George hesitated in the doorway, unsure where she was supposed to sit, until Gabe patted the spot next to him on his bed. She walked over and settled carefully beside him. Little boys were not something she knew much about, but this one seemed to like her, which was strange in and of itself.
“Okay. I’m ready,” he said.
George had no idea what she was going to say. Crap. She hadn’t planned for this. “Um, so what kind of story do you want?”
“A monster.”
“A monster?”
“Yeah, you know. Maybe a monster that nobody wants.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She thought about it for a few seconds, ignoring the image that rose up out of nowhere—Andrew Blane, haunting her mind’s eye, again.
“So, um…Bob. Bob is a monster. And he arrives one day in a small monster town.” She paused, cleared her throat.
“Wait. They’re all monsters?”
“Yeah. And nobody wants to be friends with him. He’s just another monster, but he looks different. He looks scarier.”
“How? What does he look like?”
Oh. God, George wasn’t good at this. No imagination. At all. “He has paint all over him.”
“Paint.”
“You know, like…tattoos. His paint tells bad monster stories.” She groaned inwardly.
“Oooooh,” said the child, apparently understanding something that George didn’t quite get herself.
“Yes. He’s got these marks all over his skin. They tell a story about him, where he’s been, who he is, what he’s lived through. And Bob wants those marks gone.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t want anybody to know his story. He wants them to think he’s just like them.”
She paused, waiting for another question, and when none came, she went on. “The thing is, monsters like other monsters who look like them. They don’t always accept different-looking monsters.”
“Yeah,” Gabe whispered, his warm, little body curled up into George’s. “Sometimes monsters are alone. With no friends.”
“So, Bob came to Monsterton, looked around, and then found one monster who knew how to take the monster paint off.”
“The monster-toos.”
“Yes. And slowly, Bob’s monster paint starts to disappear, leaving him with perfect, clear-blue monster skin.”
“Do the other monsters like Bob now?”
George sighed, snuggled deeper into the bed, despite the heat, and wondered, Do they? Good, good question.
“I mean.” Gabe turned onto his side and looked up at her. “Does Bob have friends now?”
“No. No friends. Because they all saw him before, and they don’t trust Bob,” George said. But then her forehead wrinkled with worry. What kind of story was she telling this child? This wasn’t a lesson she should be teaching. “But then something happened.”
He sucked in a breath. “What?”
“One day, one of the monsters from Monsterton falls into the lake, and she can’t swim.”
“Monsters can’t swim?”
“Only some.”
“And Bob? Can Bob swim?”
“Yes. So he dives in after the monster and saves her.” George paused, waiting for Gabe to interject. Nothing. “And they throw him a party.”
“To thank him.”
“Yes.”
“Bob’s a hero.”
“Yes. He’s a hero.”
Gabe yawned, his mouth creaking. “Bob’s gonna be like a superhero now, isn’t he?”
With a smile, George reached out and turned off the lamp. “Pretty much.”
“Yeah, superheroes are always different from everyone else, like freaks. But they save people, and then everyone loves them.”
“Right.” She put a hand on Gabe’s soft hair, looked up, and saw Jessie silhouetted in the doorway. “Good night, Gabe.”
“Night, George. That was a pretty good story.”
“Glad you liked it.”
“Superheroes always look like bad guys first,” he said, turned over, and snuggled into his pillow, leaving George in a sort of dull shock. What on earth was she doing, telling a story like that? She’d had no idea where it was going to go, no idea that she was, in fact, giving her version of someone else’s true story.
And good Lord, what was wrong with her that she couldn’t, even for a minute, stop thinking about Andrew Blane?
