Tara folded her arms and cocked her hip. “If a dumb little remark like that from your drunken brother sets you off, you’re going to find yourself in a lot of fights as long as we’re together. You’ve got to be more chill than that.”
“I shouldn’t have to put up with shit like that from my own family.”
“It’s Hugo. And he’s drunk. You two have been at each other your entire lives, and now that you work for him, I’m sure it hasn’t gotten better.” She watched his eyes now studying the toes of his shoes. “But I don’t think this is completely about Hugo or what he said. Honestly, Luis, I think you have a lot of pent-up anger inside you just waiting to flare, anger that has nothing to do with your dick of a brother.”
She took a breath, then added, “I know you said you talked to a therapist after your tour, but maybe you need to see someone again.”
Luis glared at her from beneath his brows. “That’s a stretch. I get pissed at Hugo for making a racist remark and you suggest I need therapy for PTSD. That’s bullshit.”
She bit her lip. She was walking a precipice. If she didn’t word this right, hot-tempered Luis might just stalk away.
“It’s not about you snapping today. This is something I’ve been thinking for a while, but I didn’t feel it was my place to say anything. Now we’re in a relationship, supposedly, so I should be able to tell you what I think without you getting upset.”
“I’m not upset,” he barked.
Tara raised her eyebrows.
His lips quivered, and he repeated more calmly, “I’m not upset.” He kicked a pebble off the flagstone path. “I hate therapy. It’s a waste of time.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Will you at least give it another try?” She reached out and took his hand, rubbing her thumb soothingly over the inside of his wrist.
He watched her hand for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess so.”
Tara moved in close, pressing her body against his, lifting her face, her eyes focused on his lips. Luis breathed a little faster and leaned toward her, but just before their mouths touched, she whispered, “One more thing?”
“You’re a master manipulator, you know that?” he murmured. “What?”
“Will you do me here, right up against the side of your parents’ house, where anyone could walk around the corner and catch us?” She snaked a hand between them and squeezed his bulge lightly. “You know how insatiable us black girls are.”
“You’re not funny.” He smothered her laughter with a kiss so hard, deep, and intense that Tara feared they really would end up screwing behind the rhododendron.
Chapter Eleven
By the time the last guest had left and the garden was stripped of streamers, paper lanterns, twinkle lights, and folding tables and chairs, it was after two in the morning. Tara’s feet hurt from dancing. Her head spun from too much beer and sangria. But she hadn’t felt this content, this happy for a long time.
She bid her foster family good-bye, except for Hugo, who’d crashed several hours earlier after puking in one of the flower beds, and went home with her—God, she almost couldn’t wrap her head around the word—boyfriend, Luis.
They stripped and tumbled into her bed, too tired to do more than lie side by side. The ceiling spun a little, and Tara groaned.
Luis propped his head on his hand and looked at her. “Need some water or something more to eat?”
“No. I just need everything to stop moving.”
He smiled and rubbed her stomach, his large, warm palm a comforting heating pad. “Try to get some sleep.”
She closed her eyes. It didn’t help stop the spinning, so she opened them again and sat up, pressing her hands against her temples to hold her head on.
“Luis, I need to talk to you about something.” She was just drunk enough for her thought to seem imperative and absolutely vital to share right this second. “I need to tell you…I’m thinking seriously of moving to LA. But now that we’re sort of seeing each other, I don’t want to go. I want to give this”—she pointed back and forth between them—“whatever it is, a chance. I really, really like you. I just wanted you to know that.”
He sat up and pulled her into the circle of his arms, and oh, didn’t he have nice muscles? She relaxed her back against his front and reached on either side of herself to stroke those bulging biceps.
“I really, really like you too,” he murmured into her ear.
She turned her head so her cheek pressed against his chest and inhaled. He smelled so good, like soap and manly sweat. “This happened so fast. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Neither was I.” His voice rumbled in her ear. “But it wasn’t really so fast, was it? Ten years in the making.”
“Ten years,” she echoed faintly. “I’m so confused about what to do now. We talked about our relationship being temporary, but there’s no really good reason for me to go to LA and every reason to stay. So I think I’ll stay.”
“Except you’d have more acting opportunities in California. If you don’t at least try it, you may regret never taking the chance.”
She tipped her head to look up at his chin. “Do you want me to go? Don’t you care about this, about us? Is this really so casual for you?”
“I want you to pursue your goal. You deserve everything you want out of life. I’m the one floundering around without an idea of what I want to do. Not a clue. I sure as hell don’t see myself returning to the military and making a career out of it.” Luis paused. “So, right now I’m a mechanic. And I can find work as a mechanic anyplace. Why not LA?”
Tara pulled away from his arms and swiveled to face him. Her eyes took a second to catch up with her body. “Wait. Are you saying you’d go with me? That’s…”
“Crazy? Impulsive? A bad idea?” He squinted. “Yeah. Probably. We’ve been dating for like…a day. But honestly, Tara, I’ve got nothing keeping me tied here. And I’m feeling like what we have going here is too good to abandon it. Maybe it would be good for me to explore a new city too. Both of us. Together.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. Her stomach still did queasy little flip-flops, but even so, she threw herself against Luis and squeezed him hard. “You’re serious? You’d go with me? I would love that. I love”—you almost tumbled out of her tipsy mouth, but she finished with—“the idea.”
