Runaway Girl

by Bailey, Tessa

  “Jesus Christ.” She wipes her eyes. “I should have left it a mystery.”

  “We’ll go with a waltz.”

  Until Birdie flops back on the floor, I don’t notice the imposing figure standing in the doorway. It’s Jason. I have no idea how long he’s been watching us, but it’s impossible to read his expression. But I do notice the lines around his mouth seem deeper than they did this afternoon and that observation causes my amusement to die a quick death.

  “Dinner’s in an hour.” He cuts me a bland look. “You coming?”

  I want to go. I had fun the last time. Real fun. That’s precisely why I shouldn’t accept dinner invitations, I think. My mission in St. Augustine is to learn to do, to live, for myself, before I return to the life of duty of tradition I’ve been groomed for since birth. I can’t help but worry that getting too close to Jason and Birdie might make accepting that role difficult. There needs to be some part of myself I hold back.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll spend the night getting situated.” I splay my fingers over the surface of Birdie’s notebook. “May I keep this for the night?”

  Birdie splits a look between me and her brother as she rises to her feet. “Sure.” She takes a step toward the door. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Count on it.”

  Jason remains in the doorway for a few beats after Birdie bypasses him, watching me with shadowed eyes before leaving. A while later, there’s a knock at my door. When I go to answer it, there’s a plate covered with foil sitting on the top step. And a Budweiser.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ConspiracyCrowd.org

  Username: IWant2Believe2000

  Runaway Bride’s alien abductor was probably a guest at the wedding.

  They operate in plain sight. They are MASTER deceivers.

  Jason

  I stand at the kitchen sink with a beer in my hand, looking for signs of life in Naomi’s apartment. Nothing. She and Birdie don’t share their rehearsal schedule with me—I just shell out the cash—but since my sister isn’t here, I’m pretty sure she’s practicing with her coach.

  I’m not sure what’s worse. Having the beauty queen living above the garage and not seeing her. Or having her live in a dump and bumping into her constantly. Both of those arrangements have their drawbacks. For instance, it has been over a week since we’ve made eye contact and I’m growing more irritable by the day. I wasn’t the only one interested in that kiss. Was I? Did I push too hard like I do with everything else and now she’s nervous around me?

  That’s the worry that has burrowed under my skin since the night she moved in. Forcibly. My style of solving problems is abrasive. Cut and dried logic. The fastest way from point A to B. But I can’t expect other people to see my solutions the same way. I can’t expect Naomi to understand that leaving her in an unsecured location would have cost me sleep.

  Right. As if I’m sleeping.

  Every time I close my eyes, I taste her neck. I haven’t been to a lot of exotic places on vacation, but those hints of blood orange and cedar and grapefruit on her neck make me think of boats on a pond, big trees full of flowers. I can see her in a beach house with loose bracelets tinkling together on her wrist. A glass of wine in her hand. And a tuxedoed gentleman to fetch her another one before she even finishes the first. Someone who knows how to make her comfortable and engage her in a normal, non-antagonistic conversation.

  Someone with class.

  Motherfucker. I should never have performed that internet search.

  As if the weird conspiracy theory sites speculating on Naomi’s whereabouts weren’t bad enough…I can put a face to her ex-fiancé now. All it took was their wedding announcement to know the score. Naomi Clemons, of the Charleston Clemonses, had been preparing to marry the goddamn future mayor. A millionaire with an honorable service history, even if he didn’t see the kind of brutal conditions and combat I’ve been involved in. Very few men have, though. That’s why it’s impossible for me to forget that kill-or-be-killed battles are taking place now. Now. At any given moment. And I’m standing here drinking a beer, thinking about the neck of a woman who probably scrubbed the spot where my mouth touched.

  I slap the beer bottle down on the counter with a curse. Apparently, I’ve lost my self-respect, because it doesn’t seem to matter that Naomi isn’t interested. Or that she’s set on going back to her fiancé. I can’t stop thinking about her. The awkward dance I sense we’re doing to avoid each other in the driveway is gnawing at me. Over the course of the last week, I’ve watched a change happen in Birdie. She still wears the grief of losing Natalie on her sleeve, but she’s out the door earlier for school, testing her blood sugar more regularly, eating better. We still don’t have a lot to say to each other when we end up in the kitchen at the same time, but I’m paying attention. It’s the beauty queen making the difference.

