“Wanted to do that since the first time I saw you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He huffs out a laugh. “What? Grab you in the alley out back, shove you against the wall between the trash cans and…”
Please finish that sentence. Please tell me how hard you’d hold me. Tell me how you’d make me feel, how deep you’d kiss, how long you’d make me take it. Tell me what I taste like, because your taste is indescribable and I want more. “And what?” I’m breathless. Hoarse.
“Nothing.” He shoves away from my door, backs up a step, another, and turns to leave. I want to stop him so badly it hurts. “Night, Jerusha.”
That’s it? He rips me right open, leaving nothing but an oozing puddle of want, and he’s just going to take off, like none of this happened?
I open my mouth, wishing I had the gumption to demand he finish what he started. At the very least, I could ask why he’s leaving. I’ve grown a backbone—or discovered it—these past few months, so I straighten up and let him go, but it’s hard.
I manage a solid “Good night” and watch him lope off into the dark night, his dog at his side. Within a couple seconds, he’s just another shadow.
2
Temptation
Jerusha
The next week’s a mess of classes and late nights getting ready for my big art show. The piece I’m working on is calling me back to the studio, but my back hurts and my eyes are fuzzy and Karl doesn’t work on Thursday nights.
I’ve got an excuse to go see him burning a hole in my pocket—a post card invitation to my first solo show. It’s in the best gallery in town. I’m so excited I could burst.
I stop off for a pizza and make it a large, telling myself it’s because I love leftovers, but the lie is thin. Especially when I add a six-pack of Modelo at the last minute. No denying what I’m doing. It’s Karl’s brand.
The invite, the pizza, his favorite beer. I remember that detail from the night we sat on his back stoop last summer and drank beer. He took me to Home Depot in his truck, where I bought lighting fixtures for my house. When we got back, I realized I didn’t have a ladder tall enough to install the lights on the high first-floor ceilings, so he brought his and then stuck around to give me a hand.
The best thing that day, aside from sharing that beer, side by side, was the way he helped me, so different from anything I’d experienced back home. He didn’t take over the project like my father or brothers would. He waited for me to lead, offering a hand, as needed. That level of deference, from such a big, stern-looking man had taken the threads of attraction I already felt and twisted them up into something stronger.
I think of him every time I look at my ceiling fans.
I practically skip the last couple blocks home now, excited at the prospect that I might see him and tell him my good news. Will he come to the opening? Maybe as my date?
I don’t know. I’ve caught him watching me with a weird smile before…like he doesn’t quite get me. Like maybe I’m a weird little person he can’t wrap his mind around.
I force myself to slow at the last minute. Right. Gallivanting like a four-year-old probably isn’t the best way to approach him. I can’t quite manage a sedate walk, but I can go slow. Ish.
The streets are a restless jumble of whirling wind and fallen leaves. People give me more of the looks I’ve gotten used to since moving to the city. It’s because I don’t belong here. They can tell. I have no idea how to fix that, no idea how to fit into a place like Richmond. The Fan area, where I live, is full of people who’d stick out like sore thumbs back home in the Shenandoah Valley, with their tattoos and piercings, wild hair and messy beards. Here, I’m the odd woman out.
There’s his house, lit up. My heart does a little dance in my rib cage and, for a distracted few seconds, I wonder what that dance would look like in wool. I’d have to build a cavern out of a thicker weave for the rib cage, make puffs for my lungs, figure out exactly what a heart looks like and then somehow create excitement in the mix. Visually, it’s a challenge I can’t wait to take up.
But not right now. Right now, I’m slowing to a snail’s crawl, hoping he’s on his porch so I don’t actually have to go up to his door and knock.
No luck. The light’s on and the porch is empty, except for his beautiful swing and the chair I admire every time I walk by.
Especially if he’s sitting in it. Just that thought makes me blush. When he’s seated, his thighs look thicker than when he stands, the muscles meatier, his haunches so solid, I swear nothing can break him.
And I’m fantasizing…again.
