Was I so readable, so transparent? I didn’t like that one bit.
Sawyer pointed to a bench, and we took a seat facing the ocean. The sun was maybe an hour from setting, and the clouds were tinged with orange already. Seabirds squawked at each other over the sound of waves washing over the rocks. The water looked inviting, but I knew it would be cold. Some blue-lipped kids in their bathing suits were nearby, daring each other to go in further.
“Dares,” Sawyer said, apropos of nothing.
I replied, “A shitty way to trick people into doing things.”
“You see everything as a battle of wills, don’t you?”
I’d finished my cone and was twisting and folding the paper wrapper between my fingers. “If it’s not other people, it’s yourself, isn’t it? You have to fight the urge to hit the snooze button, and that’s how the day starts off. Then it’s one battle after another until you drag yourself into bed, even though you just got your second wind and you want to stay up late reading while the rest of the world is quiet, and you can hear yourself think.”
He leaned back, stretching his arms out along the back of the bench, then folding the left one in so it wasn’t behind me.
“I think of the alarm clock going off as an opportunity,” he said. “Don’t hit that snooze button. Make every minute count.” He pumped the air with a closed fist. “Rah, rah, rah.”
Blinking into the bright ocean view, I said, “Speaking of time ...”
He jumped up and offered me his hand. “That’s right. I’ve been avoiding it, but we should go look into the abyss. The abyss being the piece of garbage I’m trying to fool people into thinking is art.”
I stood without taking his hand, and we walked back to the bike.
The helmet seemed even smaller this time, triggering the claustrophobia again as I pulled it down over my ears. This time, I fastened the strap without pinching my chin fat.
The temperature had cooled, and as I got on the back and wrapped my arms around Sawyer’s lean, muscled torso, I was grateful for the body heat.
We looped back the way we’d come, over the overpass and back toward the bar, passing it on our way. A few minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of a house that wasn’t more than a dozen blocks from where I lived with Bell.
This old house wasn’t the same as the one where the guys having the party had invited us to join them the week before, but it could have been that house’s sister.
The porch was crooked and looked like it was trying to run away from the main house, which was old and sad, easily the least desirable house on the street. Its mismatched upper windows made the house look like it had a black eye.
I followed Sawyer up the porch stairs, careful to step on the right side—not the left—as he warned. A skinny red-haired guy was napping on a sofa on the porch, covered in a bleached-out patchwork blanket.
Sawyer pushed open the unlocked front door, saying, “Nothing inside to steal, so no need to lock up.”
I nodded in agreement as I tried to come up with an excuse not to step inside. My uncle knew I was with Sawyer, and he’d basically vouched for him, but should I be there? I wasn’t afraid for my safety, but I still didn’t want to go in. I liked Sawyer a lot more before that moment of seeing where he lived, back when he was just a cute guy trying to rescue me.
“It’s not as bad inside,” he said, waving to invite me in.
Chapter Five
I rushed into Sawyer’s house, feeling guilty for my thoughts. Who was I to judge? I’d lived in places so much worse, but now I had a decent apartment without bugs and I was getting picky?
I wandered in and tried not to breathe deeply.
The main floor was full of mismatched furniture and strewn with dirty dishes and takeout containers, but enough windows were open that it didn’t smell as bad as it looked. The mess in the front room could have been cleaned up in about an hour, and the kitchen was quite tidy, probably because whoever lived there didn’t cook.
The most interesting thing about the place was the pool table that sat where a dining table would normally go. The long wall beside the pool table was pocked with holes, apparently from darts. A number of the darts were stuck in the wall, centered around the round rosettes on the old-fashioned wallpaper.
Sawyer pulled a brown dustcover off the pool table. “Rent’s cheap,” he said. “They’re planning to tear the house down before the end of the year, so we can do whatever we like. My roommate painted his room black.” He looked down at his feet and kicked at something on the carpet. The chunk of whatever-it-was didn’t budge. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“It’s not that bad. I basically grew up in one shack after another.”
He frowned at me, tipping his head quizzically. Oh, he was so sexy when he did that. Or anything.
Scoffing, he said, “You didn’t live in a shack. You’re exaggerating.”
I didn’t want to tell him, or at least I didn’t think I did, but I opened my mouth and did. “You know how it is in the country. You have a mobile home, only it’s not mobile anymore. Just a metal box that gets hotter than hell in the summer and cold in the winter. You run out of room for all the kids and uncles that come to stay, so you get some lumber and your friends in construction come by and you build yourself an add-on. No permits, because it’s at the back of the trailer, where it can’t be seen from the road. Then a year later, you need some more space, and you salvage some more wood and you add on to the end of the last addition. Who needs a roof when you have plenty of tarps? If the snow or water comes in, you just throw on another tarp.”
“Brutal. You grew up like that?”
I walked around the pool table until I found the balls and started racking them. “My room wasn’t so bad in the winter, with the blankets over the windows and the little space heater running. Wasn’t so great when the power got cut off.”
