Save Me

by Cecy Robson

  He tugs off his soiled work gloves and shoves them into his back pocket, the mild flex of muscle bulging his bicep and the twist of his waist giving me a very nice view of his abs when the shredded T-shirt rides up.

  If he’s trying not to singe the black bra I’m wearing with his hotness, he doesn’t succeed. I can practically smell the lace burning.

  The warming spring breeze sends a curl to bat gently against my cheek. I’m still not used to the short length. That doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely love it. I tuck the strand nervously behind my ear, the motion causing Seamus to stiffen, although I’m not certain why.

  I adjust the paper bags in my hands, realizing it’s going to be up to me to speak. “You mentioned you were finishing a project.” My voice softens. “And that you were hungry.” He leans back on his heels, listening closely and I suppose waiting for me to stop sounding like a babbling idiot. “We never managed a decent lunch the day we went shopping and I thought—” I clear my throat, trying to shake my nervousness. “I just wanted to make sure you had something to eat.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” I agree

  He stares at me for a long moment. Perhaps this truly is a bad time and I’m keeping him from his work, being more of an inconvenience than the help I intend.

  “We also haven’t spoken much about your family. I’m supposed to meet them Sunday.”

  He watches me, saying nothing. “I know,” he says.

  When he bows his head, I’m certain he’ll tell me he needs to work and doesn’t have time. “Come in,” he says, sparing me from offering to leave.

  He lifts the two larger bags with one hand as I step forward, using his free hand to open the door for me. Seamus doesn’t live in a traditional house. He lives in what could only be described as a trendy industrial park just outside of Philly. From what he told me, the entire structure was once used to store books by a major New York publishing house.

  Since the surge of eBooks, there was less need for the space and the publisher opted for a smaller building someplace less expensive. “The park refused to go down without a fight,” as per Seamus. The owner hired him and his brother Angus to convert the large rows of opened structures into smaller units. There’s a yoga studio just to the right, a larger gymnastics school when you first enter the complex, in addition to a UFC gym, an art studio, and even a Montessori school.

  I step into Seamus’s workshop. The raw smell of wood and sawdust is potent, matched only by of the aroma of machine oil and the deep tang of stain. I don’t mind the scents. They remind me of Seamus and fill me with a sense of peace.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a contagious smile?” he asks.

  I didn’t realize I was smiling, I look up at him. “No,” I confess, my skin warming.

  He swipes at his face. “Jesus,” he mutters.

  I glance down at the teal silk shirt I’m wearing. The plunging neckline is low, but falls in a way that’s respectable, and the hem cinches against the waistband of my dark slacks. He hand-selected this ensemble himself. I thought he liked it.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask, smoothing out the fabric, nervously when I realize he isn’t moving.

  “No, just busy,” he says. He rubs his eyes. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “Yes,” I agree, embarrassed. “Let’s get you settled.”

  The heels of my ankle length boots tap against his battered and sawdust-covered wood floors. Like the other businesses, there’s space for offices on the second level. Instead of an office, Seamus converted his space into an apartment.

  Considering how dusty the floor is, the windows that run along the entire second floor are surprisingly clean and transparent, giving the illusion of a large open loft. If not for the sunlight reflecting against the glass, I wouldn’t see it. At least, not right away.

  I follow him up a beautiful and freshly stained staircase. The railings were cleverly made from pipes, giving the space a fresh, modern feel and luring the eye from the chaos below.

  I take in the sprawling space that makes up his workshop. The large kaleidoscope front window, each rectangular pane varying in size and tints of green, purple, and blue and carefully framed in dark wood paints his foyer in a rainbow of color, while the clear rectangular window running above it sends long beams of sunlight across piles of freshly cut lumber, two large machines at the center, and a multitude of tools discarded on the dusty floor,

  “Did you make that?” I ask, motioning toward the window.