A shadow appears at his window, startling me. Instead of heading home as I’d planned, I do it. I go up his steps, pull open the screen door and, before I can talk myself out of it, drop the massive knocker twice. I’d do once, but he might think it’s a mistake, though that idea’s preposterous, given how heavy the thing is. Not like the wind could accidentally set it to knocking and, oh, Lord, I should just go, because I’m a jittery mess. I won’t be able to shut up once he opens that door. Surely I’ll say something I regret.
I’m about to let the screen go and rush away to hide at home when the door swings open. He’s so big, he blocks out almost all the light from inside, though it spills out around his head. Immediately, Squid appears beside him. He woofs, nudges my leg, and goes in after I’ve given him a little scratch behind the ears.
“Jerusha.” Is that a happy voice or an annoyed voice? Impossible to tell with this man.
I swallow, wishing I’d thought to drink a beer before coming over. At least I’d be calmer right now. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replies after a few seconds.
“Oh, um. I got pizza and…” Don’t tell him about the beer. It’s too much. “And I thought you might want to—”
“Who is it?” someone asks from behind him.
After an inordinately long hesitation, he cants his body to one side, giving me a clear view of the beautiful young woman behind him. She’s tall and thin and dressed in that perfectly relaxed way girls around here manage—yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt that falls off her bones and boobs like it was made for her. And it was. Her hair’s that thick, straight kind that creates a perfectly neat/messy fall from the casual up-do she’s clearly got, just for the convenience, not because she’s spent hours trying to look like everyone else.
This is the kind of person Karl should be with. Of course it is. Statuesque, hip, casual, at ease in her own skin. Calm and effortlessly gorgeous.
“Oh,” I finally manage to pinch out through my tight throat. The woman comes up behind him and slides her hand between his arm and torso. So familiar that she obviously belongs there. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No.” I put up a mittened hand, feeling like an absolute fool. Childish clothes, Sesame Street hues, hair that’s never met a brush it couldn’t destroy. I’m nowhere near this man’s league. To think I thought that I could be is ridiculous.
Laughable.
I force a smile, which has to look painful, but I can’t help that. It does hurt. More than it should. “You have company. I’m so… I wouldn’t… I couldn’t… I shouldn’t…” Oh God, shut up. Shut up! “Thanks! Bye!” I spin to leave and then spin back, nearly colliding with him. “Here. Here, this is… I’m happy to…” Don’t say inform you. Don’t say it. “I thought maybe you’d…” No. Stop talking! “Art show! Please come!” I shove the invitation at him and take off.
I have no idea how I navigate his steps with my throat in my stomach, much less mine and then my door, with its sticky lock. It doesn’t matter that I’ve had to smash the pizza to do it. I don’t have much appetite left anyway.
“Fool. I’m a fool.”
You’ll never fit in, Papa always told me. He was right. I’ll never make it. Never survive. He’d gloat if he saw me right now.
I’d been so proud that I’d not only survived these past months, but managed to thrive in a societ
y that’s entirely alien to me. The show, the gallery. Those are a big deal, milestones I’m proud of, but when it comes to this stuff—the social stuff—I’ve got no idea what I’m doing.
“Foolish, foolish fool.” I throw my coat at the hook, uncaring that it slides to the floor, drop the pizza beside it, and lean back against the door. No wonder he left the other night. No wonder he’s avoided me since.
And here I canceled the date I’d set up because… I drop my heated face into my still-mittened hands. “Fool.”
I feel his footsteps before I hear them. They’re heavy on my porch, but silent. The screen door makes its usual creak. When seconds go by without him knocking, I let my hands drop. What is he doing? Is that his breathing on the other side? It’s loud, like he’s sighed, maybe. Or is talking to himself. I almost laugh. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, him muttering on one side, me on the other?
“Um.” Another sigh, loud enough this time for me to hear it perfectly. “Jerusha. Are you okay?”
