De La Porte Fashion: The Complete Box Set

by Mj Fields

  I shake my head. “I’ll listen.”

  She waves her hand around the room. “Look at this place, Oliver. It’s a far cry from Brooklyn. It’s Mom’s well deserved happy ever after, and my dream come true all in the wave of some invisible magic wand.”

  She stands and turns in a slow circle. “Ten dresses today.” She stops when her eyes land on mine, holds up her hands while spreading her fingers. “Ten.”

  I stand and nod.

  “I wouldn’t have dared dream that my visions would ever come to fruition, let alone be hanging here before my eyes as a freshman in college. Yet here they are. Oliver, look at them.” She puts her hand to her chest, “Just look at them.”

  “You’re very talented, Natasha.”

  “But so is Stella.” Her voice cracks.

  “Stella, your friend from school.” It’s not a question; it’s acknowledging I had paid attention, yet also an admission that makes me a little uncomfortable.

  She nods. “Her dad is dying.” Tears well and threaten to fall. “She’s the one who dreamed of going to school in London, not me, and here I am living her dream. How is that fair?”

  I know exactly how she feels, but saying those words to someone who is hurting is something I have learned doesn’t always help, but listening does.

  “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t your thing.” She turns her back to me and walks to the wall of windows.

  I walk toward her. “I’m listening, Natasha.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “But.”

  She stops and shakes her head.

  “Whatever you need to say, I’m listening.”

  “It’s stupid.” She bats at a tear.

  “It’s feelings, Natasha. I may not be used to sharing them–”

  She interrupts, “You’re not comfortable sharing them. There’s a difference, Oliver.”

  She’s not wrong.

  “The situation doesn’t call for it.” She looks up at me and looks as if she’s hurt. “Natasha–”

  “It was stupid.” She walks away. “Poor me, right?”

  “Absolutely poor you.” She stops and scowls back at me. “And lucky them that you give a damn.”

  “Goodnight, Oliver,” she sighs and begins to walk away.

  I want to stop her, I want to stop her with words that will comfort her. Hell, I want to do more than use words, and there lies the fucking problem, I can’t.

  Once she’s gone, I stand looking at the ten dresses, three of them floor length gowns, all black, but completely different styles.

  The first of the three is elegant and simple. Its bodice is form fitting with cap sleeves and a modest neckline. The skirt is full and without looking beneath, I know it lays on some sort of hoop. The second gown is less full, its bodice sleeveless and the neckline slightly revealing. The last, is form fitting, from top to bottom. The black bodice is shear and leaves nothing to the imagination.

  “Are these a preview of your metamorphosis?” I whisper as if asking her.

  I feel eyes on me and turn.

  Maisie smiles at me from her chair. “Heard cries and had Adele bring me in. Since you were handling it, I didn’t interrupt.”

  I sigh, and she smiles. “You remember when Bass first brought you to me, that first weekend? I told you all about my past, Ollie. I told you all about what brought me to become Maisie Josephs. I did it to establish trust. To show you I’d hide nothing from you, not ever.”

  I nod.

  “Took a long time to do that, pretty sure there’s still things I don’t know, but just a little bit of you sharing your past with me let me know, you and me, we were family.”

  “We are.” I walk around behind the chair, bend down and kiss the top of her head. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  She reaches back and pats my hand. “Then I know you’ll get there. If not for you, you do it for me, will ya?”

  “Yeah, Maisie, I sure will.”

  Once Maisie was in bed, I tried to tire myself out in the gym by going through my playlist three times. When that didn’t cut it, I found myself inside her room, that’s furnished exactly like the one I occupy when I’m here, sitting in the chair next to her bed listening to that damn song on repeat.

  Half an hour had passed and although my body feels calmer, my mind won’t shut off.

