One Life

by A. J. Pine

  During a pause in the buzzing noise, I hear a throat clear. A decidedly male throat clears, and my exhibitionist roommate answers the sound.

  “Too much for you? You want to take a break?” Though her voice teases, lilts on the first you, the words are also peppered with concern.

  “Let’s just go find some assy coffee,” I whisper-shout, and Spock stifles a laugh . . . yet we’re too late.

  “Ow!” the male voice yells.

  “Shit!” I hear, this time from a girl. “Shit,” the voice says again, this time with more control. “The new roommate’s here.”

  Spock and I freeze where we stand, steps outside her door. Why we don’t move is beyond me, because we look like sad excuses for a pair of TV detectives. And when a petite girl with strawberry blond victory rolls, cherry red lips, and powder blue rubber-glove-covered hands walks out of the room, I decide we’re more than a sad excuse. We’re the shittiest detectives there are, because this girl is so not pleasuring herself in that room. She’s murdering someone.

  “Delores?” I ask, the tiniest quaver in my voice.

  Her torso is covered only by a thin, white tank, her polka-dotted bra in plain view underneath. My mouth turns up in a grin at this smallest of connections between us. Delores’s arms are covered in ink, my eyes traveling down each one to where her gloved hands rest on her hips. Other than her cutoff denim shorts, her legs are bare. Feet too, with toes painted the same crimson as her lips.

  “Blue. You’re early,” she says, still no trace of a smile.

  My hand reaches instinctively to the blue hair at my nape. I’ve gotten so used to it over the past few weeks, I forget that it’s new to those who don’t know me.

  “Actually, we were supposed to be here an hour ago,” I admit.

  “Then you’re late. Either way, I wasn’t expecting you, but here you are.” She looks at Spock. Naturally, this is what brings on the smile. “Is he yours, or is he up for grabs?” she asks.

  My mouth opens to answer, but then I close it again. It’s not because I’m taken aback by this girl’s bluntness. I can handle someone like her. Hell, I am someone like her. It’s the question, the one for which I don’t have an answer, that stops me in my tracks.

  “Zach,” Spock says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts. I guess the instinct to shake hands disappears when the other person is wearing smudged rubber gloves. Smudged with what is the question. “Except with Zoe.” He looks at me with a soft smile, a shy one even. That smile could melt me to a puddle if he holds it too long. “For her, I’m Spock.”

  That damn smile filters into his words, and I want to ask if his response is an answer to her question. To my question. To the freaking Vulcan-eared elephant that’s been hanging around for a month.

  “Hmm,” Delores says. “Not up for grabs. Too bad.”

  Spock doesn’t correct her. Instead he looks at me and shrugs. Shrugs. Fine. I can play this game too. I shrug back, brows raised as if to say, Bring. It. On. Whatever there is between us, he’s the one who initiated distance back when we met. He’s the one who showed up at my door when Wyatt died. And now he’s here, moving me into my new place and coming with me to meet my favorite graphic novelist, Faith Erin Hicks, the creator of Superhero Girl. Ball is in his court. I will leave him wide open to take a shot and see how he does.

  “Hey, Dee,” the male voice calls from inside her room. “You gonna finish me up or what?”

  Delores blinks, and her face softens for a second before she utters the first word. “Shit,” she says. “Forgot about him. I gotta finish Tommy. Your room is right there.” She points to a door across the narrow hallway from hers, and I notice two more doors on the same wall. “Yours.” She points again. “Bathroom,” she says, eyeing the room in the middle. “And my room.”

  My brows furrow. “The ad said this was a two-bedroom. I didn’t sign on for two roommates.” I can’t help the irritation in my voice. The last thing I want is two people to deal with. I lucked out with Jess not being a big partier, even joining me in my Shirley Temple imbibing in lieu of alcohol. But if I’m living with two twentysomethings, what are the odds of both of them not being big drinkers?

  “It’s just us, sweetheart,” Delores says, nodding at the door behind her. “This is my studio. Fully licensed and everything. I’ll even give you the roommate discount.”

