Seth (Damage Control #3)

by Jo Raven

  “’S okay,” she whispers and retrieves the T-shirt for me, licks her lips as I swipe at the mess. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I freeze, soiled T-shirt bunched up in my fist, my brain hearing something else, something she hasn’t said or meant.

  Christ.

  I force myself to finish what I’m doing, break through my daze. Of course she’s not staying. She’s only talking about today.

  When will I fucking learn?

  ***

  She pulls me out of the apartment before I have a chance to make good on my promise. A promise I was looking forward to fulfilling—because, damn, the girl is driving me nuts. Her scent, her taste, her eyes, her mouth, her body, it all speaks to me, turns me on like nothing else.

  But she wants to walk outside, she says, chattering about the sunlight and the fact it’s a Sunday, and although my knee aches, I grab my jacket and my walking stick, and follow her.

  ’Cuz that’s another thing I promised: to show her what it’s like when two people wanna be together.

  So I lie when she asks if I’m okay, if my leg hurts. The handle of my stick clutched in one hand, I slip an arm around her slim waist. I gather her close as we cross the street and a cold breeze hits us. We’re not dressed for the cold spell, my jacket and her coat light, but with her face turned to the sun, she doesn’t seem to care.

  I don’t, either. She’d have proposed we go swim with piranhas, or go rock climbing with our hands tied, and I’d still go.

  Yeah, I know. Bad idea, this whole thing, and getting worse by the minute.

  And no, I don’t wanna fucking talk about it. This is more than I’ve ever dared imagine I could have with her. I’ll take it. Ignore the alarms echoing in my skull. Ignore everything but the feel of her in my arms.

  She pulls me to an ice cream stand, we get our cones, and we continue walking.

  “Chocolate mint,” I say, staring as she licks the green scoop like she did my dick earlier this morning, and damn if I’m not hard again. “Noted.”

  “And salty caramel and mango for you.” She winks at me with those cool eyes of hers, greener than the ice cream she’s making love to. “Noted, too.”

  “This what you like doing on Sundays?”

  “Used to. With my parents, then my dad only, when my mom split.”

  “Oh. So why are we doing it?”

  She shrugs, smiles. “To redo the memory?”

  “That makes sense.” I smile back.

  “I like you, Seth,” she says, and I won’t read anything into her words. Anything at all.

  My mouth is numb from the ice cream, my legs frozen through my thin pants, but I’m still smiling as we walk into a small park and sit on a bench.

  I prop the walking stick beside me. The sunlight is weak, but it still feels good on my face. With my belly full, and my girl at my side, I’ve got all I need.

  “Did you like it in France?” I ask as she snuggles close to me. I bend over to lick the sugary goodness left by the ice cream from her lips. “When you visited your mom? Is it like here?”

  “It’s different.”

  “Different how?” I’m drowsy and happy. Shit, I’m happy. Can’t stop grinning. “Better or worse?”

  “Don’t know. Smaller? It’s a small town, where mom lives. Very pretty, and old. Aix-en-Provence. The place of many fountains.”

  “Really? So you have fountains on every corner?”

  She laughs. “Almost. And street markets, parks, old houses with sloped roofs and flowers on the window sills.”

  “Sounds like Disneyland.”

  She slaps at my chest, but not really hard. “Nothing to do with Disneyland.”

  I shrug. Not like I’ve ever been to either place. “And the people?”

  “Sort of snobbish, most of the time. But nice, too.”

  “What, both?”

  “Yeah. They aren’t as open as we are. But once you get to know them, they can be really friendly.”

  “Can be? Not good enough. Glad you didn’t stay there.”

  “I’m glad, too. Though I miss her, you know? But not as much as I thought before going there. I realized… I don’t really know her anymore. Sure, I’ve seen her on Skype from time to time since she left, and she visited me twice, but it was a while ago, and seeing her again… Felt weird. Like I was disconnected from her. Like she’s not my mom anymore. She’s a stranger.”

  “Yeah. But at least she called you, visited you. I mean, shit, that has to count for something, right? Like, she cares.”

