99 Percent Mine

by Sally Thorne

  “I might start in the morning, if you don’t mind.” He laughs, groans, and stretches in one movement. Like he’s flat in a bed instead of on some rickety old stairs. “I do have a key. But I know how you feel about . . . privacy.”

  He says it like privacy is only one of the options he could have gone with. He always does this; he gives me one tidbit on what he thinks I’m like, then he clams up until Megan jingles her car keys and he’s gone for another six months.

  The tidbit leaves me ravenous, and I’m wiring my own jaw shut to not press and ask for more. I’m sweating so much my tank is stuck to my back.

  We watch Patty as she paddles through the leaves on the lawn, nose to the ground. She half squats and changes her mind. Tom sighs wearily. “Now it’s time to pee? She’s had nearly an hour to do this.”

  “Well, I’m more determined than ever to find my passport now. It’s definitely in the house, but Loretta’s hidden it.” I click my fingers for Patty. Come back, li’l buffer. I haul myself down to sit on the step beside him.

  “Might have to order a new one,” Tom says with a tone of reluctance.

  “The old one has all my stamps in it. It’s like my scrapbook. I’ll find it tomorrow when I pack.” Looking up to the sky, I tell Loretta, “I need to get out of here. Give it back.”

  “Maybe she wants you to stick around for once.” He took a risk there, tacking on for once.

  “I’ll ignore that,” I warn him, and he just looks up at the starry sky and smiles. I’m predictable, apparently. So is my stomach. It fills with sparkles.

  His is the kind of bone structure that makes me blurt stupid things. So I do. “Every single time I see you, I can’t believe you’re not a kid anymore. Look at you.”

  “All grown up.”

  His torso looks like a pack of chocolate, with the squares visible through the wrapper. You know how chocolate has that matte-glossy texture? That’s his skin. I want to scrape across him with my fingernails. I want to start my weekly Halloween binge.

  Megan, Megan, diamond rings. The incantation doesn’t completely work.

  He has the kind of density that makes me constantly guess to myself how much he’d weigh. Does muscle weigh more than fat? He’s a ton. He’s six-six, and I watched him get this tall, but it’s a surprise every time I see him. It’s the body you see on first responders. Think big-ass firemen kicking in doors, ready to save you.

  “How do you cope with a skeleton that big?” I ask, and he looks down at himself, mystified. “I mean, how do you coordinate all four limbs and actually ambulate around the place?” My eyes are back on his shoulders, following the round lines down, the flat sections, the dips and shadowed lines, the creases on the cotton.

  I can see his belt, which doesn’t know how lucky it is to be strapped around that, and a lush half inch of black underwear waistband, and my cheeks are burning and I can hear my heart and—

  “Eyes up, DB.” He’s busted me. Not that I was very subtle. “Me and my skeleton get around just fine. Now, what’s going on with this rickety porch?”

  I try to think of how I can explain it. What did happen to the house? I think I messed up and neglected it. That loose board, for example? I should have found a hammer and whacked it flat.

  “My theory is that Loretta’s magic held the entire house together.” I rub my palms briskly on my thighs to banish the crying feeling I know is going to well up inside me.

  He always knows when I need him to change the subject. “And what happened to your hair? Your mom broke the news.”

  “I think she called everyone she knows. Hysterical, over a freakin’ haircut. Oh, Princess, why?” I mock, trying to keep my movements casual as I pass my fingers through it. It feels like a boy’s head now. I cross my legs and my tight leather pants squeak. I smooth them with a black-nailed hand. I have never been less of a princess.

  If Mom knew I have a nipple piercing now, she’d give me the lecture about how my body’s a temple. Sorry, Mom, I hammered a picture hook into myself.

  “She rang me, crying. I was up on a roof. I thought that you . . . anyway.” Tom’s forehead creases at the memory. “Imagine my relief that Darcy Barrett had just cut her plait off. You went to a barbershop?”

  “Yeah, I got an old barber to do it. What? I wasn’t going to a women’s hairdresser. They’d give me a pixie cut or something nauseating like that. I specifically wanted a World War Two pilot’s haircut.”

  “Okay,” Tom says, amused. “So, did he know how to cut it?”