  I’d meant to ask him the first time I’d stopped by, but Seamus was shirtless and, well, I believe that’s explanation enough. He tugged on a pullover, grabbed his keys, and took us out to a nearby diner before I could finish rolling my lolling tongue back into my mouth enough to ask.

  He stops, taking it in as if he’s never had the time before. “Yeah. I’d just bought a glass cutter and was playing around.” He rolls his shoulder. “It was hard to shape the smaller rectangles, but once I got going it was a little hard to stop. Next thing I know, I had all these pieces. I was moving in here, thought I could make something cool with it, and, there you go. It’s a good way to advertise some of the things I can do when clients stop in, and it’s another piece to add to my website portfolio.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  “And practical,” he adds, his voice quieting. “Gives me privacy and lets light in.” His head drops slightly. “Sorry. I’m rambling and you’re just standing there.”

  I start to tell him that I don’t mind, but then he hops up the stairs.

  Although he seems rushed, I trail behind him. I should have warned him I was stopping in. But he’s been so distant since our day at the salon and our shopping excursion, I was worried he’d tell me no.

  The salon experience was odd. That’s the only way I can describe it. I thought he liked my new hair, but he kept jerking his head away from me as if he was forgetting to do something. What I thought would be a nice quiet lunch turned into fast food along the way to Macy’s. That was an experience. He kept grabbing clothes, shoving them into my arms without bothering to glance in my direction.

  If he didn’t like something when I stepped out of the dressing room, he told me no right away. His “yes’s” were only long enough to take a good look at me before quickly returning his focus to his phone. A few times, when I stepped out, he’d pinch the bridge of his nose as if my ensemble pained him, only to tell me, “Yup. That’s the one.”

  At first, I was delighted, thinking he really liked what I wore. But each time I’d put on something completely out of my comfort zone, instead of reassuring me, he’d storm away, swearing and muttering under his breath. I didn’t know what to think, especially when he dropped me off. He stayed long enough to help me carry in my new wardrobe and then ran from my house as if he was on fire.

  He stops at the top of the steps when I linger, glancing up at the ceiling. “Do you need help?” he asks.

  It doesn’t take a genius to guess he’s hoping I say no. What is wrong with him? “I’m all right,” I say. “Just getting used to the heels.”

  It’s not just these heels. It’s all the shoes Seamus picked out. They were all cute, I’ll admit, but none gave me fewer than two inches of height. “My sister always says fashion hurts,” he told me, pointing. “You need to own that shit.”

  It’s what he said before quickly returning his full attention to his phone. Again.

  I reach the landing. His loft is misleading from the first level. Anyone would naturally presume it’s small with little to offer. Instead, the large open area takes up about 2,000 square feet. The steps immediately lead to an ultra-modern and very male kitchen. The combination of white cabinets and quartz countertops are practically blinding and the chrome appliances the only accents.

  The living room to the left is only slightly different. An immense midnight blue modular sectional arches around the largest flat-screen I’ve ever seen in a private h
ome, the white fluffy area rug in the center the only buffer against the gray and chestnut modern wood floors.

  From where I stand, I can see his bedroom and the massive walk-in closet. A king-sized bed with rich brown, cushioned leather headboard rests against a stone wall panel of grey, beige, and earth tones. The linens on his bed vary from light to dark brown, the color scheme broken up by a few white pillows among the sea of multi-toned browns.

  This is a bed one can only sink into, one to spend long, lazy mornings doing absolutely nothing.

  Or several nights having crazy amounts of sex.

  I’m not exaggerating. This is not a bed just to sleep in. Not with the headboard like that. I don’t want to think about all the women that headboard protected from the wrath of Seamus’s baby-making hips, or just why one man needs that many pillows. For positioning her? Him? Them?

  I turn away to give my libido a chance to cool and my evidently lonely lady parts a good mental slap.

  I pause when I realize the bed and all its blessed body contouring pillows are not the only eye-catching pieces within the vicinity.