  “Little Warrior, I apologize for the fact I don’t like talking about the past, and I can promise, if you were awake right now, I wouldn’t be talking about it. Maisie always says look forward, it’s solid advice so that’s what I do. But you’ve opened up to me, so I know I should give you the same… trust. My parents were monsters. I can’t remember a day when I wasn’t hit for something I did wrong. And I can’t remember a day when I didn’t fear for the foster kids the state trusted them to care for. Bass was one of them. My mother pushed him down the stairs and he got hurt pretty badly. He wasn’t her first victim. Like the others, I made sure to tell him to turn their asses in. All the others did, but that pig-headed bastard came back. Said he wouldn’t leave me. I was so pissed at him. He came back for me, a pussy who, for most of his seventeen-years, lied to the social workers so his shitbag parents didn’t get thrown in jail. I never knew loyalty until Bass, I never knew love until Maisie.”

  I sit back, look up at the ceiling, and sigh, “I fucking hate weeping willow trees. That’s what most of the scars are from.”

  I open my eyes and lean forward. When I see she’s still asleep, I’m elated.

  I pull up the comforter to cover her shoulders.

  “Goodnight, Little Warrior.”

  I left her room feeling exhausted and I woke feeling rested.

  When I roll over, I grab the damn phone off the base and wonder what the hell I was thinking putting that damn song on repeat and look at the time.

  Five thirty in the morning.

  Having showered after beating the hell out of the bag last night, I hurry into my bathroom and brush my teeth, before looking closer in the mirror and realizing I need to fucking shave. It’s been nine days.

  I grab a washcloth and scrub my face. Next, I apply some deodorant before heading out to grab some clothes.

  Looking in my bag, I see a pair of jeans and a sweater. I look out the window, it looks cold enough to wear a fucking sweater, and decide it’ll do.

  I dress in black jeans, and put on a black tank top to go under a charcoal gray V-neck sweater.

  As soon as I walk out of my room, I look across the hall and Natasha is coming out of hers.

  Her back is to me and I notice she has on damn near the same thing I do, except instead of jeans, she has on leggings.

  As I’m about to go back in my room and swap my clothes out for sweats, I hear her giggle. I look back and she points to me and then her as she whispers, “Twinning.”

  Shit, I curse at myself under my breath.

  “Let me change and, if you have time, I can give you a lesson.”

  “Why would you change?” she asks as she comes toward me.

  I motion between us like she had. “Twinning.”

  “Don’t be silly, let’s go, there are bikes in the garage.”

  “Really?” I ask following her toward the stairs.

  “Yep, I checked yesterday morning, but my teacher never showed.”

  “Yeah, I apologize about that. I also apologize about last night,” I say as I follow her down the stairs.

  She looks back. “Don’t be. I had a moment. I’ll figure it out. I was just overwhelmed.”

  “Understandable.”

  As I open the hall closet to get my boots, she asks, “Grab my sneakers?”

  “Which ones?”

  “Black all-stars?”

  “Got ‘em,” I say, stepping out with both our shoes in my hands.

  “And Oliver?” I hand her the sneakers.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry if I seemed bitchy last night. I usually save my whining for my mom.”

  Sliding my feet in my black leather biker boo
ts, I look up. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to talk to me.”

  She smiles as she bends down to put hers on. “I hope you know you can do the same.”

  “Yeah, I appreciate it.”

  Before I open the door to head out, I ask her, “You sure this is something you want to do?”

  Her face lights up. “Do you know how convenient it will be to have a bike in London? I mean, it’ll beat riding the Tube.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she laughs but continues to push herself down the path beside the river, behind me.

  I took the pedals off the bike and lowered the seat so she could get the feel of gliding without the possibility of her falling off the damn thing and getting hurt. I remember learning to ride a bike. My old man was fucking brutal and I knew the bastard got a rise out of all the fucking cuts and bruises I received. Sick fuck.

  “The most important part of riding a bike is learning how to balance.”

  She laughs as she says, “I don’t doubt you, Oliver, but I must look like an idiot.”

  Well, I think you look beautiful.