  I slap at a mosquito. “Yeah. But he changed his mind and didn’t want to do it.”

  Tom looks at where my hair used to be. “It was kind of special.”

  I didn’t know he thought that. Goddamn it. “He’d forgotten lady hair was soft. He begged but I made him. The sound of the scissors going through it . . .” I still get goose bumps. “It sounded like he was hacking through sinew. He prayed in Italian. It was like being exorcised.”

  Tom is wry. “Making scared men pray. You really, really haven’t changed.”

  “Amen.” I stretch my arms up to the sky and my humid clothes barely move with me. Sitting around with Tom Valeska has given me one hell of a lust-sweat.

  The urge to take it too far always overwhelms me. It has since we both hit puberty.

  “I love it when they pray in Italian,” I whisper, sexy hushed, and he won’t meet my eye. “Please, please, Signora Darcy, don’t make me.”

  “Signora means you’re married, doesn’t it? You’re not married.” His voice is faint and when I study him sideways, the hairs on his forearms are raised. How interesting.

  “Yeah, who’d marry me.” It’s now my turn to slouch down, pick at my boot, and change the subject. I do it clumsily. “Hey, does everyone assume one day they’re going to get a call that I’ve dropped dead?”

  He doesn’t know how to answer that, so I guess it’s a yes.

  “Mom’s good at dramatic phone calls and forwarding photos. I got a Mom Special about you.” I refuse to look at him now. I wrap my arms around my knees and growl. “Goddamn it, Tom. What the hell.”

  He knows exactly what I mean. “I’m really sorry.”

  Tom’s engaged! Finally, it’s been so long! His mother is fit to burst! Two carats, can you believe? Darcy, say something, isn’t it fantastic?

  If I’d been up on a roof, I would have ended up in traction. Instead, I went out and drank twenty toasts to the beautiful couple. It was a bender eight years in the making.

  I woke up to a photo of a sugar-lump diamond on a perfectly manicured hand and puked. I was late to the wedding I was shooting. One of the main courses at the reception was sea bass and the room stank like a wharf. After the bride articulated her opinions about my lack of professionalism, I threw up in an umbrella stand by the door.

  And meanwhile, Loretta was going out into the garden to hide her coughing fits from me, and Jamie was applying for fancy jobs in the city and spending less time with me. That entire year was one massive vomit, and the taste is still in my mouth.

  “I don’t accept your apology. You never called me yourself, you jerk. Do we just use my mom as a communication method these days? Aren’t we pals?” I kick his boot with my smaller one, more gently than I want to. “Am I gonna be blinded by this ring when I see it?”

  It’s as close to Congratulations as I can manage. Or, When’s she getting here? Hey, I sent them a card. They probably laughed their asses off picturing Darcy Barrett in the Hallmark section.

  Tom opens his mouth to answer but is distracted by a car that grumbles past the cottage at a walking pace. It’s a muscle car, heavy and low to the ground. Its engine thrums as it rolls up to the curb.

  I have a bad feeling I know who this is, and Tom doesn’t like him.

  Chapter 4

  Tom begins to stand, and the car accelerates and squeals off. Oh, to have such a big scary silhouette. Life would be so easy.

  “Who was that?” Tom sinks back down.

  It
was Vince, coming around here like a tomcat. “No idea.”

  I put a marshmallow in my mouth so I can’t talk anymore. Tom knows I’m lying, and when he begins to argue, I stuff a marshmallow in his mouth, too. He’s annoyed and amused. I felt his lips on my palm. This night isn’t all bad.

  As his eye fixes onto my boot, the streetlight creates a black blade under his cheekbone. I’d click my camera right now. Now, as he looks at my legs and his lashes create a dark crescent shadow. Now, when those eyes cut to mine and there’s a spark of light in them, and another thought about me in his head. Then he looks away.

  One second is all it takes to get my heartbeat flipping like a fish in a net.

  I blurt, “Can I take your photo yet?”

  “No,” he replies, soft and patient, like he has every time before. He doesn’t understand his own face. He has to be dragged into the Christmas picture, posed behind Megan with an unconvincing smile that looks more like concern.