* * *
Funny how Clay had thought he was just randomly walking. He’d started off with the idea that he needed to clear the booze from his brain—especially after that run-in with the law. It had taken maybe two hundred feet of blind walking before he’d started noticing things like the night sky above, with its wide scattering of stars, interrupted by the craggy dark peaks to the west. It shouldn’t be so clear, this sky, not with the clogged feel of the air—it was hot, stiflingly heavy, although nothing like the motel walls. He had the urge to open his mouth the way you might in a rainstorm and drink it. A rainstorm. Fuck, that would be good. So good. It would clear the atmosphere, and maybe his brain, too.
More steps, more distance from the lights of Main Street, his feet crunching the dry road in a gritty, lopsided counterpoint to the moist, alive chorus of the Virginia night. Crunch, scrape, crunch, scrape, his limp all too apparent. Just one more thing wrong with Clay. His body a wrecked shell of a human.
Crunch, scrape, crunch, scrape. Not a fucking car in sight as he trudged on, stars above, bug noise all the fuck around him, almost electric in its continuity. Crickets. Goddamned crickets. Every once in a while, one of the creatures would surprise him, its voice popping out from the wall of sound, separating itself from this unholy hum.
How the fuck did they know to sing that same goddamned note? Maybe it was the only one they could sing. One-hit wonders, all of them.
Crunch, scrape, crunch scrape.
Clay made it a game, to even out his steps against the pavement, drawing his knee as close to the other as possible, ignoring the sharper ache and shortening his stride until he made a crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch. Never quite perfect, but almost. Almost.
He focused on the road ahead of him, devoid of buildings and houses now, and blinked when he realized where he was, where he’d been going this whole time. Her street—the doctor’s—a tunnel of wilderness on both sides, with her place at the end, the glow of her windows already there.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
He almost turned around. Almost, but not really.
The rhythm of his soles changed, faltered, as he approached. He hesitated for a moment, nearly tripped on his feet. Should he knock? What would she do? She’d call the goddamned cops if she had any sense of self-preservation.
His steps stopped right across the street from her house, where the woods were thick and dark and loud as hell. As soon as he stilled there, the bugs took over, mosquitoes feasting on his skin, others buzzing around his ears. He ignored them, fixing his eyes on the lamp lit in her front window, the curtains drawn back, inviting his gaze farther inside. Didn’t she know? Didn’t she get how vulnerable she was alone in that house? Anyone could walk up and watch her, stalk her and—
Fuck. I’m the sick bastard doing it. I’m the person she should worry about.
But he knew that wasn’t true. Because he’d seen exactly how bad the world could be—for men, certainly—but even worse for women like her. For girls like his sister, Carly, who’d trusted the wrong guys, for the club hangers-on, those women who had no choice but to align themselves with fucked-up assholes who’d end up hurting them. And even for women like George Hadley, who saw the good in people, who worked so hard to spread her special brand of warmth. The world beyond the fuzzy, golden glow she’d surrounded herself with was a treacherous, stinking, dangerous place.
Clay was the last line of resi
stance between her and the hell that lay out there in the wilderness of real life. He’d be damned if he’d leave her to its mercy.
At least that’s what he told himself as he took raw comfort—comfort he needed more than anything right now—just knowing she was nearby.
* * *
Back in the living room, George made as if to go, but Jessie threw a you’ve gotta be kidding me look and held up the half-full bottle of wine. “Please don’t leave me to kill this by myself. I’m pathetic enough as it is.”
“You’re not pathetic.”
“Wanna bet?” One brow raised, Jessie poured out two full glasses and held hers up in a toast. “I just realized that I haven’t gotten laid in two years. How’s that for pathetic?”
George’s giggle stopped short. “Oh. I…” Her eyes lost focus as she tried to latch on to a memory.
“What?”
“I’ve got you beat,” George admitted.
“What? No way.”
“Yes, way.” Her eyes blurred over with tears. It was the wine. She really wasn’t used to drinking. “Haven’t in…” Another gulp, another swallow, a memory of the last time she’d done it. Done it wasn’t even the right word. It had been…a good-bye. “Almost a decade.”
Jessie spat out a mouthful of wine at that. “What the Jesus fuck? Are you kidding me?”