  Because of that, I feel the annoying need to make an effort. Naomi doesn’t want my mouth anywhere near her? Fine. Doesn’t mean she has to sneak up the steps to her apartment, trying not to press down on the creaky middle one. I don’t want to make her nervous. If I were a hospitable man, I might even want her to feel welcome.

  Caging a growl in my throat, I push away from the window. Right now, I need to get out of the house. It’s too quiet. My mind interprets quiet to mean danger, which is why the nightmares creep in during the dead silence of night. Images from last night’s dreams project themselves on the backs of my eyelids, only now they’re woven through with the pictures I found on the internet. The handsome couple posing in front of a stately home, a soft smile curving the feminine lips I still want to taste, despite everything. Goddammit.

  Before I’ve made a conscious decision where I’m going, I grab my house keys off the peg and walk out the front door.

  I seem to recall writing out a check a few days ago to a church. Rental space in their basement? Yeah, I think that was it. I don’t question these things, but I’m thankful now for my airtight memory. Birdie’s explanation about needing more room to practice her walk went in one ear and out the other at the time, but I dig for the name of the place now. Ancient City? Definitely Baptist. A quick address search on my phone later and I’m in the truck, headed in the direction of the church. I’m not sure if men are welcome at pageant practice, but I’m about to find out.

  The church is mostly empty when I walk in through the front double doors. A woman arranges silk flowers around the centered podium, a custodian with headphones in his ears vacuums the carpet. Neither one of them spares me a glance as I stride down the aisle toward the basement, and my jaw clenches. Good to know the security is on the up-and-up. I should have come with Naomi and Birdie to make sure they were safe.

  When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I walk into what can only be described as mayhem. Naomi is losing a battle with a stereo from the nineties and an iPhone adapter. Birdie is fighting an equally difficult war with tears, and a young man I don’t recognize is pacing, flushed exasperation clouding his face.

  “I don’t even have my walk down yet,” Birdie says, swiping the back of her wrist beneath her eyes. “Why am I learning the dance already?”

  “The pageant is in a month, Birdie. We have to learn them simultaneously.” Naomi is facing away from my sister, so I’m the only one who can see her eyes closed, her mouth moving in a silent plea for patience. “The choreography might seem impossible right now, but we will get there. Eventually the waltz will click.”

  “Not before I break his toes.”

  The night Naomi moved into the apartment above the garage, I heard her singing all the way in my kitchen. It was so bad, I assumed she was playing a joke. But when I stepped in through the doorway and saw the concentration line between her eyes, my theory was dashed. She’s a horrific singer, which I never would have seen coming in a million years, since everything else about her is fine-tuned almost to a fault. Her bearing, her manner, her appearance. While standing on the threshold, I realized Naomi was revealin
g her flaw for Birdie’s benefit. That’s why I couldn’t walk away without asking her to come to dinner. I just couldn’t do it.

  While they laughed, still not realizing I stood there watching, I remember Naomi telling Birdie they would hire a partner to perform the waltz with her. I decide I don’t like him when he bends down to massage his toes, giving Birdie a pointed look.

  Naomi gets the stereo working and the strains of violin fill the basement. “Let’s try it again.” Her smile is bright and positive. “Positions, please.”

  Birdie groans. “Can my position be prone?”

  Mister Toes rolls his eyes. Yeah, really not liking him.

  The first few steps of the routine are impressive. I’ve never even seen my sister dance, but the instructor must be good because she’s got posture and rhythm I wasn’t aware she had. After fifteen or so seconds, however, they lose momentum and Birdie’s foot slams down on her instructor’s foot. With a groan, she plops heavily onto the floor.

  Naomi hides her disappointment well as she returns to the stereo in a few quick steps. That’s when she notices me. “Oh. Mr. Bristow.”

  I bite down on the impulse to remind her my name is Jason. “Yeah.” Feeling Birdie’s surprise, I send her a nod. “Hey.”

