The Troublemaker

by Lili Valente

  “It’s late. I should take you home,” I say. “Or back to your car. Whichever.”

  “Not to your place?” she asks, a challenge in her voice that I answer with a shake of my head.

  “Not tonight.”

  She sighs but doesn’t look away. “All right. My car. Better for me to drive home. Fewer questions in the morning about how I got there without the Mini Monster.”

  “You need a new car.” I focus on putting out the fire while she gathers the blankets. “I’ve got a few recommendations I can send your way, things you could get for a couple grand after you trade in the monster.”

  “Thanks, I would appreciate that,” she says.

  “No problem.” After the last of the smoke has died down, I lead the way back up the cliff trail, lighting the path with my phone until our eyes grow accustomed to the moonlight again, grateful for the wind and the fact that having a meaningful conversation on a motorcycle is damned near impossible.

  We barely say three words on the way back to the shelter—all the lights off, now, save the lamp in the parking lot and an orange glow from Zoey’s apartment window—and after Carrie slides off next to her car, I don’t turn off the bike.

  “I should run,” I say. “Still have some work to do before I hit the sack.”

  She hands her helmet over. “Sure. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” I say with a smile. “Drive safe.”

  She lifts a hand, holding it still in the air as I turn my bike around and head back onto the rural highway leading to the interstate. It’s clear in the way she’s standing, in the way she watches me leave, in the way her arm falls to her side, that she knows this isn’t “goodbye for now.” This is “the end.”

  With any other girl, that would be enough to give me the mental space I need, but not with Carrie. As long as she’s sleeping in a bed less than fifteen minutes from mine, I’m going to keep thinking crazy thoughts.

  I need more than mental space. I need physical distance.

  As soon as I get home, I text Cal, owner of the Cadillac and my old partner. He’s in his sixties now, but he taught me everything I know about Harley repair. He’s more than capable of covering for me at the shop, and he’s usually psyched to have an excuse to get out of the house. Cal, like most of my older friends, has a wife he barely speaks to anymore, with whom he has nothing in common except the two girls they raised and the four grandchildren they both adore.

  Another reason not to take a step down the relationship road—I want a hell of a lot more from life than living with a stranger in exchange for kids and grandkids. I’ll love my brothers’ babies, be the best uncle any rug rat could ever want, and never have to make those sad, stereotypical compromises.

  As predicted, Cal is thrilled to fill in at the shop. He agrees to meet me bright and early tomorrow to get the keys and other instructions. As soon as we hang up, I start packing. It’s been a while since I rode the coast highway, stopping to camp along the way. The time, stunning views, and hours spent alone in quiet contemplation will be good for me.

  In a few days—a week at most—I’ll be back inside my armor, atop my horse, far from the emotional fray. I’ll be able to see this thing with Carrie as a mistake safely avoided and maybe, eventually, as a fond memory of a sexy summer fling.

  Soon, I’ll be myself again, and I’ll forget how close I came to falling in love, so close I can still taste Carrie’s kiss lingering on my lips as I slip into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter 17

  Carrie

  To: Rafe_Hunter_Bikes

  From: C.J.Haverford_Author

  Subject: Every beat of my heart…

  * * *

  Dear Valentine,

  * * *

  It’s been nearly a week since you dropped me off at my car and left town without saying a word. I can only assume that you’re running away because I asked intrusive questions, you opened up to me, and now you’re afraid that I want to move into your place, take my shoes off, and stay barefoot and pregnant for the next twenty years.

  * * *

  Well, you’re right, Val…

  * * *

  I’ve fallen desperately in love with you, and all I can think about is your big cock and your bigger heart and how desperately I want to spend every waking minute with both of you. I was half a person and you made me whole. I was a soggy puzzle piece and you dried me off and showed me where I fit in the bigger picture. I was lost in the wilderness, dying of dehydration, and your cock was the divining rod that led me to water.

  * * *

  If you don’t come home soon, I will waste away to nothing and on my tombstone it will read “Caroline Haverford: Died of a Broken Heart and A Bereaved Pussy.”

  * * *

  Are you still reading?

  * * *

  Are you freaking out or laughing?

  * * *

  Maybe sighing in relief?

  * * *

  I hope one of the latter. It’s hard to communicate tone in an email, but I hope you know me well enough to realize I’m jerking your chain.

  * * *

  Yes, I would rather be jerking your cock, because fucking you was a lot of fun, but you don’t have to worry about any of the rest of it, Rafe. I’m not in love with you. I’m not mourning you. I’m not sitting here waiting to pounce and cling to your leg until you see we’re perfect together.

  * * *

  I don’t want anything from you, except for you to know that I had a great time and I’m happy to part ways as friends the way we planned.