“Was that in North Carolina?”
“Thereabouts.” I rolled the pool balls back and forth within the plastic triangle, their swirling colors and stripes hypnotizing, like an old-fashioned barber’s pole.
“Wanna break?”
I shook my head vehemently. “Too scary. I feel like I’m going to put the tip right through the felt.”
“So what if you do? This felt needs replacing.” He chalked a cue and balanced it pointing upright, the base in his palm. That was when I noticed how high the ceiling was, to allow him to pull off the trick. He stretched his tattooed arm toward me, offering the cue like it was a pretty flower.
“First lesson is breaking,” he said.
I took the cue and got into position with the cue ball.
“I’m not gonna put my arms around you or touch you,” he said.
“Good.” I leaned over and rested the tip between my knuckles.
“But I want to.” He rested his elbows on the edge of the table and stared intently at me. “I want to put my arms around you to get you to relax. Drop your elbow, you’re way too high. If you try to shoot like that, I will be buying new felt soon.”
“Sorry.” I lowered my arm and decreased the angle of the cue so it was closer to level with the table.
“Any time now,” he said.
I balked, standing up to chalk again and wipe my hands on my jeans. My eyes kept going to the floral wallpaper with the dart holes in it, and I imagined some young housewife from days gone by picking out the paper and pasting it on the wall with love.
“Where will you go?” I asked. “When they tear down the house?”
He caught me in those moss-green eyes of his and gave me a hungry look that seared me with desire. “Why do you ask? Are you looking for a roommate?”
I flushed under the heat of his gaze. My mind flashed an image of Sawyer walking around to my side of the pool table, turning me around, and sitting me on the edge as he kissed my lips and neck. Along with the image came the imagined sensation of his lips, hot and wet on my skin. How good it would feel. How good it would be to tell him everyt
hing, and have him love me, in spite of everything.
“I only have so much chalk,” he said, startling me back into the moment.
Dammit, why did he have to look so amused by everything I did?
I blew the excess chalk off the tip and leaned down again, glancing up for a nod of approval before I took the shot.
The wood connected with the ball, hard, and the cue trembled in my hand. The balls made a satisfying crack, but fewer than half of them even moved.
“I suck.”
He grinned and corralled the balls back into the triangle-shaped ball rack. “So, do it again until you don’t suck. There aren’t many things in life you get a second chance to get right, but this isn’t life, it’s a game.” With an easy grace, he rearranged the balls and nodded for me to try again. “Put the ball a little to the left of where you had it before. And hit it… hmm… what’s the word?” He scratched the dark stubble on his chin.
“Harder?”
“Ah!” His eyebrows shot up. “Yes, hit the balls harder. Good idea.”
I tried again, with more power, and was rewarded with a few more balls rolling languidly out of formation.
Again. Finally, some action.
Again. Worse.
Again. Hopeless.
Again and again, one humiliating shot after another. I tried to go home, but Sawyer blocked my exit.
Again. A spectacular break, like the kind I’d seen guys at the bar do, with balls scattering. I whooped with glee as one ball sunk into a pocket.
“Wow,” he said. “Aubrey the Goddess of Sadness and Sarcasm, smiling and making excited noises. Now I’ve seen everything.”
I stood proudly, one hand holding the cue, the other hand on my hip. “Now if someone bets me that I can’t break, I might not lose that bet.”
“Time for me to take you home, before you tire yourself out.”
Setting the stick in the corner with the others, I said, “Don’t you want me to look at that thing you’re working on?”
“It’s up in my bedroom.”
“And?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “And you’re married. I wouldn’t feel right taking you up there.”
I crossed my arms. What was that feeling I was having? I wanted to go upstairs, but my desire wasn’t about seeing the art. I wanted to push him the way he’d been pushing me. I wanted to do the thing he said we couldn’t.
Or did I?
I bit my lip and thought through our conversation from earlier, about dares. Was he daring me to go up to his bedroom? This was all a game to him. A game of seduction.
“Fine. Maybe next time,” I said, picking up my purse and putting it on my shoulder.
“I guess I could move the art down to here.”
“Whatever,” I said, crossing over to the front door. I didn’t wait for another reply as I opened the door and stepped out on the porch. The skinny guy was still sleeping on the tattered sofa on the porch.
Sawyer came out the door just as my feet touched the front walkway.
“Thanks for the lesson,” I called over my shoulder.
“Don’t you want a ride home? I’ve got a spare helmet here, so we can both have one.”
“I’m fine. I don’t live far from here!”
“What street are you on?”
“I don’t know what it’s called,” I said, which was a lie. We both knew it, but he was quiet as I walked away.
Chapter Six
SAWYER JONES
My friends told me not to mess around with a single mom. Well, half of them did, and the other half told me to use a condom, and make sure it was one I brought, so it didn’t have holes poked in it.
I’d heard about guys getting trapped by women, but it had never actually happened to anyone I knew. It was just stuff of legend. Stuff you talked shit about to make yourself seem cooler and more worldly than you were.