I open my mouth and close it, feeling utterly trapped back here. Caught in emotions that have no place existing. He doesn’t want me. It’s over.
Okay. As decisively as I can, I nod once. “Karl?” I ask, as if we weren’t both just stewing in pseudo-silence on either side of a scarred slab of wood. As if I have no idea who could possibly be there. Well, hello there! What a surprise! Fool, I mouth. “I’m… I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
“Hey. Congratulations on the show. This is huge.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“I’ll be there. The opening, I mean.”
“Great. I’ll see you then.” Never mind that it’s weeks away.
“Could you, uh. Would you mind opening the door, please?”
“Oh. No. No, no, I’m good. You can go back. Go back to your guest. To your…” Girlfriend. I can’t bring myself to say it. “You know. I just was—”
“Daughter.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“My daughter. That was my daughter, Harper.”
Oooooooooooooh. What washes over me is such a mixed-up cocktail that I can’t begin to describe it. There’s relief there, but there’s also shame and embarrassment. Curiosity, too, but I can’t let that seep out, because there’s so much stuff to manage. Or, for want of a better idea, to suppress as best I can.
“Okay.”
“Would you open the door?” His voice is soft, low, a little rough. With emotion, like me? Or with laughter, at how ridiculous I’ve been?
And even that thought’s unfair, because, from the moment I first met him, Karl has been nothing but kindness. Never mean, never angry—aside from the other night on my porch. In fact, his interaction with Jed is the only time I’ve seen him be anything but amiable.
I turn the knob and step back as the door swings in. It’s dark in here, which I guess is weird, now that I think about it. He must have guessed that I was on the other side of the door.
I shut my eyes for a mortified three seconds before turning on the lamp. “Hey.”
His eyes search mine, drop to scan my body, as if looking for injuries, then land on the pizza box, the coat, the six-pack.
He fiddles with something on the outside of the door. The jingling of my keys sends my humiliation into overdrive. “Here.” I don’t move when he holds them out to me, so he sets them in their place on my side table. “Might wanna hide those, instead of leaving them right there.”
“Sure.” I’m nodding, unsure if I can stop. “Okay.” We don’t worry much about keys where I’m from. I’m not sure Papa even has keys to the house’s front door. If he does, they haven’t been used in years. The lock probably won’t even turn.
“Can we talk for a second?” He’s holding my postcard and suddenly I feel silly.
I’m already shaking my head, making a face. “Oh. No. No, we don’t need to talk.”
“I think we do.”
Karl
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her smile’s about as fake as they come. “You can go back to…” She flaps her mittened hands and I just want to grab them, hold them. Hold her. Doesn’t she have any idea how cute she is with all her hair and rainbows and soft-looking yarn?
“Harper.”
“Right.”
“She took off for yoga or pilates or whatever she does on Thursday nights.”
“Okay.” She’s biting that lower lip again and everything from last week breaks through the dam I’d managed to erect around it—the kiss, the hand-hold, that lip. When she glances up at me from under her unfashionably large eyebrows, I feel just the slightest bit better. Eye contact. One point. “How old is she?”
“Eighteen.”
Her “Oh,” is almost silent. With a sheepish look, she goes on. “She must think I’m different.”
I smile. “You are different.”
“Great.” Her annoyed puff tells me that she’s getting over the embarrassed thing. I’m relieved.
“It’s a good thing.” It’s tough to form the right words; partly because I’m not sure what I want to say to her. Despite insisting, I don’t really want to talk. If we could move on without acknowledging that this happened, I’d be good as gold. But that’s the old Karl talking. The kid who bottled things up, exploded, bottled, exploded. I’d be dead today if I hadn’t learned how to communicate. Dammit, being a better man is hard. Worth it, though. I have a whip smart daughter who means the world to me, a father I don’t hate anymore, an ex-wife who’s healthy and happy—without me. And a neighbor who looks at me like maybe I’m a man she admires. “That beer and pizza just for you? Or you planning to share?”
Her smile smacks into me like a goddamn wave and part of me’s proud. Like I earned that look. Like I put it there.