  Oh, that’s right. I’m a prime candidate to be taking pictures of him in a suit at the altar.

  “That’s okay. Human faces aren’t really my bread and butter these days.” I link my fingers together and try to dredge up some self-control.

  Get it together, Darcy. It’s not his fault he was born with your favorite kind of bones. He’s a sweet shy solid-gold human. Someone’s fiancé. You’re a teenage dirtbag. Leave him alone.

  He’s clammed up completely. We’re running out of topics. Work is a safe zone. “So you’re finally your own boss. How did Aldo take it?”

  Tom huffs a relieved laugh. “How do you think he took it?”

  “He’s going to have to do some actual work himself. Yeah, I’d say it went badly.” I feel myself inflating with overprotectiveness. Bigger. Darker. “Do I need to go and make him apologize to you?”

  Tom laughs at whatever I look like. “Don’t get growly.”

  “I can’t help it. People take advantage of you. Even us.” Us means the twins.

  You guys don’t take advantage of me.” He’s braced back now with his palms flat on the porch, endless legs splayed out. I lean back too, just to feel how our bodies compare. My hand is positively Chihuahua-sized next to his Valeska paw. My boot is halfway down his shin. I turn my head. My shoulder? It’s an upturned mug sitting beside a basketball.

  I’m not a particularly petite woman, but he makes me feel like I’m soft. Little and light. A princess. I frown, sit up, and force myself back into a geometric shape.

  “Aldo wanted to bump your house for a bigger, easier job. I said it couldn’t wait any longer. If you guys have changed your mind about renovating, I’m kinda screwed,” he says, barely joking. “I took most of the crew with me.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re all good. Make the place beautiful and get me out of here.” He took the crew? I cannot imagine him making that kind of power move. I look at his brute frame in my peripheral vision, and maybe I can. “Take it from me, it’s weird not being on a payroll.” I nudge his shoulder with mine, resisting the urge to rest against him. “Thanks for choosing us over him.”

  “Well, thank you. For, ah, employing me.”

  “Oh, I’m your boss now?” Just as a dopamine surge fills me and I think of so many sleazy, funny responses that I could go with, the image of Megan’s face makes me bite my lip shut. Teasing him is my Olympic sport, and I can only compete once every four years. But he’s going to be her husband soon. “Think of us as business partners.”

  He gives me a strange look. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure, I’m fine.”

  He gets to his feet. “I was bracing myself for a classic Darcy zinger. How did you manage to resist?” He holds a hand down and pulls me up so easily I momentarily leave the ground.

  I sigh. Another of life’s pleasures is over. “I officially retire. For obvious reasons.”

  I climb a couple of steps to be closer to his eye level. Patty is still tootling around in the garden. “Hurry it up,” I tell her, hugging my arms around my waist. “I’m getting cold.”

  “What’s that?” Tom’s noticed the reddened mark on my wrist. He can always sniff out danger.

  “Just a reaction to my new perfume.”

  Tom reaches for my arm but stops when an inch separates our skin. He opens his hand over the mark and measures it. He’s pissed. Outraged. Mouth open from the sheer audacity. I’m surprised the sky doesn’t unfurl into black thunderclouds, crackling with lightning. “Who did it?”

  “Don’t fuss.” I wrap my forearm behind my back and put more marshmallows into my mouth. Through the white sugar foam I say, “Looks worse than it is.” What a horrible sentence.

  “Who did it?” He repeats it, his eyes supernatural orange. He looks back at the street. He’s going to hunt that black car down. He’s going to tear out Vince’s throat.

  How does no one else ever notice this beast inside him?

  “No, not that guy. Another fucking idiot at work. He knows to not do it again.”

  I’ve already got my follow-up retort locked and loaded: I can take care of myself. He knows it. We stare like we hate each other.

  I can feel the energy in him shimmering. He’s got thoughts and opinions, but he’s swallowing them, and they taste awful. He’s probably thinking about what he’d do to anyone who put a mark on Megan. He’d lick up blood.

  “If he needs reminding, let me know,” he manages at last. He’s twisting away from me now, putting distance between us. This is something he doesn’t like about me. My dark, messy lifestyle scares the shit out of him.