  Between his kitchen and bathroom stands a large statue, intricately carved from wood. It’s massive. The couple it depicts are life-size. I’m not certain why I didn’t initially see it, likely because the smooth and perfectly sanded wood blends in with the decorative color schemes.

  Like a hypnotic call, the statue lures me forward. The granite slab it’s secured to is a meld of curves, abstract like the work of art it holds in place. I pause before the ever-still couple. The man is about Seamus’s height, the woman shorter, but many inches taller than me.

  I don’t understand a great deal about art. But the significance of this piece is clear, and the closeness this couple shares so intimate, I feel like I’m somehow intruding, a voyeur peering into a deeply personal moment between lovers who’ve been apart for too long.

  Slowly, I circle the piece, noting the natural imperfections that somehow make the subjects more real, the sensuality and passion they emit akin to corporeal beings.

  “Wow,” I whisper. I drift closer, the pull of its eroticism and beauty is physical, an embrace I can’t break free from. “It’s stunning.”

  Seamus ambles to my side, walking slowly, his steps almost silent.

  “You like it?” he asks.

  Seamus doesn’t strike me as insecure. In fact, I believe he swaggered from his mother’s womb on his terms, rather than waiting to be forced out. “Shy,” “mousy,” “skittish”… these concepts and words are completely unfamiliar to him. They’re simply not a part of this confident and strong individual’s vocabulary—not when he’s this attractive and flexes as much as he does.

  So, when his voice takes on an underlying hint of doubt and uncertainty, it takes me aback.

  “I mean it,” he says. “I need you to tell me if it sucks.”

  My face meets his. He wants me to like this masterpiece and perhaps needs me to, as well.

  I wish I could explain how touched I am that he values my opinion to describe what a perfect meld of lust and desire this couple evokes. I wish I could share what it and his presence are doing to me, and how his ability to manipulate wood tapped into long forgotten needs and abandoned temptations.

  “It’s incredible,” I reply, my words mere gasps.

  “Incredible?” he questions, disbelief lowering his tone.

  I nod. “This isn’t merely a block of wood brought to life by your hands and talent.”

  “It’s not?” he asks.

  “No,” I say barely breathing. “It’s ardor and fervor so raw I can taste it, a lucid and provocative invitation to sin.”

  “Ah. Do you know what it is?” he asks slowly.

  I swallow hard, taking in how possessively the male figure shields and claims the woman. They’re naked. Nothing to hide what they’re doing, or feeling, or how badly they want each other.

  I look at Seamus, unusually breathless and unable to shy away from what this statue epitomizes. “It’s a man and woman, making love while standing.”

  A shade of red, as brilliant as lava spilling from an active volcano, overtakes Seamus’s face and his jaw audibly pops open.

  It’s then I know I’ve made a huge mistake.

  “Holy shit, Allie. That’s my sister!”

  “Wha-what?”

  “And Evan!” Seamus yells. He walks away, digging his hands through his hair. He slaps them down against his sides and veers back to me, his skin now almost white. “They were dancing at my cousin Colleen’s wedding a few months back. They looked nice. I took a picture and thought I’d recreate it as a wedding gift.” He makes a face, glancing at the statue. “Now all I want to do is set it on fire.”

  “Oh, God,” I say. I shake out my hands, because what else can I do that doesn’t involve running and hiding?

  He points to it. “That wood came from a tree in my Grammie’s—God rest her soul—backyard.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “I swung from that tree . . .”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I insist.

  “On a swing Pop-Pop made us.”

  Of course he did.

  “Ignoring the pain from his arthritic fingers.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  His voice grows quiet, distant. “I don’t remember Pop-Pop . . . I was too little when he died.” His pained expression wanders all over the statue. “The tree fell over during that blizzard in January. I thought it was a nice way to keep the memory of Grammie and Pop-Pop alive.”

  “It’s a beautiful way to honor them,” I say, bouncing in place with nervous energy. “Sweet—lovely—darling.”

