Thick Love

by Eden Butler

I came close enough to Aly that I felt the faint hairs on her arm brushing against my hand, but she still made no move towards me, and I didn’t feel as if it would be right to reach out and touch her, not yet. “It weakened me, blinded me, so that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.” When Aly looked down at her fingers like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to listen to me continue, I slipped my hand over them, bringing her attention to me. “I don’t want to be blind anymore. I don’t wanna be weak and God knows I don’t want to keep lying to myself.”

  “Lying to yourself?”

  “About you.” My fingers went to her face like they moved on their own, brushing the small curls from her eyes. “About what I feel when I’m with you.”

  “Ransom, it’s not the same. What you said to Kona, it opened my eyes. You still love her, I understand that. She was your first love. You never really get over your first love.”

  “No, it’s not the same. I do love her. I’ll always love her, but with you it’s different.”

  “How?”

  She didn’t stop me when I leaned in so that her mouth was just there, close enough that her breath warmed my bottom lip. “I don’t ever want to stop loving you.”

  Aly’s eyes unfocused and it took her a second to let my words penetrate. I saw how she opened her mouth but didn’t seem able to speak. Finally, through an exhale, she whispered my name. “Ransom, it isn’t that simple.”

  “No,” I said, moving my forehead against her. “No, it’s not.” When Aly frowned, I held her face, needing her to hear me, to understand. “I only know you take my breath away. I only know that you make me want to try. You make me want to stop drowning in the shit I did to myself.”

  “It’s not…”

  “Aly…” One head shake and I tugged my shirt over my head, reached for the bandage on my chest and Aly stopped fighting me. The spot was still sore, still ached from the work I’d had done that morning. It had taken three hours away from my family. Three hours to undo something I thought I’d never wanted to be rid of. Until Aly.

  She leaned closer, narrowing her eyes as she looked at the cover-up tattoo. It was simple, something that meant more to me in that moment than the memory of my first love. A large hibiscus covered the angel and the initials of my parents, my siblings edged the leaves. “I only know that I love you,” I told Aly and she snapped her gaze to me, those beautiful features softening as my words penetrated the stubborn hold on her argument. “I never want to stop feeling that. I never want to stop trying to be everything you need.”

  She hesitated for a second, keeping her gaze on my face and then, Aly took my lips. Her touch was firm, strong and I loved the strength of her hands on my neck, pulling me closer. I closed my eyes, relaxing against those hands that went to my back, up to my shoulders, just so Aly could scrape her fingernails over my skin.

  Aly touched me like she never wanted me to back away from her, like my lips on her neck, working on her shoulder was some kind of bliss she’d never stop wanted.

  “Ransom,” she said so quietly I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a sigh.

  I leaned back, smiling when Aly touched my face. “What do you need, baby?”

  She exhaled and the scent that caught in my senses was delicious. “You, sugar. I need you.”

  And right there on the studio floor, I touched Aly King because she asked me to. I kissed her bare stomach, those tempting, beautiful nipples because they belonged to me. And she let me kiss her skin because she said she’d missed how it felt. “This is like coming home,” she said when I pushed my hands under her back.

  Nothing could have been clearer to me then, that from here on out, Aly would mean home. I would no longer be adrift. I would no longer have to hide between my shame and my guilt simply to have something to hold on to. Aly was my safety net. She would not only save me, but she also would bring me home. To her. To us. To the potential we could find in each other.

  And when I slipped inside of her, I did it slow, watching her face, loving the feel of her sharp features and soft, flawless skin. “Home,” I agreed. She opened to me, took everything I gave her like she knew everything I had was hers.

  It always would be.

  25

  “Makana means ‘gift,’ right?”

  Ransom had explained his baby sister’s name once we’d left the studio two days ago. But when we hadn’t come up for air until the next night, Kona’s pervy radar was on high alert. He kept hinting and remarking about the way we walked, and how relaxed we were with each other. Asking questions about his new baby was about the only way I had to distract him.