  She stands, wiping the floor’s dust from the seat of her jeans, reminding me of when she was a second grader playing Barbies versus Monsters with Natalie in the front yard. Before I enlisted. Long before my parents moved away. So long ago, I don’t remember what I worried or thought about back then, besides my first boat and how fast I could enlist.

  The sharp focus of before and after catches me hard. Reminds me of what I missed when I left. Those last years of Natalie’s baton competitions, school plays and first boyfriends. Birdie getting older and transforming into this quick-witted ball-buster with an iron will. There’s also what I’m missing now. The sounds of battle are always in the back of my mind, pulling me. Making me feel utterly out of place and helpless in this stale basement. It’s not a feeling I handle well. At all.

  “I’m not paying to have you sit around,” I snap, attempting to jab a hole in the tension in my chest. The air in the room turns frosty. Naomi slowly sets down the iPhone and crosses her arms. Birdie doesn’t move at all. I couldn’t give a shit about the partner’s reaction…I just know I’ve fucked up and clearly hurt my sister’s feelings. Who am I to criticize her when she’s throwing herself outside her comfort zone to honor our sister? All I know how to do is work, provide, repeat. She’s not only allowed herself to feel the loss of Natalie, she’s leaning into it.

  I need to fix this fast. How, though?

  Naomi draws my attention. So perfect and pretty in her fluttery yellow top and white jeans. But she’s not perfect, is she? No, she sings like a choking cat.

  That’s what gives me the idea. A terrible one, obviously. Dancing is meant to be graceful and requires the kind of coordination I’m not sure I have, since I haven’t attempted to dance since high school—and I was still getting used to my size fourteen feet back then. If I make this attempt, there’s a very good chance I’ll make a fool out of myself. No, it’s a certainty. Birdie is shrinking more and more into herself as the seconds tick past, though, and I have to act.

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

  “Show me how to do it.” I roll my neck. “Let’s give it a shot.”

  “What?” Some of the ice melts in Birdie’s eyes. “Shut up.”

  It occurs to me too late that if I waltz to make my sister feel better, I’ll either have to partner with her. Or Naomi. Considering our resident Southern belle has been avoiding me for a week, I’m pretty sure she’d rather dance with a giant lizard than partner with me. So I’m surprised when the music kicks off again and she steps forward. “I think that’s a lovely idea.”

  Naomi understands what I’m doing. It’s there in the softness of her voice. There’s no denying my pulse triples when she sails up to me, joining my right hand to her left, placing her opposite one on my shoulder. Christ, I didn’t forget how beautiful she is, but her nuances—a scattering of light freckles on her nose, the sexy indent at the top center of her bow lips—they blow me away now. Did I really almost kiss this woman? Was I fucking crazy to try?

  “I’m going to lead for the sake of teaching,” she murmurs, her blue eyes ticking up to mine. “We’ll have to be just a touch closer.”

  I swallow hard. “Come on then.”

  There’s a momentary hesitation on her part. That tongue skates out to wet her lips, the flyaway blonde hairs around her forehead seem to quiver. One step forward, though, and her tits flatten against my belly, her breath bathing the hollow of my throat. I take the opposite tact and stop breathing altogether, just not fast enough to bar the grapefruit-cedar and blood orange scents entrance to my nose. She feels so small against me, but substantial. Feminine. Alive.

  Pull it together.

  Now is not the time to lust after Naomi. My sister and that punk are watching me—the exact wrong time to let my dick get hard. Maybe I can make progress here, too. Naomi is giving me another chance to be her…what? Her friend?

  I resist the urge to curse as Naomi steps forward. Closer. Our bodies press together so tightly, I can’t help but think of dragging her higher, getting her legs around my hips, her tuxedoed future mayor be damned. I’d fuck you better.

  “When I step forward,” she whispers, her face pink. “You have to step back.”

  “Right,” I rasp. “Got it.”

  She lifts up on her toes a little and I feel her stiff nipples through my shirt. Fuck. A simple, physical response to friction or something more? I can’t tell anything from the way she’s staring at my throat. “We’re moving in a box. One, two, three. Feel it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, checking the urge to press my cheek to her hair, like some kind of smitten suitor from the fifties. “I didn’t mean to snap at her.”

