“Because it felt…really good.” I shook out my hair and smiled at him, a tear falling across my lips and onto my tongue, where its salty-sweet taste dissipated.
“You’re not hurt?” he asked.
“I’m not hurt. I’m…happy.”
“I am too.” I knew how deeply new that was to the both of us.
I fell forward and wrapped my arms around him. And he wrapped his arms around me. He was still inside me. Not as hard, but not at all soft either.
I wanted to put him in my mouth to find out what the two of us tasted like on his cock. I wanted to climb up his body, so he could taste us on me.
I wanted to lie on my stomach and feel him cover me like a living, breathing blanket. I wanted to take a shower and hear the story behind every scar on his body.
I wanted to draw him and making castings of his legs and arms.
I wanted a great deal of Luka Samuelson.
But what I said was “It’s New Year’s Day.”
“I guess so.”
“Have you ever had posole?”
“I don’t know what that is?”
“It’s a soup. My dad made it for me for breakfast on special occasions. How about you and Petey come over to my house—it’s warmer. And I’ll make you some posole.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.
“Well, so far we’re doing sex and posole. And I think you’re pretty amazing at that. Unless you don’t like soup—”
“I like soup.”
“Then we’re rock stars.”
“I feel…you know so much about me. I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s funny. I feel you know so much about me and I know so little about you.”
I crossed the ruins of all those walls that usually surrounded me. I crossed the pain and horror of his past and I put my arms around his thick stomach. I laid my head against his strong chest.
This is how it begins, I thought.
He lifted my chin and kissed me. Like the end shot in some cheesy movie I watched as a kid. I should scorn such care. I should make some joke. But those walls were in ruins and so I sighed into his mouth. My cold body melting into the heat of him.
His hand landed on my shoulder, a fingers tangling in the thin chains and cords of my necklaces.
“I want to hear about these things,” he said, running his fingers over the quarters my father had in his pocket when he died. The feather from my mother’s coat, hidden in the back of the closet like a secret we didn’t talk about. The pearl I found here in the shop when I first bought it, wedged in a crack in the cement.
His calloused fingers stroked the sensitive skin beneath the necklaces. I felt my skin. My blood. I felt myself rise to his touch. I looked down and saw his fingers there among my memories. And I felt my soul rise to his touch.
“What did you call them? Your found things?”
I nodded, oddly moved. Unable to speak past this lump in my throat. He kissed me as if he knew. And he probably did. Luka was a man like that.
“I think,” he said against my lips, “in the end, we are all found things.”
* * *
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The flare of a cigarette, the sound of a stranger’s voice, and the handsome Irishman in the shadows--I wanted it all, but I wasn’t allowed to want. Ronan was danger and beauty, murder and mercy. To me, he was a mystery, but he was also the only man who ever knew me.
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I couldn’t see the man in the shadows. It was nothing but dark out here, and then there was the red flare of a cigarette to my left, and I stepped back. Embarrassed and shaking, I tripped over my shoes. “I didn’t think anyone was here. I’ll go—”
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t…what?”
“Don’t leave.” Just that. And I was getting bossed around plenty in the house behind me, but no one managed to do it so plainly. It was all dressed up in manners. I was wrapped in chains of politeness. I didn’t know what it said about my mental health, but I liked the fact that he didn’t ask. And he wasn’t polite.
This whole situation was fucking me up.
He didn’t step forward to introduce himself, and I stepped away from him keeping my name to myself, too.
“You were just about to do the fifty-yard dash in a ball gown,” he said.
“Not…really.”
“Then you weren’t about to scream, neither.”
“No.” The lie came easy. So quick. Second nature now.
“Bullshit.”
“You know, you could leave. Give me some privacy.”
His low laugh rippled out from the shadows, putting goosebumps up and down my arms. “Could I?”
“It would be polite.”
“I’m not much for polite,” he said and took another drag of his cigarette. “I like screaming better than running, though. Gets the blood up.”
“The blood up?” That sounded very Braveheart. Truthfully, I liked it.
“For fightin’ and the like.”
“I’m not much for fighting,” I said, and it was so true, so funny and true and awful all at the same time I had to put a hand over my mouth so a weird laugh/scream thing wouldn’t come tearing out of me. And my chance to run was years behind me.
He made some speculative sound in his throat. Which could be agreement or disagreement or some kind of mix of the two, and it hardly mattered. He hardly mattered. This moment on the patio hardly mattered.
It was why I was still standing there.
Everything inside, every word I said, every drink I had, every person who looked twice at me – all that mattered. It got rung up someplace and added to the price I had to pay.
And I just needed a minute.
“You all right?” He asked.
Terrified.
“You working the party?” I asked, changing the subject. It was always easier to talk about other people.
“You making small talk with the help?” His brogue was so thick it took me a second to make sure I got the words right.
“If that’s what you are, then yes.”
“Well, I’m not sure what I am, to be honest with you.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“In that dress, sweetheart, you are not the help.”