  “Maybe. Not sure it’s enough, though.”

  Right.

  I’m not sure I’m the best person to give opinions on mothers. Mine was a stranger since the day I was born, and still I tried to draw love from her. It was like trying to draw blood from a corpse. Didn’t see that when I was younger, though. I thought I could convince her I was worth loving. Worth protecting. That I was one of her own and she should do something to save me, like other mothers I knew did.

  Like Shane’s mom did.

  But it didn’t work. Put me behind bars, in fact, and that was the moment when my inner vision cleared, and I realized she’d never change. I’d never be good enough. I was only good as a currency—a bartering item. I’d go to prison so she and her newly acquired husband could escape the clutches of the law and party away.

  That’s what kept spinning in my mind as I lay in my cell, as I waited for the dreaded steps of the guard who liked to kick me around, stuff a dirty cloth in my mouth and punch me until he got tired. Who liked to spill my food on the floor and make me lick it. Pour the water on me and watch me shiver with cold, grinning like a shark. Who enjoyed throwing me into solitary and forget about me for a day or two, until I begged him to take me out.

  That was almost as bad as the beatings I regularly took from the prisoners in the cell across from mine for being part Native. Or part darker skin and black hair, whatever, I doubt they knew or cared what makes up my DNA.

  Could have been worse. Could’ve been raped. I wouldn’t have been the first or the last. Guess I’m not pretty enough for that.

  Thank fucking God.

  I could take all that. I did take it. What burned was that my own mom set me up. She set me up and took off, and didn’t even care enough to check on me. I was seventeen. By Wisconsin law, I was an adult. Been in and out of juvie so many times the judge took one look at my record and condemned me.

  After a while I stopped waiting for my mom to come and confess, tell them I wasn’t the one who should be behind bars. Tell them the truth. And still my mind refused to accept reality and I decided something must have happened to her. She had to be lying dead in a ditch somewhere, because otherwise why the fuck wouldn’t she—?

  “Seth. Hey.” Light pressure on my cheek. A hand.

  I blink and my vision clears. I see Manon’s small face looking up at me. She looks… concerned.

  “Hey yourself,” I rasp, my voice kinda hoarse, and I don’t know the fuck why.

  “You seemed lost in thought. Not a pleasant thought, either.”

  “Just remembering some stuff. Not important.”

  “You can talk to me.” Her hand is still on my cheek, and the look in her eyes makes everything inside my chest go tight and hot.

  Dammit, Seffers. Back up. Regroup.

  “Sure.” I turn my face and kiss her palm, making her shiver. “Let’s talk about how I’m gonna find a quiet spot somewhere and push you up against a wall, shove that little skirt up your legs and my hand into your panties. Then,” she lowers her hand and I lean so I speak directly into the fine shell of her ear, “I’m gonna fuck you with my fingers until you come, stop your cries with my mouth. And then I’m gonna replace my fingers with my cock and fuck you again, harder, faster. Make you scream.”

  I pull back, and fuck, maybe I’ve scared her now, what with growling shit like that in her ear like some crazy bastard.

  But the look in her wide eyes isn’t fear. She licks her lips, and
I swallow in response.

  “Not playing fair,” she complains breathlessly, and shit, now I’m getting hard, too.

  “Never said I was.”

  Been on and off the street since I was a kid, in and out of juvie, in prison, and then back on the street. Playing fair would have been the death of me. Besides, nothing’s fair in love and war.

  Or so I hear.

  She’s silent, looking at me as if she can read something on my face I didn’t know was there. Her fingertips trail down to my jaw, to my neck, so unbearably gentle. I wrack my mind for something to say, something witty, something funny to break the tension.

  “Do you like the zoo?” she asks, and I blink.

  Must have missed something she said earlier, right? Were we talking about that?

  “The zoo?” I repeat.

  Brain’s frozen. Sorry.

  “Do you like going there? Like, when you were little?”

  Er. “Never been there.”

