I drew my phone out again to call Brett and let him know where I was, but before I pressed call, the very loud, very off-key song of a drunkard reached my ears. I recognized the singer’s voice straight away and a pang of relief liquefied all of the tension in my chest.
“Arrrraaaaa!” David tossed his arms up drunkenly, stumbling to one side. “What are you doing out here so late, m’friend?”
“I had a date with Shaun tonight.” I motioned back toward the lookout. “It ended early.”
“Everything all right?” he asked, stumbling closer.
I had to laugh, recalling the look on Shaun’s face when his car came over the rise, and the way his penis flung around as he ran away. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just headed home. Wanna walk me?”
“Sure,” he slurred. “I was headed there myself.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
I laughed. David could be quite funny when he was drunk.
“Want some?” He offered me a square silver flask. If it smelled anything like the way his breath did, I couldn’t see any reason why I’d want to put that in my system. Then again—I shrugged—with my metabolism, it couldn’t possibly get me drunk. And I felt safe with David, so I took the flask and tossed the liquid back. It was bitter on my tongue and burned my throat, worse than human blood did, but it subsided quickly and pleasantly to a warmth that made me feel kind of giddy.
“You like?” David asked, taking a swig without even wiping the rim of the flask first.
“Not bad. What is it?” I wiped my mouth on my arm, moving it straight back in to my body to keep out the chill.
“Whiskey,” he said, slipping his jacket off without missing a beat. The smell of leather and that sweet kind of David smell—like citrus and maybe brown sugar—wrapped around me with his jacket, making me feel like I was wearing him, but it was warm and nice and not altogether as unpleasant an experience as I might once have thought it would be. It was a sweet gesture too. No one had ever done that for me before, aside from Brett, and I guess it showed me a different side to David. One I wasn’t sure he had in him. Until now.
“Want some more?” He offered the flask again.
“Yeah. Why not?” I decided that it might be nice to hang out with David for a bit—alone. There was clearly more to him and I knew I’d never see this side while he was playing Alpha Male with Cal. “But I’m just gonna call my brother first and let him know where I am.”
“Sure thing.” David moved back and leaned on a dead lamp post.
I whipped my phone out again and dialed Brett, who picked up on the first ring. “Ara. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just wanted to let you know I’m walking home—”
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.” He sounded panicked.
“I’m fine. David’s walking with me.”
“David?” The confusion came through the line with a strong image of his concerned face. “What happened? I thought you were hanging out with that other kid tonight—”
“He had car trouble, so I’m gonna hang with David for a bit—maybe get drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“I’m old enough, Brett, you know that.” Fact was, I was nineteen human years old—and the legal age for drinking here was eighteen—so he couldn’t say a darn thing about it. Not in fairness.
“David’s not old enough, is he?”
“No. But he’s not your problem,” I said playfully. “I’ll be fine, Brett—”
“I know you will. I trust you. And I trust David.”
“I know. Just don’t tell his mom he was drinking if you see her at the library tomorrow, okay?”
“I promise.”
I hung up and dumped my phone in my back pocket, smiling across at David, who seemed to be watching the ground closely, as if he was sure it was moving.
“Hey, Ara.” He motioned me over. “Check this out.”
I leaned on the lamppost beside him and studied the ground with the same intensity he did. “What are we looking at?”
His arm slowly extended, finger aimed at the ground. At first, with him wobbling sideways and struggling to stay upright, I thought he was imagining something there, but then I saw it too.
“An egg!” I squatted down and cupped my hands under the tiny oval-shaped egg, hardly able to believe it belonged to an animal. “What kind is it?”
“The dead kind.” He tossed back some more whiskey.
“How do you know it’s dead?”
“See the crack?”
I turned it slightly and, sure enough, there was a thin crack there, but it hadn’t split open yet. A sniff of the air suggested that it had come from far away, maybe carried by another animal, because I couldn’t smell anything similar at all.
“Come on,” he said, stumbling away. “Leave it be. Let nature take its course.”
I closed my hands around the egg to keep it warm, feeling the slight pulse of life within—weak life, but life all the same. It was the same feeling as walking into a room and sensing a person before you actually spot them, and for some reason I couldn’t just let it go—couldn’t just walk away from the egg.
After looking up to see how far away David was, making sure that he wouldn’t notice, I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. A strange warmth flooded my limbs then, moving from my feet to my arms quickly, like the rush you get when touching someone you’re attracted to. As my heart picked up, I brought the egg to my lips, words finding their way there that I’d never heard before and didn’t understand. I whispered them against the shell, and no sooner had I breathed them out did a flickering come from within the egg. I wasn’t sure what I did, or how I did it, but I could feel the fighting chance this little guy now had.
“How did you do that?” David asked, suddenly standing right over me.
I got to my feet slowly, sliding my spine up the lamppost to stand. “Do what?”
“You glowed blue.”
I laughed, carefully placing the egg in the pocket of David’s jacket. “You’re drunk.”
He held my gaze firmly for a moment, my heart in my throat, and then he laughed—a crass, snorting sound—folding over as the insanity of a glowing teenager obviously struck him.