  Delores’s Craigslist ad said she was an artist looking to share creative space with another artist. I figured she painted or drew, like me.

  The buzzing, the rubber gloves, the apparent subject of her art being another human being. Finally it clicks.

  “You do tattoos?” I ask, and she nods.

  “What did you think I was doing in there?” she asks, and Spock lets out a chuckle under his breath. Delores rolls her eyes, but the first sign of a grin appears.

  “You two can unpack. I’ll be done within the hour, and then I can show you around the neighborhood.”

  I nod and grab Spock’s hand, pulling him toward what, for the next three months, will be my bedroom door.

  Not a midday exhibitionist masturbator. Not a murderer. Only slightly surly. And she’s a body artist. I’ve colored my hair, pierced everything I’ve pierced. Why not ink? I take this as a sign, one that says it’s time to do something for Wyatt, something to make sure I never forget.

  “I’ll take you up on that discount,” I say as I back Spock and myself toward the door. And there it is, a cherry-red smile.

  “You got it, sweetheart.”

  Then it’s just me and him, a knowing look in his eyes as they lock on mine. Spock pushes me through the door and kicks it shut behind him, a deliberate crossing of a line. Funny, though. Seems like we left the elephant outside.

  Chapter Six

  Spock moves toward me, and I stand my ground. I’m not going to back up, not going to give him any indication that I don’t want this, that I’m hesitating. We’ve shared a bed before, but only so we both had a place to sleep. And then he kissed me, awakened the desire I never let rise to the surface. But it’s here now, and I’m fucking sick of waiting and wondering. This is something, or it’s over when he goes back to Madison.

  He doesn’t hesitate either. In seconds he’s in front of me, his head dipped in my direction. His hair brushes the top of mine, and all it would take is me standing on my toes to reach him. My decision is made, though. Spock has to make his.

  “Zoe?” he asks, his voice soft and deep. His warm breath floats in the air between us, and though it’s been a month, the familiarity of him is still there. My senses recognize every detail, and I can almost taste the memory of his mouth on mine.

  “Yes, Mr. Nolan?”

  A small laugh escapes with his breath.

  “So we’re getting formal now, huh, Miss Adler?”

  I shrug, the small movement enough to rock my body forward into the negligible space between us. My lips could be on him in the space of a sigh. But I let him sweat it out, skimming my teeth across my bottom lip.

  “Well . . . Miss Adler. I have this problem.”

  “What’s your problem?” I keep my tone light, ignore the building need to find some freaking way to touch him. Nope, nope, nope.

  He blows out a breath, and there’s that small laugh again.

  “My problem is that I make excuses—for everything. And I still think we made the right choice not to start anything when we met, when we knew I was leaving, but . . .”

  His voice strains, raspy with need, and I wonder how we ignored this energy, the charged air between us, when we met so many months ago. I never questioned our arrangement either, because I knew in the long run it would be better for both of us. He left unencumbered on his tour, and I didn’t have to worry about falling for a guy just so he could leave.

  “But what?” I ask, and I roll my eyes at myself, not caring if he notices, because he for sure hears the undisguised ache in my voice too.

  “But I’m not with the band anymore. I’m not traveling. And I
’m not able to think about anything—about anyone—but you. And . . . I want to kiss you again, at the right time. Maybe last month was too soon, but I’d wanted to kiss you since the day you walked up to me at that con and told me I laughed too much for a Vulcan.”

  At this I breathe in, the sound sharp and audible to both of us.

  “It wasn’t our time then,” he adds. “No matter how much I wanted it to be. And at your parents’ house? I should have waited.”

  I hear apology in his voice, but that’s not where my focus goes. Instead I’m back at the con the day we met. He wanted it too.

  His hands find my face, then slide down to my neck, and I lean into one of his palms like a cat starved for one more scratch behind the ear.

  “Maybe it’s the right time now,” he says, any hint of a question gone from his tone.

  “Maybe?” I ask, one final tease all I have left in me.