  “That’s not possible. Every kid I know has been to the zoo. The Henry Vilas Zoo. I mean it’s not far, and…” She trails off. “You never went.”

  That’s right, I never went. I was stealing, so I could buy food to eat when other kids went to the zoo and to the parks and to the damn movies. Stealing to survive, and my mom and her boyfriends took the money from me to buy themselves booze and drugs.

  Shit, what’s wrong with me today? Why can’t I get out of the past? It keeps sucking me down, like a sinkhole.

  She’s still staring at me, frowning. Doing that thing again, where she’s reading my expression like an open book.

  Never been an open book to anyone, dammit. Worked hard on putting a lid on what I feel, what I can show to the world. And she’s seeing right through it.

  “Well, then.” Her hand presses on my chest, over my racing heart. “How about going today? Would you like that?”

  Go to the zoo. I open my mouth, close it, unsure of the words.

  It’s not like I’m burning to go. Not anymore, anyway. Sure, there was a time I’d have given anything to go. Entry is free for the public, and once I tried getting in. Rode black in a bus from the northern suburbs, stood at the entrance, tried to explain to the lady at the door my mom was coming later to join me.

  A lie, of course, and the lady realized. Hard not to tell. I was filthy and feral. She told me to come again later with my mom, as they couldn’t let inside kids unattended.

  I’d been unattended all my life.

  “Come on.” Manon gets up and tugs on my hand. “We’ll get my car. It’s parked just around the corner from your apartment.”

  Using the backrest of the bench as support, grabbing my walking stick, I push to my feet, testing my bum knee. Still holding.

  My mind is sorta reeling, though. I thought I was the one behind the wheel in this crazy little stunt. I was the one supposed to be showing her what it’s like to be with someone, to care for someone.

  But as it turns out, I know shit, and she’s the one showing me.

  The fall from grace will be a hell of a lot steeper than I thought, and goddammit… I’m not sure anymore that I’ll survive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Manon

  I grew up in Madison. It was much later, when I was a teenager, that Dad and I moved to Detroit because of his job.

  So I’ve been to the zoo here lots of times. Mostly when I was a kid. Can’t remember going with my mom before she left, but afterward my dad often took me there Sundays.

  We usually spent Sundays outdoors as much as possible—out of town, or in parks—and if not, then at the movie theater at children’s matinees, the Children’s’ Museum, or one of the indoor playgrounds such as Play N Wisconsin and the Ultrazone.

  I want to ask, but I somehow already know Seth hasn’t been to any of those places. The more I know about his past, the closer I feel, and the more my heart aches for him.

  It’s a strange feeling, a strange state. When he’s around me, when he’s looking at me, I get all hot and excited. And when he gets so sad and brooding, I get worried and anxious to see him smiling again.

  Never felt that way with Fred, or anyone else. Not sure what it means. If it means anything at all. I mean, he’s not opening up to me. Not voluntarily. Whatever he has admitted to has obviously escaped him against his will. He doesn’t want to tell me about the things that hurt him. Doesn’t want my pity, I guess.

  I don’t pity him. I’m in a bit of awe of him, for having survived such a crappy childhood. But I don’t know how to tell him that.

  So I don’t. I drive to the zoo, his presence filling my small blue Kia Rio, a gift from my dad on my fifteenth birthday. With his broad shoulders and big frame, Seth looks like an adult in a child’s toy car. It would have been funny, but he’s too handsome for that, so it’s just cute.

  And besides, he’s still silent, his eyes sad, and it makes me wish I knew what to say to lift this dark veil from his thoughts. I wonder what else he hasn’t told me, what other wounds he’s hiding. I may not see them, but I sense them, under the surface of the brave and careless front he puts on for others, like thorns under the skin.

  He stirs when I park the car, gives the colorful sign at the entrance a doubtful look as I reach behind my seat for my purse and jacket. The sun is still fitfully shining, but the days are getting colder and colder in preparation for winter.

  “Wait until you see the polar bears,” I tell him, a bit worried when I realize his jacket looks thin and summery. “And the camels.”

