by Sally Thorne
Tom offers his hand to her and she roughly rubs her white cheek along his knuckles, before looking at me with smug acid-green eyes. Fair enough. I’d love to do the same to him. He yawns and slumps a little, unaware that my screws are getting looser by the second. I remember something.
“So, Jamie’s room is an issue.”
He seizes the chance to leave the room, so I guess my stare is getting to him. I call after him, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“It’s up to the ceiling,” he says from the hall. “Darcy, seriously.”
“I don’t have any storage space, and Jamie just won’t come and get his stuff. So I just . . . stacked it to the ceiling.” I am sloshing wine into my glass again when he appears. He confiscates the bottle, towering over me, holding it up to the light to look at the level.
“That’s enough for tonight.” He tousles my hair with his fingers to soften the scolding. “I can’t get used to it. It really is so short.”
He still hasn’t said that it looks good. I won’t ask, because he can’t lie. Megan has a beautiful glossy dark mane. Even I want to touch her hair.
“I look like I’m in a Korean boy band, but I don’t care. I can feel the air on the back of my neck.” I stretch as his fingertips depart, and hopefully he doesn’t notice. I need physical touch more than sunlight, and it’s embarrassing. A hologram of Vince appears and I blink it away.
“I personally didn’t know you had a neck. What happened to your plait after it was cut? Not the bin.” The thought horrifies him.
“I donated it. Someone out there is walking around with a big white wig. So, do I look like Jamie now?”
He laughs and the room gets brighter. I’m not saying that to be cute; it’s true. The lamps all blaze up. Shot electrical wiring—or Loretta spying on us? I know which I’d put my money on. “What did your brother say when your mom sent him the photo?”
“That I look like a wannabe Goth Joan of Arc and that I chopped off my only redeeming feature. I don’t care. I love it.”
He puts the bottle and glass out of reach, then takes the bag of marshmallows that I’ve been cradling and puts them on the mantel. “You look nothing alike.”
“I look like Ms. Pac-Man with a bow on my head. I’m like the scale version of him.”
“You’re really not.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult? My brother is beautiful, as you know.”
He shakes his head in amusement but still says nothing. I’ve been fishing on this same pier for many years. He steps closer, and feather-soft, he reaches down and nudges the mark on my arm.
“This is not okay. And I’ll . . .” He bites down on the rest of that sentence and the tendons of his jaw flex. The hands by his sides curl and squeeze. I know what he’ll do. He doesn’t have to say it. I feel it.
I’ve just decided to reach up to uncurl his fingers when he decides to retreat entirely to the only place I cannot follow.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, going outside before reappearing with a huge suitcase.
“What’s that? Are you flying internationally somewhere?”
“Ha, ha,” he replies dryly. He’s not an easy flier. The image of him crammed into a tiny plane seat, nervously clutching the armrests, is weird. And cute. And makes me sad. Wine kind of does that to a person. The Cure also assists.
I lie back and cross my legs at the knees. “Now, that shower has gotten a bit temperamental. Should I come in and show you?” I keep my tone straightforward, but I can see a rose-gold blush on his cheekbones as he unzips his bag.
“No, thanks.” He pulls out some pajamas and a black zipped bag.
“Oh wait.” I get to my feet and run down the hallway, Patty at my heels. “I’d better check . . .”
“Darce, relax,” he says behind me as I scoop up puddles of underwear from the floor. “We practically shared a bathroom when we were growing up.” And it goes unsaid but he lives with a woman. He’s seen everything.
The room shrinks by half. I don’t leave.
“You’ll have to go out now.” His hand cups the hem of the T-shirt. Then he grips it. Everything twists tighter. There’s an inch of stomach, and it’s tanned like caramel fudge. I plead with myself. Eyes up, DB.
His knuckles start going white. “Go on. Out.”
I don’t know if he’s talking to me or Patty. I pray for St. Megan to give me strength. He herds me out. “Towels in the usual spot?”
“Yeah,” I say, hating the fact that he’s audibly turned the lock. How embarrassing. How prudent. “I’m sorry I’m weird to you.”
