Shelter

by Gilley, Lauren

  Her framed photos were still on the bureau. The whole Harris family at Christmas. Her childhood dog Banjo. Her high school graduation. A photo of herself with her best friend Caroline…who she hadn’t spoken to since her marriage.

  None of it was what she was looking for. All of it made her feel worse. Alma plopped down on the edge of the bed, the old springs squeaking, and the sound reached into the folds of her memory and yanked on all her tender heartstrings.

  She recalled a summer afternoon, the house empty and cool, a respite from the heat outdoors. Sam had smelled like cut grass, sweat and man, had left streaks of dirt on her cheek when he pushed her hair back behind her ear. She remembered the thrill of watching desire flicker in his dark eyes, could still feel his lips against her skin when he asked her if she was ready. She’d cried; she hadn’t been able to help it, the pain had been so much sharper than expected, but he’d been gentle, more so than she would have thought possible. Afterward she’d curled up at his side, fingers tracing the pattern of the tattoo on his chest. That’s what she’d been doing when she’d realized they were not in fact alone. Carlos had shown up, late, looking for his cousin, ready to tackle the front shrubs, and there he’d found them.

  “You sure about this?” Carlos had asked her the next day. He’d been digging out a plot in the garden for the railroad timbers that would be the base of Diane’s new raised tomato beds. He’d leaned on his shovel and given her a sad look she hadn’t understood at the time. “You wanna be with him?”

  The door creaked open behind her and she twisted around, not surprised to see her mother slipping into the room. Diane didn’t speak at first, but came to sit beside her on the bed, sighing as she examined her perfectly manicured nails. This was not, Alma could tell, going to be one of those light pats on the back and generalized encouragements to buck up. This was deeper, darker, something that was disturbing her mother but had been a long time in bubbling to her polished surface.

  “I named you after your great grandmother.”

  Which she already knew. Which meant this was, as she’d feared, one of those “big picture” talks.

  “Alma Lynn. I always thought it was a beautiful name,” Diane glanced out the window, face wistful, “for a strong woman.” Alma watched her mother’s lower lip tremble. “You are such a strong girl, Alma. I don’t…I don’t understand how you

  let - ”

  “Mom,” she struggled to make her tone firm, but not angry, knowing how poorly Diane had always responded to tantrums. “I never ‘let’ anything happen in my life. I knew what I wanted and I made decisions. Decisions you didn’t like. But wasn’t that the point? Raising me up to think for myself?”

  If she’d heard her, Diane gave no indication. “You deserved better than to live in some goddamn hellhole with

  that - ”

  “Don’t!” Alma bolted to her feet, quivering head to toe as she faced her mother with sparks shooting from her eyes. The jagged, weeping hole inside her that Sam had left in his wake was too raw, too bloody for her to stomach the same old insults. “He was my husband!” she thumped her palm against her chest. “And he’s dead now, you happy? So you don’t have to talk about him anymore!”

  She watched her mother’s face close up – mouth tightening, eyes narrowing – saw her become the self-contained, unflinching woman she liked to pretend she always was, even when she was offended, even though Alma wished they could just scream and claw each other’s faces.

  “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m trying to be practical. Sam is gone and the house he left you isn’t fit for the homeless.”

  Alma thought about the cheap plastic frames that held her favorite pictures on the mantel, the little gingham drapes over her kitchen sink. The way the king sized bed didn’t really fit in the master bedroom. Sam had been fixing the place up slowly, pouring his heart and soul into it. All for her. Isn’t fit for the homeless…

  “Your aunt Liz has offered to let you stay with her in Knoxville for a little while and I think it would be very rude if you turned her down.”

  She took several deep breaths and sat down slowly at the antique desk chair across from the bed, the one with the needlework seat cushion she’d loved since she was a little girl. “You want to send me away,” her voice was hollow, too far past the point of disbelief to be shocked further. “I’m not sixteen and ‘in trouble’. I’m not ashamed.” She turned what she knew were flat, hooded, eyes up to her mother. “And you shouldn’t be either.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” Diane sat up a little straighter. “I’m protecting you. Getting you away from whatever godforsaken influences might still be here for you!”