  “I know,” she responds right away. “Look at her. She’s forgotten all about it.”

  She’s right. Over Naomi’s head, I can see my sister frowning in concentration, doing a pretty damn good job of keeping up with her partner, who clearly is the more experienced of the two. I’d like to point out to Mister Toes that Birdie is the one dancing in high heels, but it’s probably better to keep my mouth shut this time around.

  My blown-out sigh brings Naomi closer, her fingers flexing where they twine with mine, but I know she’s just trying to reassure me. It’s not what I want it to be. Maybe what we have is destined to be something else. A unique brand of friendship—and I’ll have to learn to be happy with that.

  Sure.

  *

  I wake up with sweat pouring down my face, my chest. Explosives continue to go off above me, sparks pinging the surface of the water. No, not the water. They’re right there in my bedroom, smoke rising on the shoreline. Voices shout, chopper blades whirr above, in place of my ceiling fan. The urge to dive from my bed onto the floor is fierce and I’ve followed through with it many times before, but this time I dig my fingers into the mattress and breathe. One, two, three, four…

  By the time I reach ten, the smoke is beginning to fade, along with the taste of gunpowder and sand. As always, there’s a plea repeating itself in the back of my head. Please let everyone have gotten out. Please let everyone have gotten out. Long after I’m grounded in my bedroom, though, the mantra continues because I know somewhere, thousands of miles away, it’s counting for something. I’m meant to be there. I’m meant to be doing my job.

  Unlike the reflex to take cover, the need to punish my body with exertion is unshakeable. I’m out of the bed and shoving my feet into sneakers, rifling through a pile of folded laundry at the same time. Towels. All towels. With a growl, I forgo the shirt and move silently through the dark bedroom toward the door. Get out. Get out. Move.

  I’m through the kitchen in seconds and twisting the knob to the back door. It brings me out onto the driveway—where I almost mow Naomi down like a
n ocean liner cutting through a dingy. “What the hell?”

  “Oh shoot. Oh Lord.” She presses shaking hands to her chest, which is no wonder since I shouted at her like a fucking lunatic. “You scared the life out of me.”

  “What are you doing out here? It’s…” I have no idea what time it is. “Late.”

  “Early, actually. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I ran down to my car for…” Her gaze drops to my sweaty chest complete with matted hair. “My yoga mat was in the trunk. Did you just come back from a run? I didn’t pass you…”

  My voice is raw when I answer. “No.”

  “Do you have the shaky sweats again?” Naomi whispers.

  I say nothing. I’m usually through half a mile by now and still nowhere close to normal. Having a conversation is not in my wheelhouse right now. I’m a sweating jumble of nerves and guilt and frustration, while she’s fresh and gorgeous in a baby-blue nightgown. God, she doesn’t even look real, she’s so out of place in my black driveway among my whirlwind of thoughts. But I can’t just blow her off. We’ve started waving at each other through the kitchen window when she passes on the way to her apartment every day. It’s better than nothing. I don’t want to give that up.

  Naomi sets down the yoga mat she’s had tucked underneath her arm. I’ve never felt more oversized and awkward as I do watching her carefully tuck her nightgown beneath her tush and take a seat on my back stoop. She pats a spot on the brickwork beside her. “Did I ever tell you about the invasion of Normandy?”

  An electrified spike rises under my skin. My breathing comes faster. She’s offering me a kindness, and for some reason, it goes against the very grain of my existence to accept it. I’m not earning it. I’ve completed no mission. I’ve done nothing to warrant a favor. “I don’t need your help. I didn’t ask.”

  She cups her knees in her hands and waits, the moon making her face look silver, instead of its usual creamy peach. “On my drive to St. Augustine, I pulled over at a gas station in my wedding dress to use the bathroom. I fell on my butt and…” With a sniff, she picks an invisible speck off her nightgown. “I peed myself a little. A stranger saw it and everything. The woman who helped me hold my dress while I relieved myself asked me if I got excited.”