“That’s okay.” On the other side of the door, Tom is getting naked. Come on, Maison de Destin. Collapse your walls. “You forget, I’ve known you a long time.”
“And I’ve been weird to you the entire time.”
“Yeah.” There’s a banging noise, then a blast, and he yelps. “These pipes.” I can hear the shower curtain flutter. I slide down the wall and Patty looks like she has a twin sister. I’ll keep one when he leaves.
“What a fucking lucky drain.” The wine has knocked my legs out and maybe I should be worried. I didn’t have much. Am I dying? My heart feels steady, ticking away valiantly. I look at the two little faces next to me. “Patties, that shower doesn’t know how good life is right now.”
Let’s review how this night has turned out.
Tom Valeska is putting his flawless face under the spray of my shower, suds sliding down, rinsing his gold skin. Muscles dripping. I have seen him climb out of pools roughly ten billion times by now, so I think I know what he looks like. Almost.
I pull up the bottom of my top and blot the sheen from my face and neck.
He’s got legs for days and a beefy butt. Straddle-worthy hips. Those shoulders? Streaming with water now. The shower’s off, and now one of Loretta’s towels is probably around his waist. Those towels barely wrap around me.
I am having mental images that need to be taped shut inside that box of dildos, like it’s a cursed sarcophagus.
I don’t think this can be happening. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch and am having a delirious, dehydrated sex dream. But if this were a dream, the door would be ajar, steam curling out to me. If he asked me to come in right now, I would pull the pins out of the hinges with my teeth, spitting them on the floor.
I can say this with absolute certainty: No man has ever made me want to lick a foggy bathroom tile before. “Megan, Megan,” I whisper to myself, icy-white diamonds behind my eyelids as I drag myself to my feet.
In my room, I scrub my eyes with makeup wipes and change into leggings and an old band T-shirt. I’ll let my teeth decay tonight. When Tom appears in the doorway, wearing another tight T-shirt and sweatpants, I’m starting to doubt reality again.
“You’re forgetting something.” He points a thumb next door. “That room.” His jaw tenses and he swallows a yawn. My hospitality leaves a lot to be desired. “Where do you want me?”
“In my bed. Not with me! I’m on the couch tonight.” I eye my bedside drawer. “Wait, let me burn the room down real quick.”
He laughs like he’s got my number. “I’ll take the couch.”
“You can’t fit on it. Here.” I pull the blankets back, take him by the wrists, and toss him down. It’s weirdly easy. Shouldn’t he be difficult to manhandle and throw down? Maybe I’m super strong. Maybe he’s light as a feather.
Or, most realistically, he’s exhausted. But still, he gives me a look that makes my inner thighs quiver. And when he pulls up the comforter, it’s low on his hips. He looks like a beautiful big Viking, even under candy stripes.
“I shouldn’t.” He leans back against the headboard and contemplates my nightstand with sideways eyes. I don’t feel too worried. This here is a cast-iron moral compass. Mine, on the other hand? Not so much. I need to get out of this room. Out of this country.
“Jamie would kill me if I let you sleep on the couch or the floor. Consider me the hostess with
the mostess.”
I sound incredibly drunk. How strange; I’m starting to feel very sober indeed. I dig around in the big wooden chest at the foot of the bed, searching for a quilt. I hear an uneasy mattress squeak. The sound seems to come from his soul.
I tsk at him. “What? Sleeping in my bed isn’t cheating on Megan. And they’re fresh sheets, before your mind goes there.” In my peripheral vision, he regards the empty space where Vincent would go with slack-jawed horror.
I avoid looking in his direction as I snatch up a pillow. I don’t have to look to know that Tom fits my king-sized bed like a dream. One of those dreams you defile yourself after.
“Okay, good night.” I retreat backward down the hall, knocking my elbows on everything, and fall onto the couch.
I cocoon myself, knowing it’ll be icy in this room by morning, and then I decide to set myself an impossible little target.
It’s nothing too aspirational. It doesn’t involve my finding the courage to loosen my fingernails from the edge of this couch and walk back down the hall. Skin-on-skin-on-sweat physical contact isn’t in the realm of possibility.
Not now, not ever, not Tom.