I pressed my hands to the skirt of my ball gown, gold embroidery and sequins over blush gossamer netting. I felt naked under all the layers, if I was being honest.
“You look beautiful,” he said, like he could see my doubts.
“Thank you.” The compliment bounced off me. When people called my sister beautiful, she cut off all her hair and painted her face. Me? I said thank you and did what they asked of me.
“It came in a box,” I said, stupidly. “Like in the movies. A box with a big red bow.”
“Proof that you shouldn’t be out here with me, Princess,” he said.
He was right. 100%. There were people inside who, if they found out what I was doing, would be pissed. But the rest of my life was going to be spent trying to not piss those people off, this might be the very last second I had for myself.
“Are you a Morelli?” I asked.
“A who?”
“A member of the Morelli family.”
The worst thing he could be was a Morelli. He could be a murdering son of a bitch, and being a Morelli would still be worse. Elaine, Caroline’s daughter, got caught up with Lucian Morelli at Tinsley’s birthday, and it was as if she’d fucked the devil himself.
This guy wasn’t the devil. He was a waiter having a smoke. And I wasn’t a Constantine. I wasn’t even going to be a Waverly for much longer.
“No, I’m not a Morelli,” he said.
&nbs
p; “Then we’re okay.” The night seemed to breathe. The party sounds faded. The scream in my chest was gone.
We’re okay.
“Why are you out here?” he asked.
“There are a lot of answers to that question,” I laughed.
“You always go for a run during a party?”
“I do,” I nodded. “I’m in training.”
“For ball gown racing?”
“Yes, it’s a very obscure event. But I’m ranked.” I was being ridiculous. The nerves were making me ridiculous, and I was only ever ridiculous with my sister.
“National or international?” Oh, he was playing along. It made me want to cry for missing my sister.
“International, of course.”
My feet were cold and naked in the grass, so I put on the shoes.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“I haven’t been invited inside yet.”
“Really?”
“No.”
That did make me laugh. I liked this shadow Irishman with the quick wit, and maybe it was the grass I could still feel between my toes or that my world was coming down around me in ways I couldn’t stop, but the truth just came out of me.
“Adolescent on-set schizophrenia. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m… everything.”
It was wild to say that out loud. We never talked about it. We never gave the words air or sound. Or light. They lived in shadows, dark and unsaid. Alone and festering.
From the shadows he held a flask. “Here. You look like you could use a drink.”
“I shouldn’t,” I said. I needed to be clear. Sharp. Tonight was like throwing myself into a sea of piranhas. For the rest of my life.
“Your hands are shaking.”
Honestly, I couldn’t see him. At all. The glow of that cigarette, the gleam off the flask and the white of his shirt at his wrist. He had nice hands. A jagged scar ran along the side of his thumb down to his wrist.
“What happened?” I asked, and I couldn’t believe it myself, but I touched his hand. My fingertip brushed the raised pink skin of the scar. The insanity of that made me light-headed, and I quickly took the flask. I cupped it in my cold shaking fingers like a flame.
“Jumped out a window,” he said, flexing his fingers out wide and then curling them into a fist. “My hand got caught on an eaves-shoot. Tore it open, like.”
“Why’d you jump out a window?”
“Because someone who wanted to hurt me was coming in the door.” He said it like a joke.
I took a sip from the flask. The booze burned down my throat and exploded in warmth in my belly, and I gasped. Another sip and the same effect until I could feel my feet and my fingers. Another sip, and my face was warm. Yep. This was what a person needed for a few minutes before jumping into the pool of piranhas. To feel alive. Warm. Bloody and real.
And another sip, the flask lighter in my hand.
“Slow down there,” he said and took the flask from me. His fingers didn’t touch mine, but I could still feel the heat of them. “I reckon you haven’t eaten.”
“That,” I said. “Is a fair point.” When was the last time I’d eaten? Last night? Two days ago? I couldn’t remember being hungry or full. It felt like I was very tiny inside of my body.
From the shadows around him came one of the china plates from inside. There was cheese there. Little quiches. Asparagus in prosciutto. “Have something,” he offered.
“What else have you got over there?” I joked.
“You probably don’t want to know. But if you’re hungry.” The plate came closer. I reached for a piece of cheese but in the end didn’t touch it. My stomach was in knots.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Suit yourself.” The plate disappeared, and I was suddenly ravenous.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“What makes you think I’m not from here?”
Laughter again. But this time, thanks to the flask, it didn’t hurt. It didn’t sound half like a scream.
“Something about your voice.”
“Northern Ireland.”
“Belfast?” That was the only town I knew in Northern Ireland.
“Eventually. Derry, too. I was born in a cow pasture you never heard of.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
He sighed, and I tried again to see him in the shadows, but they were too dark. Too complete. “Five hours.”
“I meant the States.”
“So do I. I flew into LaGuardia five hours ago.”