  “Influences?”

  She glanced away and tidied an already tidy strand of hair. “I don’t want you around any of those Moraleses.”

  “Carlos,” Alma said, snorting. “He’s what this is about?”

  “Don’t act like you haven’t seen the way he looks at you! He was always mooning over you when he worked here. He - ”

  “Will be my child’s cousin, just like he was Sam’s.” A new kind of anger stirred to life inside her, one she hadn’t expected. “Carlos isn’t your business. And for that matter,” she stood, shaking again, “neither am I.”

  **

  Carlos’s meeting with Sean had left him rattled. He’d spent a night or two in lockup, had barely managed to escape a possession charge once. But being hunted? That shit was new and terrifying. He’d always assumed – Sean had always said – that their biggest threat was law enforcement. Now he’d be having nightmares about thugs with ski masks and sawed-off shotguns kicking in his apartment door.

  He was shrugging out of his clothes, the TV a dull murmur out in the combination living room/kitchen, when he heard the light rap of knuckles against the door. Not a boot, he told himself, taking a deep breath as he slid his wifebeater back over his head and went to see who’d come calling at six after eleven on a Sunday. When he glanced through the peephole, the last person he expected was Alma Harris.

  He threw the locks in a rush, taking in the way she held herself as always, the way her shoulders sagged. “Alma, shit. What are you doing here?”

  She came into his apartment without invitation, sweeping past him as light and frail as a ghost. He closed and locked the door, following her. All her pretty, mahogany hair was tied up in a sloppy ponytail, loose strands hanging limp around her face. And her face, her pretty little china doll face, was even more sallow and thin, her cheekbones severe, her eyes sunken dark pits under her brows. Her slender frame was swallowed up by a sweatshirt he knew had been Sam’s. She was pitiful, standing in the middle of his shabby living room, the TV throwing blue, flickering shadows over her.

  “I had dinner with my parents,” she said quietly, eyes latching onto his face. He could guess how well that had gone. “And I just didn’t want to be alone after that.”

  “Oh…” he scratched at the back of his neck, contemplated the idea of sending her away in order to remove temptation, and then took another look at her face and knew he’d never do that. “Yeah. Of course. You want something to eat? Glass of water?”

  She shook her head.

  And then they just stood there. Carlos waited for her to sit down, or sort of crumple, anyway, onto the sofa. He wanted to walk toward her, he wanted to do more than that really – seeing her like this punched all his sympathetic, protective buttons and sent a jolt of electricity through the attraction he already bore for her – but he knew that was a bad idea. She would not take his lingering stares or gentle touches well, not now, not when her dead Sam was all she could think about. So he waited, awkwardly, until he couldn’t any longer and said, “The couch looks like shit but it’s pretty comfortable.”

  “Oh.” It was like she’d been startled out of a trance. She blinked. “Oh, right. Okay.” And then lowered herself down, pulling her legs up beneath her like a little girl.

  Deciding it would look stupid – and defeat the purpose of
her wanting company if he went into the next room – he plopped down on the other end of the couch, as far away as he could get. The way she was sitting, with an arm tucked across her middle and the other raised, the backs of her nails pressed lightly against her lips, she was just begging for an arm around her shoulders, a warm body to lean against. It was such a dangerous way for him to think, to see what she needed and want to be the one to give it to her. But Sam had asked him to, hadn’t he? That’s what he’d meant by “look after my girl” before the light had gone out of his eyes, right?

  “Alma,” he said, taking a deep breath. When her eyes swung over to him, the blue glow of the TV reflected across them, he almost swallowed what he’d been about to say, but he didn’t. “I know, trust me I know how awful this all is. But I think…I think you’re punishing yourself.”

  She frowned. “You sound like my mom.”