  “Actually, no,” he says. “I just checked our itinerary. Our time isn’t for another eleven minutes. So . . . sorry.”

  He steps back, and I fist his shirt. “Fucking kiss me, Nolan. Stop talking. Stop teasing, and kiss the hell out of me. Now.”

  His eyes go wide as a devious smirk spreads across his face.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  His last word is muffled as his lips descend on mine. Last time he was careful. We hadn’t seen each other for six months, and our reunion happened under less-than-stellar circumstances. I didn’t know it then, but he was holding back more than I understood.

  His need coupled with mine propels us across the floor until my back lands against the window, the metal mini blinds a near casualty of our force. He smiles against me, his mouth opening and his tongue brushing across my Superman stud. As he licks the small hoop on the corner of my bottom lip, his hands trace the contours of my face, paying special attention to the tiny diamond in my nose, the other hoop in my brow. Kisses follow his fingers, devoting equal attention to each of my bejeweled features. Well, the ones on my face at least.

  I only have seconds to fantasize about what he’ll think of those that lie under my shirt before one hand skims my collarbone and travels lightly over my breast.

  “Jesus,” he says, his face buried in my neck. “This is fast, too fast, right? Tell me to slow down, and I will. Tell me to back the fuck off, Zoe, that we aren’t ready for this.”

  I shake my head but can’t find the words. Because yes, it is fast. But at the same time it feels like this has been months in the making, and I know he feels it too. What he doesn’t feel—what he can’t know—is how my need is so much more than I let on. Maybe this is what we wanted but couldn’t have before. Now I need him to help me cover up what I’m trying to leave behind. I knew things would be better distancing myself from home, the lawsuit, Mom needing someone to blame. But with Spock, I can almost forget entirely.

  He satisfies not just my desire but also serves as my distraction, and I tell myself that it’s okay to want him like this.

  He groans, kisses me harder, and I arch my back, pushing myself into his palm.

  “Shit, Zoe. I’ve wanted this for way too long,” he says, his breath ragged against me.

  “Me too,” I say, hooking a finger in one of the belt loops of his shorts, urging him closer, the taste of him only making me want more.

  He releases my breast, and I whimper with disappointment, but it’s only to give his fingers room to play, to pinch at the metal under the thin cotton of my T-shirt, the sensitive flesh holding the piercing now on full alert. This time the sound falling off my lips is nothing but full, uninhibited pleasure, which is why I blink wildly as he groans and pulls away.

  Seconds ago, the guy before me couldn’t touch me enough. And I’m still pretty much hells to the yeah for that. Watching him now, though, his hands rake through his hair as he paces the small expanse of creaking wood floor.

  Maybe I’m that transparent. Maybe he sees past my physical need to the emotional cover-up I crave. Whatever it is wages an internal battle only he can identify. So I wait.

  I watch him for at least fifteen seconds, and when he doesn’t say anything, I stop him, my hand grabbing his shoulder.

  “Hey. Nolan.” The easiness of calling him Spock escapes, but I still can’t do Zach. “Everything okay?”

  His blue eyes meet mine, burning with a mix of both frustration and need. He looks toward the door and then back at me. Is he going to bolt, just like that? His eyes soften, but I still see him wavering, a choice on the brink of being made.

  Us, I think. Choose us.

  “Hey,” I say, my voice gentler this time. I bring a hand to his cheek, and only when he lets me rest it there do I realize I expected him to flinch or pull away. “I thought we were taking a pretty decent step forward there.” I laugh. “Or, backward, in my case. Did I miss the cease and desist memo?”

  This gets a small smile from him, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. Then he leans into my palm as he wraps a gentle hand around my wrist.

  “You don’t even know me, Zoe.” His brows crease with worry, and I feel like I’m missing the bigger picture here. Because of course I know him. At least I did. We spent whole weekends together as friends before he left on tour. He spent a night in my childhood home when I should have been alone with my family—alone with my grief.

  “I know enough,” I finally say. “Enough to say this feels right, that I want you, and I thought you wanted me. If I misread you . . .”