  * * *

  So, if you’re staying away on my account, feel free to come home. Dylan doesn’t seem worried—apparently you’ve got a habit of ghosting for long stretches of time?—but Tristan has been asking probing questions. I think he suspects something. I’ve denied everything, but the best way to put him off the scent would be for you to come home and for everyone to act normal.

  * * *

  And I’d love for you to come to the Yappy Hour event if you’re back in time. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Bring a date if you want. I don’t mind at all. I’ll probably try to rustle up someone to bring, myself, just so I’ll have someone to dance with during the slow songs. I love dancing. How about you?

  * * *

  See, we can have normal conversations about normal things.

  * * *

  Everything will be fine.

  * * *

  Come home, or at least let someone know you’re alive. I have no designs on your heart, but I would like to know your body is okay. You need your body to keep walking around in.

  * * *

  And it would be a shame for the world to lose a cock like yours in its prime, before it’s had the chance to pleasure more of the female population.

  * * *

  You really do have a gift, Valentine.

  * * *

  Thanks for sharing it with me for a little while.

  * * *

  Yours in friendship,

  Carrie

  Chapter 18

  Rafe

  At first, I think I’m still dreaming.

  The email comes through when I’m at the height of the fever that’s been plaguing me since I set up my tent on Pismo beach. But considering it’s the first good dream I’ve had so far, I get a drink of water and take another look at my inbox.

  Sure enough, it’s still there, an email from Carrie. She’s worried about me, she wants me to check in, and she wants me to keep her barefoot and pregnant for the next twenty years.

  I squint at that line again, rereading until I understand that part was a joke.

  And weirdly, in my feverish, sweating, aching, summer-flu-induced haze, the realization makes me sad.

  I like the thought of knocking her up. I like the thought of her barefoot in my kitchen with me, drinking coffee and cracking jokes and reading the morning paper. I like the thought of her missing my body, and I can’t stop imagining all the things I want to do to hers as soon as I’m not sic
k or burning up with fever or constantly dying of thirst.

  Right then, I decide I’m going home.

  Time and space aren’t working this time. She’s all I can think about, dream about, fantasize about as I crawl to the front flap of my tent and stare out at the churning ocean. I want her here with me, watching the sunset and munching on saltine crackers. Better yet, I want to be back home with her, alone in our blanket fort, hidden away in a cocoon of warmth and pleasure.

  “Cool and pleasure,” I mumble, taking another swig of water. I’m still hot, flushed, and not nearly one hundred percent, but I’m getting better. By tomorrow, the day after at the latest, I’ll be well enough to ride home.

  And then I’ll tell Carrie in person what I think about being just friends.

  That it’s stupid. And that I’m stupid. And that we would both be stupid to let something this good slip through our fingers without at least giving ourselves a shot to get the relationship thing right.

  Hopefully, she’ll hear me out with an open mind. Reading between the lines, I can’t help but think she cares more than she’s letting on.

  I open the email and read it again. And again. And again, until I fall asleep with the phone cradled against my chest and visions of Carrie dancing in my head.

  Chapter 19

  Carrie

  My niece is an angel from heaven who I am privileged to have in my life. I would give her a kidney. I would throw myself in front of a bus or a pack of rabid wolves or a stampede of zombie buffalo for this child. I would take a bullet for this princess who breaks my heart with her smile and heals it up again with her slobbery baby kisses.

  But sometimes she’s a real pain in the ass.

  Huge.

  Enormous.

  So large that if she were actually a boil on my backside, I wouldn’t be able to get off this bench to run after her because I would be weighed down by the size of the junk on my trunk.

  Thankfully, however, her pain-in-ass-ness if figurative, and I’m able to bolt from my seat, sprint across the wood chips at the toddler playground in the town square, and grab Mercy before she puts a handful of someone else’s melted ice cream cone—currently oozing all over the merry-go-round—into her mouth.

  “No, Mercy,” I say for the fifteen thousandth time since my niece spotted the fallen cone, grabbing her pudgy wrist in the nick of time and holding her sticky fingers away from her mouth. “That’s dirty. Yuck.”

  “No!” Mercy bellows back, making use of her newest vocabulary word.

  “It’s not yours, buddy,” I continue in my calmest tone as I guide her toward the bathrooms. “That’s someone else’s, and it’s dirty.”

  “No! No! No!” Mercy wails into my face, the fearsome gleam in her eyes making me laugh even as the moms on the closest bench shoot concerned glances our way.

  “You look like you want to take my head off,” I mutter beneath my breath, clinging tight to my niece’s arms as she tries to pull away. “Come on, Mercy. We need to wash hands.”

  “No! Noooooooo!” Mercy’s spine arches, and a moment later she goes boneless, melting into a puddle at my feet, facedown in the wood chips.

  “Stop it, Mercy, you’re going to scratch your cheeks.”

  “Nooooo!” She thrashes like a fish ripped from the cool depths of her rivery home, all outrage and muscle. “No! No! No!”

