by Keri Lake
TY: Tell me.
TY: I won’t bother you again
Which was probably for the best—so why did my hands shake as they hovered over the keyboard? Why did my thighs clench with urgency at the thought of not seeing him again?
Because I was a masochist, plain and simple.
I had an affinity for pain. Not the physical variety, but the deep-seated emotional shit that left a person a sobbing pile of self-destruction afterward. My mother’d called it passion, and she would’ve known, as many men as she’d brought into our home. She’d told me it was the curse of being an artist, always seeking inspiration, absorbing heartache and tragedy like a lovesick sponge in order to create beauty. Through her, I learned that, with love came pain and sacrifice, which effectively kept me from forming any Cinderella complexes when it came to men.
I’d tried to deny my attraction to Ty, to hold tight to what little self-control I could muster around him, but something about the guy drew me in. Like a suicidal moth to a wildfire, he kept pulling me into his heat. Luring me with the promise of something exquisite. Both frightening and exhilarating.
ME: What do you want from me?
TY: Do I get to pick more than one thing?
I captured a quiet chuckle in the palm of my hand and looked around again to see that no one had heard it.
TY: I’ll pick you up tonight.
ME: For what?
After a minute of waiting for him to text again, I sent another.
ME: Hello?
No answer. I shoved the pen into my mouth and chewed on the already gnawed plastic, wishing I could slingshot every butterfly in my stomach.
* * *
Holy sexy beast, Batman. Is that his bike?” Bea stared out the window, as I gathered up my messenger bag, crossing it over the front of me.
I paused only for a second—or two—to look out the window beside her, catching a glimpse Ty casually seated on his motorcycle, smoking a cigarette, with the black helmet resting on his thigh. Jesus, did he have to look so good? “It’ll be an early night. I promise.”
“I doubt it. Not with that thing rumbling between your thighs. Not to mention that sexy bike, too.”
With a roll of my eyes, I shook my head and made my way toward the door. I’d texted Ty earlier, letting him know I’d meet him out front. No sense in making it a formal date, or anything. By telling myself we were just hanging out, I could lose the expectations, and perhaps not crawl into bed feeling like some hormonal teenage squirrel trying to get a nut.
“You’re taking your books? What for?” Bea asked, as I slipped on my Chucks.
“We’re just hanging out. I might try to get some reading done.”
Snorting a laugh, she crossed her arms. “Girlfriend, I don’t know what kind of denial you’ve talked yourself into, but I’ll bet you a dozen Krispy Kremes you ride more than that Ducati tonight.”
Never so sure about a bet before in my life, I threw open the door. “You’re on.”
“The fresh ones!” She called after me, as I ambled toward the elevators. “Not the grocery store knock offs!”
* * *
Ty rolled to a stop at the curb along Heidelberg Street, and I sat up on the bike and tugged the helmet off, staring down the long block lined with trees at either side. Streetlamps offered just enough light to see the colorful artwork painted across the exterior of every house, a stark contrast to the tired and dilapidated ones we’d passed along Mount Elliott. Artwork sat propped along the sidewalks, pictures of clocks and faces, flags and numbers and buildings. Like a garage sale of artwork, neatly arranged in tight rows, up and down the dimly lit path. The house across from us wore large round circles, decorated in different colors—not a single bit of graffiti anywhere in sight.
Gaze glued to the house, I clambered off the bike and crossed the street, fascinated by the attention to symmetry and balance. Running my hand over an old baby doll sat in a chair out in the front yard, I glanced around to find each house carried a theme. A story, told in the pieces carefully set to match their design.
Ty walked up beside me, and we both stood staring around at the unusual exhibit. “The Heidelberg Project. According to stories I’ve read, an artist returned to this neighborhood where he’d grown up, to find it teeming with gangs, drugs, poverty. A real shithole. He’d apparently lost three brothers to the streets already, and I guess, the story goes, one day he picked up a paintbrush and a broom and started cleaning the place up himself. Turned all the abandoned houses into sculptures and canvases.”