  “That’s right,” he said, bringing the baby to me. “Beautiful, just like her mama.” Kona winked at Keira who watched me closely as I sat down with the baby. Kona lingered, just a little, couldn’t seem to stop kissing her forehead or rolling around that single curl that twisted at the top of her dark, thick hair.

  “She is,” I agreed.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” he whispered, but kept his attention on his daughter as he spoke. Then, Kona smirked. “You come in here looking like you haven’t slept in days, just like Ransom did this morning, and yet you’re both smiling like you have the most wonderful secret. I’m not blind.”

  “But you are nosy,” Keira said, pretending to be distracted by the quick click of the television as she pointed the remote at it. “Get over here and let her enjoy the baby.”

  He laughed as he obeyed, maneuvering his massive body next to his wife’s. I couldn’t hear what they were saying in those low whispers, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know, so I kept my attention on the tiny baby in my arms.

  Her skin was precisely the color of Ransom’s and her mouth was Kona’s, thick bottom lip and pronounced dip in the cupid’s bow. But her eyes were not narrow like any of the Hale men. Like Koa’s eyes, Makana’s was rounded and I suspected both she and her older brother would have lighter eyes, eyes more like Keira’s.

  “Have you guys brought Koa in to see her?” I asked, adjusting that sleeping bundle to my chest.

  “Yeah,” Keira answered, nudging Kona when he stole the remote from her. “Leann brought him in yesterday.” She gave me fake frown. “He wanted to know where you were and was completely disinterested in his little sister.”

  “Sorry. I’ll go by and see him today, maybe take him for some ice cream when Ransom gets back.”

  “He’d like that.” Keira said, snuggling against Kona’s chest. She didn’t look directly at me, but still smiled like her thoughts were distant. I wondered what she thought seeing me hold her daughter and hoped there wasn’t some weird ideas forming in her head about the future and more babies sleeping against my chest. Me zanmi, non! I was only nineteen.

  “Where is Ransom?” Kona asked, his focus supposedly on whatever football game happened to be showing on the hospital TV at the moment. “I figured he wouldn’t let you out of his sight after all that time…ow, Wildcat, easy with the elbows.”

  I ignored their bickering and Kona’s prying and rocked the baby when she started to fuss. “He said he had to take care of something on St. Charles and he…” The clatter of the remote on the floor stopped me cold. Kona jumped up from the bed, and stared straight at me. “What?”

  I’d seen that fear in Kona’s eyes only once before, and that was three days ago when we had no idea what would happen to Keira. “What did he say exactly?”

  “He said there was someone he had to talk to.” I shifted the baby when she started to whine. “I asked who and he said it didn’t matter that it wouldn’t take him long to get to St. Charles and back, then he’d meet me here.”

  Keira rested against her bed, frowning as Kona slumped next to her.

  “Modi, Kona, what the hell is going on?” The baby was fully awake and I gave her to Keira when the woman stretched out her arms.

  “How long ago?” Kona asked.

  “Just about fifteen minutes before I got here.”

  His jaw tightened,
but he nodded and I swore I could almost make out him working through whatever plans ticked around in his head. “Wildcat…” he told Keira, holding her face still to kiss her.

  They looked at each other for a few seconds, holding each other’s gazes like they spoke a language with small twitches on their mouth and slow blinks.

  “He has to do this,” Keira said, holding Kona’s wrist.

  “What if he…” Kona’s voice cracked and he dismissed the slip in his composure with his hands over his face.

  “Warren is mean, but he isn’t stupid. No matter how much he hates Ransom, he would never be careless.” When Kona continued to frown, Keira pulled his face back up, holding his chin. “He has to do this,” she repeated, moving her fingers over her husband’s face.

  “Okay,” Kona said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He sounded, in fact, a little lost.

  “Hey, come on now,” I said, wanting to break the tension in the room. I had no other ideas how to fix this, or what the hell Ransom was up to. “Whatever it is…”

  “He’s gone off to see Emily’s father.” Keira’s voice was low and she leaned back against the mattress with her baby on her chest and her eyes closed.

