigh.
“What’s that disgruntled noise about?” Taylor questions, cocking her head to the side, showing me a toothy grin.
Her long blond hair hangs loose and is down tonight, not in the tight bun I typically see her wear. Her slim nose points downward as she peers at me through her false eyelashes, which she insists are a must-have; otherwise, she has ghost-eyes, with lashes so blond they are barely visible.
I shrug. “Nothing really. I’ve just never had the same assets they have to attract the admirers like they do.”
I gesture with a chin bob to the dance floor where Christiana and Layla dance wildly to an old ‘80s song, men flocking to their sides like bees swarming around the queen in the hive.
“If that is true, then tell me why the guy by the bar has been watching you the past ten minutes?” She lifts her champagne glass and, using her pinky finger, points toward the bar in the opposite direction of the dance floor where I’ve been staring.
By focusing on our dancing friends, I’ve been oblivious to anyone else unless they’ve been in my field of vision. So, when I turn to catch the gaze of the man in question, I gasp loudly, shock registering across my face.
Snapping back around, I return my attention down at the table.
“Oh my goodness,” I mutter under my breath. “I know him.”
Taylor leans forward, propping her chin on her hand and looks to me for an answer. “Really? Do tell. I’d like to get to know him too.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I absently hum, biting my lip and stealing a furtive glance in my peripheral vision to see if Miles is still looking our way.
He is and something in his molten hot glare is both alarming and hungry. Sinister yet sexy.
There’s a moment I think he’s going to stand up and walk over to me. At least until I notice the woman that steps up behind him, her arm dangling suggestively over his shoulder, breasts smooshed against his body to whisper in his ear.
A stab of jealousy hits me in the throat, blocking my airway with the intensity of the feeling. Is he here on a date? Is that his girlfriend? And why was he staring at me if he’s here with another woman?
None of those questions can be answered at the moment because Layla runs over to our table to grab our hands, drag us to our feet, and pull us out onto the dance floor.
Taylor and I make noises of irritation and utter a few loud curses, but we’re soon swallowed up by the crowd and swept up under the lights and the blaring music, as we each unleash our inhibitions and just let loose.
I also let go of the doubts swimming in my head over Miles and his standoffish behavior and allow myself to move and grind to the music.
I lose all track of time, throwing my arms in the air and singing at the top of my lungs with my girlfriends, demonstrating my newly found skills in hip rolls. At some point, I also lose track of Miles, who no longer sits in the spot he occupied earlier.
Disappointment rushes through me, but it’s just as well. Nothing would have come of that anyhow, as it seems he wants nothing more to do with me.
He seems to have other things to occupy his time, and so do I.
Good riddance.
10
Miles
“Just get out of here, asshole. Both you and your limp dick!”
The door slams loudly in my face, the sound reverberating and echoing in the starless night. I clutch at my wrinkled dress shirt and sling it over my arm, reaching out with my other to steady myself against the closed door, and against the harsh words and the world spinning and turning faster than it ought to.
I’m not sure exactly what happened over the past th
ree hours, but sadly, I’m certain I didn’t fulfill my sexual obligations to this woman. My hand instinctively slides down the front of my pants, covering my groin as I cup my cock and balls, confirming that my assumptions are correct.
Whiskey dick did me no favors tonight, which I suppose is the reason my hookup is upset.
It could also be my inflammatory statement about how fake her tits felt and how “uneven and plastic” they were while motorboating said tits. Not my finest hour, folks.
I chuckle to myself out of sheer apologetic humor while I turn around and stare at the landing below. By my drunken estimation, it’s a ten-foot drop. To ensure I don’t trip and break a leg, I plop down on my ass to scoot down to the bottom. But I get stuck somewhere in the middle and decide I should just lay down because…Goddamn, why is the sidewalk moving? Shoving my shirt under my head, I cuddle up on the hard cement and fall asleep.