George shook her head, embarrassed, teary-eyed, but laughing nonetheless.
“You, George, are a born-again virgin. You realize that?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Oh man.” With a conspiratorial look over her shoulder, Jessie asked, “Should we, like, hire a pro or something? Just to get us out of our dry spells?”
After a fit of giggling that nearly ended in actual sobs, George leaned back, wiped her eyes, and hiccupped. Her breathing was shaky, and she tried hard to get it back. It was hilarious, really. Wasn’t it? Not having sex in that long and the born-again virgin thing—it was funny. But, for a few seconds, it was all too unbearably sad to laugh at. So sad that she had to fight back the tears and force a tight smile.
“We really have to do something about this, though. You do get that, right, George? Find you a man and…” She sat up straight and wiped the grin off her face. “Are you, like, a lesbian or something?” One hand out. “That’s okay, too. I mean—”
“No. Not a lesbian. I’m just… I was married once. To a man. A long time ago and…” George sucked in a big breath of air, forcing the tears back. Funny how the laughter and the crying were so close, so wrapped up inside her, so intertwined and interchangeable. When had she so lost control of herself that she couldn’t talk about her past without opening the floodgates to an emotional deluge?
Never. She’d never talked about it. Any of it. To anyone. She couldn’t start now.
Rather than go on, she cut it short, nipped it in the bud, clammed right up. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Oh.” Jessie looked taken aback, and George’s skin heated with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry. I’m really bad at this.”
“At what?”
“Friendships. With women. With anyone, I guess.” The words tripped George up, but they kept coming despite her mortification. “I’m not good at it. I always say the wrong things and don’t say the right ones. I’m really—”
“Girl, do you have any idea how hard it is to have friends when you have a kid?” Jessie shook her head ruefully. “I had Gabe young. Nobody, I mean nobody, could be bothered to hang out once he was born. And then, as a mother? I’ve always been the wrong kind of mother, you know? Couldn’t do playdates ’cause I was in school and then waiting tables and then constantly working. I had a big, scary brother in prison. Not exactly conducive to developing close ties with other young moms, you know?” She paused, leaned forward, and grabbed George’s hand. “You’re doing fine, George. Trust me.”
“Thanks.”
“So.” Jessie refilled their glasses and lifted hers in a toast. “Now that we’ve both established how bad we are at friendships… Here’s to new friendships.” They clinked glasses and drank. “And to better dates than the ones I’ve been on in the past few years.”
“Here, here,” said George.
“I mean how unsexy is it when dudes are like, ‘May I touch your breast, please, ma’am?’ and I’m like, ‘Seriously? Shall I have you fill out an authorization form first?’”
“I had the opposite,” George replied. “I went out with a man once, only once, who pushed me against my car, trying to make out in a parking lot after a crappy, boring date.”
“D’you deck him in the balls?”
“No,” replied George with regret. “I wish I had, now that you mention it. He had this cold, wet tongue, and he kept sort of swiping it over my mouth.”
“Ew!”
“Oh Lord, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but… You know what he said to me? I’d forgotten all about this.” George giggled, happy to share with someone—finally. The words emerged through the laughter. “He kept saying, ‘I want to lick you, George. I want to lick you.’”
“Oh gross. In that accent?”
“Yes, he was a visiting professor from Oxford or Cambridge or… I don’t remember. But, it gets better. Listen to this. I said, ‘You want to lick me? You are licking me!’ because the way he did it, he had this big, flat, rough cat tongue, and he was licking my mouth and my face, but when I said that to him, you know what he said?”
“What?”
“‘I want to lick your clit, George.’” She could barely get the words past the hilarity now, and Jessie had joined her, groaning, laughing. “I…want…to lick…your clit.”
“Eww, oh my effing God, that is gross!” Jessie leaned back, wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, and slapped her hand down on George’s knee. “Lady, there is no doubt about it. You’ve got me beat. Thank you for that.”