  “I believe your words were ‘lucid’ and ‘sinful’—and before you explain, I know what they mean.”

  “I-I-I know you do,” I say, speaking fast and tripping over my words. “I didn’t know that was your sister, or Evan, or made from your dead grandmother’s tree.”

  “And Pop-Pop,” he adds. “Don’t you forget Pop-Pop—God rest his soul.”

  We both cross ourselves like good Catholics, not that it absolves me in any way.

  Seamus takes another long glance at his magnum opus. He gags a few times and makes batting motions with his hands as if trying to push all the awful images of his sister getting it on from his mind. “I could’ve gone my whole life without hearing that,” he says, shuddering. “Thanks for the visual.”

  “Sorry?” I offer again. As if that helps. Forget that I epically mistook a sweet gesture meant for his sister and dumped it straight into a vat of smut. Why didn’t I just tell him I was lonely and that my lady parts had never seen any action beyond two or three decent thrusts?

  It’s fair to say Andres cared as much about pleasing me as he did about tying his shoes.

  Seamus strolls into the kitchen shaking and shuddering and I imagine doing his best not to hurl.

  “I’m normally not like this,” I begin.

  He swivels his head. “You mean horny?”

  Kill me, Jesus. Yes, that, too.

  “Dirty minded?” he suggests when I take too long to answer.

  “No!” I say.

  “Kinky?”

  “Seamus!”

  “Pornographically inclined?” he presumes.

  By now, his disgust has disappeared and he’s enjoying torturing me. When he laughs at my reddening face, I lift a pillow from the couch and fling it at him. It lands near the clear glass partition and nowhere close to him.

  “What about athletically challenged?” he suggests.

  By now he’s holding his sides, the glee stirred by my asinine behavior sparkling in his blue eyes and making him unreasonably alluring.

  Must he be so attractive while I stand here dying a humiliating death?

  “You’re not funny,” I tell him.

  “Sure I am.” He points. “And don’t forget good looking.”

  I drop my head, causing my wild curls
to spill forward. I push them away slowly, allowing my hand to keep going and glide down my neck. I peer up at Seamus cautiously. No. I can’t forget.

  “What?” he asks.

  I wonder briefly if I spoke aloud. “What?” I ask, very much aware I asked the same question.

  He turns around, his spine rigid as he grips the edges of the counter. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. I made him uncomfortable. He’s probably rethinking our agreement.

  “You got me a lot of food,” he says. “We should get cracking if we want to make a dent in it.”

  I can’t be certain if he means to be polite or if he genuinely wants me to join him.

  Seamus keeps his back to me as he unpacks the first of several paper bags. He removes the first container, a round one that contains salmon, yellow rice, and green beans. As he moves to the next, a rectangular container stuffed to the brim with Cypriot grain salad. He frowns and lifts the dish.

  My blush remains very much in place. “This is a lot of food,” he says. “What are you trying to do to me?”

  His question seems odd. “I’m not trying to do anything to you,” I reply, my shrill voice alerting him that I’m lying. It’s such a dastardly lie, I should just strike myself down and save God the trouble.

  There are many things I want to do to Seamus. He drips sex appeal like honey, honey pouring down his very naked sculpted body. Any heterosexual woman alive would want a piece of him.

  I slap my hand over my eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks.

  No. I’m just picturing you wearing a tool belt, a smile, and nothing else. Damn that sensual statue. “Sorry. I have a headache,” I say. I don’t bother to mention my out of control hormones and, good Lord he would look so good in that tool belt.

  “More reason for you to eat,” he says, oblivious to my ovaries shaking like maracas.

  The next paper bag scrunches loudly as he pushes his large hands through it, tearing it down the rim with the force he uses. “Alz, you didn’t bring me lunch. You bought a week’s worth of groceries.”

  I step forward. It beats standing and melting from all the ardor burning through my veins. “I wouldn’t call them groceries,” I say.