Thick Love

by Eden Butler

  “It’s nothing to what I’ve felt! What we’ve all…” Warren said.

  I let the man scream at me, but wouldn’t let him push me again. Then, I repeated something that Kona had told me after the accident. I hadn’t understood it at the time, I hadn’t wanted to hear it, I hadn’t wanted to hear any kind of advice or counsel from anyone, the hurt was too deep, too fresh, too huge. But now, I understood. Now I could see the truth in it.

  “Grief joins you closer to another human being more than love.”

  “Yes,” Warren shouted, eyes closing tight, “but grief hurts less.”

  “I know that.” I touched Warren on the back, careful, slowly and the man did not jerk out of my reach. Warren kept his eyes on the ground. “It’s a burden I’ll carry with me, always.”

  “Words. Those are only words,” Warren said.

  “But I mean them.” Warren didn’t want to believe me, I knew that. He only wanted my blood on his hands and his daughter back at his side. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted and I wouldn’t live in the past. Not anymore. “Mr. Warren,” I said, holding his gaze again, “She…she was my first love, no one else will ever get that.” I swallowed, wishing that my voice didn’t break, that I could clear that clot from it. “Part of me died that day too. I…I wanted to die, I prayed so hard it would be me instead of her. I wanted it to be me and I…” I sniffled, encouraged by how Warren’s features began to relax. “I am so sorry I took her away from you. I am so…so unbelievably sorry.” And right there, standing on that perfectly manicured lawn, I cried in front of Pat Warren because I had loved his daughter more than breath. I cried because I had let her die. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do to bring her back, but if there was, I’d do it. You could kill me if you want but that wouldn’t bring her back and it would only reap more sorrow on the family you do have, which is the last thing Emily would want. But Mr. Warren, with everything I am, everything I’ll be, I’m so very, very sorry.”

  When I couldn’t see anything for the tears clouding my vision, I wiped my eyes, covering my face in my hands.

  Warren knelt down, picking something off the lawn that shined and glinted in the sunlight. “I…I can’t ever forgive you.”

  “I never expected you to.”

  “I’m just not that good of a person, Ransom,” Warren said, staring down at Emily’s chain. I looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. Forgiveness had nothing to do with whether a man is good or bad. If Warren needed to hold on to his anger, I couldn’t argue with him. It was his burden to shoulder.

  It was only then that I noticed the people on the front porch—a boy with Warren’s mouth and long nose and Emily’s mother, a picture of what the girl I’d loved would have looked like if she’d survived that day on the lake.

  Warren didn’t seem aware of either of them until his son met him at the bottom step and took the necklace his father offered him.

  As I got back in my car and glanced in my rearview mirror, they disappeared inside and I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat and the traffic up ahead. Nothing else would battle for space in my mind. Not anymore.

  That was the day I silenced the voice forever.

  26

  Ransom watched the boat speeding by the lake house. He barely blinked when it passed and I wondered if he was thinking of the last time he’d been out on that water. It was nearing sunset and the lake dwellers were returning from their day in the sun. Their loud shrieks of laughter and the heavy thump of distant music disturbed the song he picked out on the Hummingbird and kept his attention long enough that I nudged his foot to bring him back.

  He moved his chin up as if to ask “what” then smiled at me when I glanced at the strings. “You stopped playing.”

  “Sorry, baby,” he said, leaning over in his chair to kiss me. “You wanna stay here tonight or go back to your place?”

  “I don’t care. Up to you.”

  Ransom grinned and that sweet smile transformed when I licked my lips. “Don’t say shit like that, sweetheart. ‘Up to me’ could get you into a lot of trouble.”

  “I like trouble sometimes.”

  “Really Miss Dean’s List? I don’t think so.”