“This must be some crazy whiskey,” he said.
I snatched the bottle from him and unscrewed the lid. “Then give me some more. I wanna see people glow blue too.”
David stood miraculously still as he watched me drink—too still for someone so drunk—and I sucked the liquid down a little slower then, wondering if his inebriation was just an act or if he’d sobered so quickly because he’d seen me glow and wasn’t, for all the whiskey in the world, going to brush it off as his imagination.
I knew then that I would one day have to tell David the truth about me, and if he asked again tonight, it would be sooner rather than later. But I felt like I could trust him. I liked that I could trust him.
“Why do you always stare at me?” I asked, feeling braver with my bottle of Dutch Courage.
He wobbled forward slightly and just smiled, not taking his eyes off me. I loved his dimple—how even when he wasn’t smiling, he still had a very prominent indent just beside his lip. It made his eyes look kinder and gave him a very sweet kind of demeanor, as if he’d grown up in a home with a lot of love. And the way he stared at me now didn’t feel so invasive as it usually did. I felt pretty under that stare, and it was his eyes that made me feel that way.
“I know it bothers you,” he said, looking down for just a moment long enough to make me jealous of his eyelashes. “And I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to. But…”
I waited, but no but followed. “But?”
“But it amazes me sometimes that anyone can be as pretty as you.”
I scoffed in the back of my throat, rolling my eyes.
“No, really.” He stepped in and took my hand. “If you were a girl in a magazine, I’d put your picture on my wall so I could stare at you all day—”
I laughed again.
“I’m not doing it to be creepy, Ara.”
“Which is what makes it creepy,” I stated, my voice high as it came through my smile. “People don’t normally stare at people.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He laughed. “I dunno. Maybe it’s just an artist’s eye appreciating you.”
“You’re an artist?” That surprised me.
“Not the kind Cal is,” he said, taking the flask for another swig.
“What kind then?”
“Maybe I’ll show you,” he offered, saying nothing more about it. And that one act—offering me a deeper part of himself and then pulling it away—left me more curious about him than if he’d just outright told me what his medium is. We walked down the street for a while then, shoulder to shoulder, bumping into each other every now and then when one of us stumbled, and I was stuck in an endless circle of thought the entire time, all of it surrounding him.
Well, him and my sudden inability to walk a straight line. I had thought my metabolism would stop me from getting drunk, but it turned out I was wrong. It wore off quickly though, taking me from a giggling mess to a more sober and serious me by the time we stopped in the middle of the footpath, with a double-story house just across the road from us and a grassy parkland at our backs. I was pretty sure that Lake Richmond sat right beyond the trees, if I had my bearings straight, which meant I was still at least five minutes’ walk from home, so I wasn’t really sure why we’d stopped or why David was dragging me across the road.
The house he led me to stood proudly on its slope, a large white one with many windows and a very welcoming appeal, sort of growing taller the closer we got, as though the view from across the road just couldn’t do its size justice. Stone steps carved a track through a lush flowery garden, ending on a flatter path that seamlessly offered the way up the wooden porch steps. I’d never been to David’s house before, but it looked so familiar to me that I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It was just that kind of house, I guess—the kind you feel at home in from the second you arrive.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
“This is home.” He swung his arm out wide to present the house.
“But you were supposed to walk me to my house.” I smiled, trying not to laugh.
He looked confused for a moment, taking a slight stumble forward. “Oh, right.”
“It’s okay. I’ll just walk from here.” I grabbed his shoulders and steered him toward the front door. “I’m just around the corner anyway.”
“I’m not letting you walk home… a… a…” He looked lost for the right word.
“Alone?”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the air. “That.”
“I’m in better condition than you are.”
He looked at the finger he had aimed to the sky for a long moment, frowning then as though he didn’t recognize it. I laughed.
“Come on, you drunkard.” I gave him a soft push. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Okay but…” He stumbled forward and his hands shot out, catching him a second before he would’ve hit the ground. We both laughed hard as he stood tall again, dusting off his knees. “You have to stay for a bit,” he finished.
“It’s late.” I looked at my watch. It wasn’t that late, but I just wanted to go home.
“Please?” He pouted, giving me puppy eyes.
I looked at the dark house behind him—all the lights out inside—and thought about how he said no one ever hugs him. Then I felt bad.
“Okay. But only if you act sober for a moment while we get you upstairs.”
“Sober, I can do.” He stood straight with a very serious look on his face, until he tipped sideways as if the earth moved and he hadn’t realized.
I laughed, rushing in to steady him. He was pretty heavy, and as my hands caught his chest, I felt the muscles there that I’d never noticed before. He wasn’t as nicely built as Shaun or even Cal, but it made me wonder if every guy my age worked out at the gym, or just the ones I hung out with.
When David’s hand cupped mine against his chest, I looked up into the dark shade of green staring back down at me. He did have very lovely eyes and they warmed so much when he smiled like that. When he smiled at me.
“Were you admiring my chest, Ara-Rose?”
“Admittedly, yes,” I said, making him walk forward. “Before now, I thought you were all skin and bones.”
“And now?” he said.