A disgruntled male voice jars me awake, and I jolt upright before dropping my head in my hands. Christ almighty, why so loud?
“Yo, buddy. You can’t sleep there. Get the hell up and move along, asshole.”
My head is the weight of a cinder block. I try raising it, opening my mouth to reply but shutting it just as promptly because I have no idea what to say. No matter, since the guy is already walking away, hand raised in the air, flipping me his middle finger. My body rumbles with laughter, but my tongue is so thick and throat dry, I can’t get the sound out.
Having the wherewithal to know I need a ride home, I extract my phone from my pocket, click on the ride app and wait. It claims a driver is three minutes away, meaning I have to sit here and relive this horrible night in my clanging head and wish I could forget it all.
I’ll never be able to forget it, no matter how much whiskey I drink because it’s my baby sister’s birthday. It’s a date I never want dismissed or passed over or forgotten. Melodie deserves to be celebrated and remembered every fucking day of every fucking year for as long as I live.
The only problem with celebrating this day is that it opens the old wound that, for most of the year, hides behind a scar. But it never fully heals. And on what should have been Mel’s twenty-fifth birthday, it was reopened and I feel like I’m bleeding out.
When I woke this morning, I had high hopes for the day. I did my usual memorial ceremony in my living room, laying out photos of Mel through the years, her trophies and ribbons, school report cards, and much of the homemade art she’d produced as a kid.
I’d called Granny’s nursing home in the afternoon, not only to check in on her rehabilitation and her pain level, but Granny is the only person in the world I could talk to about Mel. Thankfully, Granny said she was fine, recovering well, and she seemed fairly lucid—unlike some days where she doesn’t remember who I am.
It disheartened her that I couldn’t come to visit her this weekend, as we typically celebrated together, but after the long week I had, I just couldn’t do it. I promised I would soon, remaining noncommittal with the timing.
But I could hear it in Granny’s tone, her feeble attempt to disguise her disappointment. And it made me feel like shit. Except for Graham, who seems to think I walk on water for some unknown reason, I am shit to anyone else I get close to.
Ask my almost-hookup tonight. She doesn’t even know me but knows that I’m an asshole.
A car pulls up to the curb, and the driver opens the passenger window. “You Miles?” he asks, looking a little weary and tired from a Saturday night of picking up drunks.
Nodding, and with some uncoordinated movements, I stand up and climb in the open backseat, my head throbbing with the reminder of all the ways I’ve failed the ones I’ve loved.
Closing my eyes for just a moment, I see flashes and images of my life, as if on an old movie reel. Frame by frame, the life I’d had disappearing, leaving just the black film cutting in and out, replacing the good from the past with the misery that has become my daily existence.
“Hey, man, wake up. You’re here.”
I lift my head and glance out the window, my eyelids half-mast and heavy laden, coming out of what seems like a dream, but is the nightmare of my reality.
“Thanks,” I acknowledge, opening and then slamming the car door shut behind me, my brain desperately trying to communicate to my feet that the right foot should go in front of the left as I head toward my apartment building. The night doorman, Frank, sees me struggling and rushes to my side, offering an arm and scooping another behind my back to keep me from falling over.
My eyes roll back and my head bobs like a rag doll when I lift the corner of my mouth in what I think is a smile. “Hey, man.”
My speech is slurred, and I’m positive Frank is judging me harshly at my state of disarray.
“Good morning, Mr. Thatcher. Let me help you to your apartment.”
I pitch forward and then stumble to the left. Frank hoists me up with his big beefy arms, setting me back on my feet while we stand to wait for the elevator to open.
“Morning?” I’m confused by his statement.
He lets out a low chuckle. “Just after two a.m.”
My throat gurgles, and I hiccup loudly. He looks at me wearily. “You okay, sir?”
“Ah yeah, man. S’all good. It was my sister’s birthday today,” I mumble and slur, drool dripping from my mouth that I wipe with the back of my hand. “Or yesterday now.”