She kissed his neck. “You always used to say you wanted to travel. Maybe LA could be the first stop on your world tour.”
He snorted. “I don’t care about seeing the pyramids or the Great Wall or Easter Island, or any of that stuff anymore. All the sights I thought I needed to experience someday don’t seem very important now. Being around death sort of puts that into perspective. It’s the people in my life who matter.”
He drew back from Tara and tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “You’re the person I want in my life most of all. Just you. Cincinnati. LA. Wherever. For now isn’t enough. I want to work on having some kind of a future with you.”
She smiled again and opened her mouth to tell him she felt exactly the same, but a loud burp emerged instead. Tara clapped a hand over her mouth.
Luis laughed. “That’s what I love about you, baby. A class act all the way. Nobody cracks me up like you can.”
She took her hand away and trailed it up the side of his rib cage until he squirmed.
“And nobody teases me like you do.” She bumped against him, the tips of her breasts brushing his chest sending star-spangled explosions through her.
Tara’s queasiness receded and Luis’s laughter ended as they kissed and kissed and kissed some more.
***
“What do we really know of each other? Maybe it’s time we learned.”
Tara held her pose as the lights dimmed and the audience’s applause rose, sparse but enthusiastic, about what she’d expected for opening night of this play.
The cast broke from their tableau and moved to the front of the stage for their curtain call. Tara grasped a sweaty hand on each side and bowed. Sh
e heard the whistles and cheers of her friends in their little group on the left side of the house. They’d all come to support her, even though she’d warned them the play was pretty bad, and she had to admit it felt good to have audience members there just for her.
She retreated backstage to change from her costume and strip the makeup from her face, then she joined her friends in the shabby lobby with the stained and worn carpet. Old photographs of years of performances adorned the peeling walls.
As Tara walked toward them, four smiling faces turned toward her and a smattering of applause greeted her. She bowed with a flourish and then was enveloped in hugs from Graci, Luis, Corinne, and finally Adya, who was thinner than Tara had ever seen her. Dark smudges beneath her gray eyes made her appear like the waif on the cover of Les Mis.
Tara didn’t mention any of that as she greeted her friend. “I’m so glad Corinne dragged you home for a visit.” She hugged that wafer-thin body carefully, half-afraid she’d snap Adya’s bird bones. What the holy hell had happened to this woman?
“Actually, I think I’m here to stay for a while.” Adya’s voice was deeper, smokier than it had been the last time Tara talked to her. How long ago? Maybe four years, she realized. They’d only exchanged texts or cards for quite some time—and she’d gotten no news at all from Adya over the past year. But this was clearly not the time to quiz the woman on her mysterious dropping off the grid.
“Well, that’s great. I’m so glad to see you. We all are,” Tara said.
Adya held Tara at arm’s length and smoothed her hand over Tara’s straightened hair. “New style. It looks good on you.”
“I like the braids,” Luis chimed in from behind her. “They’re more Tara.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “Whatever that means.” But she loved that he noticed and cared how she wore her hair. Even more, she loved that he really did know her, inside and out.
“You did great tonight,” Adya continued.
“All three lines.” Tara grinned. “Ah, well. That’s theater. There are no small parts, only small actors, as the saying goes.”
“Corinne tells me you’re thinking of moving to LA.”
“Actually, more than thinking. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen. But I’m not positive. We’ll check it out when we’re at Bree’s wedding and make sure it’s what we really want to do?”
“We?” Graci stared back and forth between Tara and Luis. “As in, both of you are thinking of going?”
“Yeah. Maybe,” he said.
“Since when?”
“Since we talked about it last night. It’s brand-new. We haven’t finished discussing or deciding on anything. I wasn’t trying to keep you in the dark,” Tara explained.
“Tara said she wanted to go and I told her she couldn’t stop me from going with her to make sure she stays out of trouble,” Luis said.
“We’ll give it a try during the winter months at least.” Tara matched Luis’s light tone. “At least we’ll be someplace warm and sunny.”
Luis’s arm went around her back, pinning her close to his side, letting Graci know beyond a doubt that they were a cohesive unit and had made this decision together.
“Well, that’s…huge.” Graci tried and failed to keep the doubt out of her voice. “But I’ll miss you both so much. We just got Luis home again. And California is so far.”
“It is a big step. There’s a lot to consider,” Tara agreed. The last thing she wanted was for Graci to think they were taking this step lightly, no matter how impulsive it might seem to her.
“We both want this,” Luis added firmly, stressing the word “both.”
“Well, I think it’s a great idea. You’ve got to give it a shot.” Corinne threw in her support. “As for the distance, that’s what airplanes are for.”
Graci dropped the subject, but still looked worried.
“Remember when Tara produced that play and forced us all to act in it?” When Adya smiled, her face brightened. Years dropped away. “Murder in the Convent written, directed by, and starring Tara Rambeaugh.”
“God, yes.” Corinne laughed. “Weeks of working on that thing to have it ready by Halloween to show our families. We even built a stage with curtains in my garage and set up chairs for our audience of family members.”