I thought that having just 1 percent of Tom Valeska’s heart feels like hitting the jackpot, but I think I was wrong. It’s now not enough.
I’m going to make him 2 percent mine.
Chapter 6
I didn’t sleep much last night, because I kept thinking about that time a long time ago when Tom told me exactly how he felt, and I didn’t understand. That time when I was possibly at 100 percent and didn’t know it.
I was eighteen, putting black platforms on over my fishnets to go hang out with a bad crowd, and Tom had leaned on my door frame and asked me not to go out. It had been no secret that he didn’t approve of all the black-clad guys and how I stayed out all night. I thought it was typical Valeska-in-the-snowdrifts stuff. Tug, tug, away from danger.
In my careless way, I’d snapped at him. Why not? Why shouldn’t I go?
Tom told me in a steady, reasonable voice: Because I love you. And I’d replied without thought or gravitas, I know, because I’d always felt it. How could I not? How many times had he saved me? I’d have to have been a moron to not know it. To this day I know he loves me, in that old, stitched-into-my-family way.
Turns out, I know wasn’t the right reply.
He’d rusted over with embarrassment and left. He wouldn’t turn around as he walked down the front stairs, through our front gate. He wouldn’t stop even as I chased him across the street and he shut the door in my face.
That was the very first time I tore up a once-in-a-lifetime offer.
I bailed on my friends and I went to Loretta’s house instead. When I told her what had happened, she said, I saw that coming. What else would I expect from a fortune-teller? She shook her head. That’s not what she meant.
That boy would take a bullet for you.
We sat outside and shared a joint, and it was a thrill. Don’t tell your father! How’d I birth such a prude? It grows in the earth, for God’s sake. She told me about her first husband, way before she met Grandpa. I never knew she had been married twice, so I was gobsmacked.
I was just a kid, she mused, eyes narrowed on her inhale. Maybe if I’d met him ten years later . . . it was a terrible mistake. I hurt him badly, because I was too young and immature to love him right. I still regret it. Let yourself grow up and live your life. You’re a wild one, just like me.
I’d laughed and said there was no risk of me getting married. This was just me and Tom kissing, if it didn’t feel weird.
Loretta hadn’t been remotely amused. He loves you more than that. I can see you don’t take this seriously.
Like it was an emergency, she bought me my first plane ticket and gave me some cash. A few days later, under the cover of darkness, she drove me to the airport. It was a transformative moment. I was suddenly completely responsible for myself and not part of a set of twins. It was like all the turmoil I’d caused was released out of a pressure valve, and I knew it was the right thing to do.
Loretta handled the fallout from my parents and brother, and I threw my first coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, completely addicted to this new reckless anonymity. Nobody saw a girl with a heart condition and a more electric brother. They saw me for the first time, and even better, I could walk away from anything I didn’t like.
My wish, when I threw that coin into the fountain? That Tom wasn’t too bruised by my carelessness.
I drift off now, on the couch with the quilt over my face, imagining myself walking down the carpeted jet bridge from the gate into an airplane. That’s my favorite part: walking out of real life so that everyone I love can exhale.
Except that first time I did it, I walked out a little too long. When I returned, ready to look into Tom’s eyes and be guided by what I felt, I was pulled up short by the sleek, composed girl at his side who would one day wear his beautiful ring.
And here’s the real kicker: Jamie introduced them.
“ALIVE?” THERE’S A voice above me. I wake with a snort, flip the quilt away, and open my eyes. “Ouch.” Tom has sympathy in his voice, so I must look pretty bad. He puts a takeout cup on the coffee table. Next, a takeout box.
I attempt to speak with my dead mouth. “Have I mentioned that you are the world’s best person?”
“A few times. Waffles. That’s still right, isn’t it?” Just like his cheese-lettuce lunch, my hangover food hasn’t changed. I nod and pull myself up onto my elbows. I’m glad he doesn’t know about my trip down memory lane.
“What time is it?” The coffee is the most perfect temperature and sweetness and I drink it in a series of gulps. I’m a hummingbird. “Oh my God.” I tip the last drops into my mouth. I lick the inner rim. “How was that so good?”