  He turns to me, dark brows drawing together. “Camels?”

  “Yes. Rhinoceroses, giraffes, tigers, lions. Snakes.”

  His eyes brighten. “Boas?”

  “Definitely boas. And anacondas.”

  He’s grinning now, and if possible, my heart constricts even more. God, he’s heartbreakingly beautiful, especially when he smiles. Wish he could smile all the time.

  Wish I could make it happen.

  But we hardly know each other, and we’re playing a strange game of pretend, confusing as heck, so I open my door and get out, waiting for him to follow.

  ***

  At first, I think I’ve made a mistake insisting we come here. As we walk around, he doesn’t react at the animals we see, his expression closed off, locked down.

  The lions and tigers don’t seem to impress him, or even the funny prairie dogs and lemurs. Leaning on his walking stick, he splays one hand on the chain-link fence, gripping the wire, saying nothing.

  Not sure what to do, I tug on his arm. There’s the arctic passage, newly reopened. Haven’t been there since it was redone. Time to go see the seals and polar bears. Maybe that will cheer him up.

  Kids are running everywhere, squealing in delight, haggard parents running after them. Seth is watching them from the corner of his eye, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched.

  Crap. I try to see this place through his eyes—a kid who hasn’t had a real childhood, carefree and fun like I did, and wince. It has to look so unfair to him, seeing these children having a blast.

  But he never struck me as a bitter person. So maybe I’m all wrong again and this isn’t what he’s thinking. He doesn’t bitch and moan about his life, and I respect his strength.

  So what’s on his mind?

  We walk indoors, the thumps of his stick echoing, to see the bears and seals frolic, submerged in water, behind thick panes of glass. A baby seal does a whole funny little dance for us underwater, flippers waving.

  Seth stands stone-still, eyes wide. Good or bad sign? Not sure, but I tug on his elbow, and he grudgingly takes a step closer to the glass.

  The seal flips over, somersaulting in the water, as if putting on a private show for us, and I giggle, unable to help myself. It’s such a cute little thing.

  He shifts, takes his other hand out of his pocket, reaches for the seal. He swallows hard. His hand lands on the glass and he bends closer as the seal twists and wiggles.

  Then he pulls back
, turns around and heads out.

  Whoa.

  I run after him, and jeez, even with a limp he’s so much faster than me. Remorse hits me as I catch up with him outside. He’s leaning against a tree, head tilted back, his stick lying in the grass. His knee must be bothering him and I made him walk a lot today.

  “Why don’t we go sit for a while?” I gesture in the direction of a bench I can see. “Then we could—”

  “I’m leaving.” He works his jaw, won’t meet my gaze. “Don’t care about the stupid animals. Fuck them.”

  I gape at him, heat pouring through my chest. Anger warms me up better than any coat. “Fine. I’ll drive you back.”

  “I’ll take the bus.” He pushes off the tree, wincing as he straightens. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be.” I fold my arms over my breasts, willing the hot tears in my eyes not to fall. “My fault for bringing you here, where you obviously don’t want to be.”

  His mouth tightens. He ducks his head. “I can’t stay, Manon. Sorry.”

  “What for? I wanted you to have fun, but since the stupid animals bore you, then by all means, go.”

  I expect him to do precisely that, but he doesn’t move.

  “Dammit,” he whispers. A small vein ticks in his jaw, and his eyes seem very bright over his flushed cheekbones. “I always fuck everything up.”

  “That’s not true,” I breathe, some of my anger leaving me. I really have no clue what’s the matter with him, but I have a feeling he’s trying to work something out. I wish I knew what it is.

  “It is true.”

  “Look, it’s okay if you don’t want to stay. Then again…” I turn, point at a sign. “The snakes are right there, at the end of this path. You could have a look before you go.”

  He follows the direction my finger is pointing. He licks his lips. His hands clench and unclench at his sides.

  It takes an eternity before he nods, a tight dip of his chin, and holds out a hand for me.

  Okay. I let out a breath and slip my hand against his palm, bend down to retrieve his stick and put it in his other hand.