  I’m struggling with my temper too, for a different reason. I wouldn’t mind betting Megan’s too simple to realize what she has. She’s at home embalming herself, bleaching her cuticles and lubricating her follicles or whatever it is that well-groomed women do. She’s an aesthetician after all, and no one can trust a slovenly beauty therapist. I bet she’s staring at her own face in the mirror.

  Meanwhile, her fiancé is like an apple pie on a windowsill, and this world is full of sugar addicts like me. It’s her goddamn carelessness that has always gotten me.

  If he were mine . . . I can’t let myself think it.

  My jaw aches from not blurting everything out. “Let’s go in.”

  Valeska shakes the snow from his fur. I shake the snow from mine. He holds up an ancient key ring. “Check it out.”

  “Well, that’s a blast from the past.”

  It’s a key ring given to Tom by Loretta when we were kids; it’s Garfield, wearing earphones, with Odie next to him, mouth open in a bark. Printed is: SILENCE IS GOLDEN! That was Loretta’s nickname for Tom: Golden. I was Sweetness, and Jamie was Salty.

  Nicknames were everywhere, growing up. Prince, Princess. My dad’s special name for Tom that made him go red and pleased: Tiger. Maybe Dad did know what we brought in that night.

  “I love that you have a key,” I say without thought, like a creep. “This would be a collector’s item, probably.” I use his Garfield key to unlock the door, and he scrapes his thumbnail into the empty screw holes where my BARRETT WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY brass plaque used to be. He’s probably thinking about how I’ll never shoot his wedding. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.” But also, I’m not.

  I push the door open with my knee. He’s looking now at the remaining plaque that reads MAISON DE DESTIN, hung by Loretta to set the mood for her tarot clients. Ooh. Something about destiny. Fancy. He’s wistful as he uses his thumb to check if it’s screwed tight.

  “I miss her so much,” he tells me, and we are sad and silent until Patty does her jackhammer run through our legs, sneezing and huffing. Thank you, little animal.

  I click on the nearest lamp, and the first thing we see is my underwear. Above the fireplace, there’s a row of fancy black bras hanging up to dry on the old nails that once held our Christmas stockings.

  “Well,” Tom says after a beat. “That would give Santa a stroke.”

  I laugh and throw my keys onto the coffee table. “I wasn’t expecting c
ompany.” The echo of Vince’s car reverberates through the room like another lie. Patty sets off with single-minded determination down the hall.

  “If you pee inside, you are getting in trouble,” Tom says to her departing form.

  I unhook the bras and toss them on the armchair. “Christ, what a night. I’m glad you’re here.” I pull out the wine bottle and use the hem of my top to work on the screw-top lid.

  He holds out a hand. It would be easy-peasy for him. “Here, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m perfectly capable.” I step around him into the dark kitchen. If I’m not firm with him, he slips and starts trying to do everything for me. Princess Mode. “Do you want some? Or do good boys like you need to get into bed?”

  Eyebrows down. “Good boys like me get up at five A.M.”

  “Bad girls like me go to bed at six A.M.” I grin at his despairing head shake. He reaches for the light switch on the wall, but I stop him. “You’ll get a zap.”

  “Seriously? Have you been zapped?” Aghast, he looks at my chest. It contains the one thing he cannot fix.

  “No, because I learned from Jamie’s mistake.” I can’t help grinning. Holy fuck! Ow! Darce, stop laughing! That hurt!

  “Smiling at the thought of your brother being electrocuted.” Tom doesn’t want to be amused but he can’t help it. “Such a bad girl.”

  “I’m the worst.” I use a wooden spoon to flip the switch. “Okay, so it’s looking bad in here.”

  I watch him scan the room from top to bottom: the water-stained ceiling, the bubbling wallpaper, the floorboards that bounce under his feet. I’ve been used to it, but now I see the full extent of the room’s shabbiness.

  “Can you tell me what your fight with Jamie was about? I’ve heard his side. But I want to hear yours.” He turns away, his eyes following the line of a crack in the wall. Behind his back, I drink my entire glass of wine soundlessly. When he turns around, I’m holding a second full glass. The perfect crime.