Does everything taste this good when delivered by his hands? Megan, you lucky bitch. He could make a cold toast crust succulent, I swear. He takes the lid off his own coffee, pours in a bunch of sugar sachets, and gives it to me. Such charity. Such goodness.
And I tore it up. I tore it all up.
“Don’t cry, they’re just waffles,” he says, smiling. “It’s heading toward lunchtime. I’ve got stuff to show you before we call Jamie.” His phone begins ringing. “Speak of the devil.”
I take the ringing phone and hit speakerphone. Even with tears in my eyes and a regret-thickened throat, I can still say: “Hello, you’ve reached the micro-penis counseling service.”
There’s silence on the other end, then a deep sigh that I’d know anywhere. I heard it before I was born, probably. Tom grins, teeth white, and it’s probably a better feeling than a stadium of people laughing. He’s 2 percent mine. It’s official.
Jamie speaks. “Hilarious. She’s just hilarious.”
“I thought so,” Tom replies.
I stay in character. “How small is your penis, sir?”
“Don’t encourage her,” Jamie orders as Tom breaks and begins laughing. “Darcy, where’s your phone?”
“Women’s bathroom at Sully’s. Second stall from the end.”
“Well, get a new one, dimwit.”
“I’ve got an old one in my car you can have.” Tom’s all about solutions, especially when his boss Jamie is within earshot.
“No, I think I like things better this way,” I tell him. Coffee, waffles, Tom, Patty leaning against my shin, and my brother is calling me dimwit again? Tom’s fixed everything.
Jamie says, “So, let me guess. She’s so hungover she’s a ghost.”
“Ah, well . . . ,” Tom says, because he doesn’t have a lie mode.
I’ve got lie mode on autopilot. “I’ve just gotten back from a walk.”
My brother just laughs in response, for a little too long. “Sure. Are you going to stay out of Tom’s way while he gets started on the house?”
“I’m sure I’ll be gone before he even opens his toolbox, don’t worry.”
“That’d be right,” Jami
e says, sarcasm dripping. “Skip out before anything hard. Poor Tom’s going to have to do everything himself.”
“Poor Tom is here to do a job and get paid,” Tom reminds Jamie.
I open the box lid and there are two perfect waffles. “Hey, I have to pack the house. That’s plenty hard.” I drown them in syrup and begin breaking them apart with my hands. I feed Patty a tiny piece and myself a huge piece.
“You’ll flirt Tom into doing it.”
“I will not,” I snap, mouth full, licking my fingers. Above me, Tom’s face is partway between pained and amused.
“You will. You’re going to be worse than ever now.” Jamie scoffs. “No doubt your sympathy was completely unconvincing.”
“I’ll be worse why? What does he mean?” I look up at Tom. He shrugs and interrupts our petty flow.
“We’ve got a lot to do between now and next Monday when the crew arrives. Darce needs to pack, and I want you both to agree on the style we’re doing.”
“Modern,” Jamie says at the exact same moment as I say, “Vintage.”
Tom groans and plops down heavily on the end of the couch. I move my legs just in time. He pinches his hand across his eyes. “Goodbye, cruel world.”
“It’s going to be fine,” I assure him through my bite of waffle. “Don’t you worry.” I tear off a chunk and feed it into his mouth.
“Easy for you to say,” Jamie says. “You’re going to be walking around in a random country licking an ice-cream cone while Tom and I do all the hard work. What’s next on your personal reinvention journey, by the way? You’ve done the piercing and the tough haircut. It’s gotta be a tattoo next.”
I step over that, because Tom’s looking for the piercing. Nose? Ear? Eyebrow? Nope. Now he’s averting his eyes, and his mind is running through the remaining possibilities.
I give the phone a glare. “So your hard work will consist of sitting on your ass in your office and occasionally answering Tom’s calls and emails? You’ll pick out a faucet or some tiles online? That’s hard work?”
“It’s more than you’ll do,” Jamie hisses back. Something inside me lights up; I want to retort, like old times, Challenge accepted! But my hungover brain scratches around and comes up empty. Could I pack the house super-fast?