  I pulled on his neck when he came closer, setting the guitar in the chair as he left it. “I remember a couple of weeks back, I showed you just how much trouble I could be when I got out that corset and mask…”

  That vivid image shown in Ransom’s face, in the quick roll of his eyes and the low muttered groan. “Jesus, baby, don’t remind me,” he said, kneeling in front of me to get closer. “My parents are inside.” I nodded, but didn’t stop running my fingers along his collarbone. Ransom kissed me, let his mouth linger on my bottom lip. “With my baby sister and brother.” I nodded again and brought my foot up to the inside of his thigh, just beneath his cargo shorts. “And Leann and Will and…shit…”

  Ransom’s tongue met mine and he held my face as he took my mouth. I’d never get tired of his kisses or how every touch he gave came with an effort that was fierce. We were getting just a little carried away, him sliding against me, me slipping my fingers under his shirt and then suddenly a cold spray of water doused us.

  “Motherfucker…”

  “Ransom!” I heard Keira shout, but her son ignored her, jumping up from the ground to chase after Tristian, who had chucked a dripping water hose against the patio tile.

  “I am going to throw you in the damn lake,” Ransom shouted after him.

  “Catch me first, asshole. You linebackers have zero speed,” Tristian taunted, jumping around the fence, moving quicker than Ransom who got his shorts hung up on the gate latch. Tristian laughed as he headed back toward the patio, looking a little too smug, not paying attention to where he was running, more focused on keeping out of Ransom’s reach. He didn’t see me step away from the patio or pounce when he got close. But Tristian went down, landing flat on his back and I moved quick, pinning his arms flat against the tile with my knees.

  “Aly, sugar, I didn’t know you wanted me,” he joked.

  “Non,” I said, putting more weight on my knees so that Ransom’s cousin couldn’t move. “You wish. I’m just holding you until Ransom gets here.”

  “What? You got no spunk? Gotta let your man handle things for you?”

  “Oh, I got plenty of spunk.”

  “I don’t know, you’re kind of little…”

  “Keep talking…”

  “Sometimes I wonder if Ransom crushes you when he bends you…”

  When I flicked Tristian’s nose he struggled, still unable to get his lanky frame even an inch off the ground. And when he laughed, looked far too smug, I pinched his nosed and covered his mouth. “Why don’t you save your breath and just say ‘Aly, will you kick my ass now?’ That would be less of a hassle.” I had a hell of a lot of lower body strength and Tristian was no match for the hold I had him in.

  “Is he dead?” Leann asked from the open patio doorway. Keira stood next to her with a five month old Makana on her hip, smiling at me sitting on top of her little cousin.

  “Not yet. I’m working on it, though,” I told her, hearing Ransom laugh behind us.

  “Okay. Just…I don’t know, no blood.” Leann’s wave was dismissive, like it didn’t bother her that I had her son pinned to the ground. “I don’t clean up bodily fluids.”

  “See?” I told Tristian, batting my eyes when he glared at his mother. “She likes me more.” I’d told him that two months ago when Tristian had returned from his semester abroad. He hadn’t believed me.

  “You gonna stop with the water attack anytime my boyfriend kisses me?” I asked him in a faux threatening tone. Tristian mumbled something against my hand. “Oh, sorry, forgot.” I lifted my hand a miniscule amount from his mouth and leaned down so I could hear what he was saying. “What was that?”

  “I said, if you two stop making out all over the place, maybe I’ll stop hosing you down. I mean, Kona and Keira are bad enough, but you tw
o? It’s embarrassing…Jesus.”

  When Ransom finally made it back to the patio, he helped me up, brushing a hand over my ass, and beaming at me, proud that I could hold my own with a trickster like Tristian.

  “Tristian, be cool,” I told the now freed cousin. “I mean, I know I took your boyfriend from you.”

  “That is not funny,” he said, throwing his middle finger over his shoulder as he walked inside.

  “It’s a little bit funny.”

  My apartment looked different than it had six months ago. It was not nearly as neat. Oversized hoodies and CPU gyms shirts, all too large for me, draped along my sofa and three pairs of boat-looking tennis shoes littered around the dresser. I set them neatly near the door, though I knew Ransom would move them, he always did.

