Wood U (Carved Hearts #4)

by L. G. Pace III

  “I’ll call a cab.” He stood and stretched, his muscles straining against the material of his shirt. The sight of all that rugged masculinity made me twice as frustrated as I’d be when I was writhing on top of him, and I crossed my arms over my chest, fighting to steady my breathing.

  “It’s no big deal,” I said. “It may not look like much, but the couch is pretty comfortable.”

  “It is a big deal.” He fixed his sights on me, his gaze unrelenting. “If I stay here, I’m gonna end up in your bed in between those legs, and I’m not gonna be one bit apologetic about it.”

  My lips parted in surprise at his candidness, and I realized that my posture felt artificially straight and tense.

  “Let me take you out, Sugar. Like, Sunday afternoon? What do you say?” His shy tone was a stark contradiction from his dirty proclamation just moments before, and I nodded. There was not a doubt in my mind that I wanted more of what I’d just sampled. This date needed to happen. His lips turned up in the hint of a smile, and then he strode in the direction of the door, leaving me with swollen lips and a whirling mind.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. It’s hard to say whether it was because of all the beer or because of the vivid images of Mac that I kept replaying on a loop. I couldn’t stop dreaming about his eyes and his mouth. Finally at 5:30 a.m., I dressed in my running clothes, though considering my hangover, I figured I’d just walk a couple of miles.

  Mac’s bike was still parked in front of my building, and I heaved a sigh of relief that he’d actually listened to me about staying off of it.

  I pushed my muscles to acclimate, and the more I moved, the more I wanted to move. Soon I was jogging at a fairly decent pace.

  Usually, I distracted myself with carefully crafted iTunes playlists, but I’d been half delirious from lack of sleep when I’d struck out for my run, and I had left my phone sitting on the kitchen table. Music usually drove my pace, and kept me from realizing just how much a seven mile run sucked. Without Ke$ha and P!nk, even two miles would be pretty dreadful.

  Observing the breathtaking scenery helped to divert my attention from my aching legs. Town Lake Trails was one of my favorite things about Austin. The endless opportunities for an active lifestyle had been a major motivator in my decision to move. If I’d stayed in Detroit, I’d be slaving away on a treadmill or elliptical while staring out at a foot of snow, no doubt. While doable, running indoors wasn’t my cup of tea, and the fresh air revitalized me on a daily basis.

  When I finally made it back to the house, Mac’s bike was gone. I was bummed that I’d missed seeing him, but remembering that I’d agreed to go out with him on Sunday, my stomach was overrun by butterflies. Recollections of his stubble against my neck made me shudder as I undressed for my shower. I let down my ponytail and decided to treat myself to a trip to the salon. I wanted to look my best for this. Maybe I’d even get a new outfit. Remembering his helpless grimace as I groped him, a seductive smile overtook me. I wanted him to stay with me this time around, and I planned to make it very hard for him to argue.

  As I rinsed my hair, I wondered what my father would say when he heard about us going out. Sometimes I thought that half the reason I was interested in Mac was to spite my father. I wasn’t oblivious to his concerned glances at the 5K, nor did I fail to notice how he’d made a point of hanging around nearby every time Mac and I chatted at the shop. Knowing how uncomfortable we made him had me wondering if this Mac thing was some time-released version of teenage rebellion. Then I remembered the strong first impression Mac had made, and I knew the theory was bullshit.

  I spent the next day and a half prepping for our date in every possible way. Highlights and layers, eyebrows waxed, everywhere else carefully and extensively shaved, teeth whitened. It had been a long time since I’d been excited to go out with someone. I’d always had fun with Mac, and after sampling what else he had to offer, I was sure he’d be worth all of my efforts.

  I was painting my toenails that evening when I got a text from him.

  Mac: Still on for tomorrow, or did you chicken out?

  I legitimately had tingles all over just seeing his words. I bit my lip to combat the goofy grin I felt threatening to emerge, even though I knew he couldn’t actually see me.