Tara smiled slightly, because she remembered exactly how much that little show had meant to her and how much it had hurt when her mom broke her promise to come watch it. As if reading her mind, Luis gave her waist a comforting squeeze. He did know her so well.
“That VHS tape has to still exist. Probably mixed up with our family tapes,” Graci said. “I know we set up a tripod and filmed it, but I don’t think we ever watched it again after that first time.”
Corinne laughed so hard her face turned red and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh my God, that thing was a disaster. Flubbed lines, breaking props—our homemade backdrop fell down in the middle of Act One. And then there was Graci’s absolutely flat delivery of ‘No, Mother Superior, I am an innocent.’ Hilarious!”
Now Adya shook with laughter too, gasping to get out a thought. “And…B-Bree b-brandishing that carving knife. ‘I’ll cut out your eyes and your tongue and your…’”
“Heart!” Corinne and Adya shouted in unison. “‘I’ll carve out your very SOUL!’”
“I thought it was a good play,” Graci said loyally, patting Tara’s arm. “Very creative for an eleven-year-old. And I didn’t think my line reading was that bad.”
“Thank you, Graci,” Tara said. “At least someone appreciated my art. Nice to know who your true friends are.”
Adya wiped her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Oh my God. I haven’t laughed that hard in—I don’t know how long. I wish Bree was here with us. I can’t wait to see her.”
“Not too much longer, and we’ll all be together again,” Corinne said.
“At Bree’s wedding. Would anybody ever have called that?” Graci asked.
“No,” they all agreed in unison.
Half the lights in the lobby went out, and since most of them weren’t working, it got pretty dark.
“All right, guys,” Tara said. “That’s Bradley letting us know he’s ready to lock up. I have to run backstage and do a couple of things, and I’ll meet you either out front or…how about the diner across the street? It’s pretty decent.”
After a last smattering of congratulations and good-byes, her friends headed toward the front door, where Bradley, the stage manager and a co-owner of the Sonic Theater, was waiting impatiently.
Luis held back and bent to kiss Tara in the intimate, dim light. “You really did do good. You look so sexy on stage, even when you aren’t doing anything. I like watching you in the spotlight.”
Fever chills raced up and down her flesh at the thought of him in the dark, watching and being turned on by her.
She leaned her forehead against his. “And I’d like to take you backstage and do all sorts of things with you. If everybody wasn’t waiting for us, and Bradley wasn’t hanging around like an annoyed chaperone, I’d do it.”
Luis kissed the tip of her nose, then moved away. “Hey, I think I’ll take off and leave you girls to your catching up, I’m sure there are things you ladies don’t want to discuss in front of me. I’ll see you later, back at your apartment.”
“Really? You don’t mind?”
He winked at her. “Go hang with your friends. You and I have got plenty of time to be together. A whole future’s worth.”
Chapter Twelve
Tara sealed the tape on one of the boxes she planned to put in storage, then stared at the clutter spilling all over her apartment. She had way too much stuff. Maybe it was time for a tag sale, and she could donate some of her crazier clothes to the costumer for the Sonic. Overwhelmed, she tossed aside the tape dispenser and dropped into her comfortable ratty old armchair—poor old thing would soon be in a landfill.
Deciding to make a huge move clear across the country was a daunting undertaking. Tying
up some loose ends before she left was even more of a challenge.
Tara picked up her phone from the arm of the chair and stared at it. Easiest call first, she decided and dialed Dre’s number.
“Hey, buddy. How are you doing?” she said when he answered. “I saw your game Sunday. Roar Bengals!”
“On track for the play-offs. So, what are you up to, girl? I’m out of town right now, but I’ll be home tonight if you want to get together.” His rich molasses voice poured over her. At one time, it would have made her panties wet.
“Afraid not.” She took a breath. This wasn’t a breakup, but sharing her news with Dre was still a bit awkward. “Actually, I just wanted to let you know I’m seeing somebody, so we won’t be able to ‘hang out’ anymore. And, bigger news, I’m going to be moving to LA very soon. I’m taking a crack at acting out there.”
“Aw, no! I’ll miss you. But good for you, following your dream. You keep me posted on what’s going on.”
“Sure thing.”
“Your new man won’t be jealous if we text, will he?”
“My new man is in awe that I bagged a Bengal,” Tara teased. “If you’re ever into a threesome…”
“Y’all call me, and I’ll fly out there and join you.” Dre paused, then added to make sure she got the joke, “For the threesome.”
“Yeah. I got it.” Tara shook her head and smiled before she said good-bye.
One call down and one to go. She flipped the phone round and round in her hand, but before she worked up the nerve to dial, Luis arrived and she abandoned the phone call.
Luis walked into the apartment and stood looking around at the mess. “Hurricane or tornado?”
“Nuclear bomb. Don’t touch anything. It’s radioactive.” She stretched and sighed. “But seriously, how am I going to live in this mess until it’s time to go?”
“Get a shovel and start pitching it out into the hallway,” he suggested as he picked his way across the room to her chair and perched on its wide arm. “You could stay at my place for a while.”
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