Still struck with awe, I smiled, looking down the rows of houses covered in art, just as he’d described. An entire neighborhood art exhibit. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s incredible.”
“Thought you might like it.” Tucking his helmet under his arm, he stuffed his other hand into his pocket, gaze sweeping across the surroundings and back. “I actually kind of stumbled upon this block a couple years ago. Thought it was a bunch of junk.” His lips widened to a grin I wanted to smack, but I opted for a light slap to his arm instead.
“You’re horrible.”
“You gotta admit. It’s a little cluttered.”
“It’s art. And it goes to show. You can turn the most broken thing into something beautiful again.”
“Maybe.”
Slipping my hand into the crook of his elbow, I tugged him to walk with me. “Why maybe?”
“Things can be too broken to fix sometimes.”
“I didn’t say fix. That’s the beauty of art. It’s never considered ruined.”
“Ever check out Picasso? I’d say that shit’s messed up.”
I shook my head and chuckled, giving a squeeze to his arm. “You’re seriously upsetting the art gods now. We’ll probably get rained on.”
Ty glanced up at the sky and shrugged. “Wouldn’t be so bad. Seeing you wet. That T-shirt clinging to you.”
“You pretty much had a green light the last time we went out,” I said, as we continued down the dark block. “Why didn’t you seize the moment?”
“You’d want that in some dirty parking lot beside an abandoned building? Like some cheap back alley fuck?”
Watching the chalked circles pass beneath my shoes on the sidewalk, I frowned and slipped my arm out from his, coming to a stop in front of a house plastered in stuffed animals. “I never said that.”
“You’re better than that, Sera. You deserve better than that.” He took my hand, weaving his fingers between mine. “You don’t think I want you that way? You’re wrong. I’m just trying not to be a dick about it. ‘S’like you said about art. Taking something broken and trying to make it beautiful. I’ve had women that way since I was sixteen years old. It’s different with you.”
I resumed walking beside him, wondering if I might finally begin to understand him. Maybe it’d be the night I finally peeled back some of the obscure layers that made him such a frustrating enigma.
It irritated the hell out of me, the way my mind yearned to figure him out. Each moment I spent with him, I sopped up more and more potential for heartbreak, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself. A part of me ached to be his heartbreak, too. “What makes it so different with me?”
“Just is.”
Much as I wanted to push him, I didn’t want him pushing me away, so I dropped it.
It took about fifteen minutes to reach the end of the block, and we circled back along the opposite side of the street, my eyes feasting on the sculptures placed inside a fenced-in garden. As I stood reading the signs that described each of the projects, Ty lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the back of my palm.
“Thank you for this,” I said. The reverence in his expression as he lowered my hand brought a smile to my face. “I enjoyed it. You really have taken me to places I’ve never been before.”
With my arm caught in his grasp, he tugged me closer, staring down at me, the unknowns of the universe swirling in those blue irises.
“I like how I feel around you.”
/> Studying his chest, I traced the bit of skin peeking out of his shirt. “And how is that?”
“Good. You make me feel good, Sera.” He pushed the hair behind my ears and tucked his finger beneath my chin, tipping my head back.
“You make me feel good, too, Ty.”
Thumb tracing my bottom lip, his eyes locked onto mine. “I’ve got one more place you’ve never been.”
“Oh, yeah? Where’s that?” I dared to ask.
“Mine.”
* * *
Sure you don’t want to sit next to me?” Ty asked, his naturally-predatory eyes crinkled with amusement.
Holding my breath, I dared to look down the five stories below me. And to the left, where Ty sat with his feet dangling over the ledge, seeming completely unaffected by the nearly fifty feet to the concrete that’d surely crush his bones on impact.