  “No I don’t,” his voice became steadier, firmer. “I’m not judging you or telling you what to do. I’m just saying, that I think it would be a good thing if you gave yourself a break. It’s okay to talk about Sam, or cry, or laugh, or whatever will make you feel better. You don’t have to hold it all - ”

  “Feel better?” she asked, spine going rigid as she sat up straight on the sofa. “Whatever makes me feel better?” She stood and faced him, a fire crackling in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in weeks, a bold, hot reminder of the pre-funeral Alma. “I don’t have the flu, Carlos! I’m not going to wake up one morning and feel better! God,” she flung her arms up in the air and stalked around the end table. “Why don’t any of you get it?!”

  He’d thought that when it came to her, his patience was limitless. But it wasn’t, and obviously she’d been worrying away at it without his knowledge, because suddenly he was furious. Carlos got to his feet and walked around the arm of the couch, putting the heavy piece of furniture between them. “Don’t do that to me; don’t put me over there with ‘any of you’,” he snapped. “I’m not your mom. Sam was my cousin, he was like my brother, so don’t put that on me, Alma! I love him, and you, so I get it. Believe me, I get it.”

  She didn’t say anything, but her expression hadn’t become any less enraged. He couldn’t look at her anymore, so he went back into his bedroom, through to the bathroom to take the shower he’d intended before she arrived. He didn’t care if she stayed or left; he was sick of not earning credit where it was due. Whatever his shortcomings in life – and there were plenty of them – she wasn’t going to accuse him of not caring. It was quite the opposite in fact: he cared too much.

  **

  Carlos had a sagging twin mattress in his tiny little bedroom that groaned when Alma lowered herself onto its edge. The bed was unmade, sheets rumpled. A glass ashtray full of crushed-out cigarette butts accompanied the beer cans on his nightstand. Clothes were stacked on the bureau and spilled out of the hamper in the corner. She felt a small flicker of sadness because though he lived paycheck to paycheck, Carlos had always been tidy. He took care of what was his. The sloppy housekeeping was evidence that, yes, he did know what she was going through, because he was going through something very much like it himself.

  As she glanced around the room, a picture tucked into the corner of his hanging wall mirror caught her eye. She was tempted to investigate, but even from here, she knew the two figures, their arms around each others’ shoulders, were Sam and Carlos. Alma took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shakily. All she had done was react, it was time to do some acting, even if it was just a small, timid step. There was no one better to start with than Carlos.

  The water finally shut off, the pipes beneath the floorboards thumping. Steam billowed out like fog in a campy horror flick when the bathroom door opened and Carlos looked startled to see her, tightening his grip on the towel he’d tied around his waist. The light behind him slipped over the moisture that still clung to his shoulders, down over the muscled contours of his chest, and Alma was suddenly reminded that he was not just her husband’s cousin, but a very fit, sexy twenty-eight-year-old man. His skin looked the color of an iced latte in the shadow of the doorway, the same as Sam’s. Eyes deep and wide and chocolate. Scruff on his chin. Carved abdominals.

  She glanced away and licked her suddenly-dry lips.

  “I, um…” he stammered a bit, the badass from the living room gone again. Now obviously feeling the awkward tension of the moment that shouldn’t have been there. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

  Alma studied her fingernails and shrugged. “I can leave if you want me to.”

  “No. No…I just…” his bare feet scuffed across the floor, just a few steps.

  “I’m sorry, Carlos.” Tears burned the backs of her eyes, her throat tightened. It was almost as hard talking to the living as it was thinking about the dead.

  She heard him close the distance between them, was very aware of him sitting down next to her on the edge of the bed, as if the dipping of the mattress wasn’t enough of a giveaway.

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you out there. You’re right; I-I do need to…” but she couldn’t make herself say it. It felt so, so disrespectful to talk about moving on, “feeling better,” when Sam was rotting in a coffin. Alma covered her eyes with her hand, blinking desperately in hopes of maintaining her composure. But it didn’t work.

  Carlos’s arm came around her shoulders and she was pulled in tight against his chest. He smelled like soap, his skin warm and smooth and just a little bit damp against her cheek. But the feel of a strong, solid body around her was a relief she didn’t dare hope for, one that made her feel guilty and thankful all at once. A relief she wasn’t ready to let go of.

