One drop, then another falls onto the frame before I brush them way.
I’m vaguely aware that the door is opened before I see Beth’s feet before me. When I look up at her, her face is warm, illuminated by her concern for me. I know I don’t deserve it, but a part of me wants it anyway.
I look away from her, unable to maintain eye-contact and she quietly sinks to the floor beside me. We sit in awkward silence for eternity, and I place the frame beside me on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she says silently after a while, her voice hoarse. I glance over at her to see a tear slip out of the corner of her eye. “I didn’t think it would…I’m sorry,” she fumbles over her words but even confused, she gives me clarity.
“It’s just…” she pauses and everything inside me wants her to continue. Every time she speaks, there’s a beam of light that flashes in the darkness.
“What?” I ask her softly and she wipes her cheeks quickly before drawing her feet up before wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees.
“I haven’t heard that song in so long. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
I turn to look at her, confused by her crazy explanation.
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep her talking.
She pauses and leans her head back on the bed, taking a deep breath as another tear escapes her.
“When I was little, I met someone who changed my life.”
I nod, trying to follow the light as my breathing steadies.
“She told me that I was born with notes for fingernails, a musical staff for vocal cords and music coursing through my veins.” She blushes and I feel my lips quirk upwards, though the smile doesn’t reach my eyes.
“She was a brilliant musician. The best I’ve ever met. She gave me my very first violin. She said I was meant to play, and I’ve been playing ever since. She’d travel every year to host classes in our community and others like it, for people like me. People who wouldn’t be able to experience music in its most natural form because they had no one to bring it to them. No one to teach them the power of music…the beauty of it…the importance of it.” She blushes, and the light starts to flicker like a flashlight in need of batteries.
“She trained me for years,” Beth continues and her voice breaks. I glance over to see her face wet again. She’s abandoned all efforts to dry her tears.
“That song…when I heard that song, it reminded me of her. I didn’t feel like a spectator listening to it. It felt like it was written for me. The more I played, the more I remembered. It felt familiar because she taught me that song. It’s the last song she taught me before she stopped coming to do the classes.”
The train is off the rails in my chest and she looks over at me with wide-eyed worry.
“Are you okay?” she asks, holding onto my shoulder and what’s left of my resolve joins the lamp in the corner of the room.
“What happened to her?” I ask her, my voice trembling.
She sniffs. “I don’t know.” She sulks. “I think that’s the worst part. She was more than a teacher to me. She was my friend. I loved her.” She smiles and I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut by an iron fist.
“You can remember her?” I ask.
“I don’t think I could ever forget her.” She smiles sadly, “she made me the musician I am. She taught me...she taught me that you can be in this world and escape it, all at the same time.”
“What was her name?” I ask her, though I already know what it is. Still, I need to hear her say it.
“Eloise.”
My hands shake as I reach for the frame beside me and hand it to her.
It takes a while for her to make the connection, but as she does, she clutches her chest in a breathless gasp as fresh tears roll down her face.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “Is this you?” She points at the little boy, barely recognizable beside the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I nod.
If only I could actually remember her.
27
My mind races to make sense of the picture in my hand.
“Is this,” the question lodges in my throat, unwilling to come out. “Is she,” I take a deep breath and the tears spill out all over the frame. “Do you know her?” I ask instead and he takes a deep breath.
“I should,” he nods, pushing himself off the floor, but I stay there, unable to move. I didn’t expect to ever see this face again. “She was my mother,” Maverick confesses. The lump in my throat hardens and my stomach falls away at the obvious use of past tense.
I nod gravely. “What happened?” I ask softly and he stares at me, as though tunneling into my soul to uncover my memories of her.
What did he mean he should know her? That makes no sense.
Why wouldn’t he know his own mother?
“You should go,” he says softly, but I don’t turn away in obedience. I need to know.
“Maverick, please.”
“Beth!” he snaps, and I slowly scramble to my feet. For a second, the challenge is still there, begging me to find out, begging me to prod. But as much as I need to know, is as much as Maverick needs to forget.
Quietly, I turn and head for the door. When I look back, seeing just how many pieces of Maverick are chipped away at the surface, my feet pause. The love I had for his mother, won’t let me leave him. Not like this.
I walk back over to him and he stares at me with wild pained eyes.
“I said-”
I throw myself against his chest, wrapping my arms around him. He flinches, but he doesn’t push me away.
I can hear the irregularity of his racing heart and I squeeze him tighter. His arms slowly wrap around me. The hitches in his breathing and the vibrations in his back tell me that he’s crying, but I don’t say anything. I just let him cry.
Without explaining it to me, he’s already said so much. She’s gone.
I have no idea what happened, but if I could have cried myself to sleep for months after the community center director told us they couldn’t contact her, I cannot imagine what it must have been like to have her as a mother and then lose her. I can’t imagine not remembering her.
I would be devastated.
When the hug ends, I wordlessly leave his room and head for mine where I erupt into an avalanche of tears.