I bend for the box, hand it to her, and grab the six-pack. The way the beers have landed, they’ll probably blow when we open them. I follow her down the long, wide hall that’s the mirror image of mine, to the kitchen at the far end, waiting for her to turn on lights as she goes. Curiosity has me craning my neck to see the living room and dining room and the spaces beyond. They look almost empty, aside from rugs and cushions and big, funky tapestries on the walls. Everything’s colorful and huge. And it smells good. Grassy and fresh. I can never get my house to smell like anything aside from cleaning products or whatever I cooked that day.
The kitchen’s the opposite of the other rooms—it’s full of stuff. Bright, copper pots and bowls of eggs and seeds. Dried herbs hang from the ceiling, onions and garlic, too.
“This is awesome.”
“Really?” Another shy look from those big blue eyes. “Is your place like mine?”
I laugh. “Same floor plan. Well, the opposite. But it’s nothing like this.” I take in the budget appliances and makeshift work surfaces, modifying my initial reaction. It’s appealing because she’s filled it with things that seem alive, but underneath it’s been cobbled together. “Looking for counters?”
She shrugged, pulling plates out from behind a curtained set of rickety shelves. Someone would need to reinforce those before the weight of the dishes took the whole thing down.
I grab two beers. “You want one?”
At her nod, I lift my chin toward the back door. “Safe to go out there?”
Her curious look makes me smile. “Just need to open these where they won’t douse everything.” When her expression doesn’t change, I explain. “They looked kind of shook up.”
“Oh. Right.”
Outside, the rickety back stoop complains under my weight. I’m tempted to complain back. Keeping in shape’s a lot harder at forty-three than it was at thirty. I manage, but it hurts. Arms outstretched, I pull both tabs. One lets out a spray. The other behaves. I’ll give her that one.
I take a long look at her postage stamp of a yard. It’s bigger than mine, since I’ve got my workshop out back. She’s landscaped a bit. It’s nice. No wonder Squid’s always trying to slip through the hole in the fence. I don’t blame him.
Back in her glowing kitchen, I accept a plate. “My dog still come over here when I’m working?”
She throws me a shy smile. “Is that okay?”
“You kidding? He loves it here.”
“I like him.” Something sly passes over her face. “I may have bought treats recently.”
I snort. “Yeah, well, don’t call me when he decides to move in.”
I catch the edge of her adorable smile as she leads the way up the hall to the dining room. She hesitates in the doorway. “Here? Or…” She waves toward the front.
“Living room.”
She turns a light on, illuminating the almost empty space. Low table, thick rug, a single ratty armchair, covered in another woven piece.
“Take the chair.” She sinks to the floor by the table. I ignore her invitation and join her on the rug, sitting to her right, which puts our bodies perpendicular and our knees close.
After a funny little smile, she eats. And it’s something to see. Not ravenous, so much as delighted. It’s an event for her, which I like. Prying one piece up, enjoying the stretch of melted cheese, moaning under her breath at the first bite. It’s all I can do to eat my own piece without staring. The beer will help. I hold my can up in a toast. She’s clearly pleased with that, too, grabbing hers and slamming it against mine too fast and too hard so that it sloshes over both of our hands. I can’t help but smile at her giggle. It’s catching. I find myself laughing with her in a way I haven’t in years.
“Cheers,” I say before taking a long pull.
“Oh!” She wipes her first sip off her lips and meets my gaze. “Cheers!” She slaps her can to mine, clearly pleased.
Christ, she’s cute. Christ, I shouldn’t be here.
And yet, here I am.
I grab my slice, fold it and shove half into my mouth. It’s not until I’ve polished off the first and gone for the second that I notice the way she’s watching me.
It’s the same way she looked at her pizza before putting it in her mouth.
Everything falls away. I’m hard as nails now, and plagued by guilt. I set my plate down and lean in. “I can’t be with you, Jerusha.”
Daddy Crush Page 2