“Anytime,” said George.
“So, new objective: get George laid.”
With a grimace, George said, “No. Not really. I mean, yes, I wouldn’t mind, I guess, but I’ve given up.” She glanced at Jessie before letting herself talk. “I’m doing IUI.” Saying the words out loud to someone who wasn’t a medical professional was weirdly liberating.
“What’s that?”
“Intrauterine insemination. Like in vitro, except more…natural, I guess.”
Jessie’s eyes opened wide. “So, turkey baster but no petri dish?”
“Kind of. Yes. I want babies.” George glanced down the hall to where Gabe was fast asleep. “One. One baby. A kid like him would be great.”
“Wow. Well, I’d give you mine, except…”
“Yeah. Except he’s your baby, and you’re crazy about him.”
“I am.” After a few minutes of silent sipping, Jessie spoke again, her eyes wide on George’s. “You got any family?”
“No,” George said, then felt guilty enough to change her answer. “Well, kind of. I’m still close with my in-laws.”
“Yeah?” Jessie’s expression told her just how weird that sounded, and George didn’t bother to add that her husband had died and left her—left them—alone. With each other.
“I’m not very social, I suppose.”
“That probably explains how we’ve managed to not run into each other more often.” After a pause, Jessie went on. “I get it, though. All the fear and the crap I go through as a single mother. It’s hard, but I know one thing for sure: I’ve got a family. Forever, unless something goes wrong.” Her knuckles knocked on the hollow-sounding coffee table.
“God forbid.”
“Yeah.”
George nodded, looking away. “I want that, too.”
“God, George, I guess we really do need to get you laid, then. ’Cause that’s got to be more fun than a turkey baster.”
* * *
A sound drew Clay’s eyes to the left, where what looked like a pile of dark bushes hid another house, smaller than Doctor Hadley’s. Voices, a door slamming, and he stepped deeper into the woods, his feet crunching on dry leaves and sticks. A vine or a root nearly tripped him in the process, but he wouldn’t look down, couldn’t, because there she was. Oh God, she was twenty feet away, fifteen, walking slowly and humming to herself in the middle of the dead-end road. His pulse went wild, working hard to drown out the night sounds.
From somewhere close by—maybe her yard—a small, dark shadow slithered out, its movements slightly off, and met her, wrapping itself around her legs; she cooed. The woman actually cooed, the sound high and sweet and almost as singsongy as her humming had been. She bent and grabbed the animal—a cat, he surmised, from the noises it made—and cuddled it close. They gave each other a head butt, and in the most unnatural reaction of all time, his dick hardened, just a little. The sensation was so unfamiliar by now he was tempted to reach down to check.
He wanted to step forward, to wrap himself around them both, or maybe to let himself be wrapped up in her, the way she’d enveloped that lucky little cat. Instead, he took a deep, painful breath and watched, eyes big and dry and incapable of blinking. If she glanced into the woods now, she’d see the dull shine of his eyeballs, fixed on her like his life depended on it. Like that creepy dude from The Lord of the Rings, obsessed with his Precious. Only Clay wasn’t doing it to have her, but rather to save her.
Or to save himself. It was all mixed-up inside.
She didn’t look his way. She turned to the house, walking and humming again, her hips swaying like water, and he wanted to feel the coolness of her hands on his skin again, wanted to grab those hips and change the tide of their sway. Oh, he wanted to dive into her, to sink in, to lose himself in her pale, soft efficiency.
Oh, fuck. He stumbled back, stilled awkwardly with one hand on a trunk, a fuzzy vine prickling his palm. He wanted to take his hand away, but he couldn’t. She’d turned at the sound, and though her eyes were in shadow, the cat’s weren’t. They were two bright diamonds in the night, fixed right on him, pointing out his location like a beacon. His breath was fast and heavy in his ears, and for once, he was glad for the goddamned incessant drone of the insects.
Under Her Skin Page 40