“Yeah, I’ll pass.” I slid back from the edge and plopped down on the gravely bed of the building’s rooftop. Through a narrow opening, wedged between a bar and a hardware store, we’d climbed the staircase all the way to the top. “When you said your place, I think I had something less treacherous in mind.”
“It is my place. There’s an apartment above the bar.”
“You live above a bar? Must keep things lively, huh?”
He shrugged and glanced out toward the seemingly endless Detroit skyline. “I prefer to be up here. It’s quiet. Nobody bothers me. I can just … think.”
I’d begun to see how my co-worker Neveah was right about Ty, how he kept to himself sometimes, and only revealed what he wanted you to see. And yet, he continued to pursue me, in spite of the many times I’d chosen to back off, keeping my distance from the inevitable pain of falling in love with someone like him.
He seemed to be keeping his distance, too, perhaps for the same reasons.
“What do you think about?” I asked.
A quick glance to the side, and he spun so his feet straddled the ledge.
“You, mostly.”
Pulled again. Don’t fall for the bait, Sera.
“What, how much you want to throw me over the edge?” I chuckled and looked up to find he didn’t so much as smile at that. Picking at the gravel, I shook my head. “Sorry. I read a creepy story last weekend that’s just kind of stuck with me since.”
“What was the story?” Resting his foot on the ledge, he brushed off the crumbled bits of concrete that fell to the rooftop with a quiet tapping sound.
“It was on the news. I guess some guy had a pretty gruesome accident with a wood chipper. But they’re suspecting foul play. As in … somebody threw him into that wood chipper.” The visuals wound around my spine, and I shivered again, unable to shake the horrific nature of it. “Some people are beyond help.”
“You’re assuming the victim was innocent.”
“Are you saying he deserved to die that way?”
He shrugged and looked off toward the skyline and back. “What if the victim wasn’t a victim, at all? What if the killer was actually doing the world a favor?”
“You sound like my father. Making heroes out of criminals.”
“Some people aren’t what they seem. How do you know the victim didn’t do something equally as horrific? You said it yourself, you believe in killing when there’s purpose behind it. Is it any worse than a woman cutting off a man’s head?”
Touché. “You should really consider a career in criminal defense. I think you’d be far more successful than me.” I smiled, dropping the handful of gravel I’d collected in my palm. “I suppose if the victim had done something horrible, like killed, or molested, a child, then yes, he probably had it coming.”
“You’re going to make a horrible criminal defense attorney.”
Laughing, I pulled my knees into my body, wrapping my arms around my bent legs. “You always have a way of making me see two sides of a story. It’s a gift, you know.”
From his shirt pocket, he pulled a cigarette, shoving it into his mouth as he fished in his pants until he slipped out a lighter. Cupping the end of his smoke, he flipped a Zippo, and his cheeks hollowed as he sucked in a drag.
“You should stop smoking.” Arms still wrapped around my knees, I rocked back and forth.
“Yeah? Why’s ‘at?” He blew the smoke off to the side and thumbed the bridge of his nose.
“It’d be tragic if the world lost you to something so meaningless as cancer.”
“The world? Or you?”
I pushed up from the ground and came to a stand beside him, resting my elbows on the ledge. “So, why do you really come up here?” I asked, ignoring his question. “I know it’s not to sit and think about me all day.”
Tipping away just enough to coil my stomach, he looked down the side of the building and back. “Perspective.” He jutted his chin. “Look at those cars down there, tooling around, always in a hurry to get somewhere. It’s almost funny from up here. What the hell are they so worried about, you know? They have their whole fuckin’ lives to get from here to there, and they get pissed off when they hit a traffic light.”
Looking out over the small bit of traffic, I could see what he was saying, how the cars below took off at one light and came to a slamming stop at the next. I could almost hear my father’s grumbling whenever the clock threatened tardiness to something—mostly his meetings—and we’d get caught at every traffic light.
