“Huh? What?”
Grace dropped her phone to the table and pushed it in front of me.
“I like this one. I’d name her Ginger.”
“Ginger,” I said as I looked at the cat’s face.
Oh, great, the cat talk, again.
Every once in a while, she would get on a kick about getting a cat. That would just finalize the everything cat theme to the apartment. But it always went the same way. She’d pick out a couple of cats she loved and then would talk herself out of it.
“Ginger?” I asked. “Why Ginger?”
“It’s just the name,” Grace said. “You know, they pick their own name.”
I glanced up at Grace. “Oh?”
“I’m just saying…”
“So, Grace and Ginger?” I asked. “That sounds like an old sitcom.”
“Well, screw you too then,” Grace said.
She reached for her phone and I hurried to grab it.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I think this cat is amazing. Are you going to get her?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
I handed Grace her phone back. “If you want a cat, Grace, then get one. What would you tell one of your clients? If they were obsessed about something? If they kept thinking about something? If they would get close to something and then suddenly hesitate?”
A smile grew a mile wide in each direction on Grace’s face. She turned the phone screen off and set her eyes right on me.
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Everything you just said. That has nothing to do with a cat.”
“Oh, come on, Grace…”
“No,” she said. “Classic deflection. You’re trying to get my answer from me because you’re afraid to answer for yourself. Is it because of the story? Did something happen with Bel? She sort of mentioned you told her you weren’t all that interested.”
“It’s not that I’m not interested,” I said. “I just… I don’t know right now. Okay? And why are we talking about me?”
“You’re sitting here looking like your head is about to explode,” Grace said.
“Can we go back to looking at cats?”
There’s a question I never thought I’d ask Grace…
Grace walked to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. I watched her drown the coffee with sugar and cream. She returned to the table but didn’t sit down.
“Face it,” she said.
“What?”
“Face it. You asked what I would tell a client. If something is that important to take up space in your mind, then you need to face it. Now, it depends on what that something is. If it’s something you can truly face, then go for it. If it’s something that’s gone or in the past, then you can talk to someone about it.”
“Right,” I said. “So why are you obsessed with cats but won’t get a cat?”
“Well… why are you so afraid to explore the inner workings of your heart? Your writing can expose you and you’re afraid that it will.”
“Are you infatuated with cats because you weren’t allowed to get one as a child?” I asked. “So now you spend your adult life…”
“You almost had a book deal, Amelia,” Grace said. “It didn’t work out. So you quit.”
“This is where I tell you to screw off,” I said.
“Roommates, right?” Grace asked.
She offered her mug for me to cheers with her.
“Yeah, roommates,” I said as I lifted my mug and tapped it against hers.
I decided to retreat back to my bedroom for a little peace and quiet.
I got halfway down the hallway when Grace said, “I had a cat once. It ran away. I never saw it again.”
I looked over my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I told myself I didn’t have a good enough home to make it want to stay.”
I nodded. “I used to write stories to make my mother laugh because all she did was cry. I tried really hard to save her from her own life.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“What happened to her?” Grace asked.
“She did what your cat did,” I said.
I walked into my bedroom and wanted to go back to sleep. Or cry a little.
Or just go see Josh again.
I will never touch anyone the way I have touched you. I will never hold anyone the way I have held you. The air that you breathe is almost sacred to those around you who don’t even understand who you are or who they are faced with. You can move the world with a sigh. Your laugh can shake the last few leaves off the trees to welcome in winter. When you stand in the middle of the street with your bare hands out and your head back, catching snowflakes on your tongue, you don’t realize that the snow isn’t just falling… the snowflakes are fighting to be lucky enough to touch you. To gently rest on your sweet tongue. To touch your soft lips.
Those lips I had tasted so many times… in life and in dreams.
What I’ll never have again.
What I can’t stop craving…
I almost had the entire thing memorized.
I wasn’t sure if that was foolish or not.
It was just… there.
The letter. The words. The way they danced in my mind as I tried to visualize who Delilah was. And where she went. And the person who loved her… if that person ever found happiness or not.
The letter was a living and breathing story. So many ideas rushed to me again and again about the story within the letter. True love. Pain. Loss. Second chances. Now, of course, if I was younger, the characters in my mind would be animals. Luckily that part of my life had come and gone.
Then again… I looked at my bag and touched it, feeling my heart race a little.
Had it really come and gone?
The building was tall and stony. It looked more like an old warehouse versus apartments. I checked the address on the piece of paper fifteen times, even right up to the point of me standing outside a massive dark green door, comparing the black numbers on it to the scribbled handwriting on the napkin from the restaurant I worked at.
I sighed and knocked on the door.
I figured with any luck - or just my luck - Josh wouldn’t be home.