  Me: Yes. We’re on. What time?

  Mac: I drop off Jr. at his mother’s at 11:00. Any time after that. Work for you?

  I immediately wondered what Jr.’s mom looked like and then kicked myself for being such a girl. I found it impossible to imagine Mac married, but my curiosity about his son kept mounting.

  Me: Sounds good.

  Mac: Where do you wanna go?

  Me: Surprise me.

  There was radio silence for about thirty minutes, and I was about to call him, when he responded.

  Mac: Alright. I’ll pick you up at 3:30.

  I was jittery after our conversation, and I knew I’d have another restless night. I kept waiting for his ‘cons’ list to start overwhelming me like it usually did…our six-year age difference, his previous failed marriage, the fact that he worked with my dad…but it never did. I was like a kid on the night before Christmas, and not wanting to yawn my way through our date, I broke down and took a Tylenol PM to help knock me out.

  The following day, I woke to discover I’d slept through my alarm. I was only running an hour behind schedule, so I hurried to get in an abbreviated workout, and when I finally got back to the apartment, I was starting to panic about the time. Rushing around to get ready, I stubbed my toe. I swore like a sailor and even after putting some ice on it, I wondered if heels would still be an option. I came up with a Plan B for an outfit, forgoing my peep-toed Mary Jane’s and short skirt for dress jeans and boots. The upside was that I would still get to wear my burgundy top. The cut of it made me look like I had boobs, and it was obvious from his choice of dance partners that Mac was a boob man.

  I was in my bra and underwear blow-drying my hair when I heard someone banging on my door. At first I thought it was my imagination, but just as I switched off the blow-drier, a second round of pounding confirmed it. I glanced at my phone and saw that it was only 2:00.

  No way! He wouldn’t show up that early!

  I tossed on my robe and tied it as I rushed to the door, ready to strangle him. When I flung it open, I saw my father standing in the hallway, wild-eyed and out of breath.

  “Dad?” He was the last person I expected to see. He’d only been to my apartment once, when he’d brought me a blooming cactus and a card that said “You’re a Texan now!” It’d been a brief and awkward visit, but the cactus was pretty, and I kept it on my windowsill.

  “We have to talk.” He sounded frantic.

  I crossed my arms and didn’t move. “I’ve said what I had to say.”

  “I know. I’m trying to work the steps, Kelly. I know I have no right to make demands, but I’m begging you to hear me out.”

  I thought of Mac and how little time I had left to get ready. “This isn’t a good time.”

  He scoffed, but it didn’t sound mean-spirited. “When is it ever a good time?”

  He reeked of desperation, and though I was tempted to slam the door in his face, I couldn’t. He was still the man who’d given me life and taught me to tie my shoelaces. Shaking my head at my weakness, I stepped aside to let him in.

  “So by ‘the steps’, I assume you mean twelve steps. Alcoholics Anonymous?” I shut the door and turned the lock before turning to look at him. He was as thin as a scarecrow, and I’d never seen him in such disarray.

  “Yeah. And Narcotics Anonymous. Why quit at one?” His self-deprecating smile vanished when he saw I wasn’t amused. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “They give us twelve steps that we use to step our way out of addiction. One of them, the ninth step, is where we try to make amends to those we have wronged. I realized, after your little visit to the shop, that I’ve been so focused on rebuilding a relationship with you that I haven’t actually apologized. Without doing th
at, I can’t give you what you need.”

  “And what exactly do I need?” The A.A. didn’t surprise me at all, but his assumption that he knew anything about me did. His eyes raised to meet mine, and I saw only sorrow in his expression.

  “Truth, Kelly. I owe you truth. The one thing I haven’t done is answer your questions. Both the ones you asked me and the ones I suspect you haven’t wanted to ask.” He took a deep breath and motioned for me to sit. Against my better judgement, I did. Something about the situation held me almost mesmerized. Not enough to forget about Mac, though.

  “I have a date to get ready for. I don’t have much time.”