Now? Well, now I was certain I liked everything out of and under his clothes, but there’s no way I’d ever admit that. “Let’s just get you inside.”
When we reached the top of his porch steps, he stopped for a moment and leaned on the post, digging in his pocket, but he couldn’t seem to find what I assumed were his keys. I checked the pockets of the jacket he’d put on me and didn’t find them either.
“Have you lost them?” I asked.
“Probably.” As he turned toward the door again, I noticed the key-like bulge in his front left pocket.
“Did you check your other pocket?” I suggested.
“Other pocket?”
I stopped him by the rim of his jeans, spinning him around to get the keys. His jeans weren’t that tight, but it was tricky trying to reach into a pocket from this angle. He stumbled back and forth for a bit, giving me a very nice waft of his musky deodorant as he lifted his arms a little. Eventually the keys came free, tangled in a silver necklace he had in there. I tucked it back in and when I looked up at him, rather proud of myself for managing to dig these out, he was standing dead still, all drunkenness seeming to have vanished.
There was a kind of energy pulsing around us then that felt familiar, like when he knelt beside me at school. I’d watched enough TV to know this was a kiss moment, and with any other guy I might have taken the opportunity. But David was drunk, and I wasn’t interested in him that way. These feelings and reactions I got from all the releases of hormones couldn’t be trusted—they made me want things I didn’t want any other time and they made me do things I felt silly for later. I liked David a lot—even more now after tonight—but I wasn’t sure what kind of ‘like’ that was. So I pulled away and searched his keychain for one that looked like a house key.
“I got it,” he said in that lovely deep voice, reaching over my shoulder to pluck them delicately from my hand. “Come on in,” he said, unlocking the door.
I followed him into the dark entrance, my eyes going up the stairs and then to the dining room on our left—a square room with a very big square dining table that could seat about twelve people. There was a matching oak buffet tucked neatly by the wall closest to us, and heavy curtains over the window that made the room look very warm and inviting. It even smelled like fresh bread and cantaloupe.
David closed the door, sheathing us in complete darkness, and motioned for me to follow him to the right, down a short corridor with dark-painted walls and lots of photos. A pair of glass doors opened at the end to reveal a cozy but large den, with a big white fireplace set between high bookshelves, and a baby grand piano in the left corner overlooking a courtyard or something.
“Do you play?” I asked.
“A little,” he said, shutting the doors behind us. He walked around the room and switched on a few lamps, splashing warmth over the furniture and the hardwood floors. It was an incredibly pleasant space, and I imagined his mom must have decorated it with her obvious love for literature. I could smell so many familiar things here, yet didn’t recognize any of them. But my nose told me this was a room where a large family gathered, often.
“So you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. A brother. But he doesn’t live here.” He sat down at the piano. “Why?”
“Do a lot of others live here?”
“Just my uncle, aunt, mom, and my s… my little cousin Harry.”
I sat down on the couch facing the piano. “That’s a pretty big family.”
“It used to be bigger,” he said offhandedly, lifting the piano cover.
&
nbsp; “What do you mean by that—it used to?”
He paused a moment, as if thinking about it. Then his eyes wandered to the mantle and widened suddenly in panic. He leaped up, jumped over the coffee table and ran toward it, quickly laying a photo frame face-down.
I chuckled. “What was that all about?”
“Uh…” He slid the photo off the mantle and buried it in the armchair by the fireplace. “Tragic school photo.”
I laughed again. “Aw, come on, let me see.”
“No way.” He grabbed my hand and stood me up, leading me to the piano stool to sit beside him. “You wanna play a song with me?”
“I don’t play,” I said.
He seemed a bit shocked by that. I figured maybe everyone in his family played and it was weird for him that someone didn’t.
“Well,” he said, relaxing at the shoulders, “you were only born a few months ago, right?”
“Right,” I said with a smile, but I still felt like he thought I was useless.
“Here.” His long, smooth fingertips picked up mine and he placed them against the white keys, spreading them here and there to fit where he wanted them. “This is an A minor—see?” He told me the notes in the chord as he pushed the top of my hand to make me play it. The sound rang warmly through my entire body—connecting with something inside me from long ago. I knew I used to play, but until now I’d never come this close to a piano, never touched one. Brett offered to buy me one, but my heart felt tight when I thought about playing—a bad kind of tight.
I drew my hand back and leaned away slightly from the keys, my whole body rigid.
“What’s wrong?” David asked, very serious and very sober.
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t want to play.”
“Okay.” He wrapped his arm about my shoulders and gave a friendly squeeze, removing his arm immediately after. “Can I play for you?”
With a timid nod, I shuffled sideways and hopped up off the stool, moving back to the couch again. As I slumped down and cuddled a cushion to my lap, David closed his eyes and angled his head to one side a little, as though he was listening to the rhythm of the evening. It occurred to me then that this was his medium. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was certain of it. My friend Cal expressed his love for beauty in the things he painted, but David obviously expressed it through music. I didn’t expect to be all that impressed or awed by a person playing the piano, so when he hit that first chord—the one he just showed me—I was completely taken by surprise.
Bound by Secrets Page 9