My thoughts crash and stumble over each other as I baptize the pillow in sadness.
She hadn’t abandoned us. She hadn’t abandoned me.
She had died and abandoned Maverick.
Was she ill?
Was it sudden?
Was she in pain?
What happened?
I want to know the details, but now doesn’t feel like the right time to be asking those questions.
A warm shower seems like a magic potion as I drag my feet to the bathroom. It works wonders to calm me, but my heart is still in turmoil when I towel dry and change into pajamas.
After a few minutes of back and forth, I decide to check on Maverick. He really shouldn’t be alone. If he wants to go back to being a jerk tomorrow then he can, but tonight, I’m going to do Eloise a favor and be what he needs.
Maverick doesn’t respond when I knock on his door and after three tries, I no longer wait for an answer and instead, push it slightly open.
He’s not in the room and I’m about to close the door when I hear the faint sound of water in his bathroom. I slip into his room and decide to wait on the sofa. More than just a few minutes pass and he still hasn’t emerged.
My fingers rap against the French wood of his door and I get no response.
“Maverick,” I call out.
Still nothing.
The door opens when I turn the handle and I can see him through the glass doors of his shower.
Besides the tattoo wrapping around him, his skin seems flawless through the fogged glass. His muscles bulge under the weight of him as he leans forward and braces against the wall, letting the water run down h
is body. The steam coming from the stall worries me so I knock on the glass, but he doesn’t budge.
I pull the door open. “Maverick?” I call softly, but he doesn’t respond, and fear grips me. I test the water coming out of the showerhead with my hand and it’s piping hot.
“Are you insane?” I panic, jumping in to turn the tap off, biting down to stop myself from yelping at the pain.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he says, but there’s no anger in his voice, just sadness and pain.
“Neither should you,” I respond, stepping out to grab a towel; handing it to him. He wraps it around himself and thankfully steps out of the shower, his skin red from the heat.
I scan the mess on the floor of his bedroom to see if there is anything on his nightstand good for burns, but come up empty.
Next, I rummage around his drawer and find a small jar of Vaseline in time to see him come out into the room and pull his pants on.
“Sit,” I say gently, acknowledging that I have no experience with a harmless Maverick.
He sits without much fuss and I climb onto the bed behind him, armed with the Vaseline.
Did he not feel this? I wonder as I add a thin layer to the slightly burnt parts of his back. He has a game tomorrow. This could throw a wrench into everything and it would technically count as being my fault. I had to be nosey and poke around his private property.
My hands smooth over his firm back. His tattoo is bigger than I realized and far more intricate. The scaly dragon’s tail wraps around him almost twice, crowding a castle sitting to the lower left side of his chest, close to his heart.
When my hands reach his side, he stops me, placing his hand over mine.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, checking to see if he had any serious looking burns on his side, but he shakes his head.
His fingers are shaking slightly so I keep still, waiting for him to decide what to do next. He breathes a heavy sigh and releases my hand. I continue up towards his shoulder, moving around to do his chest.
I still don’t understand how he could just stand there and do this to himself. Could the pain inside of him be so damn powerful that everything that happens on the outside pales in comparison? My heart hurts thinking that that might very well be the case.
The muscles in his chest ripple as I massage him, and he closes his eyes and grits his teeth. I don’t know if I should stop or continue. If creating the burns didn’t hurt, why should this?
His breathing is shallow and the lower my hands wander the more rugged his breathing becomes.
The tattoo is more detailed at the front. The knights on his rib cages are standing guard at the castle. It’s a strange choice of art, but I digress. The more I look at the castle, the more the details become more apparent. There’s a date scribbled in and a female stuck inside the tower covering his heart.
Something wet falls onto my hand and I look up at him to see tears falling out of his closed eyes.
“Am I hurting you?” I ask softly and he shakes his head. “Should I stop?” His shoulders sag as he shakes his head.
When my hand goes lower, I have to use all my restraint not to flinch. I can feel the scars hidden beneath the artwork and my fingers start to tremble as I choke back tears. I would have never guessed. His skin is far from flawless.
He reaches down and takes my hand in his, bringing it to his lips briefly.
I blush at the abnormal gesture before taking my hand back and covering the Vaseline jar.
“You should get some rest. You have a game tomorrow,” I say, turning to leave, but he hangs onto my wrists.
“Stay,” he says and for a second I forget where I am, who I am and who he is.
“What?” I ask, trying not to sound too affected by his simple demand.
He’s asking me to stay? In his bedroom? With him?
I shuffle over to the sofa and sit with my hands in my lap.
“Can you tell me about her?” he blushes, and I don’t think I’ve ever realized until now, just how beautiful he really is.
28
Somewhere in the middle of the night, I had found myself awake and aware of her presence in my room. Her breathing was light, and she barely took up much space on the sofa, but from the warm comfort of the master bed, I could tell that she was here, and I also knew she had to be cold.