  “You’re not the one jogging in boots, jeans, and a sweater, carrying pedals and a wrench.”

  “You look like GQ Joe,” she laughs.

  I almost stumble at the compliment.

  When you’re six foot four and two hundred and twenty pounds, covered in black and gray ink, GQ isn’t the word most used to describe you.

  I’ve been complimented on things like my strength, my size, my… ability, but never on my dress. Bass is a pretty boy. He carries off the GQ look much better than most. I’m more about comfort and the ability to move. I’d rather wear a uniform than a suit any day. And a sweater? Give me a hoodie instead. But now, now I’m forced to don a suit. And the sweaters I suppose look better in a professional setting.

  “Oliver?” I look back at her on the black bike. “Your ears are red, are you blushing?”

  “No,” I grumble.

  “I’m sure your lady friend or friends have made you aware that you’re very attractive.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. This is worse than the emotional shit.

  “Never much cared if I looked good.”

  “Well, you were all the buzz in the conservatory yesterday. They thought you were a personal trainer, not the acting CEO at de la Porte US.”

  We’ve nearly come to the end of the path at the most opportune time, ‘cause I’d really like to outrun this conversation.

  “‘Il est sexy’, isn’t all that hard to translate,” she laughs before nearly running into me. “Oh no!”

  Before she can fall, I grab the handle bars to steady her and ask, “Is that so?”

  “It is. I bet that’s why they stayed so late last night.”

  I quirk an eyebrow.

  “Tell me you didn’t notice them ogling you,” she laughs as she swings her lean leg over the bike, dismounting.

  “I was more concerned with checking inventory and learning the process,” I say as I squat down. “And right now, I’m more focused on teaching you the last few things about riding a bike.”

  “And what are they?”

  I glance up at her. “Once I put these pedals back on, you need to remember four things, balance is still number one, control is third.”

  “You skipped the second.”

  I nod as I look down and tighten the first pedal. “Confidence.”

  “Gotcha, confidence. The fourth?”

  “Make sure you pay damn good attention to all those around you, you’re responsible for them too, even though you shouldn’t have to be, but not many people out there pay attention, they get too damn caught up in themselves.”

  She lists off the four things I just told her, “Balance, confidence, control, and responsibility.”

  I nod and turn the bike around. “One last thing.” She nods at me as she adjusts her helmet. “If things move too fast, you have all the power in the world to slow them down. If you need to stop immediately, move the pedals backwards to break, and keep focused on balance.”

  The first time up the path, I followed her, watching as she went slow and stopped frequently, but she never fell. I only had to grab the back of the seat twice.

  Each pass up and down the path after, she became more and more comfortable, confident, and I didn’t have to assist once. The last pass, she asked me to take a picture.

  Christ, what is it with girls and pictures? She’d left her phone at the house, so after I took several, she took my phone and messaged the one she liked best to herself.

  As we walked back to the house, pushing the bike, my mind was reeling with the fact that she only took forty minutes to learn how to ride a bike, when it took me weeks.

  “Oliver?” I look down at her as we wait for the pedestrian light to change from red to white. “What are you thinking?”

  I shrug and huff, “I just got my ass kicked by a girl.”

  “What?” she smiles.

  “Took weeks to learn how to ride a fucking bike and it took you less than an hour. If it had been a competition, I would have just got my ass kicked by a one-hundred-and-ten-pound girl.”

  With a small smile on her face, she nudges me and nods to the white light and we walk across the road.

  Once on the other side she asks, “Who taught you?”

  I shift my glance toward her and by her reaction, my disdain is obvious.

  “Well, he clearly didn’t nurture balance, confidence, control, and responsibility. But still, look at you, you’re pretty remarkable, Oliver.”

  Again, with the praise.

  “Do you think you got that all from Maisie or was there something from your childhood that–”

  I cut her off, “Maisie planted good in me. The Army made me a man.”

  “Well, maybe I should write Maisie and Uncle Sam thank you notes. Why you ask?”