Frank props me up against the elevator wall and punches the seventh-floor button. The quick jerk upwards and the gravitational force of being flung through the elevator shaft shifts everything inside my stomach, which churns like a washing machine. I swallow the thick bile that threatens to make an escape, along with all the liquor I drank tonight.
“Looks like you were doing a lot of celebrating with your sister, sir.”
His innocent mistake is like a kick in the balls, and I nearly double over from the pain that slices through my entire body, shaking me to the core.
“She’s dead. She can’t celebrate her fucking birthday anymore.”
A protracted pause stifles any further comments from Frank, who I think I’ve just shut down, as the elevator makes its way to my floor. When the doors open, Frank maneuvers me out into the hallway, my feet dragging in an uncoordinated effort as we pass the Morgan’s apartment. My eyes glare at the door, wondering if Sutton is in there. Or if she went home with someone tonight.
The thought irks me.
It should’ve been me. When I saw her, looking audaciously sexy and sweet I should have bought her a drink. But as usual, I was too late.
“Will you be okay on your own? Can I help you inside your apartment, sir?”
I fish the keys from my pocket and shake my head, turning the key and unlocking the door. I wave him off.
“Nah, thanks, Frank. You’re a good man. I can manage from here.”
I pat him on the shoulder, and he willingly accepts my statement as truth. He turns and catches the elevator back down to the lobby entrance. But just before the doors close, as I’m still hovering in the entryway, he peers out and says, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Thatcher. Take care.”
I sniff at his condolences and fall to the floor in a heap. Like a frigging angry toddler, I bang my fists on the floor and my head back against the doorframe.
It’s then I realize sobs have clawed their way out of my chest, tears gushing from my eyes in the most unmasculine display ever. Through the flood of hot tears, I realize this is the first time since Mel’s death that I’ve cried in grief.
And while it’s not exactly a relief, it’s possibly the closest I’ve ever gotten to expelling the hurt, shame, and regret I’ve been holding in for years.
Yet, it’s not enough for me to stop regretting who I am, what I’ve done, and who I’ve become.
Because that will never happen.
11
Sutton
I returned home just after one a.m. after sharing a cab with Taylor, who lives with her parents somewhere close. As expected, Christiana
and Layla ended up finding other rides home, a.k.a. hookups, leaving Taylor and me on our own to get home.
I took Blackie outside so he could relieve himself before we both came back upstairs and got ready for bed. Although I imbibed more than I usually do, I wasn’t too buzzed and was actually keyed up, so I took to the couch, turned on the TV, and flipped through some of my social media accounts on my phone. Throughout the night, the girls posted several pictures of our escapades, tagging me in photos of us with shot glasses in hand, smiling, laughing, and dancing. It was a good night, although I ended up coming home alone.
I consider texting the bartender I met a few weeks back but push the thought aside as I reach out for my glass of water on the coffee table. As I do, I hear a strange, muffled noise coming from the hallway. Blackie, asleep on his bed across the room, growls a low rumble, his ears perking up, but his eyes remaining closed.
“Well, you’re a great guard dog,” I tease him because that’s what you do when you’re in an apartment by yourself with only a dog for company.
Throwing off the blanket from my legs, I drop my bare feet to the floor, and quietly shuffle to the door, pressing my ear against it. I hold my breath and listen, as one does when trying to be stealthy to thwart any untoward, unsuspecting hallway intruders.
The sound continues on repeat, this time a little louder. I peer out the peephole but see nothing other than beige hallway walls.
And then I hear it. A male voice, inaudible, but clearly in pain. And clearly a voice belonging to Miles Thatcher.
My fingers fumble to unlatch the three deadbolts. I remember at the last second to punch in the security code before swinging the door open and stepping into the hallway.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His voice shakes and wobbles, as if an old man on his death bed, the sorrow in his words squeezing my heart painfully.