  The faucet sink in the bathroom sounded and I could hear the small little groans Ransom made as he washed his face and cleaned his teeth. But then the track on my MP3 player shifted to something that made me smile and I danced around the room as Rihanna sang about being in nothing but her skin—no heels, no shirt, no skirt—and I moved right with her, shaking my hips, shimming as I picked up after my boyfriend.

  I pulled down my t-shirt, smiling at the soft black material and the white letters that read Ransom Groupie. He had the shirt custom made for me a few months back when he’d grown tired of me wearing Keira’s Kona Fangirl tee. Turns out anyone can have a teespring account and my boyfriend used his to remind me I was his girlfriend, not his father’s.

  Ridiculous man.

  A few more turns, a quick hip shake as I chucked a left over pizza box next to the trash and I stopped in a turn, stilling as I spotted that large linebacker leaning against the bathroom door.

  “Now that is a sight.” He laughed at my eye roll and moved toward me, hands lowering on my hips as he pulled me close. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching you dance.” He kissed my neck and I sighed, loving how warm his mouth felt against my throat.

  “You might. I can get loud with all the leaping and stepping,” I told him, smiling against his lips when he moved us around, dancing slow.

  “Nope. You’re my Fred,” he said, lifting me up to guide my legs around his waist. “I’ll never get tired of you.”

  Ransom moved us to the bed, sliding up my body when he fell on top of me and I swear there was something awed in his expression, something that warmed my stomach with just one brief glance. “What?” I asked and he pulled one of my hands to his face, grazing a kiss in the center of my palm.

  “I was just thinking maybe Fred isn’t such a good name after all.” The bed shook a little as Ransom adjusted next to me, as he pulled on my waist to get me closer. “Fred seems so informal.”

  “Does it? Should we change it to something like Rupert? Or Reginald? Those sound formal.”

  That smile didn’t move from his mouth, but he lowered his lips before he shook his head. “I was thinking maybe we just call it what it is.”

  “Wi? What do you think it is?”

  How long had I waited for him to tell me he loved me? How often did I lie in this bed and wish he was next to me for more than just sex? With Ransom’s expression shifting, I found it hard to believe that this was real. I’d have never thought he’d look at me the way he was just then—like the world somehow moved between us, like one kiss, a single stare could bring a happiness neither of us had ever dreamed could be true.

  “Chrysalis,” he said, but it came out so soft that I may have heard him wrong.

  “What?”

  Inching closer, Ransom brushed his mouth against mine, and a little smile tweaked the corner of his mouth. “You make this thing inside my chest - this little critter I thought had died a long time ago - want to break out his bad ass new wings.” Ransom leaned back on the bed, pulling me closer, and his eyes were so soft, full of what he felt for me, that I swear I glimpsed heaven in them. As he pulled my palm to his chest, holding it steady, he grew serious. “Aly, you make him want to fly. You make me want to fly. I don’t think there’s a better word to describe what we are, sugar.”

  There was something similar that lived in my chest. It had been born the day I met him, it had grown, despite being confined. It had been a long time to carry something inside you that you feared may never be set free. But in that smile, those kisses, in every single touch, every single look, he gave me more than a million “I love yous”.

  “Wi,” I told him, moving my fingers back to his cheeks. “There’s another word for it.”

  Ransom lifted his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “Everything. We’re not Fred, cheri. You’re my everything and I am yours.”

  Epilogue

  Ten years later

  I come back to the city at least five times a year. Holidays, of course and any major accomplishment my brother and sister might have are excuses enough to be bring me back to New Orleans. Miami isn’t that long of a flight and this time we had a bye week. Even NFL linebackers need family time, so being back wasn’t a hassle.

  Dance recitals, though? That’s a little bit of a stretch. But my mom still has those big, blue eyes that could look sad and weepy, even over Skype and, when that doesn’t work, there’s the Keira Glare that makes me jump like I’m ten and not twenty-eight. The woman never failed to make me feel like a disobedient kid when I didn’t do what she asked.

  “Makana’s up next,” Mom whispered, leaning over my little brother as he lit up the row of seats with his iPhone. Poor kid, Mom’s glare went right at him and he missed it.