My housemate, Spanky, was the first to give approval of Aubrey. He saw her on the porch when she came by the house, even in his BC-bud-enhanced state of relaxation. After she left that day, he came into the house and said one word: “Quality.”
“I dunno, bro, she’s got issues.”
“Dat ass.”
“I may have also noticed the rockin’ body, but thank you for being a gentleman and not pointing that out while she was here. In fact, thank you for not even coming inside. You do an excellent impression of the stoner roommate from True Romance.”
His eyes red and eyelids uneven, he stared at me like I was a walking, talking goat, and he’d never seen a walking, talking goat before. “Dude, wait. Was that real? Was a girl in our house?”
“Yes. The quality girl with dat ass. Real.”
He nodded at the pool table. “Rack ‘em.”
Spanky’s real name was Arthur, but he’d earned the nickname back when we both were in school. Those days, he’d turn down offers for parties because they kept him up too late and messed with his “schedule.” He had a regular routine that consisted of pulling up a specific series of porn sites on the computer and finishing up no later than twelve-thirty, then being in bed by one.
Girls loved him because he never cheated on them. His number one loyalty was to himself.
As we played a few games that night, I thought about asking him where his money was coming from. He’d been so broke back at Christmas that he’d missed rent and had me cover. I asked him to pick up a few things for the house, and the toilet paper he provided was the giant roll kind—the type you steal from a public washroom, not the kind you buy at SuperStore.
I overlooked his petty thievery, because I think we’ve all done a few things we’re not too proud of, but since February, he’d been flush again. It did not take a bachelor’s degree to figure out the kids who visited him on the porch all hours on the weekend weren’t just coming by to look at the fish tank he had listed for sale on Craigslist.
Whatever he was doing, his half of the rent got paid, and pretty soon we had the good toilet paper, and food getting delivered.
“To the good life,” he said as we cracked open two beer, careful not to spill any on the pool table, but not so careful about the floor.
“I don’t think Aubrey liked the house much,” I said.
“She blow you?”
“No, man. It isn’t like that. She’s a nice girl.”
“Dat ass ain’t so nice.” He caught my glare and held his hand up. “Sorry.”
“She says she’s married, you know, but I was asking Bruce about her situation, and he gave me nothing. He had no name for her husband, no details. I think she wears that wedding band to keep guys like me away.”
Spanky finished his beer, a few dribbles running down his already-filthy shirt. As he wiped his mouth, he said, “You two sure will make a nice baby together. I’ll buy some cigars. When you think? Nine and a half months?”
“Fuck you.”
He tossed one hand emphatically and started his silly voice. “Girl! Where you registered? Me and the other ladies gonna get you a stroller. Mm hmm, real expensive one. With brakes and shit.”
“Are you serious? Strollers have brakes?”
“You have to know these things if you be datin’ a babymama! You gonna get all up in that drama.”
“Okay, Spanky, I don’t know what this voice is, but it’s bordering on offensive. You’re a twenty-four-year-old, middle-class white boy with a masturbation addiction, and you’re wearing a dirty shirt, inside-out. Plus your fly is open and I can see your brains.”
“Whoops.” Instead of zipping up, he unfastened his jeans and let it all hang out, no underwear.
“That’s extremely hetero of you,” I said.
He pointed his finger at me. “I trust you, bro. Don’t look.”
“I’m not gonna look.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, me pointedly not looking at his junk, then he got bored and turned around to walk toward the main floor bathroom.
As I stood there alone, looking over
his leave on the table, I couldn’t focus on what could have been an easy series of shots. Aubrey had left, probably in disgust, and she was smart to do so.
I didn’t know how old her kid was, or even if there was more than one, but my house was no place for a kid. Was it even a good place for me?
I looked around at my life, but mainly at the wall behind me, full of holes from the darts. The wall had once been someone’s pride and joy, covered in floral wallpaper. And now it was garbage.
My life had also been about pride. Once. A long time ago. Before I let everything slip away and turn to garbage. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever be able to see something good when I came across it.
Aubrey was good.
But she was sad, through and through. It seemed she knew the difference between right and wrong, which was more than I could say for a lot of the people I knew. Most people were too comfortable to ever have to make a choice, to find out what they were made of.
I could see in Aubrey’s eyes that she’d stared down the darkness and survived. I wanted just a little bit of the courage she had.
Or maybe I just wanted someone to put my arm around, who’d listen to me ramble on about philosophy and what path to choose in life.
My father sent me a message while we were playing pool, saying one of his top guys was moving out east, and did I want to work for him? I’d enjoyed working summers at the shop. The work was challenging in the right ways, plus it paid well. I knew he wanted to pass the whole business along to me and take early retirement, but did I really want it?
Stepping into that role seemed too easy.
I always went for the tricky shot, the less-traveled path.
Chapter Seven
AUBREY
Back at the apartment, I had an hour before my grandmother would be bringing Bell home, so I got the laundry started and spread out the grocery store sale flyers.
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