  He shakes his head, pulling my hand from his face. “It’s not just the tour,” he starts. “I mean, that gave us a good enough reason to hold back, but . . .”

  He doesn’t get to finish, his sentence cut off by my bedroom door whooshing open, an agitated Delores waiting in the frame.

  “Knock much?” I ask. I have to admit, the chick has balls. But I have fucking boundaries.

  “I finished early.” She shrugs. “And I don’t like to wait. So let’s get your shit in your room. I’ll show you around, and then you two can go at it like rabbits.”

  She winks.

  Words don’t usually escape me, but Spock’s one-eighty along with Delores’s lack of understanding of personal space leaves me slack-jawed and speechless. Spock, on the other hand, loses all the tension in his shoulders and breathes out a long breath.

  After a few seconds, I regain control of my verbal skills.

  “We’ll finish talking when we get back?” I ask, my gaze aimed at Spock. He nods, but it doesn’t settle the knot in my stomach. He wanted me when we came in here. Hell, he set this whole ball in motion by kissing me at Wyatt’s memorial—by just showing up. So what the hell just happened?

  I turn to my new roommate, channeling the girl I was before my baby brother pulled the rug out from under me, before Spock seemed on the verge of doing the same. “If I’m paying to live here, then I’m getting what I freaking pay for, which is a room. That’s mine. That you cannot enter without knocking.”

  Delores opens her mouth to respond, but I hold up my hand, letting her know I’m not done.

  “You need to knock, and I need to say it’s okay to come in.”

  She purses her lips and narrows her eyes at me. “Fine,” she says, and her expression morphs into a smile. “I like you, Blue. You don’t take my shit. I can respect that.”

  I nod. “My name is Zoe,” I say.

  “Not to me it ain’t, Blue.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m living with the little sister I never wanted.

  “Fine. How about instead of Delores I call you . . .”

  “How about that tour?” Spock interrupts, with far too much enthusiasm.

  Roomie and I both shrug and utter, “Fine.”

  And with that we’re out the door, but not before letting that crazy, giant mammal back in to ruin all the fun.

  Spock threads his fingers through mine as we follow Delores out the door.

  “This isn’t done yet,” I say under my breath so Delores doesn’t insinuate herself into th
e conversation.

  “I know,” he says quietly, and I take it as a sign. Whatever is happening between us, it’s not over.

  Chapter Seven

  Delores takes us to a small coffee shop called The Grind, a go-to in Lincoln Square, our little neighborhood on Chicago’s north side.

  “Suburban girl doesn’t get to the city much, huh?” Spock asks, observing my people watching on The Grind’s small back patio while Delores says hello to a client at another table.

  This makes me smile, the realization that I’m not stuck in my little northern Illinois town. Yet thoughts of home do what they always do these days, turn to thoughts of Wyatt. Maybe he wouldn’t have listened if I asked him not to do it, but shit. BASE jumping is illegal in Illinois. I could have called the cops. I could have done something.

  “Hey,” Spock says, and I find his hand on mine, his fingers uncurling my clenched fist, revealing broken skin on my palm from the pressure of my nails. “You okay?”

  I guess my smile is short-lived.

  The sting in my palm brings me back to the moment, and I’m grateful for the distraction.

  “Just a little tense,” I say. “A lot to take in on my first day in a new place.”

  He nods, his eyes softening with understanding. Then a muscle ticks in his jaw.

  “What?” I ask, and his eyes widen. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to notice the subtle change in his demeanor, but despite my distractions of thinking about home, when my eyes are on him, they are in constant study. It’s how I got to know Jess, my best friend, before she opened up to me, before she let me in. And it’s how I’m trying to figure out the boy before me, one who seems to hold back just enough to keep me in the dark.

  “I know we have stuff to figure out,” he says, an answer to my unasked questions, and I wonder how I can be that transparent when I work so hard at keeping everything shuttered. “But that might not happen in a day. I want to be here this weekend—with you and for you—but if I’m at all any part of that tension, say the word, and I’m on the first train to the burbs to stay with my buddy.”