  Francis looked uncertain for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think that you might be busy. I can come back later. When would be a good time?”

  I sighed, glancing back at the clock. I had demanded answers from him, and here he was hat in hand to tell me. I suddenly flashed back on my inopportune trip to the mall the day that he had left. I motioned for him to sit.

  “No, dad. You’re right. I asked you to explain yourself. I don’t have a lot of time, but I can spare twenty minutes for us to talk.” Francis looked relieved and took the offered seat.

  “This won’t take long. I should have told you all this before. You more than anyone deserve to know what happened to me when I left. But…it’s hard to talk about. I’ll admit, I’ve been avoiding it.”

  He ran his left hand over his face, his right hand unconsciously tracing random patterns on his pant leg. “The first thing that you need to know is that I was already a full-blown addict when I left you. That isn’t an excuse for my behavior; it’s simply a fact. It started with alcohol. I always was a bit of a drinker. But the changing marketplace put me under a lot of stress to adapt. The economy was in the toilet, and what had worked for me for years no longer produced the numbers. Technology was changing faster than I could keep up. I was competing with these younger, more tech-savvy guys, and to do so, I had to travel a lot more and at the drop of a hat. Business travel is exhausting, and soon I needed downers to sleep, uppers to get out of bed. My problem started small…a drink here, a pill there, but by the time I left, I was already racing down the hill toward ruin.”

  None of what he said was terribly surprising, though my mother had been incapable or unwilling to level with me about the specifics. I knew they were fighting about money and things mom took for granted…things that I took for granted, like piano lessons we could no longer afford. I vaguely remembered my mother storming out of a department store when the clerk cut up her credit card. She was furious, but at the time, I assumed it was at the clerk, not my father.

  He inhaled, and it drew me out of my introspection. “That last trip was a Hail Mary pass on my part. A last ditch effort to make a big sale that would pay off all of our outstanding debt. Somehow, in my drug- and alcohol-addled mind, I thought that if I could woo back a former customer, all of our problems would go away. I realize now that it was just a web of lies. I lied to myself every day…that I was in control…that I didn’t have that big of a problem. The worse things got, the more I lied.

  “The deal was never going to happen. Your mother and I had had a huge fight that morning over the phone, and I don’t even think my former client knew I was coming that day. He refused to see me, and I made a huge scene. Security threw me out on my ass. They called my boss, and I was fired before I even made it back to the hotel.”

  My stomach sank as a very vivid memory of my mother surfaced. After getting the blow-off from Dad’s boss for a solid month after his disappearance, she dragged me down to his corporate headquarters. I sat outside the office, and I could hear the sound of her shouting through the door. I noticed that none of the employees, many of whom I’d known my whole life, would make eye contact with me. I was about to turn thirteen, but I wasn’t an idiot. Bad things were going down, and they all knew a lot more about it than I did. Red-faced, I picked up a magazine, and forced myself to get lost in the beauty tips.

  Things quieted down on the other side of the door, and when my mother finally reappeared, she looked a bit disheveled. Her eye makeup was gone, but her lipstick was too. She had my father’s final check in her hand. Severance, she called it, thrusting it at me as she started the car. He’d tried not to pay it, she’d informed me, saying my father had ‘outstanding expenses.’ I knew my mother could be persuasive, but looking back with adult eyes, I wondered just exactly how persuasive. Considering Dad’s former boss was her first boyfriend a few months later, I imagine the answer was ‘incredibly.’

  “I couldn’t call home.” Francis sounded emphatic. “I didn’t even consider it, not after the way I’d left things with your mom. I ended up going on a bender, worse than any I’d been on before. I ordered a double and the next thing I knew a month had disappeared. I woke up in a pile of garbage in an alleyway not far from where I’d been staying. I had no wallet, no watch, and no identification. I was stone-cold broke. My keys were gone, and the hotel clerk explained that my car had been towed a couple of weeks before.

  I tried calling your mom, but the phone had been disconnected. It took me a few weeks, but I managed to find a job for cash, unloading semi-trucks. I made enough money to get a bus ticket home.