That wasn’t the worse thing in the world. I could have easily then just slid the copied story under the door for him to read.
Before I could finish that thought, the large door opened.
And Josh stood there - shirtless.
I wasn’t sure if I was licking my lips in real life or if it was just in my mind.
My eyes skipped right down to his jeans. Of all things. His jeans. Dark blue jeans that hung lower than they were supposed to, but I wasn’t going to complain about it for even a second. Those deadly lines and cuts that went down into his jeans were the reason why the whole lip licking thing was happening.
I had seen Josh without a shirt on once before.
A long time ago.
He had been lean and his skin perfectly bare. Somewhere between boy and man.
But now…
Every muscle and line and cut had filled out. A tattoo of a rose on his right forearm. A tattoo over his heart. Something written that I couldn’t read unless I got closer. Which I caught myself trying to do.
His right shoulder was covered in ink, an array of shapes and colors that kept stealing my attention away from the beautifully toned muscle that he had to offer.
It was strange, but there was something about his neck that got to me too.
The way he didn’t care about shaving or keeping some kind of groomed line for his facial hair. The stubble on his neck that gave way to a more unkempt look on his chin and jaw sent warnings from my heart to my brain that something was happening.
No shit something’s happening… it’s Josh. And now we’re both grown up. And he’s staring at me, knowing I’m staring at him. And his left hand is holding the door open, showing off the way it looks when th
e side of his stomach is pulled and flexed, forcing me to count the ridges of the muscle on his stomach…
Of course, all of this happened over the course of a couple of seconds.
“Amelia,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Is this a bad time?” I asked.
“Never,” he said. He backed up and waved for me to come in. “I just got out of the shower a few minutes ago.”
As I walked by him into the large apartment, I could smell his fresh, clean skin. It was contradictory to the gruff look of his hair, face, tattoos, and messy jeans. But he smelled perfect.
“Let me grab a shirt,” he said as he shut the door and walked across the open floor plan.
There was a bed in the corner next to a large window. A dresser against the wall at the foot of the bed. He opened the second drawer and took out the first shirt he grabbed. His back muscles twisted and flexed in an unfair way as he put the shirt on.
By the time he turned around, I had forced my eyes to look somewhere else.
“To what do I owe this visit?” he asked. “Figured you hated me.”
“Why would I hate you?” I asked.
His bare feet shuffled across the wooden floor.
God, why is that so sexy?
He went to the fridge and got out two bottles of beer.
“Drink?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
He twisted off the caps and slid one of the bottles to the edge of the counter.
“Were you not there the other night?” he asked. “Or was that a different Amelia? Do you have an evil twin?”
“What if I do?” I asked.
“Then I’m in trouble.”
“Why’s that?”
Josh smirked. “Well, because I kissed your evil twin. And I liked it.”
I couldn’t control the heat that filled my face even if I controlled the look on it. That lasted all of a few seconds before guilt washed over me.
“I’m sorry about that,” I whispered.
“For what? Being jealous? Mean?”
“I was working, Josh. To be fair, when I came to your job, you were a dick to me.”
Josh opened his mouth but didn’t say a word. He took a drink of his beer instead.
“Damn,” he finally said. “You’re right.”
“I am,” I said. “So, you were bothering me. Just like I was bothering you.”
“Only I wasn’t trying to get your story,” he said. “I’m not going to write up the story about a pretty waitress and how I couldn’t stop staring at her the entire time I was at the restaurant.”
“Really?” I asked.
“What?”
“Thanks for saying that. I don’t necessarily feel pretty when I’m working.”
“Neither do I,” Josh said.
I laughed. “You feel pretty then sometimes?”
“Depends on my mood.”
“And what’s your mood now?”
“Settled,” he said.
“Settled? I guess that’s good.”
“Settled because you’re here, love,” he said. “Which leaves me to wonder… what exactly are you doing here?”
I put my bag on the counter and traded it for the beer Josh offered.
“I brought you something to read.”
Chapter 18
All Your Wings
NOW
(Josh)
As I reached for the flipped over story, Amelia smacked my hand.
“Not while I’m here.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Seriously. This is bad. It’s embarrassing, Josh.”
“That’s the point. It’s supposed to be. You wrote this when you were… ten?”
“Thirteen.”
“Oh,” I said, lifting an eyebrow. “Still with talking animals then?”
“Shut up.”
“Hey, it’s all you knew, right?”
“It’s all I had,” she said. “You know that. Of all people, you know that.”
I looked at the story and moved my hand away. When Amelia tried to take her hand away, I hurried to grab it. My fingers curled around her hand and it was a little awkward since our arms were outstretched across the island in the kitchen.
“Remember we used to do this?” I asked her.
“Hold hands. Yeah. It made me feel safe.”