  “Geez, give me a break, kid.” I readjust my grip on her squirming babyness while breaking out in a sweat beneath my shirt.

  I would have called it a chilly evening a few minutes ago. But that was before Mercy decided to teach me a lesson in what it takes to win a war of wills with the most stubborn toddler ever born.

  Of course, this would never have happened if Rafe hadn’t run off. If he’d stayed, I would be out with him right now, getting busy in a waterfall or at a delightfully creepy drive-in or down by the ocean while the waves make the cliffs vibrate the way he makes my body vibrate, setting me to humming at the perfect frequency.

  Instead, I breached his emotional firewall, he ran, and I was therefore on hand to offer to babysit while Emma chairs her wine road event meeting.

  Now I’m going to come home with a wood-chip-scratched and splintered-up baby with filthy ice-cream hands, and Emma will never trust me to care for her daughter again.

  And why should she?

  I’m a wreck. A mess. A formerly together person who is watching my house of cards tumble down around me, marveling that I ever thought I had built something solid.

  The softening book sales and lingering ill-will generated by the leaked pictures are symptoms of a deeper problem. I’m the real disease. I’m the fool who thought it would be okay to quit my perfectly decent job managing a well-respected toy store to write full time. I’m the one who spent my first few years of royalty checks on a down payment for a condo in a nice part of Berkeley, naively assuming the checks would keep flowing in.

  But there are no guarantees in life, especially a life spent playing pretend for a living. I should have known that. I should have been more careful. I should have kept my steady job and continued to write in my spare time—who cares if that meant I had to write more slowly?

  And it’s not just my work life that’s fucked to hell. I should have kept my family at arm’s length and my mother at least a state and a half away. If I had, Mom and I wouldn’t be sniping at each other like I’m sixteen again, and Emma wouldn’t have to learn that I’m shitty with kids and should never be trusted with her loin fruit.

  Most importantly, I should have kept my dating life casual. I should have kept things with Rafe fuck-buddy easy, instead of reaching out to probe the soft, vulnerable places beneath his tough guy exterior. Yes, he’s the most fascinating, sexy, confident, magnetic man I’ve met in years—maybe ever—and yes, the chinks in his armor make him even more irresistible, but that’s no excuse for playing with fire.

  I should be glad he’s gone.

  Grateful that he saved me from myself.

  Instead, as I wrestle Mercy from the ground, getting kicked hard in the stomach as thanks for my efforts to keep her germ-free, all I can think about is how much she reminds me of him. No matter how much I would like for her to be a more passive and agreeable child at this precise moment, I love this part of her.

  I love her spit and fire. I love her fierce will and her passion for exploration and her determination to discover every inch of a world that ignites her curiosity.

  And maybe I was starting to love that about Rafe, too, just a little.

  Maybe more than a little. Maybe enough that writing that email a couple days back was a hell of a lot harder than I expected it to be. Maybe enough that I should pack up and get out of here before he comes back…

  “I should,” I tell Mercy when we’re finally inside the remarkably clean park bathroom and I’ve got her hands soaped up and under the warm water. “I should go home before it’s too late. Hiding isn’t solving anything, anyway. I’m worse off than when I came here to get away from it all.”

  Mercy looks up at me, blue eyes wide and curious. “Ba?”

  I sigh. “No, I didn’t bring the ball. I’m a loser. I’m sorry.”

  Mercy giggles. “Ba!”

  I shake my head. “No ball.”

  The baby laughs again, thrusting her hands into the air, sending water droplets flying.

  “Well, I’m glad someone’s amused by my poor life choices.” I grin as I hand her a paper towel and she jumps up and down with it, spinning in a circle with it held overhead like an umbrella, turning it into a toy because that’s what kids do. They play when they should be taking care of business, and turn business into play.

  Maybe that’s my problem.

  I never grew up. Not all the way. Not the way a person is supposed to, where they gain maturity and realize that not everything in life is a toy.

  People aren’t toys.

  Penises aren’t toys.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true,” I mutter to myself as I open
the door to the bathroom and Mercy toddles outside ahead of me.

  Penises are more like toys than a lot of other things. Penises are always up for a good time, don’t take themselves too seriously, and enjoy being fondled more than your average bouncy ball or jar of Play-Doh. Penises are forgiving, too, willing to forget the time you left them at the playground, or made them attend a tea party with dolls they don’t care for, as long as you’ll take them out of the toy box again.

  In a moment of synchronicity that sends a shiver across my skin, the proof of my theory is standing near the toddler-sized slide, grinning as he kneels down to offer outstretched arms to Mercy. The baby spots her uncle and makes a beeline for Rafe with a happy squeal that leaves no doubt we’re both happy to see him.

  “There’s my girl.” Rafe lifts Mercy high into the air, grinning up at her while she kicks her arms and legs in spontaneous celebration. “Are you having fun at the playground?”