“And you’re here? At this party?”
“Do you know Caroline Constantine?”
“I do,” I thought with a laugh. My mom’s best friend and a fairy godmother out of the dark when my dad died. We were in her house right now. I slept in her pool house. The net keeping us safe–she’d created. “Did she bring you?”
“In a sense.”
“Wow. Well, welcome.” It was comforting a little bit. If Caroline was a friend of his, he was one of the good ones. There were rumors around Bishop’s Landing that the Constantines were bad news, but those rumors were mostly started by the Morelli’s who were actual bad news, so I didn’t listen to them. And if this guy was attached to the Constantines, being out here in the dark wasn’t nearly so scandalous.
“What about you? Where are you from?”
“Here,” I said. “I mean, Bishop’s Landing.”
Just the thought of it brought it all back, what tonight was supposed to be. What I was supposed to do.
I’d like to jump out a window, I thought, but when he laughed I realized I said it out loud. I stepped back again, further into my shadows. The flask was a mistake. Leaving the party was a mistake. I had to keep my head down and swallow my screams, there was no alternative.
“Well,” he said quietly. Carefully. “If what’s coming through the door is bad enough, the jumping is not so hard.”
“I should go back in,” I said, turning towards the door, but not moving. I took a deep breath, and I heard the snick of a lighter in the shadows. The acrid smell of a cigarette drifted over my shoulder. I didn’t smoke, but I suddenly wanted one with a bone deep desire.
I could hear the scrape of his shoes as he stood up. I imagined him stretching out of the shadows and into the golden light spilling out from the door. I could feel him closer. Warmth against my back. If I turned, I would see him. And just how badly I wanted to see him was a warning.
This man with his charm and accent and flask – was not for me. Not ever.
My heart pounded against my ribcage, and I didn’t turn. Coward to the very end. Or perhaps I was just so used to giving up what I wanted. Even the small things. Especially the small things.
They were all I had left, and I was giving them up one crumb at a time.
“Who is coming through your door?” he asked, and I put a hand over my mouth to stop my sob. “Princess?”
“You going to beat someone up for me?” I asked, my voice wrecked.
“If it would help. Even if it won’t.”
Who could I set this man against? Which person inside that house if left beaten and bloody would free me from this situation. But even if that door was suddenly open to me…would I take it? Would I walk out? Would I leave? Risk poverty. Humiliation? My sister…
“I’m fine,” I said, straightening my shoulders. “What about you? Maybe I should beat someone up for you.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m the one who fixes problems.”
“Me too,” I said. “I am the one who fixes problems, too.”
I turned, thinking I was ready for the sight of him. Or had some kind of expectation about what he might look like. I expected handsome. Smiling and charming. Tall, maybe. I was surround by handsome men quite a lot.
But I was not braced for him.
He was beautiful. I mean, like inarguably. It was simply fact. A law of nature. Dark hair. Blue eyes like the sky at noon. Dark scruff along his hard, squa
re chin. He wore a tuxedo with the tie pulled loose. An angel kicked out of heaven for the trouble he caused.
There was blood on the collar of his white shirt. Blood from any number of wounds on his face. A black eye. A split lip. A tiny butterfly bandage over a cut on his cheekbone.
He was beautiful, and he was savage.
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
He touched the cut on his lip. “You should see the other guy.”
I stepped forward, drawn by the joke attempt. His eyelashes. The sudden urge to be on a side of kindness. Either side. Any side. Just to experience it however I could. “Who hurt you?”
His eyes snapped to mine, sharp and bright, and my skin prickled. Uncomfortable and aware.
“No one,” he said, ice cold despite the blood on his collar. The black eye and split lip. “Not for a long time.”
I thought he was joking, and I smiled, but his face was resolute. Calm in its strength. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t being sarcastic. He’s been beaten, but he was telling me it didn’t hurt him.
Like he’d made a choice, and that was that. Pain didn’t matter.
“It’s that easy?” I whispered. Scared in my belly because it was only there that I could acknowledge that I knew what was coming for me was going to hurt.
“No,” he said and his hand, the one with the scar, the one I’d touched, brushed my cheek, his thumb at the edge of my lip. “It’s not easy. It’s very hard. But it’s how you survive.”
His thumb pressed against my lip, and I gasped, my lips parting. I could taste the salt of his skin and everything in me screamed to leave. This wasn’t just foolish, it was dangerous. For him.
For me. Especially for me.
But I couldn’t move. He pressed and pressed until my teeth cut into my lip and it hurt.
It hurt, and he kept pushing.
It hurt, and I stood there. Taking it.
Why was I doing this? Why was he? It felt like a warning and a lesson, and it felt real. Like the grass under my feet. Like the booze in my belly. Not at all like the threats inside that house, whispered and insinuated. The pain, the taste of blood and salt from his finger. The look in his eye willing me to stillness.
So. Real.
“Don’t let them hurt you,” he said.
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