“You were always crazy coming to that part of town, Amelia. It was really dangerous.”
“What? You and those fools you hung out with?”
“Fools, huh?” I asked.
I gave her hand a tug and she playfully sidestepped toward me. I did the same and inched toward her. We were closer, still holding hands.
“That was a shit part of town,” I said. “There were always fights and problems.”
“So what? You were a teenager. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do?”
“You don’t have the half of it then, love. Which is good. I never wanted you near that stuff.”
“What happened to the guys you hung out with?”
“Well… Murph is in jail. For stealing who knows what. Last I heard, Nash was in rehab. He got messed up real badly with drugs. And Abel… believe it or not, he’s a lawyer.”
“What?”
“I know. He packed up and moved far away then put himself through college and law school.”
“And you became a tortured artist, huh?” Amelia asked.
“Tortured? Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. I’m just feeling wordy at the moment.”
“Wordy,” I said. “Thanks to me?”
“Actually…no.”
That’s when Amelia pulled her hand away from me.
She moved down around the counter where she had been standing. The way she grabbed her beer bottle and took a swig… it was like someone cutting my heart.
She was seduction. Temptation. Beauty.
Everything I remembered.
Everything I wanted to forget.
“I really have to wait for you to leave to read this?” I asked Amelia as I pointed to the story she brought.
“Yes. I might let you read the first page.”
“What’s the fee?”
“Part of your story.”
I turned and leaned against the counter and folded my arms. “How about you tell me what’s got you wordy?” I looked at her. “Or why you stopped writing in the first place.”
“Things just didn’t work out,” Amelia said.
“With what?”
“I almost had a book deal,” she said. “It fell through and it just… it hurt.”
I nodded. “I get that, love.”
“Do you?” she asked. “You seem pretty popular, Josh. People would do anything to see your stuff.”
“I wonder how many are full of bullshit. Who see, but don’t actually see.”
“They at least show up and tell you it’s good.”
“Anyone can do that, Amelia. Lying is the easiest thing in the world. Tell someone you love them when you don’t. Tell someone they’re beautiful when they’re not. Tell someone their story is good when you haven’t read it. Or tell someone that a picture or painting speaks to them, but they have their hands over their ears.”
“Is that what you’re doing to me? Lying. Saying whatever you think I want to hear so you can read some stupid story I wrote when I was thirteen?”
“So, you’re calling me out then? Which means I’ll have to give you proof of what I say to you and how I mean it.”
“Or just tell me your story,” Amelia said. “For my own mind. To keep me feeling more and more wordy.”
I pushed from the counter and walked around it to her. I had no problem putting a foot between us and standing there to give her a chance to be the one to make the decision this time. The decision to walk away. Run away. The decision to stay away.
Seconds ticked and like pulling the pin on a grenade, there was only so much time.
My right hand gently touched her face.
>
In my eyes and mind, she flashed back and forth from the young girl in dire need of love to the real woman in dire need of… me.
Maybe I was a little cocky, but I wasn’t afraid.
As my hand slipped through the thick and knotty curls of her hair, I pulled her in and met her halfway, kissing her like I knew she had never been kissed before.
The taste of her lips, familiar from the other night in the restaurant. The flicker of my tongue against those lips, a gentle yet commanding notice that we weren’t quite done yet.
As Amelia’s lips parted, she sighed with a relief I knew was coming.
Her hands touched my shirt.
She didn’t push me away.
She gripped my shirt.
My left hand touched the perfect curve of her waist and I turned her, her back facing the counter. Then in a quick move, I pressed my body against hers and grabbed the back of her leg and pulled. The kiss broke and she let out a breathless groan as I lifted her at the exact same moment she jumped.
Now she was on my counter.
I went in for another kiss, picking right up where we left off.
My mind counted the seconds, waiting…
One…
Two…
Three…
Her right hand slid up my body with speed and she pushed at my chest.
I backed off with one extra kiss.
“That’s how I mean what I fucking say,” I whispered to her. Her eyes melted into mine. “I had a decision to make, love. Run for good. Or stay and end up like the others. So I left. I bounced around, trying to find my way through it all. And just as I was on the edge of falling for good, I was pulled back. That woman I was at the restaurant with. I was slipping. I went from drinking to something else. She pulled me back. And the second I realized what was waiting on the other side, everything changed. I did what I wanted. And it worked.”
Amelia swallowed hard. “Was that woman your… anything?”
“Not what you’re thinking,” I whispered.
“You were right, Josh. I was jealous. And I still am.”
“Of what?”
“She’s been in here,” Amelia said. “I know it. And I’ve…”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, love,” I said. “The mystery of me. The truth. And if that’s the real story, then it’ll never be told.”
A Letter to Delilah Page 10