  “Brah, head’s up,” I told him when Mom continued to level that scowl his way.

  “What?” Koa asked her then completely deflated when our father cleared his throat. That’s all it took for my nearly twelve year old kid brother to get his head right. Mom’s glare or Dad’s easy I-Will-Throttle-You throat rattle. That dramatic sigh of Koa’s was a little much and I laughed, grabbing his phone before he landed himself into any more trouble. “I was using that.”

  “Yeah? And now you’re not.” He didn’t stop frowning at me until I nodded toward the stage. “Mack is up next. Pay attention to your little sister’s routine.”

  “This is total sh…” Koa buttoned his mouth when I whipped my gaze to him. “It’s boring,” he said, sliding deeper into his seat with his elbow next to mine. “Why do I even have to be here? There are at least a hundred other dancers in this thing. Mack won’t notice me missing if I just run out to the car and…”

  “Brah. She’s your sister,” I told him and when that scowl didn’t fade and the stupid pre-teen attitude threatened to surface again, I leaned my elbows on my knees and frowned at my kid brother. “Ohana.”

  His expression softened just a little, though that annoying pubescent irritation stayed put. Still, Koa knew what this meant to our sister. He knew sometimes you did things for family even if that thing was boring and tedious. “Ohana,” Koa repeated through a long exhale.

  The lights in the auditorium lowered and the small whisper of the audience buzzed a little too long until that rattle of drums and a double bass echoed through the speakers. I immediately grinned, recalling how excited my ten year old sister had been when she told me about the dance her instructor let her help teach to their class.

  “We’re gonna have a fire dancer and everything, Ransom,” she’d said, her whole face lighting up against my computer screen a few months back. “Makua kane was so happy when I told him.”

  “I bet he was.”

  That Hale blood ran deep and strong in my siblings but none of us had embraced our heritage quite like Makana. She never wanted to leave the Big Island when our parents took us on family vacations to Hawaii and at ten she had already announced to our folks that she would attend UH or no college at all when she was old enough. She completely ignored me when I tried to explain how great the University of Miami was, how beautiful the weather in Florida was. Mack insisted she’d be a Rainbow Warrior and nothing else. There’s no arguing with a determined te
n year old Riley-Hale woman. Kona had grinned like an idiot at Makana’s determination and I got why he would. He’d missed so much with me in the time he and Mom had spent apart. I saw what that absence had meant as my siblings grew up. Mack’s Hula 'Auana dance lessons, Koa’s struggle with learning the language, it was all important to our father. I’d missed all that culture, the indoctrination of our heritage growing up away from him in Nashville. I was happy that they were getting what I missed.

  Still, I hadn’t expected that my little sister would be so damn good at hula or how detailed the routine would be. Leann would have loved teaching this and I inclined my head looking down the aisle, catching how wide our cousin’s eyes had grown when the curtain rose and the small hum of whispered voices in the auditorium silenced.

  Mack stood center stage, decked out in a green pāʻū skirt and a pink and white flowered head piece or, leipo'o that matched the leis on her ankles and wrists, luna dance style with several girls sitting behind her, noho style. Then as the gourd and bass drums rumbled and the music picked up, Mack moved her hips, worked her footing, moving from a kaholo to a ka’o, hips swinging fast, hands mimicking the motion of the elements and then, the other dancers followed suit.

  The stage crowded with dancers, like a kaleidoscope of movement and color, bustling with energy and sound, but Mack was still the focus and I slipped my gaze down to Koa, grinning when he moved his eyebrows up as though he couldn’t take his attention from the stage.

  “ˋAe!” Dad shouted, then, “Nani!,” whistling as Mack stepped forward, still dancing, smile beautiful and bright and then a tall fire dancer, bare chested with a wrapped skirt and grass leis under both knees, joined her.

  The light, the movement, the music all amped the crowd and before the routine was even half-way finished, everyone stood, clapping and awed by the spectacle. To my left, I watched my parents’ cheering along with the crowd and spotted the subtle swipe Kona made against his eye when Mack’s dance slowed to a triumphant stop.