  When I got there, the bank had already taken the house. We were several months behind when I’d last been home, so without my paychecks, it wouldn’t have been long before the eviction notice came. You and your mom were long gone.”

  I realized I was holding my stomach, nausea gripping me as I recalled packing to leave the only home I’d ever known. We left the piano behind, because we had no room for it in our new apartment. I went to say goodbye to my friends, but none of them were home. They’d gone to the mall without me.

  “I went to your Aunt Susan’s house to see if she could help me find you. She ripped me a new one and threw me off of her porch. Nothing she said was untrue. I wasn’t much of a man. I couldn’t support my family. She refused to tell me where you were. I know now that she was in the right.

  I should have gone and gotten help right then, but I wasn’t that smart. I left her porch in search of the only friend I had at the time. A bottle of whiskey. It was nearly a year later before I was sober enough to check the date. I was in Memphis then, in a court-ordered, church-run rehab facility. I was sober long enough to talk my way out onto the street on a work detail. Then I blew town, jumping on a rail car and riding the rails south into Alabama. It’s warmer there, so sleeping on the streets was a lot more doable.”

  I was stunned to hear that he’d been homeless. I’m not sure what I expected. A string of affairs, maybe a second family somewhere. I had a vivid imagination, but the father I remembered would never have survived on the streets. Not the guy with the quick smile who always charmed our waitresses and the one with the money clip full of cash. The man who made my piano teacher giggle and danced so well with his pretty blonde wife.

  He sat back, running both hands through his hair. I could tell by the discomfort in his features the story was about to take a turn for the worse.

  “I ran with a rough crowd for a while. Drug dealers, drunks, prostitutes…thugs. I remember doing some pretty horrible things back then. I’m sure I’ve forgotten more than I remember. Then I was asked to go past my line in the sand, and when I refused, I ended up on the outs with a heavy hitter. A very bad guy…

  “His boys beat me pretty bad. I had a concussion, and my right knee hasn’t worked well since. They took what money I had and left me in the middle of the road. The cops found me, and I ended up in the hospital. Once I healed up enough to realize what was what, I played possum, making sure that the hospital staff thought I was more hurt than I was. Playing sick kept a roof over my head, got me round the clock pain meds, and I could order whatever food I wanted. The staff was kind, and they treated me well. It was the first time in a long time I felt safe and slept through the night.

  “I repaid them all by sneaking out in the middle of third shift, but no
t before I went into the staff lounge and took all their wallets from their purses. I hit their cart on the way out, stealing a drawer of painkillers. I’m sure someone lost their job over that stunt.”

  It was the first time he paused, and I could tell he was reliving that night. He looked broken…overcome with grief by his own actions. Enthralled, I said nothing, for fear he’d stop before I heard everything. My mind was effectively blown to hear the struggles he’d gone through, which made my own stories seem like child’s play.

  Moments later he continued. “The drugs kept me going until I got down to Florida. In The Sunshine State, I scammed tourists for what money I could, begging on boardwalks to get the money I needed to feed the monkey on my back.

  “Florida was a constant reminder of all I’d lost. Vacationing families playing in the sand. Fathers and daughters sampling toffee on the boardwalk. I wondered about you all the time…what you were doing, if you were happy, if your mom had met someone…if you had a new father to take you on roller coasters or buy you souvenirs. I finally got someone to show me how to search the internet at a cyber cafe, but I couldn’t locate your mom, so I assumed she’d remarried.

  “The only solace I found was in the bottom of a bottle. My crimes got more flagrant the more I drank. I’m not sure if I ever would have stopped, but then one day I stole a wallet from a tourist sleeping on the beach. I watched as he and his wife had a panic attack about how they were going to get home. They were screaming at each other, and it all came back to me. Your mom…me. Then I saw their little girl, sitting on the sand nearby. Their little brown haired girl who couldn’t have been more than five. She had a little red polka dot swimsuit like the one you had, do you remember it?”