  “What?”

  She shook her head, like she also wasn’t convinced that Ransom should be left on his own as he sought whatever forgiveness Emily’s father might give him. “He told us, before he went to you that he wanted to apologize. He said it was a bridge that needed to stop burning.” Keira winced when Kona grunted, when the big man gripped the edge of the mattress like it was the only thing keeping him in the room. “Kona didn’t want him going on his own.”

  “Maybe it won’t be…” but I didn’t finish that thought. I’d seen that man’s eyes the day we were in Tremé. He’d stared at Ransom like he wanted to rip him limb from limb. There had been a cold, angry hatred flashing in that man’s eyes. “Kona…” I started, suddenly petrified that what I’d finally found might soon be taken from me. “You aren’t going to stop him?”

  “No, Aly Cat,” he said through an exhale that seemed forced. “No. There are some battles you have to let your children fight on their own.” He looked down at the baby nestled against Keira’s chest. “Even if it scares the hell out of you.”

  The house reminded me of something MTV would rent for Real World. It was sick rich, with ridiculous things like two ballrooms and a media room with a screen nearly the same width of the wall that lifted and lowered beneath the floor with the push of a button. The house itself was similar to the one Dad owned for years before he made the final move to the lake house—Greek Revival with large, secured wrought iron fencing around the entire acre lot and massive columns running along the front porch. There were two balconies off the back of the house and a pool with slick, blue tile along the bottom.

  This was no home, never had been. From the looks of it as I sat on the curb, working up the nerve to actually get out of my car this time, not much had changed since the last time I had stepped foot on the property, well over a year ago.

  Today I didn’t hide beneath the oak limbs and wisteria vines. Today I’d be right out in the open.

  Mr. Warren was walking around the yard with his gardener when I pulled up to the sidewalk, pointing to the weirdly shaped bushes that lined the walkway. Some were shaped to look like lions, others were trying to mimic the round bodies of elephants and, by the glare the man gave to the gardener, he wasn’t happy with any of them.

  I could have waited until his mood was better, but I was pretty sure that day would never come. Even when I was with Emily, before the naked texts, Warren had been harsh, very snobbish and always an asshole; he had never liked me, period. But, I wasn’t doing this for him. He likely wouldn’t hear me anyway. I was doing this for me, for Aly. To silence that voice for good so we could start realizing our potential, together.

  I got out of my car and slipped through the open gate, catching the gardener’s eye as Warren continued to berate him. The worker knew who I was. He’d been working in the backyard the day I’d snuck out of Emily’s bedroom at six a.m. I had no idea if he’d ever ratted me out, didn’t much matter now, but as I approached and I caught his gaze, a small grin moved across his mouth.

  “Comprende jackass? No frayed leaves, no bare limbs sticking out on the bushes. For Christ’s sake, as much as I pay you, you’d think you could manage that!”

  Yep. Still an asshole, that hadn’t changed. I cleared my throat and Warren whipped around to glare at whoever had the audacity to interrupt him. When he recognized me a split second later, I knew instantly this had been a mistake.

  If possible, that already red face got brighter. “Arturo,” he started, his voice hinting at a barely contained enraged tone, “Call the police.”

  “Wait,” I said, holding up my hands, palms out, and Arturo didn’t move. “Please, just let me say what I need to say and you will never hear from me again.”

  Warren turned around fully, breathing through his nose so quickly that his nostrils flared. “What exactly do you think you could say to me? Huh? There isn’t a fucking thing I want to hear from you.”

  He looked older up close, and even though it had only been a week since the festival, I could have sworn he’d aged even since then. “Mr. Warren, I just wanted to say…”

  “What, you little shit?” He pushed me then, full of fire and venom and I let him, I took each tap on my chest because I needed this final punishment. I would let him tell me he hated me, that he wished I’d died that day on the lake. After all, that’s what I had prayed for out in that water. I was ready to hear all that from him.