But then I thought of my mother, and the night we took her into the hospital, and how the drive seemed endless. How I just wanted her to get where she’d be okay again. The moment we’d arrived at the ER, they’d whisked her out of the back of the ambulance so quickly, I didn’t have time to say goodbye, let alone tell her how important she was to me.
“Maybe they don’t have their whole lives, though.” I dropped my gaze from his, focusing on my fingers curled around the edge of the building. “Maybe there’s a cancer they don’t even know about, growing inside their bodies, and one day, it’ll just pluck them right out of that car, as if their whole life, every good thing they’d done, didn’t even matter.”
His brows flickered, and I could see that he understood my grief, that he’d felt it, too. That was what made Ty different from every other guy I’d dated, the ones who had everything and no one ever stole what they loved.
I’d come to trust people by how much pain their eyes held, and his bore the endless depths of sorrow.
“You’re wrong. The good things do matter, Sera.”
“Maybe. What about your father? You never told me how he—”
“Fire. Devil’s Night. There were four of them. They set our house on fire. I wasn’t there.” Every word from his mouth arrived clipped and cold, as if he didn’t want them to touch him.
The visuals of his father having burned alive sent a shudder through my bones. I’d always considered that to be the worst way to die. “Murdered?”
“Yeah.” He shifted, his brows pinching together, and I reached out to stroke his face, but he turned away from me. Not wanting me to touch him, either.
Like a sealed vault.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” I lowered my hand, the slap of rejection stinging my cheek.
For a moment, I thought I’d caught a glimpse of Ty’s heart, but it turned out, I was still scratching at his skin. Within seconds, something had changed, the air had charged with angry electricity, as though I’d hit the wrong button. However long ago it’d happened, the murder of his father still ran hot through his blood, which I’d learned in enough grief counseling sessions was a sign that he hadn’t accepted it and moved on.
“Yeah. I should get you home.”
Another crank of the vault door squealed inside my head. Why he’d go through so much trouble to get me there—to feel something for him, some kindred pain, only to turn me away—was a frustration that ate at my thoughts, as I gathered my bag.
Ty slid from the ledge, his boots hitting the gravel beside me, and I didn’t bother to look at him as I made my way toward th
e rooftop door.
The push and pull with him had officially become exhausting. He reminded me of a child, begging for my toy, and the moment he’d earned enough sympathy from me to hand it over, he shoved it away. Maybe I’d given him the wrong toy. Or maybe he’d just wanted to borrow it for a while, then toss it away once he’d grown bored of it.
What started as a small seed of frustration blew into full-on irritation that needled at me, as we descended the dark staircase. It prodded my muscles to freeze, where we stood halfway to the landing, and spin around.
“What toy are you asking for, Ty?” In spite of the low volume, every word echoed down the stairwell. “The one I refuse to share with anyone else, or the one I give you just so you’ll keep playing with me?”
The perplexed expression stamped on his face urged me to continue.
“I feel like every time I start to trust you, or start to feel something for you, it’s your cue to push me away. Why bother to pull me in so hard? What is it that you want from me? Sex? Sympathy? Am I a source of amusement for you?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t even bother to look at me, and I shook my head, at a complete loss of how to crack the vault he’d cranked so damn tight, I was surprised it hadn’t busted off its hinges.
“I didn’t want this. I told you in the beginning, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I still don’t know that I want that. But you snuck in somehow. You broke through my barriers, and now I want something from you. If it’s friends, okay, let’s be friends. Talk to me. If it’s lovers, then …” I swallowed a harsh gulp, trying not to give in to the urge to look away. “Isn’t that why you brought me here? To fuck me?”
His eye twitched at that, but the rest of him remained stiff and unmoving. As if everything I’d said had bounced off the steel door of his vault while he laughed somewhere inside.
“You know what? Forget it.” I spun around, continuing back down the stairs. “I’ll call a cab. Thanks for—”
The wall crashed into my spine, sending a spasm of pain to my head. Ty gripped my throat, his nostrils flared in anger and his furious shark eyes damn near burning right through me.