  Alma dabbed at her eyes and took a series of deep breaths that left her calmer. And Carlos was helping: the thump of his heart beneath her ear, the way she swore he nuzzled at her hair. One of his big, rough hands cupped her jaw ever-so-gently and tipped her head back. When she met his eyes, they were as warm and inviting as hot coffee, open, looking a little shiny like she knew hers did. Their faces were so close together, and as his hand moved so that his fingers slid into her hair at the nape of her neck, she had a startling mental image of where this moment was headed if she let it continue.

  She had cried herself to sleep every night, had tossed and turned through nightmares, waking in a panicked sweat when she realized that she was alone. And why she was alone. And here was this person, this man, who she cared about so much, who was hurting just like she was. Who…

  “I see the way he looks at you.”

  He wasn’t her Sam. But Sam, she thought with a jolt that brought fresh tears to her eyes, was never coming home.

  Carlos tilted his head, eyes flicking down a moment and then back up in silent question.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and then closed her eyes as he pulled her into him and kissed her.

  His lips, warm and soft, pressed against hers gently, not rushing, not pressuring her. But it was enough to stir all of her pent-up sexual frustration. She missed Sam the man, the person, her husband. But she missed Sam her lover too, the way he touched her, made her come alive, set her blood on fire. With her eyes closed, with Carlos’s strong arms around her, she let her hormones drown out her logic, and even some of her grief, and filled her mind up with the latent knowledge that here was a strong, virile man who wanted her.

  She touched the seam of his lips with her tongue, leaned into him, let him know that this was what she wanted. In the immediate moment at least. And he didn’t need to be told twice. Alma felt his fingers spear through her hair. His mouth opened, tongue coming out to meet hers. The kiss deepened, became hot, intimate, almost obscene in a way she hadn’t expected. She sucked in a breath through her nose, heard herself whimper. His hands slid down over her shoulders, along her sides, latched onto her hips and he lifted her up into his lap like she was a doll. Then she had no doubt as to exactly how much he wanted her; she could feel it against her thigh.

  Alma kneaded the thick bundles of muscle at th
e base of his neck and moved her hips in a slow little circle. He made a grunting noise deep in his throat that was muffled against the front of her sweater. And that was when his good manners failed him.

  Alma felt his hand leave her hip, move beneath the hem of her sweater, and she glanced down between them, saw his arm slip under her clothes by the soft light of the bedside lamp.

  Suddenly she was on her bed at home, straddling Sam’s lap in just her pink bra and panties, worrying her lip with her teeth while she watched him touch her through the thin barrier of silk. As rough-and-tumble a reputation as he’d always had, he’d been so gentle with her at times. Times like this…only it wasn’t Sam who now cupped her breast and thumbed down the lace of her bra, his finger brushing over her tight nipple.

  Oh, God, what was she doing?

  “Stop!” In a panicked flurry of limbs, she stood and moved away from him, tried to straighten her bra with fast, ineffective movements as she took a half a dozen steps away from the bed. “I…I,” tears pooled in her eyes, turned him into a fuzzy man-shaped object. “I’m sorry…I don’t…I didn’t think…” She closed her eyes and gulped in air, willing herself not to turn into the sad, sobbing wreck she couldn’t seem to be anything but these past few weeks.

  She opened her eyes on a strangled cry and saw Carlos scrub a hand back across his buzzed hair. Heard him sigh. “It’s fine.” But his voice told her otherwise. This was all anything but fine.

  “I’ll let myself out.”

  He didn’t protest and didn’t follow her.

  4

  “Messing with your head.” Those had been Sean’s words. And they were officially the biggest understatement since…well, ever as far as Carlos was concerned. Blue balls he could have taken care of. But Alma’s departure last night had left him rattled in a way he didn’t know how to cope with. More and more, it was less about grieving Sam, and more about grieving what he didn’t have, but wanted, with Sam’s widow. He was fucked up big time. And for a guy with two jobs – well, technically three – that didn’t bode well for productivity.