  “I…I’m sorry.” The words came out faster than I could help and when they did, that angry expression on the man’s face fell completely. I dug Emily’s necklace from my pocket and offered it to him, but Warren only stared at the chain dangling from my fingers. He didn’t push me again. Instead, the man stepped back, retreated quickly up the stairs and into that ridiculous mansion. “Shit,” I mumbled running my hands over my face.

  “Leave, chico, before that pendejo comes back.” Arturo moved his chin toward the gate and I sighed, realizing that my small apology would have to do.

  “Thanks, man,” I told him, meaning I appreciate his kindness, but he only shrugged in return, nodded again and I turned, heading for the gate. I almost made it, came to within three feet and then I heard the slam of that front door and Arturo screaming something loud, a Spanish oath I knew didn’t mean anything good.

  “Señor Warren, no! No!” Arturo’s voice elevated and then he grunted as he wrestled with his employer.

  One glance over my shoulder and I recognized the glint of metal from the nine millimeter, the one the man had used to threaten me with before. I ran for the gate, making it to the large oak tree behind the sidewalk before the first shot rang out.

  “Don’t run, you little shit!” Warren’s voice was manic, crazed and I leaned against the tree praying that some sense would come back to him. “Face me like a man!”

  There was the gravel on the drive way crunching in the struggle of grunts I heard from Warren and his Spanish-cursing gardener and then, another shot sounded.

  “Loco pendejo!”

  “Please, Mr. Warren,” I said, inching around the side of the tree to watch him. “I know you hate me. I know I deserve it, but please, let me say what I have to. Man to man, let me face you.”

  Arturo had wrestled the gun from his boss and Warren’s face had reddened in the exertion. “You come to my home after what you did? Disrespectful, arrogant…”

  He was right. Head in my hands, I realized how this looked, how he’d see me as nothing more than a begging kid. You don’t win back your honor by forcing your hand. I knew that. I should have taken my lumps and moved forward. It was Warren’s choice to make here, not mine.

  “Please,” I tried again, slowly leaving the safety of the oak tree when Warren took a step toward me empty-handed. Another step away from that tree and I faced the man, only t
wenty feet separating us. “Please hear me out before you do something we’ll both regret.”

  Warren was out of breath and angry—his splotchy complexion was pink and those eyes had darkened, filled with a frustration I could understand. He’d lost something precious because of me. I got that. If I’d been in his shoes, I’d want to strike out, destroy whoever had taken from me.

  I held up my hands, walking toward him, my steps cautious. “Nothing I say will make up for what I did.”

  “You’re damn right.” He didn’t move, let me come to him.

  “I…I loved her.” That anger on his face, the same expression I’d seen from him that day in Tremé dimmed a little bit then, though he still looked ready to strangle me. I exhaled and stuck my hands in my pockets. “She was my first love.” He waited, eyes tight and I slipped my gaze down to the driveway. “I should have protected her.” I’d take his hatred. I’d take whatever he wanted to give me, but I wouldn’t do that looking at the ground like a coward afraid of his anger. Instead, I lifted my head and stared right into his eyes. “I wished…for a long time I wished it had been me that day, not her. Not Emily.”

  “That would have been my preference.” Warren took a step forward, brushing off Arturo’s hand on his arm. “If I could get away with it, I’d put you in the ground.”

  My jaw felt tight, but I tried to push down my anger, tried to understand the threat for what it was—loss, desperation. I relaxed the clench of the tight muscles around my mouth. “And then?”

  “What?” Warren asked, still glaring at me.

  The fear from minutes before came off of me like I’d stripped it away. When I spoke, my voice was calm, level. “Then what else would you have done? What would you do after you killed me because you lost your daughter?”

  “Because you murdered her!”

  “No!” I shouted, wanting to push the man back, to deflect his hand on my collar when he grabbed me. I didn’t. I could only clamp down my anger. “It was an accident. It was careless and stupid and it was my fault, but it was an accident. And I have spent every day for the past year and a half punishing myself for what happened.”