I dragged my feet and a blanket off the bed and walked over to her quietly. Her back was turned to me and her legs were drawn up in a fetal position.
I intended to cover her but when I reached down, she turned to face me and in the soft glow from the only lamp in the room I had managed to not destroy, I could see the softness in her face.
Leaning down, I picked her up effortlessly and she turned her face into my neck, her limp arm draped over my shoulder as I carried her to the other side of the bed and tucked her in before climbing in beside her and drifting back to sleep.
At around midday, my eyes flutter open and my body immediately comes alive. I’m pinned to the bed by her tiny frame, her arm across my chest and her head resting against my shoulder.
There is nothing remotely sexy about her pajamas, yet somehow, just having her body so close to mine, knowing that from the feel of her hardened nipples against my bare chest, she isn’t wearing a bra, turns me on.
It’s game day and I need to prepare my mind and body for the day ahead.
Especially my mind.
After last night’s revelation and story-time, I feel wildly disoriented. There’s a part of me that feels like Beth has inserted a large chunk of a puzzle that has been missing for years but there are still holes and dents inside me that I doubt even her superior memory can fill.
Still, I’m grateful for what she shared and now, as I try my hardest not to smile while looking down at her fluttering eyelashes, I don’t know where we stand.
I try to move quietly off the bed, but her arm tightens around me and I chuckle at her reflexes. I don’t know whether or not conscious Beth would ever reach for me…or why I want her to.
Last night was a whirlwind of emotions and unexpected revelations and I don’t imagine for a second that I can hold her to the same level of kindness that the shock of our connection brought on in her. My chest isn’t at all bruised from the heat whipping I gave myself in the shower and I only have her to thank for that.
I don’t know if I will ever understand her.
How is she still here after watching me unravel like that? I know how pathetic I must have looked. Every bit the wuss my father always said I was.
After how shittily I’ve treated her all throughout our time at school, I’ve now given her enough ammo to ruin me for years. So how can she possibly be so gentle and kind to me?
It makes no sense.
I slowly ease myself from beneath her and she flinches, but stays floating around in her dream land. She looks so small in my bed, so heavily guarded by thick sheets and soft pillows.
The caveman from the diner returns grunting one word as he scratches his balls, “Mine”.
I was never the kind of child who fancied the idea of sharing my toys. Even though my multiple nannies tried to teach me the blessed lessons of how sharing equated to caring. I didn’t doubt them, but if sharing was caring then that meant I shouldn’t share, because there were very few things that I cared about.
I ended that train of thought before things started spinning out of control again. With a deep breath, I walked across the room, avoiding the bits of broken glass, as I headed out the door.
After doing laps in the pool for about an hour, I’m shaking with adrenaline and ready to leave. The longer I stay here, the more likely she is to wake up and I don’t know if I can deal with this unfamiliar turmoil right before the game.
The Titan inside me won’t admit out loud what the coward inside me already knows. I’m scared shitless of my feelings, which says nothing about how I feel about hers. I don’t want to deal with the awkwardness of the first ‘hello’ or the sting of rejection which is sure to come.
I’ll deal with all that after the game. I need a clear head and superstar focus.
My grumbling stomach leads me in the direction of my kitchen. I don’t know what I expect to find there besides beer and water, but I make the pointless trip anyway.
My mind wanders pass the havoc and lands on an aroma caught in the back of my mind.
When I open the refrigerator, it is lined with Tupperware I didn’t know I had, filled with food I had no knowledge of being cooked and the top shelf has actual fruits and juice.
Neither Jessica nor Suzanne know how to do anything even remotely domestic. Suzie can’t boil water and Jessica’s diet comes in prepackaged boxes.
My mouth waters as I open the first container and see cheese stuffed chicken breasts. The second container has spaghetti and there’s gravy in another and a rough chopped salad in another. Bethany is a fucking chef? My stomach grumbles in anticipation of the food that awaits it. Quickly as I can, I stack my plate.
The microwave quickly heats up the plate and when I dig in; my taste buds answer the question for me. Bethany definitely is a chef. Nothing this wholesome has ever happened in this room and as I near the last forkful I realize I could use another helping, so I go for it.
After stuffing my face, I enter my room to find my bed made…and empty.
Beth woke up, cleaned my room and fled.
Something about knowing that she’s already awake but that she’s avoided me thus far unhinges something rancid in my stomach and I swear under my breath as I cross over into the shower, alone. Memories of how she jumped in to rescue me from myself come back to me and I roll my eyes at how pathetic she must think I am now. The guy who cried because he wants his mama and can’t have her. Yeah, really smooth Maverick. That’s the way to do it.
My shower is quick and I stuff my essentials into the gym bag before rushing out of the flat, not wanting to bump into her.
29
“Well, would you look at that,” Coach exclaims, climbing out of his Camry with a grin on his face. To say I haven’t seen the bastard look happier wouldn’t be much of a lie. Such a pity his happiness has to come at my expense.
Vile Intentions: A Dark Sports Bully Romance Page 14