  I didn’t ask, but apparently, she doesn’t need me to because she continues, “Because, Oliver Josephs, I’m pretty sure you were born with all that good inside you, you just needed someone to let you know it was safe to let those seeds blossom.”

  Jesus Christ, she sounds just like Maisie.

  After a few minutes, she puts her hand on my forearm. Immediate heat resonates in my chest and my throat dries. I think of Grace.

  I look down into her gorgeous fucking eyes; green, not blue. Eyes that are full of a deeper understanding than most. Eyes that are worldly, but innocent, and I admit to myself, fully understanding that even though she looks like her, she’s not anything like the girl I was so in love with, she’s not Grace.

  “Thank you.”

  She smiles. “Anytime.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Oliver

  I wake to the song, and the scent, that calmed my sleep for the past two nights, and I can’t move. I’m tucked in again.

  “Oliver?”

  And there’s the voice.

  “I appreciate the gestures, but you can’t do this shit, Natasha.”

  “And I can’t ignore it either.” She uses her sassy tone with me.

  I had it coming, I just snapped at her and she didn’t deserve it, not really.

  I take in a deep breath and try to explain in a less militant way, “I have no recollection of you burrito-ing me in like this.”

  She gives me more sass, “Then maybe I didn’t.”

  “Don’t be so naïve, Natasha, next time you pull this shit, I could be having a dream about,” I pause and look over at her as I try to figure out how to soften the truth, but there is no way. “I could be dreaming of the desert. I could be dreaming that I’m beating the hell out of the enemy, and regardless of the music, or as good as you smell.”

  Shit, I scold myself inwardly.

  When her eyes widen, I realize what the fuck I just said and it pisses me off. I make sure the next words sting enough to take the sweetness away.

  “I could easily think you’re that enemy, and hurt you, snap your fucking neck. D
o you get it now?” I yank my body free of the fucking blankets. “So, thank you, Natasha, but please get the hell out of here.”

  “You think I smell sweet?” she whispers.

  Fuck. Harsher, I tell myself.

  “After smelling camel piss and whore snatches for the better part of eight years, a fucking outhouse now smells sweet.”

  She glares me.

  “I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before, Natasha, but I’m not good at sugarcoating things.”

  “No need to mention it, Oliver, I’m getting used to the whiplash.”

  “Good, now get used to–”

  She holds up her hand as she stands. “I won’t come in again, Oliver. But you weren’t fighting any wars in your sleep, unless there was a Grace in the desert.”

  I still immediately.

  She stops at the door and turns around. “Was there a Grace, Oliver?”

  I can’t say shit. I just shake my head.

  “Well then, whoever is she, you’ve said her name two nights in a row.”

  “That’s none of your business,” I tell her.

  She turns and walks out the door.

  Indestructible plays in my ears and I sink into my routine. I let all my frustrations go as I beat the fuck out of my parents. Bodies begins, I beat the fuck out of terrorists. Last Resort begins, and I beat the fuck out of the black and white images that keep me awake. I Stand Alone, and I beat the fuck out of the past, one that’s no longer hidden. Man in the Box begins when I start beating the fuck out of cancer.

  Two weeks ago, that was all I needed to beat the shit out of, now I have something else, I have pain that was hidden in the depths of my soul released in my sleep. Now I need to find another song to play while I beat the fuck out of that too.

  An hour later my knuckles are bare and bleeding. The pain in my hands is much more bearable than the one in my chest. I toe off my sneakers and begin kicking the bag.

  With my head down, earbuds in, I walk up the stairs to the first floor, keeping my eyes to the floor, pretending I don’t notice the people as I pass the conservatory on my way to the stairs toward my room.

  Having showered in the basement gym, I dress quickly in what Natasha deems GQ Joe attire, and think better about it because she looked at me differently yesterday than I want her too. But then again, I want nothing more than to be back in her favor and maybe, just maybe, this will help.